Electronic Life - If I Can’t Hear the Difference…

Recently I read an article on Crave. Many is the time I have visited the home of someone who has expensive speakers, yet has them positioned poorly for good sound. And they are so proud to have spent that much money on such “good” speakers. What’s wrong with this scene? Read more

Artists Embedded within the Military-Industrial Complex

In 1961 U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower warned of the “unwarranted influence…by the military-industrial complex.” By the time Eisenhower uttered his speech the military-industrial complex (MIC) was 20 years old. Beginning in 1941 after the U.S. officially entered World War Two, the U.S. industrial and manufacturing industries began to produce the weapons and vehicles needed by the military. As a result of the MIC’s creation, the U.S. economy rebounded from the depression that had plagued it since the 1929 stock market crash. Read more

How Tour Breaks Preserve Sanity, Health and Bands

From bands who are signed to major record labels, to independents slogging it out, musicians are frequently on long tours; six months, a year, eighteen months, sometimes even more, of constant globe-trotting while the executives lean back in their big stuffy chairs at home and enjoy the green smell of cash, cash, cash. Read more

Pump Out Tunes Faster: 6 Easy Ways to Do It

Over the past year I’ve practiced and refined the technique behind my tuneback concept. If you don’t know what a tuneback is, it’s a song that is written, recorded and published online - all in under an hour. Read more

Radiohead - What will the fans (market) do?

I think this article: Radiohead bets on fast release, open pricing is another indicator of the music industry creaking at the seams. However, the line “It’s up to you” is a challenge to the public to embrace the independent artist’s new business model. It’s telling the audience to be honest about downloading and those who would contemplate simply taking it for free simply because they can, should consider well what they may be doing to the future of music and the industry of art & entertainment.

The question we should ask is: Are the public–the fans–as dishonest and corrupt as the industry itself, or are they truly loyal (and honest) fans who want to support the independence of artists whose talent and products they enjoy?

I think Radiohead are asking that question with “It’s up to you” which is really, another way of asking “Given the opportunity to steal, to take without fair payment, are you a thief?” it’s too bad they’re not publshing the figures as they occur, for the results would be very interesting. What Radiohead is doing is similar to Stephen King’s e-Book download experiment.

The Rise of the Independent Creative Artist - Prince, Radiohead Lead Way with Bold Marketing Moves

When the Free Articulator launched its first articles on the 4th of July 2007 it did so with the Declaration of Creative Independence, and the Code of a Creative Artist, a set of principles which state very clearly how Creative Artists will deal with the business and industry of artistic creative endeavor, and interact with society and civilization.

In September the Free Articulator published my article the Traditional Music Industry Shows Increasing Signs of Collapse. It was pirated within a day of publication and came to the attention of MySpace.

Earlier this year (July, 2007) Prince caught everybody’s attention with the licensing of two million copies of his new album Planet Earth to the UK’s Mail On Sunday. It was touted as a “give away” by the international media, though nothing could be further from the truth; Prince licensed the album to the Mail On Sunday; that’s smart marketing business, demonstrating an understanding and appreciation of what intellectual property rights are all about and how to use them effectively.

This licensing deal with the Mail On Sunday permitted the legal give-away of two million albums and raised the ire of the Music Retailers Association in the UK, who warned musicians everywhere “not to do the same or else…!” Precisely the sort of attitude and response that would encourage musicians everywhere to follow Prince’s example, and by the way, I’d love to interview Prince for our Intellectual Property Series, as I’ve been following what happened to his career since he lost the use of his name to his former-label and I’m thrilled to see his comeback garnering so much attention, as it simultaneously educates and redefines the business model of creative individuals with the industry, society and the public.

Now Radiohead has adopted the idea of the market setting the price for downloaded material and generated millions of dollars worth of free international advertising that purportedly sends a shockwave through the busines, and reflects the insight offered in my article on the inreasing signs of collapse of the music industry. The old model in the recording industry (detailed briefly here) doesn’t work any more, it is a rip-off of artists who have been kept ignorant of the industry’s workings, and disenfranchised of their rights through chicanery and ignorance that is becoming well-known worldwide.

However, as AJC points out in his blog Science of the Invisible, “It ain’t gonna work.” At best, he’s right: Radiohead’s move is free international promotion and that will work, is working, but has little ongoing traction or utility, as one needs to have a large audience, and be a brand that people and the media are aware of.

AJC is also right about what the music industry should do, but, changing a bad philosophical, moral code and business model to something morally sound and ethical requires a radical change in thinking and practise that takes a long, long time. The time to change required extends when you’re talking about an entire industry that is used to having open season exploitation of creative ignorance. Can such a leopard change its blotches?

