I have been slacking on my blogging duties because I’ve been too busy for such a self-indulgent activity, however, every once in a while comes something that is really worth talking about, and this incredible documentary movie called “Before the Music Dies” definitely qualifies as one such thing. I just finished watching the movie and all of the special features and I am blown away! An “unsettling and inspiring look at today’s popular music industry”, this 93 minute feature film (released back in 2006) ties together a series of interviews with very very notable people to get a point across and to investigate where it all went wrong in the music industry, when we stopped caring and how we went from undeniable talent to no talent.

This movie was written, produced and directed by two regular people, music fans from Austin (Andrew Shapter and Joel Rasmussen), who without any prior experience in filmmaking created a movie that IS great and even looks great (it never looks like a low budget film, it’s edited tightly, it’s got good cinematography and never drags).

It starts with some archival footage of Ray Charles accompanying an incredibly great singing and dancing performance by Billy Preston but soon gives the lead to interviews with Erykah Badu (who has some of the best, funniest and most controversial things to say), a very passionate Questlove, a disillusioned but re-affirmed Doyle Bramhall II (also performing with Eric Clapton), a transparent and down to earth Branford Marsalis, a comfortable Dave Matthews, an incredibly sharp and sensitive Les Paul (as always!), a knowledgeable and experienced Bonnie Raitt, short snippets of  interviews with Elvis Costello and Hubert Sumlin as well as Calexico, My Morning Jacket, North Mississipi Allstarts, Widespread Panic and some others…

Narrated by the great Forest Whitaker, the film talks about the disappearance of talent and original music in the wake of big label marketing, the promotional power that radio has lost in the wake of its flattening content-uniforming conglomeration under Clear Channel, the fact that most of the few talented people today barely even stand a chance of being heard (although this is not entirely true if you consider and you harness the power of the internet, which the movie sadly doesn’t talk much about) and even attempts a challenge of recording and shooting a video clip with a good looking un-talented singer to prove the point that you can promote pretty much anyone that looks good even if they have no talent because the technology allows us to do so today.

The sweet naivety and the undeniable passion shown in this movie are charming and inspiring. What really comes through and what makes this film so special is that it comes from the heart (like Sumlin says) and it really does come from a fan’s perspective, with great clarity and intelligence.

Thanks to the internet, it is extremely easy for everyone to see this movie (thankfully!). As a matter of fact “Before the Music Dies” pioneered a very unique distribution model consisting in allowing you to buy the full DVD with all the extra content (extended interviews and performances) for $16.99 or to buy a full-resolution DVD quality download for $7.99 or a DRM-free compressed download for portable devices for $2.99. Remember this was 2006! Two years later I don’t know of anyone else who distributed their movie this way.

Please go out and get a copy… let me rephrase… please go to the website and watch the preview and then download or order a copy of this great movie. If you are a music fan you owe it to yourself!

www.beforethemusicdies.com or www.b4md.com or www.bside.com

Gene Martin’s photography possibly represents some of the finest examples of rock star portraits ever. His style is unique and stands out in the myriad of pictures available online.

Gene started out as a guitar player so his passion for music was true, deep an ever-lasting. This also gave him that special connection with musicians which went beyond just the lens. When he turned to photography he knew how to capture the true essence of the subject. He was creative with props and he was a master of lighting technique.

Although in most recent years he started shooting in digital, he was a true believer and supporter of film and he maintained that “go for THE shot” attitude (as opposed to the shoot-a-million-RAW-pictures-and-then-spend-a-week-Photoshopping attitude). I have seen Gene do things that I didn’t even know could be done without a computer… Shots that look like the result of some skilled Photoshop wizard, Gene achieved without the use of any software, with techniques and experimentation that go beyond my bare understanding of photography (for some examples check out the shots of Joe Chambers, Pat Metheny, McCoy Tyner, Ray Mantilla, Al Di Meola etc etc). Gene Martin was a true artist of photography.

I have been interested in photography for a long time. I picked it up as a hobby many years ago and then dropped it when the film development made it unfeasible to pursue such a costly hobby. Some years ago I got back into it again and have been enjoying it and doing more of it. With my girlfriend being in the photography business and having had a few of my own shots published in magazines and online, I even flirted with the idea of pursuing photography more seriously.

