I can’t say I know much about punk rock, but it is cool being friends with the lead singer and guitarist of a punk rock band.
I’ve written about Bud Drago before; he is a fellow faculty member at Villanova, and was a member of a London punk rock band going back to the late 70s. Bud has continued to write and produce music for the past 40 years, most recently with his sons.
Bud’s band Freeze Time has just released its two latest singles.
Investment takes a critical look at the state of politics in the U.S. (click on link to listen to a sound clip). Here are the lyrics:
We’ve got an investment, an investment in you
Politicians it’s us people you should listen to
We’ve got an investment, but we are confused
You just talk at each other and nothing you do
We’ve got an investment, an investment in you
Politicians you act like you’re above us and oh so cool
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if anything you said were true
Sitting there in DC and treating us like fools
Democrats and Republicans, one and the same
Puppeteers pulling strings, moving us out of the way
Changing like the weather, what do they really believe
Anything to get our votes and then they just leave
We’ve got an investment, an investment in you
Our return is less than zero but that isn’t really news
In the end it’s us folks that are getting screwed
You’re all the same, purple, red or blue
Democrats and Republicans, one and the same
Puppeteers pulling strings, moving us out of the way
Changing like the weather, what do they really believe
Anything to get our votes and then they just leave
The other new song released by Freeze time is Boom Boom Hey Hey I’m Exploding.
Here is the link to the song at CDBaby.
As you can tell, Bud is still rocking out after 40 years. He told me has written well over 400 songs, a sign that he is truly passionate about his music, and has no plans to slow down.
It’s wonderful seeing the creative process in action.
It’s also cool that his sons are now part of his music, and are quite accomplished musicians themselves.
Give the songs a listen, you can tell everyone that you have just one degree of separation from a bona fide punk rocker!
Borden's Blather 
Another fun and entertaining post for the series. I don’t remember profs being quite so cool in my day, must be a Villanova thing. 🤘
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we have several profs who are quite accomplished musicians; sadly, I am not part of that group!
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thanks for sharing, lucky for both of you, being friends
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yes, indeed!
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Greetings, Jim and readers of Borden’s Blather. I do write and play music out of love and it is certainly very enjoyable being in a “band” with my sons, but you may find the economics of music interesting and you’ll see why I plead with people to buy our music from cdbaby.com. Let’s start with the actual recording.
To record a song in a professional studio, including not only the actual performance but also the mixing and mastering, even with a band as rehearsed as we are, takes, on a good day, five hours at $60 an hour.
Now let’s look at payback. By far, the most lucrative return for an artist is to have someone download a song on cdbaby.com – that gives the band 90 cents….that is why we, the artists, plead with people to download our music from cdbaby.com. Physical album sales also return a significant portion of the sales price to the artist. Apple iTunes is next, each download from iTunes may cost the consumer anywhere from 99 cents to $1.29 but of that, the artist, gets only 60 cents, downloading from amazon is similar to what the artist gets from iTunes….but it gets worse, much worse.
A stream on spotify gives the artist $.0018. That’s right – so if a song is streamed 100 times on spotify the artist gets 18 cents. Or put another way, in order to generate the same revenue as a single download from cdbaby.com, a song must be streamed 500 times on spotify, yes 500 times! Other digital platforms such as pandora, amazon, or youtube are worse!
So, if you really want to support the artist, please consider downloading the songs from either cdbaby.com or if need be, iTunes.
There is no free lunch – even for musicians!
Thank you so much!
Please consider downloading our music from cdbaby.com – search Freeze Time – Investment or Boom Boom Hey Hey I’m Exploding. We have six other albums out which you may enjoy as well.
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Bud, thanks for sharing an insider’s perspective on the economics of being a musician today. I’m guessing even some of the big names rely quite a bit on revenue from touring and merchandise sales. May be time to start a line of Freeze Time t-shirts and mugs. Keep on rockin’!
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First step is getting people to buy the songs instead of just streaming them!
If we were a touring band – yes – merchandise would be the way to go! But we’re not – so buying the songs becomes that much more important to us. Got to pay for that studio time!
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What an amazing talent and skill to have.
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Yes, indeed.
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