CD Baby and Snocap

The story of CD Baby’s partnership with Snocap struck a real chord with me.


Technology has played a powerful role in the transformation of the music industry, starting with wire and tape recorders, the phonograph, and the electric guitar. In the 1980s other musicians and I would joke about “phoning in our parts.” It’s not a joke these days. When I worked for Liquid Audio in the early days of Internet music we had intoxicating conversations about the future of music discovery and distribution. CDs would go away; would people pay for individual downloads, subscribe to huge online music libraries or swap music in P2P networks? Would recorded music lose its revenue generating power all together and become a promotional tool for other income streams? How would all of this impact independent artists and the traditional record industry?


As these early predictions come to fruition, technology is still seen as a key lynchpin in this change process, and I think rightly so. The power of the Internet cannot be underestimated and if the software tools used in today’s music production are any indication, we will continue to see technology drive huge shifts in the way people discover, consume, and monetize media. One of the pitfalls of this phenomenon is the large footprint that any significant technology displays.


Reading Derek Sivers blog describing CD Baby’s partnership with Snocap ( "What happened with CD Baby and Snocap" ) I was reminded of similar experiences during my time with Liquid Audio. Developing, implementing and managing any large-scale technology is a daunting proposition. The technology quickly takes on a life of its own, with needs that have nothing to do with its original vision. This is not unlike what happens in publicly funded social service organizations. The federal agencies designed to help the neediest kids and families in our country are bureaucratic silos, designed for upward accountability. At times it is literally impossible to deliver the simplest help to real people because the needs of the system are so complex.


Derek Sivers is smart and brave. He saw the potential Snocap offered from the perspective of his original vision and embraced the technology despite his doubts. As the snowball got bigger and bigger he was not afraid to pull the plug. The lesson here is not that technology is good or bad but that it can entrance us and at times distract us from the truth that set us on our path in the first place. Is the music in the world today any better because of the technical miracles that surround us? Beethoven’s String Quartets, The Rite of Spring, and Robert Johnson managed to appear before anyone could imagine Pro Tools or the Internet in their most delusional fantasies. As we plow ahead in this brave new world, let’s not forget that music is the best.

John Prine

From Eddie Harris to John Prine…Well, there’s the Chicago connection. Are you detecting a theme? I’ve been a huge fan since Mr. Prine traded his mailman hat for a spot on the stage at The Earl of Oldtown in the late 1960s. He has mastered the art of distilling universal moments of humanity into emotionally direct pictures. His best songs stick to you, and his folksy, off-the-cuff delivery, and wry sense of humor, make him that much more endearing. I’ve been listening to his 2005 release, ‘Fair and Square’ occasionally for the last couple of years. ‘Other Side of Town’, ‘Some Humans Ain’t Human’, ‘Crazy As a Loon’, and ‘She Is My Everything’ are wonderful songs, but the one that stays with me is ‘The Glory of True Love’. I am always amazed that he comes up with these enduring melodies, from such a simple musical palette….Somehow, those particular colors have never been mixed in quite that combination. His lyrics and performance are always perfectly balanced. A wonderful songwriter with much to say about life on this earth.

Thinking of Eddie

Lately I’ve been thinking quite a bit about Eddie Harris, the late tenor saxophonist. Maybe it’s my Chicago roots, I don’t know. ‘Listen Here’ with it’s simple 2-chord vamp captures the minimalist essence of everything that feels right to me about jazz. During his career Mr. Harris was considered jazz-funk and fell somewhere in the shadow of John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Wayne Shorter, etc. Although his recorded output was uneven, his voice was completely original. His tone was rich, and his experiments with electronics were ahead of their time. His simple riff-based style reminds me of something John Mayer said about Stevie Ray Vaughn (I paraphrase); “…he was always playing rhythm guitar...”. I particularly loved Eddie’s trademark technique of anchoring his solos with a simple repeated lick, jumping back and forth between registers. In my writing I have long pursued that mysterious space between simple, direct, groove and the more sophisticated elements of harmony and rhythm. Whenever I try to visit that place, I'm pulled back to Eddie Harris, and wonder if there is anything to explore he hasn’t already said.

US Copyright Board Ruling

The recent ruling by the US Copyright Royalty Board creates a dire situation for small, independent purveyors of streaming Internet music. I am a composer myself and certainly want to be compensated for my work but I believe this decision is not in the best interest of artists, record labels, or the audience.

The music industry has become so centralized in recent years that the opportunities for new music discovery are shrinking daily. Internet radio has opened an array of new possibilities. It is a medium that is in its infancy and could provide a powerful balance to the corporate forces of the music industry. Unfortunately, this ruling will most likely be the end of the independent Internet radio provider. This is a bad thing.

I happen to believe that people who are not musicians or hard-care music fans have a much broader appreciation of music than the record industry thinks. The public is starving for access to diverse, high quality music. Eclectic music programming like that provided by Santa Monica based KCRW is an oasis in the desert to many of us.

New music discovery is key not only to the growth of the audience but also to the industry itself. The record business has become so large and cumbersome, and so philosophically driven by the sound-alike hit mentality, that there are no longer viable business models that distribute music and provide discovery tools (such as radio and Internet radio) for anything on a scale less than gargantuan. This bloated reality has created the decline the industry is currently suffering. Without discovering and nurturing new talent, the industry will die. Artists like Patty Larkin, Bill Frisell and Oliver Mtukudzi will probably never go platinum, but they will create high quality art for decades and their audiences are fiercely loyal. We desperately need business models that will support an eclectic array of new music.

Radio has traditionally functioned as the key marketing arm for the record industry. Internet radio and music discovery systems like Pandora provide the general public information that is available nowhere else. Streaming radio creates the possibility of distributing eclectic music programming from sources such as KCRW, beyond the local market. For the struggling record industry, the long-term potential benefits of streaming Internet music are huge. It would be a shame to see this opportunity destroyed by short-term thinking. The losers will be not only the Internet radio providers, but also more importantly, independent artists and the fans who love their music.