What Musicians Can Teach Us About Employment In A Digital World

It was 1998, the Internet came creeping into our lives like the first tendrils of creamer in a cup of coffee.  The first round of CD burners had to be bought separately. They cost almost half as much as the computer itself with a strong possibility of installing an additional port to connect the giant serial cable.  It wouldn't be more than 3 or 4 years before every computer came with a CD-R as a standard drive. Around that time Napster snuck in with file sharing technology utilizing MP3 compression.  Piracy was no longer about the old tape dub paradigm of buying a cd and making copies for friends. Now you could just go find any new album posted up by someone on the other side of the country.

We had record/video stores back then and the harbinger of doom that would eventually put record stores out of business and loose havoc on the Record industry confronted you in tubes of 10, 50, and 150 CD-Rs on a shelf where top ten albums used to live. The big labels mustered all their collective strength and tried to put up a fight.  DART already gave them a portion of the sales of blank media, but they went further suing websites and even consumers using the file sharing and piracy websites.  It was way too late though, technology had drifted into Wild West territory.  $14.99 could never compete with free.  

In those days, Silicon Valley was quickly maneuvering the wild west of cyberspace into real world supremacy. The computer industry simply had more economic clout than the record industry.  Freedom of speech warred with intellectual property.  There was no game book on how to fight a data storm.  When bandwidth started growing and the video industry became threatened by the same fate as the music industry piracy really met a slightly more prepared foe. The danger of malware being downloaded with the desired new movie or album contributed to that portion of the internet becoming a shady red light district.  SOPA had its moment but collapsed under scrutiny of totalitarianism. Eventually legal disruption would siphon off the profits into software gatekeepers. One by one technology would beat out established institutions,  Netflix would destroy Blockbuster and Spotify and YouTube would become primary means of media distribution. Streaming and On Demand would replace owning and rentals.  Uber and Lyft came for the Taxi companies.  AirBnB came for the hotel industry. Amazon came for brick and mortar retail.  It won't be long before all incomes are effected by this blossoming Technological Revolution, that's the world we live in now.    

So how do we survive?

Musicians, even in the glory days were at the bottom of the food chain.   The creators of the content so deeply craved were consistently beholding record labels who took as little as 50% of all revenue, after recouped costs for advances on recording, touring and promoting.  As now, few rose to the top and made fortunes.  The industry funneled investment into "sure shots" leading gradually to more generic than the generic that came before. Quality of creation suffered for economics, taste factored less and less as businessmen discovered the population would consume whatever they doled out. Minimum investment maximum gain.  

The Internet at the turn of the millennium held a momentary promise of democratizing the industry, returning power to creators by tearing down the infrastructure between creators and consumers.  Little did we know what that meant, but we all made our MySpace pages and bought into the new paradigm.  We were the forefront of the "indie" revolution, directly accessing and selling to our fans like never before. 

The modern musician cannot consider creating music their sole occupation. The artist needs now be an entrepreneur, a marketing expert, a booking agent, a tour and business manager, a publisher, a lawyer, a graphic designer, a highly connected networker, etc. etc.  Oh, and you also need a day job. Fortunately most of this new "workload" can be done from a smart phone. Simultaneously, technology also simplified actual creation, enabling common to achieve standard quality with little or no effort. The market floods, the commodity of music suffers a sort of inflation despite being consumed more than ever before, and the value of the consumable drops dramatically...Yet fortunes are to be made by offering access. 

So a shift occured in the nature of the artist.  They continue creating, no longer expecting any real recompense in the here and now.  However, the greatest tragedy the artist can imagine is going through the struggle and loving effort of creating a masterpiece no one will ever see, and a new niche of visibility middlemen was born. Those offering access to consumers convinced the content creators that sharing everything for free rewards the commodity of exposure (potentially with a someday payout).  Every kid with GarageBand is giving away their tracks on ReverbNation while BFA Composers lurk in forums like beggars seeking an unpaid gigs to build a portfolio, and if you wiggle your ears right while touching your nose with your elbow you can get your stuff on internet radio or Spotify. Opportunistic Business Sharks circle picking at the edges.  Music libraries accept submissions and take 50% for royalty free placement.   Networking gatekeepers commodify connections.  Pay to post "seeking", pay to respond.  We fall under the spell of "Market through Facebook, build up a following..." Pay for some ads or risk invisibility.  Use the tools and platforms and networking sites.  Play friendly. Schmooze a little.  Email influencers, like their feeds.  Get a shout out from a blog. See a bump in new commodity of likes.  Pour more hours into the marketing struggle. 

Somehow the system, like a great alchemist, turned creativity into a form of consumerism. 

