Estate of the music

This note is a somewhat a bit off my current path. It is perhaps a rant of sorts but, I have a strong feeling about the subject so therefore I must write something. If you like Rebbeca Black, you might as well stop reading this now.

A little teenager armed with auto-tune equipment and some of daddy's money decides to record her own song and make a video about it. Being the dad of two daughters that at one point or another wanted to become singing stars, I can understand the kid's desire to do what she did. I do not understand however, the fascination that people have towards the bad and the mediocre. This girl supposedly has recorded the worst song ever written by anyone but, (and this one's a big BUT), more than 33 million people have seen her video on You Tube and she has already made around $25,000.00 on iTunes downloads. How low can we go as a society?

Meantime, there are many talented artists (or at least clever artists) with pretty good music that struggle with this concept. I don't even think she did it originally for the money! This leaves me with no sound excuse as to why her little song has sold like gangbusters and my CDs haven't sold enough copies to even cover their costs.

I try to compare, she has a video and I'm still slowly working on mine (I don't have a rich father to pay for the bloody thing). She has auto-tune and my music so far has no vocals (salvo for one song with minimal vocals). She looks better than me (but you don't know that, mainly because I don't have a video with a bunch of my friends riding on a car). I could be the best looking thing that no one has ever seen, (not).

I have two of the biggest talents in progressive rock (Bill Bruford and John Goodsall) performing on my album and she has some dude on a car raping to her song. I'm not only on iTunes but Amazon, Spotify, CD Universe, CDBaby, Napster, etc., she apparently doesn't need that many outlets. I'm old enough to be her dad and have had enough time for her to have much older siblings but she couldn't be my daughter and needless to say, anything else for that matter.

So what gives? The listeners. They are the ones driving this whole thing. The days of loving music for music's sake are long gone. My whole music genre (progressive rock), is stagnant in growth and only adored by those who were there when it all unfolded, thirty-odd years ago. One look at a prog-rock concert today and you know where we stand. A sea of grey and shiny heads, faded concert shirts older than some grown people (don't fret about it, I count myself in this group). Girls still dancing to music never meant for dance. Cute in the seventies when they where nineteen and twenty year old. Not so cute today.

Today is different, today is not the same (Peter Gabriel's quote for all of us who still remember it). Today's young people have the attention span of a fly on speed. Their music comes and goes in a flash and without any of us noticing it. Kid's today don't know who The Who is and worst, they don't care. "Tommy? Tommy who?" That's right kid.

It all makes for a sad estate of the music. Good music still gets out these days. But those making it find it much harder to squeeze a living out of it. Can't see Chris Squire being carried out to the stage in a giant egg like Lady Gaga did at the Oscars. Yet, at the same time I find lots of resistance from prog-rock's fans. For starters, they are not that different from the kids when it comes to paying for music. Basically, no one likes to pay for music anymore. It makes it difficult because there are many bands that need the income. If anything, just to keep making music. Take the band YES for example, many fans have gone into bashing the band for not including Jon Anderson these days. To me, it's all about the music and not so much about who is or who isn't in the band anymore. Sure, it would be ideal for all the favourite members to be included but, if that's not possible, then I'll take any replacement that doesn't ruin the music. I've seen YES more than any other band, nine or ten times. I last saw them earlier this year and it was one of the best times I have ever heard the band play. The music was just spot-on but that didn't seem to matter to those who just wanted to see Jon Anderson at the front of it all. In a way it is somewhat sad. Like I said many a time, some YES is better than no YES and I'm more than willing to let the latest line-up carry on the way they have been. Seriously, how many more years until these fine music legends actually hang their hats? My guess is sooner than later so I want to enjoy it for as long as I can. With or without Jon (no hate mail please).

When my first CD came out, (Plays Genesis and Other Original Stuff), fans either loved it or hated it. not much in between. For a whilst I wondered why. I couldn't figure out where I went wrong. Most critics liked it, it got good reviews in Italy and in the UK. I got many e-mails from fans who liked it. Steve Hackett himself was very complementary and to this day we correspond with each other through e-mails. So, where did I go wrong? The answer is nowhere. I didn't have to "go wrong". I was walking through sacred ground (sort of speak) and that was reason enough to be ostracised by many. Somewhere along the lines it stopped being about the music of Genesis and more about the fans' perception of the band's members. Not being a band member makes me an outsider so therefore, I'm in the wrong. (But hey, my name is on one of their records! Never mind that it was for photography and not for music).

I have being accused of trying to turn a quick profit on someone else's talent. Never mind that we are two years down this road and I'm still don't have a cent to show for profits. What about all the symphony orchestras around the world. Are they trying to make a quick dollar on Bethoven's coat tails? How about the music? Why not giving the thing a chance before making a pre-conceded judgement on it?

My first CD was half Genesis songs and half original songs but many people never took the time to check it all out. My second CD is two thirds original material with the exception of one Genesis song which was carry-over material from the previous album. For my second CD I went out of my element and utilised John Goodsall (Brand X) for the guitars and drum tracks by Bill Bruford (YES, King Crimson, Earthworks). The material is different but the few reviews that I have seen are very favourable. So, why isn't it flying off the shelfs? To me, it is not a matter of having something "fly" off the shelf. It is more about doing the sort of music that I would love to hear as a fan. It is about moving forward musically and taking a few friends along. It is about sharing the result with people of similar taste. And yes, it is about making at least enough money to cover the expenses. That's all I want from it. To cover my cost so that I can do more and share more with the people that love the same music I do.

One way or another I'll be making more music. It is something I enjoy doing. I also enjoy having well-respected musicians play on my records and I am working towards continuing that. My integrity as an artist won't let me do a song like Rebbeca Black's and my looks won't let me do a video like her neither. $25,000.00 is a lot of money made by a single song coming from an unknown. I could easily use a lot less than that in order to keep going.

I just keep wondering....