Studio Diaries

Well, the drums are in the can! Yup: we spent the weekend of March 27-28-29 laying down the drum tracks for the forthcoming full album, Don't Fake It. What follows is a blow-by-blow of the process, as well as the FULL running order of the LP, presented here for the first time. Let's get down to business!

We recorded at Guilbeaux's Pub. See, if I tell you that it was all done in the basement of our sound designer Hans, you'll think it's low-tech and a waste of time. Not so! True, the studio IS in his basement, but…well, this is a guy who designed the audio production studio at his college alma mater, so trust me when I say: this guy knows his stuff. The drum room is actually a room-within-a-room, double-insulated and double-drywalled, with moveable acoustic panels. I used Hans' kit - remember, he's a metal drummer with recordings of his OWN! - and (mostly) my cymbals. The kit proper is a standard 6-piece: bass, snare, and four toms. These each had their own dedicated mic. Hi-hats, the 20" ride, and 6 various crashes were all captured with the overheads. The door to the studio closes snugly over the umbilical, which feeds directly into Hans' 32-channel board. Everything was recorded into Presonus Studio 1. 

Rebel and I drove down on Friday to get set up, haul in our gear, and set preliminary levels. I played Hans' drums for an hour or so, getting used to the slightly different feel…you drummers out there, you know what I'm talking about. Drums are drums, but every kit is a little different. Doing those prelim levels REALLY saved us a lot of time on Saturday! We just had a little tweaking to do before we were off to the races. Pappy came over - he lives close by - and after we got our work done we settled into some beers. Well, in my case, just a couple; I like my beer, but I had a long day of work ahead of me on Saturday, and I certainly didn't want to be punchy. 

Saturday morning started off with some welcome strong coffee, breakfast, and then final level adjustments. While Hans and Rebel were fooling with the board and the software, I got warmed up: I'm a firm believer in G. L. Stone's Stick Control, plus a lot of my old marching band warmups. I can't just go in and play cold; gotta get those muscles warmed up, get the wrists loosened. Otherwise, the first couple of tracks will sound stiff and out-of-time. I was also careful with the order I wanted to cut the tracks: a couple of easier things right off the bat, then tackle some of the harder stuff while I was in a good zone.

We laid down "Viceville" first, with me doing my best Phil Rudd backbeat. Hans was very particular about whether or not I liked the sound we were getting, constantly asking me things like "Is the snare drum sound the way you want it?" It's tough for me, because I don't really know how many different "sounds" there could be: y'know, if you turn this dial ¼" to the right, does that change much? Is it possible to evaluate ALL the possible sounds that we could achieve? I (wisely) decided to give a general impression of what I wanted - fat, thick snare with a sharp attack, thudding bass drum that you'll feel in your chest - and then let Hans and Rebel do the fine-tuning. After "VV" we cut "Look Out" (yes, we re-cut the four tracks from last summer's EP for inclusion on the album). I can tell you, it's really frustrating to have an otherwise-great take marred by a rim hit or missed cymbal at the 30-second mark! I'd leave the recording room and be greeted by the question "How did that feel?" Uh…I don't know? Pretty good? Hans gave me the best advice possible: he said that, in his experience, if you think you can do a better take, then you should get your ass back in there and do it again. If NOT…you're done. So, both "VV" and "Look Out" went through three complete takes, with multiple stops-and-starts for outright goof-ups. 

I wanted to work on "No Man's Land" and the title track next. Of the 10 tunes we laid down, four were really brand-new, and these were two of them. I literally had a stand with my sheet music in there. This is how Rebel and I work together on songs: we'll email ideas back and forth until we have a good idea of what we're after, then I'll enter a drum part into the Finale notation software; with that, HE can work out the guitar parts. The lead, rhythm, and bass guitars are all laid down at HIS studio, and then when it comes time to do the ACTUAL drums, I simply play along with the computer drums I sent him to rough out the song. Hans tells me that that's an odd way to go about it, but it's the way Rebel and I have worked on songs together, so for us, it's perfect. 

