I spent most of my life wishing that I had the creativity and talent to be a musician, but I have spent the last five years thanking the Almighty that I don't have to make a living as a music artist.
I joke, of course, but who would have ever imagined it would be like this. The RIAA continues to win huge dollar amounts in court cases, though we've started to see class-action lawsuits that may end up reversing the tide.
-Political Parties have sprung up based on the right to piracy and seem to have gained significant support. It's a bizarre time for the music industry. Hell, even Lars Ulrich downloads now.
Are you a hero to the masses if you are Radiohead and you offer the fans to name their own price: or are you really (as Sonic Youth argues) just making it tougher for everyone else?
I don't know that I know the answer. How do bands make enough to quit their day jobs these days?
The only thing I can think of- you steal credit cards and then use them to buy your songs on iTunes and Amazon!
Oh, sure you can campaign radio stations to pay musicians more royalties, but at the end of the day, how do you know they won't just stop playing your music.
So, things are bad for musicians and the record business now.
Right?
Fans downloading albums for free instead of buying them from the big box store.
The Fleet Foxes say no. They think the current climate makes things better.
How about the suits, though? Surely for all their whining, they're losing money had over fist. What with youtube, torrents, file sharing blogs, CD/DVD burners, and all...
Not according to this report that ran in The Guardian last week.
The Gaming industry that cries the loudest has more than doubled their revenues in the last ten years. DVD sales have doubled, and the music industry is only slightly down (which may just mean we buy only songs now, and not those albums with one good song and a bunch of filler like we used to).
- Mood:
hot - Music:Current 93- Aleph at Hallucinatory Mountain
I thought Twitter couldn't get much hotter, but it is enjoying some prime time action. Obviously, with the Iranian election, twitter is playing a role in World Politics.
The NFL made a major announcement on Donte Stallworth, not by press conference or their website, but on twitter.
I can't really improve on this article that appeared today- but I will sum it up quickly here- the GOP is making a conscious effort to use new media to reach America. This means using Twitter, using Facebook, uploading YouTube videos, etc. At the end of the day, though, if the GOP wants to win back Congress they need a message. The 1994 Republican Revolution took place because Newt Gingrich, et al, came out with ideas. They went to the voters with a message. For all the current GOP wants to emulate that, they really have not proved that they are anything but "The Party of No".
In short, it's the message, not the medium.
My blog tries not to think too hard, though. We are much more interested in the fun side of politics.
Meaning that with the new media, the GOP can reach out to the masses. It should also stand to reason, the masses can reach back.
So if you're a Republican member of the House of Representatives and say that you know the pain of Iranians unable to express themselves, because you're in the minority party in the American Congress, well, then people are going to call you out on it.
Bonus: Talking Points memo presents The Top Moments of GOP New Media Fail in 2009. These are unbelievable but true.
- Music:Elliott Smith - From a Basement on the Hill
I hope
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crystalspires let's me piggyback off his post which was inspired by Trent Reznor's decision to do a 180 on social networking sites, because it fits well here with what I was going to post.The internet has changed how we interact with our artists. Still, I don't envy the modern-day entertainer. When you open yourself to an audience, you're bound to get hit by name-calling and your comments filled with spam.
Myspace is essential for musicians to expose their music. I admit that there is where I go to sample bands. Still, I see little more use to it than that.
I follow a handful of people on twitter, but given the limited capacity, even the most interesting artists only have enough room to say "Arrived in Philly for tonight's show. Great show last night."
It's always a scary thing to get close to your idols, but there are some people who do it right. I am thinking mostly writers (Warren Ellis, Neil Gaiman, Dave Barry). It does enhance the experience if they can give their fan something more. However, it works when it is mostly one-sided communication and I suspect, heavily moderated. At the end of the day, I am interested in what Neil Gaiman has to say, I am not interested in what his fans have to say.
I like that these people have last.fm pages too, because I am always looking for new music, and would as soon as hear them deejay a the local Jack fm station.
Anyway, where I was going before all this was to point you towards the Chumbawamba website, where you can order the Margaret Thatcher Memorial EP and it will be shipped the moment the Iron Lady knocks off. How positively anarchist!
