Blues Is A Celebration (1)

About two years ago I “met” Woody Russell on SellaBand. I was immediately overwhelmed when I listened to the music from his album “Salt” then. A few weeks ago I remembered him and did a little research. And it was the right moment – he just released his new album “Up Against It” on July 23rd. Read what we’ve talked about …

50K MUSIC: For all those who don’t know Woody Russell yet (in case there is anyone), please tell us something about you. Where do you come from, what are your roots?
Woody: I’ve been a musician since I was handed my first guitar at the age of 7 or so. I was born in Portland, Oregon but spent most of my childhood in Montana. I was a guitar-crazy music junkie and a ski-bum as a kid. There wasn’t much for musical opportunity in Montana, but I did get to spend my late teens around a great songwriter, Kostas, who went to Nashville and became a huge success. He had an amazing record collection. I learned quite a bit from him, watching from the sidelines, as it were. When I was 19 or 20 I moved to Seattle – the closest “big city” – to follow my own musical ambitions. I got in to that music scene right away, worked on the fringes of the grunge explosion, watched that come and go. I did my thing, played a lot of clubs and recorded a few albums – sort of anti-mainstream songwriter stuff (before that became popular again) – until I had an opportunity to move to Austin with my wife in 2001. I’ve played thousands of gigs, big and small. I just released a new album called “Up Against It” on my own CUTS Music Group label and it’s doing very well, which I’m naturally very pleased about.

50K MUSIC: You started to raise funds for your album on SellaBand about two years ago, then you left SellaBand. Now you released your album in July this year. How did you finance it in the end?
Woody: Both SellaBand and Slice-the-Pie were experiments, professional curiosities if you will, and almost entirely negative experiences for me as an artist. Though not all of the feedback was negative on either site, it was immediately noticeable, particularly on Slice-the-Pie, that the systems were not based on what I would consider to be professional feedback. In the case of Slice-the-Pie, it was clearly based on some variation of a peer-to-peer voting system which truthfully amounted to a lot of competitive bashing from other artists.

I wasn’t necessarily trying to raise any money to record a new album, I couldn’t take either of those sites that seriously within the short time I was active on them. But, I did want to see how the systems worked. SellaBand was financially strong for the first week or two though it stalled quickly. Slice-the-Pie, however, was littered with seriously negative feedback from “haters”, amateurs and people who like to bash others from the comfort of their online anonymity. It’s embarrassing, really, the kind of thoughtless “reviews” others would post. It was, for me, hugely negative. Any voting system in place that puts an artist’s music in front of an audience of listeners who are not at all familiar with a particular genre (in my case- contemporary blues) which then means those listeners are completely unqualified to make any judgment about the quality of one’s work is, at its core, totally flawed. Most of what the internet offers musicians as far as “professional feedback”, on not only these sites but hundreds of other services and schemes, is a lot of opinion and noise coming from sources that don’t have any initiative to develop the processes any further than collecting a submission fee. The premise under which Slice-the-Pie operates is a joke, with supposed “peers” evaluating/reviewing your music in order to deem it worthy of investment through some sort of voting scheme. SellaBand was simply too much of a “game” based on earning status within the site itself. The recording “deal” offered by SAB, the contract itself, was not respectable. SellaBand was taking a huge percentage from funds earned by the artist and, as reported many times, was very ineffective in using the remaining money to generate any kind of positive momentum for the artists they “signed”. It then went bellyup for a time; I haven’t taken a look at it since then. Personally, I had too much to do outside of the “virtual” financial systems of SellaBand and Slice-the-Pie, much more important work engaging and motivating my existing fan base through live shows and my own site, to be playing the SellaBand promotions game. Slicethe- Pie was over for me within a few days – a ridiculous waste of time.

