Gigbloggy

While browsing the web today in search of content for the blog, I discovered one news worthy story that lead me to encounter another. Both are intimately related even though they describe two businesses that pertain to two very different musical realms.

Story number one:

“Classical music’s most advanced response to the digital revolution”

We all know the recording industry has been going down hill, and its classical music divisions are probably first in-line in the downfall. Classical music has been suffering for many years now for a number of reasons that tend to make me ask myself how it survived up until now, two of which are as follows: orchestras costs a fortune to maintain, and the number of classical music aficionados are most likely decreasing as time goes by.

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“He who rejects change is the architect of decay”.
Harold Wilson

Ever heard of Joel Tenenbaum? Well I hadn’t really paid any attention to that name until today, and more precisely until I read this article from The Guardian – “How it feels to be sued for $4.5m“. I have always known thousands in the states had been sued for absurd sums for sharing music, everyone’s aware of the RIAA’s sissy-fits, but to read such a testimonial set me aback some. Do read it: it was written by Joel himself, and weather you’re with him or against him, it won’t leave you indifferent to his cause.

I don’t want to go into the details of his story because  it is all written marvelously well in that article. What I’ll say is this: Joel is one of the tens of thousands of people who have got their lives crushed just for sharing music. Joel is not the compulsive file-sharer type who detains tera bytes upon tera bytes of music storages on dozens of 7200 rpm, RAID intertwined hard-drives, he’s just one in 50 million file-sharers who unluckily won the RIAA lottery. His battle started off small, just in for a couple of thousand of dollars. Now he is in for millions because he fought back.

He finally made it to the trial which started yesterday (most people cave in before reaching that point). Joel’s story struck a chord in many music lovers’ hearts, and he is now backed-up by thousands from all over the world. He has got his proper “Joel Fights Back” twitter account (@joelfightsback), twitter feed (#jfb) and website.

The Guardian’s article holds ten pages full of comments, but the very first one made my day. It was written by a nut who hammers Joel by invoking the “you just shouldn’t steal from people more creative than you. You deserve what’s coming at you” speech. I can take a step back like any other and realize there are laws for a reason, that these laws must be reinforced to maintain order. I am not defending Joel 100% just because it’s easy and comforting to be on the martyr’s side, engaging resistance against corporate fat cats, I’m on Joel’s side because if we succumb to absurdity, we are headed straight for a brick wall, the likes of which mankind has a tendency to bang its head against over and over again.

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Pride in new rock and roll seems to have sunk somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, why else would we care so little about discovering our own great bands? For years I have been discovering the best new North American bands in British magazines and it doesn’t seem right or logical. This isn’t a slight at North American music fans but rather at our music industry consisting of magazine, TV, radio, and record labels who consistently wait for NME, Q, Uncut, and various other British magazines to tell them who our best new bands are. When was the last time you saw a new American band on the cover of Rolling Stone or Spin before they have been on the cover of NME? Actually, when was the last time you saw a decent new American band on the cover of RS at all (I am purposely forgetting Fall Out Boy and Panic At the Disco! being on the cover of RS last year because I don’t want to bring back painful memories)? The culture of discovery in North American music has dwindled because of a lack of support in the industry.

What I am getting at is that North America is sorely missing a major music magazine, radio station, or label that takes pride in discovering new rock and roll bands. There are countless small and independent magazines around that do a fine job of promoting new bands but they don’t reach a large audience the way NME does on the other side of the pond. Every month NME is putting bands on its cover that haven’t even released a full album yet but have a devoted and enthusiastic following. Sure the British music press has an old habit of building up new bands just to tear them down the minute they realize they aren’t going to being on the walls of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in thirty years (think Razorlight) but at least they are attempting to find the next Oasis themselves and aren’t waiting for Sony to tell them who it is. However, whether it’s acting, music, painting or any other form of art, for every diamond that is discovered there are a thousand chunks of coal that are discovered, looked at, and thrown away. Nonetheless, if no one is willing to show you the coal then you will never find the diamond.

