I’ve been pretty merciless in my critiques of Record Store Day for the last two days on my Twitter feed.  It’s kind of like attacking kitten lovers or some such, doesn’t exactly make you many friends.  But that’s fine.  I did want to quickly explain part of the reason why I have issues with this new found “Holiday” since it ties into much bigger issues.

Firstly, I should say that Used Vinyl shops & digger spots are seemingly on the rise.  I’ve seen more pop up and more stay in business then I’ve ever experienced in NYC.  In New York only 5-10 years ago spots would open and close up in two to three year intervals.  Now some digging locations have become institutions from the East Village all the way to Williamsburg and many places in between.  This is a great thing, not just for music, but for art as it keeps great performances alive and people truly interested in music.  I fully support these businesses and hope they made a killing on Record Store Day.

My bigger issue with Record Store Day is that it’s somehow in support of the “Independent Music Store” that is involved with selling new releases and that it can help preserve these somehow suddenly cherished institutions.  I find it ironic that the very people in many cases that torrent all their music and steal at will then lecture others about how they need to go out and support small businesses ONE DAY a year.  And that it’s the same torrent ideology that claims “the record stores were charging 17.99 for a CD, so that’s why we started downloading things”.  I don’t want to make this yet another post about illegal file sharing or pirating or whatever you want to call it.  It’s bigger then just that issue.  But to me, it’s like a murderer visiting his victim’s funeral.  It’s a bit revolting actually.

I realize that not everyone steals music, some people really do shop at physical stores year round because their life revolves around staring at that amazing artwork that is derived from everyone’s favorite format, the CD, which is far more exciting then the MP3 right?  I’m sure there are people that take the stance that they only buy vinyl that comes on a multi-colored disc, packaged in Gold and wrapped in silk as well.  Or else it’s steal away time.  So their appearance at the local record shop should be cherished right?  They’ve earned at least the ability to pat themselves on the back, if not some sort of medal/monument.

At the same time, on the other side of the counter you have the hard working record shop owner.  Wait, isn’t that the same guy that wouldn’t buy our shit a few years ago?  Isn’t that the guy that insisted on insane consignment contracts?  Isn’t that the guy that buried our music in a rack and waited for someone with knowledge of the Dewey Decimal System to walk by and dig out our CD?  Isn’t that the guy who NEVER plays any NEW music from lesser known or local acts in his store?  Isn’t that the SAME guy who won’t carry music that isn’t in a Jewel Case?  As if that’s a bar for anything.

A quick aside, yes.  I did have someone tell me once that they wouldn’t carry our CDs because they came in cardboard sleeves.  Let’s process this now.  Our CDs have bar codes, are shrink wrapped, at times feature artists that are known world wide and/or are legends in hip-hop BUT because we don’t have a jewel case you won’t carry us?  Even at consignment?  Even though people that shop at your store are fully aware of our label?  Oh, I see.  Thanks, we’ll be in business far longer then you, good luck out there.

So now I’ve painted a small picture of the scene today.  MOSTLY, and I use the term MOSTLY on purpose because it’s not all.  But mostly we have out of touch and lazy business owners being propped up by selfish and self serving customers for ONE DAY a year and I’m supposed to act like this is making a difference why?

I compare Record Store Day sort of to KONY 2012.  It’s a bunch of people trying to pretend they are making a difference in a situation that is realistically unchangeable and even if it were, they don’t fully understand the situation fully anyway.

So forgive me, I’m all out of pity.  My heart is still pretty broken about Fat Beats closing.  If Fat Beats can’t be saved then none of em can be saved.  Call me cynical, go ahead.  I’m off to read the tweets reminiscing about Captain Planet that are supposed to have something to do with Earth Day.

I have to warn you ahead of time, I will sound a bit paranoid in this is piece.  But that’s ok, because that’s what they want you to think of me right? 

Apologies Post Awakening.

Let me say this, the name of this one is perfect this time, “My Google Awakening”, I have truly been awakened to this company’s true goals now, it all made sense after SOPA (don’t worry, this doesn’t have much to do with SOPA).  I have to apologize, first out, because only a month or so a go I was avidly promoting Google Plus for Uncommon at a time when almost no one else was.  My thought was that Facebook Timeline was going to destroy Facebook and that people would run to Google Plus, add in Google Music and you might have a new….yuck, Myspace.  In terms of musicians, let’s face it, Facebook sucks.  There will be a next website after Facebook, but that’s for another discussion and here’s hoping it’s NOT Google Plus.  That said, we are still there, if you think what I’m about to say is bull shit, feel free to join us there for light updates.

Google Flexes Muscle.

