Happy Obligatory Greeting Card Day. #valentines #howromantic
Category - Digest
Meanwhile, in other news… The Europeans are beginning to take a dim view of US control of the Interwebs…
WSJ: EU Body Seeks to Reduce U.S. Influence Over Internet’s Structure
The European Union’s executive body is raising pressure to reduce U.S. influence on the Internet’s infrastructure, after revelations of widespread U.S. surveillance activities have caused what it calls a “loss of confidence” in the global network’s current makeup.
The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, will propose the adoption of “concrete and actionable steps” to globalize essential Web functions–like the assignment of so-called top-level domain names–that are still contractually linked to the U.S. government, according to a draft policy paper seen by The Wall Street Journal.
I don’t know that I trust the EU’s Communications Command and Control structures any more than I like the U.S.’s… this is probably an internecine turf war: The EU doesn’t like the US/NSA monitoring our communications only because it presents a challenge to the EU’s ability to do precisely the same thing.
I am reminded (as I am often) of an observation that somebody made back in the heyday of Napster: “The labels don’t like Napster ripping off the artists because it interferes with the labels’ ability to rip off the artists…” Or something to that effect.
I think the same principal probably applies here.
Mark the date: Thursday, February 27, 6-8PM
That’s the date of the opening reception for the “Natural Reflections” show at
Chromatics 2nd Floor Gallery
625 Fogg St.
Nashville, TN 37203
I’m going to have not one but TWO of my photos in this show, which will be open until late in June.
Like everybody else in the country, I’m thinking this morning about The Beatles.
Washington Coliseum – Feb 11, 1964
I’m posting because I want to pass along a piece I heard on NPR’s Weekend Edition/Saturday about the first live concert The Beatles performed after their appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show on Feb 9, 1964 – fifty years ago today.
Their first concert was two days later in Washington DC.
The centerpiece of this NPR report is an interview with Mike Mitchell, at the time an 18-year-old photographer who somehow landed the plum gig of shooting this Beatles first U.S. concert. The report revisits the venue, now a derelict building used mostly for a parking lot.
What struck me was the part where Scott Simon asks, “So what did they look like close up?”
And Mike Mitchell answers,
I’ve said before that they kind of were an alien species to us… At that point they looked incredibly fresh, you know, like a fresh iteration of the human race. Read More
…This time with a Spotify player for the new CD (scroll down)
Suzy Boggus and Company
We had another one of those “Only In Nashville” kind of nights last night when Suzy Bogguss hosted an outstanding lineup the 3rd and Lindsley Bar & Grill.
Suzy is one of the few artists (and in this case, I use that overused term consciously and deliberately) who achieved some stardom during the “Country Music Integrity Scare” of the 1990s. A lot of the performers who achieved some profile during that period have since disappeared down the backside of the arc of stardom, but Suzy Bogguss keeps turning out great new recordings and remains an absolutely engaging and entertianing performer. I’ve been a fan all along and I’m pleased to see she’s still turning out great music.
Last night at 3rd & Lindsley she opened her own show, joined on stage by Matraca Berg and Gretchen Peters for the ensemble they call “Wine, Women and Song” – offering some of the sweetest three part harmonies since “The Trio” with Emmy, Linda, and Dolly.
That was followed by the real reason for the night, the official release of Lucky, Suzi’s new collection of Merle Haggard songs. For this set she was joined by some of the finest players on the planet: Charlie Chadwick on bass, Chris Scruggs on all sorts of things, Guthrie Trapp on electric guitar, Pat Bergeson on guitars and harmonica, and a drummer, whose name I will insert into this space when somebody reminds me who that was …
Update (Feb 12 ’04): Good News!
Lucky was released yesterday and is already available on Spotify. So have yourself a listen:
P.S. If you see an entry where I have mispelled Suzy’s last name… I know now that there are two “S”s at the end of “Bogguss.” I won’t be making that mistake again…
…The music industry is a $100-billion 21st Century business trapped in a $7-billion 20th Century business model:
That’s according to Marc Geiger, head of William Morris / Endeavor (aka Ari Gold‘s super-agency):
“The recorded music industry can grow to a $100 billion-plus business within the next 15 years – but only if it abandons pushing music ownership and fully embraces the streaming subscription model, said Marc Geiger, WME’s global head of music, during a powerful, deliberately provocative keynote speech on day two of Midem.
“If you still think [the future] is about owning files I will talk to you again in 24 months and you will deny that you ever said it to me,” Geiger stated during a slick 25-minute presentation, which was entitled “20 Years of Pain. No More Fooling Around: The Definitive Future of the Music Business.”
I heard several years ago that the average music “consumer” purchases roughly $40/year of recorded music. So they’re spending $40 year – less than $3.50/mo – to “purchase” 3 to 4 CDs, maybe 30 to 50 tracks to horde in their own personal private music “library.”
So tell them instead that for a measly $10/mo (your mileage may vary) they can have the entire history of recorded music on a gizmo in their pocket and see what happens.
You know the old expression: “do the math.”
So the Interwebs are all-a-flutter….
RHCP @ SB LXVIII: plugs and cables optional
..because the Red Hot Chili Peppers didn’t bother to plug in their guitars when they busted up Bruno Mars half-time show with their totally self-serving and incongruous shriek-rap whateverthefuck that was – which obvious fact the band has ‘fessed up to on their website.
I could frankly care less whether the RHCP played to a track or not. The whole thing is a spectacle, light-years detached from anything of serious musical consequence, so who really cares how it’s staged? If playing to track in a situation like that raises the likelihood that the spectacle will come off without a hitch, fine, whatever.
