The day has finally arrived. The day after FAWM. It’s a funny feeling that I have right now. It’s been a great month and a really good experience. 14 songs was the official goal. I personally hoped to make it to 14 1/2 and I did. Here’s the rough demo of number 14.
I’ve closed public access to the other rough demos for now. I hope to complete the recordings for my “Open Source” EP by May 1st and I’ll post the multi-track files and free downloads at that time. Here’s the final song list for anyone who’s interested. Several of these you’ll hear on my next CD fully produced. Some of them you’ll probably never hear.
Just a note to say you should rent the movie “Once” if you like to write music. Or if you just like music. They won the Oscar for best song tonight and it’s well deserved. The whole soundtrack is amazing.
There’s some coarse language in the movie, so get the kiddies out of the room, but I found the story really charming.
I’m not sure I can call myself a book lover. Or even a serious reader. However, I do, on occasion, read books. I think I read about 4 or 5 last year. Two of them were fiction and one was a Khaled Hosseini novel called The Kite Runner. This book spent weeks on the New York Times bestseller list but I was still quite reluctant to start it. In fact, there’s always a certain commitment that it takes for me to get into a book, I think. At some point, if it’s a good one, the book usually takes over and I can’t put it down, but I always have to push past that initial hump. That’s how it was with this one.
A young boy, Amir, growing up in Kabul, Afghanistan in the 70’s is the only child of a successful businessman. The father’s servant has been with him his whole life and the servant’s boy, Hassan, is Amir’s primary playmate. The boys’ favorite activity is kite fighting and then chasing after the downed kites. Let’s stop right there. This is about as foreign a concept to me growing up with Matchbox Cars and Fisher Price Adventure People as you’re going to get. But somehow, as Amir struggles with his own identity and fails to find courage in the most important moments, I realize that this story set in a far off land is really my story.
This is completely ridiculous, but this story reminded me of an old song on an album my brother owned (Sorry Bart, you’ve been outed), Kenny Rogers Greatest Hits. In “The Coward of the County” Tommy is a boy who never stood up for himself until one day, after years of “being yellow,” Tommy goes bats on the Gatlin boys. Anyway, I related to that song too but I never turned a barroom upside down in rage. Oh well.
When Amir moves to America with his father to escape the Soviet invasion, Hassan and his father stay in Afghanistan and have to deal with the Russians and the Taliban. One day as Amir and his wife are celebrating the release of his first novel, a phone call from an influential voice from the past leads him back to the now war-torn land of his childhood.
The movie was great. It’s not a film for kids as there are some pretty heavy themes here. But I appreciated it quite a bit. And although I did feel like it was an accurate depiction of the story, it somehow fell short. In an effort to make the story feel authentic, it’s subtitled for most of the dialog. But the book is obviously in English. I know that’s a weird thing to point out, but it made a difference to me. There were subtleties in the book when Arabic was used that made it more special to the story. Most of that is lost in the movie.
The acting was excellent and I empathized with the characters. I even cried. But I think I cried more with the book. At least I felt more with the book.
Since I’m not that much of a reader, it’s strange for me to say this. See the movie if you want to, now or on rental. But definitely read the book. It’s well worth it.
(Please feel free to enjoy and share this at will using the embed code at youtube or this download link of the mp4 video. Sorry about the lousy audio quality!)
Radiohead has been in the news lately because they decided to offer the digital version of their CD “In Rainbows” for whatever the market would pay. Not surprisingly, many people were willing to download it for nothing. The band has been lauded for its edgy approach at marketing, but until recently there was only secrecy surrounding exactly how successful the venture was for them.
As a test, I went ahead and downloaded the CD, for free, at their website.
And even though Radiohead has denied its accuracy, several sources have reported a study of the effort that estimated the average payment for the CD was $6. And that was just the 38% of the people who now own a copy. In other words, of the people who DID pay something, the average was about 6 bucks. If you figure in the whole group, the average price per album ends up being $3.17. That’s the estimated take of $3.8 million divided by $1.2 million, the estimated number of downloads.
So, Radiohead has $3.8 million dollars. It’s money they didn’t have before and money they didn’t have to share with the record company. Cool. You could consider it a success if you want. I think they probably made some new fans and got a lot of attention that wouldn’t have been there. Plus, they now have a mailing list that’s over 1 million strong. That’s worth something. But, if they had simply set the price at $6, which seems to be the market value, do you think they would have earned more or less? I’m going to say more. I think there’s the chance of lowering the perceived value of a thing when you give it away for free.
I’ve said it before, but I think people expect free. And that’s not good for musicians. It’s even worse for record execs. And people will always be able to get it for free if the REALLY want to. My CD is online for free if you know where to look. I didn’t authorize it and I don’t necessarily condone it, but I think even if I got the site shut down that is hosting or promoting the file, people would just find another host and promotional vehicle. It’s in our nature to find the best deals out there and if we have the choice of legitimately getting something for something or something for nothing, I think most people choose the latter.
This whole thing has really made me consider re-pricing my own CD today.
Have you ever wondered what you can do to help introduce people to your favorite independent music artist (or author or fine artist) friend? A musician without a label or an author without a formal publisher doesn’t have the publicity machine that gets their “signed” colleagues noticed. They often have to rely on word of mouth for at least a good portion of their publicity. If you know someone (even if they aren’t me) there are some things you can do to really give them a boost and help spread the word.
Write a blog review. Do you have a blog? Use that medium to tell your circle of friends about your indie artist friend (referred to here on out as your IAF). Even if you don’t think you have a lot of readers, you would be surprised what one little inbound link can do for a search engine ranking.
Write a peer review. Chances are, you probably don’t have your own blog. You can still review your favorite IAF. Go to where ever your IAF’s work is for sale. Amazon.com? CDbaby.com? iTunes? All of these stores have a built in customer review mechanism and studies show that people who buy products online are VERY INFLUENCED by peer reviews.
Request them. Do you listen to any independent music podcasts? Do you listen to the radio? Some stations would never play an “unknown” artist, but you’d be surprised how many would. You don’t have to be annoying about it, but if you know of a station or podcast that’s friendly to music that’s out of the mainstream, you’ll probably have some luck requesting your IAF’s stuff with them.
Support them in word and deed. Of course I would expect that you would contact them and let them know you love their stuff, but sometimes people don’t feel comfortable doing that. Trust me, it means a lot. By word AND deed, I mean, buy their product. I started to rant about downloads and stealing and confusing conglomerate mega-labels with starving indie artists, but I’m not going to bother. It’s simple: cast a vote with your dollar.
I do want to take a second and recognize that there have been many people who have done these things for me. Had I not been encouraged to pursue my music, I wouldn’t have a CD. Had I not been reviewed by a blog or magazine here or there, I probably wouldn’t have been taken seriously by other people. If no one was willing to buy my music, I wouldn’t have bothered duplicating a CD. It really does snowball, to exploit an overused metaphor. So thanks–you know who you are.
