New blog post

[Colin]

where would tort be without Mark Actually it's great to see when we do get the occasional troll that most of us ignore it and don't even respond. They want us to bite

 

[TheAntMan]

Happy Anniversary Mr. & Mrs Aussie!!!

--Ant

 

[tkarter]

tkarter is a fake name BP. LOL

I loved your blog post except my future as a rock star is now dim. As dim as anyone posting the bull that went on earlier.

No worries Aussie Mark you are safe among most of us. LOL

tk

 

[cyoungnashville]

your girlfriend was feeling a tad bit bored and dejected with you out of town, and turned troll. no worries bro, we nuked her.

 

[five7]

I just took a 24 hour break from the internets to celebrate my wedding anniversary with my lovely wife, and I return and see I'm now an internet celebrity.

What have I missed?

Congrats, my wife and I also celebrated our anniversary, 22 years on the 15th.

 

[Big Poppa]

Great all you anniversary guys! I know we Knuckleheads are easy to live with!

Back on topic please!

 

[tkarter]

Rock and roll isn't here to stay.

tk

 

[Alex001]

Back on topic please!

Ok, back to the story. Geez, where do I start?

First, I want to preface my post by stating that this is pure discourse and not meant to be inflammatory. Discussion is good.

YOU CAN "MAKE IT", regardless of the ridiculous circumstances surrounding the music industry as a whole.

Fugazi - a band that began spitting in the face of the record industry in the late 80's, started with NOTHING. Meaning, no record, no fans, heck - Ian MacKaye was still learning his guitar when the band got together. Ian was previously known for his work with Minor Threat, Embrace (not the modern band called Embrace), and some various side projects (Pailhead being the best of those IMO - a collaboration with Ministry - just 6 songs). He was the singer in Minor Threat & Embrace, but did do guitar work on the Pailhead release. All his work was released independently on HIS OWN label - Dischord Records (Pailhead was released independently on Wax Trax! Chicago). He and a few friends ran the entire label/operations. They were basically documenting bands in the D.C. area and giving them an outlet to get their music heard.

So, back to Fugazi specifically. Starting from NOTHING and just by relentless (and I do mean relentless) touring and word of mouth, they built a huge fan base WORLD-WIDE. Their third album "Steady Diet of Nothing" (1991) PRE-SOLD nearly 275,000 copies (I don't know how many copies have currently sold to date). 5 of their 7 albums CHARTED in the UK, 4 in the U.S. - and these are all albums released independently on their own label. The money went to it's rightful place - the band. Ian is tenacious and his persistence payed off. No blood money from the record companies. After record companies got wind of their success, they were besieged with offers from the majors offering them millions upon millions of dollars (the record companies wanted a piece of their success). The band told them to stick it. They were not willing to give one ounce of control over their music to anybody. They did every single thing independently on their own terms. They deserve every bit of success they have received. They "made it" so to speak. The guys in Fugazi would probably want to kill me if I called them a rock-stars, but each member is an extremely respected musician in their own right and highly successful as well (a dying combination/breed). They are a world-wide success.

Do not be discouraged by the current state of the music industry. You CAN be successful, and like I said - "make it". In fact, it's probably more gratifying to become a success independently. You don't need to be a "group art project" produced by a record company. Yes, I realize this may not be your typical success story. The odds are still roughly equivalent to finding a pubic hair at a Jonas Brothers concert, but Fugazi proves that it can be done. Their statement stands tall.

Tangential rant 1. Record companies give bands a record deal, but in all reality it's nothing more than a loan. You won't see a cent until every penny of production and promotion costs are paid back.

Tangential rant 2. There were A LOT of great bands in the 90's. What I feel went wrong in the nineties was the production cost of videos. Everyone was trying to one-up each other with the latest cool video effects. Believe it or not, quite a few of the videos for the "Big Names" were actually more costly to produce than the album itself! And guess who footed the bill for these outrageously expensive videos? The artists - not the record company. Want a video that will get heavy rotation? Be prepared to be in bondage for quite a bit longer until you see a cent.

Guess what? Itunes is great and Apple is the hero but not for the artist. You buy a song for 99 cents and Apple gives the record companies not the artist 65 cents.....then after all is said and done the aritst if they are heavyweights get 14 cents. The strugling artist average 9 cents a song and they have to pay back the record company for all of the costs involved in the creation and production of the product.

Sad, but true. It really ticks me off when Apple has their yearly "Music get together"/New product announcements and Steve has the gall to get up on stage and say that they do this because they all love music. B.S. iTunes is a mechanism for selling hardware: iPods - that's where their margins are. A 128 or 256Kbps mp3 file is sonically horrid. I realize there are bandwidth issues with attempting to sell unadulterated header-less PCM files (actual CD quality music), so for now you get junk. The problem is, nobody seems to care. They are listening to their music on their iPods or through iTunes on their computer speakers - they don't seem to notice. This is what they are growing up with and are used to. I'm not being conceited when I say that I am a "serious listener". I listen very intently to the music I own and love, and I play it through a good quality hi-fi system. I have never once downloaded anything from iTunes and most likely never will (unless they start selling the aforementioned headerless PCM files in album format - maybe). On a side note: Cheers to Pink Floyd for winning a case that their music must be released on iTunes in album format only! I mean, how can you buy a single track from Dark Side Of The Moon? The entire album is an entity as a WHOLE. Breaking it up seems insane to me and I'm glad PF took issue with it. Personally, I feel that iTunes is absolutely horrible for music in general, but even worse for the artist. I follow BANDS and am not a fan of "cherry picking" songs. I remember barely being able to stand waiting until the release date of one of my favorite bands albums, then rushing down to the record store to pick it up and rushing even faster to get home and see what they had been up to musically since their last release. It was exciting. Now, people get instant gratification for a buck, and the worst part is, they're perfectly content with that! Sigh....

