by La Shawn on March 28, 2008
in Playlist
As I desperately try to finish my work so I can go outside and play, I wanted to take a moment and post another short random playlist. (So glad I heard of Leona Lewis long before Miss Oprah “discovered” her.) Some of you really enjoyed the one I posted two Fridays ago.
(Obligatory disclaimer: Seeqpod is a music search engine, and I’m sharing a playlist. Seeqpod doesn’t host copyrighted MP3s, and neither do I. Do not illegally download and/or share the MP3s!)
As always, play hard, be good, stay safe, and rest easy this weekend.
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I found a link to an old story in the New York Times magazine called “Sex, Drugs and Updating Your Blog.” It was published last year, but in web time, that’s old.
The gist of the well-written and appealing story is this: new and/or struggling musicians can make a decent living without record labels and big marketing machines if they harness the power of the web by starting blogs, running discussion boards, and interacting with fans, who want to feel connected.
Musicmakers and Blogupdaters
Heavily featured in the piece is a musician named Jonathan Coulton, who quit the 9 to 5 to write and perform music. He posts a new tune on his blog every week. Coulton’s earning a decent income selling his music online, and he’s managed to build quite a fan community.
One fan creates illustrations (for free) for each of his songs. Other fans make videos for his songs and post them on YouTube, which promotes his music and creates even more fans. Yet another fan built a web site to archive fan-made videos.
Coulton makes (and saves) money when traveling by doing what I call “target touring.” He polls readers to find where they live and schedules a concert if there are more than 100 fans in a given area. That way, he knows a show will sell well, and he endears himself to fans even more by hitting smaller towns where other acts rarely tread.
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Tom Tancredo was right.
We don’t need to round up and deport millions of illegal aliens. Just enforce the law, and they’ll leave, he said. I always thought the “we can’t deport millions of people” argument was a fallacious one anyway, but no matter.
Last month I wrote about Prince William County’s efforts to crack down on illegal “immigration” in its midst. Yesterday, the Washington Post published another one of its notoriously gag-inducing stories about “poor illegal aliens” afraid of the police. I find them quite tedious, so I empathize if you don’t want to read this one. But if you must: “In N.Va., a Latino Community Unravels.”
I’m waiting, in vain I suspect, for the Post to do a sympathetic human interest story on how American citizens and legal aliens in Northern Virginia have been negatively impacted by people sneaking across the border, bringing all kinds of social pathologies with them, getting paid under the table, changing the character of the neighborhood, and on and on.
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For 17 years, Jeff Price owned an independent label called spinART Records. He managed to do great things, but that was before the so-called digital revolution. In 2004, Price realized the label was no longer sustainable.
“The advent and general adoption of the Internet, digital media and hardware took control of the global music industry away from the record labels and media outlets and handed it to the masses,” he writes. (Source)
Rather than cursing the masses and resisting changes brought on by the Internet, Price decided to adapt. He wanted to stay in the music business but needed to make money. “[W]hat could I do to remain in the music industry under a model that would not rely on selling music (the exploitation model),” he asked himself. “And thus the idea for a new model was born, turn distribution into a service for a simple up front, one time flat fee.”
Digital Label
Price created a service called TuneCore, which allows artists to upload songs and create albums. TuneCore places these albums in online music stores, and artists keep all the profits and all their rights. And they can cancel their accounts at any time. The catch? Well, if you want to call it that, TuneCore charges 99 cents a track, 99 cents a store per track, and $19.98 a year per album for storage and maintenance. Not a bad deal.
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On November 4, 2008, the people of Colorado will vote on whether their state government may continue preferring one group over another based on race and sex in hiring and admissions.
The Secretary of State has determined that the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative has received enough signatures to be placed on the November ballot. Said Ward Connerly, the man behind the anti-preferences machine:
“The people in Colorado who have the desire to end race and gender preferences are to be commended for their success. I am delighted that the Super-Tuesday for Equal Rights effort has achieved another milestone towards success in November.”
The Colorado Civil Rights Initiative, a state constitutional amendment, will appear on the ballot as Amendment 46. Vote YES on Amendment 46 to bar the state from hiring, contracting, and admitting people based on skin color or genitalia. The push for equal treatment continues in states like Arizona, Missouri, and Oklahoma.
Connerly, of the American Civil Rights Institute, spearheaded campaigns against race and sex preferences in several states. Liberal Californians voted against preferences in government hiring, contracting, and admissions by 54 percent in 1996. So did 58.3 percent of voters in Washington state in 1998 and 58 percent of Michigan voters in 2006.
Related posts:
by La Shawn on March 21, 2008
in Faith
I dig these “music industry in flux” articles.
Change can make one feel unsteady, but we all need to be shaken up from time to time. The old ways of doing things pass away, opening up new and sometimes fresh ways of buying, selling, living…
The article begins with a reference to Amy Winehouse and rehab and ends with this advice to an industry staring at the digital revolution like a deer in headlights: “[T]o shake off its blues, the record business must itself continue to break old habits. Saying yes to rehab is a start, but returning to health is going to take a sustained dose of discipline and imagination.”
In between are issues familiar to regular LBC readers and others following music/digital tech news: CDs sales are down, illegal downloading is up, record labels are trying to lay claim to artists’ concert ticket and merchandise sales (known as 360 deals) because CDs sales are drying up, etc. If you have the time (and inclination), read the entire article. It’s a concise, information-packed overview of the state of the music industry today.
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Update (5/31/09): The death man is dead.
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Child killing is a messy business.
At a recent conference hosted by the National Education Association (NEA), a pro-life organization called Students for Life of America secretly videotaped a child killing “doctor” named Tiller talking about babies slipping out and being born alive during the child killing procedure. He condemns these mishaps as “sloppy medicine.” Watch and listen. The sound quality is not the best, but you can hear what he says.
(Tiller the child killer, cultivator of death. Get it? I took my pun pills this morning.)
Tiller, who is facing 19 criminal charges for illegal “partial birth” abortions in Kansas, makes the case for infanticide by showing graphic photos of unborn babies with abnormalities. He admits on tape to having aborted babies a day before the mother’s due date. One murdered baby in Tiller’s photo collage was a child with three arms. Why didn’t the mother carry the baby to term and consider corrective surgery after he was born? A baby with an extra arm isn’t worthy of life? (See Not Down with Down: Kill the Baby!)
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by La Shawn on March 18, 2008
in Faith
Every March 18, I wonder if there’s any point in continuing to mention my “sobriety anniversary” on the blog. Who really cares? For me, it seems so long ago.
Then I think about people still stuck in the drunk cycle. And I have to mention it.
I used to say to myself: Nobody understands what I’m going through. If I stopped, it would kill me. My life is meaningless without alcohol. Life’s not worth living, anyway. I’m not worth loving. And on and on. This is a bit melodramatic, but I honestly thought I wouldn’t want to live if I couldn’t drink. For me, the psychological hold was much stronger than the physical one.
Does that sound familiar to you? If you drink like a fish, can’t seem to stop, and can’t imagine life without that next drink, listen to my testimony. There is life without alcohol, glorious life. But be warned: mere sobriety is not enough.
A life without Christ fueled my dependency, empty and ultimately unsatisfying. I drank and couldn’t quench the thirst. Even when I got sober, I was still “thirsty.” That’s when I found Christ. Or rather, he found me. Today, life is sweet, a wonderful sight to behold with clear, unclouded eyes. Today, life in Christ is abundant, a blessing I don’t deserve.
Be courageous.
Update (3/20): I heard from quite a few recovering alcoholics in response to this post. Thanks so much for letting me know you read the blog. Many blessings to you!
Related article and post:
by La Shawn on March 14, 2008
in Playlist
I’m southbound! There’s nothing like an almost-spring road trip.
