OTHER TECH

Hell, if you want people to buy an hour-long production, then replicate Jethro Tull's Thick as a Brick. Otherwise, the album is history! Done. Finito. To deny this is to live in an ancient fairyland.

The idea is to be an ongoing artist. With a steady stream of product. So people don't get over you. But what's today's paradigm? It's like having an intense girlfriend and then not seeing her again for three years. Do you think the relationship will last - especially if I'm under the age of 20? It's not about attention spans, it's about connection! While you're off flogging yourself in a foreign land, I'm supposed to hold a torch for you? What's more, what if you come back exactly the same? If three years go by, who wants a girlfriend who's still 15 rather than 18? That's what it's like when an act releases a new disc after years have gone by and it sounds just like the last one. The only people interested are those who are nostalgic. Can anybody say U2? That's what's going on with this band. Repeating the formula so that only people who went to college in the 1980s still care. Oh, don't send me hate mail. Just name two tracks from the last two records as good as "I Will Follow" or "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For." Or with the limit-testing of "The Fly." Case closed. Go back to sleep.

Can we stop arguing about how we've got to keep the integrity of collections? How the iTunes Music Store is ruining music? Like I said up front, it's the corporate marketing policies that got us to stop believing in "musicians." Explain J.Lo to me. An actress/model "sings" in an almost million-dollar video, and I'm supposed to BELIEVE IN HER ART? Oh, they were thrilled at Sony Music. Execs at other labels were waxing jealous. But it's this kind of shit that got us into trouble. Why do we need a new J.Lo single/video? To see what she's wearing?

If you've got a story to tell, make it all one song. Or explain it on your Web site. Tell people how to sequence the downloads. Or maybe, ask them how they sequence the downloads and what the result means to them. If the medium affects the art, the Internet is about collaboration. Get the listener involved, don't dictate to him.

So, stop polishing turds. Make a ton of music. Put it up on your Web site constantly, so people will go back and look for it. Don't tour more than five months a year; you need time to relax, get inspiration, and write, which is what you're truly about, being an artist. Establish an ongoing relationship with the fan, not a static one. And know that if someone is into you, he'll want everything you ever did. Which is why I comb the P2P services for live tracks by my favorite acts. This is the passion we need. Not fat cats lamenting the passage of the old days.

Music is dope. Sell it that way. Get people hooked, they won't let go. Amen.

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