Wednesday, October 1, 2003

1973 2:04:15 PM    comment []; A 1993 photo: riding my brother's hog This photo was taken in Santa Barbara during the recording sessions for "The Hours between Night + Day". It accompanied an interview in a German magazine. 1:25:16 PM    comment []; from an interview with the Pittsburgh Tribune What is the difference between listening to a recording at home and going to a concert? About the same as between doing Yoga at home or with a number of other people at a Yoga studio...going to a concert is a communal experience and being in close proximity with one or two thousand people changes your experience of the music just as much as the mere presence of the audience changes the performance by the musicians. Just as we have discovered that the presence of the scientist's watchful eye might change the outcome of some experiments, the presence of other people, engaged in the same activity will change what you hear and how you hear it....and, how many great and worthwhile experiences with crowds do most people have? 12:04:14 PM    comment []; Universal Walmart A few rambling statements from a conversation with Jon Gagan over breakfast this morning: 1. By lowering their CD prices to below $10 Universal is becoming the Walmart of music and will destroy a few independent labels in the process. Do you want big business to control your music as well? 2. Selling music hat cheaply can only work if the artist/music is mass-advertised, i.e. VH1, MTV, Radio support. Making a record is expensive and yes, you can get a couple of samplers and a rap-microphone and make an album for a couple of thousand dollars....but extend the lines - if we don't support musicians, eventually we will run out of samples to use...Do the math: a good recording costs a minimum of 20 grand to make, although the average is more like 50 to 200 grand, and to that you have to add a photo session and an album cover design...For a label hoping to sell several million records it is easy to pay the money for listening booths at Tower or Virgin stores (about $5,000 per week or month, I forget...), from $100,000 to millions for a video, several thousand dollars to an independent radio promoter, several thousand dollars to a publicist etc.....just so the music is heard. A small independent label/artist can not afford that kind of expense, nor would it work for him/her if his music didn't have mass appeal. 3. Classical music has to be supported by large donations, because it is very expensive to have an orchestra rehearse and perform a piece live. New recordings of classical music are becoming more rare as the recording costs escalate. One million dollars is not an unusual budget for a classical orchestra recording. Will this happen to Jazz as well? What about World music? 4. Certain pop music is only in the now, and worthless and forgotten tomorrow. That stuff shouldn't even be on a CD...it should be downloaded automatically from the vending machine to your mp3 player when you buy a can of coke, or be free with a subscription to Teen magazine...Only once in while does great music happen to be pop music...the Beatles, the Stones, Nirvana. I just hope that people don't expect all CDs to cost less than $10, because that will be the end for many.....I would certainly stop making albums if my CDs had to be made on a smaller budget in order to make enough money. What are fifteen bucks worth in this economy....you have the pick between taking a date to a movie once or a piece of music that could entertain you for years to come...actually taking somebody to a movie costs you more likely ove 20 bucks...$7 per ticket plus pop corn and a soda... 5. A sad fact is that the second coming of Miles Davis could be happening right now - and how would you know? There is no Jazz radio to speak of, certainly no Jazz on TV and what there is is controlled by Wynton Marsalis... 6. If we don't support music education in our schools and we don't support musicians then eventually there won't be a lot of musicians - that's simple logic. And there will be a lot more crime because kids who used to become drummers are becoming criminals instead ; ) (No, I don't need comments about comparing drummers and criminals...it's a joke - although a drummer once admitted as much to me...) 7. I am hoping that we will get some cooler pop music sometime soon and I am hoping that I can recognize it as great pop music, i.e. I am not too old to jump on a pop wagon...Hm, have you watched that making of the new Limp Bizkit album "reality TV" bit on MTV...that was the saddest bit of TV ever and yes, you can be a billionaire and be a sad figure in my book...Is this post-modernism at its finest? He is one of us! Yes, he can't sing and he can barely talk but that's what makes it great. He proves that we are all great... 8. Jon watched an Alison Krause performance with Jerry Douglas on slide guitar on CMT last night. How come you were watching the Country Music channel, I asked. I was just channel surfing, but their performance was just so amazing, he answered. It was obviously live and yet it was "recording-perfect", amazing musicianship. Hm, it is funny that in some areas of country music you find the strongest musician ship. Rock guitar players are a dime a dozen, almost interchangeable, but guys like Jerry Douglas are very special.... 9. What does it mean that PBS is the only channel on my satellite that I cannot get a clear reception of... Maybe it was the Destin Diner's coffee...or maybe having a couple of days off wasn't such a good idea...I am looking forward to playing in Tampa tomorrow night!!! 11:26:21 AM    comment [];

© Copyright 2003 Ottmar Liebert. Last update: 11/1/03; 9:39:06 AM.