How did I go from supporting a Google program to writing a piece that’s about to break down all the reasons why you shouldn’t support Google?  The SOPA debate changed everything.  Forget about the subject matter behind SOPA, think about the power.  Google is gigantic corporation, larger then the entire music industry combined, that’s a fact.  The SOPA defeat was widely celebrated as a “Victory for the Internet”.  That sounds terrific until you stop thinking about YOURSELF as the internet, as idealic as the thought of an open internet controlled soley by the people is, it’s just not the case.  It probably hasn’t been the case in large part for some time now.  Google has done a good job keeping people unaware of it’s massive size, change in leadership and of it’s plans going forward. 

I see Google the way the Ma Bell companies were in the 1930s, on the verge of creating a monopoly that would last for about 50 years.  If you think that’s a stretch or that the internet is that much different from telephony then I would highly suggest reading Tim Wu’s “The Master Switch”.  Think about what Google is doing, they have Google Search, Google Chrome, Google Plus, Youtube, GMail and of course all of the various Google iOS powered phones.  That’s just scratching the surface, but enough to get us started.  Imagine a world where Google is the dominate player in all of those fields.  Imagine Google being the dominating web browser, social network, phone provider, email service and search provider.  I can’t stress how dangerous that is in text form.  It’s the equivalent of what FOX News has done in New York City by owning 2 Newspapers, a local channel and a cable network in the same city……times a billion!  Without diversification in media, the message can be controlled and don’t ever think that the internet is not a form of media the same as radio or tv are.

Google’s Search Bubble

Let’s start with Google Search.  Everyone knows about targeted ads and paid search results.  Frankly, I don’t have a huge problem with Google targeting ads to me, I’d rather see an ad for New Balance sneakers then for teeth whitening solutions anyway.  This isn’t even about privacy for me, although that’s a part of it.  Paid search results are scary considering how far that could go, but I do acknowledge it’s well within Google’s rights to be able to sell one tiny search result as long as it’s marked as such.

No, this is about the “Search Bubble”, as described best here on DuckDuckGo’s website, a competing Search Engine (more on that later).  As you can see from their chart, a Search Bubble is often used by popular search engines like Google to put you in just that, a bubble.  It might sound like a good idea to tailor results to the users previous searches or web history but what it results in is a limiting of differing opinion.  In their example two people search “Egypt”, one getting news of the revolution, the other getting tourism information.  This ACTUALLY happens.  In a more Uncommon related result, say we release something new, I search the artist and album.  The results will have all the blogs that have previously covered us, that I’ve clicked on before, at the top.  This makes it hard to find NEW coverage from new sites on us, this also makes it impossible to tell which sites are actually getting a lot of hits (as results were previously sorted by this measure).  Music aside, imagine how much you are not being told because of a reliance on Google as the sole source of information on the planet.  Google has no obligation to show you the entire “open internet” and I’m convinced that they don’t.  Do you really think there are only 4-5 viable pages of search results on any given subject on the planet?  I just don’t.  I’ll never believe that. 

Another example goes back a bit when Google partnered with an online music retailer called Lava Music.  Our distributor had a deal with Lava, they paid minimally because no one had ever heard of them.  After this deal with Google, all of the sudden I would search for one of our artists and Lava Music would come up at the top of Google’s results.  This was pre-Google Music and pre-Bandcamp as well.  At the time, the logical result you’d want would be your own site or at least Itunes.  Instead, Lava Music, a site no one had heard of that had a poor payment history was given this spot and there wasn’t a thing you could do about it.  In time Apple must have gotten tired of the BS, they bought out Lava Music and they were never heard from again.  This is a very under reported story, my account of it is my own, but I’d like to see someone tell me I’m wrong about that series of events.

Google wants me to sign into what???

Let’s move on to Google Chrome, this is basically more fuel to the Search fire, now Google can have access to every single website you visit, not just the ones you click on at Google’s website search.  The other day was the final straw, I was asked to “log in to Google Chrome”.  I don’t know what that means, and I sure as hell don’t want to know.  Google Chrome worked really well on a Mac, but that’s not the be all end all.  I need some level of privacy and more importantly we as a society need some level of diversity on the internet, so I deleted Chrome and replaced it, more on that later.

Google also offers email, and as you already know, electronically mines this email to present you more ads.  These ads based on your personal email can now occur on any of their platforms and their platforms grow every day. 

The last two pieces of the puzzle, Google’s iOS and Google Plus.  More mining tools basically. 

In and of itself, none of these things are super dangerous.  Facebook knows more about you then anyone right?  Apple has lots of info on us?  Mozilla?  The list goes on and on.  But here’s the key difference, it’s not all leading to the same source, that information on you is going to different companies that won’t work together to paint the picture of how to advertise to you, and worse yet, control you.

How did I become Google’s slave?

