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April 29, 2007

"Teenage Kicks"

Before decamping for Merlefest, Peter posted a provocation to which, for various reasons, I have delayed responding. His fundamental argument, as I understand it, is that the sadly inevitable transition from physical album to electronic file will move music back to its halcyon days as a singles format.

Which, he argues, is a good thing, citing for evidence a short series of one-hit wonders whose charms I will leave him to defend.

I wish there were a less crude way to say this, but I'm not a big fan of the one-night stand. I much prefer to have a (very long distance) relationship with the artists I invite onto my shelves. Having spent no little time lusting after a pristine copy of the County Five's Psychotic Reaction LP, for which I finally spent $20 back in 1979 (that's $56.61 in today's dollars; a quick check of eBay suggests you can buy a copy for $24.95-$149.99); having listened over and over again to my best friend's copy of Paper Lace's LP (the one with "The Night Chicago Died") during junior high; having my very own copy of Sammy Johns' Chevy Van LP and the album on which Dean Friedman recorded "Ariel," I have learned the painful lesson that sometimes a fluke hit is nothing more than a fluke. Having been to see no small number of artists on the strength of one radio hit — Sue Saad and the Next come to mind, though I can't say exactly why, except that the disappointment resonates even today — I wish no longer to have my time wasted by such foolishness.

This is why, in the end, the Sonics are a much more durable, influential, and important band than the Count Five, who were, that LP reveals, were nothing more than a bad Yardbirds knock-off. It's why I still occasionally seek out Jonathan Edwards albums, having learned from his self-titled debut that he was capable of rather more than "Sunshine." It's why I remember fondly seeing the Troggs at the Showbox in the late '70s (three of four original members and, as Cheeseman pointed out, deep scars in the backs of their guitars from those huge belt buckles) and discovering that they were really a glorious, robust rock band. (They encored with "Wild Thing" three times, apparently shocked that our punk audience wanted to hear more and having prepared no further songs. I like to think that we stood and applauded, even with the lights on, because they were wonderful and so clearly needed our love and validation.)

A good single should be an entry point to a broader career, to an artist and an artistic vision worth exploring. And, surely it doesn't need saying, but great songs are not necessarily singles. Witness, for example, Gillian Welch's tour de force, "I Dream A Highway."

Peter is, of course, right about many things beyond our shared admiration for Welch's song.

Album sequencing matters a great deal, and is one of my several reservations about the whole downloading debacle. This is why, when Steve Earle wrestled control of his comeback album Train A Comin' from Winter Harvest and restored his sequencing for the album for its reissue on his label, I tossed the original. I trust that Steve knows best how to present his songs. And he does. (And I mean no disrespect to the folks who worked at Winter Harvest. They did a good thing.)

And, as Peter writes, far too many CDs take advantage of the disc's length to release songs nobody needs to hear. But at that point we diverge. I don't take that to suggest that the album as an artistic concept needs to be retired. The problem is really a failure in editing. We are watching the label system crumble, and though I am quite certain some large business entities will survive and prove every bit as odious, I fully understand why musicians wish to be free of those shackles. On the other hand, good producers and A&R people were once capable of forcing artists to rewrite songs that weren't good enough, or to pick new songs. Those filters seem largely to be absent today, and a great deal of listening time is wasted because of that.

One of the more unnerving aspects of writing this blog, for me, is that nobody edits it. Ordinarily Peter watches my back (and I watch his), and most of the big pieces I have written over the last decade have also been read and commented on by my friend and colleague Bill Friskics-Warren, and frequently by my wife. They keep me from saying too many stupid things, they force me to clarify arguments which seem clear to me, but become murky on the page. They call me on my bs, and I need that. Constantly. We all do. Here I work without a safety net, and it is not comfortable. (Which is one of the reasons I try, and I am grateful for your patience as a reader.)

I'm not a musician, not a songwriter, none of that. But all creative people need editors, and musicians — more than most, I suspect — need somebody who is on their side and yet capable of compelling them to do better work. Proponents of the new technology trumpet the removal of filters and the purity of artistic vision possible in this marketplace. Nonsense. Music is a collaborative art, as is filmmaking. And better work comes of that clash of wills (as we reveal six times a year in these pages!). Few artists really thrive without filters, and we can all name a dozen bands that went to hell when the principal songwriter quit taking advice from his or her mates and producers.

Peter argues that there now is a relatively small pool of artists who deserve to make albums. It is certainly true that too many people make albums which reveal they are far from ready to play on the national stage, and my floor is cluttered with them. But among those with real talent, those artists really deserve the advice and counsel of people who can take their talent and help them shape it. And that seems largely absent.

