Corporate Greed Is Killing Music

January 1st, 2011

Some people ask me why I say “corporate greed is killing music.” What about people that are stealing music? Or even those that do buy music but are too lazy to check out anything other than what the corporations are pushing on them? Or couldn’t the blame be places on the musicians and bands that just dial in a performance and don’t push themselves creatively?

Well, maybe the truth of the matter is that “lazy fans (or musicians) are killing music” really just doesn’t sound as catchy on a t-shirt. But for me, I don’t think these factors are killing music. They are certainly ruining it in some cases, but not killing it. We have always had some fans that don’t want to think and some musicians that are lazy – even back when the music industry was booming. But then again – we also had corporate greed. So what is different now?

The difference is that now fans and musicians that do care can find ways around the corporate greed – both legally and illegally. The digital revolution has leveled the playing field a lot. The corporations could have jumped in early and taken advantage of the changes – but they still would have lost some money. In the long run, they would have still stayed afloat, but that short term loss was just too much for them. So they went the greedy route and fought the change.

The reason this is important is that we still need a national distribution network for people to hear and obtain music (legally). The corporations provide that. Without that, there would be no way for any bands to go on national tours – and almost all bands would just be local acts trying to make a living off the same fans every week. In other words, there would probably be no professional music stars.

There would probably be no music acts at the half time show during the Super Bowl either. You need someone famous to do that, and without the national distribution that labels afford, there would be no stars.

But those corporations are also ripping off their bands. So you see why I pin the problem on the corporations. They could have changed for the better, maybe suffered a bit, but ultimately came out on top with everyone happy and new, sustainable business model.

But they chose the path of greed.

(this article was also published in the January 2011 issue)

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Giving Both Sides a Fair Shake in a Documentary

October 1st, 2010

I will be the first to admit that I am not a fan of the modern day documentary. I am one of those people that believe in giving everyone a fair shot, even when you are getting across your agenda. Agendas happen all the time – it is not like I expect people to not have them. But if you want me to listen to yours, at least show me that you have honestly and fairly considered all sides.

That being said, I think there are still reasons for watching documentaries if they contain some historical value. David di Sabatino’s documentaries fall in to that category. I feel that he really didn’t give everyone in his films a fair shake, but he did at least give some good historical information to make you think.

Here is what I mean by giving everyone a fair shake. Lonnie Frisbee is painted as a misunderstood person that was just treated badly by the leaders around him. His leaders should have known better. But the hard thing is, he was a leader, too. I wonder why the same grace that was extended to Lonnie wasn’t also extended to John Wimber or Chuck Smith? Lonnie’s mistakes and lies were glossed over with a kind of “well, he shouldn’t have done that, but he was only human so it was okay” kind of attitude. Wimber and Smith were human, too – and should be given the same benefit of the doubt as Lonnie. But they are pretty heavily slammed. And unfairly too – I have worked with several Vineyard churches, and there has never been a cover-up of Lonnie’s involvement (like the documentary implies). In fact, a friend of mine wanted me to read a book that Vineyard wrote on their history. I asked if Frisbee was in there, and he stated that there was a whole chapter on Lonnie, as well as chapters on many other mistakes the Vineyard made through the years. I’m sorry if John Wimber failed to mention Frisbee at the right time back in the day. People are just like that – it is kind of like when people speak of an ex-wife. They usually don’t say a name, just “My Ex.” When you are still hurt by something that is just the way you act. It is not some cover-up conspiracy.

The troubles continued when I watched the Larry Norman documentary. I realize that there are five people out there that still worship Norman and won’t admit to his problems, but I think the rest of the world knows all about it. Shoot – most of the various accusations against Norman were well-known even back in the early 1990’s when I first got in to Christian music. Once again, I still don’t get why Norman was not extended the same grace that Frisbee was – both were leaders that hurt people by their actions. Both of them had victims. Di Sabatino claims that Norman still had “victims that deserved to have their side heard.” But yet he only brings up the issues that have been well known for over a decade. I just don’t get that. Not that I think this should have stopped the documentary – I just think he is not applying the same standard to both people. Frisbee also had victims – and was a victim himself (as Norman was probably also, since all musicians were back them).