If the goal was to make a living doing what we love, how did we end up convinced that doing something else would open the doors to getting rich off of our dreams?  It was madness focusing on results instead of process.  Putting promotion over the craft, leaning ladders against wrong walls and wondering why results aren't forthcoming. We called the new pursuit branding and identity.  It's what the stars were doing. All the Success Blogs said it was imperative to breaking through the noise and being noticed.  They sold the desire to be perceived into an outer ideal, rather than leveraging our personal truth, we lost sight of the path.  To have all those hours back, to instead perfect something hidden but unmistakably genius. 

Time unlocks purpose when faced with giving up childhood idolizations and moving on or choosing to carry our efforts into an uncertain future.  Every year that passes you must make a decision to continue. The source of resiliency is passion. The journey is the destination. Everything needed to know could be found in practice.  Slowing down through a difficult passage.  Persistence to build strength and speed.  Coordination and altering approach. Internalizing and assimilating.  Learning the rules to break them.  Baby steps towards greatness.  The practice improves the whole person. The pursuit was a spiritual one, meditations in motion, one step cleaner, faster, stronger, longer. To find joy by disappearing in the effort.  

And that is when you get the reward...  

So how does all of this relate to a coal miner?  

I don't think of coal mining as an emotionally rewarding task.  Not particularly good for the environment either.  Coal miners are, however, losing their lucrative jobs like musicians did thanks to changing technology.   Like musicians they are in need of day jobs. Gainful employment.  

What followed originally was a diatribe against the failings of late capitalism and a romantic exploration of a utopian future. This derailed into a whole new post. To be read...

Instead I'll conclude with the original design intact.   What musicians have to teach us about 

employment in a digital age is:

On occasion you may have to do some menial shit you don't want to do in order to finance the life you accept living.  It may seem beneath you but if it keeps you fed, with a roof over your head you can survive enough to side hustle a true ambition.  Start planting the seeds today and water them every chance you get.

Constantly seek personal improvement with persistence and focus.  A siren song of media and marketing seeks to convert your efforts into their profits. Don't fall for it.  Pursue your goal diligently. Find interest in the cloud surrounding your path and grow from where you are.   Become the best at what you want to be, if you are not that then the propping up will blow down in the first wind.  Change is inevitable, the skills of today will become obsolete tomorrow. If you are not climbing you are sliding down hill.  A good investor will tell you to diversify... the same goes for skills and talents.  Never stop learning.

Musings On Old Art

Old art and the acquisition of new skills leaves one to wonder whether or not they should go "George Lucas" on old projects and revitalize them or let them go and move on to the next creation, pushing forward once again into uncharted territory.  A third option exists which is destroy it and never ever let it be seen. Ever. 

The great fear is perpetual turd polishing, that yesterdays little baby was in fact a giant useless piece of shit that needs flushing.  The great waste is hoarding work expecting that some day its inherent value will increase like wine in a cask. 

One might consider art an exercise to develop self, but if the past is just training for that which is to come then should the fruit of that labor be disposable or hidden like a dirty secret.  Art created in a vacuum might serve some cathartic purpose of time passage but will doubtful bring the outcome of self expression the artist needs.   Art by its nature demands a sacrificial victim to experience the creation.  Its reward center craves the notice of another for the price of sharing.  Value allotted to art lies solely with the beholder.  Take a look at the works of Basquiat for example: childish, simple, however lauded and applauded, held in high esteem by collectors, highly priced.  What is it that sets these works apart?  Certainly we are somewhat attracted to the lives of these artists, elevating value with the use of celebrity and hype. Ideally the childish free playing artist presented to the masses will die young leaving the collectors to hype and create inflated value for the now obligation free investment. The value of abstraction will always be questionable, and most of the time a name is all that matters...I digress. 

I think I'm presenting a case for outsider music, the schizophrenic on a Casio keyboard.  They are found on the street their dedication brings them to the attention of at least a select few who herald it as innovative and original. Its existence goes against everything the mainstream wishes to cram down our collective throats. 

This does not serve the evolving artist   seeking technical mastery behind creativity.  I venture to say that the artist in pursuit of this virtuoso goal will never be able to achieve it because the horizon of quality will always be over the next mountain.  It seems such a waste that those early mountains should be lost. Thus reiterating whether or not one should go back to early works to "fix" them with quality and skills acquired in later life.  

 I seem to be on the fence about this issue because I would rather move on and create something new than spend my time re-examining and repairing my past. Yet I am reluctant to let go even of things that now serve only as embarrassing milestones.  Occasionally I think that kid as stupid and naive as he was had some decent ideas.  Most of those thoughts were incomplete and crippled from inception. They laid dormant on hard drives for years. Stealing precious gigabytes and waiting to be nurtured from inadequacy into a state of sharability.  Growth and life experience leads us away from that place  and now as a completely different person it seems pointless to have these immature ideas lingering around and taking up space. By Beiber standards they could have been great, but who is holding them self to Bieber standards.  That silliness needs be delivered by a 15-23 year old like the one that wrote it.  That silliness needs someone like the grown up I am now make it good.  That moment has passed, I am different, the culture is different, and going back to reshape my little gremlin babies seems wrong but necessary if I was to proudly present them to the light of day. 

