Benn Jordan

On a lighter note, Time Out asked me to list my top 5 space album recommendations for promotion of the Adler’s Cosmic Wonder. I think my humor was a little too dark for a recreational publication, but here’s their article: http://www.timeoutchicago.com/arts-culture/museums/16233731/space-music-and-the-adler-planetariums-new-cosmic-wonder

Below is my unedited mindless dribbling:

So you need some advice for your intergalactic road trip, eh? Well, I’ve been asked to help with that. I’m going to give you 5 good picks from the genre that isn’t really a genre yet: Space Music.

Outer space is, in reality, pretty vast and terrifying. So before you even step into your rocket ship or UFO or whatever, you’re going to need to get yourself excited. Take a wild stab in the dark, typically in the part of the dark that feels like a shaggy rug, and you’ll find a French disco band called “Space”. In 1978, Space released a record called “Just Blue”, which features an illustration of a futuristic space shuttle surfing in the ocean on the cover. I probably don’t need to say much more, do I? There is only one place in the known universe where space is funky, and it’s found in between the grooves of this record. Just remember, space + funk = cheese, so make sure you close your windows if you’re blasting this one.

What an adventure we’re on. Time to get a little serious now that we’ve made it outside of the atmosphere. See that boring looking flatland in northwestern Europe? That’s Holland. Since the landscape and atmosphere is so dull there, they tend to overcompensate with their music. And if I’m to pick a great album to listen to while floating around the earth, I’d pick “Tryshasla” by Secede. Secede, in my mind, starts where “The Future Sound Of London” left off. Stunning textures and soundscapes compliment his excellent composition. It’s airy, cinematic, and never boring.

So assuming you’re floating away from your planet at the speed of mach 5, by the time you’re done listening to that album, you can’t even feel the effect of the earth’s gravity anymore. Did you know that the gravitational force of the earth extends as far as the earth has existed in years, times the distance light has traveled in that time. Of course this assumes the general belief gravity does not propagate instantaneously. What? Oh yeah, music. As your home planet becomes nothing more than a dimly illuminated grain of sand, things are starting to get a little ethereal. Now would be a good time to listen to Boards Of Canada’s  “A Beautiful Place Out In the Country”. The title is a bit misleading for this purpose, but one can’t listen to this album without imagining celestial objects glimmering to the simple and gentle melodies in tracks like “Zoetrope”.

Now that you don’t even remember what up and down means, there’s good news and bad news.  The bad news is that you’re way too far away to ever return home. So sorry about that, bro. The good news is, not only is this next recommendation (what I believe to be) the most influential ambient album of all time, but it is a double disc! It is none other than Aphex Twin’s Select Ambient Works Volume II. By definition I’m not even sure if it is ambient. It is consistently as warm and docile as it is beautiful. I can’t imagine life without this album.

Life! What a coincidence that I said that word. Speaking of life, did you notice the sign out there that said “event horizon”? Oh well, don’t worry about it. My next and final pick is Brian Eno’s magnificent song “Thursday Afternoon”. I picked up the CD as a young teenager in a library simply because it was on a Thursday afternoon when I found it, and it pretty much changed everything I thought about music. The song is roughly 60 minutes long, which is just about enough time until you are reduced to a bunch of disconnected atoms which will be stretched into a single file line that resembles the outside of Best Buy on Black Friday. Dude! Don’t worry. You’ll be, uh, fine.

I hope you enjoyed my curated list of space music to accompany your incomprehensibly painful death awesome voyage across the universe! It’s fun to think of you way out there while breathing all this natural oxygen and eating fresh fruit.

Oh, one more thing. Sound doesn’t work in space. So nevermind. Sorry.

Love,

Benn Jordan

Today is a sad day for me.
A disclaimer, the story I’m about to tell is not intended to pull on your heart strings, ask for your donations or support, or pose as a tool to create ill-feelings against individuals. I am going to use real names and describe real events, because it is in my best interest to be transparent, and just as importantly, if I am not specific, I exempt myself from issues of libel. And the looming threat of libel makes me unable to write about anything that cannot be proven.

This message is being written here, in public, because I do not want there to be any speculation on what has happened, what is happening, and what my future intentions are. It is important for me to have a personal statement for both the press and students of Alphabasic Music Center.

Over the years, I have enjoyed many fruits of my labor as a recording artist. For a while, after lots of grinding and uphill climbing, I lived a life where my responsibilities were mostly limited to doing whatever I wanted to do. I reached the point where my purpose in the world was to write records and perform songs from them around the globe. It paid my bills, and most importantly it allowed me to keep doing it.

But I was unhappy and unfulfilled. I was living a life that was beyond the most fantastic goal I had ever imagined as a teenager, and not really enjoying it. That was because I felt like I wasn’t doing anything that mattered. A police officer, a nurse, a janitor. I viewed all of these professions as superior to mine, for they were making a tangible difference in the world. So at many times in my career, I’d dump my savings into a charity. Sometimes as an anonymous donation, and other times as an active member. But it still didn’t mean much to me. Landing a music license in a big film and donating half of that money didn’t really make me a better person. I needed something that my hands were on constantly.

