It's a brawl motherfucker! First you better pay at the door!

Later in the night, as the band got remarkably drunk, before they reached the stage of sending me nonsensical text messages, the conversation turned to how to get ahead, how to get to the top, how to put on a better show etc. I of course, being an arrogant ass, gave them plenty of advice. If you are reading this blog some of the points that came up may be news to you.

The band are amped up. They’re flat-out excited. A producer had come to see them play, loved the show and agreed to produce some music for them. This is an exciting moment in any band. We hashed out the basic plan before the Johnny Walker ran out. Was this their big break? Perhaps. Time will tell. It also could be the wrong move. No one will know until years from now. One thing I have seen repeated with every band that succeeds is the series of small breaks that lets the band climb to the top.  This is the true system to becoming a star and a working musician.

Let’s use this band as an example. They have a manager/producer, a completed album that is released locally and a full gig schedule. All of this happened before I ever heard their name. How did they get that far? Hmm… it’s easy to guess. They all spent countless hours learning to play and listening to music. They fell in love with certain bands, particular songs and the stories they heard about other bands they admired. They all played in shitty bands. This taught them the difference between good and bad from the inside looking out.

Sure, this is how everyone dresses...right?

They all played in bands that were better. This is the winnowing process that every musician lives through. Some of them switched instruments as they realized where their true talents lay. They all played some local shows. Some of these shows sucked, bad. They learned how to get the audience engaged and how to make the girls shake their asses.  They all came to the realization that their heroes didn’t dress like the audience so they cautiously start to acquire stage clothes. 

As their set became a winner they started to branch out to new towns. Soon they won fans in these towns too. Then they heard of a studio owner/producer that seemed to have something good happening. They booked time and soon he was a fan too. They talked him into being their manager. This caused the local press to start to mention them.  He produced a brilliant but spotty first record. He dropped by my house for dinner with two of the band members in tow. By the end of the dinner I could see they had talent. I hadn’t even heard the recordings but I was interested. All I had to do was talk to them and I could see that they understood how it worked. I could see their passion and their ambition. So now they have a new producer.

The point to this little history is that you get ahead with mountains of little breaks. You create these breaks by working hard to make music, by getting yourself talked about, by not fitting in, by being a little bigger than the stage you step up on.  If you work hard enough and have lots of luck you make it to the top. At that point looking back down the mountain you will see that there is never a big break. There is never one thing that gives the band the attention of the world. You hear stories of big breaks because this myth is manufactured by the big labels that need people to believe that they create stars.  They never mention how many great musicians they bury.

Summing it all up – work hard for lots of small triumphs. Pile these up and you have a story of how a band succeeded at rock………

©Brad Morrison/Billiken Media 2011

The coolest trash in San Francisco.........

Then they made their own recordings and released them on little labels. They went through personnel changes. They became hip among  hipsters in France and still no one paid attention. They were ahead of the curve and they could write songs. Here is a video of them on French TV in 1972. The song,  “Slow Death” is in the grand tradition of drug songs like “Waiting for my Man”, “Sister Morphine” etc.

http://youtu.be/EL3pP29N-Wc

The song even got them banned from airplay.  This is often a step towards glory in the sun, success, stadium shows. In their case it never worked. The point of today’s blog is that there is a difference between being cool and being successful. The Groovies are cool. They wrote some great songs which have survived to be covered by other cool bands. They were never successful, at least not in the terms of becoming rock stars.  They did all the things beyond coolness wrong. They signed with a label that promoted kid pop. Since they weren’t kid pop they were ignored by the label.

Don’t take this little tale in the wrong way. Cool is great. Cool is very important. The world needs bands like the Flamin’ Groovies, or Big Star, or Mission of Burma or The Velvet Underground. These bands show us the way to creating music that is new and exciting. My point is that more often than not these bands aren’t very successful.  Instead they are influential. Their music echoes through other bands that go on to make it big.

