I think it’s a chilling omen for the major labels when Rolling Stone magazine does an in depth story about the collapse of the traditional music industry. R.S. has been a big label partner-in-crime for so long..things must really be bad. From their story posted here R.S. reports on the latest stats indicating the rapid erosion of those shiny plastic discs called “CD’s.” It’s a pretty gloomy story for retailers and labels like Capitol, EMI, etc…but I think most working musicians will cheer !Viva la revolution!

What R.S. doesn’t go into is that there hasn’t been a significant reactionary rise in digital sales (like itunes). You’d figure (or at least I would) that the rate of the CD’s decline would be conversly mirrored in digital downloads. Furthermore an article from the associated press states that sales of MP3 players have slowed indicating a market saturation. So one question is: how are people aquiring music these days? Another question is: how do musicians acheive success (being defined as making a decent living from creating music) given the collapse of the old “woo the record label” model? Rolling Stone has posted a companion article to their initial story which offers “what next” scenarios. All seem plausible to me. I just wish Nike, Estee Lauder or hell even Starbucks would decide to back Dirty Martini.

Geez, what an amazing last few days! I got to play two shows with Jerry Joseph then play to a sold out crowd at the Crystal Ballroom with Dirty Martini (see vid below). If you watch closely at the very end of the song I toss my stick into the air AND ACTUALLY CATCH IT. I guess I got lucky. The video starts off a little jerky but it gets better…

I copied this from the OTHER blog I post to: indiemusicportland.com. As I note below this duo’s last CD was amazing. They’re really good in concert as well.

The Canadian indie-pop duo Tegan and Sara are coming back to Portland to play the Bagdad Theater in late July. Earlier this year they teamed with Portland producer (and Death Cab for Cutie guitarist) Chris Walla to record their follow up to last year’s critically acclaimed CD So Jealous. Their latest project titled The Con was recorded at the PDX uber-studio Kung Fu Bakery and is scheduled to be officially released just after their Portland appearance.

6:30 door, 7:30 p.m. showtime | $20 advance, $25 day of show | All ages
Buy tickets here

I’m very excited to be doing two shows this month with one of my favorite artists, Jerry Joseph. Jerry has been relentlessly touring for the past 20 years playing to throngs of dedicated fans all over the US. While he’s never cracked into the mega mainstream the list of major artists who have opened for Jerry and cite him as a major influence is quite extensive. I went on a five week tour opening for Jerry and his old band Little Women in the 1990’s and I can easily say that the experience had a profound effect on me. Jerry’s musicianship, stage presence and songwriting was (and still is) so amazing and authentic that it became a standard, or ideal, by which I measure myself as a musician.

I’ll be playing with Jerry June 15th and 16th. Check his site for details.

Here’s an excerpt from an interesting article pertaining to Paul McCartney’s new CD just released on the Starbucks label. A little food for thought for musicians recording and marketing their next CD:

Dwindling album sales are no longer the preserve of the aging rocker; these days the music industry has to recoup its money through touring and merchandising. Records are just a marketing tool, barely lucrative.

When Madeleine Peyroux’s album was released in stores there was a spike in record sales. Two months after its release in the US Starbucks accounted for more than 30 per cent of sales.

As reported in Wired magazine there’s an emerging methodology that big corporations are adopting called radical transparency. The concept is basically that companies should make all aspects of their business open to the public. This includes company finances, achievements, failures, employee gripes and so on. Like open source software R.T. allows for a real time dialogue about the current state of the business providing an immediate forum for suggestions, improvements and red flags about potential disaster. Of course divulging that kind of information takes a lot of courage. If the public has a perception that a company is prosperous but the R.T. method reveals otherwise it could come as quite a shock to shareholders and the public at large.

So why the picture of Stewart Copeland? As most know the Police have reunited and have already sold out many of their stadium dates across the country. This 2007 tour is already a financial juggernaut. Yesterday Stewart publicly announced that the first two shows in Vancouver B.C. (their third show is this week) pretty much sucked. He said “This is unbelievably lame, We are the mighty Police and we are totally at sea.” He also said that Sting looked like a “petulant pansy,” the drummer is making a “complete hash,” and “who knows what the guitarist is doing?” You can read more of his comments here. He does go on to qualify.. “funny thing is, we are enjoying ourselves anyway. Screw it, it’s only music. What are you gonna do? But maybe it’s time to get out of Vancouver…”

Now at first I thought “geez” I’d be bummed if I went to either of those shows; but then I thought about it for a minute and I became convinced that Stewarts comments were quite courageous and kinda cool. He let us in on the real story, employing a bit of this radical transparency to the band and the tour (AKA big business). I don’t think the Stones would ever do something like this.