A modest audio experiment using SoundCloud.

In our ever expanding effort in finding the easiest way to bring you our Oblivion catalog in the modern world, I thought I’d try a new experiment with the digital music community SoundCloud. 

For several years, we’ve made the entire catalog available for free in high quality digital downloads (directly from the original mastered, digitized in WAV or AIFF formats), though I have to say it can be a bit confusing to actually do the download, depending on which browser you prefer. And, for a variety of personal reasons many people would prefer using streaming services or buying downloads, so we made those available about a year ago. 

Now, to make listening in your browser easier, and to make downloading dead simple, you’ll find our first SoundCloud track available here (above), and on the album post itself.

Why do I like the SoundCloud option so much? First off, it’ll continue make our tracks accessible for free, that’s a given. And then, it’s easier to use in every way. Effortless to listen, elementary to download, simpler to share. I also love the way listeners can put a comment right in the track (like the two I’ve left; at 14 seconds in there’s a bit of McDowell philosophy that I love).

So, my experiment isn’t the biggest deal in the world, but please try it out and let me know what you think. If everyone likes it enough I’ll upload and embed the rest of our library.

As of May 20, 2012, available on SoundCloud:

• The entire remastered reissue of the 2000 edition of Mississippi Fred McDowell: Live in New York (Oblivion OD-1), with bonus tracks.

• The 1972 original mastering of the 2nd edition of Mississippi Fred McDowell: Live in New York (Oblivion OD-1).

• The 1972 original recording of the 45rpm single Johnny Woods: Mississippi Harmonica (Oblivion O#2).

• The 1974 LP release, Blues from the Apple, by Charles Walker and the NYC Blues Band (Oblivion OD-4). 

• The 1975 LP release, Livin’ High Off Nickels & Dimes, by jazz vocalist extraordinaire Joe Lee Wilson (Oblivion OD-5).

For me, the top photo of Blues from the Apple guitarist Foxy Ann Yancey has been the quintessential image of this recording. So much so, it merited one of my first posts on this blog several years ago. Everything about it —the funky quality of the print, Ann’s evening dress in the middle of a Saturday afternoon recording session in a college studio, her cigarette, and mostly, the attitude I sensed on her face— not only seemed “blues” to me, but sparked my memories of being around the woman 40 years ago. As a suburban raised white kid, I was sightly intimidated and kept my distance, usually communicating with leader Charles Walker. 

And then, a few months ago the photographer, my great friend Roy Langbord, stumbled up some of the original negatives from the session (I posted the contact sheets here) and made a discovery. You can click through them and maybe notice the same thing. 

Foxy Ann smiled.

And it reminded me how fragile, and suggestible, our memories can be. And like all of us humans, the blues has a lot of simultaneous faces.

Posting about the photograph on Tom’s LP cover the other day got me to asking his son Travis more about the history of the custom made guitar pictured (he’s promised to get me some better shots, which I’ll post as they come in). Here’s what Travis had to say about the instrument:

“Hmmmm. Well it was made for him by Dobro* in ‘74, prior to the [Dopyera] brothers selling out to Gibson.

“It’s the first electrified Dobro every made. They implanted a Gibson Firebird pickup under the bridge. It was originally a sunburst finish** that I used to Pledge before his gigs as part of my chores. He later had it redone in jet black after he and my mother split in ‘79. You know Tom. I’m sure there is over romanticized symbolism there.

“It was hand engraved by the eldest [Dopyera] brother.

“Mandolin Brothers is on Staten Island; that’s where Tom found a tech who know resonator guitars, mandolins, and banjos. At the time they were the only alternative to Sam Ash, and where a “folkie” mecca.  But most importantly, the tech took payment in vinyl (like my dentist).

“It currently resides in my home studio where it is pledged and played 2 times a year Jan 25th and July 17th***.”

…..

* Even though it looks black, the guitar has its original sunburst finish (like this) in this photo.

** In the original post I mistakenly identified the builders as Mandolin Brothers of Staten Island, whose shop, in fact, did Tom’s repairs on the guitar.

*** The anniversaries of Tom’s birth and death. 

My mother recently moved out of her suburban Long Island house after 56 years and I recovered some boxes of the detritus of a young life. Thankfully, there are several random Oblivion Records artifacts that I’ll be posting as I get around to the scanner. Last week it was some stuff out of the company checkbook. 

Today, I found the only print I’ve seen of the front of Tom Pomposello’s first LP, a 1975 photograph by Tom’s close friend, Mike Bifulco. It was shot in the backyard of the Commack Blues Band’s guitarist, Michael Altshuler, on Briarfield Lane, in Huntington.

Completely aside from Tom’s stylish hippie attire, the thing that stands out for me in the portrait is the hand crafted guitar from The Mandolin Brothers in Staten Island Dobro*. Tom loved that instrument, with it’s “Customized for Honest Tom Pomposello by The Mandolin Brothers” engraving on the resonator (as you can partially see in the detail below). I’ll try and find out a little more about its provenance from Tom’s son and get back to you on it.

Photography by Michael Bifulco, Huntington, New York, 1975

* My mistake, corrected in this post.

It’s hard to say whether I’m happy to recollect that we actually paid artists, and sometimes their royalties, or I’m embarrassed by how short the money was. I guess I should remember that it was 40 years ago, and everyone seemed happy with the amounts. 

And it’s great to recall we were among the first members of NAIRD, the National Association of Independent Record Distributors, now The American Association of Independent Music (or A2IM). 

I wanted to give a little clarity on the digital reissue of Mississippi Fred McDowell: Live in New York (Oblivion OD-1.1 & OD-1.2).

