One year to live, a million dollars, and crowdfunding

This is more of a personal post to myself, a makeshift repository for my thoughts. I'm not linking to it from anywhere else.

What would you do if you were suddenly given a million dollars but only had one year left to live? For me, the answer is obvious: I would spend all that time and money making a historically significant rock album. I would have said this ten years ago, and unless my fortunes change, I'm pretty sure I'll be saying it ten years from now. I have way too much to tell the world, and I want to be remembered forever, so why would I do anything else? I would rather be heard than be alive, and until I'm heard, I refuse to start living.

I used to think that most people in bands are like me. I now know that very few are. Some people enjoy expressing themselves through music, and others enjoy the challenge of seeing a project through from start to finish. But wanting to be heard by the world is not a reason to put one's life on hold. So they appreciate what they can get, then move on to new challenges. Out of all the East Bay bands we used to play with ten years ago, I know of none now who are still trying to "make it."

I think this is why crowdfunding is so popular. If you believe that your project has a short shelf life and a limited audience, then of course it's ridiculous to split the profits with some middleman. I remember ten years ago, many pundits were raving about how the Internet would empower musicians. Would you rather get signed to a major label and sell a million records, earning half a cent for each album sold, they argued, or would you rather distribute your own music, selling only ten thousand records but keeping all the profits yourself? I used to think these people were completely tone-deaf about why we're driven to make music. I now know that they were speaking to the vast majority.

But I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that music history is disproportionately shaped by those few who are like me. I'm not necessarily saying that I will change music history, mind you. I'm just saying that those who have, and those who will, tend to be afflicted with the same overpowering need to be heard above all else. If you agree that this is true, then you'll also agree that my next statement should be problematic for all those proclaiming crowdfunding to be the future of music: I have ZERO faith in crowdfunding's ability to discover the pioneering ideas, inventions, and creative works of tomorrow.

Yes, crowdfunding is great for giving the world nifty new gadgets and quirky art projects. But it will never take us into unfamiliar terrain, which is what innovation requires. Actually, this guy has already written a blog post that succinctly explains exactly the point I want to make, so I'll just quote him verbatim:

Votes don't converge on something wonderful. Rather, votes are vetoes. [...] There is "wisdom in the crowd" only when errors cancel out, like when estimating jelly beans or answering pop culture questions. In creative work, votes eliminate the interesting edges, leaving only the boring residue that no one hated enough to vote off the island.

Okay, so the crowdfunding model isn't all it's cracked up to be. But then, why hasn't the curator model done much better in recent years? In other words, why haven't the indie labels been able to hand-pick a band as artistically relevant and historically significant as Radiohead, who were discovered by a major label using the carpet-bombing strategy?

I'm going to go out on another limb here and say that it's partly because for the past ten years or so, the indie labels have actually been moving towards a populist model. But this model grows obsolete because it can never reflect the will of the people as effectively as crowdfunding can. If the indie labels are to survive, then, they will have to regroup and move back to the curator model. Or, if not them, then someone else. The question is how.

So this is what I'm going to spend the upcoming summer trying to figure out. Like I said, just a repository for my thoughts here.

Of Deists and late Beatles

Who do you think would make a great President of the United States? I think many people would include Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Neil deGrasse Tyson on their lists. Yet, none of these three could ever hope to become President. Why? They're all self-professed agnostics.

In this country, believing in the providence of a Judeo-Christian God is an unofficial requirement for the Presidency. It might not make much sense to those of us who don't believe religion holds an exclusive claim on morality, but it especially doesn't make sense in light of what we know about the Founding Fathers, many of whom subscribed to Deism, the 18th-century version of agnosticism. (Without the theories of evolution and the Big Bang, they needed a divine clockmaker at the very least to explain the origins of life and the physical universe.)

It all kind of reminds me of indie rock. In this scene, you need to get out there and keep playing shows. And yet, the Beatles, arguably the greatest rock band of all time, completely stopped touring and performing after Rubber Soul. They then went on to release four of their five best albums. So why do we insist that current bands should only be discovered by doing the very opposite of what the Beatles were doing at the peak of their career?

