Syria

First of all, the best thing I have read about Syria was this article:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/08/29/9-questions-about-syria-you-were-too-embarrassed-to-ask/

I strongly recommend reading it. It gives a great, high-level overview of the various factors in play. What I want to talk about though is the information in section 8, on why lines are drawn over chemical weapons, and if it makes sense.

I'm going to also link to the Wikipedia article on the Geneva Conventions, which also links to the Hague Conventions and the Geneva Protocol, which is actually where the bio-chemical issue came up:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Conventions

There is a paradox here that is hard to work around. Part of how you get world wars is alliances between other countries; if one gets into trouble, it pulls the others in. These alliances can also be agreements to not attack each other, and to treat each other well.

So, it is entirely understandable that people who had been horrified by what the chlorine gas did at Ypres, and seeing that these weapons did more to terrorize civilians than it did to move the conflict closer to resolution one way or the other, would decide that it is reasonable to ban these weapons. It is reasonable, except then when you have someone violating it, then everyone who agreed it was bad is supposed to go to war.

That sounds bad, but you were already in a world of paradox when you set rules for humane war. My soldiers will kill your soldiers if we can, but then if they surrender we have to take good care of them. Being cruel to prisoners is evil, so that's valid, but it's still not exactly satisfying.

We probably feel best about World War II. The Holocaust needed to be stopped. However, if Hitler had only been killing his own people, instead of moving into other countries, would anyone have acted? Even with that, the US only joined in after a personal attack. Therefore genocide happened in Darfur, and Cambodia, and Rwanda, and large scale murder that might not technically be classified as genocide happens in China and Indonesia. You might see prosecution in the Hague eventually, but people don't really want to go to war for it.

And honestly, killing to stop death sounds like a losing proposition. It can be that they will kill more people than we will in order to stop it, or they are killing for worse reasons than we would have, and that's not completely invalid, but still, then we our losing our people to save theirs.

The problem when you get into discussions like this is suddenly everything sounds ugly. That we might care more about our soldiers than your civilians sounds petty, but there's something to it. If the side that was starting it cared about the lives on their side, that could really shrink the problem.

Sometimes we are actually really effective. Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, that crossed a line, and it was resolved fairly quickly and easily, but much of the credit for the international cooperation there goes to Kuwaiti oil fields, making that matter more serious than chemical weapons being used on Kurds. There's some ugliness there, and some ugliness in how responsible the Western world is for the troubles in the Middle East and Africa based on colonialism.

Another interesting article I had read was from Laurie Penny, an English writer, after Cameron had failed to gather the votes for intervention in Syria.

http://www.newstatesman.com/uk-politics/2013/08/there-are-too-many-bodies-buried-britains-moral-high-ground

Her article focused on the concern of an image problem, but that it's a false problem. They don't have the moral high ground, and people are becoming too aware of that. That is ultimately a good thing, but then what do you do? That for this specific instance Assad appears to be willing to surrender his chemical weapons is a miracle, and we should just be grateful for it.

On the question of do we need to punish the use of chemical weapons so that other people know not to use chemical weapons, I believe the answer is no. Anyone that you need to worry about for that is operating on a level where they are not going to care about what happened to the previous guy. Even if they do care, there are enough examples of people getting away with it that the one that does face censure is probably not going to make too much of an impression. That's the easiest question; it all gets worse from there.

After that it becomes "Do we care that terrible things are happening? Do we care enough to put resources into it? Is it our job? Can we intervene without making things worse? Can we get humanitarian aid distributed to the right people? And the answers are often discouraging.

So, I guess that makes this post really discouraging, and I feel bad about that, and about the lack of answers for what to do about these things. North Korea's Kim Jong Un starves his people and may have just executed a slew because his wife was jealous of his ex-girlfriend. Anyone want to go in?

I think there is an important point here, and I hope that will be the saving grace of this long and meandering post. The fact that there are no easy answers gives me sympathy for pretty much everyone, except for those who only criticize. There is that partisan thing going on, and that Fox News thing, but John Stewart addressed that pretty well, though I am not sure he gave John Kerry enough credit.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/11/jon-stewart-destroys-fox-news-syria_n_3906294.html

The other thing though is that when you have so many conflicting valid points, it requires a fairly sophisticated level of thinking. Anyone who is confident they know exactly what is right is probably ignoring multiple things. We need to get less comfortable with criticizing and more comfortable with critical thinking. We need to be able to put aside our own egos, both to be willing to put other needs above our own, but also to be able to accept that many things are beyond our power. That's true for individuals, for nations, and for groups of nations working together.

And, it requires good information. So, just as a reminder...

" I get that Fox opposes the Syria peace plan because its modus operandi is to foment dissent in the form of a relentless, irrational contrarianism to Barack Obama and all things Democratic to advance its ultimate objective of creating a deliberately misinformed body politic whose fear, anger, mistrust and discontent is the manna upon which it sustains its parasitic, succubus like existence, BUT... sorry, I blacked out for a second I was saying something?"

Transparency

Building on yesterday's theme about the danger of having secrets, you might think today would be about the importance of individuals living their lives in such a manner that they have nothing to hide, but it's not.

I do believe in doing good things and living a good life, and also I have seen how shame and secrets isolate in a continuous spiral, but I have already written some things about that, and I probably will again. Yesterday was about politicians, today is about government.

