Jazz Fest in New Orleans

The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival is carrying out its 40th year of existence with two full weekends of every type of music imaginable. Throngs of music lovers from all over the world descend on the racetrack fairgrounds in New Orleans, the type of mass economic spending (think Mardi Gras) the city needs in order to continue to rebuild itself.

I don't even go to the fairgrounds to check it out.

Along with throngs of music lovers come throngs of world-class musicians; some make Jazz Fest their one and only yearly migration to New Orleans for a week of sitting-in and scene-making.

The scene doesn't happen during daylight hours at the Fest. The night time is the right time in general down here, an amplified early morning crowd gathers in multiple locations, Uptown and Downtown.

I would never present Jazz Fest as something other than the most incredible union of tradition and talent, gastronomy and every musical taxonomy. Even on rainy days at the fairgrounds, muddy waves lapping at your feet, the tangible sense of life-celebration is everywhere.

But for whatever reason... actually I can think of a couple... the night time is the right time. Searing sweaty jam sessions burn, all over the city, until dawn. Close your eyes and you're in Milton's Playhouse, circa 1941. Before bars closed at 2am, before sitting-in was an antiquated quest, when the night time was the right time, as it is now, the time for music, mojo, juju or whatever you call the deep bayou Delta energy.

In New Orleans
You sweat when you sleep, you sweat when you dance.
So put on those dancin' pants and
Keep your head.
It must be said.
New Orleans can sleep when it's dead.
-Trevor Jones 4/30/09

NewOrleans.com Article

Kevin O'Day and his awesome team over at neworleans.com were nice enough to publish an article I wrote called "Why New Orleans will beat the record industry". Check it out!

Rolling Stone Cover

Last week, I wrote about the state of the music industry. After writing the post, I saw a magazine cover which crystallized things for me.

Nothing needs to be said about Rolling Stone and their immense influence on young music lovers. We can discover much about the music industry, just by looking at the cover of last week's issue.

First, notice that only 50% of the feature articles listed on the cover are about music.

Taylor Swift was to be expected, she's had the top selling album on the pop charts (which is selling dismally by record industry standards).

The other two bands are Rolling Stone cover standards, however. Green Day and U2 have been on the cover, in photos and print, ad nauseum for as long as I can remember. They also represent a dying breed of artists who can tour heavily and still play their own instruments and write their own songs. Seeing them together with no other musical mention besides Taylor Swift on the cover of Rolling Stone is an indication of the smaller and smaller range of traditionally "marketable" acts the record industry is producting.

The text and articles on the cover of RS can be interpreted and analyzed, but it is the picture of Taylor Swift and her guitar which jumps out the most. The guitar is beautiful but is missing a key musical element, a string. The contrast between the perfectly dolled-up Swift, and her guitar, is striking.

I'm well aware this is probably not even Swift's guitar. Maybe it is and she missed the implication of being the world's most famous new musician with an unplayable guitar.

The point is that Rolling Stone and their team have effectively demonstrated the dynamics of an industry, more focused on style than substance, in one photograph.

The Analyst

There is always talk in any sector about the "state of the industry". Over the next weeks I'll be posting about this big-bad thing we call the "music industry". I'll admit I've gotten rather jaded in posting about this particular business sometimes. I'll try to keep the industry-bashing down. Just the facts here, folks.

Maybe jaded isn't the right word. I get frustrated with the music industry, then become vague in my descriptions of exactly what's happening, then turn into a sarcastic, cherry-picking underpants gnome. Instead, I want to write some objective posts about what many "analysts" say is a bright future for those of us who can play 100+ live shows a year and tour their cajones off. (A cajon is a Peruvian drum, people. This is a family friendly blog. Get your minds out of the gutter).

This 100 show a year thing doesn't make a lot of sense to people. Don't musicians sell albums to make money? How can spending half your year in a van, traveling to small towns with other sweaty dudes (or ladies), be a profitable venture?

Well, it is. Especially now that gas isn't $4/ gallon. That is the state of the industry: fresh touring acts.

The Rolling Stones are getting pretty old, just like many high-grossing acts who the industry has relied on for years. On the same token, no one will even know who or what The Jonas Brothers or Taylor Swift are in five years. Quite the conundrum for the recording and promoting industries, no?

The process of how we got to this point is interesting to me, if I can overcome the greed and general ignorance of the music itself that has led the record and promoting industries down the tubes like Drain-O.

We'll talk about things like streaming music, iTunes, Apple, major record labels, indie record labels, Kurt Cobain, Radiohead, Phish, 8-track tapes and a music industry which now makes every song (whether Cobain or my 5-year old cousin wrote it) available for the same price as a Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger at Wendy's.

I can't wait.