And a recipe...

OK, I promised the occasional recipe. Here’s one that Rachel Ray would approve of, because you can make it in thirty minutes or less. Yum-o! I got the idea of posting recipes from Francis Coppola’s commentary on the Godfather DVD. He decided that just in case the movie wasn’t any good, at least it should have a recipe in it, and then people wouldn’t completely waste their time. Remember the scene?

CLEMENZA: Hey Mikey, come here, you might learn sumptin. You never know when you’re gonna have to cook for twenty guys. You see, you start out with a little bit of oil. Then you fry some garlic. Then you throw in some tomatoes, tomato paste, you fry it; you make sure it doesn’t stick. You shove in your sausages and your meatballs, add a little bit of wine. And a little bit of sugar, and that’s my trick.

Ravioli en brodo

Store-bought fresh ravioli
(whatever kind, I like Trader Joe’s chicken sausage/pesto)
3 slices bacon
2 14 oz cans Chicken broth or stock
1 onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
4-5 oz Crimini mushrooms, sliced
1 14 oz can diced tomatoes
2 tbs unsalted butter
2 tbs cream
Pecorino romano cheese to garnish

Start the bacon going in a skillet while you bring the stock or broth to a boil in a saucepan. Once the bacon is crispy, take it out to drain on paper towels, and discard about half of the rendered bacon fat. Sauté the onions in the remaining bacon fat, and once they start to turn translucent, add the mushrooms. At this point, you may need to throw in some olive oil, because those mushrooms are thirsty. Season everything with a little salt and pepper, but go easy, because that canned chicken broth, the bacon and the pecorino are all salty. When the mushrooms look cooked, throw in the garlic, and sauté for just thirty seconds. Don’t be burning the garlic! Toss in the canned tomatoes, crumble up the bacon and add it, and reduce the heat a little.

Meantime, the stock/broth is boiling, so toss the ravioli in it, and cook them according to the package directions. It should be about three to four minutes. While they cook, your sauce reduces and the ingredients get to know each other better. When the ravioli are cooked, throw the entire contents of the saucepan, broth, ravioli and all into your skillet and stir. Taste for seasoning, let it simmer for awhile if you want it to reduce, but this wants to be soupy, that's the "en brodo" part. Shove in the butter and cream to finish the sauce, stir until melted, and serve. Pass around the pecorino at the table. Oh yeah, babe…

No love for the RIAA, or the majors

I think a little more background information might be in order here, so that I don't get accused of being a shill for the suits. I have no love for the majors, but I can appreciate what they do. I worked for several major labels all through the eighties, and I had my share of trouble with them, but I can see both sides of the issue because of this.

I spent most of the nineties wandering around looking for something to do, and when I discovered (personal discovery, I'm not Christopher Columbus or Ry Cooder) Cuban music, I went nuts for it, and I got lost in a grand obsession that has lasted for almost nine years now. When I decided to start recording my Cuban music experiments, I didn't for a minute think about approaching a label. I learned my lesson, and at the end of the day, I want my recordings to belong to me, not someone who fronted some money to record them.

So, I did just that. I recorded and manufactured the CDs, even did all of the graphics myself, totally independent. After some of the tunes became hits in the European Salsa discos, I was able to sell licenses to companies to distribute the recordings, and still maintain control over the product.

It went well for several years, but after the last CD came out, it was obvious that things had changed. I think sometimes that we who work in the niche markets are the canaries in the coal mine. When there's a problem in the marketplace, we get hit first.

And while I have never made a lot of money on sales of the CDs (let's face it, if you want to get rich, don't bother with Cuban music), I resented the fact that possibly 90% of the people who had my music on their iPods hadn't paid anything for it. I sure as hell paid to make the recordings. I bought equipment, I paid musicians, I traveled to undisclosed tropical locations to work with the best musicians from the very source of the music itself.

And if there was no such thing as songwriter's royalties, and if I didn't write the music myself, I would have gone bankrupt a long time ago. In Europe, the DJ in a disco has to turn in a list of the songs he played during the night, and a portion of the proceeds for the evening are turned over to the royalty collection society for distribution to the authors of the music. Therefore, I make enough money on my work to justify carrying on.