Okay, I know what you're thinking. The Beatles did their residency in Hamburg. They wrote nothing but crowd-pleasing pop songs for years before putting out the intricate studio pieces that would cement their legacy. In short, the success of their later years very much depended on the honed performance chops of their earlier ones. And whether a band has that initial, solid foundation to build upon is exactly what indie rock's unofficial "get out there and play first" requirement is meant to measure.

Does it really, though? Look closer and you realize that the Beatles got tremendous help, particularly from their managers Allan Williams and Brian Epstein, and especially starting at a time when many around them still found them mediocre. Read the history and you'll get the impression, again and again, that the Beatles had zero business savvy and couldn't possibly have made it out of Liverpool on their own. For those who understand human nature, of course, that should go without saying. You can only do so much, and the Beatles were obviously too busy writing and performing music.

But we no longer live in a time when budding entrepreneurs were more likely to be lurking in the wings hoping to discover new talent, rather than just starting their own bands. If we did, then yes, a band's draw might be a more accurate gauge of their artistic worth. As it is, though, "get out there and play" isn't so much about a band's ability to play live shows as it is about their conviction to get them.

And that's a problem for bands that want to grow. When you're young, getting shows is not hard to do. It's pretty easy when you're content with nothing more than being in a band and playing out. That conviction isn't hard to come by, so it's easy to see why few in this scene can muster any sympathy for those bands who lack it. But let's face it, it's only easy to come by when you're young. As you grow older, life gets in the way, just as you start having more to say, and these changes in circumstance and temperament naturally make writing and recording more fruitful and rewarding than performing and touring. But what happens if you never got any exposure during your early years? Then they don't count, and according to indie rock, nothing you do beyond them will count either.

So is a band really to keep itself artistically stunted for years and years, until a scene representative comes along to start the ticker? No one prefers this to be the situation, and yet we see it happen all the time. A good live band traverses the local circuit for a decade, then finally gets discovered and enjoys their brief moment in the spotlight only to dwindle back into obscurity after a year or two, precisely because they languished for too long as a good live band when it was probably time for them to progress onward towards something bigger. Who would want to hear this band? Who would want to be them? And yet, surprisingly, the present system remains unsympathetic to any other approach.

I think this explains my band's predicament in a nutshell. With doublespeaker rhyme, Bobtail Method, and everything else we've done, I feel that we've long reached our "Revolver" phase, and I refuse to regress backward. Meanwhile, indie rock coolly awaits our "Please Please Me" and until then, refuses to accept anything more advanced or developed from us. So one of us will eventually have to cave.

But this issue is really about so much more than Bobtail Yearlings. Many of you would agree that religion is an absurd gauge of a President's moral compass, not only because it would be easier and more accurate just to observe those morals directly, but also because some of our greatest Presidents would have failed such a test. Similarly, do we really need to see a band "get out there and play" in order to believe in their potential as a great band, when we can just directly assess their potential to be a great band? Because, guys... THE BEATLES.

The Wason selection task for understanding success

Let’s say there are four cards on a table, and each one has a number on one side and a colour on the other.

Card A shows the number 3.
Card B shows the number 8.
Card C shows the colour red.
Card D shows the colour brown.

Which cards would you have to flip over in order to confirm the statement that if a card has an even number on one side, then it is coloured red on the other?

This is the Wason selection task, and supposedly people are pretty bad at it. The answer is B and D. Neither A nor C can prove or disprove the statement, whatever their hidden sides reveal.

Let’s try another one. There are four people in a bar, and each one is drinking from a glass. The legal age for consuming alcohol is 21.

Person A is 18.
Person B is 25.
Person C is drinking beer.
Person D is drinking soda.

Whose ID or glass would you have to check to make sure that all those drinking alcohol are of legal age?

The answer this time is A and C, and interestingly enough, most people don’t have any problems answering this second one correctly, even though it is logically equivalent to the first. The explanation is that our capacity for reason evolved to follow social rules, not abstract concepts.

Let’s try one more.

Band A is good.
Band B is not so good.
Band C is successful.
Band D is not successful.

Which bands would you have to find out more about to confirm the statement that if a band is good, then their success is inevitable?

The answer is A and D. Again, this problem is logically equivalent to the others. In the real world, though, you can’t learn about Band D when you aren’t even aware that they exist. If they were a card, in other words, it would not be on the table. So is this problem more like the first, or the second? That is to say, does it run counter to most people’s capacity for reason, or does it follow it?

