Travelling Band

This is big and various. I thought of this while watching the Decemberists standing in a line and swaying back and forth to the beat of one of their songs. The drummer was banging away on his floor tom and scooting it around with him as he capered and meandered around the stage. I want more capering and meandering...pretty much in all things.

But this here is two ideas wrapping in a single flesh...kind of like the catholic god, but probably sans father. I would like to contruct--or for someone to take this and run with it--a band that was somewhat more akin to a travelling minstrel show. Ideally they could be very mobile and reasonably acoustic, certainly able to set up anywhere at the drop of a hat. Clearly instruments like the guitar, violin, accordian, banjo and &c. all make good sense for this. Drums can be interestingly brought into the mix in any number of ways. But this doesn't have to be drum heavy, just drum present.

I'd like this group pretty much to be a band of nomads wandering from show to show...for like ever. Like that was their job. Not, recording records and videos and then touring, but literally just wandering around from place to place getting by on their music. And know I don't think this is anything like the Grateful Dead. And even if it is, I still say it is different.

Second part is totally good enough to be its own idea, but Imma lay it on you right now, cause I'm a nice guy. I really think this should start happening across the music industry and perhaps it already is in various guises and masquerades. I would like artists to stop thinking so much about records. Records are an invention of the record companies (except when they aren't (e.g. when it makes sense for songs to be bound in a record album format)). The world of tech is not only making this possible but a reality. People are just getting songs from wherever. And not always as a full record.

I would love to see artists embrace this and literally throw a track on the internet whenever its ready. Maybe a few at a time. Maybe a record's worth. And then again maybe one. If they even wanna drop it all on itunes, I'm fine with that too. I'd just like to see it come out less calculated...like leading up to an album when you have to buy the song over again. And why?

This would give you an artist in a more pure sense. Putting stuff out there as it comes and as it should be put out. And again, of course some music is so much the better for being on an album. But I think that should be a choice, not an obligation.

And I think these two ideas are linked. I think a band that was just sort of roaming would be all the better suited to just pop in a studio, record a song and plop it on the internet without any worry about marketing or selling. Drop it and go.

That and I want this band to be a really tight knit group, just out there as a team or a family. But me, I'm an idealist.