• If your looking at iTunes, Amazon, Spotify, MOG, or the rest of the digital universe, the release is spread across two albums; Volume 1 has 11 tracks, and Volume 2 has 12. 

The mixes on these volumes exactly mirror the 23 tracks on the 1999 reissue produced by Tom Pomposello; this short lived CD was known as Live at the Gaslight. These tracks are also available for free download (yes, seriously) directly from us.

• The 1973 release, a slightly cleaned up version of the original 1972 issue, is only available as free downloads from us. 

Questions?

Inner sleeve, Live in New York, 2nd edition, 1973

By the early 1970s, album covers had progressed from plain brown wrappers to hand painted merchandising to beautifully designed artifacts. “Rock” (as opposed to rock’n’roll) elevated lowly cardboard to personal expression. 

All this is to say that even at a tiny independent like Oblivion doing the most with your LP covers was seen by the company as a statement that the music inside was worthy of great attention. No one ever accused Tom and me of wanting to hold back on what we knew (we were waiting for the internet without even knowing it), and Tom’s evangelism for Fred McDowell was so complete that he insisted we needed an inner sleeve for Fred’s Oblivion release.

No matter we were broke (as always) and that a sleeve without a hole was even more expensive, in addition to the extra typesetting, negatives, printing plates, and the printing itself.

I think if we had it to do over, we might have included the lyrics, like we did on Blues from the Apple; after all, blues lyrics are the lifeblood of the form. Fred’s discography was nowhere as extensive as it is now, 40 years after his death, so we resolved that spreading the word on his recorded legacy would be worthy of our listeners’ attention.

What have we learned about the digital music business?

We released all our Oblivions* digitally (and internationally) on an experimental basis over the past year (2011), and you might be interested in the results. There was absolutely no analytical methodology involved, and we didn’t promote the launch in any way. (We sure didn’t tell any of you —our biggest fans— about it.) But Tunecore, our digital distributor, gives us very detailed sales numbers and we’ve extrapolated these results. 

The overwhelming hit in every category —albums, individual tracks, songs streamed— was our first album, Mississippi Fred McDowell: Live in New York. It’s not surprising, Fred was the most famous artist we released. Fred’s version of Big Joe Williams’ blues standard “Baby Please Don’t Go” is the top track seller, and while Joe Lee Wilson’s “Jazz Ain’t Nothing But Soul” surprised me as our top jazz, “God Bless the Child” was right behind it. But, it’s completely gratifying to me that our virtual unknowns, Blues From The Apple and Marc Cohen Copland’s Friends, got a few sales too. That’s interesting from the perspective that “search” the most likely way one finds tracks is less likely to pop up results for these two albums.

Here are the 2011 percentages, by store. 

55%  iTunes  
 (Australia 27%, US 18%, Europe 5%) 

27%  Amazon  
 (7%  On Demand)

15%  eMusic 

  1%  Spotify 

  1%  Napster 

>1%  Nokia, MediaNet, Zune, VerveLife, MySpace Music

Our conclusions? 

It’s obvious that iTunes is the big winner. They’ve clearly done a better job in more territories (North America, Europe, Australia, Japan) than any of the other digital stores.

And, just as obvious, the stores that sell downloaded files are, as of now, delivering far more in revenue dollars than streaming sites. It’s clear to me that as more and more music is readily available costs to consumers will come way down, as will return to artists. But, no matter how much the business struggles to hang onto the surplus income of the last 50 years, that era is over, and is the idea of making a killing with recordings.

(By the way, that’s what happened to books after television became the primary entertainment medium. Once wealthy publishers, and well off authors, and in the clover book companies, tumbled to fractionally lower returns. Today —and digital hasn’t really transformed publishing yet— book publishing is a financially paper thin business, with only the top of the top making money. Everyone else uses books to promote their “brands.”)

Surprises? 

My biggest shock is that Zune and MySpace are still in business. Small business, but still around. Napster too; I guess well known brands can hang in there. 

It shouldn’t be a surprise, but it’s still amazing to me that given the sheer of the United States that relatively small Australia delivered more absolute dollars from iTunes. As we’ve known for decades, other countries appreciate American blues more than we do on home territory.

And, I suppose it’s not a shock, but Spotify has surely out marketed all the other streaming services, even though, in my humble opinion, it’s currently an inferior product. It’s the only streaming service that gave Oblivion any returns, small as they are in absolute dolllars. MOG (my personal favorite), Rhapsody (the longest lived streamer), and the other’s barely made a dent.

Lastly, I was astounded that anyone used Amazon’s On Demand service (where Amazon will burn a physical product for a customer for music that’s otherwise only available digitally) to buy some of our albums. But, I suppose some folks just have to have something in their hands to feel like they own it. Or they haven’t entered the 21st century of music consuming yet.

I think that’s about it. If anything else occurs to me I’ll update this post.

…..
* Except Tom Pomposello, where we don’t have access to the original master tapes.

I never really welcomed the tumblr community to Oblivion Records, nor did I really explain the move or ask them (you) to please follow us. It’s simple. Click here, register if you haven’t already, and you’ll see all my sporadic postings in real time as they show up in your dashnboard.

Tumblr’s the fastest growing blog community in the world, upwards of 10 million right now, with 50,000 more every day. And a lot of them are blues and jazz fans, perfect for Oblivion. I figured it was a fertile place to make new fans for a company with old, great music.

I’ve been involved in tumblr from their beginnings (David Karp, tumblr founder, interned for me and then incubated tumblr in my office) and I’ve seen first hand the boost it can give any blog. I haven’t really had the time to work on Facebook for Oblivion, but I think tumblr can be the social solution that works for us.

Please let me know if tumblr works well for you.