Green Arrow

In the last days of university in Charlottesville, I’d often listen to ‘I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One’. The weather was getting warmer. I’d get in the car, often with friends, we’d drive around. All the routes and roads and past the pastures and horse farms on 22. Up to Monticello. Across from the house was Mountaintop Farm. We’d go up there to watch the sun rise and follow the curvature of the Earth. Feel it spin. Stare at the burnt crimson of the sun as it crept around the corner coming for us. Laughing.

There was one day I was driving back to DC and I was on 29 and I’d just graduated and had things packed up in the back of the car. I was listening to ‘Green Arrow’ and listening to the crickets chirping, both in that song and elsewhere, outside. Listening to the slide of the guitar. Feeling things slip away and flow through my fingers and hands.

What I mean to say is this: It’s really quite a lovely piece of music and you should take a listen, preferably in a warm summer night in the South, driving through Madison county, passing the concrete expanses of Sheetz and 7-11 and watching the cows stare at you from around the bend of the road and then coming upon Mountain Run Lake which is in Culpeper and near many car dealerships.

Give it a shot.

Tags: green arrow, i can hear the heart beating as one, yo la tengo

To be alone again in the thick skin

Do you read Poetry Daily? If not, you should. Here’s yesterday’s:

To Be Alone Again in the Thick Skin

by Todd Boss

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Tags: poetry

Things I’m listening to right now

Over the past few nights as I’ve lain in bed, writing in my journal before switching off the light, I’ve had the speakers set against the window and I’ve been listening to the music. Nothing groundbreaking.

Right now, I’m listening to Beulah’s The Coast Is Never Clear.

Last night, I was listening to Sufjan Stevens’ Illinois.

The previous night I was admiring the guitar stylings of Elliott Smith on Either/Or. What a great record that is. I really enjoy the way his guitar playing is part of the song structure. Not sure if that makes sense. But he doesn’t play a lead per se. The twists of his acoustic guitar are the chord progression and the melody at the same time. It’s a shame that he’s gone.

Sunday night I was listening to Drum’s Not Dead by Liars. Just like Princeton could use a guy like Joel, the world could use a band like Liars. Everything sounds underground. Everything sounds like its from another planet. But they still have a very real soul. Alebit a strange one. But a real one nonetheless.

Also I picked up Ryan Adams’ Jacksonville City Nights which is supposed to be the best record of the glut that he released last year.

And I picked up the new Walkmen, You and Me. They sound like Basement Tapes-era Dylan. I enjoy the grating howl of Hamilton Leithauser. They are some six degrees of separation or something away from some scenes I’ve briefly been a part of.

Also, I put I’ve been wearing out my vinyl copy of Jim Carroll’s Catholic Boy. A time capsule. All the people who died. Well they’re all my friends. And they died. New York. Punk. You know what I mean? I once gave Jim a ride to Virginia Beach to read in a poetry festival but that’s a story for another time. He’s a good man.

Also, I really think the new Kanye single ‘Love Lockdown’ is brilliant. I realize he’s using some tired sounds but, like fashion, he’s making the old new. It works for me. I like those Brazilian drum sounds. They are groovy.

Tags: music review

Email the people what they want

I spend a lot of time thinking about emails and getting people’s attention. I think about the right subject line for an email, the right text within the email, and I try to balance all of those choices with what marketing people might describe as branding or positioning constraints. Albeit, in the context of a simple correspondence designed to introduce more people to music I’ve been making.

The first principle of music marketing (for me): Give someone something in every email.

Usually I mean a song. As in the case of the email I sent out yesterday, I mean two songs (demos, really). But there always needs to be something special that gives people a reason to open it and enjoy it and not unsubscribe.

If, for whatever reason, I can’t include a song or two , I will at least include a pretty picture of something. But primarily, I’m interested in giving people that same pretty picture with an image embedded as a link into it. Also, I have future ideas of creating images like a treasure map and having lots of weird and strange links embedded, many different song ideas and other little websites hidden in the pixels.

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Opinion polls

Today I’m putting out an opinion poll through the mailing list asking people to rate the two songs I’m including. Those songs are Listen and One More Reason. This is a new experiment for me. It’s interesting maybe because both at the beginning of the mp3 and in the body of the email I include the chord progressions to the tunes so people can play along at home.

Also, because I’m trying to clearly establish that these tunes are not a finished product but are, instead, things in the process of being shaped. In the old days, I’d hear people say “Don’t put out anything that isn’t perfect. Why would you send out a rough mix?” But that was before the tools of technology helped created a more fluid and seamless ongoing conversation twixt and artist and their fans.

Nevertheless, there is a good point that you probably shouldn’t put out a rough mix that is just close enough to the final version to be distractingly sub-par. Because people won’t be able to tell the difference and you’ll end up with a half-satisfied interaction.

