The New Music Economy (hyphenate wherever you like)

I recently met with the founders of a startup record label. I'm 44 and they're in their twenties. Their view of how musicians use the internet is radically different from mine. I'd heard that musicians were all hyped on MySpace. I figured that they used MySpace because it was easy, and that the look of the page was secondary to the ease of posting content. I was wrong about that too. I wasn't giving the kids enough credit. Their thinking's more sophisticated than I'd given them credit for. (Sorry for having ended that sentence with a preposition. See? Old School.)

I still think that most of MySpace looks like a slum full of row-houses with the style and quality of the graffiti being the only difference between one house and the next.

Facebook is neat, clean, uniform, and overall, has content more relevant to me. That doesn't mean it's better for everyone. The kids want a means of expression, and Facebook allows less of that.

Okay, fine. I'm capable of admitting I was wrong, and hopefully I'm capable of learning and changing my view of things.

They also explained that, in their view, MySpace is a great way for the bands to publicize their material. They said that MySpace gives them free exposure to a lot of music, so they can determine (without paying for it,or working too hard to find it) whether they'd like to see the band live.

There's a much bigger issue in Gen-X and Millenial kids' view of intellectual property (and of how to publicize music). The current twenty-somethings have become accustomed to stealing music, and have found rationales for stealing which have insidiously crept into their culture. The rationalizations seem so deeply ingrained that they almost don't see it as stealing.

They appear, as a group, to be more okay with pirating music than previous generations had been. With Limewire and many other "services" it becomes so easy to steal that the kids don't see it as wrong. [Limewire is so evil and full of harmful things for computers (viruses, spyware, malware) that I won't even link to it.]

Not like I'm so holy myself. I don't mean to come off as holier than ..whoever, but this is one area that's important to me because I create things, and would prefer that people not steal them.

Perhaps many bands want fans to spread the word through whatever means possible, including the music-stealing sites and "services". Perhaps some bands say on their websites "Feel free to download and spread our stuff. We want to get our stuff in as many ears as possible.". I've not seen that type of notice on any band's website. Doesn't mean no one's doing it. But, you can be sure The Rolling Stones don't say that. Their stuff gets pirated as much as any other music.

The rationale these kids gave me was that the artists already know there's no money in making records any more, which is why most of them spend less on production today than they would have twenty years ago (if they were even old enough to have been in the business then). Production and distribution are much cheaper now, after all. Tools for making a high-quality record are available for only a few thousand dollars, and someone can put together a "great" studio for very little money today. (Of course, your definition of "great" may vary from theirs.)

Electronic distribution costs "nothing", and it's available on the "file sharing" networks. So.."What are we (the kids) doing wrong?"

The kids I met with believe that when a band releases a new record/CD, it serves as the basis for a new tour. There is a lot of money in touring, and the artists make their "real money" on tour. As such, by spreading the music around, the twenty-somethings help the artists to sell more seats, thus increasing tour profits. Tour profits lead to merchandise sales; so, again, helping to "promote" touring helps to increase merchandise and ticket sales, which is ultimately where the artist makes money anyway.

They also posed a social justice rationale. The big, bad evil record company charges $17 for a CD, and they keep majority of the $17. Very little goes to the artist, and the artist must use their piece of the record sale pie to pay back advances made by the record company. The kids I met with believe that, more often than not, the record company treats an artist's advance as a loan, and charges interest on it..

Helping the artist get out of debt is not too high on the kids' priority list. The kids say they'd rather pay iTunes for the one or two songs they might want from the CD, than buy the whole CD. Also, the artist sees approximately 70% of the recording sale by iTunes, versus a smaller percentage than that which they'd get from sale of the big bad record company's release.

[The (original) last word of the following sentence was censored by Facebook. So, I changed it both here and on Facebook:] That's a load of hooey.

