There is no difference when your business partners intend to harm your life.

Business transactions make friends of people, but people who call you a friend, and screw you in business were no friends in the first place.

Let’s take the two brothers Johnston. These effeminate boys walk around today using my ideas, my sweat, and my experience and masquerade as if they had any sense. What it comes down to is they have avoided all conversation and insist I sue them to regain what we agreed on. They are not men of honor, they shake hands but don’t intend to uphold their word.  Either way, the older, yet dumber brother Justin, has considered me a third since May of 2016 (Mind you I have given them my time and energy since 2015) and the younger one, Trevor agreed to 10%. They specifically told me that another partner, a lady by the name of Amber Morelli and a man by the name “TIm McGraw’s Tour Manager”, (this how they described people in their phones, I was listed as Sean Kingston’s Manager) were also 10% partners, but there was nothing in writing. Given that these two people did none of the hard work of the road, their ability to ask for 10% with no paperwork is wild, yet the two brother’s will most likely give it to them out of confusion about how business and the world works.

This company they started, excuse me, the company the younger, smarter brother started, is a great invention. I say this because there is no reason I would fold my 15 year business and go into business with them educating the public about said product if I did not see the future use of this product. This product is so stellar that the military uses it constantly and some soldiers have freaked out upon showing it to them. Let’s think about this for a second. Radio, GPS, Drones, Night Vision, etc. all started with the military and trickled down the public, this product does the opposite, it trickles up to the military. These two boys are destined to make some money, but they cannot expect to avoid their third partner forever. The partner who had the experience on the road to get traction. The same partner who drove an oversized RV and trailer loaded with weight across the rocky mountains multiple times, packed, hauled, advanced, and managed a tour of country music festivals and literally lost his voice during a sidewalk sale in a market opened with his experience in motorcycles.

They say the best business are made from secrets, well it’s no secret these two are up to their elbows in virtue signaling and stealing a free option from the public. The lies are so deep they tell everyone their product is made in the USA when it’s manufactured in China. They come to my area of the USA (the South) and expect real cowboys to take them seriously. Their whole roux is a made-up facade to fool what they call “low-hanging fruit”. The country music festival circuit is something that is foreign to them. Their ability to name-drop to make them seem more valuable is a speciality of theirs. These boys also come from California, which is the last place the Cowboy ended up, baby cowboys these boys are.

Here’s the skinny, I don’t mind that these boys, and I do mean boys, as men keep their word, go around galavanting as if they have all the ideas, using a tent idea I put into play and selling a lot of the motorcycle styled pieces I implemented, but the cowboy world they want will never give into fakes. These dudes are not sure what they did, and don’t want to resolve it like men. So yet again I have met some non-honorable men in this world. There seems to be more than I expected.  Until they make it right they will forever think of me.

I played music today, that I own, does the publisher, label, or artist know? Nope. Let’s say the internet is where I go instead, is that traceable? Yes.

I own a collection of music, that I should be able to upload to Youtube, in a playlist form, and generate enough views to bring on sponsors and advertisers. These are the original recordings, capable of being captured by Youtube’s content ID system. The rights owners retain the right to say if the playlist is taken down or allowed to generate income through sponsors and advertisers.

If I make the same playlist on Spotify, I do not get the right to bring on sponsors or advertisers capable of generating an obvious difference in income due to a better product offering. There is no doubt I’m better playlister than your average college grad, computer science geek, or video gamer. But, Because there are faux experts at the top of the record industry, they allowed, for money, a fake award presented to the nerds, as the best at deciding how music is delivered.

The problem was that Spotify (who recently blocked me on Twitter) paid an enormous amount of upfront money for plays to happen in the future.  VCs somehow fell for this and the money went straight to the labels, to prop up their dying business model. Why didn’t VCs just bail out the labels and help them build a streaming service….because due to lack of an R&D model that would have never happened, but it indirectly did. Spotify was funded through VCs believing they were a music player software not a predictor of rockstar success. Now, if the nerds’ data crunching analysis & predictions were a real business model, they would be as close to forecasting rockstars as your local fortune teller. Every musician should beware of the ponzi scheme that is Spotify.

I seek fame like the rest of you. I have worked with famous people for a long time so I am going to tell you how to do it. I care what my peers think, they are the arbiters of my fame. Their decision to like me or not will determine how famous I become. I need the support of everyone else’s decisions to bolster mine. I need them to see that I am trying to do the right thing. Where is everyone moving to right now? Nashville, San Francisco, Denver? They will approve of my move if I pick one of these cities. CNN always gives air time to celebrities & people looking to be famous. I am from the south, maybe I know someone indirectly who can get me some air time. Nashville is the closest to CNN, that is where I’ll go.

