tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-75458862987274465312024-02-06T21:20:28.650-05:00Christopher Mark Jones On MusicChristopher Mark Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08853901680438666955noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7545886298727446531.post-90096962538752898442012-12-30T19:06:00.000-05:002012-12-30T19:06:19.568-05:00Original music in coffeehousesCoffeehouses requiring only original music from their performers would seem to be a boost for singer-songwriters, until we look a bit closer...
One of the revenue streams for musicians has been what is known as "performance rights" i.e. funds collected from performance venues on an annual license basis and distributed to members of performing rights societies (ASCAAP and BMI) based on an algorithm that no one understands, but in practice means independent musicians get very little, and major-label artists pretty much divide the pie up between them. One of the means for determining who gets what are set lists (songs played on a given night) with title and composer submitted by the venue, all of which go into the database at BMI (etc) and get munged by the algorithm.
Performing rights societies, in the meantime, have realized that an increasing number of their members are 1) independent, and 2) playing in venues like coffeehouses that don't pay license fees. The societies have reacted by asking independent songwriters to submit set lists directly to them, and by descending on the coffeehouses with demands for license fees and/or fines. Songwriters have hesitated to submit set lists, since the net effect could be the closing of the venue.
The loophole for the coffeehouses is to only allow songs to be performed "with the permission of the songwriter" i.e. by the songwriter him or herself. The performing rights societies are then out of the loop, and no money changes hands if the songwriter doesn't submit set lists. The songwriter is often performing for tips, meaning the event contributes virtually nothing to the economics of a music career.
This is the downside. The upside is that coffeehouses do furnish a space where songwriters can perform in public, though without payment or promotion, audiences can be minimal.
All this is a bit technical, but the phenomenon is part of a series of issues that have undermined the economics of song writing and performance, including rampant piracy of recordings, and lack of adequate payment for internet streaming of recorded songs.Christopher Mark Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08853901680438666955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7545886298727446531.post-34305556991744562512012-11-05T05:59:00.001-05:002012-11-05T05:59:51.376-05:00Notes from the House Concert on October 27On October 27th, Ruth Hendricks hosted a house concert for 25 friends and fans at her place in Highland Park. A finely tuned audience who mostly knew what they were there for and gave us great feedback on the evening. Marc Reisman commented "This is the perfect way to hear your songs!" and I tend to agree. It's a listening environment, the lyrics are crystal clear and the acoustic instruments much more audible. David Hart was with me, and contributed vocals, mandolin and second guitar. This is the second time we've done the duo format, and it works really well. David, like me, has a busy professional life, but loves music and knows what it takes to put on a performance worth listening to. Keep an eye out for his bluegrass encarnation--the Stillhouse Pickers.<br />
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Ruth as a first-time host couldn't have been better. She made everyone feel welcome, contributed hors-d'oeuvres and sweets and collected the donations. Ruth is a blogger herself, so you can get her take on <a href="http://rutheh.com/2012/10/28/music-makes-the-house-come-alive/">her blog</a>, where she's posted some photos as well. I'm in France as I write this, but the good vibes from the evening are still with me.
