Cops

In California we now have a hands-free law, soon to include no texting and no emailing.  The fucked up thing!  In the past 2 days I have seen 2 cops driving their patrol cars while talking on the mobile phone.  Hmmmm.

It is bad when you see bus drivers, FedEx, UPS, etc doing it but the cops!  Come on.  I know you think you are above the law but come off it

Show Last Night

Stopped by the Henry Fonda last night to see The Builders & The Butchers.  They put on a great show.  Lots of stage presence and personality in the band and most importantly great songs. They did a really great job of performing in front of a hard crowd.  It says a lot about a band who can get up on stage and win over an audience who are for the most part unfamiliar with the band and who are here to see another band that is dramatically different.  Very impressive.  There is this wonderfully organic vibe that comes from the band.  They could translate as equally as well on a huge stage as well as in front of a campfire.  I see a campground tour in their future!

I only saw a little bit of Amanda Palmer but I was definitely impressed with the show she puts on.   This is not something that I would put on at home or in the car but I think she is a great performer who understands her audience and caters to them.  It was very refreshing to see.  

If you do not know the Builders, go download it.  Great stuff.

Top Ten So far

Not in order but here are my favorite records of 2009.  There are other good records but not many Faves.  There are few really good ones that I left of the list because I am not sure I will LOVE them forever.  The older I get the better I am at differentiating between records that I really like now and records that I will like forever.  Perfect example.  My Morning Jacket's "Evil Urges".  I love the band and like the record but I am not sure it will stick with me very long.

1. Dead Meadow "Old Growth"
2. Elbow "The Seldom Seen Kid"
3. Death Cab For Cutie "Narrow Stairs"
4. Cold War Kids "Loyalty To Loyalty"
5. Portugal. The Man "Censored Colors"
6. Sigur Ros "med sud i eyrum vid spilum endalaust"

Back From Portland

It has been a hellish month for me.  18 days of travel, 5 days of stomach flu and virtually no sleep because Ronan has decided to stop sleeping.   Things are hopefully back on track soon.  I just need to ride my bike and I will feel a lot better.

Portugal recorded a live record this past week.  We filmed it as well.  It was done in a studio in Oregon City and I think we captured something special this go around.

The band has been playing so well that I thought it was imperative to get their Live Sound down on tape.  Yes tape.  Well at least we will lay it off to tape.

Band Rule...created masters.  Keep working and keep recording.  You are only as good as long as you are producing new material for the fanbase.  

Handsfree

Not sure what the California Law is but holding on to you cell phone and using the speaker phone can't possibly mean "handsfree"

Hard year for music

I just started doing my Top 10 for the year and realized that this could be a short list this year.  Maybe I am old or maybe I am caught up in babyland but this list is short more to come on that but definitely on the list will be Dead Meadow and Elbow.

Halloween and uptight liberals

My son wore a army uniform for Halloween.  My father was in the army about 45 years ago, and while serving my mom made a mini uniform for my oldest brother.  She copied the patches on dad's uniform and made it all cute.  At this point, I believe there have been 7 of us who have worn the uniform for Halloween or just for fun (sons and grandkids).  It is special to see all the kids wearing the same outfit.

We got some strange reactions from people, shocked we would dress our son up as an army man.  Don't get me wrong, I am about as liberal as they come and I feel war is a last resort but our military personnel are not bad people.  Yes, some of them are but for the most part they are people want to serve the country.  These people should be honored and revered and respected.  Don't be hating especially against someone who is doing a job you are not wiling to do yourself.  And don't blame the solider for illegitimate wars.

Sandbaggers in Cyclocross

Disclaimer...these are not the rules.  These are just my opinions about sandbaggers in cyclocross

My Position

Cyclocross is the coolest of all the cycling disciplines.  It is the punk rock answer to the corporate rock of road and mountain bike racing,  There is respect from one rider to the other.  We support each other and lend a hand.  Many race without teams or if it is a team is more often just a bunch of guys who enjoy beer together.  The races are not all aggro.  It is a community. The win is not everything in cross.  It is about personal efforts and personal bests and the struggle against your own body to make it do things you never thought it could.

Unwritten Rules

For years, USA cycling had different categories for cyclocross.  A's B's C's instead on 1,2,3,4,5.  They did away with that system though many regions still hold on to them.  In road racing you have to earn your points and submit for an upgrade.  Technically the same is true for cross but the reality is that is not how it works.  

These are the categories in my region and my opinions of who should be racing in them...

Cat 4 this is for BEGINNERS and for out-of-shape riders.  If you raced in this Cat and finished in the top 10 you DO NOT belong here.  Keep this category easy and competitive and inviting to newbies.   If you are already a road racer you probably should not even race in this category once.  If you place in the top 10 and continue to race here you might be a sandbagger.  If you placed in the top 5 and continued to race in this category then you ARE a sandbagger.  If you are one of those guys who races the 4s then races 3/4s and wins both then you are simply...a dick.

