CHINADOLL: the artist, the music, the website...

Mon 31 Mar 2008 Geek

So here’s some background: most of you who are visiting this site probably know me — if you know me at all — as a sometime musician who had a few CD’s out a few years back, and still threatens to release another one at some undefined moment in the future.

What some of you might not know is that I’m currently making a living as a web geek. So I spend a fair amount of time reading the blogs of other web geeks, who usually have a fair amount of useful information to share, for which I am endlessly thankful.

But there’s one web geek in particular — let’s call him “Web Geek 2.0” — who’s taken it upon himself to tell musicians how to run their careers. He has a long history of making outlandish statements on subjects that he’s not familiar with, so his latest pronouncement is par for the course:

“Recorded music is nothing but marketing material to drive awareness of an artist.”

In other words, musicians shouldn’t expect to be paid for recorded music. Recorded music is an advertisement for the artist’s “brand”. The cynics among us might assume that Web Geek 2.0 merely wants to download high-quality music from talented artists without paying for it. But “No!” says Web Geek 2.0. This is revolutionary thinking!

Except it really isn’t. It’s an idea that’s as old as the recording industry itself. And the reason that the idea has never gotten off the ground because the recording process is expensive, labor intensive, and needs to pay for itself with the sale or licensing of the recorded product. Web Geek 2.0 rather conspicuously fails to crunch those numbers.

But why should he? Web Geek 2.0 has more revolutionary thinking for us: Musicians should go on tour and sell merchandise! Brilliant! I’m sure that musicians the world over are kicking themselves for not thinking of it first. Except that they did think of it first, and it turns out that touring doesn’t pay very well, and the most popular and profitable merchandise to sell on a tour is — or at least was — recorded music! Which Web Geek 2.0 doesn’t want to pay for.

So how should musicians ultimately pay the bills? Well, Web Geek 2.0 isn’t really clear about that one. He mentions something about “talented” musicians “figuring it out”, and pats the tech community on the back for freeing musicians from those evil “major labels”. Because not getting paid by consumers is somehow better than not getting paid by a corporation.

What Web Geek 2.0 isn’t aware of is that musicians are looking for alternative ways to finance their recorded work, and it’s not going to come from touring or merchandising or some other altruistic, grassroots source. It’s going to come from advertisers looking for product endorsements. And what kind of artist is the advertiser most likely to sponsor? Will it be a creative maverick who will enrich our culture and push the artistic envelope and expand our musical vocabulary in ways that perhaps even Web Geek 2.0 can't imagine?

Of course not. The advertisers will sponsor pretty faces singing pop music. Plus ça change...

So here’s the bottom line: The declining fortunes of the music industry are putting the squeeze on all musicians. It makes no difference whether the musician is signed to a major label, independent label, or is running his or her own mom’n’pop operation. It makes no difference whether Web Geek 2.0 considers the musician to be “talented” or “untalented”. All musicians are questioning how much effort and expense they should put into recording new material. That’s not good news for music fans.

There’s no turning back the clock, so musicians will have to accept their fate. But Web Geek 2.0 will have to accept his fate as well: if he’s not willing to pay for high-quality recorded music, he’ll have to settle for poor-quality promotional crap from Maybelline.

Of course, Web Geek 2.0 probably wouldn’t know the difference.

Mon 14 Jan 2008 Himalaya

Pix here.

Sat 15 Dec 2007 Year In Review

2007 was crap. I'm spending New Year’s in the Himalayas. Pix in ’08.

Sat 14 Jul 2007 Postscript

Okay, that last post was rather cryptic. Sorry!

The thing is, for some reason I’ve been getting a fair amount of “Whatever happened to the Chinadoll?” email lately. I’m kind of surprised that anyone would still care after so many years, but I guess it means that I must have been doing something right with those three CD’s that came out in the last millennium.

Music was a big priority for a big chunk of my life, and at times it was the one and only priority. But sometimes events come along that knock those priorities out of whack, you know? I’ve never been interested in talking about my personal life on this site, and I doubt that anyone would want to read about it anyway, so let’s just say that I’m now dealing with some responsibilities that almost everyone has to deal with at some point in their lives. So the music has to wait.

I appreciate the advice of those who think I should be using this website to promote my older recordings, and I’m very flattered that people are still listening to them. But personally I can’t listen to them without cringing at all the things that I know I could have done better, so it’s hard to get enthusiastic about promoting them.

There’s plenty of material written for the next Chinadoll release, but right now there’s not enough time to turn it into a reality. The recording process is very labor-intensive, and it doesn’t help that my primary workstation is in for repairs – again!

So there will be another Chinadoll release – someday. Hey, it’s not like there isn’t already a lot of great music out there to listen to, right? If you’re looking for suggestions, I’d recommend Jessica Bailiff’s “Feels Like Home” and Harold Budd’s “Avalon Sutra”.

Until next time, as-salāmu `alaykum...

Fri 23 Jun 2007 Frequently Asked Question

Q: What the fuck?

A: Dude, I hear ya! But sometimes shit happens. And when some shit happens, some other shit doesn’t happen. It’s the yin-yang equilibrium of WTF. So just ride it out, maybe explore some other avenues, and check back here every once in a while. What was once the fuck may no longer be the fuck, but in time it might become the fuck once again. Until then, until soon, a bientot...

Sun 11 Mar 2007 Cheap Shit

Tom Petty said it best: “Rock’n’roll is just cheap shit.” Which is to say, there are more important things in life to worry about than a cabal of corporate swine screwing over barely consequential musicians like myself.