Christopher Mark Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08853901680438666955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7545886298727446531.post-47334024151582323172012-04-16T20:50:00.002-04:002012-04-16T20:50:43.252-04:00Report from the CD Release at Shadow LoungeA great crowd turned out for the release, in spite of a bit of rain. There were people from the theater, poetry, songwriting, art, community organizing and academic circles as well as some people who actually work for a living ;-). Ben Shannon did a half hour to start the evening which (as usual) got peoples' attention. The octopus behind the musicians (see below) certainly set the tone for the evening. Justin Strong did a good job juggling the 9 musicians who kept popping up and down during the show--a soundman's nightmare, but he often does it twice a night, while managing events in his other room on South Highland. Speaking of working for a living... A vital venue in a hopping part of Pittsburgh--great to move across town for a change. Next Friday Karen, Bev, Dave and I will do it again at Natasha's in Lexington. The musicians visible below left to right are Dave Gillespie, Vince Camut, CMJ, Jim Spears, Karen Jones, Mark Weakland and Marc Reisman. Bev Futrell and David Hart are at the bar on this one...<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3xd_YucFWFv1JaEraDcPT8Teen1EJ5RZ9O0L7cs5Hmx_iftF52tgf5pRf00v4M4WRQxXy2b1jtLMNrIIsjg3x7AspidK1Xx-k5s9ETDvM0J_4fccKvpZxR6BV9A6fxCKfZLuxrsw6Nt5X/s1600/ShadowLounge1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3xd_YucFWFv1JaEraDcPT8Teen1EJ5RZ9O0L7cs5Hmx_iftF52tgf5pRf00v4M4WRQxXy2b1jtLMNrIIsjg3x7AspidK1Xx-k5s9ETDvM0J_4fccKvpZxR6BV9A6fxCKfZLuxrsw6Nt5X/s1600/ShadowLounge1.jpg" /></a></div>Christopher Mark Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08853901680438666955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7545886298727446531.post-73699050829680716722012-03-23T16:06:00.000-04:002012-04-16T20:52:40.267-04:00Suburban 2-Step completeThe amount of work and agonizing that go into an album recording process are pretty amazing. And then it's over, and time to move on...<br />
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Suburban 2-Step involved 12 musicians in total, making the last step in the process--the mixing--especially delicate. As you listen to the song for the 100th time, and you bring the mandolin up and pull the tuba down, you're not quite sure if it wasn't just yesterday that you did the opposite. As performer and writer, I also know the lyrics backwards, so may not be as demanding as necessary in terms of audibility on that front. There's a reason that the classic division of labor has an objective pair of ears or two making final judgements about levels and sound treatments (EQ and reverb, for example). In these days of self-recorded and self-released albums, however, these roles (producer and recording engineer) often get rolled up and handed to the songwriter / singer / musician. This is both a good thing (wow, the control!) and bad (the blind spots). Not much choice, in many cases: sustainability doesn't apply only to energy use, at some point the ledger has to balance, and that is increasingly problematic for musicians, either from performing or recording.<br />
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The CD Release Concerts will happen in Pittsburgh and Lexington, with a follow-up duo event at Harmony in the House in Zelienople in June, so things will be properly launched. Both physical and download version will be available on-line mid-April.<br />
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Next step: new tunes! I've written three already: <i>The Best I Got</i>, <i>Dans la ville</i> (first song in French) and <i>The Blackstone Rangers</i> (about the Southside Chicago legendary organization). Never a dull moment..<br />
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<br />Christopher Mark Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08853901680438666955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7545886298727446531.post-6830225920111029152011-10-17T09:02:00.000-04:002011-12-29T18:39:39.842-05:00Album progressGreat progress on recording. An outing to Bloomfield Hills, MI (Dave Gillespie's place) saw most of the harmonies getting done with Dave, Karen Jones & Bev Futrell, plus lots of fiddle, mandolin and guitar parts. Back in Pittsburgh Paul Eiss came over to put down two sax tracks and David Hart added tres on The Numbers and mandolin on The World Rolls On. Other than a little guitar cleanup and a tuba bass track that Roger Day has promised for next week, all the tracks are down. Mixing seriously will begin in November.Christopher Mark Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08853901680438666955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7545886298727446531.post-9858423898144264532010-11-13T11:26:00.000-05:002010-11-13T11:32:05.612-05:00Writing songsWith the new release (<a href="http://cdbaby.com/cd/christopherjones">Heartland Variations</a>) successfully out the door in April, and the reissue of my 1978 vinyl for Transatlantic (<a href="http://cdbaby.com/cd/christopherjones2">No More Range to Roam</a>) taken care of in October, I’ve been able to turn my attention to songwriting—for popular writers a murky process if there ever was one. Here are a few meditations on various points in the process.