Saturday, 22 May 2004

Lamborghini police car in Italy italiaspeed Lamborghini have donated one of their Gallardo sportscars, complete with siren & flashing lights, to the State Police on the occasion of their 152nd anniversary For the first time, Italian State Police (Polizia di Stato) will use a Lamborghini Gallardo Police Car. The supercar, in State Police colours, with a siren and flashing lights on the roof, has been donated by the House of Sant’Agata Bolognese to the State Police on the occasion of its 152nd anniversary, held in the customary setting of the Piazza del Popolo in Rome on the 14th, 15th and 16th May 2004. [Joi Ito's Web] I bet every cop will want to drive that baby.... 1:56:07 PM  Permanent Link 2 this Entry   CD Baby Music: La Semana Mood: amused Also, OL, I found this picture around online...where is it from? http://www.cdbaby.com/covers/o/t/ottmar.jpg - Adam Solomon • 5/21/04; 11:43:59 PM Adam, Adam, Adam, I always have to worry about you or Carol snooping around the web and digging up stuff. : ) That is a picture of an advance CD cover I typed up myself a few weeks back. I have been trying to get my new music onto iTunes for about a year. Sadly iTunes does not respond well to artists - either that or I have a bounty on my head and don't know it. My split with Epic Records/Sony Music was completely positive and I doubt that anything was "requested" by them. I believe this is more likely due to Apple's incredible arrogance. Anyway, when the Apple Audio Marketing Manager came out to see Canton's set-up at the Mountain Winery in Saratoga last year, I thought I had it sewn up. He gave me a name at iTunes to contact, which I did right away. I was then sent a PDF form to fill out and fax back to iTunes with all the information about myself, about the album (nouveaumatic) and about SSRI. When I had not heard back in a couple of weeks, I followed up with another email. I found out that the person I had contacted was no longer at iTunes. What happened to the fax I sent, I inquired. Probably in a pile somewhere, was the answer. Good to know that my data is safe! Then I contacted the new person in charge of independent labels at iTunes. No answer. Soon I received another name at iTunes from a friend whose friend worked at Apple. This should be easy they said, here is what you have to say.... - you guessed it, no answer. I don't like being ignored, so I made a last attempt and another friend gave me yet another name at iTunes and a magic line to use in my email. This will work 100%, as this person works with this person and knows this person and xyz is a big star. OK, another email, mentioning all of the magic words and names - and no answer.... Since iTunes did not to respond to me, I was seeking a different way to get my new music onto all of the different music download sites and CD Baby seemed like the solution. They are now acting as my "Digital Distributor" in return for 9% of the revenue. Not just for iTunes, but a long list of music download sites they work with. Unfortunately CD Baby has a strange system going. You can only get Digital Distribution from CD Baby if you send them 5 CDs for sale. One CD goes to their library and they use it to rip into all kinds of formats, the other four get sold. They deliver the music in whatever file format a site requires on Hard Drives they sent out. In order to get "La Semana" online with a bunch of the music download sites by the time June rolls around, I sent CD Baby 5 advance CDs that were not meant to be sold. Their work-around was to set a ridiculous price for those CDs. Well, hopefully CD Baby will get the new album onto iTunes and all of the other sites by the Summer.... Once the official "La Semana" DigiPak edition is done, and we are only a week or so away from getting those copies, it will be available from CD Baby as well as directly from us. The LImited Edition will only be available from us, of course. I have to say trying to work independently is difficult. From the refusal of iTunes to talk to me, to the refusal of Billboard Magazine to review albums because they are "not in traditional stores"... It has been a very hard year for us and frankly, if "La Semana" doesn't bring a turn-around, I will spend 2005 to think of something new to do with my life. Maybe become a resident guitarist in a hotel on the coast of Mexico? But, to end this post on a positive note, it ain't over until the fat lady sings, and we have many weeks of touring ahead of us and much could happen before 2004 is over. NF sold a lot of copies on the strength of word-of-mouth and while "La Semana" is a more sophisticated album than NF, I also think it is a deeper and richer album and could spark something in the general public. PS: The "La Semana" bio is up on our site. 8:21:35 AM  Permanent Link 2 this Entry

© Copyright 2004 Ottmar Liebert. Last update: 01.06.04; 10:27:33.