Too Few With Too Much in the Land Where Money Is King

I bounce between tabs these days. Tabs for freight lanes and board listings for shipments needing trucks and trailers, tabs for business correspondence, tabs for news and social networking sites.  I run through them all in the course of a day. Freight slows a bit this time of year. The pumpkin hauls were pretty light in October and early November. The Christmas tree hauls seem even lighter. I did move a bunch of hay throughout the Midwest into Texas, but always with some hassle involved. Highways in Nebraska, South Dakota, Oklahoma and into northern Texas during hay season lift the wide load (freight width > than 8') rules and just allow trucks to hang wide load signs for other vehicles on the road to look out for. Works in places where people have not populated the surroundings much. Don't see that practice on the Interstate 5s in California for sure, or on the 95 up and down the East Coast.

Right now, freight bookings have slowed to a crawl. I guess retailers have all their stuff now, and pray they sell most of it. In one of my past lives, these days were all about checking on the hits and advertised goodies.  What percentage got sold each day? What were you looking at for stock returns in January? Would you meet projections? Were any of those great cookies left from that awesome vendor who sent the huge gift basket to our department? Did all the Holiday greeting cards and gifts get done and mailed? Those were the burning issues.

Time spent thinking about politics? Not so much.

Why didn't I spend much time thinking about politics just a little more than a decade ago? Well, first I was busier, just like most of the people I know today, and second, but most importantly, political shit got done to facilitate commerce. You may not have fully agreed with what got done (NAFTA, Digital Copyright Act, Gulf War, etc.) but shit got done, most people were busy making their way and I didn't need to think about politics every fucking day of the year.

Today, nothing gets done to help most people make their way. The only legislative things getting done are those things that keep a lid on the fixed economic system we live under. Even when legislation passes like the Affordable Health Care Act, or the Financial Reform Act, the bills get tied up in litigation and stalling maneuvers that suck the life out every promised fix to the broken system the bill tried to remedy. Any American not earning in the top one percent of the population is still at huge financial risk if they have a severe accident, or get really sick whether they have insurance or not. No other country's government shits on its citizens with such perverse delight as does the American government, and health care offers the very best view of that perversity.

But health care and financial reform are only two of the issues in a country where nearly every thing has broken down. There are issues on food safety, on genetically modified foods, on bee colony disorder/collapse, on infrastructure maintenance and repair, public transportation, public education, higher education, on unemployment, underemployment, poverty, literacy, immigration, military actions, trade agreements, minority rights, worker rights, drilling rights, pollution standards, and I haven't even talked about clean water, frakking, the oceans, mining practices or any of things you toss and turn about every night like religion, STDs, crime and terrorism.

But all of these issues boil down to one crux issue: money. And the real issue about money today, just like it was in all those bloody centuries past, is that too few have ended up with too much.

I probably would never have ramped up on this topic if I hadn't seen some stupid press release from the RIAA on its lobbying efforts to Congress to stem intellectual property piracy. You know what kills piracy every time? Having the legitimate goods to sell at affordable prices the public will pay, and maybe having these legitimate goods at more than a handful of huge retailers in either the brick & mortar world or on-line.

But that is not the American way today, and particularly in the music biz.

Here is a very profound sentence from the RIAA release: “We’re especially grateful for the focus on the plight of musicians as they struggle to be paid for their work." This is particularly ironic when you consider the first paragraph of the RIAA mission statement:

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is the trade organization that supports and promotes the creative and financial vitality of the major music companies. Its members are the music labels that comprise the most vibrant record industry in the world. RIAA® members create, manufacture and/or distribute approximately 85% of all legitimate recorded music produced and sold in the United States.

Do you find the words recording artist or musicians following the words "supports and promotes" in the first sentence of this mission statement? The focus on the plight of the artist in the press release is just cover for blatant bullying and censorship tactics this organization has pursued successfully for nearly two decades now, and has resulted in the recorded music industry shrinking by more than 50% in ten years time. Most recording artists I have listened to, or read their biz stories, got chump change, or less, in royalties after all other line items from the onerous contract language got applied.

This is the trade group that sued a dead grandmother over supposed copyright infringement a few years back. It also the very same organization that inserted the "four little words" -works made for hire- into a giant spending bill that passed through Congress and was signed into law in 1999. The words meant that musician recording artists would never own their own copyrighted works. They would be solely owned into perpetuity by the suits at the largest media and publishing companies. The language was removed after an eight month siege by major recording stars and high profile attorneys. The language which caused the grief was inserted into the bill by Mitch Glazier, then a Congressional staff attorney, and who now is the executive vice- president for RIAA having worked for the organization since 2000. The repeal of works made for hire does not officially take effect until 2013.

