Monopoly - It's Not Just For Real-Estate

So before I get to the Gian Ghomeshi - Billy-Bob Thornton thing, I'd like to get a bit of a rant off my chest. I listened to a podcast from HowStuffWorks.com called "Stuff From The B-Side", and the topic (which was actually from a month ago) was concert tickets. And it got me all agitated all over again. Let me explain why.

You may have heard of a little company called Ticketmaster. You mave have heard of them because almost anytime you try to buy a concert ticket, you will be dealing with Ticketmaster - usually on their website, these days. An estimated 80 percent of venues in the United States sell their tickets via Ticketmaster, but unfortunately, if I gave you a percentage of Canadian venues, it would be made up completely off the top of my head and less than trustworthy. But let's assume it's similar. Now, you may or may not have heard of Live Nation. It's possible you haven't, but they are the leading concert promoter in America. Essentially, they are responsible for signing contracts with artists, and then booking them into venues across the nation, and getting them all the fancy stuff that famous people ask for...

Here. This is what they do.



So, if you will imagine, Ticketmaster gets the people in the seats and the money to the artists, while Live Nation gets the artists on the stage... and the money to the artists (Cash money!). I don't have a problem with either part of this process occurring, since without it there would be no show. The problem is that Ticketmaster and Live Nation are each absolute giants in their respective industries - everyone who's anyone deals with these two companies. No, that's not the problem. The problem is that they're about to get married.

Or in less romantic terms, they are about to engage in a corporate merger. This deal is worth a lot, and lenders approve. I, however, do not.

A quick refresher on business monopolies: they occur when one company controls such a large share of the industry they are involved with, that other companies cannot compete. This allows said company to direct their prices however they like, and consumers can go you-know-what themselves if they don't like it.
Think about it. If the promoter is in cahoots with the ticket seller, who do you think they'll award the ticket rights to? And do you think the tickets will be sold at bare-bones prices, when there's really no way for the "competition" to compete? And if that wasn't enough... think of the scalping.

You know, when people buy a bunch of concert tickets as soon as they go on sale, and then sell them at a huge mark-up. Well, welcome to the Internet dimension. Now the scalpers can use software that snaps up, say, 500 tickets the second they go on sale on Ticketmaster's website. Then, within seconds, they can have those tickets up for sale on their own, secondary-market website, and people looking to buy tickets will be hard-pressed to find an alternative to this captive market. This would be bad enough if it was limited to eBay and Craigslist. But oh no, the big dogs have their fingers - paws? - in this pot too.

Check out TicketsNow. They offer the tickets you can't find at Ticketmaster, for an increased price. If you dig deep enough, you will find that they are a subsidiary of none other than Ticketmaster. So Ticketmaster sells these tickets to TicketsNow, which sells them again, and the profit all finds its way back home. Ticketmaster is selling those tickets. TWICE.

I apologize for the number of times the word "ticket" has appeared in this post. I'm getting paid a commission for using it. Support the little guys!

So what can we do? Well, we can stop going to concerts that Ticketmaster and/or Live Nation is profiting from. But that eliminates the vast majority of live events in North America, so... Oh! We could buy the tickets and give them away to people who couldn't afford them, as a means of protest. But then, Ticketmaster's already made their money... OH! Tell artists to boycott venues dealing with these two companies. Well, Pearl Jam tried it, but also cancelled their American tour, since that's about the same thing as only playing in places that don't deal with Ticketmaster.

So are we stuck? No. The United States Senate is holding hearings to determine if this merer would breach American anti-trust laws. I really really don't want to investigate their Constitution and find out the Legalese, but they're basically assessing the deal to see if it reeks of monopolization. I can only hope that they do indeed smell that and, with kerchief held over mouth, overturn the decision. Otherwise, be prepared to see even more hiking of ticket prices at Ticketmaster. And don't be surprised if secondary-market concert tickets reach prices in the thousands - or worse.

And if Ticketmaster and Live Nation try to push concertgoers around...

Pretty Important Questions, Y'All

Ok, I'm going to ask some questions that are related to music - sometimes only on a molecular level, but that's ok. Answer them if you'd like. Actually, answer them if I'd like... and I would. So now you have to. I think that's how it works.

Who would win in a fight between a piano and a sousaphone? Prison rules.

What do you think Mick Jagger's favourite colour is?

WHO is Carly Simon singing about in "You're So Vain"?

WHO really shot Mr. Burns?

What's a song that reminds you of each of the seasons?

LISTEN TO THIS!(He said, in the form of a question...)

For that matter, check out QTV if you're ever hankering for some cool music and a super-great Canadian radio DJ. That reminds me! Jian Ghomeshi-Billy-Bob Thornton showdown, in an upcoming post. I'll be honest, these summertime blues have my blog-sense out of whack, but if you complain enough I'll do what I can.

The Hazards Of Love

If you're anything like me, your listening tastes slide back and forth between exploring new music and sinking into stuff you know and love. I know that financial constraints keep me from the first option more than I'd like, but I try and hear stuff I've never heard before. And sometimes, there is a happy medium - a band I know and enjoy, doing something more ambitious and unique than they have before. It's almost like a new band entirely. Sometimes their changes lose me a little - like with Coldplay's and Ray LaMontagne's newest efforts. But sometimes, the band is The Decemberists. And sometimes, The Decemberists release a prog-rock concept album that is currently the greatest thing I have to listen to, and sometimes it is entitled The Hazards of Love.

