For all you politically observant or dire social justice activists, listen up.
Since Arizona created new immigration law (SB 1070), many artists have raised their voices against AZ’s actions. Rage Against The Machine’s front man, Zack De La Rocha, helped start The Sound Strike, and has quickly gained the support of many artists including: NIN, Kanye West, My Morning Jacket, and more who signed up to boycott the state of Arizona until the controversial law is repealed.
Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes fame has even recorded a song specifically about the Sound Strike called "Coyote Song". This song, along with many to follow, will be donated to the effort to help raise money for non-profit organizations that are fighting the new law.
All bias aside, the division between the artists and their fans who reside in Arizona leaves little room to wonder where the line will be drawn if music and politics are separate or not.
Delivered... Johnny | Scene | Mon 28 Jun 2010 11:24 pm
Later this summer, UK’s premier inner city dance festival South West Four is set to take things to that famous next level. This time around, South West Four launches the first ever South West Four Weekender on August 28th-29th. The line-up for the Clapham, London-based festival reads like a who’s who of the world’s biggest DJ:s: Sasha, Dubfire, Erick Morillo, Carl Cox, A-Trak, Dirty South, Joris Voorn, M.A.N.D.Y. and Adam Beyer – they’re all there.
Leading up to this great event, Let’s mix will feature mixes from DJs on the festival billing. Starting out is star DJ and Radio 1 personality Kissy Sell Out with a smashing electro on the rocks set!
Even though The Edge came out to play with Muse at the Glastonbury festival this past weekend, it was the Gorillaz who pulled out all their tricks to fill the time slot for U2, bringing out the likes of Lou Reed, Snoop Dogg, and De La Soul.
Although Snoop wasn’t on stage for his cameo Plastic Beach song, “Welcome To The World Of The Plastic Beach,” he did come out for the final song, "Clint Eastwood", to hizzlefy the audience.
Reed humbly graced Glastonbury with a guitar solo intro and sang “Some Kind Of Nature.”
Watch the Gorillaz perform "Clint Eastwood" and "Some Kind Of Nature" below.
Recorded last month at Berlin venue Brunnenstr. 70, Vidal and Vangelis Vargas take a 100 minute techno trip assisted by the twin vehicles of Ableton and Traktor.
Vintage image (CC-BY-SA) Ioan Sameli, as licensed by us pinko commies at CDM.
An ASCAP fundraising letter revealed last week that the American performing rights organization is invoking fears of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge, and Creative Commons in order to raise money. ASCAP appears to be repeating, now in the more heated language of fundraising, arguments it has had with the Creative Commons license in the past. For its part, Creative Commons insists most of its licenses don’t preclude performing rights bodies like ASCAP from collecting funds.
In the letter, sent on behalf of their Legislative Fund for the Arts, ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers) argues to its members that that these organizations undermine the value of music:
Many forces including Creative Commons, Public Knowledge, Electronic Frontier Foundation and technology companies with deep pockets are mobilizing to promote “Copyleft” in order to undermine our “Copyright.” They say they are advocates of consumer rights, but the truth in these groups simply do not want to pay for the use of our music. Their mission is to spread the word that our music should be free.
This is why your help now is vital. We fear that our opponents are influencing Congress against the interests of music creators. If their views are allowed to gain strength, music creators will find it harder and harder to make a living as traditional media shifts to online and wireless services. We all know what will happen next: the music will dry up, and the ultimate loser will be the music consumer.
Attacks on Creative Commons by ASCAP are nothing new. The organization argued in a 2007 essay (and subsequent report) that elements of the license, which is applied to copyrighted works, meant “artists should give up all or some of their rights.” As noted in a rebuttal by Creative Commons’ Laurence Lessig, some of those claims were incorrect. Among other items, ASCAP said that the “licenses ask creators to waive the ability to collect royalties,” which isn’t true of the non-commercial CC licenses.
The claims in the fundraising letter were more bluntly inaccurate. Creative Commons’ licenses are all built on copyright, and as non-exclusive licenses, they do not in any way prevent artists from being paid for music. They don’t even, as the organization observed three years ago, preclude ASCAP license collection – at least not on works licensed with the non-commercial provision.
