writing

This story on copy protection and music piracy aired on NPR’s “Morning Edition” this morning.

There was an experiment done with chimpanzees a few years ago. When a small group of chimps was given a small quantity of bananas on a daily basis they shared them among themselves, equally and happily. When that same group was given a surplus of bananas, the dominant chimps stole, hoarded and defended the entire supply, resorting to violence if necessary.

It just struck me this morning, maybe especially, amid the horrifying stories in the news right now how ridiculous this idea of music piracy is. The idea that ultra-rich media companies and even ultra-rich “rockstars” can’t bear to have their own fans (people who genuinely derive pleasure from listening to their music) make copies of their CDs, for fear of lost revenue.

I don’t believe there is such a thing as a music pirate. Yes, some people share files on a huge scale, but think about it, who’s being harmed there? It only really impacts artists & companies who spends so much on the mass-marketing of their product that every last dollar must be squeezed from every available sucker –er, I mean consumer.

Believe me, if 50FootWave’s songs were file-shared extensively, it would be a minor miracle, yes, but also a real shot in the arm for our visibility. In other words, file sharing could only “hurt” us, if we were enormously successful. Insert logical disconnect here. If we spent stupid money making and marketing our CDs then we’d need stupid money in return. I get that. But when does it ever help to restrict the marketplace or private consumer behavior?

On a smaller scale, artists like us stand to suffer greater harm from lost CD revenue, because every CD sale impacts our bottom line directly. And yet it will never make sense to be ‘grabby’ and forget the big picture. It’s music. We’re all so used to people getting rich from it, we forget that makes so little sense. Music was a nice business, it should never have become an industry.

I’m on one side of this, I know — but it’s relevant — after many years as a signed artist, with large advances at my disposal, way more people heard of my band without ever hearing the actual music. That band is dead now. My new band is finding it harder and harder to find the small audience we require to sustain ourselves. I find it hard to care about file-sharing when all I ever really wanted was for people to hear, not buy my music.

I always had faith that if the music found it’s own good people, the money would follow. After all, who in their right mind would become a musician if money was their primary concern??

It remains way more important to me that my music be heard than bought.

There is no such thing as a music pirate in my world.

File sharing is constructive, not destructive.

Share the she-it out of my stuff. Let me worry about the “damage” it causes.

Love,
Kristin

p.s. I know, this is all so “duh” — we’ve been over it and over it. I’m just venting. What’s a blog for after all?

First of all, my apologies. It turns out touring and blogging don’t mix in my world, but I’ll do my best to catch you up…

Billy and I left home on the first and drove to Rhode Island in a pleasantly screechy car full of kids and dogs and Madlibs and crumbs. Once there, we sucked up as much beach as we could, then flew to California (starring Arnold Schwarzenegger) with the baby. We checked into our hotel, then raced out to Zuma beach in Malibu (we’re beach-centric).

Sand and salt wiped off with “borrowed” hotel towels, we then booked over to Swinghouse in Los Angeles to meet the band for three hours of rehearsal. Lisa Fletcher, photographer extraordinaire, the producer/engineer Mudrock and Tanya, the beautiful redheaded-radio-lady-from-New Zealand stopped by. Hangworthy people, all three.

And it was so nice to play again. Bernie and Rob and I looked at each other after the first song with that “oh yeah!” expression we always get when life goo has made us forget our addiction to 50FootWave.

Rob looked pale and tired, but ready to play his heart out, as usual. All the more so because this was Johnnie’s tour. Rob’s mother’s story began in Santa Cruz and ended in Seattle. Coincidentally, we began our tour in Santa Cruz and ended it in Seattle, the day before her memorial service there.

So, bright and pretty goddamn early the next morning, Bernie picked us up and crammed us into his Dalmation hair car (I always want to knit a Cruella de Ville sweater after riding in that car) and drove us to The Bus. Our tacky, beloved, and perpetually busted Bus. It smelled great: eau de bus.

It’s always hard to begin a tour and watch creature comforts fall away one by one, but it forces us to become enlightened travelers. And enlightened musicians. We learn exactly what we can live without, in other words. And most importantly, we develop the ability to say to our bitching bodies and brains, “So what?”.

For example:

You’re hungry? Eat music. Thirsty? Drink it. Tired? Play some music. Dirty? No problem. Hungover? Well, duh-uh. Lonely? Use it. Sick? Me, too. Poor? So what?

From that point on, you live to play. Which is all we’ve ever really asked for. And what great people we met everywhere we went…club people, other musicians and audience members were all lovely, generous and funny. Having Rob’s amazing wife, Amy, along and the extra special KEXP night in Seattle were icing on a pretty groovy cake.