Big Star is another case of too cool to be huge. They, once again, got signed to the wrong label. They were a Beatlesque band with soul roots signed to a large southern soul label. When I first heard them in 1979 they were completely unknown since they sold less than 3000 records total. They were a hidden treasure. People passed around tapes of their songs from hand to hand. They never made it. When I met Alex Chilton, one of the two writers in the band, he had given up playing for almost a decade and was living in a tent in the woods.  Eventually the girl pop band the bangles would have a hit with alex’s song September Girls. Then, in a cruel twist of fate, another of their tracks became the hit theme song for That 70′s Show, performed by Cheap Trick.  Once again cool wins through but not for the band that was cool.

The ultimate combo is an ultra cool band that explodes all the way to the top.  If that is you send me your tracks so I can come along for the ride. If not, learn about cool and learn how to make it your own since it will open doors and pack in the fans as you struggle to succeed at rock………..

©Brad Morrison/Billiken Media 2011

The interwebthingy that offers evil bastards like me the opportunity to warp young minds also aids the giant zombie musical death machine daily opportunities to track your movements and attempt to pick your pocket. At the mega labels they are just figuring this out.  If they truly understood the power of it they would have killed off rock and emptied every chicken out of every pot in the western world. It is a great stroke of luck that the Major Labels  have largely been staffed, in recent years, by complete imbeciles. Despite this handicap the labels are starting to spread their vampire wings across the cyber sky and circle around your carcass with other vultures like Google or Microsoft or The Council on Foreign Relations.

Lately, as I have been drifting along from webpage to webpage I noticed that Rhino Classics label has been following my every move. I’ll admit that I have actually visited their website. And yes, when I glanced at their page they stuck a homing tracker suppository in my ass and have been bugging me ever since. This kind of action falls under the principle of “If I can do it to you I will do it to you”.  The utter retards in the label marketing departments, drunk on their own power, had the same brain flash that all of the other megafuckulists have had in the past ten years – that is to say – they decided that the web was there to allow them to pick your brain and your pocket. It will never occur to them that we, the music listening public, do not see it this way. It will never enter their rodent brains that this is somehow immoral, in poor taste and extremely bad manners.

Now for an obligatory disclaimer. Rhino Classics is Warners Music, ie WMG.  The reason I happened to go to their leachlike website was to find their damn phone number so I could call them up and scream at them. It wasn’t actual screaming it was hyper polite since I have manners. I called to tell them I was suing them for failure to pay royalties for two years and for sending me fairy tales as royalty statements. That, in the music biz, is considered screaming. So there you have it, I am suing these gentlemen. In fact, since they, by being complete turds, forced me into a situation where I had no other choice, I am going to sue them for lots of core issues that matter to all artists as well as to me.

So back to the “If I can do it to you, I will do it to you” school of business practices. This attitude has nothing to do with ethics. For example I can try to sell you an ice cream cone on the street. If you refuse I can then beat your beloved dog with a shovel to influence your actions. As another example that is, perhaps, closer to the case in point – if I sold toilet paper I could place a camera in your bathroom to study your personal hygiene. I then could sell this valuable info to all interested parties.  Just because you can do something as part of doing business doesn’t mean it is right.

For the past few weeks the ads that have followed me have pitched The Ramones on heavy vinyl - a dream come true for audiophile collectors. They are trying to be oh, so clever. They know that you can just download the music. Since it will be a digital copy it will as good as the next downloaders copy. They also know that on some levels digital audio is just not as good as analog (ya know vinyl..) copies.  So when they pooled their collective brilliance together they came up with a plan (pronounced scheme) to sell you these rare jewels at these exorbitant prices.  They are desperate to sell you anything since they are all going broke fast. Soon, if things continue on the current path, they will be in such trouble that they will lose control of what’s playing out of your radio and which band you will hear about being the next big thing.  Shortly thereafter they may be forced to get real jobs. This sucks for them since they have heard rumors that there are no real jobs.

