Looking Forward

As our school year year winds down, I have been directing my thoughts towards the future. For me, this seems natural; as one thing nears completion I anticipate the next step, hoping as always, that the future will bring new joys and experiences.
I fell that the music industry is moving in the right direction. Free music, increased accessibility, and DIY initiates see to be the new tenants of an emerging business perspective. And musically, with the exception of the FM radio mainstream, the industry hasn't been this organic since the 1960's. New bands can record easier, and share their music in ways never before conceivable. Of course, more bands means more competition- but is that really such a bad thing? We can use the internet to search, and sort through the millions of bands that populate the world. Almost any genre has a diverse array of musical contributors you can compare and critique for yourself. I do feel however, that bands and fans alike must be conscious of the fact that as our society grows more global and transparent, it is easier for everyone to see when you are being inauthentic. Genuine Everyone needs to embrace themselves for who they are
Anyway, I'm excited to be seeing a lot of music this summer. I've listed the shows I'm hitting up below. Let me know if you’re going to any. Everyone have a great summer, make the most of being 19. Peace.

May 13th: Dr. Dog/Deer Tick- Philly, PA.
May 30th: BOMB Fest- Durham, CT.
June 19th- West Oak Lane Jazz Fest
June 24-25: Phish- Camden, NJ.
July 1-4: Nateva Music Festival- Oxford, ME
July 19th-August 1st: Gathering Of The Vibes
August 13-15th: Wilco Solid Sound Fest- MA

All Points West Most Likely Cancled

All Points West (pictured above in it's debut year), New York's answer to Coachella, Lollapalooza, and Bonnaroo will most likely not return in 2010 says AEG Live CEO Randy Phillips. The festival located in Liberty State Park (across the Hudson from Manhattan)started two years ago presenting Radiohead for two nights along with Jack Johnson, has had trouble finding appropriate headliners for 2010, sources say. AEG Live's flagship festival, Coachella, recorded a record setting attendance of more than a quarter of a million people last weekend. All Points West never exceeded 75,000 customers in either years of its existence. Also, concert-goers complained openly about the long ferry lines to get to the venue from NYC, and the amount of mud on the festival fields.

In my opinion I think festivals should focus on long term draw-oriented business plans rather than dumping money into an uncertain project. Bonnaroo for example started out as a jam-band-oriented music festival, mainly because the promoters knew they were likely to sell a lot of tickets if they catered to a specific market segment. Over time however, as the lineup expanded to include such acts as Radiohead, The Police, Tool, and Neil Young, but only after 4 years of Widespread Panic and/or Dave Matthews Band. Basically their business strategy was to establish themselves as a kick-ass festival and then let the word of mouth spread. Now, Roo is a festival destination for many Americans regardless of the lineup- people want to have the Bonnaroo experience. This strategy cannot be applied to non-established festivals like All Points West. No one went to the first two years of All Points West to experience the festival- they went because of the lineup. Which leads me to what I think was APW's second problem: lineup relative to the price. In 2009 a three day pass to APW cost "$239.00 + applicable service fees" and a one day pass cost "$89.00 + applicable service fees." Considering that the average Jay-Z, Vampire Weekend, Tool, or Coldplay fan is a 15-25 year old, its not surprising that many would-be concert goers would be deterred by the price. Also, I doubt that Jay-Z, Vampire Weekend, Tool, and Coldplay share a very large audience pool. And for a $100 day pass, one was likely to feel ripped off for paying to see 3 bands they like. Simply put- All Points West tried to go big without paying its proper dues, and without assembling a synergistic lineup. After two years of blasting music right across the Hudson from the country's most populated city, the promoters are calling it quit. Hopefully other giant companies launching festivals will learn from APW's mistakes, and focus more on starting small- and building a brand that consumers find authentic.