It's been a few years since I read Tim Weiner's Legacy of Ashes. At the time I was focusing on the disasters of US foreign policy and the CIA, and how sometimes the root of the problem changed, but there always was a problem. That could be wrong-headedness on the part of the president, the head of the CIA, or head of individual departments, and part of that was certainly the idea that communism was worse than anything else.

What has become more clear to me now is that the reason things could keep on going wrong was the secrecy. It was easy for incompetence or insanity to be hushed away. If someone didn't agree with orders and acted against them because they knew better, it was not always obvious.

In today's world, secrecy has become significantly more difficult. Yes, some of the Benghazi outrage is because Republicans and Fox hate Obama, so similar attacks that happened under Bush just don't matter.

http://www.policymic.com/articles/40811/13-benghazis-happened-under-president-bush-and-fox-news-said-nothing

Beyond that, there is just more information out there. We are always online, links are shared via social networking, there are more cameras everywhere, and once something is online even if the original site deletes it, some other site has usually captured it. That's just the way it is. Clinton wasn't the first president to cheat on his wife, but he did it in a world that has changed a lot since Kennedy (who also was not the first).

In this world, we find out about programs we would not have known about in earlier times. We know about drones and PRISM, and we know some things about Gitmo even though there are other things that are not released, and it can make the current administration look awful, but I don't think the others were better - we just didn't know.

In some ways there is a loss of innocence, and contentment; I see a lot more bitter people than there used to be. I still want more of it. We need to know, because then it forces us collectively to behave better.

My biggest disappointment with President Obama was when he renewed the Patriot Act. That needs to go. PRISM needs to go. There should not be warrant-less wire taps. If there is a valid reason for the tap, there is no reason not to get a judge to agree. Taps are for gathering information over time, so there should not be a time crunch on what can really be a speedy process.

(That's just one example. A lot could be said about drones here.)

There are times when the checks and balances in the Constitution result in gridlock, and that is frustrating, but the idea that no one should have too much power is a good one, and that should hold true in the legal system as well.

The Patriot Act gave too much power to the executive branch. That wasn't an Obama thing; that was a Bush and Cheney thing (especially a Cheney thing). Yes, the people who complain about it now and didn't then are rotten hypocrites, but that's not the point. The point is that it was wrong then, and still wrong now. The person who has too much power does not see it as too much, and it is hard to get it back.

(Here I am largely influenced by Charlie Savage's Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy.)

We need to move towards transparency, and away from the covert. Yes, there will always need to be some subterfuge in intelligence gathering, but there need to be limits on it, and safeguards. Building on Lord Acton's remark - "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely" - perhaps we can view it as the level of corruption being proportional to the level of power. Secrecy increases the effect of the power, because it takes away the chance for others to interfere.

And because it relates, I'm going to reiterate something. Before any of these new programs, we had sufficient warning about September 11th. There were desperate unheeded warnings, because priorities were not set based on the intelligence. We did not need better intelligence; we needed better leaders. We are not going to get better leaders by giving them the opportunity to become ever more corrupt.

Scandal!

My thoughts here are probably going to be poorly organized, but I'm going for it anyway.

The train of thought started with Jeff Cogen, as the news items started that would turn him into a former Multnomah County Chairman:

http://www.wweek.com/portland/article-20947-jeff_cogen%E2%80%99s.html

Initially everyone was insisting that he played no role in Sonia Manhas getting her position, which based on this article looks less true than it originally seemed. Even if that had been true, perhaps the best illustration of how things go wrong would be when it came out that Manhas got the budget she requested, which doubled it from the previous year.

Now, there may have been valid reasons for doubling the budget, but once you find out that the approver is having an affair with the requester, it looks pretty fishy. If the relationship had been disclosed then you could do things like having a third party review the request, though this might just be one of those situations where you don't want people having personal relationships, but of course, there is adultery involved, so no one wanted to disclose.

The point is that by all accounts Cogen was doing a good job, but that's sunk. Too many of his decisions can be called into question now, and because the trust is lost, his abilities are now lost.

It was the right thing to resign - his attempts to fight it initially showed bad judgment - but obviously the much better thing to have done would have been to not cheat on his wife. If there are problems in the marriage, deal with them openly and honestly. Secrets get in the way.

Obviously we could make correlations to Anthony Weiner here, and we could spend a lot of time talking about stupid men and the dogs they are, but that's not really what is eating at me here, so I am going to share another story, that is very gossipy in nature.

About two years ago there was controversy over Portland's reluctance to participate in the join-terrorism task force because they would not have access to full information. Now, the rumor I cannot substantiate is that the information issue was actually that two relevant people were not approved after their background checks.

Now, at that point, we all already knew about Beau Breedlove, so it's not necessarily a Sam Adams issue, but I think the reminder there is that if you have sensitive information, you do not want someone who is vulnerable to blackmail. You don't want decisions made by people whose judgment has been compromised by other things they have done.

Perhaps the ridiculous part is that people are really very forgiving about those who are open. People tried to take Weiner back. Spitzer is not still living in disgrace. Adams is finishing his term, and a beloved extra on Portlandia. You can debate whether that's a good thing or not, but that's how it goes. That's not to say that no one would have any qualms about politicians never hiding their sex habits, but when you are unapologetic a lot of people seem to accept that no apology is required.

Once you keep things secret, though, you have created a weakness, and it's a weakness that can be a breeding ground for all sorts of problems.