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Inspiration</span><br />Unfamiliar as I am with classical processes, I still tend to guess that Mozart began with a melody and moved onward to orchestration—I can’t imagine him working from a couple of chords he liked or a rhythmic feel. But maybe I’m wrong…<br /><br />For myself, there is no set pattern. The spark can be those guitar chords or a rhythm, which then are suggestive of a melody and evoke an emotional or topical sphere that leads to lyrics. Or it can be absolutely the other way around: a set of lyrics—often but not always a chorus first—which encapsulate something near the surface in the subconscious and then lead to conscious choices of rhythm, melody and harmonic underpinnings (chords). The more toward pop one moves, the more emphasis is placed on the “hook” or melody+lyrics+rhythm of the chorus. Of course in hip hop you can sometimes circumvent the compositional process for the chorus by licensing (hopefully) a sample of a hook that already been around once and proven its mettle. That’s not where I work, however. In spite of the fact that I have no pop pretentions whatsoever, the basic structure of the popular song is very strongly part of my DNA, so the notion of a repeating chorus which is in someway memorable is part of my process, as is some variant on the verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge/verse/chorus song structure. The bridge, for those whom this is jargon, is just “something different” in the middle of the song, which tends to lighten the repetitive traditional structure, but is by no means universal.<br /><br />For me the frosting is always something in the lyrics for which the source is unclear, but which resonates immediately. Here are two lines from “Bread & Justice” (written for my early 80s electric day band, the Regulars) as an example: “Nathan oozed good fortune / He held his life by a silver chain/ All around him, like a pool of light / The shimmer of his capital gain”. To find this sort of expression, you mostly have to be patient, or relax, or recognize what’s <span style="font-style:italic;">not</span> that. It’s not a rational process, other than sitting down at the table or computer with enough frequency and time so that it will have a chance to happen. <br /><br />I’ll detail the creative process for two very different songs to finish this exposé, one from London 1976 or so, the other one Pittsburgh 2009.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Ballerina</span><br />This tune was written as nearly in a classical process as I’ve ever come. At the time I was living in a squat in Islington (north London), eating erratically and having virtually reversed the normal day/night living patterns, as sometimes happens with musicians, so most of the work happened after midnight. The rather straightforward narrative lyrics came first, and were polished to a fine sheen before beginning the musical writing. For the latter I actually took a sheet of partition (music) paper and wrote the melody first without the guitar. I then actually wrote the guitar part note by note, a process that is almost totally foreign to most folk and rock composition (including mine). For the recording, Mick Linnard came up with a nice second guitar part, and my brother Jeffrey arranged some (in-house, literally) strings and the whole thing is pretty precious. Not surprisingly, this was my late father’s favorite song of mine. He was a Ph.D. in music theory…<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Gas It Up</span><br />This one is the opposite extreme. Written as a groove tune for the Uptown Combo (it appears on the “<a href="http://cdbaby.com/cd/uptowncombo">Bloodshot Moon</a>” CD) , it was re-recorded on Heartland Variations in an acoustic version. Here the inspiration was an A minor groove that suggested road movement, then an ode to another time (my youth) when cars were huge and gas cheap. I wrote the chorus first, then left it first so the song goes chorus/verse/chorus/verse/chorus with lots of space for instrumental improvisation and stretching out. The lyrics are minimal, but use the car metaphor in a reasonably effective way. For example: “The girls have got the top down/ stopped and laughin’ at the red light / I can feel that motor runnin’ / Underneath the hood tonight.” This one wrote itself quickly, I stopped my impulse to complicate things, and it has been popular and a fun tune for performance purposes, since I mostly have excellent musicians with me who need a little space on occasion.