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.
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?
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.
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.
Always Arriving
U2 did an interview with Pitchfork where Bono said that the band felt as if they were always arriving, but had never arrived. I liked that interview they did. My biggest takeaway from the interview was that, regardless of what you might think of the band, they seemed like good guys and, for all their fame and notoriety, had maintained at least a little bit of a level head.
The idea itself is a rather nice one and it’s been on my mind over the past few weeks. I suppose as an artist you probably never feel like you’re done. That’s why creating art is a state of perpetually delayed gratification. There’s never done. Because even when the record comes out, you already have 15 new song ideas that have been percolating and you’ve been hearing them in your head a certain way and you’re sitting around doing other things while songs sit in your consciousness.
So even in that most literal of senses, you’ve never arrived. Because the ideas haven’t all materialized and they haven’t arrived and therefore there’s always always more.
But the way it’s phrased, the prospect of arrival itself doesn’t seem so distant. It’s not about desperation or neediness. It’s more about the excitement of creation and the furtherance of things as they move forward etc.
There was a period when I first started making music when I felt so distant from any kind of arrival. It was a strange state of jealousy and dissatisfaction. Nothing was happening at the pace that I had wanted it to and the music wasn’t getting any kind of recognition and it felt like the old days of Annex Records when all that excitement and possbility of life fizzled into a stark and deep abyss and within that abyss was the deafening sound of silence.
Somewhere along the line, and in the last couple of months, that feeling has lifted considerably. I think it has to do with community and with a band and with musicians that I love and respect. And it has to do with random emails from fans and from people that have heard the music in a bunch of different places – on a podcast, on Pandora, at a show – and how all these pieces seem to be like continents slowly drifting into place.
“Dirty White Coats” – The Video
We’ve got a bigger player going here. But if you just want to peep the small screen, here you go. Drowned In Sound is running it as are a few other spots. Feel free to post, embed, etc. And enjoy!