I respect the kids who are starting the record company. I'm sure they have a lot of talent, and an understanding of the record business as it exists today. But I take issue with their positions. I figured that maybe I got it wrong, that I misunderstood. So I asked a few teenagers about their music consumption habits. The ones I asked tell me that they do buy songs individually, or that they listen to songs on MySpace without ever buying them. I think that's fine. If an artist puts a song on MySpace, but did not mean to distribute it beyond MySpace, and the kids go where the music is, that's just a sign that the band's getting popular. By having put the song up on the internet without a price tag on it, the artist is encouraging people to listen.

The social justice argument runs counter to the "recorded music is a promotional item for selling tour tickets.". rationale, but let's come back to that.

My research indicates that many artists' advances are interest-free., and that a good lawyer can make any such clause go away. Also, since production costs have come way down (part of the kids' argument), artists don't need advances as much as they used to. Any contract with a record label that doesn't involve an artist's advance, negates at least half the social justice rationale.

Let's look at the kids' rationales from another perspective:

John Lennon ain't touring. I doubt his estate agrees with the philosophy of "benevolence" espoused by the kids.

Billy Joel is 60. I don't think he's too thrilled about having to tour as much as he does at his age. Maybe he's not recorded (in part) because there's no money in it any more. His last studio album (River of Dreams, CBS 1993. Available on Amazon, iTunes, and lots of other places) sold in the tens of millions. Yet he tours with Elton John a lot. Elton is still recording. He's in a different position than most recording artists today.

I grew up Orthodox Jewish. A lot of Orthodox Jewish culture looks down upon the less observant variants of Judaism, and jokes that they have "Turned 'The Ten Commandments' into the Ten Suggestions."

Let's not ignore the obvious: The artists are charging for the recordings of their music. They're outright telling their fans that this recording costs $10 or $15. Do the kids think that's just a Suggestion? Do the kids think "Oh, the artists don't really mean that."?

Billy Joel wrote a great song called Christmas In Fallujah. The proceeds from the song are going to an organization called Homes for Our Troops —a not-for-profit organization that builds and adapts homes for injured veterans. Are the kids saying "Oh, no problem. We, the kids will tell all our friends about it, download it, spread it around, and somehow, Homes for Our Troops will make the money back on tour."?

Back to the slightly less obvious:

A band/recording artist can only tour so many days in a year, and can only sell so many tickets per performance. As such the revenue potential is much more limited. With digital distribution, manufacturing costs for recordings are down to almost nothing. The profit margin potential for the artist is substantial enough that stealing deprives them of more income today than it would have before digital distribution existed.

Concert tickets are $50 to $300, versus $10 for the digital version of the original recording. So the twenty-something rationalizes they'll spend $50 to see the concert (risking the possibility of not getting tickets) versus spending $10 for the record. Hmm..something doesn't fly.

The Grateful Dead (see reference below) used to have a "taping section" at their arena shows. They encouraged fans to tape and distribute shows. They believed that spreading the word among "the faithful" of the "Grateful" would increase sales. They were right. But that worked for THEM, and THEY authorized the taping.

There's a joke: "How many Grateful Dead fans does it take to change a lightbulb?....Grateful Dead fans don't change lightbulbs. They wait till the bulb burns out, then follow it around for twenty five years.".

The Grateful Dead had groupies on a par with few other bands. The "faithful" of the Grateful would buy the records. The "Dead", and their music-sharing marketing strategy were a phenomenon before file sharing, and before piracy became as easy as it is today. But again, "The Dead" authorized people to tape the live shows. They never authorized people to tape the records they (the Dead) made for sale.

I do NOT long for the days when record companies had an iron grip on the industry. I believe that "big corporate" is not out for the interest of the recording artists (except perhaps the interest it charges the stupider among them them on recording contract advances). That doesn't take away from the companies' right to demand money for their product.

The kids starting the record label told me that the only real means of directly making money from recordings is via synchronization licenses–the licensing of a recording for use in a movie or television show. There are also Performance Rights Organizations such as BMI, ASCAP , SESAC, and (most recently) SoundExchange, which distribute money to artists and publishers whose works are played in broadcast media and public forums (such as performance spaces, and as background music in clubs).

