|
|
Tonight, Mark rejoined JoS. It looks like he might be sitting in with us on a few of the upcoming shows. I think that he will be with us on the 9th, but not on the 10th. Beyond that, I'm not sure as to what his plans are going to be.
We went over a few newer tunes, and tried out a Rush song or two. Personally, I rather like playing Rush (Geddy Lee has been a bass hero of mine for quite some time), but I don't think that it is going to fit well with JoS's style.
Another little bit of cross publishing. Drop by and say "Hi" to Wendy....
As much as I hate to say this, there wasn't much from Simon today to quote. It's a hiccup, I'm sure.
The Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) has lost it's court case. The CRIA was attempting to force ISP's into releasing the names of file sharers.
The judge ruled the music companies had not provided enough evidence that any copyright infringement had occurred or that the companies could identify the individuals.
"No evidence was presented that the alleged infringers either distributed or authorized the reproduction of sound recordings. They merely placed personal copies onto shared directories on their computers which were accessible by other computer users via an online download service," the judge wrote.
As a result, using an online download service for personal use does not amount to copyright infringement in Canada...
William Hung's latest, um, opus is steadily progressing forwards:
Hung's new album, "Inspiration" will be released April 6. It will contain covers of Martin's Shake Your Bon Bon, Elton John's Rocket Man, R. Kelly's I Believe I Can Fly and, of course, She Bangs. Hung said the song Free was written especially for him.
The disc will also include a 40-minute DVD with behind-the-scenes footage of studio recording sessions and fan questions and answers.
Please, please, for the love of God, don't buy this album. Let it sink into that good night as it should.
Phil Collins is promising that his current tour will be his last.
Tonight, I watched American Idol for what I think had to be the first time ever. And what a time to decide to watch. The Funk Brothers -- the Funk Brothers!! -- performed as the backup band.
I want to extend my sincere and complete sympathies for each and every member of the FB's for having to sit through the complete and utter train wreck that was most of these people singing (if you can call it that -- I would call it raping some classic Motown tunes. Raping them, calling them bad names and then throwing rancid pickles at their dogs).
These wanna-be's (and I was not impressed with any of the singing that I heard from the Idol tribe) really did not deserve to share the same stage -- or really even breathe the same air -- as these actual legends of music. However, true to the legacy of the Funk Brothers, the singers got all the attention and the actual musical talent was largely ignored (and, unfortunately, used as a backdrop).
Some of them were so bad (yes, John Stevens, I'm talking about you) that I was hoping there was a sniper team hiding in the shadows somewhere. Alas, no such luck. And, other John? You're not on this list because good snipers only use one bullet.
If you watched this show, do yourself a favor, and check out the actual Funk Brothers in their own glory. They really deserve all the attention they could possibly get.
This one from a professor (Wharton B-school) this time.
Some of the results seem quite surprising, while others are expected. According to the study:
The top albums (over 600,000 copies, top 25%) were helped by the downloading, those with lower than 36,000 copies had a negative effect.
Most people download individual songs, not entire albums. About 90% of the songs on most popular albums are downloaded less than 11 times, and there is a high download concentration toward hits.
Music industry marketing still greatly influences people’s habits, both from a sales and downloading aspect.
Thanks to Eppy for the tip.
We just got booked! JoS will be returning to Main Street Bar & Grill in Stafford VA for a show on the 30th.
Bela Fleck, the nominal leader of The Flecktones, will be heading out for a few days with Edgar Meyer. They will be playing mostly classical pieces, most likely tunes from Bela's classical CD (and it even won a bunch of Grammies).
DC Dates:
May 20: Washington, D.C. (Lisner Auditorium)
I was recently asked by a reader (check the comments) what it is that I want from my music. I've been thinking about it for awhile, and here's my stab at an answer.
For starters, I'm going to answer this from a standpoint of what I want professionally. What I want from the music in general is to be able to express myself, to share what I have and to have fun while doing it. What I want artistically is to play challenging, tuneful music and to grow into new styles and idioms of playing (jazz, reggae, world, etc.) as well as improving as a player. However, I can do both of these independently of any professional goals. But, when a reader asks for something, I do my best to try and make good on the request (and, to stop anyone with a bright idea, this is not a carte blanche offer for you to be asking me to do stuff). Although what I want artistically may follow on as a later post.
Also, these are my goals right now. As many musicians (and other people, for that matter) can no doubt relate to, one's goals change over time. When I was sixteen, my musical goals were to be a really big band and meet lots of girls! Once I hit 19, my musical goals were to make it big and pick up lots of babes. Right around 22, all I really wanted to do was break into the majors and get with lots of chicks. These days, hitting the charts sounds really appealing, while the other part just sounds tiring.
And, with no further ado (because I know that some of you are just begging me to shut up already and get the point), here -- in no particular order -- are some of my professional goals.
Be On A Recording Distributed By One Of The Major Labels
It doesn't even have to be my own, or even the whole album. I would love to be able to walk in to a record store, see a CD that I have played on and know that my playing has been recognized by other people as worthwhile. I really don't need the affirmation that someone else has judged me worthy (I like what I do, even while I know it can be better), but it's still nice to hear.
Having one of those recordings distributed by a major just adds to it. I've played on a number of albums already, but they were onesie-twosies for local bands, either for a demo or for a friends and family release (more on this later). Anyone willing to spend some money can make a CD. You can make one yourself in the comfort of your own home for a few hundred dollars, if you want.
Having the backing of a label means that someone other than the artist thinks that the work is good enough. Good enough to put up some hard cash in what amounts to a bet that enough people are going to be willing to buy the CD to make back the sunk cost. Once the CD is made, though, the label has to be able to distribute the CD to the actual stores. Most of the time, they do this through the majors.
The major distributors pretty much only care about one thing -- will this release make more money than it is going to cost us to send it out? When a musician is asked to play on a release at that level, it's because the producer in question thinks that you are good enough to play the song(s) in a minimum of studio time and with the sound that he/she wants.
Play A High Profile Venue
In the same vein, I'd like to play at least one high quality venue. For all my comments about playing at Jaxx, it was probably one of the better quality stages I've played on in quite some time -- good lights, lots of real estate to move, average sound (for that night, at least -- I've been told they normally do a better job). I'd like to do more of that. The 9:30 club, Wolf Trap, the MCI Center in the DC area, the Blue Note in NYC, somewhere like that. Those places have so much history there that I think it would be an honour just to share the same stage upon which some of the legends stood.
There's also something about being able to say, "Yeah, I played Blues Alley a few times." ::sniff:: "It was okay."
Be On A Recording Played In A Major Market
And, continuing along the same train of thought, I've been told by quite a few people that there is nothing like turning on the radio one day and a song on which you played just happens to come on. I'd like to experience that for myself, please (if everyone else wouldn't mind). And not just any radio (your brother's cousin's pirate radio station that he runs from his tree house doesn't quite count), but a prominent station in one of the major US media markets.
Tour With A Recognized Act
I'd love to hit the road with an act that's made it. I know, I'm not asking for too much, now am I? I don't think I'm ready for Stevie Wonder or anything (but, if he's reading, call me).
I have done some touring, and I'm sure that I'll probably do a few more local/regional tours with the occasional band. But, as a goal, I like to head out on the road for awhile with an established act. I know that if I achieve this goal, it will probably be as a result of working with a band consistently for a while, doing the regional tour thing and then graduating with them to the next stop of the train. But, the end goal is to do a major tour.
I think I'd really like to do the sideman thing with a jazz act. Now that would be nirvana for me.
Part of this is my age; I'm sort of past the point where the idea of sleeping in a van and eating baloney sandwiches for four months would be quite the romantic notion it would have been for me before. Another part is, like I said before, I'd like to play a major venue. You sorta have to be established to do both of these things.
Put Out My Own Material On An Album That People Who Aren't My Friends And Family Would Want To Buy
Yeah, it's a long title. Sue me.
I know -- with utter certainty -- that if I were to record a CD of eight songs tomorrow, I have a pool of people who would pony up some cash for a copy, no matter how bad it was. And, most of them would be kind and gracious, telling me how wonderful the music was, even if there was the sound of a cat coughing up a hairball during the middle of a pentatonic run of the big solo. While I know they mean well, it just wouldn't amount to all that much.
When someone goes out and plunks down their hard-earned money to buy a CD of some musician that they've never met, don't know and probably never will, they are basically saying that they think well enough of their work that they are willing to pay for it. If you think that doesn't mean something, well, you're very wrong.
All this to say that I want to be able to present a CD full of music that I have written, with my own expression and thoughts, and then I'd like to have people welcome it into their lives.
Grow As A Musician (Not Just As A Bass Player)
I do a decent job as a bass player. I can even manage to find my way around a drum kit when I have to. What I want to be able to grow into a better understanding of all the other instruments in a band better. Not to mention developing a better feel for the support side of the show (live sound engineering, producing albums, etc.). I've done a bit of this already, and I'd like to do more. Also, I am fully aware that the better feel I have for the other aspects of the music, the more appealing I am to potential producers and artists.
I think that anything insights that I can gain from these other influences can only improve my approach my instrument better. Getting a better feel for how the trumpet sits in the mix will help me select the best way to play my line. Knowing how sound carries in a room allows me to fine tune my effects and amp settings for the best possible performance.
Well, I think this is probably enough for right now. Sheesh, if I were able to accomplish any two of these, that would be pretty darn good.
This time, they're going to be targeted at people all over the world. I guess as long as the industry groups keep screaming and crying, they are hoping that no one will notice that things are actually getting much better for the biz....
It looks like my alma mater is still up to the same high standards as they did when I was there. The frightening thing is that Va Tech is best known for agriculture and engineering. Hopefully, the cows are falling in the river or anything.
Simon is reporting that Prince is allowing some of his songs from his new album to be downloaded for about a buck a pop. The more interesting thought actually comes from someone else, though:
"Imagine new CDs by Eminem, Norah Jones, Bruce Springsteen and Beyonce made available online at each artist's own website. After all the talk about illegal downloading destroying the music industry, it could be legal downloading that puts the big record companies out of business."
Larry Katz said this in the Boston Globe, but I cannot find the story to give you a direct link.
The NY Times is reporting that the NPR stations were actually the ones behind getting Bob Edwards reassigned.
Jeff Jarvis has had an interesting idea with regards to book and the Creative Commons copyright system.
The idea is to basically annotate it with observations and/or counter arguments. So, you could imagine a music industry rep reading Confessions Of A Record Producer and firing back with real world observations (i.e. "Well, we used to do that sort of thing, but ever since Shelia E. sued us, we stopped."). Or having Felix add his own commentary and feedback regarding his dad.
Guns and Roses have decided to not play the Rock in Rio festival (which was being held in Libson, for some reason). Axl blames Buckethead for the cancellation:
"The band has been put in an untenable position by guitarist Buckethead and his untimely departure," Rose says. "During his tenure with the band Buckethead has been inconsistent and erratic in both his behavior and commitment -- despite being under contract -- creating uncertainty and confusion and making it virtually impossible to move forward with recording, rehearsals and live plans with confidence."
Why on Earth anyone was expecting stability and consistency from a guy who has never been seen in public without a KFC bucket over his head and talks through a hand puppet is beyond me. I've heard Buckethead play a few times; he's got some amazing chops, but I don't know if I'd want to hang out in the same room with him.
There's been a lot of material published on file sharing, most of it by the branch of the copyright industry that releases music, and much of it attempting to prove that file sharing will ruin sales, bankrupt musicians, make Christina Aguilera have to reinvent herself as some kind of cheap two-bit whore, leads to cancer of the head and limbs, blinds kittens in an indiscriminate fashion and was responsible, through some sort of worm hole in time, for the attacks on Pearl Harbour and the Maradonna 'Hand of God' fiasco. But there's not been much independent work done on the effects of people swapping music online, mainly because the file sharers aren't part of a few multibillion dollar industries with cash to spare to buy off a few dodgy Stats Profs.
Alistair Cooke has passed on into the next life. Most of my memories of him were from Masterpiece Theatre; pretty much my first introduction to any British person. His writings were wonderful as well. He will be missed.
Previously on the Complaining Record Industry channel, the Austrailian version of the RIAA cried loudly and longly with regards to their falling music sales. Small problem here is that they are, um, slightly stretching the actual truth of the matter.
The Australian record industry has just had its best year ever. But it doesn't want you to know about it. This month ARIA announced its sales figures for last year. In its press release, it talked about Delta, it talked about falling CD singles sales, it talked about the rise in DVD sales, but at no stage did it tell us it was the industry's best year ever. Why bury the good news?
Record industry types aren't usually shy about success. But this time their success is a little embarrassing. For the past few years the industry has argued that file-sharing and CD burning is having a negative impact on sales. But, unfortunately, their own sales figures don't back up their arguments.
Hmm. Imagine that. The record industry is telling a tall tale to try and get people on their side.
The television industry was shaken last October when the ratings from Nielsen Media Research showed that a huge part of a highly prized slice of the American population was watching less television. As the fall TV season began, viewership among men from 18 to 34 fell 12 percent compared with the year before, Nielsen reported. And for the youngest group of adult men, those 18 to 24, the decline was a steeper 20 percent.
In a world where fortunes are made and lost over the evanescent jitterings of fractions of audience share, the Nielsen announcement was the equivalent of a nuclear strike, a smallpox outbreak and a bad hair day all rolled into one.
But those who track the uses of technology say that the underlying shift in viewership made perfect sense. The so-called missing men might be more aptly called the missing guys, and they are doing what guys do: playing games, obsessing over sports and girls, and hanging out with buddies - often online.
And the evidence is accumulating that the behavior of guys like Mr. Brandel is changing faster than once thought. The rapid expansion of high-speed Internet access lets the computer become the video jukebox that Mr. Brandel uses to watch comedy clips. The seemingly inexhaustible appetite for computer games, DVD players, music and video file-sharing - and, yes, online pornography - all contribute to the trend, these experts say. While no one activity is enough to account for the drop that Nielsen reported, all of them together create a vast cloud of diversion that has drawn men inexorably away from television.
