The reality is that we are all addicted to convenience — and streaming platforms make it damn convenient for us to not think about the artists and how they manage to survive. As streaming becomes more pervasive, the sad reality is that every track, every artist, every album is reduced to just data, served up by the algorithm. It only continues to devalue our emotional relationship with the creators.
3+1: Airships on the Water
There’s this geographical prejudice that the interesting music — especially of the post-rock variant — only comes out of places like Chicago, or Brooklyn, or Austin, etc. So it’s always a thrill to find music that shatters the bubble, reminding us that creative folk trying new things are all around us. Airships on the Water are evidence, based out of Fayetteville, Arkansas, which you may have flown over without consideration on your way to somewhere like Austin (to reference the often mocking ‘fly-over state’ tag). But listen closely, and you might hear exceptional, flowing, and perhaps hidden music like “An Arm Within Reach,” the latest song from Airships on the Water. This effort is joyous and expressive, sparkling with bells, piano, ringing guitars, and nuanced but dynamic drums. It’s a grand and refreshing sound.
Airships on the Water is the project of Russel Hensley, who is also the drummer for the band Take Shapes — responsible for other cool sounds from ‘the natural state.’ AotW (if I may be so bold to abbreviate) have two albums — 2017’s Beneath a Thousand Branches and 2020’s Folded into Bells — and the third on the way. “An Arm Within Reach” is a teaser from this forthcoming album and is pure appetite whetter.
I pulled Russel aside — while floating in his Airships on the Water guise — and asked him to deliver some 3+1. Check out the tune and his thoughtful responses below.
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1. I love the graphic of the branch growing out of the guitar pedal. What does that image mean to you, and how does it relate to Airships on the Water? Is the cord plugged into an amplifier or a guitar? Or something else?
My brother Brandon Hensley is an excellent graphic artist, and he’s always done the artwork for my albums. I usually have a concept that I feed to him, and he does a great job of producing an image that looks cool and captures what was in my head. When I look at this image now, it makes me think of the creative process and the transformative power of music. The signal goes in and comes out as this living, growing thing. You put a lot of love and hard work into crafting songs, and you hope in the process they become more than the pieces put into them. You hope the signal travels to the listener and blossoms into something that resonates with and affects them.
It’s not been intentional, but I’ve noticed that a similar theme has popped up in my concepts for artwork in the past. For example, the cover art for my last album, Folded into Bells, was of a bird making a nest out of a cassette tape. So there’s another example of imagery where music is being elevated beyond the medium and becoming more than its original form. But that’s just one interpretation! I tend to gravitate toward imagery that’s a little open-ended, so I’m always interested to hear what other people see in it.
2. What is your earliest *significant* musical memory or recollection?
As soon as I read this question, a very clear memory sprang to my mind, so I feel like I have to go with it! The first song I ever remember loving, and I mean LOVING, was “Dizzy” by Tommy Roe. My mom would play oldies in the house all the time, and for some reason, this goofy bubblegum pop song from the late ’60s really stuck with me as a kid. I remember being about 5 or 6 and belting out that song at the top of my lungs in our kitchen. The song “Sweet Pea” was also on that same Tommy Roe CD, and it has a pretty famous drum break in it that’s been sampled a ton over the years. Is there a chance that song entered my subconscious and contributed to my desire to play the drums years later, thus making this Tommy Roe story actually relevant?? Well, probably not — but at least I still remember it!
3. How do you listen?
When it comes to music, I think I would describe myself as a curious listener. Even when I’m listening to music purely for enjoyment, I’m usually trying to identify little details that draw me to that song. Sometimes I’ll be listening for technical details that I just like the sound of, like specific instrumentation or certain rhythms, but I’ll be searching for the elements that make me feel a certain way more often. I’ll ask myself questions like, “How did they pull that off? Why do I like it? How could I create that same effect?” I get inspired to create music that makes me feel the way a song does, not necessarily sound the way a song does. This kind of curious listening is a nice way of gathering up more sonic colors to paint with later on.
+1: Something you love that more people should know about.
On a recent music deep dive on YouTube, I came across a song called “Light” by a group/project called FEM. As far as I can tell, FEM is the side project of the singer/multi-instrumentalist Cuushe, who makes catchy electronic dream-pop type songs. FEM has more of a full band sound, combining her vocals with guitars, bass, keys, and jazzy drums. So far, I’ve only found that one track by them, so I’m not sure if it was just a one-off thing or there are plans for more. It’s a beautiful song with a fascinating mix of sounds, so I’m hoping they keep it going. Maybe if more people check out “Light” by FEM, they’ll be motivated to release some more music!
Visit Airships on the Water on Bandcamp.