Needless to say, I disagree with the kids BIG time. I respect their passion and entrepreneurship, and realize that their rationale IS changing the record business. But I believe that this change is working to the detriment of recording artists. If record sales were through the roof, the fears would be less founded. There are fewer platinum (million-selling) records today than there were a few years ago.

So, to make money, today's record companies have to retain a large majority of publishing income. (Publishers are song pimps. They are the agents representing a musical work, and try to promote it for use in movies, television, performances by artists, and anything else that will get the work to generate income.).

In years and decades past, many record companies required some artists (who compose their own material) to sign over to the record company a percentage of publishing income to which they—the artist—would otherwise be entitled, in exchange for the record company allowing them to record the song, and have the record company get it out to the masses. This practice is abhorrent, but was tolerated for a long time.

The record label owners with whom I met want to write its artists' songs so that they can legitimately retain the publishing rights. That's fine. It's smart business. But if records aren't selling, why start a record label? Why not start a publishing company? Clearly these entrepreneurs believe they'll make money selling records. But with this new "understanding" of sales in the music business, how are these kids going to make a dollar with every would-be music consumer wanting to non-consensually barter their "promotion" services for the stolen music?

I like to think I understand the idea of promoting product versus selling it. Clearly I'm too stupid to understand "the new economy" as espoused by the Millen-Gen.

That's okay. Someone much smarter than me gets it. The great lyricist, author, and visionary John Perry Barlow beautifully and eloquently summarized the REAL new economy in his 1992 essay: Selling Wine Without Bottles . John was also a lyricist for many songs by the Grateful Dead—the SAME band who encouraged taping and distribution of The Dead's intellectual property.

Let's review: A new band distributes their product for free or cheap so that they can gain an audience. Check. Got it. I see the strategy.

Imagine now that the same new band tours, and word spreads about them. They work hard playing clubs for a few years, become bigger, develop a reputation, and they start wanting to charge for their intellectual property and product. They tell fans "Continue to download and spread our first two records, but the third one is for profit. You want it? You pay for it. This is what we do to eat, and we spent months making something from which you'll derive benefit. Please pay us the respect of not stealing our stuff.". What are the chances the fans will abide by the band's will after years of going by a rationale like the one above? Whether the kids steal it or abandon the band because they're charging for their work is, I suppose the kids' choice. But if they download the record when the band says it costs money, is that not stealing?

The new economy should be opening more doors for sales of music—every kind of music, in every imagineable form. CDs, DVDs, Blu-Ray, Sheet Music, MP3s, streaming media subscriptions...They should be thriving more than ever, given how easy it is to promote the work all over the world for next to nothing. But the kids are figuring that by distributing the music across a file "sharing" service like Limewire they might help to make a struggling songwriter in Brooklyn get a "cult following" in India, thus opening up tour possibilities on another continent, is very nice. But...if the guy's struggling and you like his music, you should pay for it unless the artist /owner of that music specifically requests that you distribute his music without compensating him. Stealing the Brooklyn composer's music would be like walking into a pottery shop, taking a nice clay bowl, and telling the shop owner "I'm not going to pay for this thing you made, but I'll tell all my friends about it, and they'll all come in and pay you for some other bowl. Or maybe we can organize some parties at which you can present your pottery. People will buy them there. But clearly you've put out this nice display table so that we could take the stuff.

Radiohead set up a "pay what you want" scheme for their most recent release. The kids with the record company admitted that they paid nothing when they'd downloaded the music. The official Radiohead website encouraged people to donate something, but allowed people to download it without paying. That was Radiohead's choice. They have the money to allow fans to take their music in the hopes that the fans will be come an extension of the band's publicity firm. Most artists who record their music in the hopes of selling it don't have those kinds of resources, and ask fans to pay a set amount.

