Music

So, I'm finally settled back in. Here's the rest of those Quick Hits I didn't get to while at the Austin airport, as well as a few more that have accumulated since.

• The Austin Statesman picked up our little youth caucus, but seemed to miss the point. The caucus was an informal meeting, not a strategy session to construct a master youth plan. And the focus of the discussion - to what extent our youth movement needed to be about GOTV and infrastructure for organizing our peers, or building an ideological consensus - was barely touched on in his piece.
• In this piece by The Washington Post, 29 year old Republican tech strategist David All confirms the complete disconnect between the GOP and Millennials. My favorite line:
  

  David All points to a page on McCain's Web site as more old-fogy branding:

• PEW reports that young voters in this election are at least - if not more - knowledgeable about the candidates' position on Iraq.
• Anderson Cooper's ac360 blog profiles HeadCount and their latest work at the Camp Bisco festival.
• The Virginia Pilot reports that young Viginians (under 25) are registering at twice the rate of their elders. Registration has increased 10% in the last year.
• Rumors abound that Barack Obama is going to show up as a surprise guest at this year's Lollapalooza, which takes place in his hometown of Chicago.
• Young People For just announced the new class of their Front Line Leaders Academy.
• Nine Latino organizations are teaming up to spend $5 million on a nonpartisan voter registration effort targeting 2 million Latinos.
• Finally, Rock the Vote is teaming up with Comcast in its effort to register 2 million new voters this election cycle. I'm not a fan of this partnership. Last year, Comcast was caught blocking internet traffic from peer to peer networks. They are on the wrong side of the Net Neutrality debate.

Lots of stuff about McCain and Obama, but also a few movement-oriented pieces as well. Enjoy.

• Barack Obama authored an op-ed in today's New York Times in which he lays out his Iraq strategy. Here's my favorite part:

  As president, I would pursue a new strategy, and begin by providing at least two additional combat brigades to support our effort in Afghanistan. We need more troops, more helicopters, better intelligence-gathering and more nonmilitary assistance to accomplish the mission there. I would not hold our military, our resources and our foreign policy hostage to a misguided desire to maintain permanent bases in Iraq.

  In this campaign, there are honest differences over Iraq, and we should discuss them with the thoroughness they deserve. Unlike Senator McCain, I would make it absolutely clear that we seek no presence in Iraq similar to our permanent bases in South Korea, and would redeploy our troops out of Iraq and focus on the broader security challenges that we face. But for far too long, those responsible for the greatest strategic blunder in the recent history of American foreign policy have ignored useful debate in favor of making false charges about flip-flops and surrender.

• This weekend, the New York Times did a hit-piece on Obama, looking to drive a wedge between him and his youthful supporters in the media narrative. Tim Fernholz has the proper response over at Tapped. Also at the Prospect, Courtney Martin has a slightly different take on Obama's "tacking to the center."
• David Frum is the latest conservative to try to make hay about young voters supposed-support of privatized accounts for Social Security.
• The LA Times profiles Joel Flatow. If you want to bring big-name musicians into politics, apparently he's the go-to guy. Only problem, he's also one of the dudes behind the RIAA's awesome strategy of suing its fans. This sucks, big time, and it's why groups like MFA losing their funding sucks even worse. I want musicians involved in politics to support smart copyright reform, not be reactionaries advocating on behalf of a dying business model. As such, getting rid of people like Flatow and delinking the two seems pretty important.
• Rock the Vote says that 3,100 bands signed up for their DemROCKracy contest. If each band registered only 25 fans, that would be 77,500 registrations. Bad ass.
• The Hip Hop Caucus Blog has a great look at the Jesse Jackson/Obama scandal framed as a generational issue within the black community and civil rights movement.
• Finally, John McCain calls college students "spoiled children. Awesome. Here's what I say to that:

Raising money for youth organizing - even straight voter registration - can be tough. So kudos to HeadCount or an innovative fundraising strategy that draws on their greatest strenghts: artist relationships. And kudos to all the artists for stepping up like this to support a kindred organization that does good work.

From a press release issued by Head Count (emphasis mine):

More than a dozen artists and promoters are backing HeadCount by agreeing to donate 50 cents from the sale of each ticket at participating concerts to support the nonpartisan, nonprofit organization’s voter registration campaign. These concerts, which include six national festivals as well as events at the world famous Red Rocks Amphitheater, have all been branded with the banner of “Cents For Sense.” This integrated fundraising and message initiative is expected to raise close to $75,000 and help HeadCount (www.HeadCount.org) achieve its goal of registering 100,000 voters before November’s election.

