I’m lookin’ ’round for that sixties sound
Those days are gone
And all of us acid droppin’, world stoppin’, be-boppin’ freaks
Are just hangin’ on

We used to save up for our records.  The radio was our religion.  We listened long enough to be inspired to buy albums.  And when we purchased those twelve inch discs, we played them again and again and again, waiting for them to reveal their truth.  And having an investment in the album, we went to the show, to hear the tunes performed live.  You built your collection album by album.  You didn’t buy anything casually.  You wanted every record to count.  So if someone dropped by your house or apartment they could scan your discs and get a vision of the true you, the essence.

But now hunting for rare records is only about collector satisfaction.  The history of music is instantly available, with a click online.  Who cares if you’re ever going to listen to what you download.  It’s free. You end up with so much music that you know very little of it.  There are certain singles you can recite most words of, after that…  And the albums have gotten longer, and your free time is shorter.  And it’s not only you.  Kids have got so many diversions.  The concept of lying on your bedroom floor listening to the same disc over and over again is an antiquated dream.  Kids have instant stimulation on their computers.  They’re IM’ing, texting between soccer practice and homework.  You want to get into music, but it’s almost impenetrable.

I spent most of last night listening to an XM interview with Jackson Browne.  It was part of their Songlines series.  With Mike Marrone asking Jackson questions, playing the records they talked about.

It was the highlight of my week.

When Jackson Browne finished high school, music was still a calling.  Being a rock star was not akin to being a movie star.  It was about expressing yourself, for those who truly cared.

Jackson joined the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band before graduating.  Then he went to New York, where he accompanied Nico at Max’s Kansas City.  And, upon flying back to the Southland, he heard "Sgt. Pepper" on the drive from LAX to Orange County.

I understand all this.  There was something going on.  It wasn’t featured in newspapers, the mainstream media was clueless.  Kind of like the big outlets still don’t get technology today.  There were no reviews in the paper, no stories, but we were all addicted.

We’re still addicted.  But the heroin we’re injecting was distilled decades ago.  And we can’t find acid as good as the tabs we dropped at Woodstock.  And we want to.

Mike threw out names to Jackson and he told stories.  How David Crosby said he’d produce his first album, but kept shirking his responsibility.  When asked his favorite Crosby song, Jackson said "Page 43".  And then Mike played it.  What a revelation!  I knew every lick, but hearing it I was jetted right back to that era, to how it used to be, who I used to be.  We ruled.

Then, they talked about Patty Griffin…  And the song they came up with was one I was unfamiliar with.

I own "Flaming Red".  But I was disappointed with it after loving "Living With Ghosts".  But this song they pulled out, it was truly magical.  It had the power of rock.  And the alienation too…

Does anyone really remember Tony
He was a quiet boy, a little overweight
He had breasts like a girl
When I wasn’t too busy feeling lonely
Well I’d stare over his shoulder
At a map of the world

That’s what high school is about.  Loneliness.  Unless you’re one of the winners.  The quarterback or a cheerleader.  You notice everything in a world that seems to be sliding by everybody else.

He always finished all his homework
Raised his hand in home room
Early morning attendance
And he’d pledge allegiance to the gloom

He showed up.  He did his job.  But if anybody noticed, they just wanted to give Tony shit.

Hey Tony, what’s so good about dying
He might do a little dying today
Looked in the mirror and saw
A little faggot starin’ back at him
Pulled out a gun and blew himself away

Wow.  The music sounds like this.  An unbelievable intensity.  Eclipsing that of James McMurtry’s similar-themed "Terry".  Still, we don’t see this coming.

I hated every day of high school
It’s funny, I guess you did too

On TV, high school is where the pretty girls get dressed up and flirt, the rest of the population is invisible.  But most of us are part of the invisible mass.  We’re struggling.  With defeat, depression, trying to figure out where we belong in the landscape.  We’re afraid our future is going to be bleak. Still, we dream.  Of the day we can escape and try to become our real selves.

This was mind-blowing.  How there could be a record this great that I was completely unaware of.  But Mike and Jackson knew it.  Which was what was so engaging, so riveting about the program.  This is the way it used to be.  We lived for music.  We knew the tracks that never charted, that changed our lives.

The other revelation was the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s "Buy For Me The Rain".  Turns out it was co-written by Jackson’s old buddy Greg Copeland.  You remember, the prematurely white-haired guy Jackson made an album with?  That’s how much power Jackson had, Geffen gave his buddy a deal.  But the record sank.  And today Greg Copeland is an attorney.  But "Buy For Me The Rain", which I’ve never heard previously, captures the essence of the sixties perfectly.  It’s like stumbling upon a time capsule.

