Matthew Wayne Selznick

I got sidetracked this morning, just now, and dug into the download and listening statistics for the music I have available on a pay-what-it’s-worth-to-you model.

Here’s the Top Ten, in order by total streaming listens and downloads:

1. At This Moment: 329
2. Icarus Wises Up: 318
3. In The Afternoon: 271
4. Second “Sister”: 245
5. China Bay: 240
6. Children’s Day: 207
7. It Just Goes To Show: 194
8. 1991 (PIGBAT version): 175
9. Elvis C. (Running Erin version): 171
10. Triple Bind Knot: 170

That’s a total of 2,244 downloads — and this is just the top ten! The number of times these songs were streamed is a tiny 76 — so almost thirty times as many people download the songs as stream them.

On the page for each song, I ask that people “consider contributing an amount proportional to how much you like these songs.” The recommended amount is a dollar. To date, since September of 2006, I have received contributions from three people totaling $60.00 ($57.35 net.) Thank you, Christopher Miller, Andrea Gideon, and Mur Lafferty.

Average income per song from 5,314 total downloads = a fraction over $0.01.

I should probably make clear that I’m not whining! My music, and especially making money from my music, is not the primary focus of this web site or my creative endeavors. I think this stuff is interesting because I like to play with numbers sometimes, and I also try to keep you guys in the loop when it comes to how close I am to being supported by my art. I’ll be doing the same thing with “Brave Men Run” income when I have something interesting to report on that front.

This is a sample of what one can expect if one, very casually and with little fanfare, gradually posts songs from an archive of music of variable fidelity and subjective quality. Honestly, the main reason I post my songs is so they’ll be someplace more or less safe… so it’s pretty awesome that all the songs I’ve posted so far exist on at least 30 and as many as 329 other hard drives!

What I’d like to know, and what is less easy to quantify, is how many people came to my site for the music and found other things, like “Brave Men Run.” I know that the 9th most popular song, “Elvis C.,” was featured on a couple of podcasts, most notably in a pivotal episode of Mur Lafferty’s “Heaven: Earth” podcast novel. I’ve played a couple of these on my own Sonitotum podcast, too. That’s a question for the peanut gallery: how many of you heard my music on a podcast, found it on a website or file-sharing network, and it led you here?

Thanks to the Internet and some folks who put their CD collections up on Amazon, I’m listening to a beloved album I haven’t heard in twenty years. It’s bringing up Some Stuff.

I’m listening to “Broomtree” by Downy Mildew. It came out in 1986 on the Texas Hotel label, long since gone. The band recorded a few albums for the Windham Hill imprint High Street, and those disks are out of print as well. Downy Mildew’s entire recorded output, 56 songs, takes up less than four hours of listening.

For me, though, their entire recorded output… especially “Broomtree” and their debut self-titled EP… those songs take up years.

I remember 1989 or so, sitting in the twilight in the apartment I shared with Anne Bray in San Clemente, the room lit only by strings of clear Christmas lights and the glow of the stereo. Sitting in front of the speakers, turning the record over again and again. The deep, jangling reverb, the harmonies of Charlie Baldonado and Jenny Homer, the… purity of this record… it soothed what was at that time a very turbulent soul.

Apparently there’s a good part of me that is still that way. Listening to it now makes me ache.

I miss the people who were in my life then. I miss the smell of the ocean on the night. I hate this desert where I live, I really do. I’m drying up.

Observation: you only miss the past this strongly when there are things missing from the present. Noted. I miss my friends, then and now. I miss the magic of making music with people, spontaneously, joyously. Taking risks. I miss those people.

I don’t want to go back to that time in a literal, yearning sense — I should be clear. I was in my earliest twenties in those years, a confused, sad, desperate young guy surrounded by drama and sustained by blind passion. It was a painful time, and I’ve learned a thing or two since then. Not everything, but… some things, for sure.

But damn, I miss those people. As I get older, I’m facing the fact that I don’t think I ever fall out of love. I want to give everyone from those days — those cloudy days and hazy nights — a hug that crosses decades.

Of all those people from that time, I’m only in touch with a very small handful, and we’re barely in contact because of life and schedules and maybe the laziness that email encourages. So many others are out there, somewhere… and it disturbs me, not knowing if these loved ones are dead or alive.

Here’s to Theresa Copell. Pat Copell. Tony Vick. Willie Asher. Steve Smith. Gina Bloxham. Donovan Spencely. Sean Truitt. Steve Harvey. Holly. Tony Lekas. J.D. Christie. Phil Clevenger. Craig Clevenger. J.J. Minue. Paula Stromberg. Jill and Dave Stewart. Matt Brown. Russell Scott. Ron Russell. Gus Contreras. Andrea Lucas. To name a few. I miss you all, and I hope you’re well.

I’m gonna put this out there, because the Interwebs have innumerable strands and connections can surprise us sometimes: Let’s make this a meme, those names. I want to say hello to those people, and if you have a blog, you can help facilitate that. Write a little post… let the world know Matt Selznick wants to check in on some people from the old San Clemente days, and link back to here so that if… just if… anything comes of it, the thread leads back to me. Thanks for doing that. We’ll see what comes of it.

