Something Phishy goin’ on
Professor Lindenfeld brought in Jon Fishman as a special guest to our mass communication class this morning. He’s not much of a lecturer, but it worked out well; it meant there was lots of time for questions.
But… but… why did we have the drummer to one of the best bands out there in our mass communication class? It’s an easy answer; Phish is a band that goes against many of the conventional methods of publicity and publication.
Of note: Phish owns their songs. They don’t belong to a record company, or some powerful (rich) single person. The band owns the songs, and they do what they want with them. Not to mention every time they make a trip about three hours north of here, tens of thousands of people crowd the former Loring Air Force Base to hear them play.
My biggest interest in the band, though, is their means of distribution for music; namely, they offer every show they do – usually within 48 hours of playing – usually for $9.95 at livephish.com. No, it’s not the Live Music Archive, and no, you can’t get songs for free. It’s such a great complete service, though, that I think the innovation makes up for the price you have to pay. Besides, the proceeds go to charity.
Jon talked for the whole class period on his views on the music industry; one of his best points was that “music industry” is an oxymoron. He argued that music is meant to be innovative and pure while an industry is devoted to perpetuating what works and is a solid bet for generating revenue. He said that Phish wasn’t a “14-year-old girl” band, one that catches on with preteen girls and then spreads because they tell their parents and boyfriends to like the music. He brought up the fact that there should always be art for art’s sake and music for music’s sake, something that I’ve learned as I’ve moved from computer science to new media. His view is that he wouldn’t mind playing for five devoted fans instead of ten thousand normal fans. That’s the kind of devotion I like to see out of a band that concentrates on live music.
On a related note, he brought up how he personally thinks file sharing is a good method of distribution but overall it can greatly hurt smaller artists. He described file sharing as an equalizer; people will only go see the bands with talent live, and that’s where money will be made in the future. Recorded music, in one form or another, will be free and will be used as a tool to encourage people to go to concerts. I love it when artists agree with how I think.
After class he went with Professor Lindenfeld to the Memorial Union to talk for a while with whoever had the time to chat. I went along with about 15 other people in our class (including some VERY devoted fans who were completely surprised to see him talk in class). People walking by gave us some weird looks, and every once in a while there was a gasp and then someone sitting down beside us.
Surprises are good.
I downloaded IT tonight; it’s about time I owned some Phish tunes. They’re awesome, after all.
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