Something else occurred to me on my morning walk, somewhere about mile 3. This is something I've been turning over in my mind for years.

Let's talk band (or singer) recording lifetimes. Here's the cliche, right? First album fantastic => second album good but... => third album what the hell?

and the fans start pointing out that the e.p. they put out before they signed the label deal was better than anything they ever put out at full length. And then everyone starts wondering about the breakup and what happened and let's watch Behind the Music to find out.

That's the cliche; I don't actually think it's right. Oh, there's enough truth there, but really, the lifetime of a major label act is, on average, short as hell.

Ok, a little personal background. My step-father and my grandfather were both professional musicians. They both toured in their respective genres. I played here and there through college, mostly for beer and pizza money but occasionally a little studio work (local commercials and tv stuff, nothing you've ever heard). I had enough friends, family, and personal exposure to working acts to know I was glad I never quite put myself all the way over the threshold into that part of the life.

You can get a taste of it if you find a good behind the scenes documentary of a particular group. The Some Kind of Monster doc for Metallica did a fantastic job. The Beatles docs do a good job as well, showing what it's like for a working group.

Though I think the Beatles stuff, like everything to do with them, is so exaggerated by their position at the time that it magnified the frictions to epic proportions. Still, the basic elements are all pretty universal.

Remember, the Beatles worked as an original recording act (i.e. writing their own music) for only about six years. And then the internal tensions broke them completely. But that's a different essay.

What I was thinking about was that "First Album Best" thing. Like, say, Appetite for Destruction for Guns 'n Roses. Or SupermegaOK for Soundgarden, or Bleach for Nirvana. Green Day fans will argue Kerplunk is better than Dookie, etc.

Note, I'm not arguing that this idea is correct. I'm just pointing out that hardcore fans can often have this perception: First album, or the album that the band recorded before the suits got involved, is better than anything the band did after they signed with the label. And then it all really goes downhill.

Shit. If you want to really start a fight, find a Metallica fan who passed around the "Cage Match" bootleg VHS in the 80s, and then ask them about the Black Album. Let's just say that the first gen fans don't always have a lot of good to say about the Black Album and everything that came after that.

Ok, like I said, I don't actually buy a lot of this. For any singer or group that records consistently over a lifetime of work, they are constantly working on something new and interesting. They may not be all the prolific, but there's always something well worth listening to when they do put out an album. (Or book, if you're thinking of writers. As an example, I've pre-ordered the upcoming Thomas Harris book. I've been reading his books since the first one, Black Sunday, there's only five so far plus six on the way, I figure I owe him and myself the time. He's well earned it.)

And that's the trick, ain't it? How do you keep coming back to the well? Not to repeat what you had before, because you can never properly repeat lightning in a bottle. It doesn't work that way.

But what I realized is that the longtime pros, the ones who keep coming back to the studio (jazz musicians do this consistently in a way that stands out. Jazz musicians record a lot more than any other genre. Look at Duke Ellington's discography; or John Coltrane's, and he had basically a ten year solo career. Current artists may not hit quite this pace, but then look at David Sanborn's list sometime.) always have something new they want to work on.

Part of this is just figuring out what being a pro means. Showing up for work, ready to blow the horn.

But there is, I think, one more secret. And that's never forgetting that fourteen year old self. The one who sat down with the guitar, or the sax, (computer for the writer) and played. And played again. Not to listen to a teacher say "you're doing it wrong". Or a parent say "it's too loud" or "go to bed". Or a date say "why aren't you spending time with me".

But to play the song. Write the story. And all that mattered was the sound of it.

Hold that feeling, and the rest of it comes... not easy. But you never have to ask why you do it. You do it for the same reason you did then. Because it sounds good, and you've got to tell it, play it, make it sound fantastic.

And to get back to "Why's the first album great and then they fall apart?" phenomenon. I think, in those cases where it's true, it's that the group, or the act, find themselves too far away from that feeling to come back to it as a whole. Individually, they can still manage it. It's the group dynamic that tears it apart.

Or, for a singer or single individual, I suspect it's the group dynamic, but instead with the producer or the manager or the label or whatever. And that's a real tragedy when that happens, because a singer signed with a label doesn't have anywhere to run. If that dynamic sucks, what the hell can they do? Buying themselves out of the deal is, on average, financially impossible. For all but the richest performers.

That part applies to groups, as well, and in spades. I caught a documentary on the Clash the other night, and that pretty much describes their denouement to a T. Manager plus label plus group troubles and the whole thing just unraveled.

I don't think I've got any more answers than I did before I had my little thought today. Call it a brain fart, no more than a "maybe" thought, but I figured I'd inflict it on you. There may be some explanatory value, or it may just be an interesting read of an evening. Either way.

At least I didn't point out something like "Ok, Guns 'n Roses are touring in their original lineup, why haven't they tried to record anything?"

There are some rocks nobody wants to turn over.