Archive for August, 2008
Quit Yer Day Job
There’s a lot of discussion and debate going on right now around the future of the full-time musician. On the one hand, the development of cheaper distribution channels and platforms, and the rise of relatively cost-effective home recording equipment, might imply that there’s been a space created in the low- to middle-market where musicians can make money (and a living) in ways that weren’t possible before.
On the other, and more important hand, these same technologies and distribution platforms have actually had the overall effect of commoditizing recorded music in general. To the point where the expectation that people will actually pay for music is rapidly being removed by the expectation that recorded music will be free. In fact, most musicians are viewing recorded music primarily as marketing for either a live experience or a broader range of recorded music that they hope to one day charge for. Meaning, give away a song. Maybe one day someone will buy an album. Maybe.
Tags: internet, music and the web
Backwards induction
For me, it always starts with a concept. An idea. That’s actually what creates the sound. What creates the song. It’s like this hazy signpost hanging in the air and it’s baked full of its own special qualities and those qualities guide me in the lyrics, the melody, the tempo. Sometimes the concept drives not just the creation of a song but a whole suite of songs.
I was standing in the living room of my old apartment and E and I were about to head out to dinner and this is most often when these little bursts of epiphany tend to reveal themselves. As she’s putting on her makeup and putting things in her clutch and picking out the right pair of earrings (all of which she designed and hand crafted) I strap on the guitar and proceed to follow her around the apartment, strumming random chords, yelling out lyrical non-sequiturs and generally being a bit of a pain in the ass.
Tags: songwriting
Conjuring and vocal performances
I’ve been thinking a lot about the notion, the act, of conjuring recently. This seems to me to be the crux of effective and authentic performance; whether performing for a live audience or in the recording studio. The ability to call into being a feeling, an idea, a sentiment, a notion. And have it be authentic. To yourself. And to the audience. Emoting.
It does feel to me like a calling. A beckoning of the spirits. You know that image of a television medium waving her hands in front of her face. Fluffing her aura and dialing up the ghosts. As I think about my first live show in almost a year I’m thinking about what I can do reasonably well and what I can’t. The truth of the matter is that I’m not a particularly good guitarist. For the purposes of the show it seems like a wise decision to forgo the act of guitar playing and instead focus on the vocal performance.
That is something I feel much more comfortable about and it’s partially related to that notion of conjuring. Almost like acting. Channeling.
Vocal performances are about the ability to capture a specific emotion or idea through tone, articulation and cadence and project that idea into the audience or into the microphone. It’s almost like a longing. When you’re singing, and thinking about how the words relate to each other, I find myself trying to peer through the curtain of the temporal plane into something truer and of the heart. And bring that thing back with me to share. And that’s what I mean when I say ‘conjuring’.
It sounds sacharrine, pretentious, sentimental, unserious. It sounds like fluff. But, let me tell you, when it’s real, and you’re in that moment when the words feel like they could be true, it’s a pretty interesting thing. Maybe that’s what Trey called ‘the hose’.
And yes, I used to be a Phish fan. Although Trey is Phish’s weak link. You heard it here first.
Tags: live performance
The album, The National and the EP
I was on the plane listening to Alligator by The National. They are unquestionably a quality band. Interesting songs. Interesting arrangements. Thoughtful dark lyrics. They are good. Period.
But after listening for awhile and spacing out for a bit I tuned back in. It felt like I’d been working through these songs for a good amount of time. Some of the arrangements and the sounds and the singer’s intonation tend to run together a little bit so I wasn’t sure exactly where I was on the record but I figured I must have been somewhere around the eighth song. Nearing the end. I’d had a good run with these guys. I was ready for a couple more songs where they’d close it out nicely. And I looked down at my iPod and it was the fifth song and there are 13 on the record and I became a little frustrated.
I am no longer convinced that an album should be the standard of expression for a body of recorded music. This is not new news. Everybody’s talking about the return to the 45 days when a single song ruled the airwaves. When the default format for the distribution of a sound was through a three minute song. That’s true of course.
But I’m not talking about efficiencies and economies of scale around distribution. Although I do recognize that physical and technical limitations are almost ALWAYS the guiding parameters against which artistic constraints are imposed.
The new traditionalist
I am the new traditonalist. I only care about digital recording. I only care about things that can be cut, spliced, chopped up, mashed up, repasted, reposted, edited, snapped to a grid, aligned to the right key through some kind of automatic tuning mechanism (“autotune” if you will). I care not for analog. Analog is dead to me.
Well, maybe I’m not that extreme.
But honestly it’s such a tired cliche: artists and musicians talking about the good old days when everything was on 2 inch tape, run through a huge board that breaks down every couple of days. We didn’t have this many overdubs man! We could never fix it in ProTools! We had to get it right. I had to build my own pedals man! From the skin of an old armadillo, copper wire and a 9 volt battery. None of this digital nonsense, none of these amateurs with their home recording sessions. It was real players playing real music that you couldn’t fake. And I was there. And so was Jimi. And so was Janice. And I am authentic. And you are artificial
Blah blah blah. I call bullshit.
Tags: music recording
The new record label
I mentioned that Pete’s band, Elizabeth and the Catapult, just got signed to Verve. Same label as Brazilian Girls. Great news for Pete and I’ll obviously be following how things turn out for them. They’re all incredibly talented in that band and richly deserve the success they’ve earned.
But I have to admit that I still am not sure what it means exactly to ‘get signed’ these days in the context of helping an artist earn a living playing music. Because record labels, per se, if they’re still calling themselves that, seem (a bit) like an antiquated idea. Record labels made money selling records because people bought records. Now people don’t. So record labels look for revenue in other arenas and the deal (as everyone knows) becomes less about the ‘selling of the record’ than about a venture capital investment in the ‘brand’ of the artist. That has always made sense to me. These 360 deals that everyone is talking about.
I haven’t seen the specifics so I don’t know how onerous they are but the one thing I do hear repeatedly is that they still don’t seem to reflect a basic understanding of reality on the part of the ‘establishment’. It’s still trading a lot of control and creativity and intellectual property for a fairly restrictive contract. And instead of taking really radical approaches to the concept of empowering artists to earn money, the labels and the musical establishment just look for ways to get their hands on more revenue streams. They don’t offer much. They don’t know a lot about enhancing these streams or growing them. But they want their cut. And their cut will be more than it should because they won’t give you accurate accounting.
Tags: music and the web, music recording
