FISTFULAYEN

I’m a skinny dude. I was chunky for a bit around 4th and 5th grade, around the time my parents became shareholders in Wendy’s and I started eating bacon double cheeseburgers for dinner a couple nights a week, but that stopped and I went back to being a skinny guy for the rest of my life.

All the time people say to me, “Oh you don’t need to worry about what you eat,” and generally snicker at my biking to work and 6 day-a-week workout program as wasted energy by a perpetually lean person. The general idea I think is that I’m a skinny guy and therefore I don’t need to think about any of these things.

I gotta be honest, those comments are kinda insulting. As if 18 years of not eating meat, multiple years of not eating fast food, constant diet tweaking, a conscious decision to bike more and drive less, making exercising a priority even when traveling, etc don’t have any impact on my body shape and health?

Meanwhile I’m also looked at as the difficult, elitist crazy-guy who refuses to eat at chain restaurants and would starve to death locked inside an airport for a month, and everyone else is easy-going and normal, eating another burger and fries or triple-fried whatever from the Panda Express.

Denial ain’t a river in Africa, folks. To quote former FDA commissioner David Kessler from the book I just read (and the impetus for this post), The End of Overeating, “People get fat because they eat more than people who are lean…we finally have strong evidence that weight gain is primarily due to overeating.” Period.

Are there differences between my body and your body which are due to genetics? Of course, and more importantly the way our brains are wired to drive us toward the reward of eating likely differs greatly, too. It’s cool by me if you’d prefer not to and I certainly understand if it’s not easy to eat like I do, but kindly ask you give nurture the credit for my size, not nature. And please stop fooling yourself that you can hit the gym a couple times a week, eat like an average American and lose weight. It’s just not scientifically sound.

I wish there was a way to get all of America to read David Kessler’s The End of Overeating (oh wait, there is, how do you lobby Oprah’s Book Club, anyway?). The book chronicles the author’s very human quest to understand why America started gaining weight in the 80s, a Fast Food Nation which instead of looking just at the “business” of food it looks at human beings and asks science why eating sugar, fat, and salt makes us want to eat more sugar, fat, and salt. What’s happening with food in the US (and we’re exporting worldwide!) is pretty terrifying, and the number of people who are complicit (you?) is really discouraging. As Kessler says:

“The stakes are higher with food than with most other commercial products. Intentionally or not, industry activities take advantage of the biology of the brain, selling us products that alter our bodies.”

For more check out this New York Times article on the book, which a friend on Twitter pointed me to last week and how I ended up reading it.

I hesitate to write about this stuff, it’s a little personal and as I mentioned it feels elitist. I’m not bragging. My general philosophy in life (to quote Jenny Aurthur) is “don’t yuk yuk someone else’s yum yum”. But there’s really something scary going on in this country now with respect to diet (Wall-E capturing the end of the trajectory we’re on at the moment). But I don’t think we’ll let it go that far. We’ve managed to smoke less as a society, I think we can manage to eat less, too, and send a message that it might just be good business to serve food that won’t make us fat in public places. Please take a read through The End of Overeating and buy it for anyone you think would benefit from it. I fear most people just don’t know how bad most of what they’re putting in their bodies is and they don’t have enough info to make the right choices. Education seems the right way to start and The End of Overeating is a great, modern Diet For A New America that doesn’t come across as activism, just a doctor looking for answers and to help a nation who can’t seem to stop getting fatter.

I’m not going to judge anyone if they’re not ready just yet, but I’d like to put it out there that I’m more than happy to play diet coach for anyone who would like some support. It’s pretty straight-forward, but easier to do when it’s not your body, as Dr. Kessler’s book does a great job of explaining. Hit me up here or on Twitter and let’s do this.

I ate like shit growing up, frozen pizzas, burritos, nachos, and blue Kool-Aid, but my mom was a marathon runner and health food aficionado who put in her time at the local co-op grocery so thankfully I had some basis for what was and wasn’t good for me when I was old enough to care. I stopped eating meat, there was a period of time where I didn’t eat cheese either, then I started eating fish again, then when I met my wife I started eating cheese again, too, just to be a little less of a pain in the ass to share a meal with. But I’ve always had my Achilles heels, mostly eating way too many chips and/or crackers or way too much bread, and only in the past couple of years have I started to get a handle on it.

