Jonny 5, nee Jamie Laurie, is the singer for and founder of the band the Flobots. They are best known for the single “Handlebars” from their 2007 album Fight With Tools, which peaked at #15 on the Billboard 200 chart. The Flobots’ new album, “The Circle in the Square”, was released in late 2012. Laurie is a long-standing social justice activist whose affiliations include Rhode Island’s Youth in Action and the Providence Youth Student Movement, the Colorado Progressive Coalition, and many more.
The world is an island now
The water level’s rising
Who will turn the tide?
Those are the words my band, Flobots, used as a thematic centerpiece for our second album, “Survival Story.” They are meant to recognize our current state of global interdependence and transformation. The World Wide Web, clearly, is a, and perhaps the, fundamental reason for this new reality.
Ironically, another part of the new reality is that being a professional recording artist doesn’t pay what it used to. When a product is essentially free it takes a lot to convince people to buy it. A lot of people like to say, “but you make most of your money on touring, right?” Unfortunately, this we don’t. We still make it mostly on attempting to sell the music, we just make less money than we would have ten years ago. How much less? I’ve heard people say that everything has been divided by 4, but I really don’t know, and I doubt anyone does.
If our primary concern were making money, this would all be cause for alarm, but fortunately, we have bigger fish to fry. Our goal as a band has always been to create music geared toward social change, to help foster social movements, and enhance local resilience through our work. Whatever our immediate financial interests may be, an allegiance to the global democracy movement comes first.
So, in the winter of 2011 when my friend David Segal approached me about creating a YouTube video in opposition to SOPA, I knew it must be the right thing to do, because I trust David to be on the right side of things. I knew that, despite the hanging questions for artists as to how we will survive transforming music industry, the answer would never resemble the heartless clampdown on fans proposed by SOPA. I knew that fans covering our songs at school talent shows and using our music as a soundtrack to personal slideshows deserve our gratitude, not legal action. I knew that my own creative endeavor at the time (posting a new rhyme a day for 365 days in a row) relied on the fair use of instrumentals found on YouTube.
I knew that I had to raise my voice.
What I didn’t know was that in a few days, the entire Internet would be rebelling against SOPA, successfully turning the tide on a piece of legislation whose passage had days before seemed all but certain.
My testimony, which I had assumed would be a small quixotic gesture protesting a foregone conclusion, ended up being just one more voice in a resounding global chorus, one which simultaneously defended and demonstrated the power of a free and open Internet.
The defeat of SOPA was a true victory. But for those of us (un?)lucky enough to work as professional recording artists, the question that still looms is, how, or perhaps even if, we should be trying to make a living on our art. Do we forego labels and CD sales completely and take a leap of faith on Kickstarter? Do we have the kind of fan base that will support that? Is there a cloud-based model that is fair to artists?
To be honest, though I consider myself both an activist and a musician, I actually find myself surprisingly UNinterested in learning the ins and outs of the music industry itself; both the one that is dying, and the new one that is being born. I want our message to get out, and I want to be able to work full time as a musician, but how exactly that happens I don’t particularly care. I want to create art that engages people to take part in transforming this world, but when it comes to my own place in a rapidly transforming industry, I would be happy to let someone else do it.
This, of course, is not really an option. We’re all going to have to chart our own course, both individually as creators, and in dialogue with one another as a creative community. We’re all going to have to care. Ultimately, the new direction will require the same faith that the old one required, a faith that if people find enough value in our art, we will be able to make a living at it. If we believe that, we’re going to be alright.
Leaks and Torrents and Sails Oh My!
An Open Source Rap by Jonny 5
Leaks and torrents and sails oh my
leaks and torrents and sails oh my
leaks and torrents and sails oh my
the cracks in the surface are hailstone-sized
leaks and torrents and sails oh my
leaks and torrents and sails oh my
leaks and torrents and sails oh my
and everything depends who the tale’s told by
the world is an island now
crowded but desolate
limited resources
forces to wrestle with
some try to chart but their course is directionless
so we built a vessel that’s poised on the precipice
on the high seas seekin’ refugees to rescue with
personal floatation devices for the desperate
leavin’ a trail of green bottles with messages
treasure’s hidden in the crevices beneath our deficits
by the time you get this it’s
gonna be expected that
you can lend your breath to this
mission and the effort this
ships been invested in
so we can press ahead with it
you provide wind for the sales that’s the etiquette
but the seas change
no warnings
leaks in the frame
rein by the torrents
and all aboard went forth in accordance
pickin’ at the floorboards and pullin’em towards them
they took the bundles of wood for their fortune
every one of them they wanted a portion
some of them normally couldn’t afford’em
some of them could and just took’em from boredom
and I wondered if I should thwart them
and make‘em stop like abortion
but some of them were swordsmen
and might get loud like distortion
insistin’ they should take it from me like foreskin
so now I’m staring out at the north wind
as things go south tellin crowds what’s important:
to maintain a platform
to peak our performance
to keep on course to reach these coordinates
and the old days are over
the vessel ekes forward
she’s okay if you row’er
weather the torrents ripped off the mast’r not
everything leaks now and the sales are lower
so we’re
in the middle of nowhere
but headed for a paradigm shift
floating on a metaphor
catch my drift
with no stream
everyone must subsist on protein
if you blow steam
listen don’t think
that I think that my “cop that shit” don’t stink
we’re trying to turn the tide
so I hope that our ship don’t sink!
everybody!
leaks and torrents and sails oh my
leaks and torrents and sails oh my
leaks and torrents and sails oh my
the cracks in the surface are hailstone-sized
leaks and torrents and sails oh my
leaks and torrents and sails oh my
leaks and torrents and sails oh my
and everything depends who the tale’s told by