Google finally reveals govt's frequency of demand of information

Google announced today a new tool for tracking the number of times a government requests information from the Search Company. They make the distinction between the number of times that a government asks for information, and the number of times a government asks them to remove content from Google, Blogger, or YouTube. For the latter Google provides detailed statistics on where content was removed from, but they give no details on what types of information governments requested, nor do they disclose whether they complied with the government’s requests.

Firstly, let me say this is a huge step in the right direction for pressuring other Internet companies to reveal their relationships with national governments. Also, hopefully as more accurate information is released on Google there will be a clearer picture of governments (including the US government) prevalence to censor information and unlawfully request information without a warrant. The numbers that are currently available do not tell us for example how many people a government requests information on since sometimes a request is for multiple people, or multiple requests are for the same person. Still, Google has said that they will reveal more comprehensive statistics as time goes on. A new update is expected in 6 months (the current statistics are from the 6 month period between July 2009 and December 2009). Now that Google has stepped forward to help improve transparency regarding internet privacy and internet censorship, other internet giants will be pressured to do the same. Microsoft, Yahoo, and AT&T all hold a lot of user data on their serves that I’m sure the government finds valuable.

So how did the US fare in the newly released statistics? From a privacy standpoint, possibly shitty. The US has the second most requests at 3,580, following only Brazil, but without detailed information we can’t really evaluate their rate of censorship. Google has long been known to cooperate with the US government, and the statistics for the content removal requests support this assumption- Google cooperated with 80% of the US’s requests. The average percent of cooperation is around 75% however, so once again that statistic provides very little relevant information.

FAQ on the new tool, with a breakdown of what the statistics do and don’t mean.

Ustream streams first concert to iPad

Ustream, the internet’s leading streaming website is currently streaming the 4/11/10 Bon Jovi concert straight from the American Airlines Center in Dallas TX to iPad owners nation-wide. Although the company bases much of it’s business plan on streaming live concerts for free, the release of the iPad earlier this month provided Ustream with the first high quality, portable platform to broadcast their streams. The event would be unimportant for Bon-Jovi-haters like myself if it were not for the implications of streaming concerts directly to people’s portable devices. The problem with live concert streaming up to this point has been that as accessibility of content online increases, people are less willing to view content at a scheduled time. An example of this trend is how TV programs are being viewed more and more online on websites like Hulu. This is because the viewer has control over the time and place of viewing, unlike traditional TV, so it is more convenient for them. Watching concerts live online is similar to traditional TV as in one must tune in at a specific time. But with the iPad, and presumably other portable tablets, one can stream a concert on-the-go: which makes streaming concerts more accessible. Who knows if this will become a trend, or maybe no one cares. So in closing, I hate Bon Jovi. Here’s a video of some good music…

Rhapsody lowers it’s subscription price

In it’s first move as an independent company, Rhapsody music subscription service has lowered its price from 15$ a month to 10$ a moth. Shortly after separating itself from parent organization RealNetworks the music service company is vying to compete more affectively in the ever changing music sales market. Competing against rival subscription service Napster, online stores like ITunes and Amazon MP3, as well as illegal downloading, Rhapsody is doing all it can to attract new customers. Last year the company began including iPhone and Android phone apps that make it easier for subscribers to access their music away from their PC or laptop.

Subscription music services are cool ideas, but they have yet to become ‘big’ in North America. In Europe there is Spotify which offers legal peer-to-peer sharing for 9.99 Euros a month. Imagine having access to all the music you could ever want, and keep it organized as you would like for one price. The subscription model doesn’t sound too bad- unless of course, you don’t pay for your music anyway.

So why hasn’t Rhapsody caught on? In part its because Apple has done such a good job at marketing their music products, and because people seem resigned to still want to ‘own’ their property. My guess, however, is that Rhapsody’s price cut can only attract new customers to the more efficient model for music sales.

How the health care bill will affect businesses...