I don’t want to live in a time capsule.  But I’m unsure how to penetrate today’s musical landscape.  I know there’s good stuff out there.  But who do you trust?  Maybe you’re listening to the wrong stuff. While you’re playing some alternative album over and over again, it turns out some country record is the shit.  You can only play one record at a time, but there’s seemingly infinite choice.  And no map. Just charlatans imploring you to spend your time, and that’s the most precious currency you’ve got.

I’d like to know what it’s like to be young, under twenty, to have grown up in this context.  Is it any more comprehensible to kids?  Are we crippled by our history?  Or is it truly just a world of singles.  If so, why is everybody making albums?  Who is listening to them?  And why do they think anybody who’s not a hard core fan will?  And even hard core fans…  If you don’t get it immediately, you drift off, to something else.  Maybe a video game.  Those are expensive to make, there are not that many released, it’s clear what’s a hit.

Seems like the whole world is at a fire sale
But I might be wrong
With all this home shopping, bling, hip-hopping
Maybe it’s just going strong

"Giving That Heaven Away"
Jackson Browne

How come your favorite artist can’t make another album like the one you lost your virginity to, that saved your soul after the breakup, after your mom died?

When you start off, your goal is to open the door.  You knock so hard.  At first no one is paying attention.  If you persevere, and have talent, eventually people notice and the door opens.  You pass through, THEN WHAT?

You’ve got so much to say, so much to prove.  If you can just plead your case in front of the masses, if you can just get acclaim, your life will work.  But it doesn’t.  You  may make some dough.  If you’re smart, you may still have some of it.  But, you’ve got relationship problems.  Your kids are no better behaved than those of your high school classmates.  And, when you release new material, no one cares.  If you play live, people only want to hear the hits.  You can’t get on Top Forty radio, classic rock plays your past hits, but wants nothing to do with you now.  If not exactly depressed, you’re defeated. And you’ve earned the right to take no shit, no direction from anyone.

That’s where Rick Rubin comes in.  He tries to get you back to the garden.  Back to the space you were in when you cut those great hits of yore.  He’s not a sycophant, he’s a trusted ear, telling you to keep writing because what you’ve come up with so far…just isn’t good enough.

You’ll listen to Rick because of his rep.  Because of your raw desire to have an impact again.  You’ve lost your way, and you want to get back on track.

There was context in the old days.  A game that you understood how to play.  Now, you might have a board, but the rules have evaporated and even though you’ve still got a few game pieces, you don’t know what to do with them.  Rick gives you context.

Rick reminded Metallica how great those pre Black Album records were.  Told them to forget about the casual fan, to make a record for the hard core.  The results have been universally accepted, even revered, as a return to form.  But the process was hell on the musicians.  Sometimes torture.  But they did it, because they wanted to feel they still had something to say, were vital, they wanted to be back on top.

Your favorites are lost.  They know how to do it.  Round up all their buddies and turn on the computer and lay something down.  But, since they’re not living four to a room on ramen, there’s no urgency. They believe good is good enough.  And good enough was NEVER good enough.

I’m not talking about Clive Davis programming.  Telling you you suck and that you need to work with the usual suspects and record the music of hack songwriters.  I’m talking about a coach.  A manager, who tears you down and then inspires you.

Every great athlete has a coach.  Some of the best football coaches are hated.  They play mind games. In order to get their charges to deliver their best work.  This is what we need in the music business.

Rick did it with Johnny Cash, Neil Diamond and now Metallica.  He brings them back to the garden. He talks music, tells them how much he loves their classic work.  And then implores them to make more.

It’s not repeating yourself.  It’s being INSPIRED in the same way.  So you can recapture the essence.

It’s true.  Most people are not waiting for the albums of aged acts.  So, it’s hard to get psyched up.  But first and foremost you’re a musician, not a star.  Deep down inside you want to do your best work.  Not crap like Rod Stewart, doing it solely for the money and fame, but something that truly resonates with your audience, that you’re proud of.

Rick Rubin has been able to put a spell on old artists, do such a mindfuck on them that they dig down deep and prove how great they are to him.  We need more Rick Rubins.

That’s the problem.  iPods are too hard to use.  You can never find a USB cable.  And what’s with iTunes launching automatically, that SCARES PEOPLE!  And thank god you can turn off automatic sync, to make it harder.  And can you PLEASE tell me how to buy from the iTunes Store!  What’s this credit card information they keep asking for?  Do you know what that is?  I don’t want to borrow any money…  Or is it a credit like at the Zune Store?  A point?  That you can use to purchase music?