In August of 2012, I had just gotten home from a great tour. I landed some big composing jobs and was ready to find a new path. A friend of mine, Nissa Sampson, was frustrated with her job as an office manager and teacher in an expensive suburban music school, and was living down the block from me in the Bridgeport neighborhood of Chicago. Glaring at me from across the street was a giant vacant storefront, smack dab in the middle of a lower-middle class neighborhood that lacked any quality music education. Even if there was quality music education, it would be unlikely that 80% of the people who lived here could fit it into their budgets.

By the time the idea to open a non-profit music school clearly entered my head, Nissa was on board as a partner. We both had a wealth of friends who are talented music teachers who were on board as well. The month of September was a crazy one. I learned how to do everything from mounting drywall to cutting custom window frames. Another non-profit, “Keys 4/4 Kids” (where you should absolutely be going if you’re buying a piano, by the way) generously donated 2 pianos of our choosing to our cause. In 3 weeks, we turned a dilapidated, vacant storefront into a modern, friendly music school. I built a studio in the back and moved most of my gear there, so I would effectively be in the building for the majority of my time.

I expected, at best, to not have a busy schedule of students until October of 2013. If we weren’t sustainable by then, it would be time to either merge the business into something that works or chalk it up as a good deed that didn’t hit the spot. But by March, we had more students than I could even keep track of. It seemed like every time I went into the waiting room to hang out, I’d be introducing myself to a new friendly student or parent who had nothing but praise for our organization. I think my sense of accomplishment bloomed when hearing the younger guitar students play songs rather well just a few months after watching them get handed a guitar for the first time and holding it so awkwardly that it was humorous.

More importantly, it was the first time in my life when I’ve seen music students excited to take music lessons. It wasn’t a boring thing their parents were forcing them through, but something they were racing to. They would often show off their new skills immediately after the lesson. Some of them would be in a hurry to leave so they could go home and practice!
And that’s it. Success. My grumpy kid-phobia had gone away, and any doubt I had about dedicating half of my time to this path deteriorated.

And all of this was without ever asking for a hand out. We received no government assistance, no financial donations from others, and were at the brink of being completely sustainable on our own.

But nothing is without its problems.  The real estate company that owned our building didn’t really share our vision, nor were they expected to. But the building, essentially, was falling apart. The roof leaked during storms, there was mold in the rear kitchen, the ceiling lighting didn’t work properly, and worst of all, there was nasty sewer gas in the basement. My initial idea was to list these things, and have the owners drop rent by a few hundred dollars. The business would be perfectly balanced, and any growth could lower lesson costs and maybe even hire someone to work the front desk. But the owners didn’t want to budge, and were confident they could rent the unit to someone else for the price we were paying (which may actually be true considering the thousands of dollars we put into it).

But, just as I was scrambling to build a workshop program and setup Yoga classes on Sundays to help make up the remaining couple of hundred bucks in rent, I got a break. The storefront of the building I live in opened up, was bigger, had giant rooms with windows, and was about 40% cheaper. We figured out a way to move that would only suspend 1 day of classes, and that was on my radar for June. In fact, I had planned on having an opening party at the new location where I’d give an active demo of my Treefield visualization system.

In that location, the business would be set. At our rate of growth, by the end of the year we’d be surpassing other small music schools in the amount of students we had, and our prices would be lower, perhaps even free to those on public aid.

I was as enthusiastic as ever. I had negotiated a lease for the new spot, and instead of complaining about our current renting situation, I was getting our customers excited about the new one. Nissa, on the other hand, didn’t seem quite as enthusiastic, and we had to have a meeting about her intentions with the business. Differences were easily resolved, and the green light was set.

It was a few weeks later,  she surprised me by telling me that she decided she was quitting the business. She refused to sign any agreements or papers regarding her decision, and she expected some of the foundation’s assets to be given to her as payment for her time and money put into the business. Obviously it is far more complicated than just walking away, especially for a non-profit. I explained that her decision, in the legal realm, was akin to buying a new car, abandoning it in a parking lot somewhere, and then asking the dealership for a refund. This was 8 days ago, and that was basically the end of her correspondence. I spent 5 days contacting her asking if she still intends to teach her students with no response at all. This week was spent trying to gain access to files and business information in her files, contacting students about the changes, and finding someone to substitute for her.

I dreaded yesterday. I didn’t know any of our Wednesday students or parents personally, and the parents weren’t exactly thrilled that their children are being subjected to the sharp side of this drama by having to switch teachers. But, I felt like I was handed another gift. An old friend and music teacher Morgan Krauss came in and made these young children feel comfortable, and perhaps even taught them better than Nissa had. Despite the looming uncertainty with my business partner, I was relieved that Alphabasic Music Center was still capable of doing its job: Music education.

