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Taking Your Fans by Surprise

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Craig Snyder has launched a blog and one of the first posts has terrific observations on forming a community around a creative project:

So you want to build a community? Be human. Talk with your fans. The beauty of a community is that they start small. So it doesn’t matter if you have 10 listeners or 500. But your goal should be to grow your community. How do you do that?

You talk with them. You get to know them. You ask them to invite their friends that will also like your music/podcast. You don’t need any membership sites to do this. Invite them to email you. Or chat with you after a performance.

Craig recommends that performers meet fans at the merch table. That’s how I met Mike Watt circa 1987. I wrote him a few letters over the previous year — which he responded to — and I let him know I’d be at the fIREHOSE show in Baton Rouge. I found Watt at the table hocking his band’s shirts and shyly introduced myself. He yelled my name and gave a warm bear hug. Then, the next surprise: he was hungry and asked if I’d like to have a snack with him at the restaurant next door. Just me and Watt, talking about life and music over french fries for thirty minutes before the show.

That experience solidified my Mike Watt fandom. And I’ve repeatedly run into him at his shows over the years and he was always generous. The last time I saw Watt, a couple of years ago, he didn’t remember me. Understandable as I was just ‘a kid at the gig’ and it had been over a decade since our previous encounter. But he still put me in a warm bear hug, just like the first time we met.

However, the point isn’t that you can only attract fans for life by inviting them to dinner or giving bear hugs. But these experiences, including others that Craig mentions in his article, do have an essential element in common: surprise.

An unexpected gesture goes a long way toward building a bond with an audience. For a touring band, this could be meeting fans at the merch table, or enjoying the opening band with the audience1I was watching the opening band at that fIREHOSE show, after the fries, and Watt wandered in and stood next to me. “Great band!” he yelled as he shook his fist in the air to the rhythm. It could be inviting people on the mailing list to the show with a personal email or postcard, or even pulling out an unexpected cover song that the group rarely plays. Think of actions that will create surprises, both one-on-one with individual fans and to an entire audience at the show. Not only do these experiences make fans feel special and members-of-the-club, but they also create stories told to future fans.

Thinking in terms of ‘the surprise’ allows non-touring acts to participate, too. If you don’t do shows, what are ways that you can surprise your listeners? Know that it’s tough to be surprising on social media — that’s by design — so think outside of Facebook and Instagram posts.

Your mailing list is a powerful instrument of surprise, whether you’re touring or not. Gather physical addresses in addition to email and send fans out-of-the-blue postcards or stickers or other trinkets. Make sure you personalize everything with a short note or autograph. Random personal email messages work, too, but make them fun and mysterious. Invite fans to private live hangouts with only an hour’s heads-up. Send them to secret websites to download unreleased music or videos — and (poof!) the site is gone the next day. Keep your fans on their toes and they’ll remain engaged.

How about a birthday text message, or a pre-show scavenger hunt, or an unannounced stream of a practice session? The surprise is fun, and it’s organic. Thankfully, the surprise doesn’t rely on social media or paying publicists. And the surprise can be simple and remain special. Mike Watt once surprised me with a bear hug, and I joined his community of fans. That’s as simple and special as it gets.

PS – Check out Watt’s new project with Graham Lewis of Wire … it’s called FITTED and it sounds great.

Making the Case for Blogging

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I’ve had a few friends ask about blogging this week. They have the same questions: is blogging worthwhile in an age of social media? What if no one reads? Which platform is the best? Isn’t WordPress complicated? Well, I have opinions and answers and a desire to help out. This post might be a long one — hold on tight.

I’m hardly an expert at blogging, though I’ve been doing it in stops-and-starts and in various places since the early 2000s. I didn’t have a lot of help and learned as I went along. I stumbled a lot. And I’m still stumbling. It’s from this student perspective that I offer some advice.

Why blog? As I wrote here previously, blogging is “an exercise to notice more, to observe the day with intention, to create firmer opinions and ideas, and to cope with the fears of uncertainty and of time passing.” It doesn’t matter if no one is reading — the act of putting your thoughts down in a public arena is medicine for gathering ideas and inspiring confidence. Bonus: it will make you a better communicator, too.

Social media is a tempting place for posting your thoughts. But don’t give in to convenience. The content you post on, say, Facebook not only becomes corporate property, but you’re enhancing the social media product to appeal to its real audience: potential advertisers. When you post to Facebook, you become part of a product designed to collect advertising dollars and please shareholders. I find that troublesome.

Even more troublesome is how these social media companies operate and the damage they inflict in pursuit of profit. And they actively imply their necessity, giving rise to questions like, “Why should I blog outside of Facebook?” It’s the commercialization of our thought-space and precious attention, something Jenny Odell talks about extensively in her terrific book How To Do Nothing. Odell says, “I will participate, but not as asked,” framing the refusal to contribute to the corporate product as a form of #resistance. “I want this not only for artists and writers but for any person who perceives life to be more than instrument and therefore something that cannot be optimized.”

The other problem with a social media platform is that you lose control over what you’ve written. This dilemma is real in a legal sense — read those terms of service agreements — in that the platform can exploit what you post without your permission. But it also means that if you decide to move your content to another platform or even archive it for safe-keeping, you’re out of luck. Social media platforms make it nearly impossible to collect or move your content.

