I was playing with my amazing new Android phone today and the thought occurred to me… Do people still buy ringtones as ringtones, or do they just buy songs or albums and use those as ringtones? I know my friend Geoff Smith over at RingToneFeeder.com has plenty of customers who love their steady stream of new jingles, but I don’t think I’ve ever asked you guys about them. Please tell me…
I’m not sure what year it was, but everybody was young. The crowd was… well, let’s say the crowd was just one person. Me. I was front and center with a bag of popcorn, close enough to the footlights to feel the heat. The concert that changed my life was about to begin and all I knew was that I wanted to hear some music. House lights down, the curtain parted, somewhere in the building an idiot complained about the wrong-sized bread.
The opening acts were a classic rock revue- not the shit that classic rock stations play now. Van Halen is not classic rock; Eddie learned his moves from these guys. Steppenwolf, The Who, and The Guess Who played back-to-back short sets, reminding all that you can still rock without auto-tune or makeup. I was in high school, but these guys wrote these songs decades earlier. Once the drums had exploded, the roadies dragged them offstage and brought out the evening’s first headlining act.
Like a curveball nailing a batter smack in the ear, the concert shifted to Contemporary Christian music. I shit you not, Jars of Clay started off with that one song that got played everywhere. At this point I was in college and the popcorn was already half empty. Dan said thank you and made his exit, just as the man himself walked on with a guitar. He was three feet tall and smiling like some kind of weird celtic punk-folk pixie. The rest of the band took their places and Caedmon’s Call started their set.
They didn’t just play a few songs, they performed a strange drama right in front of me. The beginning of the set did something Christian music’s not supposed to do: it made me think. And it made me dance (I must have looked weird, all alone in that front row). The band realized their mistake, I guess, and started playing the typical praise-and-worship crap. Only the diminutive one seemed as disappointed as I by the change in mood. By the end of their set, the house was silent and unmoving. The band quietly disassembled their gear and walked off stage right, but Derek Webb exited alone, stage left. He’d be back later.
For a long time there was nothing. It was as though the stage manager realized they’d booked the wrong lineup and was scrambling to put together another show right then and there. When finally the stage lights went up again there was a tall skinny guy like me standing at the mic. Train played three whole albums worth of material while I watched. I didn’t mind, I was out of college and hated my job; I had nothing better to do. With Pat’s voice still ringing out in the theater, they performed a no-huddle play and switched to Jason Mraz. I got out a notepad so I could keep on top of the linguistic swordplay.
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Here are a few places to grab this album (all of them affiliate links, just FYI):
And here’s the video for the title track:
I’m not prone to quoting other bands on my own blog, but in this instance Counting Crows donates today’s title.
After the crazy-fun social media foreplay that was 2005-2007, last year was the disappointing realization that this is not porn and we really DO need long-term commitment if we want satisfaction at the end. I survived, barely, but a lot of my friends both digital and corporeal suffered heavy losses and are currently regrouping.
I’m still self-employed, but I’m not able to tour like I did in 2007. In fact, I’ll be lucky if I can get on the road again without a record deal.
All that being said, we have great cause for hope. American ingenuity reacts inversely to the stock market; we find our best ups when we’re really down. Currently, I’m drawing a blank other than “work my ass off”, but a wartime strategy is in the works. When the pickings are this slim the noise of less-worthy competitors dies away, leaving the battle-hardened lifers on the front line alone. The halfhearted indie bands go back to their day jobs while the shining stars like Geoff Smith and JoCo find better opportunities.
Perhaps I’ll be so lucky.
It’ll only be a good 2009 with a lot of effort and help from you. Yeah, you, the person reading this right now. I am nothing without your support. No one finds out about Matthew Ebel dot net or Goodbye Planet Earth unless you tell them. I can wave my arms, light myself on fire, and dance naked in the streets, but nobody pays attention to the self-promoter. You are my lifeline in these dire economic times, and you are what kept me alive in 2008.
Let’s see what we can do together this year.
Photo by Daisy’s Little Cottage