This brings me to the Ramones. The Ramones were great. They were one of the creators of punk. They rocked. I once saw them do 31 songs in a 65 minute set. I recommend that you acquire every Ramones record, even the one produced by Phil Spector the brilliant homicidal producer.  Do not buy them from WMG on 40 gram vinyl. It’s the fucking Ramones for god’s sake. Buy their records at thrift stores, garage sales and out of luck friends that need to raise cash for dope. This is the only way to buy Ramones records. You don’t own a forty thousand dollar stereo do you? Why, in God’s name would you want a slab of vinyl that costs twelve times the cost of a cheeseburger?

As a sidebar here I will say that I have met a few rich audiophiles. Ya know the type. Perfect apartment, expensive car, fancy pants yobs that have the absolute peak of audio perfection to impress their lady friends.  They invariably have eight audiophile records hermetically sealed in some kind of astronaut album sleeves. These recordings were carefully chosen for their recording clarity and the recommendation of some writer that also owns a sound system with its own mortgage. Oddly, one of the titles is always Dark Side of the Moon even though the guy has never smoked a joint. The only other guys that own audio systems that involve CIA Black Program technology are record industry executives and they never listen to music.  Well they might listen to the 40 gram vinyl version of Rocket to Russia and wonder in quiet terror whether you will buy it……………….

©Brad Morrison/Billiken Media 2011

The damn record is a beautiful roar of overproduction.  He, of course, is known for creating the wall of sound style of production and this single is the ultimate example of that over-the- top style.  Unfortunately this buried the perfect song that should have carried the song into the whistling repertoire of every kid in america.  It’s interesting to note that the song later became a standard live hit for Tina Turner. This just proves my point. It’s a fuckin’ great song. It sums up obsessive love in a few verses and says it in a way that can punch holes in your heart.  Great song, overproduced = notable success without mega success.  Phil knew what he was writing about. He’s an obsessive guy. He once gave his wife twin five-year old boys as a christmas present. He didn’t ask he just got them and gave them to her.  Sure… that’s normal…. everyone gives other humans as Christmas presents.  So he’s nuts. We’ve established that fact without even exploring his recent homicide conviction.  Even so he knew how to write hits.  That talent is priceless and the true key to making it to the top. Let’s look for some examples that prove the point.

Bob Dylan -ugly fucker, can’t play, arrogant asshole that’s subject to maniacal obsessions, brilliant writer = superstar writer

Tom Petty – ugly bastard with weird voice, great writer =superstar writer

Lennon, McCartney, Harrison – pleasant people, hipsters, undeniably brilliant writers = changed the world for a generation.

I can come up with hipper and weirder examples but it all points to the same thing. Songwriting is the core of what makes bands breakout into the rarefied air of superstardom. If you want to succeed learn to write a great song. One will do. Tons of undeniably brilliant songs would be better but that may be too much to shoot for. 

Writing great songs is a combo of vision, some talent and lots and lots of craft. It is a process that can be improved and honed, polished and practiced. It rarely appears wholly developed in useable form.  All the great writers learn from those that come before them. They listen to other great writers and absorb their themes.  If you listen to a great songwriter, say Bob Marley, for instance you can see that he writes about universal truths…..”No Woman, No Cry”…Gee that’s simple and boy is it true.  Great writers also steal with no shame. They don’t steal songs..well Zeppelin stole all their songs but they weren’t great writers…they steal phrases from the world around them. A friend says something true that’s clever or sad or funny and a song is born. They see an old movie and hear a perfect phrase and boom a song is born.  Great writing is the process of seeing things clearly, seeing the truth, or hearing the ring of truth in the hubbub around you.

The inspiration for a song is a morsel of magic. There is no denying that. But the heavy lifting of writing is to work and rework until the whole song is condensed into a perfectly balanced slice of life. It doesn’t matter if the meaning of the song is lost on others, they will inject their own meaning, it still must ring true to the writer and this will come through to the listener.

So this week’s blog is short. It’s also of paramount importance. If you are the writer for your band learn your craft. Learn it from the great writers. Think about their themes and their tricks to reach your soul. That’s why they are great writers and that, if you want to succeed at rock, is what you must do….

© Brad Morrison/Billiken Media 2011