Our plan was to end the day with a familiar tune - "Unleash The Beast" - and leave the other five for Sunday. But, "UtB" was done by about 4:30, and we were all still feeling pretty fresh. We cut "On Its Way" with a minimum of fuss, and then started in on "(I Like) Grown-Up Girls." Wow, THAT was an energy suck! This was another of the brand-new tunes, never before performed live, and I'd written some rather intricate parts for myself. We went through take after take, and by about 6:00 I'd been at it for eight hours or so…I was feeling pretty washed out. I agreed to do one more take, and whatever we got, I was done and ready for a brew! Lo and behold, THAT was the one that was a keeper! I guess somebody works well under pressure…?

Drew had joined us for the day, busying himself with watching the Red Wings on the giant TV set outside the recording room in between listening to takes and offering up his advice. Once I got that great take in the can we all headed out for a well-deserved meal while the files backed up to the cloud (can you IMAGINE losing all that hard work to a computer crash?!?), then gathered on the various couches to drink beer and unwind with a little Guardians of the Galaxy. I'm an old Marvel geek from way, WAY back in the day, and I thought this adaptation of a beloved '80s maxi-series was fabulous!

Sunday began again with coffee and a hearty meal, and then I cut "Hey Kelly," "Lovin' You," and "Middle Age Mettle." I can't remember which one it was, but ONE of those was a single take. Hans was right: I just knew it. I walked out of the booth all cocky and said "Hey, that's it! I can't do it better than that!" Felt pretty good, actually! Once all the drums proper were done, we settled in to get the various "ear candy" laid down. I got that term from famed producer Toby Wright, and I think it's a spot-on description of what goes onto an album that doesn't necessarily have to be played live. There are shakers and cowbell in the chorus of "On Its Way," hand claps on "Viceville," and a whole BUNCH of stuff in "Hey Kelly." We wrapped around 5:00 that afternoon, and Rebel and I headed for home, exhausted but EXHILARATED! 

Now, of course, comes the rest of the process: mixing and mastering. Rebel has been hard at work doing a million-and-six tweaks, sending me and Hans the files on a daily basis. I provide my feedback - louder snare here, less overhead cymbals in general, see if you can put some reverb on the castanets - and we go. Again, and again, and again. THIS is a record you're going to be amazed by, proud to blast from your car speakers, or wherever you like your rock & roll. When it drops this summer, you can look forward to this track listing:

1) Look Out
2) Viceville
3) On Its Way
4) No Man's Land
5) Hey Kelly
6) Lovin' You
7) Unleash The Beast
8) (I Like) Grown-Up Girls
9) Middle Age Mettle
10) Don't Fake It

We Are Family

So, I was talking with Rebel earlier about who we are and how we interact with fans, and he pointed out that the Iron Fist Experience revolves around the concept of "family." I know I've done posts about who we are, and the kind of unquestioning support we get from our Crew. For those who are joining our program in-progress, this is a rundown of who those folks are, and where they fit into the overall IF puzzle:

• Scott Harding: that's me. Co-founder, drummer, lyricist, and (reluctant) background vocalist.

• Mike Rule: co-founder, lead guitar, lead vox…basically, lead EVERYTHING. He's the one with a lot of business sense, who understands the financial & legal side of things. He's a couple of years older than I am, and we met in high school. We formed the band in study hall…when we obviously were NOT studying! (I think that worked out okay…)

• Mike Passmore: rhythm guitar, background vox, and another great business head. Without getting into specifics here, believe me when I say that the Mikes are literally business OWNERS. If there's a driving logic behind what we do in terms of band decisions, these guys are steering. Mike and I met in college, and he's my brother-from-another-mother.

• Drew Pankratz: bass, background vox, and another college "bro." Interestingly, the front line of the band were all trombonists in their marching band days…I'm seeing the opportunity to capitalize on that in the near future!

• Hans Guilbeaux: our indomitable sound-scaper. He's a drummer - from a technical standpoint, probably a much better one than I am! - who is actually degreed in audio engineering and production.  He makes us sound great, live and in the studio. Like Mike P. and Drew, he's an old-skool college marching band brother.