Today I woke up and headed to the gym for my morning training. On my way down the block I noticed something off when passing the school. I was shocked to find that most of the furniture, a piano, and countless other things, including gear I use for my live shows, was gone. It became apparent that in the early hours of the morning, my partner had secretly rented a truck and removed these assets from the school. I still haven’t itemized everything that is missing.

The worst part of today, was finding out that Kyle, our best and most valued teacher (and also Nissa’s boyfriend), was not only helping her do this, but has quit with no intention of giving us time to replace him or even telling his students.

I understand greed, and at times fear it. I knew it could possibly included as a pawn in the outcome of this business, as it could be with any. But what I do not understand is why this was handled so recklessly. I made it clear that I harbor no ill-wishes on anyone and intend to do everything I can to make the business dissolution as easy and painless as possible for everyone involved. I just have no explanation for this, not even a theory.

For those of you who are enrolled in the school, I give you my deepest and most sincere apology. I used my best judgement in my attempts to find you a good long term education, and I failed. I cannot express enough gratitude for your business and trust, and I would do anything in my power to keep you. Any tuition for this month, whether you got lessons or not, will be refunded out of my own pocket. There is no arguing it, it is already done. If you paid in cash or believe that we owe you lessons or a refund, email musiccenter@alphabasic.com, it goes directly to me now, and I’ll promptly see that you’re refunded.

What happens next?
Our head piano teacher quitting was the nail in the coffin. I simply do not know a teacher at his skill level that can jump in and save the day. In fact, if this has taught me anything, it is that hiring teachers who I do not have a long, trusting, personal relationship with is no longer something I will do. It breaks my heart to see children hungry for education and it being denied to them for greedy or personal principles, and I refuse to allow it again.

With Kyle and Nissa gone, over 40% of our students don’t have a teacher. At this point the business is far from sustainable. I could personally keep it limping along for another month, but I cannot afford to renovate another building and move everything. Financially, the legal costs of dealing with Nissa’s unannounced departure from a non-profit are devastating. I’m not even referencing litigation, I’m just speaking of figuring out a way to defend myself to the IRS when explaining how a large portion of a non-profit’s assets are sitting in someone’s apartment without any sort of transfer agreement or receipt.

I have many expensive and lengthy steps required in order to dissolve the business. Due to the closely inspected nature of a not for profit structure, it makes more sense to close our doors, deal with this mess, and start over fresh.
I cannot give you a time when this will happen at this point.

As for students who wish to continue lessons elsewhere and need a referral, I will do my best to find you a program that is comparable, or work something out for private lessons with the teachers that remain at our school. I will be contacting each and every one of you personally in the next week.

Thank you so much for your trust and support. It breaks my heart to publicly announce that Alphabasic Music Center, despite it’s success and impact, must close its doors. I will remain committed to the community as long as I reside here.

Below is an article which was initially written for a larger site, but I decided that most of the biggest misconceptions have to do with musicians, rather than users:

Before I dive in, I am not an attorney. For over a decade I’ve been a professional producer and owner of a music publishing company.  Without going into detail, I’ve sued for copyright infringement, I’ve been sued for copyright infringement (unsuccessfully), and I negotiate licensing and copyright contracts more than a musician would ever like to. In fact, the reason I don’t normally use an attorney for these negotiations is because, while an IP lawyer can translate a contract, he or she doesn’t necessarily understand copyright value.  At least not on a scale I would trust when it means the difference of $500 and $40,000 to use a recording for a television commercial. The world of music licensing is a unique one that can only be learned with experience, and it is an industry much smaller and more incestuous than one might imagine. That being said, obviously nothing said here (or anywhere on the web) should be considered legal advice.

Copyright VS. Copywrite
In many discussions, on both internet forums and around a dinner table, I’ve heard someone break down the specific differences between copyright and copywrite. Some say that copywrite is the musical notes, while copyright is the recording. Others go as far to say that copywrite applies only to literature. Well, no matter what you think copywrite is, you’re wrong. In fact, it isn’t even a real word. “Copywriting” and “copywriter” applies exclusively to someone writing to promote a product or service. For example, a piano moving company will hire a freelance copywriter to nicely describe their services in a way that would make you trust them with your piano and credit card information. It has nothing to do with intellectual property, or copyright.

“It Is Legal To Download Content You Previously Purchased On CD/DVD/iTunes/etc”
I think this misconception is born out of common sense. You bought the intellectual property, so it would be ridiculous to consider downloading it from a torrent site as piracy. Guess what, it is considered piracy, it is illegal, and it is ridiculous.  I’ve read a lot of posts about people eagerly awaiting a PC confiscation only to one-up the feds with a matching CD collection. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t prevent the charges, it wouldn’t work in your favor in court, and it most likely wouldn’t even reduce your penalty. It is, however, legal to copy a CD to your computer or download something from iTunes and re-encode it to an MP3. However, you legally cannot make a tangible duplication (burn another CD).

