Archive for February, 2009
Thank You, Fred
Fred Wilson, noted venture capitalist and music blogger, liked the new record enough to post ‘Dirty White Coats’ on his Tumblog today. He happened, by sheer coincidence, to pick out one of the singles that we’re pushing through Team Clermont which means he has good taste. I think that’s what it means, I guess.
So, a brief note of thanks, Fred, and I hope everyone else is having a good Saturday. Also, I had the chance to meet Michael Zapruder last night which was a great experience.
Ok, back to recording. Trying to get this tune ‘Bad Times’ in some kind of working order but it’s proving stiff and resistant. That’s what she said! Bada bing! Ok. Adieu.
“One Chord Best”
Whilst looking for the tabs on ‘Walkin With Jesus’ (another great two chorder, I’ll probably just play D-G or something) I found this interview with Peter Kember.
I like this quote:
Three chords good, two chords better, one chord best.’ It’s the idea that minimalism is maximalism. That’s one of the things I don’t like about some bands. They have like 24 different instruments going off together on the same track. My thing is about finding the three or four most essential things to convey it, and if those parts are well played, they’ll shine in a way they never could have if they were surrounded by twenty other things. I feel that the more minimal approach has a much more maximal effect on the listener. I don’t think I’ve written more than two songs that don’t have a drone all the way through it. Even if it has a three-chord chord change, there’s one note common to all three chords. I like stuff in that whole Pythagorean scale where you basically pick a key and stick to it and all changes are sympathetic to it.
5 Future Trends from Panos
Panos Panay is the CEO of Sonicbids, a platform for connecting bands with gigs. It’s an interesting concept that occupies, again, this queer middle place that implies there is a new business waiting in the midst of the big business that is disappearing. In other words, that the long tail of small gigs connecting to small bands is a bigger opportunity than the fat part of the tail. I suppose we’ll see. It certainly seems like it’s a good enough business to send him on a bunch of fun adventures where he sits on panels and talks about the future of the music industry. Don’t those panels make you kind of nauseous?
Anyway, he’s a smart guy and has five future predictions on the industry.
1. The niche will rule
Blah. Not very interesting. It’s true of course but only kinda. People cluster more than experts understand right now. Still, this is a 2001 insight. True but not so revelatory.
The Music Industry vs. Guitar Hero
Derek forwarded me an article from Wired talking about the dynamics between Guitar Hero and the music industry. It’s good reading and illustrative of the issues that plague the record industry these days. Namely, that it’s run by a bunch of terrific assholes.
Edgar Bronfman is quoted as saying “The amount being paid to the music industry, even though [these] games are entirely dependent on the content we own and control, is far too small,”
How hilarious is this? How totally insane is a statement like that? These guys just do not get it. Hey dudes, time for another conference on the future of the music industry. Go put a Powerpoint together!
The music industry seems intent on killing the any goose that lays any egg be it golden, silver, brown or plaid. They finally have something succesful on their hands. One that gets people interested in music again, gets people willing to pay for music, and does all of it in an atmosphere that is good clean fun.
There are so many strategic opportunities represented by the onset of music role-playing video games like Guitar Hero or Rock Band.
And these guys still can’t get it!
Seriously, it would be very difficult to make this stuff up. These guys are just so damn nostalgic about the golden days of the music industry they can’t seem to accept what is plainly in front of them. Their traditional business is getting smaller. They need to innovate or die. Instead, they hire a bunch of lawyers to prowl the Internet, issue cease and desist letters to upstart companies, and try to renegotiate the only deals that actually are working for them. Meanwhile, this takes place with a tone of stern admonition like we’re all petulant children because we’re not interested in making these idiots rich anymore.
Here we are in the gray middle world where Edgar Bronfman can still get a quote in a technology magazine, where they still own the licenses and IP on a huge library of valuable content and where they still have a say. The limbo period where people still, unfortunately, are buying CDs even though the trend is steeply down.
So we have to listen and care. How boring is this? Please, please. Just go away. Your presence is no longer required in this conversation.
TFC Coverage in the Blogosphere
Team Clermont sent out a press release on Tuesday and we’re starting to see some blogs and websites pick up some of the tunes they sent out. So good things. This is all laying the groundswell for the album hitting the street on May 19th and the show that’s coming up on April 17th. But nevertheless, nice to see. Hype Machine is picking up a little steam on TFC and I’ve seen coverage in the Minneaopolis/St. Paul City Pages, a Dutch blog run by Henrico called Alankomaat, some coverage from Audio Muffin (in the comments, thanks Frank!) and a posting from Largehearted Boy which is actually probably the biggest deal of all of them.
Weird observation: My google alert on “the flying change” misses about half of the actual notices so I cross-check that alert against the Hype Machine search to have the best understanding of what’s going on.
Further observation: Re: google alerts: Sam Jacobs the rugby player and Sam Jacobs the Catholic priest in Louisiana are still the most frequently cited Sam Jacobs out there. I’ve been thinking about starting the ‘Society of Sam Jacobs’ and then we’d all go to a restaurant and meet each other and swap stories dealing with and related to having the same name. Wouldn’t that be fun?
How Far Are You Willing To Go?
Decent article on New Music Strategies describing how many musicians don’t do the hard work many other marketers do when marketing their music on the internet. The good news for me was that I do a lot of the things Ariel says to do already. The bad news is that the whole thing can be a real f-ing drag, knowwhatimean?
It’s strange to watch how the progression works for people and how their goals around making music and creating art quickly become lost to a different but related goal of becoming known for something. Reading those comments really bummed me out. Although it did make Josh Freese’s recent gimmick even more amusing.
But seriously forks. People in the comments of that post are basically advocating developing a whole series of strange side businesses all in the interest of doing absolutely anything to whore yourself out so that people might click on a link you supply so that somebody somewhere might learn a little something about you and discover a song you wrote.
Why? Is that why we’re writing songs, my friends? Are we creating art to involve ourselves in a whole host of soul-sucking endeavors some of which might one day down the line provide a little scratch in our pocket to help us make some more music? Okay. If the answer is yes, just get a regular f-ing day job, amigos, and save yourselves the heartache of trying to start some Dale Carnegie-style series of marketing videos and self-help seminars. I am not shitting you. Read these comments.
Here’s an example:
The difficulty with selling music is that it doesn’t solve a problem. But plenty of people have a music problem. They can’t tune their guitar, they don’t know how to set up a drum kit, they can’t get a good sound when they record themselves. All committed musicians have skills that people are willing to pay to learn. Make a living solving problems and enjoy your music.
Yes, I do make a living solving problems and that does pay for my music, Ukulele Al (seriously that’s his name). But I have to go around tuning people’s guitars? Why? Because tuning their guitars is somehow related to the music industry? No thank you.
How about this? I’ll work a decently stimulating day job. I’ll stop pretending I hate it and admit that I get to work with interesting people and solve creative problems and they pay me to do that. Then, I’ll have the freedom to record songs the way they should be recorded. I won’t have to write songs that “sound as if they could appear in a commercial” or that “sound like Blink 182 but in exactly 110 bpm”. I can create art for its own sake and not have to bullshit myself or suck d-ck for a living. But it’s a musician’s d-ck!
