Hello everyone,

There are a few stories that have been catching my attention recently. Things like the AARP’s recent announcement and the impending death of Internet radio, well they are just super important to me.

This week, the Future of Music Coalition (FMC) is blogging on what Clear Channel Entertainment is doing with Indie artists, insofar as their request for artists to waive performance royalties in exchange for airplay. In general, Coalitions (big “C”) frighten me. They remind me of what Homer Simpson says about museums: “Good things don’t end in -eum. They end in -teria and -mania.”

But I think that the way that FMC is writing about Clear Channel is worth checking out. Here’s a nice overview of Clear Channel’s history, through the eyes of FMC. They start out on the ominous side (and don’t really let up):

This week the Future of Music Coalition is taking on Clear Channel because the company is forcing local and indie artists to waive performance royalties to have their music considered for airplay on the chain’s stations.

What’s really angered us is that the move comes as part of a settlement of an FCC investigation into payola at Clear Channel stations. According to the terms of the deal, Clear Channel and other broadcasters must play 4,200 hours of local and independent music. So let’s recap: Clear Channel is investigated for payola and then they turn around and ask local and indie artists to give up something of value to get on the air. Kind of sounds like payola all over again, doesn’t it?

It seems like this sort of speaks for itself, but just to be clear: this is bad.

Happy reading,

Rick

A quick note about updates to the site. I have been spending most of my blogging time working on how the site operates, rather than uploading new content. The new features include:

• Get updates by email – click the orange button (RSS) in the upper right hand corner of the front page. There are a few different subscription options, including RSS feeds to your favorite reader and email updates. To get updates by email, click the box that says “Get Listen delivered by email,” enter your email address, enter the code in the window, check your email, click the link, and then what happens – as the provider says – “no new content, no new email.” Simple.
• Share postings – At the bottom of each posting are two links, one that says Share This and one that says Share on Facebook. If you click on Share This, you will see a bunch of Web 2.0 sites that allow you to share my postings. Share on Facebook, if you subscribe to it.

Now that I have gotten these two things (and many, many other things) up and running, here’s what else I’m working on, content-wise:

• Short reviews of current music in any genre
• Longer reviews of, well, any kind of music. I have been thinking about Bjork and Sun Ra a lot recently – no, not separately, but together. Maybe I’ll even do a mash up
• Quick links to important happenings in the music industry, just to keep you up to date (in case you aren’t already following this stuff)
• Longer posts on music industry shenanigans. Recently I have been tracking stories on how artists establish themselves, CD “sales,” the end of the Internet-Music-World as we know it, and of course, our friends at Clear Channel.

So, thanks again. Subscribe to RSS or email updates. It’s more fun that way.

Thanks,

Rick McLaughlin

Yes, Menomena, like the Muppets tune.

The tune that has been permanently lodged in my brain today is by a Portland, Oregon-based group, Menomena. The tune “Weird” appeared on a music blog, and I just sort of half-listened for a moment. Then the tune knocked me out and since then any spare moment I have has been spent listening to it. This tune is amazing. (more…)

Here’s one from the spring that never got published:

One of my students brought in the Ray Lamontagne CD “Till the Sun Turns Black” recently. We listened to excerpts of Be Here Now, Empty, and Three More Days. Via a music blog, I listened to Be Here Now several times, almost obsessively, and have since purchased the entire CD. It’s a fantastic piece of music, and it has appeared on the ABC show The Nine, (season 1, episode 6, “Take Me Instead”). In hopes of avoiding a large-scale deconstruction of this song, let me just ask this question: What does this song have to do with Bhagavan Das? (more…)

Ask and you shall receive. I guess that’s the moral of the story. Yesterday, I said that I wished that the Cutline theme came in a 3-column version that had the content in the center. I said that, sort of apologetically, and in the context that sort of felt “Oh well, short of that, I guess I’ll have to use Modern Paper 1.”

I came home from teaching tonight and decided to look one more time for anything Cutline to use, to hack, to well, anything. And here it is. Cutline 3-column, with the content centered.

There is much to do to get this up and running, but for now, know that the content works and the comments should work, the RSS feed works (if you use Firefox or another reader, otherwise cut/paste the info into something like Google Reader), and I’ll be working on getting the rest to fall into place post haste.

Thanks,

Rick

Who knew that choosing a theme – the design for a blog – could be so time consuming? I strolled over to Emily Robbins’ Comprehensive list of 980+ themes, and also stumbled around various other related places, and have managed to waste much more time than I dare admit to myself. So what you see here is the third theme that I have tried on this site. I also checked out two others on my old site. Let me know what you think. Obviously, I need it to be readable, and not annoying to look at. My runner up fave is called Cutline, and if I could figure out how to bring the margins in on the three column version, and better yet, center the content, then back I would probably go to it.

But instead, presenting Modern Paper 1. There are still quite a few things to deal with, like having 2 search fields and the general arrangement of the sidebars to the right of this text. Also, hey wouldn’t it be nice to have a photo or two up? That’s something I really liked about Cutline. It was really easy to read, clean looking, and even though I spent hours (ahem) trying to change the images, the stock stuff was pretty great.

So what about Modern Paper 1?

Thanks,

Rick