Links

• Sunshine & Bullets - Official Web Site

Salon examines the phenomenon…

They’re pampered, privileged, indulged – part of the “cultural elite.” They spend all their time smoking pot and sipping absinthe. To use a term that’s acquired currency lately, they’re entitled. And they’re not – after all – real Americans.

This what we hear about artists, architects, musicians, writers and others like them. And it’s part of the reason the struggles of the creative class in the 21st century – a period in which an economic crash, social shifts and technological change have put everyone from graphic artists to jazz musicians to book publishers out of work – has gone largely untold. Or been shrugged off.

Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen write anthems about the travails of the working man; we line up for the revival of “Death of a Salesman.” John Mellencamp and Willie Nelson hold festivals and fundraisers when farmers suffer. Taxpayers bail out the auto industry and Wall Street and the banks. There’s a sense that manufacturing, or the agrarian economy, is what this country is really about. But culture was, for a while, what America did best: We produce and export creativity around the world. So why aren’t we lamenting the plight of its practitioners? Bureau of Labor Statistics confirm that creative industries have been some of the hardest hit during the Bush years and the Great Recession. But when someone employed in the world of culture loses a job, he or she feels easier to sneer at than a steel worker or auto worker. (Check out, for example, the unsympathetic comments to a Salon story about job losses among architects, or the backlash to HBO’s “Girls,” for daring to focus on young New Yorkers with artistic dreams and good educations.)

Read Complete Article @ Salon.com →

Besides, it’s not fair for me to be the only to get this stuck in my head on a daily basis. Now you can, too!

Links

• The Ramsey/Loikkanen Project @ Facebook

Gary and Pekka were nice enough to answer the many questioned posed in the dreaded 10 Questions format.

What made you want to become a musician?

Pekka: When I was about 10 years old I used to hang out with my 2 older friends (13 and 14 years, brothers) living across the street. They had a band. I used to visit them almost every day and I always grabbed their guitar and tried to figure out how to play it [laughter]. We didn’t have a record player/cassette player system back home at that time, only a radio, but these guys had a good stereo system and they had records of Thin Lizzy, Nazareth, Aerosmith, Black Sabbath etc. and it all sounded so cool, so I made up my mind about learning how to play guitar.

Gary: Ya know what…? That’s an interesting question. I dont believe anything “MADE” me wanna be a musician. I think I always have been a musician. It just came naturally to me. I could always hear the music in my head, and I was always coming up with lyrics from as far back as I can remember. But if I actually had to choose a reason, I would have to say it’s the lifestyle that first got my attention. For instance, when I was growing up, the neighborhood I lived in was pretty rough. If you werent a thug or a drug dealer, you were a grease monkey, always workin’ on or talkin about workin’ on cars and trucks. I knew right away that none of that appealed to me. That’s when I noticed that chicks loved guys with guitars. Didn’t even have to play all that well [laughter], just had to look the part at first. Then I started learning how to actually play. So I guess I kinda did it backwards and embraced the image before I got a grip on actual talent, per se’.

Also, I knew early on that I am definately not the 9 to 5 type of regular Joe. I absolutely hated getting up early to go to a job and do hard labor, menial labor,labor period. Let’s just go ahead and clear this up. I was too lazy for anything else except music. It’s the one thing where I knew my strength lay and I knew that’s what I wanted to do. And wanting to do something whole heartedly makes it a whole helluva lot easier to achieve. So I guess my answer, honestly, is… I didn’t want to do anything else but music and be a musician.

What was your first instrument? And how did you get it?

Pekka: I got my first instrument when I was around 11 or 12 years old. It was an acoustic guitar. It was a total piece of crap. Helena-brand Finnish made cheap acoustic guitar that was almost impossible to play because it had the string action too high. I got it from a local music shop with my granny, who paid for it. I wanted an electric guitar but my granny said she’ll only pay for the acoustic, so it was take-it-or-leave-it situation for me [laughs].