I can vouch for this one; the accessabililty of the web has absolutely lowered my desire to veg in front of the tube. TV is strictly a one way medium; I can only sit and absorb. The web is so very different in that regard. Not only can I absorb whatever tidbit of information that catches my interest, I can also delve further into it as I see fit.
Catch a movie on HBO? I'm more likely than not to look it up on the web to learn some details about the making of the movie. Which will probably lead me to some article about some new kind of polymer that was used in the special effects. Which may lead to information about the mining process that is used to get the material to make the polymer. Which may take me to a financial site to invest in the company. Which might direct me to a satire about the government and taxation. Which might..... (you get the point).
That's the neat thing about the web. Of course, when I look up at it's three in the morning because I got a little lost in the links, that's a downside.
At least one band is not only getting with the online movement, but evangelizing others as well:
If fans download the Secret Machines' debut album on free peer-to-peer file-sharing sites on the Internet, "We're not going to put up a sign at the show that says, 'If you stole the album, go home!'" says Bill Bennett, manager of the New York trio, at the South By Southwest Music Conference last week. The album, "Now Here Is Nowhere," is due out May 18 on Reprise Records, a division of the Warner Music Group.
Bennett (once the president of Geffen Records) says the band's philosophy is to embrace the Internet and the new fans it brings to the band: "The idea is that even if they downloaded the album for free, they'll like the band enough that they'll join in some kind of commerce with the band down the road."
A ray of rationality breaks through the clouds.
Earth, Wind and Fire are heading back out on the road. This could be a good show; EW&F are one of the pillars of R&B. Four of the original members (Maurice White, Verdine White, Ralph Johnson and Philip Bailey) will be out this go 'round.
Chicago will be there with them. I'm not so enthused about this. I caught them playing at Wolf Trap a year ago or so. I think the only original member left in the band was either the trombonist or one of the roadies. In any case, it was basically a tribute band dressed up and pretending to be the real thing.
DC Dates:
07/06/04 Virginia Beach, VA Verizon Wireless Virginia Bch. Amp.
07/08/04 Bristow, VA Nissan Pavilion
There's a nice attempt at jiggling history in the BBCi report, which suggests that Billie [Piper] has "shunned the music world in favour of acting." That would be "shunning" in the sense of sniffing "I'm so bothered anyway" when she turned up at Music Inc. and found her desk had been cleared, her door pass didn't work, the woman on reception wouldn't make eye contact with her and just kept mumbling "You'll have to speak to the management" and someone from accounts who happened to be walking through the entrance hall made some half-arsed mutterings about how "we'll have to do farewell drinks some time, only not this week as I'm playing squash with Charlotte Church."
Another Brit with a jaundiced point of view.
If any children of mine, rather than going to bed, took five minutes via a complex, multi-lingual song, I think I would send the right down the workhouse. The Von Trapp children are described as thoroughly naughty, but with all their girlie singing are about as hard as candy floss. “I am sixteen going on seventeen” -you are sixteen going on six feet under if I had my way.
Showtime ran Britney Spears Live From Miami on their channel tonight. As per a reader's request (check the comments), here are my thoughts on it.
To say that it sucked would be to do a disservice to all the things in this world that really do suck. The set design and motif of the show are pretty clearly coming from the addled mind of some benighted soul who was heavily influenced by Cirque Du Soleil but couldn't afford to actually get a good act to populate the performance. The singing was, well painful. She has never had a good voice, and lip synching didn't make it any better. She did, however, make a lot of costume changes -- each more skimpy than the last.
On the plus side, she did individually introduce each member of her band, and she gave them each about thirty seconds to show off. That was a nice thing for her to do, particularly on live TV. Hopefully, it will help their careers.
The most vapid moment of the night had to be when she "wanted to bring it down a bit and get real". I present you a transcript of Britney's deepest thoughts:
I don't know if you read the press or know what's going on with me, but the last couple of months have kinda been like a rollercoaster. There has been a lot of ups and a lot of downs, but I think, ultimately, at the end of the day, that's what makes you who you are.
{applause and cheering}
And I also think, ultimately, we all know how to laugh, we know how to cry, we know how to be held tight, we know how to back, we all know heartbreak. But the world keeps moving and we keep moving with it and everything we experience makes us realize how beautiful like really is.
Stunning, isn't it? That many words without actually saying anything. In any case, I really couldn't take much more after this, and I just stopped watching this dreck. If you want a larger review, check somewhere else, 'cause I just don't think I would have been able to suffer through any more of this.
Note to self: Just because a reader asks for something, that doesn't mean I should do it.
Tonight, we mostly went over some of the newer songs and tried to focus on our next upcoming show. Unfortunately, the guitarist from the prior session has decided that he has too many time commitments to support JoS in quite the way he would like. I can understand that; I have quite a few time commitments myself, and I think that if you cannot do it well, you probably shouldn't do it at all.
YOU’D NOT CATCH ME IN A TIGHT SWEATER, OH NO: Thank god someone’s prepared to stand up and say “enough’s enough” when it comes to raunchy pop stars. Jessica Simpson has had enough of Britney Boob-tube who, shockingly, has a sexy image:
"You don't need to be going there unless your career is based on that sort of thing, and mine certainly isn't.Unfortunately, in today's society, you have to be everything, and sex sells. I think she knows what works for her and what's gotten her to where she is right now. I don't think we see eye-to-eye on the situation, because for me, I would rather sell my music. I don't want it to be about my sexuality.”
It’s a difficult thing to stand up and be counted in this high-pressure music world, and so we’d like to applaud Jessica’s decision to not be sold on her sexuality. But we’re not sure she should be setting her sights on Britney as the worst offender - how about going after the pop strumpet who gave this interview
For me, my favorite Jessica "I really don't want to be sexy" article has to be the one.
So tonight was Nick's 24th birthday (it was also a friend of Nick's 24th as well, so happy birthday, Nate). After we played a short set, we hung out for a while, talking with some people partaking in drinking games (for myself, it's been something like ten years since the last time I played beer pong).
After a while, I started to pack up to head back home. As I'm loading my car, I notice a few cars coming up the road with their lights out. I can remember enough parties from my days in my hometown to recognize when the police are sneaking up to raid a party. And, right on cue, as I'm lugging my head out of the house, three officers (two county cops and one town cop) approach me and ask what's in the case. After I show them, they then ask me, "Are you the father of this house?"
Now, I know that I was probably the oldest person at that house be a good five years or so, but I hardly think I look like a father to anyone who would be partying at midnight on a Friday night. But, I decided that telling the nice police officer to sod off would not be the good idea, so I just answered "Nope" and went about my business.
Nick from NGB asked me to come down tonight to do some playing. I thought it would be a good time, so I headed on down to Southern Maryland. When I got there, the entire band was there, and we went through two new songs that NGB had written. The two new tunes are pretty good, a good pop sensibility. We also went over some of the tunes from the last time I played with them.
While we were playing, they asked me if I would be willing to record Drop Back with them. They are going to DragonFly East to lay down their next single for radio release, and they liked the way that I approached the song. So it looks like I'll be heading into the studio this week to do some tracks.
There were some people coming down for Nick's birthday party (he turned 24 this week), so we hung out for a bit and then played a very small set for the party as an inpromptu concert.
The thing we like the best about Pink's live show is that she uses the inflatable dolls to take the place of her co-stars on Lady Marmalade - although it's a bit harsh to call Mya a pumped up plastic sex toy, it's levelled out by being an understatement for Christina. Pink reckons the show isn't as raunchy as the reviwers say, mind:
"It's not as raunchy as they say, it could be a lot worse. Even what I have right now, they tell me to tone down. There's a little, I wouldn't say nudity exactly, and I wouldn't exactly say simulated sex with rubber dolls either. But some people would!"
We're guessing it's not simulated, then.
Yesterday, I took in Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind. I've been looking forwards to this film for some time, as it was written by Charlie Kaufman. Kaufman also wrote Being John Malkovich and Adaptation; both movies were great and completely from left field. So I had high expectations for this flick.
The good news is that it both met and exceeded those expectations. The writing was spot on, with clever highs and lows. I enjoyed the way that the director showed the action of the movie, as well as some rather interesting camera shots. Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet both did a great job -- which is a good thing, since the two of them dominate the movie and pretty much carry it all the way through.
I would highly recommend this movie to anyone who enjoys offbeat movies. Watch time 1:47.
Congress is considering changing the law to allow people to choose their TV channels ála carte. Imagine that; I could stop paying for the one hundred or so satellite channels that I have never once even turned on.
I have to say that I am not all that sympathetic to hearing the providers complain about how much it would cost. I know that DirecTV already broadcasts their entire offering to every dish (the receiver then filters out what the consumer has not paid for), so this technology is very do-able.
In a story that may seem to contradict the growth of honesty online, it seems that researchers have determined that online chat rooms can be quite the nasty place in which to spend time.
According to the new research, even the most laid-back people can erupt into furious rants when debating online, and it's all part of an effort to distinguish themselves from the next user. Some even take on multiple personalities in a bid to outsmart their online acquaintances, while others adopt menacing usernames.
While I don't agree with all of the edicts listed here, it's a pretty good place to start when thinking about writing an email to anyone.
Van Halen has made it offical; they are hitting the road this summer. Sammy Hagar has rejoined the band for this trip (because what else was he doing with his time?).
DC area shows are:
June 16: Philadelphia (Wachovia Center)
June 28: Washington, D.C. (MCI Center)
BROWN DRIES EYES, LEAVES COURT: You know, we'd have sobbed like a baby if we'd been sent down, too, but there's good news for Bobby Brown as he gets released from chokey. Oddly enough, that big unpaid child maintainence bill that he said he couldn't afford had been settled - strange how spending a night with Marilyn, the squat thrust champion from Block C, can jog your memory about where you might have put sixty thousand dollars aside for emergencies, isn't it?
As he came out of court, Brown told reporters: "I thought it was paid. Things happen like that when other people are dealing with your business."
Yeah, it can be a bit of a bummer when you cede responsibility to make sure your own kids have shoes and enough jello and Mr Goodbars to survive on to somebody else. You can't be expected to know that your own kids have been left to doing the best they can on Mac and Cheese, can you? Obviously, if you ever saw them you might have spotted the ribs poking through the goodwill store shirts, but I daresay that's something else you palmed off to someone elsewhere in the Brown Organisation.
See you back in court May 5th?
I have heard a rumor that Guitar Center may be purchasing Fender guitars. More on this later.
I would have never thought this, and I still don't think that I do think it, but here's an love note to Fleetwood Mac.
A California-to-the-core studio obsessive with a permanent case of the jitters (Buckingham), a dreamy mystical type with a gift for ornate, languorous melodies (Nicks), and a veteran British rhythm section with roots in raw electric blues (Fleetwood and the McVies): Try faking that combination.
It seems that the BPI (Britian's version of the RIAA) is going to be heading down the same road with suing their customers.
-- Update --
Simon has a great analysis of this turn of events from a British perspective (which is probably a bit more accurate than me sitting over here on this side of the pond).
Some of the online critics are becoming rather powerful in their opinions.
Not if you want to bedazzle Johnson [Rebecca Johnson, #4 on Amazon's top customer book reviewers], who gets 40 to 60 free books a month, along with checklists from publishers asking her to mark the upcoming titles she's interested in receiving at no charge. Play along, and your shot at a rave review is far better than it would be with professional critics.
No one is saying that the Harold Blooms and Dale Pecks and other literati should be looking over their shoulders, but professional critics are no longer the only game in town. These days, as the Internet continues to reshape our notion of community, amateur critics are posting reviews across the cultural spectrum — from film to books and more — on discussion boards, blogs and other sites.
On the one hand, my free speech instincts thinks that this is a rather bad idea. On the other hand, music that supports bigotry isn't a very good thing, either.
In a stunning display of good sense, the Great White cover CD has been pulled from the shelves.
Apple has decided to postpone releasing the new iPod mini "to meet expected demand."
Tonight, the four of us went to Agua Ardiente to play a charity show for both Children of Persia and the International Club of DC.
I had been to Agua once before, to catch some friends of mine playing there. It's an interesting club, with a heavy Mediterranean/Spanish feel to the establishment. Lots of people wearing black there, for some reason. The layout of the club is very similar to a large "U", with the band being set up in the lower left-hand corner of the shape.
We were only on the hook for a single short set. Unfortunately, we had no real sound check -- actually, that's pretty much par for the course anymore. The configuration of the club does not particularly lend itself well to live music; the walls have lots of flat surfaces, and you're basically playing to two thin halls. But we tweaked the sound as best we can, mostly trying to not have a repeat of the feedback issues we had at the last show.
We breezed through our sets pretty well. We had some time issues, along with the usual blocking concerns. As with our last show, we each had difficultly in hearing what the other was playing. When that is the case, having a consistent blocking of song segments is critical.
The other issue with the set was the time in between songs. We would get up some good energy, but then lose it with several minutes of dead air between each tune (either that, or having a guitarist noodle around for a few minutes). IN any case, it hurt the overall performance.
Still, for as short a period of time that we have been playing together, we did a pretty good job. The crowd (and it was a pretty good size crowd) seemed to enjoy what we were doing. After loadout, I worked the crowd for a bit, chatting with various people. They were pretty supportive and appreciative of the music we had played. A few even inquired as to our availability for future shows.
and it makes me a little sad.
...a recent national survey asked administrators and students about the First Amendment. Only 21 percent of administrators and 30 percent of students knew that the First Amendment guarantees religious freedom. Only six percent of administrators and two percent of students knew that religious freedom is the first freedom mentioned in the First Amendment. Only 41 percent of administrators and 32 percent of students believe that religious people should be permitted to advocate their views by whatever legal means available. On the other hand, 74 percent of students and 87 percent of administrators think it "essential" that people be able to express their beliefs unless—and then come a host of qualifications, all amounting to the condition that their beliefs not "offend others."
Because it wouldn't do to allow someone to be offended, now would it?
Thanks to Stephen for the tip.
NPR is, oh how did they put it, "evolving" the sound of their morning show. They are doing this by pulling Bob Edwards -- who has been there for a little over 25 years -- off the anchor slot and into a "senior correspondent" position.
