Musical compositions, it should be remembered, do not inhabit certain countries, certain museums, like paintings and statues. The Mozart Quintet is not shut up in Salzburg: I have it in my pocket.
~Henri Rabaud
The joy of music should never be interrupted by a commercial. ~Leonard Bernstein
Music can noble hints impart,
Engender fury, kindle love,
With unsuspected eloquence can move,
And manage all the man with secret art.
~Joseph Addison
SO… I am pontificating, eschewing, and thinking about this whole pirate bullshit, stealing, not stealing… where is the digital music revolution? When do the artists get hurt? When is it where is it… a fine line floating about me somewhere. To bring most of you up to date, I have wrestled with the ethics and boundaries of “doing right” with digital music and supposed, alleged piracy… that I have been vocally smish-smashing about here and there.
So.. I will try to be simple. Here are some of the things I was wondering about. Some of the things totally changing my attitude and making me digitize my entire CD collection this weekend (NB: it took about 2 years) and sell it off….
First off… I know enough people in the music business here in SF at this point to realize that very few people have qualms or thinks about the idea of sharing music as anything else than that…. sharing. The only music people that care are the ones that are making the stupid “anti-pirate” youth oriented ads that are laughably annoying. The bands use it as a facililty to reach more people and spread the good word, and people use it as a way to help others discover more about music they may never have a chance to hear. People in the business younger than 30… managers, bands, anyone… don’t even consider an offense, even in reference to how it may damage them. It is the status quo, and this is the “brave new world” of music. It is what it is, and people deal with it. In fact, it is about ease and accessibility. It is easier to reach people, and it is almost tantamount the early 80’s punk rock tape cassette revolution of the early 80’s… where bands could record shit in their rooms, and distribute it widely and cheaply. It became an issue not about making money…. but creating and releasing art. Go see “The Band that Would be King” about Half Japanese if you don’t believe me. At the time, it was so much easier than printing 45’s.
And bands don’t seem to be concerned at all about it. There is a copy of Midnight on the Reservoir from 2001 by Tea Leaf Green on Ebay right now for $42 with 19 hours left. Bobby Hughes Experience’s Fusa Riot from 1999 regularly sells for $50-90, and Robert Walter’s Spirit of ’70 sells for $100 sometimes. This is a CD. I sold a copy of the Cure’s rare Lost Wishes casette tape four track EP for about $60. I know Robert’s manager, and the crew of TLG… the band, merch, sound, etc… NO ONE CARES about the reselling…. Me, I would be at the seller’s house with a bat. These are struggling artists who sold that CD when they were not that big for $10 or so…. and now people are profiteering… scalping basically. But no one cares… this is the way that we are in the system. Music is commodified heavily, and I have a collection and a medium that is highly desirable and still very popular. I am selling a lot of rare stuff on EBAY, and I am freaking out the local record stores about selling this stuff. The guy at Ameoba asked me if I was about to kill myself. He was joking, said it happens, but my demeanor was a bit more hopeful than normal… and he assume I digitized it and am now living free and easy. I told him I still have records. He said sorry. I still haven’t sold them, I just told him a couple of the artists, and he was slobbering. It makes one feel good that one’s tastes are desired by those that enjoy selling good taste.
But I digress…. bands seem to weigh it evenly…. the good of easy distribution, concerts available within 10 minutes of the show, and a new way of marketing oneself…. versus the fact that they cannot control the capitlistic side of music… and leave it alone. But this gets into the idea of digitizing music and selling it… which is another thing….
SO.. so far.. we have digital music representing art, instead of commodification. Wow! Hippy peaceful socialism? And we also have the people that matter to me… not the big guys so much as the people on our level… hard working sound and band guys, managers (nice ones), etc… they don’t seem to give a shit. I will admit Robert Walter and JFJO’s manager and I have had a descent amount of conversations about it, and although he doesn’t care about the online selling of used CD’s, he does have a lot of problems with the way it effects him, his family and baby (he didn’t say that, but I got the message), the artists, and the ability to tour. He admits the money is in the tour, but the fact is that merchandising and marketing on a grass roots level is HUGE nowadays, and it hurts….
Regardless of the digital world…. I realized I had already done the same thing in the 90’s. CD’s were too pricey, and I think Wherehouse would give you a day to bring it back. I remember (it might have been used only) I would get a cd, make a tape copy, and take it back. HAHAH! I am who I vilify. But selling CD’s seems to be basically the same thing… you are making money back off something that will make money for the store…. but none of that ever goes to label, manager, band, etc… It is odd, because you look at production as ONE sale only… and then have no control over the lifetime of the CD. Some of these people in the music biz would love to set up a system to stop that I am sure. But.. the real point is that people made each other mixes and copies all the time of music… since the beginning of recording. Here… take this 45 I recorded, etc… it is the organic, automatic, pervasive, and enduring quality of music as a self perpetuating meme…. it travels as an idea unto itself… and cannot be controlled by anyone… it is a feather on the wind, so to speak…. and it is thought and creative energy and intelligence that is, itself, not looking to be regulated.
Also, I have no real affinity to Cd art or the medium. It sucks. It is easily destroyed, like vinyl….. but unlike vinyl, the fidelity pales in comparison to the analog sound of a record (there is no fideltity like my hi-fi). While I have and cherish my records, I notice I rarely use CD’s now, and because of its ease, and superior sorting and personalized and accessiblility to my music, I use digital just a bit less often than vinyl. SO… even though digital has a sound quality (unless you do HUGEERIFIC lossless) not on par with CD’s, all of digitals pluses act like a smelly tidal wave of goodness
The final point… and the driving exigence of this rant… is that I am open for business. Like free ice cream day at Ben and Jerry’s, or a lady of the night hot to trot on her day off… I have digitized almost my entire CD collection… I assume about 35-40 GB by the end. This is none of the 1000 records, but I will be getting a Digital turntable and will start there too. But about 30 genres, 1000 artists, 900 albums… I am still not done, so I am not sure…but here is the kicker.