Having said that, the RIAA can eat shit and go to hell with a concrete dildo up its fat ass. They’ve set up a “nonprofit” organization called SoundExchange that will charge internet broadcasters for the right to broadcast my music. I make the music, they collect the cash, get it? Sounds like yet another sleazy record industry contract sob story, doesn’t it?

Except for the fact that I didn’t sign any contract. I’m not a member of the RIAA or SoundExchange or any of their associated companies. Nevertheless, they’ve decided that they own a piece of every musical composition ever recorded. All of them. Even mine. And they’ve managed to convince the Congress of the United States of America to back them up. So much for electing a Democratic majority, eh?

But nevermind the principled objections, the practical consequences are pretty ugly, too. As most of you know, the internet broadcasters who play my music are truly labor-of-love operations with incomes of substantially less-than-zero. As SoundExchange flexes its trans-national, multimedia-financed muscles, it’s likely that these outlets will simply be squashed out of existence. Conveniently, this would allow the RIAA and its cronies to effectively monopolize internet broadcasting.

The RIAA, of course, will claim that SoundExchange is no different from any other performing rights organization like ASCAP, BMI or SESAC. What they’ll neglect to mention is that internet broadcasters must pay SoundExchange royalties in addition to the royalties they already pay to the performing rights organizations. They’ll claim that the royalties will then be distributed to musicians like me – after they’ve deducted their “overhead”. Let’s face it, musicians are more likely to get a bill from SoundExchange than a check!

What’s more, ASCAP, BMI and SESAC cannot legally charge anyone for the use of my music unless I explicitly give them permission to do so. By contrast, SoundExchange can legally charge everyone for the use of my music even if I explicitly forbid it!

I’ll be honest with y’all: I’m not hopeful. We may have God and Justice on our side, but the RIAA has lawyers. Lots of them. They’re immensely powerful and thoroughly amoral. Legally speaking, we’re fucked.

But in the ongoing battle between rock’n’roll and the RIAA, I’m still betting on the rebel forces. Unlike the RIAA, we don’t need legal victories to get over. We never have.

Long live cheap shit.

Tue 26 Dec 2006 James Brown

It's not like the world needs yet another tribute to the Godfather of Soul. But there's hardly a musician on this planet who hasn't been influenced, either directly or indirectly, by the innovations of this man. The dude turned popular music inside-out: the percussion became melodic and the melodies became percussive. He turned his band into one of the most sophisticated, highly-charged grooveboxes the world has ever known. Almost overnight, every musician of every genre had a new mountain to climb.

I hate to throw around overused adjectives like “revolutionary”. But James Brown expanded our musical vocabulary so damn quickly that it's hard to think of any other way to describe it. Even skinny white suburban upper-middle-class new wave goths like me caught the funk. If that's not a revolution, it sure is one hell of a party.

God bless James Brown for all that he's given us. And God bless his band (most of whom are still with us) for turning his vision into a reality. The hardest working man in show business has most surely earned his rest.

Mon 18 Dec 2006 Year in Review

I didn't make much noise this year, but I sure spent a lot of money on noisemakers:

musical purchases: Taylor NS34ce nylon-string acoustic guitar, Alesis Fusion 6HD digital audio workstation.

audio (live): Gary Numan on the opening night of his North American tour at the Majestic Theater in Detroit on July 31... the hottest day of the year... 110 degrees outside, and the A/C was busted inside... the band was jetlagged but still sounded ferocious and Gazza clearly enjoyed every minute of it all... bless 'im!

audio (recorded): Scott Walker's “The Drift”, Mick Karn's “Three Part Species” and Fiona Apple's “Extraordinary Machine”. Also downloaded good stuff from Xiu Xiu, Sparks and Cinematic Orchestra.

predictions for 2007: About four years ago I recorded a couple of tunes that I'm pretty happy with, but they don't fit in very well with the new material I'm writing. It's possible that I'll dust 'em off and release them as an old-school seven-inch vinyl single sometime next year.

Tue 20 Dec 2005 Year in Review

musical purchases: Yamaha RBX270F fretless bass, eBow, Toshiba laptop.

audio (live): Gordon Lightfoot, DJ Spooky, Danielia Cotton, La Boheme.

audio (recorded): Regina Spektor's “Soviet Kitsch” and Nine Horses' “Snow Borne Sorrow”.

video: Indian cinema, especially the dazzling song-and-dance of “Devdas” and the poetically colorful “Vanaspratham”.

thumbs up: face-to-face conversations with real people.

thumbs down: email, instant messaging, cyberfriends.

...and the following is exactly the sort of thing that I promised myself I'd never put on this website...

what hit song of 2005 are you?: “Feel Good Inc” by Gorillaz. In 2005, I was loving life and feeling no pain. Says so right here.

Mon 1 Aug 2005 Promised Land

It’s been five years since the last Chinadoll release. I started a new project, then abandoned it, then started again, then the recording equipment broke, then the new equipment didn’t work properly…

…and on top of all that, I’ve been kinda lazy.

I’ve begun a new project with the working title of “Promised Land”. I’m still not sure what the final product will sound like, but I’ve been listening to a lot of Indian music and playing steel-string acoustic guitar. My favorite albums of the last two or three years have been Jessica Bailiff’s “Hour of the Trace”, Regina Spektor’s “Soviet Kitsch” and David Sylvian’s “Blemish”.

I’ll be updating this site (very) occasionally to let everyone know how things are progressing. I usually work pretty slowly. Did I mention that I was lazy?