Creative Commons licenses do reserve fewer rights for the creator, by definition. All the licenses currently in use include provisions to allow works to be freely distributed via peer-to-peer file services, and depending on the license chosen, may open up other possibilities for use and remixing. But nowhere does the letter acknowledge that an artist must choose to license their work; unlike Copyright, CC licenses are not automatic, nor is the CC organization advocating that they should be. Creative Commons spokespeople have previously told CDM that they aren’t even suggesting that CC licenses are the right choice for everyone in every circumstance. As advocates of their own license, on the other hand, they have explicitly said that their hope is that the license will help artists make money, not that all music “should be free.”
The blog ZeroPaid covered the initial controversy and criticized ASCAP’s take on Creative Commons as an attack on creator choice:
Creative Commons is a middle-of-the-road approach when it comes to copyright and enables creators to tell consumers, in plain language, what they can and cannot do with their content. In short, it’s an option for artists. Any attack on Creative Commons is an attack on an artists right to choose what they feel is appropriate for their chosen distribution channel.
ArtsJournal blog Mind the Gap observes that the fictional characters on Glee are in conflict with current US Copyright Law, and expresses surprise that the black-and-white claims of ASCAP’s fundraising letter would target the EFF, Creative Commons, and Public Knowledge. He asks if any card-carrying, royalty check-cashing ASCAP members would share how they feel, and they do – largely to express frustration with ASCAP. The Right Balance on Copying [Mind the Gap]
ASCAP membership dues can go toward advocacy; only the ASCAP Foundation is a 501c3 charitable organization; the latter supports education and talent development. I’m curious, then, what royalty-check cashing ASCAP members think of these issues, as well.
Today I get an email from the fab people at Sadler’s Well notifying me of a unique Nitin Sawhney gig!
Confluence is the title of new collaboration between Akram Khan and Nitin Sawhney.
What is it about:
The highly acclaimed Confluence fuses Sawhney’s music with Khan’s unique blend of classical Kathak and contemporary technique. Exploring how the independent stories of these two kindred spirits converged, Confluence offers the opportunity to re-visit their collaborative work together (Kaash, zero degrees and bahok) but it is more than simply a retrospective of their previous pieces. It is an exploration of the nature and fabric of creativity itself. (taken from the website)
This is great news brilliant news, I’ve only ever seen them perform together once, the track Prophesy at the 2007 BBC PROMS at the Royal Albert Hall.
A stunning show, but this finale was the icing on the cake, Nitin Sawhney on the acoustic guitar, maestro Aref Durvesh on the tabla and Akram Khanperforming a contemporary Kathak piece with a difference.
Khan wore Ghungrus (feet bells) around the ankles, in order to intensify acoustically the rhythmic movements of the feet which created a jaw dropping performance!
This thirteen track album is produced by Earthrise Soundsystem‘sDerek Beres. Funnily enough it was on his website where I first spotted it and got really excited Finally an album I can do my Surya Namaskars (Sun Salutations) to.
Being released in the UK tomorrow (29th June 2010) and in the US (17th July 2010) this looks like a marvellous compilation, with a couple of my favourites!
With featuring tracks by Cheb i Sabbah, Karsh Kale, Bombay Dub Orchestra, Azam Ali, Midival Punditz, Lal Meri, EarthRise SoundSystem, Eccodek, Gaudi + Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Ceu, Jef Stott & Bob Holroyd which will really set the tone for a yoga session!
As we anticipated, the FCC has suspended indefinitely the opportunity to apply for new, digital low power television (LPTV) stations in non-rural areas, which had been slated to begin on July 26, 2010. Given the FCC's new focus on repacking and reallocating the television spectrum for use by broadband competitors, the Commission's postponement of the filing opportunity is not unexpected. In fact, based on the fact that the filing opportunity had been extended once already -- from January of this year to July -- it was a fairly safe bet that the window would be closed before it even opened once the National Broadband Plan was released in March. It would seem to be counter-intuitive to put more stations into the spectrum that you are working to (potentially) reclaim or repack. And that's just what the FCC thought as well, as they have now postponed "until further notice" filings for new digital LPTV stations in non-rural areas.
