How I Kick-Started My Creativity with Unfamiliar Tools

May 31, 2012 Leave a Comment

One year ago, I posted the song “Chinatown” for all the world to hear. Today, in a guest post on Brad Holland’s blog, I talk about the process that led me there.

All too often, the creative process is confused with the creation itself. Everything that’s written, drawn, composed, or stumbled upon doesn’t necessarily have to end up in a final product; in fact, one of the best ways to really let your creative beast play is to stop worrying about the final product completely.

That can be hard to do when we take pride in our work, but one way to let go is to try tools you’ve never used before. No one should expect to be an expert at something instantly, so painting with a new brush or cutting with a new type of shears frees us to give up our expectations of ourselves. We might make something far short of a masterpiece, but we’re learning new ways to let our creative energies flow.

Read the full article at Hollandz: Exploring the Creative World.

Filed under Music, Random, Writing Tagged with , , , ,

The Women! Uncaged

May 29, 2012 Leave a Comment

You may recall that I’ve been attempting to formally secure the rights to place an image from Star Trek on the (virtual) cover of my EP, The Women! My e-mail from April received a response a month later:

Unfortunately, we are unable to license the rights to use the Star Trek “The Cage” episode still shot for your album cover.

Phooey. Not a big surprise, but disappointing nonetheless. Fortunately there was a backup plan. And thus do I reveal to you, my loyal fans, The Women! Uncaged:

The Women! Uncaged

The music is no different. Only the cover art is, uh, vastly improved. If you’ve previously downloaded, you can delete and re-download or just associate the new picture with the MP3 files. Or do nothing at all, but then CBS will come after me with phaser-toting lawyers.

Filed under Music

My Love/Hate Relationship With Bonus Tracks

May 21, 2012 Leave a Comment

Bonus TracksYesterday I had the opportunity to listen to all four Starsailor albums in my car. Two of them feature “bonus tracks,” songs not included on the original release for some reason or another. They’re good tunes, but you can tell when they come on; the album wraps up nicely and then there’s a random song or two stuck on the end. (I’m just now noticing that they all happen to be in 6/8 meter as well. Weird.)

It might be that extra songs are included when an album is released in another country; it’s particularly common in Japan. Sometimes certain retailers make deals with distributors so that bonus tracks are only available on CDs in their stores.

I’m a big proponent of the album as a cohesive whole, more than the sum of its component songs. On one hand, bonus tracks mess up album integrity and make it difficult to own an authoritative collection of music. When a sequence of songs is planned out, it’s not random, or at least it shouldn’t be. The tone and content of the last song bring the story or theme to a close, and bonus tracks slapped on the end disrupt that feeling of resolution.

My frustration increases when Amazon lists and sells a bonus track as part of Muse’s Absolution MP3 album, even though it’s not on the American CD release. Then again, the band’s own discography lists “Fury” as the last track, which screws up my old Simulacrum album project, which is supposed to be all about songs not on the primary versions of studio albums.

But do I buy albums with bonus tracks? Of course. I don’t want to get ripped off. So obviously I’m part of the problem.

Filed under Music, Writing

What Happened to Keane?

May 9, 2012 1 Comment

Keane: StrangelandWhen the news of a new Keane album popped up in my Facebook stream the other day, I was surprised. I hadn’t heard anything else about this album, Strangeland, even though a quick look at the band’s Timeline showed them discussing little else for the past month. That’s what I get for mostly listening to NPR instead of music radio. [Insert customary cursing of Mark Zuckerberg for showing only what he thinks is important. Him personally.]

Once I knew of the release, I employed my standard strategy to get the best price: check the flyers in Sunday’s paper. This may seem archaic, but if anything, I would think bands that have been around since before music downloading was a thing would be more likely to hit emphasize the traditional retail channels.

Not so, apparently. Not a single local store was advertising the new Keane CD. Target had some guy calling himself Tank with an album title truly dizzying in its straightforwardness, This Is How I Feel. Best Buy featured a duo named Karmin and the even more mundane, but I’m sure secretly deep, title of Hello, along with Neck of the Woods by Silversun Pickups.

When I ambled into Best Buy – shut up, it was convenient – Strangeland wasn’t even on the New Releases shelf, unlike several albums already out several weeks. Only a single copy was available deep in the Pop/Rock rack.

Am I old? Keane was never the very hottest group on the charts, but have they fallen so far?

Filed under Music, Writing

Creativity vs. Copyright

April 29, 2012 1 Comment

I am about to get a schooling in copyright and licensing law from a giant corporation.

Back in November, I found the spot on the CBS Web site where one requests permission to use their intellectual property in one’s own work. (I’d link it for you, but darn if I can find it again.) Specifically, I wanted to use one frame from the Star Trek episode “The Cage” as part of the album cover for my EP, The Women!

When I didn’t hear back from them a month later – my self-imposed deadline for releasing the EP – I figured, screw it, I’m much too small-time for them to care. I wasn’t selling the album, and the argument could be made that the clumsy image editing I did to the shot made the cover a fair use “derivative work” anyway. I’m not quite sure the argument would fly, mind you, but it could be made.

Then on March 28, I received an e-mail from the Licensing Manager at CBS Consumer Products Inc. Here’s what she said.

Hi John,

I received your licensing inquiry from the CBS Consumer Products web site.

Please reach out to me directly to discuss this opportunity in more detail.

Helpful, no? Whatever. Approximately nine people have downloaded the album since November, so a per-unit licensing deal would net them less than the manager’s time to type two sentences costs. A blanket licensing deal would likely bankrupt me.

But today I wrote her back. Under the theory that music gets more exposure when you ask folks to pay for it, I’m putting it on iTunes and Spotify and the like soon. Either I get the right licensing in place or I change the cover somehow.

Now, granted, a good portion of the Internet economy runs on blatant copyright infringement. The Star Trek Facebook page frequently links to fan-made stuff and says, “Hey, cool!” with no mention of impending legal action. And the old saying does go, “Better to ask forgiveness than permission.” But old sayings are no more true than new ones, and “forgiveness” in this case might be “thousands in punitive royalties.” So I’ll go the safe route here.

Filed under Music

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