soapbox

Seriously, if anybody can think of an industry that is more backward-thinking, let me know. Good God, they’re hopeless.

Normally, I don’t mind when companies or even industries have their head up their ass, since I can simple choose to ignore their products. GM made foolish pension choices and worse design schedules? No biggie, I’m not wedded to big blue (oops, sorry boys, IBM took that).

But in this case, the RIAA is stifling creativity and thereby limiting the music that I get to hear. Always quick to shoot themselves in the foot, they have now used their power/influence to set a per-song performance royalty rate that will double the current fees that Web radio stations must pay to recording companies (of which a fraction of a percent will actually to go the artists themselves). I mean, when an entity freely promotes and introduces new music to potential buyers of said material, it surely harms the industry in horrible and catastrophic ways.

The upshot is this means that Pandora is T-O-A-S-T toast.

More philosophically, it’s frustrating because it is ever more clear that the RIAA, run by big recording labels, has no interest in actual music or artists, just in promoting their own pre-selected, crappy, untalented popstars.

Matt Nathanson, a singer-songwriter who has recorded for both major and independent record labels, said he is worried that the demands placed on Internet radio could “choke” the industry before it gets its footing.

“Net radio is good for musicians like me, and I think most musicians are like me,” he said. “The promotion it provides is far more important than the revenue.”

“Traditional” radio companies pay nothing in performance royalties.
Satellite radio pays 6 or 7 percent of revenue.
But since the internet is such a scary place full of bad people waiting to do bad things, webcasters pay per song, per listener.

I has come to my attention that there is a family stage at Lollapalooza. WTF? Or in the words of Tony Kornheiser, when did that happen? They’re calling it Kidsapalooza, but I like my title better.

I discovered this fact while reading an article on the neverending-and-stomach-churning-saga-of-stupid-Brett-Fah-vrah: the thesis was that both Slash and Favre are above the law, but I have to salute the creative opening and the laugh-out-loud story, which I will quote directly b/c I’m lazy.

We have Slash to thank. He and Perry Farrell were the headliners at the kid’s stage on Sunday. Slash walked out wearing a hat that said “(expletive)” in large, black letters. He lit a cigarette, then flicked it into the crowd of children at the conclusion of “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.” A young boy caught it, dropped it when it singed his hand, then picked it up again and screamed excitedly.

Slash was awesome. And the kids seemed to fully appreciate his awesomeness, even though most of them were not yet 10. He just stood there, rocking, smoking, wearing the obscene hat, and a bunch of very small children loved him.

After the set, it seemed necessary to have a brief evils-of-smoking discussion with my daughter, since we’d both just lunged for a discarded cigarette. But she cut me off.

“Duh, he’s a rock star. He can do whatever.”

There are certain lessons that only Slash can teach your kid, and that’s one of them. The rules are very different for rock stars.

So this story is a week old but it’s been a busy week and I couldn’t be that bothered to post something about Heath Ledger (although Dark Knight is pretty darn good). That said, there’s an entertaining little story about Ledger’s iPod being passed around amongst his friends/castmates.

Whenever we went into the trailer we’d say “Whose iPod is this?” Because it would always be some wacked-out music nobody had ever heard of before. And it was Heath’s. And that iPod has since become a symbol of Heath and his friends pass it around to each other, download the music and then pass it on.

<unfair sarcasm> and really, what is more personal than a bunch of medium-quality compressed music files? </unfair sarcasm>

…but maybe all y’all will enjoy it.

Don’t be disrepectin’ the ladies at no Tim McGraw concerts.

Assaulting a female fan is the reason the big ol’ boy in the video got called out, apparently.

Not if you know what’s good for you.

One of the founding fathers of Rock ‘N’ Roll (along with Chuck Berry and Elvis) has left us… More commonly known by his stage name, Bo Diddley (79) suffered a heart attack yesterday.

Any news site will have a little article, but I encourage the blog readership to invest a little time learning about the man and his music. Mick Jaggar perhaps said it best - “watching Bo Diddley was university for me.” If you want just one link, I recommend very nice obit from the Washington Post.

I only once got to see Bo Diddley in person, but what a great show it was. It was in the late 90s, maybe ‘98 or ‘99, so he was definitely over 70, but the man rocked for almost three hours - and I got to see most of it from the front row! A buddy of mine was working security but he wasn’t feeling well, so I offered to sub for him - so noble of me. I can still hear the “Bo Diddley beat”… bum bum bum bu-bum-bum on that square guitar of his, still with lightning-fast feet.

Seriously, watch some of his stuff on YouTube. I just got stuck for 20 minutes while I looked up a link. Like this.

“Bo, you don’t know Diddley.”

I’ll just go with this one bullet-style:

• Randomly switched on the TV just as the last episode of Idol started.  Now apparently this is the six or seventh season?  But I’ve never seen one, so I decided to stick around and learn a little about pop cuture.
• Was also intrigued because Tony Kornheiser (of ESPN’s PTI fame) makes reference to Idol on his podcast, so I had some familiarity with his opinions of the show.
• David A. scared me, he looked two-dimensional and very breakable.  Tony K called him “a Disney kid” and “Celine Dion as a seventeen-year-old boy”.  Great voice, sang Elton John very well, but ugh.  couldn’t watch him, but convinced taht he’ll win.
• David Cook is a much better musician, but not the heart-throb of 13-year-old girls, so he can’t win.

I feel kinda dirty now for having posted on this.  But it’s been several years since I posted something about The OC, so maybe it’s alright?