dear reader,

technically, obversity is not a word. what are your thanksgiving plans? do they involve football? (mine do, actually. believe it or not.)

thankfulness is one of those things that 1) i only notice when i really don’t have it and 2) i really need when i really don’t want it. i am stopping deliberately this morning to be very, very thankful, because i believe it’s right; but as is always the case, when i decide to be thankful i realize how truly good my life is. i’m not going to talk now about the specific circumstances for which i might be thankful or thankless these days, but i am going to share a bit of a new song.

i’ve talked, or typed, long-windedly here about my fetishization (also not a word!) of change–i want it, i need it in all forms, i never want it to stop. since there is now a whole lot o’ french spoken here and i am not particularly enamored of french, it’s been very helpful to cast the torrent of new words, phrases and wanton genderization (technically a word, but only if you are a linguist) in my brain as change. it’s new. i can express certain things, albeit just a few at this point, differently than i could before. in some cases, the francophonic (say it with me… not a word) lens lets in a little more light.

change! cultural mash-up! bilingualism! it’s fantastic, isn’t it?

except that for most of history, learning a new language is something one did most often because he or she was far from home, and probably didn’t get there happily. i submit a sad page from early american history involving some of that kind of relocation [say “‘cadien” with a fake french accent (unless you have a real one handy), and you’ll have a big clue].

from the chorus of a new song:

i’m gonna flow down south
and learn that prairie french
make some cajun friends
in the country’s mouth
so long a derangement
they’ll never find me out
when i write it down
in my new language

if my longing for change, newness, is so acute that i can desire true dislocation, as it were, then frankly i am missing something. to value what i have so little is truly thankless, and that’s the obverse: it’s my bizarre, slightly unstable propensity for launching the escape hatch into black space that feeds back somehow into an understanding that i must be really blessed.

ps: i am thankful for my family, my musical family, my job and my cats. i’m thankful for our apartment. i think i’m thankful for french. i am not thankful for nancy pelosi, but i am working on it.

pps: happy thanksgiving.

“The ones that wheel and deal and whirl and twirl
And play games with each other in their sand-box world
And you can’t find it either in the no-talent fools
That run around gallant
And make all rules for the ones that got talent
And it ain’t in the ones that ain’t got any talent but think they do
And think they’re foolin’ you
The ones who jump on the wagon
Just for a while ’cause they know it’s in style
To get their kicks, get out of it quick
And make all kinds of money and chicks
And you yell to yourself and you throw down yer hat
Sayin’, “Christ do I gotta be like that
Ain’t there no one here that knows where I’m at
Ain’t there no one here that knows how I feel
Good God Almighty
THAT STUFF AIN’T REAL”

dear reader,

when i am songwriting, my ideals are healthiest; i am the most unbending, and the swiftest to raze. understand then, that the post you are about to read is not the official stance of good night, states.

the title of this post should probably read “last thoughts on ‘new’ music ‘marketing.’” actually, “‘last’ thoughts on ‘new’ ‘music’ ‘marketing,’” would be better, but at some point that line of thinking would lead me to title it just “thoughts,” and that just doesn’t jump out and grab you. more importantly, i need the reference. i’ve been reading the famous ode to woody a bit lately because, besides the fact that i think it’s some of dylan’s best work, it’s comforting to remember that many of our country’s great artists have almost certainly felt the way i do now.

besides (getting back to the title), i wish with all my heart that this were a eulogy to what we call “new music marketing,” that the misnomered nothingness were dead or at least seriously ill with poor prospects for recovery. i am convinced that many of its tactics are actually driving consumer habits farther from appreciation of real artistry, and may in fact ensure that we NEVER return to the patronage of the truly great. in short, i believe that we are building a new music industry in the perfect image of the old one.

for the sake of limiting the scope of this post to something readable (and writable!) in a single sitting, i’m going to focus my criticism on the democratization of NMM. there seems to be the assumption somewhere in the murky waters of NMM thinking that one of the problems with Big Record Labels is their centralization and dictation of consumer taste; the idea in the new model is to let people “participate,” or have some “interaction” with the music they listen to. the more direct the contact with the artist, the better. to a large extent, this is the direction of our culture in general. we are tired of the representative republic we inherited–drag the electoral college out into the street and guillotine the tyrant!–and would prefer to more directly govern our country of millions. industries seemingly subject to this same sentiment are doing everything they can to make consumers feel that they have similar direct control over their choices.

luckily, there is an incredible new tool available in this 21st century to help these industries: social networking media! like an ICBM of word-of-mouth advertising, obsessive use of electronic social networking by such a large portion of the population gives those seeking to reinvent the music industry a weapon of unparalleled power. want to feel involved in the process of your favorite artists? friend them! follow them on twitter! (maybe read their blogs!)

