• Some thoughts on SOPA and PIPA.

This week saw a successful protest launched against SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act) and it now seems unlikely that either will pass. I suppose this is a good thing, as I believe that no law is better than a bad law, but...

I’m always stunned at the hostility shown toward content ownership. I suppose it’s a bit like the military, in that people are often against the institution but not against the soldiers. It’s a good technique as it dehumanizes the enemy (you direct your anger toward an organization vs the foot soldiers within it). But people seem willing to go a bit deeper in the content debate and call out individuals and call them greedy and evil. Why, just because some content creators would like to have the choice to protect what they’ve created?

In my opinion, copyright and patent laws are a good idea. Right now, copyright is a bit screwed up as owners can retain ownership for overly long (basically infinite) periods of time. I’d say cap it at 20 years and be done with it. Patents are already handled this way and the system seems to work well (look at all the innovation coming out of the US).

The problem lies with enforcement. How the hell do you define and allow a reasonable amount of sharing, while preventing wide-scale theft? I honestly don’t know, but the answer is not to place all the responsibility on publishers. Also, I don’t think you want a law that is smudgy; you want crystal clear rules that allow very, very little interpretation. Honestly, it seems like a job for some elegant code, but I guess no one either has or wants to write it.

As for all this “no flies on me” blather from the likes of Google and Facebook, it does not hold a lot of water for me. These companies want it both ways: they want to totally protect what they deem to be most valuable to them while promoting the idea that everything should be shared. Yes, Google pays royalties for YouTube, but you and I both know they’re getting a very, very good deal by not having to either pay ALL royalties due or police their service. Seriously, try to explain to a cop that you didn’t know you were speeding. Chances are he’ll just get mad. And what about the file lockers like Megaupload, recently shut down, that host illegal content but are never told No by Google when they want to sell ads?

Bottom line: something needs to be done. SOPA and PIPA were not good ideas for two reasons: 1) they did not seek to update copyright law and 2) their methods of enforcement would have made a lot of money for lawyers but not content holders. It’s a tough problem: how do you allow a reasonably free flow of information without ripping off the people who create the information? I don’t have the answer. But all those so-smart-they-glow-Googlers should be able to figure it out. Sadly, they’re too busy blowing all their money on unprofitable ego exercises (quick, name one Google product besides Adwords and its relations that make money).

Harumph.

• My album is done. Now what?

Several days ago, I came home from work to a stack of boxes piled high in front of my door. My 1000 CDs had arrived from OasisCD. I was not elated. I simply sighed, resigning myself to the fact that I would have to carry them all up the stairs. There was no blog post.

It was not supposed to be this way.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m over the moon about having made my first album, it’s just that the whole process has been so fraught with errors of my own making and a slow but steady awakening to the realities of the music business today, that my joy, at this point, is pretty much counterbalanced by my sense of hopelessness.

I do not know what to do next. Obviously, I will release the album and I know my goal: to be heard. I don’t really care about making any money. Yet. I just want to know that this music that holds my heart and soul will hold more than just a few people’s attention. If only for the time it takes them to “needle hop” the album, to give it a chance. But how?

This is pathetic, really. I’ve been in advertising for 20 years, I’ve written campaigns that have run globally, I’ve come up with ideas that have changed the way companies think about what they do, I have debated with the CEOs of billion dollar corporations, but I do not know how to get the word out about my album.

Bob Lefsetz crows about the new musical landscape in which only great catches on. The days of mediocre ruling the roost are over. Not sure this is true, but I do agree that great music spreads. People share it. So if I can get my music into the hands of influential people (tastemakers famous and unknown) AND they like it, I should gain a bit of traction. Again, though, how?

Facebook? Twitter? Maybe. Jango, I guess. But is there a better way? A way I have not heard of? If anyone out there has ideas, please let me know. I’m plotting my release plan now, so I am ALL ears. Thank you in advance for any thinking you do on this!

• Is Van Halen's new song, Tattoo, RAWK or rock?

Van Halen - Tattoo from Van Halen on Vimeo.

I've been an avid subscriber of The Lefsetz Letter for awhile now and find most every post to be a treasure of wisdom, wit and utility. Bob Lefsetz is the outside insider, a man who deals with the very uppermost echelons of the music business but is not afraid to bite the hand that feeds (or, at least, that's how he protrays himself; personally, I believe his image). So when he recently wrote about Van Halen's newest single, Tattoo, I read the post with even more fervency than usual and then promptly clicked over to Spotify to hear it. Lefsetz described the song thusly:

"... it’s positively ALIVE! "

You can imagine how high my expectations were, especially when you add that fact that, in my opinion, without Roth Van Halen is not Van Halen and I am super stoked that he is back in his rightful place.