<br /><br />That’s it for today. Thanks for reading.Christopher Mark Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08853901680438666955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7545886298727446531.post-76456284437968035532010-06-07T06:02:00.000-04:002010-06-07T06:22:53.858-04:00Club CaféThe <a href="http://clubcafelive.com">Club Café</a> , for those who don’t live in Pittsburgh, is a small room (150 capacity) that acts like a big room: excellent sound system, pretty good lights, sound man, booked by a promoter <a href="http://www.opusoneproductions.com"> (Opus One Productions)</a> who took over that function when the owner, former restaurateur Marco Cardamone, apparently decided it was too much for him. The room schedules national touring bands and songwriters as well as regional acts. For regional acts, most of the door goes to the artist, after a promotional fee that covers the sound man and some useful listings legwork. For national acts, the promoter sometimes risks a guarantee if they know both the touring act and the local audience—it’s a tightrope. On many nights there are early shows tending toward acoustic or solo acts, while late shows can be anything from punk to jazz.<br /><br />I put together a mixed group of Pittsburgh (Mark Weakland, drums, Jim Spears, bass and Jack Bowen, piano from <a href="http://www.uptowncombo.com">Uptown Combo</a>) and Lexington family (Karen Jones, fiddle, Bev Futrell, mandolin/harmonica, Jeff Jones, guitar + cousin Dave Gillespie from Detroit on lead) musicians for the <a href="http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/ChristopherJones">Heartland Variations CD</a> release at Club Café. A great crowd of family, friends and fans both local and far-flung (José and Evangelina from Portugal won the distance prize), a big party afterwards… A nice step forward, and part of the equation in terms of figuring out how to make music work for me again not just one night but frequently enough to keep momentum going, have musicians to work with who remember the tunes, and bring in enough income to pay them something. The Club Café is one of the venue profiles that keeps live music alive, with the promoter working overtime to fill it (and the <a href="http://www.brillobox.net">Brillo Box</a> and <a href="http://mrsmalls.com">Mr. Smalls theater</a> in Pittsburgh) with viable artists who can generate enough income to keep the whole think working. The other two venue profiles are community-based organizations and individuals/couples running events in their homes. More on these later, but to get a flavor of the event and the venue, there's a short video on <a href="http://christopherjonesmusic.com">my web site </a>by Bill Wade of the Post-Gazette , who was at the event as a friend.Christopher Mark Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08853901680438666955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7545886298727446531.post-58646860235427372732010-04-26T15:27:00.000-04:002010-04-26T15:34:13.299-04:00Natasha's Bistro<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqFBAvIQGWlLnU4dEGwNwFEuBgSnZ6qEYoHI4FowtKGdVqLzuaq5bFgym908Q-lY6_knR-kdCKSzerojCdZXHw_W_aAL2CysEoIQtLRe0-Rzhh6-i0r3msGBzuAkB3qYXZXS14Zm7BbgJo/s1600/Natasha2010_2+copy.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqFBAvIQGWlLnU4dEGwNwFEuBgSnZ6qEYoHI4FowtKGdVqLzuaq5bFgym908Q-lY6_knR-kdCKSzerojCdZXHw_W_aAL2CysEoIQtLRe0-Rzhh6-i0r3msGBzuAkB3qYXZXS14Zm7BbgJo/s320/Natasha2010_2+copy.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5464531384126086978" /></a><br />Got some catching up to do… Over the last month + I went through a CD release sequence with some interesting experiences. One of them was a concert at Natasha’s in Lexington, Kentucky. The Natasha’s story is probably worth telling, in the context of trying to figure out what still works for live music these days. Gene, Natasha’s owner/manager, started out in a strip mall in a former service station, with a gift shop and an improvised performance area. My Lexington family musicians who play out as Tall, Dark and Handsome, remember starting there when Gene would push aside some of the scarf racks and break out the folding chairs on music nights.<br /><br />The next move was to downtown Lexington, in a large space that was no doubt available because the area, like many downtowns, was a mix of commercial success and failure. Gene kept the gift shop going, but started some reasonably serious food and beverage service. The music was still more or less in the gift shop and the space was divided in half. <br /><br />When Gene did the next major renovation, Natasha’s took a quantum leap as a performance space, as he unified the space, installed a stage and a quality sound system and sound booth, and stage lighting. The bar/restaurant side of things also went upscale, roughly from Moosewood to Silver Palate. Gene started getting enquiries from national touring acts, and took some of them in, while keeping an eclectic mix of local music, theatre, jazz, lectures and benefits in the performance space, based on his personal taste and that of his wife Natasha.