It started as most people’s workout routines do, with LL Cool J. My beloved AllHipHop.com alerts told me Cool J had made a workout book, and as a joke I thought I’d give it a go and blog about it. But just a couple weeks in I decided I actually liked the routine. The advice seemed solid, the workout very cross-train-oriented with a little weights and a little cardio, and the book had been written so a gym newbie wouldn’t be too creeped out. My employer at the time (Yahoo!) had just started free gym memberships so I signed up and got my Cool J on, starting 3 mornings and eventually 5 mornings a week. Just to add to it, I also took the opportunity to cycle through LL Cool J’s catalog, allowing myself only to listen to Cool J in the gym, which really wasn’t a bad thing at all, the first four records are all still dope and 14 Shots isn’t as bad as you thought it was back then, trust me.

Cool J covered diet in the book, too, prescribing what I now realize is the basic diet recommended by every exercise book (see below). I started trying to adjust my diet a bit, and since I don’t eat meat (except fish) I started trying to get a little more protein.

I figured it was irresponsible to base my new workout and nutrition plan solely on a book written by LL Cool J, so I searched Amazon for something a little more standard fare to supplement with. Men’s Health’s Book of Muscle was pretty well-reviewed, so I picked that up. Turned out I liked the Cool J book better as it seemed a little more balanced; the Men’s Health book was more on the “don’t do cardio you won’t get huge” tip. I wasn’t trying to get huge, just be kinda in shape, so I stuck with the Cool J book.

I told Kid Rock I was doing the Cool J workout and he laughed, “You are the worst spokesman for his book! Just what he needs, a skinny white kid telling people, ‘hey look at me, I did the Cool J workout!’ That’s like me wearing Russel Simmons clothes!” Probably true. But I’m also probably one of the only people on earth who did everything the book told me to for six months. I completed the LL Cool J Platinum Workout 100%. In its entirety. End-to-end. Anyone else? Anyone?

I liked having the prescribed workouts. Having a plan when you walk into a gym is a good thing. Having someone else come up with that plan is also a good thing. So I needed a new plan. I turned to the Men’s Health “Book of Muscle” book and decided to play a trick on it: I’d do the Intermediate workout series three days per week and run the other three days. I did that for six months and now have almost completed the “Advanced” six months in the book, too, along with the running or some sort of cardio on the off days (it’s been a lot of elliptical trainer as of late due to a running-related injury).

Somewhere along the way I picked up the Nike+ setup. For those who don’t know, it’s a little pedometer/transmitter that goes on your shoe, and a receiver that plugs into your iPod Nano. When you head out for a run you can tell it to tell you when you’re half-way to five miles, or 45 minutes, or just to pay attention. Then when you get home and reconnect your iPod to iTunes, it uploads the data from your run to the worst Web site in the world, NikePlus.com, where so long as you’re willing to struggle through a “Web site” built entirely in Flash you can track your runs over time or participate in “challenges” with other Nike+ users worldwide (here’s a link to my profile on their godforsaken site). I actually got into it originally when I found out I could run with my friends Vince Koser and Emi Guner, both who live far away, and my first running injury came when I doubled my mileage to beat a bunch of Swedish girls in a Run With E challenge. Whoops. There are a couple of great alternatives to the unfathomably terrible, marketing-dollars-gone-wrong Nike+ Web site, namely Rasmus’ SlowGeek.com and RunnerPlus.com.

Along the way I also picked up the Men’s Health Muscle Chow diet/nutrition book and the Power Training book (which I plan to pull my workout routine from next, now that I’m about to complete the Book of Muscle workouts). I dunno about you but I personally find it embarrassing to own these books, with their Gold’s Gym vibe and people on the cover who I’ll never look like (and don’t want to), but they’re both actually excellent books and I’d recommend them. Muscle Chow features a bunch of really simple recipes and is a great, simple, overall diet plan. Power Training actually features a really good nutrition section, too, with the six basic rules all these books point to, and as far as I know are pretty sound advice:

1. Eat five or six times a day
2. Limit your consumption of sugars and processed foods
3. Eat fruits and vegetables throughout the day
4. Drink more water and cut out calorie-containing beverages (beer, soda, and so forth)
5. Focus on consuming more lean proteins throughout the day
6. Save starch-containing foods until after a workout or for breakfast

Pretty straight-forward, no magic, no surprises, but I had to completely change my diet around to get there. I’m stoked to be here, though, I feel better, I’m never hungry, and I rarely have guilt/regret about eating. I’m always looking for ways to improve on the nutrition front, but it’s definitely been worth the effort.