Ok, ok, ok……let’s slow down for a second!  How does this even happen?  There was more to my awakening then the SOPA mess.  I, like most people, used Google as my default for search, Google is a damn verb at this point.  This lead to a few Gmails.  I have a Gmail set up for Uncommon Radio submissions, a Gmail for our Orange Army promotion and more.  I never ran my personal email there though, probably for a reason. 

Time goes on, Firefox was NOT optimized for Mac at all, it got worse and worse so I turned to Google Chrome.  It was lightening fast.  Problem solved there right?

I of course operate a Youtube account, in fact, I have 3.  Little did I know that Google would eventually buy out Youtube and make it part of their network in the most annoying way possible.  If you have more then one Youtube account, then you know how insane their Google Profile log in procedure is.

Google Documents is actually a pretty good service, all of their services are pretty good to be honest, but Google Documents is a good one.  I set up my discography there and worked with some interns to build data bases for promotion there as well.  Recently I got a new job, they run the daily duties schedule and our shift schedule through Google docs, so this required me using my Gmail log in to access.  Now I’m in Google all the time, I notice the Google Plus function and slowly get used to it and join.  When they launch “company” pages, as a label owner I feel I must get on there too, so I build out a simple Uncommon page.

Now I’m only short the Google Phone, Iphone for life kid.  But you see what happened there?  I made strictly independent decisions on each of the functions I needed, slowly, all roads lead back to Google.  This can happen to anyone, but what can you do about it and what should you do about it if you’re concerned?

Ways to escape Google’s grasp.

Google controls more access to information then any entity in the history of our planet.  This isn’t hyperbole, it’s true.  If that doesn’t scare you then it should.  Most of the people cheering against “censorship” and feeling Google is a champion of this, don’t realize this fact.  Google has billions of visitors a day, if server space is the actual internet in real life terms, what percentage of that must Google control?  They can and DO change what you know about on a daily basis, most people that signed their petition found out about SOPA that morning, on THEIR site exclusively.  They saw the words “Censorship”, signed and helped shut down legislation.  No disrespect to folks that had problems with the bill, I had problems with the bill as written.  No disrespect to folks that did a lot of research, made a decision prior and were against it.  This isn’t about you.  This is about the majority of people that DIDN’T do that, and for those of you that did do that work, it should scare the shit out of you what Google was able to do to the folks that didn’t.  Is this about censorship by the government only?  I think it’s about the unfair control of information by anyone. 

I did some research, and found that great website I mentioned above, DuckDuckGo.  It has an “honest search”.  It’s clean in it’s flow, has less ads and more access to the real internet, not the Google Bubble.  It even has a cute duck logo that wears hats and masks on certain days in case you are going to miss the Google art department on holidays.  Take a look at what Google’s power is though….. type www.duck (don’t even complete it with the dot com) into your browser and look where you go.  That’s right!  Google!  So if you don’t auto complete correctly you will get ushered to Google’s site.  Google bought the rights to www.duck.com.  You may say, of course they did, but think about how easy it was to buy that domain, that was surely taken by some duck oriented site previously.  They could buy any site on Earth and shut it down and we are helping make them become this strong.

I then downloaded Camino, which is a Mozilla product.  It’s a browser optimized for Macs and works just as fast as Chrome without Google’s tentacles attached.  The sad thing is I feel like I’m “off the grid” just by making these simple changes, that’s what they want you to think.  That’s marketing.  Don’t believe me?  Think I’m losing my mind maybe?  Then why would Google invest in a cyber security ad campaign?  I saw one of these ads the other day on the Subway.  It was an ad warning me that when I walk away from a computer that I should log out or it’s like leaving my front door open.  Do you REALLY think Google gives a fuck?  Those ads are meant to build trust and the only companies that need to build trust are usually companies not deserving of your trust.

It’s About Corporate Dominance Stupid.

As much as I’ve railed on Google here, I acknowledge other companies are trying to do the same thing.  It’s a business.  It’s our job as consumers to keep our web dealings diversified to encourage a healthy web enviornment that includes a balance of power and not the creation of monopolies.  Google could easily become the next AT & T if we let it.  In fact, they’d be much more powerful then AT & T ever was at their peak of the late 70’s and early 80’s. 

I still have some Gmail accounts, not my primary though, never that.  I still have our Youtube account.  I still even have the Google Plus page up and running for the time being, I’m just no longer actively promoting it, because doing so helps Google a lot more then it helps Uncommon considering their low activity numbers.  So I’m not saying “Boycott Google”, they do a lot well, but they should only be a PART of the web, not all of it.

