My Half-Year of Streaming Music

Denying for years to join the 21st Century, I indulged as recently as last summer in purchasing CDs, pulling the trigger on albums by Esperanza Spaulding, William Shatner, Bright Eyes, Paul McCartney and Field Music.  But last November I took the plunge and joined a streaming service – first Napster, whom I was told paid artists more but whose service I determined was inadequate, and then Spotify, a company vilified by some and praised by others.  Since then I’ve delved into scores of albums I’d never taken the time to investigate before, and for this reason alone, music streaming has a new fan.  I still love having physical CDs in the car, where I can immerse myself into an album and listen the way I used to, but for hanging out at home and investigating unexplored musical territory, streaming services can’t be beat.

I’m not much into playlists and haven’t utilized this aspect of Spotify more than a handful of times.  Instead, I’ve listened to albums and bands I hadn’t given attention to in the past.  Since November, I’ve fallen in love with the following albums:

• Manifesto, a brilliant release by Roxy Music, surpassing what some claim to be their crowning achievement, Avalon.
• Underneath the Colours, the debut album by an almost unrecognizable INXS.  Angry, edgy, melodic.  Fantastic.
• Sit Down Young Stranger (or, alternatively titled, If You Could Read My Mind) by Gordon Lightfoot, heartfelt folk-rock from start to finish.
• Odessey and Oracle by The Zombies, an amazing album recorded around the same time as St. Pepper, but – in my mind – surpassing it in some ways.
• Grand Hotel by Procol Harum, a collection of wonderful melodies with gravitas

I've delved into so much more that I never would have done without the aid of a streaming service.  I checked out releases by Cat Stevens, Van Morrison and James Taylor.  I finally listened to the Rolling Stones of the 1960s, and concluded that aside from Beggar’s Banquet, much of it falls flat for me (and that Their Satanic Majesties Request may be among the worst albums ever recorded).  I learned that I’m not as fond of Lloyd Cole and the Commotions as I am of Lloyd Cole’s solo work, and that I'm not as fond of Jethro Tull and King Crimson as I am of other prog rock bands.  I discovered that early Chicago albums are padded with really bad, lengthy tracks, and that each of Esperanza Spaulding's releases are worth my attention.  I gave the last half-dozen releases by Elton John a chance, concluded that Aimee Mann continues to put out quality material, but without the punch of her first three releases, and that the J Geils Band is a great party band with some standout tracks, but ultimately doesn’t grab me.

I also listened to classical guitar by Ryan Walsh, Latin music by Natalia Lafourcade, Mansieur Perine, and Vicente Garcia, fusion by Snarky Puppy, jazz by Chet Baker, Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, and newer releases by Empty Pockets, Young the Giant and Lake Street Dive.

And on and on.

Now, the question remains: can artists make a living making music when people only use streaming services?  That remains to be seen, but for a guy in his 50s who sometimes has difficulty keeping up on music, streaming can’t be beat.

Of course, of the five albums I highlighted above, I’ve purchased four of them on vinyl. 

So yeah, I’ve still got the disease.

New Album is Available for Streaming/Purchase

The Great Divide by Heinz and Wrobel is complete!  To stream or purchase this ten-song album, check out the following locations: 

• Amazon

• Spotify

• Apple Music

• This website

The album will be added to several other streaming sites shortly.

Heinz & Wrobel are:

Julian Wrobel – Bass
Sam Heinz – Drums
Paul Heinz-  Keys and Vocals

Tracking by Brad Showalter at Kiwi Studios, Batavia, Illinois
Overdubs engineered by Paul Heinz
Orchestration on “Cold” and “End Game” by Jim Gaynor
Mixed by Paul Heinz with the help of Julian, Sam and Anthony Calderisi
Mastering by Collin Jordan of The Boiler Room, Chicago, Illinois

All songs written by Paul Heinz, except “The Unexamined Road,” music by Sam Heinz and Paul Heinz, lyrics by Paul Heinz

Cover art by Sarah Heinz, based on a concept by Sam Heinz
Photograph by Sam Heinz

We’d like to thank Brad for his easy-going nature and diligence, Collin for his expertise Anthony for his objective listening skills, and Jim for giving two songs the lift they required.  We think “End Game” is the best song on the album thanks to you.

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

After completing The Palisades in August of 2016 I wrote the following on my website: “I’m toying with the idea of doing my next project in about two days – all in the studio with a live band. A guy can dream, can’t he?”

Well, The Great Divide didn’t exactly take two days, but it was a hell of a lot faster this time around, for which I’m grateful.

In Spring of 2017, I began to ponder the next project, and Sam and I decided that we should record together in the studio and pound out the entire album in a day or two.  The issue was I didn’t really have any songs – only half-written melodies or a refrain or a verse that didn’t go anywhere.  It wasn’t until the summer when Sam was at camp for seven weeks that I began to diligently evaluate which half-written pieces of music were worth pursuing and which should be scrapped.  It took a while. 

