Podcast Episode Details
Back to Podcast Episodes
Streaming Music Isn't a Free Market. It's a Regulated Monopoly.
Today's guest is David Lowery, the legendary frontman of the bands Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker, digital copyright crusader, and longtime Reason reader.
He dives deep into his sprawling, deeply personal new record Fathers, Sons and Brothers and the postwar California dream, talks about how the music industry broke, and suggests ways to maybe, just maybe, fix it.
He's sued Spotify and other streaming services, teaches business at the University of Georgia, and he's dropped what might be the best one-liner about selling out since The Who.
If you care about music, creative freedom, and getting paid for your work, this one is for you.
0:00—Intro
0:52—Lowery's Reason connection
2:34—Fathers, Sons and Brothers
15:25—Lowery's musical inspirations
19:25—Camper Van Beethoven
28:31—What it was like being indie in the '80s
35:48—Cracker and alternative rock
42:26—What does it mean to "sell out"?
48:56—Streaming music and artist compensation
58:01—Lowery's class-action lawsuits
1:01:07—Royalty rates and copyright protections
1:07:30—Has the DTC model improved the music business?
1:15:50—Optimism for the future of music
Transcript
This is an AI-generated, AI-edited transcript. Check all quotes against the audio for accuracy.
Nick Gillespie: So, David Lowery, it is a pleasure to be talking to you. Thanks for talking to Reason.
David Lowery: Thank you, it's a pleasure to be here.
And you have told me in a different conversation, when you were a wee student at UC Santa Cruz, you had a roommate or a dorm mate who was a Reason reader. Can you remind me about that?
Yeah, well, there was a couple of connections to that. But yeah, I had a—he wasn't really a roommate, but he lived in the same building—was a guy that we just called Scott the Anarchist. And that was sort of where my introduction to the magazine came from. And then I later, when I was in college, I worked at a farm, which is detailed on this solo album. And the owner was just a full-blown anarcho-capitalist, I would say.
Did that mean you had to pay to leave the job every day or something like that? That could be a brutal regime.
Right. That's my description of him. We got along actually pretty well. But considering Santa Cruz was so lefty, my calculation is that I probably found the two libertarian anarchists in the whole county, right? And they sort of were influential to me in a lot of ways.
Well, it's always good, when you're in any kind of monoculture, to hang out with the people who are not quite fitting in.
Absolutely, absolutely.
We're going to talk about your experiences with Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker and the music industry more broadly, especially issues about IP as music shifted from kind of record stores and analog needles dragging through vinyl to streaming. All kinds of the interesting IP battles and the w
Published on 1 month, 2 weeks ago