“If An Artist Samples Less Than 3 Seconds Of A Copyrighted Song, It Falls Under Fair Use (And Other Fabricated Fair Use Perversions)”
This specific topic is so well spread and argued that, to me, it feels like a scientist arguing with a creationist.  There are all sorts of different versions of the myth:  Some say 7 seconds, some say 1 second, and some say the trick is changing the pitch down or up a note. Whenever I’m somehow involved in this debate, I always make note to ask where they heard such bullshit. Astonishingly, the number one answer to that question is “college”. This means that all the way up the hierarchy to your trusted professor, nobody seems to understand fair use. I have at times, with a foil hat on my head, imagined that these misconceptions have been spread on purpose to make lawyered-up music publishers and film studios money.
So let’s set the record straight. You cannot legally sample music without clearance. It begins and ends there. If someone were to take a tiny clip of one of my songs, pitch it down to 10% speed, reverse it, and slam 8 minutes of echo on it, I could sue their pants off (not that I would, or even be able to detect such a thing). For you electronic musicians out there, also understand that a lot of sample and loop libraries do not clear their samples for professional use. This means that if you use a drum loop from a library you shelled out $499 for, and you end up licensing that song to, say, a tampon commercial, the original copyright holder can, and probably will sue you.  Always check the clearances before purchasing (or pirating) a sample library.

Another very weird fair use misconception is the “Ask Three Times Rule”.
I get a lot of emails asking to use my music for college films, performances, even feature length films explaining that they have no budget. I have a nice little graphic on my site explaining the terms and conditions of using my music that these people usually ignore, choosing to send me an email anyway. If I drew up a license for every one of these requests I’d have to quit working and spend my life switching between Gmail and Microsoft Word. So, like an asshole, I ignore them. But once in a while, something strange happens:
A few days after the first email, I’ll get the same email again, but with “second request” at the end of the subject line. Then, a few days later, I’ll get a “third request”. Then I never hear from them again. This never even became a conscious thought until my friend, who has a degree in dance and worked for a large dance company mentioned the “Three Notices Rule” for music used in performances. It turns out, not only her university, but one of Chicago’s largest dance companies was under the impression that if nobody responds to your clearance request three times, you legally have clearance. I thought she simply misunderstood something until I thought about all the emails that matched this strange set of false rules. To be clear, you cannot use music for a performance unless you have a license agreement. Even if you get a response saying “go for it!”, that provides you with nothing in the terms of US copyright law.

“It Is Legal To Reuse Public Domain Material”
The short explanation:  Usually, but if you’re not sure, don’t.
The medium explanation:
First things first, figuring out if something is public domain can be very difficult. A few months ago I got the idea to pitch an in-house produced version of Gershwin’s “Summertime”. As of 2012, George Gershwin has been a corpse for 75 years, thus making his writings public domain. But wait a minute, the Copyright Terms Extension Act of 1998 now comes into play, extended these terms to life of the author plus 70 years and for works of corporate authorship to 120 years after creation or 95 years after publication, whichever endpoint is earlier. Copyright protection for works published prior to January 1, 1978, was increased by 20 years to a total of 95 years from their publication date. Go ahead, take an Advil.

To make matters more confusing, while copyright is very important, it doesn’t always cover potential trademarks or source identifiers. Let’s imagine McDonalds abandons their horrible major scaled “I’m Loving It” jingle and popularizes the first 9 notes to Beethoven’s “Fur Elise” as their new mnemonic. That doesn’t make it copyrighted by McDonald’s, but you would find yourself in quite an entanglement if you went on to produce a dubstep remix of “Fur Elise” (yawn) that made its way to a Wendy’s commercial. This plays a much larger role in visual art, where copyright and trademark blend a lot more often.

Finally, there are 2 sides to every music license, the master and the synchronization license. The master is the song itself, and the synchronization is the recording. Pretty much any version of “Fur Elise” that you can buy or download is still covered by synchronization. The music is public domain, the recording is not. Stick to MIDI files, I guess.

Thanks for reading. I hope someone out there learned something. There are about 200 more misconceptions that I could cover here, but I’ll save that for another installment.

I’ve been so busy. I have a new record coming out on the 23rd, I’m playing and co-producing a show at the Adler Planetarium with the most sophisticated visuals in history on the 26th, and my new non-profit music school and publishing house here in Chicago has a soft open on the 27th.  This over-booking is my own fault, of course, and my dream of spending just one entire day covered in Cheeze-It crumbs while playing Borderland 2 gets foggier and foggier.

But something else is now budging it’s way into my carefully planned schedule, a giant impending lawsuit that shouldn’t need to exist.

So here’s the setup. Not-at-all-known dubstep artist, comically named “Inventor”, decided to take one of my most popular songs, “Undiscovered Colors”, put some bird sounds over it, release it as his own, and put it for sale on every digital network available. Inventor’s record label, “Foul Play”, has ignored any attempt of resolve, including a cease and desist letter. This isn’t really all that surprising, as someone was doing with with all my albums back in 2006 before I had put my music on iTunes. That only took 24 months to resolve.