Here’s a confession: in the mid-2000s, I used MySpace as a blogging platform. Some of my favorite things I’d written were posted there, including diary-like tales of travel and the DJ life. When MySpace’s future looked shaky, I fruitlessly searched for a way to export the posts. And then I discovered older posts were deleted already. Now all of that writing is lost forever. Who’s to say something similar won’t happen with Facebook?

Now I use WordPress. I was hesitant at first, as I assumed there was a steep learning curve. I used the platform in the very early 2000s and found it frustrating at the time. But a couple of years back I decided to charge in head-first and was pleased with the improvements made to WordPress. It is now a cinch to set up, and the back-end is a breeze to navigate. I’m also a fan of the Gutenberg editor recently added to WordPress — posting and editing is as fun as it is on Squarespace.

I did use Squarespace for a while. It’s a good platform. After a few years, I found myself outgrowing its limitations, so I moved to the much more flexible WordPress. I was also taken aback by an announcement that CSS editing would soon only be allowed at a higher price level. Squarespace backed down on that, but it made me realize the platform could change its features and fees at any time. And, though you can export your content from Squarespace, it’s done in a way that’s not easy to move to other platforms. When I did this export a little over a year ago, images were not included, which was disappointing.

I enthusiastically recommend blogging, and I recommend WordPress. You’ll get a lot out of the writing practice — I honestly think it makes life better — and WordPress ensures the content is yours to keep. As for social media, the key is posting links to your blog posts (and you may have found this post via social media link). Sending people to your blog is like welcoming them to your home, rather than having them meet you in a rented hotel room.

Here are a few tips and recommendations about setting up a blog on WordPress:

  • Grab your domain/URL. Finding something unique and sticky isn’t as hard as you think. Be creative. I use Namecheap for my domains, and I’ve heard that Hover is good, too. A domain is around $10 a year. Before purchasing a domain, search for the company name (like “Namecheap”) and “coupon code.” These companies are always running promotions.
  • Next, find a hosting company. You could use the same company as your domain, but I think it’s good to keep the hosting separate. You could use wordpress.com for hosting, but explore other options for the best price and features. I use Hostinger and appreciate the customer service and bang-for-your-buck on the pricing, which is generally below $5 a month. Here’s a list of other recommended hosts.
  • Once you have all of that sorted, it’s super-easy to get WordPress active on your domain. All hosts will have instructions for how to do this — here’s Hostinger’s process to give an idea of how painless this is. If you’re still feeling gun-shy, many hosts will do this for you for a small fee or even no cost. But I recommend doing it yourself to learn a little about how WordPress works behind the curtain.
  • In my opinion, the toughest thing about WordPress is choosing a theme. There are so many out there. I’d suggest looking at other blogs and finding layouts you like. Then apply this tool, which will tell you what themes those blogs are using and where to find them.
  • There are many high-quality free themes out there (especially if you want a minimalist look), but you may find a paid theme has the best appearance and features. It’s often worth it to go for a paid theme for the support alone — most theme designers I’ve encountered are super-helpful with questions about setting up and customization. And, another good thing about any WordPress theme is if you grow tired of your current one, it’s easy to switch. For the most part, your content won’t be affected by a change in theme.

And here are a few things I’ve learned about blogging in general:

  • Don’t worry if your traffic is slow or non-existent. That’s not why you’re here. If you’re consistent and honest in your writing, you’ll gain an audience, especially as organic SEO kicks in after a few months. And regarding SEO, read my post on the subject from a few weeks ago.
  • For inspiration, carry around a small notebook and write down cues to remind you of thoughts that come up, things you see, conversations you have, and what you’re watching or listening to. Consult the notebook when you sit down to write. These cues will spawn writing topics.
  • Another way I get inspiration is to look at other blogs. I have a bookmark folder of blogs to look at if I lack motivation or am doubting the practice of blogging. Seeing others doing it well, and having fun with writing always sparks my motivation. A few of my ‘inspiration blogs’ belong to Austin Kleon, Warren Ellis, and John Gruber. These three blogs are entirely different from each other — which is the point — but all spot-on in approach. It’s inspiring to see how different bloggers individually tackle their platforms and make fine-tuned magic happen for their readers.

Let’s talk about Medium for a minute. I do like Medium — it’s a sharp and simple blogging platform with a strong sense of community. Though one of those pesky corporations (it was founded by Ev Williams, former CEO of Twitter), Medium doesn’t have a corporate vibe and lacks the vitriol and manipulation of the social networks. Its heart seems in the right place, as writers can get voluntarily paid through its partner program. It’s easy to export your content, too — you can download your articles as HTML documents collected in a ZIP file.

But it’s still someone else’s platform, with the impression that you’re writing for (and building) Medium rather than your own identity. Josh Pigford of Baremetrics summed it up nicely in his article Why We Transitioned from Medium Back to Our Own Blog:

I realized Medium is really great about surfacing content, but it removes the face of it. It neutralizes all content to basically be author-agnostic. It’s like Walmart or Amazon in that you can buy from thousands of different brands, but you rarely actually know what brand you’re buying…you just know “I got it from Amazon.”

Same with content on Medium. Sure, you can see who the author is or what publication it’s on, but ultimately your takeaway is “I read this article on Medium”, and that’s not what I wanted.

