"This machine kills fascists"

These are the words Woody Guthrie had emblazoned on his guitar.

Conventional wisdom is you can’t change the world with a song.  I don’t buy that.  The arts are the voice of the proletariat, music, plays, books, they’re the only way the impoverished masses can stand up to power.  But you must believe your opinion counts, work 10,000 hours refining it and never give up, the truth battles encroaching duplicity on a regular basis.  Or, as Neil Young put it, "Rust never sleeps".

But what are the odds that art challenging convention is going to make it to the top, is going to have a chance to engender change, when those in power are the heads of the labels, the publishers and the radio stations.  Sometime in the last two decades, the midwives of art no longer saw themselves as outsiders, but entitled barons.  Thus you have top-heavy record companies run by overpaid lords with almost no infrastructure underneath them.  The new media department is expendable, everything is expendable but my multi-million dollar paycheck.

As for truth…  Roger Friedman reviews the leaked "Wolverine" in advance of its "authorized" release and loses his job.  Doesn’t matter that the film is widely available online to the audience that keeps the movie company in business, truth must be buried at every juncture.

So we end up with a number one record by the Black Eyed Peas entitled "Boom Boom Pow", featuring the endless repetition of the fatuous lyrics: "Boom boom boom, gotta get-get".  I’ll tell you, I’m not even sure what this song is about.  Other than being a beat-based concoction that services Top Forty radio.

Chances are you haven’t even heard "Boom Boom Pow".  You’ve tuned out.  I wonder why?  And so much of the public thinks music is a confection, candy that is swallowed while partying and the only aftereffect is you get sick.

Come on, when are we going to admit we’ve got a material problem in the music business?  Aren’t these label heads fiddling while Rome burns?  Aren’t they no different from those Wall Street millionaires who were flying high until it all crashed?  There’s no SUBSTANCE!  The public knows it.  But the industry denies it.

Last night I watched the ACM Awards.  I still haven’t figured out why there are two country music award shows.  It’s like having the Grammys in February and the Shammys in July.  Huh?  But one similarity between the two shows is the honoring of out-of-date material.  I love Miranda Lambert’s "Gunpowder & Lead", but isn’t that an eighteen month old song?

And I’d love to tell you how great the show was.  Like the Grammys, it featured wall to wall music, hell, country did this first.  But so much of the material was just plain.  Like there was a slot and the writers fashioned a peg to fit the hole.  The lack of creativity was stunning.  I’d be ashamed to stand up and sing this dreck.

I was amazed that Jamey Johnson won Song of the Year for "In Color".  I don’t know how the voting is done, but the fact that a real song, a great record that touches me can win gives me a modicum of hope.

But basically, the ACM show was built for the DVR.  You just fast-forward, to sit through most of the productions was just too damn painful. Scratch that, too damn BORING!  Does country really believe it’s immune?  That it can ram this crap down terrestrial radio stations’ throats and the public will continue to buy it ad infinitum?  That listeners won’t scatter like they have in every other genre of music?

But there was one magical moment.

Yeah, you’ve read the reams of press about John Rich’s "Shuttin’ Detroit Down".  The problem is, the authorized release is just another country ditty.  The lyrics matter, but the music sounds like a ride in the country with the windows down, like "The Dukes Of Hazzard".  It’s made for the market, and that’s why it doesn’t resonate.  But to hear John Rich sing it acoustically last night was to hear a completely different song.

My daddy taught me in this country everyone’s the same
You work hard for your dollar and you never pass the blame
When it don’t go your way

We haven’t been the same for decades.  There are winners and losers.  It’s like India.  There are the high caste aristocrats and the untouchables.  Oh, we need the untouchables to buy our product, even our mortgages, so we can live behind a walled community and party, with our faces featured in "Vanity Fair".

What makes you so special?  What gives you the right?  As the cliche goes, you put your pants on the same way we do.  You’ve raped and pillaged, and for this you should be respected?  You get that AIG bozo complaining in the "New York Times" that he got ripped off by not getting his $700,000 bonus?  Well, the company would have been out of business, if we, the people, the taxpayers, hadn’t bailed you out!

