I think, therefore I know

To say that ignorance is bliss is, at best, accurate on occasion when referring to an individual choice to abstain from the facts of a particular situation. However, in a group situation, it may be more accurate to say that you’re only as strong as your most ignorant link.

Such is the case when trying to gain a foothold of success with a rock ‘n roll band in the digital era and asking everyone to participate. For my part, I chose to embrace computers and the myriad of ways that they have expanded my own abilities long ago. I got involved with direct to disk recording in the early 90′s and never looked back, having once been a staunch advocate for analog tape (it still sounds better but that’s for another day).

In a first incarnation of my band, called Fire Ants, in 1997, we had heard about this new place online called MP3.com, where you could upload your songs that people could download for free. That was the first hurdle, trying to explain how giving away a couple songs was worth it to gain a fanbase (record companies had done this for ages, giving away singles to radio stations and other promotional give aways). A battle not easily won though with my band, trying to explain this to a group of guys, most of which couldn’t fathom how someone they never met, from somewhere else in the country (or the world even) would hear our music outside of a live show.

My partner in that band was one of those guys who didn’t get it. ‘You spend way too much time on the computer, man. It’s a waste of time.’  You’ll see , I would say. When we first signed up to MP3.com in ’98, there were perhaps 20,000 bands on there already in its early days, and our songs were hovering  around 13,000 or so on the charts for a while. And you could check your stats, which was amazing then, to see that FOUR PEOPLE DOWNLOADED YOUR MUSIC that day. That was a big deal. But then a curious thing happened.

As the weeks passed, our songs kept climbing the charts until one day when our drummer called me in a panic. ‘Have you been to the MP3.com today? Man, we’re number ONE!!!’ So I went there to check our stats and lo and behold there were like 1500 downloads that day. (Remember, this is long before YouTube and views in the millions in a day. But the guys were still trying to grasp how this translates into a human experience and how we really benefit.

A couple days later, the answer came in a phone call from CNN. They called asking if they could interview the band on their Science & Technology show about how people were utilizing the web for personal gain. Not bad on a promotional budget of $0.00 we would be seen around the world on the #1 cable news network. (strange how those folks in the record biz who wouldn’t give us the time of day started to call)Three days later, Rolling Stone called to interview for an article, Is MP3 The End of the Record Business? and a couple days after that, Wired Magazine followed suit. The final straw came for my partner when he travelled to Texas that year to jam with his cousin’s band at the South By Southwest festival. At the end of the show, his cousin announced, ‘This is Eric, from the band, Fire Ants. Show him some love.’ He told me that after the show, all these kids came up to him and said how much they dug his band. ‘How do you know our music? We’ve never been to Texas,’ he asked. ‘MP3.com, man! You guys rock!’ That’s when he got it.

Fast forward to the present, and my current band, Citizens Of Contrary Knowledge. This time the persona ignorata would be our drummer, who still believes there is some fat cat A&R guy out there chewing on a big fat stogie, who’s going to change our life and make us rich (that ship sailed so long ago they docked in Tokyo back in ’85. Forgive him, he makes up for this at least in part, when he gets behind the drum kit. But Blake, our drummer, just sees the rest of us pounding away on the computer and thinks we’re typing emails of our music as some digital morse code and hitting send to this digital vaccuum, like hitting digital golf balls out into this empty cyber driving range, where no human actually hears your music or cares.

Recently, we had signed on with an online PR firm, Ariel PR  in New York, who had been hooking us up with all kinds of podcasters, internet radio stations, bloggers, etc. So Ariel hooks us up with this internet radio phone interview with the band last week on this station, Blockhead Radio Live. And Blake asks me if it’s really necessary to be there for the interview because we can surely handle it. So I told him, yes it is imperative and you’ll see why after you do the show.

So we go live with the interviewer, Rodney, who’s down in Florida, informing us how fans are tuning in live and making comments in side bars while this is going down and they had questions for us. Well, they played our music throughout the show, treated us with great respect and showed an obviously sincere interest in our music, with fans of actual human beings tuning in, who never met us or saw us perform live, who were genuinely into the band. Suddenly, I notice a look on Blake’s face, a look I had seen before when someone finally sees the light. No words were necessary.

I smiled and told him, ‘Welcome to the future!’

