Maybe you've heard me rant about the music life lately – I'm in a good mood today so I'll steer clear of ranting. Today I wanted to announce that plans are underway for an exclusive early release of my new album titled 'YOU,' on the blockchain, on musicoin.org . Let me tell you a little back-woods story to fill you in on how I got to this decision.

Follow me on Musicoin Subscribe to my listener's list to get the low down www.ezravancil.com and of course here @ezravan

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I Needed An Adventure... Album

.. on second thought... I might rant. :)

Last year at this time, I hit a wall in my music career. For one I had just turned down a music deal that as a general rule over-40-year-old music artists don't get offered that often. I was deeply questioning my decision. Was that it? My last 'go' before I pass the BIG GO. Now it was just o'l me again in my music career. Me and 10,000 music biz hats that must be rotated at break neck speed.

Yet, things were actually looking better than the years before.

It was an emotional wall; a creative wall. As I discussed in this ranty post, music-life conundrum I just felt spent.

I had left a very kinda-corporate career at a college to revamp my music career and I found myself still sitting in a cubical most days doing all the shite that must be done for a solo artist to survive in this day and age. That means depositing my $9.20 Spotify checks to buy a hamburger when the noodles get depressing and splitting the fry and coke onto another card. ("that's so embarasig.. can you put the bacon-ator on this card, and the coke on this one, and here is a dollar cash, just knock that off the top please... and don't look at me."

(don't worry, I'll get to musicoin at the bottom ..press skip if you need to)

But that wasn't all of it. The music biz has always been hard and tight – like my body was before I sat in a chair for 10 years writing, playing, recording, marketing, videography-ing & mixing my own music. It was this, more than anything; the recording my own stuff in my lonely studio, that set me off on a the journey of this new album.

I'm a complicated man

My music friends are always begging me, 'Ezra, stop making everything so complex and difficult!"

Such as: last year I recorded a live album. Recording 'live' with an audience is not as hard as it used to be; it's actually very cheap and easy with digital.

Ezra Vancil & The Congregation

But no! I wanted it on tape, analog tape. And I wanted the band encircling my favorite friends and fans (making them the center of the show), and I wanted them (10 loosely rehearsed fans) to lead the audience in singing the songs! That's what they mean by 'difficult.'

I kid you not, I woke up the next week after that show, and I had my first gray hairs in my beard.

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everybody leaves - LIVE from the deep video

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Everybody Leaves on Musicoin

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YOU, just 'you' - An Adventure Album named YOU

But the 'live' album did not satisfy.. it actually didn't sound as good as I hoped. So last year I started on an adventure album.

One of the things that so sickens me is that this used to be really fun. I grew up in studios, and I'm old enough to have enjoyed month-long drunk'n and dazed band sessions in bad ass, beautiful studios. The energy and magic dripped from the neve console, literally.

Ezra & Band In Studio for Crowd Fund Video

Now.. well I do what I did this morning. wake up. Drink some coffee. Rehearse, then go sit my aching-back at my desk and sing in between dog barks and UPS trucks. That is recording.. the only thing dripping is my elderly dog's loosely held bowels.

I'll make it a scavenger hunt!

Don't worry. I'm leading to how Musicoin fits into this. BTW go follow my profile before you leave.

Basically.. I was bored! So I thought, how can I make this album fill in the rest of my beard with gray whiskers... ah! I'll make it a scavenger hunt!

The rules I laid down were 'roughly' nothing unreal. If a song calls for a b3 hammond organ & leslie speaker. We get a B3. If it calls for a stand-up saloon piano. We find the oldest best-est one in Texas. If it calls for a synth; we get as close to the original hardware circuitry as possible. no short cuts dammit! Most of all no sitting in my studio.

My keyboard player is a nice guy, but the kind that is mysterious enough that it's a real possibility that he will clock you in the jaw at any moment. He about did as I drug him around Texas when we had three perfectly good keyboard sin the studio.

Kent Smith Piano

It was an adventure. It cost more than any album I've ever made. Can you really tell the difference? I can. But technology is amazing these days. It wasn't so much about the technical sonics and the natural rooms we had.. it was about creating something that had desperate blood spilled on it. Something that took so much time, energy and money, that no way would we leave on stone unturned in the end. No cheap tricks, nothing but pure birth. That's what music used to feel like to me, like I have given birth. (I know.. it's like a man pulling his bottom lip over the top of his head... I'm speaking of the beautiful parts of it.)

