Billy Atwell explains his wants for Xmas in interview

New glasses.

Playing to several thousand people at Seacrets in Ocean City, MD with my cover band Big Bang Baby. We will be shooting a DVD that night, too. Should be a blast!

3. What are your New Years Resolutions?

Increase business and expand my resources for teaching, recording, gigging, composing. The usual stuff. Certainly hope to spend more quality time with my family doing things that helps us remember the little things in the rat race of life.

Not sure. I’ve been negligent composing my own stuff and focusing more on the role of producer and freelance drummer. I could get on a roll and come up with more stuff without even thinking about it. I threw a track on myspace the other day and referenced a hypothetical release in ‘09 called “Black Insect Jacket”. At least I have a title!

I’m going to start learning more about sequencing software and virtual synths to lean heavier on an electronica/abstract direction (pending of course that my clients are into it). Hopefully I’ll get better at managing deposits and things so that if?a project?takes longer than expected I don’t sell myself short or get hung up for weeks with no revenue because someone gets a chest infection and can’t sing. That type of stuff.

I’m not the guy to enlighten people who make a game of getting over on people and stealing their work on a daily basis. I can hear a nation of Beavis and Buttheads going, “Heh, heh, heh…I didn’t pay ANYTHING for it! Heh, heh, heh.” I just don’t agree with it. On the other hand there isn’t much to do about it because these aren’t the days of vinyl. Back then kids didn’t have a way to cut vinyl in their bedrooms?or convert it to a format to?carry on like?Johnny Tastemaker and the Nanosecond Attention Span All-Stars. Ah…the days of leaving the arm up on the turntable to listen to side one of Zeppelin’s “Houses Of The Holy”…Aerosmith’s “Rocks”…side two of Cheap Trick’s “Live At Budokan” over and over again…alas.

As far as effecting me it makes less sense to worry about it in terms of what my old friend Steve Taylor calls the “opportunist’s rescue fantasy on a grande scale”. In other words, I don’t really have to sit around and think about working with artists based on selling them to a record company for a five album deal and a big advance. Artists now have creative power unlike many years back and are really grasping at straws for anyone’s attention that’ll pony up and buy SOMETHING from them. I’m aiming at new talent, the unheard, the underdog and little guy…I’m trying to help them find a voice at a fraction of the cost and a minimal amount of paperwork. A modern day Sam Phillips if I may be so bold. The industry is such a crapshoot that all I can really hope to do is work like a paint contractor…?look at the house, talk about how to spruce it up, do it, get paid and offer a firm handshake. If they get a deal, great, maybe I’ll negotiate for a backend percentage for working as inexpensively as I do. However with more and more artists putting out their own stuff (outside of the clutching hands of the pop star/glossy/15-minutes-of-”fame” frying pan) we can get down to the work, create some lasting recordings and let the marketing details work themselves out. Post the tracks on?free streaming audio sites?to encourage gigs and a fanbase? Great. Release it in limited CD form to sell at shows and as digital downloads? Makes sense. Send it to radio stations for airplay? Awesome. License it in a major or independent film? Best option yet because that’s where the money is.

I’m not sure anything can be done about it at this point. The problem was always all the middle-men jacking up the retail price of a CD. Had the industry have taken note of a label like Dischord that made the packaging minimal but functional and touted the option to buy direct postage paid for a modest fee to be determined we probably wouldn’t have the backlash of copyright theft that we have now.?It was also pure folly to drop the ball on reinvesting profits into artist development rather than creating?new personas, cashing in and getting out. Disposable music for disposable palettes. I still buy CD’s. Depending on the artist, the release and my certainty in it’s longevity in my collection I may buy it used. I still like to look at artwork no matter how small it is.

Besides, mp3’s sound like ass most of the time.

It’s a great advertising medium. Direct marketing. Awesome. I don’t use robot hardware to try and sell stuff to people who are into stuff that might sound like my stuff. And I can’t stand artists who do. I’m either too lazy or just can’t be that phony. I’d like to think it’s the latter. It’s really cool to be able to actually compliment someone directly on their work or even have infrequent correspondence with them. I dont’ remember that stuff happening before the Internet save for the first wave of ’80’s American hardcore when DIY was in full swing. That seemed like a really vital underground scene. I’ll go out of my way to buy something new as a gesture to the industry: “Yes! SOMEONE actually likes this crazy s**t enough to pay retail for it! Let’s push it!!!”