My first take on the track was that it was pretty good, much better than almost anything done with Hagar and in the video you can see the goofy fun of Roth in spades, his acknowledgement that this is all totally ridiculous and life at its best. Love that about Roth.

A few days later, Lefsetz posted again about the track, this time focusing on its sound quality and sound quality in general. He wrote: "... if you’re listening to "Tattoo" on fifty nine dollar speakers, or the ones that came free with your computer, YOUR OPINION DOESN’T COUNT!"

I had to write Bob a note (you can do that, very cool) about how I thought that great songs didn't need great playback quality, they stand on their own. I referenced Free, whose "Alright Now" snorted from AM radio with fire and abandon and positively screamed Hit. When I finally heard it on a good system, it was even better, but it didn't need thousands of dollars worth of gear to shine. No great song does.

Then I listened to the Halen's track again. This time I downloaded it (hi-rez AAC from iTunes, best available today for the song) and put on my studio quality AKG headphones and dropped the "needle". Ho hum, sure, the song sounded better but it's not better.

Don't get me wrong, I love the track now, really dig it, even though the chorus sounds like it was written by the likes of Kara Dioguardi (will have to wait until the record comes out to know for sure!), but it grew on me the way all songs have: it grew on me in my head via my own internal playback system, my fancy headphones had nothing to do with it.

And I believe that for all the best songs. They don't need thousands of dollars of gear, they just need two ears.

Oh, and to answer the headline of this post? It's rock. C'mon, compare it to Jaime's Crying... Okay, it's Rock.

• The return of Tim Young and the Guitarsenal, plus special guest rAmpage!

The return of Tim Young and the Guitarsenal, plus special guest rAMPage!

On Tuesday, 1.10.2012, Cerebellum Blues’ guitarist Tim Young loaded up a rental at dawn and headed north from LA to Hyde Street Studio C. I met him, along with engineer Jaime Durr, at the door and we proceeded to unload a bunch of gear, and I do mean a bunch. For the day would be long and rocking and we needed options! Over the next 8 or 9 hours, Tim laid down tracks for People Change, I Found Out the Hard Way I Should Have Done It the Easy Way, Hope and Joe Strummer is Dead. We also re-amped tracks for The Leaving. Tim could have gone all night, but I have my limits thanks to my brain injury, so we called the session at about 9:00 PM, and as I headed out into the night, riffs rang in my head and I felt really, really good. See photos here. For those who love GEAR, here’s the list:

THE GUITARSENAL

1980 The Strat
Late 70s Fender P-Bass
Late 70s Gibson Les Paul Standard
Gibson Custom Shop 336
The Maton
Gibson Flying V
Hofner Violin Guitar (mid 60s)
Epiphone Olympic (late 60s)
Fender Telecaster
Taylor GS-7

rAMPage

MESA/BOOGIE MKII B
Carr Mercury
1969 Fender Princeton
1959 Fender Champ
Silvertone
Earcandy 2X12 Cabinet

• Death, birth and what independent musicians could learn from Mark Cuban about New Year's Resolutions.

New Year’s is a time to let some things die, give birth to new things and resolve to improve one’s life a bit. Like so many other people, I have made my fair share of New Year’s resolutions and mostly failed at holding to them, but this year, once again, I’m working on a new set of goals. For music, and my new job too, I’m getting inspiration from non other than Mark Cuban, a guy who made billions when he sold broadcast.com to Yahoo. Cuban’s got a new book out and in it he outlines the secrets to his success and they’re good secrets, I think. First and foremost, Cuban claims that the only thing you can control in life is your own effort. That’s true. Further, he defines effort not as hours logged but as goals achieved. So, following his thinking, I’m going to set out some clear goals an then work my damndest to achieve to them. For music these will be:

1) Release my album by March 1 (this will be easy, as it’s already done, I think!).

2) Double average monthly visitors to my blog.

3) Quintuple my mailing list.

4) Earn $1,000 from music.

5) Get my new CD into the hands of 500 people and have them acknowledge it and tell me what they think.
These goals might seem a bit modest, but the key with goals to make them achievable, otherwise they just depress you. I suspect that the toughest goal to achieve will be number 3, but still, I’m going to go for it. To help me get started, if you have not already subscribed to this blog, please do so now using the box in the upper left. If you subscribe, you will get notifications of new posts (I have not been doing this but will start with my next post!) and you will be among the first to know when my album will be out which is important because it will be free to download for first month only!

Happy New Year.