Yay!!!

We did it Anna and I  performed at Mevio Underground.

With only one meeting and a few hours of practice we did it. Micheal Butler and his production crew are hilarious, and gave us the five star treatment.

Our video should go up this Wed. which I will ink to then. For now here are some pictures I took while on set.

Buy it! Yes. Do it!

The new album Incredabad by the Lonley Island crew.

This album is littered with gems and has the likes of E-40, Julian Casablancas from The Strokes,  Nora Jones, and Jack Black.

From a musicians standpoint the album is really good and could of probably held up to “Real Music” with few tweaks to the lyrics and arrangement to get rid of some of the comic timing.

So yes buy it.

The article The Creative Economy by The Huffington Post talks about the UK and the US leading the world in the creative economy. I have operated my career in music off of the premise that creativity cannot be outsourced.

The article states that in the UK there is a forum called c&binet that will take place in Oct 2009. Oct 2009!?! What the… Why so long? Well because big ships turn slowly. Not only do they turn slowly they try to destroy all the dinghies that changed course long ago. For example the music, TV, and movie industries with digital downloads. The US and fiber Internet, or cell phone service technologies.

Another point of contention I have with this article is the fact that they are “trying to protect the creator.” Which sounds good but sometimes “trying to protect the creator” is a clever disguise for trying to protect windfall profits for the corporations that have held the Creative Economy captive since the advent of film and recorded music. Remember as creators we don’t need to make millions, we just have to make enough money to live securely doing what we love.

I like the topic and some points of the article and believe it is a good step in the right direction, but we must all remember that big ships turn slowly and hate all those who veer off course.

I am a little late on this one, but this video is hilarious and the rapping is good.

ENJOY!!!

Tools are Man’s greatest accomplishment. Though there are a few animals that use tools (monkeys, ants, beavers, ect.) We humans by far have the best and most toys.

In the five years I have been professionally writing music, I have found that the tools make the song. I understand that one can write a great song with a tape recorder and some voices, but that is all you get is a great song with voices on a tape recorder. I have gotten songs ideas on a piano that I could would never write on guitar, sequencer, or keyboard for that matter.

Once you become intimately familiar with an instrument or tool and know all of it’s nuances you can really make it sing like no other. Well here it is the next tool I want to become intimately familiar with…

This video is posted by the The ECC

A few months ago my friend Maryanne told me that one of my songs (“That Side of My Bed“) had a “Moldy Peaches” like quality. Though I had heard of them, I did not know enough about them, so I investigated further. That’s when I was turned on to Kimya Dawson.  Ever since then I have been in love with Kimya Dawson, she blends a childlike vocal style with intense personal lyrics that parallel everyday life.

On Dec 4th she released this video for the song “I Like Giants”

Here are some other of her videos for you viewing pleasure.

While I was Economics student at UCSC (I was also a electronic music student too), I learned one thing over and over and over again. It all comes down to supply and demand. Everything! Well almost everything but for all intensive purposes, Everything!

So why must music follow a different model?

“Wait how does music follow a different model?” you ask.

Well, with the advent of downloading music and digital copies the supply of music in that form is endless, effectively bringing the price down to zero.

“But a label or Artist might need to recoup costs (Prodution, Hosting, A&R, Office…), where will that come from?”

Well from things that are in low supply and high demand like shows (low supply), licensing (high demand), merchandising (low supply), and yes even CD’s (low supply). There will always be people that want a CD just like there are people that still want vinyl. They want the smell of the CD when it is first opened, they want to flip though the liner notes for any Easter Eggs an artist might have put in it, they want the quality of a CD. Only now all those of us that only want the music wont have to pay for a CD. Just like we don’t have to pay for maps, encyclopedias, and phone books.

I have been selling my music to videogame industry for 5 years now. I am willing sell it to them for three reasons, they make money off my music, I love making music for games, and I have learned a lot about music from writing music for games.  This has allowed me to produce my own music which for now has low demand and high supply, and low cost. This brings me to my last point. Making music for money has taught me one thing quality does not come cheap. In fact good producers, mixers, masterers, enginners, graphic artist are expensive, because they are in demand. Worry not humble artist good quality music made by you and these folks will always be in demand.

In closing, I promise not to force you to buy somthing you don’t wanna pay for if I have a lot of it. But in return you must promise not hord it or sell it. But if you do want to sell it contact me we can work somthing out.

Every one must check out Amy Obenski.

Amy Obenski

Her new album drops on Dec 13th at the Cayuga Vault.

You can find her music on Last.fm and MySpace and Facebook.

My favorite song of Amy’s “Carousel” was featured on Grey’s Anatomy.