<br /><br />It’s not likely that Gene and Natasha are getting rich; the business arrangements for music are definitely musician friendly, with pretty much the whole door going to the performers. On the other hand, the place is a personal expression for them both and retains a community feel while offering a first-rate gathering place for all sorts of events, musical and otherwise. The CD release event, as you can see, started in the daylight, with all ages present. A good listening environment, without it being straight concert or impossible to get a beer during the music.<br /><br /> <br />So why don’t more places like this exist? Hours, I would guess. Gene probably puts in his 80 or so hours a week, similar to those of a dairy farmer or someone running a convenience store, or a French baker (those croissants start at about 3 AM). Most of us aren’t up to that. Luckily Gene is…Christopher Mark Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08853901680438666955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7545886298727446531.post-40555090544158607262010-02-21T16:40:00.000-05:002010-02-21T16:44:01.060-05:00Elijah Wald's New BookElijah Wald has been performing music and writing about it for awhile, and our paths have crossed recently a couple of times, first at the International Association for the Study of Popular Music in Mexico City, and then again in Pittsburgh, when he came through on his book tour and I was alerted by mutual friends and went down to hear him. We had a little public discussion about the dearth of opportunities for live performance these days—that’s another story—and I picked up a copy of How the Beatles Destroyed Rock ‘n’ Roll: An Alternative History of American Popular Music (here's the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/How-Beatles-Destroyed-Rock-Roll/dp/0195341546/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266788472&sr=8-1">amazon</a> page). Elijah was pretty straightforward about the title being chosen for commercial intent, but every single reviewer on Amazon, for example, slagged him for it nevertheless. Having gotten through the book myself, I’m not against the title; his primary thesis IS that the Beatles, once they removed themselves from the multi-ethnic, dance-driven soup that had always been American popular music, DID change the way popular music was incubated and (not) performed. One of the consequences was virtually the end of interracial bills. He cites Woodstock as an example, with the only two black performers being Greenwich Village folkie Richie Havens and fresh-off-the-boat-with-his-limey-rhythm-section Jimi Hendrix.. I take that back, I’d seen him opening for the Rascals in Central Park in 1967 when he WAS fresh off the boat (and actually exchanged a few words and a handshake with him at the Fillmore East). Woodstock was 1969—Linda and I probably flew over it on our way to Europe for 10 years. Hendrix was dead little more than a year later.<br /><br />Not to get distracted: Wald traces the history of American popular music when performance and recording opportunities were virtually segregated, but when influences still flowed freely across racial and ethnic divides. One of his key arguments is in favor of the Paul Whiteman legacy, who, as he points out, tends to be dismissed by hard-core jazz critics, while being cited favorably by many jazzers themselves, including Duke Ellington, for his orchestral approach to jazz big-band performance, his commercial success, and his introduction of vocalists (including Bing Crosby).<br /><br />He also does a careful job of parceling out the credit for the beginnings of rock and roll, including Chuck Berry, Elvis, and Carl Perkins and emphasizing that none of them were working in isolation. Another of Wald’s primary points is that—contrary to the rock historians’ preferred narrative, rock and roll, then rock, did not manage a scorched-earth entry onto the popular music scene: do-wop, crooners, Motown, Chubby Checker and many others shared the charts throughout the Sixties. It was in the aftermath of Sargent Pepper that the album-oriented FM format (and others) started to devolve into today’s atomized media formats and audiences.<br /><br />Whatever you think of this thesis—and Wald stops there, other than a few marginal references to later developments like hip hop—the book itself is a thoroughly researched and carefully written history that dislodges some comfortable assumptions about popular music, rebuilding its story into a much more complex mosaic.Christopher Mark Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08853901680438666955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7545886298727446531.post-27010551145223985322010-02-14T16:48:00.000-05:002010-02-14T17:09:45.301-05:00Kingston Stories<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnOPO3Dyap8CotFuZX7gKiG4DGZEyTwCPRgDB7uZAeKfKdsDfuxamVOIsC-GCdNebDfu5P-Qrw3KkVgK2yvoI_GCMsN8yCV8FRfewoMQm79OlHWVfKwWuWZiFH3bvigH9jCE_sTv8EARQf/s1600-h/DSC_0046.JPG"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnOPO3Dyap8CotFuZX7gKiG4DGZEyTwCPRgDB7uZAeKfKdsDfuxamVOIsC-GCdNebDfu5P-Qrw3KkVgK2yvoI_GCMsN8yCV8FRfewoMQm79OlHWVfKwWuWZiFH3bvigH9jCE_sTv8EARQf/s320/DSC_0046.