Album Listening Party

*originally published in Sound Waves Magazine November 2017

Before the invention of the .MP3, those handy little files that allow people to listen to music on their computers, sitting around and listening to music with your friends used to be an activity, like riding bikes or playing dodgeball.  You would gather around a record player, carefully pull out a big black vinyl disc from its artfully designed packaging, place it onto the device, and lower a needle down.  Magically, the music would start.  Dissecting every note, harmony, guitar solo, vocal line and lyric was actually a thing.

Not so much no more.

Listening to music is more of a personal headphone-laden thing now as you can walk about your daily life and listen to anything you want.  Whenever you want.  Wherever you want.

But if you’re in a band that writes and records original music, sitting around and listening to music is more like a necessity.  When you go into the studio and lay some tracks down, you’ll get a CD burned of the day’s work and then everybody in the band sits down and listens, dissects, makes suggestions for improvement, etc.  When you go back into the studio to add some more tracks, the process is repeated.  This could go on for days, weeks, months or even years.

On a recent Saturday afternoon, with the leaves falling literally onto our faces by the fire pit, it was time for an honest to goodness sure-fire old-fashioned “Album Listening Party.”   Our album was actually finished.  There was no going back. This particular album had been years in the making.  Not because we picked it apart and agonized over every note, but life got in the way as it is want to do.  There were some health issues, somebody quit and came back, that sort of thing.  With the moment upon us, for a few short minutes we basked in the glory of an enormous sense of accomplishment until we inevitably had to ask the million dollar questions:  “Will anybody listen to it?  Will anybody buy it?  How the heck are we going to duplicate these songs live?”

Before you get the answer to those questions though, there is lots of work to do, even after all the work you’ve done to get to this point.  For example, much ado is made about which song should be first on the album, which should go last, and where the title track goes.  Promo pictures of the band are meticulously inspected for the potential album cover, as well as pictures of just about anything representing the theme including drawings from scratch.  Somewhere amidst the discussions a list of potential music reviewers is added to a spreadsheet to track who the album will be sent out for review with notes on if and when they responded so you don’t keep bugging the same bloggers and writers.  A list of potential music licensers will also be added to the spreadsheet for potential use on TV shows or movies.  A list of radio stations and DJs is added for possible airplay.  More questions like “Do we even make hard copies or keep it all digital?  Do we press the songs onto CDs, vinyl, cassettes (making a comeback) or even 8-tracks (you never know?)  Do we make a video, which requires hiring actors, videographers, video designers and editors?”  It goes on and on after our little listening party.

But there’s even more to do.  The more work includes copywriting the songs with the Copyright.gov site, assigning International Standard Recording Codes (ISRCs) for each song, registering the songs with Sound Exchange and BMI/ASCAP/SESAC for royalty tracking, designing the album artwork, thinking up creative words to describe the music, obtaining UPC barcodes for tracking sales so your songs can get onto music charts, and uploading the songs to iTunes, CD Baby, Amazon, and other digital outlets so people can buy the things.  And none of this work is free.

In the coming weeks we’ll do all the stuff we’re supposed to do as we dream of #1 hits and huge royalty checks. When all is said and done, all we can really do is just put our stuff out there and see what happens.  Then we move on to the next batch of songs we’ll create in the basement and listen to multiple renditions of out by the fire pit and do it all over again.

The finished album is at its core something we created and nobody can take it away from us.  (Unless somebody sues us for copyright infringement or plagiarism or something.  There’s only so many ways to rearrange do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do.)  It’s like when you get that high school diploma or college degree.  You worked for it, it’s yours.

So the next time your favorite local band posts a song for sale for 99 cents, do the world a favor and just buy it.  If bands like us stop creating music in the first place, “oldies” and “classic rock” radio stations and record store sections are all you’re gonna get.   Better yet, if a band invites you to their CD Release Party, for old times’ sake, just go.  They’re good clean fun!

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Give The People What They Want

*originally published in Sound Waves Magazine November 2016

In the entertainment industry it is standard practice to give the people what they want. This is actually a contradiction in terms. If I gave the people what they wanted, I would be playing “Brick House” for four hours at every gig; or, for an older crowd, that horrendous instrumental “Sleepwalk” for just as long. If I comply with this, I become somewhat of a miserable beeitch and I actually want to kill myself rather than shake it down or calmly strum the A minors. This in turn makes the entertainment value of my performance not so stellar and therefore the audience is actually not entertained at all. And people of all ages are reaching for the defibrillator. “Brick House” consists of one chord. ONE CHORD! Over and over and over. This is worse than, for those in the know, blues songs, which only have three.

