Photo by Rob Chapman
He’ll be 35 years old this June, and Eric Krasno is doing what he wants. Sure, he’s busy. He’s a professional musician and producer and, like some of his jam brethren – Warren Haynes and Stanton Moore come to mind – he seems ill-at-ease focusing on just one outlet, opting instead to play in several bands, as well as taking up the art of the mixtape and live DJing. Not to mention starting up a D.I.Y. label, Royal Family Records, and shepherding other bands’ releases. We’re on the Soulive tour bus in Albuquerque, NM, and he’s just come off a whirlwind schedule of 5 gigs in 2 days at Jazz Fest in New Orleans, yet seems entirely relaxed about the pace he’s keeping. Like, almost Zen-relaxed. Oh, and he believes he knows the future.
The future, according to Eric Krasno, belongs to the prolific, the original, and the connected.
His jazz trio, Soulive, is going strong 12 years into its tenure as one the best on the circuit, and he has every reason to believe it can carry on for another twelve. “I never thought people would just stop buying music though,” he admits. “All the record stores are gone. I didn’t think we’d have to rely so heavily on touring to make a living.” He grants that this sea change hasn’t affected Soulive so much because they’ve always focused on touring, but he can’t even see printing CDs of his label’s future output. “Making a record is an investment now.”
I thought better of pointing out that making a record was always an investment, but I think what he meant to say is that people generally encounter and interact with music through their “connected” devices now. The days of petroleum-based, real-world discs are so last century. Though, oddly enough, says Krasno, “We’ve been selling a lot of vinyl on this last tour. It comes with a digital download, so even people who don’t have record players get it, they get the download, and then put the album on their wall as a collector’s piece.” With a wry smirk, he adds, “But those of us who do have turntables, it sounds a lot better.”
Ancient arguments on the superior sound of analog versus digital notwithstanding, Krasno sees the future of music going entirely digital. Even performances. “The internet is the future of music. It’s going to be more interactive, more streaming. Bands can stream their performance online. You have to build your own channel and sell sponsorships; get royalties from Rhapsody and Pandora, because you’re not going to get any from radio.” Ouch. That smarts. I mean, I do host a jam show on an old-fashioned, land-based radio station, but I can see where he’s coming from. Besides, the Grateful Dead historically made way less money from their albums than they did from touring, even (or especially) when they were releasing them on their own label. Thus has the live jam band model always been.
The only value the Grateful Dead, or any band, could ever get out of radio play is promotion. This is how labels used to sell albums. Now the internet has cut out the middleman. Or have they? Without promotion, the old movie adage “if you build it, they will come” no longer necessarily holds true. How long did Mumford & Sons toil in relative obscurity even after the release of their (now phenomenally successful) debut album, “Sigh No More,” before they appeared on Letterman and became one of last year’s top-selling internet album purchases? They have ridden this initial burst of promotion, or exposure, to headlining their own concerts worldwide, despite playing music in a non-commercial genre. The album’s not any better than it was when no one had heard of it, but it is pretty great.
Yet nearly no one outside of London had heard of it, had talked about it, or purchased a digital version of it until Letterman. Afterward they purchased it in droves.
As a music lover, I’m still prone to see a band from out-of-town play just to hear something new. Either I like the band or I don’t, but sometimes I like them a lot, and make a point to add a copy of their album(s) to my collection. I seem to remember other music lovers – at least, in the pre-internet age – doing the same thing.
Live music was, and still is (at its best) a holy communion between music lovers and traveling minstrels. This communion is severely lessened, if it exists at all, when viewed on a screen 3 inches wide. Yet, some feel watching YouTube videos of a band is much the same as seeing them in person. Well, it’s not, but you get what you pay for.
Krasno’s prediction (if it hasn’t already come true by the time this gets published) is, “No more CDs, no more hard drives. It’ll all be cloud-based.” Again, I’m tempted to point out the hole in his logic: that Google and Amazon and SoundCloud, as providers of the so-called “cloud” storage service would, in fact, be using hard drives. Massive, gargantuan, stacks and racks of hard drives. But he’s describing it from the user’s perspective, so I allow the statement to pass, unchallenged.
Besides, the creative individual who wishes to store all his output on a cloud-based server must still capture, manufacture and/or tinker with their masterpieces on a hard drive, at least for now, and Krasno knows it; especially now that he’s dipping his toe into the realms of mixtaping and DJing.
