Category: Music

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Indie means independent, not major record label

Warner Brothers Records is getting into the business of podcasting. A major record label doing such things is not the worst thing in the world, but I take issue when they start calling it “indie” and refer to the music played as being by “independent artists”.

Murmurs and whispers around the podosphere have hinted that Bands Under the Radar, described as “a music podcast featuring unsigned bands and indie artists,” is not “indie” at all, but is in fact a podcast being quietly produced and distributed by Warner Brothers Records.

The podcast features music from “indie bands”, such as Tom Petty, Chris Isaak, Kasey Chambers, Better Than Ezra, Mark Knopfler, Johnny Cash, Loleatta Holloway & Muse – all Warner Brothers artists. [podcastingnews]

The creepy thing is that when you go to the website of the podcast, it seems like a total independent setup, complete with a Blogger look and feel to it. I have yet to listen to an episode, but let’s be clear about what’s going on here. This is not what it is being portrayed as. Tom Petty and Johnny Cash are far from being considered “indie”.

Kami Knake, the host for the program is New Media Coordinator for Warner Brothers Records, and the podcast is served up by Warner Bros. […]

We asked Knake whether her podcast, which has a low-budget “indie” quality to it, is in fact an official corporate podcast made on behalf of Warner Brothers Records.

“It’s something I started before I came to WBR,” said Knake. “I do play WBR artists, but that’s by choice. My podcast has nothing to do with WBR. 😉 ”

While Knake’s official word is that her podcast has nothing to do with Warner Brothers, Bands Under the Radar features Warner Brothers artists, is created by a Warner Brothers employee and is delivered from Warner Brothers’ servers. [podcastingnews]

I’ve often said that major labels need to start something different to compete in a vastly changing industry. This, on the other hand, is not what I had in mind. It’s down right sneaky.

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The music of Rescue Me

Some of my posts about Rescue Me[wiki] bring in a lot of traffic, and if you are a fan of the show, then we both know why. Season three has been nuts this far, and we’ve been loving it. I don’t want to give too much away as it has yet to actually start airing in Canada. If that makes you wonder as to how I’m watching the new episodes, then you really need to explore the wonders of the interweb some more.

Some one who passed through a while back asked me about one of the songs in a recent episode. Upon my ventures for info on my post about Jericho, I stopped by the Wiki for Rescue Me, and there they are.

Season 3

[wikipedia]

Seasons one and two are there as well. I know that episode 306 is out and is not listed in the entry. The song in that one was “Numb” by Portishead. I did some digging but cannot come up for the song in 303 where Sheila was “cleaning” her son’s room. If it pains you that much to know, check out the RescueMeForum and post something in hopes of finding an answer.

I also found this news which should make all fans rejoice.

Cable channel FX has ordered a fourth season of Emmy-nominated actor Denis Leary’s firefighter drama Rescue Me.

The series will begin production early next year in anticipation of launching in second-quarter 2007. The order was for 13 episodes. [tv.com]

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Big music business wants to get bigger

Exactly what the music industry needs.

EMI and Warner Music were locked in a two-way $4.6 billion takeover battle on Wednesday, with each trying to acquire the other to create a combined company that would shrink the industry to three dominant players.

London-based EMI Group Plc, home to Coldplay and Robbie Williams, said it had rejected a 2.5 billion pounds ($4.6 billion) cash offer from its smaller U.S. rival, calling the bid “wholly unacceptable”.

At the same time, EMI revealed that it had sweetened its takeover bid for New York-based Warner Music, whose artists include Madonna and Red Hot Chili Peppers, to $31 a share or $4.6 billion in total, from its original May offer of $28.50, although the new bid was also rejected.  [reuters]

Oh, by the way, I was being sarcastic.

This is just asking for more problems within the music industry.  The bigger something gets, the more you have to feed the giant.  Record companies are already having a hard enough time dealing with the growth of the digital music format.  Getting bigger is not the answer.

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Weird Al says he gets less when you go digital

I caught wind of this from Slashdot[article] and navigated back to the horse’s mouth, aka Weird Al Yankovic. According to the “Ask Al” section of his website, he claims that he’s actually losing money when you buy his music digitally from sources such as iTunes.

Tim Sloane of Ijamsville, MD asks: Al, which of these purchasing methods should I use in order to make sure the most profit gets to you: Buying one of your albums on CD, or buying one of your albums on iTunes?

