Alabama Football

I watched Alabama win the Iron Bowl last night.  It was not fun, it was not joyful, it was not a good time. And I’m an Alabama fan.

Starting about five years ago I began devoting my allegiance to the Crimson Tide.  Five years ago is when I started dating my wife, and she graduated from there.  She converted me quickly, both to her and Alabama football.

Other teams think they have the most devoted fans, the best coach and most electric atmosphere at home games.  But Alabama fans KNOW they possess these things.

It’s kind of like the way we believe in our Apple products. It’s not even a question. Doubt doesn’t even enter my mind.  I even feel a slight wave of pity when I see others fumbling with their Android devices.  Do I just need so speak up and let them know that Apple exists? Did no one tell them along the way?

I’ve been to a few Alabama games.  100,000 people in the stadium and another 100,000 outside.  It’s real.  And it’s wild.

I grew up in Minnesota. We don’t have this there.  But I guess no one else does either.

Not only is football a way of life in Alabama, being a football fan is a way of life.  People talk about these college kid gladiators it ALL THE TIME.  Weddings, parties, vacations, having babies, are all scheduled around the Tide.

Especially the Iron Bowl.  I bet there’s no baby in the state of Alabama born on the Iron Bowl.

Year after year the fans keep coming back.  No question. We are smitten with seeing the next play. Because for all the insane highlight-reel footage Alabama can put together, we think maybe, just maybe the NEXT play will take our breath away, beat the odds, give us hope for our own lives.

And don’t we want the same thing from our music?

That last sentence could be re-worded like this: For all the insanely great  playlists we can put together, we think maybe, just maybe the next new song will take our breath away, beat the odds, give us hope for our own lives. 

That’s why we don’t give up.  That’s why we keep coming back.  That’s why we devote ourselves to this silliness.

Saban Out.

The Pomplamoose Article

If you haven’t read it you can HERE

Synopsis, cause I know most of you won’t read the article: indie band goes on the road, ticket sales are pretty legit, lots of expenses, band still loses money, but it’s all good because of the love of music.

Off the top I give Pomplamoose (Jack)  credit for a high degree of transparency in a business that hides and skims the numbers in favor of making themselves look more successful than they are.

But Jack says that the point of the article is not about licking their wounds, yet it seems like the whole point of writing the post was to talk about how they lost $11,819 on their tour. It’s difficult to work up sympathy for that.  And there’s a thousand things they could have done differently to make more profit.

Although they did get mine and a lot of other people’s attention, so maybe that was the point in the first place.

Music doesn’t owe anyone a living.  Just because you’re passionate doesn’t mean you deserve success.  It’s life, liberty and the PURSUIT of happiness.  No one’s entitled to the actual happiness.

Being in a band vs solo artist (or duo in the case of Pomplamoose) is a big deal when it comes to the dollars and cents.  

If the solo artist wants to have a full band for their tour, they have to hire people on a per show basis to come and play with them.  Good players won’t play for cracker jacks.  And this is where a bulk of Pomplamoose’s expenses came from.

But also as a solo artist when a cd is sold,  a song gets on a tv show, there’s a publishing offer, one (or two) person gets ALL the money. They don’t have to split, which is huge.

Think about it, getting a song on a TV show can initially bring $10,000 (sometimes more, sometimes less).  For an indie artist, after commissions by everyone involved, there’s probably $5000-$6000 remaining.  

If you’re an indie band you might have 4 or 5 or 6 people in the band and hopefully everyone’s entitled to an equal share, cause it’s already gonna be a squeeze to make this glorious windfall of cash even last everyone a single month.

But a solo artist pockets that 5 or 6k and gets at least a couple months of living out of it.

I know a lot of solo/duo artists here in Nashville that have been able to fund their whole career off this fact.

Risk/reward. Sacrifice and payoff.  If you’re a solo/duo you benefit from this but some of that extra money you made is going to have to go back into touring if you want that explosive rock show as oppose to an acoustic coffee shop situation. 

What would be impressive would be if Jack keeps this transparency going. Tweaking the tour strategy and letting us know how it effected the numbers.  

His post will either be the start of a new standard of artist leadership and transparency, or just another complaint column by an artist crying in his porridge.  We need the former. 

Is Bill Cosby Still Funny?

When is it ok to laugh at Bill Cosby’s comedy again?

Martha Stewart was all smiles and good vibes on Letterman the other night.  Lance Armstrong is ultimately remembered as a champion.  Who can forget the Brett Favre fiasco…apparently everyone.  Didn’t Zeppelin and KISS sell their souls to the devil at some point? Bill Clinton lied to all of us including the judicial system, but most people are cool with it now.

