Here is a good description of the current status of my life. While at work yesterday I took a mental break and checked the upcoming concert schedule and discovered that Carbon Leaf was playing in Lawrence that night. This meant that I needed to completely rearrange my schedule and head out there to see the band. While at the show I was rather impressed by this fact: I live the type of life where on a moment’s notice I’ll drive an hour to see a band that always impresses me by the fact that they don’t totally suck. It’s nice to know that I am at the point in my life where I do whatever the hell I feel like.
Carbon Leaf put on another really good show (it’s the fourth time I’ve seen them). You have to like a band whose latest album is titled “Love, Loss, Hope, Repeat” (I’m currently in the Hope portion of that neverending cycle). But what really struck me while watching them was that I have no idea why these guys aren’t huge right now. They right really good songs, have a college band vibe and tour relentlessly. They are following the Dave Matthews Band formula perfectly, up to and including being from Virginia. And I really think the lack of a real MTV has a lot to due with it.
I’ve been reading a lot recently on how the future of the music industry is to move away from labels and the big mass distribution and on to smaller systems. That we are in an iTunes and Pandora and MySpace world. (It’s this whole Long Tail argument, which entails about ninety percent of what I do for a living). My feeling is that while that allows a lot of bands to get noticed, no one really gets popular. Carbon Leaf was one of the first bands I saw that pimped their MySpace page but despite all of that, they were playing to a half empty bar.
Compare that to Dave Matthews, who was probably on the tail end of the MTV playing videos. Their second album got them video airplay and within a year they were one of the biggest bands in the county. Same with Hootie and the Blowfish. Ok, maybe that is not the best example but I can’t see a band getting that big in a MySpace world. And I’m not sure if that is a good thing or not. More bands will be able to make a living but less of them will be able to make a good one.
One other music note. In the past month, Nina Gordon and Louise Post have both released new albums with Louise releasing it under the Veruca Salt name (which is where you know these two from). Amazingly, since the girls broke up the band they have each released two albums, always within a month of each other. It’s like they never really broke up the band in the first place. I’ve heard mixed reviews on both and I’m not sure if I’ll pick them up but there was one fact that stunned me. Louise Post, who I had a huge crush back in the Seether days, is like 39 years old. That just seems ancient to me and it shouldn’t given I am not far from that age myself. It’s just that when I was watching them in college I assumed they were my age. Like I would walk into class one morning and sit down next to Louise. Ok, probably not my Introduction to Electromagnetic Fields course but probably that intro to psychology course they forced me to take so I could graduate.
I’ll say this, I am really hoping that YouTube’s business idea of placing every video ever played on MTV comes to fruition. Because right now, I would be overjoyed to spend the next hour watching old Veruca Salt, Liz Phair and Urge Overkill videos. Ah, back when the Chicago scene was happening.
1 comment:
Maybe it's not such a bad thing to have more bands making a living and less bands making a killing. I would argue that MTV did more harm for music than it did good. When I was working in NYC in the music biz, it had nothing to do with the music and everything to do with what demographic a band controlled and youth oriented product placement. It was like Gundlach teaching a class on music appreciation. How's that for scary?
Any musician worth his or her salt will tell you it's a tough climb and if you're doing it for the money or fame you're doing it for the wrong reasons. This is probably why the Britneys, Jessicas, Paris', Avril, NSYNCs, etc of this world make bad music and eventually burn out. Or as Josh Ritter would say "I'm singing for the love of it, have mercy on the man who sings to be adored."
Post a Comment