But the thing that kills me, and kills the desire to create new music is the attitude that all of my efforts should be available for free. You, reading this, are you willing to do whatever you are currently doing to pay the rent for free? Are we trying to build some sort of communist utopia where money is unnecessary? Hey, I've spent some time in a place where that was the idea, and let me tell you, it just doesn't work. For me, it's the principle of the whole thing that galls me. I know that this is a very unpopular idea right now, and most artists are afraid to say it publicly for fear of a Metallica style backlash. Personally, I don't give a fuck. Until you, personally, are willing to labor without monetary gain, don't ask me to do so, just so you can fill up your fucking iPod with music you didn't pay for.

It's deeply ironic in a time when music seems to be more popular than ever, that no one wants to pay for it. No one has a problem buying a shiny new iPod (I have one, and love it), Apple has sold over a hundred million of them. And the irony is that at the same time, most internet users have convinced themselves that they have the absolute right to download music for free, or at the very least, to treat the artist as a busker in the subway station, throwing them a few coins if they deem their music worthwhile. Jesus...

So I bought an accordion...

Yeah, I know. You've heard the joke about what is perfect pitch? It's when you throw an accordion in the trash can and hit a banjo. (drum hit: bada-boom!)

I don't know why, but I've had the idea to have an accordion for a long time now. I love Zydeco music, I love the soundtrack to Amelie, and anything with that French/Gypsy vibe, and I do happen to have some recordings by Art Van Damme, legendary jazz accordionist. I had a rare Leon Sash CD, but I can't find it now.

So, I happened across a listing on craigslist, and I got that wild hair. I called the woman that was selling it to ask a few questions. She told me that she didn't know anything about it aside that it was made in Italy in the fifties, and belonged to her stepfather who abandoned it when he ran off to Panama to be with another woman. That was all I needed to hear, and I bought it for the princely sum of $160. I asked her if she thought that her stepfather bought another accordion after he settled down in Panama, but she didn't know, and didn't seem to like the question.

Here's the deal: these things are hard to play! Woof, I thought that since it had a keyboard, it wouldn't be that difficult. First of all, the keys are tiny, and my big sausage fingers can hardly keep from hitting two notes at a time when all I want to do is play one. Second, when you're playing the thing, you can't see anything! It's all on the sides, and at an angle that makes it hard just to see where a C note is.

And that's just the right hand side. Forget about the left side. There are 120 buttons! They produce bass notes, and major, minor, 7th and diminished chords, and some other things I haven't figured out yet.

Add to that the fact that you have to keep the bellows moving, or the poor thing sounds like it's suffering from emphysema.

After a few weeks of fooling around with it, I can almost play the theme from Amelie, but I am a long way from getting the coordination needed to play the bass/chords on the left, the melody in the right, and keeping the bellows moving so it doesn't run out of air mid-phrase, like it's trying to sing while drowning. Yes, I do have trouble walking and chewing gum at the same time, so this is going to be a challenge. I will never, ever, ever diss another accordion player in my life. This thing is a bitch to play.

But the good news is that, according to the experts at accordion.com, learning the accordion will not only increase my self-esteem, it may offer job opportunities. Things are looking up.

The New Music Business Model Is Busking

I like buskers, mind you. I'll never forget the genius accordion player that was wailing away on a Bach fugue in a dark stairway of the Paris Metro. The acoustics were perfect, tons of reverb and echo, and this guy was playing the hell out of that Bach fugue. I heard the music from a long ways down the hall, and I was astounded when we turned the corner to see that this guy was playing Bach on a chromatic accordion, one without a piano keyboard. I stood there transfixed, and watched and listened, and dropped a couple of Euros in his case. He was great.

But now, the brave new generation that feels that free music is a given right, seems to think that all musicians should be buskers. Pay what you like, or don't pay at all. I can sort of see the sense in it. If you like the music you might stop a minute and listen, and then throw a few coins their way. If it's not your cup of tea, you hurry on, you didn't come to the subway for a concert after all, did you? But are musicians only entertainers, should we cue up alongside the jugglers and illusionists that line Venice Beach near LA? Is that the only purpose of music? Is that its only value?

