“Is venture capital a sexist industry?” -David Kirkpatrick, moderating the all-male investing panel at TechCrunch Disrupt
(via bonbro)
David Shrigley, It’s All Going Very …, 2010
this explains startup life so well
Why physical retail is more progressive
Coming up on NARM, it’s easy to poke fun at the old guys who like to hang out at the hotel and complain about those young digital whippersnappers putting them out of business. But the fact is, in music, physical retail is often much more progressive than digital retail in one very key way — the number of outlets that sell the same product.
I’m biased here because I’m working with Gumroad, a great new startup that allows creators to sell to fans via social media. It has competitive rates (better than iTunes and Amazon in many cases) and gives sellers email data; it is well funded, secure, and a totally legit company. And while there have been a great handful of labels and artists that have used the service so far, it’s been a bit of a hard sell for some others — and the fact that I have to sell it at all is even weirder.
If I was feeling particularly insane today, I could walk out of my house, rent a storefront, and open a record store. I wouldn’t need to hustle and cajole to get product — I would just register with distributors and get moving. They would vet me to make sure I wasn’t a con artist, of course, but as long as everything looked like it was in order I’d be in business, selling the same Santigold album that’s at Best Buy, Target, Sound Fix, Other Music, etc etc.
The barrier to entry is much higher in the digital space — so much so that it’s basically the equivalent of labels declaring that they will now only sell to Best Buy and Walmart and forget everyone else. You’ve got iTunes, you’ve got Amazon (and I guess I can throw eMusic in here, too), and that’s it.
What I honestly don’t understand is why labels wouldn’t want to use Gumroad. In fact, considering the rates and the data, I don’t understand why they wouldn’t prefer Gumroad. It gives people one more option to buy music. How can that not be a good thing? It’s like the labels are the baby that doesn’t want more cash in the Jimmy Fallon credit card ad.
It’s annoying, and totally perplexing.
Why artists need to have an authentic voice in social media
Or, don’t just tweet about your tour dates.
Or, seriously, you have to do social media. You just have to. Just like flossing your teeth, except tweeting is more fun. OK, if you’re, like, Bruce Springsteen, you don’t need a twitter. Guess what? You’re not Bruce Springsteen.
Or, don’t give me that “I don’t have time, because I’m an artist and I create all day” excuse. No you don’t. I know a lot of artists. You play video games and smoke pot and honestly, you’re probably farting around online right now. Lots of busy artists have great social media profiles. You think you’re busier than Lady Gaga, or Kanye West? You’re not.
I’ll stop with this trope but you get the general idea. If you’re an artist, you need to do social media, and you need to do it in an authentic way. People know more about musicians than ever before, and guess what — if you have the personality of wet cardboard, no one is going to pay attention. But chances are, if you can create cool things, you have a pretty cool personality. So just show it off. Say funny shit and post cool pictures. Don’t overthink it.
Have opinions. Depending on who you are, wading in to really controversial topics might not be smart; but then again, look at Ted Nugent. But be sincere and don’t just do the same “watch the Kony video” nonsense everyone else is doing. If you love your cat, tweet about that and how great animal shelters are. If you’re a young lady indie rocker, tweet about Planned Parenthood, cause who else is going to bail you out when you run out of birth control in the middle of a tour?
Live the rock star life and embrace it. You know when you shouldn’t talk about flying in a private jet? When you are a car executive going to DC for a bailout? You know when you should? Every other time you get to, because holy crap, those things are awesome. Embrace the Kanye. Maybe you’re not in a jet, but maybe you’re in a cool place or meeting cool people — be sincere and tweet about that. I love Trouble Andrew’s Instagram account because he goes really cool places and always posts amazing photos, and damn, I wish I could go snowboarding in Russia or whatever it is he’s doing. He cultivates this nice mix of “hey, I’m just a dude with a board and a guitar” and “I’m a dude with a board and a guitar who gets flown all over and here’s my new sunglasses line.” It’s that mix of reality and aspiration that works well.
Get in where you fit in. Maybe you’re not pithy and great at twitter, but you have a great sense of style, or you write awesome essays. Pinterest, Tumblr, boom. Or take awesome pictures and kill it on Instagram. And don’t just make it about music. Talk about the news of the day, or what you think of “Girls,” or the books you’re reading on tour. Just don’t sound like a “buy tickets to my show” bot.
All the Real Girls
I was joking that I wanted to make an “it gets better” video for the cast of the new HBO series “Girls” (perhaps you have heard of it), then I realized, they know it gets better. That’s the whole point.