More music in the marketplace isn't better. More GOOD music is better.

And then there are the Avett Brothers, about whom I am of several minds. I fear they are the Old 97s of the new string band set, in that they periodically seem capable of writing durable and revealing songs, but too often are content to run roughshod over them in the frenzy of performance, and even in the studio. Peter hears growth on their new record, and salutes the presence of an outside producer. I wonder if perhaps it is too late, if they have been allowed to shape themselves without intrusion for too long. And I recommend this morning's happy sounds of the Undertones, masters of the fast and furious two-minute pop-punk song, to all.

And, yeah, I'm listening to the greatest hits disc Ryko put out in 1994 because everything else I have is on vinyl. And the second half of the disc isn't nearly as good as the first. So it goes, eh?

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April 26, 2007

The real unfairness of things

Picking up ice cream this morning for Maggie's pre-school birthday party, I ran onto a help-wanted sign at Kroger's which employed language I have seen around town before, but which finally translated today: "Help wanted, must be available all hours." Those are not the precise words, but that's the sense of it.

Near as I can tell, what that says is, "Don't apply if you have children. Or if you're a student." We're not talking about jobs which will pay enough to support a family, we're talking about the kinds of jobs spouses get (or take on as second jobs) to help support a family. And what this asserts is the employer's right to oblige staff to work any irregular hours which suit the needs of the moment, with no regard to family (or health) obligations.

I don't mean to single Kroger out here because I've seen similar language, now that I think about it, at WalMart and at the Dollar Store (neither of which I frequent commonly, but Morehead is a small town and sometimes one must).

Doubtless to some extent this comparatively new policy reflects staffing concerns handed down from management tired of adjusting to the complicated lives of single parents and such. But I suspect that it is also a corporate gimmick designed to reduce health care costs, for if only the single, childless, or retired work there, the company's benefits obligations will doubtless be reduced substantially.

This is the same kind of not terribly subtle coded language we have heard as the University of Kentucky wrestles with the decision to extend domestic partner benefits to its staff. Earlier this week the board of regents voted in favor of those benefits, but, because Kentucky passed a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, a legal challenge is anticipated. Leaving off the obvious fact that partner benefits apply equally to gay and straight living arrangements (and estimates which suggest the cost to the university is negligible in the scheme of things), does anybody really doubt that opponents of domestic partner benefits seek to discourage the hiring and retention of gay faculty?

As Billy Joe Shaver said to me some years back, "I hate people who whisper."

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April 24, 2007

The unfairness of things (7): Sometymes Why

This occasional series of digressions ordinarily focuses on releases which, for any number of reasons, are too peripheral or too eccentric or just too out of luck to be reviewed in the pages of No Depression. In the case of Sometymes Why, the album came out two years ago and only ended up in my hands a couple months back. They've changed the spelling of the name to accommodate a pre-existing ensemble; the lovely letterpress cover (courtesy Portland's Stumptown shop) reads Sometimes Why, but that's not the point.

The point is that this is a wonderfully casual collaboration between Kristin Andreassen (principally a member of Uncle Earl), Ruth Ungar (mostly a Mammal), and Aoife O'Donovan (lead singer of Crooked Still). According to Amazon it's expensively out of print; according to the band's website, they're on tour in Ireland next month, and they'll all be around Merlefest (the MySpace blog promises they'll pull something together there, and I'm going to hope that Peter and Lisa manage to lure them to play at the ND booth).

The unfairness, in this case, has to do with the abundance of talent on display here and in their primary enterprises. This little knock-off of an album is filled with gentle charms, and the warmth of singers who really enjoy singing together. The show-stopper, I suppose, is "Too Repressed," a wonderfully direct and ribald commentary on...OK, it's about sex (or, rather, the unfulfilled need for sex)...but beyond the disarming frankness of the lyrics is a knowing and very smart song which captures something of the conundrum I suspect young women face today. It is a funny song to hear as a middle-aged man with a four-year-old daughter, and I have puzzled some over how I would feel if and when Maggie voices these sentiments. Anything I might type in this sentence would (a) be wrong and (b) prove to be a sentiment I might be incapable of living up to.

All that said, Somytimes Why is a charming record, both light ("I'm Trying To Remember What City I Know You From") and beautiful ("Hush Child"), and these are three of the best voices you'll hear together (or apart). Peter e-mailed late last night to suggest I take a listen (online; the horrors!) to Tao Rodriguez-Seeger's side venture, The Anarchist Orchestra. He, too, is a Mammal, and I am struck by how incredibly vibrant this whole world of string-band/bluegrass/acoustic musicians is right now. By how much good music they make, by how easily they move from setting to setting. By how lucky we are to enjoy this renaissance.