But I do use Medium. I crosspost the longer, more evergreen articles after posting on this blog. I use Medium’s import tool, which makes this seamless and also removes any SEO conflicts caused by identical articles. I do this because I’m reaching a different audience through Medium, one that might be interested in discovering and reading my blog.1The overwhelming majority of my post views are still directly on my blog, not on Medium. I’m also in the partner program, and a couple of articles have gone mildly viral, paying out about $50 each. Why not, right? But this blog is the focus, and I wouldn’t create exclusive content for Medium.

So there it is. I hope this post is helpful. Nothing would make me happier than inspiring you to start a blog. Seriously, give it a go. Write about what’s precious in your life, your obsessions, and what you’re trying to do better. It might be frustrating at first, but once you get in the writing rhythm, wonderful things will happen. Be consistent, be honest, have fun, and, to paraphrase Timothy Leary, “Let the others find you.”

Update: As I was writing this, I kept recalling an outstanding piece from a few months ago also on the subject of blogging. After racking my brain I finally remembered and located it. So if you’re still on the fence you should immediately read this post by Disquiet’s Marc Weidenbaum. Here’s an excerpt:

And don’t concern yourself with whether or not you “write.” Don’t leave writing to writers. Don’t delegate your area of interest and knowledge to people with stronger rhetorical resources. You’ll find your voice as you make your way. There is, however, one thing to learn from writers that non-writers don’t always understand. Most writers don’t write to express what they think. They write to figure out what they think. Writing is a process of discovery. Blogging is an essential tool toward meditating over an extended period of time on a subject you consider to be important.

#Worktones: Loscil, M. Sage, Dytomite Starlite Band of Ghana

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Here’s a trio of excellent musical selections that have been permeating the home office this past week. It’s the latest installment in a series that I’m calling #Worktones.

Before knowing the photographic inspiration behind Equivalents, I mentally described the sound of the album as ’the hum of weightlessness.’ I wasn’t too far off. Those photos are a series of black and white pictures of clouds, captured and decontextualized by artist Alfred Stieglitz in the mid-to-late ‘20s. Some consider this work the first intentionally abstract photo-art statement. Here Loscil (the Vancouver-based musician Scott Morgan) deploys processed piano in sonic washes and layers that can recall an imaginative session of cloud-watching. Many only see uniform clouds in the sky — an everyday occurrence — while the lucky ones stop to pick out distinctive shapes, implications, and gentle reminders. Equivalents welcomes a similar exercise, rewarding the deep listener with soothing impressions of an atmospheric terrain.

Catch a Blessing is an adventurous album, in that it has the feeling of exploring unworn paths and venturing down overgrown trails. The album begins with the lively “Avondale Primer Gray,” hinting at randomness and an embrace of the ‘happy accident.’ But as things in nature experience emergence, the ensuing tracks, though sonically unconnected, appear to gather into themes that are just out of grasp. M. Sage, the artist behind this work, assists the experience with field recordings — such as the nostalgic fireworks of “Polish Triangle” — and guest musicians providing beautiful and exotic strings to “Window Unit + Three Flat.” But it’s the short but moving “Michigan Turquoise” that stands out, a lonely ballad complete with a looped guitar strum, seabird calls, and a mournful crooner transported by magic from a distant time.

It’s not all strange ambient music playing at the workspace. Some days (Monday mornings?) require an uplift, music that’s got some get-up-and-go. And I don’t know about you, but I can’t work alongside songs with words, especially when I’m writing. But there’s an exception for languages I don’t understand, especially when rhythmically sung in mesh with the instrumentation. This reissue of a rare 1982 album from Africa’s mysterious Dytomite Starlite Band of Ghana fits the bill. I say ‘mysterious’ as BBE, the reissuing label, doesn’t have much information on those involved. The songs are wonderful and instantly improve the mood and feature more than a few tight synthesizer riffs. I love listening to this stuff. I’m presently reading Rosewater, a terrific novel set in future Nigeria, so there’s some geographical synergy in my media consumption. FYI: BBE is quickly reissuing decades-old albums from the extensive back catalog of Nigerian label Tabansi Records and this is one of many in that series. The titles I’ve heard so far are consistently worth your time.

🔗→ Follow me on Bandcamp

YouTube Grapples with the Short and Unintentional

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Here’s an interesting development in how YouTube handles claims of copyright infringement for the appearance of “very short or unintentional” musical content. Let’s go to TechCrunch:

Going forward, copyright owners will no longer be able to monetize creator videos with very short or unintentional uses of music via YouTube’s “Manual Claiming” tool. Instead, they can choose to prevent the other party from monetizing the video or they can block the content. However, YouTube expects that by removing the option to monetize these sorts of videos themselves, some copyright holders will instead just leave them alone. […]

Creators were also given tools of their own that let them easily remove the clip or replace the infringing content with free-to-use tracks.

The Verge:

Creators on YouTube have increasingly struggled with record labels claiming copyright on their videos when snippets of music appear momentarily in the background, like from the radio of a car passing by. YouTube’s new rules don’t stop these claims from happening, but they attempt to discourage the claims by removing a key incentive for copyright holders: the ability to make money. […]

There are a couple of big caveats to the policy, though. It only applies to “manual” copyright claims — that is, when a record label or other rights holder identifies something that belongs to them and files the violation notice by hand. If a music clip is caught by YouTube’s Content ID system, which scans videos for infringing material, then rights holders will still be able to make money off of the video, regardless of how brief or unintentional the music is.