Though this is opening me up to possible ridicule, I'm a big fan of the band. I was a fan before Tubthumper, through their five seconds of fame, and have followed their career through a series of satisfying albums to now and their almost all acoustic phase.
For those who don't know, Chumbawamba CDs and albums have always been heavy with the liner notes. Ten years ago as the internet was gaining popularity, there wasn't a better musician site (or any website really) than Chumba.com. Music business insight, personal blogs, an amazing list of interesting weblinks, and of course, a lot of history and insight on notable social reformers and activists.
Chumbawamba's site isn't nearly as essential nowadays, though still occasionally worth a look.
- Music:Carolina Liar - Coming to Terms
Because my friends are hip to such things, we were trying out Wolfram Alpha within a couple of days of it launching.
At a loss to explain it better than its inventor- it's a "computational knowledge engine" to answer questions posed to it using math and science to answer questions.
We had less than spectacular results for what we asked - some demographic and mileage questions. The website didn't have some of the smaller towns we wanted to use.
Birthdates gave us some info, but nothing terribly interesting (when the sunset, how many days have I been alive).
Wolfram Alpha is best at the things it tells you to ask (calculations, math formulas, stock returns, movie ticket sales), but at this point seems limited.
It is not a search engine like Google or a encyclopedia of knowledge like wikipedia (not that it claims to be either). Still ,the problem I find is that I am still going to go to those two places for the stuff I am interested in.
At this early time in the site's history, it seems like a bit of a novelty more than anything, like "Yahoo Answers" with a computer brain answering you instead of 15 year-olds.
By now, everyone has been there and written about it, but here are my two favorites:
The fine folks at Something Awful try to find out useful mathematical equations like "What proportion of the total gross national product of the United States is represented by box office receipts of Ernest Goes to Camp?
Gizmodo asks all the questions that we are thinking like "What is the meaning of life?" and "How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?"
- Music:David Bowie- Earthling
Apparently, there is a thing called the internet, and there's a website where you can post your thoughts and happenings in posts that are under 140 letters or less.
How do I know?
Because every tv news show has reported on it in this last month.
Who am I to rip on people who decide to put their thoughts on the internet?
Still if I never hear the word "tweet" again, it won't be too soon.
The 140-character limit pisses me off, and 99% of people aren't interesting to post their thoughts every 4 minutes. Still, the creators of twitter hit on something.
So, expect more "Honey, plane iz going down. I slept with yer sis. LOL kthxbye" stories for many years (well, many months) to come.
Or
"Arlen Specter just sneezed. Didn't cover his mouth. ROTFL" stories
Or
"Hai, it's halftime. Need 2 score more baskets" stories.
When the news hasn't about the novelty of twitter, it seems to be focused on the NCAA tournament, and specifically on Obama's picks.
Barry Hussein put $10 in a pool. He's a gambler. Where's the outrage? Glenn Beck- step your game up!
Obvious, Barack is a basketball fan, but it's not like he's Bill Bradley. Do people make a big deal and ask Barney Frank who he thinks will win the Indy 500? Did people stop everything and wait for John Boehner's Super Bowl picks?
I suppose it goes to show that everyone, even the President gets in brackets (I am in two- and oddly picked the same Final 4 and winner as Barry, even before seeing his picks) and we finally have a President for the current generation.
I guess the biggest perk about being President is he doesn't have to worry about the "Boss Button". For those who don't know, the Boss Button is a button you can press that quickly hides what you were looking at (streaming video of a basketball game, for example) and makes it look like you are looking at a spreadsheet to passers-by. So, if it suddenly seems like everyone around you at work has taken a sudden interest in Excel this week, now you know why.
Last year, the button got hit two and a half million times, so the inevitable has happened. The Boss Button got a sponsor.
If you haven't put two and two together, that means "Slacking off at work" Fail - yes, you're looking at a spreadsheet, but it's a multi-colored spreadsheet of basketball facts.
Over at CBS sports, the Boss button gives you the slightly less conspicuous "Snacks consumed" spreadsheet.
Ah, technology
- Music:Zoviet France - Mort Aux Vaches: Feedback
If you have missed it (and it's been on quite a few news outlets) Google is unleashing 'mail goggles' for its Gmail service.
