LA History: Joy Ray

Introduction

Almost 15 years ago to the day, I left Los Angeles and moved to San Francisco. I was also leaving behind music in a professional capacity (or so I thought).

In addition to the quindecennial date, I recently found out that a friend of mine from my L.A. days recently passed away. Thinking about her got me thinking about my time there, listening to old music, and reaching out to old friends.

Over the next few weeks, I will be posting about some of the work I did in those days, and some of the people I knew.

Joy

It's appropriate to begin with Joy Ray. A woman with striking looks, and intelligence and acerbic wit to match. Not to mention a wonderful name!

In the mid/late 90s, Joy Ray was playing in at least 2 bands in Los Angeles: Silverlake scene favorites SISSY BAR and the darker, more gothy SEVENSOFT. I can't recall exactly how I met her. Perhaps through my brother, whose band Don Knotts Overdrive was also part of the Silverlake scene, or perhaps through my friend Stan Fairbank, or maybe through Anne Kadrovich. I had seen Joy's bands play several times, and had seen her out and about at various parties.

Joy approached me in late 1997 about helping her record some solo stuff. I had a pretty decent little studio set up in the garage of the house I was renting: 24-channel/8-bus Mackie mixer, DA-88 digital 8 track, about 3 racks of outboard gear (largely borrowed from Chris Fudurich and Ken Kessie), and a nice collection of synthesizers (also mostly borrowed from Chris), including a Jupiter-6, a Chroma Polaris, a Nord Lead 2, an Poly-800 (with "Moogslayer" mod), a CZ-101, a Moog Rogue, and a Fender Mark I Stage Piano. Plus a computer running Cubase.

Firefly

"Firefly" was the first song Joy brought in. She played it for me on acoustic guitar, and I immediately started thinking about what we could do. I had her record some basic tracks (typically a couple of passes of acoustic guitar and vocals) and started monkeying around with it.


I can't remember exactly when we recorded it, but the initial tracking must have been around January of 1998, because I do remember spending all of the MLK holiday working in the studio on the song.

In fact, working on "Firefly" was what convinced me to quit my day job and "do music full-time". After nearly a full day of pushing buttons and adjusting levels and making something that sounded like a "real record".

We did a couple other songs, one of which, "Getaway", I actually didn't add much to...but I mixed it as weird as I could, with her vocal coming out of one speaker, washed in reverb, and run through some effects as though it were on a radio or telephone. 

Summer in Bakersfield

Of the 4 tracks Joy and I worked on in late 1997 and early 1998, this was my favorite. 

I even brought in a real violinist (unfortunately I can no longer remember her name), who did a beautiful job of adding exactly what was needed, and took direction well ("how about some pizzicato?"). She played by ear, which was good, because I'd been so used to rock people playing by ear I didn't even think to write up a chart. I'd also never mic'ed a violin before. When she pulled out her violin and asked me "OK, where should I stand?" I was immediately thinking "Oh man, I totally don't know!" but she was a total pro, and added some violin to one of the other songs as well.

Joy provided her dark lyrics, melodic sense, and a guitar part. I tried to turn the song into a tiny movie, chopping up some of the noise from the crickets infesting the walls to create a rhythm track, and adding some Eno-ish ambient synths, and a drum loop I may have cribbed from a Photek record (who I am pretty sure cribbed it from somewhere else). Joy brought in one of her friends to sing background vocals. They're in there, just real quiet.

A Start

As this was one of my first projects as a producer, engineer, and collaborator this way, I made a lot of mistakes. I failed to build a good rapport with her, and we ended up disagreeing quite a bit about the direction of the record. I didn't pay enough attention to what she really wanted, and didn't have good skills for communicating what I thought would work best for her.

I'm still pretty happy with these tracks, all things considered, but at the time, I recall that Joy definitely was not. I wanted to add more production and technology (probably too much), and make a kind of "space folk" record, and she didn't. After taking 4 songs to completion (including doing one over almost completely from scratch), we parted ways.

There's still some nice sonic detail in there, though. I can still remember working on the song all through MLK day and realizing "man, THIS is what I should be doing with my life, not sitting in an office." And I quit my job a few weeks later to embark on "doing music full-time".

Thanks for that inspiration, indulgence, and opportunity, Joy!

Epilogue

Joy Ray married Jay Harsin, the singer for another band in LA (Chaser, whose song "That Ain't Love" remains in rotation at my house). They live in Hawaii and own and operate the Hearts and Stars Salon.

Review: The Prophet 12 Synthesizer from Dave Smith Instruments

My Dave Smith Instruments Prophet 12 arrived a while back. I haven't yet made an album with it, but have used it enough to have some opinions and thoughts.

Overall

This is the new DSI flagship. It says "this is the best of our experience and knowledge". They have taken everything they've learned from their previous synthesizers, incorporated user feedback, and improved it all.

It is easily the "best" synth they have made, and arguably the best polyphonic synthesizer available today, especially if you are someone who plays synth with your hands (as opposed to all-MIDI/computer sequencing).

It offers an incredible amount of live surface control, and several features aimed at "live performance".

Build Quality

This is one of the best-built synthesizers I have touched. The knobs are solid (and appear to be the same quality as other DSI gear) and reference the legendary Prophet-5. The buttons are firm and satisfying. The wood is nicely finished.

The synth looks great, too. The LEDs aren't as blindingly bright as the Evolver. It is less "flashy" in every sense than many other DSI synths. I suppose some people may find that a drawback. I like the more understated approach. And they did include a bit of flair with the large lighted "12" in the upper right corner.

The front panel is all silk-screened paint-on-metal, with no plastic overlay, save a small lip around the OLED screen. The plastic overlays were never popular with the synth community, which at the moment has become oddly resistant to change.  The layout and typography are also clear and attractive. And they spelled "filter" correctly this time.

Prophet-12 has an integrated power supply with a standard IEC cable - no wall wart.

The keybed feels different than the Poly Evolver - stiffer, and the keys are flatter. This may just be a function of the age of my Poly Evolver Keyboard - maybe it was stiffer when I first got it years ago. I'm not a particularly skilled piano player, and key feel isn't something I have much opinion about.

Pitch and mod wheels have grippy rubber around the outside edge. They may not look as amazing as the all-clear Poly Evolver Keyboard wheels, but they are much easier to use.

Prophet-12 also has the same kind of position and pressure sliders the Tempest has. These are fun, and I find them far more useful for performance than the standard pitch and mod wheels on most keyboards, as you can tap, slide, and/or press with precision and speed in a way that wheels don't often offer. Using the extensive modulation matrix, it is easy to assign multiple parameters to these.

The OLED screen is bright and legible without being overpowering, though like all OLED screens, it does weird things in my eyes when I look away suddenly.

Interface

DSI's interface design is logical and clean. The synth interaction is clear, easy to use and learn, deep, and most importantly, fast.

The bottom "half" of the control panel shows signal flow, from oscillators to "character" to filters to VCA to feedback to delay. The upper "half" has effects, arpeggiator, and modulation (LFOs, slots, envelopes).

Every synth parameter has a dedicated knob on the front panel. Once you turn a knob, the relevant "section" appears in the screen. This allows you to see what you're adjusting quickly. The soft knobs over the screen are also detented, so if you're having a problem getting the exact value you want with a smooth knob, you can turn a soft knob to click to the exact value. A brilliant idea.

DSI has mentioned this before, but the new modulation path assignment method is great, and I expect lots of people will agree:

• Hold the "Assign Mod Source" button
• Turn the knob controlling your Mod Source
• Hold the "Assign Mod Destination" button
• Turn the knob controlling your Mod Destination
• Set amount using "Amount" knob or soft knob on mod screen (which pops up as soon as you start doing this)

You've just assigned a modulation routing! It is incredibly intuitive and again, fast. DSI goes further by automatically assigning the first free modulation path. And you can sort the modulation path list.

