Judging Obama

Not like that, silly. He has a birth certificate! We all know how great an orator, organizer and in some situations, leader he is. But as a voting citizen, and closet perfectionist, that's not good enough for me. I voted for Obama and want him to do what he said he was going to do, make significant, measurable changes in Washington.

Instead what we have seen so far is a mixed bag. He has passed historic healthcare legislation, a feat of leadership if nothing else. He's removed "combat" troops from Iraq, a positive sign, but whether he or events on the ground initiated their departure is tough to call. We have handed some peaceful regions of Afghanistan off to other parties, but their leadership is as corrupt as ever and we seem eager to entertain that, if it entertains our interests.

Before I talk about his most recent decisions and how they reflect on his leadership and advisors, I want to highlight that I don't think any president should operate with as much power as today's executive branch does. Bush expanded presidential wartime power to an unprecedented level. In that way, the Tea and Republican parties get things right. (Purportedly) aiming to leave things up to states, they reduce the amount of ways the Fed can screw things up. Government is only good at a couple, but necessary, functions. Some of the most important functions our government should play include protecting our country, regulating commerce and deciding (to an extent) what functions should be up to states. These are all constitutionally defined but in the vacuum, where corporate interests, instead of states, lobby Washington with ease, the puzzle gets complicated.
This Euro-centric fear of America becoming a socialist country because of Obamacare is unfounded. The idea of our healthcare system, with all its privatized incentives for just about everyone but the patient, becoming socialized is ludicrous, if not for our greed alone.

Another thing I should point out. I'm not in dire, full-agreement with free market economics, either. Call me a socialist (I love gettin' paid those Benjamin's son!) or hippy (I shower), I just think the pursuit of money for money's sake in a world with such limited resources and massive socio-economic problems is non-compassionate. In the parlance of modern American, you're an asshole. If you went in to finance for the money, you're an asshole. I have lots of friends who are assholes. They are killing it on Wall St., or maybe not, but some of them are interested in the system, some interested in the cash, and none on helping people who have no access to a market that greatly affects them.

Case in point: when the world's financial bubble burst because of the assholes at AIG, Goldman, Lehman etc who quite literally bet on the investments poor people would make in shitty loans, 20 million Chinese migrant workers lost manufacturing jobs. Now, a dire free marketeer will tell me that this is the nature of supply and demand, a necessary expansion and contraction in the market and to that I say NO! If you have the information to tell me that you fully understand a system, it is your duty as a human being to make that system the most compassionate it can be. 20 million people losing their livelihood because of the decisions of a mere hundred at a couple worldwide banking firms is not free market economics, it's criminal.

This is where Obama really fucked up. He was compassionate to those who needed affordable healthcare and those who were discriminated against by insurance. He signed a bill making sure women are afforded equal pay to their male counterparts and drew-down troops in Iraq. He has a hard line against sending ground troops to Libya, while supporting a popular uprising with resources we can commit. Although we are obviously interested in Libya's oil market, we feign interest in democracy to protect their people, a sentiment I'm sure the Arab world appreciates. But Obama could not remain compassionate in the face of that which would crumble most of us, money.

Well knowing the people and intertwined system of large firms, academia, lack of regulation and personal greed that cost the public billions, in not trillions, Obama put the same faces back in their same (non)-regulatory places. If we wanted to follow some lame, psuedo-academic, analogy, we could think of the economy like a ship. If the captain and his mates are responsible for running the rig aground, killing everyone and distorting the hull of the ship, do you hire said captain again? Or if this was sports, a GM and his staff lowers ticket prices until the team is bankrupt, all the while reporting profit, what would happen to said GM.

Yet, we still have Timothy Geithner as our Treasury Secretary. The only thing that sucks more than his haircut, are his policies. Geithner's advocacy to bail out Lehman has been widely criticized and decision to let AIG exec's have bonuses after the crisis is downright criminal. Look up a picture of this guy on google, his stare will give you the willies.

So Obama is doing alright with foreign policy. He's taking steps to allay hatred in the Arab world and fighting terror in a more subtle way. He's taken an open stance against torture and would like to close Guantanamo, something that has eluded him thus far.

Domestically he's far more conflicted. Republican/Tea Partiers will try and defund "Obamacare" and talks are in the works about how much of the budget to slash, not to mention a full-blown government shut down, possible this weekend!