But there’s a much bigger problem here.  Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc all have extremely rigorous and advanced methods of protecting themselves from illegally hosting music or video content. Why is it so incredibly easy for an artist and record label with absolutely no regard for my material to sell it on said networks?
Google has previously sent me copyright infringement warnings for my own material on Youtube, pertaining to, hilariously, the exact same song mentioned above. I’ve responded with proof that I own every possible right to the music, only to get another DCMA notice a week later. This leads me to believe that their auto-copyright-watchdog software is trigger happy, which is annoying, especially since it has absolutely no effect on people illegally selling my music.

So since the guy who runs “Foul Play” apparently printed out my cease and desist notice, rolled it into a tube, and smoked crack out of it, I’m going to assume that he won’t show up to court either. In the meantime, there are still 10+ networks selling my music illegally. My girlfriend’s investigating pointed out something even more insane, when you play the original version of “Undiscovered Colors” into Shazam, it identifies the song as written by Inventor and gives you the option of purchasing it in iTunes. In fact, if you search “Undiscovered Colors” in iTunes….my version, the only legal and legit copy of the song, doesn’t even fucking show up.

Going deeper into the inept rabbit hole, I’m shocked to find that Undiscovered Colors is my #1 selling track on iTunes, and Arboreal (the album it is on) is my #1 selling album. Without giving out exact sales figures, the sales are well into the thousands, and the streams are well into the hundreds of thousands on iTunes. So how is it, that this successful album and track do not even show up in a specific search, yet the stolen version does? It is beyond my level of logical comprehension and nearly pushes me into a paranoid conspiracy theory state of mind. Is it possible Apple blacklists me from coming up in searches for some reason? Is “Inventor” the son of someone important?
Just….wtf…how does this make any sense?

To add to the chaos, the same thing happens when you search the title in Spotify.

So obviously now, the next step is to send a cease and desist to everyone hosting the song. Here’s the results:

Google Play is “working on it”.
Microsoft has not responded.
iTunes has not responded.
Rhapsody is “working on it”.
Emusic has not responded.
Junodownload has not responded.
Spotify has not responded.
Beatport, who won’t even sell my music, has responded with a letter saying that they’re not responsible for the music they host, then explaining that I have to fill out documents and fax them for them to consider removing the title. This, from a legal perspective, is incredibly entertaining to me, since responding to a cease and desist means you’re aware that you’re breaking the law. And I’m not sure how Beatport can claim they aren’t responsible for illegally profiting off of my recordings, but that argument certainly didn’t work out too well for Napster a decade earlier.

So, to resolve something that could be done by any of the companies above with one mouse click, I have to lawyer up and basically sue the entire digital music industry. It will take many months to see a result, and it will take years to see any compensation for illegal sales of my music.

At the end of the day, I look back 5 years to my last brush against iTunes, and realize that nothing has changed. None of these music stores have a department, or even an employee to deal with artists directly. When they sell my music, they make money, and lots of it. I have made these companies 6 figures over my career, yet there’s not one person I can contact to resolve a simple issue such as this. It is sad to say, as a precedent,  I simply can’t justify my agreement with any of these companies at this time, and it makes me question if and how I will release albums in the future.

So the next time you get a letter from your ISP threatening you about illegally downloading music, or the next time your Youtube account gets banned for using a clip of Megadeth behind your video of a squirrel eating Chex Mix, remember that on the other side of the transaction, all of that bullying amounts to nothing unless you’re a RIAA partner. These companies are willing to shove 1,000 attorneys down your throat if you share music, but won’t even respond to a legal order about actual music theft and piracy.

Edit: To those of you emailing me telling me that my music should be free to use. That argument is completely void and invalid here.  Undiscovered Colors cost over $3,000 to record. It features an entire orchestra. Find me some info on “Inventor”. Where he’s from, when his next show is, maybe even a website. You can’t. This copyright violation isn’t about art, it’s about copying a popular song, boldly releasing it with the exact same title,  and making money off of it. The shocking part is not that someone invented a ballsy way to rip me off, it is that they got away with it and none of the retailers seem to give a shit.
Share my music all you like, I encourage it. But selling it under your own name and taking all of the money without my permission is piracy, and the very definition of theft.

Edit2: I am now aware of the misspell, which, in a way adds to the ineptness of it all (I double checked my submissions and they’re all spelled properly). Spotify at least was like “oh,  did you mean Un-dick-covered Colors?”.