Now I see all these big shots whining on my evening news
About how they’re losing billions and it’s up to me and you
To come running to the rescue

They convinced me there for a while.  They needed the billions to free up the credit markets, so the whole country wouldn’t crash.  But the real story was they just put the cash in their coffers, because their balance sheets were so much worse than they’d let on.

Well pardon me if I don’t shed a tear
They’re selling make believe and we don’t buy that here

Did you read Matt Taibbi’s article in "Rolling Stone", where he explained how this all happened?  Take the time:

The Big Takeover

When you read how Joseph Cassano, who worked previously for convicted criminal Michael Milken, sold the same bad insurance to all comers, you’ll be livid.  Wall Street made money.  It was not the banker of America, funding business development, it was a game designed to make its players rich.  And now assholes like Hank Greenberg say they bear no responsibility?  Isn’t this like tobacco companies promoting a healthy lifestyle while the Marlboro cowboy dies of lung cancer?

I’m not gonna recite every lyric, I’m not gonna bore you with politics.  I’ll just say that John Rich has tapped into the national psyche with "Shuttin’ Detroit Down".  To the point where this far left of center Democrat is cheering this right wing Republican.  Because I’m down with the truth, we’re all down with the truth.  I don’t mind you getting rich adding to society, earning it the hard way, but when you create a fallacious game and ruin our entire country’s economics, I’M PISSED!

EVERYBODY’S PISSED!

But we’ve got Fergie and the boys singing nonsense.  Bono wants to save the world, he just can’t write a song espousing his philosophy, not one anybody wants to hear.  It’s all about marketing the tour, where the real money is.  I thought these people were supposed to be SONGWRITERS!

Flo Rida just rhymes his nonsense over a smash record from long ago.  The definition of a hit is so far from quality, it’s astounding.  And the shoegazers are no better, it’s all about attitude with them.  The fact that the songs are third-rate and no one can sing is irrelevant.  They’ve got CHAMPIONS!

I just don’t give a shit.

Just like News Corporation muzzled Friedman, the rights holders are too uptight to allow John Rich’s acoustic version of "Shuttin’ Detroit Down" to appear on YouTube, to be an instant single on iTunes.  Because that’s breaking the rules, the old rules that make them rich. Thank god they’re so behind the curve that they’re becoming poorer by the day.  Because they just don’t get it, they just don’t understand it’s a changed world, one in which the proletariat has access and isn’t going to take it anymore.

That’s what they hate about the Internet revolution.  The rising power of the people.

But the people need anthems.  Rallying cries that help them in their cause, of standing up and taking this country back.

Because in the real world they’re shuttin’ Detroit down,
While the boss man takes his bonus paid jets on out of town

I wouldn’t buy an American car.  Never.  But that’s not because of the workers, but the executives, who’ve played financial shenanigans and produced what I don’t want.  They thought they weren’t beholden to the public, that we’d buy whatever they constructed.  But last I checked an automobile was something that got you from here to there, and I don’t want something that’s gonna break and eat a ton of gas, but something efficient, something Japanese, just like everybody else.

The reason no one wants an American car is because they don’t appeal to us.  Just like today’s music.  Write something great, and people will clamor for it.  The public knows excellence.  Look at the triumph of the Wii and the iPod, neither cheap but both incredibly successful, unlike Chrysler.

Release this naked take of "Shuttin’ Detroit Down".  I dare Top Forty radio to play it.  I dare all those TV news stations to feature John Rich singing it live.  This is what America wants.  Naked, raw emotion delineating the common truth.  This is what the music business refuses to give us.  This is why music is perceived to be a second-rate art form.  If you’re not taking risks, if you’re not challenging convention, you’re not an artist, you’re just a businessman, no better than those Wall Street jerks.

