I wrote this song about my darling Aleksandr. It started as an A cappella song and morphed into an acoustic song, then I decided I liked it better A cappella so I switched it back. That’s the version you hear below. “We Were Around Before” is the last song on my “Everything You Touch Turns To Gold” E.P. (available exclusively on Bandcamp HERE free).

Have a listen:

Click the album cover below to download “We Were Around Before (A cappella)” from Logan Lynn’s “Everything You Touch Turns To Gold” for zero dollars on Bandcamp!

(Originally Published on The Huffington Post on 3/8/2012)

Most of the working musicians I know have been paying close attention to the real-life drama unfolding in the file-sharing world lately. That’s not to say all of said working musician friends agree with what I am about to say here, but the majority of them do (whether they will publicly admit it or not). Between the outcry around proposed government anti-piracy initiatives, the recent Megaupload arrests, and multiple file-sharing sites shutting down or drastically (and rapidly) adjusting their policies in the days since, there is a full-blown, game-changing spectacle underway.

The music industry has been ravaged by the digital age, the primary culprit being illegal file sharing on websites with practically zero regulation. The past two decades have been something of a Wild West on ye olde Interwebs. No rules, no accountability. By the time the music industry reacted to what was happening, it was too late.

While performing at and attending the CMJ music conference in New York City in fall 2009, I learned that at that time, 91 percent of all new music was downloaded illegally over the Internet instead of purchased. Since then, things have only gotten worse. Record stores are closing, music rags are shutting down, and the glory days of rock and roll are over… which I actually don’t give even half a shit about. In fact, I’m glad the music industry got destroyed. It was fucked-up anyway, so who cares? Poor (filthy rich) record executives making hundreds of millions of dollars on the backs of artists. Boo-hoo. I’m crying for you. Really. I am.

My beef is not that I feel bad for record labels or the talentless hacks who run them. I think it’s good that the overall priorities in the entertainment industry have been forced to change and that the powers that be have had to reexamine what it means to be of value to their consumer base. What pisses me off is having over 91 percent of my personal intellectual property stolen, often before it even has the chance to be finished and released to the world. As a professional musician, a lot of time, hard work, and money goes into making a record. As an independent musician, that money comes directly out of my own pocket. Being a starving artist honestly isn’t all it’s cracked up to be anymore, people, and getting ripped-off has always sucked.

Even when I was on a major label, I got totally screwed because so much money was put into the recording, printing, PR, and distribution side that trying to recoup from consumer sales based on that 9 percent of people obtaining the album legally was almost impossible. Everyone had the record months before it came out anyway, because of file sharing. The week before it was released, one site that posted download counts on files reported over 18,000 illegal downloads of my record before my lawyer had them take the file down. That alone comes out to $180,000 — for my songs — of which I saw $0. My record deal was a 90/10 split at the time, but guess what 90 percent of $0 is? You guessed it! Still $0.

Think of it this way: if you were a painter and were putting the finishing touches on your pieces for a show, wouldn’t you be upset if someone broke into your studio, took your unfinished paintings, and hung them in their public gallery without your permission? Let’s say you had some finished work hanging for sale in your own space, but every time someone saw something they liked, they removed it from the wall, tucked it under their arm, and left without paying for it? What if 100 people came to your show opening and 91 of them decided to steal one of your paintings off the wall? Then what? Paint faster to keep up with the demand? Really focus in and cater to those remaining nine do-gooders so you can pay your bills and eat? Is it really up to those few people who still believe stealing is wrong to support the entire industry? It surprises me that honest, everyday people who tip servers well and are willing to pay hundreds of dollars for a pair of jeans think it’s perfectly fine to steal music — and not just a little music, but tons of it. Something’s off here. Way off.

I know this is the part where all the kids and hipsters start to roll their eyes and say things like, “You just don’t get it, grandpa,” and, “It’s freedom of speech,” but I don’t actually believe that stealing my intellectual property is your constitutional right. Sorry, everybody. I get that you are used to consuming music like it’s chewing gum, but those days are numbered. I’m glad that file sharing companies are getting shut down, and I’m happy that the people who have been stealing from me and my fellow record-makers all these years are going to pay for their crimes (or at least stop doing illegal piracy facilitation business as usual). Organizing a $180,000 heist would get you sent to prison in real life, so what’s the difference?

Next time you hear a song you like, I encourage you to purchase it instead of stealing it. Supporting independent musicians just feels better than robbing us of our livelihood. I promise! Hell, you could even go to your favorite local record store, buy a CD, and look at the cover art for hours. You know, for old times’ sake.

