All creative endeavor is built in the spirit of freedom.. it is the freedom of expression, of exploration, without caveat, without expectation.

In the last decade I have watched the music industry from the unique perspective of one who is both within and simultaneously an outsider. Because I have never aspired to be a pop star, I've never directed my efforts towards what is popular, and as such it's made my product difficult to place in a mainstream audience. This, among other reasons, has excluded me from being a real "insider" in the industry - although I have maintained many professional affiliations, I'd never been interested in "signing with a label" and going about a "successful career" that way. Instead, I formed my own label, which I called Splendid Imaginings (a catch-all name which could encompass any of the disciplines I work in), obtained a distribution contract, and fought the system from within.

Eventually, though, I realized that although I had avoided the traditional "sell-out" pitfalls (such as signing ownership of the songs over to the label), I was still subject to the same mechanisms which had wrecked such havoc on the artists of the last generation - namely that big companies were making more off the product than the creators were. Despite a good relationship with my Splendid's distributor, Believe (formerly MTunes), the contract terms that were dictated by the retailers (iTunes, Napster, Virgin, Beatport) were such that right off the top, before my distributor ever even got a chance to take their slice of the pie, on average some 40% was being gobbled.

Now, there are some strong arguments in support of the case for retail markup. However, in the digital realm, where shipping, storefront and warehouse meant almost nothing, the need to effectively steal nearly half of the proceeds of an artist's product is a tough sell. Worse, these retailers are truly dictators in the worst sense - self-satisfied, bloated, unapproachable and unwilling to communicate in any manner besides the decrees which are handed down by their legal department (have you seen the EULA on iTunes?). iTunes has helped make Apple bigger than Microsoft, off the backs of artists wanting to share their craft. Nothing wrong with making a buck, but it has become such a ruthless profiteering shitshow one can hardly call it "business" so much as it is mass sodomy. 

Soon the retailers were harping on my distributor about my sales. Since I had founded Splendid with the philosophy that mass-marketing is a cultural poison and that rampant consumerism will destroy us if our thirst for blood and oil doesn't first, the sales of my releases paled in comparison to my "competing" labels. Thing is, I never felt that I was competing. Other labels are not my enemies. Other artists are not something I need to defeat in a race. Artistic merit can not be measured with a stick or in dollars, and I was comfortable simply making my music available to the world without feeling that I had to "pimp" it.

This is the catch-22 of the music industry - now-a-days any kid with a computer can download a music making software program and start making his own beats. Hell, that's how I'd started. Sadly, the vast majority of the music available for free download is not really of the standard that people want to hear. It's a sea of mediocrity, the same sound library loops fit together at four bar intervals. This is where the elitism of the iTunes and Beatport's of the world comes in, for being available on these sites gives you a certain.. credibility.

This, I had known entering into my contract with Believe, but had rationalized it in my mind by telling myself that I wasn't marketing it and contributing to the cacophony of advertisements that is our western culture.

Eventually I remembered Gandhi's words..  to "be the change you wish to see".

Just like everyone else, I download music. I'll download an entire discography of an artist I've just learned of. And, if I like it, I buy their record and go to their shows. But so much of it is wasted! The cost of manufacture, the retail markup, the environmental impacts of the physical product and shipping it and all that goes along with it... I wished that I could just go to the website for Nine Inch Nails and donate $20 to him directly, rather than having about $0.05 of that $20 CD filter down to them through the traditional channels.

I have enjoyed some albums so much that after the 50th listening I thought "I wish I could really share my enthusiasm for their work with them." A little tip, less than we tip the waitress at a nice restraunt, but something that says "thanks for the music, it has enriched my life and enhanced my reality for absolutely years and in some cases has helped define areas of my psyche. 

Yet here I was, still whoring my tunes on Beatport and iTunes and holding back my creation from people it might touch in the hopes I'd get a few bucks for it. I was living a lie. Since I wasn't about to not download music because it failed to conform to an economic model I don't acknowledge as being valid or relevant in the context of our modern era, I thought, "set it free."

Rather than crippling digital downloads with DRM (Digital Rights Management) and punishing legitimate supporters by the limitations inflicted upon a technology which is by it's very nature free, rather than trying to coax or trick people into handing over their money, rather than criminalizing the poor but passionate, why not just make it available? Witholding an artist's creation from being enjoyed is not doing the artist or their work any favors.

I'd held onto my catalog all these years on the pretense that "I am a father and these recordings might be the lottery ticket that puts the kids through college". And yet, was it? In all the years in the industry I'd earned few royalties with my music. At most I've harvested a few grand combined between digital sales and the physical products I'd managed to hawk on eBay and in local record stores and at shows, and I've spent at least ten times that. But, I am not in it for the money, I'm in it for the love of the music.

There are a lot of people in the industry who are in it strictly for the money, and they will fight the change tooth and nail. Who wouldn't? If I were suckeled up to a nice golden tit I would probably wish to maintain my quality of life with little or no musical talent. But the whole game has changed, and the change must happen, and the only way for it to happen is for people to just START CHANGING.

Maybe it's a huge mistake and history will judge the puff of smoke which was the intellectual rights revolutionary movement as a laughable prelude to a brilliant economic system which somehow makes everything accessible while at the same time sustainable. ? Only time will tell. I don't think it will though - I like to be on the winning team and it appeals to every one of my higher senses. In fact, the ONLY reasons I can think of to NOT do it are based solely upon fear.. fear of loss of revenue, fear of legal battles, fear of being branded in the fringes.

Fear needs to be let go of. 

Besides, if you talk to any professional musician, you'll find out the only way to really make money in the music industry is in playing live.

So I was resolved, and I am trying to be the change I wish to see.

As it is, I have a day job that I love (I work with technology, surprise) which provides me with enough income to pay my bills and feed the children and go fishing. I'm comfortable being a family man - two sons and two daughters and three step daughters for a grand total of seven children. In a few years, when more of the kids are a bit older, I plan on touring, low-key, vacationing and playing gigs where I go. For now, I'll keep on loving my life the way that it is and keeps going.

So, if you enjoy the music I have made and wish to show your support and appreciation with a donation, I am grateful. But if you can't afford to between your own bills, then consider it my gift to you.

Be the change you wish to see.