Thank god we’ve got people like Rio Caraeff over at Universal Music to help me.  To make it easy.  Now selling music on micro-SD cards.

Yes, I’ve got a phone with a micro-SD slot.  I always take the back off my GSM phone.  Yes, I decided on GSM because I travel the world.  I believe CDMA carriers provide better service in the States, but…  Yes, I’m aware that you can buy a BlackBerry with both chips.  But usually when I go to Europe I take my U.S. phone and purchase a local chip and then go on Twitter and let everybody know my overseas number.  Now I can bring a collection of micro-SD albums with me overseas!  I’ve purchased a tiny little binder to collect all of them.  And I’ve got a special rubber glove that allows me to pick them up.  I love reading the liner notes on my mobile phone.  It’s so informative.  Then I search via 3G technology and look up all the other credits of the players.  It’s so great living in the material world.

ARE YOU FUCKING NUTS?

That’s what’s wrong with newspapers.  Writing articles so neutral as to be uninformative.  What’s that cliche?  If tomorrow Dick Cheney said the earth was flat, even the "New York Times" would write: "Roundness of the Earth in question."

I’d be happier if newspapers didn’t even give any ink to this inane business concept.  Or were at least more critical.  The L.A. "Times" article linked below did have some negative comments, but what about the whopper they failed to contradict?  That the iPod and iTunes are just too difficult to use and that the micro-SD card is the solution?  That’s like saying telephones are too hard to use, that’s why everybody’s switching to VOIP.  No, it’s worse…  That’s like saying Mac OS X is too hard to use and everybody’s switching to LINUX!

Do you even know if you have a micro-SD slot in your phone?  And, if you do, what are you going to do with the card inside when you buy an album?  Talk about easy to lose…  Let’s go even worse…  Can you remove the back off your phone?  On the BlackBerries I’ve had it’s nigh near impossible.  As for the tiny card, you’ve got to raise a door, insert it just so, close the door, put the back back on…  FOR EACH AND EVERY ALBUM?

Oh, it’s easy on an iPhone.  Which doesn’t have a slot, but has built-in GIGS of memory!  But that syncs to the impossible iTunes.

As for the BlackBerry itself.  I won’t say it’s counterintuitive, but now that there’s push e-mail on the iPhone, I’d switch if AT&T’s connections weren’t so heinous.

slotMusic is an insane idea.  Dreamed up by a company that has difficulty competing with Apple because it’s got no software and is a heartbeat away from being taken over by Samsung.  As for the labels running with this idea…  Yup, they endorse nonstarters like this, but come up with an idea to actually give people what they want, online, and they say no.

Furthermore, any success in music retail is going to come from LOWER prices, not higher.  And, to quote the business cliche, companies are going to make it up on volume.

And one more thing.  For those so ignorant, for those at the labels getting their music for free…  The only people who care about DRM/copyright protection ARE THOSE WHO ARE STEALING THEIR MUSIC!  People who pay at the iTunes Store don’t give a shit.  Which is why the DRM-free tracks at Amazon and eventually MySpace Music are not taking over the market.  You hear a lot of noise from the Net prognosticators, but those savvy enough to bitch online are also savvy enough to use BitTorrent.

Utterly ridiculous idea doomed to failure.

Next!

Music labels trying new format: SanDisk’s slotMusic mini flash memory cards

This is why the major labels are fucked.  You can’t ask for help IF YOU’RE SUING YOUR CUSTOMERS!

I’m writing about this as a public service.  Because, unless you’re a Nine Inch Nails fan, you’ll probably be completely unaware of it.  Not that Trent gives a shit, he’s concerned about his core.  But, my point is YOU CAN ONLY APPEAL TO YOUR CORE!  Because it’s too fucking difficult to reach everybody else.

Hold on to what you’ve got.  Maximize what you’ve got.  Pleasure your regular customers.  At least you know they’re interested.  Trying to convert someone new is oh so difficult.  That’s one of BMW’s successes.  The number of people who buy ANOTHER BMW!  Are you gonna buy another album by lame-o act if the first one only had one good track out of ten?  Are you going to buy the new single if the act never made it beyond the first single?  Are you going to go see an act live that only has one hit single?

Record labels still believe it’s the nineties.  They’re in cahoots with the major media outlets.  But radio’s tanking, newspapers are in free-fall and MTV doesn’t play any music.  These are your modern partners?  Ridiculous.  Your partner is your AUDIENCE!  It’s easy to reach your audience, if you’re good, if they like you.

