File sharing =  Tape trading

Low quality MP3s = Cassette fidelity

iPod = Walkman

Don’t give a fuck about what anyone tells you, listen to music any way you like.

After spending a few weeks hermetically listening to music of various kinds, I came to the conclusion that it’s the simple songs that stand out, and ultimately cling to me.

Whether it’s straight-to-the-point, stripped-down production or gripping chord progressions, the music which has most of its skin shed, stays with me and my humming subconscious for a long, long time.

I’ve been trying to incorporate this “less is more” approach into more aspects of my life, albeit it’s always good to use this in music, especially now that there is an abundance of tools and techniques that you can overuse.  (Admittedly, I am happy that I have managed this to some degree with my digital production tools; I only use the plug-ins that came with my sequencer plus two more.)

But if a simple three-chord progression in a song can make my hair stand up, I can’t help but imagine what an impact simplicity can have in dealing with day-to-day stuff.

I always thought that EDM was what nerds who were never ravers listened to.  Or was that “intelligent” EDM?  These genre names are genius btw, kudos to the college journalist who came up with them.    

Anyway, some people believe that the “real” dance scene will benefit from the overexposure and grandiosity of what America has baptized as EDM.  Apparently the underground will rise up against the mainstream and report back victorious, with sword in hand.

Sadly, I do not believe that these kind of stormtroopers will emerge.  

Every time something has gone big in America, it has disappeared after its bubble bursts, without leaving a trace.  Consequently, it sweeps the underground with it.

It was already so hard to “crack America” in the past, that once this fad is over and rappers will not be looking to electronic producers for phat beatz, any chance of normal-level artists to even gig sporadically in the U.S. will be obliterated.

Also, as all rational humans believe, I don’t think we should be considering “EDM” and the rest of dance music as the same thing.  There is a difference between, let’s say, House music and a difference between Pop with beats.  I’m not slamming against the huge acts, good on them, most of them never claimed to be underground and what they do, they do very well.

I honestly want to be proved wrong in what I’m saying here, but the bottom line for me is that EDM is not opening a door to the underground.  It is keeping its people to itself, because that’s the culture they want to connect with.   I don’t think those same people will frantically be looking for Robert Hood records anytime soon.

This is sort of picking up on the previous post about piracy (find it here: http://tinyurl.com/c3llejc), after reading some tweets by a well-respected “DIY” superstar with a much respected career, spanning 20+ years in the electronic/alternative scene.

Coming from someone who preaches activism and underground ethics, I felt disillusioned when reading about his concerns about download sales (come on, really?) and, even better, performance royalties from club playlists (good luck with that one).

It’s funny how some people believe that everything was transparent in the physical product days and how they are NOW getting “ripped off” by false sales reports from digital stores.  

Sir, let me remind you about how vinyl distributors used to rip off labels on a regular basis back in the day, how many labels/artists were left unpaid during the heyday of CD compilations, and how no one saw a sales report until a year or two later.

Thanks, but no thanks, I don’t need anyone waving the revolution flag in my face when they still complain about their song sales income in 2012.  If you have such a problem with digital stores, sell everything yourself.  DIY, as you said.  

Again, you seem to forget the money you make from merch and you also seem to forget how much your punk-minded band charged when you visited Athens.  Please don’t insert the greedy promoter rant here, everyone knows about these things by now.  Yet, a band that seems to care so much about hardcore values, social uprising blah, blah, blah, could have a say in the ticket price.  Is that how much you charge when you play in the rest of Europe?

News hit the metal/rock community hard when one of the biggest labels of the genre had to let a substantial amount of their employees go, in what seemed to be an end-of-an-era move.

Wanting to learn specifics, mostly because of various rumors flying around, I followed some posts and articles.  It turns out that many blamed piracy for the whole mess.  

Piracy is a touchy subject, especially for people like myself who make a living from music.  However, I cannot accept that a label with such vision from its early stages of development got defeated by “piracy”, especially in 2012.