Concert Review: Adam Ant

Yesterday I gave confusion between two groups as a possible reason why I might have been over thinking Prima Donna. However, I seem to be taking a more cerebral reproach with Adam Ant as well. Maybe it was the mood of the night, or something shared between the bands, or I may just be reading too much lately. Anyway, that's where I'm coming from.

In listening to the new album, Adam Ant is The BlueBlack Hussar Marrying The Gunner's Daughter, I initially thought I did not like it as much as his previous work. Going back and listening to more of his older songs, though, I hear a real connection. I was more familiar with the hits, and those probably are a bit more accessible, with the pop hooks and all, but some of these sounds have always been there.

Perhaps the most distinguishing feature of the music is the use of two drummers. Never having seen him live before, I had never really thought of it before. It was fascinating to watch, as the two were not exactly synchronized, but were pretty much in unison. The effect was most felt in "Prince Charming", where the percussion becomes a primal force. In the other songs, I suspect that is a big part of what causes the music to approach cacophony - it's too well constructed to go all the way, but there is a messiness to it that is unusual. There is more going on, and it feels slightly off kilter.

This feeling is enhanced by Adam Ant himself, who dances with an odd gait, never quite losing his balance, but seeming close. Since the obvious question is whether this seems to relate to Ant's history of mental illness, I don't know. He is very lucid when he speaks - thoughtful, appreciative, and witty. Having watched some interviews, I think he can be great for increasing understanding towards mental health issues, and that's a cause close to my heart.

It's possible that what as a part of his life experience, that had an influence on his sound, and totally reasonable. What I was thinking about more was the history of taking on characters. He has been Prince Charming, the Dandy Highwayman, and now the BlueBlack Hussar. It makes sense that he does well as an actor, because he is good at playing a part. At the same time, my favorite song was "Wonderful", which seemed to come from a period where he was just Adam, and no one else.

So, on one level, his preferred way of doing things seems to be the opposite of my preferred way of doing things, which could lead to a disconnect, but what I came away with overall is that he is doing things his way, on his terms, and carrying on, and I admire that a lot.

I had thought his voice sounded a little off, which I thought might have been a result of his taking a break, but listening to some other things, he sounds pretty good. It might have been just that night.

That did not really get in the way of the show. He was himself, from start to finish, and played a really long set. There was a good mix of old and new, which can be tricky for someone with such a long career, but I thought it was a really good balance.

The audience seemed to approve. I was surprised that I didn't see any face paint or military style jackets. There was one person ready for a Renaissance fair, and one with a top hat who looked kind of like a chimney sweep, but it was probably some glam reference that I was missing, and one person was dancing very mysteriously. Otherwise it was your basic rock concert crowd with just a touch more of a punk influence. I think it worked.

My one regret was that I was up in the bar area instead of down on the floor. It's a completely different feeling, and I like it better down there. However, I was with other people, and it was necessary. So maybe that was part of my being engaged more intellectually than emotionally, or maybe it was the other things. It was still good.

http://www.adam-ant.com/

https://twitter.com/AdamAOfficial

Concert Review: Prima Donna

Prima Donna was the opening act for Adam Ant. I had been trying to listen to them in advance, to be kind of ready, because that's how I roll. I found one on Spotify that seemed to be the right one, and the biography said they were a female-fronted alternative band, not to be confused with the Los Angeles punk band, or a Texas band.

Once they stepped on stage, they all looked pretty male, but then they started playing "Sociopath", which I knew was one of the songs I had listened to. So, despite the warning not to mix the bands up, Spotify has, which I suspect means that royalties are not being distributed correctly. That's worth looking into for the principle of the matter, even if it only makes a 35-cent difference.

I didn't get all of that mentally sorted out until I was back home and on the internet, so during the show I was probably analyzing more than I usually do, trying to figure out who they were and prevent my lack of adequate preparation take away from the eventual review.

For a moment I toyed with the idea that this was still the other Prima Donna, because their bio referenced multiple roster changes, and they'd had male members at different times. These guys seemed too together for that. They had a unity that felt like it stemmed from playing in garages together.

Actually, I kind of felt the grease from the garage, which made me think perhaps there was a rockabilly influence. Lead singer Kevin Preston has played with Foxboro Hot Tubs, so maybe that makes some sense. Maria's first thought was glam rock, but they were opening for Adam Ant. Ultimately, they seem open to a wide variety of influences.

I will say that they did not seem very traditionally punk in terms of tempo. The attitude and the intelligence was pretty punk, but based on the sound alone it felt more like it was rock, but bouncing around the various rock fringes - here we are going to give you rock with some juke joint piano, and here we are going to get a little bit grungy, and then I'm going to throw some Gospel influences at you, and feel free to throw in some call and response.

The other way it seemed different for me is that, at least with the punk I gravitate to, it tends to be more fun. Here I feel traces of nihilism, like it's all going to end, so just have fun, which primarily seems to mean alcohol and sex, but then it's not actually that fun. This makes sense but makes me a little sad.

I have to balance that with saying that it was a great show. They are good performers - strong on instruments, strong on energy, and playing with a real sense of unity. I like Preston's voice, and I kind of love his guitar. I couldn't get a good look, but I think it had triple humbucker pickups and a whammy bar in a column, and that sounds crowded, but it was gorgeous. Maybe a Fender; I don't know.

