WRONG NOTES: a blog of ear reverence
Wrong Notes collects posts on music, art, culture and fun stuff. Also included: news about the Ear Reverends.
My so-called life as a music buisness of one
The Ear Reverends is not a business, but the more the Ear Reverends is happening, the more there's a lot of busy-ness around that.
I've been working on a really cool update to the Ear Reverends website, that's around adding a novel, homemade, music player. But, it's taking a while, in part because it's another "job" I am doing on top of everything else. This made me think about all of the "jobs" I am doing associated with this music.
To the degree all of this is happening through me alone, or through just a small group of people, maybe it's odd to say this is "music business." But, it's also maybe indicative of what it means to be a musician today, where one can choose DIY + creative freedom over the record company sharecropping arrangements common during the 20th century. But that DIY = do-it-yourself = things you spend a lot of time doing.
So, what follows is a sketch of these "busy-ness obligations" in which I am finding myself somewhat mired.
To set the stage: by day, I create websites for a living; by night I write and record new music. That's a pretty virtuous circle in itself, except it limits the amount of time I have to do music, and also doesn't really address the potential that other people might want to know this music. So, I build out from there.
My efforts have gone into creating HereJam, which I call a startup music label. It also encompasses HereJam recording studio. It's really associated with almost all of my music business: it touches on record engineering and production, it touches on artist and music project development, and it's music distribution, licensing, merchandising, marketing. It's a lot of stuff!
There's also the administrative tasks associated with copyrights and performing rights. The music gets registered with the US Copyright office (easier now that one can do it online), and I've also created Magnolia Harvest as a music publisher, affiliated with BMI (also easier via online registration).
So, all of this translates into these tasks (outside of the creative writing / recording part):
- studio maintenance
- asset management (e.g., sound files)
- engineering and production (which is mostly creative for me, but project management comes into play—and I do work with outside mastering engineers, so scheduling is an issue, as well)
- contracts (with other musicians, etc.)
- cataloging (data about songs, tracks, copyright status, etc.)
- copyright administration
- performance rights administration (via Magnolia Harvest)
- editorial (liner notes, etc.)
- song and album art, layout and design
- production file management (making mp3s, FLAC files, etc., and tagging them)
- file distribution (getting the files online in the right place)
- CD manufacturing (it's still part of the picture)
- Book / art printing (part of our interest in novel formats)
- CD distribution (currently via CD Baby, but takes some effort)
- Postcard and marketing design
- Postcard printing, and mailings
- Merch design (t-shirts, stickers, buttons)
- Managing inventory (CDs, books, prints, postcards, merch, etc.)
- Emailings, blog posts and other communications to fans
- "Fan mail" correspondence (can't complain about this!)
- Updating canned artists sites on MySpace, Facebook, Soundcloud, etc.
- Updating custom websites (for each artist, and for HereJam, and for Magnolia Harvest)
Because of the web and various ways these services can be outsourced to third-parties, in some sense, it's pretty easy to do all of this—even as an individual. And, it's possible this could even be pretty efficient if you're in a band where, say, the guitarist does the website and the drummer does the art and the bassist does the mailings (sorry bassists, but I know you always get the crap jobs), etc. Even better: your friends and fans step in and help with some of these tasks.
And, most importantly, if you've got this freedom to do this all yourself, you also have the freedom to not do a bunch of it. Don't care about performance rights? just skip them. Don't care to make merch? don't bother. Don't want a custom website? just use MySpace, etc.
But, for the Ear Reverends / HereJam / Magnolia Harvest, it's more like a startup where all these things are being done. And, the idea is that they'll eventually be in place enough to be a foundation, e.g., there was busy-ness that allowed Err or Man to happen, and now there's busy-ness that should allow the next Ear Reverends' album to happen AND the debut album from Equal Squeaky AND the reissue release of Slobot AND maybe even the debut from Elvis Shellfish and the Negative Mariachi (working with a Rock 'n Roll shellfish involves a whole other set of creative talent management tasks I won't even get into ;-).
So, I guess that all is a way of saying: stay tuned!
RIP Mitch Mitchell / Voodoo drums
Coincidentally, I was just reading-up about the new Jimi Hendrix Park in Seattle when I heard about the death of Mitch Mitchell (drummer for the Jimi Hendrix Experience).
I am kind-of at a loss for words simply because nothing says more about Mitch Mitchell's drumming than listening to Mitch Mitchell's drumming. But, great drummer—and, over the years, I always wished he'd shown up on more recordings with post-Hendrix artists.
A couple videos to remember Mitch: first a drum solo on "Voodoo Chile" with the Jimi Hendrix Experience in Sweden, 1969. Then, a video with Mitch as the drummer in The Dirty Mac (John Lennon, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards and Mitch Mitchell) doing "Yer Blues" on The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus in 1968.
(On this second video, the song comes on after a minute of silly dialog between John Lennon and Mick Jagger.)
RIP Mitch Mitchell
Can’t get no satisfaction
This could apply to so many things (like, say, getting the update to this site finished "soon").