Peace,

Mark

Hope I Die Before I Get Old (Vol. 1)

Had American Idol or, more appropriately America’s Got Talent been around at the turn of the twentieth century, Albert Einstein likely would not have completed his Theory of Relativity in 1919. Why? Because he was 40, for God’s sake! Which today is more like 75!  The judges would have thrown him off the stage and told him he was washed up, over the hill, a failure at his old age. ‘Take some Geritol, pal.’

Pablo Picasso could have thrown in the towel in 1937, having presented Guernica to the judges at the crusty old age of 56. Surely, Simon Cowell would have taken one look at the extremely untrendy painting and offered a blistering, ‘Bloody awful!’

And then imagine poor Old Blue Eyes. There’s Frank Sinatra in 1969, belting out “My Way” at 54 and you can just picture the A&R guy going ‘I don’t hear a single’ or ‘Crooning’s out, old timer. It’s peace signs and loud guitars now’

I recently came face to face with this concept of age (as defined as older than 25) as a detriment to our national cultural identity after joining this cutting edge new thing called Facebook in an effort to be a part of this new revolution called social networking.  Have you heard of this?

Truth is I’m 46. I have a rock ‘n roll band, Citizens Of Contrary Knowledge. I have a website. I have a Myspace page. I’ve been doing this internet thing for quite some time. And I’m still quite serious about my craft. Oh, and yes I have a family too. Myspace was already bought by Rupert Murdoch by the time my band got involved. So this whole gathering of “friends” in an effort to build our fanbase, left me cold. Bubbles the stripper with her 68,000 friends asking to be ours somehow got old real fast. However, this recent foray into Facebook was a bit of an epiphany for me when all these real folks who actually knew me from way back in my life found and reconnected with me again.

Upon reading up on my profile, visiting our website and discovering things like how we recently played the Izod Arena at the Meadowlands at a Nets/Pistons halftime show, licensed our music to major TV and film destinations and appeared to be deep into this music career, a curious thing happened. I got back numerous emails from old friends and schoolmates, congratulating me on my successes and having the conviction to follow my dreams (most of them knew me back then as the musician who also played sports).

What’s curious really though would seem to be the fact that I’m 46 and still doing music. Evidently, many of my friends have “normal” careers in the usual fields (finance, insurance, real estate, etc) and, hailing from affluent Fairfield County where a fairly high percentage have college and post graduate degrees, many would appear to be quite successful in their respective careers.

But in these messages of encouragement I sensed something deeper; as though some recognized in my choices, something they may have given up for a more “conventional” life complete with all the fixings. It’s as if it was preprogrammed into so many of us from this protected little community that your dreams are something you play with in your youth but ultimately grow out of in exchange for a college education, life as a grown up with a good job, a family and solid investments.

I found in these messages a certain sense of affirmation. A feeling that all the struggles (which still continue), the failures (ditto), the sacrifices (ongoing) somehow found in these messages a vindication. All those years running into old acquaintences from time to time who would ask, ‘Are you still doing the music.’  Why yes, yes I am. How about you? Still doing…what was that again? re…insurance? Are you into that? Is that your life passion?  I make no judgements. Just curious. ‘It’s a job,’  was often the response.

If 40 is the new 30 then hey, I’m doing great! But where does that put Mick Jagger? And why is he still strutting around like an amped up rooster and isn’t he holing up in Sunnyville Estates somewhere in an assisted living community? He doesn’t need the cash, I know that much. Why is Bob Dylan still out on the road? It’s not as though he needs to change the world any more times than he already has. What’s the point?

For me the point came into focus about the time they announced our band at the Izod Arena and we were walking out in front of 16,000 people to play our own original music. I had seen this picture before in my life. But at that time, at 22, working as a roadie on a big world tour for the world reknowned band, Foreigner, I was hauling their equipment, never seeing in the excitement of those roadie pirate days, my own inability to believe that one day I too could walk out on that big stage as my own artist and have someone set up my equipment (that happened that night and I was helpful to the tech). It took me 24 years. But to hear that crowd respond to something I had created was worth the wait, let me tell you.

I seriously doubt whether Pete Townshend could have ever known, when he wrote that famous line in “My Generation”, that two of his bandmates would ultimately follow suit, or stranger still, that he would still be out there 40 years later doing windmills in big arenas with Roger Daltry at his side singing them with still more passion than most twenty year olds could muster.

