In light of The Last American Sellout, I'd like to talk about an important woman. For those of us who were there in the 90's there were a couple-a-few years there where Jane's Addiction was on the cutting edge of the mainstream alternative rock movement. From the get-go they were the best kind of subversive artists. They looked outrageous, they were passionate musicians, and the subject matter of their songs was controversial and confrontational. They also had some cool fucking album covers.

Now, we were led to believe that the man responsible for this openly drug fueled rock'n'roll blitzkrieg was frontman Perry Farrell (real name, Simon Bernstein). He was the mastermind behind the concepts, the subject matter, the visuals, and the sound. What we didn't know, at first, was that his girlfriend, Casey Niccoli was an equal partner in the fruition and success of Jane's Addiction. Before Kurt and Courtney, they were the alternative nation's power couple. And JA might never have gotten off the ground artistically if it were not for Casey. Go get your copy of Nothing's Shocking and take a good look at the photography and the graphic design. The button pushing sculpture on the cover was a Farrell/Niccoli collaboration but pretty much everything else about the packaging is all Casey. Ditto for the follow up Ritual de lo Habitual. She also made two films for the band and if I am not mistaken the video for Been Caught Stealing as well. In my book that all counts as major contribution. Let's talk about Mr. Farrell for a minute.

Perry was a great lyricist. His gutter punk takes on drugs, sexuality, power, and the general state of the world were unflinchingly honest and thought provoking. He was not an amazing singer. He got a lot of milage out of his passionate delivery and a liberal use of vocal effects. He also liked being the guy in charge of the band. His bandmates did not always enjoy that aspect of working with him. He was also kinda greedy. When Jane's Addiction signed with Warner Brother's to make Nothing's Shocking, he demanded that his bandmates give him 50% of the royalties and split the remaining 50% among themselves. The band pretty much broke up before they recorded a note, and their management had to intervene to keep them together. And he got his way. Lots of other tales about his asinine behavior and demands are out there if you want to look for them, his recent on-stage dust up with guitarist Dave Navarro proving that he's still at it. Anyway, we're here to talk about what happened to Casey.

So, when Niccoli realized her lifestyle was going to kill her and wanted out of the Jane's Addiction sphere she took a lump sum payout and disappeared. Pretty much overnight Farrell took out all the “we did this” references to her collaboration with the band and replaced them with “I did this” and thus she was forgotten.

I stated earlier that Perry wrote some great lyrics. Like “such a classic girl/ gives her man a great idea/ hears you tell your friends/ hey man, won't you listen to my great idea.' When I heard that for the first time it was a revelation that changed my behavior towards women. I guess he was just articulating his MO. 

I think Casey coming forward with her story all these years later at 60 years of age is an altruistic action. I've seen some thread comments about her looking for a payout. I haven't seen a thing about her seeking financial compensation. I think she wants some recognition and credit for her significant contributions to the success of Jane's Addiction. And in my humble opinion, she deserves it.

As promised, albeit somewhat belatedly, my recap of the What Doth Life Rumble at the Main Street Museum in White River Junction, VT. This wonderful event took place on the first weekend in September 2024. For the sake of readableness and brevity I will limit myself to ten words about each band. This will also force me to boil down each performance to its essence. Here we go…

DAY ONE

Joly West- Metal as fuck! An energetic festival opener. Buy them lunch!

Gagger- Successful disregard of musical chops. Fun to talk too.

Ali T- Lived up to the hype. Plays a cool looking guitar.

Derek and The Demons- Unabashedly classic rock. Lyrics about cracks in the Cosmic Egg.

The Y Lie- It's an honor to be friends with these guys. 

Time Life Magazines- To groove or mock the groove, that is the question.

McAsh- Rock steady. Period.

Bunnies- My new favorite band. Is this even legal?

Magic User- Words fail me… Sex-O-Phonic Punk-no?

Chodus- Three guys, one capo, and a fuckton of cynicism.

The Pilgrims- Archeologists mining the soul of a beautiful disaster.