“I just put out a mixtape of blends of old funk and hip-hop, a really cool mix of different things. It starts with James Brown and ends with James Brown. I call it the Funky President mix. Kinda goes all over the place from Jay-Z to Black Keys to Syl Johnson to a bunch of rare 45 stuff. There’s some Lettuce in there, some of my own remixes, Michael Jackson a cappella and putting my own beats under it. Just me having a blast.” The mix is a free download at royalfamily.bandcamp.com and Kraz (his DJ moniker) used Ableton Live software and his laptop’s hard drive to produce it. Also, it’s totally awesome. I’m listening to it as I write this.
Of course he’s using hard drives, and presumably will continue to do so, as a producer of other artist’s records. Unless he reverts totally to analog which, for all its aesthetically appealing defects, is a real pain in the ass. Just waiting for the tape to rewind seemed to take forever.
Vinyl LPs were always a little more digital than tape. At least you could jump from one track to another almost instantly. Well, as long as it was on the same side.
Soulive plans to release a new EP by autumn, followed by a full-length album in early 2012 and, according to Krasno, “We’re really focusing on just putting things out on vinyl, or for download. I don’t know if we’ll even make CDs.”
As if to prove the point, Royal Family Records just released (on May 24th) what it describes as an unearthed soundtrack by Crushed Velvet and the Velveteers from a never-completed 1974 Blaxploitation film titled The Big One. Soulive’s Alan Evans reportedly discovered the recordings through a family friend in Buffalo and it’s only available as a free .mp3, or for purchase as limited-edition vinyl. A little shocked, I ask if they can actually sell more copies on vinyl than CD now, to which he replies, “Yeah. To be honest, people barely buy CDs from us.”
Well, didn’t we all think vinyl would be extinct by now? Thanks in part to Krasno, Evans and Evans, vinyl’s actually less extinct than it was 10, even 15 years ago. “I bring my USB turntable with me on JamCruise,” he says. I try to picture Krasno lugging a huge steamer trunk of vinyl with him on board. “We all share sounds on Jam Cruise.”
Since he’s a Jam Cruise veteran and I’ve never been, I take the opportunity to ask him about how he’d compare it to other festivals. “From an artist’s perspective, at least, it’s like a festival because you get together with other musicians and work shit out. But it’s different from a festival because you get off the boat and see the sights of Honduras, Jamaica, the Mayan pyramids…
“Some of the festivals that I really enjoy are the ones that are smaller. They probably don’t make quite as much money, but [for example] we do one in Florida called Bear Creek where they have a lot of funk and soul artists, a lot of legendary guys and a bunch of new guys kind of carrying it on. But I guess festivals like that might be more enjoyable for the artist.”
The “Bear Creek All-Stars” – with Alan Evans, Kirk Joseph, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Skerik, and Ivan Neville – was just one of Krasno’s five gigs at Jazz Fest this year. Another was “Dr. Claw,” with longtime Lettuce bandmate Adam Deitch. Though he still cherishes the time he spends playing and taking in late night shows at Jazz Fest, Krasno has strong reservations about the headliners there this year, and bemoans what he sees as the fest’s turn toward the commercial: “Kenny G?” he asks, incredulous. “Awful, awful idea. Kid Rock? Whatever. Bon Jovi? The vision of Jazz Fest I had didn’t include Bon Jovi and Kenny G. But there’s still all sorts of amazing other stuff going on, so you have to look past that.”
Another big kahuna of ongoing festivals, Bonnaroo, originally grew out of Superfly’s incredible after-hours shows during Jazz Fest. Though its line-up has always been characterized as “eclectic,” Krasno feels Bonnaroo, too, has “definitely become much more of a commercial event. They get a lot bigger, mainstream artists now. It’s definitely changed. But y’know, I dig it. I think it’s cool, it’s just gotten huge to the point where it’s lost some of the vibe it originally had. But they’re trying to appeal to more of the mainstream kids out there.”
So, what hope does the up-and-coming band – or the established band, for that matter – have in today’s musical environment? There have always been, and always will be, musicians who love making music so much they’ll do it regardless of how much or little they’re getting paid. Krasno may be right about the impending ubiquitous cloud, but hopefully he’s also right about artists being able to somehow monetize streaming of their art. Otherwise, there may be a sudden, horrible, and total withdrawal of artists who can afford to make art full time.
When Jesse Gibbon (of Schleigho) first took Krasno (then, as now, of Lettuce) to see (future Soulive bandmates) Alan and Neal Evans with Moon Boot Lover, the year was 1995. My computer screen was still a black field with orange letters and nothing else. Soulive made their first recordings in upstate New York in 1999. The internet was still young then and only rich people or very, very patient people ever downloaded anything. Even if you were only opening a .jpg, you had time to brew coffee. Now it’s 2011, and most people’s phones are faster than those relatively primitive home computing machines. Bands still record and release music, even in the face of nobody with enough time on their hands ever paying for anything, but aside from love of their craft, what keeps a band like Soulive together?