Although it will not accept any applications for brand new digital LPTV stations in non-rural areas on July 26th, the Commission will permit existing LPTV, TV translator, and Class A television stations to file applications seeking digital companion channels in communities nationwide beginning on July 26, 2010. In addition, parties may continue to file for new digital LPTV stations in rural areas, as well as file applications to flash-cut to digital on their current channels. A copy of the FCC's Public Notice is available here.
Nashville locals Jeremy Dickens (logickal) and Tony Youngblood were on-site this month for CDM to cover the Nashville’s NAMM show, the summer installment of the major music manufacturer trade show.
The Summer 2010 edition of the North American Music Merchants trade show (Summer NAMM to most of us) has come and gone. For three days in humid downtown Nashville, members of the gear manufacturing, distribution, and retailing businesses converged upon the convention center to see the latest new merchandise being brought to market. This year, however, they did so against the backdrop of a city whose economy faces an uncertain future in the wake of the devastating flooding that displaced thousands of people and did billions of dollars in property damage.
In the background, there were some interesting signs regarding the uneasy state of the industry as a whole. According to the official numbers, overall attendance was down by 4% from last year, although overall exhibitor numbers were “slightly up.” It wasn’t difficult to overhear the disappointment and frustration in the conversations of sales people on the show floor. Michael Fine, a representative for guitar brands such as G&L and ESP, was quoted by the local media as saying that “Everybody’s sales were down at least 25 percent last year, mine included.”
Meanwhile, many of the attendees were disappointed by the lack of representation from some of the bigger names in the industry. Gone are the days of an Ableton, once distributed by M-Audio, announcing new versions of Live on Saturday Morning; that company, like many others, reserves the honor exclusively for events like Anaheim’s Winter NAMM show. Indeed, M-Audio and their new parents Avid were easy to miss in the crowd, having a small display of product and scheduled Pro Tools demos hidden among the racks of Hal Leonard Publishing’s music books. The show that once sprawled across two floors of the Nashville Convention Center and the adjacent arena now fit almost entirely within the confines of the Center’s main exhibit hall. Even with Summer NAMM’s well-deserved reputation as a “guitar show,” the larger guitar manufacturers were conspicuous in their absence.
That being said, Nashville’s participation in the yearly NAMM schedule is an important one for other reasons. The influx of travelling convention participants is something the local economy counts on for tax dollars — now more than ever. The city’s other main convention center, Gaylord Opryland Hotel, is closed until November after sustaining heavy flood damage, causing the cancellation or relocation of many events previously booked for this summer. That leaves events like NAMM with the burden of bringing badly-needed revenue to the city. More strikingly, the show and its exhibitors are working with ongoing efforts to assist local musicians and studios in recovering their lost possessions and livelihoods in the wake of the floods.
Efforts for flood relief were a prominent feature of the NAMM show.
Nashville electronic musician Tony Gerber [artist site @ reverbnation] is a direct recipient of such aid. Gerber is a solo artist, member of space music ensemble Spacecraft, and active in the music performance scene in Second Life as Cypress Rosewood. He’s had his music life put on hold after the flood, losing approximately 80% of his and his family’s possessions in the flood. Despite those losses, he sees the ordeal as a “positive experience,” largely due to the assistance of friends, fellow area musicians organizing a benefit concert in his behalf, and the Recording Academy-associated relief organization MusiCares.
While MusiCares provides aid to individuals in the music industry during many types of crises, they acted quickly to establish an active presence in Nashville’s music community, offering expedited financial aid to cover losses. They also partnered with retailer Guitar Center to collect equipment donations at their stores nationwide and to offer discounted prices on replacement gear to flood victims. While details are kept confidential, MusiCares staff member Courtney Bailey said that they had given out approximately $250,000 to flood victims since their establishment.
