You are currently browsing the monthly Archive for October, 2007.
My scary contribution= French Organ Music! (French music = downfall of Western Music) **For some reason, these videos keep becoming unavailable…I’ll keep updating!
Hypebot serves up some Halloween Fun, complete with the famous Ozzy and Bat video…
Our Digital Music has their own Halloween on the Net list…
Boo!, Ya’ll….
-J
Many are claiming that Itunes, p2p and the internet have ended the record label’s reign as the controlling force in the market. I’ll pull my head out of the sand just long enough to comment.
Here are a couple of salient points:
1. Technology is the culprit and the solution. The ease of Internet distribution and the hurdles of providing legal protection for intellectual property in a Core2 world has created the dilemma the industry faces. If the RIAA and the courts solidify the boundaries and technology enables control of distribution, the labels will recover. Otherwise, control will be the pipe dream Prohibition turned out to be.
Americans have given a vote of indifference to music subscription services and have sided with the iPod/iTunes model. Morris obviously needs to find a way to overcome this problem if subscription services — thought by many executives to be labels’ saving grace — are ever to take off. The Morris plan is
Name your own price for 11 issues and 11 CDs from Paste Magazine. Thanks to Hypebot.
Thanks to Jonathan Savage’s Blog for this!
Thanks to Listenerd for making my day!
What am I supposed to make of this? If I were David Bowie, I’d be upset. Trent Reznor sent me this email about a new project that circumvents the record labels in a Radiohead-like move. You can give your email and download the album at high-quality file rates next week or give your email and download it for free in lower quality file rates. In either case, there is no middleman (something they’re obviously very proud of) and the track I heard on his myspace page sounds very NIN (I’ll leave it for you to decide if you like it…).
After learning about Armanda Costanza Inc. opening a branch office in Montgomery, I wondered what might be going on in the world of film-making to spur such a move. After doing a bit of research, I’ve concluded that I need to start lobbying for matching incentives here in our state. We have more to offer and could be reaping millions of dollars in industry spending & employment opportunities!
If you’re an Alabama resident, shoot off a quick email and link this post!
If your elected official makes their email address public, you might find your Alabama senator or representative here or here.
Here’s what I found:
Alabama:
Coolfer posted an insightful reflection on the emerging model of Manager-Label (if your Manager has $$, this post may be for you!). Here’s the summary:
The CD still dominates album sales, digital track sales are growing and subscriptions are a bit player. As the CD becomes less and less a driver in popularity, the manager-run-label will become increasingly attractive. When a far greater percentage of artists can circumvent traditional labels without sacrificing sales and visibility, this alternative model can become a game-changer.
Digital Audio Insider reflects on “giving it away for free” in the newspaper industry vs. the music industry.
Earfarm gives away some emerging artist mp3s (legally) and sums up the CMJ conference.
Gerd’s MediaFuturist has great video from FutureTalks: “Technology vs. Copyright.” Great video of Ford/Microsoft’s new voice-controlled bluetooth car stereo which interfaces with internet phones and Zune/Ipods.
Here’s my “News of the Day”:
Gerd Leonhard’s online book “The End of Control” is up to chapter 4.
Rico has a custom sax giveaway you can register for…
Hypebot finished posting its 100 Free tips to Promoting your Band.
Listenerd’s guitar shredding video is still making me laugh…and below it is the link to 20 Drunk Moments in Pop Music History.
Ad-Supported Music Central tells us :TSL Analysis Shows Unbundling to be Irrelevant (i.e. iTunes selling individual tracks instead of albums hasn’t killed the recording industry).
Million Music Marketing give us Top MySpace Tips From People Who Know and How to Make Money in Music.
The Good Musician tells us 7 things Good Musicians Do.
And finally, this nugget from Louis Schmier:
If any of us academics act as an intellectual superpower, look upon any student as “third world,” and perceive that student to be less than her/himself, then she or he is stealing that student’s two entitlements: her or his birthright of equality and her or his unique potential. We don’t like it when it is done to us by colleagues or administrators; why should we accept doing it to others. I think it has to do with something called the “golden rule.”
From the RIAA website:
In the ninth wave of this initiative, the RIAA this week sent letters in the following quantities to 19 schools including: Drexel University (17 pre-litigation settlement letters), Indiana University (23), Northern Illinois University (25), Occidental College (19), State University of New York at Morrisville (18), Texas Christian University (20), Tufts University (15), University of Alabama (14), University of California, Berkeley (19), University of Delaware (18), University of Georgia (13), University of Iowa (18), University of Michigan - Ann Arbor (20), University of Nebraska-Lincoln (13), University of New Hampshire (30), University of New Mexico (17), University of South Florida (43), University of Southern California (37) and Vanderbilt University (32).
I spent a few moments on the phone recently with John Wanzung of Mytracks.com; their site partners with musicians to allow unlimited listens to new and emerging artists with social networking features customized for each university campus. This means students have access to free and legal music; -and unlimited streaming. Mytracks charges for downloads, but it’s a monthly or annual fee and unlimited downloads. All perfectly legal!