I am absolutely not kidding about the intelligence, both with vocabulary used, and with the concepts in the songs. And if it was not clear earlier, when I say they bounce around the fringes of rock, that means they have great variety, and I do not get tired of listening to them, but I can see where people might get turned off. Maybe they're just a little dirty. Actually, I think they could make a great lineup with Jack Rabbit Slim (http://www.jack-rabbit-slim.co.uk/). That would be a good show.

Prima Donna's newest album is Bless This Mess and seems to have pretty good availability. They do not have their own Youtube channel that I can find, but there are some videos on a channel belonging to the label, Acetate Records.

http://primadonnarocks.com/

https://www.facebook.com/PrimaDonnaOfficial

https://twitter.com/primadonnaband

http://www.youtube.com/user/pitstop13?feature=watch

Edited to add: It occurred to me that I might be able to get some help on the guitar from Stray Dolls, who focus on news about Prima Donna. They answered my question promptly, and I think it makes sense to include them here as a good source of information:

http://straydolls.com/

https://twitter.com/straydollscom

Also, Kevin Preston plays the Ultra III from Schecter Guitar:

http://www.schecterguitars.com/products/guitar/Ultra-III.aspx

I don't understand why I respond so strongly to some guitars versus others, but I don't really question it either. I say she's a beaut.

Death in song

Back to Thomson's book, one thing that was interesting to me was his contention that while folk music did help people deal with death, pop generally did not. Of course, how a song should help, and which songs did, and that some songs were helpful even though they did not seem to earn it, was all up for debate.

One point that was mentioned, but possibly not explored enough, was that death is less immediate for us. Modern medicine is better, life expectancy is longer, and while media allows us to know about catastrophic events, they happen at a remove.

So, is it that shallow pop fails, or is it perhaps that it should focus on other things? Maybe we don't need as many songs about death now as we need songs about alienation and connection, and image and individuality. If contemporary music has a role to fill in contemporary times, it seems like the most natural thing in the world that the scope of that role would change with the times.

Thomson got off on the wrong foot with me by making a grossly inaccurate My Chemical Romance reference, and then he was dismissive of them overall. He was also quite dismissive of "Emo". Without getting into what defines emo and whether he was even using the term correctly (I am still a few months away from feeling confident in talking about that), I have to take exception with the dismissive attitude.

There are a lot of young people now who feel alienated, alone, and without a place in society. They have doubts about ever being able to find love, or satisfaction, and sometimes even whether life is worth living. There are many bands that put words to those feelings, and give encouragement to them. Death is not the specter here; the enemy is the misery of life, for which death appears to be a relief. I don't like that things have gotten that way, but it's there, not for every teenager, but for a lot.

And yet, what these teens are saying over and over again is that these bands saved their lives. They post the lyrics, because the lyrics are beautiful and because having someone beautifully express what they are feeling helps soothes the ache. Also, over and over again, these bands tell them to live, to not harm themselves, and to be proud of who they are. So, I think a need is being met.

It is odd to me that as many times as Thomson admits that people need different things at different times, he seems so hard-nosed about what he will consider helpful.

One thing that I was thinking about, between yesterday and today, is that despite being very religious, I don't like my music to be religious. Well, let me walk that back. In church I sing hymns, and I many of them are very meaningful to me. When I went to see the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, I enjoyed it. My mother loves them, but I am pretty much always listening to rock, and I kind of hate Christian rock.

I can see different camps believing that is because Mormons aren't really Christians, or because Christian music is horrible, and I lean more towards the latter, but one thing that I have really responded to are songs that question. They are looking for meaning, but they don't have it. I remember liking Audioslave and Linkin Park for this.

Maybe I just think the Christians rockers are too smug, or perhaps it doesn't feel like the best way of expressing faith to me. For example, while I do love Jesus, I generally do not refer to him by merely his first name, and I would never consider honking to be an appropriate and meaningful way of expressing that love.

It may be meaningful for some people, and Christian music may be meaningful for some people, and that's okay. I will say I think "Love Song For A Savior" by Jars of Clay is kind of creepy, and its use in the Christian Mingle ad is even more creepy.

There are songs that relate to death that have touched me deeply. Yes, that includes the entire Black Parade album. I disagree with Thomson that My Chemical Romance glorifies death, but they do face it a lot. You know, maybe that makes sense, given that the band was formed as a direct result of the 9/11 deaths. So there is death on Bullets, and death on Revenge, and then you get The Black Parade and if it was ever not clear that death songs end up being about life, it becomes clear here. And I have written about that before.

There are a few other songs that come to mind, and I have written about some of them before too.

"Like A Stone" by Audioslave: I used it in a talk in church once. Again, this is a questioning one, not an answer one, but it is powerful, and it makes sense. "On my deathbed, I will pray to the gods and the angels, like a pagan, to anyone who will take me to heaven." Okay, I am not a pagan, and I only pray to God, but that's because I believe it. If you don't know, it is reasonable to reach out, and to find what will work. I empathize with the search.

"Tears In Heaven" by Eric Clapton: Based on very specific circumstances, the questions that it raises are nonetheless questions that many people can relate to. Will you recognize me? Will I know you? There is also an ache that many can relate to. I miss you. "Beyond the door, there's peace I'm sure, and I know there'll be no more tears in heaven."