Don’t take my rant as paranoia, listen to what I’m actually saying, use common sense as a customer.  Don’t put you’re trust in one giant corporation over other giant corporations and pretend that they are for the people.  Don’t conflate corporate domination with an open internet.  Protect yourself online by using different partners for different jobs online.  And think outside of the Google Search bubble at the very least.

Let me start by saying this post may make me sound incredibly vain.  It could have the effect that I’m putting myself above other folks, but that’s not my intent.  In fact, my drive to not do that is what has lead me to the point of view that I’ll share with you.  At least, this post will be more on the side of the “label owner diary” style post then another post on the great illegal downloading debate that even I’m a bit tired of discussing.

This is about Twitter and how it is used, what it does to people, how it effects your “fanbase”, etc.  Let me start with what I call the 3 levels of Twitter usage.  When you first sign up for Twitter, you are at level 1, utter confusion.  You’re probably not sure what you’re supposed to do, why you are there, how many things even work.  This will go on for a certain amount of time depending on how quick a learner you are.  This opens up to Level 2, the best level.  You’ve got it figured out, you’re following cool folks, commenting, getting followers, etc.  You’re undoubtedly starting to “meet” some cool people with similar interests and having some fun with it.  Then Level 3 happens.  You reach capacity.  Either your timeline keeps growing where you follow 1,000 people or more or you start to go through the tedious work of deciding who to unfollow and who to follow and end up following too many people anyway.  

I purposely laid out those 3 levels without any slant on how and why I personally used Twitter as a label owner an business person, because I think that 3 Level journey is true for anyone that uses the service for any reason.

I’ve always told people in terms of twitter, comment often, follow people that interest you and you will gain followers, and for the most part that’s true.  For musicians, I’ve always suggested they search similar artists names and follow the people talking about them.  Better yet, find the account of those artists and follow their followers.  You’d be surprised how many people you can get to follow you that way.  As a label owner that lives and dies with his product the way I do, this can become addictive.  Real time results of watching people become fans before your eyes for no other reason then the fact that you happened to follow them.

I guess in a way it’s a power trip, but in this day and age of so many people simply stealing your music and of massive over saturation where it’s hard to be heard I think it comes from more of a desperation.  A desire to actually interact with people that you know really support what you do.  What you forget is that you are human and this is totally un-natural as an artist, label owner, etc.

I’ve met some GREAT people on Twitter.  People I knew outside of Twitter became closer friends, fans became part of the team, fellow artists became friends and constant collaborators, even made some great twitter only level friendships.  These people all know who they are.  But at a certain point the mind can only process so many folks.  The dangerous part about social media today is that you can actually “know” on some level so many different people at the same time that eventually the mind reels from it.  When you add in the fact that you are only really reading text from all these various sources, it makes it more confusing.  We read text in our own voice, that’s what we do as creatures.  What gets lost is that not every person is the same on the other end of that text.  You never know what you may say or they may say to become fans or stop being fans.  

I’ve experienced this with a number of people on Twitter.  Being on Twitter since late 2008, I can pretty much claim veteranship.  When I first got on Twitter the only rappers on there that I can remember being there were Jean Grae, J-Live, Talib Kweli and QuestLove.  They were among the early adopters that actually beat me to the punch.  With that said, having been there for about 3 and a half years, I’ve seen it many a time.  I’ve had people tell me directly they couldn’t support us because of something I said.  From dissing George W. Bush to dissing Kanye West, I’ve seen all sorts of reason why people that generally liked our shit backed away.  All of the sudden you are unfollowed, even if it’s quietly.  People that have supported for several years, write you off and you find yourself giving way too many fucks.

This cycle of grabbing up fans by their collars and pushing their face into our music has to stop for us as a label and myself as an owner of the label.  It’s untenable.  In order to take that “next step” as a movement, it can’t be a direct line to me to fans, it has to be me distributing information and fans passing it to each other.  That’s how it grows.  A fan telling another fan about something is billions of times more powerful then me sneaking up on someone in their new follows.  This is a hard lesson, and maybe was necessary in order for us to get to the level of followers we have, but eventually you have to let the bird fly on it’s own.

I always prided myself on being the rapper that followed typical fans of music.  Figuring out what else they listened to and trying to collect this sort of data in a way so that I could identify with them.  I prided myself on bigging up fans, making them feel appreciated and being the nice guy that I saw a lot of my fellow rappers, producers and labels NOT being.  The hard truth is, there is a reason a lot of these other folks don’t do that and why in a lot of ways it’s foolish to do in most instances.

The first being, a lot of people just can’t handle it.  Some people’s heads swell up when you give them props or converse with them, they get too close to the flame as it were.  Boundaries are lost and as a public figure you end up in extremely fucked positions.  I’m uncomfortable with the level of notariety that I myself have achieved in this light, so I can only imagine what it’s like for those far more well known then me.  The larger we get the more I see random people shouting how bad we “suck” and lashing out at myself and our artists.  I guess it’s the nature of success.  When you’re worth hating, people will find a way to hate you.