That's the band. Tight-knit. Friendships that were formed through shared vision and experience. Stronger, in some senses, than brothers who share the accidental relationship of birth parents: we CHOSE each other. 

• The Pauls: affectionately known as PP and PC, they are our go-to busy-beaver roadies. They set up and tear down, they move mic stands, they do whatever needs doing. Expertly, and without complaint. 

• Allen: multi-tasking photographer, roadie, and, when required, head of security. 

• Chris: multi-purpose roadie, resident philosopher, and, when required, chef. 

• Chris' wife and kids: they run the merch booth and do whatever we ask of them.

• Brent: roadie, and (with PC), band brewmaster. 

That's the Crew. Five men, all of whom went to high school with me and Rebel. Of the seven of us, five graduated together. These are friendships that go back DECADES, and again: it's chosen family. In the case of Chris, it's BLOOD family. 

When I say the band is a family affair, then, I'm not just tossing out feel-good descriptions. These are people I would trust with my life. No, forget that: these are people I'd trust with my DAUGHTER'S life. Together we're forging a thing that, in the two years since the band's reunion, has taken on a life of its own. And that's how we want Iron Fist fans and listeners to approach us as well: like family. For us, meeting fans shouldn't feel like introduction; it should feel like recognition. Let other bands have "fan clubs." Let Kiss have its Army. We have the Fist Family.

Leftovers

Mmmm, leftovers! Everybody loves some leftovers, yah? Day-old Chinese, last week's meatloaf…add a little hot sauce, nuke your dish in the microwave, and dig in. 

Song leftovers…they can be more problematic, especially as you're trying to identify a sonic "brand" at the outset of your career. One of the the utmost blessings I find as a songwriter is that I am always creating new tunes. A random word, a disassociated phrase, and I find myself thinking "Hmmm, that would make a GREAT song!" Then BOOM! it's off to find my Sony flash recorder and sing it in. I have dozens of song snippets, anywhere from a few seconds of hummed melody or guitar riff to nearly 3 minutes of fully-realized songs. There's a flip side, though: the CURSE of the songsmith! And the curse is this: the doorway that opens onto a universe of unwritten songs does not discriminate. It's wide open, and it lets through ANYTHING! The weirdest stuff can come through that doorway, and it doesn't matter if the song doesn't "sound" like Iron Fist. Which, if you read back to the post about our ideas for Perfect Albums, is actually kind of O.K. I'm into bands that stretch the boundaries of "acceptable." I can get easily bored with albums that sound pretty much the same from song-to-song. But, I also believe that it's important to deliver the "Iron Fist Sound" early, and with force and determination. So right now, these songs don't belong on our forthcoming album Don't Fake It:

"The Journey" This song, like many on my list, was written during the long interregnum that IF experienced. As such, it's a "solo effort" and not the typical partnership writing that Rebel and I engage in. Still…here it is. It's a song about the path from childhood to adulthood, told BY the protagonist, but using "you" as the pronoun (instead of "I"). It's andante, but with a quickly-strummed acoustic guitar and not much in the way of drums…more like a folk song. "Take the first step on your journey/With another hand to guide your way/Another smile to greet each day/You begin to walk your journey."

"A Song For Jessica" This country ballad emerged from one of those serendipitous moments that crop up from time to time.  I was walking down the hall toward my office, and two friends - Angela and Rhiannon - were walking toward me. I knew songs for both their names, and delivered a little of each (as I am wont to do). Then, I saw Jessica a little ways behind them, and apologized: "Sorry, Jessica, I don't know a song for you!" She said "That's okay.", to which I replied "No, I think there should be a song for Jessica!" And, folks: that's how it happens. The chorus was right there, fully-formed in my head: "No one ever wrote a song for Jessica/Maybe that's because there's no good rhyme/I think there should be a song for Jessica/Maybe I should write that song sometime." The rest of the tune grew up as a story about a middle-aged waitress who used to have a positive outlook on life (and here I imagined the visual of Michelle Pfeiffer from Frankie and Johnny), but now knows that she's just trapped forever in the town she grew up in. There's a dude who eats breakfast at her restaurant every day, and he has fallen in love with the true beauty beneath her dull facade; sadly, she can't see him. "Jessica, you don't know me, even though you bring my mornin' coffee/I sit by the window every day/I watch you walk your endless miles/Wonder where you spend your smiles/I can see how life has lined your face."

