I'm giving you a free album for Christmas. I just cranked out a solo album from live performances at Genghis Cohen in Los Angeles over the years.
The Album Itself
I'll probably write more about this in a later post. But in brief, here's the story:
It's called "A Church & A Chinese Whorehouse In The Gold Rush" (the title is paraphrasing an old Yelp review of Genghis Cohen's music venue with lanterns and church pews). I was sitting around a couple of Saturdays ago and procrastinating doing something more important, like housecleaning or exercise. I went into Bigfellas and solo music archives of shows and found I had a lot of good things from Genghis Cohen recordings.
I did ZERO editing or engineering of the recordings, leaving whatever mistakes or flubs are on there. It's 25 songs showing what a real music evening with me on a piano is, aka "the stupid man's Randy Newman", with plenty of originals, looseness and banter with the audience.
Why Is This A Gift
This is where I'm going to sound bitter. The album is out there on Apple Music, Amazon, Spotify and YouTube. An artist really CAN'T NOT put their music in those places in this day and age. Which means that you can listen to it for free. Or relatively for free. Even if you pay for the ad-free Spotify plan, and listen to my record there 10 times, I'm still not getting a cent. I don't mean I'm not getting paid, it's just that I'm getting paid LESS THAN A CENT, about $0.00002.
Almost all of the money I make from music is either from live performances or film/tv placement (plus some music scoring for films). Nobody forced me to play or record music, I still love doing it. It's all good. Really, I’m fine.
But for an independent recording artist, you are basically giving your music away. So let's treat this one like a Christmas gift. Enjoy.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
Just by virtue of you reading this article on our blog means you pay some attention to us and our music and we really do appreciate that. There are thousands and thousands of people out there making music. You choosing to listen to some of ours is a choice, so we thank you.
Meanwhile, just remember that independent artists of all kinds are busting their asses and toiling in mostly obscurity out of a love of music. So, whenever you can support them (not just us), it's a great thing. Whether it's tipping live musicians, going to see live musicians, contributing to a Kickstarter or buying albums or merch from bands - you're helping people by listening to music which is never a bad thing.
