The League of Ordinary Gentlemen » Music

Bloodbuzz Ohio

E.D. Kain — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 21:01:33 +0000

I was remiss in my last music post. Several readers pointed out that The National’s Bloodbuzz Ohio is an excellent tune and should have been included. Well here it is:

Some great lyrics in this one. I was carried to Ohio in a swarm of bees.

And if you missed it, this now-aging but still-worth-the-read post by Matt Feeney on the latest National album, High Violet.

Wednesday jukebox – The National

E.D. Kain — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 17:17:35 +0000

Why wait for Friday night to do a music post? I say let the jukebox play whenever you put another dime in it, baby.

Anyways, I’ve been almost obsessively listening to The National lately. I realize they’ve been around for a while, but I’m hopelessly unhip so I’ve only just stumbled on them.

Here are a few of my faves in no particular order:

Mr. November off the album Alligator

Slow Show off the album Boxer

Fake Empire off the album Boxer

Runaway (live) off the album High Violet

Start a War (live) off the album Boxer

Abel off the album Alligator

Friday Night Jukebox – Lissie

William Brafford — Fri, 14 May 2010 22:48:39 +0000

I haven’t bought Lissie’s album yet, but I’m going to do it soon. She’s got a ton of promise; specifically, a voice like a damn rocket. I know these videos have been floating around for a while, but the League has never claimed to be a cutting-edge music blog.

Enjoy.

She does nice cover songs too:

Money & Music (and The Avett Brothers)

E.D. Kain — Wed, 12 May 2010 15:30:25 +0000

We had a pretty good discussion about the internet and making ends meet as musicians, but it struck me last night that I’d left out one important factor about the music (and musicians) of today vs. the music (and musicians) of my teenage years. Let me just put it bluntly: money kills good music. Or, rather, too much money kills good music. This is not always the case, but it is more often than not the case.

I think there is something to be said for the starving artist, or at least the struggling artist. For songwriters and poets, having struggles beyond whatever superficial internal struggles rich, drug-addled rock-stars have is vital to creating good art. Having real experiences is an essential component of creating real music and meaningful lyrics and all that jazz. Again, this is not a hard and fast rule, but it has played out over and over again as musicians reach super-stardom and there talent seems to collapse in on itself. All that ease, all those riches – it changes people. It changes artists and musicians and poets and not typically for the better.

This is another reason why I don’t worry too much about the new business model in the music industry. There’s less of a chance that a band or artist becomes a Huge Star, but more of a chance that they can reach a wider audience.

For instance, I just went and saw The Avett Brothers in Mesa a couple weeks ago. It was one of the best shows I’ve ever been to (truly – I had this big dumb grin on my face the entire time, it was a joyful experience) and I can’t recommend them highly enough. I found them via – of all things – Wikipedia – while reading about Blind Melon front-man Shannon Hoon. Then I listened to their music on Rhapsody and was pretty much immediately hooked.

In any case, they just signed on with a major record label for the first time. They’ve already released something like eight really excellent records. They’ve had to tour a lot to get the sort of fan base that they need to sustain their careers, and will likely need to keep touring even with the added marketing and distribution capacity that the record label brings them.

My only concern is that they make too much money and start to suck. This is a valid concern. It’s happened over and over and over again. I don’t wish struggles on anyone, but I hope that The Avett Brothers continue to have to work hard at their art and don’t get sucked into that lazy complacency and the sort of creativity-killing cycle that seems to accompany artistic success or at least the sort of artistic success that we’ve seen in the past few decades. I hope they’re successful enough to keep on keeping on, of course, but I don’t want them to achieve the level of fame or fortune that pretty much killed (figuratively but also literally) the rockstars of the 80’s and 90’s.

See also: Jim Harper on the value – and reality – of amateurism in art.

Hurting the musicians.

William Brafford — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 01:50:13 +0000

If you like music, this is really important. The architecture of online music distribution has been amazing for the consumer. With iTunes or Pandora or eMusic, the savvy listener can get just about whatever she wants whenever she wants it, and for cheap. Of course, the problem of piracy was killing off the record labels, though it must be said that the record labels didn’t make themselves at all sympathetic. Most of us took comfort in the idea that the internet would flatten out the relationship between the musician and the listener. We believed that in the digital era musicians would make it on their own without the labels.

Those of us who believed such things? We were wrong.

There’s an important chart at Information is Beautiful showing how much music a solo artist would have to distribute in order to make minimum wage. One answer: 155 physical CDs on CDBaby. Another answer: 1,229 album downloads on iTunes. One more answer: just under 850,000 plays per month on the Rhapsody music service. Chances of making a decent living? I’d say they’re rather slim. And think about the situation for, say, a five-member band.

Technologist/musician Jaron Lanier has challenged those who are optimistic about digital culture to provide examples of musicians and artists who have used an internet distribution model — basically, giving the art away for cheap or free in order to sell merch and promote concerts — to make a real living. The set of musicians who have thrived in this environment contains only Jonathan Coulton. (I’d give a link, but I read this in Lanier’s book.)

You can certainly make the argument that our musical culture is going to be better off with more part-timers and fewer professional musicians. I’m not sure this is right, but it’s worth talking about. But anyone who will still tell you that there’s a future for middle-class professional musicians (and with whole system of session musicians and recording engineers that supports them) is wrong. We’re getting a lot of cheap and free stuff, but we’re destroying an artistic middle class in the process.

(Credit where credit’s due: my friend Tim tweeted about the Information Is Beautiful chart. Also, a commenter on the chart’s page points out that the chart compares some $0.99 downloads to the $9.99 albums, so you might want to mentally reshuffle the list.)

UPDATE: I really should have clicked through to the post the chart was based on, by the Cynical Musician. It’s worth reading. For example:

…in terms of generating realistic income, the CD is still our best bet. The direct digital replacement – bundled download sales – is comparable. Unbundled track downloads increase the number of necessary transactions by a factor of magnitude and subscription-based downloads by yet another. The supposed future of recordings on the Internet – cloud-based streaming – barely deserves mention. I can’t imagine an independent artist receiving millions of streams a year, much less hundreds of millions.

Hipster Overload

Jason Kuznicki — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 13:17:44 +0000

Laurie Anderson’s releasing her first new studio album in ten years on June 15. Guests on it include Lou Reed (no huge surprise) and Antony Hegarty. (!!!) Anderson’s Strange Angels is a favorite in our house, so we’re looking forward to Homeland.

The Return of Hall and Oates

Will — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 03:43:07 +0000

Jonathan Chait points to this entertaining article on Hall and Oates’ hipster comeback. I think we can locate the roots of their popular revival here:

Essential Albums of the 1980s

Will — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 20:47:17 +0000

Noted Creed apologist Joe Carter has assembled a list of the 80s’ essential but-not-too-obvious albums. I missed out on the decade, but I’ll go ahead and nominate The Replacements’ back catalog, The Cure’s “Disintegration,” The Pogues’ “Rum, Sodomy and the Lash,” and maybe a Tom Waits album or two.

All the good band names are taken

Will — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 16:16:57 +0000

Which probably explains why the new ones keep getting longer and longer. As far as ridiculously long musical monikers go, my favorites are “I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness” and the delightfully gothic-sounding “And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead.”

Friday Night Jukebox

Will — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 04:16:47 +0000

I’m a sucker for rhythmic minimalism:

New York Is Killing Me – Gil S…

The League of Ordinary Gentlemen » Music

Bloodbuzz Ohio

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