Wednesday, December 31, 2003
New Year's Eve Eve Haiku
my palms never itch
ears ring sometimes but it's only
more brain cells dead
my palms never itch
ears ring sometimes but it's only
more brain cells dead
--agp
Friday, December 26, 2003
Filling Their Quota:SongaWeek.com celebrates more than 10,000 downloads
Tom Flannery has released four full-length CDs. Lorne Clarke has released one. They've each sold numerous copies, yet the singer/songwriters estimate more people have listened to their music for free on the Internet than have ever listened to all their recordings combined.
SongaWeek.com went live on April 1, 2003. The first song posted was a Flannery number called "Saddam's in Delaware." It was no April Fool's day joke. Subtitled "songs ripped from the headlines,' the website now boasts more than 135 fresh, original songs. The musicians not only allow visitors to download all of these copyright-protected selections free of charge, they encourage it.
Internet users have been more than happy to oblige. By early December, a mere eight months since its debut, SongaWeek had coughed up more than 10,000 downloads.
Last month, Flannery received a call from Garrison Keiller's assistant. The Prairie Home Companion host had been referred to Flannery's song "I Wish I Had a Job Like Garrison Keillor's." He liked it and asked to link to SongaWeek from his Public Radio International show's website. The link was prominently displayed on the front page for two long weeks and generated the greatest intensity of traffic SongaWeek has seen.
When you're giving it away for free, traffic is the most you can ask for. Well, almost. Flannery received a moving e-mail last week from a striking Tyson Food worker in Jefferson, Wisconsin. The songwriter posted "We're With You (From So Far Away," a song about the Tyson worker's plight back in November. According to the thank you note, Flannery's song is being played every day on the picket line.
"(That's) so much cooler than money," Flannery shared. "That note kinda sums up why we're doing this."
SongaWeek has evolved to include the occasional non-topical song. Clarke's "biggest hit" has been "Where's John," a tear-generating song inspired by his Alzheimer's afflicted mother. He shared the tune with a friend whose mother also has the degenerative disease. Profoundly touched, the friend shared the song with his support group who shared it with others who might relate.
"The next thing you know we're getting people coming (to the site) from New Zealand, Australia, England, all over the world, who are involved in Alzheimer's support groups because in the web it's a very small community," Clarke related. "It's kind of like an infection. It just spreads."
"The site's huge in the Alzheimer's community," boasted Flannery in jest.
It is the songs most specifically about current events, countered Flannery that generate the most traffic. Many of those who download music from SongaWeek first discover the site via an Internet search on a topical issue.
The Digital Audio Workspace in Flannery's basement office allows him to write, record, and upload new selections to SongaWeek within hours. Flannery's new song "Saddam Hussein is Dead," was online before many had heard the news of the former Iraqi dictator's capture. Within three days of being posted, claims Flannery, the song was listed on an Al Jazeerah web page.
"It's all a matter of speed. Saddam Hussein only gets caught in a hole once. Get the song out there," Flannery emphatically stated.
"Wait until you hear the news tomorrow that he escaped," Lorne giggled.
"Or that it's not really him." Flannery laughed. "It's a body double."
Such topical songs do attract people to the website, but they are also the songs that Flannery considers "the most disposable." Clarke referred to "The Iraqi Information Minister Song"that Flannery dashed off one day as a joke.
"This guy's standing there on TV and he's saying (in thickly accented voice), 'I triple guarantee you there are no American in Baghdad.' And a tank went by behind him. An American tank!" raved Clarke. The song was a joke, the two agree. Not a masterpiece. But people were searching the net for "Iraqi information minister" and they found SongaWeek.
"Somebody put a link on the Iraqi Information Minister website (welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com) and that site had so much traffic they had to buy a new server because their server crashed," recalled Clarke.
"They had like a million hits a day," Flannery confirmed. "Here we are trying to be taken seriously, and people are coming in and they're downloading this stupid song. I don't want to be remembered as the songwriter who wrote "The Iraqi Information Minister Song."
"If you're writing a song a week, not every one is going to be a brilliant effort," Clarke agreed. "I try hard to make them brilliant efforts but there are some- I'm not ashamed of them but I wouldn't put them on my next album."
While both Clarke and Flannery expect they'll release another CD someday, neither is in a particular hurry. Clarke cited the prohibitive cost of recording a CD with full-blown production values.
"I have a family and I'm the sole wage earner. I can't afford to be spending ten grand on a vanity project. I take my music work seriously but if it doesn't generate a return, I can't do it," he stated
Fellow folk musicians tend to "cringe and make funny faces" when they hear about SongaWeek. They ask why the songwriters don't try to make money off the site, yet the ironic thing, Clarke reflected, is that they're broke too.