Another reason it’s not wise to over-engage with folks is because often it results in them ceasing to engage with you.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve noticed someone RTing a lot of our tweets.  Once, twice, three times in a week.  So finally, I think, that’s a cool head, let me follow back and see what’s up with this dude.  Then suddenly, the RTs and enthusiasm stops dead.  Is it a plot to get me to follow them?  Probably not, but I guess it’s human nature, the seeking of acceptance, once gotten, it no longer needs to be sought.

With that in mind, I’ve had to pull back on Twitter a bit.  In recent weeks I’ve had to unfollow close to 200 people and I will probably unfollow more.  I’ve done this not to offend anybody or to say that I’m more important then anyone, but just because I’ve had to change my approach for my own sanity.  I need to spend less time on Twitter and more time working on my company and my music.  Following less people means my time line updates less, which makes me want to check it less.  Easy solution.  I also need to be less of a two way street, I need our label to become a destination that people want to be involved in, not something I’m trying to involve people in.  Ultimately, I’ll probably continue to follow less and less people and if people unfollow our label back, then what were they worth?  I’m not really interested in being a twitter-celebrity known for brash comments.  I want people to follow us because of the music, not because of what I can cleverly fit into 140 characters.

With that said, I’ll continue to post my opinions, keeping them mostly to our music, the music business, rap music as a whole and benign things like sports and jokes.  I think becoming a robot account doesn’t help either, people want to connect, but simply put, people need to connect on my terms, not theirs since I am part of the creation of the product.  

Twitter is a new experience for all of us, there has never been anything like it, I think a lot of us on the music side are going through the same phases with it, so hopefully this post helps some other folks in my position out and sheds some light onto some things not often thought about by fans of various musicians in terms of code of conduct, etc.

In 2012, my time is more valuable then ever.  While Twitter is never a total waste of time, it can be a time vampire and a source of procrastination.  It’s important that as a business person that I use it as a tool (albeit at times a fun one) and not let it be a crutch.

WARNING: This post is long, you may want to bookmark this and read it later, but I urge you to read it in full as it has some valuable insights in it, not from myself per se, but from the exact people that steal our music….PROCEED.

I’ve said all I need to say about SOPA on my Twitter.  I’ve explained in such far ranging mediums as email exchanges to face to face exchanges with co-workers.  Frankly, I’m tired of making the same points.  The crux of the argument is that SOPA opponents are largely aligning themselves with corporate interests like Google (a company worth more then the entire music industry combined, actual fact).  We can have a debate about what’s wrong with the SOPA bill, we can have a debate over Government power.  We can’t have a debate over whether if someone is breaking our laws that their site should be shut down and whether illegal activity is free speech.  We can’t have a debate that pirating material is good for an industry that has shrunk since it’s implementation by astronomical numbers.  We can’t have a debate on whether you are ultimately just choosing between two corporate groups (Hollywood and Entertainment corps vs. Sillicon Alley fat cats).  What is a fact is that even mainstream web companies have made millions of dollars, perhaps billions by being the window in which someone reaches through in order to find an illegal website counterfeiting everything from music to drugs.

Well, I guess I made my point again.  DAMN IT!  Ok, tangent aside, I wanted to post some excerpts from a conversation I had with an out and out bootlegger of music online.  I won’t reveal which site this actually is, but it’s one of the largest in the area of pirating music, mostly rap music.  I usually do not write “blogs” that bootleg our music directly.  I’ve found it becomes a long distance yelping contest between heart broken artist and mean hearted ex fan.  I usually just use DMCA Complaints on the sites that they upload the files to, and trust me, the people with the links are the same ones that uploaded it.  I should take this time to remind you that DMCA is the ONLY power I have at Uncommon to police our material on the internet and it was fought against by almost all the same web interests fighting SOPA.  Alas.

Many of you know, a few months ago we did a charity record called “Save the Horn” where every dime made from it was donated to Charity:Water to help with East African famine relief.  Our roster contributed new and back catalog songs that were focused on this under-reported issue.  Much to my surprise even THAT was being bootlegged, along with our free releases too, free releases that only cost an email address!!!  So I confronted the person that actually uploaded the album, he was amiable in some ways, ignorant in others.  I pressed on and he referred me to the head of the site that he actually “blogs” for.  This person was criminally ignorant and rude to me, he shows EXACTLY why more power must be given to creatives like myself and what we are fighting for with elements of SOPA.  Below you will see portions of this “conversation”.  I may post more of it in the future as it was extensive if not circular in nature.  I can provide anyone evidence that I did not edit any thing that was said by either of us or change the context of it.  My questions are in bold, his replies are in Italics.

