Heavy Metal Expats from Iraq

I enjoyed this Ben Ratliff article about Iraqi heavy metal band Acrassicauda, now based in the U.S.

The film [Heavy Metal in Baghdad] shows the group’s four musicians playing sporadic gigs through bombings, with temperamental electricity run off gas generators and mortal fear of growing scorned rock ’n’ roll chin beards, to say nothing of singing in public — and in English — about typical metal themes. It outlines social, political and financial obstacles that make, say, Black Sabbath’s scratchy early years, as described in Ozzy Osbourne’s new memoir, seem deluxe.

Anais Mitchell in Storyhill Fest Room

I have been in the Storyhill Fest Room since 11:15 pm, when Red House president Eric Peltoniemi played a set of his beautiful songs, including a brilliant country tune called "Mama Ain't Right." Then came Ray Bonneville, Storyhill and Carrie Elkin, who played some great new songs.

Now I am listening to Anais Mitchell with Jefferson Hamer joining her on electric guitar and lovely high harmonies...

- Cosmic American
- We Build the Wall (from her new folk opera Hadestown, featuring an all-star cast that includes Ani Difranco, Bon Iver and Greg Brown)
- O My Star
- Dying Day
- Out of Pawn
- He Did

More on the Future of the Music Industry

Damian Kulash Jr. of OK Go, who rocked Urbana-Champaign's Canopy Club last fall in a double bill with Princeton, has an op-ed in the New York Times where he recounts the band's YouTube breakthrough:

MY band is famous for music videos. We direct them ourselves or with the help of friends, we shoot them on shoestring budgets and, like our songs, albums and concerts, we see them as creative works and not as our record company’s marketing tool.

In 2006 we made a video of us dancing on treadmills for our song “Here It Goes Again.” We shot it at my sister’s house without telling EMI, our record company, and posted it on the fledgling YouTube without EMI’s permission. Technically, this put us afoul of our contract, since we need our record company’s approval to distribute copies of the songs that they finance. It also exposed YouTube to all sorts of liability....

As the age of viral video dawned, “Here It Goes Again” was viewed millions, then tens of millions of times. It brought big crowds to our concerts on five continents, and by the time we returned to the studio, 700 shows, one Grammy and nearly three years later, EMI’s ledger had a black number in our column. ...

...

... EMI disabled the embedding feature. Now we can’t post the YouTube versions of our videos on our own site, nor can our fans post them on theirs. If you want to watch them, you have to do so on YouTube.

...

The numbers are shocking: When EMI disabled the embedding feature, views of our treadmill video dropped 90 percent, from about 10,000 per day to just over 1,000. Our last royalty statement from the label, which covered six months of streams, shows a whopping $27.77 credit to our account.

The ultimate point of the piece seems to be that bands need record companies because they need start-up capital in order to take the band to the next level but that record companies need to stop shooting bands in the foot by clamping down on marketing techniques like posting videos on YouTube and making them freely available.

It's easy to understand both sides of the problem here: record companies are seeing so much of their product for which they used to get paid now being distributed for free, so they want to hold on to whatever revenue streams they can; on the other hand, if there's so much free stuff out there, how can a band gain attention if it's not giving stuff away for free?

Ultimately, I think that more and more revenue is going to have to come from live shows -- something that cannot be redistributed for free. But if ticket prices are set by the market, can this happen? Clubs will constantly pressure bands for lower cover charges, and going to see a show at a club competes with other possible entertainment expenditures -- like going to a movie, for instance. So can music venues really raise ticket prices all that much?

Thursday Night at the Nashville Room in Memphis

Since I was running the official Red House Records Folk Alliance showcase on Thursday last night, I only caught snippets of the artists' 25-minute sets as I ran in and out of the Nashville Room at the Memphis Marriott Hotel, dealing with cranky sound guys and making sure there was enough Red House swag at our info table. Despite some serious sound issues, it was a great night with a big audience and amazing performances...

7 pm: Duo Storyhill did a great set, mostly of songs from their April release Shade of the Trees.

7:30 pm: Scottish folk legend Archie Fisher wowed the crowd with his beautiful ballads and wry humor. The highlight for me, though, was watching Red House president Eric Peltoniemi and John Gorka watching the performance like eager school kids, totally enamored.

8 pm: Meg Hutchinson was one of the highlights of the evening with Anne Heaton joining her on harmony vocals, singing mostly stuff from her now Billboard-charting new release The Living Side. She also ended with a new song that sounded really nice.