Hell, YOU can’t even convert a new audience member.  Usually A FAN has to do this!  If I get one more loser e-mailing me a link to his MySpace/YouTube page, or worse, committing the crime against humanity known as e-mailing an unsolicited MP3, I’m gonna PUKE!  I don’t want to hear it from you!  I want to hear about it from the underground, not someone with an investment!

If I’m getting a press release, I know you’re spending too much money, you’re clueless.

If I’m not getting a personal e-mail, I know I’m just not that important to you.  Don’t tell me you’ve got to send out thousands!  I’m an INDIVIDUAL!

Old line marketing is dead.  And who knows what’s truly going on in the present?  NOBODY!  Which is why Trent Reznor is ASKING HIS FANS!

Read Trent’s words below.  He doesn’t sound like a record company bozo, speaking in platitudes that no one you know employs.  In Hollywood, everything’s FABULOUS!  It’s their BEST ALBUM EVER!  I’m IGNORING YOU!

Sounds like Trent’s a real person.  Like if you bumped into him at the mall, you could have a conversation.  The Net has burned down the wall between artists and fans.  You have to be accessible and human.  You can’t talk down to your fans, you must respect them.  They’ll do ANYTHING for you if you treat them right, if they think you’re really listening.

If it’s all about money, and the major labels believe this, telling us they want 360 deals and ringtone fees, then an artist like Trent has got the big boys beat.  Because his fans won’t buy only the single, but the album, the t-shirt, the concert ticket, the coffee table book, just about anything Trent can cook up!  And the profit margin? ASTRONOMICAL!  Not that Trent’s afraid of giving away his music for free.  Kind of like Google.  Search is free, click on ads if you’d like.  You feel GOOD when you click on Google ads.  You want to pay the search company BACK!

Doug Morris can’t come up with this questionnaire idea.  He’s never heard of questionpro.com.  All the fat cats.  They think their job is…  Exactly what?  Hanging with lawyers, dealing with television networks?  Their purview is rapidly declining.  And they just don’t know it.  They should be online, where their CUSTOMERS ARE!

It’s like a car showroom with no salesmen.  They’re all speaking B2B.  And you can’t test drive the cars.  And you can’t have a brochure.  The fat cats are so inured to the way it used to be, they can’t come up with new ideas.  Or, in the alternative, they’re so busy cutting budgets that they can’t hire and give reign to the young people who do know what’s going on.

What’s the name of Nine Inch Nails’ most famous track?

CLOSER!

That’s what we want.  To be ever closer to our heroes.  Because we don’t have many left.  People who are not sold out whores, who won’t make a deal with a beer company, who won’t take a political stand…  We need heroes.  And Trent Reznor is one to his fans.

They won’t answer the questionnaire with lies just to fuck him up.  They want to HELP HIM!

But they don’t want to help the usual suspects.  And this is a problem for them.

Honest, human, emotion…  These are absent from the mainstream music business, and that’s why it’s in decline.

_________________________________

Message from Trent:

Hello everyone.

I’d like to thank everyone for a very successful year so far in the world of Nine Inch Nails. I’m enjoying my couple of weeks off between legs of our Lights In The Sky tour and got to thinking… "wouldn’t it be fun to send out a survey to everyone that’s shown interest in NIN?" Well, that’s not exactly how it went, but regardless – here it is. As we’ve moved from the familiar world of record labels and BS into the unknown world of doing everything yourself, we’ve realized it would benefit us and our ability to interact with you if we knew more about what you want, what you like, what you look like naked, etc. I know it’s a pain in the ass but we’d truly appreciate it if you’d take a minute and help us out. As an incentive, everyone who completes the survey will be able to download a video of live performance from this most recent tour (and I know what’s going through your little minds right now: "I’ll just grab this off a torrent site and not have to fill out the survey!!!"
and guess what? You will be able to do just that and BEAT THE SYSTEM!!!! NIN=pwn3d!!!)

BUT

What if we were to select some of those that DO complete the survey and provide them with something really cool? I’m not saying we’ll ever get around to it, but if we did maybe something like signed stuff, flying someone to a show somewhere in the world, a magic amulet that makes you invisible, a date with Jeordie White (condoms supplied of course), you know – something cool. See, you’d miss that opportunity AND be a cheater.

Do the right thing – help us out. You’ll feel better.

Thank you and I’ve had too much caffeine this morning,

Trent

Visit here to take the survey:
NIN Survey