Fingers crossed that your favorite record store is still around…

Hey folks! I was the guest on Out Loud Radio this week chatting about life, love, music, activism, the church, and a whole bunch of other really gay stuff.

Have a listen HERE or download the MP3 of the show HERE.

xo
LL

I’ve been releasing acoustic versions of new songs every few weeks since December and let another one out this evening. It’s called “The Tree You Named After Me” and is yet another collaboration with teenage pop phenom Noah Daniel Wood on guitar & David Appaloosa (from Portland indiepop boyband The Hugs) recording and quick mixing the whole thing for us.

Have a listen:

Click the album cover below to download “The Tree You Named After Me” from Logan Lynn’s “Everything You Touch Turns To Gold” for zero dollars on Bandcamp!

Hope everybody is having a great new year so far. We are just 2 days in and I am already announcing exciting stuff! I was recently asked to come on board as a blogger for The Huffington Post and they published my 1st piece today in the Gay Voices section HERE. It’s called “Unhappiness Is A Strange Muse“. Please comment, share and click the “Like” button…and you can subscribe to my future posts on my official HuffPost author page HERE.

Cray Cray, huh?

Happy New Year Everybody!

I am headed to the Oregon coast tomorrow to ring in the new year with my boyfriend and some of our friends but figured I would leak another in a series of acoustic version of songs from this new record I’ve been working on before I go. That’s Noah Daniel Wood on Ukulele.

Click the album cover below to download “Laying Still” from Logan Lynn’s “Everything You Touch Turns To Gold” for zero dollars on Bandcamp!

I was chatting with an older woman who works in my building today for the first time and she said “I hope this comes out the right way but I overheard you say that you needed someone else to set up the bar for the party because you are a recovering alcoholic and I just wanted you to know how happy I was to hear you taking care of yourself like that. You see, my daughter had the same problem but she was never able to get well. I lost her last February. I know how very hard it is and I think it is so great what you are doing.” I smiled and said, “I am so sorry to hear about your daughter. It’s a very difficult journey to be on. So hard on everyone involved.” She replied “Yes…but it was hardest on her.”

We talked for a little while about how now she is raising her granddaughter as her own and how maybe we are all just doing our best, even when we are at our worst (a concept which has come up in conversation lately with a few different people and that I find incredibly hard to wrap my head around at times). At one point her eyes welled up and she said “Hearing you stand up for yourself and your life in that moment made me love my daughter in a way I have not been able to since she died. Thank you for giving that back to me.” She started crying big tears, which made me start crying big tears…then we hugged the hug that only people who have been through the same war hug, an embrace I have felt before with my own hurt, scared mother around this stuff.

In that moment I imagined myself to be her daughter, years later, happy and well, hugging away the pain of watching someone you love struggle through the horrors of addiction. I felt like saying “It’s OK, mom. It’s over now.” as I have done with my mother on several occasions since finally getting well in 2007…but those words mean something so different for her than they do for my mom. For this sweet woman and her daughter, it really is over. All of it. No more memories, no more birthdays or holidays spent together. She is just gone, taken from this world by a glass of something.

I am so thankful that my mother does not have to cry on the shoulder of some other survivor to feel close to her dead child and I am grateful to have real love in my life where there used to be an empty space I filled with cocaine and vodka. I know how lucky that makes me and not a day goes by that I don’t wonder why I get to be one of the lucky ones. These days are cosmic gifts, extra moments bestowed upon me and my family by some unexpected twist of fate. I am 4 years into the bonus round and I try to make every minute count. I get to be here to kiss my boyfriend, play with my dog, watch my nieces grow up, help the community I care so deeply about, and enjoy all these beautiful years I almost didn’t get to have with you all.

Be well, friends. Live the life you are meant to live. Hug your mothers. Find something lovable about yourself and LOVE IT fearlessly. Then, share that love with the world…because the world needs you. If you are struggling with addiction, please tell someone. There are lots of different ways to get lots of different kinds of help and there has never been a better time to get your shit together than RIGHT NOW.

I wish you the happiest of all holidays, everybody.

xo
Logan

Whoa! Portland Monthly Magazine picked my record “I Killed Tomorrow Yesterday” as one of their top 15 records to give as gifts this holiday season and had some really nice things to say about me! So cool.

Check it out HERE.

I love it when my songs are used in cool stuff! This promo for ESPN, Mutiny Bikes, and Etnies is called “Battle Los Angeles” and has the instrumental of my track “Velocity” (taken from my 2010 record “I Killed Tomorrow Yesterday” and produced by Bryan Cecil) in it at the 5:10 mark. I once told my basketball coach brother Landon that ESPN would never want to use my music for anything but apparently I was wrong.