Firstly, I do not claim to be an expert on Ugandan politics. I would think that even the most connected Central-Africans would have trouble being up to date on the rapidly changing politics of the region. About 10 years ago, I began gaining interest in African politics after reading Robert Young Pelton’s “The World’s Most Dangerous Places”. I was initially horrified by the widespread atrocities, but ultimately horrified by the rest of the world’s general ignorance to it. And that’s not your fault either. We all hear about the earthquakes in Chili, the financial crisis in Iceland, and all sorts of international news, but the most prominent and attention-worthy news almost always comes out of Central Africa. It is our generation’s holocaust, and just like Hitler’s holocaust, it didn’t exist because of our complacency. It existed because of our ignorance. Even some of Hitler’s closest generals and allies did not know the detail or extent of the atrocities happening in prison camps.

So, briefly, let’s take a look at this Invisible Children campaign. It is (in my opinion, smugly) raising awareness of crimes committed by Joseph Kony, one of the 6 leaders of the Lord’s Resistance Army, and urging you to create a massive demand for military intervention through both US intervention and/or helping the Ugandan government have the power to arrest him.

Right off the top of my head after watching this:

1. There is absolutely no reference to the situation in Uganda and why the LRA exists. While Joseph Kony is a complete cunt, he isn’t just a sociopath who entertains himself by sending children into war.  In fact, his practices are nothing unique at all. They can be seen in Sudan and the surrounding region, and are even overshadowed by the crisis we saw all the way over in Liberia a decade ago.

Joseph Kony formed the LRA to stop the equal (if not higher) level of rape and slaying from President Museveni.  Museveni is another complete cunt who has strong-held office just short of 30 years, and has committed mass atrocities on the Acholi people. What we ultimately have is a war started to protect the Acholi people from the Southern Ugandan government that resulted in the civilians being used as tools for that war, in horrible ways.

WHY is the name Museveni not mentioned once in this video?

2. The video claims that the United States wants no involvement with the crisis. This is bullshit. As recently as October of 2011 we sent our military there to “advise”. “Advising”, in this context, means help build, recruit, train, and supply guerrilla military groups. I didn’t agree with it then, and I don’t agree with it now, because…

3. In the last 5 years, Uganda, along with Sudan (yes, this is all connected) have actually experienced a fortunate wave of ceasefire. While it isn’t quite calm enough to even think of the word “peace”, the situation has improved drastically. Our military, arming or instigating one side of the conflict will almost certainly lead to an increase in violence.

4. With a little more research, you can browse through the groups images. I came across an image of Invisible Children’s founders holding guns and posing with Sudan People’s Liberation Army (link). Can you guess what the SPLA does? Bingo. They rape, loot, and most ironically, recruit children to fight for them.

Central Africa’s conflicts go back to pre-colonial times. If capturing Joseph Kony, like this, did anything, it would be sparking another decade of mass violence in the region. The conflict does not begin or end with him, and he is merely a pawn in a very complicated chess game who will likely see his demise sooner than later as most in his shoes do.

To simplify all of this, imagine that Adolf Hitler was at war with Osama Bin Laden, and Invisible Children is asking that we urge the US Government to use violent military intervention to capture Adolf Hitler to stop terrorism once and for all. At the very best, I suspect that they’ve skipped the task of learning about the region and actually understanding what they’re talking about. At the worst, I suspect that they understand their contradictions but are complacent with ignoring them to further their own careers, which puts them right in the same moral hole as Kony himself by risking people’s lives to further a different, self-important agenda.
I believe the latter. Because it would be impossible to be in Uganda, interviewing refugees, and be unaware of the other 90% of the story.

I am surely not the only one criticizing this campaign, many wiser than myself are. But I know enough to be able to confidently say: If you want to save Acholi children, don’t give Invisible Children a dime.

The income tax for the wealthiest VS. the GDP/economy gets mighty interesting around 1931. I imagine that at first glance it would appear that the economy died when income tax went up, but it is quite the opposite when you consider the time it takes for an economy to die and recover. Of course this is convoluted by the factors of the continent’s worst drought taking place in the 1930′s and the nations most invested war effort soon following. I’m not exactly occupying Wall Street here, but data like this is crucial for rational opinion. 

http://www.taxfoundation.org/files/fed_individual_rate_history_nominal&adjusted-20110909.pdf

If you were to drive in the late-night, empty streets of downtown Chicago this week, you would notice two groups of people occupying the sidewalk. The first would be a line consisting of white college students sitting up against the Federal Reserve building behind propped up protesting signs. In an almost artistic way, their faces light up in the dark from the mild illumination of their smartphones and iPads. Then a mere block away, you see a very similar scene. More bodies sitting up against a building. Except these faces are mostly old, worn, and dark skinned. They’re not protesting, they’re sleeping and eating trash out of dumpsters. That’s their life. And it isn’t the “recently lost job and house foreclosed” homeless, as those people commonly couch surf, move in with family members, or apply for public aid. It is the staggering and increasing community of mentally disabled and substance addicted homeless. I’ve seen them everywhere in the city as far back as I can remember.
Drive a couple more miles throughout the city and there are massive sex markets that exploit children as young as they develop sex organs. It is slavery in epic proportions. It is estimated that as many as 300,000 children are victims of sex trafficking every year in America.