Nothing unfair about that, eh?

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April 19, 2007

Why the Post Office matters to small publishers: a request for action

A slightly different version of this note went to our listserve yesterday. Ordinarily I tend to leave blogs up a couple days, but in this particular case time is of the essence.

A couple days ago Peter received, through the usual miracle of internet forwarding, a note from Bob McChesney about proposed postal rate increases — almost certainly the driest possible subject I will ever trouble you with. McChesney is now a member of the Department of Communications at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus. He was once, as it happens, the original publisher of The Rocket, the Seattle monthly where I got my start, though I don’t believe we ever met.

As The Rocket was, No Depression is a small, independently published magazine given to printing articles and points of view which might otherwise not be heard. The subject of Bob’s letter strikes at the heart of our business. And, in my opinion, at the heart of our democratic process, for if the free press is tilted in favor only of the largest and most wealthy publishers, we’re in all kinds of trouble.

I have taken the minor liberty of trimming the introduction to his note, which follows:

"There is a major crisis in our media taking place right now; it is getting almost no attention and unless we act very soon the consequences for our society could well be disastrous. And it will only take place because it is being done without any public awareness or participation; it goes directly against the very foundations of freedom of the press in the entirety of American history.

"The U.S. Post Office is in the process of implementing a radical reformulation of its rates for magazines, such that smaller periodicals will be hit with a much much larger increase than the largest magazines.

"Because the Post Office is a monopoly, and because magazines must use it, the postal rates always have been skewed to make it cheaper for smaller publications to get launched and to survive. The whole idea has been to use the postal rates to keep publishing as competitive and wide open as possible. This bedrock principle was put in place by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. They considered it mandatory to create the press system, the Fourth Estate necessary for self-government.

"It was postal policy that converted the free press clause in the First Amendment from an abstract principle into a living breathing reality for Americans. And it has served that role throughout our history.

"What the Post Office is now proposing goes directly against 215 years of postal policy. The Post Office is in the process of implementing a radical reformulation of its mailing rates for magazines. Under the plan, smaller periodicals will be hit with a much larger increase than the big magazines, as much as 30 percent. Some of the largest circulation magazines will face hikes of less than 10 percent.

"The new rates, which go into effect on July 15, were developed with no public involvement or congressional oversight, and the increased costs could damage hundreds, even thousands, of smaller publications, possibly putting many out of business. This includes nearly every political journal in the nation. These are the magazines that often provide the most original journalism and analysis. These are the magazines that provide much of the content on Common Dreams. We desperately need them.

"What the Post Office is planning to do now, in the dark of night, is implement a rate structure that gives the best prices to the biggest publishers, hence letting them lock in their market position and lessen the threat of any new competition. The new rates could make it almost impossible to launch a new magazine, unless it is spawned by a huge conglomerate.

"Not surprisingly, the new scheme was drafted by Time Warner, the largest magazine publisher in the nation. All evidence available suggests the bureaucrats responsible have never considered the implications of their draconian reforms for small and independent publishers, or for citizens who depend upon a free press.

"The corruption and sleaziness of this process is difficult to exaggerate. As one lawyer who works for a large magazine publisher admits, 'It takes a publishing company several hundred thousand dollars to even participate in these rate cases. Some large corporations spend millions to influence these rates.' Little guys, and the general public who depend upon these magazines, are not at the table when the deal is being made.

"The genius of the postal rate structure over the past 215 years was that it did not favor a particular viewpoint; it simply made it easier for smaller magazines to be launched and to survive. That is why the publications opposing the secretive Post Office rate hikes cross the political spectrum. This is not a left-wing issue or a right-wing issue, it is a democracy issue. And it is about having competitive media markets that benefit all Americans. This reform will have disastrous effects for all small and mid-sized publications, be they on politics, music, sports or gardening.

"This process was conducted with such little publicity and pitched only at the dominant players that we only learned about it a few weeks ago and it is very late in the game. But there is something you can do. Please go to www.stoppostalratehikes.com and sign the letter to the Postal Board protesting the new rate system and demanding a congressional hearing before any radical changes are made. The deadline for comments is April 23.

"We do not have a moment to lose. If everyone who reads this email responds at www.stoppostalratehikes.com, and then sends it along to their friends urging them to do the same, we can win. If there is one thing we have learned at Free Press over the past few years, it is that if enough people raise hell, we can force politicians to do the right thing. This is a time for serious hell-raising.

"From the bottom of my heart, thanks.

