The Regular Friday Post
Rando lyrics: Well, I'm sorry, my son, but you're too late in asking
Thank you, new Subscribers!!!!!! Mika, the Cat, welcomes you!!
And if you’re reading this but haven’t subscribed yet, she has a question…
Non-Subscribers Conversation With Mika This Week:
Mika: Have you subscribed to Michael Acoustic yet, human? If not, why not? There’s a link just below. Am I not adorable enough, human? Cuz, I am…
This Substack is free, I receive no compensation of any kind from companies or products I mention. Some linked or quoted material may be copyrighted by others, and I credit them. I rely on the “Fair Use” doctrine for educational purposes (Link: Fair Use). I do not use AI, things I link to might though. -Michael Acoustic
Last week’s rando lyrics: The lyric, “ You can never escape You can only move south down the coast”, is from the song, “Mrs Potter’s Lullaby”:
“a single by American rock band Counting Crows. It is the second track on their third album, This Desert Life (1999). The song reached number three on the US Billboard Adult Alternative Songs chart and number 16 on the Canadian RPM Top 30 Rock Report. In April 2022, American Songwriter ranked the song at number three on their list of "The Top 10 Counting Crows Songs".[2]” Credit: Wikipedia Link: Mrs. Potter's Lullaby
“The band's frontman, Adam Duritz, has stated that the song was written about actress Monica Potter.[3] Duritz, who has based other songs on real people, explained that this song was influenced by an imaginary version of the actress, based on seeing her onscreen in Con Air (1997) and Patch Adams (1998).[4] They ended up meeting for the first time at dinner with entertainment industry friends on the day the band was recording the song, and Potter returned to the studio with Duritz to watch them work.[4] At the end of the session, a production assistant gave Potter a recording of one of the takes.[4] Afterwards, Duritz told Potter the song was being dropped because over production after the recording session had ruined it.[4] She gave him her copy, which was the fourth of eight takes that had been recorded while she was in the studio.[4] This version was subsequently added to the album.[3]"
Credit: Wikipedia ibid
No chord chart or lyrics embedded today - this is a long song! Still pretty easy, chord patterns are repetitious, might be a good song to try some of the melodic fills between lyric lines, though you’re kinda on your own there, some of the arpeggiated chords is probably a good place to start.
Link to lyrics: Mrs Potter's Lullaby Lyrics (Genius)
Link to chords: Mrs. Potter's Lullaby (this is a link to Chordify, which is a subscription service, though it should let you open it in the original Key of Ab as a promo feature. To play with a capo in that key, or transpose to a different key, you’ll need a subscription….) - note you may be able to find a chord chart or tab with lyrics on Ultimate Guitar, but that’s also a subscription service. Both are worth the subscription, IMHO.
Shameless Self Promotion Section:
My song is out! Link: “Long Road Back” (click on link for streaming options)…
Yes, the self promotion plug is up here again. See more about why below in the “For Today” section:
Welcome to The Regular Friday post!
Something Cool First - A Song To Play!
“Find The River” by REM (Note this is not REM performing, see below…)
So the link below is to an app we’ve featured on here before, Acapella, where musicians can collaborate remotely with one another. The featured singer here is my daughter, Kate, who remembers a time when I said I had heard a really cool song by REM but didn’t know the title and spent time and money apparently, to finally track it down. In this clip, the musicians are in Liverpool, England (that’s Pete on keys - really talented guy to collab with! - along with some of Pete’s talented bandmates!).
Note: Acapella is a subscription app, but musicians who post their music there, covers or original material, are not compensated for their performance, and posts are only for educational purposes under fair use exceptions.
Click here to listen! > > > Find The River
REM - Find The River Lyrics (Pretty long song, so saving some real estate with this link)
For Today
I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and is enjoying the commercial madness occurring today. Yay, consumerism (to which I plead guilty!)!!
I won’t make this too long today, a bit of a follow up to last week’s EPIC rant, (link is here if you missed it: https://michaelfab.substack.com/p/the-regular-friday-post-367) but in a more practical way than just shouting at corporate stupidity.
I received a thoughtful query from a subscriber after much gnashing of teeth from me last Friday, and it’s always good to hear from rational folk when the conversational temperature needs to come down a bit.
Fundamentally, the question is, “So what do we DO?” Yes, that is the far more interesting question and far more rational than me screaming about Spotify’s jackassery.
My responses to that question:
“One approach is just to say something about it (and mine was admittedly a big freakin’ bull in the China shop something ). It’s really timely now, being an almost stealth issue that cropped up within the last couple of weeks and is only now getting some press. I’m happy to play the role of angry guy to set the stage for more nuanced “let’s find a way out together” solutions.
My guess, and it’s only that, is that it’s quite likely a Trojan horse, and inside it is a Spotify solution: “just let us increase monthly subscription rates, and we won’t murder the hopes and dreams of a bunch of wannabe musicians” kind of thing. Some things we can do immediately is as Mr Van Veen suggests regarding the blatant royalty theft issue is write/call Congressional representatives and Senators.”