All the girls on that show, and most of the twenty-something Williamsburgers with boring jobs and artful haircuts I see every day, they know it gets better. They know that in 10 or 15 years, they’ll sit on the roof of their luxury condo building with their spouse and discuss careers and real estate and ugh, do you believe how high our taxes were this year, and remember how much fun it was when we were young and broke. It’s a phase, like loving Barbies or horses, and it is something one grows out of. I look back at my early twenties and I had a series of crappy jobs and terrible men and lived in a house with a pirate radio station in the laundry room and paid $300 a month in rent. I had a permanent PBR hangover and opinions on relevant noise bands and knew which friend worked which shift at which Stumptown so I could go get free espresso.
But I knew the entire time I would grow out of it, as do the girls on Girls. When the lead character’s parents threaten to cut her off, they mean that they’ll stop subsidizing her lifestyle, not that she’ll be out in the street. None of these girls would be out in the street, when it came down to it.
I watch Girls, and then I watch Teen Mom, and for those girls poverty isn’t a phase. There’s no charm, no “I’m only doing this to spice up the memoir I will eventually pen.” Things won’t get better. Terrible small towns will remain terrible, crappy jobs will remain crappy, and babies are cute so what the hell, might as well have one.
I’m not the first person to worry that those of us who had “glamour poverty” phases are conflating our experiences with people that live in actual poverty. But something about the easy, breezy entitlement of Girls feels very wrong to me, even though I lived it and got the tattoos to prove it. If HBO really wanted to be transgressive, it would show people for whom poverty isn’t a temporary inconvenience but an actual life, that keeping a roof over your head and food on your kids plate is the only endgame. But then, who wants to watch that?
Kill Whitey
Yeah, there is probably a lot of irony in the fact that I’m doing this from a hotel room in Cannes, France, but it’s a way to stay awake and try to get myself on Europe time, so screw it. Might as well take the Charles Murray quiz and find out how thick my bubble is.
Life History
1. Have you ever lived for at least a year in an American neighborhood in which the majority of your fifty nearest neighbors probably did not have college degrees? I’M NOT A DEMOGRAPHICS EXPERT, BUT MY EDUCATED GUESS IS NO.
2. Did you grow up in a family in which the chief breadwinner was not in a managerial job or a high-prestige profession (defined as attorney, physician, dentist, architect, engineer, scientist, or college professor)? DOES BEING A SCHOOL ADMINISTRATOR COUNT? IF YES, THEN NO. IF NO, THEN YES.
3. Have you ever lived for at least a year in an American community under 50,000 population that is not part of a metropolitan area and was not where your college was located? NO
4. Have you ever lived for at least a year in the United States at a family income that was close to or below the poverty line? You may answer “yes” if your family income then was below $30,000 in 2010 dollars. Graduate school doesn’t count. Living unemployed with your family after college doesn’t count. I HAD A FEW LEAN YEARS IMMEDIATELY POST-COLLEGE, BUT I WASN’T SUPPORTING ANYONE BUT MYSELF DURING THOSE YEARS, SO NO.
5. Have you ever walked on a factory floor? DOES IT COUNT IF THE FLOOR USED TO BE A FACTORY AND IS NOW A HOT NEW ART SPACE IN BUSHWICK?
6. Have you ever held a job that caused something to hurt at the end of the day? I’M SURE “MY BRAIN,” “MY SOUL,” AND “MY CONSCIENCE” ARE NOT VALID ANSWERS TO THIS, SO NO.
7. Have you ever had a close friend who was an evangelical Christian? NO
8. Do you now have a close friend with whom you have strong and wide-ranging political disagreements? NO
9. Have you ever had a close friend who could seldom get better than Cs in high school even if he or she tried hard? NO, ALL MY FRIENDS WHO GOT BAD GRADES WERE JUST STONERS.
10. During the last month, have you voluntarily hung out with people who were smoking cigarettes? UH, I’M IN FRANCE RIGHT NOW. BUT IN THE SPIRIT OF THE QUESTION, NO.
11. What military ranks do these five insignia represent? I GUESS I LEARNED NOTHING FROM WATCHING THAT HOMELAND MARATHON, HUH?
Sports, Pastimes, and Consumer Preferences
12. Choose one. Who is Jimmie Johnson? Or: Have you ever purchased Avon products? CAR-RACING GUY AND NO.
13. Have you or your spouse ever bought a pickup truck? NO
14. During the last year, have you ever purchased domestic mass-market beer to stock your own fridge? SWEET LORD, NO. GUESSING IRONIC PBR PURCHASES DON’T COUNT HERE.
15. During the last five years, have you or your spouse gone fishing? YES, BUT IT WAS IN BELIZE, SO I DON’T THINK THAT COUNTS.