Last point: Has this ever been done before? Is there a precedent for "come see my live shows, because that's where I make all the money"? Almost. Comedians have traditionally not sold very well. Lisa Lampanelli and Jeff Foxworthy are noteworthy exceptions. (Shameless plug: My company—Dragonfly Technologies—developed Lisa Lampanelli's website) Jeff Foxworthy's You Might Be A Redneck is the best-selling comedy album to date.

Most comics make their money on the road. Most make the CDs, distribute them electronically or in-person after shows, but don't expect the CDs to be a major source of income. I doubt they want their material stolen (either by other comics who use their jokes or by would-be consumers who steal tracks from CDs/DVDs), but it's not as big a source of income for them, and they (comedians) have almost always made more money on tour/performing than they do from CD/merchandise sales.

That there's a precedent doesn't excuse the kids' behavior or justify their position. Stealing music is just wrong, and taking food out of the artists' mouths (or a record company's coffers) isn't good for anyone. John Perry Barlow got it right. The real New Economy is about making it easier to sell intellectual property by not requiring it to take physical form. However well-intentioned the proponent of the opposite view may be, by promoting the idea of giving away the "wine" in the hopes that the gifts may some day promote trips to the vineyard, they'll perpetuate the old "starving artist" paradigm, leaving the artist drunk with only their own wine and AA to keep them company.

Rant over!

Comments?

Musicians, poets, comedians: Continuing in the Gypsy tradition, in 2008 and beyond

Most performing artists are, in essence, independent business owners. Yeah? So what? So are a lot of people.

The strange and harsh thing about performing artists being business owners, is that performers base their livelihoods on their creative capacities. Performing artists are expected to run their business, perfect their craft, and do everything else it takes to get by, all by themselves (at first). Some are lucky enough to have help from family, friends, or others they trust on the business and logistics sides. To say it's difficult to nurture both sides of a creative person's business obligations is a tremendous understatement.

Creative artists have to worry about at least all of the following:
- Inventory
- Distribution
- Advertising/Publicity
- Health Benefits
- Travel expenses/reimbursement
- Payroll
- Taxes (personal and business)
- Unions
- Scheduling
- Wardrobe

and that's just the beginning.

Some who are married and have kids have the additional issues of child care, possible spousal neglect, and a host of other things most of us don't have to worry about—especially when combined with all the other facets of our business and personal lives.

If you own a hardware store, you have to know about hardware before you open up shop, you need to keep up with advancements in the field, you need to have inventory of stuff people need, and you need to be open so people can get stuff from you. It's hard work, but it's steady, and you can count on making a decent living at it if you stay in the same place, and keep providing the stuff people need. Can you imagine how much harder it would be for a hardware store owner to pack his stuff up in an RV and take his "show" on the road? Many hardware store owners can open up shop on the web, and be everywhere at once.

Somehow or other, people who need hardware will find a store. Performing artists have to go to the audience. With the exception of a few hotels in Las Vegas, or performance venues in Nashville, TN, or Branson, MO, performers aren't stationary.There's only so much of an entertainer's act they can convey through a website. That leads us to inventory. If you never thought of songwriters, poets or comedians carrying inventory, try this on for size:

Imagine if a hardware store owner had to build the store, and make every tool, nail, and whatever else in the shop himself. It's not the same gig anymore, is it?

A performer must create himself or herself from the ground up. A comedian or composer of music must write their material. Their music, poetry or comedy (respectively) is their inventory. Most throw away 75 to 90% of their material before they find the "gold". If the hardware store owner threw away 75% of his inventory, do you think he'd survive?

Every two years, the great George Carlin repeated the same cycle of getting new material for an HBO special. (He did fourteen of them, which, in total, represent thirty one years of work.)

In the last fifteen or so years of his life, he'd write a whole show (90 minutes or more of material), take it on the road, work it really hard for two years, and then perform it live on HBO, thus adding it to the canon of recorded comedy, and to his record collection—that is, the collection of records he'd made so that we could enjoy it. After he put a special out on HBO, he'd take a short break, then go back on the road using the previous year's material, and slowly start putting in the new stuff, with the new material eventually becoming a majority of the show.