Krasno’s recipe for Soulive staying together 12 years: “We’re like-minded, almost family. We let each other breathe, have space, and try new things.” Here’s hoping that recipe fuels them for another 12 years because tonight’s performance shows a band on top of their game.
There’s a DJ (not Kraz, unless it was a really good disguise) before Soulive takes the stage. The selections are mostly obscure, and lean toward the quasi-funky. I overhear a couple of early floor arrivals say they’d just seen Soulive at Jazz Fest. They’re pumped. When Soulive takes the stage, I can hear one of those guys bellowing (over the anticipatory crowd) a mighty and triumphant, “Krassssssnnnnnno!!!” Krasno almost cracks a smile, but it’s business time, and they launch into an epic reading of one of their early recordings, “Aladdin.” Their show tonight seems divided into 3 acts. First up is a batch of mostly familiar Soulive classics performed by the original trio with precision and verve. They’ve practically blown the top of my head off by the end of Act I, but little did I know they were just getting warmed up. This is my first time seeing Soulive and, truth be told, I’m pretty pumped too. Maybe even more pumped than that one guy.
Act II is a string of Beatles covers they worked out when recording their latest album, “Rubber Soulive.” The one that works best with their instrumentation is “I Want You (She’s So Heavy).” Frankly, I’m less enamored with the Beatles covers than I ought to be. I love the Beatles. It’s just that well, I came to see some jazz-funk, dammit! Perhaps the Soulive/Beatles release is a mostly-instrumental band’s attempt to attract a larger audience. It’s hard to turn people on to instrumentals, if they happen to be songs-with-lyrics kinda people (and, I’ve found, most are). Like David Byrne once said, “Singing is a trick to get people to listen to music for longer than they would ordinarily.”
Act III turns out to be the longest portion of the show, and has the most transcendent moments. They are joined in Act III by sax player Ryan Zoidis (of the Shady Horns). One highlight is “Hat Trick,” one of my faves from their newest batch of originals. Following that tune, just when they’re about to break a sweat, Krasno finds his way into a slow groove so poignant, it almost seems out of place with the rampant bacchanal of a few moments earlier. The song is called “PJs,” and also appears on 2009’s “Up Here.” It’s absolutely gorgeous. Couples mash together and soak up the sweet stuff.
I’m deeply impressed by the skill these musicians demonstrate. Neal Evans shines on a 3-tiered behemoth of a keyboard rig that many others couldn’t play if they possessed 6 arms. But now, as they smoothly finish the night’s designated slow jam, it’s Alan Evans’ time to shine. I wish I had a portable video recorder to document the clockwork choreography and raw power the drummer/singer has during this number – “One In Seven.” I can feel the muscles in my jaw grinning impossibly wide as Soulive keeps chugging through to the end of the show, which lasts about 2 ½ hours, no set break. Possibly they ran up against the venue’s curfew, ‘cause it sure seems like they could’ve kept going indefinitely.
Is there a future for the working musician? Krasno seems to think so. He tosses out a caveat for the up-and-comer, though. “It’s harder now,” he says. You gotta be good; you gotta have a unique sound, almost outlandishly different.” Gogol Bordello and Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros immediately came to my mind. More words of wisdom: “Be prolific.” Well, at least he practices what he preaches. Then, “Make more spontaneous singles, like James Brown. Get it all out there, y’know? Albums aren’t what they’ve been for the last 30, 40 years. Albums are just collections of singles again.” This reference strikes me as slightly ironic, since Soulive is touring in support of an album of covers from the original “concept album” band.
Certainly we’re on the verge of something. I’m not sure if anyone can really say what it is, any more than anybody could’ve predicted at the dawn of the digital era that we’d all be using our phones to listen to music, or having portable phones at all. Well, okay, Gene Roddenberry predicted that. Maybe Krasno’s vision of a slave-to-the-cloud future will happen, maybe it won’t. Maybe the apocalypse will intervene. Maybe aliens will scoop us all up and take us to a strange new world and we’ll have to reboot civilization all over again. If we had a time machine we could investigate further, but H.G. Wells seems less prophetic a sci-fi creator than Roddenberry in this case.
“I know exactly what I’d do with a time machine,” Krasno offers. “I’d go back to 1974 and play guitar on Herbie Hancock’s Thrust. ”
Anyone who thinks they can make a time machine, get busy.
