Have Included:
Jason The Underwater Culprit Baldinger- Vox, Guitars, Etc;
Alec Stone - Guitar, Vox, Etc;
James Hart - Pedal Steel Guitar;
Rob Gray - Guitar, Bass, Accordion, & Saw;
Alan Butera- Drums;
Jon Dowling - Guitar;
Read Connoly - Dobro
The Man From N'yazar- Accordion;
Jeremy Coleman- Production;
Eric Yeschke - Guitar & Production
Influences
The Third Multitude, Flargen & Dingle, Antique Squid, Horse & Burro Adoption, The Skirt Tasters, Panama Jack, Marameg, Thee Starry Eyes, Mt. Weather, Splendid Recipies!!
Its getting to be cold again time for some whiskey love songs about ghosts and such. Check out new tracks "Sin Eater", "Hollow Waters", and a Jolie Holland cover "Roll My Blues Away".
On the local level, there's debate in the music underground about what artists should expect when they record their music. Some consider music as something to be shared, not profited from.
"I say make music to make music, not to become super paid," said Rob Gray of the band The House of Assassins and the solo project Several Conclusions. "As a musician I say please download my stuff, listen to it, and if you like it and if you wanna help out, buy it.
"I'm sick of artists thinking they deserve something for their art, music or other. Do it for your family and friends, do it to play shows, do it for you and if money comes great ... download away."
Jeff Schreckengost, a local musician who fronts Ludlow and previously played with The 1985 and the Pay Toilets, is concerned with the long-term repercussions of music being "smashed down into bazillions of ones and zeros."
"When you have fewer people buying the physical product, there becomes less demand," he said. "With less demand, you find fewer people willing to run a record store or put out an album or CD. Your dreams of having some label putting out your album becomes less and less of a possibility. ... Very few people wish to live like a college student after college. Ramen [noodles] for dinner every night is not a treat. What it comes down to is some people wish to make music a career, not an expensive hobby."
Part of the creed of the file-sharing public is that the record labels have a share of the blame for gouging people with CD prices that soared above $15 in the past decade or two.
"CDs should be a lot cheaper, especially when they usually cost less than $2 per unit to produce," Mr. Schreckengost said.
"I played in a touring band and the majority of money we made was from record sales -- we still made so little that it really wasn't worth it, but it was fun. If I were in my early 20s again and had dreams of bei
Artists seek new ways to sell their music Tuesday, February 05, 2008 By Scott Mervis, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
For a garage-rock band from Detroit, The Von Bondies were a breakout success in 2004, selling 100,000 copies of the Sire release "Pawn Shoppe Heart" and generating more than $1 million in revenue.
But a lot has changed in four years in the music industry. Now, Von Bondies frontman Jason Stollsteimer is sitting on a follow-up album that he's not sure what to do with.
"The record industry is a joke," he said. "I have no intention of putting out a full-length any time soon because no one's going to buy it. Nobody buys anything anymore."
Exaggeration, yes, but it's getting closer to truth. Sales of CDs fell 15 percent in 2007, the seventh straight year of decline, with total album sales of 500 million versus 2000's peak of 785 million units. While digital sales were up 45 percent last year, to 844 million singles, it didn't stop the bleeding.
Artists continue to be purged from major labels -- even newer "American Idol" types such as Taylor Hicks and Katharine McPhee -- and more than 7,000 record industry jobs have been lost since 2000, with more cuts expected.
Illegal downloads are the major culprit. While the Recording Industry Association of America, or RIAA, which represents the major labels, has tried to stem the tide, filing 20,000 lawsuits against consumers over the past four years, it's failed to cut into the estimated 50 billion files that are shared illegally each year. The result is artists and labels are looking at new business models to distribute their music.
The trailblazing British band Radiohead got tons of publicity -- not that it needed it -- when it issued "In Rainbows" as a pay-what-you-please download on its Web site in the fall, before topping the charts with the CD last month. Classic-rock band The Eagles, flying without a label, had one of the
Online Now!
