TheCapitalClinic

I recently had an exchange of notes with cousinotes which addressed among other points the question of blogging, word-smithin', framing, and the creative process. I thought I would share this exchange with people following several of my recent blogs. cousinotes: Blogging is a lot like improvisation. I don't want to contrive my message. But, if I get some input that strikes me, a comment will flow. All the notes will be a pure expression, some of them may not be pretty. Some...

In re-reading some of my blogs to date about the trials and tribulations of the struggling artist, I find that for the most part they strike an optimistic note of the world of the possible, as I think they should to keep the flame of creativity alive. Within that context, however, a dose of reality about music, both as an art form and as a business, from the teaching perspective may also be in order. It is gratifying that a few of my commentaries about the future of music [largely from the...

Last night while I was just site surfing checking out the new music being posted here, I came across the well-scripted Profile of Maggie McClure. I was immediately struck by MM's potential as a Phenom [being defined by me as someone, generally young in chronological years, who rides the rocket-ship to the moon], wrote a quick review about her one uploaded song ["What's It Like"] for streaming here, about someone Twenty Going On Life, and asked many of my Fuzz Friends to...

Nice. Maggie has an artist's voice reflecting the bittersweet nuance of a life lived beyond her twenty years. I added "What's It Like" immediately to my "pop-style" playlist. Her voice and lyrics bring back those universal memories about missed possibilities. Hope the Big Music Machine doesn"t chew her up. Hope she stays with Fuzz as her career develops. NB: a note to readers of my reviews: the text of my reviews at this site may change from time to time...

I think that I answered this question before, but new visitors [hopefully, to become my Fuzz Friends] keep asking me various versions of it. Here is my answer again for the curious. [I hope it's consistent with my previous ones with just a different slant on it because of what happens to be on my mind today, but, hey, we all evolve as people, right]. Recently, I have been reflecting on the nature of the frontier and how people survive at the cutting edge of everything that is exciting...

It's Sunday morning again and I'm enjoying my cup of joe, have my thinkin' and relaxin' playlists on, and site surfing. This morning I was pondering about how to bring home in a more specific way some things I have been writing about over the past several months about "power laws", "the internet and the history of ideas", "social music communities without borders", the new realities of capital formation in the modern era, and so on, accordingly...

Here are my take-aways from an August 24, 2007 article in the Wall Street Journal Venture Capital, Rockin’ to the Oldies 1. The journalist in this article leads with a somewhat off-putting remark: “Past-their-prime rock bands are used to being ignored by record labels and mocked by the music press.” 2. He goes on to say: “Fans often fill up concert venues to hear older acts perform their hits, but they typically shun their new record releases.” 3. The business manager of a...

As you may know the famous Rosetta Stone, now located in the British Museum, was instrumental in helping Egyptologists to decipher the principles of hieroglyphic writing and it has now become emblematic of finding the critical key to decrypt or translate a difficult problem. Today, the growing mass of information and diverse Content on the web is one of the most difficult problems to solve in an increasing digitized world. In our case, (i) more and more musicians keep uploading music on sites...

Well, it took me a long time to get here, but as of August 20, 2007 at 4:00 pm I got 10,000 page views on my profile page from my Fuzz Friends and persons unknown out in the ww web who casually visit the site and who found me here. As I wrote often in earlier blogs, it is my thesis that the amount of "network energy" rises as a function of the number of Fuzz Friends you have, who in turn may make you their "friend" [of course, not everyone does that] but does so...

I have been playing around with the BBcode that this site utilizes and that I, who am very computer-challenged, was able to pick up pretty quickly. If I can learn this, so can you! After I discovered this amazing process of linking "web content" [whether on the Fuzz site or anywhere else on the web] with "language", I had one of those rare "AHA!" moments that I immediately wanted to share with my Fuzz Friends. By connecting "Content", which could be...

One of my Fuzz Friends asked me if I could share some of my views regarding the artist development concept in process of evolution at Fuzz. While I responded in brief, it occured to me that many artists already here or signing up might be interested in this topic. I can only offer my views in broad terms [and they are strictly my own based on my observation of what is actually going on here or what Fuzz has signaled in this space.] I am not part of Fuzz management; but I am an interested party...

Dear Fuzz Goat [or the IT Gen-Xers here at Fuzz], I notice that some folks at Fuzz who are much more computer-adept than I am can just post an external link or an internal Fuzz link that appears as a one-word referral like, "here" for the finger of fate to click on for the benefit of other Fuzz users, rather than a long URL tag. An example of this is posted below: http://www.fuzz.com/fan/SeriousBusinessRecords/blog/3hive-Said-The-Gramophone-blog-about-Benji-The-Octagon Can one of...

Mike Jones has so far only uploaded one piece, Green Mill Blues CLIP, at Fuzz; but it is enough to establish that we have a Jazz keyboard virtuoso to astound us, and just maybe to extend us beyond those greats who inspire his own genius, Peterson and McKenna. Here is a YouTube clip of Mike at work, entitled "Oscar and Dave". Listen, watch, enjoy, marvel.