Uncommon -

In particular you uploaded an album we released for charity to raise money for starving Egyptians going through a famine.  All proceeds from Save the Horn were raised for Charity:Water, a non profit that builds water wells and purchases water rigs in the 3rd world.  How is it possible that this is a release that we’d be cool with you uploading?  Do you have any moral compass at all?

Besides the charity album you have also been uploading some of our recent releases on the label that are either for sale or free via our bandcamp.  I want to make a few things clear, we do not need or want the support of you, (SITE NAME) or (OTHER SITE), whether it is a free release or not.  It’s our right as a label to post things on our bandcamp for free in order to collect email addresses to help promote items from the same artists down the line.  I don’t understand the theory behind re-uploading something that already doesn’t cost money and would like this explained.  We have exclusive control over our copyrighted material and can do as we choose with it.  As a label we want people to come to US directly for our music, whether we are giving it to them or charging them for it.  We want them to develop a relationship with Uncommon as a label, not with a pirate blog or file sharing service. 

We are an organized company trying to bring quality hip-hop to people and return this genre to what it once was in more ways then just the music.  We do this for the love of what we do, but it’s a LABOR of love.  Our goal is to actually sell music so that we can live our lives to the fullest instead of working 24/7 all the time every day.  If you knew about us you would know that we are not a “money hungry” label or a “digital only” label.  We have CDs for sale, we’ll have vinyl in 2011, we give away plenty of music (only asking for an email address) and we have interactive things for fans like the “orange army” (that costs the fan nothing to be a part of) to which more like that will be added.

We do this for the love of the music and you are constantly disrespecting us.  Again, as a label we are stating now, we want nothing to do with (WEBSITE NAME) or (OTHER WEBSITE).  Even if you were to post buy links ONLY, we are NOT interested.

I also request a phone call so that we can talk this out as men and adults.  I would like to tell you more about what these practices that you are engaging in are doing to struggling artists and to Uncommon in particular.  My phone number is below, you are welcome to call me at your nearest convenience or send me a number where I can reach you.  I hope to hear from ASAP.

Bootlegger Guy-

First and foremost, nobody is going to call you to talk about what we do and your thoughts on what sites like ours do to indie labels.  Weve heard it, we live it, we understand it, and yet the cause is far greater which is why we continue.

We the consumer, have been walked over, nay trampled over for far too long.  We believe that you should be able to give your money to the artists and labels that we like and enjoy.  If that means i need to download the CD and listen before hand, so be it.  We are sick and tired of buying disc after disc with high anticipation only to get home and find it sucks.  Or only had a few good tracks on it.  Yet we are expected to buy it and deal with it.  We are expected to pay INSANE digital media prices when the labels are saving on marketing, printing, pressing, shipping, etc, etc, etc.  Why is it all fingers at sites like us when we try and do something about the market that has us hogtied into raping us of our hard earned money.  Sorry to inform you, but most of us DO work 24/7 all the time every damn day.  So please excuse my lack of emotion in this clouded opinion.  We are the working class paying you for entertainment.  Please do not lecture us on the values of working hard and wanting to live life to the fullest.  This is borderline insulting.

Regarding the charity disc.  This is one I can mostly agree with you on.  If it was for charity, maybe it was an immoral step by the uploader.  However, was the disc purchase only?  Or did it have a minimum $0 purchase amount?  I cant see it posted on our site or yours, so im unsure.  Im not justifying how this specific case was handled but some people do have issues with Bandcamp and we do want to offer an alternative.  We in no way would have directed people away from your site or to not donate.  If this disc was reuploaded i would have expected the original link for proper donations should have also been included.  This would not have been something done intentionally to stop the support.

Now this is the part where i must step outside my professionalism and address a few other remarks.  In no way shape and form have we continued to disrespect you.  While you may feel what we do as a site is disrespectful, we feel what the music industry has done to the consumer is a far greater injustice than anything we could ever do.  If your music is on our site, its a compliment.  As ive stated, it means someone enjoyed the disc enough to share with the rest of the community.  Agree or not, there is a large community that agrees with our views.  As ive noted there are artists (signed and unsigned; indie and mainstream) and labels on board with us.  While none of them would publicly admit this, it is fact.  As ive noted earlier, WE PAY to keep the site going, WE PAY for the music posted, WE REFUSE to ever take a dime and redirect all monies back to the artists.

I dont believe anybody asked if you wanted to be affiliated with us.  We dont really care if you “want” our support or not.  Again, we post what WE LIKE, not what you want us to like.  This isnt some MTV or radio shit that gets paid to tell people what to like.  I know its a frightening thought to let the people decide for themselves what to like and where to give their money.  We get more thank yous and requests to post other material than we get takedown requests like this.  To start throwing statements around like “pirates” and accusing us of “constantly disrespecting” is a bit of a stretch, id hope you agree.

