DGMFS

Boom Logistics: Second

My good friend and Unthinkable co-founder Matthew Shorter turned 40 last weekend. It happens. Justin and I decided to make him a piece of music each, working with some improvisations he'd done for us on keyboards (and bassoon in Justin's case). Justin's piece, "Apostrophe Ecstatic Disambiguator", is up over on the Eva Hipsey site. Here's mine. Don't ask about the title - it's a painful in joke essentially involving Federico Mompou and my appalling linguistic skills. My, how we laughed.

On Rock Band Network, Meshuggah and meganiches

This is a post from the blog of my consultancy Unthinkable. I largely keep activity there and here separate, but as this crosses into some of my personal hobbyhorses, most notably Meshuggah and the strange realm of the meganiche, I thought it warranted republishing here, with thanks to the other Unthinkables, Justin, Matthew and Sarah.

Those of you who either read this blog - or my own non-professional one - regularly or else know me personally will be unsurprised to learn that one of my daily Google alerts is for "Meshuggah". For those not in either of the categories above, Meshuggah are a death/math metal outfit from Sweden and pretty much my favourite thing on the planet.

Anyway, Meshuggah are a pretty unprolific bunch so most days the alerts aren't too interesting: links to illegal download sites (bad, bad people) or to an off-Broadway show called "The Meshuggah Nuns" (mad, mad people). Granted, the last couple of weeks have been rather more active, what with a new Meshuggah album and UK tour announced in the spring (don't expect much sense from me in April, by the way).

Anyhow, in among the announcements and the piracy and nun-based comedy, last week up popped this little video:

My first thought was to fire off an email to the rest of the UC team: "This is all our theses come at once." Less concisely: it struck me that the video combined two things we very often demonstrate and discuss in our various seminars and workshops, namely bedroom shred guitarists and music-based gaming. For more on the former, see mine and Justin's essay in the anthology Creativity, Money, Love.

But my second thought, on looking more closely was: actually, what the hell is this?! I mean, yes, it's clearly a video of three people playing some music game version of Mehuggah's 'Bleed', but er, how? That is, how did it come to be that 'Bleed' was part of some video game in the first place? A few more clicks and I had even more questions. What is an FBFC? What's Elite Rhythm Gaming? What's a full combo? What's a full screen? And on and on.

Now for anyone properly familiar with Rock Band Network: read no further, write me off as a latecomer. But I mean really familiar. If, like me, you've kind of heard of RBN and think you know enough about it to delve no further, think again.

Here's a little precis of the network's origins and development and some thoughts it's prompted in me.

Games developer Harmonix Music Systems launched Rock Band in 2007. The game essentially followed in the footsteps of Guitar Hero, but added drums and bass guitar. The accepted story runs something like this: the first game came at the height of the rhythm game boom, which you might recall was blowing up massively at the time, but sales of subsequent releases dropped as the bottom fell out of the market, or at least as the mainstream games playing public moved on to new pastures, social games in particular.

Well, yes, to a point. But the journalists writing about the death of music games were of the same ilk as those who'd said they were the saviour of the music industry in the first place. Now the record industry is always being promised salvation, from ringtones to Spotify, but to my mind the real story here is rather more interesting: it's another step in the wholesale reinvention of the entertainment industry. Because somewhere in this muddled history Activision launched Rock Band Network.

The initial idea was straightforward enough and one well-tried in games as diverse as Singstar, or Little Big Planet: the distribution of new in-game components and features over the network (in this case, as in Singstar's, those features being songs), allowing fans to play new material without having to wait for a new physical release. In marketing terms: a neat way to retain brand loyalty.

So yes, simple enough, conceptually; tough technologically, however. In fact, Activision teamed up with Microsoft in order to deliver new content over various networks (and it's worth noting that RBN is still rather more successful on XBox than Playstation).

But it was evident pretty quickly that Harmonix couldn't cope with the demand they'd created. One sure sign of that: pirate sites were filling the gap: the invisible hand, nature abhorring a vacuum and all that. So Harmonix came up with a new strategy. For a start they did a deal with two of the communities creating pirate games (ScoreHero and CustomHero) and next opened up the development platform to third parties, effectively allowing bands, managers and labels to create their own RB versions of their songs and distribute them through the network - all with full QA procedures in place, of course.

And this is when it get interesting. An entire subculture of Rock Band Network devotees springs up, with its own language, rules and informal distribution networks. For an example of the last list look no further than the Elite Rhythm Gaming Network on You Tube.

Oh, and if you're still wondering about the lingo I cited above, a combo is a correct combination of notes and therefore a full combo, or FC, is a complete play-through of a song without making a single mistake; an FBFC is a "full band full combo", that is, a complete run through of a song by all three players without a single mistake from any of them; a "full screen" of one of these is a video which captures all three players' "playing". OK?

