The countdown had hit “HAPPY NEW YEAR!” and I foresaw a mediocre year ahead. January brought no hope either. Then as February moved forward, 2009 became a giant anticipation beast full of many treats ahead. A plethora of entertainment and knowledge. A multiple orgasm experience.

Blink-182

I can’t talk about 2009 without mentioning the continuation of Blink-182. Up until the announcement at the Grammy’s my hope for such a thing was at rock-bottom, or even forgotten. I became a teenage girl again and blasted Blink-182 songs for a week straight.

I spent my days from ages 14-18 listening to Blink, and when I got out of high school and hit real life I expanded, grew. I realized that I should not keep my musical tastes so narrowly focused. Bands that I had shunned for no other reason than they weren’t Blink were suddenly on my radar, and I loved them. I stopped deciding on music for political reasons, and started listening to music because it was GOOD music.

When Blink-182 came back, I faced a dilemma. This dilemma lasted about 30 seconds: Do I ignore this? Just act like I think it’s cool, but I’m so past this? or; Do I go apeshit and jump and scream like a little girl, and fully embrace my true Blink obsessed roots? I chose the latter, and immediately ordered a Blink-182 six-arrow logo shirt and sweatshirt.

2009 Albums

Little did I know the many albums that I would be looking forward to.

Green Day- “21st Century Breakdown”

Another epic masterpiece rock opera to follow up the epic masterpiece rock opera called American Idiot.

New Found Glory- “Not Without A Fight”

I have been listening to New Found Glory for many years now, since their second album. They kind of had a down slope with their past two efforts, but seem to be going back upwards.

Stephen Lynch- “3 Balloons”

One of my favorite comedians. I know there are some singing comedian haters out there, but the guy is fucking hilarious. The first song I heard from this guy was “Special Olympics” and I was in the 6th grade. I got to see him perform 10 minutes from my house this past summer. I’m nervous about this album because they decided to record in studio as opposed to the usual live set-up. There seems to be a lot of extra bells and whistles that I fear will be distractingly dumb for something like this.

The Avett Brothers

I just found this band a month ago and absolutely love them. They are unlike anything I usually listen to, sporting all acoustic songs usually involving banjo. They are finishing up their new record to be released this year.

Blink-182

They are in the studio right now, and will be touring in the summer. The album will probably be released in the fall. I was reading an interview that AP did with Mark Hoppus and he was talking about how they haven’t even played as a band yet. The way the record is they all have song ideas and they put them together BEFORE actually playing them. I think it is a cool method of making songs, and hope it is their best album yet.

Dane Cook- Isolated Incident
Dane Cook’s new comedy album should be an interesting one. He performs for 20-30 people at the laugh factory, and might possibly be funnier than his last mediocre effort. I think it is now a good time to go back to his other albums that I have laid to rest for a year or so, maybe.

The White Stripes

They are planning a 2009 summer release. Fuck yes, anyone?

So that’s the music portion of my 2009 anticipation. I haven’t even gotten started on the films yet.

Last night I am sitting idly at my computer. My phone rings, “Josie” by Blink-182 is the ringtone, and my friend Ian says “RYAN BLINK-182 IS BACK TOGETHER!! TURN ON THE GRAMMY’S”. Now at this moment here’s what went through my head:

1. Ian loves to play pranks.

2. The Grammy’s are on?

3. I am an internet nut and find everything out before everyone else, HOW could i miss this?

So I flip out and turn on my TV to the Grammy’s (thank god the analog signal is still up, I’d have been screwed) and ON my FUCKING TELEVISION is MARK, TOM and FUCKING TRAVIS!

I never got the chance to see Blink-182 on tour, during their prime era of the self-titled album. And now I get to see them on a fucking reunion tour with a new album. HOLY FUCKING SHIT! Sorry, the outbursts will happen. First thoughts are that this new album is going to kick fucking ass, because these guys KNOW there is no way they can afford to screw this up. And they also know that they can afford a LOT now, this will be the most money they have made in their entire career.

