One of the blogs that I subscribe to is a musician centric blog called http://www.musicianwages.com - essential reading if you're going to make a career of this music thing! The content might be a little specific for most readers but they recently sent out an all inclusive request asking for input on the question - What is a Musician? I've been asking myself that one for decades now and couldn't resist a slightly tongue in cheek response - you'll find it at the bottom of the list - What is a Musician?
So it's Saturday and I'm sitting here putting the correct meta-data on all the free 5 minute samples at music2work2.com - should have done this a while ago - you can stream the track, download the sample and you don't even need to register! Anyway - while I'm doing this I'm listening to Travis' new album Ode to J. Smith streaming at Spin.com, I'm on my second listen and it's pretty damn cool. My sister introduced me to Travis and I fell in love with their album The Man Who - they're almost, but not entirely unlike if you took say - Radiohead, Oasis, Weezer and perhaps Nickel Creek - mixed them around and then gave whatever came out a big bowl of something.
You can check out the Travis' official site here - I just went looking for the album on Amazon - it isn't there - bummer. Interestingly enough the album image on the front page is a link to the itunes store - and I can't see any other way of buying the album - you know - if they'd had a little widget that I could have put in this post with a listen and a purchase link - then I would have!
Oh and thanks to @tindle for getting me to blog this.
I recently commented on a post on the music think tank blog about whether fans want anything from musicians other than their music. My view is that if your music is good enough, then fans will tell you if they want anything else - if your music isn't good enough, if your performance isn't compelling, if you don't move the listener - then no matter how interesting your life is or how awesome your merchandise - nobody cares. What I am seeing in the destruction of music's economic model over the last decade is, funnily enough, more music. Music no longer has to fit the system - music can be what it is, and if it is compelling, it will get out. If you love music then I cannot recommend this movie highly enough - I admit to bawling my eyes out - but by the end I couldn't stop grinning and thinking that everything was going to be alright. Check out the Young at Heart page at Mahalo for more information and take a couple of minutes to watch the trailer below.