When I brought these issues up with Di Sabatino, he accused me of being a Norman fanatic. Strange, because I honestly don’t even like Norman’s music. I recognize the place it has in music history, but I just never got into it. I only owned one Norman cassette a long time ago. That has really been Di Sabatino’s response to any critics – you are just a “Norman fanatic.” I guess the small number of Norman fanatics out there must be really loud – because I can never find any of them and Di Sabatino thinks they are everywhere.

Which leads to another confusing issue for me – he says he still stands behind what he said, just not how he said it. Still stands behind accusing a bunch of Larry Norman critics and haters of being Larry Norman fanatics just because they criticized his films? Odd, again.

But I write all of this just because I am one of many that have clashed with Di Sabatino publicly. Many that have clashed with him have written him off completely, even created websites aimed at exposing him. After reading the interview in this issue, I have to say that I am seeing signs of hope. The brash, egotistical filmmaker that I once saw is showing signs of softening his “I am always right” edge. So there is hope. I like what I read, so I will continue to follow his filmmaking endeavors.

But I still want to see a bit more grace going all ways and not just towards one side.

(this article was also published in the October 2010 issue)

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Don’t Let Idiots Influence Your Beliefs on Important Matters

July 1st, 2010

I was hanging out with some friends recently when the topic drifted to deeper religious subjects. Two people got in a little back and forth about a certain topic. It started with one of them saying “well, I used to believe that, but now I have come to the revelation that…” After they went around a few times, I pointed out to them that they were actually saying basically the same thing and disagreeing over semantics.

At some point in life, most people get to a point where they re-shape their beliefs on something. This typically happens in the “twenty-somethings” age, but could happen later or earlier depending on how much people evaluate themselves. When I was in my 20s, I quite often said “I used to think that way, but…”

Then I got into my late thirty’s and realized that I had been through a good five or six different “I used to think this, but…” on most topics. It dawned on me that our beliefs on many things are constantly evolving, so we should never look down on someone that thinks something we have moved on from. You never know if you might come back to that same belief once you figure out how silly your current one is.

Add to this that you can pretty much logically support any belief in the world, depending on what information you decide is not truth.

The article on Ojo Taylor is an example of this. He states that there is not archeological evidence for the Exodus. But even a simple Google search will turn up thousands of examples of what people claim is archaeological evidence. Some of them sound crazy. But I also remember reading a very scholarly article by an Atheist detailing archeological evidence for many Biblical events, including the Exodus and Noah’s flood. Some people say it is there, others say it isn’t – you just have to weigh the two opinions and decide which one you think is accurate. Ojo came to one conclusion on that, one that I disagree with. But that is his choice.

There are other issues too – like certain epistles being forgeries for example – that are controversial. There is evidence for both sides. I tend to disregard anyone that automatically labels the other side as “stupid” or “ignorant.” That’s never the case – they just came to a different conclusion than you. The whole Creationism vs. Evolution debate is one of those that are really hard to follow, because most people on both sides disrespect the other. There is scientific evidence for both sides on that one – I have seen evidence for and against Creationism and evidence for and against Evolution with my own eyes. The only people I have found worth listening to in this particular debate are those that respect the scientific credibility of the other side, even if they disagree with the interpretation of the evidence.

Because really, that is all it comes down to is interpretation of evidence. But I would also say to not let the bad examples on either side of an issue influence your decision. Either the Exodus did happen or it didn’t. But don’t decide that it didn’t happen because some Christian was a jerk to you about something in the past.

The same goes for your beliefs about God. If there is a God, and if He is real – then how some jerk hypocritical Christian treats you is not going to change that fact. Don’t let idiots influence your beliefs on such important matters. Author Anne Rice is a famous example of this recently. She had this to say:

“Gandhi famously said: ‘I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.’ When does a word (Christian) become unusable? When does it become so burdened with history and horror that it cannot be evoked without destructive controversy?”

Words only become unusable when we let circumstances control us, instead of us controlling circumstances. “Love” is a word that has been cheapened a million more times so than “Christian” by modern media, so much more so burdened by history and horror… but do we stop using it because others have misused it so badly?