This is how I will do it, by doing whatever works to get famous. The only way, follow the already famous. Get my follower count up, worry with externals, feel anxious, run marathons, call everyone that doesn’t agree with me, racist, sexist, or another ist. The only way to become an elitist is to dismiss what is not a norm. Norms are going to push my eliteness into the stratosphere. I’ll be the most famous musician ever. None can compare. Forget equal, I want to be greater than you. I must train myself to think like the growing crowd. No one else voted for the libertarian candidate, why was I trying to be different. Why was I trying to stand out and be ostracized for not agreeing with the guy next to me. Why did I put that hardship in my life.  I’m finally learning you can do anything as a recording artist and get away with it & you can do anything as a democrat and get away with it. I really need to start getting away with anything and blaming others who try to set me straight as being in the wrong. It all seems so simple now. Examine nothing independently. Everything is an already science.

As a musician in the modern era / internet era, I should focus on taking pictures, at the beach, with crabs, to show people I’m socially capable of making faces with nature involved. I should relegate my wardrobe to brands that deserve and get attention in the current market. As a musician in the modern era I should keep a camera or pay a camera-guy/girl to follow me around & capture anything that makes me seem more to-date. I must forget about how music used to work, I must change for the greater role of the modern man in music. I must learn the ways of the internet musician. To stay with the future growth I must follow what the industry is doing.

We should all do this, record in a studio, vote the same, & forget that to have a recording we should play live first. We should concern ourselves with video first principles. We should do so because the label & streaming industry is growing and we want to see it grow. We want to talk about its growth with others, and validate each other with our decision making skills. This is what we all must do, read current articles, blogs, newspapers, the dailys. Books are old, the internet is new. Throw away the books and get an e-reader. We all must abandon what feels good and natural for the sake of the industry.

Monoculture and monolithic thought is something to aspire to, you will not have to argue with that many people, you won’t live in fear that everyone is different than you, and you don’t have to worry about being unpopular. You can drift through life carefree and careless. Easy street. I wasn’t challenged in school so why should I be challenged in life. Challenges are tough. Life is supposed to be easy. Follow the crowd, mimic what they say, blame everyone else for my shortcomings, use circular reasoning to win arguments. Forget winning at life I want to win now.

This is how the internet works. The internet dictates what music is. Music has changed since the internet, and will keep changing. The business will remain the same. The experts tell us to capture video, forget about the song/sound & put audio last. Don’t focus on writing a song to stick out amongst the 40 million, just record a great video. Label deals have the most money set aside for marketing & the least amount for touring. Focus on your video/image not on your performance. If I can only record a forgettable song & shoot an amazing video, It all seems so simple, so easy to do. Why didn’t I think of this earlier. Why didn’t I take the easy route. Man life is tough, If only I knew earlier that I could get away with doing wrong by voting for Obama/Hillary.

I need to take out a student loan and go to film school, learn pro-tools, how to code software, and create a video game app based around music. After attending an Ivy league or prestigious enough university that people will gawk at my credentials, I will go to Sweden and look for opportunities in video game companies where I can intern, but I won’t be an intern without getting paid. I just paid for college, for f**** sake, I’m learning something new, and must be paid to do so. Maybe I’ll be an intern for life. This seems like the best paying job in the current market. Once I’ve created and coded my own video game, I will then code a music player that I can game with algorithmic metrics. I will then approach the music catalogue of the world and proceed to game it to where the majority will use my app. No one is doing it like this, I will be famous for fixing the music industry. When I stand on stage, I want others to look at me and see how famous I am. I will tell them they can’t be like me, even though I am constantly trying to be like them. I will put them down because they exalt me. I will use their feebleness to my own acclaim & I’ll be famous soon, like Obama or Ek. The transition has begun. Be on the look-out for my new single. Look for it, don’t listen for it. Listening is not a part of music anymore, just look at my funny hat and be amazed. Watch out Rihanna, my Icon status is not far off.

These record labels & songwriting foundations are 100 years old. They have been doing this a lot longer than I, but not longer than music, but it’s not music I am seeking, I am seeking fame. Fame today is not musical but cinematic. I must craft a narrative instead of a song. Damn, I need to get internet at the cabin so I am not distracted to play music or practice. I need internet so I can upload videos and images. QUIT PLAYING LIVE MUSIC & FOR GOODNESS SAKE, WORK ON YOUR VIDEO!!!! Man, what a day to be alive. How has this epiphany been avoiding my thoughts for so long. How come I didn’t just open my eyes to what others are doing, and focus my sights on being like them. If I want to do something, just study how someone else is doing it. Geez this way is so obviously right. I can already see the narrative developing, “Musician turns his sights on becoming famous, goes to college, codes software and in the process develops thousands and thousands of fans.” I will then start a foundation based around children and homeless people and out of guilt it will pressure other artists to give to my foundation. I don’t want to worry anymore with trying to be good, being good is hard work. It’s much easier to be bad & forget that reasonable mindset called goodness. I seek fame, popularity, followers, measurable metrics such as views, streams & impressions. I’m almost there, just gotta keep lying to myself.