Transportation in One Direction
No Scene Happening But They Made It Happen → Austin Kleon appeared on The Unmistakable Creative Podcast, dropping oodles of terrific insight and advice for creative people. I was delighted to hear Austin talk about punk rock as an aesthetic influence, basically (and unknowingly) boiling down the topic of my recent post on ‘the punk rock dream.’ Here’s what Austin said:
I always think punk rock helps with all this stuff. Being in touch with that DIY spirit of the ’80s and ’90s, even the late ’70s, that punk aesthetic. I think every artist should read Michael Azerrad’s book Our Band Could Be Your Life. I think you should read about artists who … there was no scene happening, and they just made it happen. I think that’s fundamentally an American thing, to be in the middle of nowhere and to hit the road. I’ve always been influenced by the do-it-yourself ethic of punk and not thinking of punk as a style but as a real way of being. I always think that helps and that every generation sort of needs to rediscover punk because its roots go deep.
The whole interview is fun and inspiring. Add it to the queue.
Also, Lee Schneider gave a shout-out to ‘the punk rock dream’ on his Universal Story Engine blog. Lee is moving his writing off Mailchimp and Substack and explores the reasons why and the alternatives he’s looking to use. There’s some detail on the privacy issues inherent in many newsletter platforms, a topic I didn’t get to in my post.
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Pizza Toast & Coffee → Craig Mod has written endlessly about pizza toast — in his two wonderful email newsletters, this lengthy article for Eater, and an elaborate self-published book. All of that is fascinating, but I can’t say I quite got the appeal of this hodgepodge entrée. Why all the (mostly digital) ink devoted to tomato sauce on a slice of bread? And then Craig released this video:
I’m a sucker for quiet, transportive videos like this one. If you can focus for the video’s five-minutes — restrain the fidget, imagine there’s no phone in your pocket, drown out all other sounds — Craig’s slowly paced document will place you right inside the Būgen cafe as the rain lingers outside. Craig films Yamane-san’s elegant creation of the pizza-ish toast like a tea ceremony, some of the rituals (such as the slicing) not quite making sense at first. Then the big reveal, and yes, now I finally get it.
I could attempt pizza toast — the video exposes the process and ingredients clearly — and I might. It sure looks tasty. But Craig’s video is all about mood, and that’s mostly the mood of Būgen and the care of Yamane-san. It’s apparent that mood’s as essential to Craig’s love of pizza toast as the toast itself. As I mentioned, I find this video transportive, but, unfortunately for any at-home pizza toast attempts, that transportation only goes in one direction.
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Moderator – Midnight Madness → Electronic music producers from Greece have a fondness for jazzy beat constructions. A few prominent small labels are carrying the torch, such as the long-lasting Timewarp outfit. Then there’s Melting Records, an Athens-based imprint specializing in instrumental hip-hop and trip-hop reminiscence. But Melting’s discography has recently branched the label’s sound into uncanny territories. Melting Records releases are still sample-heavy, crate-dug assemblages accompanied by rhythms that err on the phat side. But the sources have gotten more global, drawn from a world of foreign locales, and snatched from genres and eras that extend beyond the usual jazz/funk spectrum.
Case in point: Midnight Madness, the latest album from Greek DJ and producer Moderator. As noted in the release’s promo text — which, full disclosure, the label hired me to write — Midnight Madness has a midnight movie feel, like we’re witnessing something sordid and exotic from the safe distance of a cinema’s chair. The consistent Morricone-meets-RZA vibe amplifies the grainy film quality of the album’s 14 tracks, helped along by crackly spoken snippets captured from who-knows-where. It’s hard to know what is sampled and what originates from Moderator himself — the vocals are obviously ripped from parts unknown, but there are also lovely instrument textures throughout, threading the tunes together.
“Walking Slow” summarizes the album’s modus operandi — spaghetti whistles, Agent Cooper on guitars and saxophone, forlorn vocals, and those beats those beats those beats. Some songs have speedier moments verging on big beat (remember that?), but Moderator is best when the pace is leisurely, and the layers are thick and dreamy. “Crystal Gaze” and “Once Upon a Time” are fine examples of this, two songs that lope like a sleepwalking b-boy unable to escape slumberland.
The Punk Rock Dream
I’m watching this Minutemen concert video from 1985 (“And when reality appears digital,” Mike Watt soothsays at 18:57) and thinking about the punk rock dream. American independent music was at its height, disadvantaged, compared to its British counterpart, by the sheer size of the country. For the first time, bands like these were finding nationwide renown without a major label attached. (A quick pause to recommend Michael Azerrad’s essential book Our Band Could Be Your Life if you’d like to learn more about these scenes.) But the dream — yes, the punk rock dream — was autonomy. Self-releasing, self-distributing, self-promoting, self-administrating, self-booking. Some, like Ian MacKaye’s still inspirational Dischord outfit, came closer than anyone had before.
Fast forward a few years after that Minutemen concert. I was nineteen years old and wanted more than anything to start a record label. But those were ancient times, and I had no idea how to manufacture vinyl or find a distributor and doubted it was possible from my lonely North Louisiana dorm room anyway. So I dreamed — came up with names, imagined the types of bands I’d sign, scribbled fake logos, studied the discographies (and personalities) of labels like SST, Alternative Tentacles, and Factory.