"Comic Book Couple" This is just a goofy song inspired by the movie Comic Book Villains. (An opinionated word of warning: do not EVER see this movie…it's wholly awful.) The couple who owns a comic shop in the movie are hilariously mismatched, and I thought it could make a clever song about how opposites attract. You know, he's into classic Marvel Silver Age books, likes the capes and the underwear outside the suit, etc. etc., while SHE is into story-centered graphic novels and sweater sets. This image was cemented when I saw a photo of illustrator Kyle Baker and his wife (shown here: he's the dude in dreadlocks, his wife is far left in the tan jacket): while this isn't the photo I first discovered and used for reference, I do like how different they seem, but also a great couple. The tune became a "list song" of their differences: "He likes Mountain Dew, cold and crisp and by the two-liter/She likes chamomile, honey makes it just a bit sweeter."

"The Magic Napkin" This 30-second throwaway borrows heavily from "She Came In Through The Bathroom Window." It's a song about a napkin we have that, unlike its mates, is NEVER wrinkled when it comes out of the dryer. "The magic napkin never wrinkles/The magic napkin never needs an iron/The other napkins come out tangled up in knots, oh magic napkin/I wish I had 15 more just like you."

"The Ballad Of The Jones Boys" This tune is actually slated to be recorded for the SECOND Iron Fist album. It's a slow dirge about two (unrelated) men who died too young. They both figure into my life: one very distantly, the other incredibly close. "Davy Jones died last night/Somethin' 'bout it don't seem right/Never really had a chance to live/Always takin' more than he could give/Near the end he changed his ways/Started livin' better days/Movin' over from the red to black/Tryin' hard to get his life on track."

"That's What She Said" This tune is straight-up country swagger, based on the phrase that we toss around with great regularity during our annual Guy's Camping Weekend. It needs fiddle, electric organ, and a sweet-ass slide or pedal-steel guitar solo in the middle. THAT kind of country.  "That's what she said on the night that I kissed her/That's what she said when I told her goodbye/That's what she said when I messed with her sister/That's what she said, and I tell you no lie/I've been bitten once, and I never ask twice/I won't play at love unless I've loaded the dice/Some days I think that I'd be better off dead/That's what SHE said!"

"Dancing Underwater" Likely Iron Fist could actually pull this one off: it's a mix of '80s New Wave plus early Billy Idol swagger, kind of like "White Wedding." My daughter would need a writing credit on this one: I saw her playing with her little tub-toy dolls, and she had them bobbing around at the bottom of the tub…when I asked what they were doing, she said "Dad! They're dancing underwater!" Boom. Song. I TOLD her that it sounded like a song, and 10 minutes later I heard her singing the chorus melody. I made it a song about how a breakup can make you feel like you're drowning in tears, with the opening line "Love is a dangerous game/You try to ride it: it won't be tamed." 

"Wild Emotion" 25 years in the writing, I only finally completed this Purple Rain-era Prince-y ballad in 2014. And if that doesn't teach you to NEVER let go of a good idea, I don't know what will! "Do you remember wild emotion?/Playing with fire inside/Wild emotion/Nowhere for anger to hide/Wild emotion, wild emotion, wild emotion/Eventually bound to run dry."

"Echo Of Your Tears" I guess I learned from Paul Stanley how to create "my" version of a particular song or writer. Paul heard the Move song "Fire Brigade" on the radio, and quickly wrote the Kiss classic "Firehouse." Same idea with "Hard Luck Woman": it's totally styled on Rod Stewart. Even "Love Gun" is a not-very-subtle, highly-sexualized reworking of Albert King's "The Hunter." So: this is my take on writing a Jim Steinman song, complete with spoken-word intro and sleigh bells. "I can't give you up/I know I was wrong/I traded my heart and my love for a song/I can't give you up/Don't you think that I've tried/It's so damn hard when all I can hear/Is the echo of the tears that you cried."