A hoodwink has taken place.

Things are a lot worse in the music business than people would think. We are being fed a digital representation but with nothing to prove a physical engagement. The music business rebound is being done with the public paying the price. HUH? The labels debt is being transferred to the subscription audience. A captive crowd? Like a casino, cruise ship or better yet a PAC (performing arts center). PAC’s can book some stellar music but also have to fill a quota and bring in sub-acts for the already paying audience. If you have a PAC membership or subscription (think season ticket holder) this is what a captive audience is. They don’t have a choice in the music because they are paying for the subscription, to be a part of an audience, regardless of what comes down the channel. You went to a football game but have no care who sings the anthem. The label would like you to follow the visual entertainment so you do not care who is singing or what they sound like. Ariana “freakin” Grande. I think it was Barnum who would hire bad sounding musicians to play outside his circus show so people would hurry inside for better entertainment.

So the digital representation of new media is filled with visual acts who cannot back up a physical presence in music. Bad music hurts the inner ears. If you can listen between your ears, and follow them deeply inside your head, you’ll come to hear so much trash it will change how you listen. Kind of like the technology is changing how we listen to records. Please take the volume down in your headphones to the lowest setting. When we have a choice we are going to choose what sounds best not what someone says I should sit down and listen to, just because I have this season ticket/subscription/membership, or that you should buy a pair of headphones b/c sports players have them. Your ears will thank you as you get older.

Let’s use the hypothetical but relatable case of a clothing subscription model. If you subscribed to an online service and ordered a pair of pants, the model guarantees, if they don’t fit, send them back. You do not have to pay for something that you do not have an experience with. In this option, the clothing company guarantees your physical relationship with the product. If it does not work, no harm, no foul. Now take the label model at streaming services. You pay a subscription, are fed mostly label style (same sound) music, aren’t being allowed to get a refund if you don’t like the music being pushed, and are being spoon fed as if you were a baby in a high-chair. Your choices have diminished and they have removed the variability of bottom-up choice or natural selection that the internet is suppose to provide. The radio is broadcast, the internet is choice. Labels are restraining a natural system and making the audience pay the price. This system will not work. You hear this music and then go see an artist live and you feel cheated. No one forces you to buy a ticket and makes you sit in a seat if you do not like the show. You have the option to leave. The prison model of label/streaming, forces us the same sounds with very little options. I skipped 7 songs last night inside a Pandora app, just to change rhythm. Seven songs, same exact tempo, same beat….low dimensionality.

The label missed the boat and began to sink but their transfer to a subscription platform is a tell that they are not primarily interested in the best, but in a quota-to-fill model. The stiff arm tactics with the label owning equity in streaming services will again benefit the label but not the artist and is all paid for by the audience and advertisers. In a live concert setting (where complex systems thrive through interactivity and variability) the promoter makes a lot of money but the artist is usually the bigger winner (In most cases and in the long run). The seasons changed with interactive technology, but labels have been propping up their antiquated model with audience subscriptions and technology they did not create. Independent artists cannot rise through Spotify due to agreements with label music. Agreements like a lower royalty rate if the song plays more in the service. These non-interactive plays inside playlists are being modelled so the label gets the dollar no matter what plays and when. They are ignoring the data and taking the money.  This disregard, of what interactive systems need to thrive, is another tell of their misunderstanding the market. The labels are essentially pulling the same business model that Vulfpeck did. They do not care who is listening and when (the context doesn’t matter) they only care that the money comes from streams. Streams of what? Blank 30second spaces?  Question: What are they counting (keeping track of) inside streams? Answer: The artists on their roster or anything that benefits their bottom line.

The NDA deals with Spotify, and the like, basically stifles all new sounds from coming up and thus Artisans are headed to Youtube.  The artist and Youtube split the share down the middle. That’s agreeable, who argues with equality in the system. This is also why labels hate Youtube, they don’t get they money, the artist does. Youtube will break Artists before the label, and the label will come running. Take the Bieber kid for example. The label came in and marketed something without letting it develop. The poor kid remains in the news, probably due to an inability to deal with the audience. Just like your girl Ariana. The stifling of letting an organism develop naturally, truly harms these acts in the long run. It’s hard to be a long-term artist in a model where the label is only concerned with the short term dollar.

This is a fragile system that concentrates errors with artificial structures around music. Music starts with performance, not records. Music starts with rhythm, not melody. Primary parts and path dependence. The sequence matters. You wash your shirt then you iron it. You do not push a song when you have zero demand live. You do not make the packaging bigger than the product. And the artist never comes before the song, ever, ever, never, ever.