of course there is nothing wrong with these devices in and of themselves. no matter how insufferable i might find facebook, i am not trying to communicate to you, reader, that it is evil. what i am trying to say is that NMM’s use of electronic social networking media to sell you “relationship” with your favorite artist is pretty much the same as big labels finding a pretty teenager who can sort of sing and putting her in a short skirt and low top to sell CDs. the model is identical: find something that people want, and convince them that your product is that thing. in the latter example, the pitch was sex, and in the former, it’s community.

the new model is worse in part because the trojan horse is not a vice. community, relationship, consumer choice–they’re good things, right? sure they are. but like buying the record with the sex object on the cover, you don’t actually get any of the things you’re being sold when you read an artist’s blog because you seek community, relationship, or consumer choice. and what marketers (new or old–no real reason to distinguish) hope is that your unfulfilled need just causes you to consume more. i’m betting that they’re right.

and we have not yet arrived, dear reader, at the real tragedy. sex may be unrelated to artistry, but consumer choice is in its way diametrically opposed. an artist who does what his fans desire or demand ceases to be an artist. if NMM succeeds in convincing the consumer that their consumption of music is 1) a matter of equal relationship with the artists he or she patronizes, and 2) a matter of ultimate and direct choice, then eventually we will see another market of panders. it will be decentralized instead of centralized, and it will appear that there are no gate-keepers, but it will be filled with pimps and whores all the same. the future music industry–like the present one–will belong to the musicians who are the best at giving people what they want, and the marketers who are best at convincing those people that they want it.

that stuff ain’t real.

dear reader,

before i truly wake up, it’s easier to set aside the headaches, worries, and mountain of phone calls and e-mails that instantly buries me when i return home. granted, it’s harder to form complete sentences; but everything’s a trade-off, right?

first of all, let me say that we had a great weekend overall. we had a wonderful time meeting and listening to the bloodsugars, and can only hope that relationship continues. in cincinnati we played at this club, were treated very well by their gentlemanly sound guy, dwight, and got to play (and share an apartment with!) seattle’s joy wants eternity. (their website is great.)

the only real spot on the weekend, of course, was my unfortunate allergic reaction and the resulting cancellation of our show at brillobox in pittsburgh. good night, states has never before cancelled a show, and i was particularly sad to have done so this past weekend. we appreciate so much the support of everyone who attended and chose not to receive the offered refund; please come see us in october. it’s not too far away.

although this clearly doesn’t make up for the missed set, i thought i’d offer a brief tour of our stage set-up, in pictures and words, as a peace offering. this is maybe sorta what you might have possibly seen at b-box.

clockwise from rear stage left:

TREVOR
t-dog stands RIGHT THERE, people. that’s his ’70s bassman 135 that gives him such a deep, woody tone (thanks, tubes!), his venerable fulltone ‘69 (the first of two and only remaining ‘69 owned by gn,s) used to great effect on “not come around” & “family dark,” and his fender jaguar baritone (tuned to low E, like a bass). he plays it on the aforementioned “family dark” and on “far side of the boulevard,” which truthfully has been out of the set for a while. had we played on saturday night, you would have seen trevor bop hard, rock his silver j-bass (not pictured–it’s actually fused to his waist at this point, so photographing it without him is just not possible) authoritatively with fingers, pick, and thumb, and sing a bunch o’ harmonies. the low end, as they say, would have been held down.

JOE
i get really excited when i see joe’s set-up, because i know there are just so many great sounds that are going to happen here. unfortunately, my amateur photograph does not include joe’s pro junior, and his blond strat is just barely visible as a voluptuous curve leaning on the x-stand; this shot is more from joe’s perspective as he stands like a pablo-honey-era-jonny-greenwood-haired giant at the front of stage left. the synth is the nord lead 2 that joe plays on “i am the loser,” “only thing,” and “far side of the boulevard.” (megan actually stands here and plays it on “there is a treasure” as well.) this is the first clavia product we bought. the pedals are entirely for joe’s intricate guitar work, and there are clearer shots of them in some of the recording photos. if we had managed to mount the stage at brillobox, you would have seen joe pick his guitar literally thousands of times–many of them furiously–, often whammying (not a word) dramatically, cooly lay down some fat mono lines, adroitly play the knobs of his pedals (especially on “long coats, no energy,”), sing intently, and play acoustic guitar on “sometimes i see you on the lawn.” joe = sangfroid.