Taking a drive downtown got me thinking…
The homeless and trafficked are not recent victims of Wall Street’s tyranny, they are victims of America’s ignorance. Blatant and applied ignorance that streaks down from the richest 1% all the way down to the middle and lower class. And it made me think, these college students occupying the Federal Reserve, do they actually realize the audacity of their anger over their debt while voicing it a block away from people who are legitimately starving to death?  That selling the smartphone would provide enough money to get some of these homeless people in a program that would change their lives forever?
How could you not realize this? And that being said, what is the difference between the protesters and the Wall St. bankers and corporate executives? Nothing, morally. The bankers aren’t in debt, and many American people are. That’s the only difference.

But I’m not a moral police officer, especially since I’m sitting in a studio typing this out surrounded by a fortune of music gear and appliances. So bastardizing the Occupy Wall St. movement is not something I can do without contradicting myself. In fact, I’m a huge fan of an American revolution. I disagree with so much of our country’s policies and behavior that I would give up everything I own to start over. But let’s face it, a real revolution has balls. A giant portion of the population have to risk their jobs, their criminal record, and their lives in order to have enough weight to demand and receive adequate change on that scale. Until that happens, it is just politics and spin. Our politicians aren’t listening, and I’m absolutely positive that the nation’s corporate executives aren’t. They need to be scared to listen, and we have to be capable of absolute resistance and even violence in high population numbers to make them scared. There’s no incentive to negotiate with a thousand people in a park. There’s a lot of incentive to negotiate with 10 million people ready to destroy government and media buildings. I would be a part of that army, that revolution for change.

But before you forward this page to the FBI, understand that I, unfortunately, don’t think we’re capable of that. Our country is too big, too diverse, and our citizens are too comfortable. I don’t think most Americans would risk the income that feeds their children for a shot at providing them with a better government and society when they grow old. I can’t criticize, because maybe I wouldn’t take that shot if I had a family to feed.

My point in all of this, is that I expect nothing from the #Occupy movement because it doesn’t hold any playing cards. This “revolution” may not be televised, but it will be custom glamorized by individuals on Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, and every other personalized internet media outlet. As long as those homeless people sleep a couple blocks away, I can’t help but think that a majority of the die hard protesters are just trying to be a part of something that provides them with a purpose. The interesting thing is that the purpose doesn’t necessarily need to be a purpose at all, it just needs to look that way to everyone that they know.
From my experiences, it has been impossible to have even a polite conversation with friends of mine who have joined this crowd. All month I have read inciting posts that are either manipulative or simply wrong. Politely correcting them with a link to a reputable source of information has resulted in the entire thread being deleted, and even my profile being blocked. It’s irrational.

But the whole thing is irrational. As I mentioned above, a dozen people sitting against a Federal Reserve building isn’t intimidating those who they feel have taken advantage of them. And a select group of young upper-middle class people defining and claiming to be the spokesperson for the nation’s single parents, immigrants, ghettos, and homeless isn’t really rational at all. In fact, it is quite disrespectful. And until I see people the city’s housing projects appearing at these protests, I will continue to think that.

But finally, comes my point of all of this rambling:
The one amazing and beautiful thing about unregulated capitalism, is that it, in itself, is a democracy. And every man, woman, and child has the right to vote in that democracy every single day of their lives. It is voting with your hard earned dollar, and it is voting with your valuable time. If you are outraged that Bank Of America paid 0% in income tax when you paid your fair share, then go to your local branch and vote by closing your account with them and transferring your loan to a bank or credit union that pays their fair share of taxes. If you’re enrolled in a school that is going to keep you in debt for the next 20 years, then stop going to that school. And most importantly, if you’re upset about where your tax dollars are going, then get out a calculator, figure how much you’re going to owe in 2012, claim maximum dependency, and donate it all to a charity that you agree with.

I guess that’s my fantasy. My pipe dream. For everyone to sit down in this crisis and say “What can I do that will actually fight these things that I am angry about?”. And when it comes to rejecting unreasonable loans and living beneath your means, I’m pretty sure that’s the one recipe that made the hated 1% so successful to begin with.

So please, be smart, rational, and empathetic. If you’re an activist, actively change your lifestyle to support those you admire, and ignore those you despise.

I guess it has been a while since I went on a blog rant. I don’t really know if that’s a good or bad thing. I hate sounding like a cranky old man, but I also hate having a blog that isn’t updated. Unfortunately important opinions are most frequently shared in the state of contradiction, fueling this cranky old man’s fingers. Anyways:

You may have come across a recently viral article by JD Samson (Le Tigre): http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jd-samson/i-love-my-job-but-it-made_b_987680.html?ir=Celebrity

So let’s sum this up:

A 33 year old lesbian female admittedly incapable of using Excel or making coffee lives in the hippest and among the most expensive areas in America, paid for by a career in doing whatever she wants, when she wants…and she’s whining about not having a pension.
She’s got a lot more publicity than I do. She tours more than I do. Her albums probably sell better than mine do. Yet I, at the same age, have a savings account and at least the beginning of a fiscal plan for my future.

