You are most cordially invited to Rock Proper’s Summer House Party at the Gallery Cabaret (2020 N Oakley, Chicago) for a sweet rock show featuring Jitney, Nervous Parts (a new Steve Walters / Jason Frederick / Jason Grey project) and Chris Burney (of The Sun).
The show will get rolling around 10pm.
Admission is FREE. There will also be FREE Arturos Tacos served.
Jitney is a four piece rock band, headed up by Rock Proper founder, Casey Meehan. Listen to our music here: Jitney Band
Nervous Parts is a new improv / experimental project which includes legendary Chicago screen-printer, Steve Walters (founder of Screwball Press) teaming up with the prolific Chicago illustrator / musician Jason Frederick and drummer Jason Grey.
Chris Burney founded a band called The Sun who’s recent Rock Proper release was recorded with Mike McCarthy (producer of many Spoon records).
Dan Duffy, bass player for Jitney just shared an amazing fact with me.
Dan: just found out that the first album jon bon jovi ever appeared on (as the fifth “lead vocalist,” john bongiovi) was “christmas in the stars”: the star wars christmas album. the album included such classics as “what do you get a wookie for christmas (when he already has a comb?)
Way to go Dan and way to go Jon. More info about this quintessential Bongiovi album is here.
BONUS: Here is a kick ass picture of Dan, celebrity news hound.
For the initial phase of Rock Proper, we decided to offer our music for free. To many this seems crazy, today let’s examine the actual economics of this decision.
But first a little history…
For years, a group of Chicago musicians have been making records and playing shows at notable venues.
At first, the records were created on the artists own dime. Next, many were picked up by local record labels and funded, bought vans and started to tour the mid-west. After that, a handful were picked up by even bigger indie labels, got slightly more funding, slightly better vans and were off to tour the country. Finally, a very small few were picked up by the almighty major record label, got to use a tour bus for awhile and tour the world for a year or so.
What do they all have in common? None of these records actually “Recouped”.
If you have put out a record with a label you will recognize this scary little word and be very familiar with it’s importance. For those who may not know, “recouping” is the point at which record sales have actually paid for the recording, manufacturing and marketing costs of the album and it actually starts “making money”.
How much money is that?
As you might imagine, the cost of making an album varies widely. At my first (and only) meeting with a major label representative, Mr. Matt Marshall of Epic records spoke of being conservative and spending somewhere in the quarter million dollar range to make a record. This was very exciting to my 21 year old ears, it sounded like a ton of money (because it is a ton of money). This excitement wears off, however, once the artist realizes that this is simply a massive loan. Except unlike other loans, this is a loan that someone else spends for you. The label fronts you this money, decides how it will be allotted (often inflating the amount spent) and begins profiting on it well in advance of the artist.
Now, I don’t want to fall into the over-simplistic view that all major labels are “bad” and that all bands and artists are all pure-hearted victims, but what I have just described is the typical protocol.
After I had seen hundreds of brilliant records “fail” by not recouping after endless hours of toil and thousands of dollars wasted, I was ready to try something different.
After all, these days a good sounding record doesn’t cost anywhere near a quarter of a million dollars and the artist doesn’t need the marketing and distribution channels that previously only a record label could offer. These days, there are other options.
Like what?
The idea for Rock Proper came when I was working on my latest record Jitney 86-300. I was frustrated by the time it usually takes to find a label and or distributor to support your work, then the amount money involved with manufacturing the CDs, the length of time it takes for that work to be released and the prospect of feeling indebted to someone for my art.
It seemed a more direct route would be best. I was excited to surpass this whole process. No endless phone calls trying to drum up support. No massive amount spent on manufacturing. No shipping crates of CDs to be inventoried then to be shipped to someone who would rip the album to their iPod and basically disregard the piece of plastic. A piece of plastic that took a great deal of time and energy to create and distribute.
How about allowing anyone in the world to access your music for free instantly. No shipping, no manufacturing, no trips to the post office, no nada. Once it is live on the site it is accessible.
How have the results been?