Gene had been around the recording studio several times. I first met him when he was shooting some of the Les Paul sessions but I distinctively remember him being in our studio at least two more times to shoot some major jazz artists I was recording. It is because of how inspired by his work, attitude and knowledge I was, that on one of those sessions I asked him if I could assist him on one of his next shoots, just so I could pick up some tricks of the trade and get better at my photography hobby. I offered to do it for free of course, I just wanted to learn a little bit from a professional like him. He said he’d keep it in mind and I for sure thought that I’d never hear from him again.

Not only did I hear from him one or two weeks later but he actually even paid me for the assisting job AND split the tip he got from his client 50/50 with me, which was completely unexpected and unheard of! I was really impressed by his character, his personality, his spirits and of course his work.

The ride to the shoot was about an hour so we had the opportunity to get to know each other a little better. We talked shop (cameras, lenses etc) but we also went into our backgrounds and of course we extensively talked about music. He told me about his guitars, his passion for the instrument, his past as a professional musician for 15 years and the many turmoils of his life. He also told me about how much Charles Carlini and Bob Cutarella had done to revive his career. He felt indebted to them and told me that some of his greatest shots had been a result of the acquaintance with Charles and Bob. Gene was secure and confident but he was also modest and gave credit were credit was due. Gene Martin was a fascinating person and a true gentleman.

When I got back from Europe this last December, I was terribly saddened by the news that Gene had passed away. Charles Carlini broke the news to me during the Ennio Morricone sessions and I couldn’t believe that a person as young, talented and kind as Gene was no longer with us. The world suffered a terrible loss! The people that knew him personally were completely surprised and devastated by the news. However it also makes me sad to think that not enough of his peers realized what a great photographer passed away. Gene’s career was definitely going through a climb. His popularity had been peeking and his photography was finally gaining the recognition and Awards that it deserved.

Luckily our common friend Charles Carlini has put together a tribute site that will make the spirit and the photography of Gene Martin live on forever: www.genemartinfoto.com

Check out the website to see some of the biggest rock, pop, blues and jazz stars of our times through the eyes and the lens of Gene Martin.

More links about Gene for you to check out:

http://www.genemartinphotography.com

http://www.genemartinphotography.com/music.htm

http://www.nikonworld.com/portfolio/martin/viewer.html

http://www.modernguitars.com/archives/001881.html

http://www.jazzhouse.org/jpg/gmp

Rest In Peace…

Two weeks ago I attended an event promoted by the NY Chapter of NARAS at Jazz at Lincoln Center aimed at making music industry professionals familiar with eSession.com, a Texas based company founded by two highly achieved producers/engineers and aimed at making online music collaborations easy and effortless.

eSessions has been around for a while but their infrastructure has become much more solid over the past few years and these demo sessions were an eye opener in that regard. Although I wish they hadn’t used Flash or Java Applets, their new beta site is much better organized and functional than it was when I checked them out a few years ago. eSessions basically allows you to hire talent (or be a hired talent) in the music industry without being limited by geography or by a limited network of contact. If you are a band or a musician you suddenly have easy and direct access to all these Gold, Platinum, Grammy or up and coming engineers and producers who you can hire to mix, record, edit or produce your album or your track. Producers and engineers, like myself, have access to a wide array of musicians from all over the world, and although this might not be the greatest asset to somebody that operates from within New York City (where some of the best musicians in the world live) it is an enormous asset for somebody living in cities that don’t have the same kind of musical scene that New York does!

I would imagine that this idea should really catch on in far away places. Suddenly somebody in the middle of nowhere in the US (or I guess in the middle of Iceland for that matter) can hire a top notch musician from Los Angeles and negotiate a price for him. Speaking of which, everything is negotiable and eSession keeps 15% of profits.

With great power comes great responsibility… eSession founders are well aware that by creating such an amazing platform for collaboration they are also handing the music industry the key to outsourcing everything and anything just like major corporations do today.

