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

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