8:30 pm: John Gorka did a typically solid set full of the great songs you'd expect, including songs from the new album So Dark You See and a particularly nice version of "Writing in the Margins."

9 pm: Danny Schmidt performed with the fabulous Carrie Elkin joining him on harmony vocals. He's been doing lots of writing these days now that he's taking a brief respite from his crazy tour schedule so we got to hear a bunch of new songs...awesome!

9:30 pm: Making her first appearance at Folk Alliance, Pieta Brown did a very nice set without her usual sideman Bo Ramsey. A rare treat to see her completely solo. I actually got to catch most of her set so was able to take down her complete setlist...

- Other Way Around
- Frank Stokes
- Faller
- Calling All Angels (an original, not the Jane Siberry song)
- In My Mind I Was Talking to Loretta (after great story about growing up in a suck in Iowa and remembering going with her dad to see Coal Miner's Daughter)
- Remember the Sun (a tribute to Mavis Staples & The Staple Singers)

10 pm: The winner of last year's Folk Alliance Award for Song of the Year, Ray Bonneville was wrapping up the night with a set with Mike Meadows joining him on percussion. Unfortunately, I couldn't catch most of Ray's set as I had to leave Eric in charge as I ran to my room to retrieve my banjo for a showcase I was doing at 10:30 pm with Pieta and Danny Schmidt.

Pieta, Danny and I performed in the round in a lovely showcase room, sponsored by the Americana Agency. There were several great performances including a riveting version of Danny's "This Too Shall Pass," and one of my favorite Pieta songs "Lovin' You Still." I was also thrilled the way everyone joined in so beautifully on my gospel tune "Revival Train."

For more photos of this showcase, click here.

Jorma Wins Folk Alliance Award for Song of the Year

Greetings from Memphis! President Eric Peltoniemi and I arrived in the land of BBQ and blues last night for the International Folk Alliance Conference just in time for the 2010 Folk Alliance Honors & Lifetime Achievements Awards ceremony. We were thrilled that our own Jorma Kaukonen won the Song of the Year award for his cover of the Rev. Gary Davis song "There's a Bright Side Somewhere" from his 2009 release River of Time. We accepted the award on his behalf, and Eric read a beautiful thank-you letter from Jorma. Later in the evening we joined the Market Monkeys crew for a lovely cocktail party where we hung out with John Gorka and some of our favorite DJ's.

Just ran into Meg Hutchinson, who flew in late last night. We were thrilled to let her know that her new album The Living Side just charted this week on the Billboard Folk Chart. We're looking forward to her performance tonight as part of the Red House showcase.

To see photos and other updates from Folk Alliance, check out our new Red House blog.

Afrobeat History Lesson

Vis-a-vis our recent discussion of the Fela! musical here and Chris Blattman's discussion over on his blog, Chris also draws our attention to the following excellent music video:

Christmas in February

Oh my God, there's a video for The Zambonis' "Hockey Monkey"!!!

Music Writer Smackdown

Jon Caramanica, in a recent New York Times piece, juxtaposes Anthony DeCurtis's recent edited volume of Robert Palmer's writings against a similar collection of Robert Hilburn's work (edited by Hilburn himsel). Palmer was at the Times for almost a decade and then at Rolling Stone. Hilburn was at the other Times, the Los Angeles Times for 30 years. The take-home point of the review: Palmer understood music and didn't glorify the musicians he covered; Hilburn has repeatedly gotten swept up in the cult of personality. Caramanica is maybe a little heavy-handed, but I haven't read either book, and honestly know very little about Hilburn as compared to fully respecting Palmer's work.

The choice bit is perhaps this comparison:

Hilburn writes of [John Lennon] reverently in this book, as if he were oracular, unattainable. As a result, Hilburn becomes smitten. By the time he has to write about Lennon on the day of his murder, he’s practically switched teams. “My first thought,” he says of seeing a co-worker in tears, “was ‘Why is she crying? John was my friend.’ ”

... In one essay, [Palmer] recalls admitting to Lennon and Yoko Ono during an interview that he was unfamiliar with much of their solo work: a little too laissez-faire, perhaps, but better that than too reverent.

Albany, New York, 300th Anniversary Song

Recently, we alerted you to an awesome song about Cleveland.

Albany-native and soon-to-be-world-renowned-history-professor Monica Mercado has now called our attention to the following video created for Albany's tercentennial in 1986:



Groovetastic!

President SBY's New CD

The New York Times has an article about Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's new album, the third one that he has released since he has been in office.

I have to confess to never actually having heard any of SBY's music. Am I letting readers down?