Free Music

We live in a digital age. Perhaps you were unaware of such a fact. But it is undeniable that in 2011 technology and being constantly connected is something that is constant with all of us. Most people cannot even leave their house without their smart phone, or they feel naked and need to drive back home and get it. This has had an indelible effect on the music industry, as much or more so than just about any other industry.

It all started back in 199 with the formation of the music sharing website Napster. It allowed people to share their musical libraries with others. This did not cost anything to use, so people were able to get a hold of music they did not have from someone else free of charge. Now right wrong or indifferent, that is just what happened.

From an artists standpoint, and one who is going into the music industry myself, I can understand how scary this must have been both for the record labels that ultimately had the budget and the lawyers necessary to shut Napster down, and especially the artists themselves. Now on a usual record deal with a label, a band may see if they are lucky $1.00 from ever record that they sell. So each and every record sale is crucial if they want to be able to put food on the table. So for this reason, I do not personally hold any resentment to bands who took a stand against the sharing of music online.

That being said, let's fast forward to the present day. While Napster is no longer around (at least not in its original state) But there are countless other sites that offer the same service. Music downloads over the interweb for free. (BitTorrent being my personal favorite, but that's neither here nor there.)

One can make an argument both ways as to whether or not online music sharing is illegal or not. I personally have downloaded 1000's of songs in my day, so I cannot begin to sit here and try and say that it is completely illegal. Immoral at best. But I think in some small way it illustrates an important point. Music IS FREE whether you like it or not. Any album that has ever been produced and released IS available somewhere on the internet for free. Now as an artist, this certainly is a tough pill to swallow. But with every struggle comes an opportunity.

With this connected world, artists can be closer to their fans than they ever could before. Sure this may take away some of the mystique about artists, but it should not take away from their art if you ask me. Kanye West is a piece of shit. Everyone knows he is a piece of shit, even Obama. But Kanye is one of the best rappers out there, and people still go out and purchase his records to further fuel his already massive ego. But also with this connection it allows bands to distribute music in a whole new way. Freely to their fans. The problem with releasing music freely if you're trying to make a living doing so, is obviously that there is no money in releasing music freely. That is why in addition to giving all their music away, an artist can come up with cool limited edition releases that THEY would want to own if they were a fan.

Some have argued for the "pay as you want" scale that Radiohead employed for the release of their album In Rainbows. I have a problem with that. Besides the fact that it was a cool publicity stunt that worked once for one band. They are a huge international band that had already made so much money they did not give a shit how much people paid for it. This worked one time, for one band. And chances are any band you are in is not going to have the international success and fame that Radiohead has achieved. In addition to this, I think placing a value on music DEVALUES music. I know at first this sounds like a contradiction, but allow me to explain.

Say you're in a band, and that band has just released a record. Now assuming that you put as much heart and soul and passion into creating that album as one always should when creating music, you would not want a fan deciding "Well I am only going to pay $2.00 for this album because I only like 2 songs on it." This will quickly lead to a resentful relationship with ones own fan-base. This is your work! And your livelihood! Hearing someone say they are only going to pay what value they place on your work which may have involved reaching into the darkest parts of your soul in order to create something truly beautiful that you are truly proud of.

The truth of the matter is, the entire industry is in flux right now. No one knows what will happen next. Few things are certain though. The record industry as a whole failed to stay current with the technology and distribution methods that are out there, and instead of working hard and playing catch up, have decided just to sue anyone who distributes music "illegally."

But I think that there is hope for this much maligned industry to figure itself out again. I sure hope it does, both as a fervent listener, but also as someone who is entering into it. As Neil Peart has said, "Popular taste is cyclical, not to say fickle. And eventually the public always returns to musicianship and qualities of professionalism. Eventually."

J Swave

The State of the Album as an Art Form

We're going to take a look at the musical album as an art form, something which is extremely lacking in today's musical culture. Some of the main ideas in this article are from a great on written by my favorite musician Steven Wilson, but mostly 2/3's of it is my own rambling bullshit.

Let's take a trip back to the beginning as it were and speak about the golden age of the musical album. To me, the 1970's up until the advent of punk rock. Back in those times albums and bands and new music was treated in an entirely different fashion then it is now. During these times, bands would put out music at a much faster rate than we do today. Bands would write an album, go on tour and write the next album while out on that tour, finish the tour, record the album, and the cycle would begin again.