The industry is a servant of the artist and their public, not the master. That’s the new model, the model of the independent Creative Artists who license their work to others for mutual benefit, sharing the wealth and potential of a work or collection on reaonable and fair terms without giving up ownership or paying for the rip-off of their own property. End the corruption, end the decay. Let’s have an industry we can trust.

Celebrity Culture - BS Observations - Celebrity Cash-and-Burn

It’s ironic to me that the Free Articulator’s first front page, launched in 2006 made mention of Britney Spears in the most derisive tones, portending her crash long before the MSM made mention of it with regard to her folding marriage and desperate, but failed attempts to cling to the shreds of her career.

Since then, I’ve been fond of making fun of Britney Spears by saying “The initials say it all.” Meaning that they comment on the music, the woman, her character, and her career. The news that she has lost custody of her children is now exploding into the mainstream media (MSM) and dominating headlines and soundbytes internationally. It gives me pause.

The former Disney Mouseketeer has lost the plot completely. Whatever talent she has, or retains, is obscured, and all the money showbiz has offered, ($50,000,000 a year) for a twenty-something would seem insufficient to help her, though she does a credible (if soul-destroying) job of remaining in the media spotlight; a celebrity’s major job description and most precious social capital these days.

It seems to me that the attention we pay her as she shatters her career, ruins her life and that of those around her is more of a commentary on who we are as a society and civilization, than who Britney is as a falling star of pop culture.

I think the MSM today is feeding and fueling her plunge into obscurity as visibly as possible and that we are helping her along. I find that rather shameful. If we’re to believe the media attitude on this it comes across as “Nobody seems to care,” except the media who rush to publish so they can exploit this event to make money from corporations who’ll purchase more adspace this week to capitalize upon the circumstance of celebrity cash-and-burn (sic). “The meida maketh and the media burneth.” All we are supposed to do is stir the ash; fertile ground for the next media sensation to rise as phoenix and inflame our desire to consume.

As has been mentioned earlier, the Free Articulator will be taking a look at the cult of celebrity in a consumer soceity at a later date.

In the meantime consider what it means as society loses the values it once placed in glamorous graceful and cultured celebrities (holding to the illusion we considered reality at the time), and ponder for a few moments, if you will, who may gain what by destroying the value and inspiration celebrity once gave us.

Celebrity is a commodity traded by the value others place in the attention we freely give.

On who, or what, do you spend your attention today?

There is where the dollars flow.

US Corporate Censorship of Political Statements by Artists — Pearl Jam

If you monitor the art & entertainment industry closely you’ll see how careers are often destroyed simpy by denying access to broadcast channels and the opportunity to address the public in talk shows and current affairs programs. In America such censorship is emerging in a number of different ways, The Dixie Chicks’ statements about George Bush was but one example. The most recent example is to do with Pearl Jam and AT&T. Read more

My favourite tip for songwriter’s block

I once invented a concept that has all but destroyed songwriter’s block in my life. At least, for the time being!

It’s called the tuneback. It wasn’t really created to combat creative block, but because all the members of Midnight.Haulkerton were itching for an excuse to put half-baked music out there while we worked on an album enshrined in top secrecy.

In order to ensure that minimum time was stolen from the endeavor of our precious album, we set a one hour, once a week time limit on the tuneback. It is central to the whole concept, actually. It taught us very quickly that the difference between a song that took an hour to write and record, and a song that took an hour and a half to write and record, is a very big one - and thus, that particular unit of time is very much important and influential on the sound of each final tuneback.

But what has this got to do with songwriter’s block?

I swear, it’s the pressure. I didn’t think it would work that way, but if I know I’ve got a song to write and if I don’t write it people are going to pissed, I write one. Seriously, I was a couple of hours late once, and I got a disgruntled email.

Pressure. It’s horrible for creative minds, but it works (kind of like how crack works for law students).

Ideas and their value - Support the Tuneback

I think there is such a thing as unconscionable commercial exploitation. It comes about when those who have money and power already act to take away from others the opportunity to exploit their own creations without so much as a “by your leave”.

When I heard about what had happened to the concept of the tuneback that was created and invented by my creative collaborator, friend, and colleague Joel Falconer, well I was immediately aware of the immorality of those that decided to capitalize without so much as a courteous well-mannered contact to the creator of the first tunebacks. This is what passes for “good business” today. And as the world has come to know it’s also what largely passes for the style of business a lot of American companies carry out today. Scandal, corruption, cheating, stealing, lying it’s the American Way today. An honorable person will tell you straight what is what, and when you look at it, they will be right. Not just right in a technical sense, but right in a moral sense. Read more