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Some Interesting But Not Immediately Relevant News; "This Endless Night Inside" And "Blisters" Masters Digitized, VInyl? Remix And Remaster? Who knows!

3/28/2022

The first Thanatos LP, This Endless Night Inside, came out in the Fall of 1993. Back in those days we recorded to 1/2 inch tape. The second Thanatos LP, An Embassy to Gaius, was also recorded to 1/2 inch as was part of Blisters, the third.

The tapes for the first three Thanatos records have been siting around waiting on me to get off my arse and have them digitized. I finally did so.

The question here is what am I going to do with these once they are digitized? Do I go for a remix/remaster and release them again? I honestly do not know if it is necessary with regard to the first record. I think it sounds fairly good as is. If I could go back in time I might try to rein in the reverb a bit but at the TIME? That was what I wanted it to sound like.

Why should 55 year old me get to boss 26 year old me around?

But let's see what we find on the tracks before we say NO WAY. Maybe Sam and I missed some brilliant track on a song that should be included in a new mix.

Far more intriguing to me is the tape for Blisters. I have no earthly or otherworldly clue what is on these tapes. That record is quite sample heavy with many instruments running virtual. I have joked that the entire tape may just be armpit noises.

More likely than that is the possibility that bass, guitar, vocals and a click are on the tapes while most of the samples and virtual instruments are absent. There is absolutely no reason to remix and remaster the original version of Blisters. I think it sounds great as is. This leaves open an intriguing possibility; what about a new record based on what IS there? A sort of Thanatos Re-Blistered or Blisters 2022. Is this necessary? Is the world clamoring for it? Not really but it would be fun for me and right now my idea is to have various people take what is there and make entirely new songs using the parts.

Whether this happens I do not know but we shall see. I certainly didn't pay for the digital masters to do nothing with them.

One discussion I've had is doing vinyl for This Endless Night Inside. I am totally open to doing that if the time frame for vinyl production becomes less lengthy. I've seen turnaround times of over a year for small batch vinyl. I'd need to know, in advance, I could sell at least 100 copies before I would even think about doing it. I'd have to charge something like $35-40 for a single vinyl disc record . Would people cough that up?

You tell me!

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Why Did Thanatos Cover Body Count's Cop Killer?

3/7/2022

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Why did Thanatos cover Body Count's Cop Killer?

The reason is simple; the constant freak out over every song written by a black man that contained violent imagery made me what to do the cover.

It wasn't supposed to be a cover of just Cop Killer, however.

It was supposed to be a medley of the song and another one--Bruce Springsteen's State Trooper. Being good citizens we asked for permission. Body Count gave it (Sam got a number which wound up being Ernie C's cell phone). Springsteen's people sent a cease and desist order, despite the fact we hadn't actually, you know, released anything. This made my dislike of Springsteen's music a bit more personal though which was good. I no longer felt the need to pretend like I gave a shit about him. His fans would always do the Grateful Dead thing; they ask if you've seen him play and you respond "No, I hate his music." Then they come back with "But he puts on a FOUR HOUR SHOW." I don't want to see the man for 10 minutes let alone four HOURS.

But, as usual, I digress.

The point, of course, was that Springsteen or Johnny Cash can play songs about murder and mayhem and no one peeps. But a black man? HELL no! Unfortunately what we did was toss in some meaningless lyrics which gutted the entire point of the cover. Ideally I would have found another song by a less douchey artist than Springsteen. Or we could have just scrapped the song but I've never been one to waste recorded material.

Also let's dispense with the notion Cop Killer is a "rap" song. It isn't. It is a punk metal song by Body Count. It keeps getting put up as an Ice-T cover for some reason. Body Count is Ice-T's band of course but it is a rock act. That was also part of this. It was having a little bit of fun with the notion of a rap artist's metal song being covered by a white guy who then (sort of, as close as I could get to it) raps the song. This part of it was entirely lost on everyone.

Sometimes, no one gets my jokes.

But that is the story of the Cop Killer cover. It still strikes me as weird that it is, by far, the most streamed song by Thanatos. It is far from the only cover. It just goes to show you the power of Ice-T I guess.

