I know this guy, Marty Albertson, he’s CEO of Guitar Center.<\/p>\n
We had lunch at NAMM.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s a tradition.\u00c2\u00a0 He and Felice get together every year.\u00c2\u00a0 You see he’s on the board of the foundation she runs.\u00c2\u00a0 Although wearing a jacket, having decided a few years back that he wanted the industry to take his company SERIOUSLY, he was not attired in the flashy way of a major label CEO.\u00c2\u00a0 He was like your best buddy from math class dressed up for a family occasion.\u00c2\u00a0 Nor did he have the haughty attitude or the ass-kissing demeanor of a classic record exec.\u00c2\u00a0 He came across as an equal.<\/p>\n
And as soon as we sat down at our table in the hotel restaurant Marty asked me if MySpace was over.\u00c2\u00a0 I was stunned!\u00c2\u00a0 Most people in my world had just become AWARE of the site.\u00c2\u00a0 He was taking everybody’s pulse.\u00c2\u00a0 Word amongst his employees and customers was the site had PEAKED!<\/p>\n
Then Marty told me the most amazing statistic.\u00c2\u00a0 In six months in 2005 his business had flipped.\u00c2\u00a0 From being 30\/70 catalog to net to vice versa.\u00c2\u00a0 And when we had lunch in New York in March he said net sales had gone up another three percent in the first few months of the year.\u00c2\u00a0 And sure, Marty was questioning whether to continue to send fourteen million print catalogs a year, but he was even MORE interested in the mind of his customers, how they were now no longer afraid of the web, rather, they EMBRACED IT!<\/p>\n
And as we’re talking net strategies in this French bistro on Madison Avenue, Marty starts talking about rare guitars.\u00c2\u00a0 When they sell replicas they take no ads, they do no conventional marketing, they just tell one person.\u00c2\u00a0 The guy in the rare guitar department sends ONE E-MAIL to a treasured customer, and in a DAY the entire collector marketplace is aware, and the edition usually sells out almost instantly.<\/p>\n
Conventional marketing is dead.<\/p>\n
I’ve got this friend Shilah.\u00c2\u00a0 When I first met her, at a party at her house in the Wilshire District, she didn’t exactly treat me right, she didn’t know who I was.\u00c2\u00a0 But as Lisa and she and Polly continued to work on the tribute concert for Polly’s dad, we hung out more, we became buds.<\/p>\n
Shilah’s a good time.\u00c2\u00a0 She’s irreverent, but competent.\u00c2\u00a0 She’s about the music, not the money.\u00c2\u00a0 She CARES!<\/p>\n
Her latest venture is the Sin City Social Club at the Mint on Friday nights.\u00c2\u00a0 And she also manages Tim Easton.\u00c2\u00a0 Not that I knew this until I wrote about him.\u00c2\u00a0 And ten days ago, at Lisa’s house, Shilah started waxing rhapsodic about Tim’s new album.\u00c2\u00a0 How I should have him on my radio show.\u00c2\u00a0 To tell you the truth, I thought she was crossing the line.\u00c2\u00a0 Working me is the KISS OF DEATH!<\/p>\n
So, when Shilah e-mailed me three tracks off Tim’s new album last week, I didn’t bother to even download them.\u00c2\u00a0 They could wait.\u00c2\u00a0 Furthermore, I wasn’t sure whether Tim truly had it.\u00c2\u00a0 When I met him at the EMI Grammy party he was so quiet, and uncomfortable in his tight suit, and although I loved the live acoustic tracks on his site, he could go either way, he could push ahead, or deliver a lame overproduced record, probably the latter.<\/p>\n
But today, going through hundreds of e-mails, I took the time to download Tim’s new work.\u00c2\u00a0 And it was SPECTACULAR!<\/p>\n
I don’t mean it will stop traffic.\u00c2\u00a0 Drive up the ratings on MTV.\u00c2\u00a0 Rather, it went straight to my heart, and I had to play the three songs over and over and over again.\u00c2\u00a0 I had to transfer them to my iPod.\u00c2\u00a0 I just came home from a hike and fired them up again.<\/p>\n
But I figured it wasn’t worth writing about the tracks.\u00c2\u00a0 Because you couldn’t HEAR THEM!<\/p>\n
I knew Shilah would cough up permission, I wouldn’t even bother to ask.\u00c2\u00a0 But Tim’s signed to New West.\u00c2\u00a0 And who knows who owns the publishing.\u00c2\u00a0 I’d love to just post the tracks on my site, but I’m a lawyer, I understand the rights involved.<\/p>\n