We care because it’s news.  We get up in arms because our perception is violated, but ultimately we forget.  We don’t care.

Why can’t we see this pattern and understand that we don’t know who these people are?  We simply enjoy or benefit from a tiny slice of what they do.  

I don’t think John Lennon and I would have been friends, probably more like enemies.  He did a lot of questionable and illegal things, but whatever.  He’s the best.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t take the root issues of some of these things seriously.  We should.  

But for all the fury against the latest public figure, just or unjust…it’s gonna go away.  The conversation is going to change.

Album

It’s hard to introduce a new product, a new thing, a new gizmo, a new idea.  Cause I’ve never heard of this product before.  It’s a new brand/term that has no association with it.  What does it do? Can I trust it? Does it have value to me?

Although introducing and defining a new term/product to the marketplace is obviously very difficult, it could very well be even more difficult to redefine an existing term.

The most obvious one is the term/product “phone”.  For years and years we knew a phone to be a pretty distinct thing.  We had set expectations for it and it continued to meet those expectations whether on a rotary dial, touch tone, ivory hand set, curly cord, cordless with the long antenna.  Even through much of it’s evolution, it maintained much the same function.

And then the iPhone came out, and with it a complete reinvention and redefinition of how we trust the term “phone”.  It was a familiar term with a strict definition that we allowed, in our hearts and heads, to be changed.  

This is the creativity we need in the music business.

How about the term “album”?  It has a long history.  A good history.  And overall, a pretty trusted history.

How could album be redefined to make a new and interesting impact?  

Maybe we learn to associate album with

an adventure

a commitment

a certain amount of time

better connection

better music

an amount of money

an amount of access

Make this list longer, because it’s not very good yet.  Make it longer and my guess is you’ll start feeling yourself pushing into the future. 

It will always be about the music, just like the phone will always ultimately be about connectedness. 

But maybe we don’t need a new thing.  Maybe we can redefine an old thing.

‘Did you get a new phone?’ means something completely different than it did even 10 years ago.

What could 'did you get a new album?’ mean 5 years from now?

The Sky Is Always Falling

Spotify is not stopping you from writing a great song that everybody wants to hear.

Spotify is not stopping you from developing your personality and charisma.

The spotify royalty rate is not stopping you from creating something great that people want to give you all their money for.

Spotify is not stopping your fans from telling their friends about you.

Spotify is not robbing people’s ability to care about you.

Spotify is not stopping you from selling tickets to your shows.

Spotify is not stopping you from becoming a great entertainer.

Spotify is not stopping you from being an entertainer who is very rich.

The Spotify royalty rate is not stopping you from needing to consider all the revenue streams. Did you expect it to?

Spotify is not stopping you from running your business with transparency and integrity 

Spotify is not stopping you from formulating a plan and following it

Spotify is not stopping the future from happening

Remember when recorded music was going to kill the live music industry?

Remember when radio was going to kill the recorded music industry?

Remember when taping songs off the radio was going to kill album sales?

Remember when Napster was going to kill us all?

Remember when every time Facebook changed something about the front page or new feed, people freaked out for a few days and then the freak out ceased to exist?

The sky is always falling. 

We’re so predictable.

Artists…do you just need something to complain about, someone to blame for your sputtering momentum? There’s always going to be something to point your figure at if you want there to be.

But that’s such the typical artist these days isn’t it.  Licking their wounds, expecting sympathy (from who exactly?) rather than blazing the trail.

You say you want a revolution? Well, you know. 

Are You Too Busy?

I listened to the Beatles LOVE album again today.

The most impressive thing about the Beatles was their ability to write the songs they did while in the midst of the most crazy schedule you or I could ever think of.

Hard Days Night, In My Life, Can’t Buy Me Love and Eight Days A Week are great songs.  Timeless songs.  Now imagine your busiest day you’ve ever had, multiply it by four or five and then somehow find the time to sit down with a guitar, clear your mind and crank out songs this great.

That’s the genius.  That’s the only thing that sets that band apart from all the others.

All bands’ stories are pretty much the same.  We’ve all watched the story arcs on vh1 and endless netflix documentaries.  

The songs are the only difference. But if the Beatles had the time to write great songs, then you do too.  Your busy schedule is not an excuse.

Link to the Beatles tour dates HERE (doesn’t include all the other calendar entries keeping them on top of the world)