This is just a small sample of my songwriting leftovers. They're songs that we don't quite feel comfortable releasing as Iron Fist tunes…YET. We're trying to craft a brand and an image, and these just don't fit. Again: yet. But good songs, like good story ideas, don't just fade away or die off. They keep at you, nipping at your heels, pestering you to "Record me! Record me!" We'll see. In an idealized world of off-album singles, many of these could be B-sides. I like that idea. That would let everyone have a taste of our leftovers. 

Out With The Old, In With The…Old

I want this post to be about the discovery of new music. That's what I want, but the thoughts in my head are such a jumble that I worry they won't come out right…or, even coherently. Still, we press on.  To wit…

The Nostalgia Part:  How many of you remember when listening to music WAS the activity? Not, listening to music while you work out, or listening to music while you cook, or listening to music while you study…just listening. If you do remember, you're likely at least 35, and you also remember bean bags and dens. You'd get home from the record store, peel the cellophane off your newly-purchased LP, and put that baby on the rec-room hi-fi, passing the sleeve around and gleaning all the details you could. Who was the producer? Was it someone you recognized? Who played what? Who wrote which songs? If you're a little older, maybe you passed around a joint or some beers cadged from your parents' 'fridge. For me, it was just the innocence of being a pre-teenager during the Golden Age of the album: getting high off the music, always the music. Now, of course, it's rare to consider "listening" an activity all its own. Music is so available, so ubiquitous, that we've lost contact with the special nature of it. The magic, as they say, is gone. Instead of a treasured cache of a couple dozen albums, we carry around a library of thousands of songs in our pockets. Music blares at us in the store, on the sidewalk, at the gym. It's everywhere…and it's as nothing.

The Anarchy Part: To use a harsh phrase, we used to be slaves to the record companies. Label presidents - through their A&R departments - decided which bands would be recorded, which means they decided which bands we got to hear. Hopefully talent would rise to the top, but obviously that wasn't always the case. Connections mattered, persistence mattered, chutzpah mattered…geez, if talent was all it took, even my beloved Kiss likely wouldn't have made it! The point is: if it wasn't on the radio or a record, you likely didn't hear it. Period. Now, though…hell, anyone with a laptop can get his music "out there." A laptop, a microphone, some drum loops and any sort of mediocre guitar/piano skills, and with a free Audacity download you can have your album recorded and "distributed" online for the world to hear. It's liberating, it's exhilarating…and it's total chaos.  It's as if we let the lunatics out of the asylum, and they're running rampant through the streets. If all you want to hear are songs based on Dr. Who, just enter "trock songs" into Google and BOOM! instant playlist. Search "Aviator Shades" on iTunes, and not only will you discover an amazing hard-rock band from western Canada, but you'll also be given helpful suggestions as to what ELSE you might like. There's so much signal, it's as if every radio station that ever was, was broadcasting every song ever written, ALL. THE. TIME. It's freedom…and, it's terrifying.

The Sales Part: A recent article, trending all over my Facebook feed for a few days, reported that back-catalog sales eclipsed those of new music for the first time in 2014. It's described as a "worrying trend," but it makes me wonder: who actually BUYS music these days? Anyone under 30? Anyone? Bueller? Okay, you get the idea. I think part of it is the resurgence of vinyl: rather than scouring used-record stores for a "decent" copy of Fleetwod Mac's Rumors, I can just buy a brand-new 180-gram reissue? Yes, please! I think another part of it is the new life "legacy" bands have discovered via social media. What's that? Starz is back in the studio working on a new album? Oh, let me relive my youth by going to iTunes and buying all their old records (less than $40, plus the option of snatching up a whole bunch of live albums). A lot of folks opined that this trend might reflect a lack of quality with regards to new music. But, really: is Rock Or Bust somehow of lesser quality than Highway To Hell? Are you sure that's not just nostalgia talking? Plus, see The Anarchy Part above: in 1985, I had access to maybe ten or a dozen bands whose product I liked enough to actually buy. Today, it's more like FIFTY bands…and, of course, finances are limited. Especially when I'm buying Love Gun in its newly-remastered, newly-reissued version for, what, the fifth or sixth time? Societally, we've devalued music (see the last blog post), so that an album that cost $7.99 in 1985 costs about the same 30 years later. Um…where does inflation figure into that?!? (A quick check reveals that what cost $1 in 1985 should cost $2.23 now.) But, even with the price of physical music cut in half, the amount of music that's available would quickly overwhelm my household budget. 