Complete Music Update:

YouTube also suggests creators make sure that there is no music playing in the background when a video is shot. Even though, in many countries, that would be covered by a copyright exception anyway, meaning no licence should be required. But, of course, rights management tools on user-generated content platforms are still struggling with the ins and outs of copyright exceptions and, in the US, the always ambiguous concept of fair use.

There have been exceptions for music use considered ‘diminutival’ (a fancy word I learned from a lawyer at Podcast Movement in reference to, say, singing a single line from a song in your podcast). And traditionally music that appears in live broadcasts — for example, a news report with a song playing at a business where an interview is taking place — is exempt. Though, in that case, any not-live rebroadcast would need to clear the song. It’s tricky.

In the past, a music rights-holder could claim a song appearing in a video that falls under the category “very short or unintentional” — like a song blasting out of a passing car for a second — and monetize the entire video for herself. In some cases, this claim process makes sense, but, in others, it’s potentially abusive. The Verge notes a popular YouTuber who lost monetization on a prominent video because he quoted a line from Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ On A Prayer.”

YouTube’s new approach is unique. Monetization became an incentive to overindulge in copyright claims, so that option is no longer available for these short uses in manual claims. Instead, the video can be blocked, or its monetization credentials removed for everyone. The video creator has the option to edit the offending song out of a problematic video to reinstitute monetization. It’s important to note that if the Content-ID robot identifies a song, then all bets are off — as before, the rights-holder can claim full monetization without any options to the video creator.

The solution is flawed and, I’m sure, an experiment. The push-back is that any video that incorporates a song becomes a derivative work of the infringing content, no matter the length or context. Thus the work becomes the claim of the infringed rights-holder. I see that point, and the recent EU judgment on Kraftwerk’s metal-on-metal hit shows how diminutive length often doesn’t matter.

But my feeling is that, for now, this is a suitable compromise. The legal boundaries of user-generated content are still under review. Experiments like these will help define how we, as rights-holders, deal with an ‘everyone is a creator’ culture in a way that exercises ownership without discouraging spontaneous homespun creative works.

Moving Toward a Music Solution for Podcasts

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I often talk to podcasters about music rights, but we never get anywhere. They want to know how to use recorded songs in their episodes. You think it would be easy — plenty of podcasts are using music and getting away with it. I suspect they’re just flying under the radar. Could fair use come into play? My friends’ podcasts could be considered informational, talking about the music and the artists behind the songs. But claiming fair use is a throw of the dice, and you need to be prepared to go to court if a cease-and-desist letter appears in your inbox. ‘Fair use’ is something that’s decided in a courtroom.

The problem is that there are no set guidelines for using music in podcasts. It’s a gray area, that ‘wild west’ that people bring up when discussing content rights on the internet. Podcasts are a combination of a download and an interactive stream — one or the other or both can happen. So the rights may fall closer to those of a song released to iTunes and Apple Music than licensed to a video or for radio play. On top of that, the usage is a derivative one. You’re incorporating — thus technically altering — someone else’s work in your podcast.

Right now, the solution is to locate and directly contact all of a song’s rights-holders. Easier said than done! Many songs, especially the popular ones, have multiple rights-holders to find. In my experience, Google won’t be much help. It’s the same process that a music supervisor goes through to license for a major motion picture. But, as we learned at the Podcast Movement conference in Orlando last week, 94% of podcasts have less than 5000 downloads per episode. These aren’t operations with the resources of a movie studio. Or the clout and money for that matter — imagine negotiating with a music publisher over a song for your fledgling comedy podcast.

So, yes, the Podcast Movement conference happened last week. And, with premeditated timing, an announcement was made right before the conference doors opened. The news offers a music solution for podcasters. Here’s an excerpt of the press release from SoundExchange:

SoundExchange today announced plans to collaborate with SourceAudio to provide a new solution for the rapidly growing podcast industry to secure music with fully integrated, global licenses. The collaboration would provide Podcastmusic.com, a digital music marketplace for podcasters, with access to SoundExchange’s vast membership of music creators and offer licensing for label and publisher-owned music. […] The service will launch in 2020. Participation in this service by publishers, labels, and other rights owners is on a voluntary basis.

SoundExchange is the rights organization designated by the US Congress to collect royalties on non-interactive digital streaming (such as from SiriusXM or Pandora in old school ‘station’ mode). As it’s the only US organization to handle this type of royalty stream, the catalog of recordings registered with SoundExchange is vast.

In 2017, SoundExchange acquired the Canadian mechanical rights society CMRRA which plays a part in this podcasting arrangement. SoundExchange’s inherent authority over non-interactive streaming doesn’t apply to podcast licensing. But the necessary clearance and royalty collection on the sound recording (mechanical or reproduction rights) is handled through CMRRA. The composition side, overseen by organizations like BMI and ASCAP, is cleared by direct license. The rights-holder opts-in through SoundExchange and grants direct licensing for podcasts.

The catalog will appear on SourceAudio‘s existing site PodcastMusic.com. Presently there is a database of ‘700,000 production and music bed tracks’ that will presumably sit next to recordings pre-cleared through SoundExchange. As SourceAudio is a private company, there have been grumblings about its collaboration with a congressionally mandated organization. I feel this warrants a discussion — undeniably this arrangement gives SourceAudio an upper hand on its competitors. Perhaps SoundExchange can expand this service to other companies that fit professional guidelines, giving the rights-holder an option of libraries to use.

