Welcome to Why Make Music..., a podcast where we dive into the world of creativity and inspiration.
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Why Make Music...
Welcome. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Welcome to Why Make Music...
I'm your host. ThinkTimm. That's T-H-I-N-K-T-I-M-M.
I will be the one curating your journey today for our lovely podcast.
Episode 26. We are going to take a trip into the past.
Think about it. Did you ever want to see the early start of creativity?
Did you ever want to hear? Have you ever collected music from your favorite artist that might have been a bootleg?
It might have been something one day when this hobbyist of this independent producer, ThinkTimm, goes and finally reaches his goal.
This will be my legacy. My first attempt at WDMN. As the shirt says, we are here.
Take a listen.
What you have here is a tent of me and my friend Mark.
We went to school together. College, university, as you call it.
And we got together. This is one of my earlier tracks. It's called TeleHumaSexual. Very cool song.
What we did, we got together and we made like a mock radio station with commercials of some of the music from his group along with some of my music.
Taking my soul, he was screaming. I love this song. TeleHumaSexual was just taking my soul. I can't control my dreams.
Listen, so Mark was a creative writer and rapper and he had his stuff done at a outside studio, which his tracks will come on.
But this is me and I am. This was prior to sequencing. So this is me on the 4Track recorder
I do believe I was using a Roland keyboard and that Yamaha keyboard is over my shoulder on the shelf there.
I programmed all the drums and I literally had to play out every track and lay every vocal and this was a repeated process.
And then I bounced the tracks down, mixed them down to one single track and then had to lay the vocals over top of it.
So here, take a listen.
I'll be good. You don't see me like that.
Oh, you're so terrible.
Necessary light.
The necessary light.
So at that point in my life in 1994, I was working.
I do believe I got done working midnight and I came home every evening and recorded until the sun came up.
I know my neighbors had to hate me because granted I did record with headphones on and not the speakers blaring.
But during that time, I lived in an apartment complex and I did have neighbors below me, not necessarily next door to me.
But I'm trying to think how the place was set up. There were neighbors with a person that had the identical footprint of my apartment below me, but there was no one above my floor.
Oh, shit. Yes, there was. I was in the middle. So, yes, there was someone above me.
There was someone below me, but there was no one next door to me.
So I spent all my time recording music and writing things.
And I would invite folks over during this after midnight to six or nine o'clock in the morning hour.
And we would record. So this is how the habit started for me.
Once I left my parents home and I was out on my own.
This was my first apartment by myself. And I had all the freedom in the world to do whatever I wanted to do.
I spent my money that I was earning buying equipment. I had the task and for track. I had my bass guitar. I had my electric guitar. I had my acoustic.
I'm a fan of their products.
He's interviewing himself.
This is me calling.
Yeah.
If anyone in the world, whoever is listening to this, this is Mark. I do believe his last name was anyway.
I'm not going to play it. But if you know anybody from the nineties that lived in the Pittsburgh area by route of Philadelphia, by route of Cheney University,
Man, Mark, and he came from Pittsburgh originally and spent some time in Philadelphia. Let him know that I am playing his 3 (Three) Pounds of Soul material on my podcast.
This is, I don't know if anyone knows that there is a rumor that Prince wrote the song for Ray Charles.... Here it is.
I'm uncertain if this is just a cover or this is the original one, but you know, Prince was so prolific and doing all types of craziness. But here we go.
Now I hope I don't get dinged for putting that in there. But this, I've had this in my possession, obviously for a long time because this tape was made in 1994. So that's 31 years ago.
So this is 3 (Three) Pounds of Soul. Check them out.
Percussion.
So in 3 (Three) Pounds of Soul, there were three, Jay, Gracin, and Mark. So if you know anybody with those names, those friend groups, tell them, find ThinkTimm and Why Make Music..., the podcast, dot, dot, dot, and holler at me.
I don't reach out to people, so I'm not really going to go look for them, but I will respond if I was hit up.
So this was the 90s and the R&B mellow flow was kicking. This was the mid 90s. This is right before Big Blue and Jay-Z blew up.
The guys were cool.
Every single hour.
So this is the reason for the podcast. Why Make Music... I am still trying to find my way and my direction.
Sometimes I will give you advice about being independent, but I also want to share with you the background, the years that I was doing this as a hobbyist.
This right here is something that none of us were pushing for as a career.
This is my buddy Mark.
George as you Jet - son.
