( 10:21 AM )
Monday, February 23. 10:30AM. Music Currently Playing: Anthill Society (streaming)
>From: "Michael Walls"
>Uh...here's craig's band's website. He's got some samples for downloading. Go figure.
>http://[url removed]
Yeah, I'd noticed. All mp3's. They have cleverly attempted to thwart filesharing by disabling the right click save-as function, but any fool can click view>source and with minimal knowledge of html write a quick proxy page that will allow all the right-clicking in the world. I will refrain from comments about hypocrisy.
Now, for some brutal truth:
I listened to most of Anthill's samples streaming and was deeply unimpressed... there is this genre of rock I like to call "Middle Age Failure Rock" and indeed I would say that about half of the cd's I get from bands to review for 2walls fall into this category - all of these musicians in their late 30's and early 40's who have nothing new or original to offer us musically, but persist in their teenage fantasy of "making it."
This is what I was satirizing in my Hot Pork Deathpie rant in my blog entry for November 20 down below--which I know was also, apparently, controversial because it was so viciously direct. In my defense I should explain that I do love listening to the indie music I get as much as anyone else that writes for 2walls because of the hope that it doesn't suck, and the reason why I felt I could be that vicious about some of the mediocre music I do receive (though note that Hot Pork Deathpie is fictional, people) is because I have been there myself:
Like many American teenagers, I taught myself to play guitar when I was fourteen, I saved up to buy an amp, I used to carry my guitar around high school because I was a big geek and it made the girls notice me (and ahem, it worked). Turned out I was a passably fair lead singer and charismatic and unafraid enough to front the stage so that I ended up in a few rock bands (dig this: they were called "The Starving Artists," "Thirtheenth Floor" and "Sputtermonkey" - true cheese); we recorded demos, we did live shows, we fantasized about "making it."
BUT, the difference between me and someone like Craig is that I never took myself so seriously that I started *believing the fantasy.* My bands were never better than mediocre, and some part of me always knew it. That doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it. That doesn't mean I didn't work hard at it while I was doing it. But that self-awareness kept my motives pure: the idea was to enjoy myself, and to make sure whatever audience was listening at the time enjoyed themselves too - and it never went any farther, because in reality, *it couldn't*. We just weren't very good.
When it came time for me to get married, have a kid, and get a "real job" to support that wife and that kid, I set that fantasy aside and acted like an adult and buckled down and did what I had to do. I don't regret it. I could have chosen not to get married, and pursued my teenage fantasy I suppose. Been a "rock star." At age thirty five I would likely be the sketch I provided in that blog entry: single, sleeping on the sofa at a friend's, dreaming of "making it big." I could have been one of the bands sending mediocre music to webzines for review. But instead I found a new dream for myself. A dream that involved the love and protection of others - and in that sense it was not a dream that fullfilled my own bloating ego the way the typical rockstar dream would have done, but fulfilled my success as a member of humanity, by spreading love, patience, and safety to those I live with. I know without a doubt that my life is far better off, far more enriched for the wife and the child than it would have been without them.
That makes me feel sad for those middle aged musicians who are still trying to "make it" - that they don't get this, that they are still caught up in a dream that fulfills only themselves, only their egos, and no one else. It implies that their lives are, comparatively, a failure. At the end of that blog rant, I tried to clarify that this is not necessarily true, since they are doing something that I, arguably, did not have the balls to do - pursue a dream in spite of the logical alternatives. That's something that takes guts, courage, hutzpah, and beleif in yourself. More power to them for trying, I say. And I should clarify that Craig and the Anthills may not fall into this category at all - I don't really know - Craig could very well be a husband and father. Good for him if he is.
Either way, it doesn't change the fact that his music is and will remain mediocre. I know, those are tough words. And generally you won't see them on 2walls webzine, because the underlying philosophy here is that it is counterproductive to give a negative music review to an indie artist. I felt the need to call the bluff here though, and the consequence of this is for me to say explicitly, "I am not a fan." That doesn't mean, necessarily, that you the reader may not have a difference of opinion. Taste is, after all, the enemy of art.
If I were Craig, I wouldn't be making some financial argument against music downloading, I wouldn't call those in favor of it communists. Instead I would point out that before mass media, even a mediocre band could be successful because there was no way for the audience to have a basis of comparison. In that sense, music downloading very much is responsible for destroying the dreams of struggling musicians. The advent of technologies like radio, vinyl, cd's, and now especially mp3's and the internet, means that your average audience will be far more familiar with various types of music than the audience of past eras. The less educated audience would probably be satisfied with a band like Anthill Society because they had no basis of comparison.
In a sense mass media means that we, as an audience, will always be provided with the best and the brightest of any area - music, sports, art, literature, so that there is no room for merely average dreamers to dream of success in any of those arenas. Mass media guarantees that there will always be someone smarter and better at what we wish to try.