DAY TWO

Blair Mountain- I remember glorious harmonies.

Tinkerbullet- Guitar goddess. 

ELoco- If ever there was a band I wanted to hug.

Faux In Love- Sounded fresh and relevant.

Coffin Flop- Like if Sonic Youth went metal.

Dylan Patrick Ward and The Lovable Losers- They don't have bands like this in Iowa. Vermont rules!

Phrogs- A tortured genius and his co-conspirators.

Kiah Morris- I felt this in my blood and bones.

Carton- Like if Coffin Flop went alternative.

Western Terrestrials- Make the suits a thing guys! Western swing space twang.

Megan Jean- An angry siren accompanied by dude throat singing. I stayed.

************************************************************************************************

I saw every set by every band. I also saw a former bandmate who didn't talk to me either.

I got Covid-19 the week of the Dutch Experts gig at the Main Street Museum. I was cleared to be in public the day before the show. I had already given up my spot and that was for the better. I was having trouble breathing and my voice was really raspy. Wicked Louder's slot was taken by Burial Woods, who I believe are from the Burlington, VT area. In a nutshell, BB Dozer was more expansive and weirder than their Bandcamp page would lead you to believe. Burial Woods are unabashedly retro darkwave, and their songs are melodic and catchy. And after a nail-biting technical problem at the start of the set, Dutch Experts showed what a few weeks of being on a tour of the East Coast will do for harnessing the energy of the gods. As you may be surmising, I was at the show. I just felt like tepid dogshit.

Following that weekend I went through a bout of ‘Why The Fuck Am I Doing This Anyway?’ I took a four-day weekend from my day job over Labor Day and spent some time with my wife and did some home maintenance. We went to the Larkin-Poe show in Fairlee, VT that weekend as well. Talk about wondering why I bother with being an artist… Those women have chemistry, charisma, serious chops, and are totally at home on a stage. It's been a long time since I felt any of those things were true about me. The conclusion I took away from that very special night out with my wife was that I needed to pause and hit reset on my creative work.

With only three sessions of sound design to show for since getting Covid-19 I haven't played a note otherwise. I've been watching interesting videos on YouTube, rediscovering some favorite albums and listening to some new stuff, gazing at clouds and sunsets, and engaging in some overdue and much needed introspection. The result of this soul-searching has been a new gameplan in regard to my life as an artist. In all my previous musical projects I was the self-appointed asshole in charge of quality control. As that relates to live performance, I have been falling woefully short of even my lowest of standards. As stated in my previous blog, I have a lot on my plate, but the work must be executed with deliberate care not hasty shoddiness. That's all I really want to share for now about something so personal as my creative process. I had a really good conversation about all of that with a fellow artist I really respect, and I have worked out some of the blues I have been internalizing. In short, I am not giving up, but I do have a new strategy.

In the next few days, be on the lookout for a blog about the What Doth Life Rumble and all of the bands that played as well as some new video content online. 

So, much has happened since I last posted a blog. On July 6th Wicked Louder played a gig at the Main Street Museum in White River Junction, VT. The night featured a band called Runningback, whose whole extended families came out, saw them play, and then left with the band. That left Wicked Louder and the headliner The Y Lie to play to a small but friendly crowd. I was unhappy with my set, but I have to remind myself that I've only played four shows under the Wicked Louder moniker and that my technological ambitions do not have all the bugs worked out. The Y Lie have a good thing going and I am just waiting for their quirky synth and electric ukulele mash up to catch on. They also have a very interesting visual element that they clearly put a lot of work into. We are all becoming friends and putting together an electronic driven show at Randolph, Vt's Underground has been discussed. Stay tuned for deets.