I saw George live twice. Both times were during the beginning of a cycle. He'd just begun to write some new stuff, and was about 18 to 20 months from an HBO special. During the early performances in a cycle, he would read some of the newest stuff from notes. That's how "hot off the presses" it was. How exciting! I got to see one of the great comic minds of our time create, or at least refine his inventory.

After comedians or composers/performers write material, they have to perform it hundreds of times till they can do it in their sleep. The ones who are somewhat established can "get by" financially while developing new material. The ones who are starting out don't have that cushion. They're working without a net, or with a day job.

Imagine a comedian submitting a business plan to a bank, as part of applying for a small business loan. That's funny enough. Imagine the comedian telling the bank that 75% to 90% of what they create is going to be "tossed", and not "sold".

If you know a bank who would loan money to a comic, please let me know which one it is.

Many entrepreneurs have exploited creative souls' desire to be heard–to have their message brought to the world. The creative souls often look at the short term expression rather than the long term opportunity. That's part of what keeps them going from gig to gig. Little Richard talked about the early days of his career (and some of the later days) as if he had been a slave. His contracts were bought and sold (from one record company to another) for pennies. His last name is Penniman, but..he really shouldn't go living it out that way. He's 76 years old, and shouldn't have to be working quite so hard as he is now.

He could only be sold/traded that way because he cost the record labels so little in the first place. It's not a wonder that the great Little Richard–to whom both Lennon and McCartney owed much of their careers–is scrounging around playing dinner theater venues.

Don't get me wrong! I'm happy to have seen him live. But he looked like he was in pain. He's old. And being Little Richard up on the stage, even for an hour, looks like some hard work. To have to do that at age 76? That can't be fun.

So, why does this horrible tradition of exploitation and "gypsy"-style wandering continue? Are musicians and performing artists stupid? Are they gluttons for punishment; maybe just so attention-starved that they'd rather be on the stage and make no money than be a quiet conformist, average member of polite society?

No, I don't think that's it. I think it's in the "DNA" of creative people. Musicians, actors, authors, comedians have a holy mission. Their mission is to change their audience–to move them the way nothing but a great work of art could.

Billy Joel said it better in his 1993 Commencement Address to the graduates of Berklee College of Music—my alma mater, than I've ever heard/read anyone else say it:

And I hope you don't make music for some vast, unseen audience or market or ratings share or even for something as tangible as money. For though it's crucial to make a living, that shouldn't be your inspiration or your aspiration. Do it for yourself, your highest self, for your own pride, joy, ego, gratification, expression, love, fulfillment, happiness—whatever you want to call it. Do it because it's what you have to do. And if you make this music for the human needs you have within yourself, then you do it for all humans who need the same things. Ultimately, you enrich humanity with the profound expression of these feelings.

Once an artist has done that, their job—as far as that night's audience is concerned—is done. Performers of all types are holy people, in that they actively seek out audiences in order to help the audience grow.

That may not be how it appears on the surface. Dustin Hoffman, during his appearance on Inside The Actors Studio recounts how Sir Laurence Olivier answered the question "Why do we [actors] do what we do?"...Olivier's answer consisted of going nose-to-nose with Dustin, and saying, practically chanting "look-at-me, look-at-me, look-at-me, look-at-me..".

Okay, so actors (and comedians and musicians, and authors) want an audience. Without an audience their art wouldn't be very meaningful (, and they couldn't get paid). If one of their trees was to fall in the forest and nobody was there to hear it, the tree would have made a sound, but the artist wouldn't care as much about the tree if there had been no one there to have heard it fall.

But creative people's desire is to change the world with their contributions to it. The contribution couldn't be anywhere near as significant if you, an audience member, saw it every night. If you saw the New York Philharmonic every night for 20 years, you'd start falling asleep during performances pretty regularly—unless you were in the orchestra.