Improving on Evolver, DSI offers 16 fully-configurable modulation paths plus the 8 "fixed" paths (hard-wired to the 4 LFOs and 4 envelopes). This is particularly exciting, because these make the synth semi-modular. These paths were my favorite programming feature of Evolver, and I constantly wished I had more. Now I have plenty.

You can also manage all of this with soft knobs in the menu.

Sound and Architecture

The oscillators are all-new, and all-DSP-based. There's already a ton of internet griping about this, but the Curtis chip-based DCOs of the previous DSI line had some intractable problems. Going digital solves these problems, and opens up a wider range of sonic possibilities.

The new digital oscillators have 3 modes - An "analog modeling" mode (Sawtooth, Pulse, Triangle, or Sine), a "wave shape" mode, and 3 types of noise. (the synth doesn't actually consider these specific modes, but different features are available depending on which wave you select, and it's convenient to think of them this way).

Analog modeling produces great-sounding basic shapes. These appear to be actual DSP models, and not merely single-cycle waves.  The "Slop" parameter adds some very nice liveliness to the sound at low settings, and goes all the way up to totally broken "this is why we abandoned analog" territory. The "shape" parameter allows for various deformations of the wave shapes. For example, deforming the Square shape yields pulse width modulation.

Aside from the classic analog shapes, you can choose from a variety of wave shapes. Some of the sources and character are obvious ("Tines", "Ahhh", etc.) and some less so. All are harmonically rich and interesting.

When these kinds of wave shapes are chosen, you have the ability to pick 3 different shapes - a "Left", a "Center", and a "Right". You can then modulate across the 3, and sound will smoothly transition and morph.

For example, you could pick 3 different shapes for the oscillator, then assign an LFO to that oscillator's "shape" mod parameter. This will sweep through the various shapes, back and forth. Or you could use an envelope to get motion through them. Or velocity. Or key number. Or mod wheel. Or whatever.

It's conceptually similar to the wavetables of the PPG. On the plus side, you're not limited to PPG's wavetables. You can effectively build your own, by picking a left, center, and right. On the minus side, these aren't as big (in size/length) or diverse (in selection) as PPG's wavetables.

Ultimately, this architecture allows creation of the kind of evolving digital tones the Prophet-VS was known for.

(By the way, picking the same shape for 2 or 3 of the slots still produces interesting results.)

There are 3 noise types available as well. Plus a sine sub-oscillator.

And all of that is for just one oscillator. You get four oscillators per voice. Go back and read all that again. Let it sink in. You can have 4 different wavetables per voice, each modulated differently.

Looking at what you can do with the oscillators together, Prophet 12 continues to shine. It's got analog-style exponential Frequency Modulation (FM). You can't do DX7-style linear FM on it, but you can get some very cool effects.

FM on the Prophet-12 has a deceptively simple architecture, where the oscillators are connected in a loop: O4 is modulator for carrier O3, which is also modulator for carrier O2, which is also modulator for carrier O1, which is also modulator for carrier O4.

You can use the basic sine wave shape for all the oscillators for simple tones. But you can also use any of the other shapes available as carriers or modulators. And that also means that any of the modulation parameters you use for shaping oscillators can apply to carriers or modulators. And since they're connected in a loop, you can get "feedback".

And unlike the DX synths, you also get the analog lowpass filter, the highpass filter, the delay, the feedback, etc.

There's also amplitude modulation using the same methodology. And you can use both FM and AM at the same time.

Hard sync, too, which works in the same O4 → O3 → O2 → O1 fashion. So you can hard-sync more than one oscillator, or 2 discrete pairs.

The net result is a very flexible synth, that can easily produce some beautiful/crazy digital-but-alive sounds in addition to the analog basics that are so much in vogue these days.

If all of that doesn't have you excited enough, there's a few other unique qualities to this synth. It has a resonant high pass filter. You don't see that very often in synthesizers.

It has a tuned feedback loop (like Evolver), and yes, you can do Karplus-Strong synthesis.

The "Character" section is also unique. DSI offers decimation (sample-rate reduction) and bit depth reduction ("Hack") to make the synth sound more digital and lo-fi. Turning these up a bit is a quick path to recreating PPG-style grit. There's a soft saturation "Drive" parameter. "Girth" and "Air" are smart EQ - bass and treble, respectively.

Of course, you can modulate all of that.

Standard Things

As for the "standard" stuff, you've got:

• ADSR envelopes for LPF and VCA, plus 2 envelopes as assignable modulation sources
• 4 LFOs, which can be set to sync to MIDI tempo, have slewable shapes, and can reset with keypress and have user-controlled phase start!
• An arpeggiator (which includes the ability to set up to 4 hits per note)
• Analog stereo distortion (per layer!)
• 4-tap digital delay, which has modulatable panning (aside from the obvious delay fun, you can construct flangers, choruses, and even reverb with this). A software update added a resonant lowpass filter, independent for each delay tap. Incredible.

You have 12 voices to play with per patch. You can choose to set it all to Unison, with as little or as much detune as you want.

You can set up 2 patches per program, either stacked or split (each patch gets 6 voices).

And you get storage for 396 user programs on top of the 396 "factory" programs (which are read-only).

You can even build a "playlist" of the programs you like, in order, for gigs.

So what's not to like?

Well, I have a few criticisms so far, but they are minor:

The Presets
This is largely subjective. Most people don't care for their synth presets. But I have only walked through the 396 Factory sounds a couple of times, and there are few I found immediately inspiring or useful.

That said, there are a few really great ones in there, and some that did make me sit up and start playing.

But given the preset's unwritable/unchangeable nature, I would have expected a few more basic, usable sounds somewhere, and perhaps some better organization (the Alesis Ion is still my gold standard for this, with 4 banks filled with usable sounds, and the banks consistently organized so the first 10 sounds are always basses, the next 10 leads, then 10 pads, and so forth).

I also would have expected a more standardized and comprehensive set of modulation routings. Many of the sounds do not take advantage of all of the available controllers (particularly slider pressure and aftertouch), and they don't typically use the controllers the same way when they do use them.

396 user sounds is plenty for me, but it's hard not to look at the 396 factory sounds and wish there were more I liked, especially given the considerable talent and effort that went into the batch provided.

It's expensive.

$3,000 street price. But it is difficult to think of another synthesizer offering this particular feature set at any price.

The Nord Lead 4 is similar in price, knobs, and polyphony, but it is all digital, no analog filters or distortion, and has a far more limited architecture.

There's the Waldorf Blofeld keyboard, which is perhaps a third the price of the Prophet 12, but it is also 100% digital and requires quite a bit of menu-diving or a PC editor to program it.

Moog Voyager is the only thing that remotely approaches Prophet 12's quality or cachet, but you get only one voice.

I suppose there's the John Bowen Solaris, which is even more expensive and 100% digital, but supposedly is quite nice (I haven't used one, so I can't say). It's also available in very limited quantities, and you can get a Prophet-12 right now.

It's complex and deep

This is a pro as much as a con, but this synth will require some work to get the best out of it. I'd say it's much easier than Evolver, due to some workflow improvements and the great oscillators, but I expect some users will have a hard time at first.

Conclusions: Get One!

Software synths are wonderful, but I consider most of them to be disposable. I find programming with a mouse to be tedious, and the PC, operating system, and software updates required to use them make them far less expensive and useful than you might think.

A good hardware synth will last you decades. The Prophet-12 sounds great, works great, looks great. You can use it to create the same sounds any other analog or digital 2- or 3-oscillator synth can create. You'll be happy.

Or you can create vast new sonic landscapes, the likes of which have never been heard. I'm off to explore right now.

A Letter To The Music Business

Dear Music Biz,

It's been a good, close, intimate and mostly wonderful 15 years...but I think we need some time apart.

It's not me. It's you. You've changed.

Digital music business, you used to be the scrappy underdog. They ignored you. Then they laughed at you. Then they fought you. You know what comes next: You win.

But somehow you turned into the rich kid from an 80s teen movie. You might be about to win, but nobody seems to like you. 