The less-than-tactful Great White Burning House of Love compilation is being pulled from the stores. The band's management claim that the label responsible for the clanging name hadn't thought through the connection between the album title and the not-entirely-under-reported burning to death of a hundred people at a Great White gig. Which is a bit like saying "What?" when caught flogging Diana Car Crash Princess Headless Dolls.
It seems that she had some kind of allergic reaction, but things are better now.
Harkening back to the days of VHS vs. Betamax, DVD burners are going through the growth phase when there are several differing formats and they are not playing nicely together. It's one of the many reasons why I've taken the easy way out and gone with a DVD drive that can burn all the primary formats.
A good write-up suggesting ways that Apple could maintain it's lead in the online music field.
Apple could still guide digital-music standards for years to come -- and create a more open, competitive marketplace that will ultimately benefit everyone -- except Microsoft. How? By letting go of FairPlay and trusting the market -- as well as its own ability to make killer consumer devices.
While Apple's competitors have embraced WMA, they hardly relish the thought of their business becoming heavily dependent on another standard that Redmond controls. I asked several of Apple's competitors in both music hardware and software if they would like to license FairPlay and include AAC as an optional format. They indicated that it's something they would be very interested in.
Apple's AAC/FairPlay combo already owns the largest share of the music-download market. If music players from other outfits could use iTMS, then customers could move back and forth from one brand to another.
But Apple can take heart with the DVD Forum's decision to use their audio codec as the standard for DVD-Audio.
Both XM and Sirius satellite radio networks are losing money quite profusely, but all the censorship mess might be raising their outlook.
New Zealand is considering making their copyright law much like the US variant. Specifically, implementing the fair use proviso.
What Glading [head of Sony Music NZ] calls a "horrendous" proposal is a modification to New Zealand's copyright laws that would essentially permit one of 'fair use' rights US consumers already enjoy.
Like New Zealanders, UK consumers have no right to duplicate the contents of a CD they've legally purchased onto, say, a cassette to allow the album to be listened to in the car. Similarly, it is illegal in the UK and New Zealand to rip that CD to MP3 and transfer the files to an iPod.
US law, by contrast, makes provision for copying songs this way.
Actually, US law has been that way for quite some time. And it didn't affect sales. Is it any wonder that some people are a little skeptical of the record label's claims of woe and pain?
Metallica is thinking about dropping out of the studio/label situation altogether.
Thanks to Simon for the tip.
An interesting article on sampling and how these new techniques are changing and challenging the existing copyright structure. Worth reading if you're into recording (and getting paid for it...).
A twofer today:
Details of what actually happened are vague, with the warning being given variously to the police, the promoter and the venue at some point between two hours and five minutes before the Bizkit were due to go on, and oddly, Fred Durst [lead, um, "singer" for Limp Bizkit] seems to be claiming that he took the decision to evacuate the concert hall in the face of opposition of the police (who expected a riot) and the promoter (who was worried about his money). You often find that when police are taking a bomb threat seriously, they'll leave it to a pudgy American to make the call on what to do. There was, of course, no riot of fans, who seem to have been remarkably calm about the news that they'd have to go home without seeing little Freddie jiggling in his bright red cap.
Durst is very quick to stress that he's got film of the police telling him about the bomb, almost as if he thought people might accuse him of making the bomb up to get out of playing. How cynical does he think people are?
and this one
"I'm one of Geri's [Halliwell, one of the Spice Girls] biggest fans" says Dale, proudly; that's a common boast but whereas with most acts the question is if the fan really is the biggest, when it comes to Geri we'd have to ask if the use of "one of" and the pluralisation of "fans" is correct.
Dale says that Geri is "just a normal person", which makes it curious why he chose to have someone scar her face into his flesh - unless he's also got his milkman tattooed on his ass and the local lollipop lady across his shoulders, I suppose...
Tonight, one of Ryan's buddies say in with us for a rehearsal. Mark has played with Ryan for some time, so they already have good chemistry. We went through about fifteen songs or so, and Ryan did rather well. I think that we are going to invite him along for the show on the 9th.
After we finished up rehearsing, Mark started playing some Rush songs. It's been quite some time since I've played any of their songs seriously, so it was fun to trapse through them.
I spent most of my day at a technical conference, working the booth. For those who have never been to one of these things, allow me to quickly describe it for you.
A large mass of people swirl around various boothes, mostly looking to see what few stuff (in this case, typically T-shirt and koosh balls) each booth has to give away. Occasionally, you may talk to the actual people in the booth about their products, and sometimes that conversation might even veer into more than the "I'm-trying-to-get-information-for-free" vein.
In any case, I'm not what you would call booth material. I'm neither bimbo nor himbo, even if I can do the superficial charm thing.
What do I mean by bimbos and himbos? Suprisingly enough, companies try to stock their boothes full of attractive people. Sometimes that can go to ridiculous lengths, with more than a few companies hiring models (professional as well as, um, more, ah, adult in nature).
There was this one company (DataButler, I think) that dressed all their booth people like butlers. Unfortunately, that meant the two women that worked the show were dressed as French maids. In a large room full of techie geeks. To use the stereotype, full of men who might still live with Mom, probably haven't had a date with a real girl for quite a few, well, years, and have copious amounts of porn at home. I felt rather badly for them. It's also not a good thing for the company (since I don't remember much about them other than a general feeling of disgust).
As you can probably tell, I'm not a big fan of working these events. Perhaps they are useful for marketeers, but I'm a techie in my day job. I can do the marketing thing, but it's not quite my passion.
I'm also not that much on attending these events. There's rarely a chance to glean useful information, and I tend to spend most of my time trying to network with other techies. And even that doesn't fly all that well. Most of the people that I run into tend to be greener than me (I've been working in my field for about ten years now), what ends up happening more often than not is that I get lots of emails asking me questions (that I do my best to answer). When I was younger and more junior, I was probably doing the same thing to the more senior people, so I try to help out where I can.
Man, all this to say that it's been a really busy day, so not much posting.
Some violinists are claiming that should be paid more. Their reasoning? They play more notes than the other instruments. Brilliant. Why didn't I think of that?
Wal-Mart has announced their entrance into the world of selling tunes online.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research) on Tuesday tuned up its online music store, undercutting competitors' prices as the world's largest retailer officially launched a venture designed to boost its Web businesses.
The store, which sells digital downloads for 11 percent less than major competitors, expanded its catalog of artists by 50 percent, including exclusive songs from Jessica Simpson, 3 Doors Down, Shania Twain and others, the Bentonville, Arkansas-based retailer said.
Wal-Mart began testing the site, which allows customers to download a song from the Internet for 88 cents, in December.
I've heard of cybersex, but this is an, um, innovative approach.
Prince is adding a few new dates to his tour. This time, he's coming to DC on the 12th of August.
The RIAA has filed another round of lawsuits against downloaders.
As a side note, don't try to go to their site; a worm has been blocking the page for the last few days.
Tonight, we got together and went over our set list for Thursday's show. I think that we're as ready as we're going to be, and things will work out okay. We added a new tune to the list (Brazilian Cafe) that should go over well. Hope to see you there!
We also may have some new gigs coming soon. A few festivals for the summer have expressed interest, as well as a couple of corporate shows. More on that as it develops.
Apparently still mulling how best to best Britney's latest attention grabber - we're guessing it'll be a broken arm and a leg in plaster - Christina Aguilera is preparing to move into a new house. It's one designed for Liza Minelli, which means either Christina has very scary taste indeed, or is going to have to gut the insides and start again from scratch, although we might point out to Sarah "if you want to sell a house, you must keep it as neutral as possible, don't impose your taste on the prospective purchasers" Beeney that the custom built Minnelli manse still managed to hit a five million dollar sales target.
I bet you didn't know that Passion of the Christ was remarkably similar to Dawn Of The Dead, did you?
Alex Lifeson's charges have been reduced.
Although two first-degree felony charges of aggravated battery against a law-enforcement officer, and four related charges, were dropped yesterday, Lifeson still faces two third-degree felony counts of battery which could carry a $500+ fine and possible jail sentence. The guitarist is now due in court on 17 May.
It's confirmed; Van Halen will be heading out on the road. No dates announced as of yet. From what I can tell in the listing, the nearest cities to DC will be Hershey PA as well as Philly. Also no info as to who is going to be the singer (although a safe bat is Sammy Hagar).
I think it was Thomas Tusser who said "A fool and his money are soon parted." Here's some more evidence to support that particular thought.
-- Update --
Okay, I originally thought that it was P.T. Barnum who said the above quote. Thanks to QuotesLand for the assistance and the correction.
Some might say that this is the logical conclusion of all the technical wonkiness present in a lot of pop music.
The world music industry has it's own awards show in the UK. Some people are wondering why.
Any record label executive worth their salt will tell you that you can have as much critical acclaim as you like, but if an album sells next to nothing then it counts for very little. And the reality is that most world music albums do indeed sell next to nothing.
This is actually something that I have wondered for some time. I have constantly heard that the most prized demographic for advertising purposes is the 18 to 34 year old group. Here's a look at why they are so prized.
Either that, or there are just a lot more geeks around than I had originally thought.
Video games are a $9.4 billion business in the U.S., bigger than the movie box office. ...
"People have started to realize that it's a major industry, it's not just some lonely 16-year-old playing in his room because he can't get a date," said David Comtois, executive producer of the documentary Video Game Invasion
I rather like mp3 files. I have a hard drive full of them, and it makes listening to a very large array of music in a random fashion easy and enjoyable. Now, there's a new company that has a way to reproduce surround sound in the mp3 format.
It's hard to believe, but there is a study showing that people tend to be more honest online than in the real world.
What it is about online life that makes us more truthful? It's simple: We're worried about being busted. In ''real'' life, after all, it's actually pretty easy to get away with spin. If you tell a lie to someone at a cocktail party or on the phone, you can always backtrack later and claim you said no such thing. There's probably no one recording the conversation, unless you're talking to Linda Tripp (in which case you've clearly got other problems).
On the Internet, though, your words often come back to haunt you. The digital age is tough on its liars, as a seemingly endless parade of executives are learning to their chagrin. Today's titans of industry are laid low not by ruthless competitors but by prosecutors gleefully waving transcripts of old e-mail, filled with suggestions of subterfuge. Even Microsoft was tripped up by old e-mail messages, and you would figure its employees would know better. This isn't a problem for only corporate barons. We all read the headlines; we know that in cyberspace our words never die, because machines don't forget.
Speaking just for me, I know that I try to be pretty careful about what I write here. I know that it is far too easy for anyone to fact-check my ass, so I try to backstop what I say, find some sort of support for my opinions (other than just me saying "this is what I think.").
There's nothing wrong with me just simply stating my opinion, as long as I make clear (as best I can) what is my opinion and what I consider to be fact.
Phishing attempts are increasing on the web.
For those who might not be familiar with this technique, the idea is to send someone an email that would appear to be from a legitimate vendor (AOL, E*Bay, etc.). This email would say something to the effect of "your credit card information has been corrupted, please click here to correct it." When the recipient would click on the link, he/she would be taken to a completely different site which would accept their credit card information and then misuse it.
Computer security is one of my bailwicks at my day job, so I thought I'd pass this along to help out anyone I can.
One person's take on how TiVo (and other technological tricks) can insulate us from life itself.
We have e-mail filters and air filters, noise-canceling machines, noise-canceling headphones, and in one catalog, a wrap-around eye-and-ear pillow that blocks out all light and noise.
Tivo allows you to ignore commercials, and caller ID, your friends. Minivans, the original suburban bubble, now come equipped with DVD screens and headphones that allow parents to effectively wall off the front seat from those squabbling siblings in the back.
With self-serve airport kiosks, A.T.M.'s, online grocery delivery services, clothing catalogs, restaurant reservations, and, of course, the ubiquitous iPod, it has become possible to filter almost every possible human interaction. V-chip your television, V-chip your mom.
Great White, the band from the club fire in R.I. have publicly disowned a CD release of cover tunes. The title of the CD? Burning House Of Love.
For those who can't quite get enough of their current show, Nick Lachley and Jessica Simpson are going to host a variety show on ABC.
Musicians tapped to appear on the show are Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds, Kenny Rogers and Jewel. Former 98 Degrees member Lachey and Babyface will team up to sing Stevie Wonder's For Once In My Life, while Simpson and Jewel are expected to duet on the latter's Who Will Save Your Soul.
Others said to be taking part are Muppets Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy, baseball great Johnny Bench and actor Mr. T.
So if you're invited to be on this, it's pretty much the definitive sign that your career is completely kaput, right?
Webcasting tunes (and other things) across the web has started to reach a point where there are now enough people listening to justify advertisers in buying air time.
According to a report by Arbitron, a media ratings service, 20 million Americans aged 12 and older listen to Webcasts at least once a week, and about 39 million do so at least once a month.
Between this and satellite radio, traditional broadcasting may be heading for a hard time (as I go to sell my Clear Channel stock).
Johnny Cash is going to have a movie made about his life. Joaquin Phoenix, best known for being the insane emporer in Gladiator, is slated to play Johnny Cash, with Resse Witherspoon to play his wife, June Carter Cash. Witherspoon, the same girl who did Legally Blonde? Um, okay, that might work out.
I've been enjoying reading Simon's blog so much that I think I'm going to start a Quote Of The Day (hereafter referred to as QOTD).
PANTLESS: In a desperate bid to try and interest someone - anyone - in her new album, Alanis Morissette has been reduced to the old phonesex standby of 'I'm not wearing any knickers.' "Ooh," she squeals, "when I'm at home I walk about... with any clothes on." We're not sure it'll sell many copies of the record, but it'll do wonders for blind sales in her neighbourhood.
Expect to see one of these a day until I get bored with it.
Want to start a new band in the US? You'll probably end up in the West End of London while you're paying your dues.
The blueprint for breaking US bands [in the UK] includes a 12-date tour, a limited edition single, a PR campaign and some specialist radio. "It's still not cheap," says Dave Bedford, who manages sensitive British crooners the Tindersticks, "but it's cheaper than America because the UK is smaller. If you do have success in the UK you're more likely to get a better budget from your label when they do finally decide to launch you back home."
