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Old April 26th, 2014 #1
Alex Linder
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Default #1 Songwriting Thread

[this thread is for interviews with songwriters/singers]

I was reading some of your old interviews about writing terrible old poetry, which I can obviously relate to as someone who is trying to be a writer as a living. Where do you think you saw a shift where you started writing things that you liked? Or have you had that?

That’s such a good question! I always think about that. I think it’s when [I wrote] the songs I wrote for the first EP. That was only when I was like 21 or so, so I’d already been playing for a few years performing solo. Just singing those really terrible singer-songwriter songs. Then I kind of stepped back from myself. I don’t know what the change was. I think I just tried to simplify things and stopped trying to write a “good song.” Because that’s what I was always trying to do, trying to write a catchy song and blah blah blah. Then I was just experimenting, like, 'how about you write a song with one chord that doesn’t have a chorus and see if you can make it interesting?' So it was a bit more of an experiment. And that led to finding my own comfortable voice, which led on to this.

http://noisey.vice.com/blog/courtney...avant-gardener
 
Old September 5th, 2014 #2
Alex Linder
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Gene Simmons is making headlines again, this time for burying rock ‘n’ roll. The outspoken artist says “Rock is finally dead,” in an interview conducted by his son Nick for Esquire magazine. The Kiss singer-bassist also shares his thoughts on the failing record business and how he would not want to be an up-and-coming artist today.

“The death of rock was not a natural death,” Simmons offers. “Rock did not die of old age. It was murdered. Some brilliance, somewhere, was going to be expressed, and now it won’t, because it’s that much harder to earn a living playing and writing songs. No one will pay you to do it.”

Simmons also offers sobering advice for young musicians and songwriters saying, “Don’t quit your day job is a good piece of advice. When I was coming up, it was not an insurmountable mountain. Once you had a record company on your side, they would fund you, and that also meant when you toured they would give you tour support.” He adds, “There are still record companies, and it does apply to pop, rap, and country to an extent. But for performers who are also songwriters — the creators — for rock music, for soul, for the blues — it’s finally dead. Rock is finally dead.”

He continues on about how he feels for this lost generation of kids who will not have the same opportunity that he had with Kiss. “It’s very sad for new bands. My heart goes out to them. They just don’t have a chance.” Simmons remarks. “If you play guitar, it’s almost impossible. You’re better off not even learning how to play guitar or write songs, and just singing in the shower and auditioning for ‘The X Factor.’ And I’m not slamming ‘The X Factor,’ or pop singers. But where’s the next Bob Dylan? Where’s the next Beatles? Where are the songwriters? Where are the creators?”

Simmons added that he is not being simply being cantankerous offering, “I’m not the guy to be pouting and complaining about stuff. I make a decent living. I’m very, very lucky. But that’s because we started before the chaos, in the days when people had to buy records. If you didn’t like a band, you didn’t buy their albums, and the people decided.”
Read the full interview at Esquire.com.

Read More: Gene Simmons: ‘Rock Is Finally Dead’ | http://loudwire.com/gene-simmons-roc...ckback=tsmclip
 
Old September 5th, 2014 #3
N.B. Forrest
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Quote:
"Once you had a record company on your side, they would fund you, and that also meant when you toured they would give you tour support.” He adds, “There are still record companies, and it does apply to pop, rap, and country to an extent. But for performers who are also songwriters — the creators — for rock music, for soul, for the blues — it’s finally dead. Rock is finally dead.”

He continues on about how he feels for this lost generation of kids who will not have the same opportunity that he had with Kiss. “It’s very sad for new bands. My heart goes out to them. They just don’t have a chance.” Simmons remarks. “If you play guitar, it’s almost impossible. You’re better off not even learning how to play guitar or write songs, and just singing in the shower and auditioning for ‘The X Factor.’ And I’m not slamming ‘The X Factor,’ or pop singers. But where’s the next Bob Dylan? Where’s the next Beatles? Where are the songwriters? Where are the creators?”