(this article was also published in the July 2010 issue)

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Innovative Changes In The Music Industry

April 2nd, 2010

So the music industry is dying, MySpace is dying… every where we look the opportunities for musicians are drying up. Or is it that just the big music labels aren’t adapting fast enough to the changing times? Maybe their greed is finally getting the best of them?

No matter what happens in the changing tides of the music scene, I think that bands and musicians themselves need to be the innovators – especially in how they reach their fans. We’re starting to see many bands do just that, of course – but the more that jump on the innovation band wagon, then the faster we can get to the new future of the music industry.

Several bands are trying some inventive methods. One such band is SLIDE. I don’t really know if there is a way to describe their method, or a good term that fits it. But the idea is pretty simple: record songs one at a time, release them through iTunes as they are recorded, add a few remixes to make it interesting, rinse, and repeat. When they get enough songs out there, they will release a CD. Instead of “pay-as-you-go” plan, this sounds like a “finance-an-album-as-you-go” plan. I can’t speak for how they afford it, or how much money they make towards the overall cost of recording, but they are still moving forward, gaining momentum all the way.

Another innovative method is the open source record as described by Temple Foundry Mediaworks. From the sounds of it, it still seems like this will be experimental for now. My head is swirling with many questions about how the details will work out, but it is still an interesting model to follow.

The Internet (for now, at least) is still a good source to connect with fans. If your band doesn’t have a FaceBook page yet – get with the times. MySpace is turning into a ghetto fast.
Other sites have some good ideas, too. I really like what BandCamp.com is doing – you can sell albums or songs in full quality format. This is a great way to get albums out there, especially ones that might not be popular enough to justify a full CD pressing (obscure re-issue, fan club type albums, or unreleased albums that never got finished).

But I have to wonder if the dream of being a full-time working musician, making enough to live, is gone forever. Will music become a part-time hobby for most? If you can get enough people to come out and watch your shows, maybe you can become a full-time musician. But how can that happen? We used to know who the hot bands were by listening to the radio and watching MTV. Those avenues are dying. What will be the radio charts and MTV top video countdowns of the future? I am all for bands being able to do open source records and online downloads, as long as there is a way for bands to tell how popular they are. They need to know if they need to book the stadium tour or the dive-bar tour after all.

This last issue is really the missing piece. Music distribution is pretty irrelevant in the Internet age. People can find the music if they want to buy it. The issue now is how do bands know how popular they are? Where do you turn to find out what people with your same tastes are listening to? Discussion forums are dying, and Facebook doesn’t quite (yet at least) rate music popularity. That is one piece that we are beginning to miss… but are we aware of what we are missing?

(this article was also published in the April 2010 issue)

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Interesting Thoughts on Why Music Should Be Free

October 9th, 2009

This is sure to be controversial. Should all music be free? Can that be the way to fix the music industry? Check out this article in Relevant Magazine called “Why Music Should Be Free”:

http://www.relevantmagazine.com/culture/tech/features/18542-the-upsides-of-free-downloads

Also, is it a sign of the apocalypse that I actually agree with something Derek Webb says? Some interesting thoughts. They may not all be right, but still something to ponder.

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How Bad Is The Illegal Music Downloading Business?

October 1st, 2009

Did you hear the recent news about illegal down-loaders? Those shady, evil, conniving pre-teens that are destroying the music world as we know it are buying the most legal music. The audacity of those… a… what?

I had to have read that wrong. Let me see… what does it say exactly? “The people who do the most illegal downloading also buy the most music.”

Maybe I should put down stones before casting them and all that…

Shocking as it may seem to those that buy the music industry lines, these findings don’t really shock anyone that knows someone who downloads illegally. You see, illegal downloading has never been about getting something for free (to most). It has been about finally getting quality control back in a system that has always made big bucks on consumer ignorance.

