By the way...

I don't want to give the impression that I wholeheartedly support the music industry just because I don't like the idea that recorded music should be free. Having worked in the industry I can appreciate what they do, but I also see just how badly they have fucked this whole thing up. They share a lot of blame for creating the current fiasco.

1. Prices got out of hand. I remember when CDs first came out, and the industry blamed the high price on lack of manufacturing facilities and high reject rates. This would cease to be a problem in a few years, and then we could expect CDs to gain a price parity with LPs and cassettes. It never happened. They phased out the LP, and jacked up the price of cassettes, and the CD never came down, it just went up.

2. They changed the way they had been doing business. In the glory days, artists were signed thinking long term for a long career. They were nurtured along even if their first few albums didn't sell as hoped. Eventually, this shifted to a "gimme a hit now" mentality, and hits were more important than developing an artist's career. I imagine they made more money this way, but what happened is that marketing became more important than the music, and artists became disposable. The quality of pop music started going downhill.

3. They got too big. When giant corporations bought up the record companies, everything changed. Gone were the days when one person with ears could commit hundreds of thousands of dollars to take a chance on an artist. People who had no experience with records were in charge, and calling the shots. What did Sony know about making music when they bought Columbia Records? Universal made movies and TV, OK, at least that's entertainment, but Motown sure ain't what it used to be.

4. They seriously failed at the internet. If they were going to resort to suing individual downloaders, they should have done it sooner, and made it an all out war. It was too little, and too late, and now everyone refers to it as "suing their own customers." That's absurd in itself, someone caught stealing a physical object in a store is not a customer, he is a thief. They took down napster, but didn't come up with an option for consumers to easily and legally buy music online. It took Apple to come up with that with iTunes, and now the labels are bitching that they don't get to set their own prices anymore. Still, here we are in late 2007, and the majors have come up with bupkis to compete, and it's too late anyway, because no one even wants to pay .99 for a tune anymore when it can be had easily for free.

5. DRM is and was a total failure, a waste of everyone's time, and garnered even more resentment towards the labels. I don't believe in crippling the product, and I don't want some DRM scheme to keep me from moving legitimately bought music from one device to another. Dumb.

OK, they fucked up. Does that still mean that no one should have to pay for music? I've read a million posts where people say they will never buy another thing from the RIAA, but indie labels are getting screwed too. And the artists. Over half of the people who downloaded Radiohead's album didn't pay shit.

So, even though the record industry helped create this situation, downloaders use their "outrage" as a weak justification to continue to help themselves to someone else's hard work without paying a dime for it.

We have met the enemy, and he is us

The first time I remember hearing about the concept of "intellectual property" was in the early eighties. The Chinese, rushing towards capitalism, were cranking out bogus pirated knockoffs of everything from Gucci bags, to Ray-Bans, to fake Rolex watches, etc. Intellectual property and copyright don't seem to be a part of the Asian culture, and I often thought that it would be next to impossible to get them to realize that they were stealing by reproducing goods and software without licenses.

But now, the very concept of intellectual property and copyright are under assault here in the first world by the free culture and copyleft movement. And we are all going to lose, because if they win, there are not going to be any motives to create something worthwhile, other than the kicks of putting your home video on youtube, and being a star for fifteen seconds.

People are lobbying to change copyright laws. Some say that one year is long enough for a copyright. Some advocate that a copyright should expire when the author dies. This is absurd. My daughter will inherit whatever royalty money I have in the bank when I die, but why shouldn't she be entitled to future income?. If I had created a successful factory, for example, wouldn't she be entitled to enjoy the profits from that after I'm gone? If copyrights expire when a person dies, then why should anyone ever inherit anything? You could make the same lame argument: the inheritors did nothing to create the income, therefore it should be made public. It's bad craziness.

And it's all a rationalization to get things for free. I like free stuff too, but I don't live in a utopia. I don't get free gas, and the groceries aren't free. I've never gotten a free lunch in a Chinese restaurant. I don't expect to.

But getting back to my point in this post, I find it ironic that the problem of getting people to understand the concept of intellectual property has shifted back to the part of the world that invented it.

Take Me To The Bridge

We've lost a lot of the art and craft of the pop song these days. Listening to some old shit tonight, I have been thinking about the form of the song, and what we don't often hear now.