Abandon Ship! Spotify is an Aisle in Walmart By The Yoga Mats

The album still has weeks to go. But I could see the light at the end of the tunnel a month ago.

Kent Do'n some Yoga in Austin's Congress House Stuido

But as that light burns my bloodshot eyes, we go through the first pangs of the corporate takeover of the world. The first thing that bugged me was a lot of this censorship going on by the three hogs of the internet. There was nothing censored that I care about personally, but I care about censorship a lot. I won't go into that, but we all should... especially when most of what we have here on the internet is in the hands of bloated behemoth corporations the likes this world has never seen. One company could nearly completely shut down my business.. google.

Secondly, I heard rumors of a big deal with the major labels and the only monopoly distributors that matter itunes and Spotify. It's not a rumor. [Read: Spotify, Itutnes, Hulu makes deal with majors, now musicians will be paid less]

(http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2017/09/new-spotify-apple-music-hulu-and-label-deals-mean-that-musicians-will-be-paid-less.html)
Say WTF willis! Less? I'll spare the details.. but it's already a screw job as it is.

The majors can't handle a level playing field. I remember listening to a conference just maybe 3-4 years ago. Usually, everyones all hyped on the panel.. this was like Custer's last stand. They're answers were like.. 'we don't know what to do. (Oh for the love of Thor) boo-hoo.. how we run the world now' ...meanwhile, in that time, I'm doing better than years online. They must control it. They are buying back their business model. And so is the government, they can't have this much freedom hence neutrality, throttling, spying etc. They just won't have it.

Monoploy Is Not Just A Game

Some say.. well now you have access to the world. it's a trade off. I had access to the world before iTunes or the internet. I built a 5000 subscriber list with something called (yourmailinglistprovider.com) way-way back with people listening to my music through real audio.

Now I don't even know who is listening... I have no way to contact them. Many listen. But I don't ever hear from them. As far as I can tell, there is a lot of teenagers that like my old band, and older women that like my new work... that's how helpful the Spotify stats are.. thanky!

Musicoin to the rescue?

musicoin.org

Even before this hot - floody - deadly - nazi - race baiting - censoring summer, I had a clue that iTunes and Google were evil. I once owed a few bucks to iTunes (because my Spotify check hadn't come in ;) and they shut me down. Literally, shut everything down. I had no access to even the music and movies I had bought until I paid like $5.99 I owed. Now that's F&*k'd up. That's like me owing blockbuster brick and mortar stores a late fee and they cart in a truck and take all the movies I ever bought from them. Evil stuff.

So I was already in the mind set of thinking differently about this album. I passed the lofty ideas of selling my music long ago; no. I sell T-shirts and entertain people for money... a glorified bartender.

but there really is no other option, Like a Walmart or Costco, these distributors have wiped everything else off the planet.. at least there was indie record shops in the day.. lots of them.

Musicoin Exclusive Release

So what's a man to do? This man starts by just doing things out of principle AND for adventure. I'm very excited about the prospects of Music on the blockchain. And Musicoin is hot out of the gate.

They are not really ready for prime time. But, I'd like to grow with them and take my chances.

Whether I will completely abandon the big behemoths or not. I'm not sure. But I'm not really excited about releasing my children's college fund (this album) on platforms that are eaten up with greed. That force musicians into waters that artist should steer clear of. I can't even title my albums what I want or use the art that I want. I've had names of my albums rejected multiple times as well as art work. And of course.. big marketing demands extremes of productization.

There is still bandcamp. and I like bandcamp, except that they are really geared towards a music worldview also.

I'd like to hear your thoughts.

My initial thought was a drip track campaign. I'll drip a track a week onto Musicoin with more of the mission of bringing my fans and new fans to an awareness of this new direction than sales. Then possibly go back to the beasts after the album is fully out.
Still thinking.. but sounds like an adventure to me.

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I'm Ezra Vancil a Texas Indie Music Artist americana indiefolk, Writer, and Painter. @ezravan follow me on musicoin Subscribe on my website www.ezravancil.com for details as they roll out this fall.

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