More than a year in the making the health care bill has finally passed. If you have recently awaken from a coma, or were too busy Tweeting about what you had for breakfast to know whats going on, I'll fill you in. The health care bill will enact many changes in our health care system over a period of 8 years. Some notable changes: individuals will be required by law to carry health insurance, the insurance industry must pay an annual fee of 8 billion dollars to the government (I think it should be more if anything though), and pro-rated subsidies will be given to people below just above the poverty line anywhere below it. What I want to focous on though is how the bill will effect businesses. It is proven that the free market is perhaps the most efficient system to encourage institutional, commercial, and economic developments. However, we don't yet know how the mandates of our government will effect the businesses we rely on to spearhead progress. Here's what the bill means for businesses:

• Subsidies begin for small businesses to provide coverage to employees. (2010)
  
• Employers with more than 50 employees that don't provide affordable coverage must pay a fine if employees receive tax credits to buy insurance. Fine is up to $3,000 per employee, excluding first 30 employees. (2014)
• Subsidies for small businesses to provide coverage increase. Businesses with 10 or fewer employees and average annual wages of less than $25,000 receive tax credit of up to 50% of employer's contribution. Tax credits phase out for larger businesses. (2014)
• Businesses with more than 100 employees can buy coverage on insurance exchanges, if state permits it. (2017)

These facts are from the Wall Street Journa. If you interested in the year by year components of the check out the link : http://tinyurl.com/yg8yqnw

It is my opinion that by mandating that businesses supply their employees with health care the current average quality of business owner-employee relations can only improve. By carrying the responsibility of providing their employee's with health care, business owners will think twice about who they hire, and develop stronger relationships with the people they do hire. This is because their cost per employee is higher, so the risks of hiring a sub-par employee are higher. Basically, I predict that employee retention rates will rise, although many analysts state that we are growing into a more transient job market. However, the potential downside of this mandate is that the additional costs of providing health care might limit new hires for small and medium sized businesses. Hopefully by the time that businesses must start providing these services-starting 2014-the economy will have recovered to a state that more closely resembles 2006. By providing subsidies for small businesses this year, the Obama administration is trying to pressure the private sector into making the change now, instead of waiting for 2014. Overall, I think this bill is good thing for businesses and consumers because it provides more opportunities for coverage. Of course, I personally believe that health care is a basic human right and should be guaranteed to all citizens at birth- so I might be a little biased when analyzing how the bill will effect small businesses. In the end, it is up to economic s to decide how it will all turn out. And economics is often counter intuitive to say the least.

Jackson Esate signs huge deal with Sony

Since his death 9 months ago, Micheal Jackson has sold 31 million records worldwide. That's quite the accomplishment for a deceased person, and although the singer himself no longer benefits from his status as a Pop legend his estate and record company do. It was announced this week that Sony Music has reached a deal with the Jackson estate to release 10 albums, some containing unreleased material, from now until 2017. In return, the Jackson Estate will receive up to $250 million in advances and royalties over the next 7 years. But this is more than just a record deal, it is a publishing contract as well. Just as MJ famously bought the publishing rights to the majority of the Lennon-McCartney catalog, Sony has bought the rights to publish and license Jackson's songs. As music becomes more accessible and 'free' everyday online, musical copyright owners are shifting their focus to publishing deals-such as playing a song in a TV commercial-to pursue income.

So you may be asking, why is this significant? Well first off, expect more MJ songs in commercials and internet advertising. Sony has to make up for the downsizing of the record business by focusing their publishing company initiatives. Although you might not want to see the King of Pop exploited into selling Insurance or the new season of The Wire, keep in mind that his estate, particularly his father, probably has less integrity that the music giant company. Also, the possibility that the Jackson Estate will sell the publishing rights to the Beatles catalog is not completely out of the question-especially in light of this deal with Sony- although MJ did tell a British tabloid that he intended to leave McCartney the catalog in his will (according to sources at AOL music.) But of course, he died before legal action could make his 'wish' come true.

Public School Curriculum Standardization?