I can’t even describe the fucking joy I have right now. I grew up with these guys, and then I moved on and grew up a little. But I’m saying fuck growing up, Blink-182 is back!

I have obviously gone and bought two brand new Blink-182 peices of merch:

I was doing my daily reading at the Lefsetz Letter and he DEMANDED that I read this article:
Oh What A Mangled Web We Leave

So I did, and I got way more than what I thought it might be.

Before you read what I’m about to write I would suggest you read the article. Be aware that it is a sort of long article and I know how resistant kids are to read a little these days. But come on, step out of that box a little bit, for the future of music’s sake.

It’s an article about the start of The Pink Spiders, and their dealings with the major label world. Never heard of them? Not sure many outside of Nashville have. And not sure that the people in Nashville even like them. One of the first things said in the article is that The Pink Spiders wanted to establish a cool look. That’s where they went wrong, right from the start. Fuck the look, make some good music.

From The Pink Spiders Wikipedia page:

The Pink Spiders are an American Pop Rock band from Nashville, Tennessee, that formed in 2003. The band initially consisted of Matt Friction (guitar and vocals), Jon Decious (bass), and Bob Ferrari (drums).

A while back I saw their music video when I was at a friend’s house, who had MTV on for some background noise. I happened to glance and see this flashy music video called “Little Razorblade” with chicks skating in circles around this boyish looking band called “The Pink Spiders”. I thought the song and video was pretty catchy and appealing for the 12 year old depressed little girl in me.

After some good time playing in shitty basements and in the surrounding Nashville area, they scored a gig that was a private Major-Label-Showcase. This is an excerpt about that gig:

“We played…to a room full of suits who were madly texting on their BlackBerrys the entire time,” says Friction. “After the set, the curtains closed and Jordan Schur [then president of Geffen Records] ran onstage. He was immediately stopped by security but just barreled through them.”

“He was like, ‘I gotta have this band!!!’ with his arms wide open and all that,” says Ferrari, “and we were like, ‘That guy’s cool!’ “

After they finished their set, they moved through the crowd, shaking hands and fielding offers. In a matter of weeks, they had 11 major-label offers on the table. Paulson was in awe—his old friends appeared poised to take over the world.

Here’s an excerpt talking about recording their first record signed with Geffen Records:

They made themselves comfortable quickly in Los Angeles, but they were soon yanked from one coast to the other when the label chose former Cars frontman Ric Ocasek to produce their debut in New York at Electric Lady…But the recording process was stressful—Ocasek would not tolerate drinking in the studio—and the band didn’t take well to New York.

And for the first time, the Spiders found themselves without the production control they had grown accustomed to. When Friction stepped in to try to mix the album, their high-profile mixer, Tom Lord-Alge, wouldn’t let him. “Every time [Matt] had a suggestion, [Lord-Alge] would just point at the wall of platinum and gold records. He wouldn’t even talk,” says Ferrari.

“In hindsight, [Ocasek's mix] may have been better, but it wasn’t really thick or big, which was what the label wanted,” Decious says. “They were like, ‘It has to sound like a Blink-182 record.’ “

Okay, let’s pretend for a minute that these guys actually had a shot at “making it”. Basically, they fucked up from that very first show for all the “men in suits” as they called them. Why were they playing for men in suits? Those aren’t the people, those aren’t the fans, they are simply “men in suits” hoping to cash in.

Next mistake, they probably didn’t read the record contracts very thoroughly, bands get complete creative control all the time, and that includes mixing and producing. That’s their own fault for getting some asshole producer and asshole mixer and having no control. If you have the biggest of labels interested in you, but not one of them wants to give you complete creative control, then you need to say “fuck them we will stick to basements and what WE want to do for OUR fans”. Being a Blink-182 fan I loved the reference, of COURSE they want your records to sound awesome like a Blink record. But do you know WHY the Blink record sounds so damn good? Because they didn’t let the label tell them what to do, they had control of all their own shit.

