The LP As Art

Recording an album seems obsolete these days, that is, recording ten to twelve songs that are suppose to flow together to form a stylistic or narrative whole has been replaced by recording singles. And singles these days doesn't even mean a two sided record with two songs but one song and more and more as a digital download.

There use to be different kinds of songs that could make up an album. They were placed strategically to allow for pacing and dynamics, that was called sequencing. The different types of songs, all of which could be on the same album were;

The Opener - This was the "theme song" of the album. Some famous ones are Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Magical Mystery Tour by The Beatles or Doolin Dalton by The Eagles. These songs set the tone and paint a picture of the show to come.

The Rocker or Raver - This song was the exciting, uptempo tune that got people out on the dance floor. An example was The Beatles' I Saw Her Standing There and Twist And Shout.

The Ballad - After a couple of exciting opening numbers it's time to slow it down and as if in a screenplay, time to introduce the love interest. This is the love song and there can be one per side (or two on a CD) but much more and you've got a Best Of Bread Cd.

The Hit - Record companies used to want this to open a side of an album because it's easier to cue up for a radio station and therefore has the most chance to become a hit. If you've ever wondered why a particularly lame song on an album loaded with much better material has become the hit, notice if it is the first song on a side (Bennie And The Jets). The second most played songs on an LP are the last songs on a side since getting out in time isn't so crucial for a DJ.

The Novelty Song - Many times the Novelty Song becomes a hit but when heard in context with the rest of the album it sticks out not as hit material, but as a sore thumb. Yellow Submarine by The Beatles and Suffragette City by David Bowie are two Novelty Songs that sound like they should be on different albums than Revolver and The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars.

The Instrumental - An instrumental song or even a small instrumental interlude adds a cinematic feel to an album. If the vocal songs are the "scenes" the instrumental is the soundtrack transition between them. Some bands have such extensive instrument introductions to their songs or such extended solos that the instrumentals are built in automatically. Flying on The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour album makes that album feel like the soundtrack album it actually is.

The Reprise - A reprise is a repeat of all or some of a song already heard. Using a reprise ties the album together and announces the end. Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band Reprise and Doolin Dalton Reprise are two famous ones.

The Cover Tune - Having a cover song (a song that was previously a hit by another artist) on your CD helps your audience discover where you're coming from. David Bowie did an entire album of covers called Pin Ups as his seventh album. It wasn't that he ran out of original compositions to record but that he wanted to claim as his own all the songs that influenced him such as See Emily Play by Pink Floyd. He chose songs that already sounded like "Bowie" songs and that gave his audience an instant way to relate to his otherwise alien sounded music.

The Filler - Filler is a derogatory term that refers to the songs on an album that seem like they're just filling space (and time). If you don't make it your own, a cover song can very often sounds like filler. You don't want anything on your CD that comes off as filler, rather, shoot for more Hits.

The Art Song - The Art Song is really what an LP (Long Player) is for. Artists that have a mind to can utilize the 42 minutes an album provides (as oppose to 4 minutes a side for a seven inch single) to explore and experiment. These songs usually stand out as being different than the rest of the material, more poetic and a lot longer. They are usually placed as the last song on a side. Some famous Art Songs are The Beatles' A Day In The Life, David Bowie's The Bewlay Brothers and Led Zeppelin's Stairway To Heaven.

The combination of these songs as well as the order of their placing in relation to each other on a CD is what makes some CDs stand as works of art rather than just a collection of individual songs.

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Making Friends Of Fans

As a musician wanting to market your music one of the most important things you need to do is discover who your fans are. This is easy enough if you've been gigging and are attracting some fans. Back when my band Womanizer was playing we ended up with our shows being filled with UCLA co-eds. When The Tooners played we always seemed to have one long haired, skinny and shirtless guy who would stand right in the middle of the dance floor holding a beer and staring at us until we finished our song and then would hold his beer up high and shout out; "You guys ROCK!" I appreciated whoever he was, he was someone different at every gig but always matched the same description, but I really preferred the co-eds.

If you are not yet performing enough to start attracting fans, and by fans I mean strangers who are coming specifically to see you perform and not your family members, friends or neighbors who may be attending out of personal loyalty and not because they like your music, then it's tougher to discover who your potential fans may be.

One way to discover the type of person who may become your fan is to look at yourself. You are your biggest fan, at least at this point. You like the kind of music you perform (presumably) so how would someone reach you? What TV shows do you watch? What magazines do you read? To what clubs do you go? To what websites do you go or what blogs do you read? Where do you shop for clothes, or music? How can you reach YOU? 