This was fueled by record companies near constant craving and demand for new music. This would push artists take more experiments and musical chances on each album. If the album was poorly received, then so be it. There would be another coming along probably later in the year to balance everything back out. Consider that in the early 1970s, Elton John released 10 studio albums, two of them doubles, and two live albums—all of high quality; Neil Young’s output from the late ’60s to the early ’70s covered singer/songwriter material, country music, and heavy rock. Not to mention that at almost any time during Frank Zappa’s career, you could expect a jazz album, a classical album, a box set of guitar solos, a rock opera, or a doo-wop album.

Once punk came along, however, the idea of the album as an artistic statement came to be seen as old-fashioned and pretentious. And while many bands continued to make fine albums, the advent of MTV in the mid-’80s brought music back to the level of image and artifice, as the golden age of the artist gave way to the golden age of the A&R man. Album releases were spread out more as companies shifted their priorities from putting out as much music as possible in the hope that some of it would hit big, to micromanaging album projects to ensure that every release was a potential blockbuster.

As a result of this, the length of time between albums was greatly lengthened to a period of almost 2 or 3 years. This made the stakes riding on each album astronomically high, and one poorly received album could kill a band's entire career before the next one even rolls along. This results in a play it safe mentality where no band wishes to stray too far from what "works." Record companies pour millions of dollars in ad campaigns for the next album with promises that generally boil down to "more of the same." Creating records became more of trying to become a hit machine rather than follow the artistic muse.

But this posting is not just bad news and rantings against the modern music industry. Which is not something I need to get started on at this hour, as I would not sleep for the next few days. With the advent of the internet and an artists ability to release music independently of the major labels and distribution can be placed largely in the hands of the artists who can have total creative and release control over their ART. Which is also a subject which deserves in own article which will be shown in the coming days. With this technology, artists are basically freer to release and produce albums their way since the dawn of the music industry.

For all the apocalyptic clamor about the death of the album, this is actually a very exciting time for recording artists. The decline of commercial radio and music television has swung the focus away from the idea of selling your whole concept in the space of a three-minute pop video, and pushed the emphasis back to artists who make albums and tour. And because the Internet has created a stronger bond between fans and artists than ever before, the artist once again has the freedom to experiment and take chances, releasing several albums a year in wildly different styles if they choose to.

Just like they used to back in those golden days.

-J Swave

Word Usage

Today as I was standing around at work doing nothing. I heard a little something that intrigued me. Two men were talking about something, I have no idea what. The one guy said to the other "Dude, Kelly walked in, and it was hilarious." He used the word hilarious to describe someone walking into a room. Now are you necessarily aware of just what the word hilarious means? It means that something is so funny, that it nearly drives you to the brink of insanity. There is simply no way that a girl walking into a room is that funny. Even if she is as good at telling jokes as Lewis Black, and as funny looking as Steve Buscemi. Just jumped right up the ladder of words to describe humor and picked hilarious. Idk, I found it intriguing.

-J Swave

Blog to Restore Sanity

Jon Stewart hosted the Rally to Restore Sanity today. I would have given anything to be there, but unfortunately could not attend. Which was in my opinion put on spectacularly well, from the music and flow of the rally, to the undeniably brilliant message. I did not believe it to really be a parody of Glenn Beck's rally.

As I sit here at this very moment, there are absolute straight fucking lunatics on Fox fucking News who are saying as I write this, that the rally had absolutely no message, and I sadly quote: "that the crowd was just a bunch of hippies who tomorrow morning are gonna wake up, take last night's leftover drugs while real Americans go their jobs and think absolutely nothing about the utter stupidity that this rally promoted." I'm sorry Fox News, I guess tomorrow I have to wake up and take my drugs, and that on tuesday although I am a registered voter, I may as well not go vote because I am not a real American.

One small point that I would like to bring up that you have clearly ignored, that this rally and Beck's rally were both supposedly not political rallies. I agree that they were both not outwardly political but did have huge political undertones. Fox News is by far the most watched news station in the country. Where as per night Jon Stewart bring in millions and millions less people than your supposed news shows bring in. Glenn Beck managed to pull about 78000 people to his rally. Stewart got in excess of 200000. So you decide which personality speaks to more people.

Quick side note on why I wish Glenn Beck would just stop doing anything on television anymore. I witnessed with my eyes, not under the influence of LSD, Beck take the slogan that Obama used on the campaign trail of "YES WE CAN." After looking at this Glenn said that back on some old Nazi literature on the very back page, the same three words were printed. Glenn went on further to say that this meant that anyone who used this slogan along with Obama was a Nazi. So I guess what Glenn Beck is implying is this. Birds fly south for the winter, sometimes my grandparents go to Florida during the winter. Therefore, my grandparents are birds.