That doesn't happen all the time, though.

This is the best concept album I have ever heard. This is perhaps the best example of story-telling I have ever come across in musical form.


Here's a very brief plot summary:
William is found as an infant by the Forest Queen, who saves him and turns him into a shape-shifter. He meets and falls in love with Margaret in the forest, but the Queen's not cool with that. A Rakish Man abducts Margaret with the assistance of the Queen, William saves Margaret, and they are together forever.

Here are some musical highlights:
A Bower Scene - The first hint towards how heavy the band is going to be. If you've historically listened to The Decemberists, be warned that this album has a heavy-metal flavour, and it's not afraid to use it.
Isn't It A Lovely Night? - There aren't many songs in the band's canon that compare to this one for saccharine sweetness. But I am at heart a sentimentalist, and if you don't feel the love between the star-crossed, you won't feel much of anything - it's a love story, people!
The Wanting Comes In Waves/Repaid - It's got harpsichord, it's got hopefulness... and then. Oh, then. We get our first chance to hear the sorceress Queen. I've established that she is villainous, and the guitar riff is badass enough to underscore that - but it pales in comparison to the chilling, eerie vocal power of the Queen. To put it in terms of Disney villains, she sounds like something that Ursula and the Queen of Hearts would have nightmares about. Close your eyes, and she might look like the Queen from Snow White, but the size of Jafar-as-Genie.
The Rake's Song - This is the album's most radio-friendly song, which explains its being the single. As far as character sketches go, I don't know how Colin Meloy does it. The Rake is so callous, brazen, and sneering, you'll want to punch him out but you'll be afraid he'll knife you if you try. Let me just say that he kills children. You're welcome.
The Queen's Rebuke/The Crossing - The Queen is back, and I have a weakness for how raw her musical themes are. If you know my listening habits, you'll know I don't listen to heavy metal - maybe Sabbath, in infrequent doses. But if you want or need to headbang, crank this shiz up. And you won't be able to NOT rock out.
The Hazards of Love 3 (Revenge!) - Don't listen to this just before going to bed, and for GOD'S SAKE, do not listen to this just before going swimming. Those kids that I talked about? The dead ones? Um... they're back. Give your imagination free rein and let yourself go mad. Just a side-note: waltz-time is the best way to sound creepy as hell.
The Hazards of Love 4 (The Drowned) - Lyrically wisftul conclusion to this love story - while my first instinct is to look for a big, theatrical ending more suited to the epic nature of the album's internal tracks, I'm suddenly reminded that this is a love story. If I had human tear glands, they may very well activate at this point.

Musically, The Hazards of Love breaks out of The Decemberists' usual weaponry. Guitarist Chris Funk channels Yes! axe-man Peter Howe, and Jenny Conlee wails on the Hammond organ like she pulled a Rip van Winkle at a Deep Purple concert, and woke up in the studio. The guitars are crunchier and more effected than I have perhaps ever heard on a Decemberists record. I am nothing but impressed that these geek-rockers can pull the metal stuff off when they need to.

Yes, the blogs (not this one, but the... y'know, reputable ones) and reviews are calling this album a prog-rock effort. And I can understand where they're coming from, I suppose. It is characteristic of progressive rock to weave songs and albums into large, overarching storylines. But when I think of prog, I think of bands like Rush, Coheed & Cambria, and The Mars Volta - namely, those with heavy metal influence throughout. What The Decemberists have done is take those heavy colourations and dress them with the folk-rock sound they have been perfecting for years. There is no denying the lyrical prowess of frontman Colin Meloy. The plot of this album is sort of dense and definitely poetically worded; it might take you a few listens to get the finer touches. This goes back to the point I made at the outset; when a band can give me what I've always liked about them, but somehow twist it so that I get new and different meanings all the time, then they have earned a fan.

I give this album 10 cloven-hooved satyrs out of 10. And I'm giving you all 2 days to buy the album and listen to it in its entirety, whereupon you shall return here and tell me what you think. Go here! Go now!

Conceptualizationalization (Like A Billion Points In Scrabble)

When's the last time you listened to a concept album? Do you know what a concept album is? Ok cool I'll tell you (captive audiences are the best audiences).
A concept album can be loosely defined as one with a theme carrying through the whole album - musically, lyrically, whatever. From there you can go in a couple of directions, with both - ahem - concept-album concepts... being popular these days. Here's how I would break them down:
Theme-based: The songs on the album could be as different from one another as on any other album, but be connected in even just one way. Maybe each title has a different state name in it, like Ray Charles' Genius Hits the Road in 1960. Or the band could be adventurous in the styles of song contained on the album, while the lyrics hint at a consistent idea - in the case of The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds, there is a lot of reflection on (Brian Wilson's) state of mind. There is a general sense of connection without being too restrictive to expression.
Story-based: I would consider these to be more aggressively creative. Rather than a vague commonality, this sort of concept album is dedicated to telling a story. The narrative is the driving force, and all aspects of the creative process are focused on propelling it. My favourite example of a plot-driven concept album is Pink Floyd's The Wall - it's dark, theatrical, and almost makes up for Roger Waters being a dick during the whole process.

So, I am so good at outlining what I want to get around to talking about, that I don't think I'll get around to the real point of this post until later. My friend Andrew inspired me - so if it doesn't pan out it's his fault.

The Decemberists. Hazards of Love. Coming up.

Listen to this in the meantime - for no reason whatsoever.