A typical tin pan alley song can usually be analyzed as AABA, where A is the verse, and B is the bridge. More current pop songs have a verse and a chorus that repeat, and occasionally, if the songwriter is a little ambitious, he/she might throw in an extra part, let's call it an interlude, to break up the monotomy. Stevie Wonder is a genius at this, and he was always my inspiration to go the extra mile and write one little extra eight bar part that only happens once in the song. Lennon and McCartney were using this too. It has nothing to do with the AABA form. It comes in after the verse and chorus/hook have been stated at least twice. But it's so effective! Because usually, this interlude comes out of the blue, and is a complete harmonic change from the rest of the song. Then you go back straight to the hook, the chorus, and after this interlude, the hook is strengthened further from having this brief respite from the form you have previously already repeated twice. But I don't hear this much anymore. Granted, I don't hear many tunes these days where the harmony in the chorus is different from the verse, but the interlude is long gone.

And in a more basic sense, think about one of James Brown's tunes, where he hollers to the band to take him to the bridge. Almost always, they just go up a fourth to the sub-dominant, and play a variation of the basic groove of the tune, maybe with a different horn line. And it always adds excitement to the tune, not only for the change, but when they return to the basic grove of the song, it's that much fresher for having gone somewhere else for a bit.

It's a great way to beef up a song, try it.

I Get Emails...

Occasionally I get emails from people asking me about working with Michael Jackson. Of course, people are curious about him, and sometimes I think that they are hoping that I have some dirt I can dish about Michael. I don't have any. Michael always treated me with respect and the utmost professionalism. And I treated him the same. I enjoyed working with him every time. It was fun, it wasn't just work.

And I feel a little chagrin that my claim to fame after all of these years, is that I'm the guy playing those three chords on Billie Jean. That was about an hour of my life. Mind you, I'm not in any way ashamed of it, but I also know that anyone of a million keyboardists could have played the part. I did it, because during the 1981 tour when I played keyboards for Michael and his brothers, he heard me fooling around with a sound on the Yamaha CS80 synthesizer that I was using on the tour. Afterwards, he called me to help him with the demo for Bille Jean, which involved deciphering those three chords from him singing the top notes to me, and re-creating that sound that I had long since forgotten.

Months passed, and Michael called me to play the part on the tune when he and Quincy Jones were making the Thriller album at Westlake Studios in LA. When I arrived for the session, Michael led me into Studio B to record the part, because he and Quincy were busy recording a children's album based on the hit movie E.T. in the main studio.

So I sat in Studio B, alone with the second engineer, and I played the part, because I remembered it from the demo (apparently, this demo is on the special edition of Thriller; I've never heard it.) So it was just work. Michael came in to listen to it, approved it, and that was that. After all of this time, and after all of the other things I've done, this is my claim to fame.

I'm not complaining, at all, I'm just saying that anyone could have played it, and maybe I wish that some of my own work was what I was known for, but hey--who am I to compete with Michael Jackson?

So, I'll save you the trouble of writing me an email asking about Michael; this is what I'll have to say: Michael was always professional with me, and me with him. I felt privileged to work with him and Quincy. This was the pinnacle, the top of the heap in those years, there were no better gigs. I was alongside studio musicians that were my idols, and I felt as though there had been a tremendous mistake; what was I doing on the 'A' list?

And although he came to my house a couple of times to work on music, and I went to his house three or four times, I don't know anymore about his personal life than he does about mine. It was just about the music, and I'm proud to have been a small part of it. I feel bad about what has happened to him in the last few years, but I don't know any more about it than you do. I hope he can overcome his problems, and come back, because he was a superstar for a reason; he had it. Big time.

And I'll never complain about being the guy that plays those three chords on Billie Jean, because I know that nearly everyone on the PLANET has heard me play. Thank you, Michael, for that. I like it.

Gene Simmons 1, Internet Downloaders 800

Gene Simmons of Kiss had some great points in a recent interview in Billboard. Here's a couple of choice quotes:

"The record industry doesn't have a f*cking clue how to make money. It's only their fault for letting foxes get into the henhouse and then wondering why there's no eggs or chickens. Every little college kid, every freshly-scrubbed little kid's face should have been sued off the face of the earth. They should have taken their houses and cars and nipped it right there in the beginning. Those kids are putting 100,000 to a million people out of work."

"Doesn't affect me. But imagine being a new band with dreams of getting on stage and putting out your own record. Forget it."