Schools need to educate students that you can’t take other people’s songs without paying for them.
I took a moment today to check out a CD business card someone gave me at the Atlantis Music Conference. As it turns out, you can access the EYEMUSIC Network for FREE and watch music videos from their cable channel from your computer by simply registering at http://eyemusicnetwork.com/LiveStreaming.php
I watched for a couple of hours today and enjoyed it; quite a good change from Hypem.com!
It’s free for a limited time, so check it out.
From the website:
Today we reach over 5 million viewers throughout the world. Our partner relationships continue to develop weekly opening a window for projection of 10 million viewers by the end of 2007. EMN™ entered 2007 with new technologies in order include the demand for future IPTV and Wireless mobile devices. In order to help support all programming EMN™ has developed a 2.0 website to allow viewers and members to connect with others on a global bases. Arriving Fall 2007 is a second all new 24/7 music video channel which will be known as EMN/True Latin. EMN™ is truly becoming the music video channel of choice with demands to reach international markets.
To Be A Teacher
If you want to be a teacher, you first have to learn how to play hopscotch, learn other children games, learn how to watch a snail crawl, read “Yertle the Turtle”, and watch “Bullwinkle”. If you want to be a teacher, you have to blow “she loves me, she loves me nots” with a dandilion or pull the indiviudal petals of a daisy, wiggle your toes in the mud and let it ooze through them, stomp in rain puddles, and be humbled by the majesty of a mountain. If you want to be a teacher, you have to fall in love each day. If you want to be a teacher, you have to paddle a canoe, take a hike, or just get out. If you want to be a teacher, you have to fly a kite or throw a frisbee, make sandcastles, love people, and listen intently to the rustle of the leaves or the murmur of the brook or the whisper of the breeze. If you want to be a teacher, you have to dream dreams, play games, talk to the flowers, catch fire flies, admire a weed, walk barefoot in the rain, hold a worm, and see what is yet to be. If you want to be a teacher, you have to think silly thoughts, have a watergun fight, have a pillow fight, swirl a tootsie pop in your mouth, burn sparklers at night, and see in a tree more than a mass of atoms or so many board feet of lumber or something that’s in the way. If you want to be a teacher, you have to skip as you walk, laugh at yourself, smile at others, hang loose, always have an eraser handy, concoct an original recipe, and inspire. If you want to be a teacher, you have to fix a bird’s broken wing, tweek the neck of a deflating baloon, to zany things, play with a yo-yo, and lose yourself in the quiet scenery to find yourself. If you want to be a teacher, you have to feed the pigeons or squirrels, sing in the shower or tub, smell the flowers, watch a spider spin it’s web, play with finger paints, and do a belly flob in a pool. If you want to be a teacher, you have to bring joy into everything, watch in awe a sunset or sunrise, ride on a swing, slide down a slide, bump on a seesaw, and respect even a cockroach as a miracle of life. If you want to be a teacher, you have to ride a bicycle or roller skate or ice skate, and live today. If you want to be a teacher, make all those marvelous feelings and images an intimate part of you and bring them into the classroom with you and share them. If you want to be a teacher, as you have to put aside your formal theories and intellectual constructs and axioms and statistics and charts when you reach out to touch that miracle called the individual human being.
Copyright 1994, Louis Schmier
If you haven’t seen “A Vision of Students Today”, it’s a thought-provoking slap in the face that needs to be watched by many of my colleagues in higher ed. I’ve seen a lot of “teaching” (i.e. full-frontal “read my notes” assault) that is more mind-numbing than provocative and know the complaint. I wish universities cared more about the classroom environment than grants and publications. Here’s the vid if you haven’t seen it:
Thanks to Million Music Marketing for showing me this (and that Jamiroquoi Moon Buggy is the bomb…):
Check out this company; they charge $$ to increase the number of track plays and friend requests for your band’s Myspace page. For $699.00 a month they guarantee:
Approx 105,000+ plays, 10,000+ Friend Reqs
(3,500+ plays/day)
for one month and further promise:
We expose your music to the net and get you those beautiful numbers of 1,000+ MySpace plays per day. You will rise the charts and finally look like a star with the amount of plays. Increase MySpace plays, friends, and visits now!
Attract labels, gig locations, local press, scouts, agents, and other important industry people with these achievements.
I know Myspace is popular for music promotion, but is a good Myspace hit count a higher predictor of success than quality of material and delivery? There’s a middleman position here waiting to be filled and God bless the young entrepreneur who steps in to serve those acts that don’t have a clue.
I’ve spent 5 minutes trying to find something good on Hypemachine.
I’m beginning to think the thing is broken….
or that nobody recognizes quality anymore…
or that trained engineers have left the building…
If any of my students are out there reading this, I’ll add 10 points to a major test grade if you can shoot me an email that critiques 3 of the tracks of lesser-known bands heard on Hypemachine. Please include a link to the mp3 file so I can follow up on your critique. Put “10 Extra Credit Points” in your subject line.
j
It seems that today is the day all bloggers take a moment to reflect on our fragile world ecology. I’m using my moment to honor the most musical tree in the world; the stately Mpingo tree. A lack of concern in Tanzania has brought this important species to near extinction. For more information and to learn how you can help, visit the African Blackwood Conservation Program website.