What a time. Here I am (guitar) at nineteen, playing something resembling punk rock with my friends (photo by David):
“Home Taping Is Killing Music” was a strange ’80s PR campaign by the British Phonographic Industry, a trade organization representing major labels and distributors. We read that slogan to mean “the music industry” as taping our friends’ records made more music, not less. The punks agreed. Alternative Tentacles released Dead Kennedys’ In God We Trust Inc. on a one-sided cassette — the b-side was blank. The cassette displayed the familiar tape-and-crossbones icon (now appropriated by The Pirate Bay) and the phrase, “Home taping is killing record industry profits!” Below that: “We left this side blank so you can help.”
The major labels were the target of our ire, but, in reality, our problem was with the corporate gatekeepers. Sure, we had our gatekeepers — the fanzines, the college radio DJs, the cool punk rock clubs. Not all gatekeepers are bad, but those corporate gatekeepers insisted on shoving their agenda-culture down our throats.
Because of this attitude, some celebrated when Napster supposedly (but not really) brought down the music industry. That era offered a glimpse of the power of self-distribution, aided by the internet revolution. As bandwidth got faster and tools more sophisticated and egalitarian, predictions about ‘the end of the major label’ were common (guilty as charged). “No more gatekeepers!” was the rallying cry — that emerging teenage bands would soon have the same chances at an audience as an established superstar.
The result: not only are the corporate labels flourishing, but new gatekeepers have covertly replaced the old ones. Sure, the power to self-everything is here, but most choose to sieve their independence through an algorithmic filter. We’re gaming the gatekeepers just like old times, but now it’s about massaging the algorithm to get us on the right playlists, to amplify strategically placed hashtags, and to get the targets just right in that boosted Facebook post.
There’s so much frustration with this newfound reliance on social media and low-paying streaming services. But do things have to be this way?
Back in my dorm room, I was frustrated that I couldn’t figure out how to do what all the punk-inspired DIY’ers wanted: to navigate this music thing without any interference (or interaction) from ‘the man.’ That was the punk rock dream. And now we can have it but only if we really want it. The dream’s not easy, and algorithms, and the promise of shortcuts, are seductive.
If I’ve personally advised you on label or recording artist stuff, you’ve heard me mention ‘the punk rock dream.’ I talk about it a lot. I’ve been thinking about the concept since that dorm room. So, when I decided I needed a new tag-line for my blog, I decided on “A zine about sound, culture, and the punk rock dream.” Because, really, that’s what the blog and newsletter are all about. (The ‘zine’ part is a nod to how I got started with all of this.)
Revisiting my relationship with ‘the punk rock dream’ inspired me to start the process of moving my email newsletter off Substack. I’ve thought about this for several months and recent debates have strengthened a need for platform independence. The importance of self-publishing is probably best examined by talking through the changing definition of independent music.
The qualifications for ‘independent music’ once seemed cut-and-dry, apparent in Michael Azerrad’s book that I linked to above. Now things are fuzzier. How independent is the punkest of punk labels if they primarily promote through Zuckerberg’s platform, via a corporation so huge it would have given Jello Biafra an aneurysm back in the day? A band might self-release, but are they independent if Spotify and YouTube are the focus of their outreach? One could even go as far as to charge that a reliance on Apple products to make music is a dependence on the most giant of multi-national corporations.
We can go all over the place with this until it’s just nitpicking and cutting hairs. But my definition of ‘independent,’ which I wrote about here, is summed up by a simple question: do you truly own the work you’re passionate about?
That ownership includes all the decisions made about how an artist presents her work: how it’s distributed, how direct the access is to the audience, and the alignments that color the public perception of the work. The primary platform hosting this art — your preferred way for people to check out what you’ve made — plays a large part in determining ownership. The person who writes paragraphs of prose as a Facebook post doesn’t own that — Facebook can take it down at any time. It’s the same for a photographer using Instagram as her only portfolio. Or a video-maker hosting his achievements solely on YouTube. I don’t even think Bandcamp is immune, despite its reputation as a bastion of music independence. It’s all the same if you’re relying on it. How screwed would you be if it went away? Or if a corporation that doesn’t share your values acquired it?
I’m not saying you shouldn’t use these platforms. But position your art and the work you’re passionate about under the assumption that these platforms and — crucially — their policies are impermanent. These should be deployed as mere tools, not adopted as foundations. Let your work live somewhere you own, and make that place the primary destination for your audience. Everything else is a funnel.
Sounds like the punk rock dream, right?
Self-publishing the newsletter is the way to go. I’ve done the research and am looking to apply something close to what Jared Newman is doing (without charging my readers, of course). There’s also some great advice from Ernie Smith of Tedium on self-publishing an email newsletter.
At the very beginning of Ringo Dreams of Lawn Care, I mentioned that the newsletter is an experiment until it isn’t. Changes are just another visit to the lab, mixing chemicals and seeing what happens. I’m constantly testing what independence means in the digital age and how the internet can facilitate — rather than stifle — that punk rock dream. Consider my newsletter and 8sided.blog a continuing report on my findings.
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