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5438220636298302162" /></a><br />In the summer of 2007, I went to Kingston, Jamaica for a meeting of the Association for Cultural Studies at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus just outside of Kingston. I was inspired to do this by a proposed panel on international hip hop involving Tony Mitchel (<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Global-Noise-Outside-Music-Culture/dp/0819565024">Global Noise</a>), Bronwen Low from McGill and several others I had met in Mexico city the previous year at another conference. Another big factor was the personal encouragement I got from Kingston resident and popular music scholar Dennis Howard, whom I’d met and bonded with in Mexico City as well. As a longtime reggae fan, I felt like the notion of a personal visit to Trenchtown had some existential validity. Here’s Dennis and I in front of the national stadium and statue of Jamaican track legend Don Quarrie. Jamaica's national soccer team, whose team name is the Reggae Boyz, also plays here.<br /><br />Island music has been intertwined with American and European popular music at least since the mambo craze of the 40s and 50s, but for boomers like me, it was Bob Marley and Chris Blackwell’s Island Records that brought it to the front of my consciousness in the late 60s with the reggae, rocksteady and ska styles. Blackwell was born a Londoner, but grew up in Jamaica and was able to parlay his familiarity with the local music scene into an enormously successful independent label which ended up back in London (where I spent a night in their studios in 1978 recording some demos).<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPwTQdbG8KIc9CKIODOxI3LExj83z0XWUcWwqFCgRrMm34v8W7ZgpJ3IoZewfmnDvuBZkZlLG-h3dkXA4P-PCFMPpFVoOZzwXzDY0yZq0aB_qUEr0mzVv6GAv6fOEVH-xzAlB7VCfZNLfx/s1600-h/DSC_0042.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPwTQdbG8KIc9CKIODOxI3LExj83z0XWUcWwqFCgRrMm34v8W7ZgpJ3IoZewfmnDvuBZkZlLG-h3dkXA4P-PCFMPpFVoOZzwXzDY0yZq0aB_qUEr0mzVv6GAv6fOEVH-xzAlB7VCfZNLfx/s320/DSC_0042.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5438223323428850002" /></a><br />Needless to say, Blackwell was long gone from Kingston in 2007 and the Trenchtown area didn’t have much going on in terms of music, and most of the commercial activity was informal. Dennis and Peter Tosh’s former manager Herbie Miller gave me a tour, which included meeting Dennis' father in his store, taking a few pictures in front of the Bob Marley statue, and cruising by the locations of famous studios and outdoor concert locations in the early reggae era. Herbie had perfectly plausible visions of turning the area into a tourist destination based on reggae stars and history. (See <a href="http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20090422/ent/ent1.html ">here</a> for an update on that initiative.)<br /><br />Live music in Kingston is pretty weak, right now, however, with the combination of sound systems and dancehall taking up most of that space. A sound system can get your attention: on weekends the parties in open spaces can be heard for blocks; when the legendary Stone Love system arrived in a dump truck and set up on campus, the massive subwoofers brought people out of buildings for a half-mile around, and made you question your bowel control.<br /><br />Kingston itself has a reputation for violence, with more razor wire in evidence than is comfortable. My hotel told me to take a cab up to the Hilton for a drink; I looked out the door and it was 50 yards away. I walked. Most tourists to Jamaica end up on the north coast at Ocho Rios or Montego bay. Kingston draws more intrepid tourists but the city’s infrastructure isn’t strong, public transport inconsistent, and movement after dark needs to be cautious. Like many major cities, major capital has attempted to avoid inner-city constraints by building from scratch outside the center (think La Défense in Paris, Greenwich outside of London, Puebla in Mexico City), but New Kingston, as Dennis pointed out, was poorly planned, neglecting basic things like parking. The small maquiladora sector has now moved entirely to Asia and the economic base of the country was faltering even before the international crisis hit, with both sugar and tourism having problems.