Artie Traum

I had a chance to see and play a few songs with Artie on his west coast visit. Below are some of his thoughts on the current state of the music business.
Check out his website and his music.
http://www.artietraum.com/


If you're in the music business, you're aware that the old business model (record, press CDs and sell product) is essentially over. The big labels are in big trouble, but they're coming back with new ways to squeeze cash out of the system. The latest they've come up with is an experiment with free downloads paid for by advertising. Media sites like Salon.com have a similar model: watch an ad and get free content. I have mixed feelings about this. First, advertisers may use their clout to decide who gets included in the mix. Second, I believe this new system may squeeze "indies" as the major labels try to control the market. Those of us who are struggling to maintain small record companies are facing rising costs and diminished opportunities. Still, musicians and artists have always been resourceful. Hard times sometimes make us all work a little more creatively to find a path to success.It's no secret that the corporate world has started devouring itself in a mad frenzy of layoffs, buyouts and an unseemly squeezing of the middle (and poorer) classes. Greed and corruption have hit a tipping point. Is there a limit to how many fees, interest rate increases and price hikes can be levied? Rather than address the fundamental issues of why and how our society is falling apart, the media is fixated on distractions. Even some of the in-depth sites, like Huffington Post, are now simply grabbing the same feeds that everyone else gets. CNN and MSNBC and Fox spend hours analyzing election polls. This numbing parade of numbers tells us nothing.In the 1976 Sidney Lumet film "Network," Peter Finch (playing a network news anchor) reaches a personal tipping point. He goes on air and shouts, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore." This mantra is picked up around the country and people start shouting "I'm mad as hell... " Clearly, a lot of people are feeling this way as we enter the campaign of 2008. Still, I remain optimistic. Perhaps it's that I grew up listening to Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie singing about the Great Depression and bitter struggles of miners, lumberjacks and factory workers. They never gave up a certain pioneering spirit and abiding belief that justice would, in the end, prevail. Studs Terkel wrote, "I've always felt that there's a deep decency in the American people and a native intelligence - providing they have the facts, providing they have the information."See you down the road,Artie. NEW VIDEO! Here's a link to my song Halifax, which I performed at the Fairfield Theatre. Halifax. It tells how Acadians were driven from Canada in 1755, an early example of ethnic cleansing in colonial-era North America. Beausoleil was an Acadian resistance fighter who waged a guerrilla war against the British near Halifax. He did not prevent thousands of Acadians from being loaded on boats and sent to Virginia, French Guiana and Louisiana. I learned much of this story from Michael Doucet, the irrepressible fiddler and Cajun scholar behind the band Beausoleil. I've been drawn to Cajun culture and history since I worked with Michael Doucet on the CD "Chez Les Cajuns" several years ago. Perhaps the Acadian exile reminds me of Jewish history and how our ancestors were driven from lands they cherished -over and over- in the past. I believe a good song shouldn't need a long introduction but sometimes a little history expands what songwriters must compress into a handful of short verses. I tried to convey the emotion, despair and excitement of those sad years in the mid-18th Century.