Who Is Clutchy Hopkins? Part I: An Investigative Feature On The Mysterious Man Behind The Dusty Beats Penned By Mike Love (Beastiemania.com)

TLDR [too long; didn't read.] Is it cool for me to dig into Clutchy's true identity? I think, it is and here is why I think so. Who is Clutchy Hopkins? Part 1: I don't claim to have any knowledge of who Clutchy is. I developed a thought experiment to try to put my thinking into context, as follows...

If you reasonably imagine that there is a broad spectrum of artists, who release their art for public consumption to any degree and wish to chart them somewhere on that spectrum, you would have to establish the furthest extremes of that spectrum before you can place any individual artist within those boundaries. It isn't an arbitrary construct in that it could possibly describe the reality of the artist's intent. This is a broad model and it comes with the basic assumption that it could be useful in determining where artists lie within the spectrum. The model is subject to criticism and interpretation. I find it useful to categorize the extremes within the thought experiment as artists who seek maximum exposure on the left end of the spectrum and artists who seek zero exposure on the right. I don't think it is credible to apply uni-variable dimensions, such as economics, to determine any individual artist within those boundaries.

The thing I like most about Clutchy Hopkins is the music. Any time I encounter something that moves me, I want to know more. This is a basic human attribute that I think any of us can relate to. If Clutchy intended for people to seek out his identity, he did a fantastic job building a mythology that effected and possibly relied upon, the listener to take on a greater meaning through the mythology. There are many examples of artists building a mythology around their art to affect the listener/viewer/observer in all types of media and commercial endeavors. Movies (Marvel Cinematic Universe, Detective Comics Extended Universe, Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Characters,) television shows (LOST, Westworld, Watchmen,) and novels (The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant By: Stephen R. Donaldson, The Wheel of Time By: Robert Jordan, The Hobbit By: J.R.R. Tolkien, The Gardens of The Moon By: Steven Erikson,) all invite us to explore beyond the the individual film/show/literature/album to delve into the mythology.

The development of mythology does not require any artist to satisfactorily conclude said mythology in a way that is pleasing to those who consume it through any media. It does, however, welcome further inspection from those who have interest. Imagine creating a puzzle that CAN be solved and inviting others to enjoy the satisfaction of solving that puzzle. In this example, there is a complete picture that is intentionally jumbled, so that others can arrange the pieces in a prescribed way that, ultimately, results in a satisfactory completion (many video games, puzzles, ideologies.) There are other types of puzzles, though; those puzzles do not ascribe to any particular solution based on a finite cause-and-effect relationship and are not posited as such. They seek to engage participants in an ongoing narrative, whereby the artist and the consumers of their art affect change and, effectively, respond in a way that allows both of them to construct a new and evolving narrative. If the introduction of the Clutchy Hopkins mythology was designed to engage me in a way that leads to an ultimate clearly defined solution, then, I have failed to do so and requires me to investigate further. If the introduction of the Clutchy Hopkins mythology was designed to encourage me to be involved in a participatory narrative, whereby the artist and I contribute to an open-ended dialogue, I am engaged. I am engaged whether there is a definitive answer to "Who is Clutchy Hopkins?" or the question is part of an ever-evolving meta-narrative.

In the event that you wish to delve as deeply as is possible into the music itself (and the information available associated with those releases,) you can seek out all recordings currently established as "canon" from the artist known as "Clutchy Hopkins" and draw a conclusion about the identity of Clutchy. In this scenario, one could reasonably believe that there is a finite solve to the puzzle, if all of the predefined pieces are available and invite the listener to draw a finite conclusion. Whether or not that conclusion is in fact an artist's intent is irrelevant in that the puzzle is finite and leads to either a definitive conclusion, which the artist intended or it leads to an erroneous conclusion that the artist did not intend. This is the simpler of the two types of puzzles and presumes that the artist intends to close the loop, at some point, with either a definitive conclusion or an open-ended conclusion that is subjective by design. If, however, you wish to go beyond the music itself and delve into the mythology the artist has created and the artist's intent is to engage in an evolving meta-narrative, then, any level of engagement from the listener with that mythology is by the artist's design.

If Clutchy wants, at some point, to be identified without identifying himself, that would support the idea of a finite conclusion, actually, existing. At some point, someone will dig deeply enough to come to an either satisfactory or unsatisfactory conclusion about his identity and the conversation will shift to furtherance of the objective of bringing the question to a close with or without his input. That would be a finite conclusion to the question of his true identity, in that there is an intended conclusion, which may or may not be true, but the question itself will be open to interpretation. The invitation to engage in the mythology allows us to speculate about the artists intent, arrive at our own conclusion, or engage in an ongoing narrative that further propagates the meta-narrative. I posited all of these thoughts to clarify my reasons for taking the next logical step in either solving a puzzle with a finite solution or engaging in an ongoing meta-narrative. Both perspectives are equally valid and both invite further inspection.

- Mike Love (Beastiemania.com)