I firmly believe that piracy is not the case here.  As many also mentioned, being bought out by a major (which the label had been 17 months ago) can have that devastating effect:  For one, many of the label’s back office and support duties fall to the major label behind it, so a large amount of label workers are left without a job.  Not a good scenario for anyone, by any means.

Once again, I saw artists of the label explaining how the illegal/free distribution of their music has decimated the business and is setting them back financially, and how the ones on the other side of the fence should “try working for free” and so on.

In these conversations artists fail to talk about the money they (rightfully) make from merchandise (many times tax-free), sponsorships and other corporate tie-ins (which today are not that hard to achieve for a band/artist of any level), endorsements and all those things which sustain us artists APART from record/song sales, royalties of which most bands never see anyway.

There is more to the music business than the recording industry and we all have other things to deal with besides “piracy”.  Blaming everything on it when things fall apart is so 2001.

On my way to a gig this weekend, I ran into the long-standing Techno hero that is Axel Karakasis, and for the next half hour he got to listen to my ranting and raving about different things in the scene while we were waiting in the airport.  Admittedly, I could have been a bit more subtle.   Luckily though, it was a truly enjoyable conversation because when Axel talks, he doesn’t beat around the bush and gives it to you as it is.

Anyway, on the plane ride, while I contemplated whether to suppress my frustration with my vice of choice or try to rationalize things, a couple of issues arose.

It seems that even though we have all the tools to do business quicker and better, a lot of labels are acting the same way they did ten years ago.  It’s not THAT hard to run a label decently these days, even if you are completely on your own.  Of course, for the bigger labels who actually have staff, everything should be working like clockwork.  However, it is more like cockwork these days:  We are experiencing massive stalling, organizational misfiring and scheduling travesties that were supposed to be obliterated a long time ago.

Is the overflow of content and our mania to overcompensate with it, to blame?  

Are labels putting out way too much stuff, which at the end of the day doesn’t really make much business sense?

And since we are talking about quantity, where is quality control in all this?  I’m pretty sure that isn’t the reason the labels are slower than dial-up.

Don’t forget to share and irritate :)

I just finished reading an article by a respected/accomplished/(your quote of greatness here) musician, where he revels in the marvels of vinyl.  In itself, that’s perfectly cool, the problem begins when someone is a part of the music business and cannot face the fact that we are living in a very different era than we were merely a few years ago.

Do I buy vinyl records?  Yes I do.  

Did I use to play vinyl? Sure did.  

Is there any reason why we have to hold on to the past like it’s a raft from the Titanic? No.

Vinyl is not going anywhere.  Hell, neither are CDs.  They will still probably exist as formats, as they have for so long.  However, the actual era of CDs and vinyl is long gone, just as the era of the printed magazine is.  This doesn’t mean that the formats will magically cease to exist, it simply means that humanity has moved on to something else.  

Yes, vinyl sounds better.  If you’re rich and can afford the correct media to reproduce it PROPERLY.  Try doing that in a club these days.  Better yet, try telling the difference between vinyl and CD/digital when you’re in the club, pills-in-hand, while trying to find that last gram of coke you stashed.  OK, that was a cheap shot, and only applies to some of the dance music people.  Sue me.

But for those making a living from music (and thus being a part of the music business whether they like it or not), it is a grave mistake to not embrace the future of their very own livelihood.  When sheet music stopped being the primary source of musical income, did the music business die?  Nope.  Everyone adapted.

We are experiencing a major shift in all media around us which is unavoidable.  This was a major downfall for the major record labels, as they didn’t come to terms with digital technology when they had the chance, and paid for that dearly.

I personally find it very close-minded for someone who makes their living off people spending money to buy their merchandise/concert tickets/tracks to say that they have a problem with new technology in the music world.  Sadly, some people fail to realize that it’s not new technology in the music world alone; it’s new technology in the world in general.  Yes, your fans listening to your track as a compressed mp3 is not the way you intended it to be heard, but at the end of the day, it’s not your call.  If they want better quality, they know where to find it.