That summer, I initially decided to create a thematic album called “Confessions and Confrontations,” with several instrumental interludes and a few musical themes that would repeat throughout the album, a pretty bold idea for someone who didn’t really even have any songs completed.  I worked hard on songs called “Eat Crow,” “Shouldn’t I Get Some Credit,” “Stretched Too Thin,” “I Once Fell in Love with a Girl,” “The Line,” and “Something Lost.”  Alas, none of these made the cut. 

Instead, a few other songs with working titles of “What Are You Going to Do” and “I Don’t Want to Talk About It Now” began to take shape, along with some very old ideas, such as one called “Same Old Shit,” which originated in the summer of 2013.  I also resurrected two song that I had, in fact, completed: one called “Cold,” which I’d written in 2001 and even recorded a demo of in maybe 2006; and “Put You Away,” composed sometime around 2009, but it never felt right with previous projects.  This time, it fit perfectly with the minimal instrumentation we were providing. 

One of the pieces I worked on in July of 2017 was a little chord intro that Sam had composed prior to leaving for Wisconsin.  This eventually evolved into a rather intricate little ditty called “The Unexamined Road,” a song that was known as “Untitled” up until November because I wasn’t happy with the lyrics.  Eventually this song sounded so darn good that it became the album’s opener.

I wrote most of the music for what became “Lies of the Damned” in April of 2006, but there it sat until 2017.  I needed an idea to help drive what I knew was an angry song.  Eventually, I came up with a sketch of a type of person I’ve met over the years: an odd combination of extreme self-centeredness, yet monstrously insecure.  I’ve known three or four people who fit this mold to a “t,” and once I knew the object of my angst, I was able to pound out the song very quickly!

“What is True” developed from a tune that came to me in a dream in December of 2016.  I was meeting my friend Scott Baldwin at an outdoor bar tended by none other than Rufus Wainwright, who was suffering badly of a cold.  He said that recently the “juices were flowing,” meaning he was composing a lot lately.  I asked him to fix me a sandwich, and he began singing his latest creation, “You say, I don’t want to talk about it now…”  I woke up and wrote it down and eventually developed it into a tale inspired by a friend of mine.  Similar to “I Can’t Take You Back” from Warts and All, it’s the heartbreaker on the album.

“Are You Gonna Fight For Her,” was nothing more than a verse and unfinished chorus in April of 2016, but in the summer I managed to write the bridge and instrumental sections that really made the song work.  I was the least confident that this song would work on the album, but once drums and bass were added, it all came together beautifully.

“Your Mother’s House” started once again with just a verse in May of 2014, and in April of 2015, as I was trying to write a chorus for the song “The Palisades,” I came up with a chord progression that eventually fit perfectly as the second half of the chorus for the former.  But I still had to write the first half of the chorus, which I finally completed at the end of August, along with the middle bridge.

I wrote the first several verses of “End Game” in September of 2016, just after completing The Palisades, but I didn’t finish this tune until over a year later, when I composed the build-up leading to the end of the song.  The “bombastic” section of the tune came in July, written originally as an instrumental theme to insert between songs, but then I recognized it would fit in the actual tune with a lyric.  How this all came together is a bit miraculous, and I’m grateful that it came off as well as it did.  By October I had to come up with a title, and “End Game” came to me in a flash. 

Little by little, songs were completed, while others were discarded.  Sometime in the summer, Sam asked if Julian would be up for recording with us, and he was excited to join the project.  On August 21 I drove Sam and Julian and a friend of theirs to Missouri to watch the total eclipse, and along the way I mentioned the name of the upcoming album and the concept.  They were both rather unenamored with the idea of “Confessions and Confrontations,” so I took this under advisement until I finished the song “Diverge,” a tune I’d written the first verse for back in 2012 but didn’t complete until October of 2017, the last tune written for the album.  I was so happy with this song that I was certain it would lead it off and that it should spawn the title for the album.  Eventually, “Diverge” gave way to “The Unexamined Road” as the opening track, a song which remained untitled and which I struggled mightily to come up with a different refrain, but none fit as well (An Energizing Trail?  A Uninspired Path?)  This is one of those instances where the lyrics don’t quite reach the same level as the music.

I liked the idea of The Great Divide as a concept and considered viewing the new album as a collection of songs about conflict.  I remember that the band Big Country had a song with this title off their Steeltown album, and after scouring through the lyrics of this song I came up with a list of possible titles for the album: “Sighs and Youth,” “Fire Away,” and “The Token Door.”  Eventually I thought, “Screw it.  Just call it The Great Divide.”  So there you are.