The article talks about how the band wanted a different song for their first single, but the label insisted on Little Razorblade, a song that the band didn’t seem to like in the first place. The band also had a huge problem with the release date of their album. Decious dishes:

“We were on TRL in April[2006], and the fuckin’ record comes out in August[2006], so this song’s being played on the radio like a motherfucker,” says Decious, “and there was no product. You couldn’t go anywhere and get it…. We did the whole fucking Warped Tour with a single and no product…. We’d sell some copies of Hot Pink, but we kept thinking we were gonna have Teenage Graffiti, but…do you sell this album with all these [original recordings of the] songs on it? It’s gonna confuse people.”

That was 2006, two years ago. Had this band never heard of the internet? This is one of millions of reasons to not rely on a major label. This band had the album finished and recorded but had to, scratch that, CHOSE TO wait 4 months for a piece of plastic to get shelved. Here’s a new plan for a new millenium: FINISH THE ALBUM AND THEN THROW IT ON YOUR WEBSITE THE NEXT DAY. If the kids want the piece of plastic that spins and they want the pretty booklet then they can wait 4 months for that. But give them the music immediately. Yes, for free. Because if you haven’t heard already, the shows, t-shirts, etc. are the product and the music is the promotion. The music is ONE HELL OF A promotion, because it’s more than that and it deserves a better name, duh…MUSIC.

Here’s my favorite part of the article that shows just how smart these guys are:

“It was funny, ’cause [the Motorola reps] were like, ‘We can’t get any bands to hold the gear.’ And we were like, ‘Well, fuck, we’ll do it. We don’t care,’ ” says Ferrari. “We wanted to be nothing like any other band. Every other band is like, ‘We’re not gonna hold the phone,’ and we were like, ‘Fuck it. I’ll drink Coke. I like Pepsi better, but I’ll say I like Coke better if they’re gonna give me a check.’ Why not? [The production company people] were like, ‘Well, you’re not gonna be one of those bands that just, like, wants their integrity, and all this bullshit’…. And we were like, ‘No, no, no, no, no!’ “

Here’s a tip: YES, YOU WANT TO BE A BAND THAT WANTS THEIR INTEGRITY. First, saying you’ll hold the Motorola or drink the Coke is NOT different. Bands do it all the time and most of the time those bands suck. Second, what differentiates you from the other bands should be the music and NOT what you do or what you say or what you look like.

For whatever the reasons may be two of the Pink Spiders members, Jon Decious and Bob Ferrari, quit the band in June 2008. They joined a band called Dixie Whiskey. I hope the best for them because hopefully the realized the insanity of all the shit that happened with their previous band.

The Pink Spiders still exist under the lead singer and guitarist, Matt Friction. They have a new lineup that isn’t worth taking up more space to type.

The moral of the story is do NOT do what these guys did. It’s that plain and simple. Start a band. Make good music. Get fans of your music. Play for them. Respect them. Understand them. The “men in suits” are not your fans. The press are not your fans.

Now that I’ve talked all this shit, it’s time to get my shit off the ground already.

Become a fan of the Ryan For The Future Facebook Page

The record labels are dead. We know this and we have known this for quite a few years now. And if you don’t know this then I am telling you…The record labels are dead. Radiohead have ditched them, Trent Reznor and NIN have ditched them, and many artists are skipping them entirely, like this guy Joe Purdy. Ever since I started reading blogs such as Lefsetz Letter and Antiquiet along with countless other writers that I can’t even remember, I have moved more and more into the future of the music world.

I look at myself, and how I function as a fan of music. As a fan I ditched the labels a long time ago and just didn’t know it. I used to save up money so I could buy a CD that I could hardly afford, but I quit that a long time ago. I used to listen to the radio and watch MTV to see who was new and who I should listen to, but I quit that a long time ago. Before I knew it I was becoming the model modern true music fan. I began to use the internet to find tons and tons of music and expand my library from my roots of constantly listening to Blink-182 for six years. It was a change for the better and it was all because the fans of music helped each other out and continue to do so.

Long story short, labels started suing their customers and scared me away for a bit. Then a year ago I came back to the game to see what was up. I learned that the labels rip off the customers AND the artists. And me being a young new artist and a fan, I felt the hit twice as hard when I discovered the information. Like finding out your parents aren’t really your parents. The label hit hard with pussy shots like suing your mother or your dead grandma. They shut down one of the best music trading websites ever and labeled it as a fucking crime syndicate.