Uncommon -

This is an incredibly lame way to discuss such matters, in long drawn out email exchanges, when a simple phone call could be made.  That would be the professional thing to do, my number is right there, my name is right there.  I am not afraid of you and you have no reason to be afraid of me.  Even this email is signed “(NAME OF WEBSITE)”, as if 100 of you sat down and typed this.  One person wrote this, who is it?  Just be an adult and state your name, even if it’s an alias.  It’s odd to have an exchange of thoughts, even in this format with a ghost.  But if that’s what it is.  So be it.

Let’s start with who we are as a label and where the “business” is as a whole.  You are very vigorous in your anger against some monolithic corporate structure.  You claim that you are tired of being “hog tied” into buying shitty CDs that you then can’t return.  If it were 1999, this would be an interesting debate, but it’s not for several reasons.  First of all, all of our releases are available on Bandcamp, where you can stream the entire album before you buy it or even volunteer your precious email address.  Even if you go more conventional, say with Itunes or Amazon MP3, you are able to hear 1:30 of every song on an album, and for most hip-hop songs that’s 1/2 or a 1/3 of the track.  So there is no real buyer beware.  We stand by what we do, if a person thinks it sucks, they can more then tell before they buy it.  In terms of CDs.  Where do you find these exactly?  Last I checked there were no more record stores.  Even Fat Beats, which was the heart of the NYC hip-hop scene is closed.  Even the corporate overlords at Sam Goody or Tower Records have closed up shop.  So all these arguments about what the “industry” did to you are irrelevant.  The game has changed, if you want to claim that you helped change it, knock yourself out, but it IS changed.

But let’s take your premise at it’s word, and not acknowledge reality.  You say that you hate and your users hate buying albums and being dissapointed by them.  That’s fine, so as a response you post albums that you love in full for free?  That doesn’t jive. 

Another thing you point out is that you spend money to run your website and what not.  As if it’s free for me or anyone else to run our websites.  As if it’s free to book venues.  As if it’s free to travel and do shows on a tour.  As if merch is free to make.  I spend money every day on my label, and I’m typing this to you from a full time job right now.  You may never understand what I’m about to say, and you may think it’s me trying to be a dick, but think it through.  We have talent.  Talent is still worth something.  You can’t compare running a website “network” with people that upload files to creating art.  Even if the art sucks, you can’t compare it. 

In terms of the charity album, obviously there was not a free option as the point was to raise money, not to get our music out there.  It was 14 songs for the staggering starting price of $5 and up.  There is no defense for posting this.  An apology for this one in particular I guess is asking too much as you are on some sort of illogical crusade.

During the charity album, I wrote you and got no response.  I had the file removed from the sharing service and it was actually replaced with a new link. 

I could go on and on point for point, I disagree with basically everything you said and I’m sure the feeling is mutual.  All I ask is that you honor what you claim you do and our wishes and that’s to not post our music at our request.  Tell the “network” to avoid Uncommon’s music.  We don’t want to be involved, not now, not ever.

END EMAIL PORTION OF THIS POST

So at this point this person, whoever it was, since they never revealed a name or even an alias sent me back a more childish response, ducking all my challenges to the retort he must have spent about 12 hours compiling.  It was filled with more immature responses and personal insults, basically, I eviscerated his site’s entire existence in one email and he had nothing left.  He did say that they would continue to post our music unless it was shitty.  There’s a goal to shoot for for us, huh?  So I told him that “copyright laws would only get stronger”, and this was before SOPA by the way, and he should enjoy being “obsolete soon”.  I stand by that.  End of story.

No real comment here, this post is already lengthy, but this is a good idea of what we face all the time, the attitudes that are out there.  The anti-artist agenda that some have buried in their brain somewhere due to the fact that they aren’t doing what they want to do in their lives.  This piece should cause you to do one of two things, be revolted or look in the mirror.

A lot of people feel they need a manager.  I used to think I needed a manager.  Some people have managers, but don’t have anything to manage.  It seems like a lot of people don’t understand what managers actually do.  I’m convinced some people have managers and don’t know what their own manager does.  I want to create a clear definition for people to see, from my perspective of what a manager does and when you need one, because this is one of the most perplexing things to come to grips with as an independent artist.  I have gotten asked about this perhaps more then anything else when people come to me for advice.

