The Commodification of the Modern Musician.

Just 150 years ago music was a different thing. There was no “music industry” and if you wanted to listen to music you would have to find musicians and physically inhabit the same space as them as they were playing in order to hear it. It was not short of its own industrious qualities. Many of the most famous pieces of music from centuries past are complex orchestrations composed of dozens of musicians on different instruments playing melodies, harmonies, counter-melodies, drones, and theatrically amazing passages meant to wow the listener. Yes, this was an industry in and of itself but pales in comparison to the modern and often corporate system we all participate in today. Yes, we all participate in it, whether as a listener, creator, venue owner, licenser, or even if you just watch TV, stream a show, well…you get the idea. The art of music has shifted in incredible ways over the last century and half and that’s where we’ll meet you at the end of our summary but let’s take a short musical trip through the times.

The first major shift in recent times was the invention of the reproduceable audio recording. Though not ground breaking at the beginning it found a useful application in sharing historical records, preserving ideas, and of course, a few rogue recordings of music. That all changed when the phonograph did the one thing every new invention dreams of from its birth: it became affordable and accessible to the common person. These people did not want to listen to stuffy lecture snippets or obscure recordings of songbirds. No, they demanded the most difficult and most entertaining of all audio experiences for the working class family: music. Yes there were other inventions like the player piano, wax cylinders, and the like but the phonograph was different, it was a durable format, easy to operate, and of course made a charming addition to any home. It was not without a few drawbacks of course the most important of which is the short length of time per disc. They could only hold about 3 minutes per side! That 3-4 minute length still dominates the modern music industry today and whenever we release a song over that length we get complaints from radio DJs about how they’re “too long” and we’re “showing off” or some other silly complaint that we laugh at as we dismiss their humorously narrow-minded musical critique.

Now, the “music industry” is finally born into the world around this time. They saw the demand for songs that could engage a listener in under 4 minutes, can be replayed without nauseum, and of course, sell, sell, sell. We were given many selections of the Great American Songbook during this early era as composers flocked to this new shorthand medium to pump out quick melodies to talented artists and get them into publication to hungry ears everywhere. The industry found its system and quickly started creating labels and genres to categorize the artists so the consumer can make quick selections, order new discs, and try unknown songs with a level of confidence. One of the most famous of course was the genre of “Race Records” that sought to bring “race music” to what we can only fathom to guess would be considered “non-race” peoples, though we do not believe this was in a post-racial 21st century type of mindset. Musical celebrities were soon born into this budding industry, renowned for their recordings and seldom interacting face to face with people compared to the ears that were consuming their sounds.

This trend continued through the inventions of the 4os as microphones got better and singers were now able to be more intimate with their performances. The belting of Bessie Smith gave way to the softness of Ella Fitzgerald as recordings got better and the dynamic range of a recording got stronger. Over time the time constraint of the disc based system was overcome when the magnetic tape became compact and the 8 track was soon spinning its magnetic splendor through the 60s and 70s until bowing out to the cassette tape. Finally the industry had found a way to bring longer selections of music to a reproduceable format but the trend was set, the 3-4 minute song remained as standard as ever. Why would you write a 10 minute song to sell once when you can write 3 songs at the length of 3 minutes to each sell once? Once televisions started to enter the living rooms of the modern home people everywhere tuned in to musical performers now glowing out of a cathode-ray glass bubble. They flashed to life reproduced through the wonder of electromagnetic science and were almost always seen smiling as they were seen trapped in their strange modern fish bowl like venue made out of the fanciest of one-way glass. No longer were musicians trapped by the limitations of reproduction, they were free to appear to people in their own homes, play as long as they’d like to, and perform to smaller crowds with a bigger reach. Soon, the music industry found it’s firm footing as it exploited all these formats and outlets to create superstars and mega celebrities that dominated our ears and eyes and were shoved down our collective consuming throats via anything with an antenna attached to it.

