The Record Business Is ...
February 15, 2008 11:19 AM   Subscribe

His Career Is In Your Hands. Musician / Producer Butch Walker (formerly of Marvelous 3) had a rough autumn in 2007. He was renting a home from a Chili Pepper, a home into which he had moved all of his personal and professional belongings. Unfortunately, Flea's Malibu rental property was directly in the path of California's November batch of wildfires. Tough break indeed. So how does an artist recover from such a devastating loss? He gives away his newest live double-album for free. Or $5.99. The choice is yours. Why? The domain name says it all.
posted by grabbingsand (18 comments total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
Man, I feel bad for the guy, but I have a hard time supporting anybody who enabled Avril Lavigne.
posted by lumpenprole at 11:42 AM on February 15, 2008


Can someone more knowledgeable about insurance/wildfires tell me why he would not have had insurance against such a thing?
posted by nzero at 11:48 AM on February 15, 2008


I'm not very familiar with his work, but all indications would suggest that he's kind of a hack, and that this is a publicity stunt. Still, though, it sounds like dude lost a lot of stuff in those fires. Although I have no interest in actually listening to his newest live double album, I hope the publicity stunt works out for him.
posted by box at 11:52 AM on February 15, 2008


Also: 'His career is in your hands, Dude.'
posted by box at 12:00 PM on February 15, 2008 [3 favorites]


I'll buy his album for $5.99. Brandt can't listen, though. Or he has to pay $0.60.
posted by Shepherd at 12:33 PM on February 15, 2008


If he's Avril Lavigne's producer, I'm guessing he has some some savings in a bank or other financial thing. I don't feel too bad for him. From the reported comments, he seems to have some good perspective:

you can be sad about losing everything you worked hard to buy, and everything you inherited from late relatives, etc... but you have to be happy that you didn't lose anyBODY. i am very thankful, in a screwed up sorta way, that i get to start anew and begin a new chapter in my life. i'm not gonna write some long-ass diatribe here about becoming spiritual and realizing what's important because, trust me, if this happens to you then you will already feel the same way i am now...

As for why he wasn't insured, who knows? I lost everything I owned in an apartment fire five years ago, and I didn't have renter's insurance either. I think the insurance industry is crooked as crooked could be. I always said I'd rather lose everything and not be compensated than support the industry. Looks like I got to put my (non) money where my mouth was. And there really is something to what he says. It *does* feel good in a way to lose all of your material possessions. Non-attachment, etc.

I still don't have renter's insurance, fwiw. The only things I really miss are the photos, art, and LPs I lost (OK, some of the clothes too). It would have been good to have some extra scratch to replace the LPs (with serious time and effort), but I'm doing fine without them.
posted by mrgrimm at 1:03 PM on February 15, 2008


All the reports I've heard about the losses sustained in the fire have focused less on the monetary detriment than on the loss of irreplacable items ... in particular for Walker, that included just about all of his master recordings.
posted by grabbingsand at 1:18 PM on February 15, 2008


mrgrimm-

That may be ok on a small scale (your or my apartment), but generally I think very wealthy people with a significant monetary investment in their home have insurance, especially in a highly vulnerable (I'm assuming) area like Malibu.

grabbingsand-

I noticed that also, but the framing of the FPP seemed to indicate that he had significant monetary losses as well (i.e. "His career is in your hands").
posted by nzero at 1:48 PM on February 15, 2008


Butch Walker was the first person I ever interviewed for my college paper. I was nervous, ill-prepared, and probably pretty dorky. He could not have been nicer and spent enough time with me that I got a really good article out of our conversation.