A long time ago I was in every day contact with a manager that represented almost all of my favorite artists, I wanted him to be my groups manager so badly.  I felt like, if only he was our manager, we could get to the level all those artists were on.  It wasn’t about money, it wasn’t about fame, it was about acceptance.  It was about legitimacy.  I made my pitch one day and he told me that we didn’t need a manager yet.  There was nothing he could actually do for us, that we needed to go out and make our own way and THEN we’d actually need a manager.  At the time I thought he was totally full of shit, I figured he was just fronting on us and feeding us a line.

I continued to feel around, I remember having a meeting with an “up and coming” manager after that.  Myself, my rhyme partner, Cirrus Minor and this dude met up at a bar for a “pow wow”.  It was a real meeting of the minds, 2 artists that had a wish list of shit they wanted to see happen for themselves and a guy who hadn’t managed anything more then a bank account in his entire life.  Needless to say, that didn’t go far.  After a while I started to figure it out.  The original experienced manager I spoke with was actually being fair.  It seemed harsh, but the music business is harsh, harsh honestly is better then harsh bull shit.

So I never got a manager of my own, I’ve done everything on my own.  During the course of my career though, I’ve been around musicians that have been able to live off their art.  I’ve been around actual managers and seen what they do and don’t do to earn that title.  So I’m going to lay out a simple list of things you should be doing to need a manager and a list of things someone should be doing to be called a manager.  This is based on my experience alone, but I feel like my perspective is pretty accurate by most standards, particularly if you are making some level of “underground” music.

To call yourself a manager you should:

1 - Have contacts with record labels to promote you to.  They don’t have to be major labels, but indies, mid level labels.  Labels that could possibly provide you an advance or some other opportunity via a contract.  

2 - Have contacts with other managers of bands or other musicians.  These are the sorts of connections that might land you producing an artist or a band for some money.  Maybe a remix for a major label artist or an indie artist.  Some sort of production/cameo work that can put some money in your pocket.

3 - Have contacts with sync/placement/publishing industry.  The ability to push your music to music directors in film or other sources that can get your music some placement.  Video games, commercials, you know the deal.  

4 - The ability to manage requests for your attention.  The ability to take all the phone calls/emails for shows, production work, cameos and other business and direct it all to the right person on your team, if not handle it themselves.

5 - Insight into building the rest of your team.  Who’s going to be your booking company?  Who’s going to be your legal representation?  Who’s going to be working your PR or Radio Promotion?  Maybe they can get you a lower rate, or at least make that connection for you.

This is just the tip of the iceberg.  This isn’t to say that you wouldn’t still be hustling every day of your life, but this is what you should expect from someone that’s taking a percentage from your work.  But while all of this sounds great, here’s what you need to do to actually earn a person like this in your favor.

To have a manager you should:

1 - Have value.  If you are trying to get on in order to be able to do all the things above and have never done any of those things yourself, then you don’t need a manager yet.  Better yet, a real manager doesn’t need you.  When you start to generate a legitimate buzz, you’ll have people trying to find you.  That’s been the role in music since the beginning of time.

2 - You should be at the point where you are literally losing money from not being able to handle the influx of work you are being asked to do.  It should be total chaos, you just turned down a couple of hundred bucks to remix a track because you agreed to be in Denver that week for less money.  Oops.  Time to get a manager.

3 - You’ve done all you need to do in item #1 of this section.  You are in a room with a bunch of sharks trying to negotiate a deal with an indie label and are in way over your head.  There is money to be made, but you don’t want to get ripped off, you need representation.

4 - You have released music independently and done some level of your own promotion, you’ve been covered by some blogs, invited to do some shows.  With a little luck you’ve either done a grip of shows out of state, or you’ve done a huge amount of shows in your state and have developed a name.  Preferably you have actually SOLD a record or two, but even if you are still at the free music level, you’ve put the hours in.

5 - Be prepared to NOT have a manager and handle as much as you can on your own.  Managers can come and go sometimes, if you want the job done right, do it yourself.  Be prepared to walk away from people.

Let’s quickly put together a picture here in order to sum up.  Managers work for a percentage.  If you aren’t ready to have a manager, all a manager becomes is a guy/gal that says “No” to everything.  Because if you aren’t ready you will be getting offers to things for money that a percentage of which doesn’t help the manager.  Remember, 10% of 200 dollars is 20 bucks.  That’s 200 dollars you will never see, because not many managers are gonna roll with that.

There are of course different arrangements then straight up percentages, but most deals work in that way.  If you have to call your manager to tell him/her about an opportunity that YOU set up more times then they have to call you to tell you about an opportunity THEY set up, you don’t have a real manager.  You have a handler.  I suppose there are those of us that need handlers, but I am not so un-empowered.  

When the situation is right, having a manager may be the best move you can ever make.  When it’s wrong, it can side track your career.  Like any relationship, it should feel right and be comfortable at all times, even when it comes to a financial relationship like this.