The video stars adrenaline junkies Brandon Hoerres, George Boyd, Andy Martinez, Matt Roe and Justin Simpson and was filmed, edited and directed by Joe Simon. Holy shit. They are all completely NUTS.

Here:

+ Logan Lynn // “Velocity” for ESPN & Mutiny Bikes (2011) – at 5:10

Last year on this day the most wonderful man came into my life. Over the past 12 months of being together a new record has formed. In honor of today’s manniversary I have decided to leak a couple of the acoustic demo versions of new songs from said new record.

Teenage pop prodigy Noah Daniel Wood plays guitar on both “Everything You Touch Turns To Gold” and “Heaven Or Hell” and they were recorded in Portland by David Appaloosa from The Hugs.

These songs are for my dearest Aleksandr.

You can download them FREE by clicking HERE.

Love,

Logan

At the end of 2010 I created The Q Center Concert Series in an effort to showcase LGBT musicians, dancers, comedians, actors, filmmakers and performance artists from around the world and locally at Portland’s LGBT community center. I am pleased to report that, due to the mega success of this 1st year of the program, we will be back in 2012 for another round!

This year so far I have featured Matt Alber, John Cameron Mitchell (Rabbit Hole, Hedwig & The Angry Inch, Shortbus), Taylor Mac, Tom Goss, Amber Martin, Shannon Grady, Sook-Yin Lee (Hedwig & The Angry Inch), Paul Dawson & PJ Deboy (Shortbus), Jenna Riot, Kaia Wilson (Team Dresch), Adventures! with Might, Leviticus Appleton, DJ Beyondadoubt, DJ Lunchlady, Swagger, Rose City Sirens, Drag Mansion, DJ Bruce LaBruiser, ChiChi & Chonga, Fannie Mae Darling, Belinda Carroll, Hugo Orozco (Rock & Roll Camp for Girls) and many more. Thank you to everyone who performed, attended or helped me pull these shows and events off! Without all of you none of this would have been possible.

You have one last chance to catch some killer queer acts before the 2011 Q Center Concert Series takes a bow! The 5th Annual Queer Quistmas Variety Show is happening on Saturday, December 17th at Q Center. Tickets are on sale now. CLICK HERE to get yours! This year’s raunchy holiday shitshow promises to be the filthiest yet! Come get down and dirty with hosts Splendora Gabor (Lee Kyle from “Sissyboy”) and Fannie Mae Darling while we welcome another group of incredible performers to the stage: Austin Tautious, Jam N Toast, Queertet, Nico Bella, Anthony Hudson, Angel Hanson, The Julian-ettes, Eric Sellers, Korin Schneider, Daniel Thompson, Jamie Treadwell, tons of surprise guests and the incomparable Glenn Goodfellow on piano all night!!!

This is the only holiday party that has ever mattered, and it’s for a good cause! See you there…and yes. That’s me in a onesie on the poster.

Happy holidaze, everyone!

LL

Click the poster for more details:

Oh god. Watch my new video on MTV below or on their website HERE.

MTV is so fucking cool still.

Well, folks…it’s been a year and a half since I went on hiatus from music world and it’s been really good for me. I’ve immersed myself in activism and community work in Portland and have managed to stay put for a second. A lot of happy stuff has come into my life as a result of my deciding to sink the boat I was on before and I don’t ever regret having done so. It needed to happen and while at the time many people thought I was fucking crazy, as it turns out, it was the right choice. ALL of it.

With a little bit of distance between the stress of constantly touring and my everyday life now I have been able to separate the parts of the music industry I like from the parts I do not. In many ways I have gone back to how it was in the beginning—no pressure, no competition, no financial motivation to be more “mainstream” or “successful”—just me, my feelings, my keyboard, a pen and some paper. It’s been lovely to get back in touch with why I started off on this career path in the first place. In searching for that I seem to have accidentally unblocked myself and have, over the past 18 months, written a new record-one which I am already proud of and so excited to make.

I have already reached out to a few different folks who I want to work with on this one. I’m not going to set up shop with just one producer for the project. I am thinking of it as a chance to collaborate with a variety of talented people on a variety of tracks, then see where it lands. There are no rules anymore so it’s really just about the music. I don’t care how famous you are or who you’ve worked with in the past. If I’m inspired by your work, you’re in. If I’m not, you’re not.

If you would like to work on this new record with me and are interested in throwing yourself into the mix of potential producers, send an email to Logan@LoganLynnMusic.com with up to 3 original, unreleased instrumental works attached in MP3 format. Any genre is fine. Push me out of the box I’ve been living in if you dare! The only thing that is non-negotiable with this project is that YOU MUST BE THE OWNER OF THE SUBMITTED MATERIAL. I will be listening to all of your tracks over the course of November and will be identifying people from there.

Really looking forward to hearing from you. I don’t know about you but I’m feeling better than I have in years and it’s coming through in these new songs. Let’s make something pretty together!

xo
Logan

David Byrne included me and my “Quickly As We Pass” video in his notorious “Pop Making Sense” column this week in Chicago’s Windy City Times newspaper! You can currently pick it up anywhere periodicals are distributed in Chicago or just keep reading below.

From Windy City Times, Chicago: (7/27/2011)

“Another video to keep an eye out for is Logan Lynn’s ‘Quickly As We Pass.’ Imagine forward-thinking Imogen Heap mentoring a DIY artist with the hipster sound stemming from Brooklyn. The end product would be ‘Quickly As We Pass‘. The track’s video is very cleverly done with stills looking like cutouts then being turned into 3-D objects, as they are filmed from different angles. Also, there is footage of neighborhoods in the Windy City with many of the spots being instantly recognizable. Not only is the video well crafted, but the song itself is very catchy. Lynn is based in Chicago and is openly gay. ‘Quickly As We Pass‘ can be found on the album ‘I Killed Tomorrow Yesterday‘.

Nice huh? I’m actually based in Portland but I love that Chicago wants to claim me! So cute!!! To read the full article, CLICK HERE.

Hey folks! Saturday, August 6th at Q Center in Portland I’m throwing an ALL AGES Q&A Meet-and-Greet with John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig & The Angry Inch, Shortbus, Rabbit Hole), Portland-gone-NYC performance queen Amber Martin, PJ DeBoy (Shortbus) & Paul Dawson (Shortbus)! They are in town for their traveling Mattachine dance party spectacle that evening but will be spending some of their afternoon with us at Q Center before the show!

You are all invited. Spread the word. RSVP to the Facebook Event Page HERE.

Now watch John Cameron Mitchell in “Hedwig & The Angry Inch”:

“Live From Nowhere Near You” is a benefit record I was a part of for homeless youth at Outside In and it was released today. Actually, last night at midnight. By 1:00am they had sold 5,000 CD’s and were sold out. Good times, right?! OMG.

New songs by me, Elliott Smith, The Dandy Warhols, Pink Martini, Spoon, The Helio Sequence, The Strokes, Wilco, Bright Eyes, The Decemberists, Gang of Four, Sleater-Kinney, Viva Voce, Modest Mouse & so many more!!! You can read the full list HERE.

Here’s my contribution to the project:

Logan Lynn: “Movies” (2011 Greyday Records)
Words and Vocals by Logan Lynn.
Programming by Carlos Cortes.
Horns: Chris Frazier.

Logan Lynn: “Movies” (Taken from “Live From Nowhere Near You” – A Benefit For Homeless Youth) by LoganLynn

This psycho little song sure is in good company with this one. Geezuz.

The Boy In Static remix of my song “Alone Together” (from my new record “Blood In The Water” available on iTunes HERE) was used in Trent Finlay‘s promotional video for the Q Center, Basic Rights Oregon, Cascade AIDS Project & Pride NW “Hands Across Hawthorne” anti-gay bashing event.

Read what The Advocate had to say about the event itself HERE, then watch the video below.

Together we can stop the violence. To get involved with LGBT community safety in Portland, CLICK HERE. To find the LGBT community center closest to you, CLICK HERE.

Pop music site Bop2Pop featured my new video this week! You can check it out HERE or keep reading below…

From Bop2Pop: (6/23/2011)

“Out Portland electronic artist, Logan Lynn has released a new video for his single, Quickly As We Pass and it has a wonderfully 80s synth vibe, complete with blips and bleeps. In the video, things start innocuously, but then veer supringingly into NSFW territory at around 2:15. We at bop2pop, love the retro feel of the song and video.”

Watch my new video “Quickly As We Pass” in all its censored for TV glory on VH1 below or CLICK HERE to watch it on the VH1 website!

So awesome!!!

My new video “Quickly As We Pass” is featured on AfterElton.com today! Check it out HERE or keep reading below!

From AfterElton.com: (6/23/2011)

“Logan Lynn channels the 80′s with “Quickly As We Pass”: Out artist Logan Lynn has been producing music for over a decade, but I confess to somehow having missed him until now. But as a huge fan of 80s music, I’m quite pleased to have made his acquaintance through his new video “Quickly As We Pass” which reminds me of what was best about early 80s music. This song wouldn’t have been out of place in the dance clubs being played along side the best bands of the 80s, including New Order, OMD and Eurythmics. But take a listen yourself and see what you think!”