Regardless, this is an exciting development and a massive improvement for podcasters navigating music rights. Recording artists and labels should be pleased, too — this opens a new revenue stream and licensing outlet.

I attended Podcast Movement and sat in on two panels that delved into the mechanics of this emerging podcast music service. A lot of the details are still being worked out. But I can start to see the full picture thanks to remarks by representatives of SourceAudio and SoundExchange and a pair of spirited audience Q&A sessions. Here’s some of what I learned:

  • The service is voluntary for SoundExchange members. All rights-holders — labels, publishers, artists — must opt-in. Prices can be set by rights-holders, which would allow those with high profile content to charge more. However, a $20 per license range is suggested to encourage more licensing frequency. A SourceAudio rep described the ideal model as “Walmart, not Neiman Marcus.”
  • A license will be for one usage in one podcast episode. The licensee will be limited to up to 90 seconds of the song. I assume a shorter usage will reduce the fee.1The fee will also be adjusted according to how many downloads you predict for the episode. There will be two license categories: bumper music, for going in and out of segments; and music used in an informational context, such as historical podcasts about the song or artist played.
  • If the podcaster wishes to license the full song or use the song repeatedly in a series (such as the podcast’s theme song), then the rights-holder(s) must be contacted directly. But fear not — the platform will provide a method of contact for all songs in the catalog. Also, songs in the SoundExchange library not opted-in for pre-cleared podcast licensing are listed as ‘unavailable.’ But a means of contact will be provided for direct negotiation and licensing. Handy. 2I asked if a rights-holder could create exclusions, such as ‘my music can’t be used in conspiracy theory-promoting podcasts.’ It seems there might be something like this in place, but the answer I received was vague.
  • After completing a license, the podcaster downloads the song. This song file will contain a special watermark. Upon the podcast’s completion, I believe the creator is required to upload the show to SourceAudio for verification.3If this is the case, it would be beneficial to integrate this delivery into major podcast distribution platforms. The music’s use in the podcast is tracked via watermark through arrangements with various podcast distribution networks. I imagine Google’s podcast platform plays a large part here as it’s inevitable that some form of Content ID is utilized.4Similarly, any license through the service will also apply to YouTube for ‘video’ streams of podcasts.
  • Though the licenses will be global,5How can one effectively territory-restrict a podcast, anyway? only songwriters registered with US-based PROs can participate at the service’s launch. This issue is probably because not all international PROs recognize direct licensing. The SourceAudio rep assured me the program would be expanded to non-US artists eventually, but there will be some confusion until then. US labels and publishers will be frustrated when they can’t submit songs registered by non-US writers to foreign PROs. Hopefully, this worldwide expansion starts rolling out soon after launch.
  • It appears spring 2020 is the launch target. But there will be a beta version going live any day now. In a smart move, SourceAudio will push well-known Christmas songs for the beta period. The seasonal content will accelerate the testing period as these Xmas licenses will appear in podcast episodes before the end of the year.
  • “Back In Black” was mentioned in passing a total of three times over the two panels. I’m wondering if there’s something in the works with AC/DC to publicize the song as a part of the launch.6This song doesn’t have a US-based writer or publisher so, if it does appear on the service, I wonder if the song’s relationship with ASCAP suffices?

I expect technical hiccups and continued grumbling about SoundExchange’s involvement in private industry. But I’m thrilled to see some clarity arriving in how music gets licensed in the rising rocket of the podcast market. The organizations promise monthly announcements and updates, so there’s more to reveal. Watch this space.

Visit www.podcastmusic.com/rights-holders to get involved as a podcaster or rights-holder.

Sweet Jesus: Steve Cobby’s One Man Cottage Industry

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Steve Cobby - Sweet Jesus

A lazy Friday in May revealed a righteous surprise. Without warning: the arrival of Sweet Jesus. This event wasn’t a religious awakening, but for fans of Fila Brazillia, it was like unexpectedly finding an apparition burned onto the morning toast. Steve Cobby, one half of the aforementioned Fila B, had dropped his latest solo album — yes, Sweet Jesus — on Bandcamp.

The album opens with the ringing strings of a gently played guitar. The thing that always struck me about Fila Brazillia’s oeuvre is its innate organicness. Though considered an electronic band, the duo (Cobby in cahoots with David McSherry) wasn’t afraid to toss in the odd guitar riff, live drum kit, or shite harmonica. As out-of-place as folksy fingerpicking might sound on Sweet Jesus, it’s all part of a modus operandi that’s a long time in motion.

Recognizable elements of Cobby’s velvet-textured production come into play — the intro of “Chauffeur De Camion” brings to mind at least a couple of Fila B’s mid-90s moments — but it’s the renewed intersection with a prominent guitar that inspires imaginative shifts. Notably, there’s “Feline Plastique” which incorporates a rhythmic Latin shuffle alongside a wealth of melodic riffs and optimistic tones. And jazz features more than we’re used to, allowing the guitar to explore on extended cuts like the Liston-Smith-laid-back-space-jam-ish “Truer Than Words.” Introspection rarely feels so sunny.