The venture capitalists are pissed because you don't make any money, and you keep promising that's going to change. 

The artists think you're robbing them, and your PR response and outreach has ranged from tone-deaf to nonexistent. 

The listeners don't want to pay, or worse, they don't even want to come back for free music after a month. 

Even the labels and publishers don't want you to succeed (don't feel too bad about it, they hate everyone).

Worse, it feels like you've stopped trying. Stopped coming up with new ideas, stopped pushing for something better, stopped thinking. When I look at what you've got on offer, it doesn't really look substantially different from what Rhapsody and iTunes launched nearly 15 years ago. 

How can that be? How can we be stuck with the same lame UI, same ordinary feature set, and no improvements? How can all of these different services feel so similar, and all suffer from terrible flaws?

You can tart yourself up with a slightly different interface and say it's a "revolution", but the only thing you've got going for you now is celebrity endorsements, and that is a fickle, transient, and expensive way to live.

There are just a few kinds of companies left. There are small, largely insignificant players desperately hoping they'll come up with some clever way to offer music for free (for themselves or customers or both) and not have to deal with full-on label licensing. Most of these companies are getting by with tiny staffs and budgets, and have niche audiences to match. Nearly all of them will fail. The best possible outcome is to have someone larger, richer, and/or dumber buy them.

Speaking of, at the other end of the scale there are the titans: Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google/YouTube, and for the time being, Spotify. Their current products are all rather uninspiring. Competent, boring, nothing new. But they'll keep dropping prices until all the little guys are dead, and will roll music into a larger digital media package with video, games, books, and whatever else they can think of to further pull users into their hardware and software ecosystems. They've started on this already.

Finally, there's the "old guard" of companies like Rhapsody, RDIO, Deezer, Slacker, and Pandora (you can probably throw a few more in the mix there). If any of these businesses were really successful, we'd all know about it. The services are indistinguishable, with the same mobile deals, same new releases, same pricing, and forgettable marketing. They're all hoping something is going to change, or that they'll get acquired by someone before the titans crush them.

I look at that world, at how little has changed, and I realize there's nothing to do. Nobody wants to build new features or invest in building a great service. Nobody will admit the current economics are unsustainable, but services are still shuttering or selling for peanuts. It costs a lot to build one of these, and a lot to run it, and you can't make a real business out of it in the current climate.

It's not impossible. You know how to fix this: Innovate.

Stop trying to be the same as every other music service from the last 15 years. Stop thinking it's enough to show up with the same millions of songs and label-mandated featured new releases and top artists/albums/songs.

Help people find something good to listen to. Make their lives easier, not more complicated. Give listeners a reason to come back weekly, if not daily. Stop recommending music to me that I already like and already listen to.

Have a point of view. Show some style or personality. Don't be afraid to be for a particular group of people, even if it means you're less for (or even not for) a different group of people. If you try to be everything to everyone, you become even blander than Wal-Mart.

Be smarter about your pricing. Nobody's ever won a market by berating customers for not appreciating their value. There have to be price points between $10 (too expensive) and free (come on!) that will work. Hire some economists, or at least do some real experiments. 

Maybe "all the world's music" is a dumb idea when people only actually listen to 4-5 million songs. 

Maybe letting aggregators monetize your server space and CDN support (without cutting you in) is not the smartest thing in the world.

Think about your marketing. Stop the lazy and ineffective "x million songs for $y each month", the slow-motion-crowds-cheering-"something about music" montages, and the expensive and ridiculous artist endorsements. You might not even need traditional marketing at all. Google didn't. Facebook never ran a TV commercial. YouTube never made a YouTube video.

Hell, somehow Netflix figured out their whole business, and to be honest, they ain't got nothin' you don't got, right? What's stopping you?

I did all I could to help you out, get you on your feet, and give you a good start. Try not to mess it up too much.

It's your life, music business. What are you going to do with it? Be all bitter that no one appreciates your genius? Stand sullenly in the back with your arms crossed watching the video business and say "Psh. I could do that if I wanted to..."? Keep smokin' weed in your parents' basement until they throw you out? Or are you going to grow up and get real?

Yeah, maybe I'm a little disappointed in you, but I suppose there are worse fates than growing up to be a boring employee of a giant company like Amazon, Apple, Google, or Microsoft. You could end up like Tower Records, for example. Or Guitar Center. Or the book business.

I know, you're going to start telling me about your big dreams. I've heard it before. Even assuming you actually follow through on any of it this time, I can't get excited about any of your plans at the moment.

I recognize that's my problem as much as it is yours. So for our mutual good, I'm taking a break.

I'll check in on you from time to time. I hope we stay in touch. I will always have a special place in my heart for you, and every gig I play will have a seat reserved with your name on it. Your tickets are at "Will Call". And if you get your act together, well, maybe...someday...

No I won't do it again
I don't want to pretend
If it can't be like before
I've got to let it end
I don't want what I was
I had a change of head
But maybe, someday
Yeah maybe, someday

I've got to let it go
And leave it gone
Just walk away
Stop it going on
Get too scared to jump
If I wait too long
But maybe, someday

Yeah
I'll see you smile as you call my name
Start to feel and it feels the same
And I know that maybe someday's come
Maybe someday's come again

So tell me someday's come
Tell me someday's come again 

No I won't do it some more
Doesn't take any sense
If we can't be like it was
I've got to let it rest
I don't want what I did
I had a change of tense
But maybe, someday 

Yeah
I'll see you smile as you call my name
Start to feel and it feels the same
And I know that maybe someday's come
Maybe someday's come 

If I could do it again
Maybe just once more
Think I could make it work
Like I did it before
If I could try it out
If I could just be sure
That maybe someday is the last time
Yeah maybe someday is the end
Or maybe someday is when it all stops
Or maybe someday always comes again

("Maybe Someday" by The Cure, lyrics by Robert Smith)

My last music job

As has been reported, Sony is shutting down its Music Unlimited subscription service and replacing it with Spotify, which launches on the PlayStation 4 today. With Music Unlimited shutting down and the new service live, it is time for me to leave my position at Sony and move on.

This event was the culmination of the last 3 years of my professional life. This was by far the most difficult and challenging job I have ever had in my career, and the most challenging of the many, many music services I have helped build, launch, and operate.

For a variety of reasons, I will not be discussing it in detail. Suffice it to say that it was quite an experience.

These last 3 years were exhausting, but I remain grateful for the opportunity. I traveled to London, Tokyo, Stockholm, and other amazing places. I met some remarkable, wonderful people.

During the last few months in particular, I endured many ups and downs, and learned who my friends really were.

I'd like to believe I have emerged from this gig if not exactly unscathed, at least slightly wiser, seasoned, and confident, with a better understanding about who I am and what I do.

My immediate team deserves special acknowledgement: Rebecca Carpenter, Nick Dedina, Maryann Faricy, Clane Hayward, Danielle Machado, Jon Pruett, and Seth Schulte all did an incredible job with very little.

Also thanks to Al Fuentes, Takashi Hodama, Brian Kurtz, and Sarah Lemarie for program management support -- the other half of what made the business run.

どうもありがとうございます to our colleagues in Tokyo: Yasuhiro Habara, Tohru Kurata, Satoshi Kobayashi, Yuki Hashimoto, and Itsuki Asanuma. Thank you for your hospitality and hard work.

I also extend my heartfelt thanks to my supervisor Mike Aragon, for his unflagging support.

And finally, thanks to my good friend Thomas Muer for bringing me in to Sony.

For the first time in many years, I do not know what I want to do next. I am pretty sure my next job will not be in the digital music business. This isn't the first time I've left a digital music service, (by a long shot) but it may be the last. After more than 15 years, I am ready for a change.

For now, I am taking some time off. I have a few plans. I want to finish some music of my own. Practice guitar. Travel and visit some friends and relatives.  Work out and rehabilitate my shoulder. Read. Catch up on all those TV shows I keep hearing about. Get bored. Perhaps even spend more time writing here.