This is an interesting twist on globalization, I suppose. It's odd, though, because the cultural tastes of Britain hardly mirror the US. What's the old saw; "...two countries divided by the same language?" Given some of the popular items in the UK that just never quite made it here (Robbie Williams, AbFab just off the top of my head), this seems like a huge bet. But, at the same time, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and Survivor have both been runaway hits, so maybe there is something to this after all.
Ever since the Strokes breezed into Britain and left six months later, suitcases bulging with rave reviews, executives in the States have started to eye the UK as a test market for its alternative bands.
"It can cost upwards of $300,000 [Ł165,000] to take record to radio in the States," says one US Radio Promotions representative, "so going to Britain is a more cost effective way of building a band's reputation."
The Strokes, who played New York's Bowery Ballroom for two years without success, returned to America to find a queue of major labels at their door. Oddly, while the Stateside media has become suspicious of British press hype, their own tastemakers look to us as a type of buzz barometer for US bands.
At the SXSW conference in Austin, TX, more and more industry professionals are begining to accept the coming nature of digital media.
Digital music and its availability over the Internet has opened the door for entrepreneurs who can make the best use of online resources, panel members said.
"The whole physical aspect of the business is going to cease to exist sometime in the future, and there's tremendous opportunity there because you can your lower your costs," McDonough [a lawyer with Washington-based Future of Music Coalition] said.
I recently finished up Moses Avalon's Confessions Of A Record Producer not too long ago. I would highly recommend this book to any one who wants to enter into the shark tank known as the music industry. Enough so that I made it one of my essentials.
Not quite as detailed as Passman's book, the writing style is very approachable and informal. Both Confessions and All You Need To Know focus on how things are supposed to be and both the legal and financial sides to that, with All You Need To Know not going quite so far in depth. Confessions, however, drills more into the human side of the business, with all the delight and detrius that implies.
Avalon spends a great bit of time detailing the various scams and myths that are ran in the industry, some of which are:
All in all, it's a good perspective on some of the less savory segments of the music industry, pitched with enough humour and good graces to make you want to stick with it.
At least one radio network is waking up to the potential business challenge from satellite radio.
Today, the four of us got together to prepare for our next show -- which is actually scheduled for 9pm, not 7:30 as I had originally thought. We went over the four songs from the demo, as well as a few other songs. We're going to be adding another Gipsy Kings tune (Inspiration) as well as another pseudo-original. I say pseudo-original because we are taking the theme from a traditional Brazilian song and reworking all the parts around it (sort of how we did with Persian Ballad).
We're going to meet again on Tuesday to go over the set a few more times and then I think we'll be ready for the show. The show will be a gathering for Children of Persia and The International Club of DC.
After seeing BOB play, I dropped by the Improv to chat with Flip. He's in town for a while, and I thought it would be nice to catch up with each other.
I had dropped in at 12:15, thinking I would catch the last few minutes of Flip's act and then we could talk for a bit. It didn't quite work out that way. In fact, he was something like halfway through his performance. The group that he had on stage was one of the stranger ones I have ever managed to see. I'm pretty convinced that one or two of them were faking it as well. In any case, the show didn't let out until just shy of 1 am.
By the time that we got a chance to talk at all, it was about 2am or so. Flip's doing well, although Dana will not be making it in to DC on this trip (too bad, I do enjoy talking with her). He's going to be in town for another week; drop by and catch his show, if you get the chance.
After catching SLim perform, I dropped by Willie & Reed's in Bethesda for the CD release part of Band Of Blue. I had seen these guys play once before (at Ragtime), and I really enjoyed their set.
Jeff (from Last Second Comeback) had recommended these guys to me, and I'm glad that he did. They have a good groove, doing lots of good time party blues. I picked their CD while I was there (hey, you gotta support local music).
If you get a chance to see these guys and you like bluesy kind of music, check them out; it's worth your time.
As a side note, Christine from DH/CC was there with Jeff. It's been a while since I had seen or hung out with her, and it was good to see that she's doing well.
Tonight, I caught SLim performing in Joseph. She had taken some time off from doing theatre, and this was her first time back in a while. I do try to support my friends when they are performing (since they are so kind as to support me when I'm out), so I decided to swing by to see the show.
I had never seen this play before. Written by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber, the music is surprisingly similar to Jesus Christ Superstar. Okay, not that surprising, since Rice and Webber wrote that one, too. The entire play was performed in a "sung through" fashion, so the music was rather key to the overall success of the play.
It's too bad that some members of the cast didn't quite live up to the material. The narrator -- who had probably the lion's share of the vocal lines throughout the entire play -- was about a half an octave short of what she would have needed to sing the part she was attempting. And the trumpet player in the orchestra. I do not think I have ever heard the trumpet performed so badly -- and I've sat through intermediate school recitals. Note to the trumpeter, if you're reading this: Either practice (a lot), or find a new hobby. I hear that golf is nice.
Still, this was community theatre, so I was hardly expecting an experience on par with the Shakespeare Theatre. And the main reason why I was going was to support SLim in her efforts.
She played one of the brothers of Joseph. This seemed to cause a little consternation amongst the audience around me (several people were whispering to each other if the "brother" was in fact a "girl"). Her parts were mostly chorus, and towards the lower end of her range. As far as I can tell, she did a good job (no soloing, so I'm basing this on what I could glean).
I had a little free time yesterday, so I decided to catch a flick on a lark. David Mamet's Spartan was playing nearby, and I like some of his previous works (particularly The Spanish Prisoner), so I thought that would be a good one for a little bit of time.
This was not one of Mamet's more typical movies. Usually, he's concerned with con games and misanthropicism (ála House Of Games). While this movie did have the requiste subterfuge and double-crossings, it was more focused on action. I don't want to say too much about it -- the less you know about the plot, the more you'll enjoy the unfolding.
Val Kilmer was the primary star of this flick, with the usual Mamet supporting crew in tow (Ed O'Neill, William Macy and others). Most everyone did a good job with the material -- with Mamet, you either buy into the delivery style of the dialogue, or you don't -- but Kilmer did some of his best acting in quite some time.
Watch time :1.17
In good news for anyone who likes topical humour, Jon Stewart will be staying at the Daily Show for at least another four years.
Stewart is a great fit with this kind of comedy; sly, dry and just a little mischevious.
The FCC has decided that it will pursue Bono for saying the "F" word on TV.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) overruled its staff and said an expletive uttered by rock singer Bono during an awards show acceptance speech on NBC was both indecent and profane. It marked the first time that the FCC cited a four-letter word as profane; the commission previously equated profanity with language challenging God's divinity.
He's a good writer with a nice turn of the phrase:
Note to Crayola bath colors: please adjust the final hue of the purple tablet; it’s not only not purple, it’s pink, and it’s an alarming shade of pink at that. By which I mean when you step away from your child to answer the phone, you return she’s floating in what appears to be TWENTY GALLONS OF BLOOD. Please make a note of it.
Note to Zippo: here’s a hint about what you could do on your website: Sell Zippos. Just a thought.
His writings are an offbeat look on life from a writer living in Minnesota.
Spandau Ballet is considering reforming.
(My emphasis added)A source told The Sun: "Spandau Ballet have seen the success of Duran Duran and want to get in on the action. They want a piece of the nostalgia pie. There have been bitter rivalries. But they are finally willing to put them to one side to work again.
"The five of them believe they still have a lot to offer. They are very keen to work on new material and not just become a tribute band to the 1980s."
Glad to know that they going to get back for the music.
The industry bigwigs at the SXSW conference have spoken with regards to online music:
All that content is out there but nobody's telling people what to listen to, what's next, what to buy, what to download," he [Don VanCleave, president of the Coalition of Independent Music Stores] said. "You can have millions of choices, but without some kind of a filter it's very tough to get turned onto anything new.
Why, they're right! If only there was someone (other than yours truly) who could dare suggest to readers music to listen to. As Simon puts it, "Perhaps the RIAA and its friends has got such strong filters to ensure there's no bad file sharing happening within the music industry, it takes, like, five years for pages to download."
J.J. Jackson, one of the original VJs on MTV has passed away.
An editorial in the Toronto Globe and Mail captures some of what I have been struggling with with regards to online music.
...[I]n this tug-of-war between file-sharers and music companies, artists actually find themselves identifying with both sides. We are rights-owners after all, and therefore not at all keen on encouraging loose respect for the rules. But we are also major users of other people's work; our own depends on it. For this reason, we worry about things like the health of the public domain, and trends that seem to be making access to the cultural expressions of the past more difficult and ever more costly.
File-sharing may be piracy, but it is also a consumer revolt and an explicit demand for change. People want more choice and flexibility in the way they "consume" music, which is to say, for example, they want access to single songs and permission to compile their own CDs. This is not an unreasonable request...
On the one hand, I'm a musician who would rather like to be compensated for my efforts. On the other hand, I'm a fan who would like the flexibility and choice. The RIAA's hamhanded efforts have hurt their cause far in excess of their victories. I'm not to the point where I would want to go off the deep end, but I can understand that point of view.
"(Artists) are going to computers and they are not really playing the music," Little Richard says. "I think they need to stay with the craft so they can learn the real theory, the real thing. You want to be a real musician, not just somebody pushing a button."
Preach it, brother.
One of the thing that I rather dislike about a large swathe of popular music these days is how sterile it all sounds. The tunes have been Beat Detective-d to death, everything's perfectly in pitch and on meter. There's no humanity there.
Here's a story about a service that will rip your CDs to mp3 files for you (I wonder if they happen to make a copy or two of said mp3 files while they're at it).
I'm sorry, but this just strikes me as unbelievably lazy. I can understand the motivation; I have a thousand (or so) CDs of my own that are taunting me to turn them in mp3s. I think I can find the time, though.
Due to a hodge-podge of licensing laws, the ability of the internet to make distance irrelevant is still being underutilized.
Everyone from Microsoft to AOL offers some form of commercial music download service, all based around arcane licensing deals and proprietary formats that limit what you can do with your purchased music.
So arcane are these arrangements - enforced by the record companies - that despite the internet making location completely irrelevant, European music fans can't access the US- based services. iTunes Music Store Europe is rumoured to be opening soon - Apple is as tightlipped as ever about the exact date - but until then, people wanting to download music they have paid for will have to try elsewhere. Luckily, there are much cooler places than boring old Apple.
T-Mobile will soon be letting their customers download music directly to their phones. Is this a step forward?
-- Update --
Apparently, I misead the article. Only bits of the song can be downloaded (about ninety seconds worth). Wow, that makes this service just about completely useless.
Lee Crumpton found one of my reviews and has reprinted it on his site, with a little editing. natch.
Thanks for the interest, Lee! Good luck with your site and please feel free to stop by again.
From the good folk over at FARK, this absolutely hilarious headline:
Indian cricket fan commits suicide after loss. Suicide took three days and Americans kept cheering at the wrong times.
Here's the link to the story, if you're interested in it. FARK comments here.
I know that I mangle quite a few of these.
Thanks to Tyler for the tip.
Simon is reporting that MS and Sony are making a huge mis-step with their online music outings.
Microsoft's bid to outgun the iPod seems doomed from the start, if only because Microsoft isn't a brand name that people really want to be linked with. It's the brand that drives your computer at work, it's the brand on Excel spreadsheets - it's never going to have the groove or cachet of Apple.
In other news, Sony picked up a huge gun and blew its own foot off at the knee by announcing that its music download service is going to use a Sony-only format linked in with its new generation of digi-walkmen. Do these people do even rudimentary research?
More from the "Aren't-you-dead-yet" pile of touring acts, Hall & Oates and Michael McDonald are heading out on the road.
-- Update --
I've decided that I'm going to stop reporting any act thought to be deceased heading out on the road, unless it's actually noteworthy. No act that ever had a hit will actually die unless it wants to (sheesh, Molly Hatchet is still touring), so there's no point in continually saying "Can you believe _____ is still on the road?" because the answer is "Yes, I can believe it."
An Austrailian Idol winner learns that the music industry is full of people who will lie, cheat and steal.
She should know, Bardot [her former band] was the first act in Australia to win an Idol-like show. "When it comes to album sales, when you take the money away from the costs you never see any money yourself" she says. "You are always recouping it. You are always paying the record company back for the film-clips they do, the publicity they do. It is like a never-ending credit card. I think people have to vary [sic] of that".
Tiffani says winners should know up front that they are paying for everything. "They want these amazing big budget clips but if you do that you are never going to earn anything through the sales because you owe them so much" she says.
Actually, there is something to take away from this. Royalities are hard to come by -- particularly if you do not have writing credit on the songs.
This was so good, I had to copy the whole thing:
NOTHING CHILLS THE BLOOD LIKE: ...the words "actor turned singer." Minnie Driver, don't make us hate you.
Kylie Minogue believes in reincarnation? That would fit, given that her first US hit was resurrecting The Locomotion.
Courtney Love has been arrested. Again. Not to let that be enough, she abused David Letterman on his show.
(hat tip, Simon)
-- Update --
More highlights on Ms. Love's activities.
-- Update 2 --
Yet more Courtney shenanigans.
For the next few days, I'm going to be in training for my day job. Blogging will be a bit light as a result.
-- Update --
On second thought, I may just have some opportunity to blog....
iTunes, despite having made it to 50 million songs sold, they are not going to make their 100 million in the first year target.
Tonight, we got together went over a few of the tunes we already knew and then tried a few newer songs as well. We're going to be covering Sweet Emotion; the harmonies are going to take a lot of work to get down. The other ones should go pretty well.
We were scheduled to have a friend of Ryan's drop by for a tryout (he's a guitarist), but he came down with a temperature of 102. Probably with the weather and all.
Styx, Peter Frampton and Nelson are heading back out on the road. The odd part about this venture is the small detail that something like 40% of the country wasn't even alive when any of these artists last had a hit.
Hoobastank, Sevendust, Staind, N*E*R*D and others will be playing the Rolling Rock music festival in Latrobe PA.
Here's an interesting article on the state of radio these days.
When you tune in to radio today, at best you’ll listen to a live DJ reading song lists off of a computer monitor, at worst you’ll listen to a recording of a DJ reading song lists off of a computer.