Instead, I’m trying to be totally transparent about the idea that this is NOT fully finished, that this is something in the ongoing stages of creation, and that I’m actually interested in people’s input towards helping shape the final product. So the trick is, “Is something half-formed still listenable?”

Of course, my self-serving answer is “Yes”. You can capture a vibe and an energy for an incomplete work that still has a special quality without having to hire all the great musicians or even play to a click. But if you can capture some authenticity in the vocal performance and works towards something real, you get a bit of the magic. And, because you’re explicitly asking for input, you can engage the audience in a conversation that wasn’t previously feasible.

We’ll see if this thing works. If you just want to listen to the tunes, go here. And if you want to vote:

Upcoming things

Here are some upcoming things.

On Monday, I’ll put out an experiment in authenticity titled ‘the hi-lo country’ and featuring two songs a week for three weeks of demos and semi-formed phrases, experiments and gestures. This is through the email list. Reasons and explanations to follow but, again, the idea is an experiment in raw authenticity. Also, how-to since I include the chord progressions at the beginning of each song so you can play along at home and maybe write your own song because that is what the good people of the world are doing these days.

Also, next Friday, Paul, me and Joe are mastering the record. So that is exciting.

And also, there is a show coming up four weeks from last Wednesday or three weeks from this coming Wendesday or, alternativey, 26 days from now. The show is Rockwood and will feature good songs from the new record. Although, truthfully, they’re all good.

Tags: Add new tag, playing live, songwriting

Nashville / Vienna

Do you ever think about the fact that in the olden days Vienna must’ve been perceived as something akin to Nashville, LA or New York? It’s where artists went to make it. Where dreams were writ large. Where you could go and be something.

Back then, the gig was pure patronage. The music business was write for your patron, get a job on the court or with a steady rich dude, and arrange for your tunes to be performed, hopefully with you as a conductor. I just think about Mozart as an Axl Rose-style figure, showing up with his bags and his trunks to make it in the big city. He was, of course, already famous. But still, something about the way that that city held sway and the music scene it created must’ve been as intoxicating as places like Williamsburg these days.

I think I need to watch Amadeus again.

Fundamentals

If you don’t know who Derek Sivers is, you should. He looks like a hari krishna but he drops knowledge.

He put up some thoughts on the future of the biz on New Music Strategies. Here’s the money quote:

Realistically, what would you change about what you’re doing, day-to-day?

And so it comes back to fundamentals.

Just like we know there will be gravity, and water will still be wet, there are laws that don’t depend on predicting the future.

You know that people love a memorable melody.

You can’t know what instrumentation or production-values will be in vogue.

You know that people prefer people who make an emotional connection with them.

You can’t know what technology will carry that communication.

You know that writing lots of songs increases your chances of writing a hit.

You can’t know which song will be a hit.

He’s right. Write songs. Write words. Get them out to people somehow. End of story. Call me when you’re famous.

Facebook erases discontinuity

In the old world, you could lead multiple lives and never fear that they would necessarily intersect. You could be a songwriter by night and a suit by day and not worry that the maintenance of those dual identities would cause a conflict. Similarly, you could assume a certain identity in childhood and, over time, reinvent yourself each time a new chapter of your life began. You could go from being a shy introvert in high school with a certain circle of friends to an extrovert in your professional career.

Again, with little risk of intersection.

Facebook is changing all of that in a fascinating way. The ability to manage separate existences is increasingly eroding. I’m seeing that very directly. Friends from high school and college popping into my life after years of no communication. Getting back in touch with my first year roommate, Kurt, after an extended absence. So that’s kind of interesting.

But also weird.

More weird is the dilemma for an artist or musician. Should I use my existing Facebook profile/persona to market my new musical endeavors? Many people through those mediums don’t necessarily associate me with music. And there are friends from different elements of life such as my day job that I haven’t been as vocal with about the fact that I make music. Should I create a ‘band page’ and try to get ‘fans’ with the ‘band page’ just being another page saying ‘Sam Jacobs’? That feels like a pain in the ass and, in the current state, a little too opt-in for people. So the number of fans I’d actually get would be depressing.

You can use Facebook privacy filters but from my perspective they’re still a little unwieldy. It feels like too much effort to try and maintain different personalitieis.

Here’s the point: the effort and benefits that accrue from maintaining dual personalities is changing and, pursuant to the authenticity vibe we’ve been discussing, it seems like the better answer is to just accept that all of my related ventures and interests will need to co-exist under one roof and that roof will be fairly transparent.

So friend me, I guess.

More real

Fred Wilson had some interesting things to say about authenticity linking to some videos by GaryVee. It’s a point I’ve made before and that many are making. Traditional marketing speak is breaking down. People want real conversations with real people.

How does that manifest itself in music? Maybe it means:

1. put out more demos to your fans and be willing to let your songs take on unintended lives

2. blog and twitter to create an authentic conversation and interaction

3. be vulnerable and honest about what you’re going through

4. if you’re debating between image and honesty, choose honesty

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