Just look at the popularity of some the best American bands in Britain compared to in their home country. Kings of Leon have sold out an arena tour of Britain in a matter of hours but are playing the Kool Haus when they are in Toronto. Their album came out last month and is still in the top forty over there but has long been off the Billboard charts here. The same can be said of the White Stripes, BRMC, The Strokes, MGMT, and Arcade Fire who have reached a level of stardom in Britain that eludes them in their own countries largely because of a lack of mainstream support, whether in magazines, on the radio, or on TV. This is not to say that they aren’t popular here, surely the White Stripes and The Strokes have had a few hits here and are considered popular acts but the level of respect granted to them is not comparable. As well, with all of these bands, they made it big on the other side of the ocean before anyone in the American press gave them any notice and only did so after they sold out tours of England.

This is a shame and can be blamed on a number of aspects from the death of independent DJs who are now given the playlist they must put on the air to the music editor who is told what act to put on the cover because they will sell the most issues. There is no room for innovation and discovery because every dud that makes it on the cover cost some corporation money. Recorded music has always been a commodity but for awhile, namely the sixties and early seventies, the true music lovers within the machine were able to fight back enough to make the good bands also the popular bands. What happened to RS being the place you would go to discover the next big thing? Now you have to already be the big thing before you can get in an issue. Yes, they will occasionally have a piece on “bands to watch” but that is far from being in every issue. NME, on the other hand, only require that your band has created a stir in some bar in some part of the country before they put your name on their pages. They clearly take pride in discovering new bands, including our new bands, so that when these bands make it in North America the British fans and writers can stick their nose up and say “we’ve had them for years already”.

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I was reading a column by Allan Cross the other day where he made the argument that rock and roll is usually at its best when Republicans are in power in Washington.  The argument goes that rock and roll is rebel music so therefore it is usually best when it has an authority to rebel against.  There were great music scenes in America and around the world during the Nixon, Regan, and Bush Sr. administrations and a relatively low influx of decent rock and roll during the Carter and Clinton administrations.  This got me thinking of another correlation in rock and roll, that between music scenes and the drugs that dominate them.  However, in this case it is less clear which came first.

Let’s start in the 1960s, when the relationship between drugs and music left the jazz clubs and entered the mainstream.  The communal feelings of sixties music was very evident in their music and in their choice of drugs.  Marijuana, magic mushrooms, and LSD became increasingly popular.  All three of these drugs lend themselves to communal setting where people are keen to see music as a revolutionizing force that could bring people together.  These are not inherently selfish drugs and that is seen in the music. Rock and roll by bands such as Dylan, The Beatles, The Greatful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and Crosby, Stills and Nash promoted a people’s revolution and new era of community living. The music was about “we” and not “me”.

However, as the communitarians gave way to the hedonist, the drugs likewise became more hedonistic.  Band such as Led Zeppelin and The Eagles brought hedonism to a new level with their stadium concerts, private jumbo jets, and endless groupies. During this time, marijuana and LSD gave way to cocaine, a very euphoric but isolating drug.  The desired affect becomes less about a communal experience and more about instant gratification for the individual.  As such, the popular music of the era stopped talking of a people’s revolution and became about have a good time in the here and now.   When you are on cocaine, it becomes hard to think of revolution when you are so preoccupied with the magnificence of your fur coat.

In the late 1970s, as stadium rock became too overindulgent and punk music rose from the ghettoes of New York and London.  Punk was a much more drug free scene than its predecessors and it was evident in the music.  As the people in the scene came back down to Earth, punk brought music back to basics.  The jumbo jets and fifteen minute drum solos were gone and two minute, three chord songs were emerging.  Of course, this didn’t last.  Singing about the reality of being poor (another reason for the lack of drugs, who could afford them?) could only last for so long before people wanted an escape.  This brings us to the 1980s.

In the 80s, music became mind-numbingly selfish.  With hair-metal, the airwaves were dominated by music that focused on womanizing and partying and unsurprisingly cocaine made a comeback.  Like the mid-seventies, the 1980s needed a drug to match, a drug that gave people a self-congratulatory feeling such as cocaine and speed.  This can also be seen in the Madchester scene of the late 80s lead by bands such as The Stone Roses and the Happy Mondays.

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Well it’s done, Trent Reznor just deleted his Twitter account. He was one of the first to be harassed by puny users and other Twitterazzi types, and one of the first to leave ship.

