Bandwidth Conference Transcript
Bandwidth Conference
San Francisco – Thursday, August 14, 2008, 2pm
Panel: Bellweathers
Complete Transcription of panel
LW: Hi everybody. My name is Larry and this is our panel of Bellwethers, or young people as I like to say. So, what is happening here in this panel is that you are going to kind of eavesdrop on a conversation we’re going to have about what makes them do what they do – how they consume entertainment. To give you a little background on the way that I prepared this… How many of you use LinkedIn? Ok. So I actually asked all of them if they knew LinkedIn and 3 out of 4 didn’t really know or use LinkedIn, so I explained it. LinkedIn is the stuffy suit version of Facebook and MySpace. What I did is I send (some of you in the room may even have gotten this) a note out to 500 of my LinkedIn friends and said, “Ok. If you could ask a young person anything about how they consume entertainment, what would it be?” In about 3 day’s time, I got almost 200 questions.
I’ve condensed those questions into … a lot about what makes them tick. I’ve gotten a lot of insight into each one of them in the last hour – just about where they live and how they consume things. So, I’m gonna ask them a lot of questions, feel free to jump in and ask questions as well, we can do it at various times or if I get thru my 177 questions then you guys can come up and ask questions when I’m done.
I will introduce the panel: Ratesh is from Reno, Nevada. He is 20 yrs old. What do you like to eat?
Ratesh: Uhh. Not Indian food.
LW: Not Indian food. Ok. There you go. We also have Aubrey over here who’s 19 yrs old, also from Reno, Nevada. She wanted me to tell you that she’s 20, so I just blew that. The cats out of the bag. You picked a Canada Dry soda over there, was that your first choice of soda or did you get stuck with it cause you opened it?
Aubrey: Yeah, I got stuck with it. Well, we had Coke this morning so...
LW: OK. Gotcha. Camilla over here is 18 yrs old. She’s from Berkley and she’s the most worried about everybody looking at her and judging her. So, everybody tell her she’s gorgeous and everything she says is fantastic. Edward here is 23 yrs old from Stockton, and I don’t know enough about him other than he’s probably the least music obsessed (however still loves music). Some of them are more music than others, so we’ll steer this towards music entertainment and all kinds of things over the course of the hour.
To start off with, I’ll just throw this out there and say ‘music.’ Let’s start off with music and take that as a topic. Ratesh, give me an idea right now of some of the bands that you’re listening to, and some of the music you consume, if you will.
Ratesh: Ok. Some of the underground music I listen to (well not underground music – it’s under mainstream) is Black Dahlia Murder, Between the Buried and Me, and there’s a band called At the Gates – these are all death metal bands and I really love these bands. They’ve never been on the radio; they’ve never really been on MTV (they get MTV2 exposure at the most). But my favorite more mainstream bands are Queens of the Stone Age and Muse.
LW: Great. Aubrey, how bout you?
Aubrey: I like more mainstream kind of stuff. I still like some underground hip-hop, but I more listen to the radio and stuff so now I’m kind of into Katie Perry, who’s doing Warped Tour. Um, I love Tom Delonge, so anything by him - Blink 182, still.
LW: Camille, how bout you?
Camille: I listen to everything that’s on the radio. I like hip hop. I like Spanish music so I’m very diverse. It just has to feel right when I listen to it.
LW: Edward, what about you?
Edward: I pretty much listen to everything. The last CD that I really enjoyed was the N.E.R.D. album. The Lil Wayne one was alright. The Coldplay one was actually alright.
LW: OK. Great. So give us a little more background about the other kinds of entertainment you consume – whether it’s video games, movies, DVDs. Edward, I’m gonna start with you. Besides music, tell me some of the other things that define you, if you will.
Edward: Besides music?
LW: Besides music, yeah.
Edward: Movies, video games, Xbox 360, computers. The majority of the time I’m on my computer. I don’t watch TV as much any more. It seems like there’s not that much great things on TV any more.
LW: What was the last thing that you can remember that you liked on TV?
Edward: Right now, The Olympics
LW: The Olympics, ok.
Edward: Other than that, I don’t watch that much. I mean there are some things that I would probably like, like Heroes, Entourage, or something like that. Some of the sitcoms are ok. I have satellite, DIRECTV, there’s like 500 channels and I watch like 5 or 6.
LW: Right. Ok. Camille, what about you? Besides music, what else is in your world?
Camille: I do use a little computer. I use it for school and stuff; maybe for music but that’s about it. Right now, I got my younger sister the Wii, so we’re into that as a family. We started playing tennis.
LW: It’s a family thing?
Camille: Yeah, it’s pretty fun. TV... Right now that I’m not in school and I’m done with my summer courses, I just watch TV all the time.
LW: You have a favorite show?
Camille: Um, House.
LW: House? Great Aubrey what about you? What else do you like besides music?