<br /><br />This kind of an environment often puts the onus on the individual, and Dennis is no exception. As he completes his graduate work, he continues to run a production / event planning company with his partner, Jackie, which includes a gorgeous property up on Blue Mountain where a bunch of us were hosted for a meal at the conference end. In the meantime, he’s an accomplished scholar already, with his academic training buttressed by hands-on experience with many of the greats of Jamaican music. His <a href="http://dennishoward.blogspot.com/">blog</a> is a must-stop for people interested in that history.Christopher Mark Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08853901680438666955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7545886298727446531.post-1707023770252269892010-01-23T17:01:00.000-05:002010-01-23T17:05:28.429-05:00Think Local, Act GlobalGot a note from Anneliefs Brown the other day, drumming up support for a band from Soweto that she manages. She’s Dutch, by the way… She and the band are hoping to leverage Internet power to pre-finance a new recording. A certain number of artists are doing this these days, some very successfully. If you want to contribute, or just see how they’re doing, go to the <a href="http://www.africaunsigned.com/projects/BCUC">band's page</a> at the Africa Unsigned website.<br /><br />For people following social media trends, this hardly raises an eyebrow. If it works it will be, however, extraordinary. Not in terms of the Internet powering the experiment, but rather in terms of the intercontinental, cross-cultural component of the whole thing. From where I sit in the US, most of the social networking seems to be among like-minded souls, which in music means there are really high language and culture barriers. The chances of the hipsters from Chicago or Atlanta signing on to the latest Argentine hip-hop act or indie rock band are actually infinitesimal, in spite of their easy availability. There is what the French call a certain amount of <span style="font-style:italic;">nombrilisme </span>(belly-button gazing) in the whole scene, where ever-more-obscure acts from Omaha break big in social media, but mostly from the same subculture: white, English-speaking, over-educated, under-employed.<br /><br />But hey, prove me wrong! Support local live music, then follow my $10 to Africa Unsigned…Christopher Mark Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08853901680438666955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7545886298727446531.post-41634472695485854282010-01-01T11:33:00.000-05:002010-01-01T11:42:29.583-05:00The Listening RoomListening and popular music don’t necessarily go together. This was brought home to me again when (my wife) Linda and I were attempting to listen to a fine set by a young Pittsburgh singer-songwriter named Brooke Annibale at the Club Café. We had gotten there later than we should have, and found seats at the bar. Before long it became clear that a multi-generational group between us and the stage were not there for the music—turning their backs to the stage and raising their voices as the music began. In that Pittsburgh’s Carson Street on the South Side is home to dozens of bars without the annoyance of music and that there was a $7 cover charge to get in to the Club Café, it was a bit puzzling as to why a dozen or so people were intent on ruining the experience of the 90% of the room who were listening. Does this make the Club Café exceptionally bad in this regard? No, it’s the best room in Pittsburgh outside of concert halls for listening to music.<br /><br />The notion of listening to popular music is a recent one. Popular music, even folk music, has had as a primary function providing a sound track for other activities, mostly dancing and socializing, throughout its history. When what is now known as classical music was “popular,” that was its function as well. Virtually every musical genre you could think of began life as a dance music (see Elijah Wald’s new book <a href="[http://www.amazon.com/How-Beatles-Destroyed-Rock-Roll/dp/0195341546/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262361543&sr=1-1">How the Beatles Destroyed Rock n Roll</a> for a real nice history—more on this later). Somewhere in the 60s, when jazz became “America’s classical music” (as NPR endlessly reminds us), FM album-oriented formats flourished, folk made it to the concert hall, and Sergeant Pepper and Dylan came along to intellectualize rock ‘n roll, listening became a common experience. Listening rooms included rock clubs with tables, coffee houses, and all the showcase clubs up and down Bleeker Street in New York. Not much left of any of that: the tables have come out of the rock clubs, the coffee houses are gone, and the Bleeker St. clubs offer a continuous stream of artists playing short nameless sets for $5 entry. At least there’s some money involved: Austin’s Sixth Street and Nashville’s Broadway offer mostly top-notch musicians playing for tips.<br /><br />My personal experience includes playing the UK folk circuit in the 70s, mostly composed of the back rooms of pubs, but where people paid a few quid to listen attentively to the locals and to the traveling featured performer. As a listener my recent high points have come at the <a href="http://www.bluebirdcafe.com/">BlueBird</a> café in Nashville and at the <a href="http://www.mississippistudios.com/">Mississippi Studios</a> in Portland, Oregon. The BlueBird, particulary, showcases the wealth of Nashville songwriting talent (and you pay to get in). On a column opposite the front door (the actual place is in a strip mall) is the admonishment (S-s-s-h-h-h!). The room takes listening very seriously and enforces its no-talking rule. Mississippi Studios until recently was run by a cooperative (like <a href="http://www.caffelena.org/">Caffè Lena</a> in Saratoga Springs now is)) and was set up with pews and folding chairs—and a huge sound system.. All these are exceptional now. A dominant form of supplying entertainment for drinkers now is the “open stage” where unpaid performers play to indifferent audiences talking as loudly as they need to make themselves heard.