Ned Self'e own description of his work as southern rock meeting smooth jazz is right on the money. Castaways is a good song to start my new playlist on "contemporary rock." At first I thought I'd add it to my jazz playlist because of the stong melodic theme of Selfe's fancy steel guitar work, with a hip tappin' backgrounder. But then a bigger "rock" sound develops with others kickin' in - great sax, more engagement of drums, piano, other stuff...

After checking out Jerome Lee's revealing and instructive website [which others should do as well], I take the liberty to pass on to fans of great music at Fuzz, the community that is my home, a description of the CD and songs he uploaded here "in his own words" - what better description can there be! Life This Time "...a short description and background on my CD, "Life This Time". I wanted to give you, the reader a glimpse of what was going on in my mind as it...

A Fuzz Friend recently coined for me an interesting phrase that he referred to as "Mass A.D.D." [Attention Deficit Disorder] in connection with the frenzy of everyone striving to be heard in our technology-driven times, possibly resulting in information overload and dehumanizing [my term] and slightly anti-social [his term] behavior on a mass scale. In broad terms, A.D.D. is characterized by a persistent pattern of inattention, hyperactivity, poor impulse control, and...

Jeff recently blogged about a fantastic interview he had with David Fricke, senior editor at Rolling Stone, a friend of Bill Bentley of Team Fuzz, and no doubt one of the "most passionate, influential and knowledgeable music writers" in the industry. In Jeff's blog, Fricke discusses the idea of music as a "social transaction" and Jeff expands upon Fricke's transformational notion with one of his own. Indeed! David Fricke's notion that "buying music is a...

Sarah Bettens just uploaded the video of her song, Daddy's Gun, here at Fuzz. It is always impossible to prove a negative [a definitive assertion of the absence of a negative]. Thus, we will never know how many children and others will not be killed in the future because the gun was not there... and more precisely because Sarah sang this song and it got through to someone to take action to control accessibility to guns. We can all take comfort and marvel that, although we can't...

I'd like to "poke" anyone reading this to a really interesting blog of Mibu Wolf on an important subject. http://www.fuzz.com/fan/MibuWolf/blog/Pound-of-Flesh-re-typed-abridged-and-inferior-to-the-lost-original

The Wall Street Journal reported today that Warner Music had a net loss of $17 million for the quarter ended June 30, compared with a net loss of $14 million a year earlier after elimination of some 400 jobs. Revenue in the latest quarter fell 2.2% to $804 million from $822 million. Warner’s “overall slide in sales of CDs has far eclipsed the growth in sales of digital downloads, which were supposed to have been the industry's salvation.” And, as just reported in Digital Music News...

Fuzzies in the Bay Area, being that I myself am a newcomer to the local music scene [other than Yoshi's] and I'm climbing my own learning curve, can any of you help out greenbubba who asked me: Aug 06, 6:51 pm greenbubba asked thecapitalclinic: I love Mau's incomplete manifesto! If you ever get a chance to hear him lecture its not only inspiring but amazing visually. Kind of like power point in the round! See you are in the bay - Got a favorite club or band? I'm passing...

Lately, I noticed that while checking out the "Recent Activity" on the Music page that the rate of artist sign-ups is accelerating faster than my ability to keep up with them [let alone going back and finding or rediscovering previous uploads]. This started me thinking about the problem of music density and quantity overwhelming music discovery and choice [although, perhaps over-abundance is a good rather than bad problem to have]. My knee-jerk reaction was to send out a few PMs...

My random browsing around the Fuzz site early Sunday morning with one of my easy listenin' playlists on, culminated in reading silverback’s blog on America’s crumbling infrastructure and greenbubba’s point therein about culture and information changing exponentially, without waiting on politicians. This prompted me to do some research on several notable persons and NGOs [non-governmental organizations] mentioned therein, namely, Paul Barker [of USSA together with silverback/Duane...

EMI, one of the remaining giants in the music industry as we know it today has just been pulled root and branch out its position in a cozy garden, and in the process altered perspectives concerning (1)oligopolistic dominance on the one hand vs. (2) a failing business model on the other that the regulators have been debating for many years. The landscape of Music Ecosystem I will never be the same again. Artists and lovers of music take note, the world of Music Ecosystem II that we have...

Addendum: Wil Maring just uploaded a cornucopia of her songs, 25 more - count 'em. I just checked them out quickly. Much to appreciate and enjoy here over an extended period. Much to study, great stories of real living, wonderful interplay of lyrics and instrumentation. Lots goin' on here, guitar, fiddle, banjo, bass, country, folk, bluegrass and, of course, Wil Maring. Great addition to the Fuzz collection. NB: a note to readers of my reviews: the text of my reviews at this...

Added both Keeper of the Farm and The Open Road to my Fuzz playlist. Nice easy listening all the time, or with more attention to detail when I'm in the moment (which happens at unexpected times to give me great pleasure). NB: a note to readers of my reviews: the text of my reviews at this site may change from time to time. As I listen for futher nuances in a song or body of work, I keep modifying or adding to my thoughts, making my reviews an organic "moveable feast". Since...