Meanwhile specialist music blogs are as breathless in their anticipation of new RBN song releases as they are about actual, well, new songs (take this headline from Metal Underground: "New Metal Songs Come To The Rock Band Network This Week.")

So…. what to make of all this? And why am I so fascinated by it, excited even? Well, the answer is multi-faceted but I think I would break my brief observations out around the following themes:

New Business Models What's in it for the labels, and bands, for the record industry people that get involved. Well, there's "brand extension", of course, spreading the word, reaching to potential audiences. And of course there's cementing existing fan loyalties. But there's something more tangible here, too: the artist or label takes 30% of the sale price of the song. That might not sustain a career, but it could be a significant part of a portfolio income strategy - which is, let's face it, pretty much the only one a musical artist can meaningfully pursue right now.

It's yet another meganiche I've written elsewhere about what Justin and I have called meganiches: areas of cultural activity which are apparently so specialist as to elude all but the most fleeting (and often scathing) of mainstream press coverage, yet which have passionate active participants numbering their millions.

Interestingly, there's a big crossover between RBN and at least one of my other hobby horses: metal - after all, we came in on Meshuggah. I'd warrant that there's something of a natural fit: a certain nerdy, overwhelmingly male, detail-obsessed, self-consciously countercultural personality.

But it goes beyond metal. Take Umphrey's McGee, for example. Chances are you've never heard of them; they're a US psych-rock jam band that come on like a mash up of Frank Zappa and the Police (really) and that have an utterly devoted fanbase who attend their hundreds of gigs a year. The band's Kevin Browning wrote interestingly recently about the role of technology and building the band's career. It's unsurprising then, that the band, I gather, have considered releasing their new album in its entirety as a RBN songs.

This stuff is HARD! A couple of years back, Clay Shirky coined the term "cognitive surplus" to denote the vast swathes of time on the hands of people in the developed world could get back in their lives to do interesting stuff if they only gave up TV (I'm boiling things down here, to be sure).Now it's a moot point as to whether mastering a song on RBN is creative in any way, but it sure is active. Check out commentaries from posters on the Elite Rhythm Gamin YT pages for evidence of that!

Creative or not, this is passionate, engaged and vital activity.

Could we harness this for other ends? It strikes me that rhythm gaming is edging ever closer to the act of playing music - for real. In the early days of Guitar Hero it was often pointed out that the controllers bore no resemblance to an guitar in anything other than cosmetic terms, and that being good at the game did nothing for your musical ability, beyond perhaps a vague notion of engaging with the basic concept of rhythm and timing (I can certainly report that as a - I hope - proficient guitar player I showed zero aptitude for the game - zero). But the guitar controllers are getting closer (and indeed, instrument manufacturers like Fender are endorsing them) and when it comes to the drums, with due respect to drummers, drumming's just hitting stuff in time, right? In all seriousness, the RBN "drum kit" is not significantly different from the practice pads many drummers use.

Is it possible then, that at some point, rhythm gaming will use, effectively, real instruments? I think it is, and indeed, some prototyping has already been done. At that point, rhythm gaming will become, to all intents and purposes, no different to bedroom shredding - which is mostly covers-based in any case - only perhaps with a little more structure. We've argued that the flaunting of one's musical prowess through posting clips on YT should be seen as a potential pointer for educationalists. The coming together of rhythm gaming and bedroom shredding I posit here is a fine example of what has been termed (rather inelegantly, to be sure) the gamification of learning.

I've got a few other things to say at some point about how some of these RBN performances are being built into dubstep remixes - really - but that's probably enough from me on the subject for now. A couple of final things. If anyone stumbles across this post who's actually an RBN user I'd really appreciate your responses and thoughts. And for a sense of just how big this really is, just take a look at this list on Wikipedia of all the songs currently available on RBN. Like I say: meganiche.

Dean McPhee: Stony Ground

I am indebted to Steve Nolan's December 2011 podcast for Bleep, which I've only got round to this week, for introducing me to the haunting work of English solo electric guitarist Dean McPhee. This is "Stony Ground" from McPhee's album Son of the Black Peace.

Schütze+Hopkins: Fille En Aiguilles

I realise it's only a couple of weeks since I mentioned the Schütze+Hopkins archival live recording Concerts: Europe 1992-2001, but what can I say, we've been busy. Fille En Aiguilles is a brand new album on the Twilight Science label that we recorded and mixed between 2010 and 2011, featuring Paul on keyboards and electronics and myself on guitars and atmospheres. With the exception of one track, Fille comprises entirely new studio material; the album's opener, "The Dissolving Child", was recorded in concert at 2010's Göteborg Art Sounds Festival in Sweden.

As ever, you can stream it from the player below and if you like what you hear, I strongly recommend you download the Hi-Def FLACs from the Bandcamp pages.

