Andy Lykens

Innovating and operating through growth

Too big of a ship or too big of a head?

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This week HP announced that they will no longer be competing in the PC industry, instead they will be focusing on cloud computing. Hold on. What? You mean the largest PC manufacturer in the world is going to just stop. And they’re going to stop making tablets and smart phones too? Yes, it’s true. In fact, if you’d like to read a great article about what this means to their industry, check out this one.

So why am I writing about this in a blog typically geared towards the music industry? Well, as usual it’s to point out the failings of the music industry. Let’s think: when the music industry was faced with a competitor that absolutely, 100% got something right, what did it do? What was the RIAA’s reaction to Napster? And what’s more, what does the industry continue to do?

The solution probably wouldn’t have been to resign the administration of all copyrights to Napster, but in the late 90’s and early 00’s, the industry was in pretty good fiscal shape and it’s my contention that they could have bought Napster, or at least made some sort of deal. But no. What did they do? Lawsuit.

And now the industry sits atop their recent “accomplishment” of having earned money instead of lost it for the first time in years. Wow. Way to set the bar high for yourselves. I’m not sure if you knew this music industry, but you’re actually supposed to make money in ever-increasing amounts EVERY year. Not fail miserably for 10 years and then trumpet your prestige when you finally earn a few pennies. Anyway, I digress.

What is really interesting and even quite cool about this HP thing is that they’re turning an awful big ship. Everyone uses the excuse in the music industry “well it’s just too big of a ship to turn quickly!” Really? Bigger than HP? Nope. Now what’s the excuse? Oops.

Now the only thing left to blame is the ‘vision’ (or blindness) of the leadership of the major music companies.

The tipping point.

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Check this out. It’s an article about the beginning of the end of an obnoxious, intractable and downright foolish “business” mentality.

This is the first evidence that the labels are no longer going to be able to sue their way to generating income. They have been a huge pain to deal with, they have refused to adapt, and now they’re “Hoping Apple Can Force Amazon and Google Into Cloud Licensing.” Nope.

Apple doesn’t care about licensing or playing fair with the music industry they just have a better relationship with the labels and more clout in negotiations. Apple deals with the majors because it’s easy for them, not because they think they need licenses and to appease them. Why would Apple’s deal force anyone to do anything?

Now we’ll see the majors start to scramble for income. They’ll start sacrificing rights, prices will drop. I mean REALLY scramble.

Mark my words folks, this is the beginning of the end. It took a long time but the labels are officially no longer in control. They’re down to a 49% say in digital licensing. The tipping point has been reached. Big change is coming in music licensing. Big change is coming in copyright valuation. It won’t be too much longer – maybe a few years max.

The snowball is rolling down the hill.

Rock Drumming

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Australia is a country not entirely dissimilar to the US. The gentry there have grasped a cafe culture of coffee conossieurism, spoon fed themselves organic food and green initiatives, and put their ear to the ground for great music.

This Australia Day the Ozzies continued a tradition of tuning into their public radio station triple-J and counting down the top 100 songs of 2010. Very cool.

But this article isn’t about any Ozzie tradition or US-Australian influences, it’s about drumming. It struck me when I heard the number 1 song of their top 100. Rock drummers there do the same thing as most rock drummers in the states…ignore dynamics.

Check out the track that set me off and listen critically:

Big Jet Plane – Angus and Julia Stone

It’s a pretty beautiful track with a great build over the first 30 seconds or so, the kind of build that makes it great for synching to picture. In fact, they nailed the build.

Then the drums come in…gross.

Typical of rock drumming today is this idea of standing out – kick starting the loudest part of the song. Why on earth would you the loudest part of your song in the first 30″? Unless of course you only wanted to write 30″ of music. But this song is longer than that so we can assume otherwise.

What would you like to hear? Or do you like the drumming in this track?

Personally I need someone a bit sneakier – maybe ride some cymbals a bit at first, maybe brush the snare, but a dynamic build of some sort. One which both adds to the overall build, but also builds independently.

Do any drummers want to weigh in? What would you change? What do you hear when you listen critically?

Kanchanburi, part I

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The day after Chatuchak, Mary and I decided we needed things to be a bit more calm than bustling Bangkok (because busy Bangkok bodies blasting by bade better backpacking bloopers bussing by boundaries to Kanchanburi).

Kanchanburi is where the Bridge over the River Kwai (and, not coincidentally, the river kwai itself) rests, but also happens to be relatively close to Erawan National Park wherein lie some beautiful waterfalls. We also heard tale of elephant riding and river rafting adventures.

The bus ride was easy enough and took about 2 hours. Upon arrival we were bombarded by the typical riff-raff looking for baht to taxi us to our guest house. Luckily we were smart enough to know that a safe Saamlaw with benches and doors was no place for people who had been traveling for 7 whole days and knew better than to get ripped off by some jerk with seat-belts.

Caution just wouldn’t do, so for 50 baht instead of 100 baht we found a guy who had a motor bike, some rickety old boards, a half-broken lawn chair, duct tape, and a little engineering know-how (you get engineering know-how from Legos, right?). He was very nice, somehow stacked our backpacks on his contraption, and drove slow enough that I probably wouldn’t have been in the hospital for more than a few days if I fell off.

Mary in front of our bungalow at Sam's House.
Arriving unscathed we checked into our bungalow at Sam’s House and were stoked. The room was small but clean with a decent bed and A/C. It sat in a row of bungalows set atop pillars jutting from the river and would make a cozy and convenient base-camp for our Kanchanburi activities.

Our first order of business was to find some food and on recommendation from Sam’s House, headed to a place called Thai-Thai. It was delicious and cheap, and had free wi-fi. Who could complain? We powered down our lunch then Mary caught site of place across the street offering fish massage.

I wasn’t quite sure where exactly Mary had gotten a fish, or why on earth she’d want to have someone massage it, but I followed along as the owner of the shop (who also happened to be the waitress and cashier where we just ate) excitedly ushered us in.

Fish food?
For those of you not in the know, a fish massage is a very ticklish activity involving hundreds of nemo-sized fish. You wash your feet, step up onto a bench, and then plunge your legs into their tank. They immediately swarm to your feet and begin testing your reflexes and bladder control as they nibble away at the dead skin.

I can’t say that when the fish were done doing their thing I noticed a huge difference in how my feet felt, but since it was just the prequel to an hour long foot massage I wasn’t going to complain. After 60 minutes of elderly Thai women treating our feet like two salamis in need of physical therapy, Mary and I decided to rent some bikes and pedal to the bridge to finish off our first day at Kanchanburi.

The sun was going down as we arrived!
The bike ride was only a few minutes and on a fairly serene street. As we pulled up to the bridge the sun was lowering in the sky and making for some really nice scenery. After snapping some photos we set off to cross the bridge.

Toot Toot! Pea-nut Butter!
Nearly at the other side of the river we caught wind of some mumblings that a train was coming. I arrogantly told Mary “Please, there is no way that they still run trains across this thing!” TOOT TOOT. In fact, there it came. We scootched to one of the platforms on the side of the bridge and watched as the train came and went. It’s used only for tourist purposes these days, but it’s amazing to think that 60 years ago this was one of the main trade lines for the Japanese.

That night we headed a bit further past Thai-thai’s for dinner after returning our bikes and had some good old fashion pizza…made by a Swiss guy. Whatever. At this point we were a bit tired of Thai food and just wanted to change things up a bit. The food was quite good and we headed back to Sam’s House on full stomachs, and ready for a good night’s sleep after a great first day in Kanchanburi.

Bikes!