So listen.
All I'm saying, never give up on your dreams.
Because, like I said, this is just playing around.
Also during this time, I do believe I recall doing sound on a movie, an independent movie in Philadelphia and the Philadelphia era.
In the Philadelphia area. Let me add together. Let me pronounce my words. Use my language.
This is another track by 3 (Three) Pounds of Soul.
The movie was called Ebony and I cannot remember the young lady's name who wrote and directed it, but I do remember spending about two weeks in 1994, 1995.
Working sound on the thing. So I actually had the boom mic in the recorder and I did that.
And I even think I submitted a song for her soundtrack.
There was a piano track called "So Soft"
After this, I do believe I have another track on here and then it's going to transition towards the end.
So I'm going to just keep talking over top of the music.
I hope it's not too distracting and I will definitely bring the volume of the music in the background down lower.
So hopefully it will be effective in the final track.
This is one of my favorite old songs.
It's so crazy when you do something and you don't share it with a lot of people and it holds a special spot in your world.
But listen, this is something that pops up from time to time and has been re-innovated several times and several forms over the last three decades.
Almost destroyed our island's light, it irritated me when you let me spend my head the search to run away but no stay.
There's no place that I'd rather be, there's no face.
So I hope you enjoy this non informative episode of Why Make Music... dot dot dot where I am sharing music from the past.
I am trying to show everyone that is creative that you don't have to rush to have a goal when you are creating art.
I don't feel bad or funny, I joked with a friend of mine before I started this podcast today when I was telling him my idea of putting together these old tracks and putting it out there.
And I said, oh my goodness, people are going to judge me and say, oh you're such a loser.
I put the L up to my forehead, yeah you're such a loser.
You've been trying to make music for all these decades and you haven't succeeded.
I haven't really been trying, it's just something that I do.
This is my first actual time that I am venturing farther than my city and reaching out and like I said, I am open to whatever business ventures come my way.
At the time of doing this, I was young, I had a job that turned into a career and I did not necessarily do music every single day.
I did, but then I didn't.
I had phases where I was heavily into it.
I had phases where I recorded with people, I had phases where I had a band, I had phases where I worked with other bands, I did a little artist management as far as trying to get people to the places they wanted to be and help them out in the system.
But it was never something that I was pursuing heavily into it.
So what I'm saying is that if you're talented, it's okay to be talented in a room full of people.
It's okay, probably, I ain't gonna lie to you.
I always approach situations and look at people that are talented and say, oh, it's amazing that you made it and you did it.
I'm very happy that you made it.
But I personally think I'm more talented than you are.
And I think that's the natural way you're supposed to be.
Yeah, we had skits and all that craziness.
The 1990s was very full of skit heavy type things.
Everybody wanted to get their pseudo act on somehow somewhere.
And the funny thing is, I don't think outside of maybe a half a dozen people have heard this thing that I'm playing for you right now.
It's crazy.
It ends with a big explosion.
Once again, don't know why no real story purpose behind it.
But just to do it because I had to sound effects on my keyboard.
Listen, speaking of t shirts, go to TeePublic.com.
Get yourself some ThinkTimm gear.
I got the logo.
I got the t shirts.
I got the stuff online.
I am just trying to now in my old age, leave my mark as George Clinton say, trying to "pee on the track".
Yeah, I hope you people listen to who George Clinton is.
Here's another track in the background.
As always, as in current time, all the music is produced by ThinkTimm.
I did not have a thing to do stuff.
This is when I was more heavily into doing vocal and making full fledged songs.
So I don't want you to think if you are coming across my current projects that I have any aversion to making songs.
I have hundreds and hundreds of instrumentals.
I probably have twice as many literal songs that could be retold and dust off, dust it off and put into my rotation.
To tell you the truth, to tell you the truth, I have been working on this for a long time.
Month February into March is the first month that I did not release a another project of 26 instrumentals. So currently available.
Projects, Demotional, Beatanicals, SupraLaBass, Lofiication, PeriHopic,
and NomenClefture, dot, dot, dot.
Each trial, each project contains 26 tracks, instrumental, all original music, all written, produced and arranged by me.
No samples, no hint of any other music besides my own.
So what I'm currently doing now as we are into 2025, I am putting together a, I guess, more comprehensive, traditional album
that might be possibly a dozen tracks or so, and they will be vocal tracks.
And I am currently working on those and I feel rather positive in the direction that I am going.