An average day for me looks like this:

Pre-workout: Protein power, Glutamine, and Lecithin mixed w/water
Breakfast: Whole grain non-instant oatmeal w/ Oat Bran, Raisins, Almonds, Skim Milk (no sugar), plus a multivitamin and some omega 3 pills
Lunch: Small salad w/protein (lettuce, broccoli, tuna, tofu, garbonzos, black beans, salsa, flax seed oil)
Afternoon snack: Cottage cheese
Dinner: Some lean protein (fish, eggs, etc) w/veggies, ideally
Bedtime snack: Plain yogurt w/berries and maybe some protein powder

A few changes I’ve made recently to try to push things even more the right direction:

• Trying to eat less salt, so I’m eating the plain tofu instead of the baked “wok” tofu, etc.
• Trying to eat less sugar/carbs, so I swapped out the boxed cereal (even the healthy one I used to eat) for oatmeal. Tis hearty and delicious and I’m not hungry til lunch.
• Swapped skim milk instead of the rice milk I used to drink. Way less sugar/carbs, and more protein.
• Changed from vanilla yogurt to plain yogurt. Way less sugar.
• Trying to eat more whole grains, so eating Ezekiel 4:9 bread as french toast, PB&J, or with eggs.
• Water, not soda. Not even diet soda. More water.
• Wine (usually red) a couple days a week at most. No mixed drinks. No beer.

Just a few examples of things I’ve been looking out for/habits I’ve been trying to change recently. Thought it might help you take a look at what you’re currently eating and make some simple changes, too.

I’m sure most people are going to read this and think I’m some health freak or worry that I’m going to turn into Joe Piscopo or some shit. I get it. That’s why I was hesitant to post anything at all. But that book at the top of the page inspired me a little. Maybe just one or two people will also get inspired, grab the book, maybe even follow those six rules above a little more than they used to (#2 at the very least!). The real trap is thinking that worrying about what you’re putting in your body is only something health freaks worry about, and everyone else should pour in all the salt, fat, and sugar the fine folks at Pepsico make for them.

Thanks for reading.

ian

I’ve been recording the unboxing of the deluxe and limited editions sold via a few of our Topspin artists. Today I did the new Metric record. Check out that 7″. Very cool. Buy yours here.

Here’s the Check Your Head unboxing, complete with a little 7″ golden ticket drama in the comments. Still a few of these left, grab one, they’ll be gone soon.

The Byrne/Eno box is still a fave. Buy yours here.

Enjoy,
ian

UPDATE: Add to that the Beck One Foot In The Grave Deluxe unboxing! Get yours at Beck.com.

My first albums came from my (nine years) older brother, KISS Rock N Roll Over and AC/DC High Voltage to be specific. I was 5 when he switched me on and I remember clearly my mom bought me a “Mickey’s 50th” album for Christmas and I was bummed. I was hoping for KISS Alive. I was visibly disappointed and felt guilty for hurting my mom’s feelings, but I wanted some rock, not kids’ music.

I don’t remember buying them but I had an 8-track player at my dad’s house and a few tapes. Mostly I remember KISS’ Dressed To Kill and Double Platinum, but also the Harry Nilsson album with “Lime In The Coconut” on it. I remember fucking around forever trying to re-cue that song on the 8-track, it wasn’t easy and I didn’t like any of the other ones.

My parents had great records. My dad had every Dylan and Willie Nelson record, plus tons of great stuff that shaped my tastes like Sam & Dave, Led Zeppelin, The Allman Brothers, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Stevie Wonder, and Jimmy Reed. My mom was all about Emmylou but I do remember conning her into giving me her copy of Bat Out Of Hell when I was six; she was asleep and I told her I’d let her nap if she let me have it. I also remember falling asleep in my mom’s bed listening to Billy Joel’s The Stranger many many nights. My step-dad had a serious collection, well curated and cared-for since the mid to late 60s including Velvet Underground, Moby Grape, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, and Blue Cheer (blew my mind) plus all the staples like The Stones and Beatles, etc. He kept buying records through the 80s (Husker Du, REM, Talking Heads, etc) and had all the gear (dual cassette deck, CD player very early, etc). Then in the 90s he decided he was getting rid of most of the vinyl and I got my pick. I still have all those records.

My hometown (Goshen, Indiana, pop: 20K at the time) didn’t have a record store, except for a couple of years there was a place called World Records which had like 25 records for sale (and drugs, according to my brother). I only remember buying two things there: a Lucifer’s Friend cassette (sucked balls) and Judas Priest’s British Steel (ruled). World Records was right next door to the movie theater, which had a couple of live rock shows for a short time when the movie theater went out of business. I saw Blue Oyster Cult, Robin Trower, and Armored Saint there before that fun ended and it became a church.