ME (STEVE)
well, not much to say here. in fact, i play acoustic guitar ~60% of each show, so this picture is a bit misleading. what’s interesting about these shots to me is how little space we each actually have to stand in, and my position on stage is no exception. lately i’ve been setting up just slightly forward of the dead center of the stage, between and very slightly set back from joe and megan. so… my tiny pedalboard [80% homemade (i’m all about the percentages suddenly)] featuring the delay for “there is a treasure” that i control with my feet, and the fuzz i use for leads on “only thing,” “killer of the one,” and “sometimes i see you on the lawn”; my awesome coiled guitar cable; the gibson les paul deluxe i bought in highschool as my first real electric guitar (and play on “there is a treasure” and “only thing”); and my re-issue twin reverb that i’ve used with few exceptions for the entire short life (so far!) of gn,s. not pictured: ‘65 gibson sg junior (for the rest of the electric songs) and ‘68 gibson b-25. the set list from friday night is visible at the bottom of this photo–joe and i almost always share a set list. had i not been an idiot and eaten bleu cheese on saturday, you would have seen me say stupid, slightly unintelligible things, sing my heart out, thoroughly abuse my beloved acoustic guitar (probably smashing the headstock into one of dan’s cymbals at some point), squint cross-eyed at the mic, and walk around to the jup for the end of “long coats, no energy.”

MEGAN
we’ve never played with a band that had more keyboards than us, and unless we start opening for wilco or potentially jean-michel jarre, probably never will. i’m not proud.
this is where the proverbial magic happens. it would not be easy to describe everything that actually takes place behind these ‘boards, probably not even for megan. off the top of my head, i believe she currently uses 5 electro patches, 5 x-station sounds, and i think 11 jup sounds in the course of a set. (that’s actually like 275 possible combinations!) but i’m getting ahead of myself. the top right synth is a roland jupiter 6, made sometime around 1983. it’s been in gn,s just as long as any of us, and is prominently featured throughout “short films on self-control” and the internet singles. our website is modeled after the thing because we love it to death. it weighs like 10,000 lbs. or something and is 100% analog. i could talk about it all day. the little silver guy in the upper left is a novation x-station 25. it’s got a great little touchpad and joystick that megan uses pretty extensively in “long coats, no energy” and “killer of the one,” a bunch of onboard effects, and the ability to sync just about anything to tempo (in terms of bpm) which we really like. (that’s how those blips on “not come around” always fall right with the beat!) megan actually sits the x-station on a music stand these days, mostly because no one can figure out how else to mount it so it’s within easy reach. the third keyboard is a nord electro 73 that megan uses for all the non-synth sounds in our set: acoustic piano, rhodes, wurlitzer, and organs (except for the trashy ’60s organ sounds on “killer” and “she wrote a letter,” which are the jup). this a just a really great ‘board all the way around, and in contrast to the jup weighs like <1 lb. and is 0% analog. joe actually stands here and plays the electro on “there is a treasure.” among the things you cannot see in this photo are the two sustain pedals megan uses for the jup and electro, and the secret chinese-herb voodoo she must certainly be using to be able to step on both pedals while standing up. scary stuff, folks. notice the set list taped to the electro.
had our little band been able to play on saturday, you would have seen megan play maybe a trillion notes (192 of them 16th notes), constantly change patches, bop almost as hard as trevor but with a little more femininity, somehow direct nearly all of her voluminous vocal stylings in the direction of the microphone floating ominously above the sea of keys (25 + 61 + 73 = 159), and maybe, if you’re really lucky, tuck her hair behind her ears.

