Sellaband

As I announced a few days ago, SAB went bankrupt. What at the time was a rumor, has now been confirmed. They apparently had been trying to negotiate a sale for three weeks prior. I had decided after the site went down last Summer that if the site went down again without warning and for an extended period of time, I was leaving.

The site went down unexpectedly on Feb. 19 due to "server issues" and was down for a week. That was enough for me. I want to be associated with dependable services. The bankruptcy might not have been so bad, if they had managed to keep the site up and running. A new management team was sorely needed. I am not sure what direction the new team will take. But my part in that story is over.

I have no funding project open currently. As I am trying to finish up my last two. Jesse Ewles has shot much of the video and my album is scheduled to start mixing on March 8. I still have to organize the CD release party and then we've got to get some airplay. Then on to the world tour....

On a personal note. I've had pnuemonia since who knows when. I started running a fever Wednesday night and shouldn't have let it go. I went ahead to Jazz 3 Thursday morning but kept feeling worse. Finally went to Convenient care to get a chest x-ray and called Houston for a prescription. The results from the x-ray came Friday morning. My fever broke yesterday.

Since the x-ray showed pneumonia, they put the clinical trial on hold again. So I'll miss my next Rituxan infusion. I haven't heard the last results from my BMB. I'll call for that on Monday.

That's the news on the health front and the Sellaband front.

Plans. Art, on the other hand...

Mixing is scheduled for March 8. It's good to have a date. I feel bad on one hand, because I want to get this album done so you all can hear it. On the other hand, rushing something that isn't done is never a good idea. So it's better to be embarrassed that my timeline was too ambitious but put out a good album. If the album is good enough, I think you'll forgive the lateness.

A bad album, on the other hand would make you say, "we waited for this?" Like all artists, I go through periods of thinking, "no one will like this." Sometimes the stuff seems too derivative, then I'll listen to another song and think this doesn't sound like anything I've heard before no one will be able to relate. A week ago I was about ready to chuck the whole thing, not an option. 3 days ago, when I got back from Texas I thought I should just start over from scratch, also not an option. And in between times, I really loved it. I hope you all do too.

As an artist you lose all sense of proportion to your work. On the one hand it is such a big part of your life. On the other hand, in the grand scheme of the world it doesn't really make any difference at all. My record won't do anything to help Haiti. Won't Save Detroit (although I do sing about it). Won't cure cancer. Won't bring me fame or fortune. Why pursue a goal so meaningless?

Because we need art. We need art like we need love. It is real. People really do have a hierarchy of needs. And it is certain that some lower order needs must be met in order to survive. But here is the thing. Even if we were starving and thirsty and naked and living in a cave somewhere, we would still need to express ourselves. Our need for expression, might not be able to change our circumstances. Meeting that need might not keep us alive, but we would still need it none the less.

Art gives voice to our needs. Ancient man painted bison to express what was important. But it can do more than that. Whenever I talk about music or any of the arts, I try never to say "Music is about...X" Itry to always say, "one of the things music does is....X" This is why, when people ask me what kind of music I like. I just say: "all kinds." I used to qualify it with a, "but." but I don't even do that anymore. I like Country , I like classic rock. I like Bach. I like Stravinsky. I like Heavy Metal. I like hip hop music. I like rap. People who say it isn't music are just wrong. People who say it isn't creative are also wrong. In many ways Rap and Hip Hop are the culmination of a great 20th century movement of found art and musique concrete. Hip hop artists took a record player and made a musical instrument out of it. How avante guarde is that? It's beautiful. No less beautiful than Picasso's tete de taureau from a bicycle seat and handle bars.

Perhaps all art really is found art. Or perhaps art is where you find it. But although art may not always put food in your belly (although it might do that too) you always need it. It is possible to live without it, in the same way to possible to live without an arm, or a leg. But don't ever believe that you are whole without it.

As you can tell, I just ramble stream of consciousness-like in these blogs. I don't mind. I hope you don't, either. But when the time comes for school budget cuts, remember: you surely can cut music or art or sports, but don't kid yourself that you are educating complete kids. Ask yourself how many administrators your district really needs and how much they are really worth.

