The City Veins

I got my wisdom teeth taken out last Friday. The whole experience wasn’t all that bad, after I stopped drooling blood. This phenomenon would have been totally awesome if we were a metal band, but alas. Which reminds me, I really want to quote the opening line from this A.V. Club review of the new Sunset Rubdown album:

“Naming your kid Spencer is a great way to make sure he grows up to be a wimpy indie-rocker.”

Anyway, while the process wasn’t really that bad, I still have a few complaints.

First, Oxycodone really sucks. When I told people that I was getting my wisdom teeth out, I was often consoled with, “At least you will get some good pain-killers.” This was my hope as well, but so far Oxycodone has been one big disappointment. I didn’t get any fun druggy feelings at all. Nothing. I basically felt normal, but with slightly less pain. Hell, I would have even taken a little bit of nausea just to know that the drug was working. I probably should have just taken more pills at a time. Wikipedia tells me that in order to properly abuse the drug I should:

“simply crush the tablets, then either ingest the resulting powder orally, intranasally, via intravenous, intramuscular or subcutaneous injection (by dissolving the powder), or rectally to achieve rapid absorption into the bloodstream.”

Frankly, booze is a much better pain-killer than Oxycodone. If you are coming to this band to find the next great “musician kicking heroin album,” you have come to the wrong place. Although, I might have a “slowly drinking myself to death” album in me.

Also, I have developed the next great fad diet. It is a simple two step process that will earn me millions.

Step one: Become Lactose Intolerant. Once you remove cheese, milk, butter, and ice cream from your diet, most of the joy of eating is gone as well. Fact: dairy makes everything taste better.

Step two: Get your wisdom teeth pulled. After you get your wisdom teeth pulled, you can only eat soft foods.

So here is the formula: Lactose Intolerance + Soft Foods = Almost Nothing That You Can Eat!

Seriously. On Tuesday, I completed the saddest grocery shopping trip of my life. I bought apple sauce, jello, soup, oatmeal, and peanut butter. This is all that I eat. I am probably getting more calories from beer these days, which is another reason why it is a superior pain-killer. A bonus is that I am suppose to eat things at room temperature as well, which, to paraphrase Kenny Loggins, leaves me in the “Danger Zone.”

To sum up. In this post I have: talked about drooling blood, insulted a band member, shown how to abuse prescription pain-killers, and whined. I defy anyone to write a better blog post.

Photo taken from Flickr user schoschie.

Not to beat this thing to death, but this really is the most exciting thing to happen in music in a very, very long time: http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/005651.html

Oh, and the Radiohead album is FUCKIN SUPERB. I was a little disappointed by Hail to the Thief, but these guys are clearly at the top of their game on this one.

Update on yesterday’s post: According to this Billboard article, the average price people are paying for the Radiohead CD is around $10. If this is true, the band is probably making 5-10 times more profit per album sold (on the assumption that they previously got $1-$2 for each CD sold). This is a great thing for the future of music…

As previously discussed on this here blog by Charles, Radiohead’s new album (available for download tomorrow) will be distributed on the Internet and fans can pay as much or as little as they want for it. I am beyond elated for this news, and not just because I love Radiohead (though I do). No, I’m excited because this album release could save the music industry as we know it. One day we’re very likely to look back on this innovative move as one of the single most influential days in music history.

Some background:

For those unfamiliar with the workings of the music industry, a recording artist typically gets between $1 - $1.50 for each physical CD they sell. On a $10 CD, that’s not a lot of money. Several things eat up the cost, but most of it goes to the record company and manufacturing/production costs. Until recently, these things were necessary to be successful; the record company in order to get your music to a wide audience and the CD because not enough people had taken to the idea of downloading before iTunes. Increasing Internet speeds have also eased people into downloading, since it can be done faster now.

Here’s why this is so important:

For an artist with an established, sizeable fan base, like Radiohead, record companies and physical CDs are no longer a necessity. Let’s assume that on average people pay between $2-3 dollars for the new Radiohead album; a fair assumption because it’s not a lot of money to spend on a whole album. In this case, consumers get their music for about 70% less, and Radiohead actually gets about double the amount of money per each album they sell (e.g., $2 compared to $1). Plus, they engender the good will of their fans, who will be more likely to buy tickets and merchandise now AND they get the freedom to make their music without a record company butting in.

This is what makes this release a potential game-changer: If Radiohead is successful at this model, what’s to stop other huge recording artists from doing the same thing when their contracts are up? Trent Reznor is already hinting that NIN might be next.

Given the creative freedom and the chance to make a greater profit, I think the better question is why the hell would any music star re-sign with a label after their contracts expire?

Imagine a world in which star after star left their recording labels and started recording on their own. The music industry would be radically changed. Ideally, this could be great for up-and-coming unknown bands. As the top talent leaves labels’ rosters, the labels would have to find and promote new blood - similar to the rebuilding phase that happens to sports teams when they let their overpriced superstars go. One of the great problems with the music industry today (IMHO) is that labels are not finding and nurturing enough new and exciting talent. Acts that do get signed are unoriginal and even then they are usually given one album to prove themselves. The luxury of your first record flopping (see: Nirvana, Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen) doesn’t exist anymore. If the stars left the labels, it may spawn innovation because 1). labels will have to find bands with that “next” big musical idea and 2). labels will have to put more money and time into younger acts to make them the next superstars.*

Anyway, the possibilities opened up by Radiohead’s decision are endless. Anyone who loves music in any way should pay at least a few bucks for this album, whether you’re a Radiohead fan or not, because the success of new music as a whole could be directly to the success of this Radiohead album.

*Side note: Of course, with the shadiness of labels, they will probably just sign everyone to extremely lengthy contracts to ensure they squeeze out all they can before an act is so big it can more profitably sell directly to its fans. But if there’s a choice for a band to be signed to an albeit lengthy contract and get their music out to millions or to toil away in obscurity, this is not necessarily a bad thing for bands. Plus, if they do a good enough job building and keeping a fan base, then whenever they are free they should make a killing selling stuff online.

The City Veins are currently in the middle of some very interesting times. While using the terms “crossroads” or “turning point” is pretty cliched, it’s kind of accurate here.

Let’s recap:

As you’ve probably read, The City Veins are now a three-piece due to Adam’s departure. We’ve been a band for a little under 7 months, and it’s been quite a ride. In that time, we’ve had some amazing success, including some great publicity and playing Arlene’s Grocery after being a band for less than 6 months, but there’s also been a fair share of obstacles and disappointments, which we’ve generally listed here in this blog, culminating with the loss of a founding member. That’s our history to date in a nutshell.

It would be easy to take a negative outlook on all this, but the reality is I couldn’t be feeling more positive about this band than I do today. Aaron, Charles and I have practicing our asses off and we sound damn good. I am proud of us. We’re not as polished as we were with Adam, and the total band sound isn’t as “full” with one guitar now instead of two. Yet we rock harder now. Because there’s only three of us, each of us has to raise our game to another level, and the early results are more than encouraging. I wish you could hear the difference between the first time we practiced as a 3-piece practice and now. All I can I do is express my excitement to bring this to the stage.

The truth is Adam’s departure really did benefit all parties; he is happier now and it is making us a better band. That’s not because Adam made us a lesser band, by any stretch. It’s just that challenges, by their nature, either defeat you or making stronger. Losing a founding member and a key songwriter would set a lot of other bands back quite a bit, and I’m happy to see how well we’re responding to this.

This isn’t PR-driven, not some “let’s put a good face on this” BS. This is the truth. Though the road got more difficult, this band is moving in the the right direction. I can’t wait for you all to see the new City Veins.