Now it's important to realize that we're interested in reaching YOU the fan, not YOU the musician so don't say that you hang out at Guitar Center since you do that as a musician looking for gear not as a music fan looking for new music. When I'm in a Rock & Roll FAN mood I'll go to the Hard Rock Cafe at Universal City Walk just for the ambiance. I'll look at the "Rock & Roll" titles in the Kindle store (especially for free ebooks) and I'll turn on Palladia music channel occasionally to see what's on.

Here's something else to consider; a lot of the time I'll get turned on to new music because of what my sons are listening to and they seem to find new music through their friends and the friends find it through their friends but it always seems to boil down to the Internet. Getting back to your friends who may not be your fans, they may nevertheless be a good distribution service for your music if, because of your friendship, they'll post your music on their Facebook page. This works as an endorsement and is a great way to spread the word.

When The Tooners were playing the clubs in L.A. I noticed that if we hadn't played out in a while our friends, most of whom were also in bands, might come to see us but only once or twice. However, they would bring a friend with them and it was the friends who would come back, especially if they were introduced to us backstage after the show. Knowing a member of the band was no big deal to our friends but their friend was made to feel special getting to go backstage or to an after show party. It would be the friends of friends who would return to our shows this time bringing their friends thus adding to our circle of new friends (fans). This is how we eventually got a room full of cute blond UCLA students. What we had to offer these new fans, besides the music, was the after show parties (sex & drugs) which were private, invitation only affairs. The admission charge to these parties was paying the admission charge to get into the club to watch the band. We even ended up getting more fans because the girls would get picked up by guys in the bar and they would bring these guys back for the party. The next week these guys would show up with a different girl and the group kept swelling.

We were all young, single, unemployed so could party all night and didn't own anything we worried about strangers in our apartment stealing or breaking. Having those sort of parties now just wouldn't cut it with the wife. 

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Indpendence Day

Today is the Fourth of July aka American Independence Day. This makes me wonder; who is considered America's most patriotic rock and roll band? Some people consider anyone who plays or even is a fan of rock and roll as essentially unpatriotic but those people also consider anyone who votes Democratic as unpatriotic. 

I know the Fourth is a holiday where it can be assumed The Beach Boys have a gig somewhere, and with a big fireworks display. The Beach Boys present and represent an idealized version of America whereas someone every bit as American, say, Bruce Springsteen, tends to represent America in a brutally honest light. Honesty is largely dependent upon one's point of view but Springsteen has the ability to make one proud to be American and homesick for the America that was or that might have been, or that never really was (the Beach Boy's America), while presenting America as a deeply flawed place. Songs like My Hometown brings up feelings of love and nostalgia even while lamenting the fact that my hometown has gone to hell.

Bruce Springsteen's classic album Darkness On The Edge Of Town makes the listener wish he (probably not she) could live in the world from where the narrator of the song itself seems to wish he could escape. I suppose that's the power of the poet, making even the tragic and depressing romantic and noble or maybe it's just the power America itself has to make us believe no matter how bad times get here it is still an honor to be here now to suffer through it all together.

Happy Fourth Of July Bruce.

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Stairways To Heaven

Celtic Folk / Blues artist David Nigel Lloyd just sent me a link to a video of the classic song Stairway To Heaven... by Dolly Parton. I actually like this version even though I am not a country music fan. What I wonder is what Dolly's fans thought about her performing a song written by the number one band of the Christian Right's hit list, the infamous Led Zeppelin?

Dolly treads where most country stars fear to go.

I remember a great bit on one of my old favorite TV shows, SCTV, where they did a spoof of those late night commercials selling Best Of compilation LPs. This one was called Stairways To Heaven and it was a dozen different renditions performed by such unlikely singers as country star Slim Whitman. Of course, Stairways To Heaven was a joke as no real Country music singer would ever really perform such an obvious Satan worshiping hymn as Stairway.

My favorite version, although Heart does a great one, is Stairway To Gilligan's Island by Little Roger and the Goosebumps.

Stairway To Gilligan's Island is a very clever and well performed version of the music of Stairway To Heaven but with the lyrics and melody of the theme song of the TV series Gilligan's Island. Very clever and very well played, including a nice but abbreviated version of Jimmy Page's great solo.