If they can't find a way to budget in art, I submit that they are not worth what you are paying them.

Busy news day

While all the other blogs are breaking the news as it happens, I just kind of let things settle. If you saw me on Face Book, you know what was going on. There is so much to write today, I don’t even know where to begin.

I suppose I should start with the most serious. My good friend and ex-Dr.Wu bandmate Sam Roan was stabbed multiple times late Monday night. Sam was treated and released. But it was looking very serious for a while. If you are the gossipy kind and want to know all the juicy details, I’ll let Sam tell you in his own words.

I usually share a story about now with great memories from back in the Dr.Wu days. So here it is: before we were even playing out, I remember sitting in the band shed taking a break and talking and Sam once mentioned in passing that he wanted to be one of those colorful local characters. Sam, you already qualified! You didn’t need to go and get yourself stabbed. I mean the tattoos alone make you one of the most colorful characters I know. Still, stab wounds have to be good for your street rep and so much cooler than cancer!

Next down the list would be, I suppose an update from my trip to Houston. I went alone. Took a bump for some tickets (I’ll be going back to Houston again). Got in very late Sunday night. Not only did they bump me to a later flight, they also routed me through Dallas. But before the plane even took off, we sat at the gate for over ½ an hour past our departure time. It seems they put too much fuel on board and we had to wait for them to pump it back off. So before we were even off the ground I was guaranteed to miss my connecting flight out of Dallas. Luckily, they held another plane for lil’ ole me. I got on, sat down and we took of. Very few people on that flight and I had a whole row to myself.

When I got into Houston, I had neglected to inform my bank that I needed to take the max daily limit off my debit card. Dollar rentals holds $350 on your card, my limit is less than that. They would not budge on the terms, the manager said it was a corporate policy that he couldn’t waive, nor could he call anyone to waive it. They hold $350 on a $58 rental. How crazy is that. Anyway, my begging did no good, so I went to Alamo where the car was way more expensive, but they only held enough on your card for the actual rental fees. But it took me a while to do all that. I got in to Tom & Becky’s close to 12 midnight. I didn’t even get to see Becky this trip. Tom is in pretty good spirits, but his condition is steadily deteriorating. Tom Has Huntington’s disease that also afflicted Woody Guthrie the folksinger. (In passing Arlo Guthrie is one of Sammy’s heroes so there is something to link my blog together thematically.) Anyway, keep Tom in your thoughts. He and his wife have been so gracious to Jana and I. Tom was up when I got in and out walking their dog when I had to leave in the morning, so that it ended up not being much of a visit.

The appointments that day were pretty routine. Everyone was glad to see that I wasn’t having any more major problems. Dr. K once more tried to psych me up about a transplant, but wouldn’t venture a guess as to when that might be. He only said that that was the art in his job: making sure we don’t wait too long. And then he said he has people on the clinical trial still after 4 years. Sometimes I feel like my transplant clock is like the Doomsday clock it doesn’t really mean anything. It gets set back or forward according to someone’s best guess. But of all the people in the world Dr. Keating’s guess is one I trust. After my last appointment, I didn’t even know if they’d let me continue on the trial. I was worried that the whole process was going to move rapidly. At that time my transplant doctor wanted to go ASAP. Dr. K, however while knowing that a transplant is definitely in the future for me, says there is never any particular rush to do it unless the cancer evolves into an aggressive lymphoma. (Richter’s transformation).

So my next appointment is 6 months, which is great. That’ll be right around my anniversary. I hope I can do something special for Jana again this year; it’ll be our 25th. I won’t get the results of the Bone Marrow Biopsy until later this week or next. The results of the last one were outstanding quite frankly, which is why I did not want to be taken off the trial. Nevertheless, I did miss 2 or 3 rounds while my thyroid levels got regulated. So we’ll see, if the cancer took advantage of that lull or not.

The trip back to St. Louis was cool. I got to the airport right as a flight was boarding for St. Louis and I asked if there were any seats. They sent me to the gate and I literally sat down and the plane took off. So I got home about an hour earlier than I would have. That was cool. If I could find way to make these flights pay for themselves, it would be even cooler. I am seriously thinking about trying to book a gig or series of gigs when I go down to cover expenses.