Cat 3/4 This is for the majority of the racers.  The fields should be big and competitive.  I feel that over half of the starting group should feel like they have a chance to be in the top 10.  If you always place in the top 5 you might be a sandbagger.  If you always get a top 3 then you are a sandbagger.   If you have won 2 or more races in a season then you ARE a sandbagger.  BTW winning the season series in 3/4 proves to everyone that you are a sandbagger.

Cat 1,2,3  This is for EVERYONE else.  If you are dominant in 3/4 then you need to be busting your ass to get a top 10 in this category.  

The same goes for age categories.  If you are dominant in your field then move up to a more aggressive field.  If you finish in 10th one race because of a mechanical or a crash that does not mean you are not a sandbagger.  

Second race syndrome.  Your second race should not be an easier race.  It should be a HARDER race or single speed.

Police yourself, make it better for everyone else!

And a little bonus section for those still reading...

Course inspection.  I have no problems with you checking out the course while I am racing, go for it, but be aware of what is coming up behind you.  If there is someone racing and you force them to take a slightly different line or to brake a little harder then you are a dick.  Get out of the way.

All of this is about one simple thing.  Respect you neighbor.

Spooky Cross Race Report

October 25th, 

Down in Irvine they held a cyclocross that started in the afternoon and finished under the lights.  It makes for a fun party type atmosphere which was something I wanted to be part of.  The day did not go exactly as planned.  Went for a decent 40 mile ride that morning and did a bit more work then expected then the day took hold as it does with a toddler in the house and next thing I knew I was late if I wanted to go.  I looked at my wife and asked, should we?  Sure.  We ran around the house collecting the necessary items and threw it all in car and off we went...straight into traffic.

I show up at the venue with 25 min to go before start time of my race.  Not much time to get suited up and registered let alone preview the course and warm up.  Oh well.  

Did I mention I had a cold and threw my back out?

I mention all these difficulties because for some reason they always seem to help my results.  It seems the worse I feel the better I do.

I sneak in and get a spot on the front line.  There was a long straight for the hole shot and I decided to play conservative and take only 4-5 wheel going into the first turn.  A couple pass me I pass a few more and the gaps start to open.  What I did not realize was that I was in the top group.  I thought there was another group of 2-3 riders ahead of me.  I park myself on the wheels ahead of me and sit in for the long haul.  the 3-4 of us jockey back and forth but for the most part we are together.  As usual I lose some spots on the non-technical and then gain it back quickly on the barriers.  One of the guys in our group was the resident sandbagger.  No need to mention names here but everyone knows him because he won states a couple years running but never seems to upgrade.  I figure this is a good place to be.

Second to last lap I lose pace on one open section and lose contact with the front group.  I realize that I am not going to bridge up to them and decide to just hold on to what I got, looking back making sure nobody is making up ground on me.

Lessons learned.  I should have turned myself inside out a little more to stay in contact.  But that is the beauty of cross.  You can identify exactly where you made your mistakes and know where you lost ground but little good it would do you because cross is about mistakes and making as few as possible.  If you did not make those mistakes you would have made others.  I got 5th and am pretty happy about that result.  Of course  there were 4 others better then me that day but considering my fitness I have nothing to complain about.

How George Bush Killed Indie Rock

A long time ago in a land much more innocent there was a thriving scene of underground artists doing it for themselves.  We called it Indie Rock.  The name is short for Independent Rock and it was grown out of the genre Alternative or Modern Rock.  In general terms it met alternative music made by artists who were doing it themselves or were signed to independent labels.  It really did not hold to a particular sound though there were similarities across the category.  The sub-genres and their names are not important.  It was the ethos that to me is most important.  Aside from the impostors, these were artists who believed in the ethos of independence and DIY both from a creative and a business perspective.

The 90's were prosperous for music and for artists of many levels and of many genres.  Towards the end of the decade radio consolidation (a gift from Bill Clinton) and rap rock had all but eliminated Indie Rock from the airwaves but that was not really a big deal.  Aside from a few bands Indie Rock never got all that much attention from commercial radio.  

The new millennium comes screaming in with a stolen presidential election and a President who is a dangerous combination of dumb, greedy, and credulous.  Arguably, the 2 biggest agendas of the Bush Presidency were to futher his Christian believes and to make his oil buddies (or other corporate monsters) more money.

Christianity and oil prices are the death of Indie Rock.