The Point: As I feared, I've gotten radically off-track. I'm trying to introduce logic and reason into something that ought to be visceral and primal: that listening to music is a thing to do in and of itself. The quality of music hasn't diminished so much as our options for consuming it have exploded. Iron Fist is part of the problem: we're an indie band, unleashing our music into the chaos of the maelstrom. Our solution is to make our songs so good, so positive and uplifting and fist-pumpingly amazing, that we'll cut through the signal and melt your headphones to your ears. All you have to do is listen. Treat yourself: go out and buy a NEW record (or CD, or mp3…), and remember that great music, like fine wine, ought to be worth the expense.

The Price of Art

I recently read a longish article in The New Yorker about Spotify and its founder, Daniel Ek.  It provided me much food for thought, which I'll share below.  I think it's important - but not necessary - to read the original article first, so here's the link to the online version:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/11/24/revenue-streams

As I said, it's longish, but if you have an interest in music, or even just technology, I think you'll find it interesting.  These are the ideas that spun out of MY brain after reading it.

Throughout the article, Ek insists on referring to music as a "commodity," and he speaks of his website in business terms.  He paints himself as a "friend" of music, but in all his chosen language I get the sense that what he's really after is a cool thing to do for 5 years or so, a thing that will hopefully net him a hefty paycheck.  That's cool.  I got nuthin' against someone wants to make bank. But I disagree wholly with the concept that music is a "commodity."  It's not: it's an art.  Someone creates something new, where there was previously nothing.  I'd have a hard time coming up with a BETTER definition of "art" than that.  Certainly, the end result of creating art is to have a "product" to show for it:  "Look, I created art, and the product is paint on a canvas! Which I now hope to sell! For a lot of money!!"  I'm not dumb, or overly-naïve:  I get it.  Hey, Iron Fist is in that boat, too!  We want to have a product (an album) that is the result of our art, and certainly, we want to sell it to as many people as we can.  No question.  But missing from Ek's whole hypothesis is the one thing I'm asking YOU, the reader, to stipulate:  that music begins as someone's artistic statement.  I don't really care if you're Igor Stravinsky or Jon Bon Jovi…if your music fills a previous silence, then you've created art.  Next…!

Unlike most other art forms, music is intangible.  There IS an "item" you can hold:  an album, say.  Books are like that, too.  You can go and buy you the newest Stephen King book, and hold it in your hand.  But…BUT!…there are many, many "copies" of that art.  A painting isn't like that:  there is but ONE Mona Lisa.  Oh, sure, you can find that vague smile adorning everything from posters to coffee mugs…but there is still only ONE "real thing."  No one copy of Kiss "Destroyer" is the "real thing," any more than a singly copy of "Cujo" is the "real thing." Each individual copy is the SAME thing…making those art forms more like clones of each other, with perhaps the only "original" existing as, I don't know, a file on a computer.  So: a single copy of Water Lilies, 30-some-odd million copies of "Thriller."

The creator of a tangible art form is paid once for it.  If Monet completed a painting, and then he sold it, that's the only money he ever saw from his artistic statement.  Likewise, anyone who owned that painting, and then sold it later, only got paid once.  It strikes me that that's why some art is, like, ridiculously valuable.  There might be X number of Jackson Pollock "splatter" paintings, but there's only ONE of each.  And, when one sells, it's for tens of millions of dollars.  What if…what if Bon Jovi wrote "Livin' On A Prayer," and then sold it…to JUST ONE PERSON??  And that was the ONLY copy in existence?  I would think Jon et. al. would have been paid a pretty decent price for that song…as would each successive seller.  Seems silly when you apply it to music, doesn't it?  And yet: still art.

