Here’s a cool article I just read (via Facebook, thanks Forrest) — the author makes lots of good points.

The economics of live music is weird. From my own observation, there are thousands, millions of bands. Most are not that great but lots are very good. Each band has a natural monopoly over their own music but that doesn’t mean anything. A band’s incentive to play is generally not monetary. Bookers’ incentives are primarily monetary and draw equals pay, short-term or otherwise. For new clubs, long-term reputation is going to be less important than just keeping the doors open.

I’ve often been frustrated by bookers who let me do all of the work of booking and promoting a show, who then still take a sizable amount from the door. Musicians’ and bookers’ interests are pretty well aligned, they should work harder to help each other.

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iRig Stomp

I got an email from IK Multimedia today announcing their iRig Stomp interface. Adding a bypass switch to an iRig is a great idea… which is why I totally thought of it first! I’m halfway through writing a page about the one I made. It was going to take the DIY musician world by storm and cement my place in the pantheon of great thinkers/bloggers/industrialists.

That’s what I get for being slow and lazy. I’ll finish that page soonish, I’ll be out of town for a while though and have to rebuild the device and draw a schematic. It’s stupid simple.

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Nadelle and Thom – Summerland

(Note: I wrote a few reviews for what turned into the “bad at listening” series a couple of years before the Ball of Wax blog got started. Most of these were for and about me more than is appropriate for Ball of Wax, so I’m posting them here.)

This is another one I picked up on tour in 2004. I remember running into Nedelle and Thom (by themselves, no backing band) at the Triple Rock Social Club in Minneapolis, where I stopped because I had a day off and wanted something to do. It was by conincidence that they were there as I was going to play with them the next day in Chicago, and I recall Jeff Hanson (also on Kill Rock Stars) headlined the show.

What I remember of Nadelle and Thom was that they were great performers. Thom’s guitar playing and singing were spot on and Nedelle sang perfectly; their harmonies were great. They were equally good the next night in Chicago, very impressive, blah, blah, &c.

In the end though they were playing what I would describe as lounge music, and while a number of the songs were very good and catchy (“Cute Things” in particular) it just wasn’t my thing. This CD reminds me of that, and the backing band makes it even more “loungy,” very 60’s variety show music. Nothing wrong with that, no doubt, but I guess the two have since gone their separate ways.

On a separate note, regarding the previous night at the Triple Rock in Minneapolis. That was the second time I’d seen Jeff Hanson — a friend had invited me to go see him the year before at Studio Seven in Seattle. At both shows I was shocked by his voice, which sounded very much female. To observe that voice coming from a gruff-looking man was a weird thing, and he took advantage of its effect in his songwriting, which was haunting. He had a sense of humor about it too, I recall him joking at the Triple Rock show, asking the sound guy if his mic sounded high to him. Sadly, Jeff Hanson died in 2009 in St. Paul.

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This is nice: http://www.nme.com/news/of-montreal/60559. I don’t know where you even start to write a song like that, or any of montreal song really. Awesome!

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Boxcar CDs

Last week the physical CDs for An Invitation to Love’s EP Boxcar arrived. They look like this:

aitl boxcar ep

We didn’t order very many and they’re mostly to send to radio and press and bookers. Otherwise we wouldn’t have ordered them. It’s weird because I like how they turned out, but I don’t like having CDs. It’s also weird because I can remember the first time I ordered CDs of my music and how exciting it was to receive them. That novelty’s worn off a bit!

Either way, we decided on a release date (1/10/2012) and will try to get everyone to listen to it and write something about it or play it on the radio or book us to play their venue. That part’s still exciting.

Posted in An Invitation to Love, Recordings | Leave a comment