Bob
Robert W. McChesney
www.mediaproblem.org
www.freepress.net
Department of Communication
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"

We, too, thank you for your prompt attention.

Grant, for Peter and Kyla
No Depression magazine

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April 18, 2007

The unfairness of things (6): The banjo monologues

Note: This rhapsody, courtesy a new album of banjo songs and stories by Joel Mabus, revives a periodic effort to use this space to write about music which won't find its way into the confined spaces of our print edition.

Truth is, I don't know from Joel Mabus, and if his name seemed familiar when I opened his padded envelope it's probably because his name sounds something like that of classic country guitarist Joe Maphis. The Banjo Monologues, on Fossil Records is, according to Mr. Mabus' website, his 18th recorded offering.

I have a soft spot for the banjo, in no small part because there was one in the house when I was growing up. As the story went, though I probably have the details scrambled, my father's mother ran a boarding house during the Depression. One of her tenants had a banjo which fascinated father, who spent a lot of his youth listening to country and big band music on Los Angeles radio. Anyhow, this fellow hit the road and left the banjo to dad because dad wanted it and it was a bit heavy to carry wherever he was going. Far as he remembers, dad never really played the thing, but when his mother died (I can't call her grandma because she died when I was three or four and declined the honor of meeting either of her grandsons) it came up to Seattle from Glendale with the piano and some of her furniture and a rum bottle that supposedly came over on the Mayflower.

One of my earliest memories as a little boy is sitting in our second living room, in Wedgewood, while my mother ironed and listened to music on the Fischer Hi-Fi. One of those days the Seattle earthquake hit and spilled tropical fish on the floor, and I remember announcing at roughly that moment -- moved by a Mozart quartet, I think -- that I wished to be a concert violinist. That sentenced me to six years of piano lessons (beginning in first grade). Most of those days I remember folk music of the kind popular in Berkeley in the 1950s, which is why I keep going on about Billy Faier, and that's what Mr. Mabus's album reminds me of. It is the sound of a man comfortable with himself and his instrument and his absent audience. It's a talkative record, and I wonder if maybe little Maggie will like it later today.

Come sixth grade Deliverance was a hit movie and "Dueling Banjos" was on Top-40 radio. I was surprised to read in Joe Boyd's autobiography that he had produced that track, and cared so little for it. Later, I accidentally pissed off T Bone Burnett by comparing O Brother to "Dueling Banjos," though I still think I was right and he couldn't have understood how much "Dueling Banjos" meant to me though I presume it still has a pejorative stain in the bluegrass world.

Mom and dad had the banjo fixed up, which I suspect was no small undertaking. And the fellow who fixed it -- Mr. Bakovich, though that's probably not right -- taught me for a while. I remember playing "Salty Dog" that first lesson, and not much else. One of the problems with me playing banjo -- and piano, and anything else -- is that I have no rhythm. Or a short attention span to rhythm. Or I play to a different drummer. I've always said that because I could practice the banjo upstairs, where I was more easily heard, I was allowed finally to quit the piano because my lack of talent was now painfully manifest. Mom may also have been tired of taking me to classes three days a week, what with both instruments.

I am deeply grateful for that, both for the playing (six years of Pace Method didn't teach me piano, but it gave me enough theory to write for Guitar World when I needed the money and the ink; and when I came to typing I did it well, and quickly) and for the license to stop. If you were to meet me today I would shake your hand gingerly, for I also love basketball and I have, these 40-odd years, broken or dislocated every finger on both hands (save my thumbs) at least once playing that game. I am 5'9" tall and near-sighted. I had a little quickness and stubbornness, the latter of which I have retained, but no especial aptitude for the game. And yet I loved to play, and would still if it were possible, if my little finger didn't hurt every cold morning, if my middle finger were a little straighter, if my knees didn't creak when I sat too still too long. If I had any wind.

Had I a modicum of talent with a basketball, I hesitate to imagine what I would have given up to chase that dream. Everything, I think. Had I a modicum of talent with a musical instrument, I fear to guess what I might have given up to chase that dream, for I can imagine no greater joy -- no more perfect communication -- than singing. And not even our four-year-old can bear my singing.

But I lugged the banjo around the country with me anyhow, threatening to play slide, tuning it like a guitar so I could pick blues licks on it, tinkering late at night like Sherlock Holmes on his violin, only worse. It's an old five-string without that wooden resonator on the back, just a naked metal and skin affair that dug into the belly when you clutched it too tight. When I came to Nashville I asked around town and took it in to Grune's on lower Broadway, because I was told they were the most fair experts in the field. The gentleman looked over my banjo, and told me it had been built in 1860, that it wasn't especially valuable (but worth enough that it would've paid my rent for a month, which at that moment was a comfort), but that they'd buy or sell it if I wished. I didn't wish, and took it back to my apartment over the garage.

A few years later, married and somewhat more stable financially, I had occasion to borrow some musical equipment from a musician for a photo shoot. On an impulse, I took the banjo with me when I returned the gear. In the hands of somebody who had real talent, the poor thing sounded like a whole new instrument. It sounded musical. It sounded alive, in ways it never had nor would in my hands. I asked if they wanted it, and the answer was, maybe. I explained how I'd come by the instrument, mentioned the appraisal price, and asked that, if it had a new home, a donation be made to the W.O. Smith Music School in Nashville, which seeks to teach music to poor kids. A few weeks later I received a letter from W.O. Smith indicating that a donation had been made, and I felt the circle complete.

And so hearing Mr. Mabus pick and talk and sing was like running into an old friend. I used to hear Ed McCurdy sing "Three Nights Drunk" while mom ironed and still confuse "John Henry" with "John Hardy" when not paying close attention. And if you can listen to "The Uncloudy Day"/Leonard Lively and be unmoved, then, jack, you dead. Mabus writes on his website that "[h]e was born and raised in a working-class family in a modest Southern Illinois town, about 105 miles southeast of Mark Twain, 190 miles northwest of Bill Monroe, 110 miles southwest of Burl Ives and just over the river and up the hill from Scott Joplin." And that, plus a family history that might have come from one of Mike Perry's books, about covers it.

The weird thing is, little Maggie asked a couple days back if we had a banjo. But, then, she also has an imaginary pet tarantula.

Posted by Grant at 9:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

April 16, 2007

Iraq and the problem of not watching

Each day the local newspaper headlines more carnage in Iraq at the same time Administration spokespeople argue that if we stay the course we will ultimately succeed — whatever the definition of success may now be — in Iraq. And I turn the page, hopeless, unwilling and unable to read past the headlines. In part because there is so much spin going on that it's impossible to penetrate the fog of this particular war. Mostly because the daily headlines inure one to the hopelessness of the thing.

Meanwhile the Democrats in Congress play their new game, this public relations stunt of tying funding to continue military operations to a pull-out date. It's a stunt, nothing more than a late pretense of doing their job, because they can't override a Bush veto, and because it's not clear (at least not to me) that Congress has the Constitutional authority to do much of anything at this juncture, short of repealing the President's authorization to go to war, which, I believe, is without precedent. So maybe a stunt is all they can manage, but it's far too little too late.

The problem is, the Democrats don't have the moral authority to do much of anything, either. We elect leaders to lead, even when they're not in power. And the Democrats, as the loyal opposition, have done little or no leading throughout this debacle. So now, as the toll rises and public opinion shifts, their sudden resolute stand plays like politics, and nothing more.

We now know, to a fair certainty, that the Bush Administration sexed-up the intelligence (in the splendid British phrase, though there hardly seems any sex in this Administration) which was used to justify our invasion of Iraq. The Bush cadre now act as if those falsehoods are irrelevant, and accidental, when they are neither. When we now know that, rather than contest the merits of Ambassador Wilson's opinion piece that aspects of the intelligence were flawed, elements of the Administration chose to out his wife as a CIA operative.

We continue to operate in Iraq as if those blithe and demonstrably flawed assumptions were valid, and we continue to fail, just as logic argues is inevitable. More to the point, our Congressional leaders knew bloody well that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. They should have stood and made that point forcefully and repeatedly, rather than allowing the Administration to count on the inability of Americans (as Alan Jackson so poignantly noted) to distinguish between Iran and Iraq.

Obviously I have no experience of the Congressional oversight of U.S. intelligence operations, so it's hard to know whether Congress were willing or unwilling dupes in this process. But it seems to me that as soon as it was clear that our pretext for invasion was invalid -- and this was pretty clear pretty early on -- there should have been hearings, investigations, or at least a storm of loud and public opposition.

It is our tradition not to argue while our troops are in harm's way. I think that's a dangerous tradition, particularly when we are conducting combat operations built on sets of false projections and expectations.

But where was our Democratic Congressional leadership? Why did they lack the spine to stand up and call the White House to account, even if they lacked the votes to make it stick? Because they feared for their re-election prospects? Because public opinion tilted then to the war effort?

Fine. But that general (if not specific) unwillingness to stand and be counted in the beginning guts the moral imperative of their drive now to force withdrawal from Iraq. Nobody thinks they're taking the high road, nobody thinks they're making this public display of affection because it's the right thing to do. They're doing it because it's politically expedient. And that's a lousy reason.

They may be right. Reasonable people have argued that we would at least reduce tensions if we made clear a timetable for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq; that the ethnic partitioning is largely done. Of course then the Kurds have a de facto homeland, which further destabilizes Pakistan, and we know they have nukes. Not to mention the further bloodbath of unbridled ethnic cleansing. Not to mention the specter of another fundamentalist Islamic state rising from the ashes. And the Administration clearly wishes is to believe that if we don't provide Al Qaida sufficient blood in Iraq, where it's easily come by, they'll come looking for their fix on our shores once again. And not to forget the profits which accrue to all the contractors doing the work of war in Iraq.

I remember, during the Americana Music Association conference, walking past television sets broadcasting Colin Powell's speech to the United Nations outlining the case made by U.S. intelligence agencies for the invasion of Iraq. And I remember feeling helpless. Was Saddam Hussein really the only dictator in possession of weapons of mass destruction? Were these flimsy pieces of evidence -- trucks which were believed to be mobile labs, aluminum tubes which may have been used for missiles -- satellite photos being read correctly, or were they a chimera designed to suggest we had far more damning evidence that we were unable or unprepared to bring to the table. (And had anyone other than Colin Powell made the case, would we have accepted it?)

We are now all helpless. There is no way out. There is no way forward.

Next election, let's look for politicians who will, in the phrase, speak truth to power. But let's remember that we are the power. And let's remember that public officials need to know that they're being watched.

Posted by Grant at 9:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

April 13, 2007

The transition game: love and a 45

In the fall of 1989 the major labels announced that they would stop manufacturing and distributing seven-inch singles. At that moment in time the particularly unlovely and uncoveted cassingle outsold 45s by a 10:1 ratio. What followed for the next three or four years was a flood of weird and wonderful seven-inch singles, produced by every single band with an ounce of gumption in the United States (and well beyond, including, for a time, a most curious outpouring from a label based in Helsinki, Finland). It was overwhelming. It was great fun. Many were quite good, a few signaled the arrival of startlingly innovative new talent, and no small number of young and muscular designers, cartoonists, and illustrators, and designers got to display their wares. And, inevitably, much of the output was pure shite.

As it happened, I was fortunate enough to be writing a seven-inch column for the late and lamented Rocket magazine back in Seattle during that era. Toward the end of my run, I ran onto a particularly alluring debut single from a band called Whiskeytown, which is partly the reason that particular band ended up being profiled by David Menconi in the debut issue of No Depression.

Well. During the final stages of producing each issue of No Depression I run out of time to open the mail. One of the first cleansing rituals which follows is a half-day spent tearing envelopes and returning all those tubs to the long-suffering postal employees who lug them to our back door. Weeding through seven tubs of mail brought back the memory of all those singles (which still sit in boxes in the back room) because we are, presumably, once again, at the end of the life cycle of a recording format -- the CD, this time -- and all that excess manufacturing capacity is once again producing inexpensive product for independent artists.

That is sort of a good thing, and sometimes not. Too much of the music I receive these days really isn't ready for a national audience, and it frustrates me that the musicians involved can't hear the difference.

And, tangentially, I'm reminded that the majors promised us as they were phasing out vinyl that, once there were more CD manufacturing plants, the price of the compact disc would drop down to where LPs where. Which, of course...never happened (and they still wonder why it's tough to launch new artists).

Here's a second sign of the changing order: An increasing number of new titles arrive without specific release dates. Because we seek constantly to update our "Please Release Me" schedule of release dates, I pay attention to such things more than I once did. For a time I thought this was simply sloppy marketing, but at some point opening the mail a couple days back I realized it really signified the declining importance of brick and mortar retail. For I don't know how many decades albums were released on Tuesdays. Now they come out...when they come out. In June, say. Whenever the web designer uploads the files.

Now, I realize that no matter what I type here the future isn't going to bend to my whims. But I think the music industry is making a serious, perhaps terminal mistake by so fervently embracing the MP3 and its spawn. Let's start with the notion that this file format was originated by a bunch of kids who didn't want to pay for their music and who don't value the work which goes into making that music. (Must we really allow music to be made only by trust funders?) At the same time, the industry seems never to have understood that the baby boomers -- any mature audience -- really would buy music if somebody tried to market to them or even (gasp) designed a radio format that played new music they might respond to.