Before George's ascension to the highest office in this country, Christianity was a religion.  Something you practiced with your friends and families and something that was part of your belief system, but it did not necessarily punctuate everything in your life.  It suddenly became OK to be in a Christian Rock band.  Rock is anything but Christian.  It is about rebellion, discovery, independence, raw emotions, sex, drugs, etc.  All of which are decidedly un-Chirsitan.  

The influx of Christian bands into the mainstream ultimately watered the creative talent pool and ultimately stagnated the progress of true art.  Christian bands became popular not because they were good but because they were Christian.  At the core a Christian Rock band can't be good because for Rock to be good it has to buck the system or it has to make me feel dirty or sexy or something un-Christian. 

When Bush took office average gas prices were about $1.50/gallon  by the end of his 8 year tenure the price will probably average out to just under $4/gallon.  People are making less money spending and spending more on gas.   Coupled with stagnant ticket prices and stagnant merchandise prices and you have bands that simply can no longer afford to drive from city to city to bring their music to the people.  Since the beginning of the modern music era "the road" has been the proving ground for bands.  It was where they honed their skills and where they made their money to continue through another album cycle.  Without being able to go on the road bands are never developing into their potential and ultimately leaves us with a lot of crap bands who are more about a gimmick then they are about an artform.

I should probably take the time to write this in more eloquent prose but since I have talked about this idea for over a year now and have never written it, I decided to post away.  Afterall, none of it matters anyway.  Nobody reads the blog so...

George Bush through his policies and mainstreaming of Christianity and his undying commitment to make his corporate(Oil) buddies rich off the hard work of the working class has killed Indie Rock dead.

Qualifications to be President

1. You must have had a passport for at least 15 year and it must be stamped with other countries.
   
2. you must read newspapers or news websites.  The Onion and Fox News do not count (they are both entertainment not news)
3. you should have to take a geography test
4. you must accept that just as smoking causes cancer - carbon emissions cause global warming
5. you must believe in evolution (if you are going to teach un-intelligent design in schools then we must also teach the cybernetic inevitable)
6. You must be smarter then me (not asking a lot here)
7. You must be in between the ages of 35-65
8. You must like dogs.  (I do not trust anyone who does not like dogs.  They are hiding something)

I will come up with more

Joe Six Pack

Palin is not qualified to be VP.  This is just a silly argument at this point.  Neither was Bush and look where that got us.  I have a standard rule of thumb that I like to apply to those people who seek the highest public office in this country---they should be smarter then me---.  This is not to say I am some smart know-it-all.  Rather I am just an fairly well educated fairly clued in citizen.  Palin is a moron.  Bush is a moron.  McCain, Biden, & Obama are not dumb.   I have my disagreements with all of them but Palin is DUMB.

Back to my headline.  I am really offended by this phrase she likes to use all the time "Joe Six Pack".  I take that as offensive because who really is Joe Six Pack and who wants to be referred to as that? Is this to say that most of our country are lame people who just sit around and watch TV and drink a six pack every night?  Not really capable of a free thought.  Not smart enough to determine right from wrong.  Not aware when they are being lied to.  Not aware that times are tough.  Not aware that our kids are dying in Iraq when they should be killing Bin Laden in Afganistan or Pakistan.

I will concede that there are plenty of people who drink a six pack on the couch every night but even those people do not want to be called Joe Six Pack.  Even those people like to think they are smarter then their neighbor and more moral or more understanding of our differences.

Palin is dumbing down America.  We used to be proud to be the smartest most productive country in the world.  Now we are content to be Joe Six Pack

Here comes another set...

Coming from someone who does not surf that seems like a strange thing to say.  I work in bunches and I feel like bunches of blog posts are coming.

My previous rants about record deals and such have come to a head and that is why I have been absent.  We made a decision and since then we had to haul ass to make the appropriate deadlines for the release dates we wanted.  We had lots of touring already booked so those dates were important.

We ended up retaining ownership of our publishing and our masters and did 3 license deals (The Benelux, Germany-Switzerland-Austria, and N. America.  The rest of the territories are still in play and we hope to land something soon

There is a risk that we have not locked up worldwide releases and that our licensing partners do not put in the full effort (because their involvement in less on the back-end) but I believe this is the best solution.  We presented our same deal to several labels.  Many of them wanted to change it and complicate it.  There was certainly limited risk factor due to all the work that the band does on their own and their own investment.  For that we should be rewarded.

In the end there were a few labels who stepped up and we had to choose who was best.  We ended up going with the label that we had the relationship with over the past few years, albeit just as friends.  

Maybe more detail on that shortly

Equitable Exchange?

Does this make sense?