I am extremely grateful for your support, no matter which format you choose to legally obtain my music in, so you should do whatever makes the most sense for you personally. But since you ASKED… I actually do get significantly more money from CD sales, as opposed to downloads. This is the one thing about my renegotiated record contract that never made much sense to me. It costs the label NOTHING for somebody to download an album (no manufacturing costs, shipping, or really any overhead of any kind) and yet the artist (me) winds up making less from it. Go figure. [weirdal]

I’m sure this can’t be said for all recording artists out there as this comes from his renegotiated contract. I wouldn’t put it past record companies to snag artists in situations like this, so it is something to really consider when signing with a label.

When it comes down to it, staying independent is a plausable way to go if you can handle the work. If you are working for yourself instead of a label, you might be able to support yourself better rather than having profits like this being plucked away from you, while being legally binded, I might add.

Additionally, Weird Al fans might be interested to know, if you don’t already, that you can expect a new album from him soon.  Apparently the album was slated to come out this month, but, you guessed it, problems with his record company has delayed the release.  In situations such as these, I should say that you shouldn’t expect the new album soon but instead that you can hope to see it be released by the end of the year.  The music industry can be kind of crappy like that.

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Hillary Rosen and life after the RIAA

If there was anyone I disliked more during my days at KRUI, it was Hillary Rosen[wiki]. Just a short time after we had established the station’s first webcast in history, I learned all about the DMCA[wiki], the RIAA[wiki], and Hillary Rosen. We were so proud to have our tiny little station getting people to listen from all over the world, only to fear the pursuit of charging incredible, per song, per person fees for our streams.

We fought where we could, contacted our representitives in congress, and staged our own “protests” like good college students do(it even got me on TV news). We just wanted to have out radio station on the web. That’s all. Play our music and be happy. And if the RIAA would have had their way, we would have been low on their radar, but the fees would have caught up sooner or later.

Today, Hillary Rosen is no longer the head of the RIAA, leaving the organization in 2003. She’s picked up blogging for the Huffington Post, and one of her latest posts offers a very intriguing view about the RIAA’s actions regarding individual lawsuits against copyright violators through file sharing networks.

But for the record, I do share a concern that the lawsuits have outlived most of their usefulness and that the record companies need to work harder to implemnt a strategy that legitimizes more p2p sites and expands the download and subscription pool by working harder with the tech community to get devices and music services to work better together. That is how their business will expand most quickly. [huffingtonpost]

Hello, music industry? Are you getting this???

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Russia On the Download

Wired.com is running an article about Russian websites where you can download music in mp3 format at rock bottom prices. More so, the concern about it is coming from “U.S. trade and music industry officials” stating that continued operation of the site is a direct obstacle for Russia joining the WTO.

“The United States is seriously concerned about the growth of internet piracy on Russian websites such as AllofMP3.com … the world’s largest server-based pirate website,” Neena Moorjani, chief spokeswoman for the Office of the United States Trade Representative, said Friday.

“Russia’s legal framework for intellectual property rights protection must meet WTO requirements…. In that context, we continue to call on Russia to shut down websites that offer pirate music, software and films for downloading,” she said. [wired.com]

You would think that this would be about oil, or something more precious to daily survival, and not piracy of music. That’s all it takes to stop your country from being apart of the WTO club. I would imagine that the pressure from the U.S. government is heavily influenced by lobbyists for the music industry, working the playground method of a little bullying to keep them from hanging out with the rest of the cool kids. The argument makes sense for both parties, but I keep coming back to this feeling that the music industry needs to stop fighting this and start to undermine these things to take advantage of it in some way.

This also made me curous about another Russian download site, mp3search.ru. The site appears to still be up and running. I gave that a shot and experimentally dropped twenty bucks on the site to see what it had to offer. For the most part, it’s good source with some reservation, but this was just over a year ago that I last did anything with it The selection was still growing, and bit rates of the mp3’s averaged around 192k. However, sometimes you would download a bad rip of an album that had lots of gross errors in the audio. At nearly $.10 a song, you get what you pay for.

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The (International) Noise Conspiracy at The Plaza Club

The (International) Noise Conspiracy - Vancouver, BC - May 20, 2006This is a completely late posting, but we checked out The (International) Noise Conspiracy[wiki] at the Plaza Club when they swung through Vancouver on May 20th. Rebecca was faster to the draw on her post about it, but let me elaborate.