I lived next door to Parkside Pharmacy and bought a little music there of all places. They had a slew of $3.99 cassettes and I was smart enough to know they mostly sucked but had enough crate-digging in my bones to find the things I liked, namely B.O.C.’s Some Enchanted Evening, Cultasaurus Erectus, and Agents of Fortune, and Judas Priest’s Made In Japan. I also bought little bubble gum shaped as vinyl for the year they made those and I remember the albums: Rush, Robert Palmer, and Pat Benetar (woah, check this out, the Internet is amazing, I not only verified their existence but found that there were a lot more than they ever sold at Parkside Pharmacy and you can BUY THEM STILL).

But I started a more serious, life-long record buying habit on the many trips my family took to Ann Arbor, Michigan to visit my step-aunt and uncle. First of all, they had *many* real record stores there and secondly, shopping for music was what my family did with their time. It’s funny to think about now but Saturday in Ann Arbor was usually spent with my step-dad and uncle out digging through bins at Schoolkids, Discount Den, and stop-offs at two or three other record stores that were within walking distance (what was the one at the corner right across from Discount Den? and what was the upstairs used joint called?). I bought countless records in Ann Arbor, but I remember specifically buying Blondie’s Autoamerican, a Plastmatics tape, and a local band whose name I can’t remember but they covered I Wanna Be Your Dog which ultimately pointed me toward The Stooges.

All the records to be bought in a 30 minute radius from where I grew up were in the Concord Mall in Dunlap (near Elkhart). Musicland was expensive and mega-lame but I remember when my sister’s friend Roger (I think maybe she worked for him at a pre-Taco Bell mexican fast food place called Zantigo’s — also the first place I ever played Space Invaders) started a “local” record store in the mall called Super Sounds. It was in a mall in Elkhart so of course he couldn’t stock anything too crazy, but he would special order for me all the time. I remember my mom buying me Big Black’s Songs About Fucking via special order from Super Sounds, which said a lot about not only my record buying leanings but also the lengths my mom would go to supporting my habit. Thanks, mom.

In my teens I smelled a disconnect. I’d spent countless hours in record stores and knew the canon of “available” music inside and out, but when I’d open Thrasher or Transworld Skateboarding I’d see ads for TSOL and Agent Orange (which I could special order) but also things that were just plain unavailable in Northern Indiana, such as The Misfits, Doggy Style, Drunk Injuns, Skate Rock Vol 4, etc. Even if you knew about it (I did) you couldn’t order it (I tried). I knew there was a music universe beyond my reach but wasn’t sure how to get at it.

A further drive to South Bend opened the possibilities a bit more. Just For The Record in the 100 Center, Mishawaka, was a real AOR-loving audiophile store where they sold their own branded, static-free vinyl inserts. My copy of The Wall came from there (part of a $95 shopping spree my mom won on WAOR) as well as REO Speedwagon’s 9 Lives (back when I was seven and that was my first concert). Camelot Records in the University Park Mall had a little more selection (I remember buying Bad Brains I Against I there in my teens as well as the Sly and The Family Stone Anthology and Beastie Boys Polly Wog Stew, too) but the motherlode was Trax Records, an honest-to-goodness college town (Notre Dame) record store with clerks who liked “college rock” and everything. When CDs came on the scene I bought my first there (MDC, Dead Kennedys, and Rapeman all put out some early CDs which I bought here) but the real life-changer was their selling Maximum Rock N Roll magazine. Via Maximum RnR I got access to the world of mail ordering music from the aforementioned alternate universe, records made by people not too different from me who lacked access to national distribution the same way I lacked access to specialty stores. I ordered from Lookout, Mordam, Alternative Tentacles, Dischord, SST, Revelation, and very regularly from individuals, where you’d get cassettes with hand-written track listings and personal notes from the artists shipping their own tapes and vinyl. One of the early Lookout 7″s, Bedtime for Isocracy, featured Isocracy’s phone number in one of the songs (415-222-5099 if I recall correctly). I called it and talked to the “artist”, and called him back when I wanted some advice on screening shirts for my band (sound familiar? this “direct to fan” thing isn’t anything new, just a different set of technology making it simpler and more scalable than ever).

