I wonder what is going to happen to the sale of commercial music. The paradigm of exploitation of the artist by big companies is going to end at some point.
The idea of music distribution by Internet subscription (Lala, Spotify and soon, iTunes) may mean the end of individuals “owning” recorded music in the physical form of CDs or even as downloads. The subscription thing smells of crap to me. I don’t know if the small business model of the artist selling his CDs from the back of his car after the gig or from MySpace will continue to work in the next few years.
And what happened to the taste leaders, those people, generally disc jockeys, who picked their own music and opened my mind and ears to new sonic ideas?
Big Tom Donahue was one of those amazing radio DJs. He was at KMPX in San Francisco. I remember one day when I was listening to Donahue and he said, “Look who’s here: It’s Otis Redding who’s appearing at the Filmore this weekend.” Otis sat down saying, “I’ve got this new song. I haven’t finished it. I’ve been staying on a houseboat in Sausalito and it kinda got me going.” He then strummed his guitar and sang the unfinished “Dock on a Bay.” I didn’t know Otis but it led me to find all his recordings.
While not a disc jockey, I’ve always been grateful to Bill Graham for his omnivorous musical tastes that brought amazing playbills of artists to the Filmore, Winterland or the Carousel Ballroom back in my younger days. Graham made million of new fans for such legends as Muddy Waters, BB King and Lightning Hopkins.
There have been lots of other radio DJs that changed my life and mind and ears along the way. I’m grateful to them all. Nowadays I look for playlists on iTunes but even they’re hard to find now.
Where do you turn for new ideas? Podcasts? Word of mouth?
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