But, in this case, I thought I'd try out the new MTV Music site—and so I refer instead to Devo's version of the Rolling Stone's "Satisfaction," and the classic video thereof, include herein.
Actually, I was thinking that people addicted to news and commentary about the upcoming US election are going to need a new drug after next Tuesday, and access to 20,000+ MTV music videos might offer an alternative fix for a while. But, then again, watch the video below—you know what I mean?
Beautiful Great Egret photos
I am surprised more people aren't sharing links to these incredible fine art photos of Great Egrets.
Photographer Terry Turrentine takes stunning photos of Great Egrets in the wild. They're quite amazing photos: the birds themselves are interesting to look at, but the photos also capture their setting in a way that's almost hard to imagine—it's almost so non-human that you can't imagine a photographer being present.
The tonality of Terry's photos and prints—the technical quality, is also notably excellent. (I am fortunate to have one of her prints, and I can attest to their technical artistry.)
Terry also has a surprising artist bio—one involving a long history with firearms. I don't want to give away the story, but it's worth reading.
(Disclosure: I got to know Terry's work via my day job, where we designed and built her Great Egret website.)
The Simpsons as radio show
If only copyright laws weren't so draconian, I'd make and release some cut-ups purely out of audio from The Simpsons.
So, I pointed the music player at Songs in the Key of Springfield and let it play through while working on some stuff. If you've seen all the shows a couple times, at this point, I think there's no better way to enjoy them then as radio shows. Since sitting around listening to new radio sitcoms is a lost art, maybe a revival could be had via now-classic TV shows re-imagined as radio.
With The Simpsons audio-only, you get witty dialog, funny vocal characterizations, clever songs, interesting arrangements, goofy sound effects and, most importantly, your imagination open to all kinds of entertainment beyond the TV show visuals. The CDs, like Songs in the Key of Springfield are a great way to get into this. But, if you already have The Simpsons on DVD, you could put a disc on, turn-up the volume, and walk away until the TV screen is out of view.
But, maybe some of the creators of The Simpsons will someday create an all-Simpsons-all-the-time radio station—e.g., on satellite radio. Or, even a weekly radio show made purely of audio from The Simpsons, which could be great—it'd be like a funny version of A Prairie Home Companion.
Also notable: Alf Clausen, makes really great music on The Simpsons. I mean, Canyonero!:
Can you name the car with a four-wheel drive
Smells like a steak and seats thirty-five?
Canyonero!
Canyonero!
Shaky Hands
I've been getting into this band, from Portland, the Shaky Hands.
They're actually playing tonight in Seattle, at the Tractor Tavern. Although I really wanted to go see them, and they haven't actually played yet (I am guessing they're going on around 10:30 or 11p), based on the reading on my MellowMeter (currently pronounced mel-low-OM-eat-a-a-a-a-r), looks like I am going to miss the show.
But, if you are in the area (or, when they're playing in your town), definitely go and check them out—and let me know what you hear.
As consolation, I found a cool video of one of their songs, "We Are Young":
Steal this
I've been meaning to start an ongoing series / dialog here about why the Ear Reverends' music isn't for sale in the iTunes music store.
I've intentionally not released tracks via the iTunes music store (iTMS) because I feel they would offer inferior versions compared with what I can offer here. (Note: you can, of course, still play Ear Reverends music in iTunes and on your iPod—you just can't purchase the tracks from the "iTunes Store.")
But this post was prompted by today's xkcd comic, Steal This Comic, which is about DRM, aka, so-called "Digital Rights Management." xkcd really says it all about why DRM is so bad that one is better off even getting music via questionable sources than buying tracks with DRM:
So, with iTMS, one aspect of the inferiority of the tracks available there is DRM. One can buy DRM-free tracks on the iTMS, but I don't believe it's possible for me to ensure that all of the Ear Reverends tracks sold are DRM-free. And, in principle, I do want to ensure that all Ear Reverends' tracks are DRM-free, so that they remain totally playable / sharable over time.
Of course, I am curious if anyone really does want to buy Ear Reverends tracks via the iTMS—I am aware how important a store iTMS is for music sales. But, ongoing, I am continuing to look for ways to promote the Ear Reverends and sell tracks independent of the iTMS.
(Note that tracks will be for sale, here, soon on the Ear Reverends site!)
Animatronic sausages in New York City
I couldn't help but post about the new Banksy pet store in the West Village.
I was supposed to be in NYC next week, but my trip got canceled—I'll have to put this in the "art shows that I missed" category.
I like Banksy's art. Banksy is known as a prankster artist / street artist / graffiti artist. And, his new "show" is essentially a pet store called The Village Pet Store And Charcoal Grill.
It's really a pet store. But, the pets are . . .
OK, probably best to just go to the site and see the videos. Here's one type of pet—Sausages:
Also, the Wooster Collective shot a video of the store:
The video is just one part of the Wooster Collective's review, which is altogether worth a read, and includes good photos.
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