Of Things to Come...

In the spirit of me leaving for Asia on Sunday, I thought I'd give a preview of the trip.  I'll be trying to blog as much as possible from overseas, but I don't have a very good idea of how regular or extensive this will be.  Still, I'll be posting to this very same blog and reading comments when I'm missing exposure to English.  (I love the experience of returning from a trip to non-English speaking country and just listening to every single conversation around you just because you can.)

The itinerary is as follows:

• Bangkok - the epicenter of backpacker travel in Southeast Asia (SEA)
  
• Chiang Mai - the cultural capital of Thailand, set in mountains
• Koh Phangan - one of Thailand's many, many, diving & general beachiness islands
• Phuket - that place in Lost where Jack got his forbidden tattoos from, and flew kites... which one will I do?!?
• Mt. Kinabalu - the highest peak in SEA, in Malaysian Borneo
• Pulau Sipadan - diving spot famous for turtles, hammerhead sharks, and extortionate resort prices
• Singapore - just in time for the Hungry Ghost Festival
• Kuala Lumpur - just in time for the 50th Merdeka (Independence) Day
  
• Angkor Wat - former 12th century empirical capital, and in Cambodia, so we get to add another patch to the pack

I'll be back to the country (and back to the music/culture/pomo stuff) in September.  Now go play outside, it's a beautiful day. 

Today, I Will Blog Without Links, or a Conclusion

I earned a lot of good weather karma and indie cred last night by sitting on the Millennium Park lawn in a thunderstorm to hear the Decemberists play with the Grant Park Orchestra. As a listener who only knows a handful of the group's tunes, it was a fantastic introduction to the more bombastic and melodramatic side of their music -- and I mean "melodramatic" literally, in the sense of "a drama set to music" and not the melodrama coloquially associated with adolescence and soap operas. The band's penchant for storytelling sounded as if it were native to open-hatch orchestra concerts in the summer -- which I find very fitting, given that Millennium Park's Pritzker Pavillion is itself a bombastic piece of narrative (no surprise coming from Frank Gehry).

For those of you outside Chicago, Millennium Park is a slight misnomer. When construction started on the park, it was intended to open for the turn of the century/millennium, but has only recently been 100% finished. The park embodies the story that Chicago is trying constantly to portray -- the story of a city that was formerly the literal hub of all transcontinental motion and industry in the U.S., now overshadowed by the coastal cities and the decline of things like trains and manufacturing. Millennium Park is a part of the new story Chicago is portraying, the city that is the U.S.'s next Olympic candidate rather than the city that is better known for gangsters and shady politics.

The Pritzker concert shell gets a bad rap for being too far-fetched or crazy, structurally speaking -- and anyone who knows Gehry's work would not be surprised by this. Personally, the fact that Chicago sank its hopes and dreams for a new urban center into such an audacious structure is part of the reason I moved back here. I imagine if someone proposed such a structure to be built anywhere near Boston, some old Cape family would pay to have the architect exiled to one of those new-fangled states like California or Montana where such tomfoolery would be tolerated.

Net Radio Still Online, For Now

Today is the day that many internet radio stations would have been dead if not for a temporary agreement between royalty collection agencies and broadcasters that are part of the SaveNetRadio coalition.

If you still haven't had time to read up on the issues, this Chicago trib editorial from a local musicians' point of view portrays the importance of internet radio for emerging artists. The bill especially needs a push in the Senate, where it has a scant 6 co-sponsors! If you have five minutes, go to SaveNetRadio.org, click on "Act Now," and type in your zip code. They'll walk you through calling your senators and representative. It's so easy a String Cheese Incident groupie could do it.

More Threats to Independent Music

If the internet radio royalty scare hasn't been bad enough, fans of David and Goliath stories will appreciate this update over at the Future of Music Coalition's (FMC) blog. FMC has been tracking a racket by Clear Channel to get artists to waive their royalties in exchange for the opportunity--just an opportunity--to get airplay on Clear Channel stations, which at last count is pretty much anything in the 93-106 range on your FM dial.

This is an ironic stab at musicians, given that the Internet Radio Equality act is seeking to provide musicians with greater access to ears in lieu of higher royalties, while Clear Channel is offering you (again, only on the surface) a shot at a huge, huge audience...as long you don't mind playing for free.

This, in my mind, is synonymous with the fallacy of the open mic night. It's overly romantic to assume that performing artists are so desperate to get noticed that they will show up, provide free entertainment on a slow night to the venue in question, and in return, will be magically discovered by adoring fans and influential record labels, while little pixies shower them with talent juice and recording equipment. Clear Channel is looking for free music, plain and simple, at the loss of musicians who value their own work.

In any case, according to the FMC post, this is a breach of a prior court settlement, so we'll see how this plays out for Clear Channel.

I'm Back

Several people have offered me advice about how to restart the blog after such a long hiatus. One example that was given was to simply provide some visual evidence of what I've been up to, like so:


Or, if you're more of a Powerpoint learner, you might want some bullet points to take home with you:

• Quit work
• Got married
• Moved to Chicago

And that's pretty much all the information needed. But if you're new to the blog, this might lead you to believe the blog is all about me and what I've been up to, which isn't really the point. There are plenty of things that have happened in the past few months that would have appeared on the blog had I not been doing one of the above bullet points, so here's a brief rundown of things that would have appeared here, and if any of them strike your fancy, I encourage you to check back here once or twice a week for updates.

• Internet radio broadcasters are facing an astronomical hike in royalties starting July 15. A bill in both the Senate and House (the Internet Radio Equality Act) would prevent these unjustifiably and untenable royalty hikes from going into effect. Those who stand to lose the most if the royalty hike goes into effect are independent and lesser-known musicians and their fans, not to mention the numerous excellent free stations and services (like Pandora) that bring local and indie music to a global audience. Go to SaveNetRadio.org for more details and to send emails to your senators and representative asking for their vote.
• My favorite new musical, Spring Awakening, brought home 8 Tony awards. I think the music is best described as chamber rock, given the instrumentation and arrangement, but most Broadway criticism predictably labeled it a rock musical, a rock opera, or an indie rock opera, since they use a lot of these new-fangled electrically amplified guitars.
  
• One of the venues I used to play at in Boston, Skybar, is closing due to lack of capital for a new sprinkler system. The article linked to here gives a fairly balanced view of the Love of Musical Eclecticism vs. Man's Timeless Fear of Fire debate.
• Chicago is full of free music. Isn't it great???

On a final note, I will be blogging slightly less this summer than I normally do. Adam and I are planning a five-week trip to Southeast Asia, so we're pouring over travel guides and websites figuring out where to go and how to get there. (Suggestions, anyone?) I will do my best to blog from overseas -- more on how that will work later!