Perhaps as the decades pass, if I should be so lucky, it may be that the new phrase is 110 is the new 85. If that’s the case then all I can say is, Hope I die before I get old!

(to be continued)

Peace,

Mark

Fear, not

The phrase is ubiquitous. “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt from his famous first inaugural speech in 1933, seeking to lift a nation’s collective psyche deep in the throws of the Great Depression. Who hasn’t heard this perhaps many times in their lifetime? But what is the context and what is the relevance today?

Well, I decided to find this out for myself so I found and read that inaugural address, having long since forgotten all the research I had once done as a lad on FDR, having decided in school that he was my favorite president. Included here is an execrpt from that speech. Listen to it here or read it online and you may find out for yourself that not only is it so relevant to this moment in our history, if not also profound, but that it also speaks to another ubiquitous phrase levied by his great counterpart across the pond, Winston Churchill, who admonished “Those that fail to learn from history, are doomed to repeat it.”

Well my fellow Americans, we’ve gone and repeated ourselves…yet again. Whether or not we care to admit it, we’ve been in this place before; war and recession, difficult times, a deepening sense that things may get worse before they get better. A very real concern that our children will inherit a world far worse than the one we got to grow up in, where at this time their hope to do better than their parents is not a bright one; that when looked at from beyond the smoke and mirrors of the great Bush spin machine, they and we are seeing in real time the prophecies of science ringing true about global warming that yes, we very much have influenced since the onset of the industrial revolution.

But fear not people…really. Please for just once, fear not.

Fear has been the Super Size Happy Meal that has been stuffed down our throats 24 hours a day / 7 days a week and from every possible media outlet for these past eight years, and beyond, really. ‘The terrorists are coming, the terrorists are coming!’ ‘The markets are crashing, the markets are crashing!’ ‘Serial killers, rapists. ‘Run for the hills!’  Yes, all of these things have happened, are happening and will continue to happen. Of this we can be sure.

Yet when I would talk with outsiders, for example my uncle up in Montreal, he would always chuckle because looked at from a perspective outside our borders, he would ask, ‘where’s the fire? You Americans (he has dual citizenship but has been up there for almost thirty years) are all kuckoo with your news. Everything’s just going to hell down there if you dare watch TV or read the paper.’

I finally got a chance to gain a little perspective of my own regarding fear when we travelled to Italy in May of 2006. One night, while staying in Lucca, I couldn’t sleep so I watched TV in the hotel room with my wife (not at all what I would have preferred to be doing that night in romantic Italy but circumstances beyond our control dictated our activities, if you know what I mean). And I remember this show that seemed to go on forever about these Germans in the country with these property destroying gophers and they’re tearing up entire lawns and planting small bombs in futility to extract them. It was straight out of Caddy Shack. And it was also like watching grass grow. Then came the horrific Italian version of American Idol that was so completely over the top cheesy that it was almost entertaining. (It’s always fun to watch TV where you can’t understand a thing so you just tune in to facial expressions).

Finally, BBC news comes on (in English) and after several stories covering all the places in the world we never seem to care much about here, they turned to America in the world news. And it was, ‘Today in America, unseasonably warm weather covered the Northeast and is due to continue for at least two more days. And in other news, Manchester United defeated Chelsea 3-1. Back after this commercial break.’

And I’m like Wait a minute! Where’s the big story about Iraq and more suicide bombers? What about catching Bin Laden? Where is al Quaeda going to strike next? Nothing… nothing at all on the subject, save for a brief recap of some talks going on in Baghdad that day. And it dawns on me suddenly how totally immersed in fear we have all been through the dark ages of the Bush administration, while they quietly shat on our Constitution and proceeded to drive this country over a cliff, basically, if not right to the brink.

And no, I really don’t care to keep dwelling on the past failures of these last eight years in hell since there are far too many books out there already that have turned over most of these stones so many times that I can’t possibly add anything of substance, save maybe for this:

We can’t blame W and his failed administration for all our ills while they certainly own a fair portion of the reponsibility. After all, they’re gone now. Really gone. But regarding this incessant fear mongering the truth is that, beyond the RNC, Rush, Sean, Anne  & Company (can’t you just see them licking their chops? there’s another Democrat in the White House to blame for everything and he’s black too!) , the media is equally culpable if but a puppet of political forces unseen. But somewhere on high, it must have been decided long ago that death, destruction, despair, rape, school shootings, market collapses, storms of the century (translation: any form of precipitation beyond a gust, drizzle or flurry) all get big ratings. And these same folks must have also decided that things like great achievements, heroic gestures, successful pursuits; all things that are also happening each and every day around the country and the world, are not big ticket ratings winners. So how then do they continue to keep us sucked in to the vortex?