Gary: My first instrument was an old Sears acoustic guitar that wouldn’t stay in tune for shit. Later on I got a Fender Strat and a Peavey amp on my birthday (you probably remember that one… I sold it and took off to California… [laughs]). Anyhoo, I started out as a guitar player. I so wanted to slam out those lead solos like Red Bridges. But as fate would have it, in Kings Mountain everybody wanted to play guitar. So when I started actually jammin’ in a band, I had to take up bass guitar, cuz we never could find one. Fortunately, I got pretty darned good at it, and then I got to where I could sing and play as well, and run around on stage like a madman. So I got stuck doing that. Occasionally I still pick up that old acoustic and play some. It’s what I do. A music man with a musical plan. I now have a legion of original tunes under my belt. And then the gods smiled down on me and I met Pekka thru a mutual friend named Sheldon Scrivner. And ya know how that’s goin so far. AWESOME!

Do you think those early instruments influence your style? Any tricks or techniques that have carried through to your playing now?

Pekka: I don’t think my first guitar/guitars have much influence on my style of playing these days. I’m just happy I got better guitars a few years after [laughs]. The old ones were only limiting my playing and my learning to play. Maybe there’s a legacy of some kind of uncertainty left from the early days that I have in my playing due to the bad guitars I had, however I don’t think there’s anything special left in my playing since the early days.

I think there’s one thing worth mentioning here though. I have short fingers, like Angus Young, and I wish I had the fingers of Paul Gilbert or Steve Vai because that gives you the ability to play cool licks easier as you don’t have to work so much to get the notes on a fretboard. Maybe I should’ve become a drummer [laughs].

Gary: No, not really. I do think, however, by playing on those old crappy guitars and managing to make them sound good actually helped when I finally did get my hands on a really good one. And as far as technique… hmmmm… well, I’m more of a play it as it comes kinda player. If I feel a run should be in a part, I throw it in. Sometimes it works. And if it doesnt… well, I tried.

The two of you have collaborated over the Internet. How’s the done? And do you think it’s a good model for collaboration for other musicians to follow?

PEKKA: Yep, we met through a friend (Sheldon Scrivner) on a MySpace website some years ago and that’s how it all started. I had a few songs that needed vocals and Gary agreed to give it a try, so I sent them to Gary through e-mail. Gary did the lyrics to them and recorded his vocal tracks and sent them back to me through e-mail and I mixed the songs. I remember Gary had to go to his friend’s place to record the vocal tracks for the first few songs we did because Gary didn’t have a microphone nor any computer recording software at that time. These days he’s using a cheap PC microphone and a free recording software so he can record the vocals at home in his living room. I hope Gary gets a better microphone some day because the sound he gets recording the vocals with the PC mic needs a lot of processing to make it sound good [laughs]. Sorry Gary!

I think collaborating like we do is an excellent way of making music with musicians all over the world! Actually there are lots of musicians out there making songs like that and I do know the fact that even some well-known bands do songs the same way we do, but in a bigger scale. But they have better gear and bigger files, haha. I do recommend collabbing through the Internet!

GARY: Oh man. I first did a collaboration over the internet via Yahoo.com emails with my friend Sheldon Scrivner. We met through another mutual friend and muscian, T. Roy Taylor, on Mypace. Sheldon sent me some music tracks he had written and recorded and I sat down, wrote lyrics to them, recorded the vocal tracks and sent them back to him, and he mixed them into the original tracks. Those became “Widow’s Watch” and “Dead Love Memories”, and we did a remarkable version of Simon and Garfunkel’s hit “The Sound of Silence”, that Sheldon had revamped completely. And as I said before, thats how I met Pekka. I was commenting on something on Sheldon’s page and I saw a video of Pekka, and it was him demonstrating how beer makes you play better. I knew right away I was gonna like him. [laughter] I sent him a friend request and let him know that I would be happy to write some lyrics to a couple of his tunes if he wanted me too, and from there it just skyrocketed. To date, we are up to twenty two songs and more coming. It’s almost like we were meant to write together, and the songs sound like we’ve been jammin’ together all our lives. We meshed that well.