Aubrey: I like sewing, but I pretty much watch a movie a day, in general. Well, maybe not a movie a day, but a few a week.
LW: So, when you watch a movie a day, this is at home or are you going to a movie theater?
Aubrey: Pretty much at home. Well, we saw a movie last night, Tropic Thunder
LW: Did you like it?
Aubrey: Yeah. It’s just too expensive.
LW: So when you say that you watch a movie a day, how are you watching it? Are you just watching whatever is on TV? Are you renting? How do you do it?
Aubrey: Uh, he has Netflix (pointing to Ratesh), so we Netflix.
LW: Ok. Ok. Ratesh what about you?
Ratesh: Well, other than just listening to music… I don’t really watch too much TV. When I’m out doing stuff, I’m usually at the river in Reno. My friends and I just hang out there either in the water or outside of it. There’s always free shows going on down by the river. Its not really shows that we wanna see, its just kind of like…here’s people watching.
LW: Like local bands?
Ratesh: Just kinda like little jazz bands that play at the river. It’s kinda the only cultural thing going on in Reno. That’s only in July.
LW: So, are you guys a little down on Reno as a city? Do you love it, do you hate it? What’s your feeling on Reno?
Everyone: Eh, it’s ok. Mediocre
Ratesh: I don’t dislike it to where I hate it. It’s only a matter of… just culture is a year or so behind. Two years behind?
LW: So, I’m setting everybody up here in the room about Reno cause we had some good talks about the way they perceive the way things come to them… as he said the way they hang out and do things, the way bands come to play, etc. So I’m filling everyone in room in on some things that I know already. OK. So let’s get to the root of discovery – how you guys find out about ‘stuff.’ Because this is what everybody really wants to know. In the music business, they’re all trying to find you. They’ve got one thing on one side which is they want you to buy their music. The other side is they just want to know how to even find you to get you to experience the music. And I think the same is true with movies, DVDs, video games, etc.
So what I wanna do… I also told them that nothing they say is wrong. They can freely admit to downloading, to burning, to whatever they do in the way they consume music, video games, movies, etc. So, hopefully no one in the room condemns them for anything, cause I want them to talk freely. I want everybody to know the way young people actually consume their entertainment.
So, Ratesh, if I start with you about music and music is very vital to you, and you have a lot of bands that you love. Tell me how you find out about those bands in the first place. Black Dahlia Murder for example, how did you even find out about them?
Ratesh: I remember it was a little before my 15th birthday, this was right when I got my DSL for the first time; we had Yahoo! Launch Cast Radio. I tried that out for a little while and I found out a lot of bands from that. That’s where I saw Black Dahlia Murder, it came on the little radio that popped up. They list off similar artists. After that point, I got this program, at that time it was called DC++. I haven’t used it in a while. That’s what I used to download stuff from. What I would do is go to someone who had Black Dahlia Murder, you can search users, it’s kind of like a network, you don’t see pictures. I would look at what other artists they had and things like that and start downloading random artists. Once I finally got into MySpace and everything, and looking at bands on MySpace, I would listen to their songs before downloading or I would look and find a band that band was friends with. Their top friends. It lists off who their tour mates or label mates are and I would download their stuff.
LW: Right. OK. I don’t need to go to each one of you every time. If anyone else wants to jump in about their discovery process. Ratesh, I’m going to go back to you. So that was the way that you started out doing that. How do you find out about a band today?
Ratesh: Usually how I find out about a band is if they are an opener for a bigger band. Like, there’s those death metal bands that I like, and they’ll usually be an opening band for them and they’ll usually be up and rising – and that’s how I find out about them. I still kind of stick to downloading. What I use nowadays is called Waffles, which is a torrent site. Torrents are you download a full cd, and you can only download a full cd – you can’t just download one song. You download a full cd from many users, it’s not like you’re directly downloading from one person’s computer. You’re getting little pieces of each song from each person. You can also browse their similar artists or whatever other torrent files they have to see what cd’s they have and stuff.
LW: Part of being on Bit torrent is to be a power user. Are you a power user?
Ratesh: Yeah.
LW: I’m gonna come back to that cause there’s a lot that I want to get into there. How about everybody else?
Who wants to jump in on how they discover?
Aubrey: Any shows that come thru, you can always find out bands thru them. I still think that MySpace is a really good way to find out about shows – instead of posting flyers. It’s not really realistic that everyone is gonna see it. But if you use MySpace, you just post a bulletin, and people repost and repost.
LW: So lets talk about that – how to use MySpace. If we’re gonna market a band or another television show, we wanna use MySpace to find you. What you’re saying is that you have your MySpace profile. You’re communicating with your friends on MySpace. Tell me how I can reach you. How does that come to you? Did that band touch you in some way? You were just checking them out and you friended them? How are we using MySpace to get to you, really?
Aubrey: It depends. Bands can ‘friend’ you.
