Janis Ian interview

This appears in the February issue of PureMusic.com. An exerpt:

PM: Does that fascinating two-part article continue to generate correspondence and controversy?

JI: Yes, kind of an absurd amount of it. It's terrible to say, but I'm totally over it. [laughs] I mean, nobody in my camp expected anything to come of it. It's just another article. So when our website hits suddenly shot up--we had 60,000 hits one day--I went, "Oh!" [sighs]

PM: 60,000 hits in one day?

JI: Yeah, yeah. We were slashed on it. But that was the worst of it. The main hassle for me was just that I really have always answered all my e-mail. So to answer 300, 400 e-mails a day, sitting in the car--I had to switch from AOL to Earthlink because AOL kept insisting I was spamming.

Say What? [] 1:58:31 PM  Permalink  

ALERT!!!

There are ghosts in my machine. One wierd side effect is that I can't open a Comments window or see the little numbers that alert me to the presence and quantity of comments. 

"I'm a little verklempt! Talk amongst yourselves..I'll give you a topic: Rhode Island, it's not a road, nor an island...discuss!"

                                                                           Linda Richman

Say What? [] 11:35:35 AM  Permalink  

Song du Jours (3)

* Tennessee Waltz
* Bessie Smith
* Crazy

all by Norah Jones from bootleg MP3s of a gig at the House of Blues in Chicago, 4/12/02

Say What? [] 11:01:57 AM  Permalink  

Buddy Holley. The Day the Music Died ...It was February 3, 1959 that Buddy Holley, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper were killed in a plane crash. You need look no further to find one of the true icons of rock and roll than Buddy Holley. Originally scheduled to fly, Waylon Jennings gave his seat to an ailing Big Bopper. When Holly learned that Jennings wasn't going to fly, he said, "Well, I hope your old bus freezes up." Jennings responded, "Well, I hope your plane crashes." This friendly banter of friends would haunt Jennings for years. And can anyone really decipher Don McLeans' "American Pie"? More. [MetaFilter] [Steve's No Direction Home Page]
Say What? [] 10:08:51 AM  Permalink  

Society's Child.

Via lots of weblogs, here's this terrific Janis Ian editorial from the LA Times (free registration required). She's referring to the recent disastrous decision that Verizon must give to the RIAA the names of music downloaders. It's clear that the record industry isn't so much concerned with paying the artists (well, I guess that's a big "Duh" but thesure do pretend to be), as it is exercising control over how music is made available.

The Internet means exposure, and these days, unless you're in the Top 40, you're not getting on the radio. The Internet is the only outlet for many artists to be heard by an audience bigger than whoever shows up at a local coffeehouse. The Internet allows people like me to gain new fans; if only 10% of those downloading my music buy my records or come to my shows, I've just gained enough fans to fill Carnegie Hall twice over.

...Do you like '50s-style acoustic folk? Big band music? European synth? If the decision stands, you'll have to rely on word of mouth to find it -- not the Internet. Because if you get hold of an "infringing" file, you may find yourself on the receiving end of a record company lawsuit too expensive for any individual to fight.

The entertainment industry has a long history of trying to shut down new technology. Most often, it has imagined that new products and services threatened industry sales. It's been proved wrong time and time again; it fought home video tooth and nail, but videotapes and rentals now bring in more money than movie releases. Music history is littered with record industry campaigns against reel-to-reel home tape recorders, cassettes, minidiscs, music videos and MTV. [Steve's No Direction Home Page]

I was just about to post this. Thanks Steve. Society's Child is one smart woman now.

Say What? [] 10:05:40 AM  Permalink  

Lou Harrison, 85, Dies; Music Tied Cultures. Lou Harrison, a distinguished composer in all genres of classical music and a leading exemplar of the marriage of Asian and Western music, died on Sunday. By John Rockwell. [New York Times: Arts]

I was exposed to Harrison's music by Ann. Modern dancers never never tired of using his work with their correography.

Say What? [] 10:02:15 AM  Permalink  

Cloudy channel
My radio listening habits tend toward college stations and public radio -- what the Replacements celebrated as "Left of the Dial." So my awareness of the continued degradation of the commercial part of the spectrum has been provided mainly by the dogged investigative work of Salon's Eric Boehlert, whose exposes of the Clear Channel monopoly have justly earned him a passel of awards.

Today's New York Times brings a new twist on Clear Channel-ism: David Gallagher reports on the remarkable process by which this radio mega-conglomerate has assembled a DJ from database parts. Basically, they've taken the recorded voice of Carson Daly, chopped it into little snippets and used those soundbites to re-assemble pseudo-local broadcasts -- so that listeners in, say, Atlanta hear a localized "top 40" broadcast, with Daly introducing each song in the particular order that applies to that market, yet Daly never actually said those words in that order.

It's hard to know whether to applaud the ingenuity required to create such a DJ-bot, or barf at the complete triumph of corporate homogenization that it represents. I think the gagging in my throat tells me which reaction predominates for me. [Scott Rosenberg's Links & Comment]

i haven't been following this at all. wow. i knew it was bad, but i had no idea that it was this bad.

Say What? [] 9:45:47 AM  Permalink