To me it's sad and ironic that standup comedians don't laugh very often. It's a pretty big no-no to tell jokes to comedians. The last thing they want to hear while they're cleaning house is "Hey, I'll bet you've never heard this one..."–especially if it starts with "Two Jews walk into a bar". I once told Judy Gold a joke of my own, but I did so in the context of conversation. She found it funny. And I know she found it funny because she said "That's funny.". Had she not found it funny, she'd mostly likely have made a face and a sarcastic remark.

Comedians don't laugh as easily as the rest of us because their whole job is to make us laugh. To them, hearing a joke (even a really good joke) is not unlike "talking shop". Their "resistance", if you will, to having a really hearty laugh, is higher than that of most people. That's sad and ironic, isn't it? I've been around some great comedians while they were just having casual conversation. They would talk about everyday stuff (taking their kid to school, or whatever), be really funny in recounting a story, but neither participant in the conversation was laughing at the other's remarks. I, as the guest of one of the comics tried not to be rude, but I'm not immune to the laughter—yet.

Dick Cavett said of my favorite comedian of all time—Groucho Marx—that it was sad that Groucho didn't have a Groucho to make him laugh.

Sturgeon's Law correctly states that "ninety percent of everything is crap." The "hacks" are 90%—the comic, or writer, or whatever, whose work doesn't make him or her grow, and whose work clearly doesn't strive to change or challenge the audience. It's the standup equivalent of According to Jim, or of most Adam Sandler movies.

Good comedians talk with contempt about "hack premises"—bases (for jokes) that are so overdone, tired, and clearly don't come from the soul, but rather from formulaic repackaging of common, everyday things that'll make a certain type of audience laugh. When the really good and great comedians work hard at their craft by baring their souls to an audience, they generally talk about something unique to them. They hope that you or I, as audience members, will be able to relate, or at least take something away—something that'll stay with you after the liquor from the club will have worn off.

Much of Steven Wright's humor's a little bit "out there". But it comes from inside him. One of his signature jokes is about his rented apartment, and how the landlord allows pets. Steven said "I have a pony". The great Emo Philips has a joke about suicide, religion, and the differences that separate us. Everyone can take something away from that joke. Me? I took away that the minute differences in people's beliefs can create chasms so wide, that two people may only get to know each other to the extent that they know the other's beliefs are different from their own. As a result, they may never get to serious dialogue. I'm guilty of it myself, and Emo made me even more aware of it. He taught an important lesson, but framed it in a funny context.

Jodie Wasserman talks about being broke. That's not easy, going on stage and talking about being broke. She was doing it before the economy tanked! It's one thing to tell your best friend something like that. Jodie says that in her act, to hundreds of strangers a day. She bares her soul on the stage, and hopes we will grow from it. That's an artist at work.

George Carlin said in 1977 (in "A Place for My Stuff") "That's my job: thinking up goofy shit...; coming around every once in a while, telling you what it is...".

Artists can't stagnate. They can't stay in the same place all the time. Even the great David Brenner and George Wallace who have indefinite engagements at Vegas hotels don't see the same audiences every night.

I have a sense that most Vegas audiences see standup comedy as something to do between bouts of addictive gambling, or sessions at the hotel's tanning salon. That's disgusting. That comedy clubs serve alcohol is not wonderful either. But hey, that's commerce, not art. If selling drinks gives the comedians a venue, it's a compromise that comics are willing to live with.

The truly great comics come around to where we live, and take us with them for a little while. Enjoy the ride. Take a snapshot in your mind. Don't take for granted the effort it took the musician/comedian/poet to get to the club/venue at which you're seeing them. They're doing what they do to help us grow. Thank them for the "ride", and for the opportunity to grow, and wish them well as they move on to help another little piece of the world.

Berklee keeps the tradition going.

I'm a proud alumna of Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA. I am still a bit active with the college. I go to alumni events, I give money, and I try to see the college every once in a while. I love my "old school" not just because of the vibrant, youthful energy that's there, but because it is a great mix of the old school rules, and the talented students' contemporary applications (and discretionary breaking) of those rules to create great new work. But the traditions remain inseparable from the new creations.