I will miss seeing my colleagues every day, and I expect I will eventually feel some loss at being out of the digital music game. For now, I'll savor the victories my team had, put my feet up for a bit, and listen to some records.

Tidal: Nothing New

Tidal, the streaming music service Jay Z just bought, has "officially" launched. The overblown video they provided is a good example of some of the problems with today's music business.


Here's a bunch of artists talking about "a new world", "changing the course of history", "last stands" and "human art" and other stuff that sounds really good, if a bit incoherent (like some of the artists themselves, I suppose).

And yet, it says absolutely nothing about what Tidal is, or why their involvement matters, or what they are actually going to do to change things.

So to be clear: Tidal is just like every other digital music subscription service launched since Rhapsody 1.0 hit the world 15 years ago. It's got the same features, apps, limitations, rules, and catalog as Spotify, Rhapsody, RDIO, Deezer, Beats, and everybody else. Their plan for differentiation? Exclusive content and artist partnerships. Just like everyone else.

Tidal does have one difference: instead of $10 per month, you'll pay $20 per month (if you want the special "lossless" audio option)...and Tidal even offers the same $10 per month pricing if you don't need lossless streaming. They even call it "Premium", just like...well, you get the idea.

It leads one to believe the deals and business model behind Tidal are also not substantially different from any of the other music services, which means prospects for long term survival are not good.

Lossless (or HD or high quality) audio is not a new idea (or even a particularly good one) for streaming services.

I'm trying to figure out why that's revolutionary. There's been no disclosure of how Tidal's going to use that extra money to compensate artists. For all you know, it's going right into Jay Z's pocket (or the pockets of the other artists who are "part owners"), or for jet fuel or crazy salaries.

Or for paying fees to the artists standing uncomfortably on this stage listening to Alicia Keys talk.



For all the talk of empowering artists and creativity, apparently that money is not going to pay licensing fees for other artists -- The Haxan Cloak is claiming Tidal's very video is using his music without compensation or permission. The irony...

So we're left with one thing: Tidal is "special" because some artists are part owners. It is then difficult to take any of their previous comments about the "problems" of the digital music business seriously: They're offering the same product, with the same pricing, deals, economics, and features, as everyone else. But suddenly it's OK because they are the ones at the helm.

In the end, this is a commodity with some really expensive marketing wrapped around it:
Tidal is the SmartWater of digital music services.

It's also part of the current vogue of celebrity endorsed/powered/designed/owned services, including the Dre/Trent Reznor Beats (and future Apple service), Neil Young's Pono, and the various crazy things people like Will.I.Am, Lady Gaga, and more have been paid to do by hip companies like HP and Intel. For the next few years at least, celebrities will be able to leverage their star power and rep for advisory positions and paychecks to lend new services legitimacy.

I wish them all the best of luck.

Memento Mori

I. The Jesters

Saturday Night Live was originally a rebellious experiment in television programming. Watching the 40th Anniversary Special Event Edition Whatever, I felt like I was watching a (well-deserved) celebration for the cast and crew. I suppose I was. It was often classy and reverent, and occasionally even funny.

Still, the montage of clips and rush of skits showed one thing above all else: everyone got old. Some of the original cast almost look like caricatures of old people now, gray-haired, puffy, a little confused and slow, awkwardly and stiffly telling jokes that must have been funny back in their day.

I see Paul McCartney and Paul Simon. They're both master songwriters, undeniably giant talents. Great guests. It's going to be a very sad day when they both pass. But it seems to me they are trying awfully hard to convince themselves (and us) that they're still vital in every sense. Their plastic surgery, testosterone supplements, and hip clothes have the opposite of the desired effect on me: I look at them and think about how old and frail they look, and how it's sad they can't embrace themselves and the age they are.

I have an intimate understanding of the deep insecurities that often drive artists. But what do these 2 Pauls have left to prove to anyone? Is it really that important to show "you've still got it", especially when your creaking voice reveals you don't? (Check back with me in about 25 years.)

McCartney, Martin, Simon: Collectively over 210 years.

Big changes were evident in some of the younger newcomers. Even a few years carve difference into their faces and bodies.

I had some brief moments of remembering some funny stuff, and some thoughts of what a cultural force Saturday Night Live became even as it ossified into the new comedy establishment.

I can recall SNL being a part of my world for nearly my entire life. I remember finally being old enough to stay up and watch it (and Rock'NAmerica, which followed it!). I still watch SNL, but now I watch it days later, on demand. And as each year passes, I find it less essential, less bold, less interesting. We're both getting old, I guess.

My primary takeaway from the 40th special was a kind of existential dread. Perhaps it was an art piece, an extended metaphor for life. It seemed great at first, but then it seemed like the jokes wore thin, it went on a bit too long, and was kind of sad at the end.

I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only one feeling this. Externally, superficially, Eddie Murphy looks like he's been stored in his original packaging for the last 20 years. But seeing how awkward or even terrified he seemed on a stage he'd once dominated, I bet he was thinking the same thing I was: Has it really been 35 years? Look at all these old people. What am I doing here? What happened to us? What happened to me?

He didn't tell any jokes. He spoke briefly, somewhat seriously, and then vanished.

We're all going to die some day.

II. Things Fall Apart

The second law of thermodynamics, briefly: Entropy wins.

Even if you take great care of the physical things in your life, the entire universe is fundamentally programmed to destroy them. You and your things become scratched, pitted, discolored, stained. Damaged. Broken. Parts will need to be replaced.

I think of this as the dentist tells me the crown he installed 10 years ago needs replacing. 10 years of crushing, masticating, protecting have worn it down. An air-powered tool rips the old crown off, shattering it into fragments. The whine of the dentist's drill sounds just like the air gun in a tire shop. He stops briefly: his tool's burrs have worn down and need replacing mid-task.

At home, the dishwasher's door spring fails, a canary in the coalmine. Days after you replace it, the dishwasher starts making terrible noises while refusing to fully clean dishes. It's like a teenager. Then you suddenly realize it is in fact a teenager, and well past its typical lifespan.

Even a well-cared-for machine is subject to relentless entropy. You might take great caution, but some jerk backs their truck into your vehicle and BOOM. 10 years of maintenance mooted almost instantly. Order moves closer to chaos.

Sometimes there's no apparent cause: the amp that should work just doesn't anymore. Music, silenced.

Perhaps you're luckier and your electronic devices merely become obsolete or unsupported before they physically fail. In some ways, this kind of digital Alzheimer's is worse. A perfectly "good" combination of hardware and software ends up discarded simply because the world has moved on. You could keep trying to use your device, but it becomes slower, more confused, and has increased difficulty connecting to the newer devices around it.

I try hard to take care of the things in my life. At the same time, I try to avoid becoming too attached to them in any sense. I know they're all headed for the scrap heap at some point, and prior to that, they're going to get beaten up to some degree.

III. Vanitas

One day, you realize you've crossed some kind of halfway point. You're not sure when you're going to get where you're going, but you know, maybe even hope, that it will probably be sooner than you'd like. (Better that than the crushing boredom that leads one to exclaim "when are we gonna get therrrrrrrre?")

You tell yourself that you should really try to appreciate every moment of it. The scenery, the sensory input, the feelings good and bad, the thoughts, and memory's hall of mirrors. Time passing, swerving, rushing by.

Even the damage -- you want to learn to appreciate all of that, too. This proves to be very, very difficult at times. Sometimes you can find beauty in the scars and dings and wrinkles, but perhaps too often, you think of how the doctors described your nerve injury. The word they used was "insult".

That's how it feels. Can one learn to appreciate insult? I guess that's the height of comedic appreciation, right? A roast?

You consider that perhaps this is the point: To learn to appreciate all of it, for what it is. You need age to really appreciate youth. You cannot appreciate perfection without inevitable scuffs and wear. You cannot appreciate the present without some kind of past. Perhaps the more of a past you have, the more you can appreciate the present. Maybe a certain amount of history is a prerequisite.