LW: Randomly?
Aubrey: Yeah. Sometimes I have just random bands ‘friend’ me. And you can even turn that on or off, whether you want bands reaching you or not. If you’re the kind of person who will allow people to friend you that you don’t know then you’re probably gonna be the kind of person who will go to a show. But if you turn it off and don’t want bands to add you, then you’re probably not gonna be the kind of person who will go to a show and buy merch. You’re just gonna be looking at stuff online rather than going out.
LW: would you put MySpace as your #1 source, at least online, for finding out about music?
Aubrey: Yeah. I would probably say MySpace.
LW: Do you go anywhere else? Do you expand beyond that?
Aubrey: I don’t really go anywhere else. I do remember when Yahoo! came out with that radio and stuff, I used to listen to that too and you just see a bunch of bands. I don’t really use that anymore, I used to use that really often. Now it’s pretty much just going places and seeing people.
LW: So, online is kind of drifting as your source for finding things out.
LW: Camilla, how about you? How do you find out about stuff?
Camilla: I usually go to Imeem whenever I’m online. I just go to the website of any band or artist that I want to listen to at that moment. Usually different users have similar artists, kind of like he was talking about. I discover different people and different music.
LW: So you really are about finding people that like the same thing as you, and trailing off and taking that path.
It’s similar to what you’re all saying, you just might get there different ways. You’re getting the bulk of new music from people that have similar interests as you. (Ratesh)You said the Bit Torrent format is kind of the way that you find out about new music. (Aubrey) MySpace was yours. (Camilla) Imeem was yours. Is that fair to say? I’m not saying that it’s exclusive – that’s just one of the methods.
Edward. What about you?
Edward: For me it’s mixed, it’s more of by ear. Wherever I go, say go to a café or to a nightclub, and they have music playing and its catchy and I actually want to hear it again, I’ll probably do some research on it. I’ll probably look it up.
LW: So if you’re in a nightclub or you’re in a café and some song is playing how do you identify what that is? Do you usually know the artist by the song or do you ask somebody? How do you get to that?
Edward: If I don’t recognize it at all, it’s either ask somebody or just listen for the main chorus and Google that. Also, I find it helpful if there are ratings or somebody recommends it. Say Blender, if you have a subscription, they have ratings. If they have something that’s rated really high you might want to check it out. I think ratings are pretty good.
LW: In Blender, the physical magazine or online?
Edward: Either or. I have the magazine subscription.
LW: Does anybody else read magazines at all?
Everyone: No. (Aubrey)Cosmo.
LW: What about the ownership of music? Kind of owning it. I know for you (Ratesh), you’re not buying much music. But are you downloading a ton? Are you downloading all the time? Do you have tens of thousands of songs and albums?
Ratesh: I have over 60 gigs on my IPod. I’d say that’s over 15,000 I think. Honestly, I’d say that I’ve probably purchased 2 CD’s of that and that was probably 2 yrs ago.
LW: And the 60 gigs of music that you have… would you say that you listen to it all?
Ratesh: I have listened to every artist that’s on there. There’s some CD’s that I haven’t listened to fully thru. Its one of those things that I like to have it there for a random day, you know, when I think I want to listen to this CD all the way thru. I like a lot of the artists. There are also artists that I put onto my IPod that I don’t like just to show my friends, ‘hey look, this band is really terrible. Check it out.’
LW: So in addition to being a positive influencer, you can also be a negative influencer. You can also turn people off to bands too. Is it usually just the music or does a band sometimes do something that turns you off.
Ratesh: Its kind of both. I was in a band one time and I have them on my IPod and I enjoy showing people that band cause I’m like this is the band that I was in when I wrote that song. People will be like, ‘oh this song is really bad.’ And I’m like; I wrote that in 5 minutes. Cause I actually wrote that song in 5 minutes and that band still plays that song nowadays. Yeah, I wrote that song in a couple minutes and I’m proud to say that they enjoy that song.
LW: Are you an album guy or do you just do songs?
Ratesh: Yeah, I always like the full album cause I don’t really like mix cd’s. I like the flow of each track to the next track. A lot of CD’s will have that feedback noise from the ending of track 1 that goes into track 2. I don’t really like that.
LW: How about everybody else here? Albums vs. songs. How are you consuming it?
Edward: I like albums for completeness; for archival purposes. If you just have single songs, you just have a folder of random songs, if you have cd’s its more like the collection. Like if you had a physical CD collection, instead of a bunch of singles.
LW: Camilla, you’re nodding too. Are you a CD person?
Camilla: Yeah. But I usually get my music thru friends. So whatever they have, I kind of just get it from them.
LW: What do you mean, “You get it?” Do they burn you a copy? Do they send it to you?
Camilla: No, thru the computer. Like thru flash drives. I just grab whatever music I like, and I just pop it in and I save it.
