The Wilburn Brothers Show
Bridbrad paused rocking for a moment. "You think he's really going to do it?" Gladys didn't pause at all. "Oh, if he does he'll do it, best not to think about it at all."
Tonight's just gonna be all over the place. I really do have 5 more Chet Atkins albums, but it's pretty impossible to review them. I suppose i could do like a "most random thing i heard on a Chet Atkins album" list, but that's dumb. One's as good as another, it's Chet Atkins playing guitar. Instead, we'll talk about being real.
What's the number one problem with a record label, aside from them lying about everything all the time? Overhead. You've got too many people doing barely anything productive in a make-believe city of pointless insider jibber jabber. You're leasing a building and equipment, employing people to write and read memos all day, you don't actually have any inventory, it's dumb and it doesn't help anybody.
I don't want to own anybody's intellectual property like the Wilburn Brother did to Loretta Lynn, i don't want to be in court suing people all the time, i don't wanna gamble millions on the next big thing. Let's not run Bottle of Beef that way. Let's instead do it sensible. What should our goal be? Our goal should be to help independent artists be independent artists, and our profits should come from physical sales, not skimming off the top of all the transactions.
The biggest hurdle with records is the 7 to 10 week lead time, or up to 6 months like Third Man Records is dealing with (how the hell am i gonna tie all that together?). We're basically planning for what we'll try to sell next year and that's ridiculously difficult if your band is going to break up in a few weeks. CDs are much quicker and 10 times cheaper.
Regardless, what i'm really trying to get at is the single most frustrating thing i encounter as an album aficionado is searching for a recording and it just isn't available. Either the label wasn't making any money and let it go out of print, or CD Baby jettisoning the CD part of the equation, or just constantly being sold out of minimum runs. I don't mind pre-ordering, but i also want to just by the thing, you know? Yes, it's expensive, but this is a long term investment in yourself and that's what i want to help accomplish.
So let's do it. I don't want your rights or control of your royalties, i don't want to have to go through a gigantic distributor, i don't want to be your agent or your manager, i want to buy your album from you. I'll pay for half of the run and act like a store, i can make Bottle of Beef an actual label and list it on discogs. You're my friends. I don't have a hoard of treasure, but if there's money in the future you'll get some of it without any expense you wouldn't already be paying anyway. It doesn't have to be that difficult, and nobody has to be a scumbag to do it.
Now, if you wanna put "Distributed by Bottle of Beef" in the credits or have me publish it on my bandcamp page in some form, then hell yeah 'cause that costs nothing. All you actually need is a person to actually mail your album to customers. That i can do. Obviously, if your goal is to sell millions of copies, the guy in his basement that i am isn't gonna be much help, but if you want someone to help pay for that minimum run of your awesome DIY homemade album, then we can definitely talk.
100 Cds? A few weeks and 2 to 3 hundred dollars. Easy peasy. A record? Check this out. Anything less than 500 is small run, sowe're talking a $10/unit cost difference. Yeah, you're run of 500 is gonna be around 6/unit, but a short run puts them at $16. If you have a hundred people willing to spend 30 to get it to their doors, fine, but do you have any idea how many records 500 actually is? My first book mentioned about 400, and that was a car-trunk full weighing as much as i do (160-170lbs). I have access to pallet jacks and dollys and forklifts, but you'll be hand unloading those bad boys from a semi. Not the point, though.
The point was to circle back around and talk about tonight's album, and also to menage-a-Bacon Loretta Lynn and Jack White. Second part's easy, he produced her 2004 album, Van Leer Rose. First part is much more interesting.
Unlike her sister, Crystal Gayle, Loretta Lynn had a habit of getting her songs kicked off of Country radio for singing about inappropriately scandalous subject matter like birth control, not liking it when her husband cheated on her, really not liking it when he came home drunk looking to make birth control a necessity, you get the picture. Plus, she flat out just stopped making music in the 70s because that was the only option she had since the Wilburn Brothers legally owned any idea she had in her brain. Yeah, they gave her the Jesus and Mary Chain treatment to keep sponging off her personal success.
So tonight's album is way back before all that when the Wilburn Brothers gave her an avenue for all that success by having her on their show and publishing her music. I'm not defending them at all, just pointing out the business dynamic they were sexistly using to profit from her success. Same basic reason Poe only made 2 albums.
Anywho, going into this "live" version of the Wilburn Brothers Show (for their die-hard fans) i'm expecting Hee-Haw Light. Some corny jokes, Country & Western comradery ('cause most Americans don't realize they are Communists, wink), sage advice from guys in Bolo ties at the Grand Ole Opry, you know. I'm just ribbing you, i hope you know that. But seriously, i don't want to see Ernest Tubb "do a little dance."
WHAT THE EVER LOVING FUCK IS THE KNOXVILLE GIRL!? I assume it's a moral lesson, but jeez it makes the Knack sound subtle.
Yeah, follow that up with Hunt the Coon Tonight, that won't make me squirm at all. Then invite the Kentucky girl up to sing a song and talk about her like she's a car.
Oof, chastising her for reading instead of cleaning the house and cooking supper. Then sing an "honest man in prison" song.
Side Two is a lot better, actually.
So, without a doubt Loretta Lynn is the best part of this album. Everything else is like being stuck in the middle seat between Boss Hog and Roscoe talking about how swell a record label Decca is.
So here's the thing, i think a lot of people think that i hate Country music, and that's not true at all. I like the music just as much as any other. What i hate is the very subtle and backhanded form of innuendic communication that Country uses to pander to what Jello Biafra might call "macho insecurity." It's a heavily morally righteous perspective cloaked in an exaggerated accent and rhetoric. As a rhetoric, it's really insidious because it plays up "being a simple hick" to the level of post-irony. It actively searches for the least intelligent audience it can find and subliminally instills its values in the actual form of "i'm just a simple rube, but even i understand this is the way the world is supposed to be." I don't feel like i'm doing a good job of describing it, but maybe you see what i'm getting at. It's like if Columbo were actually the bad guy, but never turned it around at the last second, just let it hang in the air like he wanted them to legitimately get away with it. Country, to me, is like real-life Noir. We'll just let that percolate and try again tomorrow.
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