Rob at Demonbaby.com wrote a fantastic article, “When Pigs Fly: The Death of Oink, The Birth of Dissent, and A Brief History of Record Industry Suicide”, in October of 2007 that was inspired by the record industry’s latest move to shut down the trading site known as “Oink”. The article spread around the web like herpes on your mom (don’t ask):

If the industry tried to have some kind of compassion – if they said, “we understand that these are just music fans trying to listen to as much music as they can, but we have to protect our assets, and we’re working on an industry-wide solution to accommodate the changing needs of music fans”… Well, it’s too late for that, but it would be encouraging. Instead, they make it sound like they busted a Columbian drug cartel or something. They describe it as a highly-organized piracy ring. Like Oink users were distributing kiddie porn or some shit. The press release says: “This was not a case of friends sharing music for pleasure.” Wh – what?? That’s EXACTLY what it was!

I encourage that you read the entire article HERE.

Over the past year I have been reading and reading and reading the minds of people commentating about the record industry and all their ideas and philosophies. I have soaked up this information and I plan to use it, and soon. The internet is the new music tool, it’s the only one that is still in the fan’s control and let’s hope it stays that way.

I am starting at a new school tomorrow, New England Tech. If I get to meet some guy who is super computer savvy and can make websites with ease and has FUN doing it, and is also a HUGE fan of music, then it’s a dream come true. Because with that kid’s brain and my brain, it’s time to be one of the pioneers of the new music industry. I’m sure there are countless others out there already well on their way, but the more the better.

Where do we go from here?

As fans, keep using the internet to discover and download your favorite music and, more importantly, NEW music. Don’t waste your time listening to the radio or MTV. They don’t let you have the control. In fact, they like to think they are in control of you.

As artists, use the internet to get your music out there. There is no better tool. Free distribution, free marketing, and instant gratification to your fan base(when/if you get one). Don’t waste your time trying to get on the radio or trying to get signed to a label. These 360 Deals are pieces of shit. Use your time to create GOOD music and then INSTANTLY put it up on your website for everyone to take and listen to. Take your time, the money to eat more than once a day will come.

Where do we go from here? I’ll show you.

I recently watched Coheed and Cambria’s live concert DVD “The Last Supper”. I wasn’t always a huge fan of them, but I hadn’t really listened to them in a long time. They are one of those bands whose albums are meant to be listened to all the way through, which is an almost lost activity.

Being in the age of the iPod, people will just hit shuffle and listen to two thousand+ songs at complete random. I’ve decided that I’m going to bring this activity back into my life. Since Coheed and Cambria sparked this idea in my head, I got their first album “The Second Stage Turbine Blade”. I put it on my iPod and before going to sleep, I shut off the lights and layed down in bed with my headphones on and listened to the album all the way through. The album, sounding as it is, can inspire some crazy images in my head in normal life, but shutting off the lights and closing my eyes left my mind completely open to the music.

The beginning of the album was like the “calm before the storm”. I was picturing myself walking around my town and just seeing things at random. Seeing people I know and strangers, and then I kind of took control a bit and started to form my own comic book-like movie to go along with the rest of the music.

I don’t think all the albums that come out these days have to be heard in their entirety. I also think some artists know this about their own style of music. I can think of bands that I used to listen to a lot like Blink-182 and Green Day whose music can just be thrown into a shuffle and it doesn’t matter which way you listen to their songs. However, they both have put out one album each that are great for listening all the way through: Blink-182’s self titled album and Green Day’s “American Idiot”. Green Day’s “American Idiot” was most likely written for the purpose of hearing all the way through. Blink-182’s self titled album was an awesome turn for them in their career. It was their best album, musically, to date and you could tell that something was changing. With the break-up of Blink and the creation of Angels and Airwaves it was clear it was Tom Delonge (Blink-182 guitarist) who was changing. He has put out two albums, “We Don’t Need to Whisper” and “I-Empire”, through that band that have really inspired some awesome ideas and feelings in me when listened all the way through.