My second answer was a bit more inclined toward actions more meaningful than just shouting (my thanks to this subscriber for talking me down off the ledge a bit…), and the following is mostly a paraphrase now that I’ve adopted a more rational approach:
More creatively:
Let’s start asking the Reverbs and Sam Ash’s and Sweetwaters,
The Martin and Gibson and Yamaha guitar makers and Korg keyboards, and the Focusrites and PreSonus audio interface brands,
The amp and speaker manufacturers, such as Marshall and Yamaha and Carvin and JBL,
as well as American Songwriter and Acoustic Guitar magazines and other “industry/biz” publications and podcasts and X/Twitter “influencers”,
and all the others - the organizations that want our membership dues but are silent because they might annoy the bigs…
SO, All of you in the “biz” making money off of me and others like me - the singer/songwriters, the backing and non-featured musicians, the solo producers, audio engineers and their studios as well as me:
Where do YOU stand on demonetizing smaller, newer, less established independent musicians and bands and the industry and performers they support?
Record label studios and name artists aren’t the only ones buying stuff, and my guess is the overall numbers of independent artists and bands and associated professionals are the broad base of the industry’s customers.
I’d like to hear from the “bigs” - some of whom I reference on this Substack regularly - such as the ones listed above and the ones that I didn’t think of - you know who you are. And it’s not just me you answer to, I’m a little tiny fish here - along with the two thirds of Spotify’s artists that are just like me. Maybe I already have enough studio stuff/gear whatever - but if I do need something else I just can’t live without, I’ll buy it from a dealer or brand that I’ve heard supporting me and artists and musicians and bands like me. Can’t speak, won’t speak? I can’t buy from you then….
I don’t even care if publications and brands attempt to justify the actions Spotify is taking - say something at least - the silence is deafening!
Who else would I like to hear from? The artists, the household name artists whose concerts and shows thousands attend to see and to buy their merch and who are now about to take the money through Spotify that rightfully and legally belongs to the artists Spotify now seeks to demonetize. That’s dirty money they’ll be taking, and if they remain quiet that silence won’t be forgotten.
One caveat to all of this from me - independent artists who aren’t copywriting their works, who don’t have a business entity to copyright works as publisher, and don’t own copyrights to their own sound recordings are going to be in the lower half of my sympathy distribution. The Spotifys of the world can make you prove your ownership before they pay you royalties, and maybe you can, but not as easily and definitively as with copyright ownership, and the downstream costs of not owning copyrights are much larger than those associated with owning your own property rights now. If you as an artist can’t provide all of the information such as IRSCs, ISWCs, UPCs, business entities, copyright information and anything else needed to positively identify your unique work as different from everyone else’s, it won’t matter if Spotify demonetizes you - the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) that collects royalties earned from streams won’t pay you anyway - that money will just go into a different “black box” to distribute to those artists like me who make certain they and their music is completely and uniquely identifiable. Just sayin’…
The other thing that occurs to me is that in essence Spotify is pushing us all as artists on their platform to self-promote more. Okay, while that’s conceptually a great idea, it doesn’t take into account that most artists are making very little money from streaming music, if any, and promotion merely for additional streams may not be the best use of whatever funds we do have.
All right, this horse is probably on it’s last legs, so this ends the rant, though I will update new developments as I learn more. Thanks again for your patience!
Some Links for today:
From ASCAP
What's An ISWC? Along with other identifiers, an International Standard Musical Work Code is critical to identifying royalties due for a unique song. Read more about them at the link.
From Songtown:
Song vs Production - some things to think through as your song progresses out of the writing phase and into the production phase.
Last Minute Songwriting Questions - A final set of questions to ask yourself before your song heads out the door…
Lyric Sheet Formatting - If you’re pitching your songs to the pros, make sure the product you’re sending is what professionals expect.
From Pitchfork (Pitchfork is a kind of music biz insider organization - I subscribe to their daily updates, but there is a LOT more than that on the site - definitely worth a look: Link> Pitchfork)
What I’m Listening2:
LINK»> HowFarWe'veCome - just click the link, this is on Amazon, because I’m giving Spotify a “time out” this week, click the link for a pretty good playlist…
Cheers and keep playing!!
Michael Acoustic
“It’s never really final - you just run out of things you can bear to change…”
Thanx Michael, great piece. Have you ever listened to his Underwater Sunshine Podcast he has done with the music journalist James Campion? Fantastic, really deep dives into subjects!
Another great piece, Michael. I for one love your rants. And your follow up here, focused on "what we can do" is a perfect companion read. I so agree that other companies connected to the recording industry need to speak out about this. Spotify will only try and take more and more advantage of musicians until the voices of dissent move from the fringes.
I also want to mention that Kevin's recent post is all about getting us to buy each other's art for the holidays and asks us to post links. I'm gonna add your song to the comments, but wasn't exactly sure the best way for folks to "buy" your song versus just streaming it. Should I use the https://michaelacoustic.hearnow.com/ link?