Finally, some technology that is useful.
You can set up the system so that it won't send that e-mail message you composed at 2 in the morning after downing a bottle of red wine that starts "I misses you so muchs!!!!!!".
When you wake up the next afternoon, Google will make sure that you really still want to send that.
Hopefully, Verizon and some of the other cell phone companies will be able to incorporate something similiar into their phones, blackberries, etc.
That way, you don't send that embarassing text at 3 in the morning as you're walking home from the bar. We all have those embarassing 3 in the morning text messages, like telling a co-worker that you have a crush on her, or texting your supporters that you're naming Joe Biden as your running mate.
- Music:The Offspring- Smash
I turned on the LiveJournals this morning to see a John Sidney McCain ad on my page.
Now, I have seen the McCain ads here before, and I get the NewsMax ads all the time (which is awesome), but this was the first anti-Obama ad I have seen.
It pictured Barry with Ahmedinejad. Now, you could make the argument that Bush appeased North Korea, made up with Khadaffi, and the current policy of not talking to Iran may be worse than the alternative.
I won't make that argument, but I will say McCain is twenty years older than Mahmoud, and if it comes down to a fist-fight, well, youth beats experience.
Can you trust a 70 year old man in a fistfight to save America?!?!?!? Double so if his nickname is Sidney!?!!?
Yes, I am all about LJ making money while allowing me to blog about the WWE and Austrian rock star Falco.
It is pretty funny though the juxtaposition.
Most famously was the urinary tract banner ad. Yes, I have always been careful not to say too many F$%#s and S$#%s and then all of a sudden, I have a diagram of someone's crank on my main page.
The banner ads are based on categories I have interest in, while some of the smaller ads pick up off the words on the blog.
Which is how you get an ad for Tommy Hilfiger Punk. Is there a bigger oxymoron? Then again, I guess he did pick a fight with Axl Rose, and that's pretty punk rock.
Al Bedsitter- brought to you by Mccain for President, Tom Cruise fansites, OMG Fre3 iP0ds!!!!, silly "Which Simpson sister would you date?" memes, and hip VH1 "artistes".
- Music:Mojo Presents: Studio One Selector
I am about to be a hypocrite and post a link to Weezer's Pork and Beans video.
I can't though, because I hate that stuff.
Everybody a few months ago was posting Nickelback's "Rock Star" video and it pissed me the hell off.
Fuck that video.
Don't post it on your LJ. Anyone with a cable subscription had seen it by the time your lame ass posted it. VH1 and MTV played it twice an hour. Don't post it, don't digg it, don't submit it to Reddit. It's still a lameass Nickelback video.
It was as if Nickelback made the first video ever to star celebrities.
To be fair, I do like the Chad Kroeger song with Santana. There is not an artist alive that can sound bad with Carlos Santana playing alongside them. I can't stand Nickelback, but "Into the Night" was a pretty rocking song.
So, it would follow that I should dump on Weezer's new video, and all those that post it.
I won't and I will tell you why.
I can take or leave Weezer. They are decent band. I can't believe people take them as serious as they do. They are hardly the most important band of the last 20 years as some people will postulate, but they are a decent pop band. They are the Cheap Trick, and not the Joy Division of this generation.
I also don't hate on Weezer for making novelty videos either. Just about the only way a rock band can get airplay in 2008 is a novelty video. Weezer and OKGo are some great pop bands, and should be played on the radio alot, but honestly, no novelty video, no attention.
It also is a good video. There is a lot to it. Oh, sure you can't get every YouTube meme in there (what, no zombie Jonathan?!?!?), but they did a great job, and it really is a fun video.
Anyway, i am not posting the video, because it's likely you've seen it already or you will soon. Otherwise, if you are curious and haven't seen it, it's not hard to find.
- Music:Decemberists- The Crane Wife
Steve Blackman Facts.
Steve Blackman had a short run in the WWF in the late 90s as an ultra-series martial artist.
Steve Blackman can smell what the Rock is cooking, then kill you with it.
What did Steve Blackman do when Hulkamania ran wild on him? Give a huge super kick to Hulk Hogan's big bald head knocking him the smurf out.