As mentioned above, the live set needs work. I had just gotten the cheap, large vehicle I recently purchased fixed up and ready for the road. The plan was to start booking gigs in every little hole-in-the-wall that would take me and beat the set into submission. Fate then intervened when a very large deer stepped in front of the newly fixed up, cheap, and large vehicle at 4:30am. I don't know what happened to the deer, but the insurance company totaled the car thus rendering my gigging aspirations, at least for the time being, null and void. I am reorganizing my calendar for the foreseeable future. I have several irons in the fire to keep me busy while I figure out how to replace the wheels.

One of those irons is ready to come out of the fire and be made available for your listening pleasure. As some of you may know, I have an all-instrumental project called Pro-Grammar. This project will be releasing a full-length album, titled Hot Case Variations, very soon. Stay tuned for more deets on that as well.

Before the year is over the next Wicked Louder album will go into production. I am involved in two collaborative projects that promise interesting results. A third one will be kicking off soon. I can't really say more about all of this right now, but I am burning the midnight oil because this art must simply be brought to fruition.

And before I forget, What Doth Life will be presenting and evening of music on August 24th at the Main Street Museum in White River Junction, VT featuring Dutch Experts. BB Dozer and Wicked Louder will be the supporting acts. This is going to be a great show and I would love to see all of you there.

   So, I showed up at the Main Street Museum in White River Junction at about 8 pm last night. Upon arriving, the band Phrogs was already breaking down their equipment and I was disappointed that I didn't get to see this evolving and highly original group. I did find Jacob, their bassist, and chat for a few minutes. Great guy.

   Next up was Dead Street Dreamers. I think I saw them somewhere else last year but there were margaritas involved so my recollection of that night is flawed at best. They were really good. I noticed during the mosh pit circle that the museum had taken everything off the walls in the narrow room where the stage is. Likely anticipating some rowdy behavior during the show. This was a good idea, and the crowd did not disappoint in this department. Dead Street Dreamers turned in a tight and energetic set despite some possible onstage tension. Maybe this is just how they operate. Like I said, they kicked the jams out.

   The next band to take the stage was called The Worst and they stole my heart. A power trio with a woman playing guitar and singing this group doesn't try to be anything they are not. Good solid songwriting, inventive use of effects, a tight rhythm section, and that woman pouring out her tortured heart into the microphone. This group is from Maine and has earned a new fan. I will now be searching out their recordings to add something to my collection.

   Then the reason for this show took the stage. The River City Rebels have been around in one iteration or another for twenty-five years. Dan O'Day, aka Bopper, has been at the helm of this group since the beginning. Now, I can't say I was there in 1999 but I saw my first RCR set in 2000. The Rebels aren't reinventing the wheel here. They are a punk band. They write catchy, anthemic rockers in a style they clearly consider to be timeless. Bopper told the audience at the start of the show that his microphone was their microphone, and it was. There was lots of singing along to some of these hard-won classics that were featured in their set. They also played three songs from their new 7" release Pop Culture Baby (which I preordered and received in the mail before it's official release) and there were a few crowd members who already knew the words. All in all, this band has their shit together and they always put on a great show.

   If you want to know where the great art is happening in White River Junction getting out to events at the Main Street Museum is, in my opinion, the best place to start. And, as always, a heartfelt thank you to the hard-working volunteer staff at the Museum.

File this under Shady Things Spotify Does. 

So, Johan Rohr sells ‘his’ music on Spotify. ‘He’ has about 650 different artist names that ‘he’ collects ‘his’ meager royalties under. ‘He’ has ‘his’ music featured prominently on about 150 Spotify playlists. ‘He’ fills up a significant amount of space that would normally be going to other artists that Spotify would then have to pay royalties to. ‘His’ music sounds familiar yet formulaic. Smart money is on the notion that Johan Rohr and all of ‘his’ musical iterations is some kind of AI/bot charged with the task of maximizing profits for good old Spotify.