These works I have snuck into being invisibly available to the scrutiny of the public eye. The cost is seeking them,  which turns out is a lofty price to pay.  I create some new name for an old thing and banish it to exile in some dark corner of the web, mostly to keep them from dying, or at least tell myself I didn't kill them.  When these works were made there was no YouTube or Bandcamp, or ReverbNation. MySpace was the start of all that, and even that was late to the party.   So the works have served no purpose in exposure.  Instead it's me that now needs to shine a light on these blighted creations.  I want them to go be their own thing.  Their connection to my name leads me to prefer that they fit the personal brand I now seek to maintain, but instead they represent a kid I once was. I love them for that but they exist as reminders that that kid wasn't good enough. 

 In today's society who we are and what we show are expected to be two separate things.  The past that helped arrive somewhere is not so important as where the public eye sees and recognizes our current position. 

Ideally that current position would be above the herd so that they might look up in adoration and respect or envy and loathing... As long as they are looking. 

The great fault lies in not putting each thing out as it comes.  YouTube is littered with kids posting amateur videos, some of these videos launch careers and pave the way to work with talents that compensate and elevate the artists brand allowing their genius to shine down upon the masses. In the new world of "Content  Is King", quality may not be as important as it once was.  Polished can come across as fake, amateur can come across as genuine.  

Perhaps our evolution can be an inspiration to help another start challenging them self.  Perhaps improving our old art can help us develop new skills or help us touch back on a commercial sensibility rejected along the way. All I know is if I stop creating, I might as well be dead.  The stuff I'm making now I'm pretty happy with.  5 years from now I'll probably feel like it's garbage, and that's ok because that means I'm getting better. 

My New Backyard

Joshua Tree has long been one of my favorite places on earth. I now have the pleasure of calling it home.

What Exactly Is Americana music?

I think its time to face it...  Country music has failed us (at least the label).  There are a few artists trying to redeem the genre but most are just riding that horse into the ground.  One can see the trajectory, and our favorites are amongst the culprits as Country music mutated from Bill Monroe, Hank Williams,Woody Guthrie, and Carter Family, to Johnny Cash, Ray Price, Waylon Jennings, Dave Dudly, Merle Haggard, then Barbara Mandrell, Alabama,  George Strait, to Garth Brooks(We will just Pretend Chris Gaines never happened), Clint Black,  Shania Twain, Kenny Chesney, Keith Urban and then to Carrie Underwood and Taylor Swift.  Country has pushed towards rock ever since it was put on the radio,  and taken out of the hills and barns, Rockabilly,  the world influenced by Buddy holly,  and Elvis Presley,  It was a sign of the times the wash of the conglomerate on everything. Honky Tonk lead to Rhinestone Cowboys and disco slipped its hand into the faded blue jeans of the dance hall.  Popular means plastic despite the substance underneath.   The interesting paradox of the migration of the genre "Country" to the Viacom stereotype of pop music phenomenon (complete with rock guitars, highlit hair,  and perhaps a cowboy hat and an embroidered plaid)  has left many artists struggling for a way to label the music of the current underground (and soon to be very popular) movement returning to roots directions.

 "Oh Brother Where Art Thou?" was perhaps the turning point where mainstream culture breathed a new breath of past into a young generation, resetting the trajectory at the mark. Some artists were there before but, only a small contingency of people were into it. I think the revival that injected the old bluegrass or hills blues soul back in a big commercial way hails back to the Coen Brothers who made that world relevant in a huge way.  The ripple has been spreading ever since spawning the birth of a huge contingency of artists  who are now creating western themed "Americana" Music, yet are having a hard time trying to define themselves, There seems to be this huge revival of Roots centered music,  as is supported by sites like No Depression,  and a random splattering of blogs.  It seems to be leaking out into the mass media and mainstream.  and becoming fashionable once again but we can't really call it "Country Music" anymore. The thousands of roots country variations unsure of what to call themselves have turned to labels like Roots Music, Americana,  Folk,  Alternative Country,  Insurgent Country, Folk Noir,   there is even a contingency advocating a genre called XXX after moonshine bottles of yore.  The greater harm here though is that "Country"seems to have been clamed by the Nashville camp, who redefined the genre with a steady evolution into bleached hair, designer clothes, pop rock music with a drawl etc. and somehow lost itself In the process.  