And Pekka is a mixing and recording genius, I must say, because he knows how to get all those sounds to blend and mix so well. And I do recommend other artist to try this. The technology is here to use, and its a great way for musicians to write and record songs with other musicians they otherwise would not have ever had the chance to record with.

Do you use the Internet to market you music? If so, is it easier or harder to do so than conventional marketing? How do you think artists can expose their music on the Internet?

PEKKA: Well, if you mean marketing my/our music for free in the Internet market, the answer is yes. I let people hear my/our music through the Internet without charging a fee, I don’t know about the conventional marketing scene much because I have no experience about it. Right now, I have an artist account in 4 different Internet music sites to play my/our music. There are more though, but I mainly use 4 of them.

I think artists can expose their music through the Internet pretty easily these days because there are so many different websites for musicians and lots of cool Internet radio stations. I only wish all this could’ve been possible back in the 80′s or 90′s. However the big problem with the Internet music sites is to get the right audience to find them. I personally think that the Web is way too overloaded with different music sites. Less is more, I’d say in this case.

GARY: I think networking in any venue or resource is essential in getting your music out there, and the support of family, peers and other musicians helps to further this goal. It also pays to be nice to everyone you come in contact with because word of mouth goes a very long way. If yer a truly genuine nice person and treat people with respect and dignity, it shows in your music and your fans’ loyalty. If you get the reputation of being an asshole, well, nobody cares if you have new music out.

I personally have several different internet sites for musicians that have my profile on them, and Pekka and I have our project everywhere as well. I think if the tools are there, then ya should definately use them. I know back in the good ol’ days, we had to rely on selling our stuff at gigs we played and the fewer and farther in between they became it became harder to meet and greet. I do believe the internet has boosted the market for independant unsigned artist and musicians. As I said, if the tools there, then use it. It’s up to you to get your stuff heard these days, and networking as many venues you can find and utilizing all the people skills you can helps out a great deal.

What equipment do you use in your set-up now? What guitars? What amps? Effects?

PEKKA: For gigs I’m using a 100 watt Marshall JCM 800 2203 Reissue head, a Marshall 300 watt 1960 bottom stereo cabinet, Xotic Effects BB-preamp -pedal, Behringer tuner pedal, and on my 6 unit Gator rack I have a ADA MP-1 MIDI tube preamp with ADA MC-1 MIDI controller board and Rocktron Velocity 100 2×50 watt poweramp. No extra effects, but I’m thinking of getting a delay pedal some day. I like to keep it simple.

For home recordings I use a Behringer V-amp2 and Line6 POD X3 for guitars, and they go through a Behringer Xenyx 1002FX mixer to my PC. I’ve been planning to mike up my Marshall and ADA at home, but I have to think of my neighbors before doing that [laughs]. I live in an apartment building, so maybe some kind of a speaker isolation booth would do the job and save the peace in the house, not to mention my neighbors’ ears.

The guitars I use are a black Gibson Les Paul Traditional, 2 Fame Forum 4′s, great PRS copy guitars that are handmade in Europe, a modified Epiphone Korina ’58 Explorer, a heavily modified Fernandes strat and a Hamer XT-series guitar. I also have a Fender Squier Jazz Bass for my home recordings. I plan to get me another Les Paul in the near future.

GARY: With The Ramsey/Loikkanen Project, I’m using the gear that I’ve had all my life; my brain, my vocal chords and my mouth. So far that’s workin pretty good. Pekka does all the music except for the track BABY BLUE, which I wrote and recorded myself and Pekka put that awesome lead solo in it for me. Gave the song that character it needed. And in my band here in the states, 13, I am using a custom built bass guitar that my guitarist Dennis Horne built for me. I believe you’ve seen the pictures. And I am using a CRATE tube head with a BEHRINGER 4×12 cabinet for my speakers. It makes yer chest thump when I play it.