From Rolling Stone: “When Twitter made it’s way to my radar I looked at it as a curiosity, then started experimenting. I thought it through and in light of where I was / am in my career I decided to lower the curtain a bit and let you see more of my personality,” Reznor said. “I watched some of you get more engaged because you started to realize there’s a person (flaws and all) back there, and I watched some of you recoil in horror because I’m not what you projected on me”.

I find this quite interesting. The other day I left some comment on Hypebot’s “Amanda ‘Fucking’ Palmer (Part 1) interview” (which is a must-read by the way). One commentator commented upon the fact that a seemingly indestructible platform such as Twitter clearly has a life expectancy. His arguments, some straightforward and simple deductions that go along the lines of “Twitter is new and fun for now, but the narcissistic social game it engages its community in will eventually get old”, got me thinking about the real impact Twitter has on most people, and if that “social game” is really worth the time spent perfecting the skills required to a “must-follow” type of user. And now there’s Mr. NIN, one of the most influential and “must-follow” accounts, that decides to bail. Although I believe he did so for personal reasons other than “Twitter is boring me”, Trent is also saying “Twitter ain’t for me, at least not anymore”. I think many will come to that realization at one point or another. Not every massively popular service is for everybody, and the more some play the game of opening-up-to-the-world, the more they might realize they just don’t like opening-up to the world.

All in all, Twitter can be seen as a sort of gratification game, or tool. I share my insights, my news, all the while shedding some light on my personality, and when I get that RT or that mention, I feel as if I made some impact, as if my presence on the Twittersphere ain’t useless and that some people out there appreciate it. And by Jove how it feels good to achieve that sense of accomplishment in this absurd world (even if it’s only due to words and not actions). Add to that the fact that Twitter is a powerful networking tool, and for me the game is still fun and exciting, as it is for an increasing number of people.

It seems to me that all the social-media success stories are due to specific traits of character. In that Amanda Palmer interview cited above, one particular sentence struck me as being very revealing: “I simply feel blessed that I’m an emotional exhibitionist right around the time is seems to be expected and en vogue.” Not everyone is like Amanda Fucking Palmer, or Trent, or others, weather they be exuberant social figures or more of the discreet kind.

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Where has the revolutionary spirit of rock and roll gone? This is something I often asked myself in high school as I started discovering the brilliance of Bob Dylan, CSNY, John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, and countless other classic artists whose music contained a message and a political consciousness.

As I began to expand my musical interest, I realized that music was never going to be the center of a youth movement in the same manner it was in the 1960s. There are simply too many genres for kids today to choose from. Revolution was drowned out by a thousand different messages bombarding youth. It was easy to have a unifying message forty years ago. You essentially had three genres dominating the music world: rock and roll, folk, and blues. And they all had related messages of peace, love, and tolerance.

Personally, I blame disco. The coke-fuelled overindulgence of the disco scene was about selfishness, not brotherhood. Its music was mindless escapism. But this was only the beginning. From this point on, music became more diverse, lacking a focused message. There is a musical genre for every feeling you may have. Feeling angry? Listen to punk, heavy mental or gangster rap. Feel like partying? Listen to disco, pop, dance, hip hop, funk, or electronic. Feel like protesting? Listen to umm…… I’m not so sure anymore.

Yes, a few bands out there who get political on occasion. Think of Bruce Springsteen, REM, Bright Eyes, and most obviously, Rage Against the Machine. There are others, of course. But the point is that rock and roll is no longer a unifying force that politically conscious teens and twenty-somethings can rally behind.

What about U2, you ask. Clearly, U2 is an incredibly popular band – possibly the most popular band – but Bono has climbed so high on his pedestal you have to squint to see him. You have to give him credit for achieving more in the name of progressive politics and human rights than any of his predecessors in the music world. Still, most youth have hard time identifying with him because the level of esteem he now carries.