Near Chicago in Merrilville, Indiana there was a store whose name escapes me but where I bought Megadeth Peace Sells… when I was younger and the first Fugazi record on a trip with Vince Koser a few years later. I also bought some amazing zines there that led to other things so even though I can’t remember the store’s name it was an important one for me.

In the early 90s I went to college at Indiana University and one of the best parts of living in Bloomington was a real music scene with two all ages clubs and countless CD stores within two blocks of one another. There was a Trax there, plus a mega-store thing (Streetsounds? can’t remember), a stupid chain that sold more Hendrix t-shirts than music whose name I can’t recall, a drug store which sold used CDs and had midnight sales on new music, a high-end CD store where you could listen to everything, and eventually both Roscoe’s and CD Exchange, the best low-end used joints stocking all the indie rock at cheap prices everyone in a college town needs. Even though I had a toddler and was living on financial aid I spent countless dollars supporting my music habit, a CD or two every week, from Steel Pole Bath Tub and Neurosis to James Brown and all the Ryko Bowie reissues.

Once Paranorm got me into hip hop, I had to find another place to buy 12″ vinyl, though. It was back to mail order again, or trips to Chicago to buy vinyl off the wall at places whose names escape me now.

In the early 90s I had my first online ecommerce experiences buying music from a place you’d telnet to. I think it was called CD Connection and there was a special version of it you went to for imports. It was from there that I first managed to get my hands on all the Can records, at $29 each. Ouch. But worth it.

In 1995 I left college and went on tour with grade A crate-diggers Beastie Boys. Beastie Boys spent 1992-1993 on the road and (as far as I could tell) mostly shopping for records, so they knew where to go in literally every town. Mark Thompson and I carried a lot of vinyl home from that tour. Not all rare groove by any means, I picked up a lot of hip hop and punk rock and Mark a ton of good punk rock, too. In those days there was a lot of great Amphetamine Reptile stuff happening as well as good hip hop of the Boogiemonsters variety. It was a fun time to buy records and maybe the best way to see some of the best record stores in the country. Blood and Fire was doing incredible dub reissues at the time, too, and I bought them all. Best dub haul ever was a store in Berkeley on tour where I bought as many records as I could afford from “The Wall Of Dub”. Yabby U, Peace Pipe Dub, African Dub Almighty, Twinkle Brothers — they’re still some of my favorite albums today.

After tour Mark and I landed in Los Angeles, Venice to be specific, in a house with a turntable and no TV. That meant trips to Aron’s Records every weekend, where I remember buying countless CDs and vinyl both. I remember picking up Elliott Smith’s Either/Or off the new release wall along with things like Blonde Redhead and Karp.

For a short time Mike D had a record store called Top Shelf above the X-Large store. Good idea but not a great selection, and it didn’t last long. I did get my hands on some classic Lee Perry records there, though.

Fat Beats popped up on Vermont and I was there nearly every weekend buying 12″s. I remember getting the first Mos Def 12″ there and nearly losing my mind over how good those two tracks were.

For my walking-distance fix I would hit Moby Disc, even though they almost always sucked and their vinyl was overpriced, but I did get tricked into buying some of the import vinyl (Pulp, Radiohead) there for way too much money. For vinyl I’d hit the now-defunct joint on Pico near the GRAMMY building or if you really needed something special you’d go to Atomic in Burbank (which is maybe one of the finest vinyl stores I’ve ever been to).

But I also remember when it stopped being fun. I lived in Topanga Canyon so the store was a drive again, but now I had the Internet and Amazon. I would find out about music from friends or SHOUTcast stations online, make a list, drive to Aron’s to do my shopping, and literally find NOTHING on my list. A couple trips like that and you are fine paying the shipping (this was before the days of free shipping) staying home and getting exactly what you’re looking for delivered directly to your house at a reasonable price. Yeah I missed the digging through the stacks but the fact was, after years of flipping through the same titles there wasn’t a whole lot to miss. I’d spend hours on my computer reading about music on newsgroups or sampling music from places like Sonicnet instead of staring at album covers in stores. Lets face it, it was an improvement, a better way to spend your music-focused time.

Right around this time is when I found Sandbox Automatic, the best hip hop resource on the Web in the 1990s. Mail order vinyl, CDs, mix tapes, everything. It was from here that I first bought the first Eminem EP long after hearing him on The Wake Up Show, long before he had a deal with Dre.