Let’s face it – how many albums do you have that you would have never bought if you could have listened to it first? The music industry has made big bucks from pushing artists to finish before they have good songs, or just putting a mediocre band in the studio to record two hit songs and bunch of filler, or putting good albums on cheap quality mediums that will scratch, break, or go obsolete within a few years (forcing consumers to re-purchase their entire music collection). They have always counted on you not knowing what you are buying. You are supposed to hear the one good song on the radio and rush out and buy the whole album – filler junk and all. Then you are supposed to play that one song to death until your record scratches, your tape breaks, or your CD melts on your dash and you are forced to buy a new one.

Oh, and of course they have a way to get more money off of the bands that can produce an entire albums worth of good songs. They just “invent” an entirely new format for delivering music every few years, forcing you to buy an upgrade… at full price. Remember when they tried to get those mini-discs to catch on, and then Gold discs, and then the super discs, or whatever all of those “CD-upgrades” were called? All of those formats tanked – because people were fed up with the constant upgrade.

Did you know the same is also pretty true for the movie piracy business? Most pirated movies come from someone sitting in the back of the theater with a handheld camera. The quality is pretty horrible. But people download them so that they can see the movie first before deciding to go to the movie theatre to watch it.

Of course, the unfortunate side effect of this for the smaller labels and independent bands is that people expect to be able to preview music, but have a harder time finding the less popular artists. If they don’t preview it, they don’t buy it. So the truth be told, the mp3 revolution is hurting the “little people” in the business. The only way to change this side effect would be to change the system. But the big labels don’t want to do that, because it would even the playing field. I fully believe that this is the main reason why big companies have been reluctant to embrace the mp3 revolution.

They are afraid of their filler junk being on a level playing field with all the quality little guys and girls out there.

(this article was also published in the December 2009 issue)

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Close Encounters of the Prosperity Kind

August 1st, 2009

I remember about two years ago when my wife and I were looking for a new church in our area. Most of the churches we went to were great churches – just not for us. But there was one that really stuck out to us. We were tricked in to visiting one of those Prosperity Gospel “if you have faith, you’ll be rich” kind of places.

You see, I say tricked because I would never willingly set foot in any place that equates faith with the thickness of my wallet. But a friend of ours told us she used to go to a church that was “just like” the church we were looking for. I need to go back and check this friend’s sanity. Just like? I think not.
The visit started out innocently enough. Well, as innocent as you can feel walking into a building that makes Jerry Jones’ new mother ship (aka “Cowboys Stadium”) down the road look humble in comparison. I was wondering how many 747s you could fit in the foyer when were greeted by a nice lady and swept away to the visitor’s desk.

After getting a nice, slick stack of pamphlets, we were whisked away for the free “tour of the grounds.” I was quickly taken aback by the large neon signs pointing out everything along the massive foyer. Coffee this way, restrooms here, heated baptismal pool (complete with fancy fountain) over there, childcare around the corner, etc. I’m still not sure why they needed a neon sign pointing to a another large sign 20 feet away that both read “Coffee Shop,” but I found out later how seriously they took their coffee. I took one look at the prices in the coffee shop and decided to save money by going to Starbucks.

I’m no expert at neon signs, but the last time I did look in to buying one (don’t ask), it was hundreds of dollars for a small one. Kind of depressing that someone’s entire tithe for the year went into that overkill of a sign that basically only pointed the way to the local altar of Java.Next stop was the sanctuary and the start of the service. I don’t think I have ever been inside of a meeting hall so large before. The whole service wigged out my wife – she had never been to a Pentecostal-style service before. She wondered why the music kept playing while the pastor was up speaking. I was just marveling at the fact that this dude’s suit cost more money than every piece of clothing I had ever bought combined. Not the kind of leader I can look up too.

As soon as the service was over, we tried to make our way to the front door. Try being the key word. I guess we left the wrong exit door. There were so many of them after all. Apparently, our escape trajectory was at a perpendicular angel to the path to the coffee store. Talk about swimming against a human ocean! It was like we in that scene from The Matrix where Neo and Morpheus are walking against the flow of all the people is suits, and Neo is getting knocked all over the place. Except at least Neo was in a program that was out to kill him. We had it even worse – coming between people and the object of their devotion! Talk about opposition in the spirit!