What Spotify does is RENT music.  You pay a fee, and then you get access to all the songs on the site. That's what streaming is: renting the art.  What if that worked for jewelry?  ARE there places you can go to rent jewelry?  It seems likely that in fact there are, although I've not heard of any personally.  But, then how does the jeweler get paid?  And I mean, the person who CREATED the jewelry, not the store owner.  A person makes a pair of earrings, sells 'em at an art fair, and that's the money he makes.  If he sells the earrings to a store owner, who then rents the earrings - for a fee! - then what does that jewelry-renting business have to do with artistic creativity?  Nothing.  Just some guy, comes along and says "Hey, I can afford to buy all this stuff from the art fair, now I'll open a shop and rent it all out!"  That's not art…that's just business.  Any profits from which are certainly not shared with the original creator.

That's the thing with music: a musician can only create a song ONCE.  Then, he has to sell it…but, by the nature of musical art, he has to sell it again and again and again, for a little money each time.  The song gets played on the radio: musician gets paid (well, the WRITER does, at least).  The song gets played live in concert: the musician/writer gets paid.  The very intangible nature of music is why you don't have to pay $100,000 to listen to "Livin' On A Prayer."  You buy the album, once, for not much money.  Or, you buy the single, once, for even less.  Or, you just hear it on the radio.  For "free," if you're willing to put up with the inane jibba-jabba by the DJ.  The point is, it's not a one-of-a-kind item, and the artist is paid accordingly.  But he IS still PAID.

Let's reverse this whole thing:  what if, instead of a museum paying an exorbitant amount for a work by a living artist, the artist simply GAVE the painting to the museum?  But then, the museum installed software that calculated how long each person looked at the painting? THEN, the artist was paid for the total number of seconds his painting was looked at? THAT is the closest switcheroo between the world of music and visual art!  That's how musical artists are paid.  Each album or song purchase represents one "look," and the musician is paid for the accumulated number of looks. And, one would HOPE, the better the art, the more looks, and the higher the pay.

Spotify and its ilk want to dismantle this whole system.  And - who am I kidding! - most of society wants to as well.  We've moved to a world where music is just a "thing" you "consume," and we've decided that the price for this "commodity" ought to be "free."  Go down the resultant slippery slope, and you'll certainly find a whole host of amateur artists who are willing to give the results of their hobby away for free; but the really GREAT art, the art that's created by professionals who rely on the income their artistic statements generate…well, that art will slowly wither away.  Music is art; music should not be free.

Seeking Perfection

As Iron Fist is gearing up for our first full-length album, I started to think about albums that I consider to be “perfect.”  That’s a difficult term to define, because it can mean many things depending on whom you ask.  I certainly have albums that I “love”: Rock and Roll Over by Kiss comes to mind, as does AC/DC’s Back In Black.  But when I got to thinking about criteria by which a “perfect” album might be judged, I came up with an entirely different set of conditions that needed to be met. 

This gets complicated quickly as you consider the makeup of the band.  It’s no secret that the core of the band – myself and Rebel – stretches all the way back to high school.  As we move forward from THIS point, however, it becomes increasingly important to treat IF as a foursome…really five, when you consider the audio expertise that our sound designer Hans brings to the table.  In order to make sure everyone feels a strong sense of ownership in this project, then, we need to multiply exponentially the sound concept of what we’re trying to present.

Hans had a hard time defining “perfection,” but brought up concepts like the relevance of an album, how one that is perfect should be defining, that it should “shape a generation, an artist, a career, a genre, and a fan base.”  To make his point, these are some excerpts from HIS list:

            Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles: “Not only was the music so far from what The Beatles had released previously, it catapulted the musical experimentation that began in the late-‘60s.”

            Master of Puppets by Metallica: “They showed that you can play fast and loud but also have intricate lyrics and music that truly tells a story.”