The creation of computerized programming and voice tracking technology made live radio obsolete. A music director picks the songs, a technician programs them into a computer, and a DJ comes into the studio, looks at a computer screen, sees the song list, and records—or voice tracks—the talking breaks into the computer. It might take half an hour or less to voice-track a four-hour show, which can be run at a later time. The computer inserts the commercials as well.
I can recall my days as a DJ. This fits with what I remember as being the direction of the industry, and it goes a long way towards explaining why most radio stations have a depressing sameness to them (right now, Evanescence's My Immortal will be playing on at least one or two DC radio stations pretty much any time of day).
Thanks to Bat Boy for the tip.
Tonight, I'll be rehearsing with JoS for the first time in a week. Actually, tonight will be the first time in a week that I have played at all. I took a week off from playing just to try and regroup a bit.
I've started to get bored with what I'm doing. JoS plays lots of different songs from a number of genres, but they're not always the most challenging of things to play (1-4-5, with the occasional 2 or 6 thrown in for grins). I understand why we play what we play there (it's what the people want), but it doesn't make it all that much more enjoyable. I'm starting to not play as well as I know I can, and I think it's because I'm starting not to care about what I'm doing. Playing Blink-182 songs over and over again is not quite my dream job.
A&S is also starting to not be as much fun as it used to be. It's fun enough, but it seems that the originals are stuck in a rut -- Key of F, Phrygian mode, three stop breaks (on or about 1:15, 2:40 and 4:05) and about 102 bpm. I was hoping to learn more unusual things, like Arabic scales, Persian rhythmic patterns and the like. I do enjoy what we are doing, I just wish it was more.
And then there's NGB. They are probably going to have a decent amount of success. One of my goals musically is to tour with a successful band. This would seem likely to fit that bill, but I'm balking. The music that they play is pretty good, but not much from a bass point of view (lots of straight sixteenth notes).
I think I might need to find something new for inspiration.
For those who didn't already know this, Guitar Center is now officially the three hundred pound gorilla in the music equipment business.
Guitar Center Inc. is the nation's biggest purveyor of music equipment in a $7 billion industry in which most of its competitors are still mom-and-pop stores or small regional chains. The company has thrived by bringing a big-box approach to the business, using its size and buying power to offer more variety and lower prices than its rivals - a strategy that has allowed other retailers, like Wal-Mart Stores Inc., to dominate their industry segments.
For the most part, I have had good experiences with the folks at Guitar Center. It's were I bought all three of the electric basses I am currently playing. Quite a few of the staff that I have encountered have not been all that good -- they were pretty clearly focused more on selling my gear that I probably didn't need, but I have ran into some that make returning worth the trip.
Tower Records will be coming out of bankruptcy. So we can still have a place to purchase overpriced CDs and movies from people with a three piercing minimum.
Apple has sold 50 million songs through iTunes.
Monday's announcement underscores a truth about today's paid music download market: Apple still rules. But the company said its iPod audio player is still the real moneymaker in its music strategy.
That's because, while Apple makes a thin profit percentage from 99-cent song sales, it gets a healthier boost selling iPods, which start at $249.
Kind of like the cell phone people, but in reverse.
Chubby Checker protests the Rock 'N Roll Hall of Fame.
While the writer of the "The Twist," Hank Ballard, has been inducted into hall, Checker hasn't.
All I can say is "Boo-f'n-hoo."
I dropped in on Nick tonight. It had been two weeks or so since the last time that we played, and we had a few details to discuss.
We talked about what kind of bass player for which NGB is looking. They have a pretty strenuous practice cycle -- twice a week during off weeks, every night when playing out. Since they hope to be playing out at least once a week, which basically means rehearsing every single night. That's just a bit much for me (particularly when rehearsal would run through 10pm or so and I would have an 80 minute commute home). I know that this doesn't mean they would be doing this every single week, but the odds are high that it would work out that way.
While I was there, we talked about their pipeline; NGB has quite a few gigs on the books over the next few months, and they have pretty good paychecks associated with them. Definitely a mark in their favor (if you're going to play out, better to be well paid in the process).
NGB is going to continue looking for bassist (which they should, no matter what happens between us), and I'll probably try and help them out from time to time. I like the guys personally and I enjoyed playing with them, but I don't know if things can be worked out there or not.
As a side note, though, Nick will be starting his own music academy in Southern Maryland. He has asked me to teach electric bass there. To put it mildly, I'm very flattered.
I don't know if I would be a good teacher, though. I think I have the temperament for it, but I'm not sure as to what I would teach to a beginner. From what I remember about learning to play the bass, I futzed around on the fretboard, learning how to find things by ear. I studied with a cokehead named Richard Jesse for about four months when I was fifteen, and he managed to show me the very basics (open 4th string is a G, 5th fret is the same as the open above it, etc.), but I mostly flailed around, learning the fundamentals in a haphazard way.
I've been studying with Anthony for about eight months now, and it's really improved my playing. He's also both a great teacher and a good guy; I'd kind of feel rather presumptive to say that I can teach now, why should anyone go to Anthony (which, by the way, I would never do)?
Nick and I will probably talk about this a few more times, but I have to say that I'm pretty interested. It would be a good chance for me to stretch my muscles (so to speak), as well as a nice source of income.
You've done a nice job decorating the White House.
so says Jessica Simpson to Gail Norton, Secretary of the Interior. I don't think that I really need to add anything to this...
If you haven't read No Rock&Roll Fun, you owe it to yourself to check it out. Great biting British humour.
Here's a sample:
A GAP BETWEEN MONEY AND SENSE THAT CAN NEVER BE BREACHED: Vicoria Beckham and her husband Dennis are to build their own ruin. If they really wanted something faked up but which looks run-down and broken-up cluttering up their gardens, why didn't they just buy some patio furniture and invite Geri round?
V: PLENTY FOR MUMS AND DADS: The consolation prize festival, V2004 has announced its line-up, which is astonishingly hit-and-miss, offering the Strokes and the Pixies alongside Jamie Callum and - oh, lord help anyone who'd sleep in a tent for this - Dido. Dido seems to have one of those magic ego-petting contracts, whereby she's told she's headlining, despite the fact that after she's finished, Muse will go on and, um, headline. It's going to be tricky for Muse: how does one tell when Dido has finished? Will there be a team of experts waiting by the stage, with experience in discerning the difference between 'barely there' and 'nothing at all'?
Other bands hoping to tempt people to Staffordshire and Chelmsford on 21st and 22nd of August include Massive Attack, Kings of Leon, Primal Scream and Pink.
Ouchies all around. Funny ouchies, though...
I've added the songs from the A&S recording sessions to the music page. Check them out and let me know what you think!
Sandra Tsing Loh responds both to her firing and to KCRW's attempt to rehire her. If you wanted to get a feel for the kind of material she did, this is a good article to read.
TV is starting to modify ads based on demographic data. This could be a very interesting technology, bringing the ability to narrowcast very precise targeting to a specific niche via a broadcast medium.
A good op-ed piece in Newsweek about censorship in America and why it rarely -- if ever -- works.
After a few articles on downloading, I thought an alternate take on the subject would be worth a read:
At some point in the future – maybe in 15 or 10 years, maybe fewer – some of those young people will become musicians and start producing music of their own. Although there has been plenty of debate about the legalities of downloading, one important question has so far gone unasked: will downloading affect how pop music sounds in the future?
In other words, will the way that people access music have an effect on the content of that music?
The example of blogging provides a useful parallel. Before the internet became commonplace, blogging as a form of literature did not exist. Gradually, however, it has emerged as a distinct way of writing with its own conventions separate from other literary genres. Blogging is a very clear example of technology shaping the manner in which people communicate ideas and emotions to others.
Will the same thing happen with music? The short answer is that no one can say for sure how the evolution of music will be changed by any given technology.
A few ways that the web has influenced pop culture.
An interesting opinion from another struggling musician about online music.
The industry titans—Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Brothers Music, EMI Group and BMG Entertainment—are clinging to a fading oligopoly, cutting workers by the thousands and looking for safety in mergers. EMI is in talks with Warners, which has mentioned BMG, which is said to be considering Sony, and so on. All are in full retreat, confessing prior sins of power abuse, cutting CD prices, offering more generous contracts to artists. Most strikingly, labels are rushing to embrace the digital technologies that are their undoing.
What this means is that power has shifted so decisively to consumers that the companies will never get most of it back. When the Recording Industry Association of America—acting in the name of global giants like Sony of Japan and Bertelsmann of Germany—sued several hundred prolific American file sharers this past summer, it meant to put the fear of the law in an estimated 60 million file sharers in the United States alone. It failed. Since then there has been no net decline in illegal downloading, according to Big Champagne, a company that measures file-sharing data.
Independent labels are doing far better than the majors.
The majors largely blame the downturn -- from which the industry finally started to rebound in late 2003 -- on digital music piracy, online file-sharing and competition from video games.
But music entrepreneurs say the big labels' obsession with profits has led them astray from nurturing the cutting-edge talent that sells records. This has made it easier for independents to get their music onto radio and the charts.
"Now that the major labels are being forced to be more fiscally responsible, they're not spending the wild sums of promotional dollars to get mediocre artists up the charts," Gottlieb said. "I think what you're seeing is more music that appeals to the public breaking through the top of the charts."
Again with that nasty boogeyman File Sharing. Couldn't have anything to do with bad business management or other factors.
Note to the RIAA: This is a real pirate. A twelve year old girl who downloaded one Britney Spears song from Kazaa is not.
An interesting article about anonymity on the web. I think I have explained before as to why I use a pseudonym when I both write and play.
For those who haven't noticed the charts, what's a hot single and what's a hot album are being to become more and more disassociated with each other.
Guns & Roses, apparently thinking they are far more relevant today than they actually are, have filed suit against Geffen records to prevent the studio from releasing a greatest hits album.
The band claims it was not consulted on the track list, artwork or the remastering of the chosen songs. In a statement released by the group's management at the Sanctuary Group, [Axl] Rose [lead singer for G&R] expresses concern that "not only will [the] audience be misled into believing that the planned compilation is an authorized release, but that it will hinder the release of the band's long-awaited new studio album, 'Chinese Democracy.'"
Actually, this is probably true. Given the average IQ of today's G&R fans, they probably would be confused if the studip were to release a greatest hits album.
-- Update --
It seems that G&R lost their attempt to stop the release of the album.
Chuck D, front man for Public Enemy, will be co-hosting a talk show on the new radio network.
The lead singer of Disturbed is awfully upset that The Darkness (you know, that glam group with the really ridiculous singing) is getting so much more attention than they are.
The world wants rock bands to be idiots. The world wants rock bands to be these bumbling buffoons, these morons who made fun of themselves and their music and their art and don't take themselves seriously in any way.
Well, as a matter of fact, David, that is what quite a few people in the world do want. Just remember this: "It's that fool on television getting paid o play the fool." (Rush, Big Money).
Thanks to Simon for the tip.
Tonight, Chris and I did the final mixdown on the demo tracks. We went over each track in painstaking detail, focusing on trying to keep each instrument balanced.
It's a hard thing to do; you have to go over each track quite a few times, listening to how each instruments shares audio space. Having two guitars makes it somewhat harder -- they have the same voicing and the same frequency range, so getting them to sound sonically distinct can be rather difficult. You also have to pay attention to the bass (not too muddy, not too rumbly) and the drums (need to be crisp without cutting). And even when you get the mixes to balance well, you have to take note of the EQ settings -- the bass line might be at the right volume level but with too much resonance at 220 Hz (which will cause it to be really thick on lower A's).
Faena and Persian Ballad went pretty well. Chris had spent some time working on the mix on his own, and he had mostly already taken care of my concerns -- bringing the conga more present in the mix, opening the low B of the bass into a big room and bring Aref more in line with the rest of the mix. In fact, that was pretty much my blanket comment -- Aref needed to sit back a bit in the mix.
Aref's playing style is very percussive, and his dynamics aren't quite as tight as they need to be. More often than not, we had to pull him down in the mix so as to keep the tunes balanced. Hopefully things will improve on this count, though.
Waiting For Rain took a good bit of time to try and work out the issues with both guitar lines. But the problem child was unquestionably Soho. As I have said before, Soho is way, way too busy. There's so much going on in the tune that it was nearly impossible to mix. The lion's share of the mixdown was spent on this one song, trying to get everyone to sit well in the mix, bringing people up for some sections, dropping them down for other sections.
After we finished getting the levels and EQs set for all four tunes, then we started to work on picking the right room(s) for each song. For the most part, I decided to use a very similar room for each song -- the entire purpose of this demo is to attract business from local establishments. Having each piece sound like it was played in a similar (if not the same) room only helps in that regard.
Chris taught me a few little tricks while I was there; one of which is that the human ear hones in on sound best at 90 dB. Another thing we did was listen to the final mix (after the tracks had been bounced down to just a stereo mix) playing over some main speakers through a wall in the next room. The point of listening that way was to focus on the bass sound, making sure that things flowed well from track to track without any large scale changes.
Overall, I think that we did the best we could with mixing the tracks as recorded. There are quite a few performance issues with the tracks, but it should be more than sufficient for the intended purpose. I'll probably upload some of the tracks to the site later on this week.
Today, the four of us got together to go over some of the newer songs that we are going to do at our next show. We spent most of the time working through the blocking for two newer tunes (another Gipsy Kings song as well as a new original). Timing and meter were problems again (not that this is a new thing), but I think that we made some pretty good headway.
I went and caught Mystic River today. Why? Well, because both Sean Penn and Tim Robbins won an Oscar for their work in this film (Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, respectively). So I was expecting lots of taut drama and high quality acting.
Let me start off by saying that Bill Murray was robbed. Completely and totally. Sean Penn did an okay job -- as did Robbins -- but everything felt so overwrought that I stopped caring. The dramatic conclusions weren't earned by either the actors or the script. The story had some gotcha style moments and some plot twists that held my interest from time to time, but for the most part, I was not moved by it.
Watch time :48.
A local author writes of his joy of going to concerts solo.
Maybe there was an occasion when we couldn’t persuade any friends to check out this glitch-pop trio from Iceland or that noise-rock outfit from Texas. Maybe our taste in music was so hopelessly cool that we couldn’t always find willing accompaniment to shows.
I can understand his point of view. I've been to many a show by myself (it can be hard to scare up people to go to hear some obscure band that only three people in this zip code have ever even thought about). I think it cuts both ways: Sometimes it's nice to go to shows with other people to share the joy and fun, other times, it's nice to just relax and enjoy the show for what it is.
Some of the nastier aspects of the capitalist system are on display in this article from the UK Guardian (registration required).
The great thing about children is that their memory banks are relatively empty so any message that goes in gets retained. ... Children are much easier to reach with advertising. They pick up on it fast and quite often we can exploit that relationship and get them pestering their parents.
While this might be true, it can only hurt the case of advertisers for them to be this blunt about it.
If you ever wondered what the career of a roadie might be (particularly in the nutso days of the 80's), check out this article. I was reading large part of the article laughing to myself, wondering how this guy is still managing to draw breath.
He’s contracted gonorrhea (six times), crabs (four times), syphilis (three times) and herpes. For more than a decade and a half, with lab-rat consistency, Hickey carpet-bombed his cortex with enough pills to stock a hypochondriac’s medicine cabinet. At 15, he established himself as Boston’s hardest-working rock serf, unloading equipment for bands like Motorhead and Twisted Sister at almost every club in town. At 17, he lived a louder, crueler, dramatically less uplifting version of Cameron Crowe’s rock ’n’ roll heartwarmer Almost Famous, joining Megadeth on tour as a roadie...
There's a movement afoot to try and get Elvis' drummer inducted into the Rock 'N Roll hall of fame as a sideman. I think this is a worthy goal, as the backbeat to the Elvis sound has been incredibly influential.
McDonald's is starting to follow in the footsteps of Starbucks and Scholtsky's. They have a program to create WiFi hot spots in their restaurants.
Coke's site is quickly becoming on of the most popular legal services in all of Europe.
DC 101's Elliot In The Morning is to be fined $247,500 for indecency. However, they will not be the first to receive the latest and greatest FCC fines. According to the press release from the FCC,
The material at issue was aired in connection with the “Elliot in the Morning” program on Stations WWDC(FM), Washington, D.C., WRXL(FM), Richmond, Virginia, and WOSC(FM), Bethany Beach, Delaware. The Commission proposed the statutory maximum forfeiture of $27,500 for each of nine apparent indecency violations.
The Commission found nine apparent indecency violations that involved graphic and explicit sexual material, and were designed to pander to, titillate and shock listeners. The Commission proposed the statutory maximum forfeiture amount because of Clear Channel’s history of violations relating to the broadcast of indecent material.
What did they say, you might be asking? It seems they were talking about Ron Jeremy (who apparently turned 50 recently). In the conversation, they took a quote from a documentary movie about Jeremy. The conversation is between Elliot, the host and Dianne, the news girl for the show.
Diane's Voice: Finally porn legend Ron Jeremy is hitting the half century mark.
Elliot's Voice: Oh, Happy Birthday Ron.
Diane's Voice: 50 years old today. Despite turning 50, Ron Jeremy says he's still going strong in the sack and continues to film sex scenes without needing Viagra. He credits his good health to avoiding drugs for all these years. And I figured what a better time than now to play Craig's interview with one Ron Jeremy fan.
Female Voice: I masturbate with Jeremy's video every day. Uh, not every day, but every other weekend.
Craig's Voice: Wow. What is it that you like about him so much?
Female Voice: The way he licks pussy. I want to do a threesome with him. See who's the best. If I can lick better or he can lick better.
Diane's Voice: She is a looker.
Elliot's Voice: Hot. Got a great dental plan in her office.
Note that nowhere do any of the forbidden seven words appear.
The FCC is not only talking about fining Elliot (and the stations that did the broadcast), they are also talking about possibly revoking their broadcast license.
If you are a band that wants to distribute cover songs (that you've recorded natch), here are some tips that will help you do it legally.
The Miami Herald give a summation of some of the lessons learned from the music conference held there.
According to Forrester Research, the online music market will soar from about 3 percent of sales currently to about 30 percent by 2007.
''Downloads are going to be huge,'' Seattle DJ Derek Mazzone said.
In Europe, downloads to mobile phones are taking off and a new format of combination CD/DVD is available, enabling artists to put sound on one side of the disc and video on the other, said Antony Hall, who heads the London label Mint Sauce Recordings.
''The movement's going very much to MP3,'' he told an audience at Tuesday's discussion about European trends. "And kids love to get the new hit and download it on their phone.''
As a promotional tool, the Internet, too, is essential, speakers said. ''You've got to have a personal website and start your own e-mail list from people at clubs,'' Nashville DJ Ron Slomowicz said at Monday's session on marketing. "You build your legion of fans that way.''
Apple used to claim that they were fair to the musicians. They have since changed their mind -- at least to making that claim.
Apparently, all you have to do is notice that some people are misusing technology in a way that offends you. And, as we all know, you have a right in this country to not be offended </sarcasm>.
Apple is being sued for failing to pay royalties in France.
Under a French law passed two years ago, hard disk players are subject to a levy that goes to compensate royalty holders. Sacem, the Society of Music Creators, Composers and Publishers, says Apple has failed to comply, and will sue for back fees. Canada recently introduced a similar levy on fixed-disk portable music players to help compensate artists.
If I am remembering correctly, the US has something sort of similar in that sales of blank CDs and tapes contribute some percentage to a fund to compensate musicians for potential piracy losses.
If you're going to one of the new Prince shows, you just might get a free CD in the process.
Ever sent out an email and then regretted it? There's a new service that might help you get things back. The way it works is to take your email, convert it into a web page, and then send the recipients a link to the page.
Off the top of my head, I don't think this is going to work. People tend to be lazy (and with email, even more so); the usual rule of thumb is that if people have to go more than two or three klicks to get the information they want, most will choose not to go that far.
If someone were to utter one of the seven words, it can cost them up to half a million dollars. As one of the more recent finees (is that even a word?) of the FCC has noted, the future lies in satellite radio.
-- Update --
And, on this note, Howard Stern has threatened (promised?) to quit if Bush signs these new fines in to law. We can only hope he's serious.
Linda Ronstadt, who hasn't been on tour in quite some time, is heading out on the road.
DC Dates:
6/27/04 Baltimore MD Pier 6 Pavilion
6/29/04 Philadelphia PA Mann Center
6/30/04 Vienna VA Wolf Trap
-- Update --
Apparently, this tour is to support her upcoming album.
Weird Al Yankovic is heading out on the road soon. If you've never seen one of his shows, they are actually pretty good. Lots of slapstick humor, matched with better musicianship that you would expect. No DC shows, though
In the future, the Motion Picture Association of America will control your television set. Every TV sold in the United States will come equipped with an electronic circuit that will search incoming TV programs for a tiny electronic “flag.” The MPAA’s members will control this flag, putting it into broadcast movies and television shows as they see fit. If the flag is present, your TV will go into a special high-security mode and lock down its high-quality digital outputs. If you want to record a flagged program, you’ll have to do so on analog tape or on a special low-resolution DVD. Any recording will be limited to analog-quality sound. This security measure is not designed to protect the television from viruses or computer hackers—it’s designed to protect TV programs from you.
Simon Garfinkel pens an interesting article on a technological fix to the MPAA's fears for piracy and how it will probably turn out to be a bad thing (free registration required to read it). Garfinkel has been a pretty astute observer of technology trends for some time -- I would recommend his book on privacy and computer databases if you are concerned about privacy in the modern age -- so he's worth paying some attention to.
Deborah Voigt has been sacked from her signature role at the Royal Opera House on the grounds that she could not fit into a little black dress. And here I thought the whole cliché about opera was that it wasn't over until the fat lady sings.
As a completely serious statement, the Royal Opera House is in the wrong about this; when I have gone to the opera, I've been much more focused on the music than the costumes. And, as a further side note, Voigt has an incredible voice; check her out sometime.
There's about to be a new radio network coming to some markets (not DC so far). Air America will feature
"...entertaining, progressive talk radio to millions of Americans who for far too long have been and are being neglected by talk radio broadcasters today."
But wasn't that NPR was for?
Thanks to Jeff for the tip.
Arista records, home of such artists as Dido, Sarah McLachlan, Aretha Franklin and Tears For Fears, is hurting in a really bad way.
...[T]he vast majority of Arista's approximately 175 employees will be let go, sources said. Although the label is expected to retain its own small staff of marketing and talent executives, Arista in essence will be folded into Bertelsmann's RCA Music Group division, sources said.
Arista's artist roster, which includes acts such as Outkast and Pink, will be divided among the company's other major labels. The RCA division is expected to take charge of longtime Arista acts including Whitney Houston, sources said. Bertelsmann's Jive Records is expected to take on acts signed through Arista's LaFace venture, including Outkast.
More acts are starting to buy into the eMusicLive approach of recording a concert and then burning it to disc on the spot.
Urge Overkill nixed a proposal to record their first reunion gig, also at the Casbah, says manager Matt Suhar, "because naturally you're worried about what you're going to sound like on something that's so raw, and you're a little concerned anytime you sign on for someone else to sell your music." But when Suhar discovered a bootleg from the current tour on the Internet a few days later, the band had a change of heart. "We realized the chances are someone's going to be recording the shows anyway. So why not do it professionally and sell it?" Urge sold out a run of about 60 discs last month at Maxwell's, which has a legal capacity of 200.
That eMusicLive pays the band in cash their cut of the CDs sold at the show before the night is through doesn't hurt their business model either (believe me, ready cash is a big deal for a band on the road).
For people who like obscure types of music (and I know that I'm one of them), this should be a good thing. The growth of internet based radio has let slip thousands of individualized netcasting stations, each playing a different format than the last.
Check out ShoutCast or LaunchCast for a listing of stations.
Tonight, JoS got together to go over some new tunes (Jessie's Girl, Seven Nation Army and Brickhouse -- by White Zombie, not the Commodores). It looks like I'm going to be singing the White Stripes tune for now. JoS also will be having a new gig soon; more details to follow.
When I first got out of college, I worked the phones, fielding calls from end users. Ah, the fun that was tech support. For a taste of what it can be like, check out some stories from support reps from all over the place.
Peter Criss, the original drummer for the band, may not be a member any longer:
"No one, again no one has called me, or my attorney about an extension for future touring," he says. "As a founding member I find this to be disrespectful to me, and to the fans that have made us one of the biggest bands in the world. You will always get the truth from me, I have no reason to lie to the people that gave me such a wonderful life. And that's the God's honest truth."
The EU has passed their RIAA, the EU recognizes that commercial piracy is the realy enemy, not consumers.
Some salient points:
The law was drawn up to target professional pirates, criminals and counterfeiters who make copies of goods such as football shirts or CDs.
One amendment said action should not be taken against consumers who download music "in good faith" for their own use.
Go after the professionals, leave the file sharers alone. I am pleased the EU made the distinction, unlike the RIAA.
Thanks to Eric for the pointer.
The all-boy pop group Menudo, which launched Ricky Martin's career and sold millions of albums in Latin America and the United States, will conduct an international star search to resurrect the band, the group holding the rights to the band's name said on Tuesday.
Is it just me, or is this quote just a little, um, off? Not that anyone thinks any boy band is in it for the music....
It seems that some are starting to think that the downward trend in classical music may be reversing.
...[T]he classical music industry has reason to celebrate today - even among accusations that the music has been "dumbed down" and crossfertilised with pop - after a yearly increase in sales of a million albums. The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) announced yesterday that more than 14 million classical albums were sold in 2003, grossing Ł65m - an 8 per cent increase on 2002. ...
The top three records sold 1.3 million copies - 9.3 per cent of sales and the driving force behind the overall sales increase. Matt Phillips, a spokesman for BPI, said: "The rise is a result of a combination of young classical talent coming through backed up with a traditional revival. It's these three sellers doing really well and a great demand for compilation records as well."
But not everyone is happy about this turn of events.
...Sir Thomas also criticises artists like Charlotte Church and Russell Watson. He told the Royal Philharmonic Society that there were "well organised hijackers" taking over the classical music industry in a "money-grabbing, PR-led" marketing exercise. He spoke of "pub tenors" and "sugar coated programming or the recording of choice bits of easy listening" being a "plague".
He contends that this plague has taken over a "once respectable and serious profession to the point where integrity is almost wholly inundated". He said: "We kow-tow more and more to the mass appeal. We have become a civilisation in rapid cultural decline ... The idea of a wet T-shirted quartet where once was the Amadeus (String Quartet) has me reaching for the seasick pills."
Everybody's heard the factoid that 50 percent of all marriages end in divorce, but with rock bands, the percentage seems closer to 100: sooner or later, just about every band splits up.
The NY Times weighs in with their thoughts on VH1's Band Reunited. If you want mine, here it is.
or, at least, that's what the good folk over at Ad Age seem to think.
A leading Web site announces it will introduce an advertising program but will not distinguish for its audience between the paid placements and independent content. Criticism is quick and harsh, with one columnist writing that the move "seriously undermined ... [the] credibility and integrity" of the site, "weakening the foundations of one of the most successful brands born and raised on the Internet."
This wasn't the decision last week by Yahoo! to tap a new revenue source by charging companies to guarantee that their sites are included in search results. It was a decision five years ago by Amazon.com to charge publishers for editorial reviews and placements on recommended reading lists, but not to disclose the relationship to book buyers.
I know that when I see those "Sponsored Links" come back from Yahoo, I tend to rather ignore them.
For those who haven't heard, this years inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame are:
I'm a big fan of TiVO; the industry hasn't quite decided what they think of it as of yet, though.
"What I really want to tell you is that most of the artists that commercial alternative radio broke in the late '90s suck and are over," [Marc Geiger, organizer of Lollapalooza 2004] offers.
This moment in irony is being brought to you by the good folks at William Morris Agency (or am I wrong in remembering that most of Lollapalooza's success over the years came directly from commercial alternative radio?).
Sting and Annie Lennox are heading out on tour together. As I have stated before, I haven't been all that keen on seeing Sting on this tour (since he isn't using a live drum kit, but rather a sequencer and a hand percussionist), but the opportunity to see Annie Lennox may make it worth my time.
