Second Annual Record Store Day...huh?

Just another forced holiday, and if anyone bemoans the decline of records, CDs, whatever you want to call the hard round things that have music on them, this is just a last-gasp effort to delay the inevitable.

I'm part of that demo that still buys CDs. Newbury Comics. Looney Tunes on Boylston Street by Mass Ave. In Your Ear on Comm Ave. in Allston. They're all still my favorite haunts, especially the used CD stores for the bargains. Also Amazon.com, where I also buy used. I download, but still like the quality of the sound that comes from my Denon stereo and Mission and Advent speakers. But my seventeen-year-old daughter won't go near a CD. She'll cringe, just like I cringed at my father's heavy, 78 RPM records. My world was the vinyl LP. It's all digital downloads for her, all the way to playing her iPod in her car. Digital is her world.

A great book to read to understand all this is Appetite for Self-Destruction, The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age. Written by Rolling Stone Contributing Editor Steve Knopper, it minutely trace the players and events that led us to where we are today in the musical world. It was greed, pure greed (surprise, surprise, huh?) coupled with just plain on bad business that sunk the record industry. They were making money hand over fists selling CDs, and never saw the Internet coming. Well, some did, but they were too stupid to figure it out. Illegal downloads. I just don't understand that concept, to tell you the truth, and that's a subject for a whole 'nother blog. Downloads are a way to promote music, and the record industry was too stupid to figure out a way to do it. Steve Jobs with iTunes and the iTunes Store finally figured it out. And now just about every "media" company is pushing their digital downloads. My cell phone that I just bought in December has a link to the ATT store that I can't delete from the phone's menu. They're still trying to ram it all down our throats, and the big, greedy suits probably will never get it.

But...when I say the record industry is sunk, that doesn't mean music is tanking like the economy. Music is more vibrant than ever, with more new music and more ways to hear it and grab it that ever before. Who knows what the Next Big Thing will be. But for sure, the little stuff is the way to go for smaller, up and coming bands. MySpace. Yourbandsname.com. Internet radio. That's just three.

Just the other night I saw The Bittersweets at Club Passim, one of the sweetest venues in the Boston area to see an act. They're touring, they're hitting the right audience, and guess what, they're promoting digital downloading of their music. That night they were promoting their latest live album on noisetrade.com. Pay what you want, including nothing, and you download the album. If you don't pay, you give up five of your friends' email addresses (sorry guys, but I picked five of you who I thought would be interested in music.) That's kind of a interesting way to look at things. If you don't pay, you give them email addresses, which actually are just about good as gold in the marketing world.

I highly recommend the album, by the way. Scroll down a bit on Action Bob Markle and there's a widget on the left you can click on.

Internet Archive: Live Music Archive

Just one more place to find archived concerts: Live Music Archive.

From the IA Website:

The Internet Archive is a 501(c)(3) non-profit that was founded to build an Internet library, with the purpose of offering permanent access for researchers, historians, and scholars to historical collections that exist in digital format.

What's the big deal about downloading music?

Today's big find:

http://www.wolfgangsvault.com/


This was in today’s Globe’s Sidekick. Great site with lots of archived concerts. Right now I’m listening to a Stevie Ray Vaughan concert from April 15, 1984 in Austin, Texas. I also did some impulse buying this morning when I first logged on to the site. Bought a poster from a concert on June 5, 1989 with the Cowboy Junkies and Lucinda Williams. Now if you scroll down just a bit and glance just to your left, you will see a partial list of some of my favorite music, and while it’s in no particular order, you will notice the first two artists are those very same that played together 17 years ago or so. The poster’s gonna look nice, framed and all, hung here in my cube on the 12th floor overlooking Cosi’s.



It’s the new paradigm for music. Everybody’s downloading and taking it for free, or so people who have been living off the music industry cash cow are complaining. That would be the fat cats in the suits at Sony and BMG and wherever, and the musicians, too, although the musicians still aren't making out like the execs. There’s money to be made, it’s just that the business model changed. Sorry, it changed for all of us. You just gotta deal with it, or die.

I see nothing wrong with downloading music for free. Here’s why. It’s been the way of the world for writers for all time. Say I wrote a book, and let’s say you actually bought the hardback for full price. And you read it and thought it was great. What would you do? You would tell your friends. But they wouldn’t go out and buy my book and read it. They’d borrow yours. Or Xerox it. It’s just like downloading for free, right? Or your friend would go to the library. Either way, I still wouldn’t make any money on sales. Those are my words and my thoughts. My talent and artistic ability is being showcased. But you don’t have any problem not compensating me.

The Internet was a long time coming and music execs should have seen this day sneaking up on them. But they didn’t. They were too busy counting their money instead of keeping their eyes on the business. They were rich, not smart. There’s a difference, although some people don’t get that. They figure if someone is rich that that person is smart, too. Rich and smart don’t necessarily go hand in hand. Greedy and rich do. But rich and smart? No.

So, now all the rich folks are crying foul, instead of figuring out that the way to make money is off the one-offs: ticket sales (if they keep them reasonable, instead of gouging prices to make up for the loss in CD sales), t-shirts, DVDs, posters, and all that.

The world changes. Get over. Change or die.