I really wanted to go see Mt. Rushmore on tour this summer...

But I'd like to spread a message of persistence and non-complacence. We have the info and tools as American citizens to hold our politician's feet to the fire with this stuff. It's very easy to say "politicians will be politicians" with this stuff, but that's weak and inherently un-American. Informed criticism and voting is patriotic and if we want to keep this ship afloat, we all have to pay attention.

a note from the plane

Wanted to post this morning, sitting on the tarmac at DIA. Frogs played the last two nights in Vail and scurried home to Denver for an hour, just long enough to shower and head to the airport. Life is crazy right now, to say the least. After playing the Maple Leaf tomorrow night, we'll cruise around New Orleans, enjoying a much needed psuedo-vacation. Returning from NOLA on Fat Tuesday will hardly be the end of what we are calling "Marchdi Gras". Our amazing, multi-purpose road homie, Double A, will pick us up where he dropped us off just days before, for the trip back to the valley for CarniVail, playing to a blocked off street of 500 people or so. The next day I turn 25 and we open for the Dirty Dozen Brass Band. Later in the month we team up with heavy-hittin' Ivan Neville and his Dumpstaphunk. I'm blessed to have so many friends and fans across the country and I cannot wait for this plane to take us to New Orleans, my home away from home. Thanks to everyone who supports me in this entrepreneurial, oftentimes stressful and hectic, job. Happy Mardi Gras!

*forgive all spelling and grammar errors as this was composed via blackberry on flight 1222, with a southwest stewardess breathing down my neck...

My Birthday

That's right. I'm turning 25.

25 years of awesome.

If you're in Denver I hope you'll come celebrate with me as we open for one of our favorite bands, The Dirty Dozen Brass Band, only two days after we get back from New Orleans next week.

I couldn't really ask for a better present...


Trevor

Mousike Magazine Article

the following appears in the current issue of MOUSIKE MAGAZINE:

by Trevor Jones

Here at Mousike, we recommend you consume as much music as possible, every day.

So how do you get your recommended daily dose of music? It’s a question most of us rarely ask ourselves, in large part because it has become so easy. When the internet arrived on the scene the web virtually destroyed the “normal” means by which we consumed our daily music. Radio and the record labels who provided individual songs to your locally owned radio stations collapsed and a new model, full of free music and online resources for listening has swallowed us, listeners and audience alike, so much so that it’s hard to decipher exactly what happened sometimes.

Thirty years ago all you had to do was call in to the local DJ, request that Blue Oyster Cult cut you’ve been craving and he was happy to help you out. Have you tried calling Clear Channel recently? The receptionist who answers probably can’t name the station in the city you’re inquiring about, because he is sitting in a corporate office building, far from any microphones or radio antennas.

So what happened? And more importantly, what do bands do these days to make sure people hear their music, in hopes that they themselves become that daily dose of music you crave?

This is where I should expose my bias. I’m a musician myself and just like everybody, I care about the welfare of the people in my industry, specifically other musicians. During the rest of this article it might feel like I’m trying to convince you to care, too and I am. For good reason. We live in a free market society and so if we want quality art, we want artists to get paid. Not just musicians either. Comedians, painters, poets, people who craft miniature portraits out of sand in tiny glass bottles, all of these people need to be paid if we want their art, whatever it is, to stick around. Take the Writer’s Strike of ‘07-’08. Sitcoms and late-night shows alike were scared to death because their writers would not return work until they had been paid for internet downloads and smart phone streaming.

So as I climb down from my soapbox, let’s figure out exactly how we get our music these days and how some local bands distribute their tunes to the masses.

First, the early days. Remember ‘em? You got your music just like you bought everything else: you up off your couch and walked down to the store. This was a very deliberate, physical process, just as there was a physical hole in your wallet where $15 used to be before you bought that new CD.

I also remember when Napster happened. I was 13 years old and in the prime CD-buying phase of my life. Even after most locally-owned record shops closed, I still had to get a ride from mom down to the aptly named “Warehouse Music” to spend $15-$20 on Hootie and the Blowfish, Lenny Kravitz or maybe even some ZZ Top or Led Zeppelin. As soon as I downloaded “Boyz in the Hood” on Napster, it changed everything. Nothing was unsearchable or unaccessible. I chuckled ten years later when my dad joined the revolution and showed me all the albums he had downloaded with BitTorrent, a modern version of Napster. This new way of obtaining music was decidedly non-physical and non-monetary, perfect during breaks at work or on a boring Sunday. I’m glad he got that King Crimson back after I lost his CD case in Europe all those years ago.

