Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    

As noted above, I have released three projects online via Festivalink
<http://www.festivalink.net> since the first of the year.  One is a solo
performance, which is what "flink" usually offers (they record Merlefest et
al. and make deals with the performers to market their sets).  The other two
are studio recordings, for which I paid flink's partner, Dave Glasser
<http://www.airshowmastering.com> to master in HDCD and in 96/24 (for
marketing via HDTracks <http://www.hdtracks.com> to the audiophile market.
Festivalink offers good-quality MP3s, FLACS (CD quality in a lossless
compressed format), and CD on demand.  This scheme saves me the costs of
package design and pressing, but of course also sacrifices the pleasures and
marketing benefits of cool packaging.

The vast majority of my music sales happens at gigs.  So I need to either pay
for CDs from Festivalink or go ahead and do a run of pressed CDs.  I am
probably going to press discs for the Sycamore Slough String Band but not for
the Gans-Rawlins project, because SSSB is planning to gig a lot and Eric and
I haven't done a public performance in years.

Another advantage of Festivalink for me is that they handle the licensing of
the songs.
  

    

Now, I have to say I *love* recording music in a studio.  I keep some cash in
a cookie jar, and whenever I have a few hundred bucks saved up I'll go into
my faorite studio with some of my favorite musicians and record a song or
two.  I have about 50 minutes' worth of material accumulated and plans to
record a few more songs in the nearish future.  Once I have a CD's worth of
material in the can, I will start saving up again to have it mastered, design
a package, and get it pressed.  It's great to have music on the market digi-
tally, but there is great satisfaction in have a good old-fashioned ALBUM,
too.

The SSSB CDs will serve as a calling card for booking and a minor source of
revenue at gigs.  I already spent the money to record it, so any proceeds
frmo sales will go into that cookie jar for more recording projects.
  

    
Oh, and I will also send SSSB discs to radio stations.
  

    

What I don't do that I should be doing: MERCH.   I don't have t-shirts and
beer cozies and all that shit, because I haven't got the resources (nor the
capital) to manufacture, schlep, and sell that stuff.  Being a one=-man
operation has its downside.

I have been thinking about a novel merchandising idea: I am a big fan of
Barlovento Chocolates <http://www.barloventochocolates.com>, a vendor at the
Grand Lake Farmers' Market.  He sells these great little "logo bars" of 64%
dark Venezuelan chocolate dusted with sea salt.  I'm hoping I can persuade
the chocolatier to make a mold with my band name and URL so I can sell his
bars at my gigs for our mutual benefit.
  

    
Before you move on to discussing distribution, I'd like to return to
the nexus of what is art and what is commercial product.  Seabrook's
article shows that there is a formula at work in which content is taken
through a production process.  Same process that has always been used
as <rik> mentioned, the difference is the technology. 

Now from the perspective of the critics and the audience who consume
these products, some are ephemeral like discarding chewing gum
wrappers; others are evocative of their time and place and feed
nostalgia(they wind up on compilation albums); while some few are
considered to be "classics" that transcend the process and are then
treated more like "art."  This last possibility is what I find to be
most interesting.  It is like the performers are doing it and creating
something of value despite the restrictions of the formula and process.


Let me give you 2 sets of examples from pop music.  

In the early 60s there was one dance craze after another with the
record companies trying to capitalize on the phenomenon, guaranteeing
that all the records within each craze would sound alike.

Example 1:  The Boogaloo
Somehow the Flamingos got roped into cutting "Boogaloo Party" 

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeCRGcPq3YE>

The tune reeks of formula.

Then Fantastic Johnny C tried his hand at it in Memphis and listen to
the difference:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48FY89F4i6g>

Example 2:  Hang on Sloopy

If illegal aliens from outer space stopped me on the street and asked
me to play the worst rock n' roll record ever, I'd play them the McCoys
version of this tune:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGuPc01Dn7c>

Then by an accident of history, Arsenio Rodriguez at the end of his
career had a record date produced by Bert Berns.  Bert wanted a latin
version of his tune and we got this version:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azMcL3L5QcY>

In both instances, the tracks that I'm elevating were produced
according to the formula.  The artists just couldn't help themselves in
delivering a superior version. Looking at them now, they are something
more than an ephemeral thing.  

 
  

    

I have to disagree about The McCoys' "Hang on Sloopy."  It ain't deep, but it
has staying power.  I could list thousands of records that are much worse!
  

    
Just my opinion.  But I presented it to make the larger point.
  

    
The mere fact that I can instantly summon it to my mind says something -- 
it was released nearly 50 years ago and before I was born!
  