Do you think that the difference is because she’s a lesbian in America? Or because she’s just inept at managing her finances?

Lady, move to a place in the suburbs, get out of your Windish Agency contract and negotiate your gigs yourself,  print up some CDs to sell yourself via the internet and at your shows, and stop attempting to add yourself to the weight of the world’s pity. There are millions of people in our country right now working 2-3 horribly degrading jobs at once, with families, that don’t have pensions or health insurance.

Art isn’t a charity. It’s a competitive business just like everything else.  You don’t just decide that you’re a musician and then expect the rest of society to make sure your rent is paid for your luxurious Brooklyn loft. You have to roll your sleeves up and earn your money. Any successful artist will tell you this.

There’s a reason I drive a Hyundai and live in a south Chicago coach house. It is because I am capable of seeing income and understanding that I may not get any next month.

So please JD Samson, invest in a calculator, figure out how much your yearly income is, subtract the amount you wish you put into savings, and then adjust your lifestyle to reflect the amount remaining. I don’t feel sorry for you and it is insulting that you expect us to.

On another note, this week has given me the best weather imaginable.  It’s like paradise outside.

When most people think of complex music, they think of Mozart. A few musicians or music-enthusiasts (hold on, owning every album Pitchfork reviews does not make you an enthusiast of ‘music’. I’m talking about someone who actually studies theory) might, of course, mention Bach’s fugues or Coltrane’s quartal and quintal harmonizing. Those examples are special ones. They fit into our lives, yet so few of us understand them. If you have a decent ear, try taking Coltrane’s “Giant Steps” or “My Favorite Things” and playing it slowly on the piano. Or even easier, try to figure out the chords. Not so easy, right? Yet the song is incredibly familiar.

The list of complex melodies is an infinite one. As jazz’s popularity nosedived in the late 80′s, it split off into two routes. One of those routes was led by the embarrassing Kenny G, who dubbed himself as “smooth jazz”. Any jazz musician will retort: Kenny G isn’t smooth jazz, or any type of jazz. Vince Guaraldi and Stan Getz are smooth jazz.

The other route? Well. It got ugly and masturbatory. It got so ugly sounding that now, when you go to a free jazz show, you’ll discover that half of the time the musicians don’t actually know how to play their instruments. It got so complex that a beginner could make some noises and pretend to be more advanced than the utmost skilled performer. It might not convince many, but the very act of trying is a red flag.

What is rare, and only exists in a handful of pieces, is complexity and familiarity. Was John Coltrane such an important figure in defining America’s sound that we accepted his compositions and revisions as something we were willing to let grow on our unskilled ears? Or was he just so incredibly talented that he possessed the power to find a back door, and creep such unfamiliar changes into our narrow minded musical taste?

I don’t know.

What’s more impressive, to me, is that one of the most widely accepted songs in the world is one of the most insanely complex. I sang it as a child, and you’ll be hard pressed to find an American who doesn’t know the melody.
“Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood”
Hum it in your head. Not so bad right?
Now listen closely: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaYR5lwzomE
An incredible, goose bump raising interview with the writer, Johnny Costa: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUI2GpXX3gI

How in the world did that left-field jazz puzzle end up being one of the most accepted songs in contemporary history? And for a children’s show!

That’s what obsesses me.  The ability to take something from the advanced jazz era and, rather than running off with it like a pretentious nob, hammering it down until it can be integrated with your average listener.

If I was better at it, you’d be able to listen to Love As A Dark Hallway, and immediately listen to Coltrane’s “Meditations” and feel at home.
Unfortunately, I’m just a baby, and I’m nowhere near that level of mastership compositionally. But, at the risk of torches and pitchforks from those who’ve grown happy to STAVL’s simple-immediate-approval melodies, I do my best, partially in attempt to build a bridge between my releases and my influences (any fan of Metheny’s or Jaco’s will find themselves at home, solo-wise).

But mostly, I did it because I wanted to concentrate on writing much stronger melodies and rounding them out for listeners other than myself.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a 10th the man Johnny Costa is.  But I would never release something that I don’t feel is appropriately accomplished (my opinion being the keyword). My point is, Love As A Dark Hallway isn’t supposed to be catchy, epic, or an emotional journey. It turned out, conceptually, exactly the way I wanted it to, which is why I released it. Of course a part of me wants everyone to like it, but a bigger part of me knows that if everyone immediately liked it in the first week they heard it, I would no longer be an artist. I’d be merely providing a service.

Regardless, as always, thanks for listening to it. Words cannot describe how much I appreciate the honor of having so many ears lent to my day’s work. and…

Enjoy melodies, for they mean nothing more than a tribute to the people and events that inspires one to write them.

This blog update is so big that you’ll probably need an ebook reader to read it. http://www.bennjordan.com/benn_jordan_-_victor’s_border.pdf