Final bit of news. Sellaband has filed for bankruptcy protection. I still think fan-funding is a great idea for indie bands. But Sellaband is the way not to do it. I’ve read several blogs give their opinions on why they think it happened. But none of them address the real reason. They alienated all the people they needed for their business to grow. They would never communicate until they had alienated most of the people who had been early supporters. One guy went around looking for Sellaband to be mentioned almost anywhere online, just so he could comment on how bad he thought it was and how shady the people running it were. That was an extreme case, but then they retooled the site and were offline for a month. That was when I stopped pushing for people to buy parts and moved to Kickstarter to finance my first album. Over the last few months, it was looking like they might recover. They had some notable successes. Public Enemy had joined. Hind, a Dutch singer had recently completed a fund raising campaign in record time. I was getting ready, once more to start a fund raising push. Luckily this happened before I had a chance. One of the key selling points of their system was that the money was paid in advance and kept in an escrow account. So we’ll see how Dutch law treats that and whether believers will get their money back. I hope so. I had invested rather heavily in myself.

So when doing due diligence, how do you find out if a person is trustworthy? Pieps was continually saying that these people at HQ weren't trustworthy. But of course the problem is, I don't really know Pieps, either.

Today's update is they’ve announced that they have a buyer. Which would be interesting. The point of buying a bankrupt business is to get a great deal. But how great a deal will Sellaband be? I won’t go back. If they are bought out or restructured, I’ll still be taking my money out and recommending all my believers do the same. And from now on I’ll stick to American sites. Not that an American businesses are inherently better, but because as an American, I’ll have better access to the legal system under which they are operating. I know nothing about Dutch Bankruptcy law and know no Dutch lawyers. Hopefully they will be made to post public notices on their website. A recent post on the independent Sellaband forum shared a letter from the Dutch curator that all believer’s deposits are safe and that they definitely have a buyer. There was speculation that Sellaband was trying to sell anyway and took their servers down over the weekend hoping to have the whole deal done and be back on line after completing the sale with out any bad publicity from a bankruptcy. That is actually a pretty plausible theory. I can’t say whether it is correct or not. Anyway, not many of you invested in me through Sellaband, but I’ll still try to keep you all informed anyway.

Kickstarter is definitely the way I’ll continue to fund my projects, until I am finally selling enough actual product to make a profit to reinvest in myself. But before I do another project, I need to finish up the 2 current ones. Both are very close to completion.

This was an extremely long post and if you made it this far, Congratulations. You are the bee’s knees.

Metaphorically Speaking

Ready to MIX!!!!!

At last. All the little fiddly parts are done. I've sifted through every track and taken out every random bit of studio noise possible (with the exception of Larry, who sings while he drums.) But I got nothin' but love for you man, It adds a little flava!

I've been tightening up the screws and burning the midnight oil. And now I'm ready to mix everything down, apply effects and do all the studio magic that will sweeten this project up.

Thank you all for hanging with me.

In the meantime, I've also been teaching Jazz 3 at edison Middle School, teaching private lessons (my kids are giving a recital tomorrow and they have solo contest on Saturday).
Jazz 3 did the big fund raiser concert. Friday I See Kaitlyn in a main role in a play. Saturday is contest then I hope to take the boys to see the wrestling show in Springfield.
Sunday I leave for Texas and I'll be back Monday.

So things are really busy!

Check out My Kickstarter album project page for a special preview song. It's called "I Fear the Worst" and it is not going on this album. It's a little too rock oriented and the conceot behind this album is: My Love Letter to Rhythm and Blues and the acts it influenced.

So enjoy, I'll release it on a later album, good lord willing and the creeks don't rise.....

Metaphorically speaking.

4 Lessons From the "Shirtless Guy"

Witness "Shirtless Guy" create a movement.