And then let's remember that, for the vast majority of the population, CDs and LPs (and even 45s) were impulse buys, were gifts for friends that were easy to pick out and easy to wrap. I am mindful of something a Music Row executive said a decade ago, that they were marketing music to the people who bought only three discs a year. I'm not defending that particular paradigm anymore now than I would have then, but it's a useful reminder. As my wife pointed out yesterday, the majority of books sold in the United States are not sold in bookstores. People bought CDs for any number of reasons, not the least being that the artist changed their perception of reality on the stage just before they walked over to the merch table. But they also bought them because they were right in front of their face and it seemed like a good idea at just that moment. Retail is now worried that the DVD will go the same way, because retail benefited from the foot traffic -- if not the sales -- racking music once brought.

Most people who bought music weren't serious fans. They owned a handful of CDs or LPs or eight-tracks. Every once in a while somebody gave them one, or they bought one, or something really struck their fancy and they actually walked into a record store. Do we REALLY believe those same consumers are going to spend hours trolling MySpace or Amazon or whatever site looking for a song they like? Remember that scene in High Fidelity when John Cusack looks around the store, puts on a CD he doesn't like but knows he can sell to everybody there? I'm quite certain there are very bright people figuring out how to do that online (maybe they have and I've noticed, which is quite likely), but it ain't the same.

Now, maybe being played on "Grey's Anatomy" is the new substitute for functional Top-40 radio. Maybe. But the numbers behind the Billboard charts suggest otherwise, for they suggest that, yes, for the moment indie rock is ascendant, but only because its fans are still buying music when nobody else really is. The general public seems to be voting with its feet, and they don't care about music. And the music industry hasn't given them a reason to care, unless voting for an "American Idol" counts, and I would submit that it does not. I would pray that it does not. If I prayed.

None of which, by the way, should be taken to suggest I wish to defend the standard recording contract major labels once offered, the closest thing to indentured servitude we've seen in this country since share cropping fell out of favor. There are good reasons to dislike the majors (just as there are good reasons minor league experience prepares baseball players to hate the owners).

Anyhow...one of the problems we critics now face is disposing of watermarked advance CDs. Typically we still receive final copies of the album, and more than a few times we choose not to retain any copy of the release. But you can't even give something to a friend with your name printed on it and a warning that if it is somehow uploaded evil will fall on your head with both hooves. Browsing through the gardening catalogues, we found a solution: Tie CDs to the fence to scare off the deer. Now, if the orchard didn't freeze to death this last week, our next challenge will be to keep the deer from eating every single piece of green on the trees. So I've ferried a stack of watermarked CDs out to my father-in-law, but he's reluctant to try it. Says he thinks the deer will be attracted by those shiny things. If we get them up, I'll take a picture and see (finally) about uploading images to this blog.

There's a message in there, somewhere. I think. And, incidentally, people still send the odd 45 my way. Always makes me smile.

But just now I'm thinking that the MP3 is the cassingle of our age.

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April 9, 2007

The decline of Dymo and other eccentricities

Please understand that, particularly at the end of producing an issue, there's little but unusually useless minutiae rattling around in my head. And I know nobody cares, really, I do. Anyhow. (It's called a rant, right? ) At some point last week I decided one of the features in next issue really needed its headline to be fashioned by a labelmaker. And, yes, I know there's a typeface made for the computer — I have it — which replicates that look. But it's not the same.

I mean, there are typewriter typefaces on the computer, but they're not the same either. So when you see something that looked like it came off a typewriter in our pages, it almost certainly DID come off a typewriter. I keep two in my office, and there's another one broken outside Maggie's bedroom reduced to its status as a decorative object until I can find time to try to fix it, but it's been broken for at least four years now. And I bought out an entire store's stock of Letraset, which factors into next issue, as well.

Just because we make these things on a computer is no reason to eliminate the illusion of handmade craft, right?

So...my labelmaker doesn't work. Hasn't worked for months. I fuss with it some, but I ran way behind this issue and my patience for balky mechanical objects isn't good under the best of circumstances, much as I like handmade things. And then I fuss with it some more. And then I give up and drive to WalMart because the only other option is to order one online and that just smacks of a kind of desperation that not even I am willing to give in to. Besides, I want it right now. It's my patriotic right.

The new labelmaker comes with a little bit of tape stuck out with its manufacturer's name — Dymo, they've been around since 1958, slightly longer than I have — neatly printed. But it's the wrong typeface! (And, again, I'm pretty sure you don't care but this just has to be written and done with.) These ideas get rooted, though, and so I brought it home and printed out a few words. Not only is it the wrong typeface, but the letter spacing is all wrong.

So I fussed with the old labelmaker again, finally got it to work. And the story got done.

It has been observed before that I do not handle change well.