You have to wonder what contracts wannabee pop stars sign to get any type of label deal nowadays. Only the very few have made any money on their recordings, and all those other acts and all that catalog that made the music biz a $14.9 billion industry in 1999, now just makes money for the big four- EMI, Sony, Universal and Warner- at $6.8 billion total for 2010. There really is no competition in the music market place today all the acts now are commodities in a digital age where serfs up sums up where most musical acts stand, and technology companies like Apple and Amazon work with the big four to keep the money in very few hands, and away from those who do/did all the real work.



 


Thanks for popping by. Until the next time.

A Gray Dreg Day

Gray, gray gray today. Reminds me of summers in Berkeley, CA when I lived there. Low overcast in the morning, followed by moderate overcast in the mid afternoon just in time to watch the sky's ceiling fall with denser overcast for every evening. 

Not that I got up much to face the fog in the mornings back then. I did a couple of late shows on KPFA each week and worked late nights at a small book store to pay the rent. KPFA was/remains one of those strange entities on the airwaves, a primarily volunteer run non-profit publicly supported by donations loose-knit radio spot on the dial. I fit in perfectly with the mad assembled political and musical extremists chopping up tape, moving potentiometers (pots) up and down the various boards and creating a sound mixture that was totally unique.

-Digression-
I didn't meet a person at KPFA who did not have a strong opinion on just about everything. This was just a couple of years after Patricia (Patty in those days) Hearst kidnapping, and the ensuing Symbionese Liberation Army fiasco/tragedy. The anarchy driven guerrilla group used KPFA to communicate its demands for the release of other SLA members in jail at the time, and  the Hearst family to feed the poor in California. KPFA broadcast edge cutting stuff, and tensions over the station's direction were constant. More talk/politics versus more music. And the music department under the direction of Charles Amirkhanian contained a mixture of elements only a guy like Charles could truly appreciate, running the gamut of roots Americana musics, extreme jazz, modern classical, synthesizers and ambient text-sonics from Harry Partch to Terry Riley and all parts in between. Charles was a marvel.  -End of Digression-

A gray day like any other trudging up the stairs into the station near the corner of Shattuck and University to work on a project. A friend of mine from my UC days met me in one of the tape editing rooms, and asked me if I could use some tickets to a show that evening. I'd never heard the of the group, and apparently neither had my pal. He got the comps because he worked at the auditorium and had other plans. I took the two, but I used only the one. The lady I was with at the time had studying to do, and the few friends I tried to track down were working. Gone solo.

This group had released a couple of albums on Capricorn Records. Capricorn was one of those great regional labels in the 1970s that had screamed southern rock bands, and was nationally distributed through Atlantic and the growing Warner family of labels.  The Allman Brothers had really gotten the label going in  1969 and other southern bands quickly signed on board. By the late 1970s through the tragedy of iconic losses in traffic and plane accidents southern rock was in a free fall, and Capricorn's prospects were not too good. I thought I was going to witness one more carnation of Grinderswitch meets Wet Willie, or just a night of escape into southern fried boogie.

The Dixie Dregs blew me away. No vocals. All instrumentals. From Bach fugue signatures to mind boggling bluegrass licks stacked up against fusion waves of Beck and McLaughlin inspiration into rock grit, all in too many time signatures to count with other worldly playing on guitar, violin, bass and keyboards. Truly a night to remember, and the following day Rather Ripped Records swapped me some Dregs vinyl for some greenbacks . Funny when you do a little research what you find.

Steve Morse is one of those players/musicians/writers for the ages. A true original in every sense, from his own inspirational design of his guitar to the signature flying licks and intricate instrumental opuses he creates, he is one of a kind. Give his bio a read here. But, only if you think you'll find it fascinating that a true wunderkind mind like this can go from the Dixie Dregs to Kansas to Deep Purple, and still crank out lots of just Steve Morse guitar driven magic, even after the record biz opted always for biz over the music when it came to this man.

Now more 33 full revolutions around the sun later since my first exposure, the music of Steve Morse remains fresh, vital and unique, and the memories of that concert still ring. Here is one of my favorite Dixie Dregs songs composed by Steve Morse.



Steve Morse always provided me with the best soundtracks for long drives around the Bay and through the Valley and into Los Angeles. Traveling Tunes, Road Expense, The Great Spectacular and General Lee are songs I remember making the drives a pleasure, a chance to crank up the surround sound  in a fine car and cruise through California. When you're looking for escape from the mundane check out Dregs of the Earth and Steve Morse The Introduction. Always satisfies.

Thanks for stopping by. Until next time.

The Politics of a Guitar List

 This song is is now over forty years old. The arrangement is faithful to the original version. Guitar genius still.


Maybe you caught my last post on Rolling Stone Magazine's top 100 rock guitarists. I can only say the list is the list for the year 2011. And is/was created solely for the people who voted on the large talent pool of guitar wielding professionals who made rock music the interesting diverse string-driven sound-scape it became over all these decades. The combined votes and editing missed on Roy Buchanan. Well, a lot people missed Roy Buchanan over the years.

