jamie on August 19th, 2008
LeRoi Moore, one of the founding members of the Dave Matthews Band, died earlier today in Los Angeles from complications due to an ATV accident he was in in June of this year. The saxaphonist was 46 years old, and had been playing with the band since its inception in 1991. He was born in Nurham, North Carolina and grew up on the same street as fellow band member Carter Beauford in Charlotsville, Virginia.
The band is still scheduled to play their sheduled show in Los Angeles tonight.
LeRoi played just about every kind of sax imaginable, as well as other woodwind instruments with the Dave Matthews Band, and his horn work is integral to the signature sound of the band.
LeRoi Moore 1961-2008
jamie on August 19th, 2008
Popular mixtape-making website Muxtape is down today, saying only:
“Muxtape will be unavailable for a brief period while we sort out a problem with the RIAA.”
The muxtape blog goes on a little to say that “No artists or labels have complained. The site is not closed indefinitely. Stay tuned.”
A cnet article speculates that the RIAA may be after royalties for streaming media for the thousnads of music files that stream from the service every day. Pitchfork’s article even suggest it could be a publicity stunt. The last time I checked out the service, I noticed it used a simple mp3-streaming mechanism for media delivery that left copies of everything you played in your browser’s cache (a trick I really love).
jamie on August 18th, 2008
Due to an increase in per-play royalty fees, the popular Internet radio site may have to shut down operations if a profitable solution cannot be found. Pandora’s founder, Tim Westergren, told the Washington Post that the company expects to be shelling out as much as 70% of their $25 million in revenue this year- a number too high to continue operation. Recently, the site launched an application for the iPhone, bringing true Internet radio to the mobile platform.
The hike in royalty rates was ushered into legislation last year by industry group SoundScan (who collect and distribute these royalties to labels and artists), nearly doubling the rate per play on the Internet. The U.S. Copyright Royalty Board set these per-song performance rates for Internet outlets higher than those paid by Satellite radio or traditional radio stations (who pay NO performance royalties). SoundScan argues that the potential to profit from Internet radio is higher than other mediums, and therefore the rates are fair.
In January, after attempting to hammer out a deal with UK labels and publishers, Pandora blocked usage of their service to users outside the United States. In a statement on the company’s blog, Westergren said
“It continues to astound us that the industry is not working more constructively to support the growth of services that introduce listeners to new music, and that are totally supportive of paying fair royalties to the creators of music.”
Recently, another major Internet outlet, last.fm, has started paying royalties directly to certain independent artists, cutting out SoundScan, and reducing the per-play amount they have to pay.
jamie on August 15th, 2008
The full moon will be out this weekend, so be on the lookout for werewolves and, here in Georgia, Bigfoot apparently. I contemplated doing a Bigfoot themed mixtape this week (allmusic.com has 171 songs with “bigfoot” in the title alone), but tracks like Bigfoot Eat Bananna, Boppin’ With Bigfoot, and Bigfoot By The Ocean just weren’t really in line with the Friday Mixtape. So, while Bigfoot Goes to Heaven and Lullaby of Bigfoot were both appropriate and moving, I’ve opted for your normal, run-of-the-mill Friday Mixtape. Thank me later for not doing the bigfoot thing…
Tracklisting:
Biffy Clyro - Mountains
Darker My Love - Two Ways Out
Drones - Baby Squared
Franz Ferdinand - Lucid Dreams
Iglu & Hartly - In This City
Jem - On Top Of The World
Jeremy Warmsley - Temptation
Magnetic Morning - Cold War Kids
Oasis - Shock Of The Lightning
Red Light Company - Meccano
The Automatic - Steve McQueen
The Rosebuds - Life Like
Download it here while you can!
This week’s image comes from Luz A. Villa.
jamie on August 15th, 2008
Pop Death Squad sent me an email announcement yesterday and my jaw just kinda dropped.
pop death squad presents::
BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE 5 POINTS
at THE STAR BAR
THURS AUG 21 // 21 and UP // 9PM
with:
Modern Skirts // myspace.com/modernskirts
Y-O-U and the PleaseRock Revue // myspace.com/pleaserock
Trae Vedder of Death On Two Wheels // myspace.com/deathontwowheels
FREE - FREE - FREE
Big Trouble In Little 5 Points - Aug 21
