Nashville Collaborations

Nashville is a microcosm. The city is surprisingly similar to New York and L.A., though much smaller in population. In Nashville, artists "break" and are glorified as if they were nationally known celebrities, despite the fact that their presence is nary felt worldwide, as an artist "breaking" out of L.A. or NYC would surely enjoy. In New York there are enough people, both music industry people and music fans who support the industry, to provide a scene where the interests of fans dictate the industry. Artists become popular because lots of people want to see their shows and buy their records.

In Nashville, a large portion of the population are music industry people themselves. They must serve the dual purpose of music industry person and music fan alike. This creates a huge cyclical process involving songwriters, publishers, performers, record labels, management companies, marketing agencies, distributors and unfortunately, you and me as music listeners, who are subject to the whim of much higher forces before our taste in music is accounted for. In Nashville, this process has created a town totally interdependent on itself where the process cannot be escaped.

For example, the morning after our show in Nashville I was patronizing my favorite corporate coffee shop with a green logo (don't say the S word, hipsters might attack). I'm standing in line and out of nowhere comes a guy, obviously more caffeinated than I at this point, who is annoyingly interested in why I'm wearing sweatpants and a headband, looking tired at 10am on a Thursday morning. Telling him about the show the night before was my first and last mistake. My new acquaintance launches into a rehearsed spiel about his various "involvements" with the music industry here in town. This is curious, as upon receiving his business card I silently notice the Heating/Plumbing Specialist title below Joe the Plumber's name. By this time I had coffee in hand but, before I could reach the door, Joe was already introducing me to another "music industry" friend of his. At least this second dude recognized Frogs Gone Fishin' (always a nice surprise), and wasn't trying to immediately pedal his imaginary musical wares on me.

This story illustrates an interaction that goes down thousands of times a day in Nashville, between thousands of people who have something to do with music which most likely has nothing to do with actually playing music itself. This may not be the case for long. A simple comparison might illustrate why.

If I, Trevor Jones, wanted to write a song and make it available for public consumption, I would:
1. Sit in my room with acoustic guitar, write something I think people will connect with.
2. Record the song for free with band (they realize shared profit potential and record for free), on free software that came with my computer. Little gadget to make the mics sound good cost $100.
3. Mix and place the song on Myspace, ReverbNation, iTunes, or any of the thousands of online music distributors. Leave the consumption part up to popular opinion and keep all the profit and recognition for a mammoth one-time recording cost of a hundred clams.

If Travis Jones, the aspiring Nashville-star in the making, wants to write a song and make it available for public consumption the traditional Nashville way, he would:
1. Select a song written by a songwriter, through a publisher. In doing so, he has already given away any profit potential for the song (a 50/50 split, songwriter/publisher).
2. Get an advance from the record label (Travis is now in debt) for a good studio (no respectable country album is recorded at home!), and a band (who he must pay because, just like him, the band only profits one time from the recording session). Most likely it's a completely different band than the one which he will pay to play the songs live on the road.
3. The record label will then spend even more money (also recoupable from Travis) to target-market and distribute the album in physical record stores, along with commercials and physical ads. Consumption is left up to known market factors (14 year olds who the suits know will buy records and almost certainly disregard the same artist by the time they are in college). While Travis will receive recognition for his efforts, he will be left in debt to a controlling record label.

If I seem biased against Nashville, it is really a bias against the outdated way many talented, but misguided musicians continue to willfully participate in their own demise. If any aspiring musicians are reading this, please: BOOK YOUR OWN SHOWS, WRITE YOUR OWN MUSIC, OWN YOUR OWN COPYRIGHTS!

But, if these concepts seem so axiomatic to me, why does Nashville continue to be a bastion of the old-world way? The answer lies in the above comparison. It takes me several hundred dollars and five people to make and distribute a song. It takes Travis in Nashville many thousands of dollars and dozens of people with interests other than his own to make same said, sad song.

It is the hubris of these same thousands of dollars and masses of people employed by the music industry which has kept Nashville antiquated. In fact, the downfall of this whole scenario is sitting in your lap or on your desk right now.

When CD's came out, the industry made millions just because people had to replace their cassettes, just as they had to replace 8-tracks and vinyl before that. Now that it is hard to imagine anything more convenient than an Mp3, the record industry is struggling to find a way to make money on such an intangible medium.

I suppose writing this post has made me feel better about Nashville. I'll admit there is a wealth of creativity and talent here, even if it is segmented and calcified within this evil industry process we've been talking about.

Frogs Gone Fishin' was lucky enough to have our friends DJ Bowls and the Green Horns horn section at our Nashville show. These collaborations help take our live show to the next level.

While this emerging, "new-world" music industry does have lots of benefits for independent artists like Frogs Gone Fishin', it has downsides and uncertainties, as well. More about that next time....