This new way of getting our music, requiring little more than a point and click of the mouse, was here to stay. Artists didn’t like this, or so it seemed. The spectacle of litigation brought about by Lars Ulrich made it seem as if every artist was, point blank, against file sharing. Unbeknownst to the media and maybe even Lars himself at the time, was the fact that file-sharing was the best thing that could have happened for artists and their creativity in an industry controlled by big record labels who had little interest in the music itself, only the bottom line. Later on, Lars would regret his attack on Napster.

“We didn't know enough about the kind of grassroots thing, and what had been going on the last couple of months in the country as this whole new phenomenon was going on.”

-Lars Ulrich

Napster brought about what would be ten years of tumultuous, confusing dealings in the music industry. People found new ways of file-sharing and the record industry would sue individuals here or there, ducking their heads from the media when a curious eleven-year-old or some sweet little granny would be sued for thousands because of copyright infringement. Apple’s iTunes and iPod first edged out music software programs, then buried all other devices period. How many Dell or Microsoft music players do you see anymore?

Meanwhile, the internet itself developed myriad sites and plans for music delivery. Pandora, Grooveshark and Spotify are all examples of streaming music services that are free but give different listening options, payment plans for premium service and even differ in the legalese they use as protection against litigation.

But perhaps the most perplexing, the most paradoxical method by which we receive our music, is on YouTube. What kind of world do we live in where people get their movies from iTunes and their music on YouTube? It’s bananas. But it’s true. And why shouldn’t it be? Music on YouTube is like watching an alien-MTV on steroids, impressive looking and filled with content for the future. For bands, however, this illogical but very popular medium provides a great way to promote the music in a visual way. I recently saw a video of a band shooting a flame-thrower and fire extinguisher at one another. I don’t care what you’re promoting... that’s awesome.

YouTube panders to our primary perception, vision. We all know how much better a concert can be with just a few lights, lasers and a smoke machine to occupy our visual field. Also, musicians tend to be pretty hairy/ugly, so a bright flashing distraction never hurts. But the need for visual stimulation in our modern age is a big one. A great music video can break a band instantly, much like a radio single could several decades ago.

I was at the grocery store in Avon and someone asked me recently if I thought Jimi Hendrix would become famous if he were playing today. I said no and my new friend shook his head and agreed with me. Back then it wouldn’t have had much to do with social networking or YouTube, only word of mouth about a new fiery guitar player. Jimi would come to rely on people like his manager and ultimately his record label to be heard. So what does a burgeoning Jimi or Bob or Janis or Jim, do today?

They adapt to the new system. Bands in Colorado have been doing it for several years now. The majority of any band’s revenue comes from playing live shows, so that aspect of the model hasn’t changed much. What has changed is musician’s attitudes about how, and how much, to sell music for. The cost of making an album has come down exponentially in recent years and so bands are no longer beholden to big record companies, oftentimes they only have themselves or one or two investors to pay back. With this financial freedom comes executive freedom as well and artists are increasingly intelligent about managing their creative assets and royalties. When most of the music out there is free, due to file-sharing and sites like Pandora, it becomes very hard to compete economically when a group’s music costs anything at all to download.

I went online to research some Colorado bands and found a varying array of distribution strategies. Yonder Mountain String Band offers free downloads, but only a smattering of their overall catalogue, in hopes of snaring fans into buying whole albums. The Motet offers their last album, completely free, while putting their more recent effort up for sale. Big Gigantic doesn’t beat around the bush, a quick Google search renders direct links to multiple pages of free music downloads. In a smart move, their last album can be downloaded for money, but fans get a bonus track.

Big Gigantic has faith in what they are doing and it shows. They know their music is so good, people will pay for the whole album just to get that last bonus track. Of course some people won’t, but for those people their is a “donate” button. When Radiohead released In Rainbows for free a couple years back, they made more money off donations than from actual sales of all their other albums, combined. When people get their daily dose of music, they are truly grateful.