Why do I have to allow my customers to decide the value of my product? I don't get that privilege from anyone else. Listen, you IT people that should be working when you're posting about your right to steal music on reddit or digg, would one of you come over to the house and sort out my computer? It's running really slow lately, I don't know. After you get done, I'LL decide what your services were worth. I need to get my teeth cleaned. Are there any dental hygienists out there that will let me decide what teeth cleaning is worth? Better yet, I think it should be free. After all, it's just a service, it just costs you your time. Use your service to promote the Dentist's office. If I like it, I might come back for a root canal.

I respect buskers, but I don't want to be one. Another time in Paris, I saw a line of accordion players waiting for their turn to busk on a subway train. I wish to hell I had had my camera with me. It was early in the morning, around 8:00, and there were six accordionists sitting on the bench on the metro platform. I missed a couple of trains just watching them, trying to see what was going on. A train would come into the station, and one of them would get on, and the rest of them continued to wait. It was like a bunch of taxi drivers lined up at the airport, waiting their turn for a fare.

If I wanted to beg for a living, I think I'd rather go to Thailand, and become a monk. I wouldn't even need an instrument, just my begging bowl.

Like I said, I admire buskers, I just don't want to be one. That's not why I became a musician.

The Tail Is Wagging The Dog

For some years now, I've been following the various ways that people rationalize their music downloading habits. Someday I should compile a list of them. The newest philosophy of the Internet Warriors is that Albums should be viewed as just promotional tools to get people to attend an artist's live shows. Give the music away, and people will support the artist by attending the gigs, they say. While it may sound reasonable on the surface, there are a whole lot of problems with this idea.

The basic flaw is that artists generally don't make money performing these days, unless they happen to be the Rolling Stones, Madonna, etc. Yep, they are making bank, and the ticket prices reflect that. But back in the days, it was not at all uncommon for the record labels to advance acts money for tour support. That's because most tours lose money. Yes, you read that right. They lose money, or barely cover the expenses. Well then why do the musicians put themselves through the misery that touring can be? To promote THE RECORD! Why did the label advance them money to tour? To promote THE RECORD! But no one wants to buy the records anymore. If they could figure out how to bit torrent concert tickets, I suppose they'd do that as well.

What is lost in the shuffle is that at some point, promotion has to pay off. If a small indie band has to pay to play at a club, as is all too common these days, how is giving away their music for free on the intertubes going to help them? Maybe if everyone in attendance bought the CD, a T-Shirt, whatever, but that just doesn't happen.

I get offers all the time to do something to either promote the group, or promote the CDs, but it all ends up an endless cycle of promotion that might make money for somebody, but not for me. The last offer I had to tour Europe was such poor money that I would have lost money doing it. Ten years ago, I would have considered it, just to promote the CD. But today? No way.

Giving away music to promote a live show is not realistic for artists without the following and success of groups like Radiohead, or Nine Inch Nails. Who, I have to add, wouldn't have their fan base without the efforts of the major label industry. The new business models proposed by the proponents of free music just don't work.

Please allow me to introduce myself...

I'm a man of wealth and taste. Well, actually, I'm a musician. An obscure musician. I like it that way. I've been a musician as long as I can remember, and played my first professional gig at the age of fifteen, in Cheyenne, Wyoming late summer, 1968.

I've had my ups and downs, day gigs have come and gone occasionally, but I've had some incredible luck along the way. I had some experiences that will stay with me forever.

Maybe I'll write about those experiences now and then, maybe not. Putting my name in Google will give you an idea. What I want to do with this blog is have a space to comment on the state of the music biz, what I'm doing currently musically, maybe I'll post some recipes.

I think I've been going off-topic a bit too much on my current blog at Mamborama.com, so I can rant and rave here, and who cares? Mamborama, by the way, is an experiment that I've been working on extremely hard for over eight years now. Cuban music is the bomb.