On Radiohead's "pay what you want" approach:

"...that's not a business model that works. I open a store and say "Come on in and pay whatever you want." Are you on f*cking crack? Do you really believe that's a business model that works?"

And this sums up pretty much how I feel:

"There is nothing in me that wants to go in there and do new music. How are you going to deliver it? How are you going to get paid for it if people can just get it for free?"

I agree with him on all points, yet reading the responses at digg.com you would think that he was advocating eating babies and raping grandmothers. The responses start with "Fuck KISS," and do downhill from there. People vow to download the entire Kiss discography, or they vow to never download anything by Kiss. It's hilarious, except when it gets anti-semetic. These creepy parasites feel so entitled to free music that they get their panties in a bunch when anyone suggests that maybe they shouldn't do that, to the point that it generated over 800 responses.

And amazingly, no one gets what he's saying. He says that the industry should have reacted immediately to sue everyone involved, he doesn't advocate doing that now. He says it doesn't affect him, but he worries about the future for new acts. They just don't get it, and never will. The war is over, it's lost, and I don't feel like making new music anymore. It's depressing.

Set The Wayback Machine To 1979

I was going through some old cassettes when I ran across this: it's a demo I made while I was working at Guitar Center in LA in 1979. My co-worker Jackson Howe and I hooked together every piece of gear we had in stock that could be interfaced. Mind you, this was way before MIDI, we're talking control voltage and gates, all analog.

We hooked together four Arp sequencers to drive approximately 14 or 15 synths. There is no drum machine; one synth would be used for a kick drum, one for a tom, etc. We had two or three Arp 2600s, an Odyssey, lots of other Arp and Roland synths, and I think a Mini-moog was involved, because I had an S-Trig converter cable. The lead was performed live on an Oberheim OB-1. The whole mess went through a mixer, and was captured live on a cassette, hence the lo-fi sound. There are no overdubs.

I drove the whole store nuts with this for weeks, and the manager was pissed at me because I was being a mad scientist and not selling. I hated it when one of the synths I was using got sold, because it messed everything up.

I gave a copy of the tape to my friend Ronnie Foster, who played it for Stevie Wonder. A week or so later, Stevie called me at work to get me to do the same electronic percussion thing in the studio, with a mess of his 2600s. The song was "Race Babbling" from his "Secret Life Of Plants" record, and that's how I got started doing recording sessions. Fun times.

The synths are a bit out of tune at times, the playing is sloppy, but it's fun to listen to after all of this time. Hit the green play button below to hear it.

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The Internet Market Has Set The Value Of Music

And it's $0.00. UK band Radiohead's move to allows fans to pay what they like for their new album In Rainbows was widely hailed by the anti-RIAA, music-should-be-free crowd as a means to eliminate the middle man, and allow the artist to be paid directly from the fans. Yet, according to this study, the majority paid zero. Zip. Bupkis. Nada.

And the rationalizations are hilarious, sad and ignorant from the internet warriors at Digg.com. Here's a few examples:

So? They still made an unbelievable amount of money from this idea.

I am sure that the RIAA had it's "team" download thousands of copies to try to show that "see this won't work, you need us. People will steal from you".

The real news is that a lot of people paid for it and the band made a lot of money. They could have made $0.00.

Whoever expected most people to pay money for this album don't know the internet at all.

It is just much easier to download it; all I have to do is press 1 button on my tool bar the rest is automated. If I buy it from their website or itunes I have to register, take out my wallet etc.. it is more hassle then it is worth.

You would be an idiot to assume everyone will pay money for it.

Its Radiohead. Why would you pay to listen to it? Seriously.

Hey thanks for letting me know about a free CD (that I would have never paid for anyways)

Yeah, well they still made record amounts of dough.

I pay 0.00 for most of my albums..
but I've also told people about In Rainbows.

yeah I payed 0 for it, but [no offense at all] I would have never payed anything in the first place, so as far as I'm concerned, that was a great deal.

Wow, people taking free music from the internet? Stop the presses!

not surprised at all. who the hell likes to pay?!?!? people will take anything for free. no one should be surprised here. pretty sad but even if it was elvis coming back from the dead and releasing new mp3s... people won't pay a penny.. hahah

Free or not I'm still going to pirate it from a torrent.

Great album. Didn't pay. I'm broke and Thom Yorke's not.