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There has been a lot of talk on the blog sphere lately about how bands are, or should, or could be making a living. Since Kevin Kelly posted his ‘1000 True Fans’ article on march 4th, and Nine Inch Nails has so ingenuously released his last project ‘Ghost I-IV’ also around that time (oh, and he just put a new free song for grabs, there’s no stopin this guy), artists have been going bonkers asking themselves how to re-actualize their ‘business models’. Although it’s quite obvious not every band can expect financial success using methods like NIN has, we should all take into consideration that such methods bare their fruits nowadays thanks to the distribution outlets internet provides. Your fans will be the first to appreciate the gesture. But bands must also capitalize on communication. Not the kind that brings you one timer friends only serving to show off how popular you are, but the kind where a real interaction takes place. The 1000 true fans is a powerful concept that struck a nerve due to the simplicity of it’s logic. Basically it goes a little something like this: if you can manage to get 1000 fans spend at least one days wage per year on your music you can make a decent living without living under the poverty threshold or without reaching the summits of stardom. Kelly explains that 1000 is just an arbitrary number of course, all depends on the many aspects of your status and ambitions as an artist. The main point being that spending time everyday consolidating a real relationship with your fans can and will pay off in the mid-long term. I encourage you to read it with attention, as well as the comments that follow. Although I consider there to be many flaws in the 1000 True Fan theory, it most certainly gets you thinking about the importance of developping such relationships. It also got me thinking about the eternal question, or rather the eternal dilemma of how to perceive and use art as a strategy to market and increase business as opposed to just writing music for tha purpose of creating art. But that’s a whole other debate altogether.

Woof !

A film on the Kinks’ reunion on its way and now this, 2009 is going to be an exciting year for rock documentaries. Sony Picture Classics is going to release a motion picture that pays tribute to the electric guitar and chose three iconic rock heroes as its ambassadors: Jack White, The Edge and Jimmy Page. Actually, Sony didn’t have anything to do with the concept. They just acquired the film from Thomas Tull, CEO of Legendary Film, and are probably gonna get all the credit. Directed by Oscar-winning director Davis Guggenheim (dude who directed An Inconvenient Truth, that documentary on global warming presented by Al Gore), the rockumentary received great acclaim as it premiered at Toronto’s International Film Festival last September. It Might Get Loud, to be released next summer by the way, ‘isn’t like any other rock’n roll documentary. Filmed through the eyes of three virtuosos from three different generations, audiences get up close and personal, discovering how a furniture upholsterer from Detroit, a studio musician and painter from London and a seventeen-year-old Dublin schoolboy, each used the electric guitar to develop their unique sound and rise to the pantheon of superstar. Rare discussions are provoked as we travel with Jimmy Page, The Edge and Jack White to influential locations of their pasts‘.

We will even get to see them jamming together. Yay! (unfortunately not in the video below)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QioaoEDwOjw&feature=related]

The choice of the three legends is interesting as their musical backgrounds were put to contribution during very different rock eras. Jimmy incarnates the highlights of the sixties and the seventies classic rock period, Dave Evans (The Edge) embodies the textural (over-reverbarized) guitar sounds of the 80s and 90s pop-rock scene, and Jack White, well Jack is the byproduct of the counter culture surrounding contemporary pop-rock.

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Kaguya is a Japanese Satellite that has been orbiting the Moon for over two years. With its 14 built-in sensors, Kaguya is analyzing the Moon’s surface from many different angles. Using data from one of those sensors, the “and space” Moonbell project team is using a laser altimeter to transform the altitude data into musical intervals. Moonbell is a web-based interface that lets us “listen to the topography” of the moon by choosing an orbit and playing around with a few parameters. The system generates very soothing music. Check it out at http://wms.selene.jaxa.jp/selene_sok/index_en.html.

Ben Walker has done it again. By “it” I mean find some creative and innovative music-related challenge to add to his ongoing creative and innovative list of music-related challenges. His latest finding is to compose 50 tunes for 50 tweets in 90 days, idea he got from the 50 songs in 90 days challenge he participated in last year. Ben calls his music-twitterthon Tweet Suite, and has created a dedicated website to go with it. Check it out at http://tweetsuite.ihatemornings.com.

The concept is quite simple really: Ben chooses tweets he likes and composes a theme for them. Anyone can send him tweets via Delicious by tagging them 5090tweetsuite and via twitter @ihatemornings.

I’m quite surprised by the quality of the orchestrations of most of his music-tweets, as well as the quality of the tweets themselves. Very nice work.

Woof.