Cuneiform Records - straight from the source

[Steve F.]

https://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/...-takes-a-break

[Dave (in MA)]

A lovely couple!

[winkersnufs]

Good Day on a sunny Monday!

Just finished listening to the interview. Well done is my first response. I truly hope that this situation for Cuneiform continues to raise some 'brows', generates further discussion, and perhaps even brings about future possibilities for the label! This is as good place as any...right?

On a side note - Steve,... interview talk about your early connection with that 'weird music' world had me thinking about the further music world that opened up for me when I got my paws on a 'Jem Records' catalog.... Off I went!

Carry On
Chris Buckley

[Mister Triscuits]

Well, since there will be no new Cuneiform releases coming out this year, I'll take the money I would have spent on them and give it to some right-wing foundation so they can do something terrible.

P.S., Got a kick out of their fact-checking at the end.

[Steve F.]

P.S., Got a kick out of their fact-checking at the end.

Me too! Made me laugh out loud, especially in that I OVER-estimated the miserable amount that GaGa got!

[Steve F.]

Well, since there will be no new Cuneiform releases coming out this year, I'll take the money I would have spent on them and give it to some right-wing foundation so they can do something terrible.

Now that's how to celebrate our legacy!

[Buddhabreath]

Nice interview and a good concise summary of the present shit storm. Of course, there have always been talented people struggling in relative (or total) obscurity while pouring their hearts into music for the sake of expression without the immediate goal of fame and fortune. Tragically, it seems to me there is virtually zero room in society for this type of endeavor other then for hobbyists and those of independent financial means (artists as well as promoters). Damn it!

Personally, I think we need MORE regulations, laws and support for artists not only to protect their intellectual property but to promote art in society at large. It would have to be a broad cultural change. Fat chance of that. Culture without art is barbarism and that's seems to be the trend at least in my neck of the woods (and from the rotten orange top down, no less).

Oh well, I'm sure Mr. Triscuit's donation can be used to help destroy the National Endowment for the Arts.

[markwoll]

It may be time to break down and listen to my first podcast.
I read Joyce's announcement on Google +.
Sigh.
I guess that as an 'old school' consumer of recorded and live music I will just keep doing that for as long as I can.
I have stuck my toe in the streams and found them not to my liking.
I prefer your curation.

[Dave (in MA)]

#asUsual

[Steve F.]

I prefer your curation.

Thanks Mark,

The following is not directed at you or anyone else who paid for the Cuneiform releases they listened to:

Everyone prefers my curation; it helps them to spend less time searching for something worth hearing without paying for it.....

And that’s why we are where we are today.....

[Baribrotzer]

One point, which I'm sure you know: An awful lot of great art and great music was created on life-support, so to speak. It couldn't directly pay for itself, and it didn't have to.

Prior to the 19th Century, much of the music and art were financed by the Crown, the Church, or various noblemen. Going on into the 19th Century, some music did finance itself by the sales of sheet music and concert tickets, but part of that old system of wealthy and powerful aristocratic patrons also remained in place. However, much 20th Century classical music got its funding from a different set of wealthy, powerful sponsors - from corporate foundations and government Ministries of the Arts, institutions that take the modern roles of Crown and Church.

Now when it comes to jazz, that was the leading pop music up to some time in the Fifties or Sixties, so up to then, it could pay for itself in record sales and concert receipts. After that, it has struggled, and I think that most current creative jazz musicians make their actual livings by teaching music, or in other day jobs. Wynton's activities - for all their stodgy, stiff-necked, backward-looking, self-defeating qualities - have been, I believe, an attempt to create a Standard Canon for jazz equivalent to the Standard Canon of Classical Warhorses and a jazz pantheon of Great Dead Black Men to equal classical music's pantheon of Great Dead White Men, all for the purpose of making jazz an equivalent to classical music, and getting similar amounts of funding from similar wealthy men of similarly conservative musical tastes.

Finally, rock has had to either finance itself by being broadly popular, or be done as a hobby, or be done full-time under conditions of considerable penury.

I'm sure none of this is news to anybody.

[JKL2000]

"Here's a moldy crust of bread. Amuse me, Dissonati!"

[Baribrotzer]

"Here's a moldy crust of bread. Amuse me, Dissonati!"

I don't need your moldy crust of bread, I've already got one in my fridge (And this is not entirely a joke. It happens to currently be true).

Is that a quote from somewhere?


By the way, the old system of Crown and Church financing was in no way perfect. Ever hear Professor Peter Schickele's (P.D.Q. Bach) A Bach Portrait? It couples vaguely Coplandesque music with recitations from J. S. Bach's correspondence - which consisted almost entirely of letters begging various Somebodies for commissions, or letters dunning them for money owed him and paid late or not at all, or letters to friends complaining about those same Somebodies, their unpaid debts, and his efforts to shame them into coughing up.

[JKL2000]

"Here's a moldy crust of bread. Amuse me, Dissonati!"

Is that a quote from somewhere?

It's an old saying I just made up.

[aith01]

Really enjoyed the interview. First time I've heard Steve and Joyce speak actually! I especially liked the story about putting the deposit down at the local record store and them mailing the postcard when the record arrived. There's something romantic about that sort of thing and you don't get that with digital media.

Me too! Made me laugh out loud, especially in that I OVER-estimated the miserable amount that GaGa got!

Yeah, I got a kick out of that as well.