My two good friends, Alex and Ian, and I are working on a rock opera that Ian pretty much wrote. If we get this recorded, it will DEFINITELY be one to listen to all the way through. I am utterly amazed at how all this music is coming out in the practices. The songs go through such different feelings and emotions, the whole album and story is full of emotion and huge feelings. It is turning out to be some of the best stuff I’ve been a part of.

Here’s what I think everyone should do: Find a great album, one that you think is just amazing all the way through. If you haven’t already, wait until it’s later at night and dark out. Lie in bed or sit in the dark and put on a good pair of headphones and close your eyes and let the music take you. The shuffle function on your iPod is great for short drives or walks as background to your life, but it is good to give the music the driver seat once in a while (please don’t take that too literally). If you are a morning jogging type of person, that sounds to me like another good time to let the music take you. Just as the sun is rising, or maybe the sun has been out for a half hour or so but hasn’t quite shed its light on everything yet.

Let the music take you away from everything.

“Attitude is everything”

That is a phrase we might hear in gym class at school, or from ANY older person giving us advice. We hear it so much it becomes a cliche phrase and it tends to lose any meaning.

I discovered that this phrase, and many others like it that we always are told, are cliche and overused for a reason. That reason is because they are dead-on accurate phrases. I put this one to the test. I wanted to practice some songs that I had written but hadn’t actually every played. I know from too much past experience that having a shitty attitude and feeling churns out shitty sounding songs. I took a drive and blasted some feel good music. The plan was to over do it, WAY over do it, and I blasted the most over the top ridiculous energetic songs I could think of: Angels & Airwaves.

Songs like “Secret Crowds” talking about creating your own world for all the people with no place in this one:

If I had my own world
I’d build you an empire
From here to the far lands
To spread love like violence

Calling on all the crowds hiding in secret places to come out:

Let me feel you, carry you higher
Watch our words spread hope like fire
Secret crowds rise up and gather
Hear your voices sing back louder

It’s a strangely simple song yet so full of power that the hopeless and hopeful can’t help but believe in it:

Let’s make this a new world
I swear you can go if you want to
I know that you have it within you
Inventing the first clean and usable,
God’s greatest miracle

All coming from the mind of former Blink-182 singer/guitarist Tom DeLonge responsible for lyrics such as:

She smokes a dozen and he doesn’t seem to notice the smell
He took the seat off his own bike, because the way that it felt
He wants to bone this, I know she is ready to blow
They go out every night, his pants are super tight, oh yeah
They don’t even care at all

But is it really so hard to believe he would become such an inspirational lyricist, when even in Blink he wrote things like:

Everything has fallen to pieces
Earth is dying help me Jesus
We need guidance, we’ve been misled
Young and hostile, but not stupid

It’s been in him all along, but pressures of remaining the bad ass, punk rocker, dirty mouth kept it inside for the most part. I think anybody can relate to that. I see people saying things like “why did he change and stop telling jokes”. He didn’t change and neither did we. He brought out the other side thats in most of us Blink-182 fans and beyond people who listen to Blink.

Tom DeLonge had a bigger impact on me than I initially thought. I never thought about anything important about the future or my future ever. But in the past 6 months or so I’ve been doing intense thinking and evaluation of the world around me and what I am going to do in it. I’ve actually got plans. I have things either written in my head or in my computer. I’ve got ideas. I’ve got dreams. I fully intend to act on them.

I am not saying that everyone needs to go out and listen to Tom DeLonge and Angels & Airwaves (however if it interests you i recommend you go to their website and check out the music video for Secret Crowds on the front page). I think everyone can find someone in their own interest that can bring out the same feelings and ideas that DeLonge has brought out of me. Whether it be a famous person or your mother or your neighbor. There’s someone who can do it.

Or maybe it’s an event that will get you thinking. Some big event. For a lot of people it was 9/11. For others it could be something on a smaller scale such as a death of a friend or family member under bad circumstances.

The Future is ours, don’t let anyone take it from us.