JBL's sex drink contains trace amounts of Steve Blackman roundhouse kick, which is why the sperm want to escape your sack so bad--they're afraid.
Everyone has a price for the million dollar man.............except for Steve Blackman who can simply beat the hell out of Ted DiBiase and then steal his money.
Steve Blackman will give you directions to Parts Unknown
Get more...
- Music:Throwing Muses- The real Ramona
I also may be in the minority here, but I like Frank Miller's Sin City: Gotham. I didn't care much for DK2, but I kinda dig All Star Batman and Robin.
You can probably guess where I am headed with this.
For the time being, my favorite meme of the moment is: "I'm the Goddamn Batman".
I love it.
I will say it again.
- Music:The Misfits- Static Age
Oops, wasn't supposed to post today. (Read
puffdoggydaddy's post for more info)No more basic free LiveJournal accounts.
The worst disaster in internet history!
I went ahead and sold out not too long ago if you haven't noticed. (Or as
def_fr0g_42said, "There's a diagram of the male urinary system at the bottom of yer page".Yes, I have the ads enabled, and oddly, they are the opposite of what I post. I get a lot of NewsMax plugs and McCain '08 Banners.
I also get a lot of links to take memes (wonder why?) and links to buy Smiths stuff on eBay (which is what happens when you name yer blog Viva Hate.)
Anyway, I don't care, and if anything, I think I actually support LJ/SUP. It's 2008. This is what you need to do to continue. You need people to pay for accounts or make money from ads.
On the front pages of digg and reddit last week, there was making rounds a "OMG! What would happen if wikipedia used banner ads. Teh World Would End!!!1!!1!" post.
You see, wikipedia has been incredibly useful, and I would much rather see them use ads than go out of business. Which one do you want- pop-up ads or no wikipedia?
Or maybe you prefer to pay 40 cents for every keyword you want to look up?
You know if you hate LJ's ads that much, then go somewhere else. There are plenty of places that will host yer blog, but don't be surprised when they go belly up.
These are the lessons of the dot-com crash. Money has to come in.
As far as LJ banning certain interests. I can't get too "OMG Its teh Censorships1!!!" about that either, too. LJ is in a spot where they have to be careful. It is easy for people to start whatever community they want, whether it is illegal, immoral, etc. I don't blame LJ for covering their ass.
I have a ton of interests listed, and it's a great feature LJ has, but seriously, what is there to get upset about that you can't list "young looking girls" on yer profile.
Just sayin'.
So, I didn't think whether or not to post today or not.
I just did, and I posted alot.
So there.
- Mood:
cash in now honey - Music:Belle & Sebastian- The Boy with the Arab Strap
(one bad word if you are around kids or easily offended)
- Music:Adam Ant - Antics In The Forbidden Zone
- -
I also had my plans for next weekend interrupted. We had been planning the last two weeks (if things worked out) to go to Cedar Falls, IA to see the awkwardly-named Football Championship Subdivision Final. The idea was to watch #1 seed undefeated- Northern Iowa play #4-seed (my alma-mater) Southern Illinois.
Northen Iowa got unexpectedly beat yesterday, which put a stop to that idea. SIU won, for those who care.
Interesting idea, that. Playoffs to determine a football championship? Hmmm....
- -
Today, I have added John Cox and Mike Gravel to my Presidential Groove page.
- -
I have been waiting for something like this ever since he announced he was running for President.
- -
Your pointless-but-humorous webpage o' the day is Men Who Look Like Old Lesbians.
Well...
- Music:Able Tasmans - Hey Spinner!
For example, you can't find a fact much more trivial than e-mail frequency per candidate once you signed up for their campaign alerts.
I guess you could make some sort of statement (like this blogger did) about the transparency of the campaign. For example, saying Kucinich and McCain are more open and more willing to communicate.
Me? I give props to Obama and Rudy for not filling up my in-box.
- Music:Boyd Rice- Music, Martinis, and Misanthropy
There have been various twists on the Dramatic Chipmunk, but this is the scariest one I have ever seen. Combining everyone's favorite prairie dog with Boyd Rice's industrial project Non.
