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But in “American Masters: Pearl Jam Twenty,” airing Friday, Oct. 21, on PBS — as part of the first PBS Arts Fall Festival (check local listings) — Documentary film director and music journalist originally from Cameroon to do two hours 40 minutes and then there is marked – since all the founding members of Pearl Jam continue alive and free.

Crowe says, “People used to say, about some of the stories that I wrote for Rolling Stone, they would say, ‘Why don’t you write about Iggy Pop? Why don’t you write about Stiv Bators?’ And I’d be like, ‘Well, let the Stiv Bators story be written by somebody who’s invested in that music.’

“But still, that was the challenge, to do a movie about a band that wasn’t that, and did survive. That’s why there are leaps we had to take, years where literally they’re just surviving and playing concerts. So that became part of the story.”

And this story, the tragedy is also the first Pearl Jam was formed.

Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament were band member who also in another Seattle band in the ’80s, called Mother Love Bone, alongside charismatic frontman Andrew Wood.

Sadly, at 24, Wood died following a heroin overdose.

As to whether the film is, in a way, Wood’s story, Crowe says, “It is kind of that. When we started, that was one of the things that I really thought about. His story needed to be told, and from that, I thought the whole Pearl Jam tale should come, as it did in life.”

By film’s end, there is, here is even footage of Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder performing one of Wood’s songs.

Crowe says, “I did an interview with them early on, where Eddie wouldn’t tell me what song it was that he would sing, at some point, of Wood’s. So when I heard that he played ‘Crown of Thorns’ at the concert, I said, ‘Fantastic, I’ve got to get a recording.’ “

Strangely enough, a “Behind the Music“ is a tragedy that a Pearl Jam documentary that attracted me to lack.

He says, “If we had the movie where somebody does die at the 40-minute mark, we wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t have done it; you wouldn’t be talking to me. Just another one of those films … .

“I always get the feeling that, if civilization disappears for a while, and all this stuff that exists now goes into a time capsule, somebody comes along later, goes, ‘Oh, rock music, it was made by people that die young.’ “

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Speaking to Rolling Stone, bassist Jeff Ament said that the grunge veterans hace made on their 10th studio LP, a “great, great start“.

The band with longtime producer Brendan O’Brien have been recording the album, although they native of Seattle compared to normal, but Los Angeles is working on content – something Ament said has helped them work efficiently.

Ament commented:

We made the bulk of our records in Seattle, so it’s just great to get out of Seattle for me. Everybody leaves all their stuff at home and you just go down for 12 days and it’s all you do.

He added that the band hit the studio has added a trigger in time when they’re promoting their new documentary Pearl Jam Twenty and accompanying book.

Ament remarked, “It’s been really important for us that in the middle of all this, we got together and recorded a bunch of songs. It sort of gave us a breath to go, ‘OK, we can go back and get ready for the show and book and movie and all that stuff’”.

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Pearl Jam’s cover of Mother Love Bone’s “Crown Of Thorns” is now streaming online!

“Crown of Thorns,” Pearl Jam Twenty soundtrack to release the next track before the MGM Grand in Las Vegas I was directly recorded on 10/22/2000.

Excerpted from PJ20 CD Booklet:

Cameron Crowe: “I asked Vedder about Andrew Wood, the late singer-songwriter of Mother Love Bone, whose passing left the place that Vedder would later fill. Though Vedder chose not to name the song, he did say there was one Wood composition he would be honored to sing ‘one day.’ He declined to say more.”

As of today, We All Make Music is going on what a publicist might call “an indefinite hiatus.”

I’m not going to get into the whys and the wherefores here. Instead, I want to focus on how amazing it was to run this site for a year and a half.

I learned a lot, I had some great experiences, I got to poke some fun at people, and most importantly, I got the chance to advise musicians trying to navigate their industry’s uncertain waters.

The economic underpinnings of music as a profession – licensing and royalty rates on streams, the attitudes that ISPs have toward anti-piracy enforcement, the public’s attitudes about purchasing (versus accessing) recordings, to name just a few – are going to change. They should change. How and why that will happen remain fascinating topics of debate.

At a more granular level, the types of tools and tactics artists use to get ahead continue to evolve, as do the prospects for a career in music. I don’t know where any of those things will go, but I do know that music will always endure. People will always need it, they will always love it, and in some ways its future will show the way forward for art in general in the 21st century. I hope it goes to a good direction.