You briefly wonder what you would give to go back just 10 minutes. 10 hours. 10 days. 10 years. Would it be worth it even if you had to sit as a passenger and watch everything unfold the same way again? Would you even want the ability to choose a different road, knowing how those changes would ripple out endlessly?

You look at the past, flying away from you as you are blown backwards into the future, pieces burning away like a space capsule on re-entry. The beautiful, awful past. Visible, ungraspable, tantalizing.

There it goes.

Modern Vanitas by Vinny Vieh

A Vanitas by Pier Francesco Cittadini from 17th century school (courtesy of Wikipedia)

The Last Party In Los Angeles

Her particular swagger and easy confidence made it obvious she was a few years older than me. Striking. Long black hair pulled back in a ponytail. Perfectly faded and torn jeans with a white tank top, showing tan skin.

She asked me “So, what are you doing here?”

The night seemed to slow and stop. A sudden silence, as the music, conversation, and traffic sounds receded.

It is 2000. I am in Los Angeles, on a restaurant patio just off of La Cienega. A party for my friend and bandmate Tyler Bates.

I gaze back at the woman, her dark eyes glittering in the firelight.

What am I doing here?

I Dreamed I Was A Spaceman

In the late 90s, I was living in Los Angeles. Specifically the San Fernando Valley, not far from the legendary Galleria, made famous by Moon Unit Zappa in the song "Valley Girl". I had been divorced for a few years now but was in a new relationship. 

This is your daily commute in Los Angeles, circa 1999. It is worse now.

I had quit my day job. My own bands had broken up or fizzled out. I was considering and following all possible directions I could think of in the music business: Being a producer for my friends' bands and up-and-coming L.A. scenesters. Dabbling in film and TV scoring. Looking for other bands to join as a sideman or frontman.

Pet: Alex Locascio, Lisa Papineau, Tyler Bates

My girlfriend was a great bassist playing in several bands (including a cover band -- the M-80s with Gary Finneran -- which served as part of the inspiration for Sid Luscious). She worked in a famous recording studio. And she was friends with Lisa Papineau.

Lisa Papineau was a remarkably talented singer, and well known in the L.A. music scene at the time. She knew everyone from the biggest big shots to the indie almost-shots I hung with. Lisa was the frontperson for Pet, the first band to release an album on Tori Amos' label. Pet was very cool -- a sort of heavy rock band fronted by a striking-looking woman who didn't sing like a typical heavy rock singer.

Tyler Bates was the guitar player. On drums, Alex Locascio. And while I saw them in L.A, their bass player for live gigs was another titan: Juan Alderete.

Pet played shows with many of my friends' bands. My memory is a little hazy, but I know for sure they did a show with my brother's band Don Knotts Overdrive, and I'm pretty sure I also saw them play with my friends in Electrolux/E*lux, Gwen Mars, and probably This Great Religion and Failure, too.

Like many cool, innovative bands of the era, Pet didn't last. Label pressure, etc. It's a familiar story. Lisa and Juan eventually formed Big Sir. I had the pleasure of working with them briefly, doing some live rehearsals, and recording and engineering basic tracks for their first EP at my studio. 

Big Sir: Juan Alderete (L) and Lisa Papineau (R). Benefit for Manny Nieto, May 20, 1999.

Tyler called me up and asked me if I wanted to play keyboards in his new band. It didn't have a name yet, but Alex from Pet was going to be the drummer. He said he envisioned it as a kind of 90s version of The Cars. I couldn't say "yes" fast enough. I had just bought a Nord Lead 2, and was really missing playing in a group.

Playing keyboards and singing backup sounded perfect. Not only would it give me a break from years of struggling as the frontperson, it seemed fitting to return to the role I held in my very first band. A chance to start over, as it were, make new decisions, and choose different doors.

Summertime In The Valley

We met up, and he played me the half-dozen songs he had recorded. They were really good. Weird, catchy, and blessedly not just re-hashing whatever was popular in L.A. at the time. And the lyrics were deceptively dark. One song was about fever dreams, another about parental issues, a couple about bad relationships.

But there were almost no keyboard parts on them. No problem!

Within a few weeks, we were rehearsing, and added a guy named Bob on bass. We were all seasoned pros, which made rehearsals atypically pleasant. The volume was moderate, and everyone knew their parts. I had added a Korg Kaoss pad to the Nord for various effects and the visual stage business of manipulating it.

I had been listening to a lot of the "about to break" 90s electronica that was popular at the time -- Underworld, Crystal Method, Orbital, and Chemical Brothers. I tried to incorporate some of those motifs and attitudes into the parts I wrote.

I also sang backups. My flexible high range nicely complimented Tyler's bassier growl.

We played all the hot clubs. Opium Den. Whisky a Go Go. Spaceland. Doug Weston's Troubadour. Being back on stage and in such a tight, drama-free outfit was exhilirating. It felt great to be playing again, on good stages, in front of good crowds, with good material. 

Widget on the marquee of The Whisky a Go Go, 1999

I developed an aggressive performance style, setting my keyboard stand low and crouching behind it like a sprinter in the blocks, or rocking it forward and backward like I was shaking the music out of it. For one song, I did some dramatic overhand windmills to trigger percussive clap sounds.

And we hung out. We weren't super-close, but we were friends. It was fun. And much as I didn't want to think about it, there might be the ever-hoped-for "label interest". Maybe we'd get to make a record.

We had a decent set of songs, and when Tyler said he was trying to decide between covering X's "Los Angeles" and Wall of Voodoo's "They Don't Want Me", I knew this was a good band for me.

One day Tyler called me up and said "I have the name for the band. What do you think of...Widget?"

It’s perfect.

This Is Our Last Goodbye

Despite our relative success, a sense of doom was in the air. Napster was on the rise, and bands everywhere were watching album sales fall. Many of our friends had already signed bad deals, released mediocre albums that didn’t sound like the band did, and were dropped, or worse, trapped a kind of record business limbo where they weren’t free but the labels wouldn’t let them make or release any music.

It felt like the whole scene was on the verge of ending, or curdling into something unpleasant.

But bands are only one part of life, even when you're a musician in L.A. Offstage, I was profoundly unhappy, and needed to change...everything. My friends were breaking up their bands or relationships or both. In late 1999, I found myself driving home from a Widget rehearsal, realizing I had to break up with my live-in girlfriend of 3 years. 

The author (L) and Tyler Bates (R). Widget at The Opium Den, 1999

And not long after that, I got a job offer...in San Francisco. I started thinking maybe it was time to leave. To hang up dreams of getting signed, to stop hanging out at The Garage and Mogul's and Goldfinger until the wee hours with borderline or serious alcoholics with tinnitus, and get an actual job in an office and earn some money.

Tyler, for his part, was starting to have real success and steady work in the film and TV composing world. This is really difficult and demanding work under the best of circumstances.

I spent a lot of time running laps around Balboa Park, or driving Didion-esque loops around the city. Was there anything left to see or do here? Could I find new doors to open here, or was it easier to simply leave and start over somewhere else?

And even as I was considering that, I was getting offers to join other bands “with label interest”. I liked Widget, but like a true professional, I went to auditions anyhow.

What Are You Doing?

A montage of these memories and experiences whooshes past my eyes. I am at the party at some cool restaurant on La Cienega. One of those great L.A. places with an outdoor patio. It's a beautiful night in early June.

I’ve been here an hour or so. I rolled up in my car, feeling like a character in a Brett Easton Ellis story. The party is fun. I see my bandmates, a few people I vaguely recognize, and a ton of people I don't know. There are several attractive women at the party.

Being me, I end up talking to one: The striking older woman. 

We talk a bit about our lives. We talk about Jeff Buckley. I had been listening to "Grace" quite a bit. She knew him. We talk about his sudden death, so much music and life ended so soon.

And that’s when she asked me what I was doing.

The night is still frozen, time stopped. I look at her, stretched out on the outdoor couch. I feel the condensation of my empty cocktail glass. Zephyr's sweet breath rattles the palm trees, sounding like faint applause.