16. How many times in the last year have you eaten at one of the following restaurant chains? Applebee’s, Waffle House, Denny’s,IHOP, Chili’s, Outback Steakhouse, Ruby Tuesday, T.G.I. Friday’s, Ponderosa Steakhouse. I THINK I HAD A SODA AT A FRIDAY’S AT THE AIRPORT…BUT OTHERWISE, EW, NO. I SHOULD POINT OUT, THOUGH, THAT IT IS MUCH EASIER TO FIND A NEW AMERICAN RESTAURANT WITH LOCALLY SOURCED PRODUCE AND ARTISINAL DRINKS IN MASON JARS IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD THAN IT IS TO FIND A CHAIN.
Some American Institutions
17. In secondary school, did you letter in anything? DEBATE
18. Have you ever attended a meeting of a Kiwanis Club or Rotary Club, or a meeting at a union local? YES, IN HIGH SCHOOL TO GIVE A SPEECH.
19. Have you ever participated in a parade not involving global warming, a war protest, or gay rights? DOES OCCUPY WALL STREET COUNT?
20. Since leaving school, have you ever worn a uniform? THERE IS A JOKE ABOUT A CATHOLIC SCHOOLGIRL OUTFIT HERE, BUT I’M GOING TO LEAVE THAT ASIDE FOR NOW AND SAY NO.
21. Have you ever ridden on a long-distance bus (e.g., Greyhound, Trailways) or hitchhiked for a trip of fifty miles or more? IF THE CHINATOWN BUS FROM BOSTON TO NEW YORK COUNTS, THEN YES.
Media and Popular Culture
22. Which of the following movies have you seen (at a theater or on a DVD)? Iron Man 2, Inception, Despicable Me, Tron Legacy, True Grit, Clash of the Titans, Grown Ups, Little Fockers, The King’s Speech, Shutter Island. NONE OF THEM, THOUGH I DO KEEP MEANING TO WATCH THE KING’S SPEECH.
23. During the 2009–10 television season, how many of the following series did you watch regularly? American Idol, Undercover Boss, The Big Bang Theory, Grey’s Anatomy, Lost, House, Desperate Housewives, Two and a Half Men, The Office, Survivor. LOST, AND I’M STILL PISSED ABOUT THE ENDING. YES, STILL.
24. Have you ever watched an Oprah, Dr. Phil,or Judge Judy show all the way through? NO; MAYBE THAT IS WHY I AM NOT LIVING MY BEST LIFE.
25. What does the word Branson mean to you? MISSOURI. COME ON, WE’VE ALL SEEN THAT EPISODE OF THE SIMPSONS.
MY SCORE IS TEN (AND I’M BEING GENEROUS HERE) WHICH MEANS EITHER I AM A LIBERAL ELITIST WHO HATES HER COUNTRY AND FLAG, OR BLACK.
Some thoughts on Pazz and Jop
Hell, why not?
The top ten:
The Tuneyards (I still refuse to use that stupid alternating caps spelling) record is brilliant and I agree that it’s the album of the year. It’s the perfect mix of smart, weird, listenable, political, and just awesome.
I honestly thought the PJ Harvey album was a little dull — not bad, but it never kept my attention.
Watch the Throne had some absolute bangers and bonkers talent but could have used a tighter edit.
Wild Flag is killer.
Bad As Me is not the best Tom Waits album, or even in the top five Tom Waits albums for me, but I did like it. It felt a little self-conscious at times, though.
If an album had to be totally inescapable, it might as well be Adele’s 21. It’s the rare album that critics and consumers agree on.
The Destroyer album is killer.
I never warmed to the Drake record and at times it felt like a book on tape more than a hip-hop album, but I’m willing to give it another shot.
The Bon Iver album sounded great to me, and I’m a staunch defender of the final track, which is basically a Mike and the Mechanics song.
Shabazz Palaces is totally solid and great to see Sub Pop putting out a hip-hop record.
One more — the Fucked Up record is killer.
Other thoughts:
You gotta go pretty far down the list to find a non-rap major label album — all the way to the Black Keys record at 21 (Nonesuch is part of Warner). (I’m not counting Adele here because even though she is distributed by Columbia in the States, her home label is UK indie XL). Most of the top hip-hop albums are on majors (save frankocean.tumblr.com, which warms my heart). Have the majors just given up on rock?
There is almost no country in the top fifty, and I honestly can’t think of one amazing country record that came out this year.
Zola Jesus (number 79) should have been much higher.
Great to see that “Goblin” came in at 98; if Odd Future is on minute 14 of its hype cycle you won’t see me crying about it.
All the other albums I loved this year (EMA, M83, Girls) had strong showings.
The Asian parent take on OWS.
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