The moral of this story? A Prosperity Gospel Fool and their money are soon parted. That and we are glad we found a good church the next week.

(this article was also published in the August 2009 issue)

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God’s Unconditional Acceptance Is Only Half of the Picture

April 28th, 2009

Steve and I get to have some interesting conversations in the course of putting together this magazine.  Usually, they are the cool kind of interesting.  Occasionally, they are the really off-the-wall, “what the heck?” kind of conversations with people.  Luckily, we haven’t had any of those “that ruined my day” kind of interesting conversations.

But, I know human beings, so that is bound to happen one day.  And you can expect that first bad conversation to be thoroughly mocked here in this column.

Once such recent conversation with Steve was about an email exchange he had with someone that was one of those really off-the-wall types.  The gist of the discussion (other than “is this guy insane or high on something”), was about how this dude blasted Steve, and then pulled the “God accepts me just for who I am” card.

In other words, he was telling Steve that he was going to act like a jerk and Steve had to take it or be labeled… well… something I can’t print here if I want to make sure the site doesn’t get blocked by over-zealous filtration software.

There are three things that really bug me about this line of thinking:

  1. It always pains me to see people use the whole “He takes people as they are” crutch.  That is true, but only half the picture.  The other half, the good part in my opinion, is that God also calls us to be a better person at the same time He takes us as we are. If God just accepted us as we are, He would be some Great Enabler. If He just demanded that we do a better job, He would be the old “Big Army Boot in the Sky,” ready to stomp on us for messing up.  Seems like most Christians fall towards one of those two extremes….  Either “I’m good the way that I am, so up yours” kind of attitude or the “gotta get everything perfect and holy before I can accept that you are a Christian” junk.
  2. This “Great Enabler “ crutch always seems to be followed with the revelation that you don’t have to care what people think about you.  Great… it took you how long to figure out Christianity 101 dude? Now why don’t you work on the next step, where God actually teaches you how to be a better person and get along with other people?  That’s a big step, one I am still trying to figure out, but at least I know enough to know that sitting on your kiester, stomping your feet and having a tantrum about “God loves me just the way that I am” is no where in the Bible.
  3. The final step to creating a tri-fecta pseudo-Christian whinefest is to talk about all the people that you know that fell away and still aren’t following God…. like it is some kind of big revelation that people “receive the word with joy, but when the trials of life come, they wither away.”  Oh, wait… I was just quoting the parable of the seeds on the path or whatever it is called.  So, it’s some big revelation that people are doing exactly what Jesus said they would do 2000 years ago?  The point of talking about this is only to show how holy you are and how unholy others are, but the effect is really one of smirking and giggling behind your back.

(this article was also published in the April 2009 issue)

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My Tribute To Gene Eugene

March 13th, 2009

“Walk between the raindrops if you can… what the heck does that mean?” I remember the conversation well – it was sometime around 1992 in San Antonio, TX. A group of college students had gone out to change the world by repainting a church in the poorer part of town. We had been told that a few hours after we packed up and left for the day that a gang fight had broken out around the corner and someone had been shot. Sobering news like that leads to deeper conversations. I was talking with the leader of our group, an awesome character by the name of Tim. Our group was made up of your typical college church crowd, so we spent the day listening to typical college church crowd music – Susan Ashton, Steven Curtis Chapman, D.C.Talk, etc. Tim and I had been lamenting the need to play some meatier music. Tim mused: “I wonder what they would think if we played some Adam Again? ‘Walk between the rains drops if you can’… ‘what the heck does that mean?’ Or The 77s… ‘The rain kept falling in love’… ‘what?’ That would drive them crazy!”

Gene Eugene had that unique gift as a writer. He could pen songs that you instantly understood at one level, and then realized that there was a whole other level you were probably missing. Even songs about the electricity getting cut off before a bunch a friends came over made you stop and wonder “am I missing some deeper point about the depravity of man?” Maybe it was just that voice – that mournful tone of his. Maybe I was just reading too much into it. Then someone sent me a bootleg concert where Gene sung his version of the Dolly Parton song (made famous by Whitney Houston) “I Will Always Love You.” I thought that was a simple love song, until Gene pointed out that there was some deep stuff there. So maybe I’m not just reading too much into any of his songs.

