From: Van Dyke Parks
To: Bob Lefsetz
Subject: Non Participant Observer
Hey Bob
I've seen more hair on a piece of bacon.
I trust it hasn't diminished yer appetite for sex (ref. to yer writ).
But seriously Bob: I hated to have a high-falootin' anthropological subject-heading, but yer screed demanded it.
It brings to mind the Pope and Birth Control--i.e.: if you don't play the game, you ought not make the rules.
Yet, I digress.
The central concerns in my Daily Beast yet ring true. They were offered up ahead of a news cycle about Copyright legislation reform in D.C. tomorrow (the issue, "streaming"). It's patently obvious my interest was in the common weal, and not just in pandering to simplistics of "free use".
Using a broad brush ("Luddite") with respect to my work compels me to invite you to test your technique in the joys of music sequencing, a requisite of film-composition, orchestration and arranging.
Such technologic savvy is adjunctive to my m.o. Have been, for decades. Music production requires survival skills beyond your imagining I suspect.
Broad brush journalism has made for easy reads well before non-Commies were painted as pinkos. So much for the tar and feather "Luddite" print.
As for making a living by providing music? I'm doing just fine thank you.
It galls me to admit I'm the highest paid arranger in town.
Punch Brothers, Jack Black, even Jack White would agree: my (by design) often anonymous work has helped me migrate my work to future generations that (I take no joy in admitting) are just simply beyond your reach in reportage.
I regret being the target of your vitriol Bob. Your assumptions about me are so entirely in error. I forgive you, but I've got your name right.
Seriously though,
Van Dyke Parks
https://www.google.com/search?site=&source=hp&ei=Dt2VU9ycFtimyAT-qIFw&q=bob+lefsetz+image&oq=&gs_l=mobile-gws-hp.1.0.41l3.0.0.0.2546.1.1.0.1.1.0.255.255.2-1.1.0....0...1c..45.mobile-gws-hp..0.1.21.3.MCBktLIIExg#facrc=_&imgrc=1MgUUIwwcuw_RM%253A%3Bundefined%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.atlasjams.com%252Fwp-content%252Fuploads%252F2012%252F08%252F7205978418_0056f5ce26_b_sm.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.atlasjams.com%252F2012%252F04%252Fmusic-industry-pundit-bob-lefsetz-says-i-quit%252F9867%252F%3B800%3B534
Twitter: @thevandykeparks
www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org
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Amen
Hugo Burnham
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Spot on.
Scott Cohen
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As you Americans say, RIGHT ON!
Paul Nash
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"As for Google giving you so much stuff for free. IT'S NOT FREE! You're paying by clicking on the ads, that's why Google EXISTS!"
...exactly! People paying with their most valuable asset, their time!
Marty Winsch
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Why so crabby?
Thomas Whitlock
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Hi Bob,
Thanks for being a voice of reason on Oberst's obvious lack of talent! He has almost no lyrical skill ... the meter is always off.
We look forward to avoiding his set at Newport again this year. It's too bad that Dawes continues to hitch their wagon to his horse ... I don't get it.
Jason Gollan
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Thank you for the Tough Love!
Evan Reidell
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Good stuff bob.
Cardinalmedia
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This is great...
Marc Gentinella
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Brave words Bob. Many deaf ears who want it to just be 1986, dammit!!!
Many of those complaining about "my lost music career" have a free YouTube, ReverbNation or Soundcloud page... With their free WordPress blog announcing their free Twitter feed which spreads the word on their free Instagram link.
They grab countless free audio effects plug ins, and free synthesizer apps, and free amp simulators, and record stuff on their computer which does twenty other tasks.
With their free Audacity audio recording, editing suite, and their choice of free video editors, they make videos with pristine audio. Then they send out the news from free gmail or yahoo accounts... With a link to the free Dropbox spot with the new live EP.
So with all this free stuff, which would cost about a quarter million dollars in 1984, they ask... Why don't I GET PAID like it's the 80s!!?
Andre Cholmondeley
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Oh, shut up all ready with your one-sided championing of sham services such as Spotify, where the new tech gets rich on the backs of shitty deals with artists. Services such as Spotify seem to feel it's their birthright to stream everything and everything, but wants the CREATORS OF THEIR CONTENT to accept a pittance while Spotify, Beats, etc gets rich. It's utter bullshit, Bob, no different than Amazon royally screwing Hachette due to it's place as "gatekeeper" allows them to do so.