DC dates (or date, in this case):
July 9: Bristow, Va. (Nissan Pavilion)
From the "I-can't-believe-he's-got-a-record-contract-and-I-don't" department, American Idol reject William Hung has signed a recording contract with Koch Records.
The Globe and Mail has a great article on the Canadian Music Week (held in Toronto). Central to the article are some key points that every band should consider when searching for that elusive recording contract:
It should be noted that the A&R guys mentioned above are major label A&R -- they tend to try and play it safe, let someone else take a chance on finding the next big thing (thinking instead that they'll grab the second iteration of the next big thing when it's no longer a big risk). Accordingly,
...[T]he struggling major labels are looking for help and are relying more and more on small independent labels to find and nurture new bands. "Instead of signing more baby acts, they are signing more baby labels," said artist lawyer Elliot Groffman, speaking at the conference.
"Put out your own music," said guitarist Wade MacNeil, 19 [of Alexisonfire]. "Try and do everything yourself. Start your own record label. Just because someone wants to sign you, it doesn't mean it's the right way to go."
Singer George Pettit, 21 [also of Alexisonfire], added, "You don't want a standard contract, because a standard contract in the music industry is the most unbelievable disproportionate distribution of funds. When a major comes calling, we're going to be ready."
So what does this mean to the struggling bands that are trying to make it? Work on the songs, try to figure out what will sell to the marketspace you are trying to penetrate and write/play accordingly. Build a good sized following of loyal fans (the larger the base, the more leverage you will have when it comes time to negotiate). Find a small, successful label that will mesh well with your style and work with them towards a distribution deal with one of the majors.
The band Particle has played 140 dates a year to 20 some thousand people without a single album (it's due at the end of this month). This approach (tour like crazy, build a following, then release a disc) has been followed by quite a few groups with great success. I know that seeing live shows has induced me to picking up quite a few albums that I would have never considered without seeing the show.
With the proliferation of websites (such as this one), what is the purpose of professional music critics? Is there a purpose anymore? The Journal Sentinel wants to know.
Hip-hop music, always striving to be as edgy as possible, has decided to skip the middle man and interject pure porn into their videos.
Hip-hop has lately taken a turn toward the bourgeois, with prominent rappers renouncing violence, embracing philanthropy and donning pinstripe suits. But in deliberate defiance of this newfound respectability, some top acts have begun to pursue a less-than-wholesome sideline: commercial pornography. Pop music has always pushed sexual boundaries, of course, and rap has never shied away from gleefully smutty lyrics. But now, some stars are moving beyond raunchy rhetoric into actual pornographic matter, with graphic videos, explicit cable TV shows and hip-hop-themed girlie magazines.
From a strict business point of view, this probably isn't that bad of an idea for the hip-hop artists. Americans spend more money on porn than on all forms of music combined; I'm sure that there will be a few patrons of that, um, "art" that would be willing to spread some of that largess to a rapper or two. And it's not like quite a few of the rap videos that are in rotation on the music channels weren't already skating rather close to the adult industry anyway -- at least this is above board.
Camille Evans, a publisher and editor of Fish 'n' Grits, said: "We've been using sex to sell music for years. Now we're just flipping it to have music sell sex."
The LA Times is reporting that Movielink, the online movie respository backed by five Hollywood studios, isn't doing so well.
"Clearly, the usage level is not what we'd hoped it would be," said a Hollywood executive close to Movielink. "But frankly, the user experience is not what we'd hoped it would be."
Perhaps because any movies that are downloaded can only be watched on the machine that downloaded it (and not on the big screen TV)? Or perhaps because the movie must be watched within 30 days and then will remove itself from the hard drive within 24 hours after the first viewing (did no one pay attention to the DivX fiasco)?
Until the majors accept that the consumers want freedom to enjoy the product at the consumer's convenience, they are going to continue to have problems like this.
Virgin Group Ltd. will be establishing an online presence in the summer.
Virgin Digital, a business created to offer on-demand music and music videos, plans to use U.K.-based Virgin Group's bricks-and-mortar Virgin Megastores as a springboard to its two online services. One will allow consumers to purchase music on a per-song or per-album basis. The second will allow consumers to subscribe to a membership service and listen to all the streamed music they like while they are members...
On Saturday, there was a festival of dance music in downtown Miami. From the write-up, it sounds like an interesting time. I would have liked to have attended: I cut my teeth for about ten years rolling the steel wheels, so I think I would have probably enjoyed the experience.
eMusic Live is experimenting with a new technological trick to allow an audience to take home a live performance on a USB drive the same night as the show. This could be an interesting step forwards; several acts are already selling downloads of their live performances (Pearl Jam and Phish have been doing this for some time).
Wired is reporting that blogs tend to distribute information without crediting the source at which the author found the material.
...[T]he team at HP Labs found that when an idea infected at least 10 blogs, 70 percent of the blogs did not provide links back to another blog that had previously mentioned the idea.
I'll admit that I'm guilty of this from time to time, but I actually do try to attribute my sources as best I can.
Another explanation on Creative Commons for your reading pleasure. It's starting to look like there may be some momentum building behind this approach.
Unlike some other stories that I have read, here's one that says the idiom is doing much better than thought.
"Classical music is alive," says Heymann [founder and president of Naxos records]. "It's classical music organizations that are ailing." And their demise is the result of their almost willful refusal to cultivate new audiences."
I caught The Passion Of The Christ today after the A&S performance. Should be a nice little pick-me-up, eh? Not quite.
For starters, I'm not going to comment on the religiosity of the movie. The movie is unapologetically Christian, which is to be expected (and this review will be written from that viewpoint). I had a few things in mind about the film that I wanted to check out for myself -- the supposed anti-semitism of the flick, the extensive violence, the exclusive use of Aramaic and Latin.
First, the anti-Semitism. My impression on the film was that if you harbor even vaguely anti-Semitic thoughts, you'll find credence for them in this movie. Four -- 4! -- Jewish people act out so as to attempt to stop the execution of Christ. Why four? I don't really know, but I counted. After the abuse that Jesus suffers at the hands of the Jewish authorities (biblically undocumented by the way) even before being turned over to the Romans, I was starting to wonder if there would be even one sympathetic Jewish character who wasn't already a follower of Christ (which, I suppose, would make them to be Christians instead of Jewish). The reported beliefs of Gibson (and his father) are not much help for him on this count.
And what abuse was heaped in this film. There were a number of times when I was watching the film that I thought "had this been real, had this been an actual documentary of what happened, Jesus would have died somewhere on the march to Golgotha (if not during the scourging) from blood loss." I know that Gibson was trying to convey just how much suffering Christ was subjected to, but there came several points that seemed to be violence for violence's sake (the raven scene, for example).
As far as the Aramaic and Latin goes, I would hazard a guess that Passion has to be the highest grossing foreign language film in American history.
Would I recommend this film? I don't know. It's become an event, so it's probably worth seeing just to find out for yourself what everyone is talking about. This movie is very clearly not appropriate for any child under, oh, 18 or so (and probably more than a few adults). For me, the most powerful moments in the film were watching the reactions of Mary to the sufferings of Jesus -- much more so than any of the physical aspects of Jesus’ own physical abuse.
-- Update --
Frank Rich of the NY Times responds to some of Gibson's comments. Worth a read to hear some of analysis on both the violence and anti-Semitism of the film.
Today, A&S played their first show in quite a while. As a side note, also the first time since the studio session. We played for as part of the entertainment as a fund raiser for Children Of Persia.
First, a little about the fundraiser itself. Almost the entirety of the event was held in Farsi. I don't speak Farsi. At all. A few hours of poetry reading and speeches spoken in an extremely alien language makes for a rather surreal situation. The dancing numbers were interesting to watch, though.
We got up to play cold; no sound check, not really any warmup to speak of. We led off with Waiting For Rain and that went fairly well. The next three tunes were all on the slower side, and I think that choice hurt us -- the drop in pace and energy lost what part of the crowd we had. We also couldn't hear each other (the usual monitor problems). One of us did his usual invent-on-the-spot thing (a trait I thought we had addressed already), so things did not go so well.
Hopefully, the next show will go better than this one.
I caught Starksy & Hutch tonight after rehearsal. I was expecting some mindless fluff and empty distraction -- and that's pretty much exactly what I got. The flick was entertaining enough; don't think too hard about what you're watching, and you'll have a good time.
The acting was, well, average, the script perfunctory. The sets and production values were pretty good, though -- the entire movie is set in the 70's, and everything has that kind of look and feel. The soundtrack, though, was superb. Lots of great memories there (even if most of the high school kids had never heard any of the songs).
The cameo at the end was priceless. Watch time 1:03
I got together with Aref and Shahin today (Brett had other commitments) to go over some material for tomorrow's show. We've done the four songs (from the studio sessions) to death, so we decided to focus on the other songs we are going to do to round out the set. We're going to add another Gipsy Kings song, two more originals and an adaptation of the jazz standard Fly My To The Moon. Brett will join us for Fly, but it will be just the three of us for the other songs.
It seems that Rob Thomas of Matchbox 20 is going to be following in Scott Stapp's footsteps and striking out on his own. No news as to whether or not either Thomas or Stapp will be continuing with their main bands.
Tonight was the first time I have ever set foot in Jaxx. I think I know why that is the case; I was easily one of the older people in the room by probably ten years. The bouncers gave us a little static before the show -- I usually bring a bottle of water and a bottle of soda to every show I play. Apparently Jaxx does not allow anyone (even the performing artists) to bring in outside food or beverage. Needless to say, that kind of petty hassling doesn't put me in the best of moods.
We got up on stage late; Quazi played way over their time line. So, management asked all the following bands to cut their set by one song. We got up on stage, did the song check and started to play.
Things went pretty well as we started; there was good energy on stage. Something like the second or third song into the set, all three guitars started to no longer be in tune. I tried to compensate on the fly, shifting my fingering around and retuning by ear, but I could never quite find where either Chris or Nick were. A completely muddy monitor mix didn't help much in that department either.
Still, there was some good energy from the crowd and it seemed like they were having a good time. I enjoyed playing with NGB; hopefully there will be another time.
It looks like Creed singer Scott Stapp will be stepping out on a solo project.
[Stapp] says that after a decade together, it was time for the members of Creed to take a break. "We all committed 10 years to each other, and then we would work on some other stuff we had going on," he says. "We hit 10 years in mid-January."
The article goes on to say that Creed's guitarist (Mark Tremonti) is working on his own solo album. I wonder which one of the two will live up to the Creed pretension quota.
USA Today is reporing that music sales have -- prepare yourself for this shock -- increased so far in 2004.
Album sales last week were up 8% over the corresponding week a year ago and so far this year are up 12% over 2003, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Mid-February registered the biggest sales in any weekly cycle, excluding the Christmas season, since SoundScan began tracking in 1991.
..."The facts are very encouraging," Sisco [president of Neilsen Music] says. "It's an absolute bona fide trend: Everything's up."
If you were to listen to the complaints of the RIAA, you would think that no one buys any CDs any more (well, other than blank ones) and that every single person who listens to music only steals things from the internet.
Also, the article has an interesting marketing observation:
"We [Best Buy] think $10 is a magical price point more closely in line with what consumers think CDs should cost," Arnold [Senior VP of entertainment at Best Buy] says.
Something to keep in mind the next time I go into a studio; when I'm drawing up the budget, I'm going to plan on selling a 10-tune disc for no more than $10 a pop.
The RIAA is complaining about how much their sales have faltered.
[Cary Sherman, president of RIAA] told a conference in London that a 31% decline in music sales between 1999 and 2002 was primarily due to piracy.
Really? All due to piracy? The whole recession and poor economy had no effect whatsoever? Even with other labels saying that downloading music is helping sales? With the actual buyers saying that the main reason they aren't buying is a lack of quality product to purchase? And with evidence pointing to an upturn in sales (that would just happen to coincide with the upturn in the overall economy)? Maybe -- just maybe -- that has something to do with the sales figures the RIAA is quoting.
Sandra Tsing Loh (known for her "The Loh Down" stints on Marketplace) has been summarily
"My husband, my soul mate, my ROOMMATE of 15 years -- he sleeps LATE, doesn't LISTEN, moves my STUFF around. But he DOES play guitar for Bette Midler on her MASSIVE new STAGE show. There are times he STANDS within five FEET of her!," the script read. "So I guess I have to fuck him."
Although the quirky, uneven cadence of Loh's delivery makes it appear that the segments materialize in her mind as she walks into the recording studio, they are carefully scripted, she told Reuters.
"We discussed it and (the engineer) said, 'Say it and I'll bleep it out," Loh said.
The sound engineer was supposed to bleep the particular word out, but he didn't (for whatever reason). And, for this, Ms. Loh was canned.
"It is the equivalent of the Janet Jackson (news) performance piece and there is not a radio or TV programmer today who does not understand the seriousness involved to the station," Seymour [the general manager of KCRW] said, referring to the now infamous breast-baring halftime show for the Feb. 1 Super Bowl.
Is it just me, or does this strike anyone else as just a little bit of an overreaction?
-- Update --
For those who want a more legal POV on this one, check out what Eugene has to say...
Whether you agree with Lessig or not, his latest article in Wired is worth a read.
Missy Elliott (and other artists) are leaving Warner after the CEO was thrown out.
"Sylvia has always been there for me, and I guess now we are both free agents, because I only have one album left," Elliott said, "and I'm going to want to see where she goes."
When asked when the final album would be released, Chris Lighty, CEO of Violator Management, which manages Elliott's career, said, "If we had our way, never. Why would I want to turn out a lame duck album?"
Two things stand out about this quote to me: 1) Ms. Elliott is showing great loyalty in a business where there isn't all that much of it and 2) The attitude of Violator is (sadly) not uncommon with a lot of labels.
Tonight was the last rehearsal before tomorrow night's show. We went over the set twice, working on both the order and the transitions. While I'd really like to have a few more practices (like a dozen or so), I think that tomorrow night is probably going to come off well.
I was thinking on the way home about playing with these guys. One of the things that I noticed is Mike (the drummer for NGB) is just rock solid. His meter is almost mechanical, but he has good feel. I actually had a lot of fun just with him tonight while we were just goofing around; Mike has a broad range of styles under his belt and the chops to back them up.
See everyone tomorrow night!
