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For boomer garage-band set, a chance for small-scale stardom
Older amateur rockers are creating original albums as a viable sideline gig.
from the September 14, 2007 edition
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A changing game
Nostalgia and technology make for a potent cocktail. With their identity very much tied up in music and self-expression – and with many long-touring role models – boomers are ripe for a musical resurgence, says Steve Slon, editor of AARP the Magazine.
"It's not the demographic that grew up with computers at their fingertips, learning programming," he says. "Nonetheless, it's a group that really defines itself by its eagerness to reinvent itself and to discover and to learn." There's incentive along with opportunity.
Fluid Media Networks produces American Idol Underground, an online version of the hit show that invites users to upload original music for fan voting. "Every artist wants to be heard," says Justin Beckett, Fluid's CEO. "But where 10 years ago you needed $75,000 if you wanted to go to a studio and get a state-of-the-art CD made, today for several hundred you can produce an album – a CD or a digital album – of high-technical quality."
Digital distribution, too, has changed the game, Mr. Beckett says, in ways beyond just wresting control from the major labels. His firm has recently worked with residents of retirement communities. "These are people learning how the Internet works just to get their music out there," he says. "There's probably 10 times the amount of music being produced today than a decade ago."
It's all about access. Billy Coulter, a 40-something musician from the Washington, D.C., area has worked with Fleetwood Mac producer Steve Thoma, among other industry heavyweights. In his 20s, he says, he found recording studios very imposing. "Now," he says, "just like with desktop publishing, the power has come down to the user."
That can create some dissonance, Mr. Coulter allows, if it gives way to brain-to-Internet self-indulgence. "Just because you can [put it out there]," he says, with a laugh, "doesn't mean you should."
That one-in-a-million chance
But for musicians whose work has been vetted, an industry in fast forward is a boon. "It's a huge difference in the kind of preparation you have to do," says Mr. Kolmar. "[In the days of tape] you'd ask yourself, 'Is this something that I feel strongly enough about to record?' You can explore so much more now."
Kolmar, who works in educational publishing in Saco, Maine, has been using a version of Cakewalk software and a WAV-format digital recorder. Similarly, Evolution Eden's Hewett recalls traveling, not long ago, with a "big black suitcase" that held a Mackie mixing board, a digital recorder, and big headphones. Now he and his friends use tiny interface devices and good software – the ubiquitous Mac Pro Tools or M3 Audio for Windows.
Touring, they and others say, remains essential for cementing a fan base and for selling CDs – still a popular format among boomer buyers. But sites for selling digital tracks singly also abound – iTunes, tunecore, myjonesmusic, broadjam. And for profile-raising there are personal websites and the online communities. The website 55-alive.com is now accepting videos for its "battle of the boomer bands."
Plenty of boomers even inhabit youth-dominated MySpace, some more comfortably than others.
"You almost have to be there for the one-in-a-million chance that someone will see you and like it," says Lisa Bell, a singer-songwriter from Boulder. Colo., who has worked with her area's top jazz musicians and produced two of her own CDs, hitting such themes as divorce and new love. "It has been quite interesting to start singing after 35," she says. "The music business really doesn't know quite what to do with you."
To Ms. Bell, that hardly matters. "I may never be a superstar with a big record deal," she says. "But I am living my dream."
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