And not to mention how they stick in your head. Every time it starts raining I start humming one of those two songs about rain in my head. One when it is a light, refreshing spring storm, and the other when it is a dark, brooding thunderstorm. If you have heard both songs about rain mentioned above, then you probably know which one comes to mind in which situation.

I even got to the point where I thought that there are some rain storms where you can walk between the raindrops if you try. Then I got caught in a monsoon rain in India… a wall of water falling on you from the sky. And that song came to mind. Yet another layer of that simple lyric became real to me.

I never met Gene, but I get the impression that he was all about layers. I’ve read several interviews with friends of his that attest to the fact that no one quite knew the same Gene. He revealed different aspects of himself to different people, as Steve Hindalong pointed out once. Mostly this magazine issue has covered feedback from people that knew and worked with Gene. But the other side of the coin is Gene’s fans. Each one of knows a different layer of Gene, revealed through his deep and personal lyrics. Personal in how we all interpret them as much as how they gave us a glimpse into Gene’s personal life.

Maybe you never had to deal with the electricity going out, but you have had to deal with the frustration of something going wrong and getting in the way of some plans. It just crawls under your skin that you are out of control of so many things in life. And for some reason, Gene covers that and so much more when he says “all my friends are coming over.”

Really? The non-fan might ask. “That line doesn’t say anything about any of that.” It’s not in what he says; it’s in the tone and inflection of how he says it. I’ve listened to entire albums that technically said less than that one line communicated.

Sadly, that voice, that wordsmith is gone… leaving us only five albums worth of material to dig through. There is enough there in those five albums to last a lifetime, but we also wanted more. It is what it is what is. Perfecta and leaving us craving more all at the same time.

(this post was also published in the Gene Eugene Tribute issue)

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So You Were In a Band (part 1)

February 9th, 2009

I never was in a band, but I thought I would start looking at what resources bands can use to reconnect with fans. This might actually prove useful for new bands, also – just remember that it is coming from a fan perspective. There are many free or low cost solutions out there for the non-techie bands to utilize. So, here is part of one of So You Were In a Band, and Now You Want to Re-Connect With Fans: Getting a website.

There are probably thousands of different ways to get a website going. If you have html programming skills or access to a web designer, you probably don’t need to know any of this. But if you have neither and still want a site… there is hope.

First of all, I would get familiar with some free tool for publishing content. Google has a few of these (Blogger, Google Sites, etc). The tool I would recommend is a WordPress.com blog. Why WordPress? Well, most blog programs work about the same. The difference with WordPress is that you can actually create pages and not just blog posts. You can run an entire site through WordPress (like we do) – setting up discography pages, lyrics pages, everything. Your blog doesn’t even have to be the front page of your site. Some programs also do that, but WordPress is probably the most popular.

The most important thing is to pick a tool that works best for you and what you want to do.

But why would you want to blog if your band doesn’t even exist and you have no news to report? Your fans would love to hear all the stories surrounding your band. Why not just add a new story every Monday? Or just go through every song and blog about each one – how it came to be, etc. You might even come across new stuff on YouTube or other places that might be of interest and want to post them.

Finally, a word about domain names. Your free account at WordPress.com will still reside at WordPress.com. If you want to have a domain name that matches your band name, you can still have that domain name point to your WordPress.com blog. Or, if you want to go a step further into DIY land, you can download the source code for WordPress and install it on your own website. Bluehost is one such site hosting option that will let you install WordPress as well as let you have your own domain and email, all for about $6-7 a month. The source code for WordPress can be found at WordPress.org (notice the .org part). Or, if you are interested in the less DIY option, some instructions on having domain names point to a WordPress.com blog can be found on this page.

What about MySpace? That is a different topics, but I wouldn’t recommend running MySpace as your main web page. Many do and it works fine, but it is more geared for active bands. I will cover MySpace in the future – I would recommend having that in conjunction with your main website. Next, however, I want to cover how to share copies of your music that you want to give away.

Any other ideas or suggestions? Feel free to drop a comment.

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