The show was put on by comedians yes. But to me comedy does not make a message any less viable. All comedy is, is a vehicle for bringing the absurdities of our everyday life to the surface, and say "Hey look at this!" I would argue that good comedy/and parody sends a better message than so called "rational arguments" do every time it is delivered. Think for yourself, do you recall your favorite comics routines, or a political leaders speeches more readily. Using parody as a means to make a point, if done well, often makes such poignant observations on everyday life that so often falls by the way side of people who believe whatever they are told, and allow themselves to stop thinking.

At the end of the rally, Jon Stewart gave a fantastic speech about what he believed the rally was about. So that tomorrow everyone can over react to everything he said, and implicitly state that his intentions for his own rally are wrong and that's not why he really had it. ANYWAY....(I will be quoting a lot of it in this next part so yeah. If that's a problem, fuck off, I'm surprised you made it this far anyway if you even bothered to read this bullshit. Lord knows I wouldn't waste my time.)

Stewart started by saying, "So, uh, what exactly was this? I can’t control what people think this was. I can only tell you my intentions. This was not a rally to ridicule people of faith or people of activism or to look down our noses at the heartland or passionate argument or to suggest that times are not difficult and that we have nothing to fear. They are and we do. But we live now in hard times, not end times. And we can have animus and not be enemies. But unfortunately, one of the main tools in delineating the two broke. The country’s 24-hour politico-pundit-perpetual-conflictinator did not cause our problems, but its existence makes solving them that much harder. The press can hold its magnifying glass up to our problems, bringing them into focus, illuminating issues heretofore unseen, or they can use that magnifying glass to light ants on fire and then perhaps host a week of shows on the sudden, unexpected flaming ant epidemic. If we amplify everything, we hear nothing."

This was in my opinion, the best point made in his entire speech. 24 hour news networks, be it Fox, CNN, or whomever, all they do is take one thing that the side they are not blatantly for totally over react to it. This constant blowing out of proportion of everything, makes it impossible to see what is really happening in this country, and therefore also impossible to ever see the real issues and tackle them.

Stewart went on to say; "The press is our immune system. If it overreacts to everything, we actually get sicker and perhaps eczema. And yet with that being said, I feel good. Strangely, calmly good, because the image of Americans that is reflected back to us by our political and media process is false. It is us through a fun-house mirror — and not the good kind that makes you look slim in the waist and maybe taller, but the kind where you have a giant forehead and an ass shaped like a month-old pumpkin and one eyeball. So why would we work together? Why would you reach across the aisle to a pumpkin-assed forehead eyeball monster? If the picture of us were true, of course our inability to solve problems would actually be quite sane and reasonable: Why would you work with Marxists actively subverting our Constitution and racists and homophones who see no one’s humanity but their own? We hear every damn day about how fragile our country is, on the brink of catastrophe, torn by polarizing hate, and how it’s a shame that we can’t work together to get things done, but the truth is we do. We work together to get things done every damn day. The only place we don’t is here (Washington D.C) or on cable TV. But Americans don’t live here or on cable TV. Where we live, our values and principles form the foundation that sustains while we get things done, not the barriers that prevent us from getting things done. Most Americans don’t live their lives solely as Democrats, Republicans, liberals, or conservatives. Americans live their lives more as people that are just a little bit late for something they have to do, often something they do not want to do. But they do it, impossible things every day that are only made possible through the little, reasonable compromises we all make"

This really drove the point home of what they were trying say. That the news networks and politicians of this country are always implicitly stating that we are a disjointed people who are unwilling to work together and full of hate and discord. When in reality this cannot be further from the truth. People make compromises and work together all the time to get things done. While the idiots in Washington are unwilling to compromise, and new networks blow this unwillingness to compromise out of proportion, thereby making it even more impossible to get anything done ever. And just for the fuck of it, here's the remainder of the speech.

"Look, look on the screen. This is where we are, this is who we are. These cars. That’s a schoolteacher who probably thinks his taxes are too high, he’s going to work. There’s another car, a woman with two small kids can’t really think about anything else right now. There’s another car, swinging — I don’t even know if you can see it — the lady’s in the NRA and loves Oprah. There’s another car, an investment banker, gay, also likes Oprah. Another car’s a Latino carpenter. Another car a fundamentalist vacuum salesman. Atheist obstetrician. Mormon Jay-Z fan. But this is us. Every one of the cars that you see is filled with individuals of strong belief and principles they hold dear, often principles and beliefs in direct opposition to their fellow travelers. And yet these millions of cars must somehow find a way to squeeze one by one into a mile-long, 30-foot wide tunnel carved underneath the mighty river, carved by people, who I’m sure, by the way, had their differences. And they do it, concession by concession. You go, then I’ll go. You go, then I’ll go. You go, then I’ll go. Oh my God, is that an NRA sticker on your car? Is that an Obama sticker on your car? Uh, well, that’s OK. You go and then I’ll go. And sure, at some point there will be a selfish jerk who zips up the shoulder and cuts in at the last minute, but that individual is rare and he is scorned and not hired as an analyst. Because we know instinctively as a people that if we are to get through the darkness and back into the light, we have to work together. And the truth is there will always be darkness, and sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t the Promised Land. Sometimes it’s just New Jersey. But we do it anyway, together. If you want to know why I’m here and what I want from you, I can only assure you this: You have already given it to me. Your presence was what I wanted. Sanity will always be and has always been in the eye of the beholder. To see you here today and the kind of people that you are has restored mine. Thank you."

