{"id":374,"date":"2006-03-29T09:03:53","date_gmt":"2006-03-29T17:03:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/archives\/2006\/03\/29\/todays-discoveries\/"},"modified":"2006-03-29T09:08:30","modified_gmt":"2006-03-29T17:08:30","slug":"todays-discoveries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/2006\/03\/29\/todays-discoveries\/","title":{"rendered":"Today’s Discoveries"},"content":{"rendered":"

"I Am The Highway"
Audioslave<\/strong><\/p>\n

Maybe if I’d read less about this band.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe if the Ragers involved hadn’t abandoned their cherished political stance.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe if they didn’t have such a dumb fucking name.\u00c2\u00a0 I would have PAID ATTENTION!<\/p>\n

What if you bludgeoned a public and nobody cared?\u00c2\u00a0 When done right, music is as fulfilling as food.\u00c2\u00a0 Why do those purveying it have to sell it like it’s irrelevant crap?\u00c2\u00a0 Forcing it down our throats?<\/p>\n

There will come a day when you can’t market anything.\u00c2\u00a0 When everybody alive has been street-teamed and product-placemented to death.\u00c2\u00a0 When everybody TiVos past the commercials.\u00c2\u00a0 When the only people listened to will be those without a financial stake.<\/p>\n

Used to be you couldn’t ignore the efforts of the major media companies.\u00c2\u00a0 There were only a few TV networks.\u00c2\u00a0 Movies had to be attended to be able to participate in discussions at parties.\u00c2\u00a0 But that was before people finally got choice, and abandoned the mainstream in droves.\u00c2\u00a0 Before the movies went so lowest common denominator that even teenage boys wouldn’t go.\u00c2\u00a0 The media companies believe they’ve got a God-given right to their dominance over the populace, that they own the eyeballs.\u00c2\u00a0 But those days are done.<\/p>\n

There’s a vitality to MySpace.\u00c2\u00a0 To YouTube.\u00c2\u00a0 That makes you WANT to pay attention.\u00c2\u00a0 Because those posting there are beholden to no one other than themselves.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re naked.\u00c2\u00a0 And their humanity is appealing.<\/p>\n

As is the humanity of this track.<\/p>\n

There was a day when heavy rock had a place.\u00c2\u00a0 But those days ended a decade ago.\u00c2\u00a0 No wonder hard rock has been marginalized.\u00c2\u00a0 When there are so many tempos, so many changes, it’s like the music is only relevant, understandable, as the expressed rage of the young people who make it.\u00c2\u00a0 Not wanting to have ANYTHING to do with styles that came before.\u00c2\u00a0 I appreciate their anger, but not their work.<\/p>\n

Coming back from the car stereo place today, I was flipping the channels on XM and found myself at Lucy.\u00c2\u00a0 Listening to "Black Coffee In Bed".\u00c2\u00a0 This Squeeze song is not as good as "Tempted", still it intrigues, especially when one hasn’t heard it in the better part of a decade.\u00c2\u00a0 And, like any dedicated radio listener I waited to see what came up next.\u00c2\u00a0 I heard this quiet organ-type sound, which felt like a sunrise, off on the distant horizon.\u00c2\u00a0 And then one of those circular guitar riffs that worked for everybody from the Allman Brothers to the Doobie Brothers.\u00c2\u00a0 And then such a SOULFUL voice.\u00c2\u00a0 The unmistakable Chris Cornell.<\/p>\n

I don’t know what broke up Soundgarden.\u00c2\u00a0 But I like this better than anything that band did.\u00c2\u00a0 Because it’s less different, more roots-like.\u00c2\u00a0 And Tom Morello isn’t showing off, he’s servicing the song.<\/p>\n

Ever drive cross-country?\u00c2\u00a0 Through Colorado?\u00c2\u00a0 New Mexico?\u00c2\u00a0 Arizona?\u00c2\u00a0 There’s nothing in sight.\u00c2\u00a0 The sun is staring down on you.\u00c2\u00a0 The only thing that keeps you going is your tunes.\u00c2\u00a0 On such a long drive, you need something with balls.\u00c2\u00a0 Not that it can’t be sensitive.\u00c2\u00a0 But like a coach, like a cowboy driving cattle, you need something to PROD YOU!\u00c2\u00a0 Into making it through.<\/p>\n

This track came out three years ago.\u00c2\u00a0 Yet I’ve never heard it.\u00c2\u00a0 Because nobody I was listening to was PLAYING IT!<\/p>\n

Who can stand those Active Rock stations?\u00c2\u00a0 With their constant bleat?\u00c2\u00a0 I mean does it always have to be so in-your-face?<\/p>\n

And the good tracks from that format rarely show up anywhere else.<\/p>\n

Yes, despite all the hype, "I Am The Highway" eluded my net.\u00c2\u00a0 And it’s pretty broad.<\/p>\n