Here is your NaBloPoMo post o' the day.
sigma7for the head's up, and I quote:From the Series-of-Evil-Tubes files: Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney traveled along the Interstate 35 corridor near the site of next month's straw poll Thursday, promoting his call to try to keep pornography away from children.
...But Romney showed some unfamiliarity with the Internet when he discussed the problem of sexual predators and children.
"YouTube is a website that allows kids to network with one another and make friends and contact each other," Romney explained. "YouTube looked to see if they had any convicted sex offenders on their web site. They had 29,000."
Actually, YouTube is the popular site that allows Internet users to upload and watch a variety of videos. The web site, which is owned by search-engine behemoth Google, also was a co-sponsor of the Democratic presidential debate held on Monday night.
You know this isn't quite as bad as Ted Stevens' famous remark that "an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday", but it's bad. I don't necessarily need my Presidential candidate to have a TotalFark account or visit Slashdot every night before they go to bed; but at the very least, I do expect them to grasp the general idea of what YouTube and MySpace are.
As far as the YouTube debate that all but 3 Republicans are dodging, I have some great news, via Newsvine.com.
If Romney and Giulliani aren't going to show up for the September 17 debate because of conflicting calendars, why, we'll just reschedule it.
That, my friends, is brilliance.
- Mood: amused
- Music:Yaz- You and Me Both
I've been very leery of "the internet is playing a major role in the presidential campaign" news articles, ever since they crowned Howard Dean the democrat-to-watch back in fall of 2003.
Still, it was YouTube that eventually derailed any aspirations that Sen George Allen ever had, so you can't discount the web altogether.
I also don't make secret that I loathe MySpace. I do have an account, but I don't particularly own up to the fact. Still, you have to give MySpace credit for having importance. Although, your average MySpacer is so self-absorbed, that they make Paris Hilton look like Jandek; there are some people who have MySpaces that are worthwhile (Billy Corgan and Cat Taylor come to mind).
Where I am headed with this, is that I only have 173 fewer MySpace friends than Sen. Brownback. That is the revelation in the current issue of Newsweek.
That's the sort of hard-hitting journalism I go for. Obama? 47, 930 friends (beating Hillary for first with her 25,000). Mitt Romney? 1575 (up 40% last week). Bill Richardson 658 (and actually lost friends last week). Chris Dodd? a whopping 191
There's endless humor potential in the fact that someone as conservative as a Sen. Brownback or Rep. Tancredo would have a MySpace. I need to look up these things. I suppose they look something like "we need 2 bild teh wall on teh boarder lolllzz!!1!!"
Indeed, what prevents someone from posting on your MySpace a naked man and a picture of a sign that says "F**k Middle America"?
So, what we can take from all of this information. Well, the answer, of course is nothing. Of all the Republicans campaigning for President, the one with the most "friends" is Ron Paul with 2,757.
Some of you might know Paul as being America's most famous libertarian not named Stanhope, Jillette, or Stern. His chances of becoming President? Probably even less than Stanhope's.
- Mood:
awake - Music:Camera Obscura- Let's Get Out Of This Country
Well, I sold out, so you don't have to.
I tried the Free Advertiser's option of LJ, and it wasn't too bad. It's like some of the stuff you see on Blogspot (or Google, do a search and then look left), where on the corner you see three or four ads.
So, not too obtrusive. No pop-ups. No Banner ads. We're all so media blitzed that you probably wouldn't even notice them anyway. You pick five categories that you want to see ads for. I ended up with a couple of plugs for buying South Park DVD's, a free $500 gift card, and see, I've already forgot the other ads already.
There are also ads like those on MSN when you switch to different pages. So, all in all, I'm impressed with LJ. Not a bad deal. Most sites would have just sprung these on their free users without even asking.
I would like to see the ads "read" my blog and advertise the proper products based on my blog's contents- Zoloft, Paxil, and Hair Pomade.
I just don't know that there's any features I want for the trouble. Polls are nice, I guess, but I could just ask a question, and tally the answers in my comments section. A few more userpics would be nice, but not that important.
So for now, I'm going to forgo the sponsorship, and stay as Punk as I wanna be.
- Mood:
tired - Music:X Ray Spex- Germ Free Adolescents
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