I found this article that directly relates to this morning's discussion of the American educational system. A panel, that includes representatives from 48 states and numerous federal councils, made recommendations for standardizing curriculum on a federal level. Although the recommendation is by no means a sure sign of things to come, it is interesting to think about the impact a bill standarding education would have (good and bad implications.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/11/education/11educ.html?hp

Ameriville

Ameriville, written and preformed by 4 members of the Bronx based theater group Universes, was a blistering performance that blended music, politics and drama into a compelling piece of theater. The piece was made up of many segments- some entirely music and dance focused, some strict monologues, and others in between- to create a overarching narrative of life in post-Katrina, and post-Bush America. Ambitious and sometimes polarizing, the political subject matter ranged from gun violence to the KKK to health reform. As each segment presented a new problem, or different views of the same probable, I became more aware that the play had no motive in answering of the questions it posed. Perhaps that was our job- to go forth and start solving the county's problems- however, if that was their intent it might have been more effective to only address key issues. Musically, the show was gripping. The blend of gospel, hip hop, soul and pop was very entrancing from the audience's perspective. Also the the singing and acting was great from all four cast members. After reading in a review of the show that the performers also wrote the piece, I am not surprised at all. Their passion on stage was not missed by the audience, who gave them a standing ovation at the play's conclusion.

Will the songs and stories of Ameriville stick with me? Probably not. While I found the performance entertaining and undeniably original, I feel that the play presented many opened ended, ambiguous questions. Some segments were particularly moving, however many also fell short from striking a real chord in me. Overall , I liked the play, I feel they may have tried to do too much.

Nearly a third of Youtube searches are for Musical Content

Recently it was reported by research company Sysomos that %30.7 of Youtube's traffic comes from users watching music videos, or videos of songs with still images. Youtube, the internet leading source for media, has virtually become a pseudo-media player for many internet users. Instead of playing songs off of Itunes or Windows Media Player, people search on Youtube for music the want to hear. Youtube has adapted to support this mentality by giving Youtube members the options to 'favorite' certain videos and even make play lists of memorable content. This news supports the theory that music lovers are moving to more on-demand streaming platforms, as they find less reason to actually own music. Streaming sites like Pandora and Last.fm have reached new heights of popularity within the last year. The evolution of the internet into the most powerful and unprecedented storage unit of content in the world has many music indusrty experts signaling the change to more all-access type media platforms already popular online. Youtube serves as a accurate gauge of how this transition is taking place. The sharable nature of Youtube videos also accounts for the surge of video related searches. Embedded videos have become a fixture of for bloggers, who embed 57% of music videos shared last year. Also notable is that music videos are the most viewed category on Youtube for all age groups, although younger demographics do statistically view music content more frequently.

Abbey Road's Future Unclear

Reacting to speculations that music industry giant EMI is selling Abbey Road studios, the company announced Monday that it is not selling but 'revitalizing' the famed studio space. Apparently, the stumbling economy and Abby Road's historically high recording rates has greatly reduced EMI's income over the past few years. Rumors surfaced last week that the company was considering putting the studio up on the market, prompting protest from former Beatles member Paul McCartney. In their statement the company expressed concern that the future of the studio is uncertain, as the space undoubtedly needs investment for repairs and maintenance. EMI stated,

"Abbey Road studios had, for a number of years, been losing money and we have developed plans to revitalize the studios, these plans would involve a substantial injection of new capital."

So what does the future hold for Abbey Road? Well, we don't really know. EMI admitted that many potential investors have already sat down with the company to discuss possible finincial relations. We do know however that the record company will not sell the studios, as they revelaed that they recieved a 46 million dollar offer for the space in 2009, but rejected it. They have not cited who made the offer.

Abbey Road is of course the most famous recording studio in pop culture, and one of the most prestigious recording spaces available to musicians. The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Radiohead, Kate Nash, Elliott Smith and many more have all recorded important albums at Abbey Road.


