John's Disses

I just received an email from CD Baby with the headline Has the Internet Destroyed the Music Business? I say the music business destroyed the music business and good riddance. Nothing makes me happier than seeing dinosaurs like Prince, Stevie Nicks and John Mellencamp bemoaning the internet and the dents it has put in their bank accounts. As if the fact that they’re all over 50 (JM looks like he’s pushing 80) has nothing to do with it.

On a side note, I just heard from a co-worker in the UK that Iron Maiden’s new album hit #1 there. Those guys are 50+ too, so maybe Stevie, John and Prince are just bitter that their luck and talent has run out. I’m happy for Maiden. They were never a corporate band. They always did what they wanted and built their career from the street up with no radio play. They worked hard and made amazing art. There was no greater rock n’ roll “fuck you” to religion than the Number of the Beast album. It was the best comeback from all the Christian backward-masking fear-mongering those religious freaks were churning out in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s to scare kids and their parents.

But I digress… where was I? Oh yeah, fuck the music business!

It should have never been a business in the first place. The talent still got screwed for the most part, and the execs got fat. It’s their jealousy of talent that got them in my opinion; that and the fact that the bottom line kills art.

I have always had my designs set on putting music out DIY. I haven’t made much of a living at it, but whatever. It’s fun to fight the fight against the weak corporate lightweight bean counters that cling to their jobs and fake status as their only security blankets. They have a lot at their disposal. It’s like fighting a war against the army with knives and sticks, but it’s fun to take em on. I love seeing terrestrial radio crumble and suck worse and worse every day. They took over, betrayed the talent. Now talent has been resurrected and as long as we have a free internet, won’t be held down by anyone again.

I love that artistically, corporations can’t hold a candle to the independents who are working with so much less than what they have. That’s art. Those are artists, the ones who take paychecks from shitty day jobs and pour every available penny into film and music that kicks your ass. And now that people like Nicks, Mellencamp and Prince are whining, I think it’s quite possible that the artists are winning.

I look through musicians wanted ads from time to time which are still chock-full of people talking about label interest, showcases, “Let’s make it”, shit like that. I hear from people I know about friends’ bands getting signed. It means nothing to me. We all know what happens to most of those bands. And even if they do well, it’s like getting a winning lottery ticket. I’m happy for them but it’s not smart to pursue that. There’s more of a chance of hitting it big online on your own if that’s your ambition. And if you hit that jackpot you don’t have to share it, or get told what to do next time around by fuckers who are just trying to keep their jobs (and if you don’t quite hit that mark, you can still carve out a nice living for yourself if you work hard). Imagine compromising your art out of fear that some douchebag in a suit, who would just as soon kill you as offer you his slimy hand, won’t keep his job? No thanks.

I do a DIY rock music podcast every week called The Bull Pit. The mission of the show is to find the best bands with the smallest names for themselves and prop them up because they are amazing. They aren’t easy to find as there are a lot of shitty bands out there. But there are many more great ones than music industry elites want you to think. Every week I spend a few hours finding 6 or 7 new kick-ass songs to put together for a show, and I consider every episode a broken bottle to the face of each and every one of those lightweight motherfuckers. I can’t wait to watch them fall. It’s only going to get worse for them as technology makes it easier and easier for the no-names to compete and circulate their shit.

So Stevie, I love some of what you did but you should be happy you got to exist in the short period of time that a handful of good artists actually got paid for their work based on its value. You’re royalty when it comes to royalties and you got to live a well-deserved dream, but you’re going down.

It’s nothing personal baby, it’s just business.