October 2nd, evening: At Le'as house in L.A.. I don't know what we're really doing here. We're sort of talking about Le'a's boyfriend Ankhur being east indian and being in the indian club. Duh. And her little brother's drug habits and things like that. The other roommates are in the living room watching "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". A couple of people have told me "No, no, despite the title, it's surprisingly good!". I watched it for fifteen minutes, and it was relentlessly stupid. I don't see how increasing the dosage would make it any better either, since there's basically only the one plot premise (There are VAMPIRES and they are SLAIN by a woman named BUFFY) and one plot twist (She FALLS in LOVE with a VAMPIRE)

Today I was at the Interactive Music Xpo. (pronounced "Expo", and meaning the same thing.) This is a convention of musicians, labels, vendors, and other companies involved in the production, distribution, and promotion of music. Being this close to the industry is a little disconcerting. For one, you see how INCREDIBLY HARD everyone is working. For another, you see how unromantic the whole thing is. Wayne's world and Bill & Ted's Excellent adventure depicted a world in which a band can rocket to stardom with ideals intact by virtue of being irresistably lovable and cute. Unfortunately, it seems more like bands are a liquid soup of attributes from which labels choose the most commerciably viable bits and stick them together into your next favorite band. Band looks good but your songs suck? Ah, that's ok - they'll just write you up a hit single! Look good but can't play your instruments? Studio musicians! The ways of making a living as a musician while retaining your artistic integrity are depressingly middle class. People are not just "discovered"

After seeing all this, after seeing the incredible effort required, and the unpleasant bedfellows one must have, I had to take a careful look at my intentions and ask myself if I wanted to do music merely for fun, or professionally. After careful consideration, I decided that I could definately say I was going to pursue it in a professional capacity. Each person in my band has to ask themselves the same question and make sure they are certain of the answer, otherwise we can not progress. Must drop ballast now.

October 3, evening: I now know more about marketing and connection-making than ever before in my life, and have a reading list of materials to further pursue this field. I don't especially like thinking about marketing or shmoozing, but putting them out of my head does not make for good business.

It's called the music BUSINESS, not the music HOBBY. -- Jeff Buckley's mom at IMX

Omar Hakim, talented jazz (and everything else) drummer, was on a panel at IMX and related something he had recently seen: Someone at the studio had brought their small child in and was showing them around. There was a drum kit set up in the room, and the kid pointed at it and said "what's that, daddy?" The kid's father said, "That's what people used to make beats on back in the day."

Record companies are scrambling to make money over the internet somehow, using this outrageous new "peer to peer" model invented by napster! duh

In the future: Look for subscription services allowing you to listen to any music in the world for a flat monthly fee. Potential problem: you might have to buy a subscription to each label seperately.

No one says "Oh boy, what's on EMI? I feel like listening to an EMI record today!" -- Cherry Lane Digital CEO Jim Griffin

Also, your cell phone may wind up being the transport by which your music follows you around. The new radio, I guess. Maybe we will start seeing stereos with cellphone transceivers built in.

L.A.'s air makes my voice all crunchy. I can't wait to start breathing air from anywhere else.