Do you have a personal look or style that you try to cultivate? Seems like these days it’s almost an imperative to look a certain way, or to at least have a style that sets you apart. Is that something you give any thought to?

GARY: No. I am actually one of those “what you see is what you get” types.

PEKKA: I guess the only thing that comes to my mind is having a long hair and not wearing a suit, haha. As for clothes, I prefer casual style, like jeans, usually black, and t-shirts, also black and I love leather jackets. I don’t use any jewellery nor rings and I sure as hell don’t use no make up. [laughter] Not at this age.

I’ve been thinking of getting a few tattoos, but so far that’s been only a plan cuz I don’t wanna be a slave to the trend people have these days, you know. Like everybody’s getting tattoos these days. If I wanna do that, I need to think carefully what to get and where, so it won’t be just an impulsive thing like it seems to be to so many people.

I do have to admit that I used to look like Slash or Brian May back in the late 80′s but that was not intentional! [laughs] I’ve never really wanted to look like a rock star but my long hair always made me stand out in this small town I live in. I have given it some thought that the looks has always been pretty important in the music business and if you look just like a regular guy, it ain’t gonna work. But I think the times are probably changing about that.

I’m planning to form a new band and the way the guys look don’t matter to me as much as it used to back in the day. I guess it’s all about how you play.

Do you think too much emphasis is put on appearance in popular culture? And if so, does it put regular musicians at a disadvantage? In other words, if somebody isn’t young, fit and attractive, is it harder to break through to the mainstream? Or is the importance of “image” overblown?

PEKKA: Yep, it sure is. I’ve seen a lot of great players in YouTube site that can play the shit outta some well known guitarists, but they look like monsters. [laughter] Nah, really, they look normal, some of them are pretty old and heavily overweight and that I think is the biggest reason for not getting into the spotlight. That’s too bad, because I’ve seen a few really good players that could easily become stars if the looks and age didn’t play such an important role in the business.

I think that all the average Joe’s should get equal treatment with the good looking young people, depending on the music they play, because the age of the fans of differnet type of music vary a lot and the age or looks don’t matter so much if the audience is older. I don’t know how to put this all into right words but I think you know what I mean.

GARY: Absolutely I do think that the emphasis on appearence has become overblown. The so-called “beautiful people” in the Pop scene, it seems the concern is more about looks than talent. Luckily the real music afficianado sees thru all the smoke and mirrors and they hold on to the love of music more than the so called “eye candy” out there. If you notice, none of the real musicians and songwriters are pretty in any manner. They are the ones that actually play and sing, as opposed to the new lip syncing generation or the crap the Disney machine tries to shove down everyones throat. I think that when yer inner self is beautiful it shines thru no matter what and, true fans and listeners see that.

So what’s next for you guys? Any projects in the works? You’ve had some label interest, haven’t you?

PEKKA: Well, hopefully we’ll be doing more songs in the future with Gary for as long as possible. It’s a shame we live in different countries. Otherwise we’d already have a real band with him. I do have a band project I’m working on right now here in Savonlinna, Finland, like I said earlier. We’re gonna play The Ramsey/Loikkanen Project songs. Gary has already given permission to use his lyrics, however I have a big problem finding a good vocalist here. But I think all the other players are almost ready to rock. I think it’s too early to say anything more about it.

As for the label thing, Morbid Records from Canada has signed us, but I don’t know what that’ll bring. I haven’t signed any papers, so I really don’t know what the deal is. My guess is that it’s only gonna be a promoting thingie. Maybe Gary knows more but I doubt that. I don’t recall any other label contacting us.

GARY: For me,it would be ideal if Pekka and I could eventually get to actually get to meet in person, other than Skype and email. That would be awesome. But for now, I think as long as we can, we will keep writing and recording together. So far we’ve churned out some fairly decent music. Some better than others. But hey, it is what it is. I may be biased, but I like all of our songs. [laughs]

We have been signed as artists to an indie label called MORBID RECORDS, which at the moment is still in the stages of gettin’ off the ground, but it’s still a step forward. They are great folks and they include us in a great many of their promotions.