Once we knew the title of the album, Sam came to me with a concept for an album cover and I shared it with my daughter Sarah on January 8th at 3:38PM.  I wrote: “The drawing would be in the simplistic style of The Far Side comics and the Duke album by Genesis, and it would be a close-up of a inexpressive guy holding a baggy at eye level filled with water and containing a gold fish, and the gold fish staring back at him.  Hence, ‘the Great Divide.’  Get it?”  At 4:29PM she sent me the cover of the album.  Tell me she wasn’t looking for a reason to procrastinate finding an internship!  Sam and I looked at the cover after his drum lesson and immediately fell in love with it.

On October 26, I met with Sam and Julian and went through the whole album and how I wanted to approach things.  We discussed recording in February or March and decided not to record vocals at that time; it would be difficult enough to get the instrumental parts down.  We began rehearsing in November, and I was amazed at the parts that Sam and Julian created, producing a much better product than I ever could have managed on my own, and because we had so much time to rehearse, it ended up sounding better than if I had outsourced things to professionals.  Sam and Julian created “parts” for the songs; they didn’t just play along to a chord chart.

On February 17 we spent thirteen hours at Kiwi Studios in Batavia, Illinois, where I had recorded basic tracks for The Palisades, and finished piano, bass and drums for all ten songs.  Pretty impressive.  Brad Showalter engineered this time, and he was laid back, unhurried and flexible, making the whole experience very enjoyable.  Once again, Sam and Julian played like pros, punching in seamlessly, playing to click tracks for some songs and others on the fly.  The most difficult tune to record by far was “Lies of the Damned.”  By some minor miracle, “End Game,” which we recorded without a click track, we achieved on just the second take.  It is our favorite on the album.

I recorded vocals over the next few weeks into March, and then added a few backup vocals, percussion and synthetic strings, but what I really wanted was for composer Jim Gaynor to record orchestration for “Cold” and “End Game.”  In late March he was ready to add some tracks, and the results are superb. 

After several grueling rounds of mixing (an art form I still struggle with mightily on every album), I finished things up and set a date to master the product at The Boiler Room in Chicago, where Collin Jordan put the finishing touches on the album.  It helped that we had set an album-release concert for May 5th, which required me to wrap up the album quickly, whereas I’d normally spend another few months mixing everything to perfection (but never achieving it). 

We sent things off to Diskmakers and made physical CDs for the first time since my album in 2003, The Dragon Breathes on Bleecker Street.

All in all, a very satisfying and enjoyable project, made all the more meaningful by having my son and his friend, along with my artist daughter, involved.  And my vocalist daughter is able to join us on stage for the record release concert, so all three of my kids were involved in some meaningful way.  Now, if I could only get my wife involved somehow on the next project!

Join us on May 5th at 7PM, as Heinz & Wrobel host a record release party to celebrate the completion of our new album.  Email me for details. 

Live Performing Woes, part 2

A few weeks ago I wrote about how performing live music – and industry already on life-support – is additional burdened by restaurant and club owners having to pay royalty fees  to musicians who are already rich and – more and more often – dead. I spoke with a musician last week who said that back in the 80s a good musician would have to be paid a minimum of $250 just to hold a Saturday night. That’s no longer the case.  Save for the big acts, live music earns a fraction of what it used to earn, and the strict enforcement of music licensing fees aren’t helping matters.

Or perhaps I have it wrong. I received a number of terrific comments for musicians and non-musicians alike, and the take away for me is that not everyone agrees with my conclusions and even those who do aren’t sure how to rectify the problem. 

One reader questioned whether small establishments are being paranoid to think that the big music publishing organizations are really going to charge fees for not following the rules. I wish that were the case, but unfortunately there are well-publicized examples of restaurants and clubs getting hit with fees from ASCAP, BMI and the like.

A friend of mine shared this little tidbit: a coffee house here in Elmhurst no longer allows musicians to play cover songs because they find paying the ASCAP fees prohibitive.  Another musician said that his band once had to change its playbill from “rock and roll covers of your favorite bands” to “live music” (or something equally generic) because of concerns of music licensing fees.

Other musicians noted how unfairly stacked the music industry is against the “little guy,” not only when it comes to live performing, but in the realm of downloads, streams and radio play.  As he says, “more opportunities equals harder to track,” and companies like ASCAP and BMI definitely have their hands full when it comes to figuring out how to collect fees for all of the different mediums out there. I couldn’t agree more. I believe that listening to a recording should garner income. I’m not as convinced about live performing, nor was this reader. After all, imagine if the Top Ten Club in Hamburg or the Cavern Club in Liverpool had been hounded by music royalty collection firms. Would The Beatles have been able to make a go of it?