The festival lineup consists of Summer Camp, Mountain Jam, High Sierra, All Good Music Festival, Camp Bisco, and Gathering of the Vibes. Labor Day weekend concerts by The Allman Brothers Band and Bob Weir & RatDog (August 30th) and Gov’t Mule and Umphrey’s McGee (August 31st) are also participants in the Cents for Sense campaign.

“We set out to find a way that bands and promoters can support the cause and put a real voter participation message behind their concerts,” said Marc Brownstein, HeadCount’s co-chair and the bass player for the popular electronic rock band The Disco Biscuits. “We’re really touched by the outpouring of support.”

• At 9pm Eastern tonight I'll be blogging at Daily Kos as part of the weekly Kossacks Under 35 series. I'll be blogging about the three new books reporting on the youth vote this year.
• The CT legislature passed a law allowing 17 year olds the right to vote in a primary if they will turn 18 by the general election. - Rock the Vote
• Nancy Scola explores the brief history of Facebook's role as a social change agent, both the good and the bad. -AlterNet
• Micah Sifry doubts allegations that the Clinton campaign raise $10 million in 24 hours this week. - TechPresident
• Republicans in Arizona are looking to ban ethnic student groups and associations. - DailyKos
• Ben Adler reports that Obama lost young white voters to Sen. Clinton in Pennsylvania. - Campus Politico
• The Chronicle of Higher Education takes a brief look at the Harvard IOP survey results. - Chronicle of Higher Education
• The Arcade Fire and Superchunk are playing at ealry get out the vote rallies in support of Sen. Obama in North Carolina. - Merge Records
• Voto Latino discovers that Jenna Bush may not vote for John McCain, but then again, she doesn't really pay attention to politics anyway. Awesome. Way to be a role model Jenna. - Voto Latino

I'm in Denver today. Tonight at 7:30 I'll be doing a book event at the Tattered Cover (Historic LoDo). Stop by if you are around. Later today I'll have a review up of Millennial Makeover: YouTube, MySpace, and the Future of American Politics. In the meantime, here's what's interesting today on the youthy side of the interwebs:

• Voto Latino jumps on the CD-fundraiser bandwagon. For $3.99 on iTunes you can download an album featuring tracks by Ozomatli and a number of other bands. Proceeds will benefit Voto Latino, a mostly volunteer nonpartisan voter registration outfit.
• Fred Stutzman of Unit Structures wonders about the role of "curation" in an age of mashups and social software.
• John McCain does not support the troops. ABC News has him on-record opposing the new GI Bill I wrote about yesterday.
• At WireTap, Karlo Barrios Marcelo explains how the popular vote could help enfranchise more young african american and latino voters.
• On April 20th in Philadelphia, the Hip Hop Summit action Network, Voto Latino, PowerPAC and the Hip Hop Research and Action Fund will team up with rappers and hip hop stars to launch The National Hip Hop Team Vote 2008 campaign. The campaign will seek to turn out young people for the upcoming Pennsylvania primary.
• Joe Garofoli at the San Francisco Chronicle has a great piece about the competition in California for delegate slots to the convention, and how some people ran mini campaigns on the ground and on the web to rustle up support. FM friend and former USSA president Jenn Pae was quoted in the article.
• Kay Steiger of Campus Progress points us to an interesting article about the differing views of younger and older feminists about Sen. Clinton's campaign and the state of the movement.
• Ending on a high-note, young Oklahoma senate candidate Andrew Rice raised almost half a million dollars this quarter, and has passed the 1 million mark for the campaign. Rice is seeking to unseat global warming denier Jim Inhofe. Congrats to Andrew and his staff, and good luck.
  

Like Mike I've been flying some lately too. And just got home in time to check email and post.
There is this fantastic organization that we talk about on here sometimes called Head Count. I LOVE HeadCount. There are orgs that do outreach with musicians or young voter outreach but HeadCount really works with musicians and bands the way that Music for America use to back in the day.

Thursday they announced their summer tour program where you can "travel from concert to concert with major HeadCount-affiliated acts such as Dave Matthews Band and Jack Johnson."

"You will be joined by 1-3 other HeadCount representatives and attend every concert on a given tour, setting up a voter registration table at each venue and encouraging concertgoers to Register to Vote. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to spend your summer in an incredible environment, registering thousands of voters and being on the frontlines of the youth voter movement.

HeadCount and the participating artists provide a vehicle, gas, hotel, entry to the concerts, and everything you'll need to stage a successful voter registration drive. You will also receive $200 per week to cover other expenses." (thats a lot of soda....)