Speaking for myself here, I have always enjoyed writing and jamming, and meeting Pekka was like a god-send for me. Our styles of writing meshed so well, we couldnt have asked for a better team to work together. And we are also our own worst critics as well. But so far the fans we have accumilated have embraced everything we’ve put out there so far with great reviews and comments, so thats always a plus. Happy fans make happy musicians.

In closing, is there anything you would like to say directly to your fans? What about to potential fans?

PEKKA: To all our fans, potential or not: Keep on listening to our music, tell your friends about us and always give us your honest feedback, because it’s the feedback that drives us in the right direction and gives us more juice to carry on! Thank you all for rockin’ with us!

GARY: I wanna say “thank you” to all of the folks that have liked our songs, joined our fan pages on various sites and the good folks that encourage us to keep making more and more music. We appreciate all of you. I also wanna give a big shout out to all my friends from The Indie Musicians Listing, VRadio, Babylonfm.com, Morbid North radio with Dan MacDonald, Museboat radio with Mary and Andy and V-Radio with Long hair Kev, and Joel of Mr. Spoon, Eric Crawley from the Crawley show, and so many more of those indie DJ’s that are spinning our tunes out to the masses. We appreciate all of you.

Oh yeah, and I want to say a special thanks to all the great artists and musicians I have had the unique pleasure of being able to collab with ya on projects and all the great bands and musicians that have become really good friends over the internet… which, without the Web, I would otherwise never have gotten to meet.

Links

• Ramsey/Loikkanen Project @ Facebook
• Ramsey/Loikkanen Project @ ReverbNation
• Gary Ramsey @ Facebook
• Pekka Loikkanen @ Facebook
• Gary Ramsey @ ReverbNation
• Pekka Loikkanen @ ReverbNation

Who owns your work?

This question arises because this gentleman is of the opinion that he now owns some of my work because it was recorded where he was/is employed (Rhino Sound Studio in Saint Petersburg, Florida, if you must know). He’s wrong, of course. Having your work recorded in a studio does not, in any way, shape or form transfer ownership of your work to anyone involved in the process of recording it. The studio does not own your recordings. The engineer certainly doesn’t own your recordings. Not without some agreement being signed that explicitly transfers ownership of your work to them. And who would sign such a thing?

Here’s the facts…

According to United States copyright law, the creator of a work is granted sole ownership of said work at the moment of its creation. The guy who was in the room with you when you created it doesn’t own jack. Keep that in mind if any clueless employee from a recording studio tries to intimidate you. There is no implicit or implied agreement with any recording studio that transfers the rights to your work to the studio it was recorded in just because you recorded it there. Unless, of course, you specifically entered into such an agreement with a verbal or written contract or it was a “work-for-hire”.

At best, a studio has the right to withhold the physical recordings from you if you do not pay your bill. But even in that scenario, ownership of the material on those recordings does not transfer to the studio.

Still, it does pay to register your work with the Library of Congress. A copyright registration is like an edict from God. That registration doesn’t create the copyright (the copyright belonged to you at the moment of creation), but registering it does solve any lingering legal issues that might arise (perhaps at the hand of clueless sound engineers who might think that pressing the “Record” button somehow makes your work their work).

Just to be on the safe side, I would recommend staying far away from any recording studio that employs personnel who believe they’ll own your work if you record there. Anyone who believes they own your work because you recorded in their studio would be laughed out of any court of law in the country. But it could still be a pain in the ass. Your copyrights are automatic at the point of creation, but should be registered. Anyone who has been a musician for any length of time knows that there are plenty of fools out there. Inoculate yourself. And keep on keeping on.

