Download Song

A great little indie rock track that’s loaded with jangly guitars and oooh-wee-oooh’s.

As you may or may not have heard by now, Pearl Jam had their Lollapolooza performance censored in the webcast that AT&T was broadcasting for the stop in Chicago. Apparently during the performance of ‘Daughter’ they segued into ‘Another Brick In The Wall’, which they have been prone to do. Well, during this performance they used the lyrics “George Bush, leave this world alone” and “George Bush, find yourself another home”. But if you were listening via AT&T’s Blue Room service, you never heard these lyrics. They were censored out.

This highlights a very big concern of mine that we should all be paying attention to, and that is the shear amount of control that major corporations have over what news and messages we see and hear. AT&T apologized and said that it never was supposed to have happened, but I say that’s not good enough. It DID happen, regardless of the intent and THAT is the problem.

If you’d like to read more about it, you can follow up with this article from Reuters for more of the details. In the meantime, I encourage you to talk about this amongst your friends and blog about it on your websites. This issue needs more attention and this particular incident is just egregious enough to catch peoples interest.

Every supergroup, by their very nature, carry a large amount of baggage right from their inception. And Velvet Revolver, with their choice of Scott ‘Can’t Stay Off the H’ Weiland as their frontman, exacerbated the problem. There was more talk about the politics and issues that the band faced than there was about the music. Especially so after the debut proved to be very mediocre. However, ‘Libertad’ seems to be about erasing all of that.

I’ve always been a fan of Weiland. Stone Temple Pilots has long been a critically underrated act and I never got the Pearl Jam comparisons. And it goes without saying that the GnR guys changed the face of music when the unleashed ‘Appetite’. But somehow I knew that Velvet Revolver’s debut was not going to click with me. Luckily, the new album can restore some of my faith in the possibilities of this band. Read the rest of this entry »

Download Song

Smashing Pumpkins-esque  indie-rock track that has a really unique sound to it. You’ve probably already heard this one on your local radio, but I thought I’d share it anyway. The rest of the album unfortunately comes off very bland, but this track is just awesome.

There is an interesting article over at a blog/mailing list that I just recently discovered called ‘The Lefsetz Letter’. It’s published by Bob Lefsetz, who according to his bio is:

“Famous for being beholden to no one and speaking the truth, Lefsetz addresses the issues that are at the core of the music business: downloading, copy protection, pricing and the music itself. Never boring, always entertaining, Bob’s insights are fueled by his stint as an entertainment business attorney, majordomo of Sanctuary Music’s American division and consultancies to major labels.”

So Bob’s got a long history in the music business. Also, apparently this newsletter has been going on now for 20 years, originally in hard-copy form (remember paper? You know, dead trees?)

Anyway, he has this article detailing the woes of the industry and how it is most apparent in the new release by Prince, which he predicts (and I agree) will not sell well. He attributes this to an upheaval in music and the labels complete lack of any idea about how to sell this album.

What was interesting was a quote at the bottom of the article, which I think summed up both the problems AND the solution for the record industry in such a clear and concise way that it bears blogging about. That quote was:

…Focus on people hearing it (the music) first, figure out how to get paid second.

What a perfect synopsis. He goes on to say “The value of music that no one hears is zilch. If you do the opposite, you’re just RUNNING TOWARDS EXTINCTION!” Let that settle in for a minute and if you are a record label exec, you’ve just heard the solution to all of your problems. Now you just have to figure out how to make it happen.

If you want to read more about the Prince article, he also has some clever ideas about how to make the ‘getting the music heard’ part of his plan happen.

Click here for the full article

Hold up… Slow down. I know what you are wondering. Where did all the music go?!? It’s here. Don’t fret. However, we are experimenting a bit with converting the site over completely to a blog. It was essentially a blog anyway, but this gives us the ability to post music faster. We also get to mingle all sorts of stuff together with the downloads such as videos, articles, rants, etc. AND you get to start sharing your opinions with others!!! See, it’s a win-win situation.

You can use the categories listed over on the left-hand side of the site to browse through all of the music on the site. Just click the ‘Songs’ category and everything you see there is downloadable.

We hope that you enjoy the new layout and approach and also the fact that we are going to get music posting under way again. And as always, if the changes turn out to suck, we’ll just revert the site back to it’s old version and all will be well. So, browse around and let us know what you think!

Download Song

Great melodic little pop-rock song that reminds me of Counting Crows. Great hook on this one.

Came across this really interesting interview with Trent Reznor, the mastermind of Nine Inch Nails. It’s chock full of goodies. First, in a refreshing bout of honesty he calls file sharing stealing, but then admits that he does it too:

But on this record, I know people have it and I know it’s on everybody’s iPods, but the climate is such that people don’t buy it because it’s easier to steal it…. I understand that — I steal music too, I’m not gonna say I don’t. But it’s tough not to resent people for doing it when you’re the guy making the music, that would like to reap a benefit from that. On the other hand, you got record labels that are doing everything they can to piss people off and rip them off.

Next, he blasts his label because they were pricing his latest release, ‘Year Zero’, considerably higher than other releases:

[They said], basically it’s because we know you’ve got a core audience that’s gonna buy whatever we put out, so we can charge more for that. It’s the pop stuff we have to discount to get people to buy it. True fans will pay whatever”. And I just said “That’s the most insulting thing I’ve heard. I’ve garnered a core audience that you feel it’s OK to rip off? F— you’… They’re thieves. I don’t blame people for stealing music if this is the kind of s— that they pull off.

He also goes on to say that he came up with and funded out his own pocket, the online promotion for ‘Year Zero’, and now the record labels are playing it off as though it was their own idea.

He even mentions that this is his last album on his current contract with the label and that he’d like to release his own material through his website, which, by the way, I think would be a great idea. All it would take is one major artist like Reznor to do this, sell 200-300 thousand copies and the whole market would blow wide open when other artists realize that at those (relatively) smaller numbers they make 3-4 times as much as they currently do and they have total control.

Very interesting indeed! Check it out.

Full article here.

I don’t know how many of you have been following the whole ordeal regarding the RIAA wanting the Internet radio stations to pay royalties, but basically that has turned into a situation where if they go forward, most webcasters are going to have to close. That means, more than likely, no more Pandora or any other srevices like it, at least as we know them.

In these proceedings, the webcasters’ argument has been “Why are we different from regular radio?” And today, the LA Times is reporting that the RIAA has responded with “Good point! They should have to pay too!” Seems that suing grandma’s and children hasn’t given them as big of a revenue stream as they would like.

My take… Good for them. A part of me says that they should make the restrictions increasingly over the top. As they get further and further restrictive, it makes indie artists and Creative Commons music that much more attractive. This could make radio stations start paying more attention to free music and playing them along side the major acts. Either way this is just one more example of the fact that the music industry as a whole is in a serious period of upheaval and eventually the market is going to work its way out in the consumers favor.

For my inaugural post, I thought I’d begin by sharing one of the recent lists that Bogtrotter and I made recently. We come up with the topics and then debate them over e-mail for the weeks that follow. Geeky? Why yes it is, thanks for asking.

Also, we’re throwing up links to the songs on Rhapsody’s service. Mostly because that’s what he and I subscribe to. They’ve got a ridiculous amount of music and it’s a pretty good deal. Not quite as good as free, but as far as legal goes, not a bad deal. Although, as you can see from my post, not all songs are in their catalog.

Read the rest of this entry »