Art or Industry?

My yearbook kids are currently working on the yearbook. And, for once in my schedule, I have a few minutes to be able to sit down and take it easy and write something. Things are happening in all sorts of ways all over the place and I’m happy and sad and tired and exhilarated all at the same time. Updates:

The Viper Room:
The boys did a fabulous job. By the end of their set, probably about 50-75 people were there…not all of whom bought tickets from us, but we did get about 15-20 new names for the mailing list…and that’s what really counts. I ended up going to Target and getting a dress for the night. I looked adorable, though. I only say that because every time I wear the dress, my students say so. The boys said I looked like Violet Beauregard (From Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory – not to be confused with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Two very different films. This has gone on way too long.) Apparently she wears a bright purple dress with big black buttons on the collar. I can’t really remember, but I looked professional and I looked like a manager and that’s all I wanted.

The Band in General:
The bass player decided that being a professional musician isn’t his cup of tea, so he’s quitting. This sucks because he takes the practice and recording studio with him. He lives in a house with three other guys and they’re all recording engineers, so the band could practice at the studio for free and they could record for a VERY small fee. Not to mention that Dayv’s (the bass player) landlord is a Grammy-winning engineer and said that he would mix their stuff for free in his spare time just because he likes their music. Dayv takes a lot of opportunities with him, but we can’t hold him in the band just because we need a good bass player and a good studio for practice and recording.

We’re auditioning a keyboard player on Friday night. Her name is Natasha, I think, and she’s from Romania or somewhere. Matt says she’s really good and can handle improv, which is what is needed for a pop/rock band. He wants me there so she knows there’s another female that’s around all the time. She’ll be the only girl actually on stage, and he doesn’t want her to be freaked out at the thought of being the only girl in an all-guy band, so he asked me if I’d go and chat with her just to make her more comfortable.

He’s changed his stance on the music industry. He’s actually very anti-industry. I can’t blame him. I was watching the AMA’s the other night and whoever it was that introduced Duran Duran (which, by the way, is an 80s band that kids today have NO idea about…really…they only say they do because it’s cool to be “retro.”), said that they were going to perform the song that “YOU, the VIEWERS, selected online!!”………………….”right after they play this new song that was produced by Justin Timberlake!” When did the music become all about selling this group so you can sell that group? Why don’t artists own their music anymore? When did it happen that the executives, who have never set foot in a musical environment, decide which song gets airplay and gets the video made and gets the sale? Why is it that companies that own furniture conglomerates also own music publishing companies? When did art become industry?

Music isn’t a car. It isn’t manufactured in pieces and then haphazardly bolted and glued together. Music….true music is a piece of someone’s soul. These artists spend hours, days, weeks, sometimes months, pouring their heart out on paper and rehearsing it and refining it and re-writing it and killing themselves over it…..only to have the studio auto-tune them and add some sound effects, slap a producer’s name on it (hopefully one that people have already heard of), and then take all the money. It’s been turned into an actual industry. What was so great about the industrial revolution? We didn’t have to hand-separate cotton anymore. We didn’t have to put together guns and wagons and household aides together by hand. A machine could mass-produce 100 times what a man could…in half the amount of time. How dare we go so far as to diminish someone’s heart and soul to replicate the inner workings of a machine!

We are so greedy, so money-hungry, that we forget that the consumer, who is force-fed mechanically manufactured music, should be the one deciding what is played on the radio and what is sold in the racks at Amoeba and Tower and the Virgin Megastore. The executives have their heads so far up their own butts that they have, quite literally, turned everyone into clones who only listen to what they say is allowed. And then they think they have the right to sue these people for doing the one thing music is meant to be about – sharing it. Don’t get me wrong – this isn’t a rant on how downloading music is a great thing and the government is stupid. I still go back and forth on how I feel about it. But one thing I know for sure. The artists have no say in their music anymore. Anyone who is backed by a major label has absolutely no individuality when it comes to their music. Sure a major label will sell them out. But they sell out in more than one way. Artists don’t make anything worth two cents from album sales. They don’t. They make their money from the t-shirts and merchandise and the ticket sales for their shows.

So, tell me this: what would happen if the artists decided to take back their music? What would happen if people like John Mayer and Alicia Keys and whoever else you want to think of decided to allow their music to be downloaded from their websites, under their terms? What if they allowed the people to download it for free? What if they did that and they took all the profit from their ticket sales and merchandising? What if they allowed downloading for free, but had bonus tracks on the albums they put out for sale – themselves? What if, instead of paying Sony/BMG or another major label, they took their money and put it back into the music? What if they decided to start screwing over the industry instead of letting the industry screw them over?

Just sayin’.