Simmons added that he is not being simply being cantankerous offering, “I’m not the guy to be pouting and complaining about stuff. I make a decent living. I’m very, very lucky. But that’s because we started before the chaos, in the days when people had to buy records. If you didn’t like a band, you didn’t buy their albums, and the people decided.”
Mistah Witz is a lousy kike turd - but a very smart, very astute one. He's absolutely right that real musicians have been dumped in the shitcan in favor of crotch-monkeys & caterwauling exhibitionist pop whores.

Of course, what he discreetly "forgets" to mention is that his fellow Tribesmen are the guilty party.
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Old September 5th, 2014 #4
N.B. Forrest
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Atlantic Records legend Ahmet Ertegun said (paraphrasing):

"You just don't find great bands like Led Zeppelin out there."


Serious players have to dedicate themselves to years of hard work to master their instruments, sitting alone in bedrooms for countless hours of repetitive drudgery. On the other hand, a (c)rapper just has to grab a microphone and start mumblin' "fuck nigga ho benjamins chronic kill crackas"; a singer can either sing or they can't, hardly any need for work at all, except for the stupid, mandatory fag-choreographed dance moves.

Who do you think greasy kike record company suits in search of the big, easy shekels would prefer working with?
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Old September 5th, 2014 #5
varg
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One of my favorite metal guitarists has written about his experience w/ record labels jewing him. He writes and composes all the songs himself and he's considered by a lot in metal as one of the top metal guitarists currently. He wants to start crowd funding to get his own studio (which his fans are more than willing to pay for) instead of having to rent out a studios for a massive amount of money, and be limited in recording time. The label won't let him unless they get a cut of the money.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jari Mäenpää
Reality Update About Crowd Funding, TIME II And Future Albums

Iīm very happy to see that we have so much dedicated fans that would be willing to pledge and be a part of funding a studio for Wintersun, so I could make the next Wintersun album without it taking another 10 years again.

Iīve been thinking about this Kickstarter/Pledge crowd funding thing for a while and Iīm very confident now that there is enough of you guys that would help us raise the money for the Wintersun studio! This would give me the freedom to make music efficiently and nonstop. It would eliminate lot of the problems Iīve struggled with all my life and still continue to struggle everyday. For example right now I need a studio to reamp guitars for TIME II. And not just any studio, my own studio where I can craft my sounds exactly like I want them. 3rd party studios have never worked for me and Iīve never gotten satisfactory results for the insane prices they charge.

I live in a small shitty apartment building and I have neighbors. It is very very hard to work like this. I canīt record vocals, I canīt practise my singing, I canīt record guitars, I canīt record guitars even with modelling amps, because the electricity is so bad in this shitty building so I get lots of interference, I even play and practise the electric guitar acoustically without an amp 99% of the time in my home, I canīt record drums or basically any acoustic instruments, I donīt have the room or cool space for a big computer farm which is a must for the orchestrations for the next album (the place is too small and hot even for the one computer I have), I canīt mix properly, īcause the room is so bad and thereīs always ambient noise in and outside the building. Thatīs why I usually turn my sleeping rhythm around and mix at nights, but that causes problems in my everyday life. I canīt do pretty much anything properly in this situation. Building a professional studio for Wintersun would erase all this and give us the freedom to make music nonstop. It would upgrade our album sound significantly and most importantly speed up the album making process significantly. This would even raise our live game. With proper preproduction, able to tweak our live sounds and setup properly we would sound pretty incredible live. We would also be able to rehearse more and that would allow us to be able to play live more often and come to places where we normally have not been able to come. The studio would allow us to have more time for everything.

But the problem is this. I have a record deal with Nuclear Blast. If I would do a Kickstarter with a downloadable album for example, they would come with lawyers and take % share (more than half) away from the money that is your money meant for the Wintersun studio and the album production. Would you even want to pledge if Wintersun didnīt get 100% of the money youīve pledged for the album production? Then our management would take their % share away. Then thereīs taxes of course. The Finnish government would take something like 40% away. This would leave me nothing. I would be totally screwed. Iīve been trying to have a discussion with Nuclear Blast about crowd funding, but they are totally freaking out. They see the crowd funding as a threat to their business and they would rather see Wintersun dead, than me doing a crowd funding. I think this would not hurt them at all, only benefit them, but they cannot see the big picture of Wintersun doing well. They actually told me point blank that I should just stop making music and they will never release Wintersun from the contract. Itīs really like this, because they canīt or wonīt loan me enough money to build a studio and fund an album, they donīt want other people (the fans) to fund it either… unless they get a crazy big cut of the funding (for doing absolutely nothing).