    

I again have to state that I think the world I live in is pretyt much
entirely separate from the music business.  I play music festivals and clubs
and other venues that are known in the Pollstar database, and I am heard on
the radio and on Pandora etc., but I will never be a candidate for anything
anywhere near the mainstream of music marketing.

A couple of years ago, Peter Case posted on Facebook that he was starting a
label.  I said to him, "Pretty soon it's gonna be one man, one label."  His
reply: "Yeah, it's like the fall of the Soviet Union: the playing field has
been leveled completely."

That is both a good thing and a bad thing.  The down side is that the ceiling
has been lowered considerably.  VERY few people are going to get anything
like rich from making music these days.

On the plus side: I control my own destiny, make the music I want to make,
and earn a modest profit from it.
  

    
OK, let's hang around the creative fulcrum for a moment.

Like <tnf>, I LOVE working in a good studio. I think it's totally obvious
that this is the best way to make a record.

The hourly rate at a good studio, however, can make for the worst 
conditions under which to make a record. There is no way to explain the 
feeling of pressure when your producer is staring at you through the 
control room glass and you hear "let's try that again" from the talk-back 
mic in your cans.

That's why the recent innovations in home studio recording are so huge. 

I can work without pressure and create something pretty clean right in my 
home studio, or even in my bedroom these days. If I stick to electronic 
inputs with no analog points in the signal path, the audio clarity is 
crystal.

And to draw a straight line through this conversation, we can go from the 
Tascam Portastudio to the Mac of the '90s to <rik>'s MacBook. At the end 
of that line is tremendous power.

But man, do I miss the closets full of vintage microphones and Telefunken 
tube sweeteners.
  

    

That's true about the cost of recording.  I am (again) very fortunate to have
a great studio with an angineer I love, at $50 per hour.  AND he's a total
gear slut, so I have access to tons of great analog outboard gear and state-
of-the-art plug-ins.

Most importantly, I am in command of my musical resources to such a degree
that I never ever feel the sort of pressure Adam describes.  If you have good
players and a good engineer and a relaxed and productive atmosphere, the
tension never builds.

I do feel sorta sheepish about never using the amazing tools I have in this
Macbook Pro of mine.  When I was 21 I borrowed two stereo open-reel decks and
made layered recordings Sgt Pepper style as if my life depended on it,
because that's all I ever wanted to do!  Then I did the Portastudio thing in
the '80s.  And then I started playing in bands, and recording was pretty much
out of my financial reach for a long time.

In the late '80s, I had an Otari half-inch 8 track and a mixing console with
which to produce my radio show - and I NEVER ONCE recorded music on it.  My
energies were directed elsewhere, I guess.
  

    
Then again, the amazing desktop tools are great for all sorts of other
related things.  I record all my gigs at 96/24 on an Edirol, the size of a
pack of cigarettes.  After a show I move the bits into my computer so I can
listen to the performance on my way to the next one.  I can also pull a
highlight or two for posting on my blog.  The tools to do these things are
cheap and powerful.

(I highly recommend, for Mac users, an app called Sound Studio
<http://www.felttip.com> - cheap and powerful and useful for a great number
of things, e.g. splitting a file into tracks, tagging files, converting to
MP3, doing a bit of limiting/compression, etc.)
  

    
It's a wonderful world for gear sluts. Probably like tnf, I like old
gear, but there are some terrific new widgets and a lot happening in
the Line 6 style tone modeling end as well as iOS and online distro.

Rik, you are right there on the front lines. What are the kids buying,
what's hot, do guitars still sell, and what does the youth of today
want for musical tools?
  

    <scribbled by rik Thu 29 Mar 12 18:00>
  

    
I'm going to canvas our staff before I answer that one.  It's become
so complex that our sales staff has to specialize, and I, who used to be 
a MIDI sequencing fanatic, have slowly slid out of the electronic side to 
concentrate on the guitar side.  I do sell a lot of looping devices to a 
wide variety of types.

What's instructive is how varied the interests of our music students are.  
Nils Erickson, one of our best guitar teachers achieved a certain amount 
of indie notoriety in a band called 20-Minute Loop.  He's also in, of all 
things, a Micheal Jackson tribute band called Foreverland, and these guys 
are all good enough to kill on Quincy Jones charts.  The other day I 
dropped by his cubicle and he had his ear to the boombox,transcribing a 
burning Vince Gill Telecaster solo for one of his students. The kids we 
see seem open to everything.  Hell, I just finished teaching a local high 
school girl Joni Mitchell's dulcimer parts on "A Case Of You" for a vocal 
showcase she was doing at school.  And she could nail the vocals, curls 
and all, without breaking sweat.

