Musical Etiquette: At The Grocery Store

Originally Posted at Crappy Indie Music.

Dear Musical Etiquette:
I was walking through the grocery store the other day and ran into XXXX from XXXX shopping! I was so nervous, but I walked up and said hi anyway. I told him I was his biggest fan ever and gave him my demo CD. Good thing I keep some on me! He didn't really talk to me, he just sort of stared at the CD, said thanks and kept on walking. Did I do something wrong here? Why would he ignore me? I'm his biggest fan, I've been to like every show!

Help! XXXXX


The answer is yes, you did do something wrong. See, the thing is, your local celebrity is a human being. I know it's sometimes hard to see, but this guy just probably just wanted to get his grocery shopping done and go home. At the risk of sounding rude, I must inform that you're being annoying. You see, the grocery store is one of those times where he just gets to be normal and boring and to someone who spends a great deal of time on stage and under the lights, it's a great relief. You just shattered his illusion that he is just a normal guy, buying food and deodorant.

It's a Job
You must realize that being in a band is a job. It's true. His role in the band is what he does for a living, even if it's not a full time job. So walking up to him in the grocery store and slobbering all over him is akin to someone walking up to you and demanding a spreadsheet of your time clock entries, or being told to make a sandwich. He's not "on the clock" right now. Don't expect him to jump up and down and thank you profusely for interrupting him while he's trying to select the right breakfast cereal. A few brief words introducing yourself, a handshake and an appreciative compliment is sufficient. Please, don't give out demos for your band or try and set up a show here in the cereal isle. If you're really interested and you think you've got a good chance to work together, feel free to give them your card and leave them in peace.

Quit slobbering
Frankly, this sort of worshipful fawning over someone at the grocery store is demeaning to you and can be very uncomfortable to the person you're worshiping. If you're really trying to impress this person with your music, act like a human being. Granted, there are people who enjopy this kind of attention and they are hollow, insecure shells and you probably belong together. If you are convinced that they will enjoy this kind of attention then don't do it halfway. Have a chorus of singers behind you, offer burned sacrifices, light candles and chant, waft incense over their body as you sing their praises. I mean really do it up. Offer them your first born child, show off that tattoo you got of their first album cover artwork, read them that tear stained poem in your back pocket you wrote in the darkest hour of your life for them. Worship them wholly and fight the police when they show up.

Be People
If you really are interested in this person that you worship so much, talk to them about food. Share a recipe, comment on the quality of their selections, amuse them with an anecdote about what they're buying. You'd be surprised by their reaction to it. A great deal of "famous" people lose the opportunity to have honest dialogue with random people and it's nice for them to not worry about being that guy on stage. When you approach someone, remember that they are a stranger. No matter how much you think you know about that person from their songs, you really don't know this person at all.

OK, Now You're Good
There are good times to drop a CD in someone's hand, or pay them more than a passing compliment on their work. A musician that just got off stage, is signing CDs or posters or is at an industry event is more than open to hearing about how much their art inspires you, makes you cry or fills your enpty life with meaning. This is the time they put aside to hear this kind of thing and interact with their fans. It's not wise to take up too much of their time still, remember you're a stranger and you don't have the right. So just play it cool, say what you want to and move on.

Please don't be offended if their is a luke warm reaction to your demo or contact information. Successful musicians deal with hundreds of people every day and if you meet them after a really long day they might not be in the best of moods. Don't be pushy, don't be rude. Just remember that they're people too and they have lives that don't involve music. Let the man shop.

Till next time!
Eriq Nelson

Send me your inquiries and horror stories at musicaletiquette@gmail.com

Album Review: Iron and Wine - Fall 2007

Originally posted at Crappy Indie Music

Essentially the demo versions of Shepherd's Dog, this feels like a personal concert playing in my bedroom. It is stripped completely naked, just Sam and a guitar and it's great to hear these songs like this. There's some serious differences here too. "Boy With A Coin" has an extended vocal section that I've only heard live. "Innocent Bones" has a slightly slower tempo and achieves even more intimacy than the album cut.

The entire thing is so intimate and warm it makes me feel like Sam Beam is hitting on me while I'm sitting in front of a fireplace. He reaches over in between songs and fills my wine glass again. I reconsider my commitment to the heterosexual lifestyle as he winks subtly at me and picks up his guitar.

This brings me straight back to The Creek Drank the Cradle and falling head over heels in love with this mans voice and guitar style. It's not nearly as scratchy as earlier works (let's hear it for the cash of success!) but it still feels like a bedroom album, raw and unapologetically simple. It's good songwriting technique, filling an entire track with voice and guitar and only lending support to the song with other instrumentation.

The collection closes with Resurrection Fern, my personal favorite track off of Shepherd's Dog and a lullaby of quiet beauty. Revisiting one of my favorite records from 2007 in it's raw state has been a great experience and I look forward to Around The Well, the upcoming collection of rare and unreleased Iron and Wine due on May 19th this year.