Old School Death Metal in the flesh, as it were: Autopsy

Some time last year I started putting up a series of Spotify playlists breaking down Death Metal into some of its sub genres. The first of them looked at what's quaintly known as "Old School DM", and featured US trailblazers Autopsy, essentially an offshoot of the late Chuck Schuldiner's mighty Death. Anyhow, should you want to, you can put a face to the name: this is a recently-posted video of the group performing on what looks like a music TV show, back in the early 90s (sadly there are no more details on it as far as I can see). Savage stuff.

Oh, and yes - I will get back to finishing off those playlists, assuming there's anything left in Spotify to make it worthwhile.

Via Metal Underground

More on Lamb of God

I mentioned a couple of days back that I find myself really looking forward to Lamb of God's follow up to 2009 Wrath. Anyway, here they are again in another context.

In common with seemingly half the people who've ever been in or around the music business, I follow the newletter of the former music business lawyer Bob Lefsetz, a commentator known for his contankerouness and a spot-on understanding of the impact of tech on the entertainment industry. I don't always agree with him, but he's essential reading.

He frequently publishes some of the more interesting - and sometimes most amusingly outraged - emails he gets in a periodic "mailbag". I do little more than skim them, if that, but I was struck this week by a missive from Larry Mazer of Entertainment Services Unlimited, manager of the aforementioned LoG. Here's a couple of quotes.

"the first time the label hears a note of music or sees artwork is the day we hand in the finished project. we have been since day one, a profitable business for epic requiring a minimal investment in marketing, radio, video and zero tour support. we have 2 platinum dvds and our last cd wrath debuted at #2 in billboard missing #1 only because taylor swift had a target promotion the same week as our release and sold 5,000 more records to be #1. we were #1 in canada and charted top 10 in australia, japan and the uk."

"lamb of god has averaged almost 300 shows per cd cycle always doing at least 3 complete international tours. i currently have them routed through december 2013. On this tour we will be making our second trip to india where we sold 7,000 tickets the first time in and got on the cover of rolling stone india. We also will be making our second trip to china, israel, greece, turkey, russia, all eastern bloc countries and all pacific rim territories. we also will be doing a full south american tour and mexico. the upcoming tour will introduce the band for the first time to south korea and south africa. our motto is if there is electricity, we go."

To anyone who follows the metal scene even vaguely none of this will come as a surprise. But a couple of things strike me.

Justin, my colleague over at Unthinkable, and I often talk about "mega niches": areas of cultural activity which are barely on the mainstream radar (or if at all, as an object of ridicule) yet which are, one way and another, massive, often outselling by some margin better known activities. Think World of Warcraft. Think Ultimate Fighting or MMA. And yes, think metal.

Next up: look at that touring schedule. Wanna know why these bands play the most technically demanding music with seeming abandon, seemingly without trying? It's because they do it all the time, year in year out. This is not a passtime.

And lastly: catch that line about Taylor Swift only selling 5000 albums more? Yes - it tells you something about the mega niche, but it tells you something about the collapse of sales in the mainstream market, surely? The mainstream is over - bring on the niches.

Best news since the Meshuggah live dates announcement... the album announcement

Nothing to add to that, as it were.

Via Blabbermouth.net

10 Paris B'ball stories by Yué Wu

10 Paris B'ball stories from Wu Yue on Vimeo.

My son Frank sent me a link to this film, a short piece about pro and street basektball in Paris by Yué Wu, a Parisian film maker and artist. Frank is fanatical about film, music and basketball; I share his passion for the first two, but while I've always been impressed with b'ball wouldn't call myself a lover of the sport (or of any for that matter). Nonetheless I found this low-budget short documentary charming and fascinating. It's also nice to see Paris in another light - neither that of Midnight in Paris or La Haine.

Lamb of God: Ghost Walking

I've never got into Lamb of God really deeply, although I've always enjoyed their work whenever I've come across it, and I do recall their performance at Download in 2010 as being a particular corker. Anyway, this lyric video for the "Ghost Walking", a fine bit of groove metal indeed, has certainly got me looking forward to the band's forthcoming Resolution.

Via Metal Hammer

A new Schütze+Hopkins live album

A new year, a new album; kind of new, anyway. In the last few years of the 90s Paul Schütze and I played a bunch of concerts around Europe (and elsewhere, as documented on Tokyo-Osaka*). Released on the Twilight Science digital label, this single track album is a composite of recordings made during that period in London, Torino, Bologna, Nantes and Brussels. The album features guest performances from Dirk Wachtelaer (percussion), Raoul Björkenheim (guitar) and Clive Bell (woodwinds). As ever with our TS releases, you can stream it from the player below (which, please, feel free to share!), but if you like what you hear I urge you to download the FLACs.

Other recent issues on Twilight Science include NAPE's debut The Void Yukio and Vertical Memory, the 1995 album Paul relased under the name Seed. 

* We can't yet make that album available through Twilight Science, but we hope to later this year.