Fear. But why? you ask.

Well, we know why of course. Go back to the Romans, the Vatican, hell keep going back to the Pharoahs; let’s just include the better part of human existence in recorded history. OK. May as well throw in the entire animal kingdom, too.

Because fear keeps those in power staying in power and those that are not, beholden to them. You know Alpha and Omega? It’s a very old and successful recipe (for those in power).

But if the field has truly been leveled with the advent of the internet, blogging, social networks, and if the power has come back to the people (at least a little bit anyway) and if this digital revolution is being fought not with tanks and guns but with blogs, Twitters, mp3s, YouTube videos, URLs and IMs, then can we not exert a little influence here (David to the mighty mainstream media networks’ Goliath)? Could we not at least shed light on the positive goings on in the world every day as well, to balance with the perhaps more sobering “news of the day” that may show us the war, human suffering, and other global ailments that surely must be reported? It may just serve to remind us that every day brings good news along with the not so good news.

Imagine a world where the Rush’s and the Hannity’s and the Coulter’s with all their partison, self serving divisiveness, who sit perched in their little golden trees like fat pigeons shitting on Democratic society (translation: our American society, derived from the word democracy, I believe? not just the bleeding heart liberal blue state folks), were replaced by a new model who figured out how to highlight our common ground and that which is great and inspiring about humanity and still collect those fat paychecks (it’s easy if you try).

Maybe this all sounds very pie in the sky but surely there is something of substance and capable of high viewer ratings that the media can also show us that might actually inspire us to do better rather than run to Home Depot to pick up supplies to build our own Do-It-Yourself bomb shelters.

So go on out there today without the fear that you’ll step on a dirty bomb and render New York uninhabitable for a thousand years, or get bit by a mosquito with West Nile virus, or catch a life threatening strain of flu because you didn’t get your flu shot (sponsored of course by your favorite pharmaceutical co.) and go out there with a smile and try to do some good today. Your country will thank you and be the better for it.

P.S. If  you find something enlightening in this FDR speech, go read it in its entirety. You may find with facination that this has all been done and said before. And that we’re here again in this place because we still haven’t learned the lessons from our past mistakes. Or you may see in the absence of fear, in this moment and its parallels with FDR’s moment then, that we do have the ability to truly rise up in the face of adversity and do great things because this is what we are capable of when inspired by hope and driven by necessity to find answers where they didn’t exist before.

Peace,

Mark

It’s a new day, America!

Greetings newcomers! which would mean each and every one of you, this being the very first entry of a brand spanking new blog. Never done this before. So forgive the cold, impersonal appearance of a brand new site. It will warm up real soon, I promise. (Any tips on pimping the look always welcome. Just keep it simple. My skill set does not include HTML)

I thought it fitting to launch this on the first day of our new President and his new administration. Can I just say this? OBAMA! OBAMA!! OBAMA!!!

And that’s W for ‘We’ll be seeing you now.’

I’m not going to go there (yet, anyway). In the entries that will surely follow (that will  span a wide variety of topics and maybe the occasional political topic, too) , there will be plenty of ranting, drooling, rambling and expounding on where we’ve come from these last eight years and where (I hope, I hope) we are headed.

But this moment today is for savoring. I don’t know about you but I spent an inordinate amount of time immersed in this campaign, donating regularly and interacting with the myriad email groups that lead to the rise and ultimately the election of Obama as the 44th President Of The United States. And yes, this was an emotional moment for me, too. I really did feel that I was a part of this election in a way that went much further than merely my vote. I really did feel I had a stake in the outcome and recognized the immense weight of this moment in history and where we find ourselves today.

I hope to connect with people here in a way that goes well beyond my music, which while most important in my life (OK, second to my family) and the way in which I best communicate, does not completely satisfy my intense craving for story telling. And I can’t always tell my story in a 4 minute song.

So thank you for tuning in. Please return often

Peace,

Mark

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