Whenever I'm at a local coffee shop/coffee house/industrial coffee outlet/what-have-you, I'm never quite sure if I want there to be live music or not. As a wannabe-musician of dubious talents and claims, I like supporting other people who are trying to prove that "Yes Virginia, you CAN make a living as an artist." Unfortunately, I'm always hesitant when it seems to be that the statement should really be "Yes Virginia, you CAN make a living as a pot-bellied-mullet-haired-forty-year-old-guy with little-to-no-talent/stage-presence/banter and an appearance that you either live in your mom's basement, never left Woodstock, or are in fact your dad, married to your mom, but living in the basement because mom kicked you out of her bed years ago for lacking potential and always harboring dreams of becoming the next big coffee shop sensation. And there will be pie."
(I made that last part up because it got a little too depressing rather quickly. Although the vegan scones look pretty nice.)
As I was saying, I'm not sure if I want to listen to more of what this guy is soon going to be offering. Granted, it feels a little crass to insult someone's life passion when my own pieces of musical offerings (songs) may or may not be scraped from the bottom of Elvis Costello's shoe. And as I had mentioned before, I'd greatly prefer to tell little Virginia that there is in fact hope for traveling coffee-shop folkies everywhere, and that the music they're playing adds to the atmosphere, and is worth coming out for. That there is a reason for this! That this will actually make my Saturday night better as I sit here alone looking for something/anything to do! Please Virginia, let there be hope for musicians!
I should explain.
Recently it was pointed out to me that I have too much free time. Bear with me.
It was also illustrated to me that the greatest writers/artists are people who are always driven to work with their passions. They can do nothing but respond to their bodies' crying need for artwork, and in a cruel form of self-flagellation/masturbation have no choice but to be a slave to producing pieces of aesthetic value as a means of relief. These people alternately seem to me as to be the ideal form of artistic perfection. At the same time, these people also frustrate me because there are only 24 hours in the day and I have a hard enough time getting the daily necessities of life done within this time frame and how-dare-you for doing so much more shit than me etc. (This feeling also applies to anyone more successful than me, and possibly reflects a deep-seated self-loathing within yours truly, but who's keeping track anyway?) Aforementioned people always seem to have different sets of advice to offer on how to advance one's own personage, which may or may not bring fruit to bear depending upon how you respond to various stimuli. (Example: yoga = good idea; yoga at the gym = a little more effort than I'd like to put out, but good idea; yoga in city park = well, it's not my cup of tea, but hell it works for you man; yoga in a coffee shop = dude, get your stinky feet out of my mocha, bee-otch.)
In my own regards, I was looking at the online blogging of one of my favorite modern authors, who shall remain nameless at this time although if you're reading this, you've probably read one or two (or five) books by this person. As a means for advancing your own writing, he/she/it advocates writing a little bit every couple of days in order to get your creative juices flowing. This could take the form of actual legitimate work, or could be something on the order of a personal diary or journal if that is what floats your boat. Thinking to myself "boy that sounds practical, but how do I keep a journal in this modern digital age, where the handwritten page is shunned?" It then occurred to me that the modern equivalent of the journal or diary is the blog. It's also the equivalent of that kid in 5th grade who grabbed your love notes from your desk, screamed out "Travis loves (insert your name here)!", and read out the entire contents of my latest work of poetry to the class, causing my poor artist's lovestruck soul to die a little more. In this instance however, you are the kid grabbing your own note and screaming it aloud in the cafeteria in order to draw attention to yourself, but it's an apt enough metaphor.
(I'm not kidding about that note, by the way. It probably did in fact read (insert your name here). If you knew me in 5th grade, you'd understand that these are desperate times. It's hard enough for a twenty-something with a Jew-fro to get by. Picture a 10 year old with glasses and a Jew-fro. Yeah, even I hate that kid.)
Consequently, this blog has started. Right around the time that the latest musician has started at the coffee shop. This gentleman, a man by the name of Charlie Moppett, (alright, I made the last name up, but it doesn't sound too far off) performs music somewhere along the lines of a Gordon Lightfoot/James Taylor blend, although he unfortunately sounds like Steven Lynch decided to go all serious and perform real music. Either way, it's not flattering, especially since his appearance is somewhere along the lines of Virginia's earlier nightmare scenario for musicians.
(He also just started off his set with "This is a song about coffee." I realize that I shouldn't expect glorious works of art that leave your audience in tears from how moving your lyrics are, but seriously, a song about coffee in a coffee shop is like Raffi singing at your high school graduation party.)
(I'd also like to mention that I love Raffi.)
Anyways, one of the things that struck me is that rather than handing out CD's to the crowd, he is offering "download cards" because CD's are on the way out and he doesn't want to get left behind in this aforementioned digital age.
