NEWS: Speak Geek to Me: Take Back the Music

MUSIC: Speak Geek to Me: Take Back the Music

Stories about the RIAA bullying music fans are so ubiquitous it's nearly becoming white noise. The association has been trying to kill ants with a hammer; when the blow strikes true, it's devastating, but even as you squash a couple here or there, there's an entire Internet's worth of ant colony hanging out underground.



But that's about the artists who've been "discovered." One thing people don't focus on when the RIAA goes on the rampage is, well, who CAN we download, listen to, and maybe even share without fear of the grand hammer falling on our heads?



One genre of music that's doing just fine without the support of major labels is comedic music. American society hasn't really embraced funny music, allowing "Weird Al" Yankovic to squirm his way into the mainstream only after decades of work. But these days, musicians don't need labels and, using the Internet as their platform, their options are limitless.



One of the hottest funny musicians is Jonathan Coulton, who got attention with his "Thing a Week" podcast, where he released a song a week, coming up with gems such as "Code Monkey" - the anthem for diligent, lonely engineers, and "Skullcrusher Mountain" - the love song from an evil mastermind to his intended. He put a business model around his podcast, making the most recent songs available for free, but if you wanted archives you had to pay a small amount for each. Coulton also is a fan of the Creative Commons license, a way to distribute and share digital content online without losing your copyright.



The comedy musicians - The Great Luke Ski, Rob Balder, Worm Quartet, Tom Smith and Sudden Death - who created The Funny Music Project (FuMP) asked Coulton if they could steal his business model, and then began releasing two songs per week by their members and some guest bands. Again, the most recent songs are free, then available for a small fee, then available on a CD.



Tom Rockwell of the comedy rap group Sudden Death (a favorite on 38-year funny music aficionado Dr. Demento's show for the past several years, with songs like "Cellular Degeneration" about cell phones that can do everything but make a phone call), a founding member of the FuMP, says the site will be launching a video section too and will solicit fan-made videos. Unlike the RIAA (which Sudden Death released a song about: "Take Back The Music"), Rockwell loves the sharing aspect of the Internet. "When people share [music] with friends, they're making us a new fan," he said.



Grant Baciocco, the frontman of the comedy band Throwing Toasters, agrees. The band gives away ZIP files of entire albums and recordings of live shows, inviting people to pay what they think the music is worth. Also, Baciocco is enjoying the alternative exposure YouTube gets him, as many people have found him through his videos. He actually invites fan video associated with his projects. While he does release albums, he says that the evolving standard is not to wait until an album is done before releasing: "The days of doing full albums are over. Now when you have a song you release it online."



This concept may make the RIAA scream with out rage, but let's face it - geeks blaze the trail in technology; we were first online, we were first to buy the gadgets, and, as comedy musicians are almost always geeks, they will be the first to try out new things online to get listeners and build a fanbase.



The band Beatnik Turtle created waves in 2007 with The Song of the Day, releasing 365 songs through the year, getting the band thousands of new fans. They proudly proclaimed "quantity over quality", knowing that some of their songs would be gems, an other would, well, not be. Beatnik Turtle member Randy Chertkow, co-author of upcoming book The Indie Band Survival Guide, says the music industry has changed considerably simply due to MP3s. "As soon as you divorce something from a physical object, it loses value," he said. "MP3s are becoming the preferred format, and therefore not as valuable [as CDs] to the listener. So you have to figure out how to make money giving it away."



But how does one get noticed online? Funny music is not the only genre making waves online: Jody Whitesides, an indie rock musician and the first artist to appear on iTunes who wasn't signed with a label, says it's harder now to get listeners than it was a decade ago. An indie musician has to do something new that will grab attention. "You can't just put music out on the web and hope," he said. He stresses that performance and know-how still matter a great deal.



MySpace, considered THE place to be for musicians to reach new fans, is something that the artists have a love-hate relationship with, although at this point emotions tend to run to hate. Baciocco calls it, "The bane of my existence" and Whitesides thinks it's more trouble than it's worth. Twitter, the 140-character microblogging site, is becoming a more fun and less stressful way to reach fans, (used, incidentally, by Baciocco, Whitesides, Beatnik Turtle's Jason Feehan, and Rockwell, who says, "There are words missing from the language to describe Twitter"). Each artist uses the site to connect with fans, announce shows, and just let people know what's going on. Some get detailed about their lives, some don't.



Beatnik Turtle, Coulton, and thousands of other bands also use Myxer, a free site that lets indie bands and other content providers create ringtones and deliver other content to users' cell phones. By accessing a unique code for the band on everything from a website to physical posters, fans can listen to the music from their phone and learn about the band immediately whether online or not.



The thing about the comedic bands - and many indie artists - is that they are not just sitting back. In addition to their music careers, they continue to work on their exposure online. Whitesides wants to bring social networking to his site, creating a Jody Whitesides network that allows his fans to meet, experience his music, and everything they can do on MySpace or Facebook, only on his web real estate. Baciocco thinks UStream, the live video streaming site, has a lot of promise for the future; as wifi becomes more readily available he likes the idea of streaming live shows and other performances, connecting with fans via Twitter or the chat in Ustream, making the show more dynamic.



In his book, Chertkow covers many aspects of surviving as in independent musician in the 21st century. But his number one piece of advice? "Lose the mentality that you must be discovered. You have to take responsibility of every aspect of being a musician. Take ownership of your entire music career."



I know there are tons of bands, both funny and not, that I didn't cover here. If you want to discover some excellent funny music like Possible Oscar, The Gothsicles, and Carla Ulbrich, visit The Funny Music Project, or listen to Rockwell's podcast, Manic Mondays, where he showcases funny music weekly. If you want a good resource for indie rock, Jody Whitesides has a blog, The Single of the Day where he gives exposure to other bands.



Mur Lafferty is an unapologetic geek, podcaster and author. Find out more about her and her projects at www.Murverse.com, and check out her first novel, Playing For Keeps, released via Swarm Press on August 25.

I really liked Beatnik Turtle's Song A Day promotion. It was fun to check in every week or so, and find some enjoyable material.

Great article, and I agree with you about the RIAA. The RIAA has made me so mad I refuse to buy CD's anymore. I support artist online directly whenever possible and if not I buy from iTunes or Amazon MP3. I know the RIAA and the big music houses still get revenue from iTunes and Amazon, but what can I do as I still want to support the artist. Thanks again for the article!!

This column had everything that is good. Mur's writing, funny musicians, and a middle finger for the RIAA. And is anyone surprised it took Mur fucking Lafferty to truly bring The FuMP to SuicideGirls? No, I'm not either.

Fantastic article.
Well-written, informative, and timely.


Thanks!

Twittervangelism for the win! A lot of awesome Suicidegirls are on Twitter now ... Posh, Jaylin and Meow, to name a few. And of course you can hang out with Mur.

Another great piece. Glad to have you here reppin' the geeks, Mur!

thanks for the music info! i hate the riaa and i'm a musician. does that seem odd to anyone else? they are so out of touch with the workings of actual "working" bands that it's impossible for them to relate to the everyday listener.

Interesting article. I'm a dinosaur, still using CDs (and sometimes even cassettes), so I don't really understand how all this really works. But it has always seemed like a losing battle to me. Just as previous attempts to stop the copying of other forms of recorded music were. Instead of trying to stop the inevitable tide, the recording industry needs to concentrate on new ways to generate revenue.

I just hope that CDs don't end up disappearing right away. I'm getting tired of constantly replacing my music.