It's already a done deal so you can't talk me out of it. Before May 2024 is over the music of Wicked Louder and Pro-Grammar will be permanently removed from Spotify. Why am I doing this? If you care about the plight of the artist in the digital age then read on…

The music industry has a long history of ripping off the artists whose work the music industry needs to be the music industry. Ever since recorded music has been sold for mass consumption by the public musicians have been getting ripped off. Look at all those blues and folk musicians in the very early days of the gramophone. Generally, they were paid a one-time amount to give complete control of their recording to the company producing it. And if the artist(s) were rural, uneducated white folks or black you can bet that one-time payment wasn't very much. Because these people knew nothing about business the copyrights and the publishing rights to these works were held by the people doing the recording. You know, the white guys with capital. The rational for doing this, for musicians who even understood enough to ask, was usually couched in the language of ‘exposure bucks’. This rational was, if people hear your music recording it creates a demand for your live performance and that's where you'll make money. Now, the entire system in place to keep touring musicians from earning a livable wage non-withstanding, exposure bucks don't pay for dinner. 

Now let's jump ahead to how the music industry has worked during my lifetime. You start a band. You go out on tour. Maybe record a demo. The goal being getting your band signed to a record label. Let's say your band catches the eye of some A&R guy and you get offered a record deal. Wow! Right? In some ways your problems are just beginning. Now, it costs money to record an album. And the record company will pay for that. Here's the catch, it's an advance against future royalties. That means that before you see a dime you have to pay that money back. In the 1990's the sale of one compact disc that the artist owned the copyrights to the songs and the publishing rights to generated about 70 cents in royalties for the artist. But a compact disc costs $15 dollars, you say. Yup. And if you got a record-breaking advance of $250,000 like Jane's Addiction did to produce Nothing's Shocking you had to pay that back in full before you got a royalty check. Oh yeah, all those posters and tee shirts that went into the record stores at the same time as your album? You have to pay the record company back for that. And all the money they spent on promoting you so you'll be an overnight sensation like Nirvana? Yup, you have to pay them back for that as well. Is it actually possible to become a really rich musician? Green Day sure lives pretty comfortably these days but you can bet a lot of lawyers have been involved in that process.

Let's jump ahead again. This time to the present days of digital streaming. Almost nobody buys physical copies of albums anymore. Everything is on the internet. These companies make it even more difficult to earn any money from selling your music than the previously stated model. Let's talk about Spotify because they are the reason I am writing this. If you stream a single song from Spotify the artist gets 0.003-0.005 of a cent. That is the lowest standard in the entire music industry. And your record company or distributer might take a cut of that. If somebody downloads your song or album to keep you get 10% of the download fee. Theoretically you can make some money this way, but streaming is the norm and that is what we are talking about. 

So, we have established that you don't get much from people streaming your music. And we have established that Spotify, the most profitable streaming service out there, pays artists the least amount of royalties for their work. Here comes the best part. If you don't hit a certain threshold in a one year payment period, Spotify just doesn't pay you at all. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zero. So, that threshold is a thousand streams in a year if I am not mistaken. So if i sell a thousand streams at 0.003 cents a stream that's $3. And they won't pay it to me. If your company can afford to pay Joe Rogan $100 million dollars to come onboard you can sure as hell pay me my $3. Every other company my music is available for streaming on pays me no matter what I earn. And they are not the most profitable company like Spotify is. So, there's that. To be clear, I sell physical copies of my music at shows. It will soon be available on Bandcamp that way for those who want it. I have my stuff up on streaming services for the sake of convenience. If that's how people get introduced to what I do I'm fine with that. At my current level I am not getting a thousand streams anywhere. But I think I deserve to get paid for them when I do.

And if all this is not enough, there's this. If you digitally publish a book on Spotify they take control of all of the rights to the published work. They will pay you your pittance for each copy sold but if your book takes off and they decide to turn it into a multi book series or, even better, sell the rights to turn it into a Netflix show, you get nothing. So, don't publish your writing on Spotify, okay?

Bottom line, if you want to help out those indie bands that you love, Download the album from Bandcamp if they use it or download it directly from their website. Bandcamp takes 15% and most web platforms let the artist keep 100%. If you can't do that go to a show and buy a physical copy directly from the band. IF you really care about musicians and the amount of work and effort that goes into being a musician you will endeavor to pay them what they are really worth.