The system is broken.\u00c2\u00a0 The mainstream is only for bland pap.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s about endless niches today.\u00c2\u00a0 Yet, terrestrial radio thinks we live in a nation of one mind, when nothing could be further from the truth.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s the story of the twenty first century.\u00c2\u00a0 How the mainstream evaporated and it was replaced by countless niches.\u00c2\u00a0 Instead of shotgun marketing, start small.\u00c2\u00a0 Just target a core.\u00c2\u00a0 Depend on THEM to spread the word.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, what you’re purveying must be good.<\/p>\n

XM is the twenty first century.\u00c2\u00a0 Scores of music channels.\u00c2\u00a0 Almost all in extreme depth.\u00c2\u00a0 Serving the fans of those niches, not a theoretical everyman.\u00c2\u00a0 And that’s why I love it and hope it never changes, but fear it will.<\/p>\n

"Calling Me"
Kenny Rogers<\/strong><\/p>\n

I LOVED "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)".\u00c2\u00a0 But I was stunned Kenny Rogers reemerged as a cornball country singer with "Lucille".<\/p>\n

But I’ve been trying to download this track for a week.\u00c2\u00a0 Because, you see, it’s a duet with Don Henley.<\/p>\n

I haven’t forgiven Don for his participation in Mitzvahpalooza.\u00c2\u00a0 But his voice touches me in a way no emo singer can.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, the emo boy is expressing his pain.\u00c2\u00a0 But there’s no world-weariness, no depth.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s just an open wound.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas when you hear Don Henley sing you see a vista of his whole life, how he got to here.<\/p>\n

I’d like to tell you "Calling Me" is a great track.\u00c2\u00a0 But it’s a truly mediocre song.\u00c2\u00a0 But when Don does his verses, sings along with Kenny in the choruses, I forget that it’s 2006.\u00c2\u00a0 That 1990 was over fifteen years ago.\u00c2\u00a0 That the twentieth century is becoming a distant memory.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve thought it was a new age, that I’ve been idling, and it’s been okay, but really, the years have been slipping by, my life is passing between my fingers, everything I loved, everything I did, it’s fading like an old photograph.\u00c2\u00a0 The links are breaking.\u00c2\u00a0 Yet, when I hear Don Henley’s voice, a thread is pulled tight.\u00c2\u00a0 From 1969 to today.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s been paying attention, not sleeping.\u00c2\u00a0 He hasn’t given up, he’s still trying.\u00c2\u00a0 The reason he gets such shit is because he’s serious about his work in a country based on not taking things seriously, or faking it.\u00c2\u00a0 If you’re a true believer, you’re a joke.<\/p>\n

Don’s been a believer in many things.\u00c2\u00a0 From the party life to family life.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s evolved, in an era when entertainers aren’t allowed to grow old, when they’re stuck in the past.\u00c2\u00a0 I decry his rumored plastic surgery, but no doctor can take a scalpel and freshen up your insides.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ve got to acknowledge your history, the fact that you’re on a journey, that’s eventually gonna end.\u00c2\u00a0 Don does this.<\/p>\n

I found out about this track in a horrible review of Kenny’s new album in "Entertainment Weekly".\u00c2\u00a0 Don’t tell me print doesn’t sell records.<\/p>\n

"I Should Get Up"
Teddy Thompson<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was going to do this whole essay on Teddy’s album, "Separate Ways", but answering e-mail while listening to it, I was directed to the following movie trailer: Keeping Up With The Steins<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0(there’s a glitch…to view it let it play a bit, then stop it and reload the page so you get video and not just audio), and it changed my mood.\u00c2\u00a0 And music is all about mood.\u00c2\u00a0 I went from deep thought on a rainy day to lightheartedness, and Teddy Thompson’s album is not for the frivolous.<\/p>\n

Don’t you hate the records of the next generation?\u00c2\u00a0 Their parents found their own way.\u00c2\u00a0 Based on skill and inspiration.\u00c2\u00a0 The next generation is lacking this last element, and the hunger.\u00c2\u00a0 Great art is not a family business, but something that comes up inside, like a volcano, a desire to express oneself, to MAKE IT!\u00c2\u00a0 And I wasn’t that big a fan of Richard, never mind Linda, Thompson to begin with.<\/p>\n

People are fearful that the Net will destroy the album.\u00c2\u00a0 That it will only be about individual tracks.\u00c2\u00a0 But that’s if you’re in the hit business.\u00c2\u00a0 If only one track is any good, if you’re not saying anything, if you don’t STAND for anything, then people won’t want more of your work.\u00c2\u00a0 But if you have an identity, if you reveal yourself to your audience like a friend, people will want ALL your material.<\/p>\n

Teddy Thompson is ignorant.\u00c2\u00a0 He should not be on a major label.\u00c2\u00a0 To the degree one can even call Verve Forecast a major label (then again, it’s part of the Universal group).\u00c2\u00a0 I’m sure Verve Forecast coughed up some dough, so Teddy could make this record, it legitimized Teddy’s career, but it hasn’t done him much good.\u00c2\u00a0 Verve Forecast can’t break a band.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s nowhere for them to EXPLOIT artists like Teddy Thompson.\u00c2\u00a0 And, major labels, RECORD LABELS, are all about exploitation.<\/p>\n

But now you exploit yourself.\u00c2\u00a0 You start small.\u00c2\u00a0 Try to create a buzz.<\/p>\n