If you have never seen them before, they put on an incredible show. And if you are some one who has had that opportunity, then you know how awesome they perform. For myself, this was the second time that I got to check them out. The last show was in Brooklyn, NY, and I got a drumstick in the face at the end of the encore. I left this show with better luck.

The Fever opened up the show with a very solid performance. Coming all the way from New York, the four piece band boasted a setup that is not of your normal rock and roll band make up, but is becoming less unusual. Singer, guitarist, drummer, and keyboards. When their set started, I thought the lead singer was standing on top of a box while singing into the mic on top of its stand. Getting closer, it became clear that he was freakishly tall and kept the mic low. It was a neat effect for his sometimes, Tom Waits-esque voice. Continue reading “The (International) Noise Conspiracy at The Plaza Club”

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How To Pirate a Vinyl Record

The Reverend sent me this link yesterday about how one goes about pirating a vinyl record. The whole process takes some skill to set up and materials that can probably found at your local mega-hardware center. And naturally it’s not a perfect replica that you are left with when the process is said and done, but I think this goes to show that you can pirate nearly anything if you really wanted to.

I’m not too sure that you’d want to do this to just any record though. Dumping a bunch of silcone that you didn’t mix properly might spell the end to your original, not re-released, Frank Zappa[wiki] albums.

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Death Cab For Podsafe Music

Rebecca made a post today about a topic that we’ve discussed between the two of us, but I wasn’t going to make much noise about it, the main reason being that I had a hard time wrapping my head around the point I wanted to make. I’m still not sure if I’m making one, but the comment I was leaving on her blog post was getting too long. I figured that I might as well just make my own post about it.

Let’s have Rebecca bring you up to date with the issue at hand.

Death Cab (For Cutie) was played on DSC w/Adam Curry and since then everyone’s thinkin ‘OOH WOW actual music on a podcast that i recognize!’ to that john and i roll our eyes – there’s a LOT of great artists out there (some well known, some not-so-much) that are available, podsafe, and i’m glad that my husband’s got the keen ear to pick them out and share them with the rest of us.

from what i understand, as long as you have permission (or they’re listed as ‘podsafe’) – you can play the artist on your podcast ie. John’s played Matthew Good with permission. also, other well-known bands (in certain circles) have released tracks that are podsafe, ie. Less Than Jake‘s – Look What Happened (along with other Epitaph artists). so those are all available for your podcasting pleasure – you just have to know where to look. [miss604.com]

Back when I was first starting out and the whole podcasting buzz was most among media and computer, freaks and geeks, I played Death Cab For Cutie[wiki] numerous times. Of course, that was prior to going completely podsafe with the music that I play. I got emails from people saying that they had always heard of them but never listened to them until they caught them on my podcast. I know for a fact that I turned some people on to Death Cab back then, and the cuts that I was playing was all pre-“Transatlanticism”.

Additionally, there are so many people freaking out because Death Cab is this major label artist posting their stuff on the Podsafe Music Network. The reality is, they have only been apart of Atlantic Records for the release of “Plans”. Prior to that, they were on Barsuk Records[wiki], a nice indie label out of Seattle, W.A. They cranked out five records with them since 1998. Atlantic Records obviously wants in on The O.C.[wiki] hype and signed them up since major labels are trying to do everything they can to make a buck these days. Continue reading “Death Cab For Podsafe Music”

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Roche Limit

Dave sent me his CD in the mail!Check out what I got in the mail today. I played Roche Limit on RadioZoom a few times recently. Dave Righton contacted me to say thanks for the spin, of which I am always glad to do, especially for anyone in Vancouver. That goes for anyone around the world, but it’s nice to get the thanks from the locals here.

Dave’s uber cool in my book though. He said he’d send me a copy of the CD, and it arrived today.

From their MySpace page:

Roche Limit’s debut album entitled “White Light” is another stunning example of why Canadian independent music continues to gain more and more recognition. Combining electronic, pop-rock, and folk influences, Roche Limit has been compared to the likes of both Beck and Nine Inch Nails. Boasting a diverse range of tracks, “White Light” encompasses a compelling selection of moods and styles. The listener is transported from the depths of a brooding instrumental to unforgettable upbeat melodies, all the while maintaining the unique and refreshing sound that is Roche Limit.