Now, having been in a band before (twice, in fact), I have to put it out there that one of the things that gave me the greatest joy was listening to the other bands play, swapping out CD's, and then going to my car, putting in their music, and listening to it for the better part of a week before it joined the pile of CD's that I may grab at some point in the future for a road trip, but am more likely to ignore and ultimately deny that I ever owned in the first place. (This pile, should it exist, would also possibly contain any Creed/Limp Bizkit/Linkin Park/Nickelback that I might have/not owned and am wanting to pretend never crossed my dashboard in the first place. It's a fairly dusty/sizeable pile. Ooh look, a seagull!) These CD's are part of the experience of being a young, struggling musician. They are your lifeblood and your connection to a vague form of legitimacy, both in your own eyes ("Hey, look, I recorded a demo! It shows that I am serious about my career as a musician and legitimate in your eyes! I recorded it in my studio, which may or may not be my friend's living room! Awesome!") and in the eyes of your fellow musicians. ("Hey, look, you recorded a demo! It shows that you are serious about your career as a musician and are now legitimate in our eyes! You may have recorded this in a studio, which may also be your friend's living room! Awesome! But why do you smell?") Most importantly, recording a CD and giving it to someone forcibly imprinted your art upon them: they now have a tangible object in hand that proves you exist, and while you might have to force them to listen to it in the future, at the very least they cannot deny that you gave them something that they may or may not have to listen to at least once.
Now, I realize that offering a "download card" of your music is somewhat the same. They have the key to your music in hand, they can go and listen to it for hours and hours (this is what I would choose to believe), and they can that much more easily spread the joy/anguish of your music to others. (Although in Charlie Moppett's case, I might pass. He just played a song about being stuck in his apartment by an ice storm to a riff that sounds suspiciously like Kanye West's "Jesus Walks". In other news, I'm beginning to have my doubts about Charlie Moppett's chance of EVER GETTING LAID AGAIN.) The problem that I foresee is simple: there is nothing to guarantee that once said person has taken your download card home with them that they will ever follow through in the second crucial step and download your music to their Ipod.
Think about it. It's possible that you gave them your card without asking if they wanted it or not in that wonderful coffee shop tradition of panhandling. It's possible that they took your card because they were sincerely interested in your music, but once they got five feet from the coffee shop, they became more interested in finding their car than your song about ice storms. It's entirely possible that they took your card just to make you feel better about playing music for the evening but have no intentions of downloading your songs at all. Or maybe someone just took your card in an attempt to impress their date in some misguided way of saying "I support local independent artists, look how cool/wonderfully-fuckable I am!" (I just watched the last one happen to Charlie Moppett, who is forced to grin and bear it as the couple walk out the door towards their theoretical hook-up. At the very least, he's in on the joke)
What most bothers me about the download card replacing the CD is that any sense of tangible physical art has been thrown out the door. There is no more pile of CD's, no more physical proof that you ever played at the coffee house, and no more means of repelling zombies during the oncoming apocalypse. (Alright, I guess that would be vinyl to you "Shaun of the Dead" purists). Call me old-fashioned, but where is the joy that would come with sitting around for hours burning copies of your demo to pass along to people? What will happen to liner notes? How will people be able to pour over your lyrics, agonizing over their meaning? Who said that any of this was a good idea? Why, the indecency! The indignity! The -
Alright, Charlie Moppett just started a song about his cat. I shit you not, his cat. The jig is up.
Downloads are infinitely better. Once on your MP3 player, it's harder to get rid of them. Chances are, your downloads can be gotten for free. They can be shared easier. They can be streamed life, for free. People can listen to you for free, and if you're any good, they will pass you along, until eventually you play in a place large enough to GET PAID MISTA, and your legitimacy as a good artist can be founded upon a solid base of fan support.
(This also applies to one hit wonders. Granted, you'll miss the sales that would come from people buying your one CD to get to that one song that's always on the radio, but hey, at least they're listening to you. And while this might prevent people from discovering the Blind Melon's of the world (Single - No Rain, CD - Blind Melon, actually a fantastic example of psychedelic grunge), but will also single handily (pun intended) save people from the Better than Ezra's of the world. (Single - Good, CD - Deluxe, not good)
So, with the above in mind, here is my journal, bared for the world to read, free of charge, on a mass-blog site, solely for the purpose of providing an original thought from time to time while I get my laps in for my writing career. There will also be occasional bouts of maudlin enterprise from time to time (I like poetry, what up? Wait, don't go yet) but I promise that those will be brief. And in the long run, I hope to at least provide a chuckle here and there. If that should at the least occur, then maybe this whole thing won't have been so bad after all.
I wish I could say the same thing for Charlie Moppett. He just played the fiftieth version of a song about looking-at-the-stars-from-your-tailgate that I've ever heard, and it's easily a Bottom Five hit. I can actually hear the sounds of people's chances of getting lucky on their dates tonight shattering on the floor. I doubt that they'll take the download card as an excuse to support local arts in their rush to flee the door.
Poor Charlie Moppett.