Everyone knows that 50/50 record deals are not anywhere near 50/50.  The split is taken of the "Net" as defined by the contract.  Every contract is different but rest assured there are plenty of costs that are used to calculate that net and I agree many of them should be there.  Hard costs, especially, should all be included in there.  They could be distrbution, promos, posters, publicists, radio promotion, advertising, etc.  However, many labels include a fee called "admin", "overhead", "venture", etc. that is compensation for the label before the 50/50 split.

Hmmm.

The artist works too.  They tour (without tour support) tirelessly playing before hundreds of thousands every year, they interact with the fans directly and through the web and Twitter, they sell the CDs EVERY night THEMSELVES, they write the songs, they record the songs, the sweat it out every day but they are not compensated before the net.

Is that equitable?  

I agree the label should make money and hopefully a lot.  50/50 implies a joint venture between 2 business.  Each one should be bringing an equitable amount and they should share equitably.

There is of course value to the label "fronting" a lot of the marketing money (which is most certainly a risk factor) and that is why that money is "first out" but what is that value.  Imagine what would be the APR of a $75,000 loan that is paid off in 6 months?  Maybe that is the answer?

Hmmm.

Making choices

Should you bear the risk all by yourself, fully knowing that there is a pending cash crunch coming?

Should you go with an established indie that has had some cool bands and defined level of expertise?

Should you go with an younger indie that has fewer cool bands and more passion then expertise?

If those questions were not hard enough alone each one is not equal in terms of deal structure.

Time is ticking

Portugal The Man

The plan is to update this through the process of album finishing to album release.  This is the process by which bands have to make tough decisions on what to do to gain success.  

The Background

PTM is a band that plays 250+ dates a year.  They have a VERY solid touring base across the country.  Not just in the majors.  This is real touring not your major market touring (the monday after SXSW the band brought out over 300 paid to a show in El Paso).  PTM recorded 2 full length for OC punk rock label, Fearless Records.  Nice enough people and they really liked the band but by their own admission, they were not necessarily the best home.  The band's debut sold quite well and their follow despite great media coverage, rave reviews, and bigger touring suffered.  Everyone has excuses but the band lost several thousand sales to P2P and not being able to sell either record on tour.  

While developing N. America PTM reached out for it's next territory.  We had some support in Germany so we threw our focus on Germany, Switzerland, and Austria.  4 headline tours and a 5th planned it is safe to say that this band has a firm hold on GSA.  Visions Magazine has been HUGE supporters and have put the band in many of their year-end lists.

The Current State

Having finished their commitment to Fearless the band set out to finance themselves through at least the recording process.  They went to Seattle and spent time recording with Phil & Kirk from Kay Kay & His Weathered Underground (an amazing band if you have not already heard of them).  3 intense weeks later the band emerged with a record.  The quickly jetted off to Europe for some touring while Phil worked on mixes.  

To be honest, I got really scared here.  I new the songs had huge potential but I was not hearing it.  OK, I freaked a bit.  I made some calls and we hooked up with Paul Kolderie (Pixies, Throwing Muses, Radiohead, nothing really all that good).  I sent him the files and begged him to break the news to me lightly.  Paul called back and said once he stripped away all the plug-ins he found some really great stuff.  His biggest compliment was "I would have never had recorded some things this way but they sound really cool".  With that, Paul and Adam Taylor began mixing and doing additional production.  The record gets completed and sounds magnificent.

Emily Ibarra came on tour with the band to shoot the album cover and to get some promo shots done.  

Makenna Combs and John started working on the package and everything is nearing completion.

The Questions

Can a band do it alone?

What sacrifices will they make along the way and are they too risky?

What is fair value or an equitable trade to enter into an agreement with a record label?

Can the band finance the minimla marketing and promotion themselves?

Do the fans really care that the band does it themselves and needs the support of record sales?

Does the industry care about working bands? Will press, radio, tv, retail support a band without the label backing?

Does the band have the work ethic to pull it off?

These are just some of the questions I will be asking myself over the next few weeks/months.

I will keep you posted.  In the meantime if you are interested here is a sneak peek acoustic version of a new song.

Politics All Screwed UP

I will be the first one to admit I love watching the spectacle of the presidential race. It is reality TV and its best and like Reality TV it has nothing to do with reality. Pretty much across the panel these candidates are not showing you there true selves. Either because they are evil fuckers and they know there is no way in hell anyone with a brain would vote for them if you really know who they are (Giuliani) or they are too busy staying on the talking points that have been conjured up by a team of experts to fit perfectly in the middle. Don't piss anyone off. Don't touch those emotional topics (Obama).

I am not picking on those 2 because in all reality they are no worse then the lot of them.

I would say there are only 2 people who are speaking their minds. Ron Paul and Dennis Kuchinch and frankly I am not signing up for either of their campaigns.

Glad to see that there will at least be a race among the candidates.