A MAD Magazine worthy parody of two great cultural works of art. Well, one maybe.

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Back In Style For The First Time

Back 1975 John Lennon retired from the music business partly, he claimed, because the public just wasn't ready to accept Yoko Ono as a pop star. Then in 1980 he heard the B-52's Newwave hit Rock Lobster which featured some female caterwauling reminiscent of the kinds of screams Yoko had done and he took that as a sign that the world was ready for Yoko so he recorded the Double Fantasy album and began a comeback. That comeback may have been more successful if the album was simply a John Lennon solo album but half the songs were Yoko songs with her singing lead.

Then in December some little worm decided he must save the world of another attempt by Yoko Ono to become a rock star and to "kill the dog you don't chop off the tail, you cut off the head", the mob philosophy of how to stop Robert Kennedy's mob investigations (kill JFK), so he shot John to death.

My point is that sometimes an artist has a sound that just isn't acceptable at the time but given enough time that sound once considered unlistenable becomes hip. Riding in my car the other day I heard a song come on the radio that I at first thought was from an old band mate and local legend who, as a solo artist, went by the name Janicott Canada. What I was actually listening to was a song called Next Girl by the new, young band, The Black Keys.

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More Musician Money Woes

From Jon Blistein of  Rolling Stone via Yahoo News:

Pink Floyd's three surviving members have reunited to pen an op-ed for USA Today accusing Pandora of trying to rip off artists over royalties from online radio. 

Yeah? So what else is new? Doesn't The Floyd know that music is suppose to be free? Look at it this way; it's not that Pandora is trying to get artists royalties lowered by 85 cents (?!!!), it's just that now it takes just twenty-four hours for a song to enter the public domain. You don't see Stephen Foster getting paid when Beautiful Dreamer is used in a car commercial do you?

One of the band members, I don't know which one is Pink, remarked that "a business that exists to deliver music can't really complain that its biggest cost is music." Of course it can! Insurance companies exist solely to pay you money if you need it because of an accident but they'll fight tooth and claw to not have to do that. Any company's real excuse for existing is to make money and that means saving money as a penny saved is a penny earned. It's not enough that a company get its customers to pay as much as humanly possible for its product or service, it must supply that product or service at the absolute lowest cost to itself. The old buy low, sell high first commandment of Capitalism.

Music is an intangible, ethereal product. Most people can't even understand how it is created. It seems to have been pulled from the ether. In fact, a lot of musicians say they "tuned in" to receive it and can't really take credit for its creation so why do we have to pay them for it? Never mind that once it's conceived it has to be learned by people who take years to master a musical instrument, then it as to be recorded using extremely expensive equipment, then distributed, advertised and promoted by people who aren't into distribution, advertising or promotion because they love those occupations so much they'd do it for free.

If Pandora doesn't want to pay artist royalties for the music that Pandora is selling to the public for a very hefty profit then maybe Pandora should write, record and sell it's own original music. There's an interesting idea. Radio stations of the future that only play music that they themselves have created. Television networks already broadcast shows that they've produced, why not radio? Or conversely, change the laws so that record companies can own their own network of radio stations which only play their artists. of course, in any scenario the artist will still be the last to get paid. They don't call them starving artists for nothing.

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Just Imagining Just Imagine

Greg and Tim Piper's fantastic John Lennon themed show, Just Imagine, is finishing up the first month of its return three month engagement at the Hayworth Theater on Wilshire Blvd. in L.A. The show has a great following in Los Angeles and the first month was a sell out. The problem with having a show booked into a theater in Los Angeles is that even if the show is successful, as this show was in the past at the Hayworth, the theater will bring in a new production and kick you out. These shows are booked a year in advance and there's no way of knowing if a show will attract an audience and then there is no way of knowing how long that audience will continue to attend performances. This time however, Just Imagine has proven itself to the point that the theater committed to the entire summer and so far its bet has paid off.

The Beatles are one of those things in life that have a highly addictive quality and if there's an opportunity to have a high quality Beatles experience locally, the audience will continue to come week after week. Another example of this sort of fan loyalty is The Rocky Horror Picture Show that has brought in an audience consistently to the Nuart Theater for decades, and at midnight no less.

Check out the Just Imagine show at the Hayworth Theater this summer. As Baby Boomers get older, an authentic Beatles music show will become rarer and rarer. Experience it while you still can.

Just Imagine has its cast on the road June 29 and 30th but will return in July.

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