Through the Holidays and Back to Recording
With the holidays finally behind us, the guys at Long Island Recording found a time slot for me Friday, so my guitarist buddy Brian and I went down to Lexington for a session. Working on “I Can Sing A Country Song,” Brian added second and third harmonic acoustic guitar tracks to the primary hook, then patched together an electric lead. This was the most interesting thing and was suggested by producer Michael T. Brian worked through the lead a measure or two at a time, while Michael listened and offered suggestions. Using LIR’s 192-track ProTools setup, he patched and punched in each little piece, until the whole lead section was done. (Using a Stratocaster). Brian was quite pleased with how it turned out, but jokingly offered me “$20 if you don’t tell anybody how this was done.” We grabbed a very rough mix and headed for Louisville. The session lasted three-and-a-half hours.
All this was happening following much discussion between Brian and me, plus our video director Paul T. and new marketing and sales person Leigh Ann about the current and future state of the recorded music business. Various commentators have been saying for some time that the major record labels are going belly-up, with lots of discussion about what this might mean to major artists and the like. It seems more interesting to consider what it might mean for local scenes and unsigned artists when there are no major labels breaking new acts. About this, there is little agreement among knowledgeable commentators and participants in the business.
Personally, I’m interested in getting this project wrapped up before the market for CDs completely vanishes and it becomes nearly impossible to get any ROI for the project. The digital sales are not generating any like the revenue streams that CD sales do. The owner of Long Island Recording vehemently disagreed that it represented a real problem to the labels. He argued that the labels will continue to sell recorded music digitally while avoiding completely the need to manufacture, market and distribute CDs, so the revenue streams can be much smaller while the profit remains the same. Of course, that is for already-existing recordings, not new work by new artists, who are now SOL.
What are new artists to do? Learn to record their own work, make money touring and touring and touring, selling merchandise by tracking their fan base obsessively. Forget the dream of national stardom, courtesy of a major label deal. Play music because you like to, not to be rich and famous. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?