"A Heart To Hold You" by Keane: This really hit me after my Zio Paolo died. It's not like he we spent a lot of time together, but when we did his love for me was so evident, and that was new for me. He died so suddenly, and at a time when everything else was so bad, and he was gone. "When you're lonely and sad, if you think of the times we've had, just the thought will bring you back to me."

"Kids In The Street" by the All American Rejects: This is not specifically about death, but it became about my childhood friend Josh, after he died, at that same bad time. "A glory night is a story saved, mark the chapter, but turn the page."

"Won't Give In" by the Finn Brothers: This is more general, and it doesn't even have to be specifically about death, but there is a power of connection there, and that is no small thing. "What does it mean when you belong to someone, when you're born with a name, when you carry it on."

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-aberration.html

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2012/10/i-love-albums.html

Death in general

I recently finished a book by Graeme Thomson: I Shot A Man In Reno: A History of Death By Murder, Suicide, Fire, Flood, Drugs, Disease And General Misadventures, As Related In Popular Song.

I reviewed the book pretty thoroughly on Goodreads, which you can see here:

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/704770342

A book you don't really like can still be good food for thought. In fact, if the issue with the book is that it provides unsatisfying answers to valid questions, that can be excellent food for thought as you try and make up for the book's shortcomings.

Tomorrow I am going to get into the musical questions, but I feel like first we need to address death itself.

I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, so that's where my religious beliefs come from. One thing about that is that we believe in prophets and we believe in personal revelation. So, it's not just that I believe what someone has said, but I feel that it is true, and there have been experiences and other feelings that reinforce it.

We believe that when we die, our body separates from our spirit, and we refer to where the spirit is as the Spirit World. We believe that you are pretty much the same person there that you are here. So, if you tended to be sad, or angry, or resentful, you still have that to deal with. However, we also believe that the Spirit World is a place where you continue to learn and grow, and I believe that the help of others who are already there, and the increased perspective, may make some things easier.

Other things would be harder. If part of your bad feelings came from a relationship with one person, and you got to the point where you wanted to resolve it, and talk to them, but you couldn't, that would be hard. It is better to resolve things in life.

Obviously, there is more that goes on there, but my intent wasn't to get into theology so much (which I believe works better in personal discussions) as just to point out that this is a hopeful belief. I believe that God is good, and He loves us, and that this is ultimately a good plan. So I am sad for someone who dies in a bad state of mind, but I don't give up on them, because I know there is more.

I say "know", but it is faith and not knowledge. I have my own reasons and experiences that lead to my belief, but true knowledge won't happen until I die. I am okay with this, because living according to my faith makes me happy now. Religion that only encourages you to suck it up now for a reward later is insufficient.

Songs about death are really for the living, whether it is to deal with one's own mortality or the loss of another. Life also is for the living. It has to be meaningful on its own. That's not to take anything away from the afterlife. I will be so grateful to see some people again. I am glad that who I am will not disappear, but I am also glad that it will change. This progression we have with birth and aging and death has some beauty to it.

I am currently reading about music theory, and one of the names that came up was Boethius. He was in there because of his study of music theory and his transcriptions of folk music of the time. (Boethius lived from 480-524 AD.) He did other things, though, and one of those was writing The Consolation of Philosophy.

This is philosophy, not religion. His thinking is coming from observing and pondering life, and his conclusion is that the greatest joys in life come from treating other people decently and learning as much about the world as possible. He wrote this while he was in prison, and he was eventually executed, so he faced with the loss of freedom and the loss of life, but still found consolation in learning and in treating others well.

That makes a great life, but it makes a great death too, because you go into the next life with relationships and with knowledge, and having had the practice of actively seeking joy in those ways. That's someone who had a good life, and death will not negate that.

The least organized playlist

I mentioned recently learning that if I shared a Spotify playlist, I could add a note, and I used this to link to the appropriate blog posts. There was just one playlist that I  had never written about, and it may well be the one that needs the most explanation.

I don't remember exactly where the inspiration came from, but the title is 12/21/12, and the idea was a soundtrack for waiting for the apocalypse.

I honestly don't remember if I had been procrastinating creating it, which is certainly possible, or if it only occurred to me to do it that day. As it was, I was compiling it on that day, and just pulling things in that don't necessarily go there. It is messy and incomplete. It's a good thing the world didn't end.

While I don't remember exactly when I got the idea to do it, I know part of it came from a Rejects interview, where they were asked what song they would play for the world ending, and while I think they were leaning towards "Heartbeat Slowing Down", which they were all really proud of,  one of the more obvious choices was "Mona Lisa" ("You can sit beside me when the world comes down".) What they realized was that they had a lot of songs that would be appropriate.

My first thought was "It Ends Tonight". The problem with that is that the title is on the nose, but the song is about a relationship ending, whereas "Mona Lisa" is a lot more apocalyptic. Of course, "Heartbeat Slowing Down" is really personal as well, and this is exactly where it got messy.

There are songs about the end of civilization and destruction, which work, but there are also songs about death, that work, and then there are songs that aren't really about that, but they have kind of ominous titles, and then there are also songs about the human condition, which might lead us to the state of destruction. In addition, there were songs about hope, and not giving up. Also, there were songs that I just liked.

