The Flying Change

Archive for October, 2009

The Antlers & The Flying Change

Alex Tudor wrote a great review of the new Antlers album, Hospice, in Drowned in Sound today and name checked The Flying Change.  The guys at DiS have become great supporters of the music and it’s pretty cool to be associated with other bands that are making great and powerful music.

Here’s the full paragraph:

This is what artists do. As well as re-shuffling the deck of influences and instrumentation, for a new/old way to rock out, they also re-orient you by the archetypes of your time. Where the supposedly ‘modern’ rock song intersects with ‘traditional’ healing rituals is in the swirl of images that may not be new, individually, but remind you that you’re on a well-trodden path. This year, Sam Jacobs (as The Flying Change) released a magnificent album to do what the doctors literally couldn’t, for his sick wife, while Shearwater (on Palo Santo, and several songs from Rook, last year) used the drama of Nico’s life, and the symbolism of her art to ask how and why we turn the one into the other. So, Yes, you’ve heard much of this before. That’s a good thing, in this case.

Little pots of water on the stove, my friends.  Little pots of water.  One day they’ll bubble over.

Pitchfork

Every once in awhile it’s important to point out something that might be obvious.  Actually, maybe it’s not but I figured I’d do it anyway.
Ryan Schreiber and the folks at Pitchfork are the Rolling Stone of the Internet generation.  They are a defining cultural force and, as flawed as some elements of the site are, the fact is that they have created something very very special and, in some ways, represent all that’s good about the Internet and about modern music.
Think about it.
Pitchfork has created a community and an awareness for music that few had heard before.  They laid the groundwork for a vibrant community of music blogs and serve as an organizing principle and constraint against which other sites and voices can push or pull.  Every weekday they bring attention and notice to dozens of different artists that might never have a voice before and, because they’re tough and discerning and serious about music, their reputation and their credibility is basically intact many years after the site was originally started.
It’s really something that’s rather incredible and special.
In the era of the major record labels, and even with the few mini-majors focused on independent music, options for an independent band to build a fanbase and a community were very limited.  What’s worse, the pressures on those bands were all pushing them towards the middle.  The old wolves of the music industry still had power in that era.  When distribution channels were limited and moguls controlled what you heard and the whole thing was so depressing.  That was a bad time.  I don’t care if they were making money.  A bunch of douchey A&R guys running around clubs and music festivals, too scared to sign anyone, too scared to do anything but their asses kissed by desperate artists.
But in this day and age, things are very different.  And Pitchfork has a lot to do with it.  Now, the examples are bands like Animal Collective, Arcade Fire, The Knife, Grizzly Bear.  Yes, those bands are still all signed to record labels.  Record labels with in-house publicity departments and more push than the independent artist.
But nevertheless, the aspiration these days is not about being more mediocre.  The aspiration, at least for me, is not about trying to fit into someone else’s idea about what the music is supposed to sound like. At least someone I don’t care about whose ideas about music are banal and boring and old.  Instead, the goal is to be different enough to be recognized.  Different enough and honest enough and real enough to get noticed by a site like Pitchfork.
Of course, at this point, I’m kind of bummed that the new record hasn’t gotten reviewed by those guys.  And I still feel like I’m on the outside looking in for the major bands out there that all seem to know each other and remix each other’s songs and play in each other’s bands and what not.  I still don’t know Zooey Deschanel.
But for my mission to be to continue to try and do something different and innovate and be special and unique.  For that to be the goal and have Pitchfork as an organizing principle against which I can help measure things.  And know that, if anything, the reason that the record hasn’t gotten reviewed yet isn’t because it’s not mediocre enough, but because it’s not strikingly different enough.  Well, if we’re going to have a paradigm, this seems like the much healthier one.
And it’s not just me.
Pitchfork has established independent music, good music, as the dominant force on the Internet.  Maybe I live in an echo chamber but from where I sit I see Pitchfork establishing the dialogue and the touchtstone for the majority of music blogs and music websites.  Look at the top bands on Hype Machine.  They’re all independent.  They’re all interesting.  They’re all doing something strange or weird.  Hype Machine aggregates blogs and music blogs grew up as satellites in orbit around Pitchfork.
And the result is that the conversation about music on the Web is interesting and open and inclusive.  Not as inclusive as I would want (really just meaning I want to be other side of Pitchfork’s velvet rope) but inclusive enough nonetheless.  There is an ecosystem and it’s built around good music and people that care about music.
From where I sit, music is doing more than fine.  It’s doing great.  Even if the music industry isn’t doing well and a bunch of old gray-haired dudes are reading Bob Lefsetz and tearing their hair out and trying to think of where the next Eagles are going to come from.  Music does not depend on Irving Azoff or Jimmy Iovine or Clive Davis.  There is a world upon which they have no influence.
I’ve started buying music and listening to music at places other than Pitchfork but the site is still the dominant influence on what I listen to and, through the community table at which P4K sits at the head, I’ve heard bands like Arcade Fire and Deerhunter and Bon Iver and everything else that I listen to these days.
Even if they’re snobs.  Even if the long-form album review seems antiquated.  Even if they should allow comments and don’t.  Even if the scores are totally arbitrary.  Even if there are so many reviews that even if I did get a review, without a Best New Music designation, I doubt much would happen instantly.  Even with all that.
They’ve done a good thing.  An important thing.  Kudos.