And thanks for reading. Writing through this, I feel better. We’re on the last song of “Broomtree” now, and the music makes me feel peaceful as opposed to down. That’s good. I think I can go to bed now.

I’m very pleased to present something I’ve had on the back-burner for some time — “The Animal In Me: Songs From and Inspired by ‘Brave Men Run - A Novel of the Sovereign Era.”

See, “Brave Men Run” has a ton of music in it. Characters reference different songs, listen to songs, wear tee-shirts and buttons from their favorite bands… the book is chock full of eighties (and before) musical goodness. I always thought it would be fun to be able to let readers actually hear the songs mentioned in the text.

Now, thanks to Amazon.com’s DRM-free MP3 downloads, it’s possible! I’ve compiled nineteen songs from the book and collected them in “The Animal In Me.” You can buy and download all or as many of the songs as you like. I’ve even included free CD jewel case cover art for you to print.

The track listing:

1. “New Moon on Monday” - Duran Duran
2. “Walking in Your Footsteps” - The Police
3. “Borderline” - Madonna
4. “Don’t You Forget About Me” - Simple Minds
5. “I Eat Cannibals” - Toto Coelo
6. “Sunglasses at Night” - Corey Hart
7. “The Art of Parties” - Japan
8. “Holy Diver” - Dio
9. “Avalon” - Roxy Music
10. “Eclipse” - Pink Floyd
11. “Running Up That Hill” - Kate Bush
12. “Gold” - Spandau Ballet
13. “The Talk of Creatures” - The Residents
14. “Not To Touch the Earth” - The Doors
15. “Here Come Cowboys” - Psychedelic Furs
16. “We Got the Neutron Bomb” - The Weirdos
17. “Forming” - The Germs
18. “Terror Couple Kill Colonel” - Bauhaus
19. “The Cutter” - Echo and the Bunnymen

If you download all nineteen songs, it’ll set you back $17.62 — a little more than $0.92 per song on average. I’m a Amazon affiliate, so you should know I’ll earn a little less than a nickel for every song you buy. Thanks for that!

Enjoy “The Animal in Me.” Also, please join me to discuss “the perfect eighties soundtrack” in the forums!

Words: 05-03 ~ 06 -1994
Music: 05-03 ~ 06 -1994

What’s It All About?

Years after losing touch with a woman who I loved dearly and who put me through a good deal of hell, I heard from a mutual friend that she wasn’t doing much differently by her husband. The knowledge created some mixed feelings… it dredged up all the stuff we had gone through, made me feel bad for the current guy, and made me very, very grateful that I wasn’t in his position any more.

I played this song a lot in my solo acoustic sets, and since it was one of those songs Gary Fitch insisted need a full band treatment, that’s what it got when we formed Running Erin with Erin Foster and Tony Dare.

The first version included here is a music video from the “mocumentary” Running Erin made with Not Afraid! Productions in 2000 or so. Then there’s a live version from Running Erin, and finally my original from the cassette four-track mini-album from 1994, “Hundred Seller.”

Lyrics:

Support Independent Music

The media files on this page are provided for your enjoyment — you can listen, and even download the MP3 files, and not pay a dime. I encourage you to share them with friends, provided no one changes or sells the files, and that you attribute them to me.

I do hope you’ll consider contributing an amount proportional to how much you like these songs. When you pay for music on this site, you declare yourself to be a patron of independent creative endeavors… and my supporter. That means a great deal, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Recommended price: $1.00

Listen and Download

Music Video:

MP3s:

 

 No New Memories by Matthew Wayne Selznick w/ Running Erin (live) [4:04m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (161)

 

 No New Memories by Matthew Wayne Selznick [4:35m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (159)

Words: 03-21-1989 with Theresa Copell
Music: 03-21-1989

What’s It All About?

Theresa Copell was my girlfriend for three or four years (depending on whether you count sequentially or comprehensively) in the late eighties. First girl I lived with, and my partner in a lot of, as they say, DIY independent creative endeavors, including my first actively gigging band, psychopathway.

She wrote a lot of poetry, some of which became songs. I saw a fragment in one of her notebooks, expanded it, and wrote the music. It became “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men,” a kind of word-picture of an elderly person — perhaps one with a difficult, colorful past — easing into death. Theresa was a little miffed at my interpretation and the final product, since it apparently didn’t match where she was going with the original.

Still, I think it’s a nice song, and it was a staple at nearly every one of my acoustic gigs for many years. By the way, it has nothing in common with the James Agee / Walker Evans book of the same name.

The first version here was recorded live at a coffee house in Long Beach, California in the early nineties. No effects or overdubs.

Lyrics:

Support Independent Music

The media files on this page are provided for your enjoyment — you can listen, and even download the MP3 files, and not pay a dime. I encourage you to share them with friends, provided no one changes or sells the files, and that you attribute them to me.

I do hope you’ll consider contributing an amount proportional to how much you like these songs. When you pay for music on this site, you declare yourself to be a patron of independent creative endeavors… and my supporter. That means a great deal, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Recommended price: $1.00

Listen and Download

 

 Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by Matthew Wayne Selznick (live) [4:48m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (146)