But perhaps this view is erroneous, because it’s based on an entirely different system. One reader commented that back in the day everyone was working together: musicians would pay the union, the union would ensure that musicians were being paid properly, the clubs paid fees to the publishing companies, and people paid for live music. Today, people don’t want to pay for music unless it’s big time acts, and therefore club owners don’t want to pay fees (or musicians). This person wrote: “If successful songwriters remembered what it was like to play songs they loved for peanuts and (if) record companies kicked a little more back to the writer/artist they wouldn’t feel the need to squeeze as much as possible out of the everyday live musicians.”

But the model of people paying for music is “dead and buried,” lamented another reader. The songs are now “the fuel for the touring engine” whereas several decades ago the reverse was true. Fewer people are playing out on the weekends and they are earning less than ever, so the music collection companies must really be desperate to go after the little guys.

Another reader wrote that “both the bar and performers make money from playing music someone else wrote,” and he understands why fees should be collected. He does feel that the fees are out of proportion with the income that’s being generated, however. Another reader agreed, stating that “others should not be free to profit off your work without some remuneration to the owner,” but was at a loss as to how the current model can be changed.  He thought perhaps some percentage of total revenue generated from covering music should be paid as music royalties.

These were all welcome comments, and though I might wish that today’s business model were similar to that of decades ago, the time of musicians, music unions and clubs all working together to give patrons a quality live performance are largely gone. It all comes back to the consumer: if people aren’t willing to pay for recorded music and if they aren’t willing to pay a cover for a live band, then the whole system breaks down. What remains is a poor replacement. Good musicians – and some really, really bad ones, too – are being paid poorly for club owners who are probably being paid poorly but who still have to pay fees for already-wealthy musicians who no longer make money off of their old catalog because consumers are downloading it for free.

Say it with me: “Oy!”

This Business of Music

In Sunday’s Chicago Tribune, Mark Caro offers a terrific analysis of today’s music business that has artists and labels scrambling to tap into on-line sources of income.  Far too often, these sources offer a pittance, calling into question whether artists can continue to create albums and make a living.

That the big labels screwed up and screwed up big in the late 90s when they fought tooth and nail the reality of the Internet goes without saying (and it’s eerily similar to the ongoing battles between Time Warner and local network affiliates – will cable even exist ten years from now?), but it’s doubtful that anyone could have predicted that online streaming would become the primary way people listen to music. 

The very idea of owning one’s music is becoming anachronistic.  Sure, there continues to be a “vinyl revival,” with LP sales increasing almost 6-fold since 2007 (a trend that couldn’t make me happier), but on the whole album sales have reached historic lows, and digital albums aren’t exactly booming either, growing a measly 1.9% in the second quarter of 2013, and possibly declining this quarter.

Which leaves streaming: YouTube.  Pandora.  Spotify.  iHeartRadio.  Slacker.  SomaFM.  For now, these services aren’t providing musicians with the income that physical sales offer.  Rates vary, but according the article, one would need to listen to a song 200 times for an artist to earn $1 on Pandora vs. earning, say, a dollar with a few sales on iTunes.  The argument goes that once these streaming services grow, they’ll be able to pay more to artists (as Spotify has in Sweden), but that remains to be seen.

(for a positively fascinating breakdown of how one artist makes money, check out Zoe Keating's self-reported income as a musician)

More likely, to me, is that music is simply going to become disposable, worth nothing or close to nothing.  In David Byrne’s terrific book, How Music Works, the former Talking Head’s member remarks how music, in a way, has come full circle.  Over a hundred years ago, the only time people enjoyed music was while it was being played.  There was no “owning” music.  You heard it at a performance, and then it disappeared.  At the time, recorded music was something to be feared.  John Philips Sousa warned us against recorded music, saying that it would not only devalue live performance, but impede the yearning to master an instrument:

The child becomes indifferent to practice, for when music can be heard in the homes without the labor of study and close application, and without the slow process of acquiring a technique,…the tide of amateurism cannot but recede, until there will be left only the mechanical device and the professional executant…

Today, both of Sousa’s concerns appear to have been mollified.  Virtuosos are alive and well in every conceivable genre at every possible instrument.  And live performance is the one thing keeping musicians fed and audiences interested.  Performing used to be an artist’s cash cow, a necessary ingredient to spur physical sales.  Today, when access to musical recordings is ubiquitous, live performing is what’s keeping music fresh, immediate and inspiring, and audiences are willing to shell out serious cash to experience it.

In David Byrne's book, he devotes a chapter to revealing the budgets and income of two of his recent recordings.  It's enlightening, but ultimately not indicative of the average musician, since Byrne is still benefitting from the music business's past paradigm.  Things have shifted, and independent artists today aren't reeping the benefits of the 1970s business model. 

Perhaps one day the vinyl revival will really kick it into gear, and life will return to the glorious past yet again, whereby people gather in front of a turntable and take turns listening to the latest releases.  But in the meantime, an artist's bread and butter appears to be performing.  And perhaps that's the way it should have been all along.