What surprises me to learn is that neither the Flaming Peppers nor the featured performer whose otherwise enjoyable act they disrupted – that would be Bruno Mars – were paid for their performance. Read More
Did you really just release HALF a record?
Pat Metheny, 20th Century Man
I think I have to confess something that a lot of my Vast Legion of readers will take issue with: I get really irritated when fairly major recording artists use manipulative techniques to get me to buy their records.
And I will confess further, likely much to the dismay of anybody who is still trying to make any kind of a living from “selling music,” that I consider the whole concept very “20th century.”
It’s an idea that originated with Edison and Berliner and Johnson in the early 20th Century.
And has been essentially obsolete since the advent of the Internet, MP3s, and Napster. I live in the era of the Celestial Jukebox now. I expect it all to be delivered for a single monthly fee. Kinda like my cable teevee.
But people keep trying to sell me records, and they keep trying to do it with what I regard as onerous promotional methods.
Like releasing only parts of a new CD on Spotify. As Pat Metheny has done with his new album, called Kin.
First of all, I have been a Pat Metheny fan since early 1980s. As Falls Witchita, So Falls Witchita Falls (released in 1981 – no Spotify link) is one of my all time album titles, and some of the tracks on Off Ramp (released 1982, also no Spotify link) are repeat-play classics.
And I have been listening to a LOT of Pat Metheny lately, in particular his solo acoustic release from 2003, One Quiet Night (Spotify link) and 1992’s multi-sonic-dimensional Secret Story (Spotify link). His music offers that rare blend of soothing and soaring, stimulation without distraction, that is ideal for doing other kinds of work like processing photos or, especially, writing (for the most part; some of his music can also be wild and frenetic and “outside” – and that’s OK, too. That’s what the “skip” buttons are for…)
In fact, I just shelled out something like $150 for two tickets to see Pat Metheny when he plays the Ryman auditorium later this month. That’s a hell of a lot more money than I’ve paid to almost any artist I can think of in the past year or so (I tend to frequent small, less expensive clubs than the bigger concert halls).
So imagine my perplexion when I went to Spotify and discovered that, yes, like the email said, Kin by Pat Metheny is now available on Spotify… but ONLY 5 OF THE 9 TRACKS ON THE ALBUM.
What the fuck? C’mon Pat, what’s the fucking point? Do you seriously think that I am going to set aside my 21st Century, stream-it-all model just to hear the other four tracks? Are you and your management (more likely) so out of touch with how new technology works in the marketplace that you really think that’s going to work on me?
Is the $150 I just put directly into your pocket (apart from whatever onerous “convenience fees” that were part of that sum), not enough to sustain your creative energy? Do you really need the $9 that the full record would cost to download, or, worse, just the $4 to “purchase” the original tracks?
I cannot begin to tell you how antiquated the whole concept sounds to me. Or how disappointing it is that you’ve attempted to “tease” me with a partial release.
I know that the royalties that streaming services pay are a subject of raging controversy all over the Interwebs. I know that artists and labels get paid only a fraction of a penny each time a track is streamed over the internet, and that those streams cannibalize the market for potential unit sales. Or as friend of mine just put it, “Spotify is great for me and devastating for creators.”
To which I have to respond: if it is great for the user, then the creators will have to adjust, because what works for the customer is always what will prevail in the marketplace (that’s an old law of economics that I just made up).
The advantage of streaming for a creator is, potentially, in the multitude of plays. When I buy a record, the artist and his label get paid once. But when I stream a recording over and over again – precisely as I have been doing lately with Pat Metheny – the creators get paid every time. Yes, the actual numbers may bear some adjusting, but over the long term, and as more people become accustomed to this mode of delivery, the numbers are going to add up.
Because, like Lefsetz keeps saying, the future is streaming.
So please, don’t insult my good intentions and fan-boyhood by withholding half of your new release from the format that I am most inclined to listen to.
Now, all that said, let me hasten to add: there are circumstances when I will purchase CDs, but that is typically when I have gotten excited about some new, emerging artist – somebody who can genuinely benefit from an individual expression of support, both personal and financial. And, as often as not, I will be happy to contribute considerably more than the cost of a single CD to that artist’s crowd-funding campaign if they ask for it. In the past few years I’ve made a lot more $35 to $50 contributions to such campaigns than I have purchased individual $15 CDs.
Because this is the 21st Century. Because I want to a “patron,” not a “consumer.”
This new record sounds terrific, what I’ve heard of it, and I will probably listen a lot to those FIVE of the NINE tracks. And Pat will get a few pennies for the privilege. And those pennies will add up across the breadth of the considerable following he has amassed over the several decades of his career.
I like Kin so much that I’m going to embed the Spotify player for it right here in this blog post, so you can listen to the tracks that are available now:
But I will NOT go to iTunes and drop even the $4 it would cost me to get the other tracks. Because iTunes is just not how I listen to (god, how I hate the word “consume”) music any more.
“Selling” discrete units of music – (vinyl, CDs, downloads, whatever the format) is an industrial model, and we don’t live in an industrial economy any more.
If you don’t believe me, then just climb into my time machine, fly about 20 years into the future, and look back on today.
See what I mean?
And the end of an era (for me, anyway…)
I was just scrolling through my photo archives in search of something and found this instead —from June, 2003.
Ann’s boys had just moved to Portland, Oregon and this was our first visit out there to see them.
It was about a month later that I got my first serious digital camera, a Nikon D100, so this one of the last photos I shot with my trusty old Nikon F2 and that mysterious, antiquated substance called “film.”
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