She’s watching me, waiting for an answer.

I think of Widget’s likely future. The promising debut, the inevitably disappointing second record. The A&R guy asking where the single is. And that’s assuming we even get that far, after many more club shows.

Other scenarios play out in my mind.

And instead of putting the moves on her, I find myself slowly saying "I think I'm leaving Los Angeles."

She smiles at me and nods, her eyes sad but knowing. She talks about how long she's been there, and how many times she's thought about leaving. And why she stayed.

I stand there in the perfect night. I could stay. She’s here. Staying could be fun. L.A. can be amazing and full of promise. The air is sweet and smells faintly of magnolia. The food is good, the bourbon is nice, and the party is going strong.

I soak it all in, wanting to capture this moment, every sensual aspect of it, and save it forever.

I turn to her and smile.

30 minutes later, I'm alone. Driving up the 101, roof open. I leave the stereo off, listening to the wind rushing past. The freeway in front of me is empty, dashed white lines converging in distant infinity and darkness. Above, I can see the stars and hints of the Milky Way, an astral road nearly washed out by Hollywood's light pollution.

Outro

A few weeks after the party, I moved to San Francisco. I started a new career in the digital music business. I sold much of my music gear, and for the first time since I was 15, I wasn't in a band or trying to be in a band. I was done with playing music.

Being "done" lasted 6 months, and then I started on a path that led to some of the best work I've done.

Tyler Bates became one of the most successful and sought-after film composers in Hollywood. His list of credits is extensive and impressive, including "Watchmen", "300", and most recently 2014's breakout hit "Guardians of the Galaxy".

A recent article in the New York Times interviewed Marilyn Manson as part of the promotional push for his new album "The Pale Emperor". Notably, the article made extensive mention of Manson's new collaborator, Mr. Tyler Bates, who is credited with helping Manson reinvent and reboot artistically.

Tyler and I exchange emails now and then. I hope one day we’ll make music together again.

I don’t know what happened to the woman. I remember her so vividly, but I can’t be sure of her name. It must have been "Angel".

2014 In Review

2014 was an extremely challenging year for me. 

It started off with some excitement and hope at my job...after spending 2013 doing an extensive amount of work travel, I resolved to travel less and focus on different aspects of the business. I can't go into details yet, but let's just say things did not work out as planned. 

I also suffered a serious physical injury right before my birthday which set back my fitness regime physically and mentally.

The combined effects of those 2 things impacted many of my creative activities. My various bands did not play live last year, my performing limited to playing holiday songs for children a few weeks ago. I did not record any albums this year, making this the 3rd year I did not produce a complete work.

I barely wrote pieces here, primarily due to a sense of pointlessness. I feel the national dialog around serious issues is so polarized it is all but impossible to even have discussion, and so many of the things I would have written about were so bleak it just seemed like an exercise in bumming myself and everyone else out.

The world around us also seemed particularly grim, with disappearing airplanes, increasing income inequality, and the militarized and seemingly out-of-control police forces being the only thing to displace news of the death of beloved friends and public figures.

The awful state of American politics merits a mention, but going much beyond that is too much for me at the moment without more coffee or bourbon or both.

The continuing spread of "gratitude culture" is perhaps an attempt to counter all that darkness, but I found it cloying and superficial.

Despite all that, there were a few real bright spots. Marriage equality seems to be a foregone conclusion nationwide. Marijuana continues its slow roll towards legalization. The Affordable Care Act is still live. I'm sure you can think of a few things.

Even my own year had its high points. I have tried to view my own obstacles as a kind of challenge or training. My physical health is better than I thought it would be. I played music with friends both old and new, and wrote a few songs I'm rather fond and proud of. I goofed off, I slept in, I pushed hard and took it easy.

I had wonderful coffees in the morning. My wife fixed great cocktails in the evening. In between I spent a lot of time with my friends and family, traveled, and had many good experiences.

I suppose they can't all be "the best year ever!" and perhaps we all need some trouble in our lives to remind us exactly how good we have it.

2014 in Music

Here's some music I enjoyed in 2014...

The Really Good Stuff

Lana Del Rey "Ultraviolence" (alternative rock)
 Ms. Del Rey continues to be a polarizing artist, and continues to make records that do not sound like anything else out there, particularly compared to what's on the radio and in the popular ear.

Still pulling influences from suburbia, Bret Easton Ellis, David Lynch, and Douglas Sirk, this record moves further away from hip-hop beats and "electronic" signifiers and more towards "rock" or live musicians.

There's some cool stuff on here. Single "West Coast" features a tempo change (!), something almost unheard-of in modern pop music, a whole grip of musical and textual references, and Lana's signature "bad girl, bad love, good times" vibe. The opener and many of the other tracks are so slow it's practically slowcore, but I love it. Sounds good loud, and even better (as Lana says) if you "get a little bit of bourbon in you, get a little bit suburban, and go crazy."

The Roots "...and then you shoot your cousin" (hip-hop/rap/R&B)
At this point, you can be pretty sure if The Roots make an album, it's going to make this list. "...and then you shoot your cousin" finds The Roots in a very dark place, appropriate for the dark times and injustice of 2014. As the subject matter is heavy, the music continues to become more abstract and adventurous.

This aspect of The Roots is part of why I love them so much. It's difficult to make a killer beat and rhymes. It's even more difficult to make a challenging, abstract, collaged work like this album. A solid, thorough, and complete artistic statement. I wish more bands tried this hard.

Simple Minds "Blood Diamonds [John Foxx & The Maths Remix]" (electronic/rock)
This was my favorite single of the year, with John Foxx & The Maths taking a traditional-sounding late-period Simple Minds track and transforming it into minimalist electro-neon throb.

The lyrics, melody, and vibe hint at Simple Minds looking back on the "Don't You (Forget About Me)" like us...30 years on, older, wiser, and worn. ("Once we were lovers/Once we were purest friends/Once we were blood/Diamonds to the end")

Simple Minds would do well to do a full album in this mode, or perhaps a Jim Kerr solo record. The restraint and simplicity, plus the modern setting, make them seem vital and fresh.

D'Angelo "Black Messiah"

A record rushed out after being cooked long and slow. Much has been made of the topicality, the return of D'Angelo, and even the "all-analog, all-live" recording methods. The results are unique and powerful, if a bit uneven and demanding.

When you can hear the lyrics, they're stinging and potent...but delivered with D'Angelo's silky smooth voice. This can either add or subtract from their power and message. And they're frequently mixed really low. It almost sounds like he's mumbling or doing demos.

The record itself is like a complete and compressed history of soul and R&B. D'Angelo isn't just wearing his influences on his sleeve, they're his whole outfit (or maybe one of Prince's outfits)...and he still pulls it off.

That said, it's a tough listen. There's multiple feels layered throughout -- it's not uncommon to hear a shuffle over a straight beat plus layers of syncopation. And the playing is very loose in spots. That's not a bad thing, but after years of hearing everything super-quantized and the beat clear and defined, it's a little jarring, and at times I felt it just didn't work.

There are many instruments playing many different parts. This is not a "minimal" record by any means. It is occasionally gorgeous, and frequently overstuffed.

I can't say for sure if it's the "all-analog, all-live" approach, but the record is somewhat murky in a bad way. There's a ton of sonic detail in it, but you're not going to hear it in your car. This is a record you need to put on a good system and pay attention to. Again, not a bad thing, but it means that a lot of people (myself included) will take a long time to warm up to this record, and will miss out until they come to the record on the record's terms.

I still haven't given it the listen it deserves.

Bohren und Der Club of Gore "Piano Nights" (lounge)
 This is what Lana Del Rey sounds like after Lana is gone. It's darker, slower, heavier, lighter, slighter, and less exciting. It's still beautiful. David Lynch should work with these guys. They've been doing mostly the same thing for a long time, but something about this record works better than their previous collections.