So far so good. Back when we were creating physical versions of all our music, a typical run would reach 200 to 400 people and only rarely make the cost of manufacturing back (let alone the recording cost). So, in an effort to sell music, most of the time money was actually lost.
Furthermore, these physical CDs actually prevented people from hearing the music because they had to pay to hear it.
So, not only did it lose money but it also lost listeners.
With the Rock Proper model, we are no longer losing money on manufacturing, we are gaining many more listeners than previously possible (nearly all records have been downloaded 1,000 times) and each record is no longer existing in isolation, therefore a success for one benefits the whole site. These records are not tied to a particular release date where they will only be available in stores for a little while, they are all up on the site for hopefully a very long time.
There are still many obstacles to this work. I will explore some of these in a future post and I am not sure this will remain free forever (perhaps charging a dollar for an album would be seen as the best balance?).
I am only confident the the old music business model is broken and that creativity and experimentation will lead us to the next phase.
I urge you to take part in this experiment, listen to some of the music, forward what you like on to those in your neighborhood or social networks and let us know your thoughts.
This video blog series is intended to document the creation of Jitney’s untitled second record. These sessions all take place at Pieholden Suite Sound unless otherwise noted.
Session I :: May 29 - 31, 2009
It had been a difficult week and we were all excited to get back to doing what we love. Twisting knobs and making noise. We dusted off the 1” tape machine and got back to business. I didn’t have a video camera yet so this installment is made from a few photos we took during the session.
Matt DeWine engineered the session, Johnny Caluya was the assistant engineer.
Session II :: June 12 - 14
I had a most enjoyable ride on the Amtrak through the cornfields. I woke up early on Saturday to finalize the song we were to record that day. I was lucky to find a nice place in the garden to write and mess with my new $50 video camera.
We worked on the 2” reel to reel machine this weekend. Matt DeWine engineered.
From the broken instruments and archaic recording equipment deep within the rural confines of Pieholden Suite Sound recording studio, comes the Notes & Scratches 2nd release To the Other Side. This six song cycle about memory and moving on is the first installment of seven releases the Notes have planned for 2009. And it’s a hoot.
If you are in Chicago, please do come out to the Whistler on April 30th for the Notes & Scratches release show celebrating this EP as well as a new 7” from Whistler Records.
We are pleased to announce the launch of our second featured release. Jitney’s new album “86-300” is now available for free download. Get it here!
If you happen to be near Chicago, Jitney will be playing a free show at the Empty Bottle on Monday Feb 9th.
Some info about 86-300:
These songs were written while driving a taxi in Chicago. Meehan drove the night shift for two years to finance the record. The name of the album, 86-300, refers to Meehan’s chauffeur’s license. He is the 86,300th cab driver to be licensed in Cook County; the Jitney moniker is also taken from taxicab terminology.
Other than the late-night, cityscape imagery of streetlights, gasoline and drifters, this album explores the element of chance. There were many setbacks for this musician in recent years, including nearly loosing his leg necessitating many difficult months of recovery. This material explores dealing with forces beyond ones control; the song “Fin” may be interpreted as a brief commentary on the struggling music industry.
This album was recorded at Jay Bennett’s Pieholden Suite Sound on the same equipment used for Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.
This record, produced by Meehan’s long time friend Matt DeWine, was one of the first albums recorded at the studio after its transplant from Chicago’s West side to downstate Illinois. Meehan helped with the construction of this studio. Additional recording was done by Kris Poulin at Chicago’s Electrical Studios and Semaphore. —————
We also have a few more great records on deck. Andy Wagner’s “Those Who Forgive” will be launching with Where The Moon Came From with David Vandervelde’s “Psychedelic Saturday” both will be available on February 23rd. Notes and Scratches’ “To the Other Side” will be out March 30th.
Last month we were very excited to find a wonderful remix of one of Jay Bennett’s songs, check it out here. Jay’s song “I’ll Decorate My Love” was originally released on “Whatever Happened I Apologize” (Rock Proper, 2008). We are grateful for Fabakis’ great work on the remix, this is precisely the kind of projects that the new Creative Commons’ copyright laws make possible.
