Well……anyone who knows me knows that I don’t promote violence in any way, shape or form. But damnit if this isn’t the funniest clip I’ve ever seen in my life. I’m still laughing…..
By Eliot Van Buskirk
July, 2008
14
Jul 08
Puma x BDGA Spy II Hi
Available at:
Bodega (Boston)
Atmos (New York)
Classic Kicks (New York)
ALIFE (New York)
Premium Goods (Brooklyn)
Ubiq (Philadelphia)
Huf (San Francisco)
Undefeated (Los Angeles – La Brea location)
Livestock (Toronto)
14
Jul 08
For All My Fellow Tech Nerds
HACKED!™
the OH! *#% flash drive
Holy crap—somebody just went and TORE MY FREAKING USB
CABLE IN HALF while it was still attached to my laptop! No —
wait — sorry. That’s just my USB flash drive. My bad. Nevermind.
Mammoth 2-gig capacity. Peggable blistercard packaging.
Design: Windell Oskay
©2008 FRED
14
Jul 08
Air Jordan 11
Air Jordan 11
Designer: Tinker Hatfield
Debut: 1995
The “Space Jams”, as they are known, hold a special place in many a sneaker freak’s heart, including my own. The answer to the question “What’s the big deal about the XI?” is a mere two words: patent leather. These were so sick, heads were rockin’ these to prom instead of those wack ass dress shoes.
14
Jul 08
Vinyl Lives
By Ed Christman
NEW YORK (Billboard) – It may have seemed like a fad at first, but the resurgence of vinyl is now turning into a nice niche business for the major labels. With EMI’s announcement that it would reissue eight classic albums in the format, all four majors are now onboard the vinyl bandwagon.
EMI will release two Coldplay albums, four Radiohead titles and Steve Miller’s “Greatest Hits” on August 19. Universal Music Enterprises will release 20 albums on vinyl this month and an additional 20 at the end of August, while Warner Music Group will issue 24 to 30 albums from its catalog and 10 to 12 new releases from September through the end of the year, according to executives at those companies.
In the independent camp, RED labels will have several hundred vinyl titles by the end of the year, half of which are new releases, RED vice president of indie sales/marketing Doug Wiley said. One of RED’s labels, Metal Blade, is reissuing its classic Slayer catalog in deluxe versions, all on colored vinyl with hand-designed blood splatterings on it, Wiley said.
Indie retail started the party, but now some of the chains are carrying vinyl too. In addition to Fred Meyer and Borders, Best Buy has said publicly that it will experiment with carrying LPs.
EMI Music Catalog vice president of A&R and creative Jane Ventom said that the company has always been into vinyl, “but we are getting more into it.” She said the move is in response to consumer demand from the iPod generation, baby boomers and audiophiles.
“Music is becoming a social action again,” Ventom said. “The kids are now listening to music with their mates instead of on headphones.” She added that vinyl allows them to “hear music in its true form.”
“People are going back to reliving the way they used to listen to music and they realize that they missed the (album cover) artwork and what a pleasurable listening experience it is,” Ventom said.
14
Jul 08
FreshPick: Busta Rhymes-I Got Bass (Aftermath??)
Hot fiya from Bussa Buss….Bangladesh on the beat (A Mili) and Neal Pogue on the mix (Outkast, N.E.R.D.) If I’m lyin, I’m flyin’
14
Jul 08
Lessons on Failure
This one is for all my fellow entrepreneurs….if you’re having a bad case of fighting negative thoughts then be sure to read this. Shout out to Chris over at Zengasm for this one.
Top 10 tips for facing failure:
1. Failure is normal. Everyone has faced failure. Some people talk about their failures. Some people don’t talk about their failures, which makes it look like they never fail. Don’t believe it.
2. Define or refine. Failure can define you or refine you. If you quit, you have allowed failure to define you. If you keep going, learn from it and get stronger, you have used failure to refine yourself.
3. Learn from it. Every failure has something to teach us, if we will only be teachable. To be teachable, we need to ask good questions such as “What contributed to this failure?” or “What can I do differently and/or better next time?”
4. Change your definition of failure. We live in an either/or culture. Either you totally succeed or you completely fail. Many times it’s neither.
5. Redefine what failure means to you. A failure is simply evidence that you took a shot at accomplishing something, that you want to be a doer instead of just a talker.
6. Successful people fail often. How can you be successful and fail often? You become successful by taking risks. Risk implies that you might fail. Otherwise it would not be called risk-taking; it would be called sure-thing taking.