At this point I am about out of things to say. I think Stewart said everything I would have said. If you actually made it this far, and at this point, I'm sure you haven't I can pretty much say anything that I want to. YOUR UGLY! See? It doesn't matter, cause no one reads this shit anyway.

-J Swavely

I'm Baaaaaaaaaaaaaack

I know I have not posted anything on here in awhile. I basically ran out of funny things to say. In the coming month or two I still won't have anything funny to say.

But there has been so many fucked up things happening in this world lately, that if I don't get some of it out soon my fucking head is gonna explode.

Tune in for updates if you care (don't kid yourself you don't give a fuck what I have to say, I get it.)

J Swavely

HEY! THAT'S SARCASM! THAT'S WHY IT'S FUNNY!

A woman went to her doctor for a follow-up after he had prescribed testosterone for her. She was a little worried about some of the side effects she was experiencing.

"Doctor, the hormones you've been giving me have really helped, but I'm afraid that you're giving me too much,"she said: “I've started growing hair in places that I've never grown hair before."

"A little hair growth is a perfectly normal side effect of testosterone,” the doctor reassured her: "Just where has this hair appeared?"

"On my testicles."

A man walked up to a farmer's house and knocked on the door. When a woman opened the door, the man asked if she knew how to have sex. Not amused, she slammed the door. Again, the man knocked, and again asked the same question. Again, not amused, she screamed: "Get the hell away!”

Later, she told her husband of the incident. He said he would stay home the following day just in case. Sure enough, the next day the same man returned. The husband hid with his gun while the lady answered the door. When she was asked again if she knew how to have sex, she said: "Yes."

The man replied: "Great! Give some to your husband the next time you see him, and tell him to stay the hell away from my wife!"

What's the difference between your new wife and your new dog?

After a year the dog is still happy to see you.

Brenda, pregnant with her first child, was paying a visit to her obstetrician's office. When the exam was over, she shyly began: "My husband wants me to ask you..."

"I know, I know," the doctor interrupted, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder: "I get asked that all the time. Sex is fine until late in your pregnancy."

"No, that's not it at all," Brenda confessed: "He wants to know if I can still shovel the driveway."

God is worn out, so he tells St. Peter: "You know, I need a vacation. Got any suggestions about where I might go?"

St. Peter thinks, and then says: "How about Jupiter? It's nice this time of year."

God says: "No, too much gravity on Jupiter. It hurts my back."

St. Peter says: "OK, how about Mercury?"

God says: "No way! It's way too hot for me on Mercury."

St. Peter exclaims: "I know! How about going to Earth for your vacation?"

God says: "Are you kidding? I went there 2,000 years ago, had an affair with some Jewish girl, and they're still talking about it!"

J Swavely

Top Ten Lists

Top 10 Signs You've been Single Too Long

10. You assume you repulse all women.

9. You develop bad eating habits.

8. The simplest questions make you go on a long diatribe about how lonely you are.

7. Your dating standards are gone.

6. You get a cat.

5. You surf mail order bride sites "out of curiosity"

4. You look at female friends as potential girlfriends.

3. You play your video games or musical instruments all day.

2. You actually consider your mother's dating advice.

1. You Google old flames.

Top Ten Things you Should Never Say to a Woman

10. Anything bad about her guy friends.

9. Tell her I'll call you on Friday.

8. Anything that hints at a future.

7. How many guys have you slept with?

6. I left you a message the other day, didn't hear back. What happened?

5. Do you like me?

4. What do you want to do tonight?

3. Anything about your car house or job.

2. Can I take you out on a date sometime?

1. Can I kiss you?

Top Ten Things to do When You're Single

10. Work out

9. Seize the moment.

8. Be bad.

7. Volunteer.

6. See your friends.

5. See your family.

4. Take a vacation.

3. Improve yourself.

2. Explore a new world.

1. Look ahead.

J Swavely