As we know this all came to a dizzying explosion with the invention of the internet. Originally an obscure network designed to share historical records, preserve ideas, and share a rogue piece of music or two it soon did the very thing every new invention dreams of from its birth: it became affordable and accessible to the common person. This was different though, the industry finally felt the impact of this growing network as their ability to dictate what was popular began to fade as people no longer needed to pay for music but could conceivably get it for free online. Music piracy was not new. There are legends of Soviet music pirates etching American rock music onto X-rays to smuggle into the USSR during the cold war. You can of course always pour a liquid rubber solution onto a record, let it dry then rip the mold off to create a new copy of the original. Then of course the cassette tape allowed the recording of radio broadcast to a blank tape which gave way to those awful mix tapes where the radio DJ is talking over the outro and intro of your favorite songs. The internet was a new form of piracy. For the first time a listener could acquire a song that was not being broadcast, was not possessed by a local store or friend, and that they’d never even heard before! The problem for the industry was simple: they were no longer in charge of what people could consume. It was a beautiful moment of musical anarchy as kids and their paranoid parents everywhere soon became experts in copyright law and all the definition of the word “discography”. The music industry made feeble attempts to fight this new wave of unleashed free consuming non-profiteering world but eventually gave in and gave us what we wanted: access to whatever we want, wherever we want, whenever we want, and occasionally interrupted by credit card offers and advertisements for home services unless you pay $9.99 a month. (ok, maybe not that last part).

Well, here we are: now. So what has changed and why are we here? Well the shift in the industry did something amazing to the artist over the last 150 years. Musicians are no longer simple artists. We are “content creators” or we are running a “brand”. We are expected to compete in the free market that is the industry whether we are signed on to participate in it or not. You see, before an artist could create something, put it out into the world, live their life, then create more. They could release what they wanted then go dormant again, but not anymore. Nowadays the musician is expected to be an auditory experience that is enhanced by visual releases, updates, pictures, samples, stories, and of course no musician is complete without their own hashtag.

#THELARKANDTHELOON

There is great merit in all of this as now the artist is able to bring their fans along the journey of creation and show them what it looks like to travel, to perform, to rehearse, and to record. The downside of course is that fans expect all of this from an artist. Music is not enough for the musician. You are expected to commodify yourself into something that transcends artistry and into a celebrity to those who want one. Whether you are famous to 1 or famous to 1 million you are expected to present yourself as though you are a jovial whimsical creator who is flowing with creativity, insight, and connection, like a careful tightrope walk between being a cult-leader and an obscurely loved genius. This is not going to change, this is how we consume this artform now and this is how we are expected to create it. We are all left to wonder if this constant expectation of a steady stream of fresh new content coupled with behind the scenes glances at our greatest works in progress is leaving some of the best works of our peers and idols buried under an avalanche of lukewarm requests to join Patreon pages as we fight for a few seconds of each other’s attention every day. The best part of being a musician is the same thing that was wonderful about being a musician 500 years ago and 1000 years before that: creating art that can be enjoyed by a willing consumer to interpret, enjoy, dislike, dismiss, or love as they choose. Whether in person or digitally is of no concern to us but we remain steadfast in our own ideology that has always driven us through our hundreds of shows in countless cities, states, and countries: we are not the product. We don’t even like looking at our music as a product but the modern music industry dictates that it is only that. We will always love interacting with folks, and are not afraid or embittered by social interaction, it is only the expectation that is placed upon the artist to be constantly performing that fills us with a cautious curiosity about the integrity of the modern music industry and the economic ecosystem it has created for all of us.

Chicka (stomp) Chicka Ding! The musical washboard and stomp box

A curious bright-eyed youngster approached me on stage as I was packing up gear after a bar gig a few weeks back. "I don't mean to bother you but my friends and I are wondering what that board instrument you were playing is called." Enthusiastically, I picked up my little musical washboard and gave her an explanation of the handcrafted percussion instrument that my husband and I cobbled together with antique tins and old bells. When we play overseas people will refer to it as a "scratchboard" sometimes or simply "the bell thing". A relative of the washtub bass the washboard as a percussion instrument has deep American roots. There are plenty of different ways to play it, but the rhythmic techniques I use come from the washboard players of the pre-war Piedmont and Delta blues era. Since our new album "2" is heavily focused on exploring these styles of music through Jeff's swampy 1936 National Duolian resonator guitar, I decided to shed some light on what tends to be an overshadowed instrument that so many people are familiar with.     

History claims that the wooden plated washboard is considered to be among one of the great American inventions of the 1830s. Having a similar musical cultural history as the Peruvian cajon (the box drum), slaves would use the dual device as a percussive drum when musical instruments were banned from being played to accompany singing, dancing, and chanting. In later years this form of musical expression evolved into what we consider traditional blues and early jazz music. The washboard is primarily played by using a series of tapping and scraping motions, generally with thimbles or spoons, on the metal board, wooden frame, and its attached accessories which can range anywhere from a cowbell to a cymbal. 