It all goes back to Tin Pan Alley

Songwriters handing over songs to big name producers, producers polishing,  artists into the cookie cutter cutout of "What Sells." the remaining struggling CEOs pushing last ditch efforts to make sure their artists get the exposure on the last of the dying radio airwaves.  Since the 90s the distance between R&B Radio and country Radio has been growing smaller and smaller,  Granted there is still a difference,  I heard a country song that felt the need to claim it was country music lyrically because it was obscured in the timbre and production( i think it was called "This is a Country Song".   Songs like "I swear" by Baker & Myers pounded the charts in 1994 crossing genres and released by both John Micheal Montgomery and All-4-One. Take Townes Van Zant, writing from the rough he may just be considered folk though he wrote Pancho and Lefty which turned out to be a huge country hit in the hands of Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard.  but the Willie and Merle version is pretty electric. That should set the stage for where things are coming from and how they are sold. 

Now that "Americana" is becoming popular, it is finding itself in a similar identity crisis as its older relative, "Country".  But to be fair,  Americana is a lot more ambiguous.  Technically all things made in america are "Americana".  Not really fair because hip-hop, jazz and blues have their own genre,  folk too i suppose is its own thing.  Furthermore there are a lot of European bands knocking on the door of the american sound and doing it well where america is faltering.  So the American sound, must captivate the american Pioneer spirit,  perhaps the popularity exists because economically we the hipsters like to think of now as our own great depression.  Perhaps we are hung up on the Idea of the wild west, outlaws and anarchy but that comes from the Italians.  Is "Americana" defined by instrumentation, using acoustics or sounding old?  No matter what we end up defining this as, It is happening, it is growing and it is a counter-cultural phenomenon.  It is also a repetition of the past and where the Noughts reminded us of the 80s, I am pretty sure we are gearing up for some mixture of this and 90s grunge for the Teens.  I would continue to speculate but I am interested to see how this plays out.

A Rainy Day in Los Angeles

Its actually been a rainy gang of days, but just at the right time. After months with out internet, the Internet's long awaited reappearance makes the prospect of hiding behind glass and admiring the gray from a distance seem swell.  

"Nighthawks at the Diner" is playing in the back ground, and Tom Waits is spitting out a fitting "Emotional Weather Report" as I shuffle files from hard drive to hard drive,  expecting that all meetings today are off,  and pondering effect that the thickness in the air will have on rehearsal later tonight. 

The busses outside noisily sludge through the streets of Korea-town but everything smells cleaner,  gloomy faces, no gloomier than usual, seem to fit the mood.  I of course am imagining faces on the pinhead characters I can see wandering from the subway lines down by Wilshire.

We are doing well to be out of bed, sipping coffee, wearing sweaters, letting cool air and soft light in for fresh rejuvenation.   Its funny when LA feels like this, like it could last till winter this way, like there might be a seasonal change upon the winds. 

Should be back to normal in no time... That's sort of what makes me sad,  I was getting into the idea of wearing London clothes,  or a cold weather Montana Mountain Man coat.  I miss the soul that is missing here. I keep hoping that the moisture will warp and crumble the cardboard cutouts that prevent us from seeing anything real in this god forsaken city of angels...

Breakfast of Champions

Dear Breakfast,
This morning I ate you... you were an extraordinary bowl of grape nuts which I drowned under 2% milk and topped with rice chex. It was a really nice combination, and got along dashingly with the banana I had eaten in two bites thirty minutes earlier. As I recall the peal had come off remarkably easily, not like the little yellow raincoats of doom that eventually break somewhere on the side oozing bruised banana pudding... but not this morning.

Dedicated to my nephew Kole, because one can do anything they feel like.

Long Distance Driving

Texas to LA with London on my Mind

Is not Sunday the day of rest?, As John Denver said "all my bags are packed I'm ready to go" I had stayed up all night some time ago to save on the waking you up to say goodbye...
The last days in Texas and I am hung on the last day in London two months ago. Time is slower here. And its a funny way to lose your head and find your feet: Blowing out the left overs of the lord. Clean again, finally free from the assorted guts of a Case International Harvester Combine. The best of me was futile here. I left it somehow In the United Kingdom. And the return journey was not a straight nor narrow.
West was the battle cry. California or Bust. The Industry of Make Believe. And the Freeways I knew all to well. Theatres, Movie Sets, Studios, All waiting with there ivory capped teeth, smiling a smile that one with the right eyes can see the sinister intention that will take you in and hold you there forever. This would be fine had there not been Europe. In the Golden state, my craft's at least were appreciated, though my direction changed steadily toward an Eagle Scout Mobility Badge. Music Is a tomahawk in the hands of a Moosechaser.