This is the way a record deal works: The label gives an advance to make an album. This is a loan and they will recoup every penny back from the record sales. The reason why TIME I&II has taken so long to make (and still is taking long to finish TIME II), is because I havenīt gotten enough advances (money) to make these complex albums. Not even close. So Iīve been struggling all these years and sacrificed everything to make these albums. I have never really made any money from Wintersun. All my money has gone to album production, but you can guess who have made tons of money from Wintersun. The point is that I need my own studio to make the future albums, but Nuclear Blast wonīt be able to loan enough money to make that happen and then they wonīt allow me to do a crow funding campaign either that would make it happen. And even if Nuclear Blast would be able to loan me the money for the studio, our management would take their share of that money and I would get only part of the money, but I would still have to pay back 100% to Nuclear Blast from the record sales. So I would actually lose big chunk of the album production money straight away, which makes no sense at all. And then thereīs the taxes. So thereīs no point of taking these “loans” either.

This all is stressing me out very badly and itīs slowing my workflow. Iīve got enough technical problems to deal with making these albums. I just want the freedom to make music, but I guess it is what it is. Honestly, I feel like Iīve signed a deal with the devil and Iīm just a slave in the system.

Iīve got probably 5 long albums worth of new insanely good material! And thereīs no filler material at all! The music is much more refined, much more advanced in arrangement/composition/productionwise. Itīs diverse and beautiful, heavy, chaotic and exploring different styles&themes and some new dimensions I feel no band has explored before… The stuff is simply on another level, in a different universe than the debut album and the TIME albums combined. I wrote the TIME albums around 2006 and before, that was a lifetime ago. Think of the stuff Iīve written ever since to this day! And I just keep on writing, I feel like Iīm on fire. The music is just flowing out of me. Iīm so excited about all this new music and I canīt wait to start recording and sharing it with you… BUT I canīt without a studio, thatīs the problem…

Jari

p.s. Should have stayed working in the post office!
Quote:
It is a fact that without Nuclear Blast I couldnīt have gotten where I am today and I'm certainly grateful of that, but they have really made the most money of Wintersun. What have I made? Well Iīve gotten some better equipments to do my job which is nice, but Iīm still struggling and Iīm missing the main pieze of the puzzle, the actual "work place”, which is a huge roadblock to continue forwards. Iīm in a dead end. All my money has always gone straight to the album productions. I donīt go on vacations, I donīt have a car or anything fancy, which Iīm totally fine with! I work and do these albums basically for free and that would be actually fine with me, if I could do my work at least in good conditions. Iīve been struggling and Iīve sacrificed everything for over 10 years and gotten pretty much nothing out of it, except the love and support of the fans, which I appreciate very much!

Last edited by varg; September 6th, 2014 at 12:44 AM. Reason: typo
 
Old September 6th, 2014 #6
N.B. Forrest
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Quote:
They actually told me point blank that I should just stop making music and they will never release Wintersun from the contract. Itīs really like this, because they canīt or wonīt loan me enough money to build a studio and fund an album, they donīt want other people (the fans) to fund it either… unless they get a crazy big cut of the funding (for doing absolutely nothing).
Is the founder of that label a kike? He certainly doesn't look like it - but perhaps he might as well be.

ALWAYS some bloodsucking shyster tick of a middleman getting in the way, demanding itz pound of flesh, ruining things for the REAL creators & their fans/customers. Like those filthy Warner Music Group kikes who get old clips of even the most obscure musicians removed from jootoob - not, of course, because they ever plan to release the footage on DVD, oh no: just because they "own the copyright", and goddammit, no one gets to see & hear "their" product without coughing up the shekels.....
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Old September 6th, 2014 #7
Sean Gruber
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As Mr. Linder said, if you can't eat it, fuck it, or resell it, then it's worth no money to the vast majority of so-called humanity.