Herbie Handcock and Corinne Bailey Rae cover Joni Mitchell's River at Abbey Road.

Happy Birthday J Dilla

Today, February 7th, would be the 36th birthday of legendary record producer and composer J Dilla. Born James Dewitt Yance in Detroit, Michigan, Dilla first gained a reputation for composing beats used by popular rappers in the mid 1990's. Dilla's influence on hip-hop is undeniable; he has produced records for A Tribe Called Quest, Bust Rhymes, De La Soul, Q-Tip, Janet Jackson, The Roots, Common, Mos Def, Daft Punk, Talib Kweli and many more. In addition to making beats and producing, J started a notable performance/MC career in 2000. His final album, entitled Donuts- released 3 days before he died- has become one of hip-hops 'classic albums'. On February 10th, 2006, Dilla passed away from a complications related to a blood disease. He died peacefully in his Los Angles home. Yancey will always be remembered for his contributions to american music, and more specifically hip-hip and rap. RIP

Meet Live Nation Entertainment

On Monday the U.S. Department of Justice confirmed a merger between two mega companies despised by frequent concert-goers: Ticketmaster and Live Nation. The new company will be called Live Nation Entertainment. The merger was proposed last February and it has been under consideration by governments worldwide ever since. The Department of Justice has made some changes to the merger proposed by the campiness last year. They are as follows:

•Ticketmaster must license it’s Ticketing software for 5 years to competitors Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG) and another yet-to-be-determined company. After this time the other companies will have the option of purchasing the software
permanently.

•Ticketmaster must sell its subsidiary ticketing company Paciola to either Comcast or another large entertainment company.

•The newly created company is forbidden by law retaliate against any venue that chooses to use a competitor ticketing service. This is especially important as Live Nation serves as a pseudo-record label for such notable acts as Jay Z, Madonna, Nickelback, U2, and Shikira.

Although the merger will undoubtedly further monopolize the live entertainment market, I believe the provisions added by the Department of Justice will encourage more serious competition to emerge over time. As our country moves more towards online efficiency every day, it is foreseeable that the guidelines established by the U.S. government will allow other companies to create a more fan-friendly ticking experience with new online tools. One can hope that once venue’s contracts with Live Nation or Ticketmaster expire (most contracts are 5 or 10 year deals) they will be able to find more efficient and respectable alternatives to the current super-company.
Live Nation owns thousands of U.S. venues (including all House Of Blues franchisees and the title ‘Fillmore’ made famous Bill Graham) and Ticketmaster has exclusive rights to sell tickets to most, if not more, of these same venues. So, if a noteworthy band decides to book a nationwide tour they are forced into using Live Nation/Ticketmaster as their ticketing and production team. An example of the companies' powers is when Pearl Jam refused to play Ticketmaster venues from 1994-1998. Despite their strong commitment to lead the fight against the ticketing agency the band was persuaded to end the boycott by their fans. Pearl Jam fans were upset by the difficulty of obtaining tickets since the playing was forced to play mainly small venues.



According to the standards of ethical business practices neither Live Nation nor Ticketmaster are good at customer service and support. In fact, there are the only companies I have ever truly believed to be evil. Yes, evil (keep in mind I go to a lot of concerts). Yesterday I bought a ticket to see Yonder Mountain String Band at the House of Blues through Live Nation’s website, an $18.50 face-value ticket. Once the outrageous ‘service’ fees were added to my order my debit card was charged a $29. These added ticket costs are unavoidable, even if you drive to a Ticketmaster or Live Nation Location ahead of time, use Will Call, or print the tickets at home. Last year I bought a ticket through Ticketmaster’s subsidiary company Ticketweb and the ‘service’ fees actually exceeded the face value of the ticket.
Lets hope that future will bring a more fairly minded ticketing industry. I am optimistic that the shear amount of opposition and hatred directed at Live Nation Entertainment will alert competitors of the demand for a respectable ticketing industry service.