We’ll be singing "This Land Is Your Land" until the end of time.  I can’t name one song from the hit parade THIS DECADE that will be memorable even ten years down the road.  Five.  Don’t you think this is a problem?

From: Amanda Palmer
Subject: re-Please Drop Me

my label-dropping game has become very fun. please pray for me.

it’s a lesson in how the future of music is working –
fans are literally (and i mean that….literally) lining up at the signing table after shows and HANDING me cash, saying "thank you".

i had to EXPLAIN to the so-called "head of digital media" of roadrunner australia WHAT TWITTER WAS. and his brush-off that "it hasn’t caught on here yet" was ABSURD because the next day i twittered that i was doing an impromptu gathering in a public park and 12 hours later, 150 underage fans – who couldn’t attend the show – showed up to get their records signed.

no manager knew! i didn’t even warn or tell her! no agents! no security! no venue! we were in a fucking public park!
life is becoming awesome.

also interesting: i brought a troupe of back-up actors/dancers on the tour (we were only playing 300-1000 seaters) and had no money to pay them, so we passed the hat into the crowd every night. each performer walked from each show with about $200 in cash. the fans TOOK CARE OF THEM. they brought us dinner every night, gave us places to sleep. (i couldn’t afford to put up that many people in hotels). all sans label, all using email and twitter. the fans followed the adventure. they LOVED HELPING.

so?
the times they are a-changing fucking dramatically, when pong-twittering with trent reznor means way more to your fan-base/business than whether or not the record is in fucking stores (and in my case, it ain’t in fucking stores).

twitter is EVERYTHING that you explain in your rants: it is a MAINLINE insta-connection with the fans. there is ZERO middleman.
my fans hung out with me all day on twitter today while i unpacked weird tour shit, fan art, gifts and paraphernalia that usually just ends up in my closet or in the trash and took pictures of it for them.

xa

Amanda Palmer Blog

Spent the day in Rockefeller Center.

First we met Seth Godin at Maison du Chocolat.  It was fascinating to hear him riff on music education, Felice’s world.  He lamented teachers married to excellence, performance of material that most people were not enamored of.  He boiled it down to a sense of mastery.  That by learning how to play an instrument, a child experienced a sense of accomplishment.  That’s the message of music education, not exposing people to the classics or some extrapolation about IQ improvement.  That’s Seth’s gift, the ability to execute an insightful surgical strike, right to the heart of the matter.

Are people ready for it?

Excellent question.  Seth told the story of Dean Kamen, creator of the Segway, amongst other inventions.  Dean started a robot competition, because he wanted to teach kids how to invent.  At first he tried to work through the established channels, then he just did it himself.  The way bands do it today.

Equally fascinating was hearing Seth’s history.  He’s invested his 10,000 hours in the marketing world.  And that brings me back to Gladwell.  I asked Gladwell…  What if you put in 10,000 hours in one area, were you fucked if you wanted to switch directions?  Malcolm said you got credit.  And Seth said that winning in one area taught you how to be confident and win in another.  But what fascinated me most was that Malcolm said those who put in 10,000 hours were self-selecting.

In other words, are you lazy or dedicated?  If you expect it to come to you on a silver platter, good luck.  If, like John Mayer, you’re willing to take a year off from school to practice the guitar (and have parents, in the case of Mayer, both teachers, who approve of this!), you’re on the road.  If you’re styling yourself in front of mirrors and entering singing competitions…  You show hunger, you show desire, but you don’t evidence any work.

There are no easy solutions.  Seth was formulating marketing ideas before he was a teenager.  He only truly reaped the rewards of his investment in the past ten years.  The same way Gladwell was a reporter for "The Washington Post" for a decade before he went to "The New Yorker" and wrote "The Tipping Point".  You’ve got to pay your dues.  And you’ve got to be willing to break rules, think outside of the box.  As Gladwell said last night, those in power, the Goliaths, have an investment in keeping you down.  If you want to triumph, you’ve got to work hard and do it a different way, which may be even more valid.