Thanks to everybody who contributed, everyone who commented, everyone who read and spread and Liked and Tweeted. It meant so much to me that people read this site, and even more that there were so many people out there who felt passionate about ushering the music industry into the 21st century.

See you around,
Max

In part three of this series, we looked at the three components of acoustic treatment: acoustic panels, bass traps and diffusors. Now I’m going to show you how to put them to use. First, let’s go over the thing that will instantly improve the sound of any room, regardless of its size: the Reflection-Free Zone (or RFZ).

Creating a RFZ is the most critical step in creating a pleasing listening environment. Simply put, the RFZ is an area surrounding the listening position that absorbs the first reflections from the speakers so that they don’t randomly bounce around the room. The idea is that all you hear is the speakers’ direct sound as a result (see above).

In order to create an RFZ, sit in the listening position and have a helper move a mirror over one of your room’s side walls. Every inch of space you see in the mirror’s reflection of either speaker requires acoustic treatment to tame the reflections. Repeat this from the opposite wall and the ceiling, and you’ve defined your RFZ.

It’s a good idea to treat a larger area of the wall than you identify with the mirror. That way, you’ll be free to move around a little without leaving the Reflection Free Zone. If you’re wondering how the heck to slide a mirror around on the ceiling, try attaching a hand mirror to a broomstick with rubber bands. Just by treating this area alone, you can improve the sound of your room by a surprising amount.

The floor of the RFZ can stay reflective with hardwood (which everyone likes because it’s easy to roll your chair around) as long as the ceiling is absorbent. Even if you have a rug on the floor, you’re still better off to have the ceiling absorbent in the RFZ to eliminate any chance of early reflections from the speakers reflecting back onto the listening position.

The acoustic treatment that you’ll use is several of the acoustic panels that we spoke about in the previous installment of this series. You can easily make enough of these panels yourself to cover the RFZ in a typical room for less than 0 if you’re handy (see this video from The Studio Builder’s Handbook to learn how to build your own), or you can buy them pre-made from companies like Ready Acoustics, GIK Acoustics, Real Traps.com, MSR and many more.

Sound panels are very simple to make. They’re based around an absorbent material like Owens Corning 703 rigid fiberglass board (or, to a lesser extent, Rockwool Rockboard 60). Both come in standard 2×4’ panels and in 1- to 6” thicknesses (2” is what’s used the most). A ridged fiberglass panel differs from normal fiberglass batting in that it’s a lot denser because it’s tightly compressed, and although it’s not made specifically for acoustic control, it works perfectly in that application.

It’s also possible to use acoustic foam for treating your RFZ, but it’s a poor choice because it has a limited frequency response, burns easily, and is actually more expensive than the acoustic panels made from ridged fiberglass or Rockwool.

Fabrics like burlap offer the best bang for the buck

The 703 is framed with simple 2×2 or 2×4 inch wood strips, and then covered with a fabric like burlap (the most popular) or Guilford of Maine, which is flame resistant but a lot more expensive. The reason why you might use a 2×4” frame instead of a 2×2” (the size of the 703) is the air gap, which adds to the effectiveness of the panel by lowering the frequencies that it absorbs.

Burlap works well as a cover because it won’t sag and bag over time, it’s cheap, looks good, and is available in a very wide range of weaves and thicknesses. When selecting panel cloth, the best way to evaluate it is to breathe through it. If you can feel your breath on the other side, it’s good to go, because sound can travel easily through it.

There are other products that work as well as 703 for absorption. Owens Corning also makes a model 705 that has twice the density of 703, but costs more as well. Speaking of cost, 703 costs approximately a panel (sometimes more and sometimes less, depending on where you buy it) and comes in packs of 6. Knauf ECOSE, Johns Manville, Roxul Safe and Sound or Rockboard 60, and Certainteed all have the same absorption characteristics or better, and can be even less expensive than their Owens Corning equivalent. Personally, I prefer Rockwool.

You won’t be able to find 703 or Rockwool at your local Home Depot though, so look in the phone book for a supplier of “Industrial Insulation” or HVAC. Sometimes they call it “industrial furnace insulation board,” so be sure that the thickness and density is the same as 703 if you’re not getting the real thing. Then just place it on the walls and ceiling to create your Reflection Free Zone and enjoy your improved listening space.

You can find out a lot more about how to build a home studio effectively and inexpensively by consulting The Studio Builder’s Handbook. You can also read some excerpts from the book on my website.

