I think I want to become a compassionate conservative. I think that compassionate conservatives have shown us how great they can make the world. Maybe if I became a CC, I could really make life better for everyone around me. What do you think?
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I’ve been thinking for awhile that I need a new career. Even as an aspiring rock star, it may be time to give that up if only I could become a CEO. You see, for awhile I have been thinking that my ideal situation would be to work somewhere and to do such a terrible job that the people pay me an enormous amount of money … TO LEAVE. This happens all the time. Here in Boston – dude managing the Big Dig project screws it up so badly that they buy out his contract for a few hundred thousand dollars. And then the other day we had this in the NY Times:
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: October 30, 2007 E. Stanley O’Neal, the embattled chairman and chief executive of Merrill Lynch,
retired today from the brokerage firm, capping a tumultuous 10 days that
included a significant quarterly loss and write-down. …. Mr. O’Neal is expected to receive at least $159 million in severance and
retirement. He is entitled to $30 million in retirement benefits as well as $129
million in stock and option holdings, according to an analysis by James F. Reda
& Associates using yesterday’s share price of $66.09. That would be on top of
the roughly $160 million he took home in his nearly five years on the job.
So what I’m trying to say is this – will somebody please pay me millions of dollars to go away. Please! I’ll go anywhere, I’ll get out of your sight, I’ll stay away from you forever. Hook a rock star up!
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Hey Q.R. Station friends,
you probably know that I live in the Boston area. It’s a great night here cause the Red Sox are going to the World Series. If you’ve been around this area, there are two things that get people excited – sports and music. I guess people here are just passionate in general. If you’re a band and the people here like you – they love you. And they let you know it. So right now people here are celebrating. For me it’s always a lot more fun when a team I care about goes far, so this will be a fun couple weeks ahead.
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Let’s get back to Phil and Genesis for a second here, just for the hell of it. Another thing Swing told me about that concert is that you could go online and purchase a copy of the concert, or any other Genesis concert from this tour. Pretty cool technology, and one that I had been thinking about awhile ago. Check this – I’m at a U2 concert in Boston in 2005. It was awesome – they were on point during that tour. The first thing I said to my girl when that concert ended was “I need to hear that again”. It was so damn good that it wasn’t enough to be there and to experience it once. Man, I needed to absorb that some more. It turned out that I could get a free copy of the concert online within days. There is a whole world of U2 “tapers” out there. They have such a huge following of fans, and a percentage of those fans take it upon themselves to record the shows. U2 doesn’t actually have a problem with this as long as they are distributed freely. As soon as you try to sell a copy of their show is when you can expect someone from the U2 posse to show up at your door and kick your … For me, this is the way it should be. I paid for the show (or maybe I didn’t but I just want to hear it because I love the band so much) and I want to experience it over and over again. Why shouldn’t I? Does the band really need more money for this? As U2 demonstrates, they only do better by having such a large and committed following. Of course, before U2 there was the Greatful Dead, who had a section of their floor roped off just for tapers. That’s a commitment to this concept if there ever was one.
Now I haven’t put any research into this blog topic. My sole source of information on this is a two minute (or less) conversation with SwingDoom about this. But our understanding is that even if you paid to see Genesis, you still have to pay to get a copy of the show online. This sucks. If I pay over $100 to see your show, don’t you think I deserve an audio copy as part of that enormous fricken price? Why should I have to pay again? I should be able to input the ticket number and receive a “free” copy, even though it’s not really free since I paid your ridiculous ticket price. For someone that didn’t go to the show, sure, make them pay. But just realize this – the more people listening to you the better off you are going to be. Given that Phil and company have already made a fortune off of us a few times over, perhaps they would be better off by being more generous.
Just a thought …
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P.S. – when Q.R. Station gets large, we’re going to have to allow tapers and put our own copies of our shows out there for those that want them.
A little over a week ago SwingDoom checked out Genesis in DC. SwingDoom, being a drummer and all, has a connection to these guys. I mean, any band that carries two drummers is going to get a look from Swing. The report card for Genesis: ummm, not so great. Phil just wasn’t in the mood that night, or that’s the way it came off. But the thing that really pisses me off is that Phil didn’t even acknowledge that Swing was in the house. The least he could do is recognize the drummer in our up and coming band. What’s up Phil? Can’t recognize Q.R. Station??