For example, when I was thinking about the Clash, "Armagideon Time" and "Time Is Tight" seemed obvious, based on the titles, though really there were a lot that would fit. They have so many songs that reference things spinning out of control, but I ended up putting in "Train In Vain", which doesn't relate at all, but I really like it, and isn't listening to the music you really like a reasonable way of going out?

I did a very similar thing with the Ramones. "Here Today, Gone Tomorrow" is there for acceptance, and "I Wanna Live" is for resistance. "Do You Remember Rock And Roll Radio" is for the nostalgia you might feel towards the end, and even though "Howling At The Moon" says "There's no law anymore" and refers to change, yeah, it's really just there because I love it.

So, it's not really an effective playlist, but there are things I like about it. I like having The New Radicals "You Get What You Give" on a list with "Always Love" by Nada Surf, because they hold similar emotional and philosophical places for me. It is weird to have "Babylon's Burning" by the Ruts and "The Promise Of A New Day" by Paula Abdul together, but sometimes, I am weird.

There might be the seeds of multiple playlists here, having one for death, and one for apocalypse, and one for perseverance, and one that would be the equivalent of the desert island playlist, where there are just songs that it is important to be able to hear. Those things could happen.

Currently I am not planning on creating any additional playlists, but this was the right time to write about this, because thinking about the roles that music can fill in the face of uncertainty is going to play into the next post or two.

Plus, now I can share this playlist and add a link to an appropriate blog! I am always multi-tasking.

Band Review: Ivan and Alyosha

In much the same way that "country" did not seem to be an entirely accurate description of Rattlesnake Gunfight, "folk" does not seem completely accurate for Ivan and Alyosha. It's not that some of the hallmarks of folk are not there, but there are enough updates and twists that people who would normally be put off by the genre should still check them out.

There are definitely some rock elements, reminding me a bit of Roy Orbison. Some of this is probably due to the inclusion of electric guitars, rather than going with strictly acoustic. Also, there are some interesting beats and tempos. The vocals are dominant, and there is a tilt towards social consciousness, which is pretty fold, but it is just not all there is.

"The Rebel Jesus" is probably the most stereotypically folk song, though it also works as a Christmas song. It makes some good points, and has a depth to it that I value. It also, even though it apologizes for judging, feels a bit judgmental. That balance can be difficult to achieve, when the world's injustices have you down.

That being said, much of their music is edifying, and they give value to various types of relationships, including romantic. "Be Your Man" is relatable and has a fun video, which demonstrates pretty clearly that the band does not take themselves too seriously.

The web store is currently undergoing maintenance, but Amazon does carry their music.

http://www.ivanandalyosha.com/

https://twitter.com/ivanandalyosha

https://www.facebook.com/ivanandalyosha?rf=130165677020912

http://www.youtube.com/user/IvanandAlyosha

http://www.amazon.com/Ivan-&-Alyosha/e/B004QXJ16G/

Band Review: Rattlesnake Gunfight

Back when I reviewed Crow Black Sky, I noticed that they were in some ways not typical of black metal, and wondered how much of that was an effect of them being South African instead of Scandinavian.

By the same token, on Rattlesnake Gunfight's Facebook page, the genre is listed as country. Now, I had already noticed that they did sound kind of country, but they are not all the way country. There are touches in the background like what a fiddler would do, though I think it is all guitars, so there is some of that feeling for sure, and yet it does not annoy me, as country almost always does. Perhaps this is because they are Australian.

At times there is more of an Irish pub feel, cheery and unpretentious. I noticed it first in "Jaked On Green Beers", and thought perhaps that made sense because it could all be a St. Patrick's Day reference, but it is an Alkaline Trio song, and the original has a different feel. Rattlesnake Gunfight puts their own spin on it, and it's a good one. They work similar magic on The Replacements' "Color Me Impressed", though they add an optional "u" to "color".

Although the band is working on original material, most of what is currently recorded is covers. However, they are clearly making the songs their own, and a lot of it is live. That generally does not result in sound quality issues. "High Up Above" sounds a little messy, but that could be a reflection of the original song. (I say this from listening via Spotify, but music appears to be available via Bandcamp, Amazon, and iTunes.)

I think we have to consider them to be a band still in development, but worth keeping an eye on. I'm sure they would be good live.

Navigation on the web site is not perfectly intuitive, but it has more information than Facebook. I am including two Twitter accounts: the main one for the band, and one for the singer, Matty, who is actually the one who followed me.

http://rattlesnakegunfight.com/longwayhome

https://twitter.com/MJGunfight

https://twitter.com/Matty_TGUK

https://www.facebook.com/RattlesnakeGunfight/info

http://www.youtube.com/user/RattlesnakeGunfight

http://rattlesnakegunfight.bandcamp.com/

http://www.amazon.com/Rattlesnake-Gunfight/dp/B00C7WUPAE/

But I kind of hate VIP packages

Incidentally, there were more developments in the Polaroid feud. I don't even know that there was that much from the leaders - I only know if someone re-tweets it and I see it - but there were fans getting involved in mocking both sides, which has been very stressful for those who are fans of both Sleeping With Sirens and Bring Me The Horizon. I hope everybody chills out and grows up and all that.

I do still find the notorious Polaroid package to be reasonably priced when you look at everything included. Also, it feels like this type of personal experience should be something I support.

Yes, production and distribution of music can be done quite cheaply, but it is fairly difficult to get people to pay for it. It tends to be easier to get people to purchase tickets, but there is overhead with the venue and crew and transportation. You can do a lot of those things pretty cheaply, but there are limits.