——————
You can find more music marketing tips at my Music 3.0 music industry blog. For music and production, check out my Big Picture production blog. To read some additional book excerpts from this and other books, go to bobbyowsinski.com. You can also follow me on Twitter.

Reading Festival

Pearl Jam 20 is culled from more than 1,200 hours of rarely and never-before-seen footage, Directed by Cameron Crowe, over 24 hours of recent interviews with the band, their concert performance as well as footage directly.

Crown said, “We put so much into the film – moments, pieces of footage shot by band members, audio snippets, visual bursts, new and old interviews – many different formats, all meant to present an emotional scrapbook of what it felt like to be a member of the band on this twenty-year journey. The richness of the footage made our path very clear – just tell the story of the band and let the music guide us. It was a joy to make this film, and we’re thrilled share it with the fans.”

If you think you’ve mastered the art of the media interview, congratulations. But that doesn’t mean you’ve got it all figured out. There’s still the process of mastering e-mail interviews!

Bloggers and journalists are usually excited about doing email interviews with musicians, until they get the responses back and realize that the sub-par answers barely communicate anything of interest, much less a useable article.

Don’t let this happen to you.

Pick A Comfortable Setting
“Sent from my iphone” are words that no journalist should ever read at the bottom of your response. Similarly, jotting them down backstage, five minutes before a performance, probably won’t lend to the most creative answers either.

Instead, create a peaceful setting where you can read over the interview questions with no distractions, use your downtime and answer these questions to the best of your ability.

Express Yourself
Don’t treat the interview questions like homework, leaving them until the last minute and quickly typing rushed answers on your way to band practice. Take your time, be thoughtful, and express yourself.

One or two sentence answers don’t help anybody. Try to imagine you are having a conversation with the interviewer in person. In fact, if you’ve got the time, maybe even have a bandmate or friend ask the questions and respond to them out loud. If you want to keep things written, then bring your songwriting ability to bear on your answers, offering honesty or intrigue or images.

Learn To Write
If a journalist e-mails you questions, don’t pass the interview off to the member of your band who never graduated from grade school. Make sure whoever’s answering the email interview is a good writer, and an even better communicator.

If nobody in the band is like that, then somebody better learn to write, and quickly. After all, if you’re planning on making a career out of music, this email interview won’t be your last.

Edit, Re-Edit and Edit Some More
Before hitting send, re-read your answers to be sure they make sense and that there are no grammatical errors. Get someone else to double-check your answers as well.

You don’t want the interviewer to have to comb through your sentences, adding words and trying to make out what you had meant to say.

Ultimately, the best thing to do is to try and put yourself in the interviewer’s shoes. Would you rather have one-line answers to your carefully thought-out questions, or answers with thought and depth that form the basis for a kick-ass article?

How do you master your email interviews?

__________

Mike Venti is a musician and creator of the Wayward Musician blog, which provides ideas and advice for atypical artists. You can connect with Mike on Twitter.

A flyer for Wine From the Moon's branded residency, Strip Down at Uncommon Ground

[Editor's Note: This is part two of Ryan Sweeney's series about the merits of securing a residency for your band. We're posting them on his behalf because he's out in the sticks of Brazil with a band right now]

Curating a residency can be great for an artist’s career. If done correctly, it is a powerful promotion tool, a unique opportunity to build new relationships, and a strong way to grow a fan base. Here are 14 Do’s and Do Not’s to keep in mind when curating your residency.

Do…
Find a venue that you can easily fill for every show of your residency, teetering on the point of selling out each show. If 80-100% of the seats have been filled at every show, you picked the right venue.

Do Not…
Rely on your fan base to be the main draw for most of the shows, especially if the residency is more than two nights. The best idea is to have other acts that can draw well. Balance every night based on each band’s average draw.

Do Not…
Invite bands to play just because you know them or you have a friend in another band. Invite bands that have similar fan bases and can help further your career. This is a chance for you to create or further your relationships with numerous bands in a short period of time.

Do Not…
Only invite local bands to play. Use this opportunity to expand your band into other markets by inviting out of town acts to play. Show trading is great, and this is a perfect opportunity to trade numerous shows in a short period of time.

Do…
Use every residency show to promote your band. This seems obvious, but there are lots of small things you can do to increase promotions.

At the bar and on tables, have handbills for your band. Between each act, mention that your band is hosting the residency. Walk around and introduce yourself to people. If multiple bands are playing each night, hand out download cards or CDs with a track from each band. Have multiple e-mail sign up sheets spread throughout the room. Have your posters hanging around the venue.

