I returned to my hometown of Bloomington, Indiana in late 1990 after spending five formative (late teens/early twenties) years in Boston. My not-so-secret… Continue
I visited Bloomington last weekend for the first time in a couple years. I wasn't around long enough to check out any live music, and I was too busy catching up with old pals to hear much about what's going on in town (other than things of immediate interest such as trendy new restaurants).
I did, however, find time to catch up with my old pal Glenn Hicks, who gave me a copy of the demo by his current band Gift Horse (available on this site). First I should say as a caveat that
Jeb asked me to re-post the text to this recent blog entry.
I’ve been thinking about songwriting lately, and it’s been a bit depressing. Although I haven’t done much songwriting in the past few years, I continue to think of myself as much as a songwriter as all of these other titles I claim these days (e.g. father, husband, attorney, teacher, blogger, old dude, etc.). Nevertheless, the way I think about the craft in general and my work in particular has changed in ways that I’l
Eric Fournier, pictured here in front rockin' the mic with his bandmates Harry Burgan and David Fortney in the great mid-80s Bloomington HC band the Blood Farmers, passed away last Thursday, 2/2510. Eric was a central
My good friends at MFT asked me to write something about where I think the music industry is going over the next ten years. In other words, my good friends at MFT have invited me to set myself up to look like a total idiot in ten years. Regular MFT readers know, however, that I don’t shy a
Since my work directly involves delivery/distribution of music to listeners, I've given a great deal of thought over the past several years to the way things have changed and are continuing to change. We're quickly moving towards a new reality where all existing recorded music is available to everyone all the time, which has been more or less inevitable since the distribution of music via the Internet became possible. There are many issues that need to be resolved, such as compulsory licensing s… Continue
I was on the phone with a musician client today, a veteran of the So Cal emo/punk scene. I mentioned that I'm from Indiana, and he immediately asked if I knew the band Mock Orange from Evansville. He said they were one of his favorite bands, and that they'd been around since the early '90s!
This did my head in, because I don't recall having ever heard of them. I assume they're an emo band or something like that - does anyone know anything about them? Are they worth checking out (or getting on t… Continue
A client of mine, a band called Dawes from L.A., told me about a fantastic show they played last night at an all ages club called The Firehouse in North Manchester, Indiana. They said they had a great turnout, and the club did a fantastic job of setting up a nice dinner, accommodations, etc. They really just flat-out raved about the whole experience.
Has anyone else heard of the place? Sounds like it should be on everyone's radar if it's not already. I'd never heard of North Manchester, but app… Continue
I was thumbing through a copy of Mansion on the Hill by Fred Goodman and I came across an interesting quote from Peter Wolf, the singer from the J. Geils Band. He said that for the first generation of folk-influenced rock writers post-Dylan, it was unthinkable to be concerned in any way about the business of music. They were artistes, period. For that generation of artists, thinking about royalty rates, publishing ownership, or recoupable tour support would have been ludicrous. As a major indust… Continue
Really thoughtful, favorable review of the ZBs re-issues on Pitchfork this morning: http://tinyurl.com/nvxcag Marvin, are you going to temporarily revise your regard for the publication? Continue
Here's a link to a nice blog write-up about Antenna, written by a DJ from WXRT in Chicago:
http://tinyurl.com/cnxkxm
Again, I apologize - I still can't get the effing hyperlink to work from this computer. Continue
I'm going to keep this short and sweet, because I have a bunch of work to do today; but there's something I've had on my mind since I wrote about the Zero Boys a couple months ago (which article, by the way, is the cover story in this month's Ryder Magazine in Bloomington). I've been thinking about the importance of technical proficiency in musicians.
When I first started playing drums, my goal was to get "good". I used to have arguments with my good pal Harry - also a drummer - about who was t… Continue
Must have something to do with my work computer, but I can never get hyperlinks to show up on MFT. Anyway, here is a URL for an article I posted today on the Know the Music Biz blog on Creative Commons licensing: http://tinyurl.com/cmdyew Continue
Thanks to Ben Deily for this link. This is the first ever Lemonheads video from 1987 for the song Second Chance, from the album Hate Your Friends. Ben is the singer in this one - for those only familiar with the later Lemonheads stuff, on the first three albums Ben and Evan shared the singing and songwriting. This was only a couple months after I joined the band - I joined just before HYF was released but after it was recorded. This was shot in and around Kenmore Square… Continue
This is an article/fan piece I've written about the Zero Boys to celebrate their recent Secretly Canadian reissues. I'm sending it around a bit to find a print publisher, so if you have comments about the facts or anything else, please post them or hit me privately. It should be obvious that this is more of a memoir piece that doesn't purport to be a definitive history. I'm not the guy to write the definitive history since I was on the sidelines, but perhaps that's something somebody should d… Continue
I’m currently writing an article on the Zero Boys in celebration of their upcoming catalogue re-issue, which I’m looking forward to posting soon. It’s gotten me to thinking about hardcore more than usual. I recently engaged in an interesting exchange in the comments section of my recent blog post “some random thoughts…” Somehow the subject of Michael Jackson came up. Thus far I’ve generated essentially zero support from my assertion that MJ is a great artist and an important cultural figure - so… Continue
I was trying to track down something using Google, and I stumbled across this: A writer named Jon Konrath wrote a novel (a rather long novel) titled "Summer Rain" about spending a summer in Bloomington in 1992 (published in 2000). I downloaded the PDF of the book from his site (www.rumored.com), and it looks pretty interesting. It's full of descriptions of Bloomington, and a quick scan revealed that at one point he goes to Second Story to see The Dynamos - a thinly-veiled Dynamics. Also it seems… Continue
Before getting into the substance of this post, I’ll confess that I don’t know much about lateralization of brain function. I have rudimentary (and probably in some ways inaccurate) understanding of general “left brain” and “right brain” characteristics. I’m going to forge ahead here with the disclaimer that my understanding is neither nuanced nor remotely scientific. This is all off the top of my head and the reader should feel free to disagree with me.
I had a conversation with my brother Jak… Continue
I'm all for MFT and the artists both making some money whether it's NP or not. I'm glad there is another way of getting us out there.
If I would have sold an album in the 80s, I remember most little labels and artists would be happy to sell their t…
PJ- I thought of that too! I could use a new Ping hat.
We aren't too far down the road of the NP thing to turn back. But John is right, if we can find a way to funnel money to artists then I'm all about having MFT make some of that transaction. It…
.
