Music Before the Money

On January 20, T-Mobile USA and Eric Clapton teamed up to promote a cell phone and it is now appearing in commercials around the T-Mobile’s world.

The hook is a Fender Stratocaster sunburst-finish design from the guitar that made Clapton famous and, conversely, was made a household name by him.

As for the mechanics the T-Mobile myTouch 3G Fender Edition has a 3.5mm headset jack and a 16GB MicroSD card. Another hook is that the unit will come loaded with Eric Clapton’s hit songs like “Wonderful Tonight,” “Layla,” “Rock ‘N’ Roll Heart” and “My Father’s Eyes.” There will also be other songs from stars such as Avril Lavigne, Wyclef Jean and Brad Paisley.

In addition, the phone will feature applications like Guitar: Solo and Musical Light, and a customized multimedia sync solution from doubleTwist, offering an intuitive interface for syncing and managing music as well as other media when linked with a Mac or a Windows PC.

The myTouch 3G Fender runs the Android 1.6 program but can be upgraded to Android 2.1 in a few months.

Many people having been posting negative comments about Clapton. The scuttlebutt is that Clapton is “selling out.” Well, sure he is. Everybody does. But at least Eric didn’t dress up in gambler’s outfit in his last tour or put out a cheesy Christmas record like Bob Dylan. And if he did, all the power to him. He’s Eric Clapton and he looks like he had fun making the commercial.

Kate McGarrigle, one-half of the great Canadian folk duo, The McGarrigle Sisters, died on January 18th of sarcoma, a rare cancer that affects connective tissue such as bone, muscle, nerves and cartilage. Not only were they Canadian icons Kate was the mother of Rufus and Martha Wainwright, two impressive singer-songwriters.

The McGarrigle Sisters began their career in the coffee houses of Montreal in the early 1960’s. After leaving a folk group called The Mountain City Four their act was given a great bost when Lind Ronstadt used their song “Heart Like a Wheel” as the title song of her best-selling album of the same name in 1974. Other songs by the sisters were covered by Elvis Costello, Judy Collins, Emmy Lou Harris and Billy Bragg.

Their biggest Canadian hit came from a song by Wade Hemsworth called “The Log Driver’s Waltz.” This was later made into an animated feature by the National Film Board of Canada in 1979, a couple of years before videos became popular.

Later came a self-titled album that featured “The Work Song,” Cool River,” and “The Lying Song.” Although they were folk singers the McGarrigles drew their influences from all genres including rock which prevented them from being pigeon-holed in the music business.

Another attribute that the sisters had was that, although they were “Anglos,” they drew heavily from their French Canadian province and were popular in both cultures. Quebec Culture Minister said of them, “They were Anglos, in the middle of many people who were singing in French. And they were interested in singing to them in French, and to show to francophones in Quebec that English people were interested in Quebec culture, and our identity.

Kate McGarrigle was married to famous folk singer, Loudon Wainwright III famous for songs such as “Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road.” In 1994 she was invested with the Order of Canada for her music and her contribution to Canadian heritage.

Thanks toThe Museum of Culture and Debi Brophy

This review is by Dave Downs

If you and your angelic sweetie are in the throws of planning that pivotal “Walk Down The Aisle” you’ll want to avoid Track 5 of Susan Elizabeth’s new album,  Wine and Cigarettes. In it, as our hero is “silently walking to my doom,” she recalls: “I thought of your name in calligraphy etched on the invitation/ Leaving a hole in my heart in the middle of my celebration… We got married.”

But if you do avoid that little tune, you’ll also miss out on a wonderful album.

With Wine and Cigarettes Susan Elizabeth joins the ranks of the classical troubadours of the broken heart; strong but wounded, battered but still standing. There’s lovely piano work here, in this occasionally jazzy/fast-folky/poppy collection of tales of woe. The acoustic guitar work is catchy and fun. The vocal arrangements and over-dubbing are at times breathtaking.

Susan Elizabeth, though young, does not strain too hard trying to sound like someone else. Her voice, like her words, is honest and hits the mark.

Susan Elizabeth has been around the block. Her previous band, Paige 23, found their songs placed in TV shows like “Ed” and “Medium.” Her bio likens Susan Elizabeth to the acerbic Alanis Morissette>

“One day you woke up wanting more/And I wanted less….”

“The Excitement Before,” a sparse and captivating tune featuring little more than Susan Elizabeth’s voice and a driving acoustic guitar, shows the maturity of a young writer, adroitly describing that all-too-familiar realization that anticipating a life-altering event is sometimes far more memorable than the event itself.

Susan Elizabeth has the most fun in this album with a catchy little thing called, “Jones For This.” Still a tale of woe but with tongue in cheek, it features a wonderful piano, a hip-hop/jazz-hybrid rhythm, a fantastic, if all-too-brief bridge, and very sexy vocals.

Sure, I’d love it if Susan Elizabeth lightened up a bit more. Maybe sing a little ditty about how great everything is. But even if she doesn’t, I’ll still listen. In fact, I can’t wait for more.