I also mentioned the Rolling Stone top 100 rock guitarist list started in the brain of David Fricke back in 2003, and Rolling Stone has his list archived, which you can check out by hitting the link in my previous post. Fricke's, and the current guitar top 100 differ quite a bit. Fricke includes a host of San Francisco Bay area guitar talent on his top 100, but only Carlos Santana and Jerry Garcia make the 100 cut this time around. And apart from Jeff Beck and John Mclaughlin no progressive jazz-rock player gets mentioned. Brian May and Robert Fripp are the only dudes I find who get included with real progressive post 1960s pedigrees. 

I find the end result disappointing, but not altogether unexpected. Ever notice an underlying disdain from New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Nashville, Bakersfield, Kansas City, New Orleans, Detroit, Philadelphia, Austin, Boston, Miami and Anyotherplace, USA -except Seattle- for all things San Francisco over the years?

Maybe it's the culmination of thirty years shitting daily on the words liberal and progressive by hosts of conservative radio to people who ever scanned a dial on AM radio and could not escape a few seconds of lockstep right-wing spew. Too many Bill O'Reilly barf downs on San Francisco over the years. Add up all those seconds over a multitude of years for car bound commuters everywhere and you might associate the words liberal and progressive with every worst excess and depravity that has hit the world from hippie environmental terrorism and drug addiction to gay lifestyle and its supposed threats against the sanctity of marriage and the viral spread of disease.

The saddest part of this ever enduring daily aural brainwash bath has been to equate all progressive venues from socio-economic-political to cultural idioms as worthless to the listeners, who are routinely exalted for their ability to call and mimic, like myna birds, the ever repeated hypnotic messages extolling the eradication of all social liberalism.

And so by decades of cultural beat-down comes a new Rolling Stone Magazine guitarist list where we have very few players who stretched the guitar boundaries in a progressive and liberal feel flow manner, whether from San Francisco, London, Berlin or Liberalbasement, USA.

I cannot figure out why Andy Powell (with first Ted Turner & then Laurie Wisefield) of Wishbone Ash, who defined the twin lead guitar sound that so many bands adopted throughout the 1970s, 1980s and into the 1990s, gets excluded. How does Steve Howe of Yes not get included? Jorma Kaukonen of Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna cannot wriggle by Lou Reed, or Steve Jones or Willie Nelson? John Cippolina is not one of the top 100 guitarists, but Leslie West is? Robin Trower with Procol Harum and his own bands over 40 years could not garner votes, but Kurt Cobain's in this list?

Understand, I'm not in any way suggesting Kurt Cobain was not an important guy in the annals of rock. Many could/would say he was the last rock star. The Nirvanna recorded statements were vital shit. Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols was an important figure in the band and the Punk movement. I believe his guitar skills, and guitar impact were way less than both Brian Setzer or Rick Nielson, and I would not put them into a top 100. When I think of Lindsey Buckingham I think of Jeff Lynne. Great writer, instrumentalist and producer, not a guitar god, and though I really dug a lot of Buckingham tunes his place on this list seems weird.

But all of this just affirms that the tight tunes contain far more value today than the extended and spacious instrumental tracks that give a person time and opportunity to expand his/her horizons. The message of conservatism- limits and reductions is always at odds with the liberal message of boundless and limitless. Think of it another way. How does anyone define a liberal portion? How does anyone define a conservative portion? One is generous, one is smallish. One is vast, one is confined.

I like headroom when I listen to music, and I take my time. When I listen I'm not in a hurry to get anywhere, but into my head. I don't sense most people listen that way much anymore. It seems the act of the download is more important than what is on the download.

And so this clip ends this post, a post really more about why certain artists are or not included. Here is the brilliant Bill Nelson, of Be Bop Deluxe, and so much more. Dude is on my list of most influential and in my top 20, but then again I'm a liberal.



Thanks for the taking the time, and stopping by. Until next time.

Lists on a Turkey Day

Happy Thanksgiving! Nice holiday with food and family gathered to say thanks to one another for hanging in there with each other for one more year. Thanksgiving like every other holiday is about tradition, and one tradition we all see at this time of the year is the various lists of top what-evers which pop up to let us know what was best, or worst, about the year/decade/millennium in virtually every conceivable category.   

Today I was perusing the news and caught the latest list of the top 100 guitarists put together by Rolling Stone Magazine. Lists intrigue. Good lists (even when you vehemently disagree with the results) fuel interest and comments. As for for this list you'll find it here (Rolling Stone Top 100 Guitarist this year's version). David Fricke, one of my all-time favorite music journalists, started this guitarist list venture back in 2003 for Rolling Stone (here is his list).