~ Wicasta Lovelace

Burning Tree have played the stage on Van’s Warped Tour, were selected as a finalist in the 2010 7-Eleven Slurpee’s National Battle of the Bands and have had their music featured on the TV show “Island Hoppers” (Sun Sports Network).

The Interview

The Links

• Burning Tree – Official web site
• Burning Tree – Facebook

Excerpts from the open letter follow throughout.

Just the other day I was told by someone who owned a wine bar that they really liked our music and would love for us to play at their place. She then told me the gig paid $75 for a trio. Now $75 used to be bad money per person, let alone $75 for the whole band. It had to be a joke, right? No she was serious. But it didn’t end there. She then informed us we had to bring 25 people minimum. Didn’t even offer us extra money if we brought 25 people. I would have laughed other than it’s not the first time I’ve gotten this proposal from club owners. But are there musicians really doing this?

Yes. There are. It’s the bane of professional musicians all over the United States. The really talented musicians with something to say and a love of their craft are having a hard time getting workable gigs because of the hordes of weekend warriors who are willing to go out to the clubs and play for free or close to it. How do you compete with free?

What if I told the wine bar owner that I have a great band and we are going to play at my house. I need someone to provide and pour wine while we play. I can’t pay much, just $75 and you must bring at least 25 people who are willing to pay a $10 cover charge at the door. Now wouldn’t they look at you like you are crazy? “Why would I do that” they would ask? Well because it’s great exposure for you and your wine bar. The people there would see how well you pour wine and see how good your wine is. Then they would come out to your wine bar sometime. “But I brought all the people myself, I already know them?” they would say. Well maybe you could make up some professional looking flyers, pass them out, and get people you don’t know to come on out. “But you are only paying me $75, How can I afford to make up flyers?”

Not my problem, right? My band used to play for a venue in Ybor City, Florida, every Wednesday night for over a year. We did that for free. Know why? We used it for rehearsal. There wasn’t a lot of traffic on a Wednesday. It gave the club owner free music which often drew in traffic and we got to work out our tunes on-stage before taking them before a larger audience. It work for the owner and it worked for the band. What we didn’t make in actual payment we made up for by not having to rent a rehearsal space.

But eventually, of course, as all things do this came to an end. The owner came to us one day and decided he was going to start putting on package shows on Wednesdays, just like he did on the weekends with other bands. He invited us to continue to play on Wednesdays, of course. But now instead of us having the entire evening to ourselves, we were expected to come in and play one set.

I smiled politely and declined. What I wanted to say, and should have said was, “You want me to drive 30 miles each week, dragging along my equipment, to come in here and play one set for free?” He apparently had forgotten that I’d seen for myself for a year the kind of traffic Ybor City can expect on a Wednesday evening. He might point a finger at us and say “Well, you’re not bringing in the crowd”. But the reality was that on a Wednesday night in Ybor City, Florida, there’s not a lot of people about to bring in.

Of course, like all venue owners these days, apparently, he seemed to think that we had an audience available on speed-dial, and that those people would just love to come out to his venue in Ybor City on a Wednesday evening. It’s not like people have jobs or have to work the next day or anything.

When a venue opens it’s doors, it has to market itself. The club owner can’t expect people to just walk in the door. This has to be handled in a professional way. Do you really want to leave something so important up to a musician? This is where the club owner needs to take over. It is their success or their failure on the line, not the musician. The musician can just move on to another venue. I’ve played places where for whatever reason only a few people have walked in the door on a Saturday night. The club owner got mad at me, asking where are the people? I turned it around on him asking the same thing? Where are all the people? It’s Saturday night and your venue is empty. Doesn’t that concern you? What are you going to do about it? Usually their answer is to find another band with a larger following. This means the professional bands get run out of the joint in favor of whoever can bring in the most people.