Available for free on Iron and Wine's website.
Released today: "The Trapeze Swinger" from the film "In Good Company"

Rant: Derivative Crap

Originally posted at Crappy Indie Music.

There is no doubt that other forms of music are a huge influence on anyone creating music in the 21st century. With the huge collection of recorded music available to the modern artist and the speed at which this music comes to us, it becomes difficult to distinguish a bands influences from it's creativity. So what qualifies a band as being derivative? I believe it is the extent to which they are able to synthesize these influences and progress the art form. Derivative music can be traced back to a tiny handful or perhaps just one major influence. Truly good modern music can trace it's lineage to a thousand different influences and a progressive form that pushes the boundaries of how you define what you're hearing. It is said that imitation is the greatest form of flattery. That may be so, but I don't feel compelled to listen to it.

Any decent musician has spent a huge amount of time listening to music; absorbing, reacting, analyzing and deconstructing their favorite recordings. They will have spent innumerable hours listening to their own work and the performances of others and reflecting on what they like about it. Likewise, they have an opinion about what they don't like. Taste is everything in music production. There is little doubt that what you listen to has a deep rooted influence on what you play, they are both extensions of your musical tastes and come from the same place. This is an inescapable fact of music. It doesn't mean that you can't innovate.

Derivative music is music without risk. It is the safe road, the comfortable pair of shoes. It is familiar and does not challenge the ear. Papa Roach is a perfect example of derivative music. It's actual worth as music can be debated endlessly, such things are the realm of taste but even a most ardent fan of their work must admit that there is little innovation present. Their music is a culmination of modern rock radio habits. The song structure that they employ varies by no more than 10% per song. Verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, out. It is a method that has evolved significantly in the last 30 years and left this particular canker sore of pop music behind. There is nothing distinctive whatsoever about this band, they pass through my ears like every other craptacular band with a Digitech pedal rig and a few bad ideas about songwriting that radio calls "modern rock".

In another sense music that, while derived from a great number of influences, fails utterly to either properly synthesize these influences or innovate upon them is just as bad. Ne-Yo is little more than a place marker sitting on top of twenty years of dull eyed, radio friendly R&B music. It is the culmination of a generation of mediocrity in soul, artists unwilling to take a risk with their sound or truly flex their vocal abilities; choosing instead to play to the least common denominator and appease the lazy listening habits of a pre-defined market. It is a grand example of the major label music form, as bland and lifeless as a bowl of cold oatmeal. The fact is, there is a great deal of room for innovation even within the context of soul music and performers like Ne-Yo fail to even recognize it's existence. If you don't believe me, go listen to Cee-Lo.

In that light there is merit to traditional forms. Soul music is becoming a tradition slowly, and it is still very young. If you want to see the progression of a traditional form that has a longer lineage look no further than bluegrass. Abigail Washburn is a banjo player of considerable skill. This is not why she stands out. Bluegrass is chock full of extremely talented pickers and the dexterity with which they play amazes me constantly. Her talent is in the arrangement of her material, her fine sense of timing and her inclusion of Chinese folk forms in her music. There are deep parallels between Celtic root and Chinese root music but I won't bore you with the technical aspects of this. Instead, look to the beauty and uniqueness of her art. One can draw a direct line between her and her influences and still, we must stand in awe of her brilliant fusion. It is what distinguishes her from so many other bluegrass musicians and it shows a deep commitment to progressing the tradition instead of keeping it locked away in a glass box to be admired from afar.

Broken Social Scene stands in as my example of truly excellent modern music. I can dissect the influences that lead into it, I can analyze the structure and it would take me far too long. It is a finely woven mesh of music, pulling from so many areas of culture that it takes in a life of it's own. It is transcendent art, recognizing it's past while embracing the future. Broken Social Scene is becoming an influence on music moving forward, which is the mark of true innovation. You could debate the relative worth of their contribution to music but one cannot escape the fact that they have made a contribution, which is more than I can say for the vast array of trite, boring crap that occupies so much of popular culture. Even within their collected recordings and side projects there is a remarkable amount of diversity and creativity. They give me hope, they make me think that I'm not doomed to listen to the same music over and over again until I die.

High quality modern music is more than the sum of it's influences. It is a unique synthesis of other musical forms but achieves far more than acting as a single point at the end of an extensive lineage. It expresses the personalities of the musicians involved and ensures that their voices come through in the song. It challenges our preconceptions of what music is capable of and keeps the lifeblood of art flowing forward. It synthesizes and improves on music we thought we knew so much about and keeps people like me from getting burned out and cynical. On occasion an entirely new form of musical expression will come along. Many times it is simply not worth listening to, a great deal of modern music theory revolves around concepts so cerebral, so disconnected from reality that it has little resemblance to an enjoyable experience. I would not presume to know the future history of musical innovation (who in the 60's could predict the rise of hip-hop?) but I can tell you one thing. Influence is no bad thing, there is a considerable amount of synthesis that has yet to be explored and music will continue to evolve. I hope we will always have artists that refuse to be derivative and take big artistic risks for the chance to make me wake up and pay attention.