the Felix Culpa

sometimes i hate tracking guitar.  like today.

somebody ask jeffro why his knee hurts.

the tally so far-

drums - 100% tracked.

bass guitars - 90% tracked.

electric guitars - about 59% tracked, but we’re scheduled to (hopefully) finish them up on thursday.

acoustic guitars - 0% tracked.

vocals - 1% tracked (i did a one-take scratch track to a song, so really 0%).

keys & piano - 0% tracked.

everything else - 0% tracked.

so, daunting but not bad. right on schedule actually. we’ll keep updating those tallies as things progress.

ok, so story time. upon logging into our myspace account recently, i came accross this new sales channel called “snowcap” which displayed itself prominently on our page right below our music player, boasting our entire back catalog on sale for $.99 a song. i thought to myself “oh, one of my bandmates must have gone ahead and set us up with a snowcap account.” in talking with my other bandmates we all discovered that no one in the band had any idea of how it got there. we hadn’t signed up for it. we came to the conclusion that it must have been a move by our friends at the Common Cloud label in an attempt to boost the sales of our older CDs. i gave my friend Jay at CC a call, and asked him if he knew about the snowcap deal. he had never heard of it and had no idea how it got there, but assured me that he was going to look into it.

now, the reason this is all so terribly interesting is because this snowcap storefront is selling an intellectual property that we own and that our label is in charge of distributing, both physically and digitally without anyone’s consent or knowledge. now, i’m sure it’s all legit and on the up and up with some facet of Common Cloud’s online distro, but it got me thinking about this whole internet piracy issue that is so unbelievably convoluted and confusing right now, especially for the bigger artists who are so mercilessly tied to their labels. i don’t have a real formulated opinion yet, other than we should probably embrace the cultural changes that are happening and rejoice in the fact that so many people (50 some million) are now able to instantaneously access and enjoy products that they more than likely wouldn’t seek out, rather than punishing those individuals in the form of lawsuits and fines, merely for loving a product that is being offered to them (albeit in a technically illegally format). in short, i agree with this guy when he says that major labels should get off their high horse, get their heads out of their grumpy, greedy asses and start steering the train or get out of the way. they have to figure out a way to embrace this new medium, rather than lambasting the pioneers and punishing their loyal listeners for (gasp) actively seeking out the product the labels themselves endorse. they still want everybody to play by their rules when they don’t even realize that the game is over.

take this for instance… the leading music retailer in the world is wal-mart. and honestly, i think the reason they can lay claim to that title is because most discerning music lovers (who are looking for culturally inspiring, relevant art rather than mass-entertainment/distraction) know better than to step foot in that store with the intent of purchasing music. not only can they get an entire world of selection online that they can’t find within the confines of a department store, but they know that their money isn’t going through a massive, evil monster of a corporation before their meager fraction of it gets to the artist they are investing in.

let’s be honest… wal-mart depends on customers who are culturally still one step behind. meaning they don’t know any better than to rely on the idea of a pre-selected physical offering of regurgitated major label enertaina-tripe being all that’s out there. that’s not the best that the world has to offer. these are the same people who take take comfort knowing they don’t have to think about when or why their pre-chewed shit meal is going to be lovingly dumped down their collective populous throats (generally speaking). either that or they don’t know that they can actually expect more for themselves and their eyes and ears than what has been over-hyped and uber-advertised to them by the general mass media circus that lives in our airwaves, billboards, newspaper pages and well, everywhere else.

now I’m fully aware that i’m only talking about the greater middle class here. there are many homes in america where a computer is not in the realm of possibility, much less a broadband internet connection capable of allowing a family to digitally acquire their entire library of music. but, really who is wal-mart’s target market? and honestly, this is where our culture is headed, and in turn that’s where wal-mart’s customers are headed. to look the other way and pretend that in a few years our culture will still want to browse through a few hundred pre-selected CDs and call it a day is close minded. it’s like trying to choose your favorite constellation from a one window apartment. and basically the major labels are satisfied with chains like wal-mart being their leading stream of revenue in a dying market, and attacking those who try to establish the next viable market, even when it encompasses the sales of THEIR music. it’s like they’re winning the race by standing at the starting line shooting rounds at the other runners instead of picking up their feet and running themselves. and these are the people whose good graces we as artists are supposed to be aspiring to attain? who cares. let them stand there and die in their old ways. pretty soon the other runners will be out of range.

anyway, all that to say that i think we should probably try and embrace cultural change, especially when the ramifications could be so positive to everyone involved.

it makes me glad we’re not on a big label. i’ve never been comfortable with the idea in it’s entirety. i’m not actually sure what i want to do when it comes time to release this CD. we’ve always said that we’d like some help getting our music into larger markets, but the more i think about it, it seems as though there are already enough DIY channels out there that a band like us could get away with putting out an album completely independently. it’d be hard work, but i’d like to think that we would be able to survive outside the system that’s in place. and not just survive, but thrive. and have it actually mean more, because it was based off of the work of our own hands. it just makes me wonder why everyone fights so hard to be part of a system that really doesn’t care about them at all. and i’m not just talking about the big, evil majors. most of the bigger indie labels seem to have adopted the same lines of thought as the majors. and we’re all rushing headfirst, blindfolded, trying to grab that label prize. do we even know what the prize is?

i think there-in lies a major difference between art and entertainment, artists and entertainers. i have this sinking feeling that that distinction has been lost somewhere in and around my generation and their idea of the “rock star”. most younger musicians/kids on the whole don’t even realize what it is that they think they want, or why the should want it. they just know that they do. and that’s really scary to think that we as artists can be conditioned to want something that we don’t even understand by people who have nothing to do with our art’s existence. music would and will continue to exist without labels and a label contract should not be the end goal for a musician. maybe for an entertainer, but definitely not an artist. and most musicians i know would rather classify themselves as artists. i know i would, regardless of what people think of the music i make. if i made it for them, it wouldn’t be art. it would be entertainment.

not to say entertainment is a bad thing. quite the contrary, really. if you are genuinely entertained by what i make, than “fuckin’ rad,” says i. but does one’s perception of an artistic expression determine its existence, or is it and will it always exist as the creator intended it? damn. philosophy and shit.

i’ve determined by my facebook virtual bookshelf that i need to read more.

-marky

congratulations, you’re reading our blog!

okay, ladies and gents, we’ve (Jeffro, Marky and Dustin) been hard at work tracking guitars for the album. we’ve run into problems here and there (a favourite Culpa past time), but we’ve gotten some absolutely gorgeous guitar tones the last few days and we couldn’t be happier.

after 2 1/2 days of tracking, we actually have more work ahead of us than we did when we arrived on scene. each performance in each song seems to be bringing about new ideas for new tones… and coupled with the fact that we tend to pick everything apart in the studio (for the sake of the song/album), we’re giving ourselves quite a list of tasks to be accomplished.

my current amount of drinking, partnered with my need to pee, will make for a shorter update than I had originally anticipated…
however…
I hope that everyone reading this understands how unbelievably excited we are to be making this album - for you and for ourselves.

this truly is the proudest I’ve ever been of something I’ve created in my life. and I couldn’t be happier than to be creating it with the most important people in my life.

I (and we) love each and every one of you - for your continued support and for your continuing expressed excitement toward the release of this album. please be patient.
we’re trying to make this album the best that we can. =]

here’s marky tracking some stuff:

Dustin just waking up from a nap:

and a pan-o-ramic of part of the live room for studio A:

(sorry for the quality - these were taken with my phone. haha)

I hope you have an amazing week and we’ll be back with more updates as soon as possible, okay?

xoxo,
- Tristan -