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Why Streaming Isn't As Evil As You Think

3/4/2022

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Me, shrieking over getting no airplay

Here is the thing; back in the old days radio was a major part of how people consumed music.

We were, up to a point, slaves to the radio as listeners and especially as artists desperately seeking to be noticed (with all due respect to club DJs). Getting played on commercial radio was not something that happened with any frequency for underground bands. Most stations had playlists and those playlists eschewed small artists for big label bands. The only outlets for the little guys was college radio, community radio or overseas radio. Some days it seemed like everyone in France had their own radio show. These latter options paid very little, if anything (more on this below).

Regardless, the pay for getting played on the radio only kicked in, in any meaningful way, for artists who were HUGE. Part of this was their lock down on commercial radio but it was also how payment was determined. They did a sampling of what was playing and extrapolated. If you got played thousands of times a day? You were more likely to get a check.

Smaller artists literally made PENNIES for this play because in addition to commercial radio being ALL about major labels, college radio paid less into the Performing Rights Organizations. Frankly? The trade off for exposure was usually minimal. In 1996 I could count the college radio stations that actually meant anything on one hand. O.K., maybe two hands but barely.

Why do I bring all this up?

Because streaming is now what radio was then--except it offers artists an opportunity to direct people TO their music and to direct people to their music from all over the world. The pay is shit but I assure you getting $3 to $5 for 1000 plays (Spotify) is better than getting nothing for three plays at a radio station that broadcasts to the dorms at a small liberal arts college.

An example of a record that got NO fucking commercial radio airplay

As the math whiz types among you may note; Spotify pays about 0.003 to 0.005 cents per play. Commercial radio pays 9.1 cents. Sounds like a great deal. It is if you are Bruce Springsteen but, as noted, small artists rarely if ever get played on commercial radio. When a "local" gets played it is on some "locals" show at 3 am. Since you do NOT get paid for every play but, as mentioned, but via a sampling by the Performing Rights Organizations (mostly BMI and ASCAP), small artists should not be waiting by their mailbox for a check.

For all the people "standing up for the artists," I would also point out that Spotify has an option where listeners can DONATE to the artist. The next time I hear of anyone actually doing this will be the first time. No one does it because folks only pay lip service to giving a shit. Then there are all the people who proudly say they only stream on Bandcamp. Bandcamp pays NOTHING for streams. Not a penny. They are, however, an artist friendly site for downloads and they cost nothing for an artist to set up. Yet there is that nagging, no pay for streams thing. No one seems to know this either.

There are some oddities in reporting plays with some streaming services that I haven't had explained to me. How does a song go from more than a 1000 listens to much less than that? This may be some quantum thing beyond my understanding. I am looking into this and when I get an answer? I will post it as a comment here.

Now, let's talk about those fractions of a cent.

They can add up for artists who have a large underground following. You are not going to retire to the South of France on the cash. But if you have a track that gets 20,000 listens on Spotify? That is between $60 and $100. NOW, if you are getting that on Spotify you are likely getting played on Amazon, Apple Music, Pandora, Tidal and others. Sam Rosenthal told me that 84 to 98 % of artist payments from Projekt Records came from streaming.

You may say "Smaller artists never get 20,000 many plays!" Lycia, a former "label mate" of mine, have a song , A Failure, that has over 800,000 listens on Spotify (this info is public, I am betraying no trade secrets). Lycia, in fact, has eight songs with over 50,000 listens. Black tape for a blue girl, Rosenthal's band, has a song, Dulcinea, that has well over 200,000 listens.

My most listened to song is only in the 50,000 range. It is a cover of Body Count's Cop Killer.

My next rant? Will be about how that song came to be. It is an interesting and, to me, a bit of an enraging story even after 27 years!

Another example of a record that got no fucking commercial radio airplay

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Some Interesting But Not Immediately Relevant News; "This Endless Night Inside" And "Blisters" Masters Digitized, VInyl? Remix And Remaster? Who knows!

Why Did Thanatos Cover Body Count's Cop Killer?

Why Streaming Isn't As Evil As You Think

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