7. Build on your failures. Many of the great success stories are built on what was learned from failure or the motivation that can come from failure.
8. Don’t fear failure. The of failure holds us back from doing many of the things we would like to do.
9. Give up your belief in failure. A wise person once said, “Failure? I’ve never encountered it. I’ve just learned lots and lots of ways that don’t work, and turned that into a few successes.”
10. Never, ever give up. An ancient Japanese proverb suggests that we are to “fall down seven times, get up eight.”
13
Jul 08
FreshPick: Janelle Monae – Violet Stars
For anybody that may be living on a deserted island (or Amish), this is one of the most talented artists I’ve seen since Outkast. I made sure I caught her show when she came to L.A. on my birthday. She was so dope, my girl passed out during the 3rd song in her set (shout out to Dave for helping me carry her out the club). Good times my people…..check the music.
13
Jul 08
Last.fm Compensates Artists, Unlike Some People We Know
The United Kingdom-based social music streaming site Last.fm has made good on its promise to launch an Artist Royalty Program that gives music makers — regardless of their stature within the industry– a percentage of revenue earned from the advertisements that appear next to their music as it streams in a radio program or is played on-demand by a visitor to the site.
“This is a big day for DIY artists,” said Last.fm co-founder Martin Stiksel. “We’re leveling the playing field by offering them the same opportunities as established bands to make money from their music. The young musician making music in a bedroom studio has the same chance as the latest major label signing to use Last.fm to build an audience and get rewarded. ”
We’ve had a bone to pick with MySpace about this for a while, because it plans to compensate major labels with a share of ad revenue without similarly compensating indie labels, unsigned artists, or possibly even the artists signed to them.
Should revenue from MySpace’s ad-supported music streaming feature really just flow to the major labels, even though smaller labels and unsigned bands built most of the MySpace music empire? And why should the future of the music business look even more bleakly monolithic than the past, with artists needing to be signed to a major in order to collect (a portion of) what’s rightfully theirs?
We talked over these points with Last.fm co-founder Martin Stiksel earlier this year, wondering whether his company, now (and then) part of CBS, was similarly planning to leave artists in the lurch, or whether the program for compensating artists it had announced in January was for real.
Today, we have an answer.
Last.fm’s Artist Royalty Program, announced in January, goes into effect on Wednesday morning. Bands and labels that register (or already registered) will start accruing money into Last.fm accounts whenever their music is streamed from the site as of today. The company already pays artists through rights organizations, including SoundExchange, but this new plan allows artists to receive direct payment for their music being streamed without joining — more information available here.
Since January, bands have uploaded over 450,000 tracks as part of Last.fm’s Artist Royalty Program, and many more are likely to follow. Artists are increasingly looking for multiple streams of income, rather than just a fat advance that they’ll have to repay with future sales.
As for how much money bands can expect to make from this, Stiksel said it would depend on the ads that appeared next to their song, but that bands shouldn’t expect to see a ton of money roll in at this stage of the music streaming game.
“A massive online streamer is still not like the BBC over here, which has millions and millions of concurrent users. In general, online streaming is not at that level yet… we’re not going to be able to pay royalties in the region of (what) these massive radio stations pay, but it is competitive to commercial radio… in the US.”
Artists that participate in the program will accrue their share of revenue in a Last.fm account that can be withdrawn once it reaches a certain amount, since fees would threaten to negate micropayments.
At least they’ll know exactly what they are due, unlike many other areas of the music business, where the only way to find out what you are truly owed is to sue for the right to audit records. Last.fm, on the other hand, has committed to a transparent payout system.
Stiksel told us about two tools launched concurrently with the Artist Royalty Program that show artists “how many scrobbles, now many streams, how many on-demand plays (they’ve had) and so on – all of these things will be broken down, because it’s a prerequisite for transparency as far as the accounting of all of the royalties is concerned.” He continued, “I’m aware that most royalty collection societies have a lot harder time doing this. They’re depending on spot samples (as opposed to actual usage data, which Last.fm’s system uses).”
I asked if he had any advice for artists who are considering joining Last.fm’s payment program, and Stiksel broke it down as follows:
“There are a lot of possibilities at every musician’s disposal, and while you can do a lot yourself, there are still certain aspects that you might need some help with. Being creative is a full-time job… very few megastars are (created by) just one person doing something. There’s still a roll to be played for management, for promoters, for pluggers, and yeah, also for labels as well, if you really want to take stuff forward…
“First and foremost, you have to concentrate on making the best music possible available to your fans, otherwise there’s no point entering the game in the first place.”