Derek Sivers and Seth Godin and others recently blogged on the Shirtless Guy. (Derek said 1000 people have blogged and twittered it. Over 2 million have viewed it on youtube.) Any one of a hundred lessons can be gleaned from it, and each may be equally true. Human behavior is pretty complex, which is why putting all the pieces together to create a movement is so hard and why guys like Seth Godin and Malcolm Gladwell (who hasn't blogged on the shirtless guy so far as I can tell) get so much press for trying to tell businesses how to do it. But are there other lessons to be learned? This is my take on what they didn’t mention in their blogs:

Lesson 1. Permission. People want permission to be uninhibited. A crowd naturally allows people to do things they want to do anyway.

Lesson 2. Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker. I don’t think I’m doing anything particularly shocking if I speculate that there might possibly have been some chemically reduced inhibitions on the part of any one of the early followers.

Lesson 3. Nature and Nurture. The dance is already there. Dancing exists. Shirtless guy wasn’t doing something new, he was doing something alone in an environment where it was not being nurtured. He nurtured a seed that already existed.

Lesson 4. It was a music festival. People dance.

Anyone else?

Gear Lust

Working in JP's studio B has caused me to experience a condition common to musicians: gear lust. I did all the overdubs on this album using 3 mics, 1 mic pre and a couple different compressors. If you don't count the last session I did with Pauli on Percussion. Jonathan hooked me up with another mic pre and compressor chain for that.

I've been pricing the mics on eBay used and they've been going used for about 600, 400 and 150 respectively. The mic pre around 1200 ad the compressors around the same.

Luckily, 2 things keep me from upgrading my studio setup. 1. I don't have that kind of cash. 2. I'm almost done with the album.

I've been getting myself set up in case the transplant comes sooner. Although I'd be pretty much confined to the hospital for 3 months, I could set up my rig in my room and still do some recording. I think that'd be a very cool thing to keep me going.

I talked to J. Beckett who had a SCT from a related donor, and he said he set up his computer and used it quite a bit. I'm not sure how often I'll feel like doing it, but my grandpa Miller always said it's better to have and it need it than need it and not have it.

Any recording, I make there probably won't be as slick as the one I'm making now. I have a decent Rhode NT1 microphone which works alright on my voice. But the trumpet won't sound nearly as good without the AKG 414. I recorded all the trumpets using that mic with no compression (which was a bit of a drag - no compression I mean.) I actually haven't heard a better mic for trumpet until you triple the price. Very warm, kind of chocolaty. A subtle, but very noticable difference between that and the Rhode which is not flattering to the trumpet at all. Those of you who read my facebook updates remember when I had to re-record some horn parts. Part of it was I was re-doing the first song I reecorded. I decided I couldn't live with that sound.

Stick Boy didn't have that mic either, but Todd Reising did a great job engineering it. Anyway, assuming I get a chance to make another album, I'll purchase oe of those models for overdubbing. Drums I'll still do in the studio. i hope I get a chance.

Anyway, I go back down to Texas on the 22nd. I'm going by myself this time. We are a little short of cash for the extra plane ticket plus Jana would lose a day at work. I'll lose one day of jazz three, which won't be too bad and we had an extra full rehearsal, so it will all even out.

I'm not looking forward to the BMB, but when do I ever? I won't have been back on the trial too long, so I can only hope I that the cancer didn't progress much during that 3 month break.

I still feel good. I've been burning the midnight oil on the album while I was in studio B. Now that I'm back in my office, It's mostly clean up stuff. Going through track by track and listening for stray sounds, clicks, pops creaks, talking.... Larry of you're reading this, that is some habit you've got.

It's all busy work I can do myself in my own space, on my own time and not pay someone else to do it out of pocket. It is very tedious work, however.

Chris is coming over tomorrow night, assuming the weather cooperates. He'll lay down a solo on one of the tunes. I thought I was done with all the lead vocals, but I realized today that one of the big signature tunes on the album still has a scratch vocal. So, back to my trusty NT1 for that. I'll try to borrow a compressor. Once you get used to hearing your voice compressed, it is a very good sound. And you don't have to watch the levels so close when you are your own engineer. But, you can alco be a human compressor and just ride the fader while you sing. It takes some practice and coordination, but it can be done.

One day, I'll write my explanation blog. I'm making a big deal out of this recording, but with the technology available today, making a record just isn't that big of a deal. Why am I making such a big deal about it. That's another blog.