With VIP packages and meet and greets, there tends to be low overhead. Maybe you are including a photo and a poster, but primarily you are spending time, and yes, it helps support the band, and it is clearly something a lot of fans want. Sorry, I still hate it. I have tried to find a logical reason for this, and it is a bunch of things working together. 

First of all, I have had some great musician encounters over the past year. Meeting Lindsey Way changed my life; that is not an exaggeration. Meeting the other members of MSI was also cool, and they were all out there. If you hung around and waited, you could meet everyone in the band, but that was a free gift from the band.

I had mentioned that Lindsey hugged me (twice, actually), but I haven't written about the hug I got earlier that evening, from Trash McSweeney of The Red Paintings (they opened for MSI). He was hanging out over by the merch table, and I had been moved by their show. I went up and complimented him, because I do that. If you have something nice to say, I firmly believe in saying it. And yes, sometimes I compliment people who could not care less, but sometimes it really does matter.

Anyway, we talked for just a moment, and then he hugged me. It was a little, spontaneous thing and I'm sure he doesn't remember it, but in that moment we were connected, and it warmed my heart. It was real.

There have been so many little things that sprung up from unpredictable moments: realizing one moment too late that Cy Curnin thought I had been Maria, finding every single Gin Blossom around the hotel and talking to two of them, rounding a corner and finding Mike Kennerty after being too shy to talk to him earlier. There is randomness here, and unpredictability. I have no selfies proving these things happened, but they were all special to me, and they cannot be bought.

And, you can't have that with every band. There are bands for whom it would be neither safe nor practical to come out into the throng. The VIP experience can resolve some of the difficulty there, but that gives you different problems.

One is that it becomes such a perfunctory thing. Sign, snap, shake hands, move on. The experience has become a commodity, and is thus cheapened, no matter how expensive it gets. The kids still make a big deal out of finally meeting their idols, but then they expect to meet them next time too, and there are many other issues here, with positive and negative effects from the level of a young person's identification with a band, and fandoms, and when it results in a perverted sense of ownership and hostility, but I'm not ready to go there yet.

What I will say is that I hate the economics in other ways, because what about the kids who can't afford it, or the parents who can't afford it, then it seems like it could result in a stratification of the fans, and division into haves and have-nots. And if that seems to be over thinking it, remember that the economic difficulties that we have occurring now are issues for bands too. If we had single-payer health care, would that take some stress off of musicians? If the regular job market was good, would that help some aspiring musicians, and some fans? Everything is interconnected.

If I sound like a cranky old person shaking my cane at the kids on the lawn, well, I do feel like one more and more all the time. 

References:
http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2013/05/concert-review-mindless-self-indulgence.html

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2013/07/a-daily-hat.html 

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2013/05/concert-review-red-paintings.html 

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2012/12/in-concert-all-american-rejects.html

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2013/01/concert-review-gin-blossoms.html

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-fixx-live-at-music-millennium.html

 

Finding your musical path

A few months ago I was at a party talking to the friend of a friend. He is a drummer, and not currently in a band, but he knows enough bands that need drummers that he gets to play pretty often. He also does some studio production work, and having a lot of contacts helps there as well. That has resulted in a career where he is doing what he wants to do, he can provide childcare when his wife works, and between the two of them they are getting by financially.

That wouldn't satisfy everyone, and not everyone would be able to do it. Obviously it did not happen all at once. Building contacts happened over time, when he was playing in bands. What I am getting at is that there are many different ways to be a musician. The key is to figure out what you want, where you currently are, and what the path is between those two spots.

If you have a satisfying day job, but you also play a gig every month or so, and between that and practices your need to play and spend time with your band is met, that is great. If that is all you need, but your band is not getting any gigs, then you need to start checking around with local bars and clubs, and do some networking. If you are getting a bar gig every other month, and you want to support yourself and your family by music, or you want to become very wealthy via music, this is going to require a bigger shift.

Now, about that band I offended. I don't know for sure that I offended them. As is normal, I wrote the review, tweeted the link in general with them as a keyword, tweeted the link specifically to them, and posted it on their Facebook page. A lot of bands will Like or Favorite or Re-tweet or Share, or reply and thank me, all of which I love. Sometimes there will be a delay, but usually not more than a week.

In this case, none of those things happened, but they had a tweet shortly after that about finally having something interesting to say. I had called their tweets boring and repetitive. It could be a coincidence, but it felt like an indirect pointed at me.

I was right though; they tweet the same things over and over again. If they are happy with their current level of success, that is fine, though I suspect the tweets are not instrumental to that level, and could be dropped. However, if they want different results, they should do different things. My point was that they seem to build loyalty fairly well with those they spend time with, so build on that. Visit more radio stations, more event promoters, and put in a lot of face time with fans.

I remember seeing New Politics when they opened for Fall Out Boy, and just from the performance I thought they would be successful; they were good! That was reinforced by seeing Boyd work the crowd. Soren and Louis might have been as well, but where I was standing it was Boyd, talking to anyone he could, giving out stickers, taking pictures of people holding the stickers, and engaging in any way he could.

Farewell, My Love is amazing for use of Twitter. They worked really hard in the beginning to get everyone to follow all of the individual band members. These members have endearing personalities, so as more people follow them and see their tweets, it strengthens the overall attachment for the band.