Eddie Mechanic who has slaved all week fixing cars at the local dealership also plays guitar. Not very well, but he’s been practicing once a week with Doctor Drummer, Banker Bass Player, and Salesman Singer. Usually they just drink beer between rehearsing a few tunes in Eddie’s garage, but this week they answer a Craigslist ad and line up a big gig. Well they don’t sound that good, but they sure all work with a lot of people everyday. All these people can be given a flyer on Monday and after being asked “are you coming to my gig?” everyday all week, will most likely show up on Saturday night. So mission accomplished, the club owner has packed his venue for one night.

But here’s where the club owner doesn’t get it. The crowd is following the band, not the venue. The next night you will have to start all over again. And the people that were starting to follow your venue are now turned off because you just made them listen to a bad band. The goal should be to build a fan base of the venue. To get people that will trust that you will have good music in there every night. Instead you’ve soiled your reputation for a quick fix.

This seems like simple logic to me. You couldn’t run any other business like that. How long would a restaurant be in business if it relied solely on its waitresses and cooks to bring in their friends and family to buy food? And if that’s your business model, what happens to your business once those waitresses and cooks quit and go to another restaurant? The stupidity of that business model boggles the mind. It’s only possible because of the glut of musicians who are willing to play for free. But it’s bad business. You’re leaving too much up to chance. What happens when the bands who have developed followings stop playing your cheap-ass venue because they can make more money elsewhere? You are screwed.

If you asked a club owner, “who is your target demographic?” I doubt they would answer “the band’s friends and family.” But yet clubs operate like it is. I answered a Craigslist ad for a nice looking place in Beverly Hills. The ad read… “looking for a high energy jazz band, if you can bring the band and have a following, I will put you on stage.” That logic seems to say that they think musicians in a Jazz band know lots of people living in Beverly Hills. And the people those musicians know have lots of money to spend. Those are two pretty big assumptions. Good luck finding that combination. Even if you find that combination, are you going to find it every night? Because friends and family of a professional musician won’t come out that often. They can’t. This is what we do every night. Would you expect the chef’s friends and family to eat at your restaurant every night? How about the dishwasher, the waitresses, the hostess? Or how about the club owners friends and family? You see, when you start turning this argument around, it becomes silly.

Of course, musicians can’t expect much sympathy from the general public. It’s astonishing how many people believe that the average musicians’ life is one big party and we finish off our evenings backstage after the gig snorting cocaine off of strippers’ naked asses. In short, they think we’re spoiled, and point out to us that “real musicians” will keep making music whether they’re getting paid or not, “for the love of music”. And I keep pointing out, however fruitlessly, that while their assertion may be true, and musicians will always make music, the reality is that they, the public, will never hear that music. Musicians will always get together with other musicians and make music. But if you remove the possibility of those same people making a living from that music, you will force them into getting regular jobs and jamming with their musicians friends only when they have a little spare time, usually in basements and living rooms. You will never hear it. So your arguments are worthless.

I’ve started arguing with club owners about this. It happened after I played a great night of music in LA. We were playing for a % of the bar. There were about 50 people there in this small venue, so it was a good turnout. At the end of the night, I go to get paid, and hope to book another gig. The club owner was angry. “Where are your people?” he asked. “All these people, I brought in. We had a speed dating event and they are all left over from that.” I pointed out they all stayed and listened to the music for 2 hours after their event ended. That was 2 more hours of bar sales, because without us, you have an empty room with nothing going on. He just couldn’t get over the fact that we didn’t walk in with our own entourage of fans. Wasn’t happy that we kept a full room spending money. Right when we were talking, a group of people interrupted us and said “you guys sound great, when is the next time you’re playing here again?” The club owner, said “they aren’t, they didn’t bring anyone.”

I went home that night bummed out and sent him an email. Telling him most of what you are reading here and how his business model and thinking is flawed. After a lot of swearing back and forth, because I’m guessing that musicians never talk to him as a business equal. He eventually admitted that what I was saying made sense. BUT, that’s not how LA clubs and restaurants work. And he has bands answering his Craigslist ads willing to do whatever it takes to get the gig. It’s been a couple of years now since that conversation. I called his bar, and the number is disconnected.