It wasn’t only individual studios to suffer losses: local cartage and equipment storage facility Soundcheck was inundated as well, with the accumulated wealth of over 600 musicians from the broad spectrum of Nashville’s music scene suffering loss and damage. Even some of the smaller exhibitors on the show floor had been touched by the destruction: Mark Payung of Glasstones [Facebook link] had kept some of his company’s prototype guitars at a locker at Soundcheck. “It was really a depressing site. It was so bad they had signs that said ‘Beware of Snakes.’ Going in and seeing all my gear destroyed was heartbreaking.”x
Despite the flood and despite the economy, retailers and buyers still came to Summer NAMM 2010 to do business. It’s unclear at this point whether we’re experiencing a few bad years or a downward trend that could change the way the music manufacturing industry operates. We may be able to tell more from Winter NAMM, where manufacturers customarily pull out the big guns. Until then, Nashville restocks, refinishes, repairs, and rebuilds.
Contributor Jeremy Dickens is a native Nashvillian musician, engineer, sound designer and and producer with works on dPulse Recordings, Sony Digital and his own Discrepancy Recordings imprint.
Tony Youngblood (photos, additional reporting) resides in Nashville, TN and hosts the experimental improv music podcast Theatre Intangible.
Nashville locals Jeremy Dickens (logickal) and Tony Youngblood were on-site this month for CDM to cover the Nashville’s NAMM show, the summer installment of the major music manufacturer trade show.
The Summer 2010 edition of the North American Music Merchants trade show (Summer NAMM to most of us) has come and gone. For three days in humid downtown Nashville, members of the gear manufacturing, distribution, and retailing businesses converged upon the convention center to see the latest new merchandise being brought to market. This year, however, they did so against the backdrop of a city whose economy faces an uncertain future in the wake of the devastating flooding that displaced thousands of people and did billions of dollars in property damage.
In the background, there were some interesting signs regarding the uneasy state of the industry as a whole. According to the official numbers, overall attendance was down by 4% from last year, although overall exhibitor numbers were “slightly up.” It wasn’t difficult to overhear the disappointment and frustration in the conversations of sales people on the show floor. Michael Fine, a representative for guitar brands such as G&L and ESP, was quoted by the local media as saying that “Everybody’s sales were down at least 25 percent last year, mine included.”
Meanwhile, many of the attendees were disappointed by the lack of representation from some of the bigger names in the industry. Gone are the days of an Ableton, once distributed by M-Audio, announcing new versions of Live on Saturday Morning; that company, like many others, reserves the honor exclusively for events like Anaheim’s Winter NAMM show. Indeed, M-Audio and their new parents Avid were easy to miss in the crowd, having a small display of product and scheduled Pro Tools demos hidden among the racks of Hal Leonard Publishing’s music books. The show that once sprawled across two floors of the Nashville Convention Center and the adjacent arena now fit almost entirely within the confines of the Center’s main exhibit hall. Even with Summer NAMM’s well-deserved reputation as a “guitar show,” the larger guitar manufacturers were conspicuous in their absence.
That being said, Nashville’s participation in the yearly NAMM schedule is an important one for other reasons. The influx of travelling convention participants is something the local economy counts on for tax dollars — now more than ever. The city’s other main convention center, Gaylord Opryland Hotel, is closed until November after sustaining heavy flood damage, causing the cancellation or relocation of many events previously booked for this summer. That leaves events like NAMM with the burden of bringing badly-needed revenue to the city. More strikingly, the show and its exhibitors are working with ongoing efforts to assist local musicians and studios in recovering their lost possessions and livelihoods in the wake of the floods.
Efforts for flood relief were a prominent feature of the NAMM show.
Nashville electronic musician Tony Gerber [artist site @ reverbnation] is a direct recipient of such aid. Gerber is a solo artist, member of space music ensemble Spacecraft, and active in the music performance scene in Second Life as Cypress Rosewood. He’s had his music life put on hold after the flood, losing approximately 80% of his and his family’s possessions in the flood. Despite those losses, he sees the ordeal as a “positive experience,” largely due to the assistance of friends, fellow area musicians organizing a benefit concert in his behalf, and the Recording Academy-associated relief organization MusiCares.