And it’s not only those sites that are faulty, there are many. Take for example Music X-Ray which has offered single song reviews for $150. Now, no matter how you look at that scheme, offered as a single song review from an A-list “industry professional”, it’s a rip-off. They offer other price points, of course, but the mere fact that those over hyped, over priced offers are listed should not be overlooked by aspiring musicians. Less savvy artists may not see that as an issue, but I see them as big red flags on certain websites. I think it represents something very corrupt about the new music business models, which are also struggling to survive, and I would warn any of my colleagues – until I was blue in the face- against paying $150 for a single song review. You’ve got online music business consultants charging extraordinarily expensive submission fees for feedback; it’s simply not smart business practice for any indie musician to engage financially with someone who has literally no idea who you are until you press the “buy now” button. Way too many scams exist to rip artists off, which is no different than how the traditional music business was thought to operate. Fact is, no new indie artist needs $50k to release an album. It can be done very effectively for one-fifth of that cost. CD sales are at an all time low – about to fall below the earliest reports on CD sales in the history of the product.

Live music, however, is still magic stuff that audiences cannot dismiss so easily as your internet presence. If you are a great musician who can work the stage, you will survive. It’s easy to look and sound great on the internet, but a live performance is something that takes a lot of hard work to nail. Artists fall way short in their live shows as compared to their slick online representation. You see it all the time. That’s what I love about the blues, it’s still about playing live, it’s still about musicianship and respect.

I believe the internet is a great equalizer for many independent musicians, but it is also a complete disaster in many respects. I am all for taking full advantage of the global promotional reach of the internet. The services and resources available for musicians are staggering in numbers, but the actual value of many of those services is negotiable. With respect to being a blues/soul musician, nothing can compete with getting out and playing the music live for your fans and potential fans. Internet radio, e-zines, blogs and such are valuable, but contests and other schemes can be really ineffective and expensive, particularly if you are an artist outside of the Pop genre. There are just too many distractions online for recording artists when the truly important job at hand is taking your music to people in a live setting. I don’t ignore, by any means, the value of my online presence, but I do try to refine my use of the available music sites to create a presence at appropriate sites that reflect my level of professionalism.

What I did with my “In Session Project”, perhaps subconsciously responding to those negative experiences with SellaBand and StP, was to create my own fan based funding system for my new album. I knew didn’t want to just open up a donation process of gathering funds, that didn’t feel right. I was compelled to offer something tangible in return for my fan’s advanced investments. Though I won’t go in to the details, I will say that through pre-sales I was able to generate funds to support the recording. I offered my version of a behind the scenes look at my recording process for this new CD, “Up Against It”, in real time. The idea is not new, not necessarily mine, but my take on it was designed to deliver a variety of options based on varied price points, levels, of an individual pre-order package. It was a truly a one-to-one experience with a handful of dedicated fans that helped me achieve certain goals, both financially and artistically. It was a ton of extra work in addition to recording the new album, but I consider it to have been a very valuable artistic experience and one that I will improve upon for the next project. Every dime of each purchase was used to create the final products: the CD, merch and a new website. I also figured in a percentage of the pre-sales as a donation to the SIMS Foundation here in Austin (SIMS helps musicians struggling with mental health issues get the medical attention they need). So all around, the money was put to very good use… all of it. I think what my fans got in return was a uniquely personal experience with my music, something they may have never had an opportunity to be involved with before.

50K MUSIC: Would you agree when I say that your new album celebrates the Blues more than “Salt” did?
Woody: Oh yeah, “Salt” is not a blues album. It’s an album that sort of wraps up my singer-songwriter thing very directly. It has bluesy tracks on it, as all my records have, but it was not about addressing the blues directly. I released “Salt” at the Newport Folk Festival and it went on to be nominated for an IMA “Album of the Year” so it did very well for me. But, “Up Against It” is an album I’ve been wanting to record for a very long time. I grew up with blues being a primary influence on my music. “Up Against It” represents a beginning for me in that respect, my first completely realized effort to address the blues that I want to play, that I hear as a songwriter and guitarist. I was also angling to record some soul sounds, as a vocalist primarily. In writing and recording the new album I discovered a lot about my take on, my personal approach to, this music that I played all my life, albeit outside the framework of my earlier recordings. None of my previous albums address the blues fully. “Up Against It” is an album that I had to record for myself, I wasn’t going to create another singer-songwriter type of record.

Stay tuned for part 2 …

www.woodyrussell.com

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