Loscil "Sea Island" (ambient/electronic)
Loscil has been making themed ambient albums for many years at this point. His work feels quite ethereal, subtle, and increasingly assured. His textures are never abrasive, and "Sea Island" feels more musical (as opposed to pure soundscapes) than many other ambient artists. Very nice. Not far from what he's done before, which is both good and bad I suppose.


Future Sound of London "Environment Five" (ambient/electronic)
Future Sound of London never really went away -- they've been quietly releasing music on their own for a while. "Environment Five" is the conclusion of a series of albums, and it's a surprisingly emotional record about death. I really enjoyed it, particularly the opening and closing tracks.

Hanssen "Seven Years Week" (ambient/electronic)
A record solidly in the "make something like Tangerine Dream on the "Risky Business" soundtrack" tip, Hanssen's album is an easy listen, and good for working. There's one annoying track I always skip ("Real Age") and a few other moments of EDM/rave/dance music influence that weaken things, but I listened to this quite a bit and look forward to hearing his next record.


Harold Budd "Jane 12-21" (ambient)
Harold Budd continues to produce quality work. This is his best album of his post-retirement career, with a variety of textures, a brief running time, and a lovely mood. Unlikely to win converts who aren't familiar with his work, but I listened to this a lot.

The OK Stuff

These records were good, if a little disappointing...
Aphex Twin "Syro" (electronic/glitch)
 Aphex Twin returns from a long hiatus. I wanted to like this more than I did. That's not to say it's bad, but this is Richard D. James operating in his frenetic, hyper mode rather than his ambient mode. It's still very musical, and filled with percussive detail and melodic fragments. I'd rather have "Selected Ambient Works 3", though.

I also got this on vinyl, with download codes for MP3 included. While trendy, this is currently my preferred way to buy music if it's available...but I still get annoyed having to flip the record every 3 songs.

It's great to have Aphex Twin back...I hope to hear more of his melodic, quiet side.

Peter Murphy "Lion" (alternative rock)
Peter Murphy's voice is in fine form, and Youth's production is suitably massive. As is typical for most of Murphy's work, though, what's missing are consistently great songs.

Fennesz "Bécs" (ambient/noise)
Fennesz continues to warp and morph guitars into sounds and shapes only recognizable as "Fennesz". His latest album is not fundamentally different than his other work, except this time around I found it less exciting and enthralling. Some of this was due to more abrasiveness and less ambience, and some to what was once alien becoming more familiar.

The Wearable Parasite

1. Get It On

The “next big thing in computing” isn’t big at all, and it doesn’t look a lot like computing. It looks like nerd gear - weird glasses or a calculator watch. As innocuous and friendly as “wearables” seem, something about them chafes. I worry that once on, they will quickly become difficult to take -- or turn -- off.

You hold this in your hand, then press it against your face.

In the last few years, computers have multiplied and appeared at all levels of society in the guise of smartphones. Latest estimates suggest smartphone penetration is at 66% of US mobile users.

Smartphone use grew by a staggering 25% between 2013 and 2014, with 1.76 billion people now carrying around small computers everywhere.

These numbers are even higher in developed countries, where soon more than 50% of people will have at least one smartphone.

The old, big computers were used by government or business for the most difficult and important tasks. Humans use these new tiny computers for everything: Communicating with voice and text. Looking up information and finding answers. Buying things. Recording the world around us. Entertainment. Directions.

After just a few short years, small hand-held computers have become so common they are almost invisible, ubiquitous, and indispensable.

But even these devices are still an intermediate larval stage of computing technology. Historical and current industry trends make it clear: The wondrous shiny black rectangles we all carry will soon disappear. They will undergo a kind of metamorphosis, and move onto us in the form of “wearables”.

The Apple Watch

Several factors are driving the evolution of computing to wearable form. The simplest is market forces: Apple, Google, Amazon, Samsung, and all the other technology titans need to keep selling things to survive.

The 18-month smartphone turnover doesn’t drive enough growth. With smartphones reaching saturation points in many markets and tablets not far behind, something new is needed.

Enter wearables: Initially extensions of computers, and soon full computers themselves, that you don’t go to or sit in front of or hold. Instead, you put them on your body. You wear them.

Google has Google Glass (for your face) and Android Wear (for your wrist...so far). Apple has the “Apple Watch”. Companies like Oculus and Sony are developing virtual reality headsets for your head, eyes, and ears. Fitbit and Jawbone have crude “fitness trackers” that sit on your wrist or in your pocket, with Apple building similar functions directly into their mobile operating system (and Google sure to follow).
 
By re-framing technology not as a tool, but as a fashion item, these companies open the door to selling multiple devices to people. You may not need 5 different hammers, but how many pairs of shoes do you have? How many pairs of glasses?

Google Glass with fashion frames

If you’re reading this article, odds are you already have at least one smartphone and at least one laptop or desktop...and you probably have a smartphone, a tablet, a laptop for work, and another computer at home.

That’s 4 computers right there, and “whether or not it goes with your outfit” hasn’t entered the picture. Yet.

Another reason is convenience: People like having their hands free. Smartphones are great, but they require the use of one or both hands, and typically full visual attention. This is distracting for the user, and makes use of the device obvious. It’s hard to use a smartphone discreetly, or without gazing directly at it, and that imposes social costs.

More convenience: Even though mobile phones are the last thing people see at night and the first thing they reach for in the morning, people still forget them because the phones are literally not tied to them. Once you are wearing your computer on your body somehow, as a watch, eyeglasses, or underwear, you are less likely to forget it somewhere. You want your computer -- which is your contacts, your calendar, your memory, your camera, your work, your entertainment -- with you all the time.

The companies making the computers want it with you all the time, too. Finally, this evolution is being driven by a collective industry and consumer desire for more computing and network access - more frequency, more depth, more intimacy.

These new platforms will offer new ways for computers to “help” us - to tell us what we want, to tell us what to do, to literally hold our hands.

 I have a latest generation smartphone. I wear a fitness tracker. I work in the technology industry. And yet, I find these wearables increasingly uncomfortable.

2. What Is A Parasite?

A parasite is an organism that lives in or on a host organism and benefits by deriving nutrients at the host’s expense. You can immediately think of examples that gross you out a bit: Ticks. Lice. Tapeworms. Fleas. Leeches. Nearly all inherently repulsive. There are even creepier, worse examples. Many parasites actually redirect the behavior of the host to do things the host would not normally do. It might make the host engage in very dangerous behavior, or expend resources in finding ways to feed the parasite. This is some serious nightmare fuel. I look down at the tracker encircling my wrist. It resembles a large black worm.

The Jawbone UP fitness tracker

I think about the woman I saw driving on the freeway last week, with her offspring in the back seat. At 60 mph, in rush hour traffic, she was staring at her phone. Or the parents at the park, now staring at their smartphones more than their children, who merit only the occasional glance. People who drive off the road because Maps told them to, even when those directions were obviously wrong. Dangerous behavior.

I think of the businessmen and women I see in airports, sitting on cold dirty floors, with a power tendril extended from their device into the outlets previously used by cleaning staff. Prior to smartphones, nobody would ever do something so undignified.

At restaurants, I look around and see people staring at screens, not other people. Even in movie theaters -- when you’ve literally paid a premium to stare at one screen -- people are staring at their phones instead. Things they would not normally do.

The analogy extends in more disturbing ways. The parasite’s favorite strategy is known as “parasitic castration”. This lovely phrase means the parasite destroys or damages its host’s reproductive abilities in order to divert resources from the host’s reproduction and funnel them to the parasite and its offspring.

You strap the Oculus Rift to your face, over your eyes

Maybe the Apple Watch isn’t there yet, but tech companies including Apple will now pay women to freeze their eggs -- to put a woman’s own reproduction on ice in favor of the company’s growth . This is positioned as (and “intended” as) a benefit to the woman and her family.

Some parasites redirect their host’s sexual behavior. Aside from how the latest wearable technology becomes a status symbol, used by humans to evaluate a mate’s desirability, there’s a direct imposition of this technology as mediator of sex in the form of apps like Tinder and Down.