At shows I like to say, “We’re happy to take requests. We’ll TAKE them, it doesn’t mean we’ll actually DO them.”

I just can’t stomach sacrificing my art (yes it’s mine, all mine) for the greater good, and the better gigs and the freer bar tabs. And if you’re not careful, giving people what they want can seep into your soul creating chasms of horror and defeat. It can happen at gigs, in the recording studio, in the practice space, or over dinner with your husband, your parents, or your friends. “You should do this song, it’s perfect for your voice. You need some oohs and aahs during the verse. You should have put more upbeat songs on the album. You should only sing slow songs. You should only do blues. You should only do rock. You should write a song about me. You should try to get a gig in New Zealand. You should try out for The Voice.”

I think suggestions from music fans come from the heart and they’re just trying to help, and I believe in the sanity of most people. They can tell when you are being fake however, and that you don’t particularly care one iota for their suggestion. They can sense when you’re lying. Except if you’re a serial killer. Most people can’t tell about those people, but that’s another subject entirely. Being true to yourself is the greatest gift you can give to yourself and the clearest path to success and peace. Even if you have to Bruce Jenner it.

One year my daughter sensed I wanted to give up on all this crap so for Christmas she made me one of those Shutterfly photo calendars with all our greatest band moments caught on camera.   The photos were mostly of me, doing my thing, and not sacrificing a darn thing for nobody. It got me back on track. Sometimes your children can be motivating, exasperating, and at times downright inspirational. Have some! It’s all true!

When I was 13 our teacher assigned us the fun task of making a collage of everything that we felt was important to us. We could use photographs, magazine or newspaper clippings, whatever. I was in love with magazines at the time – Teen Beat, Tiger Beat, Seventeen – so I glued together about 25 sheets of tan construction paper and started cutting my life out. Images of healthy foods on picnic-filled blankets, gorgeous girls and gorgeous guys completely in love running through the fields, cute guys roller skating with cute girls, Cathy Rigby jogging, a big tub of Noxzema and somebody washing their face, music notes, guitars, and lobster. I guess I’ve always had a thing about gorgeous guys, and being clean and healthy. And lobster. The point is, when I was 13, I knew exactly what I wanted, who I was, and where I was going. I could picture it in a collage if you will. I still have the wrinkled patchwork stuffed at the bottom of my high school yearbooks and I pull it out once in a while to remind myself that a) WOW – I used to be able to jog? And b) it’s never going to be OK for someone else to tell me what I like and what I don’t like and what I should do or not do. I have the collage! This comes in handy on my day job as well. If you let them boss you around, they will. If you declare that “No one is the boss of me,” then no one ever will be. It hasn’t led to very many promotions but at least I’ve kept my sanity, my self-respect, and stress intact.

Even if your best friend in the whole world requests “Brown Eyed Girl” because she has brown eyes, and it’s her song, and it means everything to her, it still doesn’t mean you have to play it. Actually people, please don’t EVER play it, ever again. The Rolling Stones knew what they were talking about in “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.”

I’ve never pretended or claimed to be particular well-read, artsy-fartsy, a smarty-pants, a name-dropper or a poet. I’m not going to tell you my lyrics were inspired by some post-modern feminist leftist anti-politico 500-page snoozer I’d been reading on Saturday nights. They’re just words that rhyme, occasionally. Sometimes just phonetically. I enjoy my intellectual musical friends and get what they’re trying to do – music as art and all that stuff – but the point is, they’re doing their thing, and I’m doing mine. It hasn’t gotten me very far (or them either), but who cares? This ridiculousness has chosen us.

I think I’m ready to go shake it down now. Maybe to the car radio.

And one final note, last night I had a dream that the head of the statue of liberty was laying on the ground like in that 1968 movie Planet of the Apes. Translation: Get out and vote on Nov. 8. We’re our only hope.

I also had a dream about Bruce Springsteen, but that’s for another time, and perhaps another magazine…