on Macjams, i had been posting a lot of stuff. (ultimately it was a little over 400 songs.) i was having fun experimenting with GarageBand and all you could do with it. GB opened the floodgates for my ongoing interest in music.
at some point, for unknown reasons, including insecurity, i decided to create an alternate persona. part of it was to see if i really had some kind of sort of musical talent, or if i had only somehow accidentally built up a social network of followers - not based on talent, but merely some other way of gathering followers.
so i picked some characteristics for a new musician. name: MyFakeIdentity
i kept this list for my own reference, in an attempt to be consistent...
General Premise for this avatar:
i was conceived at Woodstock (strongly tied to the MJ 08 Woodstock challenge, where my first Fakey song was posted)
name: Mary Jane Doh (because of a license example found on a Washington state website)
female (if I do any singing, use the vocal transformer)
psychedelia, kind of a druggie
i adore 5/4
use lots of echo
very self centered - use "my" a lot - especially first word in titles
never ever say thank you
it's OK to say God. (because i generally do not refer to any deity)
song descriptions should always end "-- Mary Jane"
i only posted a few songs under this assumed identity, but it was a lot of fun. i gathered a new following. people seemed impressed. i guess it made me think i was actually able to create somewhat interesting music
but, even with the first post by MyFakeIdentity, some of the tech geeks figured out it was me (from mp3 composer info). so i learned to disguise that
after a while, other SmokeyVW fans guessed it was me and messaged me about it. i just asked them not to tell
then I started doing a couple of collabs with Mary Jane... it was too hard keeping the two id's separate while making songs
so eventually i openly admitted who Mary Jane was with two songs submitted simultaneously. "My Poison" one with my own voice, and the other with Mary Jane's octave shifted up echoey voice
some followers were outraged by my deception. interesting sexist things had been happening, and now they were outed! mostly, everyone came around to understanding it in some way
"My Poison" was a deeply meaningful song to me. not because of the collapse of this duality. it was because of my decision at the time to retire from work. i observed in myself that once i knew it was time to quit working, it quickly eroded my ambition to continue working. it poisoned everything i had believed for years. like acid dissolves metal
i used to gather my songs into albums, and after a while Mary Jane's songs got melded in too