Also mentioned in the article is the whole album experience vs. the ability to skip/select songs.  

I too agree that albums were made to be listened to as a whole; 15 Years ago  

I’m sorry but that’s the truth.  For one, the majority of today’s musicians aren’t as skilled to pull of such a feat, secondly, they don’t have the budgets for that, and furthermore, they don’t really care if you listen to the whole thing or not.  Even Tommy Lee from Motley Crue, who has made -and keeps making- shitloads of money from albums, feels that there is no point in making full-length albums anymore and that he would be much happier just putting out EP’s.  

People bitch about this, bitch about that, they bitch everyday…When I say people, I mean everyone; myself included of course. I am the king of complaining.

But, it’s the micro-bitching, as I like to call it, that seems to be the new plague.  This occurs a lot within our industry (the dance music industry, just in case you haven’t been following) where many complaints arise that hold no ground whatsoever.  

Yes, there are certain rules that the industry dictates, which we all hate, but moaning about it on Twitter all day -every day- isn’t going to change anything.  Cursing about it in some crazy language so only your “homies” understand (that way you conveniently don’t get into trouble), is also pretty pointless.  Trust me, I’m Greek.

Frustrated because your sales suck?  Don’t run your mouth off on everyone, it’s probably your fault.

Somebody gave you a “hard time” and you didn’t get your way?  Keep it to yourself.

You think your music will make people want to wait in line to blow you?  Think again before you post.

This may come as a surprise to those of the eternal bitching persuasion, but there are folks who actually change things with actions rather than crying about them on their timeline.  

I’ve literally seen people booking flights to go meet with industry executives in order to speak their mind, with facts in hand and doing so on their own hard-earned cash.  People building real cases, with data and legitimate research, who at the end of the day, at least tried to change something with action.

Due to the fact that it is relatively easy to be involved in dance music these days, a lot of narrow-minded individuals have emerged, as they haven’t been exposed to much outside their bedroom.  For example, this same self-involved thinking came from people who thought that a certain rock personality was attacking “dance” music during his Grammy speech.  As if the whole world revolves around dance music. Please, crawl out of your hole - no one cares that you’re in there.

I bought an album on iTunes the other day, mainly because there was no physical release. However, the band had included a nice digital booklet to go along with the tracks. This is a totally unknown, defunct band from the 80s (not the band in the picture in this post! ), so we’re not talking about a marketing scheme and elaborate budget here. The info was simple; just the artwork, rare pictures and some stories about the song process.

Now, this always seemed like a great idea to me, and definitely something that is lacking from digital releases. When I made my first album, I had put a couple of pages of liner notes in the physical release because I wanted everyone who dished out their good money for it, to know a bit about how it was made and how I felt about the tracks.

Sure, it’s not the same as gatefold vinyl or a deluxe book+limited box set+waffling iron, but it’s always nice to find out cool information about something you enjoy listening to, and that makes the whole experience even better.

If anyone has any good ideas about additional content, I wold love to hear them :)

There are times when I really get sick of the music I’m involved with. I can’t say this surprises me, since I spend all day dealing with it; whether it’s making it, listening to it or talking about it, there is only so much that my brain can take, and consequently it shuts down and doesn’t let any more music in.

When I’m in production mode, this is a problem because I can’t even put a beat together from being so fed up. So I look for various ways to get back in the groove.

I used to work at a booking agency about 100 years ago, so I had the privilege of having most of the DJ sets recorded. (Back then that was a big deal).  So occasionally I’ll listen to older tracks and sets, but I found that it doesn’t work for me because: 

A. It reminds me that time flies by too quickly

and

B. It throws me off production-wise. (You can’t bring the past back. IMO whatever worked then, was just good THEN.)

However, I decided to listen to a 2001 set from a superstar DJ who I really liked at the time. Nothing groundbreaking happened, but I did get that fuzzy feeling: It reminded me how it felt to just have fun and listen to the music. Sure, I didn’t come up with the monumental track of my career but it did give me a much needed shift of perspective :)