LW: Is that a common occurrence, where you’re all just sitting around and going, “I’m gonna take that. I’ll take that,” then you swap out?
Camilla: Kind of. Yeah.
LW: I can understand that.
Aubrey, you in this world at all?
Aubrey: Yeah. I tend to really still like CD’s. I kind of like buying a CD and putting it in, just because I notice that when I put stuff on my IPod, I don’t necessarily listen to it all the time. Its kind of the same thing where you’re downloading so much music, that you’re like “Oh, yeah. I’ll download this and I’ll eventually listen to it.” But when you have a CD, and it’s there physically in front of you and you can listen to the whole thing.
LW: So to you, Ratesh has too much? I don’t know how he could ever find anything?
Aubrey: No. Well, it’s kinda good. Cause then we’ve got horrible songs to listen to. Its kinda good to have a bunch of music cause then you have a wide selection, but then there’s good and bad to everything. I like having smaller amounts cause if I have tons of stuff on my IPod, I’m not gonna listen to it all. I’ll forget about it.
LW: You said CD’s. You like to buy CD’s?
Aubrey: Yeah. I don’t actually remember the last time I bought a CD but somehow I have a lot. I didn’t steal them, but I have a lot of CD’s.
LW: They’re originals, not burns?
Aubrey: Some of them are burns; some of them are really bad mix CD’s that people made for me… that I still listen to.
LW: How do you listen to your music? You say CD’s but you also have an IPod. How do you listen?
Aubrey: I have a CD player and an IPod hook-up in my car. So I listen to both. I’ll listen to my IPod when I’m out and I can’t listen to a CD, but generally in my car, I’ll always have a CD in.
LW: Does everybody have some sort of MP3, an IPod? Does anyone have anything besides an IPod?
Everyone: Yes.
LW: Everyone has an IPod. Okay. Is everyone happy with their IPods?
Edward: It’s OK
LW: What could be better about it? Cause everyone’s trying to kill the IPod, which they cant do cause IPod keeps making themselves better. So if you’re another company and you’re trying to come up with a product better than the IPod, is there anything you could do to make it better?
Edward: It would be the quality. The DATS they use, the “off amps” they use, the circuits. Maybe sort of hi-fi-ish. I know that it can’t be completely at stand alone quality but with a premium deck and premium components inside.
LW: So that’s something that a lot of people kept asking me, how important is quality to you; the quality of the music. Edward, you would say that it’s very important to you? You want the maximum quality. How do you listen to music where you’re getting that accomplished? Do you have mega Boss headphones and a stereo system or what is it where you’re getting that?
Edward: I have studio monitors hooked up to my computer. I also have professional sound quality so it’s pretty accurate sounding. That’s how I usually listen to music. I prefer to have lossless formats if I could.
LW: So, when you’re listening on an IPod are you usually going, this is crap? Or are you going, “This is OK for now?” Are you an elitist?
Edward: The only reason I listen to my IPod is at the gym, so it’s OK.
LW: So a higher quality product. Are you buying music? How are you consuming music?
Edward: I do download actually.
LW: Download for free? Or you’re buying like ITunes music?
Edward: Download for free
LW: Is anyone else buying from ITunes at all?
Everyone: no.
LW: No one is buying from ITunes at all. Good to know.
Camille: Too expensive. Way too expensive.
LW: For the song, the album, the whole thing?
Camille: Pretty much everything. It’s nice to have your IPod but then to put music on it from ITunes, it just seems like too much. You’re already paying like $300 for your IPod, so they should be giving you a break on downloading songs. Cause it does get really expensive for anything.
Ratesh: If you download a song from ITunes, from what I understand, it’s still compressed right?
LW: Yes
Ratesh: If you bought the full CD, the quality would be fully there. When you buy the CD online, most of the time, it’s compressed and you lose a lot of it.
LW: They’re trying higher quality, they want to, but then the price goes up. So instead of $.99 per song it becomes $1.49 a song or $1.99 a song. If you could have that lossless quality, would you pay for that or would you find it anyway somewhere else?
Ratesh: If I really liked it, and it had retail value for me, I’d maybe consider it if it was a decent price.
LW: This is the common theme, which is everybody is getting their music but no one is paying for it. Once again, like I said, there’s nothing wrong with that. Ratesh, I know for you, music is a very important part of your life. It surrounds you and is really you but for some reason you don’t feel a need to pay for it. What do you think is the reason for that? You told me earlier that if you’re at a show and you like that band, then you might actually buy it from them cause you feel like it goes in their pocket.
Ratesh: Yeah, cause I’ve been in bands and I used to do all of the t-shirt designs and the flyers for the show and I would put them up on MySpace. I would rather give a copy of a cd or our demo that we recorded right before we broke up, I would gladly have given that for free because I knew that kids would buy our t-shirts. People would message us on our MySpace and ask for a t-shirt or a demo and we would toss the demo in for free and mail it.