Dude... this is seriously a sweet ass opportunity for anyone who wants to get on the ground floor of working in the youth movement and working in the super cool section of the youth movement. Further its a great way to make a HUGE difference while having a whole bunch of fun.

This organizational model is something that Mike addresses in Youth to Power, which you should all buy, read, and commit to memory in order to perform Youth to Power interpretive dances...

But seriously folks, of the alternative youth music organizations that were formed HeadCount is one of few that is left standing and holds a street cred that spans the Mountains of Missoula to the shores of Jersey. Working with an org like this is worth the time and energy that you'll commit and it can spring board you into your hip political career or at the very least give some sick tales to tell your buds over a beer when you get back to class in the fall.

Check it out - get down with your bad self!

Via Reuters:

NEW YORK (Billboard) - Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young and Peal Jam have contributed tunes to the anti-war soundtrack for a documentary about a U.S. soldier paralyzed in Iraq.

The 30-song, two-disc album "Body of War: Songs That Inspired an Iraq War Veteran" will be released March 18 via Warner Music's Sire Records label. All proceeds from the sale of the album will benefit Iraq Veterans Against the War.

"Body of War" focuses on Tomas Young, an Army soldier paralyzed upon arriving in Iraq. It will open on March 13 in Austin, Texas, and expand nationally in subsequent months. Talk show veteran Phil Donahue directed the film with Elaine Spiro.

The album was put together by Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder, who composed the first single, "No War," specifically for the film. Pearl Jam's live version of Bob Dylan's "Masters of War" also graces the soundtrack.

Springsteen contributed "Devils & Dust," and Neil Young "The Restless Consumer." Other tracks include "Yo George" from Tori Amos, "Son of a Bush" from Public Enemy, and "Bushonomics" from Talib Kweli & Cornel West.

A few thoughts - it's awesome that this is raising money for an organization. That is a much more powerful, and lasting statement by all of these artists. In 2004, Punk Voter sold over 600,000 of it's anti-Bush CDs, and Music for America, with the help of MoveOn and McSweeney's, raised over a quarter of a million dollars via the Future Soundtrack for America. These sales were crucial in helping the organizations survive 2005, when a lot of donor money began to dry up in the youth organizing sphere. These kinds of dual donor/pr/engagement projects not only bring political awareness into the cultural realm, but they help make progressive change more sustainable by supporting institution building.

Reading this also sparked a more tangential thought regarding Neil Young's skepticism about the role of culture - particularly music - in achieving political change, which I find to be quite off base.

Maybe the reason that Young sees diminishing returns on his investment in political music has to do with his audience. While I know that many young people are always discovering Young's music, I'm going to guess that the average age of showgoers and consumers of his music - and those most likely to read his political statements - are older. Political beliefs tend to harden when people start to approach their thirties. As such, most of Young's audience has already made their political statements and declared allegiances on most issues. As such, Young may raise awareness about some issues, but his efforts seem unlikely to change people's minds or convert new, enthusiastic followers who could help drive an issue politically. I would even say ditto for Pearl Jam and Springstein.

Someone like Talib Kweli, on the other hand, has a much younger audience with less firm political beliefs (and a greater likelihood of not even being registered to vote as of yet), and greater contemporary cultural relevance. So when Talib makes a political statement, it's impact on the culture and on real tangible gains - ie voter registration or increased political activation/engagement - is much greater than that of Young.

In a nutshell, I'm positing that there is a direct correlation between the age of a musician's audience and their potential political impact.

Thoughts?

Apropos of my piece about Neil Young, I thought I should announce that I've accepted a volunteer position on the advisory board of HeadCount.

Out of all the new non profits that formed in 2004 to activate live music scenes, HeadCount, which began in the jam-band scene, is the only one left standing. Just a few months ago, MFA was defunded and merged their membership with the League of Young Voters. In early 2007, Punk Voter mothballed into a news organization. Fat Mike is limiting his involvement in politics this year, and Scott Goodstein who ran the day to day operation now runs Barack Obama's text messaging program.

So HeadCount, which in 2004 was the most underfunded of the three, is now the only game in town. This year, they're expanding their work outside the jam-band scene, hiring their first full-time staffers, courting donors, and scaling the entire operation upwards.

It makes me glad to see that live music outreach is going to continue in 2008.