Every once in awhile it’s important to point out something that might be obvious.  Actually, maybe it’s not but I figured I’d do it anyway.

Ryan Schreiber and the folks at Pitchfork are the Rolling Stone of the Internet generation.  They are a defining cultural force and, as flawed as some elements of the site are, the fact is that they have created something very very special and, in some ways, represent all that’s good about the Internet and about modern music.

Think about it.

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Prices and Things Organic

I majored in Econ in undergrad and always appreciate the clarity of economic thinking as a problem solving tool.  Not to say I’m an economist.  But I believe, generally, in the power of prices and the power of markets to articulate and communicate the value that a society or community places on a specific action or good.  All the regular stuff notwithstanding.  Meaning, I also believe that there needs to be a rule of law and there needs to be a justice system and that the legislative branch and the executive branch should work to provide a solid framework and underpinning to the markets so that the relevant actors can work together with some level of confidence.

All that being said, at the end of the day, and again with all those other things acknowledged and notwithstanding, prices are important things. They are signals.  They are representations.  They communicate something.

So, as much as I want to get on board with all my lefty pals and cohorts who bemoan the state of the food industry, and talk with conspiratorial glances about the corn lobby and how evil everyone is and how bad fast food is and how we don’t even know what we’re eating and god isn’t it awful and I don’t want to harm the chickens or the cows, etc.  As much as some of that is true.  And the food industry is best not inspected too too closely because we’ll be fearful of what comes out.

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Friction

Seth Godin had a post asking whether Craigslist should charge $1 for posted ads and how that might impact the service.  We know what Chris Anderson would say.  He’d say that “information wants to be free” and that that level of friction might destroy the service.  Gladwell would counter that information doesn’t want anything.  It’s not a person.

And the bottom line would be, as Fred has pointed out in the past, that there shouldn’t be a philosophical approach to these ideas but a practical one.  And if there are businesses that can get away with charging something for content that others give away for free then have at it.  We should rigorously experiment with whatever works, dispensing with any kind of dogma about what “information” wants and instead focus on what kinds of businesses we can build and what kinds of value we can deliver to our customer or, er, um, fans.

This appears to be a central question underpinning the Web.

What is the level of friction that we can introduce and how does that level of friction differentiate between people that actually value something and people that don’t?

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College of New Jersey

We’re playing an out-of-town gig this evening at the College of New Jersey.  One of the few highlights of the college radio campaign was WTSR down in Ewing taking a big shine to the record.  As a result, they offered up the possibility of playing a gig, taping the performance and doing an interview in conjunction with the show.  It’s only about 90 minutes away so I took them up on the offer.  I finally picked up Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix so it’ll be nice driving music.

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Why

I was with a friend last night and I was explaining how I lose quite a bit of money on every show I play.  The way that it works is that I play with some very incredible professional musicians and these folks need to eat and this is what they do for a living.  I am obsessed with creating an interesting live experience.  And I have these fanciful notions and I get these whims where I hear or see a part of a different band and then I wonder how it would be to integrate that new sound or thing into my  band and pretty soon the band swells in size and there is a trombone player and a saxophone player and a viola player and I love it that way.  I love it that way because you can realize a bunch of different sonic ideas and because it feels like a big community when you’re up there and one of the big things I’m pursuing in the live experience is this communal feel of everyone jamming at the same time and everyone grooving and feeling different kinds of vibrations.

Now the downside of all of this is that putting on a full-scale TFC show is that it’s very expensive, particularly if you’re playing at great rooms like The Living Room or Rockwood where you’re working for tips.

So my friend said, “Why do you do it then?  What’s the return?”

I suppose I got kind of defensive.  A bit flustered.

Because I don’t really know the answer.

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