Check out Friday’s playlist, an eclectic mix of stuff I like. (Obligatory disclaimer: Seeqpod is a music search engine, and I’m sharing a playlist. Seeqpod doesn’t host copyrighted MP3s, and neither do I. Do not illegally download and/or share the MP3s!)
After I embedded two Amy Winehouse songs last week and earlier this week, I expected irate “I can’t believe you’re promoting that drug user” missives, but e-mailers loved the songs and said they’d keep Winehouse in their prayers. It does my heart good to read e-mails like that.
Anyway, enjoy! Be good, stay safe, and rest easy this weekend.
by La Shawn on March 14, 2008
in Liberals
Geraldine Ferraro, a one-time Democratic vice presidential candidate, recently said that Barack Obama was doing so well in the primaries because he’s black. As expected, it raised a s***storm. People called her a racist and demanded an apology.
I have nothing to say about the substance of Ferraro’s comments. I couldn’t care less who said what and whether the assessment is true. What I do care about is how timid and afraid people seem to become after they speak their minds.
The old saying “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen” applies whenever you speak or write publicly. If you hold “controversial” opinions, be prepared to withstand the inevitable barrage of daggers. Or else keep your mouth shut.
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If you look deeply enough, you can find common ground with the devil.
Earlier this week, members of the Christian Coalition of America (CCA) and The National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL) testified before Congress in favor of net neutrality. (Source)
Net neutrality is the idea that the Internet should be free and open. Broadband providers should not speed up or slow down a connection to a web site based on its content or its owner’s ability to pay for faster or priority access. No site is given priority over another. Net neutrality results in a “democratic” web, where surfers have equal access to everything, including junk. From Save the Internet:
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In January, I blogged about Christian parents suing a school district near St. Louis to stop Bible distribution in classrooms. Christians suing to stop Bible distribution? I tagged the post “Comedy” and “Lunacy” because I thought it was, well, funny and crazy.
As I was writing the post, however, something occurred to me. Maybe those parents had a point. Toward the end of the post, I wrote:
[L]et’s look at this a different way. Although a majority of Americans would identify themselves as Christians (as opposed to Muslims), the country isn’t religiously homogenous anymore. How would you feel about Muslims distributing Korans in public school classrooms? If a Muslim teacher visited your kid’s classroom every week to give a Koran lesson, what would you do? I wouldn’t like it. I’d probably file suit. Does that make me a hypocrite?
Perhaps that’s why these Christian parents in South Iron School District sued, to pre-empt such scenarios, to get rid of all religious books in classrooms before Muslims and others demand to distribute their literature.
Christians have fought for issues like prayer in government schools, access to meeting rooms on school grounds, etc., citing religious freedom, but the tide is turning. Although followers of Islam are a minority in the United States, they’re becoming more vocal every day.
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Last week I blogged about how the digital age has ushered in a new era of music patronage, where fans finance a band’s album through a service like SellaBand. Bands also appeal directly to fans through their own web sites. This approach proved successful for Jill Sobule.
Slicethepie, another music patronage service, just announced the release of its first fan-funded album. An indie band called The Alps raised enough funds through Slicethepie to professionally record an album. Under this business model, bands retain 100 percent copyright (and publishing rights) of their work and keep all royalties. Bands are also free to sign with a record label at any time.
[Update: Hey, I'm a random blog! Don't The Alps know who I am?]
Somebody thinks Slicethepie’s idea is a good one. The service just received about $2 million in funding, which it will use to beef up current offerings and add more services.
Thinking out loud…
Do Christian music fans camp outside concert venues to get close to the stage and gather around tour buses after shows hoping to meet the band?
Do Christian bands have to deal with stalkers, “zealous” fans who follow the band on tour, and so-called Christian young women (and men) willing to drop their pants to gain access? (So to speak!) Christ followers, eh?
Now that would be an interesting series of articles. Who shall write it? Perhaps I shall.
Watch out for that thin line between zealous fan and groupie.