I have well over 400 CDs and if they go the way of the 8-track, I'll be scooping them up at bargain basement prices. I've already bought two extra brand new CD changers as replacements for when my current one fails. I'm not going to re-purchase my music again in a new format just because it's been obsoleted.

Here is a PDF file I believe everyone here on the forum should read. It's called "The Death Of Hi-Fidelity" and was an article in Rolling Stone magazine a few years ago. Possibly we should start a new thread about this topic as there is MUCH to discuss about it. Main point of the article - mastering engineers are sonically "bricking" albums. In other words, they are mastering albums so LOUD that all the dynamics and subtleties of the music are lost. It's a must read. You can also search YouTube for "The Loudness Wars" for many, many examples of exactly what is happening. What's worse, is that "remastered" CDs are actually of inferior sonic quality than the original releases, due to the fact that they are being mastered so damned LOUD.

Here's a link to the PDF (Save Link as):

The Death Of Hi-Fidelity

 

[DTG]

Time moves on so why can't we , so many times I have heard the " stuck in 1952" on this forum.
I have to say a bit of me would be glad to never have to put up with rockstars throwing a tv out of the hotel attitude.you know the joke ,what is the difference between Bono and god ? God doesn't walk around thinking he is Bono

What's worse then them is pr men and record companies in general. People making more money than the artist phew !
To go to a major gig here will cost around €100 and here is my thinking. The last show I went to was Stevie wonder now I had no prob paying the money for that as I feel he has earned it over the years but would I pay it to a band on their first big tour ....

Money is too hard to come by these days €.99 a song with the artist only getting a tiny amount is wrong. I would rather pay .50 with it going to them. But that would mean that they would have to get up off the ass and do everything for themselves and not get some record company do it for them and cry about how much they take.

I agree cd quality is so much better than mp3 and always buy my cd from a shop, I like to be able to hold it in my hands and look at it. Plus I like to shop local when I can.

What is making it ! I am a gigging Musican and making a good living from it. I get to come home most nights and see my kids every morning! I don't ever want to go on the road again being away for months at a time.
Money is not the be all and end all for me as long as I can support my family and spend time with them and still get to play music then to me I have made it.

 

[Alex001]

What is making it ! I am a gigging Musican and making a good living from it. I get to come home most nights and see my kids every morning! I don't ever want to go on the road again being away for months at a time. Money is not the be all and end all for me as long as I can support my family and spend time with them and still get to play music then to me I have made it.

You've answered your own question, unless that was rhetorical.

 

[DTG]

You've answered your own question, unless that was rhetorical.

yup dude it was rhetorical.
Just on another note I also still play in an originals band, more for fun and because I like playing my own bass lines instead of cover the whole time. But that’s for us, for our own enjoyment.

 

[DTG]

Are you sure? Based on the photo in your post signature we could be related

think you might have a bit more than me on top each year i get a bigger face cloth !

 

[cellkirk74]

Money is not the be all and end all for me as long as I can support my family and spend time with them and still get to play music then to me I have made it.

That's the spirit! Family first.

On the other hand, if we weren't old and had no kids, I would love a little touring again. Last was in 1995.

 

[Duarte]

Now, people get instant gratification for a buck, and the worst part is, they're perfectly content with that! Sigh....

Instant gratification for lower cost? ...I literally have no idea why people would love this.

Fact is, physical copies will always be around. And yes lot's of people listen to shiitty mp3's through computer speakers, but these people do not LOVE music like us. These kinds of people have always been around. These kinds of people have always just bought what they've been spoon fed by the x-factor or whatever (or something else). That's the side of music that is just a business ...the other side - well I love The Clash, Rancid, The Prodigy - these guys are about the music. These are people who never cared how good their record sounded or how many people bought them. Liam Howlett of The Prodigy produced the entire of their first album in his bedroom. I recently went to a gig of theirs that was 80,000 people strong all singing along and skanking away. They constantly refuse offers from record companies, and are now the biggeest band in the UK, if not the world.

People are too sentimental about going down the shop and buying 'that record' ...yeah that is great but hey you can get the same thing (on vinyl if you like) with one click on amazon. Then you can sit around in your pants and sock and wait for it to arrive at your door.

 

[Duarte]

Oh, and I think lots of people like the idea of getting music for free. Yeah it's awful BUT the fact is that stolen stuff tastes better. The secret ingredient is crime.

 

[DTG]

Prodigy are not as big as Susan boyle zak

 

[drTStingray]

Prodigy are not as big as Susan boyle zak

Did you mean collectively or individually

 

[danny-79]

Rock and roll isn't here to stay.

tk

Hay Hay, My My ! Rock and roll will NEVER die !!

 

[Duarte]

Prodigy are not as big as Susan boyle zak

Heheh, the laser show in my avatar will beg to differ!

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Cg09LFEvWM]YouTube - The Prodigy Milton keynes Everybody in the place, no good and charly WD festival HD[/ame]

Tell me that music is dying... okay it may not be to everybody's taste but you can't deny the pure scale.

 

[cyoungnashville]

4 minutes into this, im thinking.... im in the place, and im ready to go.