 So KIm and I took a trip down to Brattleboro, VT Wednesday night to check out a show at Stone Church. I had been wanting to check out a Vermont artist who goes under the moniker, Dutch Experts. We found out that she was opening for Then Comes Silence and Vision Video, both of whom we collectively are into.

 Stone Church is exactly what its name proclaims, it is an old church made of stone that has been turned into a venue for live performance. The inside is beautiful. The pews and alter have been taken out and replaced with a stage, tables, and an open floor area for the audience to stand. There is also balcony seating and a bar. The original stained glass and ornate tile work are intact.

 Dutch Experts came on promptly at 8. The first thing I noticed is how good the room sounded. Even with a nice and loud sound system everything was balanced and clear. Dutch Experts play infectious, darkwave synth rock. Hannah has great vocal range and sounded even better live than she does on her recordings. That is no small feat. The crowd was enthusiastic, and the performance was energetic. We were even treated to an unreleased song from the upcoming full length album. Dutch Experts are clearly a force to be reckoned with and if you get a chance to see them you should make the effort to do so.

 Then Comes Silence is one of my favorite goth bands. They have been around for a while and went through some lineup changes that have them now performing as a three piece. They were incredibly tight with much thanks in that department to the drummer. With the crowd already riled up by the Dutch Experts performance the energy on and off stage during Then Comes Silence's set was palpable. The dreary hooks of their dance oriented rock were offset by the easy mannered personality of the groups frontman. The whole band was clearly enjoying the show as much as the audience. They played several of my favorite songs and left Kim and I impressed with their showmanship and musical ability. 

 By the time Vision Video started their set we were totes energized by the first two bands. We were ready for more. Vision Video did not disappoint. Hailing from Atlanta, Georgia this band has some opinions about the state of the world and they are not afraid to voice them. I forget the singer's name right now but before starting a band he served in the military for some time and then worked as an EMT for the Atlanta fire department. These life choices and the fact that he is a keen observer of the human condition color his poignant lyrics with brutal honesty. For a black clad goth band espousing some pretty dark subject matter their onstage banter was very upbeat, positive, and inclusive. This band has risen to being a national act quite quickly but after seeing them perform it is easy to understand why.

 In conversation with the bartender I learned that Stone Church is there to support all types of music. This is a great venue with a great staff and the will to serve the art as the artists present it. Kim and I will definitely be going back for more shows and I highly recommend the whole experience to anyone who wants to support music and the musicians who play it.

So yesterday was a big day for Main Street Museum in White River Junction, Vermont. The evening began at 4pm with A potluck spread of good nosh to which i contributed some spicy deviled eggs. At 5pm the screening of Custodian, an independent film by Loren Howard was shown. Quite a few local musicians were featured in the movie and the packed house thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it. Loren and the cast did a quick Q&A afterwords and the camaraderie between them was obvious. Then the live music began. First up was Ratmilk. For a band with almost no experience they did an excellent job. They also brought a legion of friends with them who kept the energy up for the whole set. Next was The Y Lie, a two piece featuring a synth guy and an electric ukulele guy with some cool animation projected behind them. Before seeing this band I had been planning to get a checkered dress shirt to wear onstage but I now see that void in the local music scene is already filled and I can spend that money elsewhere. The final band of the evening was McAsh. I was at this band's first gig 24 years ago this week and I am astounded that they have stayed together this long. They were good back then, and they are even better now. So fucking tight! I left with their new EP on CD. It was an excellent evening of 4/20 entertainment and, as always, the volunteer staff at the Main Street Museum went above and beyond putting on a fun, safe, and professional show for everyone. 

If you are on GSTV your music is not dangerous. If you have a big, ragged beard, tat sleeves, and a cutoff flannel shirt, you are still on Gas Station Television. I'm a captive audience when I'm fueling up the car and I see right through this shit. Next up, life hacks that everybody already knows about…