The question remains, once you learn how to do this stuff, what's the 
career path?
  

    
For my generation, the career path in pop was to learn your craft in the 
clubs and hope to get noticed by a record company who you hoped would 
rescue you and give you a shot at stardom, not knowing that what happened 
to most was something like indentured servitude to a company that was 
making a profit on you long before you paid them off.
  

    
Hey Ted, this would probabaly be a good time to let the folks at home know
how to chime in with advice, questions, or tales of their own.
  

    
Thanks, Rik...and I will. This is a great time for any of you
following this conversation from off the WELL to ask any questions or
make comments. Please send them to inkwell@well.com and we will make
sure they are posted here.
  

    
Horrors storied, too.   We love horror stories.
  

    
LOL...could you all talk a bit about performing live in small venues?
It's a great interaction when people are into it, but what an awful
experience when you are ignored as background music and they just talk
through the set...(my experience in Wine bars, which I will never play
again!)Convinced me to remain a studio musician.
  

    
Wine bars ... paging <esau>!
  

    
David actually has the best stories about some downright hostile
environments. 

Not a wine bar, but my recent gig at a winery was a lot like the times
I played on an outdoor stage near Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco:
we were an unexpected treat playing for three hours to a mostly ambient
crowd of tourists.  They'd wander through, sit on the benches and have
a crepe, sometimes dance or nod their heads, and then walk away.

Best weird moment: mid-song, a local character who was -- how shall I
describe him? -- a mean-looking little person confined to a motorized
wheelchair stole our tip jar, which was in the middle of the front of
the stage. One of our friends on the bench calmly walked over (his
escape vehicle wasn't very fast) and took it back.

I think playing out is pretty fun and I don't demand to be listened to. My
favorite part is seeing kids, some of whom are really registering music
for the first time -- like, "That's how it's made!"
  

    

That last is one of my favorite things about playing at the farmers' market.
I might be the first live musician a toddler has ever seen!

I am a total SpongeBob SquarePants about gigging.  A wallpaper gig like a
farmers' market is great fun because it's zero pressure.  No one is there to
hear me play, and any attention I get is most welcome.  I treat it as an
ooportunity to woodshed, improvise, play old James Taylor songs, etc.

I've been the opening act at a sold-out show at which it was clear that the
jam-packed house only came in early to secure a good spot for the headliners'
set.  No problem!  I step up my game, make as much eye contact as I can, and
make it mission to get at least a few people to tune in to what I'm doing.

In short: there is something to gain (wisdom, experience, money, email
addresses on the mailing list, CD sales, what sort of gig never to do again,
etc.) from every single performing opportunity.  Any time I've been invited
to perform, for money or other compensation or just to do a favor for
somebody, is good.
  

    
Your attitude about that has always impressed me.  I watched you do a show 
at Horizons, in Sausalito, and it was obvious to me while watching you set 
up that nobody was there to be entertained.  You were to be the live 
equivalent of the FM station they might have had on in a lower rent venue.  
And you set up, cased the house, and began playing seventies covers.  You 
stretched out and jammed over loops, and everything you did fit the 
occasion. It was pleasant, and the diners could ignore you and let you 
simply be ambience, but if people focused on you, as I did, they were 
rewarded.

I'm less professional about it.  I'm in a band with a bunch of friends, 
all of whom have other ways of making a living, but who are good players 
and a pleasure to be with, and whose music I enjoy.  We play to amuse 
ourselves, make enough money to cover expenses, and give us a little 
pocket cash.  But it's really about playing together.  However, playing is 
about communicating something, and an audience puts something at stake.  
Our singer/songwriter is the little sister I should have had, and she 
radiates joy.  Which is ironic, given all the songs she sings about 
whiskey and heartbreak.   And our pedal steel player and I are constantly 
surprising each other.

We play bars, coffeehouses, restaurants and private parties. We sell CDs 
at the gigs, but really, the only real money comes from the parties.  And 
we do it for the joy of playing.   Ironically, I've made more in less 
entertaining and less pleasant situations, and I find this more 
satisfying.  So when I join in an inquiry about career paths in music, 
it's an academic interest.   I'm a good teacher.
  

    

Now that I'm in a band, I get to do some of that there enjying-playing-
together stuff.  I like that, too!

I just don't see any point in grumbling or bitching or acting like I'm too
good for the gig.  Take it on its own terms, and there's something to gain.