When I was in school there, I got derisive comments from academic snobs along the lines of "How nice. I go to a real college.". From other, well-meaning people who didn't understand that it was a real school, I got "Wow, your school must be like [the movie and TV show] Fame!"

In my head, I'd respond "Yes, that's exactly what it's like. A vocalist has a dramatic moment, spontaneously bursts into song in the hallway, with accompanying music, and background singers that come out of nowhere; and people around her begin to dance for no reason."

At a recent event for Berklee alumni, I got to meet some graduates from the classes of 2006 and 2007 respectively. I asked whether they got the same types of comments today that I got "in my day". I was told that the big question the students of today get is "Are you going to try out for [TV show] American Idol?". The wiseass students today respond with something along the lines of "No, because I have some self-respect, and don't care to sound like Beyoncé or Whitney Houston (ca. 1985) to please some rich, spoiled, non-musician with power." I love that!

Sadder still is the fact that, in order to get discovered, American Idol (winner) Kelly Clarkson had to "sign her life away" to the producers of the show.

I had no idea how disgusting that show's setup is. But I should have known better, because (in that part of the music business) nothing's changed since my day. It's all a (disgusting) music industry "tradition"—"Pay For Play". (That is, paying a club owner for the privilege of performing on his stage. That's not just working for free..that's PAYING to work.)

Blues singers from 70 or 80 years ago had their intellectual property exploited by someone else, while the originators of the music got next to nothing; Little Richard took the the just-short-of-highway-robbery record deals that were offered to him early in his career. Black musicians were treated unfairly back then. Now there's less discrimination—musicians with any skin color can get ripped off equally by American Idol, and much lesser forums, media, or venues.

"Do it for the exposure" is the slogan of the exploiters in the entertainment industry. It's one of our emotional "hot buttons". "The Man" takes advantage of the creative artist's desire to express him/herself, and to be liked, and to have their work acknowledged, and to make a "living" doing what they love.

There's a slightly more dignified manner of "Pay for Play" today. They're called "bringer shows". The musicians (or comedians, for that matter) bring the audience. They ask friends, colleagues, relatives, and whoever else they can, to come to the show, and pay for drinks. Often there's no cover charge at "bringer shows". But the drinks ($5 for a small, watered down orange juice) subsidizes the comics' stage time. Getting up in front of people is the ONLY way to get better at it.

The really great performers who start out doing bringer shows didn't have to do them for long.

By college students' standards, I'm old—43 to be somewhat close to exact. And yet, Berklee has stayed the same, while progressing a whole lot. Tradition mixed with musical experimentation and creativity, along with a great sense of humor are part of what makes Berklee special. I love anything that has a sense of humor about itself—even a funeral.

Berklee's unique. It always has been, and always will be. The best way to illustrate how different and special Berklee is, would be to tell you about Christopher Guest's visit to the school. Christopher Guest was honored at Berklee with an honorary doctorate. He, along with a fantastic ensemble of Berklee faculty and students, performed arrangements and adaptions of selections from his body of music.

Over a hundred bassists accompanied Christopher for the evening's final number, Big Bottoms . "Bottom" is a musical colloquialism meaning the bass part. In musical colloquial/trade-speak, when one is "holding down the bottom", one is playing the bass (or bass guitar). If you read the lyrics , you'll see that's not what the song's about.

That one hundred bassists thing? That's unique to Berklee. It takes the "Big Bottoms" joke from the ridiculous to the absurd! The students are, on the whole, a very talented bunch. They're very dedicated, but they don't miss out on the good times.

My favorite teachers at Berklee were Ken Zambello and Bob Freedman—with a special honor going to Bill Leavitt—founding chairman of the Guitar Department. If all I'd gotten out of Berklee was my time with these three great musicians/teachers, it'd have been more than enough.