When I first stumbled on Aquarius Records in SF I wanted to love it. Talk about knowledge and personal touch — you could walk around all day and read the little vignettes they’ve written on the front of countless CDs or peruse tons of staff picks you’ve never heard of. But repeatedly I’d buy music based on these cards and walk out having spent $70 on music that was novel but not really my thing. There came a point where it just seemed crazy to buy something you had only read about and hadn’t had a chance to hear any of.

I haven’t had a P2P program on my computer since Audiogalaxy, but I did love Audiogalaxy when it was around. Great community, implementation, etc. The last great thing I found on Audiogalaxy was Brendan Benson’s Lapalco. It’s still one of my favorite albums ever and I can’t count how many times I’ve turned someone else on to that record or given the CD as a gift.

A few years back LA was blessed with the best record store in the world, Amoeba. It’s truly the ultimate record-buying experience. But I’ve probably spent a total of $200 there in the past eight years because it came just as my need for the record store ran out. I consume and spend more money on music today than ever, but virtually none of what I spend is in a store (like most of my non-music purchases, to be honest). I discover music from friends, online blogs like Aquarium Drunkard or Pitchfork, and offline in Mojo Magazine’s monthly reviews section. My sizable monthly music budget includes a Rhapsody subscription, an Emusic subscription, a fair amount of downloading from Amazon, and buying direct from artists whenever possible (not just Topspin artists but any artist who goes this route, I’ve bought books and music from Mark Kozelek recently, for example). Maybe I’ve just already had my fill, but the idea of driving across town to maybe not find what I’m looking for and probably pay more for it isn’t really very appealing. I’d rather hear about something, preview it, and get it at a reasonable price in about 30 seconds over my FIOS, throw it on my iPod and listen to it while running to the beach. Friday my two year-old daughter Lucinda and I were talking to my mom in Tuscon via Skype. Lucinda asked my mom (I swear), “Do you like Neko Case?” My mom said yes. I asked mom if she had the new Neko Case record yet. She said no. 30 seconds later I had a copy shipped to her house from Amazon for $7.99, no tax, no shipping (thanks to Amazon Prime, just as I sent her the Phosphorescent and Vetiver records a couple weeks back). No question the Internet has made discussing, sharing, and yes, buying music easier than ever before, for everyone, from everywhere.

I’ve heard talk around Record Store Day that sounds like we should all be lamenting the death of these bastions of culture that have fueled the music business. First of all, the stores that are left claim to be doing well, Newberry Comics is expanding and evolving their business, for example. There are some GREAT fucking record stores, Amoeba, Newberry, Waterloo, etc, but they have always been few and far between and during the heyday of the CD business they didn’t contribute to the growth of the business nearly as much as Best Buy and Wal-Mart. So while I’m happy to celebrate these great stores and glad to see people like Sonic Youth making rad 7″s to do so, lets not slag the Internet as the enemy of culture in the process. Lets celebrate rather than curse the Internet for bringing music sources like Mojo and Pitchfork to people in places similar to the one I grew up in, which btw is most of the world, and for having a true impact on both culture and the way people who make music connect with the people who love music.

Happy Record Store Day. I’d still like to get out to get the Jesus Lizard and Magnolia Electric Company 7″s, but I’m not sure when that’ll happen. The sun is shining and my daughter is sleeping and when she wakes up I think we’ll go to the park. Wish I could buy them online. But then I guess that’s the point.

As Zappa said, “Music Is The Best”. The best thing you could do today is to throw your TV in the trash, turn off your cable, and spend that money on music instead. Seriously.

ian

I’m going to start every day with a pocket full of $2 bills.

Find me at SXSW (I might be wearing a “Topspin: It Fucking Works” t-shirt), say hi, mention this post, and one of the $2 bills is yours.

Now not only do you not have an excuse not to say hi, you have one TO say hello.

See you in Austin.

ian

Hello from LAX…

Last night we helped bring the reissue of Beastie Boys classic Paul’s Boutique to BeastieBoys.com. Lossless remastered digital, vinyl, CD, 8 foot long poster, interactive album art, limited edition t-shirt — pretty awesome package for a seminal record.

Prod4Ever made the cool site, including the place where you can upload your own Paul’s Boutique stories. Here’s mine:

I wrote a version of my story on the Topspin blog, too.

Finally, here’s an interview I did with Beastie Boys via Skype yesterday morning:

Enjoy,
ian

Click play above to hear a few songs from Neal Casal’s new solo record, Roots and Wings. You may know Neal as a long-standing member of Ryan Adams’ band, The Cardinals, or from one of the ten other solo albums he’s made over the years. If you’re a fan of roots music you’re going to dig it, great songwriting, varied styles, beautifully recorded. It’s a great record.