While MusiCares provides aid to individuals in the music industry during many types of crises, they acted quickly to establish an active presence in Nashville’s music community, offering expedited financial aid to cover losses. They also partnered with retailer Guitar Center to collect equipment donations at their stores nationwide and to offer discounted prices on replacement gear to flood victims. While details are kept confidential, MusiCares staff member Courtney Bailey said that they had given out approximately $250,000 to flood victims since their establishment.
It wasn’t only individual studios to suffer losses: local cartage and equipment storage facility Soundcheck was inundated as well, with the accumulated wealth of over 600 musicians from the broad spectrum of Nashville’s music scene suffering loss and damage. Even some of the smaller exhibitors on the show floor had been touched by the destruction: Mark Payung of Glasstones [Facebook link] had kept some of his company’s prototype guitars at a locker at Soundcheck. “It was really a depressing site. It was so bad they had signs that said ‘Beware of Snakes.’ Going in and seeing all my gear destroyed was heartbreaking.”x
Despite the flood and despite the economy, retailers and buyers still came to Summer NAMM 2010 to do business. It’s unclear at this point whether we’re experiencing a few bad years or a downward trend that could change the way the music manufacturing industry operates. We may be able to tell more from Winter NAMM, where manufacturers customarily pull out the big guns. Until then, Nashville restocks, refinishes, repairs, and rebuilds.
Contributor Jeremy Dickens is a native Nashvillian musician, engineer, sound designer and and producer with works on dPulse Recordings, Sony Digital and his own Discrepancy Recordings imprint.
Tony Youngblood (photos, additional reporting) resides in Nashville, TN and hosts the experimental improv music podcast Theatre Intangible.
We just got a new video shot by Derek Beres for his project Earthrise Soundsystem. “Labyrinths” is the theme song for the documentary film, The Spirit Molecule, and features Carol C of Si*Se on Vocals.
The site looks at the month of June in bass music terms, bestowing their Record of the Month tag upon Roof Light's Kirkwood Gaps, and reviewing tracks by Vaccine, Ital Tek and Ill Blu.
Just for fun, here is a pretty hilarious video that the Scissor Sisters created which includes "behind the scenes video", Kelly Osbourne, Amanda Lepore, "album reviews", and even a little sample of a song.
Their new album Night Work drops June 29th via Downtown Records.
Do you remember what you were doing exactly a year ago? If you set foot in public, chances are you were listening to Michael Jackson's greatest hits on a round-the-clock loop. Even here in Berlin, the King of Pop could be heard playing everywhere from hipster hangouts to corner bars to Turkish bakeries.
Last Friday marked the one-year anniversary of the global mega-star's passing. To commemorate the occasion, we put together this tribute chart featuring some of our favorite MJ-related edits, covers, samples, and oddities. From Herve to the Jungle Brothers, the Prodigy to Burial, Freestylers to Cassette Boy, there's something here to make any DJ set "off the wall."
Good ol' Krautrock. Some five decades later, sounds pioneered by the likes of Can and Tangerine Dream still swirl through popular music, uniting rock instrumentation and electronic processing in a psychedelic embrace. Kompakt's Walls is the latest group to find inspiration in Krautrock's steady pulse and wooly textures, even though neither member is German. They don't end there, roping in elements of disco, Balearic pop and minimal techno.
Sam Willis hails from Manchester and Alessio Natalizia from Vasto, Italy; both live in London today. They bring a diverse set of experiences to their music. Willis has been DJing since he was 18, and for the past five years has been a member of Allez Allez, a DJ team and recording act who also run their own blog, home to mixes from a staggering array of contributors (Ewan Pearson, Animal Collective, Nathan Fake, Four Tet, et al). Natalizia is best known for his Banjo or Freakout project, responsible for avidly re-blogged cover versions of Burial's 'Archangel' and LCD Soundsystem's 'Somone Great'.
Following Walls' self-titled debut album in April, they recently released the 'Hang Four' EP. The title track is a slow-motion disco daydream; diverse remixes come from the Field, Loose Fit, Xaver Von Treyer, Banjo or Freakout, and Allez Allez.
We caught up with the two in a tag-team interview.
Finally an album I can do my Surya Namaskars (Sun Salutations) to.