The reason I ask is because we are entering a new era of unprecedented models for achieving and sustaining recognition. Some bands have become viral sensations; others have showcased novel ideas for online distribution. This has led many observers to complacently believe that if a band is good, then their success is inevitable, all the while oblivious to the sheer volume of Band Ds out there politely being shielded from their view. In other words, while the technology is now available for us to witness many daring new success models, we have yet to develop the kind of critical thinking needed to accurately gauge whether they can ever be consistently and universally applicable.

The question is, will we ever? That is to say, are the concepts needed for this desired level of understanding rooted in the kind of social rules for which our human intuition naturally evolved? Or are they simply too abstract for the less sophisticated majority of us to ever follow? I hold out hope for the former, but unfortunately, I suspect it's the latter. Despite all the sociological research out there suggesting the precarious nature of success, the concepts and terms involved are probably too inaccessible to ever overcome the limitations of how our brains are ultimately built.

For better or worse, then, the burden will forever be on the losers to explain how they lost, not on the winners to justify why they won.

Indie rock is intelligent design

Mrs. K: Now, class, the big magic recital's coming up, so we're going to start with some basic toad-to-prince spells. Everybody get out their toads.
Lisa: Hocus-croakus!
(Her toad turns into a tidy prince.)
Mrs. K: Oh, excellent, Lisa. A-plus. (Aside to prince.) And we'll discuss your grade over breakfast.
Prince: (Gulps and chuckles nervously.) Yes, rather.
Mrs. K: Well, Bart, did you study your spell book last night, or did your fairy godmother die again?
Bart: I studied. (Waves wand.) Abraca... turn-into-a-prince-guy?
(His toad turns into a monstrous cross between a toad and a man that can't stop throwing up.)
Mrs. K: Sloppy work as usual. Lisa's casting spells at an eighth-grade level; you've sinned against nature.
Toad-man: Please kill me.
Bart: (To Lisa.) You think you're so great just because you have godlike powers.
Prince: (Walks between Bart and Lisa.) Stand away from milady!
Bart: (Picks up toad-man.) Get in there! Defend my honor!
Toad-man: (Throws up on Lisa's prince.) Every moment I live is agony!

The Simpsons, in the episode "Treehouse of Horror XII."

Those who defend the theory of evolution often bristle to see religion asserting itself in a debate where it has no role to play. What tends to get overlooked, however, is that a very secular reason still exists for why some out there might prefer to see an omnipotent hand in life's creation: natural selection is just mind-blowingly brutal. The random, unguided process of trial and error necessitates that innumerable creatures had to struggle in pointless existence, and entire branches and lineages had to be wiped out with nary a protest from the indifferent universe, just so that we could be here today.

The thinking goes like this: we don't have to give up on the technical processes of evolution completely, but wouldn't it be great to know that some conscience up there was in charge of the whole operation? Because if it was known all along that the goal was to steadily push towards humanity, then there would have been no need to branch out into countless detours and dead ends that could only result in widespread suffering and mass extinction. And the miracle of human life would not necessarily rest upon past cycles of pandemic, cataclysm, and genocide after all.

When you think about it, the major labels in the 80s and 90s worked very much according to the evolution model. In their attempt to seek out the strongest and longest-lasting, they laid a claim on any and every aspiring contender they could find. There was no central, coherent vision, as exemplified by Geffen's signing of both Guns N' Roses and Nirvana, two bands that could not be more different in their ideals and temperaments. And every once in a while, a lackluster Pablo Honey today blew up into a world-changing OK Computer tomorrow. In fact, it was exactly such surprise successes that kept the wheels churning and justified every Material Issue that inevitably got trampled by the wayside. Survival of the fittest, after all, means that the unfit do not survive.

The major labels had no idea what they wanted, and therefore they simply looked everywhere, indiscriminately exploiting and tearing apart music scenes as they went. The indie labels vowed not to repeat this sin. Partly out of necessity and partly out of principle, they took the opposite course, choosing bands with great care based on predefined aesthetics, methods, and values. When you know in advance what you want, you need never unwittingly string anyone else along, allowing them to chase false hopes and empty promises down countless detours and dead ends. I think you know where this is going. Indie rock is based on the model of intelligent design.