The mechanics of the release of Sweet Jesus interest me, too. Steve Cobby is no stranger to independent labels. After a stint with the major-aligned Big Life via his band Ashley & Jackson, Cobby played a part in the formation of no less than four different independent imprints. Déclassé is the latest, launched in 2014, and is the home of this new effort. But it appears a one-person operation, making the surprise release of Sweet Jesus an intuitive experiment.

Steve documented the launch of the album in real-time, live-streaming the click of the ‘publish’ button on his Bandcamp account, followed with a listen of the album accompanied by an affable and enlightening commentary.

I’m always curious about artists who thrived in the independent sector pre-Napster and how they operate now. It’s no secret that I’m one of those artists. Though I get excited about the potential of today’s DIY freedom, the changes remain a constant struggle of adjustment. Cobby’s embrace of the Bandcamp and live-stream platforms led me to believe he’s a lot more confident than me in the modern landscape. But, after an email chat, I see he’s playing it by ear like the rest of us.

Says Steve: “[These tactics were] borne of desperation and curiosity. I prefer to be just creating. I never anticipated being an owner-operator at such a late stage in my career, but necessity is invention’s mother. The times have moved a great deal. I wouldn’t say I’ve moved with them 100%. But I have autonomy so I can try out things signed artists might struggle with. The live-stream idea, for instance, only came to me about a week before the planned release on the 10th and the night before I was still tweaking tunes and mastering. I cannot envisage that scenario being duplicated many places where a committee is involved.”

How long did it take to figure some of this out and how rough was the transition?

“2004 to 2014 was a fallow decade for me. Couldn’t get anything to traction with the collaborative releases put out on the labels I co-owned. Once I went completely solo in ’14, consolidated all tasks to myself, and went direct-to-customer it was revolutionary. The light appeared at the tunnel’s end, and I began to earn money again. I’m a digital busker now, and almost everything that goes in the hat comes home. I think this is more like the many-to-many publishing model we’ll move towards. You’re sustained by a very bespoke coterie that you’ve curated.”

But, that’s liberating, right? So much nicer than being under the thumb of a label I’d imagine.

“I would much prefer financial security to be honest. My one man cottage industry is simply the only way I can get my material to market without interference. Certainly far from an ideal. I did enjoy the liberation of delivering an album completely ‘fresh’ and sans promo. But I’ve not worked within the traditional label machine since being signed to Big Life in the late eighties. They were pricks who wanted to dictate what we did and who we worked with. But If I was signed to an open-minded label, then I don’t see why I couldn’t make the same decisions I’m making now. Who knows.”

Whatever liberation there might be, a lot of artists are finding that Bandcamp is an essential tool for achieving it. Not only is it often used as a direct-to-artist platform, but Bandcamp also encourages artist fandom rather than passive playlist loyalty. I asked about Bandcamp’s role in Steve’s ‘one man cottage industry,’

“Bandcamp has been key to my turnaround. It’s the platform that delivers uncompressed and compressed downloads as well as streaming whilst taking the smallest cut of any retailer. This release was a Bandcamp exclusive for the first six weeks to help promote some more traffic that way. I’d still bother without it, but the returns would be less as all other online portals are serviced through an aggregator. “

I wondered: was Sweet Jesus‘s surprise release date set in stone and was there any temptation to push it back? And, as Steve was tweaking and mastering the album less than 24 hours before he clicked ‘publish,’ would he ever go back and update any of the tracks, Kanye-style?

“The beauty of the surprise deadline is it can be moved on a whim, but I was confident it was coherent work. I’d set that deadline for myself to avoid over-procrastination. As for reviewing post-release, the egg is fried. I don’t beat myself up once material is published and I would only ever re-upload a track for a technical reason, never creative.”

Despite the backed-into-a-corner nature of a self-release (and I can relate), I’m heartened and inspired by the freshness and ingenuity of Sweet Jesus, both in its playful roll-out to Steve’s fans and its bright, sanguine, and thoughtful sound. But, without any constraints, how would Steve Cobby release this album differently?

He answer: “To fifty thousand subscribers.”

Follow Steve Cobby and his Déclassé label on Bandcamp to help him get closer to that number.

#WorkTones: Mileece, Laraaji, Roedelius

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As I toil away in the home office, I often listen to quiet, experimental music from artists found on Bandcamp. I’ve started collecting and writing about these albums in a series I’m calling #Worktones. Here’s the 2nd installment:

It’s rare to hear something as simultaneously captivating and gentle as the series of staccato ‘pings’ found on Formations. Mileece — an artist who happens to be the granddaughter of the man who programmed the first computer-generated song — is fascinated by seemingly random processes in nature: the patterns of a snowflake, or the leaves of a fern, or rain’s gradual effect on a landscape. Applying this obsession to music construction creates rules within randomness, and we’ve taken to calling this ‘generative music.’ 2003 was an early time to purposefully dabble in generative electronics but Formations sounds seasoned, assured, and surprisingly organic. The album closes with “Nightfall,” revealing Mileece’s breath and soothing voice, reminding us of her guiding human influence on Formations’ otherwise arbitrary systems.