So, yeah, I'm buying the live double album.
posted by sugarfish at 2:02 PM on February 15, 2008


Back in the day when we were all into quasi punk-rock, or whatever the hell you want to call it, Marv3 was one of our favorites. It also so happens that one of my best friend's mom went to weekly Bible study with their guitarist's wife, who also happened to never listen to Marv3's music.
One day, my friend is blasting on of Marv3 less tasteful songs his mom's all, "WTF is this?" She soon finds out about the connection between this music and her Bible study friend. The two start talking about the music and the guitarist's wife gets all peeved at the less than wholesome music he helped produce. She proceeded to give an ultimatum that a) the lyrical quality of their music increases, b) he quits the band, c) she quits him. He chose b.
Or so the legend goes.

From what I recall, Butch Walker was also pretty popular in the Atlanta area, particularly on the rock stations like 99x and 96rock.

Their last show was at Atlanta Centennial Park was the summer of HS senior year and all I remember covering Bohemian Rhapsody and little punkers coming over to talk to one of our friends.
I miss those summers of free shows. It was awesome.
posted by jmd82 at 2:09 PM on February 15, 2008


Butch is a hometown boy done good, jmd82. He is, unless I am totally mistaken, from Cartersville, Ga., which is of course just north of the good old ATL. I used to love Marv3 back in the late 90's, but his projects since have not been my favorite thing ever. Then again, he's an artist, and I don't expect him to turn out the same thing over and over again. I dont know that we will buy the record, but I'm thinking about it. No one deserves to lose everything like that in a fire . . .before 99x was taken off the air in favor of top 40 bullshit music, they were trying to gather up stuff that people in the area had that might be meaningful for him or replace some of the stuff that was burned.
posted by Medieval Maven at 3:45 PM on February 15, 2008


I don't see what losing his stuff in a fire has to do with releasing his double album online for free. The two events are mutually exclusive.

As for the price point of $5.99, I guess that's pretty good (I'm not planning on downloading it, so I guess I'll never know for sure) but any price point would be better. A non-fan like me won't pay $5.99, but maybe I'll PayPal him a buck as a token guesture of support. And because I paid a buck I might as well download his stuff and check it out. I know it sounds strange, maybe illogical, but that's how I think it might work.

alt.idea: insert 10 second advertisements at the beginning of each mp3 song.
posted by JaySunSee at 4:40 PM on February 15, 2008


I don't see what losing his stuff in a fire has to do with releasing his double album online for free. The two events are mutually exclusive.

Given that they've both happened, you've got an odd definition of "mutually exclusive."
posted by aaronetc at 5:07 PM on February 15, 2008


Given that they've both happened, you've got an odd definition of "mutually exclusive."

I was trying to suggest a lack of causality between the fire and releasing his album online for free. And you're right aaronetc, mutually exclusive doesn't make sense. Unrelated would be a better word.
posted by JaySunSee at 5:57 PM on February 15, 2008


before 99x was taken off the air in favor of top 40 bullshit music, they were trying to gather up stuff that people in the area had that might be meaningful for him or replace some of the stuff that was burned.

Yea, I heard about that. I still have family in the ATL and I go home every Christmas where I always buy that year's LiveX CD. Gonna miss it.
posted by jmd82 at 9:20 AM on February 16, 2008


generally I think very wealthy people with a significant monetary investment in their home have insurance

Undoubtedly, Flea had insurance. But that doesn't cover a tenant's belongings. Unless Flea was negligent and thus susceptible to a liability settlement, that insurance money will cover replacement of the premises only.
(Irrespective of whatever personal help Flea might be giving this guy.)
posted by dhartung at 9:39 AM on February 16, 2008


I would like to recommend Laura Marling's songbox... which includes her album 'Alas, I Cannot Swim', a game, a tonne of original artwork and a ticket to one of her UK shows.

A very creative solution, if you ask me... and it's a phenomenal record.
posted by chuckdarwin at 2:17 AM on February 18, 2008


Undoubtedly, Flea had insurance. But that doesn't cover a tenant's belongings.

Right. In the specific case under discussion, I would have assumed he (the tenant) had renter's insurance...
posted by nzero at 4:44 PM on February 18, 2008


« Older A 5d100 of free RPGs   |   It seems wrong to call a gun 'cute'... Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments