We have had so much trouble posting videos to YouTube of our own music. They continue to think that our videos are copyright infringement, when it’s simply our music and our videos we are posting. The process to keep our videos up is complicated, and we are guilty until we prove we have the right to our own tunes. It’s frustrating. Somehow our distribution through The Orchard, iTunes, and Amazon makes YouTube think we are stealing the music, making videos, and then they hit us with infringement.

How does one prove they made something? I responded letting them know it was my music, but I got a form letter that didn’t address my email. Now YouTube tells me that it’s up to The Orchard to decide if I have the right to post my music videos. They sent me a form letter telling me to update my preferences if I no longer want them to distribute my music. Of course I want them to distribute my music, but not stop me from making videos. All I know is that I want to punch somebody. Who, who can I punch?

Rain Station has existed since the early 90′s but I still haven’t come to grips with WHAT it really is. We’re not rock stars, or even rock star wannabes heck, we’re really not a band. We’re a recording act. For the most part I play some drum beats, and Mark records some guitar, bass, keyboard, and then we write lyrics. We don’t play out. We have kids, work jobs, live in small towns, and lead very normal suburban lives. We don’t live near each other, and find the time to get together to make music quite rarely. When it came time to make a few videos of our latest songs from Underground, I got to thinking: I have all kinds of family home videos. I thought it would be neat to make fun family videos for a few of the new songs. I love my family. They are the rock stars in my life. I didn’t want to set up video shoots to make Rain Station look like cool rock stars because it’s just not us. Right now Mark and I are juggling way too many regular life responsibilities to ever feel like rock stars. After all, we’re just a couple of family men. These videos show my family living real life, doing real stuff. The good life, love of family, watching children grow, elders age. It’s the kind of stuff we all aspire to, but it’s not the normal topic found in most rock videos. Simple, but my little family videos remind me of what really matters in life.