Rock and Roll Will Never Be The Same

by Don Rittner

If you’re a fellow baby boomer, you probably tried to form a rock and roll band during the 60’s or 70’s. Every teenage male (and a few females) wanted to be rock and roll stars. Influenced by The Beatles, Rolling Stones, and other British and American groups, it was through music that the 60’s generation expressed their feelings about the state of the world.

If the Capital District was your home during that era you may even have rocked to the following locally bred groups: Tino and the Revlons, The Ruins, Bougaloo, Monolith, Love’s Ice Cubes, and my own group Horton Strong.

There were thousands of bands all trying to get that lucrative record contract, but you had better odds of getting struck by lightning. You needed enough original material for a LP (know what that is?), an agent or manager to contact a record company, and the hopes that the company would send an A&R man to listen to a performance and sign you to a contract.

The music industry controlled everything - performers and distribution. No contract. No distribution. No chance of ever being heard! Speed ahead 20 years.

Got talent? Do it yourself. The power and reach of the Internet, along with CD quality sound now gives artists access to over 100 million people with no middleman. With the low cost of computers and access to digital audio machines, many striving artists are recording their own music, making their own CD’s, and selling them over the Net and at their ‘gigs.’ Many are making a decent living doing it as well.

As a result, there has been an explosive growth of independent labels - "Indys," allowing fans to buy music at the click of a mouse!

Artists also have the ability to keep in touch with their fans through email and electronic newsletters which brings a closer connection between artist and fan that never existed before.

Within the last couple of years the demand for better quality music over the Net has been met with faster modems and the introduction of an encoding protocol called MP3. MP3 stands for MPEG 1 Layer 3. A fancy name for the ability to shrink and store audio into smaller file sizes that make it possible to travel over the Net in seconds instead of hours. It can compress audio data by a factor of 12 or more, giving you compact data files and providing near CD-quality audio.

Imagine being able to log onto your favorite online music store, select the songs you want, pay by credit card, and then download to your computer or portable MP3 player.

Unfortunately, instead of embracing this new technology to sell audio over the Net, the music industry has attempted to kill MP3 and other technologies fearing copyright infringement, illegal distribution of music (pirating), etc. But the cat is out of the bag. The industry will be better served if it gets on the Net bandwagon. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) recently tried to prevent (unsuccessfully) Diamond Multimedia from shipping its Rio handheld MP3 player. Together with the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), they are threatening to sue the Internet service Lycos over its MP3 offering of a half million songs. The industry is blaming MP3 for a slump in CD sales. Duh! On the brighter side, the music industry is looking into coming up with its own encoding standard that can prevent unwarranted distribution or infringement.

Let’s face it, there are great amounts of talent in this country. They would never have a chance of being heard through traditional channels because they don’t fit the "mold" of what recording companies are looking for - they tend to look for clones of already successful names. Music, like most things, is an evolutionary force. It needs those participants willing to break from the norm and evolve to the next level. We would still be listening to Fabian and Paul Anka if there wasn’t an Elvis or Beatles. The Net will probably do more for the growth of music appreciation in the next five years than the industry has done in the last thirty.

Can you make it on the Net?

Haze (www.coolhaze.com) is a 26 year old female singer in LA in the Industrial/Hard Rock genre who placed her music on the Net, developed a huge following as a result, and then landed a traditional record contract.

Haze early on in her career placed demos of her original songs on her Web site and promised to send a copy of a tape of her original songs to anyone who requested one. She mailed out over one thousand free demo tapes to U.S. fans as well as people in Poland, Germany, Finland, Israel, Spain, England, and Australia.

To keep track of her play dates and events, her fans subscribe to a free online newsletter. Fans constantly send her email which she personally responds to since she told me she loves being in close touch with them, and develops close friendships with a number of them.

Haze landed a contract with Mutiny Records a few months after being on the Net. They released a CD a couple of years ago. Her rendition of the old Kingston Trio 1958 classic Tom Dooley is right on the money! She has just released a new CD. Haze has become an Net celebrity and success story.

On the local scene you will see independent stars rise as well. My buddy Bob Hyatt and I were having a brew at the Troy Pub and Brewery a few Saturday’s ago (ok, every Saturday), and were impressed with the voice of Denise Culhane who was performing with her friend on stage. Sure enough, Denise has her own Web site (http://www.deniseculhane.com) and a selection of her original songs which you can download and listen to using a MP3 player. She is currently producing her own CD and it should do well. She has a great voice and talent for writing lyrics.

Hmmm, now if I can grow some hair back, dust off my drums from the basement, maybe, just maybe..... Nah!

Here are two sites for downloading a MP3 player for both PC and Mac users.

Streamworks Player for Mac

http://www.xingtech.com/support/downloads/swplayer/index.html

Winamp for Windows

http://www.winamp.com/winamp/download/index.phtml

Don is the president of The Learning Factory which has relocated to Troy! Reach don at drittner@aol.com or send mail to The Learning Factory, 251 River, Troy, 12180.