"You can have your own opinion subjectively on whether we're any good or not, that's a matter of taste. But to spend a $10,000 bill on an album that no one hears and doesn't pay back? It's not good business sense," he surmised. The musicians feel it pays to give their music away on SongaWeek because they're going to write it anyway. They'd rather the tunes be heard.
"As sarcastic and topically driven as we are most of the time, the radio would never play it anyway," laughed Clarke. He alluded to his recent song "I Support the Troops," as an example.
"It's a shot at all these people who put yellow ribbons on their tree and flags on their cars and they don't talk to their congressmen about giving these guys a living wage. The soldiers are over there fighting and their wives are going to the food bank to get Christmas dinner. That annoys me. If you really support the troops then pay them," the songwriter spouted.
He's positive the song would never get airplay. He's probably right. But you can not only hear "I Support the Troops" on SongaWeek, you can also read a copy of the lyrics, and legally download it free of charge. The future of music is digital, the duo feel, and this latest project may just make them cutting edge. They've searched and while they've found politically charged parodies, they haven't yet located quite like SongaWeek.
Flannery credits renowned folk musician Jack Hardy with supplying the initial idea. While performing in the region last year at Clarke's Old Church Concert Series, Handy spoke of a songwriting circle in which the participants were assigned to write a new song every week.
Flannery had long been urging Clarke to compose with greater frequency. The two became friends in the late 90s after appearing on a WVIA-FM Homegrown Music showcase of regional singer/songwriters.
Flannery's admiration for Clarke's talent was frustrated only by the fact that he soon exhausted the13 tracks on Clarke's only CD. He knew his friend had written other songs but when asked when the next release was coming, Clarke evasively replied, "When I pay for the first one." Flannery remained boggled by the amount of time, a month or more, Clarke would spend on any one song. The website began, in part, as challenge to speed up a slow poke's creative process.
"I said, look, this is the rule, you have to at least write a song a week. And it was like pulling teeth, getting him to write a song a week because generally he was writing like six songs a year," reminisced Flannery.
Clarke still doesn't pop out the three to four songs each week that Flannery does, but he'll drop into the studio about once a month with four new songs to share. He's posted 31 songs to SongaWeek since the site debuted.
"I consider that my plan has worked,' Flannery declared.
Tom Flannery has released four full-length CDs. Lorne Clarke has released one. They've each sold numerous copies, yet the singer/songwriters estimate more people have listened to their music for free on the Internet than have ever listened to all their recordings combined.
SongaWeek.com went live on April 1, 2003. The first song posted was a Flannery number called "Saddam's in Delaware." It was no April Fool's day joke. Subtitled "songs ripped from the headlines,' the website now boasts more than 135 fresh, original songs. The musicians not only allow visitors to download all of these copyright-protected selections free of charge, they encourage it.
Internet users have been more than happy to oblige. By early December, a mere eight months since its debut, SongaWeek had coughed up more than 10,000 downloads.
Last month, Flannery received a call from Garrison Keiller's assistant. The Prairie Home Companion host had been referred to Flannery's song "I Wish I Had a Job Like Garrison Keillor's." He liked it and asked to link to SongaWeek from his Public Radio International show's website. The link was prominently displayed on the front page for two long weeks and generated the greatest intensity of traffic SongaWeek has seen.
When you're giving it away for free, traffic is the most you can ask for. Well, almost. Flannery received a moving e-mail last week from a striking Tyson Food worker in Jefferson, Wisconsin. The songwriter posted "We're With You (From So Far Away," a song about the Tyson worker's plight back in November. According to the thank you note, Flannery's song is being played every day on the picket line.
"(That's) so much cooler than money," Flannery shared. "That note kinda sums up why we're doing this."
SongaWeek has evolved to include the occasional non-topical song. Clarke's "biggest hit" has been "Where's John," a tear-generating song inspired by his Alzheimer's afflicted mother. He shared the tune with a friend whose mother also has the degenerative disease. Profoundly touched, the friend shared the song with his support group who shared it with others who might relate.
"The next thing you know we're getting people coming (to the site) from New Zealand, Australia, England, all over the world, who are involved in Alzheimer's support groups because in the web it's a very small community," Clarke related. "It's kind of like an infection. It just spreads."
"The site's huge in the Alzheimer's community," boasted Flannery in jest.