Even the band's managers should send everybody to a single Facebook page

Do…
Cross-promote with other bands for the residency shows. Make sure everyone is using the same posters and Facebook event. There is no need to create a new Facebook event for every show, list all the shows on one event. Have each band take a certain amount of posters and assign them a certain part of the city to hang them in.

Do…
Brand your series. You can create a name and look for your event.

For example, I recently hosted an acoustic style series at a venue called Uncommon Ground. We had all kinds of bands play, from folk to rock, but the rules were no electric instruments and no drum kits. We called the series “Strip Down at Uncommon Ground.” All of the promotional material was branded with this name and with images of cartoon drawn cowgirls in panties, bras, and boots. The series lasted for two months, and two weeks into it, people knew what to expect because we did a good job of branding the series.

Do…
Keep your residency consistent. If you have three bands at every performance, your act should play the same time slot every week. If your series happens once a week for five weeks, be sure to keep it on the same night and have the same start time every week.

Do Not…
Forget to be extremely thankful to the venue, promoters, and bands you’re working with. You cannot say thank you enough times.

Do…
Everything you can to make things easier for all parties involved. If the venue asks for you to be there at 6:00 every show, get there at 5:30. If bands are coming in from out of town, help them find places to stay. Every time you are on the microphone between acts, thank everybody involved. This is your chance to show others your kindness, which goes a long way in this business.

Do…
Have back-up plans in case something goes wrong. When you are hosting numerous shows, something is bound to backfire. If a band doesn’t show up because their tour bus broke down, have a back up set you can play. If the sound guy’s iPod breaks between acts, make sure you have yours. I had a night when the sound guy didn’t even show up. I always have someone on site who can handle the board in situations like that.

Do…
Back line the evening whenever possible. Having bands share amps and drum kits is ten times easier than having every act bring their own equipment. This takes a bit more planning prior to the show, but is well worth it. You will be less worried about keeping things on time, making your evening less stressful.

Do Not…
Expect all the bands to remember all the details. Let’s say you book the shows three months in advance and send all the details to the bands. At the two-month point, send a reminder about promoting the show, along with the details again. At the one-month point, do the same thing. A week out, send the final reminder. And when a band still shows up with all its own equipment because they didn’t pay attention to any of your emails, don’t get upset. Just smile, and politely remind them they must use the back line.

Do…
Enjoy yourself at every show. Keep things loose but organized. If you are relaxed, the rest of the room will be too.

[Editor's Note: The following is the first in a series of articles by Ryan Sweeney about getting a residency for your band]

A residency is a phenomenal opportunity to give fans something unique. Though they come in all shapes and sizes – three or four shows on consecutive nights, one show a week for several weeks; promoter pays a guarantee, venue gives you a percentage of the door – residencies are, at their heart, a chance to show off a new side of your music to current and potential fans.

These opportunities come with their own special challenges, though. A residency needs to be promoted differently, coordinated differently, and performed differently. Here’s a brief overview of the things you need to remember when angling to land a residency for your band:

Different Expectations (And Different Calls to Action)
Obviously, it is much easier to pitch the possibility of playing a residency if you have a good relationship with a venue or promoter(s), or if you have a history of delivering what you say you will. But you have to remember that all of your fans won’t come out to every single date. Don’t hurt your relationship with a venue by over-promising and under-delivering.

Let’s say your band draws an average of 75 people to a regular show. When pitching the idea of a residency to a venue, tell them about your normal draw of 75, but also tell them you’re expecting 25-30 people per residency show. This will show them you are appropriately evaluating your draw.

Also, it will help if you mention to the promoter you are doing something special to draw fans. This can be something related to your music – maybe you are playing all acoustic versions of your songs – or related to your promotional efforts, like securing a drink sponsor or partnering with a local promoter to coordinate the show and help draw an audience.

Up to this point, most of the tactics you’ve honed have centered on one-off events – one show in one venue, on one night. You need to promote your residency slightly differently.

Artistic Chances (And Risks)
Typically it is a good idea to consider a residency only when you have enough material to play new songs at every show. This allows you let your fans know that every show you play will be unique, which increases the chance of the same fans coming out to more than one show.

But it can’t be all about repertoire. Get creative on how you bring in your audience. I have seen other bands play two or three night residencies where they only performed songs that they’d never played on tour before.

Whether your band is producing the entire residency or just showing up and playing a slot once a week for a month, changing up your set is still a good idea. The only time a band might not want to do this is if there is a built-in audience at the venue. In that case, always play your strongest set.