I've bent my ears to many washboard players over the years and one of my biggest influences and favorite washboard players in American Piedmont blues history is Bull City Red (born George Washington in 1917) who accompanied artists such as resophonic guitarist Blind Boy Fuller and ragtime guitarist and singer Blind Blake. The use of the washboard in these early recordings helped pave the way into the early Piedmont blues era of music. Bull City Red's playing is steady like a train in motion and then he'll pull out a rhythmic break that will trick your ears. The tones he captivates on the washboard are crisp, clean, and a perfect polyrhythmic echo to the muddy nature of his counterpart guitar. My washboard contains antique tins, a brass bike bell, and a Tibetan meditation bell to round out the tone.

To add to the washboard's sound I borrowed a technique from the blues players of the past and added a shotgun shell box as a stomp box. So the story goes back in the day blues players would often play in tobacco houses and coal mining towns. In these communities dynamite was a common commodity and the discarded wooden boxes for dynamite were often easy to come by. The blues players learned that the box made a great hollow thumping sound when stomped on and could hold up to the wear and tear of many a night's camaraderie. Of course the story continues that the dynamite boxes sometimes contained unstable residues and would sometimes ignite if stomped too hard! The box I choose to use is free of this problem but contains the same sound the dynamite boxes produced. I choose to play mine standing with a tambourine inside and will often stick a microphone in it to allow it to be amplified.

From Creole zydeco to Appalachian folk, the washboard has played an important role in American jug band music. It packs a lot of punch for its size and boosts the drive and texture of a song. I'm happy to see that people are still taking an interest in washboard playing and I like encouraging those who wish to learn how to play. "All it takes is a trip to your local antique store, a bit of elbow grease, and access to some old blues recordings" is what I say. Alongside a creative stomp box you can get some pretty complex rhythms and sounds out of a small portable package. 

~R

I'll take a one way ticket out of this town. (Trains and how they shaped American music)

We can all agree and disagree on most everything. But I have a hunch that most of us have at least thought about what it would be like to buy a one way ticket to a destination never to return again. Some of us have manifested that exact thought into reality and we find ourselves living many miles away from the places we once called home. Luckily, or maybe not so luckily, we have social media to keep up with old friends and family from the past. It's becoming increasingly more difficult to permanently "loose touch" with the people you don't have an interest in out of the sake of being polite. But imagine yourself during a time before computers and cell phones; before airplanes and greyhounds were a common mode of mass transportation for the middle class and before car ownership was only possible for a select few types of people. If you needed to get somewhere far away in a hurry, you'd most likely board a train. Jeff and I have been listening to a lot of old records over the years (mostly old blues, Carter Family, various folk Anthologies, and Bob Dylan). We've observed the different ways these roots and folk musicians sing about trains and how important the train is to the origins of American folk music. We've listened to these records countless times and have had many discussions about how music has traveled and transformed since the dawn of American train culture. Of course these train songs originated with the makers of the train tracks themselves (songs known as chain gang songs invented by slaves and later prisoners who pounded their picks into the ground, chanted, and sang with the voices and rhythms passed down to them from their ancestors). 

It's almost as if you can feel the construction of the train tracks in the music of their children and grandchildren recorded later on. Today we commonly refer to these musicians as "the old blues men and women" such as Leadbelly, Mississippi John Hurt, Blind Blake, Blind Boy Fuller, Elizabeth Cotten, and Bessie Smith who all sing about riding trains, leaving, or returning home.

Jeff and I talk about what it must've been like to be African American upon the end of the Civil War and how the train must've been quite the symbol of freedom to these newly freed people. Many of these people who were once enslaved were able to flee to other destinations by train hoping that a better life was waiting at the track's end; and they took their voices with them and passed their train music down to their kin. We are incredibly lucky that their children and grandchildren preserved and recorded these original train songs while inventing a whole new style of music. Since then you have other genres of music, such as bluegrass, old time, folk, and country music that talk about trains but the origin of American train music in the United States was invented by the people who built the tracks and it traveled with their children from coast to coast, north to south, which is why we've been able to learn so many songs even in the most remote locations of the country.

Growing up out on the western prairie and the Great Plains was as desolate as you can imagine it to be. The first time I saw Urban style graffiti was when I'd see it painted on the sides of trains that passed through my childhood stomping grounds. I thought it was beautiful and wondered what it would be like to hop on a train and end up in a big city just to observe it all. I would think about how much more interesting life, art, and music must be in a big city. But what I didn't know is that the music I had learned as a child in small-town America was also being taught in cities. It wasn't until I moved to Minneapolis and met my husband, who spent the majority of his life in the Twin Cities, that I learned we had grown up learning the same songs. This is why we love roots music. It's amazing when you can sit down with a complete stranger and sing and play the same songs. The train made it possible for this music to travel up, down, and all across the country. I can only imagine that many songs written about trains were written on trains (I wish that I could write and drive at the same time because cross-country imagery and travel sure does stir up the songwriting senses.) Jeff and I are committed to a life of music and the road and we couldn't be more at peace to be out driving on the highways next to the train tracks that made it possible for music to travel back in the old days. 