I loved Ken as a teacher because he took rock and roll seriously. He approached it intellectually and technically, and with great respect. He would dissect it, and show us—his students—that it, like every other great genre of music, was an outgrowth of other traditions/genres. Without understanding what came before, it's really hard to understand how to properly and professionally execute any given genre.

"A-Wop-bop-a-loo-bop a-lop-bam-boom!"???

What the hell was that? Well, Little Richard may have composed that lyric himself, but he didn't invent the phenomenon of singing non-lyrics. There was scat singing well before him.

Little Richard was an original. But, did he create everything he did out of thin air? No. There was Louis Jordan not too far before him. And before Louis Jordan? There was Louis Armstrong, then the blues singers, then Africa. Frankly, I know almost nothing of African music.

Little Richard, Ray Charles, and others developed their styles out of a mix of gospel, jazz, earlier popular music, and jazz. One of Billy Joel's biggest influences was Ray Charles; another great source of Billy Joel's inspiration was The Beatles. The Beatles were influenced by Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley. Elvis also loved black blues singers and gospel and took a lot out of it. Every great musician comes from some great tradition that came before they did.

I'm pretty sure the name of the first class I took with Ken was "Rock Analysis" He played Chuck Berry, Bill Haley and the Comets and Oingo Boingo. And taking their music apart, and understanding the elements of it was real work. Ken also directed an ensemble in which I was a student-musician. He had us listen to recordings of pop songs, and try to play the song as it had been played on the original, with a slight adaptation for the ensemble of the moment.

In that class he pointed out (and then we heard what we already knew was there, but didn't know it well enough to articulate it), that some of the instruments were playing straight (think the guitar, bass, and drums on Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band) and the guitars, the bass, and the vocal were playing swing (think Little Richard's Tutti Frutti). The elements of jazz were coming together with a more driving, set of rhythmic elements.

Did Bill Haley know what the hell all that meant? Probably not. Doesn't make it any less serious. Some of you won't get this, but the greatest thing I learned from Ken Zambello, is that we'd better learn music as a trade, and learn in depth about the styles that have already been successful, so that we can make it in commercial music. Although he said many funny things in my classes with him, my favorite was "Nobody's going to pay to hear your 7/8 Reggae version of Take Five." In English? He told students that there's a constant struggle between art and commerce. And while one shouldn't compromise on one's art, that's not always going to pay the rent. He also told students that if we are serious about music, we have to understand it thoroughly. Listening to a record, and being able to "copy" it is part skill, and part talent. After I took Ken's classes, I listened to rock and roll with "new ears". I was able to do things after his classes that I would never have been able to do without them. I had so much more respect for rock and roll. Since he released The Stranger, Billy Joel had always been my favorite pop music composer. Billy knows rock and roll as an art form, but also understands its forms, and its inner workings. He can dissect the songs he fell in love with, and that made him love rock and roll.

When he did an album in a particular style, he understood that style completely, and gave it his particular take.

That's reality. Imagine that! Liberal Arts colleges probably have lots of "Intro to Basket Weaving" type classes, and "Analysis of the eleventh notes in Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone pieces". How can anyone make a living from that? Ken was (and obviously still is) aware of the realities of art and commerce. He gave it to us in exactly the doses we needed.

And so, we are able to mix tradition with experimentation to make bold new work that has a solid, grounded foundation. What does this have to do with anything important?

In the Book of Proverbs we're taught that there's "nothing new under the sun". It's really true. The computer industry hasn't had anything new in a long time. It may seem new, but it's all been done before in cruder forms. The World Wide Web may come closest to anything truly new, but it's all just a big, complicated network.

With music? Hell, no. Ken Zambello said "Stevie Wonder didn't invent the II V.". Neither did Duke Ellington. Neither did Bach.

(I had a heck of a time finding a decent link to explain the II V (pronounced two-five. The first two chords to the song "Satin Doll" (Dmin7 and G7, in the key of C), also the first two chords to "Tea for Two".)