When everything is negotiable and you bid on talent’s services almost like you bid on eBay, talents might start to compete with each other (instead of collaborate with each other) and this might corner them into under-selling their services only to stay on top of the competition. Although it is true that it might be hard to find an Indian singer that will sing the blues as good as a cat from New Orleans does or to find a Taiwanese drummer who can play funk/fusion like some people at the Baked Potato do, it also needs to be noted that struggling musicians in “expensive” cities like NY or LA might likely not welcome the idea of being replaced by cheaper players from some rural town in the mid-west, especially if the people hiring the talent live in NY or LA themselves.

Studios might also likely be hurt by this approach, since the eSession way pretty much entails or assumes that the hired talent can deliver the goods without having to hire a studio (because if he or she had to do, their final price would not be competitive with musicians that have home recording systems – which will of course push every eTalent to get equipped with some kind of home recording tool aimed at replacing a professional studio’s services). eSession tried to address this issue by having an eStudio section for recording studios, but I think it’s really only meant to show that their are not insensitive to the issue itself. It’ll be interesting to see if the bulk of eSessions commissions and traffic comes from studios or from talent… I’d put my money on the latter.

Last but not least, one other concern I have is: what will you choose to do when given the chance to inexpensively hire a guitar player from Kalamazoo, a bass player from France and a drummer from Australia as opposed to a solid rhythm section that plays together in the same room in the city you live in, right in front of you? Does anyone remember the old concept of playing together, vibing off of each other, feeding off the each other’s ideas and style? If you are paying these folks to play, wouldn’t you wanna be there (in most cases) to provide them with your input and your feedback so that they can adjust their aim and get you what you are paying them for? I don’t want to sound old fashioned… I have myself hired people (before the days of eSession) from other countries where I did not have a chance to be present and I had to either deal with FTP or with mailed CDs and have had to ask for a variation on their first try, therefore prolongating the process… When compared with that situation, being able to drag and drop tracks into a browser and connecting with these people easily via email or messanging is certainly a huge leap forward. However, I will say that, unless there is a specific reason (your no.1 choice hired gun is on tour but has access to recording system, you need a tabla player and you want to hire an actual Indian guy from India etc…) I might still resort to calling up local talent because (a) face-to-face interaction is irreplaceable and (b) it’s always great to be able to bring work to people you’ve worked with before. I am not saying I won’t experiment with new talent, but if time is of the essence why not go back to someone that delivered promptly and exactly what you wanted in a previous work-for-hire scenario?

I think my approach and/or opinions might be slightly different than that of others because I live in NYC, a crib for/of awesome talent where you really almost never have to look beyond the city limits to find exactly what and who you need.

Although I might have my concerns, legitimate or not, I do embrace the changes brought on by the digital revolution we’ve been living in and I welcome anyone and anything that makes good use of this digital revolution (bringing new musicians together for sure qualifies as good use!).

Either way, I still like the idea of eSession and I like the people at eSession (if you have any questions contact their main rep Ryan who is super responsive, really nice and very knowledgeable!) so after the NARAS event I decided to give it a try and see how it goes… eSession might very well be the next big thing in the music industry professionals’ world!

Here’s my profile eTalent profile at eSession.com

I wish I could say that! Actually, it is half of the title of the book Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles written by the illustrious Geoff Emerick (and a less fortunate co-author Howard Massey) – with foreword by Elvis Costello.

Emerick is the audio engineer who enjoyed and endured recording the Beatles pretty much throughout their entire career. This book collects those memories in a vivid and down to earth fashion. The book is not a technical book (thevery few times a technical word like “compressor” is even used, it is explained between parenthesis for the readers who are not engineers) but rather a book about the Beatles, except that nobody ever talked about the Beatles from this perspective. For obvious reason, reading this book is much more interesting than reading any other book about the Beatles OR about the evolution of recording techniques because it is a book about BOTH of those things!

Geoff Emerick has come up with some of the most ground-breaking tricks and techniques that are pretty much considered and used as a  given in today’s recording business and his influence on this world, our world, stands the test of times.

The Beatles have revolutionized pop music forever and their songs are equally timeless and majestic in importance. Much less is known or written about their personalities and how they did get (and later didn’t get) along.

Everything has been said about the Beatles, but not much as been said about who molded their sound and how they were to each other between closed doors. This book is a must read for every engineer (Beatles lover or not), ever Beatles lover (engineer or not) and everyone with just the slightest of interest or curiosity about either one of these two worlds. Absolutely highly recommended!