LW: Anybody else here? Music is essentially free to you guys. There’s something about that that confuses the business. About how come its free, about how come you guys all trade it, or grab it and give it to your friends, and not pay for it yet there’s a lot of money that went into making that. The way that you’re thinking about it is right; it’s now become a loss leader. It’s, hear the music for free, hopefully you’ll buy the ticket to a show, a t-shirt and something else. Is that how everybody sees it now, music is just free, it’s just one of those things because you will still pay for a movie but you won’t pay for music? I’m trying to get to the root of what that is and why that is. You’ve grown up in a world where that is what music is.
Camilla, I don’t know if there was a lot of CD buying going on as you were growing up, maybe I could be wrong. It’s just the way it is. You’re friends do it, you all have music and this is the way it is. That’s the way music has been and you’ve been introduced to it?
Camilla: Yeah, it has. I remember my neighbor would always make CD’s of music that I liked. He would download it and I wouldn’t think anything of it. I would just say “Oh, thank you.” That is kinda how I’ve grown up. But when I go to the store and I like a CD, I buy it. It’s like, you can either go to the store or download it for free.
LW: So, I was gonna save this till later, but I’ll just get into it. What do you think that price is where it’s ok? You get free right now, and you’re seeing a CD for $14, $13… is there a price where you wouldn’t worry about downloading it, for that price you’d just buy it? Do you know what that number is? $1? $5?
Camilla: If I were to download it, I know my computer would just mess up. Cause it’s happened. Our computer got a virus. It’s just not worth it. That’s why I used to always just get it from friends.
LW: Has anyone else felt scared in any way that by downloading that you would hurt your computer? You’re gonna get busted or anything like that?
Aubrey: When I went to college, they told us that they were monitoring our internet. So there were rumors that were going around that if they saw that you were downloading, that cops would show up at your dorm room and take you away. They said that tons of kids were getting sued by record labels for downloading. So, when we first signed up to our internet, they told us,”Yes. We’re watching everything you do.” They do try to scare you, but then realistically you realize, I don’t think a Reno policeman is gonna come to my dorm room; knock on my door, and say, “I just saw you download that CD.” So, if you can get something for free instead of paying for it, obviously you’re gonna try to get something for free.
LW: So, for you, there is no price. It is free. Which is fine.
Aubrey: Well, I’d be willing to pay $10 bucks for a CD. If every CD was $10, I would buy it.
LW: So, $10 is your optimal price. Anyone else have an optimal price? Edward?
Edward: I’d say the price of a single for the whole album.
LW: So, you think of the single as a dollar? What do you think of a single…
Edward: Like a CD single. Between $5 and $10. If it was $5, I’d be buying CD’s left and right.
LW: You would? So, $5 is your price.
LW: And Ratesh, you’re not paying anything.
Ratesh: Yeah. Some bands however, I’ve gone to shows and they do vinyls. They usually make the vinyls look nice. They’ll put a nice design to it and you get the tiny little CD art maxed out. It’s actually nice and I would pay for those.
LW: Would you be able to play vinyl or are you just kind of collecting it?
Ratesh: Either one. I would like collecting them or if I had a turntable or a record player.
LW: So, if you were at a show and this band had this nice vinyl you might buy it even though you don’t have a turntable?
Ratesh: Yeah. Cause I just went on tour with this band last week, I was their merch guy, we were selling vinyls. They had these 7 inches that had a yellow tie-dye design and a lot of the kids were excited about that. I asked a lot of the kids that would buy it if they had a record player and they would say no 90% of the time. Only one kid had a record player. The just liked the look of it.
LW: That’s interesting, we’re not sure if it’s real or not in the music business where vinyl is making a comeback. Everybody’s wondering if anyone has record players anymore to play the vinyl and you’re saying no, it’s more of a memento. Maybe hang it on a wall, I don’t know, kind of like a poster or something.
Ratesh: They put a download card in it, that way you can get the exact same songs on your computer. So basically it’s just for collecting.
LW: Camilla, do you know what vinyl is? You were shaking your head.
Camilla: Yeah. My parents have one.
LW: Let’s talk about the live concert experience. Edward, do you go to many concerts?
Edward: I don’t go to a lot, but I’ve been to some. I do think I would buy CDs there, because you do appreciate it more after you see them live and you’re in the moment. Also, there is a small chance that you can get it signed if it’s not that big of a concert. Sometimes its exclusive CD’s that are only sold at that concert or something so that makes it more appealing. Especially the exclusivity.
LW: Ratesh, I imagine that some of the shows that you go to, the bands are coming out there and they’ll sign anything, right?
Ratesh: They’re usually smaller bands, not on the radio so you get to talk to them and stuff. They don’t leave right after the show or go to their tour bus cause they usually have a tiny little van.
