ALEX NACKMAN

BACK TO REALITY (FROM LIMA)

Miraflores by the sea (Lima, Peru)

Back to New York from another trip to South America. Lima was an absolute blast. It’s a gorgeous city with a vibrancy that rivals many other top world capitals, in my opinion. The last time I was in Peru, I spent much of my time outside Lima, traveling to Cusco, then Machu Picchu. That was truly amazing, but this time around, I really wanted to explore Lima and the coast, sample the terrifically fresh seafood of the Pacific and get a feel for life as a normal Peruvian in Lima. I stayed in La Molina, an inland residential area of the city that really feels like an average upper to middle-class Peruvian neighborhood: having both modest and grand houses, ultra modern (Frank Lloyd Wright-esque and Spanish-colonial, while remaining quiet and calm. 

I had a chance to see the neighborhood, shop for food at a normal market like Tottus, chat with some locals, and even eat some Peruvian Chinese food from a spot that has been in La Molina for 35 years. It was packed with local Peruvians and Chinese ex-pats. Other restaurants I stopped by included Panchita and Astrid Y Gaston in Miraflores by the ocean as well as my favorite spot in Lima, the understated, yet fantastic, Francesco on Malecon de la Marina. It was all in all, a great break from New York and it was nice to escape the studio in New York for a short while just to breathe, re-charge, and get inspired. 

Hope you all caught the music featured on NBC’s, “The Voice” this past week. It was the finale and pretty exciting to hear the tunes featured on the show. More to come dear friends. 

Much Love,
Alex

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POSTED FROM BROOKLYN, NY AT 1:43 PM 

Divisions

There’s an interesting piece in this month’s The Atlantic magazine about Facebook dividing us and making us more lonely, depressed, and starved for affirmation. In all honesty, this topic had been on my mind for months and I’ve always thought that there exists a truthful paradox to most social networks: they bring people closer with very weak bonds, therefore making people less close, overall. We don’t have “real” friends. Instead, we have real acquaintances and random moments of happiness and frustration playing out on the web. I can’t say that Facebook, Twitter, et al don’t have their moments and their uses, but personally, I am tired of it. I believe it to be phase. 

Read the article here.

In music news from the studio, I’ve been producing a few cover tracks (Al Green, Billy Idol, to name a couple). I’ll also be releasing some co-written material I have with a few terrific songwriters that have spent some time with me in the studio this Spring. It’s been pretty rad. 

Much Love,
Alex

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POSTED FROM NEW YORK, NY AT 9:46 AM 

GEAR HEAD

It’s been awhile my friends. Apologies. Been traveling a bit, working on a few TV shows with their music (more on that soon) and sort of putting together some ideas for a new record. Not sure when I’m trying to complete that little project, but I should have news soon on that. I’ve also been busy improving the studio and really getting into the sculpting of accurate and true sound. I know that might sound silly, but in the age of “all digital” and making records on your iPhone, I do still value the sound of a great hands-on studio with real gear, knobs, and instruments, played by humans. I’ve picked up some hand-made gear from Summit Audio, a terrific California-based company that really puts a lot of love into their compressors, pre-amps, and EQ’s. I’ve also nabbed a Telefunken U47, which is just gorgeous and delicious in every way (non-gear heads, think of an iPhone that also doubles as a Porsche). 

Also, had a nice little spot in “Piano & Synth” online mag, which I was not expected (see here: http://pianoandsynth.com/alex-nackman-this-revolution). 

More news soon and plenty of new music…promise. 

All Best,
Alex

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POSTED FROM NEW YORK, NY AT 2:19PM 

Woe Is She

Let us cut the bullshit for just a second. I know this may sound just shocking to you, but the death of Whitney Houston is irrelevant to anyone outside of her immediate family and close friends. Obviously 24-hour news cycles are now clamoring for all the details and all the rumors of what led to her death and are just foaming at the mouth that some new “news” has finally been released for them to harp on, over analyze, speculate on, dramatize, and journalistically masturbate to, but in reality, this type of thing was so inevitable, and honestly, so incredibly unimportant in the scheme of real meaningful news and issues in today’s world.

I am not saying that the death of Whitney Houston does not matter in any way. It matters to her friends, to her support team, and to her family, especially a daughter, who now will live without a mother. But, let’s just back up for a second and admit that for the rest of us, who gives a shit? Whitney Houston was not a philanthropist, not a humanitarian, not a hero of war or struggle or a cause greater than herself, not a diplomat, not a fighter, and not a leader of any kind. Furthermore, she had not even been a relevant musician, touring act, singer, producer, or songwriter in the current day music business. I personally cannot even remember hearing her name mentioned in the news in a single capacity beyond the tidbits of information that leaked of her post-marital problems with Bobby Brown and her own struggles with substance abuse. That was truly the extent of her publicity over the past decade (not sure if Whitney or her publicist should be blamed for that one).