High on the best hot chocolate I’ve ever had, we bid adieu to Seth and flew upstairs to the legendary Studio 8-H.  Otherwise known as the home of "Saturday Night Live".

Daniel Glass had received a phone call only weeks before.  Could his band Phoenix appear on April 4th?

A Parisian band, whose lead guitarist is the father of Sofia Coppola’s child, Phoenix started off behind Air, had a major label deal, but didn’t break through. They’re starting over again with Daniel.

Who heard their music and flipped, and when a song leaked to the Net, didn’t freak out, but went for the ride.  To the point where KCRW was airing their tracks and SNL called.

But there was one big problem.  VISAS!  The usual suspects said it couldn’t happen.  But it’s all in who you know.  Eventually, Daniel got hooked up with an attorney in D.C., who guaranteed the band could make it for the gig.  And delivered.  Funny how in the wake of 9/11 we’re so afraid of the wrong people getting in, that almost no one can get in.

The band’s dressing room was next to that of the host, Seth Rogen.  Although we rubbed shoulders, I didn’t bother to introduce myself, he doesn’t know me. And he seemed so serious!  Dressed in a suit.

But when he came out to do promos with Fred Armisen and the band he was wearing his jeans and tennis shoes…  It was amazing.  First, he’s now skinny. Second, he’s got that chortling laugh.  Third, he turned it on for the camera.  They’re b.s.’ing, and then a take begins.  He adds the comic sauce…  He’s not just reading the lines, he’s making them come alive!

The band ran through their two numbers on the famous Grand Central set.  With the list of train stops on the way to New Haven in the background.  This was the one photo I needed.  I’ve seen that listing of "Fairfield" for decades and thought of home.

And there’s a vibe, and it’s fun.  You realize if kids could come, they’d be inspired.  To be not only performers, but cameramen, sound people…  Imagine spending your whole life putting on a show!

And on the walls are signed photos from every host.  Some living, some dead.  When I saw Madeline Kahn’s picture, I gulped.  The show lives on, long after the people who made it.

And leaning on a large piece of furniture, I noticed the sign saying not to spill anything, for it was the desk for "Weekend Update".  I lifted the cover, and there it was!

It’s not quite like it used to be.  Now everybody has access to the public, via YouTube.  But in the seventies, it was a ritual.  You got home early on Saturday night to watch.  Not only Aykroyd and Belushi, but the bands.

Phoenix gave it their all.  You knew it would come alive with an audience.  That’s where music truly lives.  At the hall.  Maybe it’s less about P2P theft and more about getting back to our roots.  Music is something that penetrates you, that you feel.  It’s a communal ritual.  Sometimes just between you and the artist, but live you can see them, you can look into their eyes, that bond in your bedroom suddenly comes to life.

Cool day.

We’re in New York for the Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation Teacher Awards at Carnegie Hall.  They’re not until Friday, but we flew in early so we could have dinner with Malcolm Gladwell, the rest of our time being totally booked.  He told a great story analogizing the world to David and Goliath, but that’s his routine, so I won’t rip him off and replicate it here.

We had lunch with Cliff and Dan from Razor & Tie.  Fascinating hearing Cliff’s story of his start.  From being the stand-in cantor at his old synagogue to a Wall Street lawyer to starting the "70’s Preservation Society" to sell compilation CDs via television ads.

And after having a cupcake at that bakery the guys on SNL made famous, we rode back uptown in the rain and I went to the Apple Store.

I know, I know, you can go to the Apple Store in Santa Monica.  But it’s not the same as this one.  Where they had a special contraption to bag your umbrella so not only did it not get the equipment wet, it didn’t harm other patrons.  And there were zillions of them.  There’s no recession at the Apple Store.  In fact, there’s mania.  And a ton of products I’ve seen nowhere else.  Like Focal speakers for your iPod, and those Dr. Dre Beats headphones.  They sounded pretty good.  Heavy on the bass.  Are you surprised?

