Some things happen in the studio that do not happen in live performance. To see that in action, watch people when they are getting their picture taken. "Look natural!" Then most of us look like people who are looking antural and that makes it all very unnatural.

Live performance is where the rubber hits the road between the performer and the audience. As was noted above, if yer on the audience/performer dynamic is increased exponentially. The songs are natural because both know it's a one-time thing. Studios are costly. Sit and do a take and be very extra-careful not to make a mistake, because the flaws and all approach doesn't work for everyone. Take seven: can we do it ONE more time and try not to breathe at the end of the third stanza, second line. Etc.

We have all heard performers breathe into a microphone. In live performance, who cares? On tape, it's there until it's edited out.

Music is still as good as it ever was. So are the people who create it: the composers, songwriters, interpreters. As was also noted above, the marketing side of the industry has changed its focus from the presentation of art to the production of product.

There was a time . . . . Recall the Elektra days or the Columbia days when people like Holzman or Hammond would take chances on people they thought might 'take off'. That doesn't happen too much anymore. I think kids today are as creative as they were at any time in the past. Maybe more so. But the moguls who run the business have a different focus, a different agenda. And the stations that play it have their advertisers to please, and stock holders. Just as in the past. But now, musicians are smartening up and the Motown days when singers got bugger all for their efforts--ripped off for their work and mostly were unable to do anything about it are maybe coming to an end. Hell, look at the pirated mp3 shit that's out there. Some writer somewhere ain't getting his nickle, and some singer ain't getting his. Honestly, how many folks have pirated stuff from the 'net? No one here I'm sure, but look at your friend's collection of stuff and then wonder why music has become hard-up.

On a thread a few days back (maybe yesterday) someone posed the question "Why do folk clubs have a cover charge?" Keriste, do we have it built into our culture that it's OK to pay a plumber $70 an hour, a lawyer the same, but a folksinger a cuppa coffee and a donut? Until there is a strong union of writers, singers, composers, there will be ripoffs. And as long as scabs will undercut a fellow performer, there will be ripoffs. If the industry sucks, it's partly the fault of musicians. We enable people to get away with it.

Anyway, that's my rant for today. Y'all take care. And to quote Mark Ross (who quotes someone else), "Take it easy, but take it."