All you have to do is look around you in your hometown to see how this business model doesn’t work. How many empty buildings are sitting around that used to have clubs in them? There are plenty in my area. Two years seems to be the outer extreme on how long a new club can survive here. That should probably tell you all that you need to know. In the end, clubs are just like any other business. You can’t just open your doors and expect that it’ll happen magically on its own. And you can’t build your business upon the backs of gullible musicians. Sooner or later they will go elsewhere.

Links

• Original Article

If you’ve never heard Lee’s amazing piano playing, you owe it to yourself to give a listen to the man who has at times been accused of faking it, because “no one person could play all those notes”.

The Interview

The Links

• Lee Pons – ReverbNation
• Windhaven – Facebook

When that Internet radio station decided to focus almost exclusively on host-funded talk shows and devalued the work of independent musicians to a point where their work was little more than background music for the talk shows, we decided it was time to pull up our stakes and go elsewhere. We did this without any real plan for the future, other than a vague idea that the Indie Frontline show might continue somewhere else in some other form. You know how it is. Sometimes you just realize “this isn’t right” and you have to wash your hands of whatever it is that’s making you crazy.

Our initial idea was to simply convert the Indie Frontline show to a weekly podcast. And we did so. The first couple of podcasts went well and got pretty good traffic, but it just didn’t feel right. It felt confining. Limiting. That’s when we began to realize that at least part of our mission at the radio station had been to expose independent music through the dissemination of music throughout the radio station, during breaks between shows, and as fall-back music in the evenings when there were no talk shows scheduled. Indie Frontline had been only one part of a larger mission. And simply put, without the broad reach of an Internet radio station at our disposal, we were limited in our ability to help expose independent artists.

So… what we needed was an Internet radio station.

You might be surprised to find that those things don’t just grow on trees. Looking around, you quickly realize that thousands of people with Internet connections are hastily putting up their own “radio stations”. This usually means someone is playing their favorite music from their home computer, streaming it to the Web and calling it “Internet Radio”. In short, anyone who is willing to fork over some money for a host account can stream their own idea of radio. And it’s most often the same crap you hear on nearly every other “Internet radio station”. In short, it’s about someone improving their sense of self-worth, not about having any real purpose or intent.

We weren’t interested in doing that. Our goal is a little more ambitious. This isn’t about ego. This is about music. This is about results. Simply put, there’s too much great music out there that isn’t being heard. That needs to change. And it’s not going to change because a bunch of college kids stream their iTunes playlists over the Internet and call it radio.

Here’s what we’re going to do about it.

The Indie Frontline show is becoming Indie Frontline Internet Radio. We’ve already started laying the groundwork which will let us establish an audio stream with all the wonderful music our host, Wicasta Lovelace, collected for the previous radio station. We’ll do this is phases, with the first phase being the establishment of an online music database, which we’ll then convert into a full-blown streaming Internet radio station. Hopefully this can happen quickly in the next couple of weeks, but since we’re doing all of the scripts on our own, it might take a little longer.

In the meantime we’re suspending the Indie Frontline podcast. Honestly, it takes too much time and effort to put it together every week, and right now that energy is needed elsewhere, to focus on getting the Internet radio infrastructure in place.

Please bear with us as we transition from a podcast to an Internet radio station. No good thing happens without much effort and applied energy. Hopefully when the results of these efforts become evident, we will have proven this worth the effort.

Walk in light and peace.

This show is dedicated to the memory of Peggy Joyce Chaney, Wicasta’s mother and an amazing woman in her own right. Peggy passed away on December 30th, 2011. Windhaven features a song recorded in her honor, called, simply, “Peggy’s Song”.

The band also talks about their most recent effort to re-mix and re-master their 2011 CD “When The Winds Blow”, as well as their next CD, “Live From The Pagan Tea House”.

The Interview

The Links

• Windhaven – official web site
• Windhaven – Facebook