Laraaji, who of course we originally know from Eno-aligned collaborations, joins English musician Merz and multi-instrumentalist Shahzad Ismaily for, in Merz’s words, “a type of music that could co-exist in sanctified temples and in city urbanism.” Dreams of Sleep and Wakes of Sound might veer close to that lofty description, blending unmapped sounds of a heavenly nature with the hustle-and-bustle of layered treatments and aural tension. Each of the three participants isn’t present on every track (Laraaji contributes to just a few) but the sound and techniques remain unified. Just when you think you’ve got a handle on a song, shimmering washes of instrumentation build and surround what was once a simple structure. Titles like “That’s Your Blue Home” hint at introspective inspirations, apropos of how the music often suddenly expands as if soundtracking an epiphany.

It was an honor to see the legend that is Roedelius a couple of years ago at Orlando’s wonderful Timucua White House. The music was experimental and quiet, not at all jarring, and serenely transmitted the artist’s feelings in a tumultuous world. After Roedelius’s reassuring performance we left the venue calm and satisfied. Lunz 3, his latest collaboration with the equally prolific Tim Story, is no different. It’s pretty, but not so pretty as to hide a subtle agitation underneath. But that’s what makes this music so comforting — the impression that there’s room for beauty and contemplation in spite of the burning hum that encircles us.

A Tale of Two Copyright Rulings

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This week saw a couple of big events in the world of music copyright. First off, resolution to the Kraftwerk “Metal On Metal” case in the EU courts, as mentioned previously. Here’s Complete Music Update:

The court said in a statement yesterday: “Phonogram producers have the exclusive right to authorise or prohibit reproduction in whole or in part of their phonograms. Consequently, the reproduction by a user of a sound sample, even if very short, taken from a phonogram must, in principle, be regarded as a reproduction ‘in part’ of that phonogram so that such a reproduction falls within the exclusive right granted to the phonogram producer”.

But what about the artistic freedom of the sampler that the German Constitutional Court was so concerned about? Well, the ECJ has put some constraints on its main ruling. […] In the words of the court: “Where a user, in exercising the freedom of the arts, takes a sound sample from a phonogram in order to embody it, in a modified form unrecognisable to the ear in another phonogram, that is not a ‘reproduction’”. That conclusion is necessary, the court then added, to properly balance the rights of an intellectual property owner with the rights of artistic freedom.

There’s been the myth of a time allowance on samples, that if one samples only two-seconds (or another arbitrary small amount) then, legally, everything is okay. This has never been true in the short history of sample litigation. The issue is identifiably and uniqueness. If, say, a jury can point to a phrase and agree that it’s an unauthorized appropriation of a master recording (a sample) then it’s likely deemed copyright infringement. The length doesn’t matter.

The confusion is probably due to the lack of precedent and definition in the US courts. There hasn’t been a high profile episode like the Kraftwerk complaint yet. So, while the ruling of the EU court doesn’t necessarily say anything new (and it doesn’t add any new limitations, despite what some clickbait headlines might lead one to believe) it is good to have the context fully explained by a legal body.

Then there’s the court’s additional opinion on the artist who artistically messes with a sample to the point of ambiguity. Of course, that artist is in the clear — thanks, EU court — but that’s not so much because it’s ‘artistic freedom.’ It’s that ideally, no one would identify the errant sample in the first place. In other words, sample away. Just be sure to muck that thing up beyond all recognition.

The other big copyright news concerns this Katy Perry vs. Flame outcome. Rolling Stone:

A jury unanimously ruled that Katy Perry’s 2013 hit single “Dark Horse” improperly copied Christian rapper Flame’s 2009 song “Joyful Noise.” The nine-member federal jury in a Los Angeles determined that Perry and her co-writers and producers will owe [$2.78 million in] damages for copyright infringement. […]

Perry, who was not present when the verdict was read, testified that she had never heard “Joyful Noise,” nor heard of Flame, before the lawsuit. Her co-writers testified similarly. Flame’s lawyers responded that the song was widely distributed, with millions of plays on YouTube and Spotify, and reminded the jury of Perry’s origins in the Christian music scene. His team argued that Perry and her team had ripped off the main beat and instrumental line of “Joyful Noise.”

One remarkable aspect is the quoting of YouTube and Spotify plays as evidence that obviously everyone’s heard the song. Umm … okay. Have Spotify plays been argued as evidence in court before?

My feelings, but dialed down a bit, echo those of YouTuber Adam Neely in this video (and kudos for pointing out the similarity of the phrase in question to a famous song by The Art of Noise, which I haven’t seen anyone else mention):

Additionally, Flame’s Marcus Gray added in his original complaint that “Joyful Noise” has been “irreparably tarnished by its association with the witchcraft, paganism, black magic, and Illuminati imagery evoked by the same music in ‘Dark Horse.‘” Of course, there are some kooky internet ‘theories’ out there about Katy Perry and the Illuminati. But I don’t know why people fear the Illuminati so much … if this all-powerful organization couldn’t help Katy Perry win this case then I doubt they’re competent enough to secretly run the world.1Though a hidden overload’s incompetency could explain the current state of affairs.

Podcasts: Analog to Digital, Music Rights Brawls, and Imagining Utopia

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Damon Krukowski used to be in Galaxie 500 and is currently the first name in Damon & Naomi. He also spends a lot of time thinking philosophically about our cultural shift from analog to digital media. I briefly wrote about his brilliant Ways of Hearing podcast series here, and he recently followed that project with a book of the same name. It’s near the front of my reading queue. In the meantime, Damon appeared on the Madison, WI, public radio program A Public Affair to talk about the concepts of his book and podcast. That topic gives us much to chew on. I also enjoyed (and cringed at) the side-story of how Galaxie 500 had to bid on their master recordings in an auction.