Years back, prior to Napster, I’d write about unreleased records all the time.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s how it worked for DECADES!\u00c2\u00a0 We’d try to entice the listener into buying what we raved about.\u00c2\u00a0 That was the business the labels were in.\u00c2\u00a0 Getting you to buy their product without hearing it first.\u00c2\u00a0 But those days are through.\u00c2\u00a0 Now the customer expects EVERYTHING to be instantly available, instantly sampled.\u00c2\u00a0 If you’re holding back a record for the proper release date, if you’re not at least streaming the entire record on your website, you’re living in the twentieth century.<\/p>\n
The old paradigm is dead.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not about records, but ARTISTS!\u00c2\u00a0 Selling acts, not discs.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not about physical product, but winning over hearts and minds.<\/p>\n
There’s this track, "Next To You".\u00c2\u00a0 It sounds like a walk in the park with your babe.\u00c2\u00a0 If said walk were one in which the couch you were sitting on strolled, not the human beings.<\/p>\n
Intimacy.\u00c2\u00a0 We all strive for it.\u00c2\u00a0 But it’s nowhere in evidence.\u00c2\u00a0 Everybody’s about image, and too afraid to reveal their inner selves, their hopes and desires, their weaknesses, their HUMANITY!<\/p>\n
And the acts are faux.\u00c2\u00a0 Part of this phony culture.\u00c2\u00a0 To the point where when something is real, we don’t gravitate to it, we run to it, and EMBRACE IT!<\/p>\n
Oh, there’s this other brilliant track, "Back To The Pain", whose deal is sealed by Lucinda Williams’ background vocals, which eclipse the stuff on her recent records.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s like Emmylou Harris singing with Polly’s dad.\u00c2\u00a0 All world-weary, wanting to hold back from playing, but knowing she’s going to ANYWAY!\u00c2\u00a0 Because real people play.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what life is about.<\/p>\n
I’m running on empty.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve got to get up early.\u00c2\u00a0 I should be winding down.\u00c2\u00a0 But listening to these songs on my iPod I realized I HAD TO WRITE!\u00c2\u00a0 To convey how much I like these tracks, how GREAT THEY ARE!<\/p>\n
I wouldn’t expect every one of you to love them.\u00c2\u00a0 But if you’re into music more personal than pop.\u00c2\u00a0 Stuff that sticks to your bones.\u00c2\u00a0 If you always loved singer-songwriters and have given up on anybody ever delivering again, there’s a good chance you’d LOVE THEM!<\/p>\n
Magazines have long lead times.\u00c2\u00a0 Newspapers are edited to hell.\u00c2\u00a0 The web is about instant, from one person’s heart to another’s.\u00c2\u00a0 This is more important than any New West plan to break Tim Easton.\u00c2\u00a0 This record is finished.\u00c2\u00a0 We don’t need physical product, we don’t need all kinds of terrestrial radio bullshit.\u00c2\u00a0 When something is done now, it needs to be RELEASED!\u00c2\u00a0 Kind of like the new Neil Young album.\u00c2\u00a0 Like "Ohio" in the old days.\u00c2\u00a0 There are no delays on CNN.\u00c2\u00a0 They air the news when it happens.\u00c2\u00a0 But over the years, the record labels have held on to finished work forever, waiting for the right WINDOW!\u00c2\u00a0 Polishing the tracks, reworking the album.\u00c2\u00a0 Just RELEASE THE SHIT!<\/p>\n
I have an audience.\u00c2\u00a0 It believes in me.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe not everything I write, but people don’t subscribe if they think I’m a twit.<\/p>\n
I’m not the only one.\u00c2\u00a0 All over the web are individuals like me.\u00c2\u00a0 Who with one word can do more damage, can get the word out better than ANY of the straight media.\u00c2\u00a0 Nobody trusts the asshole critic in the paper.\u00c2\u00a0 SoundScan sales are STATISTICS!\u00c2\u00a0 And statistics have no heart.\u00c2\u00a0 These Tim Easton tracks have heart.<\/p>\n
I’m supposed to wait till the album comes out.\u00c2\u00a0 When you can hear thirty second snippets.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m supposed to be part of the machine, play the game.\u00c2\u00a0 But I’m a cog in no wheel, and I’m not on the endless gravy train of cash, anything but.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m just looking for great stuff.\u00c2\u00a0 I hear it SO rarely.\u00c2\u00a0 These Tim Easton tracks are real.\u00c2\u00a0 You should be able to check them out instantly.\u00c2\u00a0 But the fucks playing by the old rules are preventing you from doing this, they just don’t get it.<\/p>\n
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