[moecurlythanu]

Sad laugh at one of the pod guys asking what a record label is.

[aith01]

Sad laugh at one of the pod guys asking what a record label is.

I was hoping that might have been a staged question, for the benefit of any listeners who might not be familiar with the term. Hoping...

[N_Singh]

Overall, except for the period of time from the late 60s through the mid-1970s, which we know as the progressive period in popular music, perhaps very much an artistic anomaly, rock ‘n’ roll has largely been a massive race to the bottom, more of a commodity than music, or music as the perfect form of a commodity, more or less stripped of its artistic merit and content, and beholden to the taste public of teenagers . Prior to its ascendancy, popular music was always determined by adults, not children . The question that needs to be asked pull what happens when children determine the nature, direction and raison d’etre of music over a prolonged period of time? We now have the answer.

This is more or less the final conclusion of the long term dumbing down and stupidifaction of popular music, The birth of rock ‘n’ roll also kill the musicians union; that never gets discussed. How can professional musicians compete with four juvenile, lowest common denominator bands for five bucks at the Cabaret Metro ? They can’t.

So here we are. Music is worthless, but this is been a long time coming .

[NogbadTheBad]

Sad subject but good interview Steve & Joyce, you can hear the passion and frustration.

[rcarlberg]

I think Steve and Joyce are being polite blaming Spotify for the decline in revenue in the music business.

True, Spotify paid Lady Gaga $167 for 1,000,00 plays of one hit song eight years ago ($150.73 at today's exchange rate). Certainly that's no way to make a living from music. But that's Lady Gaga, an immensely popular artist with an audience demographic who listens mostly to streamed music.

That's not Curlew or Birdsongs of the Mesozoic or Microscopic Septet, who wouldn't get a million plays on Spotify if you added up everything they've ever released. Their demographic is small, and doesn't stream. Streaming is not killing their business model.

Piracy is. Generous pirates.

Albums posted to blogs, albums posted to YouTube, those are what has made Steve & Joyce have to "compete with free." Once they release a new album, within hours it's up on the internet somewhere for free download. Sure, a percentage (probably a rather large percentage) of the fanbase for this sort of music will do the right thing and buy the album from a reputable distributor, but for some small percentage the allure of free is just too tempting. The new audience, just discovering small-run bands like this, are more likely to sample them online, and whether or not they decide to buy physical product (or even a legal download) afterward is a big question. Some will; some won't. How many? Nobody knows. Albums that are out-of-print can never come back into print because the market for them is gobbled up by pirates.

I myself have been guilty of (or thrilled by?) the ubiquitous availability of never-released-on-CD vinyl albums being posted online. But I accept, as penance for my sin, that this means nobody in their right mind would now undertake a re-release.

It's a new world out there. I can see how that destroys the marketplace for vendors and manufacturers.

But it's a golden era for collectors of rare music.

[Dok]

Guilty of being twice removed by association and as a complete aside. Steve, did you know that R. Stevie Moore was a big fan of one of my very favorite 'Southern Rock' bands of the 70's, Barefoot Jerry? Probably incorporated more progressive tendencies at times then any of the other so called southern rockers. In articles online and comments on youtube under the BJ banner I would find his nom de plume singing their praises. Perhaps on the next go round you might consider some Acid, Psychedelic or Progressive Avant Country?

"I don't know what the future holds..." Free energy, food replicators, anti grav vehicles, extended life spans and portals to places all over the galaxy. Money no longer needed. The Babylonian Money Magic Debt Slavery System meets its just demise.

Thanks for the great interview and all the fabulous music you have made available to the world. Here's wishing you and Joyce all the best in the Mean Time.

[arturs]

Great interview--sorry about the downer of a subject. I learned some cool things about the history of the label and I enjoyed hearing about Joyce's contributions and her role in the Cuneiform saga.

But I was absolutely shocked to hear about how the Downbeat Jazz album of the year had little/no effect on sales. If that is the state of the world, then yeah there seems to be really no possible upside to this business at this point in time.

[Steve F.]

I was hoping that might have been a staged question, for the benefit of any listeners who might not be familiar with the term. Hoping...

it was.

[Steve F.]

That's not Curlew or Birdsongs of the Mesozoic or Microscopic Septet, who wouldn't get a million plays on Spotify if you added up everything they've ever released. Their demographic is small, and doesn't stream. Streaming is not killing their business model.
.

Streaming (along with the piracy you mention) IS killing the model, because I would estimate that 35-40% (and growing) of the people who used to buy our releases now use streaming services and never buy anything.

They like our releases, but now that they get unlimited everything except 'Cuneiform and a couple others', they aren't going to bother to buy 'Cuneiform and a couple of others'.

They have more than they could ever use of everything else.

[thedunno]

Streaming (along with the piracy you mention) IS killing the model, because I would estimate that 35-40% (and growing) of the people who used to buy our releases now use streaming services and never buy anything.

They like our releases, but now that they get unlimited everything except 'Cuneiform and a couple others', they aren't going to bother to buy 'Cuneiform and a couple of others'.

They have more than they could ever use of everything else.

I am afraid that this is very true. None of the younger people I know (below 30) buy ANY music. The completely rely on streaming services. I recently talked to my nephew. His statement was: if it is not on spotify or apple music it does not exist.

I makes me sad. Younger wild and exiting acts like Schnellertollermeier and Poil should appeal to a younger audience. Unfortunately none of them are going to buy their music.