Now, I support the theory of evolution myself, but it's not so essential to my argument which side of the debate you're on. Perhaps the amazing diversity of flora and fauna on this planet was brought about by random processes taking place on a global scale over billions of years, or perhaps it was guided along by an all-knowing and all-powerful entity. Either way, it definitely couldn't have been micro-managed by any one of us, and this is the flaw of the indie label model: they're human, so what comes next is only what they can readily envision. Now sure, if you're an indie label, it's quite possible to find and be charmed by something a bit off-kilter and completely unexpected, should it happen to land in your sights. But your fundamental assumptions regarding who, what, how, and why will remain unchallenged, and your scene will fail to evolve.

I'm not saying we need to go back to those uncaring days when the major labels threw everything against the wall to see what would stick and then tossed away the rest. But the indie labels have left us with a music scene that isn't committed to thinking differently so much as it just happens to think differently, in a manner no less fixed or rigid than the mainstream it sought to overcome. What makes it the worse scenario is that faith in their intelligent design allows us to revel in a feeling of progress, without actually having to endure the kind of woefully unfair and world-shattering upheaval that actual progress often entails.

Because, for better or worse, pain is an unavoidable part of making history.

The danger of loving the probable

When you flip a coin 10 times, your odds of getting ten heads or ten tails in a row are about 1 in 500. Your likelihood of getting six or seven in a row is, of course, much higher: about 1 in 10 and 1 in 25, respectively. So if you were to do a hundred such trials, chances are pretty good that you would get quite a number of sixes and sevens, an eight or nine here and there, and a full ten if you're slightly lucky.

Yet if you were to ask a hundred people to simulate a random sequence of 10 coin tosses in their minds, it's unlikely that you would get a single streak of more than five in a row. As humans, we are really, really bad at recognizing and recreating true randomness. And that's important to keep in mind, because the universe itself is random. It doesn't behave according to anyone's prescribed narrative, and history rarely follows a predictable sequence of events. In other words, if you're trying to anticipate where things are headed, it would be good to leave room in your calculations for some impersonal and objective metrics, because whatever you're capable of visualising probably won't be it.

The problem with indie rock, though, is that it's all about the highly subjective and deeply personal. The idea is not to make decisions based on concrete numbers and objective traits, but rather to correct the damage wrought by them. I'm sympathetic to this; I was attracted to this scene for these very reasons, even when they ended up working against me. When we were rejected by Secretly Canadian, for example, Chris Swanson made it clear that it wasn't based on any objective judgment of our talent or potential. He simply listened to his heart, and it told him we weren't the right fit.

Fair enough, but what if Secretly Canadian and all the other indie labels following their hearts out there are no different from those people tossing coins in their minds, whose seemingly random sequences betray an overarching homogeneity of thought once taken as a whole? We all want to discover and proclaim the ideal band, and we all have a fixed inkling of what that would look and sound like: familiar enough to be loved, yet unique enough to be respected. But when every band getting signed out there embodies this perfect combination, then the result is a boring, static mush.

A scene made up entirely of well-rounded individuals is, paradoxically, not itself going to be well-rounded. Without the occasional outliers taking things too far and giving us an improbable nine or ten heads in a row, we no longer get a diverse range of visions and perspectives. Just a diversity of signature quirks, each predictable in its uniqueness.

There's nothing wrong with loving the probable, of course. It's fine to want bands that we can visualise in advance. The danger only comes when our subjective preferences tweak the results to ensure that they get chosen all the time, every time. Because history is disproportionately shaped by improbable events, even as we so easily overlook their absence. Woody Guthrie wouldn't have guessed that his successor would be a middle-class Jewish kid from Minnesota, and the next big rock-and-roll sensation after Elvis was unlikely to be four blokes from Liverpool. No improbability, no history.

So if we care about the future of music, perhaps each of us would be best advised to just relax, take our thumbs off the scale, and allow the momentum of concrete numbers and objective traits to take its natural course.

Update, November 25, 2011: It's official, I'm coining a new term, which I shall call "Bennett's paradox":

"A well-rounded society must include those who are not well-rounded. If everyone is well-rounded, then society itself ceases to be well-rounded."

