JPF Home Page Forums General Messages Songwriter Message Forum Demo quality important to plug songs?

Mike,

I hear what you're saying, and it is the most valid point of all, BUT just about EVERY now iconic song since recording went from wax to tape has had its birth from some simple tape recording set up in someones bedroom (et al) with just their instrument and voice...

Which brings us back to the crux of one of the WHY'S music has had all the Art taken out of it, replaced by canned stuff that is now being taken as manna. Now we all know that canned tomatoes don't taste the same as fresh; music has become the business of music, not the music business; which is to say: music has become a cartoon of itself.

Because the equipment Robert Johnson was recorded on, though the most professional equipment of its time, today something of that quality would not get a listen. Why? Because it doesn't SOUND like "right". All of his brilliance would have been lost.

Elite-ism, widget-tizing Art; Andy Warhalling...who can't do that?

Everything is bar-coded into some "investors" bank.

Even with crappy bar bands, the conversation is: product. That's how were are being commercalized into seeing the world, a bag of money to play in. Screw tradition...

A measure of music that is repeated anywhere in a song is now protooled to death. The last time I was in a studio the dude just had me play the bits that would be repeated once then he would just copy and paste them where they were needed. Hit a wrong note, a little pitchey, no problem, we just press this button -- whirr, wizz, sputter, splat -- and everything is right with the world.

Would anyone call paint by the numbers pictures Art? Don't really think so.

I'm thinking of Charles Bukowski. He sent in his first manuscript longhand and on bits of paper and such. Never, EVER would it happen now! Too many nits out there who think they are more brilliant than ten men and a boy. So publishers (et al) have installed gatekeepers to keep the pile of less crappy crap down.

Just think, people who take a little light pen, press it on an image, drag it to a certain predetermined spot on a computer screen, drop it in there, BANG! They are being called an Artist now!

I've heard these "bands" of the protools era, and Live they SUCK! Unless they have their armies of tecks with their pitch-correcting, melody mimicing machines of mass destruction.

And it all starts with a radio-ready demo. A demo, by definition is ONLY an idea of the idea. A demo is NOT meant to be the final deal.

So, if you don't have the money to waste on your Art -- we assume it's Art -- then you don't get heard, but some twit with more money than sense, makes a deal with some record company, puts up all the money, BANG they're on some radio someplace...BECAUSE the Art of Music has become a widget, and any good business wants to buy low and sell way, way high.

Music has made governments end wars, toppled evil kings and such like. Now, not so much.

Things don't change until they change. And change never can happen unless people attempt a change. And to change things you must have options. If you see no options then what does change have to do with it; change to what if there is nothing to change to?

I figure that the most direct way to break through the gates is to not try to go through them. Instead, befriend a record pres. Or with someone who knows someone in the biz. We used to do that. You'd play at a club, or clubs and there is a buzz. Now, with a viral video on Youtube you could become an overnight flash in the pan! But you could get very rich as well. It happens in an instant. Bruce Springsteen has the greatest bar band in the world, and when you see them Live, F&%K ME! Them dudes can play! They know how to entertain people because they are use to doing it every night with a room full of drunks! And they sing and play it themselves.

What did Springsteen's demo sound like? Probably just him and a guitar is all the exec's heard.

By the by, that is a right nice looking studio you have there.