This requires that you be good.<\/p>\n

But I’m not writing about what’s in the rest of the endless pile of CDs in my house.\u00c2\u00a0 Because, although oftentimes professional, they’ve got no heart.\u00c2\u00a0 Teddy Thompson has heart.\u00c2\u00a0 And vision.<\/p>\n

Why do people insist on sending me CDs?\u00c2\u00a0 If I have to have a CD to listen to your music, then you’re REALLY behind the curve.\u00c2\u00a0 If I can’t listen to your wares on your Website or MySpace, how do you plan to make it?\u00c2\u00a0 You think if your disc is in my house, you’ve done your job, you’ve legitimized yourself.\u00c2\u00a0 But that’s not the point, the key is to get into my HEAD!<\/p>\n

I heard this song "Altered State" on XM’s Loft.\u00c2\u00a0 At first I didn’t love it.\u00c2\u00a0 But you know how something doesn’t bug you that much and you let it play and by the end you’re digging it?\u00c2\u00a0 That’s how I felt about "Altered State".\u00c2\u00a0 And figuring that Teddy Thompson was a minor artist, I went to his Website to download it for free, but there were no free downloads, since he’s on a major label.\u00c2\u00a0 So I went to P2P, and found it IMMEDIATELY!\u00c2\u00a0 But it was a loop, even though the company that serviced the major labels with this technology has ceased purveying it.\u00c2\u00a0 This FRUSTRATED ME!\u00c2\u00a0 I mean hold back Mary J. Blige, but TEDDY THOMPSON?\u00c2\u00a0 Give the guy a fighting chance.<\/p>\n

That’s why I believe Teddy shouldn’t be on a major label.\u00c2\u00a0 Because they’re holding him BACK!\u00c2\u00a0 Making him fight with one arm behind his back.<\/p>\n

But thank god this label finally sent me a CD when I requested one.\u00c2\u00a0 But, before I could spin it, today on the Loft Mike Marrone spun "I Should Get Up", which is even BETTER than "Altered State".<\/p>\n

Teddy Thompson is the kind of act MTV and Top Forty radio don’t like.\u00c2\u00a0 He doesn’t have a perfect voice.\u00c2\u00a0 His records don’t have synths that elevate your libido.\u00c2\u00a0 Rather, Teddy Thompson is positively old school.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s about feel, and message, all wrapped up in a palatable, engaging sound.\u00c2\u00a0 Cross his father with Jackson Browne and you’ve got Teddy.<\/p>\n

The problem with music is that talking about it doesn’t sound like it.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m just trying to hook you, if you like this kind of music.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m just trying to soft-sell you, I’m just trying to intrigue you.\u00c2\u00a0 So you’ll go on a journey of discovery, not pissed off if you don’t ultimately dig it, but thrilled and wanting to tell everybody you know if you do.<\/p>\n

Teddy Thompson’s album is not for the club.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not for house parties.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s for reading the newspaper, cleaning the house.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s like a loved one next to you in bed while you’re reading a novel.\u00c2\u00a0 It comforts you, makes you feel like you’re not alone.<\/p>\n

Now you could go to Teddy’s site, http:\/\/www.teddythompson.com\/<\/a>, and fuck with the insane player streaming the music, only three tracks that you can only get to play when you realize you’ve got to press play to hear the music, and then, after fast-forwarding to the next track, you’ve got to press play AGAIN!\u00c2\u00a0 But, of course, none of these tracks is the one I’m in love with, "I Should Get Up".<\/p>\n

Or, you could go to his lame MySpace page<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 Where you CAN hear "I Should Get Up".\u00c2\u00a0 But it’s a lame one minute sample!<\/p>\n

Talk about fear.\u00c2\u00a0 Don’t these companies realize the best way to sell music is to let people HEAR IT!<\/p>\n

Then again, a record label only makes money FROM the music.\u00c2\u00a0 So, they’re afraid to give it away, building the act’s core.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is why I lament that Teddy Thompson is involved with Universal Music.\u00c2\u00a0 Because I’d like MORE people to be exposed to his talent.\u00c2\u00a0 And the Web is the way to do it.\u00c2\u00a0 Since he’s got no chance at a terrestrial radio station anybody listens to, and the Loft is only one of over a hundred channels on six million subscriber XM.<\/p>\n

Imagine Richard Thompson’s haunting guitar with only half the darkness.\u00c2\u00a0 Imagine a voice in a higher register, that is warmer, more inviting.\u00c2\u00a0 Then you’ve got an idea of what Teddy Thompson sounds like.<\/p>\n

I’d like to tell you I’m just raving.\u00c2\u00a0 But I know it when I hear it.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s something HERE!!<\/p>\n

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"I Am The Highway"Audioslave Maybe if I’d read less about this band.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe if the Ragers involved hadn’t abandoned their cherished political stance.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe if they didn’t have such a dumb fucking name.\u00c2\u00a0 I would have PAID ATTENTION! What if you bludgeoned a public and nobody cared?\u00c2\u00a0 When done right, music is as fulfilling as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business","category-the-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-62","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}