Also, they are constantly promoting something, whether it is their crowd-sourcing efforts to acquire a van, pre-orders, new videos, or new performances. They go through periodic spurts of repetitive tweets, but then they will offer something new. They also re-tweet the appreciation they get from followers, which serves multiple purposes as it reminds followers that they are following a great band, provides new content so that not everything is about pre-ordering the new CD, and makes the followers who have been re-tweeted feel good.

And about those tours, even though they had just completed one tour, and were already booked to open for Blood On The Dance Floor, they were asking for help in getting onto another tour. There is no resting on laurels here, and they are smart not to. Getting established doesn't even mean the same thing it used to now, and you can't take anything for granted.

The Gin Blossoms use Twitter in a different way. So far, only two members of the band are on Twitter, and it took a while to get the second of those on. However, the band account is really good about following back, passing on good information, re-tweeting, and giving what access it can. Maybe Robin will not get on Twitter, but when there is a web site chronicling his trip up Mount Everest, it can at least link to that.

Of course, the Gin Blossoms had an existing fan base from back in the day, so while acquiring new fans is good, a focus on reconnecting with existing fans is a valid approach to take. Again, you are using what you have.

Even with all that, Twitter is just one form of social networking, which is just one tool. The point is that you need to have a realistic view of what success would mean to you, and how you get there. Record companies are not fairy godmothers, and that's okay.

Tomorrow we will talk a bit more about money matters, but as you are building your picture of success, what I will recommend now is that you include sanity and integrity. I know that if you don't value them now, my saying so won't change that, but that doesn't mean that you won't miss them some day.

Music in the Digital Age

When Spotify offered to help me find AFI tickets, it felt very familiar. I realized they were starting to do a lot of things that had been in the potential business model for Napster.

I knew this because I had recently completed Steve Knopper's Appetite For Self-Destruction: The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry In The Digital Age.

The book was pretty interesting in general. Much of it took me back to my time at Intel, because of the changing technologies, yes, but mainly because of the corporate issues. The biggest one for the music industry, over and over again, was an unwillingness to change in response to emerging trends, because the old way had been working well for them, and making them lots of money, and they wanted things to stay that way.

This wasn't just a resistance to digital music; they resisted CDs too, and then resisted getting rid of the long box, and so resisting digital music was exactly what you would expect based on past behavior. The problem has been that waiting to accept the future direction results in missed opportunities. They kept bouncing back nicely because other opportunities would come up, and the labels would make millions of dollars, despite stubborn foolishness.

You may remember Napster as a villain in this story, but that is a selective telling of the story. There were attempts at negotiation between Napster and record labels. There were talks about different business models, like having a monthly subscription fee, with a limited number of downloads per month, or you could have done a payment per download.

I don't know what level of artist royalties would have been built into a plan like this, but there were definite benefits. First of all, at the time you could have had a subscriber database of 26 million. That's compared to 2.5 million Pandora subscribers, and Spotify apparently has 24 million users, but only 6 million paying users. Getting Napster in with subscribers early would have established a pattern of paying for digital music early, before people got so used to free online music.

The other opportunities were that Napster would be good at leading people to concert tickets and band merchandise, as well as helping people discover new bands, who were not signed, a cause close to my heart.

The thing that was most frustrating for me in all of this is that it wasn't even so much that the bands would be getting a bad deal through this, but that the labels were resistant because it would subtract from their enormous cut, and this is after reading about a lot of exploitation of artists via labels. It's not that they never do anything helpful to a band, but so much of the success comes via dumb luck, and they get such an exorbitant amount for what they do. I know, my anti-corporate bias is showing; what's new?

Regardless, this is the world we've got now. I am sympathetic to a lot of the sides. As much as I love albums, I understand the value in being able to download a single, and sometimes that is all I want. I still have a fondness for CDs, but I understand the convenience of digital. Some MCR members were tweeting a while back about lugging a big folder of CDs on tour. Now you can get thousands of songs on a little iPod. That's easier. There are good things about this new world. There are bad things too, but we need to take a realistic view.

First of all, it was never really easy to make it big. Making it stratospherically big is harder now in some ways, but making music a career at all is kind of a more democratic process. You don't need a label to produce music, or start acquiring an international fan base, or to tour.

For some bands in the past it was primarily the label that would get record sales, and the band would get ticket sales. Now there is not enough money in record sales, so you get 360 deals and it may not be worth it.

I don't think people are going to get back into purchasing music the was it was when you had to. Yes, I keep telling people to buy music in these posts, but it is so easy to download, or burn, or to listen via free services that technically pay royalties but in microscopic amounts, that I think that is going to be the standard, and so it is necessary to adapt.

That can mean many things. You don't have the big budgets for music videos anymore, so interesting things happen there. Band merch has become more creative, so instead of one or two basic shirts bands will have twenty different kinds, as teen wardrobes become as much about musical affiliation as fashion.

Some get very creative. Beck created a song reader with his sheet music. Touring is important, and we see add-ons to the touring experience. Some of the innovations are great, and some are hideous, but that's what change is like.

This is something we will be exploring more, including tomorrow, but for now I am going to link to two old posts from last year. "It's Not Priceless" links to several good (if lengthy) articles on digital music issues.

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2012/10/its-not-priceless.html

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2012/10/i-love-albums.html