As a consumer, we don’t really think about all of this. Music is so easy to obtain these days, and we no longer have to rely on a terrestrial radio system with no character and little quality music. Record labels, payola, and all the corruption that ruined creativity in those systems is gone. The landscape is more barren now, the musical fruit more accessible to the consumer. This new landscape is certainly more harsh and entrepreneurial for artists. Then again, isn’t that what makes a great artist? Although it’s cliche, great art comes from struggle. Not only do we expect that from our artists, we want to support them through their struggles. If only all of our endeavors had a “donate” button.

Anyone who is, or has been an entrepreneur knows how tough it is. The prospect of giving away your product for free seems not only illogical, but akin to business suicide. That gives you a sense of how upside down the world of media has become because of the internet. Newspapers, books, movies, TV shows and even this magazine you hold in your hand... none are immune. In a sense, we have come full circle.

During the Renaissance, music was very much a free market commodity. People hired musicians because they thought the tunes were off-the-hook, and to listen. The idea of every piece of music (pretend CD’s existed) being the same price would have been ludicrous. Some music sucks, some touches the voice of God. Is every painting a standard price? Now we have returned to employing the proverbial “donate” button. The real struggle for musicians is making their “donate” button more valuable than the next. From this struggle comes great artists and most importantly for us as listeners, great music.

Sex, Drugs and Hip-Hop

Hip-Hop is the new Rock and Roll. My title is a little abrasive, the comparison goes way beyond the sexual expression and drug use present in the Rock scene in the 70's. I want to explore just how deep the comparison goes because let's face it, Rock is a spineless, soft, watered-down version of the creative nebula that encompassed the true "scene" in the 70's.

What is a music "scene" anyway? You have a core group of musicians and their catalogue, obviously. But it's the content in that catalogue and the interaction between artists in the group that make a "scene". Anything less is just a bunch of bands competing against each other.

So by that definition, let's focus not on the groupies or club owners or sex or drugs, just the music and the the relationships between the people who play it.

Something you hear a lot in hip-hop is reference, not only to the qualities of oneself, but differing qualities, positive and negative, of other peers in the scene. Commonly know as "shout outs" or "representing", an MC will call out the rhymes of a fellow rapper and choose to disrespect or qualify their effort. Rappers will sample beats from other rappers or musicians. Sometimes an MC will appear as a cameo on another rapper's record as a form of cross-promotion. The point is, the process is highly collaborative.

In contrast, we have today's rock bands who travel alone or with one other band, rarely collaborate unless the two artists in question are of somewhat equal fame and stature, and never publicaly acknowledge another's work. Imagine Audioslave singing about another rock band. It would be degrading to their image and thought of as awkward subject matter for a rock song.

You can pick out songs from the 70's that do exactly that. Take "Monterey", by Eric Burdon and The Animals:

Young gods smiled upon the crowd

Their music being born of love

Children danced night and day

Religion was being born Down in Monterey

The Byrds and the Airplane

Did fly

Oh, Ravi Shankar's

Music made me cry

The Who exploded

Into violent light (yeah)

Hugh Masekelas music

Was black as night

The Grateful Dead

Blew everybody's mind

Jimi Hendrix, baby

Believe me

Set the world on fire, yeah!

Burdon is singing about his peer group, albeit in a slightly more positive way than you might find in today's hip hop, but acknowledging them in detail still. The song is practically a history lesson about the music scene of the time. It might seem cheesy to us know, but that's how Eric and presumably his band felt about the vibrant, new thing happening around him.

This alludes to an even stronger reason why hip-hip is more rock than rock these days. The lyrical content of hip-hop more often references the state of affairs in everyday life. Whether it's Jay-Z or Atmosphere, you're more likely to hear about problems with money and relationships, problems we all go through, than in a rock song. For rock, these things aren't esoteric or spiritual enough to write about, although we experience them on the daily.

Flash back to the 70's. Some of the most relevant protest songs and music commenting on society in general came from the 70's. Do you see the Foo Fighter's standing up for Health Care Reform?

I'm not saying any of this is a good or bad thing, only that hip-hop has replaced the direct, relevant, and vibrant energy present when some of my musical heroes were around last century. And that's why I like it.

Listen to:

A Tribe Called Quest

Wu Tang

Atmosphere

Biggie

Mos Def

...and anything else that get's your butt shaking or mind thinkin'!!!!

Stay positive and have a great week everybody!