It’s amazing to see the different spins concerning the moves by Radiohead, Reznor and Madonna;
–MediaFuturist sees the end of the world for the labels, but admits:
—Hypebot says kudos to Warner Music Group for the Madonna move, and
shares the leaked EMI “Wake-up” letter to its staff.
Coolfer nails it, and I quote:
Agents, managers and labels are better equipped to take on the early-stage risk inherent in artist development.
And Ad-Supported Music Central concludes:
The only new business model with the scale and leverage potential that can replace the loss of recorded music sales is advertising supported music.
MediaFuturist reports on a crunchgear.com post; –other UK bands are stepping in line to do the Radiohead promotion. “Pay as you like” seems to be the order of the day. Man, I wish the auto dealers would try that!
: )
…from the Reznor’s site at www.nin.com
Hello everyone. I’ve waited a LONG time to be able to make the
following announcement: as of right now Nine Inch Nails is a totally
free agent, free of any recording contract with any label. I have
been under recording contracts for 18 years and have watched the
business radically mutate from one thing to something inherently very
different and it gives me great pleasure to be able to finally have a
direct relationship with the audience as I see fit and appropriate.
Look for some announcements in the near future regarding 2008.
Exciting times, indeed.posted by Trent Reznor at 10:45 AM.
From the Billboard music site:
Sources close to the situation say in the short term, Reznor will get busy in the studio working on the follow-up to this year’s “Year Zero,” a process he couldn’t begin until the Interscope deal was complete due to contractual reasons.
I’m predicting Trent’s next CD will be chock full of bright and cheerful tunes with PETA-friendly artwork on on the liner notes. Like Moby meets the Wiggles.
Someone important is thanking Amazon for finally doing MP3s right.
Thanks to Hypebot for providing this valuable nugget!
More Blogroll stuff:
Check out the AES Wrap-up at Sweetwater
Considering a career in the music business? Read “The Good Musician” POV…
Louis Schmier is happy to be alive… (and I’m thankful, too)!
I’ve been a party to some ghost hunts in the past and count myself pretty much a skeptic. These past 2 days I took the wife and kids to Mobile to take advantage of the fall break and to try to do a little shopping. We spent the night at a hotel that was built in 1852 (and I heard rapping all night) and the next day rode down to Dauphin Island to show the girls Ft. Gaines. I’d not been there since my childhood. After an hour of climbing around and picture taking we headed home and I unloaded my pics from my camera. Out of several dozen normal digital snapshots, here’s the one unknown glare on the bottom r.h. corner of the sign. It’s to the left of the doorway. No flash was being used. More pics are on my wife’s site…
Music Gadgets reports that Sony has a new 2 track (96 khz, 24-bit) and it sure looks sweet!
“It’s not unusual to be loved by anyone…”
Tom Jones wins the local Guitar Centar Drum-off!
Way to go, Tom!
Good Luck in Nashville
at the District Competition!
Earfarm posted a link to this nifty quiz. I didn’t do so badly (for a classically trained pianist) but some of these albums are so classic they smell funny.
The first RIAA lawsuit against a peer-to-peer network file trader is over and the single mom now owes the record industry $220,000 for 24 of the 1700+ tracks they allege she was sharing. Of course, the lawyers get $9,159.00, and the rest is credited against the A&R expense tab for the bands involved. At least we have a legal reaffirmation that ownership of distribution rights really means something.
Everything you probably didn’t know about this compression format… –and masking!
This article is technical, informative and loaded with great visuals!
If you have a stake in the new music industry, you owe it to yourself to read this…
All the hype about Radiohead's non-traditional release is exactly that. I don't believe it marks the end of music distribution as we know it. If this were the case, then my Indie hero Jonathan Coulton would already be a millionaire; --because his promotional schemes are brilliant! If you don't believe me, check out this soft rocking advert...
Earfarm has given me 2 great things to think about today!
1. The new Radiohead album may not be eligible for charting because the outlet doesn’t report sales.
2. Stylus Magazine’s Top 10 list of how to make a better record. (I like #2 and #3 best).
Author and Media Futurist Gerd Leonhard Releases New Book Online — for Free .
Weekly chapters of The End of Control now available at www.endofcontrol.com .
The AES Convention starts this week; Harmony Central will cover it here.
Listenerd reports that Kanye started a blog. Kanye West. Interesting… See it here.
Ad-Supported Music Central posts interesting commentary on the “new” record industry as defined by Edgar Bronfman, Jr., CEO of Warner Music Group and heir to the Seagram Distilling Company fortune. Did I mention Edgar never went to college? I wonder if his kids are still downloading music illegally…
Music Thing found a Dr. Frankenstein guitarmaker…
Our Digital Music says Starbucks starts giving away music with your expresso tomorrow…
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