Archive for March, 2009
“All Parts Bloody Brilliant”
Incendiary Magazine just dropped another f-ing glowing review of the record. Damian Leslie, the writer, understood what we were trying to do and it captured his imagination in a pretty powerful way. Some very beautiful words. Here are some choice quotations:
Part folk, part rock, part electronica, all parts bloody brilliant, Pain is a Reliable Signal is the kind of record that defies categorization and is all the better for it.
And this closing little bit:
It may not have been inspired by the most enjoyable period of his life, but what Sam Jacobs and his associates have created here is fascinating. Well meaning, well intentioned, impassioned and completely worthy of your time and money this is one of the easiest albums I’ve ever had to recommend. It’s a truly powerful and mature piece of work and if ever there was an album worth seeking out, this is it. A true gem.
Really, the whole thing is good. Thanks, Damian, for your generous words. Take a look. Great stuff.
Give Everything Away
This is kind of the deal with the music industry these days, isn’t it? Just give everything away. Give every song away. Give tickets away. Every piece of music you make. The strategy is simple. Just give it away.
I guess the reason that it might be valid is because the presumption is that if you’re really good, you can make more. If you happened to write just one good song and you don’t want to give it away because you’re scared you won’t be able to write another one. Well, that’s kind of the issue isn’t it?
It’s still scary. That idea that you have to just keep putting yourself out there in the hope and prayer that maybe one day something will come around and there will be some money that appears from the clouds (really from someone at a movie or television studio that wants to license your songs or something). Because in all likelihood, that won’t happen. But there are a few other things to keep in mind.
1. Nobody of any great size is willing to pay money for it anyway
2. In the early stages of whatever you’re doing, and it’s kind of always the early stage, the audiene is more important than the money.
So just keep doing what you’re doing. Give it away. And if you’re good, you’ll be able to make more. And one day, I don’t know how or why, maybe someone will pay you something for it.
Where The Wild Things Are
I like magic. And I like fantasy. And I like music. I like it when music is set to pictures and you get this otherworldly feeling like the essence of everything is captured in this physical form for a brief flickering moment. This is what art is for me. It’s not even my favorite Arcade Fire song but there you have it. Something special. Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry share this kind of thing together.
Lesson #3 From The New Depression
(For Lessons #1 and #2 click here and here)
Timing is everything. (ed. note: we need a lesson that isn’t so trite)
Here’s the point. The point is that timing is everything and that there are no moral judgments associated with this reality. Hindsight is perfect but there are false narratives in the world, taken from the perspective of wherever you sit and those narratives don’t always adhere to truth or fact. Because those things are slippery as eels.
For a long time, people made money investing in real estate. For a long time, people made MD at Goldman and Morgan Stanley and at JP Morgan and at Bear and they made a lot of money and they made it for long enough that they felt they deserved it and were smarter than you or me. For a long time, AIG’s Financial Products division made money hand over fist. For a long time, Nouriel Roubini and other pessimists had been predicting a collapse of the housing and equities bubbles and for a long time they were wrong.
Then one day things changed.
And our instinct is to herald the naysayers as prophets and the fallen as inevitable victims of their hubris. But for a long time, the naysayers weren’t prophets, they were simply wrong. And for a long time the fallen hadn’t yet fallen.
Here’s the deal with the market of life: it’s long term efficient but in the long term we’re all dead. In the short term, the smart and the fortunate exploit pockets of inefficiency to their own gain even if the broader story pursues a different end.
Yes, many people lost a lot of money in the real estate bubble. But many didn’t. Just like many lost their paper worth in the dot-com bubble. But again, many didn’t. Sometimes lightning struck just right and through careful planning or prescience or just plain dumb luck, certain people made off like bandits.
Timing is everything. Another way of saying this is: there is no band. Another way of saying this is, there is no clean cut story to tell because the story of life is a messy thing. Perhaps another way of saying this is, there is a narrative being developed right now that, in retrospect, will seem obvious but, of course, isn’t and if you’re lucky or fortunate you may yet exploit it. Another way of saying this is, it’s not good or bad it just is.
Release Dates
I Twittered a few days ago that the ‘release date’ is the date three months after everyone in the know has heard the record and the date at which, if you’re hearing the record for the first time, you feel out of the loop.
In the old days, release dates meant something. That was the day that all the retailers stocked their shelves. And you planned a big campaign around that retail fact, coordinating your press, your tour, and your radio campaign so that, in the words of Britt Daniel, everything hits at once. To creat this little micro-ball of momentum that had a fighting chance of punching a hole in the collective consciousness of the world and thrust itself out into the great airy wide open and proclaim, “Here I am, my friends. I am a thing! I am real!”
Things Listened To, Things Read
Here’s what I’m listening to right now and reading right now and how I found out about it. Thankfully, it’s not all Pitchfork.
Listening
Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion (source: everyone but yes Pfork)
Neil Young – Live at Massey Hall 1971 (source: Barnes and Noble in Detroit when I was visiting Gramps)
Neko Case – Middle Cyclone (source: saw the cover on Pfork, love Neko, same Barnes and Noble)
Andrew Bird – Andrew Bird & The Mysterious Production of Eggs (source: Paul)
Michael Zapruder – New Ways of Letting Go (source: Paul’s friend)
Michael Zapruder – Dragon Chinese Cocktail Horoscope (ibid)
The Killers – Day and Age (source: I’m a dancer)
Deerhunter – Microcastle / Weird Era (source: it was in the air)
Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix (source: Ed Droste’s Twitter feed)
Beach House - Devotion (source: Ed Droste’s Twitter feed)
Awaiting
Grizzly Bear, Wilco, Dirty Projectors
Reading / Read
Ken Kesey – Sometimes a Great Notion (source: I was looking for the Dharma Bums and it wasn’t there)
Saul Bellow – Mr. Sammler’s Planet (source: me and Jeremy’s Bellow fixation)
Jack Keruoac – The Dharma Bums (source: it was at the Barnes and Noble in Detroit)
Michael Chabon – The Mysteries of Pittsburgh (source: his first book (oh they’re making a movie))
Robert Middlekauff – The Glorious Cause (source: Dad)
Doris Kearns Goodwin – Team of Rivals (source: Dad)