The just-out new Rolling Stone list contains worthy musicians. Some omissions from the latest top 100 bug me. And so, one more blog post for posterity.

Not to see Roy Buchanan mentioned anywhere among the new100 truly stuns me. No man ever defined an instrument as eloquently or as forcefully as Roy defined Leo Fender's Telecaster. Fricke put him in at #57 on his list. Bless him.

I guess time fades away many things. Neil Young comments on that over and over in many of his songs, and I believe it to be true. If I could unlock Mr. Peabody's time machine with his trusted boy, Sherman, I would take you back to the thumb slice of fresh plastic on a record album released in 1972 and plucked from a White Front aisle. I'd just read the Robert Hilburn review. He's another critic I trusted for finding my pet musical sounds.

Aside:
By 1972 many of the top guys in the current Rolling Stone list of 100 greats, were either prematurely dead, or very busy doing there frets frescoes in late youth. The bloom of newness over the blues, and the various permutations the 1960s wrung out of ears who caught the blues fever phenomenon were just about over. Original British and American bands into pure blues like the Rolling Stones, the Paul Butterfield Band, Savoy Brown, John Mayall, the Yardbirds, Fleetwood Mac all were gravitating, or had moved to more pop or jazz sensibilities and made the various band personnel changes that sealed the transition.

The trends of the early 1970s were more folk derived-singer songwriter stuff of Paul Simon, James Taylor, Jim Croce, Neil Young, CSN, Bread, Carol King meets orchestral progressive rock of Yes, the Moody Blues and individual Beatles sprinkled in with lots of Motown, Memphis and Philadelphia soul. Country music was all on its own, and bands like the Burrito Brothers and the Byrds had a very difficult time selling any records trying to put country into rock, but the Eagles had no such problem with a much more pop driven focus sprinkled with country-lite. - Aside ended


The black and white photo of a bearded man holding an electric guitar on the Polydor record jacket, PD 5033, gives no indication of the forces squeezed into the grooves held between the glued cardboard. The black and white back-jacket photo of four skinny longhairs looking into the camera in an archway while a resigned looking anti-pop figure in sandals (who really looks a lot Stonewall Jackson with those sad faraway eyes) stands just in front of the archway also offers no clue to the contents. 

From the opening harmonic intonations on the Don Gibson classic "Sweet Dreams" that Chet Atkins and Patsy Cline both previously made so memorable, which Roy and his Snakestretchers have just redefined through sheer country and other worldly harmonic blisters of stretched/bent notes and rifle burst fills to the two lengthy blues instrumentals, demonstrating a mastery of the idiom and the instrument in a way no other guitar had sounded up to that point in time, through the four other county song covers and the majestic soul searching ballad where the guitar wrenches tears and cries of plaintive pleas cascading above the slow rhythm, this was an amazing earful of no compromise artistry.

Lots of crossovers in rock music where rock meets classical, or rock meets jazz, or rock meets blues, or rock meets country. This album was country, and this album was blues. There was no crossover- just guitar virtuosity in both genres alone. What made the record, and Roy Buchanan, so unique was the no compromise rule. Play them straight and true.

Maybe once in your lifetime you've sat in a bar and heard a band take on all songs the patrons could shout. Each song rang true, thanks to the vibe in the room, and thanks maybe to that 3rd scotch you were sipping through the second set. Roy Buchanan gives the listener the very rare small-crowd-held-in-awe testament to a great bar band held together by one virtuoso.

Other Roy records always teased. Some great moments or songs, but undone by either too much production, which was the case on the three Atlantic albums, or just not enough strong material to make the album stand as a singular statement. The Alligator Records release, When A Guitar Plays The Blues,  is essential, and very rewarding. In The Beginning also offers a great total album with strong tunes and incredible performances throughout, which display s versatile mastery of the guitar and genres Roy Buchanan totally owns.  

Part of my appreciation of Roy Buchanan comes from having met and talked with the man several times and from concert dates, and sweaty small club shows on many occasions. The concert he gave at the Berkeley Community Theater in the mid-1970s I still remember being one of the most riveting and awe inspiring shows of guitar wizardry, and all done without the many pedals or sonic devices so in vogue today, that I have ever seen. He was always so cordial, but by the mid 1980s so dispirited by the number of shows and the lack of money to show for it, he had begun his efforts to drown his frustrations.

I can remember reading his obituary in my office in West Sacramento, CA in 1988 and being gripped with such a sadness. To have one of the greatest guitarists in the world hang himself in a Fairfax County jail cell after being arrested on charges of public drunkenness seemed cosmically malicious.

Time has moved more than 23 years since that morning, and the fade continues to blur the memory of this sweet soul with magical powers on a fretboard with strings. I'll blame the power of the fade for this omission. Enjoy the Roy.




Thanks for stopping by. Next up some other guitarists who should have gotten more love from the Rolling Stone voters.