LW: Right. So Edward, at a show you’re at, if the artist came out and signed, you might be more inclined to buy the CD?
Edward: Definitely.
LW: We were talking about the Warped Tour earlier. How many years have you guys gone to the Warped Tour? I know you said that this may be your last.
Ratesh: 2
LW: And that’s very common for the bands to come out and sign their CD’s and you can buy their merch right at their place. There was something interesting that we were talking about, you said that this might be the last year that you go. The Warped Tour is an example of a tour that prides itself in keeping the ticket price low. While other tours are going for $100-$150 a ticket, the Warped Tour thinks that they’re selling their tickets for $25-$30 a ticket. However, by the time it gets to you, it has service fees and all this stuff on it, its $40-$50 and you’re not happy with that. Tell us some of the other things that you were telling me about – the experience of going to something like that. What you do and don’t like about that. Maybe more of what you don’t like, but tell me about that.
Ratesh: The main thing with Warped Tour is… we live in Reno… and the closest one is in Sacramento, but I do know how hot it gets in Sacramento so we purposely come all the way over to the ones here on the pier in San Francisco. This year it was at the piers and it was still 90 degrees, how often does that happen in San Francisco? So we got really sunburned, and I got really dehydrated. Two years ago I actually lost my voice after Warped Tour just cause I didn’t drink enough water, and the water is $4, they sort of force you to tip them, things like that.
LW: So the experience… something is being missed. They’re not paying attention to you in a lot of ways.
Ratesh: You kind of stop focusing on the bands and start focusing on the expenses of the show and just to survive for the day. Cause it’s all daytime, it usually ends before 6 which is usually the time that people go to shows.
Aubrey: It’s fun to go and everything… I don’t have a problem paying for the ticket cause I know they have to make money and everything, so I’m not expecting them to make it a $20 ticket, it’s just not realistic. It’s just that when you go there you almost just feel like you’re cattle. They just want to get you in, search you. They want to get you to each stage. They make you pay $5 for water and then they don’t pay any attention to you. They can’t accommodate everyone and have tons of stuff, but it almost seems like they don’t care that much whether you are seeing the bands that you want to see. They kind of schedule all of the big bands all at the same time. You can’t see all of the things.
LW: Hypothetically, if you guys were in charge of putting on a concert with your favorite bands, what would you do differently? Walk me through the ticket price, the experience, what are some of the things that you would do if you were in charge? Tell me how many bands you think should play, what time the show should start… what would you do differently? What would you do if it was your show?
Ratesh: There are shows in Reno, and the ones I usually go to are done by some of my friends. They do $10 for the ticket price which is a lot for the kinds of bands that are playing. They’re not really that big. However, our friend that usually puts on those shows, he will set the price to make enough for the guarantees for each band. And make enough for whoever is letting us have the show there, which sometimes it’s at a skate park. They let us play there cause it’s in a warehouse, its kind of got bad acoustics but its not the best town for nice venues. He doesn’t make much profit, and whatever profit he does, he’ll take the bands out for pizza later that night and things like that. I think that’s the best thing. Usually we don’t have many people in that town that are doing that. They’re putting the ticket price really really high, like at the bigger venues, to where they can profit off of it.
LW: So what’s the right ticket price? What do you think is a fair ticket price if you’re gonna go to a show, a club show. Like a show with some bands that you like and it could be a national touring band or two. What makes you say, that’s a good price for that ticket?
Ratesh: I’d say $8
Aubrey: If it’s a bigger band, I’d say $18-$20
LW: Camilla, you go to many concerts?
Camilla: The last one I went to was in March.
LW: What’d you go see?
Camilla: A band you wouldn’t know, it’s cha-cha, Spanish music.
LW: What’s the ticket price for something like that?
Camilla: $70. But with all the taxes it’s $90
LW: Was it worth it? Did you enjoy yourself?
Camilla: Yeah. I lost my voice.
LW: And where was that show at?
Camilla: San Jose
LW: Was it a big arena type place?
Camilla: No
LW: Did you enjoy the experience when you went there? Did anything else bother you the way they were saying the food prices bother them, the heat…
Camilla: It was inside. We had like 4th row tickets.
LW: OK. So, you’re happy.
LW: Edward, any thoughts on that?
Edward: I don’t go to too many concerts but the last one that I went to was 2 yrs ago the Rock the Bells festival when it was still small. I actually went to the San Francisco one which is at the Fillmore. That was probably only 1,000 or 2,000 people. That was nice, but now it’s over 20,000 people or something like that. It’s so far away and it’s just not the same experience anymore. Now it’s just real expensive, too.
LW: Now let me get into some technology stuff with you guys too. Some are web savvy here on the internet and things, some not so much. Anyone here using their phones for anything besides making phone calls and text messages?
Ratesh: I have an iPhone so I go on YouTube every now and then. I’ll look up videos and stuff of bands that I like. I’ll show my friends the videos and they’ll usually like the band just from seeing the video.