            Five Man Acoustical Jam by Tesla: “They exposed themselves to their fans and their peers to show their raw talent.  And they didn’t just play the songs acoustically; they rearranged them, made them fit the environment and the performance without losing the emotion and feeling of the original.”

Pappy echoed many of Hans’ ideas, and included the notion that a perfect album should be socially relevant and stand the test of time.  He said that it should be “listenable as a complete album or by individual songs,” and that of course it needed to “pass the 'listen-in-the-car' test.”  He gave me four that conformed to those ideals, in no particular order:  Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen, So by Peter Gabriel, New York by Lou Reed, and American Idiot by Green Day.

Rebel cited the first two Boston albums as his choices for perfection.  He gave a nod to the need for being timelessly classic and relevant.  Working through a list of songs, he demonstrated how Boston deals “with issues of life: relationships, inner peace, working to build a better life, and some good old party songs.”  One thing Rebel mentioned specifically was about the clarity of the music: “vocals are clean and understandable, with JAMMIN’ electric guitars.”  He insisted that, musically, a perfect album must “inspire thought…reflection…evoke feeling.”

Scooby Drew gave the nod to Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti as a perfect album for its demonstration of LZ’s versatility.  He liked the full display of John Paul Jones’ “masterful arranging talent” and the alternation of virtuosity and riff-mastery by Jimmy Page.  He said “what I like most about this album is that LZ moved away from the heavy blues of their earlier albums; while there are obvious blues influences, they don’t dominate.” 

For me, an album that is “perfect” doesn’t necessarily have similarity between all the songs.  I think those songs need to sound cohesive within the context of the overall package, but, as in the case of Rock and Roll Over, the songs have too MUCH similarity.  No matter how I love the record – and I DO! – it’s all one flavor.  Same thing with Back in Black: it’s one scoop of vanilla after another.  It leaves me wanting just a *hint* of chocolate.  Ultimately, that’s what became my defining criteria for a “perfect” album: all the songs had to SOUND like the artist (that’s the cohesion), but there should be many flavors to break up an otherwise dull-sounding sameness.  Coming in a distant second to that – for me – is the sense that I don’t want to skip a single track, that doing so would diminish the majesty of the whole.  Sounds silly in a modern age of being able to pick-and-choose your own playlist on iTunes, but the whole band comes from an earlier time, when the entirety of an album was meant to be a statement.  By this logic, I’d also rule out Def Leppard’s Hysteria, an album that is SO dear to me…and it would be perfect if it was 10 tracks instead of 12.  There are just a couple of songs on there that…well, I could easily skip and still be satisfied.  My list of perfect albums would include:

            Wrecking Ball by Bruce Springsteen: I’m a late arrival to the Boss, but Pappy took me to see this tour and I listened to the album a LOT before the show.  Bruce is a chameleon who’s able to move from fist-pumping rockers to Quaalude-ish waltzes, sometimes from one track to the next.  This whole album just works for me, and I don’t want to skip a single song.

            Destroyer by Kiss: yeah, there had to be ONE on here, right?  The outlandish orchestration by producer Bob Ezrin alienated many fans from the band’s early years, but for me it all worked.  The whole things sounds cohesive, and ballads like Beth and Great Expectations are balanced by stadium-pleasers like Detroit Rock City and Do You Love Me.

            Some Girls by The Rolling Stones: for me, this is the ultimate.  It’s timeless but so much OF its time.  The Stones here present an astonishing cavalcade of personas: hard-driving blues rockers on Lies and When The Whip Comes Down, a honky-tonk country band on Just My Imagination and Far Away Eyes, a white-soul/Motown band for Beast of Burden and Shattered…hell, they’re even a disco quintet with their monster hit Miss You.  THIS is where I’d see Iron Fist end up: as a band that is respected (revered?) enough that they can break out of any stylistic inhibitions and just write and record SONGS.  Cohesive songs.  GREAT songs. 

So this is who we are: Bruce and Beatles, Kiss and Zeppelin, Stones and Boston and Green Day and Peter Gabriel.  Lou Reed.  Can you dig it?  I knew that you could!