The "solution" to artists' problems is now supposed to be embracing giving your art away (as promoted by jews like Lewis Hyde in The Gift). The idea is that either you do this or civilization just won't continue, so you ought to be a giv-ah. In other words, provide civilization for free--don't touch the economic system. (Most people do give it away. There is less and less interest in intellectual property rights because there is less and less money in them, which explains why you can watch or download anything for free and practically no one cares.)

The old solution was to spend as much time and effort building up educated audiences as making art. No audience means no art. So a lot of people's lives went into building institutions and schools and publications that taught the public that Shakespeare, for example, was someone to be respected, Beethoven should be respected, folk or whatever music should be heard, paintings are fascinating, this and that instrumentalist is great, etc. Cultural uplift almost always had rich sponsors, who considered it worthwhile to impress on the dumb-dumbs of the world that life might consist of more than whiskey and farmwork and they ought to shell out money to experience a bit of culture now and then.

Where is the uplift today? Where is the market, the audience? Where are the rich sponsors? As someone here pointed out, the rich now make big money by pandering to the lowest common denominator (actually lowering that denominator)--so most of them will say fuck Shakespeare or Chet Atkins or whoever. The next Shakespeare or Atkins will have to give his work away for free, if anyone will take it....

The problem with money is that it's only as valuable as what it buys. What if there is nothing to buy? What if all that's left in the end--after the last urban yodeler has muhdikked his way into nigger heaven--is money? Piles of paper, that's all. Okay, farmwork and whiskey will remain, and maybe an old drunk with a banjo on his knee. Yes, back to 1849. Hey, you could still sing in church (bringing in the sheaves!) or in the wash bucket.
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Last edited by Sean Gruber; September 6th, 2014 at 01:31 AM. Reason: clarified a few little things
 
Old September 6th, 2014 #8
Sam Emerson
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Quote:
Originally Posted by N.B. Forrest View Post
Is the founder of that label a kike? He certainly doesn't look like it - but perhaps he might as well be.

ALWAYS some bloodsucking shyster tick of a middleman getting in the way, demanding itz pound of flesh, ruining things for the REAL creators & their fans/customers.
The last thing labels want is another example of how useless they are. If too many well known artists finance their projects with crowdfunding everyone will, and then there's no more record labels.
 
Old September 6th, 2014 #9
Squarehead Chris
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Quote:
Originally Posted by N.B. Forrest View Post
Is the founder of that label a kike? He certainly doesn't look like it - but perhaps he might as well be.

ALWAYS some bloodsucking shyster tick of a middleman getting in the way, demanding itz pound of flesh, ruining things for the REAL creators & their fans/customers. Like those filthy Warner Music Group kikes who get old clips of even the most obscure musicians removed from jootoob - not, of course, because they ever plan to release the footage on DVD, oh no: just because they "own the copyright", and goddammit, no one gets to see & hear "their" product without coughing up the shekels.....
saul zaentz comes to mind.
Remember when he tried to sue John Fogerty for allegedly plagiarizing what was his own work to begin with?
That was some serious kike chutzpah there.

Last edited by Squarehead Chris; September 6th, 2014 at 04:12 PM.
 
Old September 6th, 2014 #10
Alexander M.
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Default John Fogerty Responds to Death of Creedence Label Owner Saul Zaentz With Stinging Video Read More: John Fogerty Responds to Death of Creedence Label Owner Saul Zaentz With Stingin

Saul Zaentz, the Fantasy Records label owner famous for suing Creedence Clearwater Revival frontman John Fogerty for self-plagiarism, has died at the age of 92. Fogerty’s public response to this news makes it clear he has still not forgiven his former nemesis, even in death.

http://ultimateclassicrock.com/saul-...erty-reaction/
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Old September 6th, 2014 #11
N.B. Forrest
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Alexander M. View Post
Saul Zaentz, the Fantasy Records label owner famous for suing Creedence Clearwater Revival frontman John Fogerty for self-plagiarism, has died at the age of 92. Fogerty’s public response to this news makes it clear he has still not forgiven his former nemesis, even in death.

http://ultimateclassicrock.com/saul-...erty-reaction/

A classic jewsic industry kike. I'm pleased that Fogerty hasn't puled any conciliatory bullshit just because he's a Good Tapir at last.

I bet Fogerty lets it fly at the zhids as a whole in private.
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