LW: Do you have one of the newer iPhones?
Ratesh: One of the older ones. I’ve had it for a couple of months.
LW: Are you happy with it?
Ratesh: Yeah. It’s the best phone that I can possibly think of.
LW: Anyone else care about that stuff? There’s a world trying to create more and more things for your phone so you can do things: go to MySpace or Facebook or buy things on your phone. Does that interest you at all? What would you like to see on your phone?
Ratesh: I think one of the most appealing aspects about iPhone to me is because their browser is like the closest to a computer browser. I think I would use that more for like websites and things. On a Blackberry, I used the Wi-Fi sometimes to go on Facebook, but it’s not the same. Even on Wi-Fi it’s not that fast and it’s very limited in what you see unlike the full version. But on the iPhone it’s a lot closer than on other phones, I’ve noticed.
LW: Camilla, you use your phone much?
Camilla: I just use it to text.
LW: Aubrey?
Aubrey: I don’t have the internet cause it’s too expensive.
LW: Anyone want to ask anything before we keep going? In the back there, Scott Perry.
Scott: I do understand that as a young person, as a student, things are expensive. What are the essential, necessary things that you DO spend money on? No matter what, I’m gonna throw my money down on it. Is it a band, is it a label, is it a brand? Where does your money go?
Ratesh: When I heard that my favorite band was coming into town, they had been set up like maybe 3 times and they had to cancel. The minute that I heard that it was confirmed, I went right out and spent as much money as I could – even though not having that much money left in my bank account, I immediately went and bought the ticket.
LW: What about anybody else? It could be fashion, clothing, anything.
Edward: For me, I think its something that actually lasts for a while like clothing, the hardware that plays the music. Investing in better hardware instead of just more music. For music for me, it’s like a lot of the times nowadays that you download an album… after all of the singles that you hear on the radio a lot of the rest are just fillers. After previewing the album, you think “Yeah, I wouldn’t have thought that. I’m glad I didn’t buy it.”
LW: Anybody buying video games?
Ratesh: Yeah. There’s a game called Metal Gear Solid 4 that came out like 2 months ago. The one that came out before came out like 3 years ago and I’d been waiting. I went to the midnight release, made sure to be the first in line. I’m not a super hardcore gamer, but with the games that I really do like; I’ll do a lot for them.
LW: Can you remember how you found out that the new version was coming out?
Ratesh: When the 3rd one had come out, I played it and everything. I wondered what the next one was gonna be like. Basically I would just go to the websites and check up on updates to see who or what the next one was gonna be about.
LW: Are you ever signing up for newsletters or information on any of those things that you like?
Ratesh: Yeah. On video game websites they usually have newsletters and reviews. I have a little app on my phone that has video game reviews.
Audience member: I have 2 questions. Do you see yourselves making a career in the music business? What careers are you looking at for yourselves?
Ratesh: Well, I was in bands and I definitely would love a career in music. I really want to play music. There were different ways that I was thinking about going with it. I kinda wanted to do classical score for movies, I was gonna go to school for it. Or take the route of trying to create a completely original genre of music and just try to get big with that. I would really love either one of those.
Aubrey: I just want to do anything in design. Right now I’m working for “Benefit” in Reno which is a San Francisco cosmetics company. I pretty much just wanna move here and work in the industry.
Camille: I’m studying to go into holistic medicine or pre-natal. One of those two.
Edward: I would actually like to work in an audio technology company or audio product company somewhere between the technical and marketing/sales side.
LW: This is something that I was actually asked a lot about: How important are lyrics, art work, all that kind of stuff as well. Tell me about that. You obviously have a million tracks; do you care about the artwork?
Ratesh: Oh, yeah. I really like the artwork and lyrics. I listen to death metal mainly because of how much more complex it is, guitar-wise, because I play guitar. It’s basically like modern classical music done in brutal sound. It has classical music structure to it. Whenever I was in bands, I would wanna keep in touch with those bands to see if they wanted to tour with us – and they would keep in contact with me.
Audience member: What about the artist’s inspiration? Does that matter to you guys – why they made the album?
Aubrey: I think sometimes it matters. If you’re really into the artist, you’re gonna want to know more about them. In general, I’ll listen to the lyrics but I don’t necessarily look at everybody’s background and everything.
Audience member: Do you speak from an artist/fan standpoint or from a casual listener standpoint?
Aubrey: I guess just a casual listener for the general music that you listen to everyday.
Audience member: What about you two?
Camille: I have a lot of friends that are trying to make it in the music world. They write songs and play. I personally think that knowing the person and seeing what is their inspiration does help out the listener. For me, I listen to the words and the music and I really get into it. That determines whether or not I crank it up in my car or in my house. If my parents are like, “Turn off the music!” But I do think it matters where they are coming from.
