Seriously. Even I’m over it. Not the novelty of Guitar Hero (God willing, that’ll never wear off)….

Rain forests, black rhinos, the ozone layer; now that shit needs saving. But the music industry? Puh-leeze.

First, CNN is ridiculously late to this story. Then there’s the RockBand Live Tour. Get this…headlined by Panic at the Disco and Dashboard Confessional.

Um, more like the Un-Rock Live Tour. Oh boy.

Let it go is what I’m thinking. Doneski. The MARKETING industry is where it’s at. Hell, the music industry has been proving this for years.

Even if your band blows chunks, you can STILL get people to give you money for your music. Only now, you can do it on your own. And in large part, for free.

So bootstrap yourself in and start thinking like a Turkish rug seller ALL THE TIME. Everyone you meet = $$.

Save the saving for yourself.

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Certainly, what unites us here at Cut Through the Noise is music… but it’s more than that… more than just something that goes on between your ears. It’s an axiology that extends from the music to our music-lover lifestyles: how we vote, what we drive, what we eat, what we wear, etc.

We are a tribe — a super-tribe even, an “umbrella” tribe of sorts — a tribe that unites tribes.

So it’s more than the Pandora model (if you like Ryan Adams chances are you’d like Wilco). We’re talking about the sonic-psychographics of a demographic… a massive co-branding/cross-lifestyle union underneath the umbrella, the super-tribe of music, where all sorts of different sub-tribes overlap.

But it’s not age, race, gender or income… music is the magic that connect us.

That said, I thought that a brief monthly compendium of music/music lifestyle related whatnot — as it pertains to our tribal interests — would be in order: a tribal shortlist.

Feel free to add to it!

1. Tribal Fever
Speaking of tribes (and if you’re wondering what inspired me), if you haven’t heard of Seth Godin’s latest bit of marketing genius www.triiibes.com,” you MUST. An invite-only, uber-niche of entrepreneurs, creative thinkers, tribe-devotees, go-getters, type A personalities, risk-takers… who can really describe it? I’ve never seen so many interesting ideas exploding all at once… just logging in feels like your tapping the secret brain-juice of the universe. It opens to the public in October. I haven’t thought of a way to steal this crazy brilliant idea yet and make it my own but working on it :-). READ THIS BOOK!

2. Pandora
Damn. They’ve got a good thing going. Certainly, not monetizing it from the get-go wasn’t the best. But industry greed… that monster needs to be quelled once and for all. DO SOMETHING about it.

3. Web/Code Designers
On a lighter topic, these guys are either the new lawyers or the new bartenders. Everyone needs one/wish they had one in their family. Also, a great way to make side money while you’re working your way up the proverbial ladder.

4. Rock ‘n Roll Wine
I don’t know about you but I drink a lot of wine. Probably more than I like to admit. And now that I don’t live near a Trader Joe’s anymore, buying the stuff requires a little work. So how cool was it to discover that Fred Smith makes a great bottle AND is my neighbor? At a wine tasting over the weekend, we tried them all. Rock ‘n Roll Red got the top vote. Delish.

5. Obama Buttons
Remember that whole idea of getting your fans to work for you for free? Here it is in action. Go for the $20 purchase. Suddenly, you’ve got so many buttons, you HAVE to give them away. Genius.

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I LOVE driving. The freedom to just go, $4/gallon be-damned. Inherently and wonderfully American, isn’t it?

But as carbon-footprint-conscious as I like to think I am (and although I’ve never actually owned a Volkswagen) the idea of “driving pleasure,” to me, is as self-evident as apple pie.

Which is why last weekend, on the return home from New Hampshire, I took the long way. It was, after all, a Sunday drive of sorts; I had the entire afternoon if I wanted… just me, an impossibly sunny sky, the adventure of unfamiliar, squigley backroads, my hand-me-down Volvo station wagon (dubbed “Meatball”), and my new favorite rock crush, Matt Mays. Hubba hubba.

For 2 + hours, I had it bad. Terminal Romance on replay baby!

Were those (gulp!) guitar solos? In 2008? Pant, pant.

Thank you Jesus, a red light at the intersection: cue feral air-guitar spaz-out.

My poor eardrums. The volume couldn’t possibly have been loud enough… a family of Berkshire tourists gawking? I turned it up louder. We’re talking knee-driving, hand-dancing-out-the-moonroof-loud.

I wanted everyone to know: I was hopelessly (and clearly shamelessly), shit-hot in love with the whole damned record.

And still am.

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Guest Post this week from one of my favorite artists, Ashton Allen:

Dear Music Industry,

So, I have a question. I’m confused. Ok, so you got Miley Cyrus, right? And then there’s Hannah Montana. Buuuuuut…ok wait. Are they the same person? Cause umm, one’s a brunette annnnd…the other’s blonde annnnd….but….I heard it was the same girl….but then I was thinking…wow…I guess that’s working out well for her …or them..or…her dad. or their dad. But then I thought about people it didn’t work out so well for. Like Garth Brooks and that Chris Gaines guy. They had different hair too…so…I dunno. Oh yeah…and I know for a fact that last week, it was either Miley, Hannah, or Coldplay that sold over 750,000 copies of their new release. But I can’t remember which. I wanna say it was the second one. Wait, is she the blonde? *brain aneurysm* …..Is one of them related to Hulk Hogan? It’s not Chris Martin. Nope nope nope. It’s one of the girls. Yeah, one of them is the Hulkster’s daughter. He’s like, “I pity ‘da fool. that. won’t.. buy….my blonde-haired daughter’s …new album.” It just gets really dicey.

In closing, stop it with the beards. Just please. Look. I am far passed my cool years. I know this. But. How long is this “I’m the lead singer of this hip indie band, so I have a long-ass disgusting beard cause I hate it” thing going to continue? News flash. You will get older. You will look back. And you will think it silly. Trust me. I do it when I look back at pictures and see my “Flannel in the summer time, Doc Martin’s with shorts and shoulder length hair cause I hate it” grunge phase. And yes, at the time I felt it meant something. And yes, I lived it and thought that no one really “got” me (which I secretly loved even though it was a lie), and ok, yes, I did think I looked kinda cute with Eddie Vedder hair. And speaking of Yes…

Ashton Allen

Ashton is a non-hip, non-grunge, non-threatening songwriter from Florida whose second solo effort “Wellspring” will be released exclusively October 2008 through Barnes & Noble.

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