This morning I had a look at Dymo's website, which has a succinct corporate history, a broad product line, and a small handful of these hand-press labelmakers still in production. Cheap plastic, of course. And they all have the new typeface on 'em.

I should probably get a life. Or, rather, I should probably attend to the life I have. I should certainly clean this office and put both the labelmakers and all the neat colored tape I got with the new one back in a box out of sight. Not that anybody would notice them amid the clutter. But still.

Posted by Grant at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

April 6, 2007

UK has a coach, apparently

My friend Hayseed, still in exile in upstate New York, from which base he and Jimmy Ryan have recorded at least half of the best album he's made so far, wrote early this morning to send news that the University of Kentucky would announce the hiring of Texas A&M coach Billy Gillespie to replace Tubby Smith at the helm of the men's basketball program.

All I know about Gillespie is what I read in the Lexington Herald: that he's 47, has a 100-58 head coaching record, that he's rebuilt two programs, that he's a divorced workaholic and a regular at the Kentucky Derby. He has signed — or will sign, if these reports are accurate — in time to enjoy the opening of Keeneland's spring meet, though I suspect he'll be a bit busy.

I am somehow reminded of Jimmy Johnson who, when he left the University of Miami for the NFL Dolphins in effect fired his wife of many years because he wasn't going to have time for her. One way to spin this is that the University of Kentucky has run off Tubby Smith in part because he was too loyal, even to the point of starting his son at point guard. And replaced him with a single-minded middle-aged guy with no life outside the gym.

Somehow I sense the second coming of Joe B. Hall. Who, I guess, won some. If that's the whole score. But what I keep coming back to is, how is the new guy better than the old guy? Time will tell, I suppose.

For a lot of my early days I was not unlike that new guy, the single-minded work freak. I still cringe at the memory of dumping a really terrific high school girlfriend at the end of summer because I needed to concentrate on debate. And it took me a long time to work into being family friendly. But if they were recruiting my kid, I can tell you where I'd want her to go. (The funny thing is, I was admitted to the University of Minnesota, but was unable to go.)

And now back to making a magazine. And watching Maggie run.

Still struggling with balance, eh?

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April 2, 2007

Prognostication and public humiliation

If I can manage to get enough work done -- we're in the throes of magazine production this week, and I've got some words which won't behave just now -- I'll watch the Florida-Ohio State game late tonight tonight. I just found my brackets (I do them in pencil) amid a folder of SXSW refuse. And, yes, I picked Florida to win -- still do. Of course, I had UCLA, Texas, and Tennessee in the final four, so...

It's hard to guess who I'll root for. Ohio State is a couple hours north, but I've still not been to Columbus and I've always picked Michigan in their ancient rivalry, though at this point I couldn't say why. Since I'm my father's son, doubtless I'll root for the underdogs. The real drama, at least for those of us in Kentucky, follows.

That's when Florida coach Billy Donovan finally answers his cell phone and tells the University of Kentucky that, no, he doesn't wish to be their basketball coach. No reason he should, that I can think of, not even money.

Truth to tell, it's hard to picture who should be the next coach. Peter repeated press rumblings in Austin during SXSW which suggest that Rick Barnes might be on much the same hot seat Tubby Smith was in Lexington, and that's the best name I can come up with so far. I'd be happy to see Mark Few leave Gonzaga, except I think it's good for the sport to have schools like Gonzaga succeed. And there's one more name, a wild card. Every time there's a story about the job, Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim is quoted. He's quite quotable, and had the best line about Tubby leaving ("I didn't know he was that smart"). But I wonder if he doth protest too much?

Here are my criteria: Whomever they hire has to have been to the Final Four at least as a senior assistant coach; he has to be able to recruit nationally; he has to have a healthy ego and a measured sense of self; and he better bring players, because the cupboard might well be empty when the dust settles. Is there a quality center or power forward even on the roster now?

One other prognostication came with me from Austin. I rarely have time to watch the Sunday chat shows, often because I'm in here typing. But before catching a plane home a couple weeks back, I happened to see some of our national political theater. And I think I saw the next Democratic Party vice-presidential nominee: Joe Sestak, a retired admiral who served during the early stages of this war, knows more than a little about terrorism, and came home a critic of the present enterprise. He is now a first-term representative from the 7th in Pennsylvania.

There was something...about watching Tom DeLay, the former exterminator from Texas, argue military strategy with Admiral Sestak, who is only the second Democrat elected to Congress from that district since the Civil War. He's also a Roman Catholic, and would give gravitas and balance to any of the leading candidates. I'm just sayin'...

Posted by Grant at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)