Giraffes today my friend, giraffes

Sorry for the lack of posts - it's been crazy busy, here's a short one.

Economics- let's talk about economy, that sounds productive. It just occurred to me yesterday that success breeds success, but not necessarily in the terms that you might be thinking. Let's take an example of a hot dog stand - now, for argument's sake, let's say this hot dog stand could have an infinite number of customers. You open your hot dog stand and you sell 100 hot dogs at a $1 with a $.10 profit on each dog, or you just made $10...pretty sweet deal. Now, let's say you sell 1000 hot dogs at the same price, so now you made $100 but you could also, if you knew you'd sell at least 1000, lower your prices to $.91 and make the $10 you originally made. Here's the good news about that - you lowered your prices, you get more customers - you get more customers you can lower your prices, decreasing your profit margins without decreasing your total amount gained. Now, I know what you're saying - you can't lower the prices under $.90 because that's the cost of producing each dog - and I say, you're right, except when I have more customers, I can buy all my ingredients in bulk which...you guessed it, lowers the cost per dog. Under this scenario, one could eventually be paying only $.01 per dog and selling them for $.02 and you'd only need to sell 1000 to make the original $10, but of course you'd be making more than just that because come on - how many hot dogs would you buy for $.02? Cosmic.

Cover Songs - I heard a terrible cover song the other day. As a matter of fact, I've been hearing more and more bad cover songs recently, so I think it's about time we write some rules of cover songs.

1. Don't cover the Beatles unless it's for a Beatles' tribute album, in which case one band should record one song per album and the album maintain it's original order. Come on people, it's the Beatles - let's not rape their genius. Also, playing Beatles' songs live is strictly forbidden unless you are a Beatle (looking at you, Panic! At the Disco) except "Birthday", but only if you're shamelessly promoting someone in the audience and you acknowledge that it's a Beatles' song which you fail to do justice to.

2. Don't release your cover song as a single (The Ataris - Boys of Summer)! This will overshadow the other songs on your album and will cheapen the effect of the cover.

3. If you record a cover song, add something to the song - make it different. If someone listens to your version of a song and says, "this isn't the original, is it? It sounds a little weird..." this means you fail. People should know that it's a cover because it merely references the song, doesn't make a carbon copy of it. This is particularly true for Christmas music...if your "Jingle Bells" sounds like the million other versions of "Jingle Bells" out there, then try again.

4. Don't cover your favorite songs...this one is tricky as there's something to be said in paying homage to your inspiration, but don't pay tribute by butchering your favorite song! Pick a song you like, but you feel you could add to with your years of listening to it...this song is missing a second bass line playing the riff in round with the first. If it's perfect in your mind already, what are you going to prove by recording it again?

5. Acknowledge the fact that it's a cover, as in don't take it so seriously and give some indication (probably in your liner notes) that this song was originally done by so-and-so and if you really respect whoever, listen the album it's on so that anyone who likes your version can go back and grab the original if they want.

Let's end the crappy covers now! Ta.