As I’ve mentioned, Q.R. Station has been recording a song called Better Than This that was inspired by Blowing In the Wind by Dylan. The song came about as I was playing Dylan’s song and thinking about how the song still has relevance today. So I tried to write my own modern day Blowing In the Wind and Better Than This was the result. When SwingDoom gets in the studio and finishes the percussion on the song it will be ready for release.
The interesting thing to me is that when Dylan’s song was released a few decades ago it really grabbed a hold of people. It made them want to change things. I just don’t get the sense that modern day music is as successful at moving people to action. I definitely believe that people are still moved by music. I have no doubt that is true, and I know it is true for me. But here we are living in a very dangerous and a very frustrating time in the life of the world, and when I turn on the radio I don’t hear that reflected in the music. There is a song John Mayer recently released that says his generation is “waiting for the world to change”. It’s a good enough song, but I have a bit of a problem with it. Musicians and artists have a history of changing the world with their music and imagery - and I just don’t like the idea of waiting for the world to change. I think you will be waiting for a long time unless you, me, and everyone else takes responsibility for the world we are living in and sets about changing it in any positive way we can.
I hope that as Q.R. Station begins to release our music that in some small way we can change the world for the better, even if only a small number of people are listening.
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Let me wish a safe journey to J, the bass-man of Q.R. Station. J is moving to the NY area this coming week. A great steal for NY to get J, who is just a great dude all around. While this makes life a little more challenging for studio work, it won’t be devastating because we really have a mobile studio. So when it comes time to record bass tracks I’ll just have to take a trip to NY to see J. This means we’ll have to get a lot done with as few takes as possible, but our history has been that J is a one-take kind of guy. He has a habit of nailing things very quickly.
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It’s August, not December, and yet perhaps it’s time to review the year. After all, this time last year we still hadn’t resolved some of the issues involved in setting up a solid recording studio. It was July 2006 when SwingDoom came to Boston and told me it was time to elevate the quality of the recordings I had been making. Shortly thereafter we bought a high quality mixer and Cubase LE recording software. At that point we could make noiseless recordings and we effectively had a studio.
It was November 2006 when we had some high power sessions with SwingDoom elevating the game on Easy and Walk Next To Me, making it clear that Q.R. Station was real. And there was more writing. Also, remember that there was a time in the spring of 2007 when other parts of my life brought so much angst that I was able to write a song that wouldn’t have been possible before. I don’t want my life to suck or anything, but every now and then you can squeeze out a great song when life does suck. And then in late spring we added to the guitar effects arsenal so we could elevate Better Than This. It was also this spring when J walked into the studio to lay down some serious bass tracks for us.
In some ways, this year had the down side of not producing enough finished tracks. After all, we still haven’t released any of our songs for sale just yet. But the consolation is we have worked hard this year, we still are motivated about this project, and we’ve gotten great feedback from friends and fans alike.
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As I’ve mentioned recently, Q.R. Station spent a good amount of time in the studio this summer. We’ve gotten a lot of good work done and we have three songs that are very nearly done. SwingDoom will be laying down some beats on Better Than This, our newest song. We’ll be doing a little bit of touch-up on Easy and Walk Next To Me, and then we’ll release those singles. Our expectation is that they will all be done this fall.
We have another four or five songs that have been either all or partly written that haven’t been recorded at all. Those will make up the rest of our album. Making an album is very time consuming, especially when you are doing it part time. And I’m not going to lie, these days other things are catching our attention. We have day jobs we have to deal with, family responsibilities, etc. Rock and roll is important to us, but these other things matter, too. What I am proud of actually, is that we haven’t released the songs yet. You see, it would be easy to just say that they are done and put them out there, even if there are things we know that we could make better. We won’t do that because we care about this project and we want to be completely happy with the outcome. We are very proud of what we have done so far and we believe that the few people that have been paying attention to us will enjoy the final cuts.
So that’s the deal – we are kind of in a summer slow-down after a bunch of recording activity. Hopefully Swing will get some good work done in the coming weeks and we’ll be all that closer to a product.
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It’s taken some time to get a new blog entry out because things have been busy in the studio. SwingDoom was in the house last week as we tried to hammer out the percussion for Better Than This, a song that I think is going to be an important Q.R. Station piece. The timing is complicated on this song, so more work will be required to get this one right. I think when it comes out you’ll like it. It is very different from anything we’ve done so far. We’ll keep you posted on progress.
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