Then click “Buy The Album” to head over to Neal’s site to pick up the album in MP3, FLAC, and (if you’d like) CD format. Neal’s down in Australia with Ryan right now and I’m sure it’d be great to come home to a few sales of his solo album. Do your part. Oh and feel free to grab the widget above (click the little <> at the bottom) and throw it on your site or blog.

I like Neal’s site as a clean, simple example of Topspin’s technology. Quick access to the music for free (it just starts loading when you visit NealCasal.com), a free download delivered to your inbox, and then a choice of purchase offerings, either digital only or a great signed/numbered physical package. I’m very biased but my question is sincere: why would you release your album any other way? Just feels right to me as a music fan. You?

Congrats, Neal. Glad to see this finally come out, and honored to have it be Topspin-powered.

ian

Just back from MIDEM where I had the chance to talk to lots of people about how the music industry “ain’t what it used to be”. Definitely interesting conversations, but I guess I’m wondering what days we’re wishing for…

I just finished The Mansion on The Hill (authored in 1998), which I should have read years ago but I’m glad I didn’t, it’s really interesting in the context of the bell curve the music industry is experiencing now. A key passage:

…During the years between Born to Run and Darkness on The Edge of Town, the record industry had experienced the greatest growth in its history. In 1975, Born to Run became the first album certified “platinum” for sales of one million copies. Within three years, rock albums by The Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, and Peter Frampton would each sell over ten million copies. And, like the labels, the concert business also grew in size and sophistication until it bore little resemblance to he psychedelic ballroom circuit of the late sixties. As early as 1971, rock’s shifting economics had led to the shuttering of many of the smaller rock venues like the Tea Party and the Fillmore East and West. And where they survived, they were no longer the apex of the circuit. The goal was now to play sports arenas.

The changes were particularly obvious in Boston, where Ray Riepen’s protege and successor, Don Law, had grown wealthy by transforming the loose underground scene into a legitimate, structured business. In 1971, he parlayed his job at the Tea Party and relationship with Frank Barsalona into the Don Law Company, which staged its first show at the 15,500-seat Boston Garden. By the end of the decade, Law’s dominance of the New England concert market was beyond challenge. From 1977 to 1980, the Garden presented seventy-six pop and rock concerts, and Law promoted all but three of them. Over the same period, he produced all but one of the forty-five pop shows at the 7,200-seat Cape Cod Coliseum. By 1981, his hegemony was such that the Massachusettes attorney general charged four of Law’s companies with violating the state’s antitrust act. Without admitting guilt, Law paid $20,000 and signed a five-year decree agreeing not to engage in what the Commonwealth characterized as monopolistic practices.

For the performers, the financial rewards were just as apparent and irresistible. In 1968, Premier had charged the Tea Party $1,250 for its first booking, a three-night stand by Procol Harum. Just eight years later, Premier’s top act, Peter Frampton, was paid $250,000 for one stadium show in Philadelphia.

Monetarily, the marriage of the music and the business was an extraordinary success. But artistically and socially, it was a complete reversal of the values that had spawned the music. The underground scene started in earnest when rock assumed the mantle of meaning and intent from folk music, and it was founded on a search for authenticity and an explicit rejection of consumerism and mainstream values. But the resonance and appeal of that message had proven broad enough to supply the impetus for a new business — and that business had taken on a life of its own. When Frank Barsalona and Dee Anthony preach professionalism and a respect for show business homilies, they nurtured a commercial star system that had nothing to do with the underground ideal. By the late seventies, they — the record companies — had succeeded to such an extent that the modern rock scene became the antithesis of what it had originally aspired to be. Jon Landau was correct in recognizing that rock was a business. The problem was that the music no longer drove the business, the business drove the music.

Now I’m sure I’ll get comments accusing me of being a romantic, aging independent music fan (guilty) and the book of hyperbole, but I ask you this: when were your favorite records from the 70s made, before or after the first platinum record in 1975? Ziggy Stardust and There’s A Riot Goin’ On or Frampton Comes Alive and Saturday Night Fever?

So now I’ve moved on to 1978’s Rock N Roll Is Here To Pay (recommended to me years ago by Jay Babcock but it’s unfortunately sat on my shelf unread until now) to try to get the POV from the middle of the late 70s boom. From the preface:

Rock music is the most important cultural expression in the United States today. For this generation it serves the funtion TV did for the last as the primary source of entertainment and values. Rock music, which accounts for more than 80 percent of all records and tapes sold, is also the core of a $2 billion business that dwarfs other entertainment industries. It is bigger business than the $600 million made in 1974 in professional sports, or the $1.6 billion in movie revenues.