The latest release from the Indigo Girls has been playing in my CD player for about the last two weeks pretty continuously. I've been a big fan of the Girls since 1990, when I was dragged to one of their shows by my girlfriend at the time (at that show, they played a four thousand person hall like a forty person club). I really enjoyed their last album -- easily their best in years -- so I had really high expectations for this outing.
They mostly met them. Having heard them play quite a few of the songs during tours the year before the disc was released, I had heard some of the music already, but in a very stripped down setting (at most, Emily and Amy playing acoustically). The album has significantly more instrumentation than that; sometimes for the better, other times for the worse.
Some highlights from this album:
Some of the stranger things on the album:
All in all, this is a pretty good album. I still think that Come On Now Social is a better disc, but I'll be playing this one quite a bit as well.
Ladysmith Black Mambazo (most familiar to people in the US as backup singers on Paul Simon's Graceland cd) has made the news a few times as of late. Not only do they have a new album out, they are presently touring North America.
The founder of the group, Joseph Shabalala, is rightly revered for his contribution to the musical landscape has been through quite a bit in his career. The group has collaborated with a whole host of musicians (Paul Simon to Michael Jackson to the Corrs), and Shabalala himself has recently experienced an almost unimaginable personal tragedy (his wife was murdered outside of a church, and his oldest son is somehow involved in the crime). Still, their music grows and improves with each passing year.
I caught LBM playing out at Wolf Trap a few years ago; it was a sublime performance that I would highly recommend to anyone.
An article about the decline of foreign media sales in the US raises some interesting points.
It's impossible to know the movies, books and performances we aren't getting as a result: Are we missing the next "One Hundred Years of Solitude" or "Jules and Jim," the next Baryshnikov?
But besides all the art we aren't seeing or hearing, the most important loss may be in what this lack of foreign culture does to U.S. society as a whole.
I think this is a large issue. Over the last several years, both my musical and film taste have drifted more and more towards world influences. I find a freshness there that seems so lacking in most of the cultural output of the US.
I fully expect I'm probably discovering the musical equivalent to Counting Crows of Brazil, but there's a completely different energy coming from the speakers when I play it. The mainstream of music from somewhere like Mali can capture some of the general musical feel of the culture.
The more I listen to unusual musical styles, the more my own playing grows (as I internalize the different rhythms, scales and other aspects of the idiom). It's one of the main reasons why I hunt for music from all over the world.
Film critic Rosenbaum, whose book "Movie Wars" laments the obscurity of foreign film, writes that "even bad or mediocre foreign movies have important things to teach us. Consider them cultural CARE packages, precious news bulletins, breaths of air (fresh or stale) from diverse corners of the globe." They're also, he writes, "proof positive that Americans aren't the only human beings and the decisions we make about how to live our lives aren't the only options available — at least not yet."
I couldn't agree more. And it would appear that I'm not the only one.
World-music records sell roughly as well as jazz, and sales are modestly rising at a time when most album sales are falling off.
So check out some music from other places in the world; you might just find something that you haven't ever heard before....
and I can't quite put my finger on why...
Congress is now considering a bill that will make "... it a crime for anyone to copy and redistribute a substantial portion of data collected by commercial database companies and list publishers."
As someone who works with databases in my day job, I can understand why companies might want to keep ownership of the data they expend a lot of effort to both collect and analyze. However, I can also see that total ownership can cause problems to the general public. To use an example, I liked this article to Wired magazine. Would I be violating the law with that link?
An editor in NY speaks out against blogging. It's an amusing read.
For me personally, I have found that I'm enjoying the process of writing this blog. I get to spout off on various topics that I find interesting, and the occasional person drops by to read my rants. Everyone wins, right?
The NY Times has a review of Britney's latest tour. Some salient quotes:
[Everytime] was the only song that she appeared to sing unaccompanied by backing tapes. At least she crooned the beginning of the song that way before the recorded support kicked in.
When Kelis, the singer who was Ms. Spears's opening act, sang her hit "Milkshake," she was audibly winded after just a few dance moves. Ms. Spears executed even more calisthenic routines throughout most of her numbers, and rarely could the slightest puff or pant be heard in the vocals. Further evidence that the microphone was not on came when she brushed loose strands of hair off the mouthpiece, and the sound of the motion could not be heard in the arena.
But I think my favorite quote is this one:
it was also one of the weakest concept shows since U2's PopMart tour. The staging highlight was "Shadow," in which Ms. Spears was raised over the stage in a swing, sitting at the crest of an immense, M-shaped blue ribbon, with performers twirling in the fabric. With her dance-driven Top 40 pop sounding out of date, at least she's already prepared for tenure in the casinos."
Not that I was ever planning on seeing Britney perform anyway....
Yesterday's Digital Forum in NYC throughly discussed the next steps in online music.
[RealNetworks VP of music services Sean Ryan] said: "2004 will be a great year for digital music", and said that successful services need to supply a: "mix of offerings, multiple services (a la carte and subscription), control of the media player, and the ability to efficiently acquire customers and to get music off the computer"
With the industry ready to reach critical mass, Ryan shared his belief that the industry is now closed to new start-ups. "The time is over for start-ups in this sector," he said.
Ryan observed that a roughly 50/50 split exists between subscription and a la carte services, and warned that format incompatibility "will be the bane" of the year, predicting this would "ease" in 2005.
I would strongly disagree with Ryan's assertion that the time is over for start-ups; there is always room for some small company to come from out of the woodwork with some hot new concept that larger houses will not see (think Napster, think Harry Potter).
It seems that Austrailia is becoming a haven for rock acts to go when they die.
Tonight, we ended up down in Woodbridge, rehearsing at Ryan's place. We had originally planned on practicing at Rich's, but that didn't quite work out. It seems that Matt swung by and picked up his gear, which resulted in there being no drum kit available. I suspect that Matt has caught wind of what has been going on. I know that I haven't talked with Matt in a few weeks; Rich was supposed to schedule a time when he and I could sit down with Matt to talk and work out what to do next. I have no idea if Rich ever talked with Matt or what did or didn't happen.
Anyway, tonight, the major thing that we accomplished was to go through our setlist and divide the songs into three categories -- "A" list material that we should probably play on any given night, "B" list tunes that will work from time to time and "C" list music that we'll keep in our back pocket to pull out when we have need.
Come one, come all to the bass player mecca in September...
On September 13th, Bass Extremes is coming to the Birchmere in Alexandria. Bass Extremes happens to be Victor Wooten and Steve Bailey playing on some bottom heavy CDs. The two of them are going to tour with Oteil Burbridge and Derrico Watson. I've seen three of these guys playing live before (here, here and here), and I'm really looking forwards to this show. Me and probably every other bass player in a 200 mile radius...
As a few readers of Stereophile have said:
"Most of today's pop and metal is lifeless, heartless, and crude. Over-produced, synthetic, and the core product (songs) are mind-numbingly dull and without imagination."
Another reader ... added, "What music? Give me a break ... the recording industry is wondering why people are refusing to pay for the overpriced, overhyped garbage they ceaselessly pour out. I'd almost rather drink from an open sewer line than submit myself to a couple of hours of the latest offerings from the likes of Britney or Ginuwine. Please, let's bring back artists who actually play instruments and write their own material!"
And, just in case you're wondering how downloads fit into this article, here's the quote:
... Eric Garland observes that Jones "is one of the most downloaded artists of all time, which disproves this idea that illegal downloads cannibalize CD sales."
Even Blue Note's Zach Hochkeppel went on record last week to suggest that downloading may be a positive force for sales of Feels Like Home. "People who download truly might be previewing it," says Hochkeppel. "They don't want to get burned by buyng a record with one good song. If they like what they hear, they'll probably go out and buy the record too."
The US government has ruled -- several times -- that consumers do not have the right to copy a digital product that they have legally purchased. Even though consumers do have a fair-use right to make an exact duplicate of non-digital material.
This strikes me as yet another way in which the media industry is hurting itself far more than it is helping. Yes, there are pirates, and both the industry and the government is well within it's rights to pursue those pirates, but most people are not pirates. The current mindset of the industry seems to be to treat all consumers as potential pirates (which kind of makes me think of that college back in the nineties that listed all male students as the total list of potential rapists on campus). Most people I know don't want to make a copy of The Matrix to watch on the road as well as at home, but many people want to be able to copy their CDs onto an mp3 player before they go out for a run.
This is definitely one of the places where I think the industry is making a huge mistake.
The US Government has filed a brief supporting the RIAA's stance on forcing ISPs to release information on file traders. The federal position is that the DMCA grants immunity to ISPs for liability in copyright violations by users of the service, but the ISP must provide information about said users.
There has been a lower court ruling about a congressional candidate owning his own name.
A federal judge Thursday denied Republican congressional candidate Robin Ficker's claim on the domain name "robinficker.com," saying the Web site owner had a First Amendment right to use the candidate's name.
"By entering the public arena as a candidate for political office, (Ficker) has invited comments and critique, which operates in the spirit of healthy democracy of this country," U.S. District Judge Alexander Williams Jr. wrote in the four-page ruling.
I found this rather surprising; I would have thought the simple fact that it is, well, your name would have been a pretty strong legal argument towards this man winning his case. I think that if Mr. Tuohy (who owns the site and just happens to be a political consultant to Mr. Ficker's opponent) had a site called fickerisabadman.com, that would be fine. But buying someone else's name? That just seems wrong (as I head over to register my own name...).
Aref & Shahin has picked up a new gig, playing for another charity show on the 25th of March. More details to come in the near future.
Disney has taken down a statue that largely resembled Janet Jackson. I guess the flap from the Superbowl contiunes on...
Jimmy Buffett may be the second musician to ever play at Fenway Park (the first being Bruce).
Tonight, we got through most of the remainder of Friday's set -- all but one of the tunes. We are not quite locking in and Mike hasn't fully worked out his drum lines, but I think that we're going to be okay for Friday. Thursday, we have our last rehearsal, and we'll be focusing on performance aspects more than anything else.
After playing, the four of us talked about marketing approaches and ways to draw attention in a crowded field. Lots of ideas thrown about (raffling a guitar, bobbing for apples, selling shot glasses) without any firm decision being reached.
Given this significant and increasing competition, can companies make any money in online music services? Perhaps, but just not in the ways you might expect
The article is worth a read if you are into marketing music -- particularly online.
In the UK, parents are buying more music than the kids.
For the first time, people in their 40s are buying more albums than teenagers. According to recent figures from the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), the 12-to-19 age group accounted for 16.4% of album sales in 2002, a sharp fall on 2000 (22.1%), while 40- to-49-year-olds went the other way, rising from 16.5% to 19.1%. Buyers in their 50s (14.3%) are not far behind. Soon, half of albums will be bought by people who have passed their 40th birthday.
..."It's easier," the publisher told Music Week, "to sell to the old gits."
This kind of news is actually pretty good for me personally. A&S are somewhat more likely to appeal to an older demographic than one of the rock bands in which I play.
It's looking like Roxio might be able to keep Napster alive for a little bit longer.
Metallica has decided to join the online revolution. Well, kinda.
Like several other bands, Metallica will be allowing soundboard recordings of their live shows to be downloaded. This fits with their support of tapers at shows. It also comes at the same time when sales of their last album have been slipping a bit. Coincidence, maybe?
At least one creative person has found great success in giving away his rights to his own product. He choose the Creative Commons approach.
I have thought about adopting a CC license from time to time, but I really haven't taken the time to learn enough about the approach to determine if it's the right one for me. Perhaps when I get some downtime, I can dedicate a little time towards doing that.
There's a company out in San Francisco that is trying to use the GPS chips found in newer cellphones as a data source for monitoring the flow of traffic. This might be a good idea, but it bothers the privacy nut in me. Although the company claims that you are not individually being tracked, I'm just a little skeptical.
The Committee for Economic Development has released a report talking about how the RIAA and the MPAA have actually hurt their own cause by pursuing legislative actions.
"We are sympathetic to the problems confronting the content distribution industry," said the report, "Promoting Innovation and Economic Growth: The Special Problem of Digital Intellectual Property." "But these problems - perfect copies of high-value digital works being transmitted instantly around the world at almost no cost - require clear, concentrated thinking, rather than quick legislative or regulatory action."
... "In the music business, 'cheap and great' is likely to be at least as attractive to consumers as 'free and crummy,' " the report said.
Amen, brother.
...[S]omewhere between 2% and 7% of adult Internet users in the United States keep their own blogs.
Of those, only about 10% update them daily, the majority doing so only once a week or less often.
So says USA Today. Since I update this here thing several times a day, I suppose that's a "yeah me." (Pay no mind to the gratuitous self important self-congratulatory pat on the back)
Tonight was the first rehearsal with NGB in preperation for the show on Friday. We only went over three (Let Me Go, Drop Back, Myself) of the nine songs we are planning on doing, but we went through each of them about four or five times. They're down pretty cold.
I think that we'll also be doing what amounts to be a dumb trick, but it's one that I have used before to great effect with crowds. We should be able to pull it off well on Friday.
The rehearsal was a lot of fun, though. The three of them have a great energy between them. I'm starting to look forwards to the show.
Eric Clapton has announced he will no longer play two of his songs (Tears In Heaven and My Father's Eyes).
"I didn't feel the loss anymore, which is so much a part of performing those songs," he said in an interview with The Associated Press.
"I really have to connect with the feelings that were there when I wrote them," he said. "They're kind of gone and I really don't want them to come back, particularly. My life is a different life now."
I rather liked Tears when I first heard it. After the eighty milionth time, not so much. I can understand what Clapton means, though. I know there are songs on my list that I don't connect with anymore and am only doing because it's part of the job.
I ran across this while killing some time on the web, it got a good chuckle on a bad day.
Someone has thrown up a map of blogs in the DC area by Metro station. Check it out, find out who your friends and neighbors are....
Thanks to Tyler for the tip.
Avril Lavigne is heading out on tour, more or less. If you want to call 21 shopping malls in various cities a tour. She's not annoucing dates, though, just giving out 48 hours notice. The shows will be free and performed acoustically.
Hey, it worked for Tiffany....
Bobby Brown is going to be going to jail. Pretty much all I can say is that this is long overdue...