-R

How I learned to love the banjo

Just yesterday afternoon I was struggling with a metal ring. It was a large metal ring the exact diameter of my banjo. This was intentionally done back in the 1890's or so when the ring was made. It was one of the many, many parts that would eventually come together in the course of the day to make a complete playable banjo. After much swearing, and self bargaining I finally got it slipped over my goat skin drum head and slipped around the tone ring. Then I had to meticulously attach all the little hooks and nuts on the side to bring the tension to that perfect spot. Once I finally did that, I had to set the tailpiece, then find the perfect spot for the bridge in accordance with the fret board. Finally I set new my nylon strings on this antique beauty and strummed.

It was horribly out of tune.

The banjo is a horrendously unforgiving instrument. I have owned 3 in my lifetime and all of them have been complete with their quirks and trials. They often can be difficult to tune, sometimes the bridge collapses and needs to be reset. (Often right before a gig too!) and some of them are very very heavy. This was particularly true with my first banjo. It was a Jida brand banjo I got at a music shop. I knew nothing about banjos other than "I wanted to learn it" and this made in Korea banjo seemed fitting for me. I remember bringing it home, tuning it and sitting alone on the 3 season porch on a rainy spring Minnesota night plucking it horribly in the solitude of an empty house. (perhaps my banjo playing had driven all my housemates away)

I would learn a lot on that banjo, and eventually take it with me to a dozen or so states and into Canada. I never recorded with it, though a friend of mine did on our trek through Nashville. The five-string banjo has 2 distinct styles that a player will generally choose from. There's the "Scruggs style" or "3 finger" which is the bluegrass oriented picking style I was most familiar with. (Earl Scruggs, Bela Fleck, etc.) Then there's "clawhammer" style which is the style I mostly stick to these days. (Buell Kazee, Bruce Molsky, etc) This is the more "old-time" style often played on old records and usually associated with mountain music.  I tried both out quite a bit but never really got the hang of the 3 finger style. I was never motivated enough to actually practice the style, often finding it tedious and boring to practice after a few minutes. 

The clawhammer style was the most suited for me, it tends to accompany a solo singer better and have a great rhythmic quality to it that I find mesmerizing. Once I figured this out I traded my Jida bluegrass banjo for a fiddle that I never learned to play and got myself an open back banjo. The banjo I got was  Gibson RB-175LN and is my current primary banjo. It was built in 1964 and carries a very unique part of the folk legacy with it.

The Gibson banjo I have is a longneck banjo that was popularized by Pete Seeger. Seeger who liked to do sing a-longs with his crowds and found the key of E suited his voice best. Banjo players can likely attest the key of E can often be tricky on banjo since it's tuned to open G. His solution? Add 3 more frets to the banjo allowing it to go lower. The result is a longer banjo neck and an instrument that's a touch longer than your average bass guitar.  These banjos were popular in the 60's often seen in Seeger's hands as well as the Kingston trio. (George Grove fancied the key of F on his). It's rich deep tone paved the way to allow the banjo into more ears and spaces and brought it down from the mountain and into the general public. 

My final banjo, and my current project is my Buckbee banjo. It's an antique banjo built around the 1890's and was the source of my frustration just yesterday afternoon. I finally fixed it up yesterday and it's playing better than ever. It was one of the first mass produced banjos and therefore isn't particularly valuable but it sure is fun to play an instrument that old. Banjos have a rich and often dark history tied to American history. It's one of the only truly American instruments after all. It evolved from African gourd instruments brought during the slave trade, its sound maturing through minstrel shows, and finally resting on the tops of hills and mountains in the countryside where their design and sound became more refined. This is why I love them. They're not easy to work with, and sometimes they aren't exactly pretty. They get made fun of a lot, and still carry a stigma about them as a low-brow instrument, but they are what they are: simple, built to work, and played to pass the time. They're as simple as you want them to be and complex as your imagination will allow. They're highly evolved and just plain fun to play. It's complex issues are of no mind to me, I will always forgive their shortcomings of being hard to tune some days, and being a bit too echoing on a humid day. After all, nothing beats the sound of a banjo on the porch on a hot summer day in Arkansas!


Thanks for readin'
-J