JAMES MURPHY LOST HIS EDGE AND HELPED ME FIND MINE

To know me is to know that I love rock docs and origin stories. Months ago, I was watching the brilliant film, Meet Me in the Bathroom, and if you haven’t seen it, you should. It’s an understatement to say it’s about the early 2000s renaissance of NYC rock or “indie sleaze” as Spotify playlists now tells me. Bands like The Strokes, Interpol, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, TV on the Radio all stemmed from this era and I felt dropped into these bands’ early years, successes and disillusionments. But the story that really made me bolt upright was the origin of DFA Records, LCD Soundsystem and James Murphy. Because LCD Soundsystem was born out of fear. 

My relationship with fear goes way back. We are tight. Fear has kept me small, hidden, out of the spotlight. In my career within the creative industry, fear kept me comfortable behind the scenes, orchestrating victories and influencing outcomes for others while not prioritizing my own. Fear let me know that speaking up would not be okay. Best to keep quiet than say something dumb and risk humiliation. For most of my life, fear called the shots and ran the show. The show, meaning my life. 

The first concert I produced in my early twenties caused me so much anxiety that I could actually taste the coppery metal in my mouth. This was around the time that the song “E-Bow the Letter” by R.E.M. came out. I remember thinking, yes. This is me.

Aluminum, it tastes like fear

Adrenaline, it pulls us near (I'll take you over there)

It tastes like fear (I'll take you over)

It did not go away after I filled that 900-seat theater either. It just found other ways to tell me what I could and could not do. But over time, and through years of personal development including a meditation practice, I have learned to befriend fear. Well, we have more of an understanding. 

When I become aware of that inner critic that tells me I can’t do something, I slow my breath with one hand on my heart and the other on my belly. We have an inner dialogue and I thank fear for trying to protect me. Sometimes, I journal about it. Pull tarot cards. Meditate. Quiet my mind. Most of the time this works. But it can always creep back in the most powerful of ways and start running the show again. 

To know me is to know how much I love coaching. I’ve been coaching for over seven years and it has connected me to my deepest purpose. And for all of these years, I have been dreaming of creating a full-time coaching practice. And for all of these years, fear has emphatically told me that it’s not possible. That my blend of a spiritual, mindful practice and compassionate leadership would never be accepted into mainstream company culture. That not having a full-time paycheck in my mid-fifties was too risky. It’s too late. Forget it.

Okay, so what does any of this have to do with LCD Soundsystem? 

James Murphy had been recording bands and engineering records for years. His deep dives into little known musicians inspired him to create mixes that made his parties legendary. He was quite comfortable behind the scenes and co-founded DFA Records to put out other people’s music. But that was all he could bring himself to do. He was so afraid of failure that he couldn’t do anything else. Napster forever changed the music industry when it was released in 1999, and James now heard other DJs playing his mixes at parties. Blends of indie rock with electronica into dance mixes. At over 30 years old, he felt like he had wasted decades of his life now that anyone could download anything rather than take all the time he’d spent researching obscure music.

He wrote and recorded “Losing My Edge” about his feelings. And for the first time, he felt like he wasn’t trying to be another thing — or what he was supposed to be. He wrote about how he was discovering these bands first, he was producing these mixes first, and now the kids were coming up from behind. A vulnerable song that was also filled with irony and sincerity. It was funny but it was real. When he shared the recording with his DFA partner, he was told that his lyrics were stupid and begged him not to put it out. James said in Meet Me in the Bathroom, “I’ve lived in fear my whole life and I had nothing to lose.” 

But I'm losing my edge to better-looking people with better ideas and more talent.

And they're actually really, really nice.

The music video shows him being slapped in the face over and over again, as though to emphasize his humiliation. You can almost taste the fear of being left behind. But it was also a rebirth. And it became not only a hit, but kind of a Gen X anthem for aging cool kids with mix tapes being taken over by Millennial hipsters with playlists. 

LCD Soundsystem was born from a fear of doing nothing until the fear that nothing was everything he would ever do and be. And there’s so much more to the story and please watch Meet Me in the Bathroom and read the book because it’s all quite amazing. 

I have watched this movie repeatedly. The LCD Soundsytem origin story is especially on a loop because it resonated so hard. I thought, yes this is me. Because for all the reasons I couldn’t do it, there was one reason why I had to. My business, Melusine, was born by overcoming fear. The risk is worth the freedom and the taste of joy is sweet.