And I can't wait to share the reason I am doing this is because once again, my goal is always been,
I am just trying to get the attention of think agents and commercial licensing folks to be interested in myself.
I am not trying to be an entertainer. I am not trying to leave my home.
I work as hard as I can from home, but I like being home.
If someone in the music atmosphere, I'm not going to say music business, but if someone, a music producer of a higher status,
that could facilitate a financial exchange.
I tell you, you will be shocked how quickly I, how quickly and how inexpensive fulfilling my dreams would be.
Because, like I said, I am just trying to live or continue to live my above average life.
I would love to be filthy rich. I would love to be one of the wealthy people.
But let me tell you, I say it and quote me on it. I've said it in many other podcasts.
If you ever listen to Why Make Music... dot dot dot hosted by me, ThinkTimm, T-H-I-N-K-T-I-M-M.
What do I say? Currently, we could do a split. We can do business. You can have everything I have.
I know that it will make money. I am seeing how hard it is to grow an organic community of fans. And even then, that is still no money.
I am not performing live. I am not DJing. I do not have people knocking down my door. If you are a producer, that does.
That may need material and may need a well to draw from, meaning that you might need an untapped source of creativity,
known as a ThinkTim, T-H-I-N-K-T-I-M-M, like your own personal think tank.
I would work for you and I would happily take a percentage because right now, here comes the quote that I was leading up to.
Currently, a deal will be worth more than what I am getting, which is nothing. 50-50, 60-40, 70-30, 80-20, 90-10.
10% of nothing is nothing. Currently, I am making no money, no funds from doing this.
I am doing this because this is something I love to do. I am marketing myself trying to achieve some type of attention, some type of attention to move my music,
some type of attention to say, hey, perhaps this young man, this old gray man has years and years of ideas and he never really fully tried to put them out there.
Let me tell you, music is music. I can rebuff and retool and restyle and reproduce and make it sound like today.
That's me in the background. I don't like to sing. I claim I can't sing. This is me.
No effects on my voice because I couldn't afford effect processors back then. That is me.
The most I might have did was slow the tape down some and sing over the tape while I was going slow to pitch up my voice a little higher. That was it.
I did not have a processor. I did not have auto tune. I don't even know if auto tune existed. It didn't 30 years ago.
So all I'm telling you, oh, this right here that's coming on is this crazy song I did with this young lady who I told you before once in an earlier podcast.
The only way you met people that you did not know was to possibly put an ad in the paper and I put an ad in the trading times for a person, anyone that was interested.
And I came across this young lady who was a student at a university in Philadelphia outside of Philadelphia and she had this lyric thing.
It was like a goth chick before it was really popular because she wasn't. This track was called kill me. You kill me. It was crazy.
So she went on and it was really dark and it took some real creativity to put some type of strings and dark music to it.
This right here is a little bit more upbeat up tempo play around.
And this right here, when I did it, it was basically really just done by itself and three takes or four takes.
Because once again, I was reaching out and working with another person.
And this time it was a co-worker's daughter who sung and I just brought them over and tried to show them what I still say today is the ease and comfort of putting ideas together.
So, as I always say, Why Make Music...
Because it's the most interesting and most complete thing that would spawn on a creative to answer, to talk, to speak what's on their mind, to introduce you, to pull you into their world.
So, as always, I tell you, stay creative.
Continue to always do what you find to make yourself inspire to be that person you want to be.
I want to thank you all for streaming the music, tuning in to the podcast, frequently these social media platforms.
Don't forget, hit up the TeePublic.com, Threadless.com, Thinktimm,.. T-H-I-N-K-T-I-M-M.
What did I say?
For humans, life is a hustle.
Life is the hustle.
We are.
Why Make Music...
We are W-D-M-N.
We are.
Thinktimm...
We are W-D-M-N-ation..
We are soon to becoming the interactive DJ, DJ Warm Cookies..
We are all the things that my mind can say we are.
So, what are you going to do?
How are you going to be creative?
Are you going to put your creativity into a digital sound capsule and revisit it in a couple of decades?
And be happy with what you did.
Be happy with the thoughts.
And you can see that progress can be made.
I'm scared now that I'm really trying to share because before then, back then, I wasn't.
I was just biding my time being creative because I knew not what else to do.
But once again, people, I thank you.
Like, share, follow, subscribe.
Do what you do.
Peace and be wild.
Remember, Thinktimm... is nothing else.
Thank you.