Some high/low points:

– playing a new 50FootWave song for the first time in a long time — “Hot Pink, Distorted”. It seems to be a ‘signature’ song already. Making a song happen in front of actual humans for the first time is a heck of a test.

– split the headstock on my red SG, right down the middle. Ugh. It fell on the stage in San Francisco with an awful karrang! noise and came up busted. It hurt to look at it. Bernie offered to “MacGiver” it (Bernie is the “MacGiver-ing” king: a twist tie, some soap and a pencil and he can work miracles!) but then decided against it. Messing with guitars is not really in our nature.

– Bernie’s learning to drive The Bus. He took over totally in San Francisco, of all places, when Billy had stuff to do in town. Heavy traffic, parallel parking, meter stress: the works. Very impressive.

– pulled my own tooth at a truck stop. Hillbilly dentistry. I was fine, except for a little wooziness; there wasn’t even that much blood. Billy was upset ’cause he thought I used his bus tools to do it, but Rob said, “You’re, like, my hero now.” That made it worth it.

– owl attack (the “Owl Qaeda” attack, as it has come to be known). On the way back to L.A. from Seattle, some goofy or maybe blind owl exploded into the driver’s side of the bus’s windshield on I-5 just south of Sacramento at 1:30a.m. and smashed the whole thing. The windshield didn’t shatter, but it was blowing around and Billy said it was “like driving while looking through a funhouse mirror”.

– the absolute animal release of Rob Ahler’s (recorded, yay!) performance at the Croc in Seattle, the last night of the tour. The man is a perfect musical creature: part virtuoso, part beast.

I was with sleeping Bodhi and when Rob and Amy left the bus Saturday night and didn’t get to say goodbye to them or tell them I love them before Johnnie’s memorial service. Her death is a tragedy, but I know a greater tragedy would have been Rob and his mother never getting to know each other. They had a few special years together, years that changed both of them.

The morning after we left Seattle, I drew a picture of an empty house for Bodhi, then handed him the pen and let him fill in the windows. He drew three scribbles and a blob. I pointed to a scribble and asked him what it was.
“Water.”
“And this?”
“More water.”
“How about this one?”
“It’s water, Mama.”
“Oh.” I pointed to the blob, “What about this one?”
“That is a sad octopus.”
“Really. Why is the octopus sad?”
Bodhi sighed. “He’s supposed to be sad.” He squinted at me, like he wasn’t sure I was ready for this piece of information. “See, Mama?” he held the picture up to my face. “Tomorrow he can swim to happy.”

Love,
K

I got an email from someone (hi Micah – thanks.) asking for the lyrics to the WIP version of the Throwing Muses song, “City of the Dead”. The song was only ever formally released on one of the Firepile singles, but for obvious reasons it’s been in my head lately, too.

It was written on a Throwing Muses tour and the story it tells is a “real” one, meaning not necessarily true but told in different versions by many people, like a folk song.

I’m not nuts about seeing lyrics printed without hearing the music, so we’ll put the track up on the Free Music page in the Throwing Muses section.

City of the Dead

Some honeymoon
Your body without you
How’d you do it John?

He left the levee on his own
The crab and gators come and gone
So I laid a heavy stone across his head

I’m making him a city of the dead

Some honey sun
You’re lucky to be gone
Crawfish claw your eyes out beyond
How’d you do it John?

I think of all the dead girls
Swimming ’round you now
So I sew my name across your vest

I think of all the dead girls
Swimming ’round you now
So I sewed your name into my chest

I won’t stay married ’cause you won’t stay buried
So stop your talking in my dreams

I won’t stay awake if I can’t kiss your fingers
The Creole quarter misses you but I don’t
It’s like St. Peter said in the city of the dead
The Creole quarter misses you but I don’t

It’s like St. Louis said in the city of the dead

Love,
Kristin

We’d like to thank you for the overwhelming response to the email Kristin sent out yesterday regarding the CDBaby New Orleans benefit program.

Due to the incredible demand for CDs, we’re temporarily sold out of the 50FootWave mini-album and Kristin’s “Live at Noe Valley Ministry” discs.

More CDs were shipped out today and should be back in stock by very early next week.

If you still want to help but couldn’t find the titles you wanted, please check back soon.

Our CDBaby store is here.

Many thanks,

ThrowingMusic

As many of you may know, we have many deep and close ties to the City of New Orleans. Some of our best times have been spent recording music and living among our dearest pals down there. It is home to us and it is family to us. At times like this, the most difficult part is the sense of helplessness.

I just wanted to share this link with you (thanks to Orrin) — good information about how to help.

We’ll try to get back to normal here when things settle down.