Crazed by the Music

What was so surprising and maybe refreshing about Robert Plant’s announcement recently wasn’t that a Led Zep tour wasn’t going to happen along with their upcoming UK reunion show, it was this quote:

“When I do come back from touring I’m shocked to find a lot of my mates tend to be going to bed far too early and that means I should probably be doing the same. Maybe I should stop having a good time and get old.”

Plant’s been as conscious about age as Neil Young from his salad days in the 70’s: he often referred to himself as “Old Robert” even back then.  But to hear him talk now goes against the grain of most other long-time stadium-fillers.  It wasn’t just the obvious lyrics to “My Generation” or the loss of their rhythm section that made the Who’s future shaky- Daltrey’s throat problems along sidelined them.  Ditto the Stones not just when Richards tumbled out of a tree recently but also when Jagger had similar problems with his voice.  At this point, both bands seemed like the types to tour ‘til they literally dropped but age kicks your ass no matter what your income bracket is. 

Plant realizes it and not only says it but also lives it.  Age is catching up with his peers whether they like it or not and one day, they’ll have to admit it too.  But that doesn’t mean that they all should just pack it because they’ve hit a certain age.  Obviously, everyone ages differently (my grandma is 90 and she’s able to still live on her own).  Or look at the many jazz, country or blues musicians who live out their golden years on stages.  The fact that rock icons were able to do this also took the stigma away for being over 30 or 40 or 50 or 60 and still doing concerts in that genre.  Nothing wrong with that and in some cases, it’s commendable, especially when some of them still make good albums.  But even the Godfather of Soul couldn’t do leg splits in his later years and classic rockers who reach the AARP threshold will have to make compromises too, whether they or their fans like it or not.

Maybe that’s wishful thinking but the Motley Fool site has a good article about how their court cases are not only turning sour but also turning against them, threatening to upend their whole shaky legal arguments that they’ve been trying to perpetrate. 

“I’ve decided to keep singing this song until it becomes true,” Steve Earle told a crowd at Town Hall in New York a few nights ago at a solo show before launching into his song “Jerusalem”.  Earle’s song is hopeful in the face of horrific events, imaging a time without war and conflict.  Most realists will tell that you that human nature being what it is, that ain’t gonna happen.  And yet for someone as grizzled, angry and cantankerous as Earle, he still believes that it’s possible and he won’t give up wishing for it, singing that song again and again as a reminder to himself and to us about what’s possible if we really put our minds and hearts to it.

Less than a week before that, Nick Lowe was also doing a solo show in New York, playing at World Trade Center Park, literally in the shadow of Ground Zero.  After going through a set of songs from his new album (what he called “the difficult part of the show"), he regaled the crowd with some great oldies like “Heart of the City” and “Cruel to Be Kind”. And then towards the end, he told the crowd “I look forward to a time that it’s not necessary to sing this song” and then sang “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding?”.  The tune’s made its way into many places including Elvis Costello’s powerfully disturbing album Armed Forces (where it ended the record), the Whitney Houston blockbuster movie soundtrack for The Bodyguard (where Lowe was pleasantly surprised to get a huge paycheck from it), the original done by Lowe’s early ‘70s pub rock band Brinsley Schwarz and a recent cover by the wonderful down home group, the Holmes Brothers, who opened for Lowe at the show.

Like many others, I always assumed that Nick the Knife was making fun of hippies when he did that song.  Judging by his intro though, he was dead serious about it.  Like Earle, he sings his song as a reminder of what might be possible if we all did the impossible and embraced “sweet harmony”.  I honestly wish them both good luck and admire them both for dreaming as they do.  I also hope that there does come a day when neither of them have to sing those great songs.

Plenty of grizzled artists can tell you that instead of being magically discovered and breaking through, they had to pay dues to get any kind of recognition.  Part of that is promoting yourself online.  And while there are a few success stories of this happening (i.e. Arctic Monkeys), it’s still a tiny percentage compared to all the bands out there now taking advantage of websites where they can post and promote their music.  MySpace is obviously the mama of them all now but Sonicbids is also making itself felt in this area.  What’s happening now is that they’re working in conjunction with music festivals who use their posting services to help screen the acts that will or won’t be included in showcases.  Right now, CMJ is using them and so is SXSW. 

The thing is… it looks like CMJ wasn’t actually screening all the acts while they were taking registration money from all the bands.  As Ghostmedia reported, some of the rejection letters that were sent out went to bands who didn’t have ANYONE listen to their Sonicbids profile as tracked by the website- that would mean that no one at CMJ actually listened to them before rejecting them.  Naughty, naughty… The article also has a response from CMJ who say that the zero count on these bands’ Sonicbid pages is a misnomer and that they do actually listen to all the bands who sign up and submit material.  Is that true or this just said to cover themselves?  Either way, it should be a wake-up call that the whole selection process needs to be more transparent (as noted in the comments on the Ghostmedia page).

After bowing out of their high profile tour because of anxiety, White Stripes drummer Meg White then had to deal with the indignity of being the supposed subject of a sex tape, which turned out to be not true.  Coverage of this ranged from semi-skeptical at best (Brooklyn Vegan , Stereogum) to the more appropriate dissing of any slavering idiot who wanted to believe it was Meg (Pitchfork) and some leg-work that actually exposed the whole story (Daily Swarm).  When it was later revealed that it wasn’t her in the tape, Vegan and Gum at least printed the new info on their site but the damage was done.  So where’s the line being drawn here about what’s actual new to report and what’s tabloid trash that should be treated that way?

No splashy headlines yet but they’re selling DRM-free tracks for 89 cents each, under cutting Apple/iTunes by 10 cents.  How much this cuts into Apple’s market remains to be seen as they don’t have a best-selling gadget like the iPod to tether this to.  But the idea of songs with out any stupid DRM restrictions is very appealing and the price cut is obviously a shot at Apple’s firm 99 cent policy.  Also, since Amazon is such a name brand, that’ll go a long way to roping in customers and getting a good foothold in the market.

For anyone who cares about and wants to support jazz and avant music in New York (and elsewhere as their work reverberates outward many times), here’s a great way to support their efforts.  The Vision Festival organization just released this announcement:

“The Matching Grant Campaign has been coming along very nicely.  We are almost There!  Please Please Help us to reach our $17,000 goal!  This is a 2-to-1 Matching Grant, which means that we will receive an additional $34,000 for a Grand Total of $51,000.  This is an Arts for Art effort to get our own space to present New York’s Creative Music.  The space, to be centrally located in downtown Manhattan, will house an ongoing music venue, as well as recording and rehearsal studios.  We have identified a possible location - which I will let you know about once we are a bit further along.  So things are Very Exciting. 

For information about all that we are doing, please check out our beautiful website – It also has lots of photos from this year’s festival.”

Having seen their festival over the last several years, I can vouch for what a worthy cause this is.

In this public letter, the folks at website/news service antiMusic blast back at a PR firm who was trying to buy them off for good reviews.  Nowadays, people are so cynical about the press that buying editorial favor that might not surprise them.  With many pubs trying to survive, some have taken to ask for labels for ad money to ensure that their product gets reviewed (NY Rock did this for instance but insisted that it wouldn’t mean that they had to give a positive review).  The antiMusic folks note that several other pubs shunned the PR company for trying the same tactic.  Still, you have to wonder if some mags did say yes…