Season two’s first episode of The Secret History Of The Future tackles the relationship between technology and music dating back to the invention of the phonograph. It turns out songwriters have been panicking about getting paid since the beginning of commercial sonic reproduction. Go figure. The podcast follows the prescient concerns of John Phillip Sousa (he’s a lot more fascinating than I would have guessed) to the freak-outs over digital sampling. And then there’s the more recent tug-of-war over The Verve’s “Bittersweet Symphony.” The hosts provide an excellent intro to music rights, delivered in a way that is entertaining and comprehensible to the novice.

Listen to “Rutger Bregman’s utopias, and mine” on Spreaker.

In the last paragraph of yesterday’s post, I wrote that “we need to imagine that better world to draw us closer to it.” This interview with Rutger Bregman on The Ezra Klein Show is all about that sentiment. Bregman wrote the book Utopia for Realists (also near the front of my reading queue) and speaks about accomplishing change by aiming for a shared paradise. His ideas are rosy and appear ludicrous to many — open borders! universal basic income! 15-hour workweek! — but he makes the case that any step toward these visions will improve our world. We need to foster hope and optimism in the face of despair and defeat — admittedly not an easy task right now. I strongly recommend this episode.

Better Living Through Metadata

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Prague Library

I’m finally digging into Dani Deahl’s informative article on metadata from a couple of months back in The Verge. All of the quoted text is from that article:

In an ideal world, once a song is finished, the metadata would be crafted by the artist or the artist’s producer, and they would submit that data to the record label, distributor, or publisher(s) involved for verification and distribution. In reality, the process is frequently more rushed and haphazard — artists and labels hurry the process along in order to get songs out, and metadata is frequently cleaned up later as mistakes are noticed.

Traditionally, the producer wears administrative — and therapeutic — hats in addition to the more recognized sonic-shaping guise.1Check out Richard James Burgess’s seminal The Art of Music Production for an overview of all the job entails. I could see ‘metadata’ falling under the producer’s responsibility 25+ years ago if metadata was as important as it is today. Now, ‘producer’ mostly means something different and is often the same role as the artist. So, in this better world we’re imagining, who wears the metadata hat?

I vote for the mastering engineer. There’s already an ‘elite’ rung for mastering engineers certified by the Mastered For iTunes program. Let’s find a way to certify mastering engineers (and potentially producers, or studio engineers, and even record label managers) as Metadata Ambassadors. As an artist — or a label — you will be assured that if you use a certified mastering engineer, your metadata will be collected, organized, and accurately submitted to the appropriate parties.

Of course, more artists are mastering their own work2and I have strong feelings that they should not do this, but I’ll save that rant for another day. so the process of metadata submission would be open to all. But if you enlist someone certified — that is, a person trained in the dark art of metadata — then not only will you not have to deal with it (beyond providing requested info), you can rest easy. Metadata’s sorted.

Having a centralized database and set standards for music metadata — [Jaxsta rep Joshua] Jackson’s idea of an IMDb for music — sounds like a straightforward goal, but getting there has stumped many of music’s largest and most powerful entities for decades. There are many reasons for this, but the tectonic shift to streaming is a major contributor.

Again, let’s imagine a better world. In this one, the music industry actually bands together and puts some funding into mitigating the chaos. Discogs is the closest thing we’ve got to an IMDB for music. A light partnership and investment from the industry could implement other essential data to a Discogs listing and develop an API where this information is accessed and utilized by third-party platforms. There could be a ‘pro’ view for a Discogs listing that reveals ISRCs, publishing splits, rights holder contact information, and so on. It’s not a perfect proposal, especially as much of the data will remain crowdsourced, but it would be a million times better than what we’ve got. And, most importantly, this information would exist in a web interface that is accessible and understandable to the layperson. Much more so than an online spreadsheet on some PRO’s backend.

There isn’t much agreement on if any particular arm of the music industry should lead the way or be responsible for fixing music metadata. Some think digital music distribution companies like TuneCore or DistroKid could do more to educate artists, as it’s often an artist’s only touchpoint before their music is live on streaming platforms. Others think the streaming platforms themselves could set an example for better metadata by displaying more credits, which would encourage everyone involved to make sure the data is right.

I’m co-signing all of the above. The distributors can undoubtedly do more, and none of the distributors I work with ask for exhaustive metadata. By ‘exhaustive,’ I’m talking about no-brainer stuff like songwriter and publisher names. But I’d love to see distribution go even more in-depth, asking for information like the producers, the musicians, the studio and its location … liner note stuff. I know that the streaming platforms aren’t listing this info yet but why should they if the distributors don’t have it? It’s not like Spotify is going to add liner notes when that information isn’t already available for them to exploit.

I’d love to see a significant distributor lead the way and throw down the gauntlet on metadata. To say, “we’re taking metadata seriously and will start logging the info whether anyone uses it or not.” And, once all this data is in hand, they pressure the DSPs to include it. Admittedly, including these ‘liner notes’ is but a small competitive differentiator, but it *is* one and streaming platforms need any they can get.

Pie-in-the-sky stuff, I know. But we need to imagine that better world to draw us closer to it. So, how do we make these things — or alternate solutions that drive us in a positive direction — happen?