So, what on earth are we really talking and lamenting about here? Every single day there is a soldier killed in Afghanistan, an activist killed in Damascus, children killed by their psychotic father in a house explosion outside of Seattle, WA, a family killed in an apartment fire in Brooklyn, NY. Those events are the real tragedies. Those events are examples of the real struggles, both common and exceptional, in this world on which we should be focusing. The death of Whitney Houston is sad, but it is not important in a worldly sense or even a national sense. And, if they would admit it, I would argue that the vast majority of Whitney Houston’s fans probably did not even have the name “Whitney Houston” in their minds or on their iPods at all prior to hearing about her death last night (a true example of “out of sight, out of mind”). Yet, as soon as her death came over the AP wire, the clamoring of “news breaks” and tearful “this just in” segments flowed as if a leader and a caregiver for humanity had finally met his or her match, and was in route towards martyrdom. Yet, no martyr  (or even a social hero) was born from this event.

Whitney Houston was a talented, yet troubled, entertainer with constant and incessant issues that she could not overcome. The world had not heard a single piece of news relevant to her music in years. Like Amy Winehouse, losing talented and troubled people is sad, but should not be treated as a monumental unexpected world loss worthy of a “Piers Morgan Special Edition” (though to be fair to CNN, Piers has trouble filling an hour with content on an average night with his tepid, silly, and vacuous interviews, so this probably felt like an open lay-up). This all may sound insanely insensitive, but back away from Whitney for a moment and think about all this and think about what truly matters. We should save the melodrama and street shrines for those who give something bigger than themselves or at the absolute very least, appear to be remotely relevant in respect to their craft and what they do as people (musicians should make new music or tour, actors should release new movies, writers should release new novels). Must we continually fall to our knees for those whose lives are caught in a Groundhog Day cliché? All too often we focus on those individuals who continually and inevitably get into the same sordid situations in Hollywood hotel rooms.

Now, I know it sounds difficult and may feel unnatural, but those who look outside themselves and dare to do better, dare to change their outlook on the world and on the challenges they face, and dare to unite for the good (no matter the size of the cause) are the individuals for which our tears are truly worth shedding. 

-AN

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POSTED FROM NEW YORK, NY AT 4:09 PM

STOP CRYING

                                Article below from Guns N’ Roses bassist, Duff McKagen. 

                                              

Sitting in my usual chair, watching my usual a.m. updates on CNN’s Headline News, Wednesday morning, I, like every other American tuned in to at least one form of media, was inundated with verbiage about anti-piracy legislation known as PIPA and SOPA.

The legislation’s meant to combat theft of creative works like movies and music from overseas web sites. But when I turned to the Twitter and Facebook, I saw an overwhelming dog pile of support against the bills. Excuse me, but where were you all when piracy started to decimate the music industry? Why didn’t you take a stand against that? Those free records felt good, huh?

 

The fury from the Internet class is that the broad language in the pieces of legislation will be bad for start-ups, might prevent the next YouTube, or give the government the ability to take down a whole site because of one link to copyrighted works. In short, they’re opposed to the legislation because they think it will be bad for the Internet business.

Bad for business. Anti-piracy legislation could be bad for the Internet business. It almost takes my breath away. Internet piracy has claimed half of the recorded music business, and made the prospect of making a living as a musician harder for artists of all rank and file. Why didn’t Google, or Facebook, or Wikipedia ever stand in solidarity with musicians, actors, and writers - most of whom have never known fame and fortune - as their works were stolen with no recourse on their sites?

Where are the “fans,” the lovers of music? Why have they never stood up and taken a stand for the men and women in front of and behind the microphone? Yes, yes, this is all boring, right? It’s typical that the “rich rock guy” would be spouting from his golden pulpit. But let me tell you something, the working stiffs at recording studios and record stores that have had to close thanks to rampant internet piracy never were rich, but they are out of a job.

Are people really actually pissed off because Wikipedia is going “black” for a day? Because people feel that their First Amendment rights are really being threatened? Or is it because they’re afraid of losing free access to Deadwood and the Black Keys? Or are they worried that the next YouTube won’t be able to build a business model off the unwitting investment of copyrighted material that users uploaded for free while investors and start-ups glibly proclaimed that they couldn’t be responsible for actions users took? Wikipedia has thousands of volunteers and brags that they keep the site’s content accurate. Why can’t they regulate more rigorously for copyright violation, too? Too much of a bother?

Should the government be able to shut down Facebook because one user posts a link to copyrighted content? Of course not. But should Facebook and Google do a better job monitoring - and stop profiteering off- their users’ access to illegal content? Absolutely. And, you know what, they’re smart enough to figure it out.

When it comes to creative industries, we’re not talking in the hypothetical. Recording studios all around the world have had to close. So have record stores. Movie studios have suffered. Many, many jobs have been lost. Many peoples’ livelihoods have been affected. The people who make or who have made money from record sales are not the “bad guy,” the pirater and the stealer are. Period. So, where’s the public outcry?

As a practicing musician who has seen his industry turned upside down, and see how piracy has hurt every artist from chart-toppers to indie start-ups, this PIPA upheaval is a slap in the face.

If, as the claim goes, the social media masses were able to overturn the regime in Egypt, they can certainly turn the tide on Internet piracy.

original link: http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2012/01/quit_whining_about_sopa_and_pi.php

-Alex Nackman

POSTED FROM NEW YORK, NY AT 12:46 PM