This is a great guest blog from the wilds of the west Coast compliments of Eric Wofold from the Indie band Etched in Stone.

I just recently started following Kim’s Music Before the Money blog, and myself being a blogger, albeit a beginner, I’ve got a lot to say on the topic of surviving in the industry as a indy artist. I live in the cowboy capitol of the world a little hole in the wall called Oakdale California. Don’t ask how it became named as such,(i believe it has something to do with how many rodeo titles the city holds) I don’t really know. As a musician, times are hard. Especially if you don’t have regular paying shows, or are backed by a label.

The average signed musician makes about 300,000 usd a year, and out of that only 6% comes from record sales. Everything else is from playing shows, and getting people to buy your merchandise, and publicity. If your not on a major label, the odds of you pulling in that kind of income is slim to none unless you have a job that allows you to hire a good manager and lawyer. For me, money really isn’t the goal here. Us honest musicians just want to share our music with the masses, and hopefully be able to live comfortably in the process.

I suppose I should move on to what I was gonna write about. I get sidetracked a bit easily if you couldn’t tell. I play lead guitar In the band Etched In Stone. Were based out of Modesto California, and while this year has been a busy one, unfortunately we don’t have much to show for it except for the added experience, and a slightly larger fan base. Id like to talk about the many issues with playing live shows in the Central Valley of California.

Id like to address the subject of the promoter crisis. Promoters in northern California don’t do their jobs, I have yet in all my dealings with them found one that holds true to their word. When you want to put on a show, or they ask you to play at any of the venues they promote for, if you’re prepared, and have a contract that ensures your payment, they look at you like your an alien. Not because they don’t think a contract is necessary, but because they have no intention of paying you any amount of money. When they do in fact guarantee a kind of payment, they find a way out of it. Either by dissapearing mid show, or coming up with the commonly heard, and totally BS excuse, “i’ve got the money in the car, or at home.” On top of that, when they say there going to promote, what they should be doing is going out to the streets, talking to people, and using any possible methods within budget to get people to come to the show. There is no way your going to get a good crowd if you use Myspace or Twitter exclusively to do all of your promoting, and thats an obvious truth.

I admit promoting isn’t an easy job, but i’ve seen better jobs done by bands themselves. For instance theres a yearly underground metal showcase called Project independent that had hired one of the areas supposed top promoters Mike Vanick to find a venue and promote for the show. The concept of project Independent is to bring Metal heads together to pick their favorite up and coming band out of a montage of a good number of bands nation-wide. In order to progress past the battle of the bands show, which showcases the previous years winner as well as the local bands that sign up for the contest, you need a few important aspects which are pretty much general knowledge if your in a band. Merchandise, good music and a minimum 3 track demo, solid self promotion skills, syncopation, and a good band chemistry. The winner receives 50k in equipment, a management contract, 5,000 for merch and recording and a 90 day tour.

Getting back to the main subject, they hire Mike, a guy with a horrible reputation with bands in the area to find them a spot. To make this as quick as possible, Mike took the money he was paid and ran. He never called them, and bailed on the show completely. As you can probably guess, the owner of P.I. was irate. With only a week and one day before the show was supposed to happen he had no venue, no bands, and no tickets sold. He called my band mate trying to get an idea of where he could find Mr, Vanick so he could wring his neck, and instead found that we were hungry enough to play this show that we would do all of the legwork. I suggested this to Brian, and he talked to the owner saying “give me an hour. Ill get us a venue and ill find some bands. Were playing this show. “

A week of sleepless nights later, the project independent van shows up with last years winner, Eminent (a great band I must add) and they were shocked. We singlehandedly managed to bring about 60 people, along with 5 bands out to a little hole in the ground in ceres called the Workshop. This place oozed metal. Imagine bands playing in a place that you wouldn’t dare enter out of fear of being attacked by someone resembling the guy from texas chainsaw massacre. Needless to say, they loved it.

The point of this is that a band was able to bring a larger crowd, and a better vibe in a week than most of he areas promoters would be able to do in three months. THREE MONTHS! Mind you that none of us are pros, and 60 people may not seem like much, but in this area your lucky to get 10 people to go to a show that has never heard of your band if you go through a promoter unless of course your also playing with a nationally touring/signed band.

I must say, the Californias Central Valley needs honest, and dedicated Promoters badly. I have thought of taking this a step further and becoming a promoter myself, but with what I’m currently doing for my band, I barely have time to sleep let alone go out and put shows together so that people and bands can say, this has been an amazing experience. And bands can walk away with the little hard earned cash that they deserve.

If you enjoyed this little snippet, I encourage you to check out my own blog at adventofdmg.blogspot.com its a chronicle of my adventures as a Death Metal Guitarist, and while i’m a bit behind in my posts, I look forward to hearing your comments on this, and my other posts. This is Savage Eric of Etched in Stone. Thank you.