Tom Jackson
patreon
Hello!
🕑 Added 2023-12-21 22:09:47 +0000 UTCHey!
How's things?
It's been a while, how about that whole COVID thing huh?
You look good, is that a new haircut?
I'm good, still making stuff but uh, the stuff's changed a bit.
Sorry about the radio silence, I've mastered the art of introversion these past few years and as you've likely noticed, don't hang around on social media much. If you're just after the facts, feel free to skip to the TLDR at the bottom. Between here and there is mostly rambling self reflection, so read on if you're into that sort of thing.
liltommyj - A Postmortem
At the end of 2018, I remember feeling super down on the remixes, especially after the Celeste vid.
I had trouble articulating that feeling at the time but looking back, it was the feeling that this was realistically about the best I could hope for. That if I continue to remix and reference copyrighted material, the best I can do is a Kotaku write up about a neat fan video they saw.
Don't get me wrong, the response to that BotW video was unreal and I'm really happy it's reached the number of people it has. But it was months of mostly really, really, tedious, work, for very little gain.
Now hold on, just before I start sounding too ungrateful, it's never been my goal to make a living off these things. I started this Patreon originally with the intention of motivating myself to maintain a consistent output of music. My hope was that I'd eventually improve enough, to build a big enough audience, to make the right contacts, to find more consistent work composing music. I think instead, the majority takeaway was that I was good at fiddling around with other people's music.
It's very difficult to communicate a creative identity when the overwhelming foundation of your work, is someone else's work. I got my foot in the door with a lot of people and managed to build an audience, but I also think I shot myself in that foot a few times while it was stuck there.
So that kind of stunk but then, out of the blue comes covid which spun me round a bit. I've never experienced depression before, it all came crashing down at one point and the state of the world really crushed me for a while there. I feel good now and excited for things to come but if you've experienced a deep depression before, you can imagine it wasn't a particularly productive period of time.
Aside from all this, looking at things now, it simply isn't creatively satisfying to make these anymore. It feels like going through the motions at this point, I can't think of anything I want to do or explore or try. The prospect of doing more feels daunting rather than exciting. I'm not sure I can top that BotW video, I'm not sure I want to.
It was fun and I'm really proud of the stuff I've put out, but I'm ready to do something else now and excited to do it.
tommyj - Rises Like The Phoenix
So wtf is going on then?
Well, I make games now, apparently, and music, I still do that too.
Also moving on to my larger form, tommyj.
I picked up GameMaker in 2018 and C# in 2020 and really enjoyed learning programming, game design etc. Working on some games at the moment and will have something you can play next year so that's fun, I'm doing the music too so I hope you'll dig it.
Naturally, I got into computer science stuff off the back of that, logic gates, binary, assembly code, etc. Hoping to tackle C++ next year, wish me luck!
It's fun, I like it a lot, always figured it was too difficult for me.
If you've ever been interested in coding/programing but always assumed it was only for smart people with degrees, please give it a go. You will surprise yourself, I promise.
Other than that there's some tommyj music on the horizon, more vocal pop stuff so if you dug that album I think you'll dig this, also hopefully next year.
TLDR
That's likely the end for liltommyj and the remix thing.
This patreon will stay up so the download links remain active but there's no updates planned for the foreseeable future.
That said, I still make music and hope to release some stuff next year.
Also, I make games now!
I'll have something you can play next year, I hope you'll enjoy it.
Twitter (it's not X suck an egg Elon) or tumblr is probably the best place to find me until I figure out a new home, my email is on there too if you wanna drop a line.
https://twitter.com/liltommy
https://www.tumblr.com/blog/liltommyj
If you wanna chat games, game dev, programming, music, movies, whatever, you can also try me on discord: liltommyj
I can't thank you all enough for your support over the years and for sticking around and listening to my music and my ramblings. People always say "don't read the comments" but honestly, in my entire time on the internet, I've never seen a kinder bunch of folks.
I've waffled on long enough so I hope things are alright in your corner of the world.
Thank you so very much for listening. 😊
Catcha on the flip side,
Tommy.
Comments
Tom Jackson
Oh thank you so much! Sorry I missed your comment! Heck yeah, I love BluJayMix, stop this car is one of my favs. Thanks so much for listening to all that stuff and for sticking around so long, I really appreciate it. Hope to catch you round in the future.😊
clumsy penguin
I've been a fan ever since YouTube recommended me "Console Wars" a decade ago, and you're what got me into artists like Pogo, BluJayMix, and just plunderphonics as a whole. I still listen to all your music on a regular basis, and while I'm going to be sad you're finished with remixes I'm still going to be tuned into whatever you do next. I've always appreciated how devoted you were to your art (I'll never forget how you replayed BotW on a Wii U emulator just so you could have footage without the game UI to use for your video), and I've never regretted supporting you here just so show how much I loved your work. I also really enjoyed Woah (and still listen to Going Nowhere and The Return) so I'm 100% strapped in and excited to see whatever non-remix work you do next! ❤️ (and also your yearly goty threads on twitter, I always look forward to seeing those too)
Tom Jackson
Wow, wild to think it's been that long, especially wild to think of my songs as ringtones haha. Thanks for listening all these years, I really appreciate it.
Malastrome
I see you post on Twitter every so often, so I knew you weren't dead lol I'm glad to hear things have been going in a positive direction! I'm 26 now, but your music was a huge part of my high school years, with a lot of your songs being my phone's ringtone. I find myself still listening to a majority of your remixes even as recent as last month. Hell, I'm still trying to decipher all the voice lines used and try and sing them as lyrics! But even aside from the game remixes, I always loved your Data Dada EP, and for the short time it was around, Teenage Arcade Collective has stuck in my mind for years and was nice. I'll still be following whatever you work on next, so best of luck!