And there’s a new power adapter that’s so tiny.  You just plug in your USB cable and jam the white plastic module into a socket.  I felt I needed one, but I figured I’d buy it online.  But if I’d been shopping online, I’d have never found it.  Retail can be entertainment, it can be informative, if the products are excellent and the merchandising is done right.

The product was right at the Nintendo outlet, but it was empty.  I tried playing Tiger Woods Golf on the Wii, but gave up, I couldn’t figure it out and I felt I was being eyed by the employees.

But then I went down the street to Manny’s.

Back in the sixties, after everybody saw the Beatles and picked up a guitar, there came a time when you had to cash in your Japanese axe and get a real instrument, a Fender, or a Gibson.

This required a train ride into New York, and a walk from Grand Central to 48th Street, where all the musical instrument stores were lined up side by side. Only a few remain.  Sam Ash and Manny’s.

Sam Ash now owns Manny’s.  Has since 1999.  Maybe that’s sacrilegious, but it’s Guitar Center’s world now, history has wiped the slate clean to such a degree that one can no longer lament the change, it’s necessary to own it.  And the change is truly dramatic.  Because Manny’s is closing.  For good.

It was almost empty.  There was even less buzz than there was at the Nintendo emporium.  The workers didn’t care, they knew soon they’d be out of a job, they let me wander.

Which is not how it was in the old days.  In the old days, you’d be accosted immediately, asked what you wanted.  And after saving money for years, after emptying your Bar Mitzvah bank account, you’d say you were interested in a Stratocaster, they’d ask what color and it would be delivered downstairs almost instantly, where you’d be expected to pay for it.

At a rock bottom price, but you got none of the thrill of the purchase, none of the satisfaction.  You expected to be able to strum the strings, tweak the knobs for an hour or two.  But not at Manny’s.  Manny’s was like Best Buy.  Or a BMW dealership without salesmen.  This was expensive equipment, but it was sold like supermarket items.  Just that fast.

But if you were famous, and I saw Gene Cornish on the street way back when, or if you had chutzpah, they’d let you try something out.  You’d pick up this yellow Danelectro guitar…

It was still there.  Now in a glass case.  Broken down and put on exhibit.  I’d seen so many musicians play this schmutzy yellow electric guitar.  It’s weird when your memories come back, flowing with not only the experience, but the people you were with.

And on the walls are signed pictures from every act every to ply the boards.  From the Del Vikings to Todd Rundgren.  I even saw a signed photo from the Steve Gibbons Band.  I own that record, does anyone else?

What I was experiencing was the last vestige of sixties culture.  When music set the agenda, when you listened to the radio to know what was going on. Now it’s happening over at the Apple Store.  Times have changed, but the music industry has played a huge part in its own demise.

Music became about winners and losers.  Our heroes were no longer admirable.  They played the role of rock star without any of the intellectual trappings. The sixties stars broke the rules for a reason, not just because they could, not just because they were rich.

I don’t know if music can come back.

Oh, don’t inundate me with the names of new bands I’ve never heard of that I probably won’t like anyway.  They’re never going to be as big as the Beatles, not even as important as the Dave Clark Five.  No one’s ubiquitous anymore.

But maybe we can have a scene.  Before the Beatles it was folk, there was even a hootenanny show on TV.  We’ve got to stop flailing, looking for saviors and start rebuilding.  Fading publications trot out tour grosses, but those acts are all long in the tooth.  The solution is new acts, that start off small, and not only don’t go for the brass ring, but don’t even see it.

New York City never dies because of its pulse.  This is where people come to make it.  And others with wherewithal come to leave their mark.  The concentration of people and the opportunities inspire.

If you can locate the pulse of music, I’d like you to tell me where it is.  Sure, there’s a throb at Coachella.  And Bonnaroo.  But they’re closed scenes.  Name one band that’s broken from Coachella, hell, they’re signing old ones to perform just to bring up the gross.  And Bonnaroo is dependent on Phish.

Don’t tell me how great it is, but how great it can be.  That’s what I’m interested in.