As of last week I have two albums for sale on the iTunes Store and Amazon MP3 with more retailers to follow soon. Ten years ago, it would've been laughable to think that I could make a record on the cheap for purchase at the same place where you could buy a U2 album. These days, the world is changing so quickly. If you've recorded music that you want to sell, it takes less than one hour to upload it to Tunecore. Within 72 hours, you're live and worldwide. Unbelievable. No agent, no manager, no record deal.
One of the records that's available is the "Sylvester Shalom" EP by D-KEZ, an electronic-ish collaboration that started late one night in the cramped living room of my attic apartment. Many years ago, my partner in crime was at my place as we were going to San Francisco the next morning. He started showing me an early version of GarageBand on his PowerBook G4. We grabbed a few instruments, plugged them into his laptop and had "Pleather Bland" done within a couple of hours. The rest of the EP was done over the course of the next few years in his home office. We used a much better Mac for the remaining songs but it was all done through GarageBand. Every single song was done by the two of us on the fly. Each time, we walked in with absolutely no notion of what to do. Within a few hours' time, the lyrics, beats, and riffs for each song were done, tweaked, and completed.
"From Billsburg To Beyond" by The Chavos is a punk/alternative band that started in the same attic apartment. I recorded a bunch of demos on a Fostex digital 4-track using guitars, bass, a toy electronic drum kit, and a few pots and pans. My hope of using those demos to find others to play with was dashed quickly as I hooked up with people on Craigslist who didn't follow through. A Craigslist ad that said "You Don't Need A Band!" led me to a recording studio in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn that was smaller than your average NYC studio apartment. I'll never forget walking in and peering around in search of the rest of the setup! While there was more equipment to use (as well as Logic), the concept was similar- make music quickly and simply. The last track I worked on (below) was recorded in a friend's bedroom studio with a Mac and other studio equipment. For the Chavos songs, I played almost everything except drums with a few contributions from my producers who also helped shape my rough ideas into cohesive songs.
The barriers to entry for creating music have been lowered to allow so many more people to express themselves more creatively. It is vastly easier to put music into the ether than ever before. However, the piece of the puzzle that remains elusive is how to get your music in front of people. One thing that a label does well is to get marketing muscle for its artists. To be honest, I'm not sure how to expose others to these songs. I'm aware of tastemaker blogs, trusted sites, and social media. (As an aside, most of the trickle of traffic to this blog has been through experimenting with Twitter.). All of the tools are in place to empower musicians to create, release, and publicize and as a result, there is a lot to choose from out there. While the means have been facilitated, it still comes down to rolling up the sleeves and slogging it out to rise above the fray. Technology hasn't yet replaced that age-old concept.
D-KEZ “Old Lame Sigh” (unreleased track)
Old Lame Sigh by strayriffs
The Chavos “Turn The Tides”
Turn The Tides by strayriffs
(Click the Down arrow on each track to download.)
Buy The Chavos "From Billsburg To Beyond" on iTunes or Amazon MP3
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