Myspace strikes deal with Sound Exchange

Since entering the internet lexicon in 2004 Myspace has been called labeled a lot of things: revolutionary, useful, addictive, and creepy to name a few. However, of all the terms that could be used to describe the website the last one that likely comes to mind it fair.

Myspace is aware of their fall in popularity as a social networking site. However, Myspace Music, (the section of the site that allows artist to make a page to post their music, pictures, tour dates, ect) is forever growing in size and annual advertising revenue. Surprisingly, Myspace is the largest advertising supported music website on the internet. They make more money than anyone else from recorded music, yet fail to pay the performers their deserved royalties. Seems unfair right? Well, that’s about to change.

Myspace just announced that it will team up with the company Sound Exchange to pay performers and copyright owners the appropriate royalties generated from their Myspace pages. Initially funded by the U.S. government, Sound Exchange is a not-for-profit company that collects royalties from internet and satellite radio or streaming stations on the behalf of performing artists and sound recording copyright owners. Basically, Sound Exchange keeps track of what songs are played, on what stations, and at what times, then compiles all this information in order to determine the money that each station owes it’s featured artists. Internet radio stations and other websites like Myspace pay Sound Exchange in a single payout semi-annually, and the company then distributes the appropriate monies to artists and copyright holders registered with Sound Exchange.

Here.s video explaining Sound Exchange . Note the super-cool graphics:



This deal with Myspace is a huge breakthrough for Sound Exchange, which main challenge is lack of awareness. Hopefully, by notifying all Myspace music users of Sound Exchange, thousands of recording artists will have the opportunity to receive money that is rightfully theirs.

The Future of Online Music?

Many who follow the online music world closely are already familiar with music streaming sites like Lala.com and its European counterpart Spotify.com. Undoubtedly, you have Googled one of your favorite bands or a new artist that you are interested in, and songs off their Lala artist page appear at the top of your Google search results. Welcome to the new model of accessing music: streaming.

This new model combines the instantaneous nature of internet radio stations like Pandora and Last.fm with the music player layout characteristic of traditional online music stores (most notably Itunes). However, the Lala music store is entirely online and keeps your music files online too. When one signs up for Lala, they can play over 8 million songs for free off Lala.com. If one downloads the Lala Music Player one can still stream for free, but to eliminate searching for specific songs over and over again the listener has the option to buy a song for 10 cents and keep it in their Lala library. When a listener downloads the music player, the application searches the listener’s computer for existent music and adds it to their Lala player- all for free. Lala is the U.S. leader of the latest crop of digital music distribution models all geared towards streaming music instantly rather than possessing it. Why take up the hard drive space to store you music when it is cheaper to buy music though Lala and then have it stored online. The argument Lala begs you to consider: why is worth owning music in 2010 anyway?

Apples acquisition of Lala last month will surely bring us a new potential leader for playing music online. Although already #1, it is expected that Itunes will consider Lala's successes when fully developing their latest version of the Itunes music store, and maybe even launch a new online version of Itunes akin to Lala. Either way, it is no surprise that the kings of Web 2.0; Apple, Google, and Microsoft, all showed interest in buying Lala last month. As already stated, Apple prevailed over these companies, but that does not mean we shouldn’t expect Lala’s future to be limited to Apple products. It is curious to note why Lala songs jump to number one on all Google search results for musicians. It seems there might be more in store for this relatively small music website than I formerly anticipated.

Welcome to New Speedway Blog

This is my page dedicated discussing Music, Politics, Technology and convergence of these topics. As we enter a new decade the way we access music is rapidly changing. Similarly, there is a shift in how we as Americans share ideas and understand Politics. I hope to publish content that will help us understand where music and politics are heading in light our new ways of accessing information. Change is all around us, and this blog gets it's title from the Grateful Dead song New Speedway Boogie, which is all about the inevitably of change.

"Who can deny, who can deny, it's not just a change in style?"

New Speedway Boogie - Grateful...