Edward: I think it matters and I would actually like to know for every song what their thoughts are on it – whether you thought it was good or bad. I want to know, what was on their mind when they were making that song. If you didn’t like it, you’re like, “What were they thinking?” Or if it was good, what was it that made them compose that song? I think that would be pretty interesting. I think it would help you appreciate it more too. Say, if it were a song that you thought were mediocre, but it was a lot deeper when you read their thoughts about it and it resonated with you, I think you might actually sit down and re-listen to it a bit more carefully and appreciate it more.
Audience member: And that bond that’s been created between you and the artist would that make you want to give them money for their music and merchandise and go see them more?
Edward: Probably. I think it would because you know it’s not it’s not like a bunch of other people that just made it for them, and they just perform. You know they actually put thought into it. It’s not something that’s just thrown together and marketed.
Audience member: So, when you do find bands that you like, lets say 1 out of 10, will you actively investigate them?
Edward: If I found that I liked a majority of their music I would.
Audience member: A continuation of that point, past the how you like to acquire music, once that you have found and artist that you’re interested in, how are you most apt to connect with them? Would you try to get on their fan-list, their newsletter? How do you like to get more information once you find an artist that you’re interested in?
Aubrey: Probably just look at any other bands that they have that are smaller, cause some bands do have smaller side project bands. If you find a band that you like, then you’re probably going to like the other stuff that they do. Mainly just looking at bands, who they know, who they like, and going off of that.
Audience member: Ok. Going off of that, say that you found an artist that you’re really interested in, that specific artist, how do you like to hear from that artist? Do you want to get on their newsletter, find more information about what they have going on, especially relevant to where you are? How apt are you to join their list?
Aubrey: I’m not as likely. I’ll look at their tour dates to see if their touring close but since we don’t have that many shows I don’t find it as useful to get on a mailing list when not a lot of stuff is going to come to the town that you’re in.
Audience member: So more tour date specific info is what you don’t need.
Aubrey: If you live in a city where not that many bands come then it’s not useful to get on a mailing list.
Audience member: That’s like the town that I’m from. How about the rest of you guys? Do you like to get more information from the artist? Do you like to know more about them? Know what they’re doing, where they’re at, where they’re going?
LW: Edward, are you on any bands mailing lists at all?
Edward: No, I’m not. I would if it was relevant. Say they had a concert within a 100 mile radius of you, or if they’re coming out with a new CD in a couple weeks or something like that. I don’t want it for every little thing like, oh, the artist made a new blog post on there. I don’t really care for that. If it’s something major, then sure or if it pertains to you.
Ratesh: I’d say I’m exactly like Aubrey. I personally go to the band’s page to find the tour dates; I don’t really like them to let me know. I like to take my own initiative with the bands that I like.
Audience member: You like to have more control over that information. Are you more apt, for any reason in particular to want to get on a list? Is there anything that stands out in your mind?
Ratesh: If it’s the bands that I want to see frequently, then I would get on a newsletter. The only reason I would like to check them out is because I like their live presence. That’s really why I like taking that initiative.
Audience member: What about music games like Guitar Hero, Rock Band? Do you play them; do your friends play them? Do they have any interest in that sort of hobbies?
Ratesh: I kind of like to make fun of Guitar Hero just cause I play guitar. What I’ll do is my friend will be playing Guitar Hero and I will have a real guitar and I’ll try to play the song correctly on a real amp. It’ll mess him up so I enjoy that cause I really don’t like those games.
Aubrey: I don’t play video games that much. I just like Tetris. Besides Tetris, there’s not really anything else.
Camille: I’ve played it and I like it. I have a bunch of friends ranging from 24-28 and my brother who all like it.
Edward: I think it’s getting pretty popular everywhere you see. When people come together to play games its usually Wii or Rock Band or Guitar Hero because you actually bring people together to play instead of something single player. It’s pretty intuitive to learn it. At most places when people come together to play games they have that. Also, that one guitar game on the DS, I hear that’s getting pretty big too. People hook it up to amps and start playing it like a real guitar. It seems like its getting pretty wide spread.
LW: We have to wrap it up, but if you could have all of the music you wanted in a subscription service; you could have it at your fingertips, you could take it on your IPod, you could take it anywhere you want, you couldn’t give it to anyone else but it was yours, what would you pay for that per month?
Ratesh: I would actually pay like $40 or $50 for that.
Aubrey: I would pay like $20. If you could get videos and stuff like that too cause that’s my thing with ITunes is that the songs are expensive but the videos are even more expensive. It almost makes you want to illegally download the program.
LW: So, if ITunes had subscription and it was for everything, you’d pay $20 bucks a month.
Aubrey: Yes
Camille: I’d say $30-$35
Edward: For everything? I don’t even think that’s possible.
LW: I have to wrap everything up. Thank you all for being so candid. Thank you for listening.