Who wants to live in a crazy fucked up world where artists can't make a living, but autistic, soulless techno-geeks make billions and wind up dictating how we live and what we listen to? Fuck all that, Bob. There are benefits to being a Luddite. Buying a physical album, knowing it's always there to listen to on your own terms, without a third-party "service" -- there's really something beneficial to that. I expect to pay for music because I RESPECT WHAT THEY DO and feel they deserve to be rewarded for that. Somewhere along the line between sucking country music's dick and Spotify's dick you seem to have acquiesced on the notion of artists being fairly compensated for their work.
Daniel Myers
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Bravo, Bob. Tidbit from last week's Fortune 500 issue: profits up 37% for the Fortune 500 (first time profits exceeded $1 trillion) – but employment at those firms increased just 0.7%. Money's being made – jobs aren't. It does seem as if technology has finally displaced more jobs than it's creating. It is indeed a different world. Love your blogs. – Tony D'Amelio
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Love it Bob. Sick and tired of old farts who wringing. Thanks for saying it how it is.
A.J. Steel.
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Well said. You nailed it. So true about so many industries too.
Tom Hoffman, Jr.
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love this
Ben Carter
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Amen.
Dale Dubilowski
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I guess that science was correct all the time.........nature tends to weed out the good, the bad, and the strong. Unfortunately, in opposition to what the government tells us we are on a fast inflationary spiral of inflation. Yes, the 29 cent a pound tomatoes have risen to $2.00.
In 1959 when it was playing in Worcester, Massachusetts the tickets for the infamous Winter Dance Party featuring Buddy, Richie, Big Bopper and many many more started at $1.00 with the average at $2.00. At that time it was a pretty average price.... What the heck, I believe that a mono record album was still one dollar.
Only the strong survive... that includes telephones, clocks, computers and yes, printers.
Richard E. Jandrow
author of "What It Was Was Rockabilly"
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Just read this in my printerless and paperless office while listening to Nat King Cole.
In the hundreds of Facebook posts I've waded through in the past month, 2 or 3 have been about a song I should check out. I didn't click. If it's a smash like "Happy", I'll find out eventually if it's truly great.
Beyonce's music sucks.
Kevin Shaw
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No doubt you have to make great music that people want to hear within your genre. And the bigger the genre obviously the more money there is to be made. However as you said in one of your own articles streaming doesn't pay enough yet and the actual audio quality is poor, so there are definitely improvements that can be made that will help the artist as well as the consumer. Another issue is that the music economy mirrors the US economy, we have a serious income disparity problem. Only the 1% can really make money in music anymore, it wasn't always like this. Sure some of the people who complain have gotten old, lazy and have lost touch but that's only part of a much bigger story.
Mikael Johnston
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Dayum! That was awesome. Great article, Bob!
Aben Eubanks
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Hey Bob-
here's someone doing more than whining-
xo
Deborah Holland
http://www.sfweekly.com/2014-06-04/music/beats-apple-unsound-spotify/
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Re: Luddites. Great little essay from the '80s by Thomas Pynchon. It suggests that Luddites were more bothered by the fact that some men got rich without working than by modernity. I was reminded of it reading some of the comments by musicians complaining about techies.
http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays_luddite.html
It's the oldest conflict in the modern world--those who labor versus those who can aggregate labor (or capital).
Phil Hood
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Wish I could shout this from the rooftops. Ha ha. Great work!
Bill Seipel
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Strong piece Bob!
Lavon Pagan
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Excellent!!
Robby Vee
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Hear hear!! Thank you, every time I question Conor Oberst's talent in the studio I'm shot down by calls of his genius!
Great article
Warren Huart
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I think you should send this email out every month. It's so true, and yet people still don't seem to get it! I spend half my life trying to explain this to people.
Harry Griffiths
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Rap/pop artists/producers NEVER bitch that they cannot make a buck. Just the opposite. They front that they are making a bunch of money, when oftentimes they arent.
R. Emmett McAuliffe
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I don't get why you keep making it seem like getting no income from songwriting won't matter. Although you do complain about the poor quality of songwriting, so it seems like incentivizing good songwriting would be good. I keep thinking about that Journey song that got 6.5 million plays on Pandora and the five songwriters had to split $126(!) among them. (Or something figures that.) Your answer to people is that they can make money in concerts and merch, but not songwriters.
Jeffrey Ainis
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Can I paraphrase? Everyone likes capitalism unless it's applied to them.
Don Lorimer
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AFuckingMen.
Scarlett Rabe
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"I don't hear Pharrell bitching, like Van Dyke Parks, that he can't make a buck. As for Van Dyke, have him play glockenspiel on Ringo's All Starr Band tour. Hell, the guarantee is pretty high!"
oh, snap.