<br /><br />There is an argument to be made that the most common listening environment at the moment is the space between two earbuds. Nevertheless, I think it’s important to find a space where people are listening to popular music and support it. Or start one yourself…Christopher Mark Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08853901680438666955noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7545886298727446531.post-44735029565798204932009-12-21T17:44:00.000-05:002009-12-25T11:41:22.899-05:00Liverpool 2009In my academic life, I spent a week in Liverpool last summer at the meeting of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music. This was my second; the previous one was in Mexico City. The conference is lots of people who approach the eccentric and the mundane in the music world from all sorts of points of view--perfect for someone like me who finds something to like in almost all musical expression.<br /><br />In the meantime, Liverpool was hoppin. The city itself has had its ups and downs, the Beatles notwithstanding. It was the port from whence the Titanic sailed. When it and another couple of major vessels went to the bottom, a large portion of the adult male population of Liverpool went with them. Those hard times are not forgotten, but the city is thriving. A large chunk of it is pedestrian now, and like many European cities, the public transportation is good. (A lot of it could be a model for Pittsburgh, my home town). Wandering through exhibits and the neighborhood where the Cavern sits, it's pretty obvious that Liverpool has been turning out musicians by the truckload, both before and since the Merseybeat. There is a small industry in Beatles memorabilia and tribute bands, one of which I saw at the Cavern on a Saturday night. I knew it was a tribute band, and the site of the room wasn't quite original, and that everyone in the room were Beatles tourists from around the world, but it still gave me the chills.<br /><br />The main gathering point for us was a pub called Hannah's: three stories with gourmet cooking and marginal beer--exactly the reverse of the fabulous beer and marginal cooking of the Seventies. Two or three musical acts at all times; the number of venues in town was pretty stunning. Of course there were a lot of DJ dance bars too--Liverpudlians have always partied hard, and there is now an Island-wide trend among a certain age group to drink until you fall down. I also heard about the proliferation of music festivals in UK and on the continent--exponential numbers with local festival cultures renewed from year to year. I was staying with my friend Dennis Howard from Kingston (more later) so got caught up on reggae happening in Jamaica at the same time.Christopher Mark Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08853901680438666955noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7545886298727446531.post-28344426942116417072009-12-15T21:07:00.000-05:002009-12-15T21:20:55.339-05:00Recording then and nowWinter in Pittsburgh. I'm finishing off the mixing of the album in the home studio--amazing what is available to songwriters these days. It does take me back to other recording experiences, notably the first serious recording I did--for Bill Leader and Transatlantic Records in the U.K. Bill had a studio up in the Yorkshire Dales, with a wall of windows looking out over the valley. We got there the night before sessions were to start, and went out for a bite and a pint at a pub up on a hill. It was my brother Jeff, my touring partner Mick Linnard, and drummer Pick Withers (in a little known band called Dire Straits). The local brew was heavenly and the standard closing time of 11 PM meant only that they locked the doors and drew the curtains--if you were inside at the time you could stay. The end result was that we were all a bit sullen the next day starting out. We got over it, and the sessions were great fun. Bill's wife Helen fed us and it was a collective experience quite different from the digital domain, where these days Bill's tools (and more) are in my own hands. Bill was a pioneer, recording many British folk legends, including Bert Jansch, and it was a great privilege to work with him. We shared production responsibilities, and Jeff did some arranging for the strings we played ourselves. Pretty low-key, but the folk-club circuit was supporting a lot of musicians at the time (as long as you weren't fiscally ambitious). But more on that later...Christopher Mark Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08853901680438666955noreply@blogger.com0