In a future post, I might write about why I think this helps explain not just the current state of indie rock, but also the current state of Western society as a whole. Until then... pass it on!

The problem with reclaiming music for the people

It's really interesting when you see the way we look at the whole history of music, we think of it all as being classical and then one day it was jazz and then one day it was rock and roll. But, in a lot of ways, I think what you're really seeing is the music of the people taking over. Taking the position it should have always had.

--Will Sheff of Okkervil River, in an interview with Pitchfork.

Homer: Oh, Lisa! There's no record of a hurricane ever hitting Springfield.
Lisa: Yes, but the records only go back to 1978, when the Hall of Records was mysteriously blown away.

--The Simpsons, in the episode "Hurricane Neddy."

So here's the problem with Sheff's statement: the history of music is actually awash in populist movements; it wouldn't be far-fetched, in fact, to say they've consistently outnumbered all others. The idea of reclaiming music for the people, of bringing it back to its folk roots where it rightfully belongs, has been around since early humans started carving flutes out of bones. If Sheff or anyone else has never heard of these movements, it's not for their lack of numbers, enthusiasm, nor even prominence. No less than the revered poet Goethe himself railed against the artistic liberties taken by Schubert in setting his poetry to music, for example. He much preferred the simple, strophic works of Reichardt and Zelter, which were more closely attuned to the feeling of authentic German folksong that he was after.

But of course, if you know your composers, then you already know how this story ends. You've heard of Schubert; you've likely not heard of Reichardt or Zelter. Here, then, is the great mystery: each generation might favour the backward-looking music of its contemporaries, yet remembers only the forward-thinking artists of its past. And as the present fades into history, the cycle repeats itself, discrowning yesteryear's populists and shoveling them underneath with such ferocity that when a new populist movement emerges, it looks around and genuinely believes itself to be at the forefront of rediscovery. What gives?

I have two explanations for this mystery. First, all populist movements share a common sense of aesthetics: simplicity and purity, as evinced by an artist's earnest conviction and lack of formal training. (Keep in mind that populist movements are urban, middle-class phenomena and distinct from the traditional music of rural folk they often seek to emulate, which tends to be less concerned with issues of authenticity and places a higher value on virtuosity.) There are only so many ways for populists to do simple and pure, though; by contrast, there are countless ways for visionaries to do multifaceted and challenging. Consequently, an established backward-looker won't sound all that different from an up-and-coming one and thus won't be missed, but each new forward-thinker is unique and irreplaceable. So over time, while the former simply rotate, the latter steadily accumulate.

Still, I think my second explanation is more likely, which is that backward-lookers always know who their audiences are, so they always know exactly which social language to speak in, which emotions to validate, and which well of shared values and cultural assumptions to draw from. Forward-thinkers, on the other hand, cannot foretell their future audiences, and thus are forced to express themselves in ways that transcend any particular time, place, or culture. So the populists of our own time will speak personally to us in ways that the visionaries among us simply do not. We might be convinced that this makes them superior and invincible. But our time--and our place, and our scene--can happen only once, and then never again. The future, however, is forever.

Will Occupy kill the indie rock star?

Indie rock is built on the romantic notion that heart and courage should count for far more in this world than unimaginative talent and routine effort. Certainly, this explains its historical appeal to college-educated young adults, many of whom have seen their lives stalled and creative passions stifled in unfulfilling careers. And ultimately, it is their salaries and prominent social status that have helped push indie rock to a level of cultural importance beyond its immediate capacities.

Today's college-educated young adults, however, are discovering that hard-earned credentials aren't enough to even grant them a first interview. Might the sting from this collective experience fundamentally change what this current generation will come to value in music? Bored with our careers, we once really loved the idea of a scrappy little band making the rounds, struggling to be heard, driven purely by earnest conviction. But now, with five or more job-seekers for every job out there, it seems just a little more crass that anyone should be asking for others' time and attention while feeling no need to match that sense of entitlement with superior results.

The worth of indie rock music is hopelessly tied to the goodwill that we feel towards its artists, which is not a sustainable economic model in the long term. It works only when times are good. And presently, times are not good.