DAN
dan’s drums are really beautiful. although megan’s rig has approximately as many buttons, switches, lights, visual displays and control sticks as the cockpit of a commercial aircraft, the real helm of the gn,s live show is arguably right here at the skins. before i orient you to the inner workings of this command center, let me impress you with my drum knowledge by talking for a second about dan’s kit itself:
two cymbals: old. i think they’re zildjian, probably made by actual turkish people in actual turkey. they’re definitely different sizes or something. brass-colored.
hi-hats: definitely two of those.
rack tom: it’s small; it’s awesome; it has a moon gel.
snare: the head features two or three moon gels, usually some marker doodlings or drawings of robots, and one note reminding dan to put the lightbulb in his kick drum that backlights our logo on the kick drum head (thanks to emily kane–go, kanes!). there are somehow “wires” involved with this drum but i don’t know what they’re connected to. maybe dan.
floor tom: big. i know that i like when dan hits this and that it is hard to mic. two moon gels!
bass drum: also called the “kick.” i am NOT allowed to stand on this drum.
well, i think we’ve all learned something here. this photo does not show the hat trick that dan mounts on his hi-hats for some songs, or his stick bag (he uses mallets on “there is a treasure”). what you can see clearly are his yamaha clickstation metronome, his one-shot shakers (two of i think 4 shakers he uses in the course of a set), the briefcase in which those items live, dan’s roland spd-s sampler and trigger pad bank, and his in-ears that allow him to actually hear all of these things (they’re sitting on the floor tom–see?). dan somehow installed hardware on the underside of that briefcase that allows him to secure it on a stand, so he can grab things out of it and toss them back in without worrying about knocking it over. the spd-s is the source of many extra arpeggiators (”i am the loser,” “killer of the one,” “spring is the winter’s end,”), noises (”i am the loser”), drum loops (”sometimes i see you on the lawn”), and the glockenspiel and xylophone sounds dan plays on “family dark,” “long coats, no energy,” and “she wrote a letter.” although dan plays an actual glockenspiel in songwriting and recording, programming individual notes into each individual spd-s pad is easier for live work because, besides being one or two fewer instruments to lug around, it allows dan to play mallet instruments with regular drumsticks. dan’s role in live shows is special because we play to a click, but trevor, joe, and i (and sometimes megan) can’t hear it at all. it’s only in dan’s ears, so he has to somehow keep us all from going horribly off-course. the cruel dynamics of rock ‘n roll are such that, if one of us does go way off, it generally appears to be dan’s fault. it’s also his job to start the click at the correct tempo for each song, and then begin the intro or song at the appropriate time and when all the other involved members are ready. if one of us is for some reason not ready to begin a song (which happens all the time), of course we also find a way to make that dan’s fault. such is the life of a drummer. had my body produced the enzymes to digest casein, you would have seen dan make -1 or -2 mistakes, play his drums with a wide and thrilling range of dynamics and expression and often with one hand, yell effusively at at least one point in the set, have roughly 2x as much fun as anyone else in the band, make a series of inimitable faces, and probably mouth the words to several songs.

or something like that.

My favorite blog, Boing Boing unearthed another gem last week. This video (see below) was posted on youtube recently and has quickly become a hit around the interwebs. After you watch it, you’ll realize why.

This blogger recently interviewed the lead singer and has more back story for you to read.

Check it out!

UPDATED: Apparently some people are questioning the authenticity of the video (below). Further information here and here.

try and imagine those three words in a triangle.

dear reader,

“she wrote a letter” was probably the most difficult single yet to mix. hopefully it’s not the most difficult to listen to. (actually, i’m listening to it right now, on our site. i’m always on our site now because i accidentally dragged my gmail bookmark right off the bar, and the good night, states bookmark is now where the gmail one was. imagine the confusion.)

yesterday i had a sudden influx of free time, which in some way, shape or form, is what most of my posts seem to be about lately, and which i knew then to be short-lived, certainly, so i spent it editing this long overdue video. i promise you will either find it charming or absolutely terrifying and not at all funny, in an understated way. anyway, you should watch it and share it, because i’m sure one of my band mates will make me take it down soon.

as is often the case, i was in the midst of mania inspired by mixing last week. i think it’s part of human nature for lows and highs to accentuate each other, mostly because emotions are generally dependent on perception (which for human beans is not real objective on the whole); and if said ups & downs are right next to each other, then you’ve got something really, really special.
again, well-tread ground on this blog is the fact that mixing creates that for me all on its own, regardless of whatever personal equanimity or lack thereof i’ve got, because of the process. unusually, though, the most memorable moment of last week’s blur is one of real euphoria; and like all truly great bouts of euphoria in my life, it was also a moment of great clarity.

(let me take another sip of coffee to really settle into an ironic tone.) that clarity was clearly exhibited last wednesday as i drove down the hills of allendale road quite a bit too fast, singing/screaming “OH YEAH!” on the way to my 3.30 session. it seemed like the only thing to do. you see, “she wrote a letter,” is really about (drum roll, please… ) CHANGE, in all it’s difficulty and destruction and most of all beautiful elation. freedom, people. fo rill.
i’m tired pretty much all the time now. joe’s theory is that no matter how careful we are, the in-between week is not long enough to catch up from the weekend. ever. that’s probably true, and i think it’s also true that a lot of my fatigue is really internal. in any case, the song reminded me just in time that nobody has to stay where they are–if marilee changed her dollars for pesos, her DMs for euros, baby, then man i can, too. specifics will die, nay are even now fading away. embrace the nothing-permanent.

without the details, of course, i’ve got no kind of dialectic, but that’s ok. i traded it for freedom.

ps. ok, SERIOUSLY, watch the video.