The music industry is interwoven into the fabric of American business. Through their directorates and primary stockholders, record companies are linked into other corporations. Many record companies are directly owned by outside firms, or they are subsidiaries of large corporate conglomorates. The Allman Brothers, for example, are million-selling artists on the Capricorn label, distributed by Warner Brothers, which is part of the record division of Warner Communications. John Denver records for RCA Records, one division of a multinational corporation that markets more than 60,000 products and is tied to the United States military establishment, with more than several hundred million in defense contracts annually.

Keep that $2B number in mind as you lament the decline of the music business. Inflation-adjusted that’s about $6B, the estimated size of the digital music market in 2009.

Just fun for perspective, IMHO. I’m not really drawing any conclusions from it.

Speaking of, I’ve also been listening to all the Australian configurations of the early AC/DC records Brian Frank lent me (after we nerded out on our love for Bon Scott for two straight hours at a Topspin meetup one night, bumming out every other person who tried to talk to us that night). So rad. Thanks, Brian. “It’s A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock N Roll)”, “Ain’t No Fun” (waitin round to be a millionaire), and Rock N Roll Singer are pretty perfect soundtracks to this reading.

Next up on the bed stand: Our Band Could Be Your Life… Other suggestions?

ian

Congrats to Brody and Tony (formerly in The Distillers) on the release of the new Spinnerette EP, Ghetto Love (including a video by Liam Lynch for yer iPod). After a couple of live shows these songs started to leak in odd live versions anyway, so everyone gets a few tracks from the upcoming album (which rules) before the holiday. Yeah, they’re releasing this record via our company, Topspin, but I’m writing about it because I love the record, the video, and the peoples.

$5 well-spent. Get on it.

Here’s the video, please stick this on your blog, MySpace page, whateva:

If you add the video to your site, take a screen shot and upload it to this Flickr pool.

Oh and the video you get when you buy it is way better quality than the streaming one above, of course.

ian

TechCrunch ran a story this morning on “Delicious’ new media player”.

This looks like this media player:

http://mediaplayer.yahoo.com/

It’s been available on blogs like Aquarium Drunkard and Aurgasm for many months. Oh, and FISTFULAYEN.

The Drones - Cortez The Killer

It was the brainchild of Lucas Gonze when I brought Lucas and Webjay into the company three years ago. He walked in the door with this idea. As per usual, it took me two months just to get my head around it and then more than 12 months to build enough support in the company to actually build it. But build it we did, first with some very talented MusicMatch engineers and then with some great Web engineers in Santa Monica (big ups to you all!).

It’s very cool in that it is a single line of javascript and reads simple, easy to author, HTML on the page to create the play buttons. The page author needs only add the single line of javascript, then wrap an MP3 link in an href and voila, you have an inline player.

Note that the latest Foxytunes player also inserts this player in the page in a Greasemonkey sort of way. Very very handy. Install the latest Foxytunes Toolbar and then go to a page like http://awesometapesfromafrica.blogspot.com.

Neither Lucas nor I are at Yahoo! anymore, but it’s good to see Spiegelman, Stephen, Alex and the rest of the crew are carrying the torch.

I just had to write this to remind myself we really did have a plan for the new Yahoo! “Music” when I left there. With this media player, the public web services, Foxytunes and Foxytunes Planet, and a lessening reliance on licensed content, it’s good to see the train keeps rolling. I know of two other major things we had going on that are still yet to come, right, y’all? BRING IT.

ian

I don’t know Seymour, I have mad respect for the guy, and I’m sure this quote was taken out of context, but dig this quote.

We blew it. The first major music labels were all phonograph manufacturers, but by the time the Beatles came along, most companies were no longer involved in the hardware. Had we remained in control of the hardware, we wouldn’t be hurting as much as we are now. And the iPod would be ours.

Am I crazy or is he essentially saying, “If we’d have stayed in the phonograph business, we could have invented Apple computer!”

Um, no. Even Sony couldn’t figure out how to be Apple, let alone Diamond, Samsung, Toshiba, Dell, iRiver, and, um, Microsoft. Sorry.

Someone please send me Seymore’s address, I’m going to ship him a copy of The Innovator’s Solution. I’m serious.

ian