HeadCount has set a goal of registering at least 100,000 voters at 1,000 live music events in 2008. That's a far cry from the 2,400 shows MFA attended in 2004, but HeadCount is a far more efficient organization than MFA ever was. In 2004 and 2006 combined, HeadCount registered a total of 57,000 new voters on a budget of $120,000 - or $2.11/registration. That's at the low-end of the scale in terms of cost/registration, which usually averages around $8/registration.

How they did it was through a mix of artist involvement and a strict organizational culture that stressed accountability and hard work above anything else. About a year ago I interviewed Andy Bernstein, the co-chair of Headcount about this, and the resulting blog post elaborates on how HeadCount acheived such efficiencies while creating a deep bond with their target community. There's also a great discussion from some of the old MFA crew in the comments about what did/did not work at MFA, and I advise you to check it out.

About a week and a half ago I attended the screening of a new documentary about the organization - you can get a sneak peak at it, along with a taste for what live-music organizing is all about, here:

I'll be posting a lot more about HeadCount as they ramp up their 2008 activities.

For the past 6 months I’ve been consulting the All-Ages Movement Project (AMP), a member-driven network of community based organizations that connect young people through independent music and art. AMP connects DIY and grassroots music organizations together to make them stronger, and currently has assembled a network of 94 organizations across the country.

In this vein, I am republishing AMP's organizational spotlight series here on FM, so you can get to know a few of the estimated 200-300 orgs across the country working in the trenches- changing the lives of young people and the direction of this country by making activism and participation cool again.

Turn the Beat Around: Youth, Art and Activism at 924 Gilman

By Shannon Stewart

SPOTLIGHT ON 924 GILMAN'S PARTICIPATORY STRUCTURE

You Are Responsible for Your Participation

When you first walk into the little warehouse in front of a canning shop on Gilman Street you might, like me, stand in the middle of the room sort of awkwardly and wait for someone to ask if they can help you.

And you will stand there for a while.

The second time I did this, the back door was propped open and the sun backlit people walking in and moving around me as if I were an inanimate object rather than a curious and semi-lost looking person standing in the middle of the concrete space.

As I wondered whom I should talk to about getting on the agenda for the 924 Gilman membership meeting, some guys in clad shirts screaming band names in scratchy fonts moved nasty couches around and disturbed the mice hanging out underneath. I flinched at the sight of the urban wildlife inside and was rewarded with a couple knowing smirks. Strike one.

People meandered in. A whiteboard was slid out and propped up against some chairs with all-caps agenda items like "BOOKING" and "SECURITY." We were 12 people: mostly male, mostly wearing all-black clothing. One person was putting trucks on a new skate deck.

Ben, the facilitator, pushed his thick black glasses up the bridge of his nose and pulled a pen out of the front pocket of his plaid button up shirt. "OK, let's get started. First of all, does anyone have anything they would like to add to the agenda?" There were a few retorts back, and then he says, " OK, well how about you go first then?" I looked up from my notes to find 11 mostly disinterested sets of eyes focused on me, seemingly sizing me up. I passed around a few copies of my case-study proposal. I knew that every major decision at Gilman is passed through membership.

After a few questions about my proposal, Mike asked if anyone "wanted to vote" on whether or not they approved of Gilman's participatory structure being written about. Even though every decision has to go through membership, not everything is voted on, and in this case, no one piped up. This struck me as such a no-brainer way to keep every decision from seeming process-heavy as they normally do in collective settings.

The conversation then moved on to a lengthy discussion about creating a new "head of security" position and formulating the best strategy for working with the city in dealing with noise complaints.

Update: Note the correction on the cost/registration data below.
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Last week, I reported that Punk Voter and Music for America would both be seriously scaling back their operations in 2008 - a huge loss as those two organizations together accounted for more than 2/3 of all music and politics events in 2004 (over 2,400 events). Together, those organizations spent almost 3 million dollars on young voter outreach and education, and they had paid national staff.

At the same time, Head Count, an all-volunteer effort in the Jam Band community operated a much more efficient organization that registered almost 50,000 voters for just under $150,000. Headcount worked with over 40 headlining acts at approximately 500 shows in 2004.

In 2006, as part of theirs "Midterm Matters Tour," HeadCount, registered 8,500 jam band fans at 30 events including Bonnaroo, Phil Lesh/Trey Anastasio's tour, and a dozen dates with the Dave Matthews Band. And they did it for less than $30,000, only ~$21,000 of which was spent before the registration deadline. That's $2.50 per registration half of what it costs to run a traditional field canvass ($10.40 per contact (pdf). - which is on the low-end for voter registration work.

This week I spoke with co-chair Andy Bernstein about how they did it.