Finally… it ends up being the most badass jukebox ever. And, if I let others have access to my music… well then. It sure as hell is backed up in a foolproof manner. I won’t have rare CD’s stolen from my car, and have no way to replace them. Hoot hoot, I say.
I didn’t want to share music because
1) Sour Grapes. I have put, I think, tens of thousands of dollars into my music collection, countless hours researching, dorking out, figuring out…. and getting what I want. And others like it. Which is cool. But, I was like… you want to bum my hard earned music for free? I was real pissed about that. A lot. I thought it was straight up, let’s exploit Mike, take advantage of him, and get what we want. I was recoiling with two furry legs up like some frightened, bitter arachnid.
2) But I rarely want anyone else’s music… or at least, it takes a bit for me to work my interests into the other areas some friends are at. So trading didn’t really matter. But now, as a collector, it will be about honing my collection.. rare records and CD’s that I have been looking for, and now I won’t be reticent to pick them up digitally
3) I am an elitist. I know this, am aware… not happy about it, but its me. Oh well. I am pretty ok other than that. Mostly. Well, sort of. Anyhoo… For one thing.. I like how I can change and alter my itunes stuff, but, OF COURSE, no one can have the depth of appreciation or understanding about the music. No way… (please note sardonic, self parody)… and so just giving someone a disc, or the collection… they will never understand it, care about it, use it, respect it, or love it like I do. Well that is fine and dandy… and in all humility, possibly true. But the realization was, WHO CARES? Give some random john a whole collection, and BAMMO… he finds something buried deep in it… and gets inspired and creates new music that I love.
So it is an organic, memetic process…. information autonomous, moving on its own. I dig that.
Last thoughts:
1) I will NEVER let ANYONE copy any of my music that doesn’t create their own genre categories. NO FUCKING WAY. That is creepy and lame, and I bet there is some music that would be next to my music that would make my music itchy. Ugh.. I can see it now. “rock” haha. I am an elitist Pig F… oh enough with the swearing already. Well, it is like sleeping with a bad lover. I just don’t have time for that.
2) I am aware this is still all a farcical equivocation and justifaction of the argument on digital music. It is black and white… if you didn’t buy it you shouldn’t have it. BUT.. it isn’t that simple, and it might not be the culture of music as much as the culture of business. I know the two are irrevocably linked, but music should be out there. If you pirate, steal, share… WHATEVER…. just promise me you will go to some shows and support the live music. It is the least we can do.
3) I have nothing but a smile on my face as I listen to Stevie Wonder hammer out some groovy funk as his keys, spitting at me from these tiny speakers…. and see three milk crates of CD’s nervously teeming about in their prison; as the fearful ones filled eye me with nervous ire, others shun me and turn their collective backs, but the excited wave goodbye hopeful of the new home they have in store for them.
I hope they treat my friends well. Until then, they echo at me through this digital jukebox that is bringing significant warmth to my lap. And significant happiness to my new, less material, collection, and commodity focused aspect of music, and back to the wafting good form of art about my noggin…. CHEERS PEOPLE.
Music is my religion – Hendrix
I am Funkier than you – Tower of Power
Without Music Life would be a mistake – Nietzsche
Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.
~ Red Auerbach
Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there.
~ Miles Davis
Music, the greatest good that mortals know, And all of heaven we have below.
~ Joseph Addison
A song will outlive all sermons in the memory.
~ Henry Giles
Music hath the charm to soothe a savage beast, but I’d try a revolver first.
~ Josh Billings
The English may not like music, but they absolutely love the noise it makes.
~ Sir Thomas Beecham
Wagner’s music is better than it sounds.
~ Bill Nye
Music is the art which most completely realizes the artistic idea, and is the condition to which all the other arts are constantly aspiring.
– Oscar Wilde
Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons. You will find it is to the soul what a water bath is to the body. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes
If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music. ~Gustav Mahler
Why waste money on psychotherapy when you can listen to the B Minor Mass? ~Michael Torke
Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness. ~Maya Angelou, Gather Together in My Name
Were it not for music, we might in these days say, the Beautiful is dead. ~Benjamin Disraeli
There’s music in the sighing of a reed;
There’s music in the gushing of a rill;
There’s music in all things, if men had ears:
Their earth is but an echo of the spheres.
~Lord Byron
If I were to begin life again, I would devote it to music. It is the only cheap and unpunished rapture upon earth. Sydney Smith
Life can’t be all bad when for ten dollars you can buy all the Beethoven sonatas and listen to them for ten years. ~William F. Buckley, Jr.
Music’s the medicine of the mind. ~John A. Logan
You are the music while the music lasts. ~T.S. Eliot
Music is the universal language of mankind. ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Outre-Mer
Music rots when it gets too far from the dance. Poetry atrophies when it gets too far from music. ~Ezra Pound
He who hears music, feels his solitude peopled at once. ~Robert Browning
You can’t possibly hear the last movement of Beethoven’s Seventh and go slow. ~Oscar Levant, explaining his way out of a speeding ticket
Music expresses feeling and thought, without language; it was below and before speech, and it is above and beyond all words. ~Robert G. Ingersoll
Music is the literature of the heart; it commences where speech ends. ~Alphonse de Lamartine
Most people use music as a couch; they want to be pillowed on it, relaxed and consoled for the stress of daily living. But serious music was never meant to be soporific. ~Aaron Copland
What passion cannot music raise and quell! ~John Dryden
I worry that the person who thought up Muzak may be thinking up something else. ~Lily Tomlin