More Power (And More Responsibility)
The best residencies allow a band to coordinate the entire series. When a band can handpick opening acts, set the ticket price, organize promoters and sponsors and other aspects of the residency, it gives them a chance to make the series exactly what they want it to be.

That said, it is a lot of work, and without meticulous attention to detail, the residency will fail. If any of the bands don’t draw, it comes back to you. If the promoters aren’t given enough information about the bands or there’s a miscommunication about how many people they can comp, it comes back to you.

If you’re organized, though, coordinating a residency represents a huge opportunity. You get to play with new bands, both local and out of town, and create strong long-lasting relationships with them. And if you pull the whole thing off, all the bands, promoters, sponsors and presenters you’ve been working with will come away respecting you.

If you are expected to draw 50 people per show, do not be afraid to ask the venue or promoter for at least some input (if not outright control) on variables like booking. It can lead to great things.

If your music is being used by DJs to enhance their sets, you want to make sure you’reit would be nice to know you’re getting paid to be as well as played.

That’s where DJ Monitor comes in. Since 2005, the Dutch organization has been working to ensure that artists are compensated when their work is used during live performances and in DJ sets.

“We’re kind of the Robin Hoods for the independent artist,” says founder and CEO, Yuri Dokter.

DJ Monitor “was an idea born out of necessity,” Dokter says. “If you perform a work in public, for example if a DJ plays a record and 20,000 people are listening to it, someone has to pick up the tab.”

Under current public performance laws, event organizers are obliged to pay a percentage of their profits to performance rights organizations, which are then charged with compensating the artists whose music was played at the event. Before DJ Monitor, according to Dokter, this process was a mess.

“The bureaus had absolutely no idea who to remunerate,” Dokter says. “They would look at dance charts, CD sales and airplay charts and say, ‘Ok, we’re going to remunerate these people.’ It had no coherence whatsoever, it had nothing to do with who was being played and who was supposed to get the money.”

Artists that wanted to fight their corner faced several obstacles. “There were a lot of lawsuits,” says Dokter. “People couldn’t prove to the courts that their music was being played.”

To change things, Dokter created a piece of kit – the digimonitor – that’s got the power to change everything .

“It’s hooked up to every mixing board on every stage to record everything from A to Z,” Dokter says. “Then we publish playlists on an online playlist management system. It allows the rights holders to take a look at what’s being played.”

Performance rights organizations can then analyze these playlists and adjust the amount of money they send to artists remunerate artists accordingly. Thanks to DJ Monitor’s technology, the right people are starting to get paid for their work.

“Artists will be added to what’s being called ‘reference repertoire,’” Dokter explains. “We’ve identified that they’re being played out there.

“Now, it’s going to be undoable and too expensive to monitor everything and everybody. So, performance rights organizations will take an average of what’s being played and then make remuneration. You don’t get paid for one instance. Because we’ve monitored you, you’re on the radar and you will be remunerated from other sources as well.”

Even some of the biggest names in dance music are taking digimonitors with them on the road. Artists and organizers of renowned live music events around the globe are approaching Dokter with a view to using his technology.

“We often go with Armin Van Buuren or Tiestö on tour,” says Dokter. “We record all their shows, provide the playlists and publish them for foreign rights organizations. It means we will get some of the money back for the artists and the composers who are actually played.”

But, if you’re a DJ, then why agree to have one of DJ Monitor’s devices on your mixing desk? Don’t you value the aura of mystery that swirls around your sets? “We actually have a long waiting list,” says Dokter. “DJs play a lot of their own stuff; stuff from their own labels. They will have a tough time getting proper remuneration if they don’t have the proof that it was being played.

For the DJ/producer/label owner hybrds, there are other benefits to utilizing DJ Monitor’s devices. Consumers can access a database of tracks via a series of tweeted live playlists. If your track forms part of a live set, it’s automatically at the fingertips of music lovers.

“One of the biggest difficulties that a lot of clubbers have is that they’ll love a record but they have no idea what the record is,” says Dokter. “People can see via our tweets what’s being played and they can order it right away.”

DJ Monitor has deals with various record companies and music platforms that allow the company to maintain a large database for music recognition. According to Dokter, his database is far larger than that of Shazam or similar companies.

Those same deals prohibit Dokter from saying exactly how many of his devices are being used globally due to a confidentiality agreement. In his opinion, the number could be higher.