Feeling rtiumphant

Because you don’t get rich working in music retail. For most indie record store owners and managers, it’s a labor of love. But with some of the best perks on the planet.

I was in Chicago last week for the annual NARM (National Association of Recording Merchandisers) Convention, where physical and digital music merchants and suppliers meet to do business.

Of course, this is the music biz, so besides meeting after meeting during the day, the nights offered some cool opportunities to catch great music.

There was so much good music: being treated to acoustic hotel room performances from Greg Laswell (his Three Flights From Alto Nido was one of my favorite records of 2008); Orianthi (looks much older in person); newcomers Daphne Willis & Ry Cuming; and the Rescues (a very talented new act that reminds me of a cross between Lady Antebellum and Fleetwood Mac).

Cyndi Lauper was honored and performed some music from her forthcoming blues album, backed by Charlie Musslewhite, reminding me of Memphis Minnie. This could be a sleeper surprise hit. Randy Jackson brought his new signing, Paper Tongues, to perform for attendees, and Colbie Caillat’s performance proved she may actually be around for a while.

Along with all that, I racked up two aha moments this year. I managed to be one of 60 people jammed into a private room to hear an acoustic set from Chrissie Hynde’s (Pretenders) new project featuring, what appeared to be her much younger lover, JP, Chrissie and the Fairgrounds Boys. They unveiled 35 minutes of new material, and as I stood five feet from Chrissie, I looked around the room and every face had a smile.

Later that evening we caught a set from Milwaukee’s Kings Go Forth, a truly amazing and electrifying horn-fueled 10-piece classic soul, funk and R&B band. The CD hit stores April 20, and I highly recommend you check it out if James Brown, East Coast Beach Music and Earth, Wind & Fire is your bag.

The band was pumped to be performing in a small area at the Hilton for a room full of record store geeks, and the crowd reciprocated by testing the limits of hotel security patience. There is a story here about some missing furniture the next day, but the trail gets foggy beyond that.

Mind you, business was accomplished (in case my boss is reading), with healthy discussions about the role of physical goods for the next decade. The war between physical and digital is over. Labels, distributors and cash-strapped digital start-ups are still a little disconcerted now that they realize physical isn’t going away, that digital sales are not making up for the loss in physical sales and without the shiny plastic discs it’s impossible to make any money selling music.

Perhaps the most newsworthy moment, as reported by Billboard, occurred during the final evening’s programming.

Universal Music group Distribution President and CEO Jim Urie called on the National Assn. of Recording Merchandisers’ board of directors to urge Internet service providers to adapt a graduated response policy against unauthorized peer-to-peer file sharing.

In the last year, sales of physical goods have reversed and increased in the countries of Korea (+18 percent), Sweden (+12 percent) and France (+8 percent) when the government enacted similarly worded laws.

Back in 2008 I wrote that i believe this scenario was coming by 2012. Piracy is piracy and arguing for file sharing services that make money off of someone’s work while the author receives nothing so that you have the “freedom” to get your music for free is plain bullsh**. A fraction of users use up to 25 percent of bandwith downloading the entire Beatles and Rolling Stones catalogs. That dog don’t hunt, they say.

Even Net Neutrality wording speaks of “lawful use” and I feel music should be free on the internet, streaming free. Every band should stream their music on the net. And if you want to own it, then pay for it.

Now, we’ll find out if the U. S. music industry has the balls to pursue this strategy.