At least that's still sex with another human. The virtual reality headset crew has been discussing "teledildonics" for decades. Having sex with machines is still in crude stages, and still a kink, but it’s easy to see it evolving rapidly to being equivalent to masturbation in every respect, and eventually preferable to dealing with messy humans, in much the same way we’d rather go to an ATM than deal with a bank teller.

“Wearable” begins to take on a new meaning.

I think about the massive redirection of resources to reproduction of these computers. There were nearly 2 billion smartphones sold in 2013. Smartphones barely existed 6 years ago. When you factor in all the smartphones made, humans have already produced more computers in the last 5 years than there are humans alive today. Our time, resources, and energy, all going to help these “creatures” reproduce and evolve. The addition of (or shift to) wearables only accelerates this growth.

If you’re not working in or with tech, you’re not a part of the growing, lively, evolving economy. Even jobs that don’t seem directly related are either becoming mediated by, or replaced by, wearable technology. Your personal trainer becomes a black band around your wrist, and it’s always reminding you to work out. Your car driver is now guided by a mobile device or headset, and dispatched by algorithm. Your hotelier, your food delivery, your grocery store -- technology is already in the middle, and reaching further out.

These wearables are parasites. We’re not wearing them, they’re wearing us.

3. Hard To Swallow

This external parasitism is only the beginning.

The Epidermal Electronic System (EES)

These computers will also move inside us in various ways - we’ll swallow them, embed them under our skin, and attach them to our bodies in ways only imagined in science fiction. Early implementations already exist. We’ve already started.

Not only will computers be inside of us, we’ll soon be inside of them in a reprise of computing’s earliest building-sized days.

Our skies will be filled with swarms of autonomous drones, ranging from microscopic to bird-sized, all networked and equipped with visual and auditory sensors.

Our homes, offices, and vehicles will become one big network.

 We already wander through a web of near-constant wireless connectivity. As the “internet of things” propagates and expands, the world becomes our computer hive, and us the insects within it.

For the moment, we still have a choice. We can put the phone down, take off the glasses, unshackle ourselves from the watch.

But soon, once the computers are deep inside of us, or we become more fundamentally attached to them, we will no longer have the option to remove them, and perhaps not even the option to turn them off.

The worm on my wrist rattles. That means its battery is low. I open my bag, find the custom adaptor I carry for it, and plug it into a nearby outlet. A green light slowly pulses, as though it is sleeping softly while sucking electricity from the grid. It will rattle again when it’s full, and I am supposed to put it back on.

I wait patiently.

Most People Don't Care About Musician Income

This article summarizes it nicely: Most people don't care about musician's income from streaming services, or elsewhere.

There are a few simple reasons. One is the perception that musicians fall into one of 2 categories:

1. You are a rock star, flying around in a solid-gold Lear jet, making millions, living large, for "not doing that much", working a few hours a day. As Dire Straits said, "That ain't workin', that's the way ya do it. Money for nothin' and your chicks for free."

In this case, you're doing so well already that it shouldn't matter if a few people steal your music, because you're already rich.

2. You suck. Either your act just isn't good enough, or you haven't put in whatever "hard work" is required to build a fan base and "make it". And it's probably the former.

In this scenario, not only do you not "deserve" any money, but your music probably isn't even worth stealing, and you should be thrilled if anyone even listens to it.


In general, regardless of what you do, if you start a conversation with anyone saying "man, my job is so hard and I am so underpaid", you are unlikely to get a response of "you are so right, I agree, your life is so much harder than mine, it is so unfair".

You are far more likely to get a "welcome to the world, son", or a diatribe about how you actually have it far easier than me/teachers/someone else. When was the last time someone told you their job was easy and/or they were paid too much?

It gets worse.

Reading the article, you'll see that only 60% of consumers said they felt music was worth paying for. At all. That should make everyone in the music business extremely worried.

Some of this is the music businesses' own fault: they've spent years allowing many free music services on the internet and elsewhere to provide more than enough free music to satisfy fans. Major artists have given away singles and albums.

Years of mixed messages about the legality of downloads and streaming, companies being "illegal" and then legal, and blogs and websites offering authorized and unauthorized downloads have confused customers while simultaneously setting the expectation that if you want free music, it's out there, and probably legal.

Max Friedenberg (1968 - 2014)

Max Friedenberg died a few days ago. He was 45 years old.

Max was my friend. At Langley High School, he was the singer for my first real band. Max taught me a lot about performing. I became a singer and frontperson in no small measure because of how easy he made it seem. I learned to write songs in a band with him (and Darow Han, Howard Olsen, Spencer Lamb, and Brian Johnston). Max made me realize that songwriting wasn't impossible -- you could write a song right now. "C'mon, let's do it. I have an idea." And then we'll write another one, whether this one is good or not.

Max was charming and funny. Well-liked, and well-known in school. The sort of guy who'd stop the bullies with humor. The sort of guy who would give you a ride home.

We dated some of the same girls in high school. If I remember correctly, we even simultaneously dated sisters. We hung out a bit less after he went off to American University (he was a year ahead of me).

When I was in college and starting to plan my move to L.A. to make it big in the music business, Max was already there, again, years ahead of me.

Max was the lead singer for a band named Clyde (Scots/Gaelic for "heard from afar", and thus, presumably loud and powerful). Clyde were a sort of Christian Red Hot Chili Peppers. They were playing shows with bands like Fishbone, No Doubt, Jane's Addiction, Thelonious Monster, Mary's Danish, Hole, Lock Up (Tom Morello's pre-Rage band) and pretty much everyone else. You may not recognize all of those names today, but in the early 1990s, that was a "who's who" of the L.A. scene.

Clyde had made their own album, produced by Earle Mankey. Geffen and Elektra were in a bidding war for them. The band was regularly packing and selling out clubs like the Roxy and the Whisky A Go Go.

Max said "no problem, man, I'll show you around. It'll be great. We'll get you guys to open for us".

And then, just a couple months before I was going to graduate and move out there, Max called me up. He sounded different on the phone.

He told me he'd had a mental breakdown. Moved back in with his parents in DC. He asked if I could come by and visit.

I hung out with Max at his parents' home before I went off to L.A in the summer of 1991. He wished me luck, and said he'd hoped to get back out there at some point. I found my way to and around L.A. without his guidance and wisdom. A story for another time.

Max was hospitalized and eventually diagnosed bi-polar. He had to quit his band, just as all of his years of work were about to pay off. The once in a lifetime shot, un-fired.

I think about how difficult it must have been for Max to step down from that kind of moment and pressure and chance.

Perhaps even more difficult, he had to wrestle with this: He thought he had a divine vision, a God experience, something that forever changed his life and worldview. That experience led him to convert to Christianity and power Clyde. Now the doctors were saying "all that stuff you thought was god -- and maybe all of your creativity -- was actually just mental illness."

I can't think of too many things more heartbreaking. I wove a modified version of that and our other experiences into the back-story for Sid Luscious and The Pants, as a way to pay tribute to my friend, and immortalize our days together .

Max moved to New Mexico in 1992 and had resided there ever since. He stopped doing music in favor of painting. In his words:

I became devoutly secular, thanked God for His time, but left Him with the rest of the band. I became a Buddhist. Later, I dumped Buddha for Philip K. Dick. Later I dumped Philip K. Dick and now I'm into Roger Penrose and Douglas Hofstadter...all else I can say is "the band broke up, but I stayed together."

Not long after I wrote a long piece about our Langley days, influences, and "Where Are They Now" in 2012, Max and I reconnected.

If you scroll down to the end of that piece, you can read some comments that Max wrote about his situation. He talks directly about his bipolar disorder, and his ongoing struggle with depression.

In our email exchanges, Max told me he was writing lyrics and songs and thinking about getting back into music. Perhaps we would even collaborate again.

I regret not leaping at that chance when it was offered. I regret not visiting my old friend.

Max, I wish you well on your journey. Thank you for your friendship. Thank you for the music.

Max, singing at Langley High School (1987).