SISTER SARA PROVES JOE RIGHT

Sara Groves (no relation) speaks up about the music industry as she sees it:

“Unfortunately, there’s no difference between a deal in 2006 and a deal in 1960. If you look at the language, the percentages, the numbers and everything, folks today are signing the same contract they signed with Motown (a big label based in Detroit in the 60’s). Those were the same lousy deals you’ve heard about that ruined the lives of artists way back in the days of Rock & Roll, and are ruining the lives of artists today”.

Read the rest here.

These words of Sara's were hanging out on the couch in my brain minding their own business for days when the inspiring idealism of Joe Trippi's The Revolution Will Not Be Televised came in the front door. They became instant friends and started having a conversation in my head that got quite noisy and messy at times. Ideas and questions have piled up all over the place in the last few days. Allow me to sweep one pile out the back door and into your brain for more pondering:

Has the publicity department at evey label just been replaced without us realizing it?

With a few key strokes in an e-mail, on a blog, in a messageboard or to the editor of a webzine we artists - independent and signed - can now potentially ruin or resurrect our careers. "Fans" of a web savvy artist don't have to wait for her to appear in a costly music magazine answering innane questions about favorite colors to learn more about her if she is easily accessible via her blog and e-mail. Why hope an interviewer asks the right questions, the questions we want answers to, when we can ask artist's our own questions?

From an artist's perspective: Hey, I like magazines but printed and broadcast media are not my only choices for communication with my present and future audience any more - and the alternatives are almost always free!

And, frankly, I prefer the new media over the old most of the time: The old media is a one way monologue. I talk. You listen. The new media is a two way dialogue. I talk. You talk back. We both listen.

The old media is closed. Publicists with connections who happen to work for artists who sell magazines or attract listeners to stations get access to the pages and airwaves of the old media. Limited exposure for a limited number of fortunate sons.

But there are no fences keeping the new media from me...or from you...yet. With technorati and a good site meter I can see who's linking to me, talking about me, my music, music in general, subjects I care about, my last show, my upcoming CD, my friends, my theology, and the list goes on and on. Then I can decide if I want to link back, jump into those conversations, debate, say "thank you", or ignore them altogether. The choice is mine - not my label's. I can spend all day or no days posting to messageboards, arranging interviews via e-mail, or posting to my and millions of other blogs.

And while it's quite an enjoyable ego stroke to be on the cover of a magazine, the big one shot of old media can't compete any more with the many shots of the viral yet small new media. (Almost 500 sites currently link to SHLOG.COM.) It's nearly impossible for the audience of a radio station or magazine to forward paper or audio to millions of people of their own choosing in seconds. Blog rolls, links, e-mails, message boards, p2p communities like youtube.com and myspace.com are just some of new media's tools making the spead of information not only easy but compelling to do on-line.

Sara's words spoken to a webzine editor have now bounced around in cyberspace and landed here at SHLOG.COM to be read and pondered by my audience. This posting is spreading her words and giving them continued life long after a print article's influence would have fizzled. Magazines die in trash cans. Communication on the web never dies.

And so the idealistic Trippi is right about technology's power to change the power structures of almost every industry - even the slow changing music business. It's a revolution made possible by effort and technology, the replacement of top-down one way publicity by bottom-out two way conversation.

Now if we could only get lawyers to revolutionize the record deal...