It is the songs most specifically about current events, countered Flannery that generate the most traffic. Many of those who download music from SongaWeek first discover the site via an Internet search on a topical issue.
The Digital Audio Workspace in Flannery's basement office allows him to write, record, and upload new selections to SongaWeek within hours. Flannery's new song "Saddam Hussein is Dead," was online before many had heard the news of the former Iraqi dictator's capture. Within three days of being posted, claims Flannery, the song was listed on an Al Jazeerah web page.
"It's all a matter of speed. Saddam Hussein only gets caught in a hole once. Get the song out there," Flannery emphatically stated.
"Wait until you hear the news tomorrow that he escaped," Lorne giggled.
"Or that it's not really him." Flannery laughed. "It's a body double."
Such topical songs do attract people to the website, but they are also the songs that Flannery considers "the most disposable." Clarke referred to "The Iraqi Information Minister Song"that Flannery dashed off one day as a joke.
"This guy's standing there on TV and he's saying (in thickly accented voice), 'I triple guarantee you there are no American in Baghdad.' And a tank went by behind him. An American tank!" raved Clarke. The song was a joke, the two agree. Not a masterpiece. But people were searching the net for "Iraqi information minister" and they found SongaWeek.
"Somebody put a link on the Iraqi Information Minister website (welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com) and that site had so much traffic they had to buy a new server because their server crashed," recalled Clarke.
"They had like a million hits a day," Flannery confirmed. "Here we are trying to be taken seriously, and people are coming in and they're downloading this stupid song. I don't want to be remembered as the songwriter who wrote "The Iraqi Information Minister Song."
"If you're writing a song a week, not every one is going to be a brilliant effort," Clarke agreed. "I try hard to make them brilliant efforts but there are some- I'm not ashamed of them but I wouldn't put them on my next album."
While both Clarke and Flannery expect they'll release another CD someday, neither is in a particular hurry. Clarke cited the prohibitive cost of recording a CD with full-blown production values.
"I have a family and I'm the sole wage earner. I can't afford to be spending ten grand on a vanity project. I take my music work seriously but if it doesn't generate a return, I can't do it," he stated
Fellow folk musicians tend to "cringe and make funny faces" when they hear about SongaWeek. They ask why the songwriters don't try to make money off the site, yet the ironic thing, Clarke reflected, is that they're broke too.
"You can have your own opinion subjectively on whether we're any good or not, that's a matter of taste. But to spend a $10,000 bill on an album that no one hears and doesn't pay back? It's not good business sense," he surmised. The musicians feel it pays to give their music away on SongaWeek because they're going to write it anyway. They'd rather the tunes be heard.
"As sarcastic and topically driven as we are most of the time, the radio would never play it anyway," laughed Clarke. He alluded to his recent song "I Support the Troops," as an example.
"It's a shot at all these people who put yellow ribbons on their tree and flags on their cars and they don't talk to their congressmen about giving these guys a living wage. The soldiers are over there fighting and their wives are going to the food bank to get Christmas dinner. That annoys me. If you really support the troops then pay them," the songwriter spouted.
He's positive the song would never get airplay. He's probably right. But you can not only hear "I Support the Troops" on SongaWeek, you can also read a copy of the lyrics, and legally download it free of charge. The future of music is digital, the duo feel, and this latest project may just make them cutting edge. They've searched and while they've found politically charged parodies, they haven't yet located quite like SongaWeek.
Flannery credits renowned folk musician Jack Hardy with supplying the initial idea. While performing in the region last year at Clarke's Old Church Concert Series, Handy spoke of a songwriting circle in which the participants were assigned to write a new song every week.
Flannery had long been urging Clarke to compose with greater frequency. The two became friends in the late 90s after appearing on a WVIA-FM Homegrown Music showcase of regional singer/songwriters.
Flannery's admiration for Clarke's talent was frustrated only by the fact that he soon exhausted the13 tracks on Clarke's only CD. He knew his friend had written other songs but when asked when the next release was coming, Clarke evasively replied, "When I pay for the first one." Flannery remained boggled by the amount of time, a month or more, Clarke would spend on any one song. The website began, in part, as challenge to speed up a slow poke's creative process.
"I said, look, this is the rule, you have to at least write a song a week. And it was like pulling teeth, getting him to write a song a week because generally he was writing like six songs a year," reminisced Flannery.
Clarke still doesn't pop out the three to four songs each week that Flannery does, but he'll drop into the studio about once a month with four new songs to share. He's posted 31 songs to SongaWeek since the site debuted.
"I consider that my plan has worked,' Flannery declared.