It used to be that communities had a decent, and fair division of labor. There was the town joker, the commedian of his time, the musician, the artist, the writer, and because the communities were small, and because as an audience, the members of the communities did not know what they were missing by not necessarily having the best and the brightest living and working in their community, they were thrilled with what they got. Fullfillment was achieved on both sides; by the audience who was fulfilled by the art and music they got however mediocre, and by the artists and musicians who could fulfill their dream of providing it. In the present, such a scenario is impossible. I find Anthill Society mediocre because of how many better bands I have heard that I can compare them to. The bar for success was raised by my access to mass media. Not just the internet though. I grew up listening to my dad's Led Zepplin and Beatles records. And compared to those two bands, most everyone else falls far short. Does that mean I immediately compare every band I hear to those two I noted?
No. In the end I just like what I like, and my response to the objection that mass media destroys the success of mediocrity is just that. You either got it, or you don't.
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( 11:53 AM )
Wednesday, February 18. Noonish. Music Currently Playing: TV On the Radio, Young Liars EP
The article I wrote is apparently beginning to generate a variety of responses.
I received this in email this morning from a Craig R. from San Antonio, TX:
> Mr. Scrivner, you are way off the mark on this one. I own a small independent
>record label, Tone Quarry Records, and I play drums in an originals rock band,
>Jim Murray?s Ant Hill Society. We have aspirations of market success. We
>scraped together what money we could to put our album together. The hard earned
>cash which went towards producing this project was invested with the intent of
>returning profit on that investment. Does the corporate Fat Cat philosophy
>apply to us as well? Jim Murray, our lead singer, wrote the tunes. We, the
>band, arranged and did the studio work. We were in studio for nearly 8 months.
>A friend did the art work for a small fee. Our web designer, Motion Picture
>Graphics, did the web site work on a contingency basis. Is there no value
>placed on our time and effort? Is the songwriter's creativity and time a
>donation to the consumer's enjoyment?
I am wondering if my tendency to be long winded has resulted in people reading the first half of my article and not getting to the particulars of my argument when I get done with pumping out my long-winded rhetoric.
In response to Craig, From my own article, I quote:
The argument goes that the musicians that make all the great music we enjoy, are being deprived of money they need to live, and without it would therefore not be able to share more music with us. Seems clear enough – and I need to be explicitly clear that in principle I agree with this; I have no objection to any musician being paid for his or her work. I think this is exactly what should happen. Music enriches our lives, and those that produce it should be rewarded. But do not be misled into thinking that music downloading necessarily equates starving musicians.
and
Fact: there has been no concrete proof offered so far that music downloading has caused financial loss for musicians. While there has been a downward trend in record sales in the past three years, that downward trend matches a similar downward trend in the rest of the economy. In a time when dad can’t find work and mom is working retail to make sure the mortgage gets paid, you can sure as hell bet Johnny isn’t going to have an extra $18.99 to buy the latest release from Hot Pork Deathpie. Conversely some studies are showing that music downloading may be helping smaller labels and their artists get attention in an industry that is normally dominated by the major labels.
Proof of that? The EP I am currently listening to. Who the fuck is TV On the Radio? I would never have heard of them had I not read Dustin's recent review. And given the aforenoted poor economy, I am not in a position to afford to pick up a new CD just because a 2Walls staffer found it better than mediocre. So what did I do? I jumped on the label's website (an indie label mind you, Quarterstick records, the same label that carries Calexico) and downloaded an MP3. It was good enough to convince me to purchase it. And this exact scenario has happend time an again to me. I think I have spent more money on music in the past five years since I became aware of music downloading, rewarding the artists who produce it, than I have ever spent up until that point.
But let me respond to reader Craig's rhetorical question "Is the songwriter's creativity and time a donation to the consumer's enjoyment?"
Yes, Craig it is. Abso-fucking-lutely. Are you really so disconnected from your audience that you don't get this? You are fooling yourself if you claim that you are making music "for yourself," or "for art." Because what if I saw your band play live in a bar some Saturday night. The bar may be paying you for your time, but I just showed up to see some friends. And if you're good enough, if your time and creativity make me actually pay attention, than you have indeed donated to the enjoyment of my evening. Why are you playing music if it's not for people to enjoy it? Stop taking yourself so seriously Craig. Your music is not about you. It's not about your band. It's not about your vision, or your genius, or your creativity. It's about how much those who hear your music connect with that. If you fail as a musician, it will not be because of music downloading, or because the lack of exposure in a marketing dominated industry, but because you have failed to make that connection.
Look my point here was not to encourage internet users to shaft hardworking indie artists like Craig (though I should clarify--which I thought I did in the original article--that I don't think music downloading shafts indie artists but HELPS them). My point was to clarify that the moral argument being made about music downloading by the record industry is morally flawed and amounts to cultural oppression. Networking, by nature, creates an environment where things are shared between people. If we could just as freely share food and medicine over the internet to those without the financial status to afford those things on their own, we would be morally corrupt for not doing so. Sharing music is this scenario applied on a cultural level.
Those who claim that beauty should only be made available to those that can afford to pay for it are morrally corrupt.
I cannot state it any more simply.
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