Brian Ray
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Spot on!
Also, I'd point out that Napster was in it for the money. I was helping develop the billing client.
We offered the parasitic assholes, errrr, the record companies, 10 cents PER DOWNLOAD, 7 cents going to the "rights holders" (them) and 3 cents going to Napster. It was all going to go through Chase. (At the time that was good because they had a good deal and excellent infrastructure. Bad because it was a fucking BLACK BOX which made testing nearly impossible....) It didn't happen, but imagine if the Record Companies pulled their heads out of their asses and went with the Napster deal in the summer of 2001. Spotify probably never would have happened. WHY would anyone accept such a shit deal from Spotify? ).00007 cents per play? WTF?
Spotify exists because the companies fucked up and didn't do the napster deal, and then they were caught out - there was so much bad blood people shared music not only because people are prone to share things, but because it was a way to fuck the record companies, who were widely seen as thieves.
Any way, over time, there would have been downward pressure from users on price and greater demands from the rights holders to go from 7 to 7.5 cents, etc. So, imagine 5 cents a DL, napster gets 1, the companies get 4.
By that time, the people funding Napster would be worth BILLIONS from the eventual IPO, and so the verticalised extraction of wealth would be complete and that would mean Napster could be left to die or be bought. But: musicians and rights holders would have made STUPENDOUS amounts of money compared to the ass fucking they're getting from Spotify et al. 7 cents is literally two orders of magnitude more than the average Spotify payment...
So, yeah - Carr and Park's whining was baked into the cake back in July 2001.
HW
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Just a few points upon which I am qualified to address:
1) Shit Detectors: Kids are overwhelmed with content, activity, information in their lives. I am sending one off to college in the fall and just the flurry of activity associated with that process required vast levels of attention. Add schoolwork, a job, some fun—these kids are buried. They often catch whatever song or video their friends are buzzing about but they also often miss quite a bit as well. My daughter doesn't perceive her "shit detector" as any more evolved than her parents or grandparents. She says that her peers or more savvy accessing media via modern technology but no more decisive (possibly less so) in choosing favorite artists.
2) Paying $3K for flatscreen: keep in mind that China has been burying CRT tubes, batteries and all other techno-junk in landfills irresponsibly—they have been manufacturing with zero environmental restrictions (can't see the sky through the smog) and abusing the most basic labor regulations. Hence, your TVs are cheap. But it's all based on a false economy driven by Wal Mart shoppers in the US. Once the Chinese begin to clean their air, water and soil—and they already have started down that road—along with elevated shipping costs, prices of commodity items and origin of manufacture will change.
Micah Sheveloff
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You take what I feel is a somewhat gratuitous-and ill-informed-swipe at record stores writing, sarcastically, "While we're at it, let's bring back record stores."
Putting the stores into the dinosaur category is, I think, to consciously avoid actually going into one in 2014 to check out the dynamic therein. A lot of them have disappeared over the past two decades, and they ain't coming back. Quite a few, though, hung in there, some of them literally by the proverbial skin of their. you know. I've been working at an independent record store (Schoolkids Records, Raleigh NC - about to celebrate its 40th anniversary, in fact) for the past two years, and while no one here harbors any illusions about things returning to anything remotely resembling the Nineties Normal of the pre-download era goldrush, there is a definite sense here that everything old is becoming new again.
At our store we have tried to modernize within reason, of course. To that end we have free Wi-Fi so you can check your email, a big stuffed couch and a few chairs for lounging, a centrally-placed stage where we host live shows every early Friday and Saturday evening, and even a bar with 6 local drafts on tap (soft drinks and agua as well).
We're just trying to show people that they have an option they might not have realized has been here (at least in some cities) all along, right under their noses. A record store is - I risk sounding like the gone-native proselytizer here, but bear with me - way more than just a place to spend your money on music. If that was all a record store is, everyone would be happy just going to Best Buy. (Whoops, Best Buy has shifted all their music floor space to smartphones now. Never mind.) It's a gathering spot, a public square, a nexus of interactions and social transactions and even the occasional teenage mating dance. Some folks stick around for a couple of hours or more. Everyone is welcome, and everyone has a good time.
It's a beautiful thing Bob.
Viva le vinyl,
Fred Mills
Raleigh NC
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Its a good thing that at the end of the van Dyke parks article that they gave him a mini bio because otherwise I'd never have known who he is.
Peace and Love,
Dan Millen
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