If you’re an artist in any way, shape, or form watching this should be at the top of your list of priorities. I know, I know….its 2 hrs. but its worth it. Trust me.

Spotted this over at Revok’s place and thought I would help spread the word.

PRESS RELEASE
Los Angeles, California, May 25, 2010

We are reaching out to get your ear for a minute about this critical situation in Arizona.

If you haven’t heard, the Arizona state legislature passed a bill (SB 1070) that was signed into law by Governor Jan Brewer that legalizes and sanctions racial profiling. Straight up.

It forces the cops to hunt down and target anyone they “reasonably suspect” that may be undocumented. And if the people they harass don’t have proof that they were born in the U.S., they can be detained and arrested. This must be stopped.

Fans of our music, our stories, our films and our words can be pulled over and harassed every day because they are brown or black, or for the way they speak, or for the music they listen to. People who are poor like some of us used to be could be forced to live in a constant state of fear while just doing what they can to find work and survive. This law opens the door for them to be shaked down, or even worse, detained and deported while just trying to travel home from school, from home to work, or when they just roll out with their friends.

Some of us grew up dealing with racial profiling, but this law (SB 1070) takes it to a whole new low. If other states follow the direction of the Arizona government, we could be headed towards a pre-civil rights era reality. This unjust law was set into motion by the same Arizona government that refused to acknowledge Martin Luther King Jr. day as a national holiday.

When Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat, they arrested her. As a result, people got together and said we are not going to ride the bus until they change the law. It was this courageous action that sparked the Montgomery bus boycott. What if we got together, signed a collective letter saying, “we’re not going to ride the bus”, saying we are not going to comply. We are not going to play in Arizona. We are going to boycott Arizona!

Signed,

Zack de la Rocha

Here’s a list of the courageous artists who have taken a stand for civil and human rights in this collective decision to boycott Arizona:

Cypress Hill
Juanes
Conor Oberst
Los Tigres del Norte
Rage Against the Machine
Cafe Tacvba
Micheal Moore
Kanye West
Calle 13
Joe Satriani
Serj Tankian
Rise Against
Ozomatli
Sabertooth Tiger
Massive Attack
One Day as a Lion
Street Sweeper Social Club
Spank Rock
Sonic Youth
Tenacious D

We are asking artists the world over to stand with us, and not allow our collective economic power to be used to aid and abet civil and human rights violations that will be caused by Arizona’s odious law.

Artists sign-up here: http://www.thesoundstrike.net/

“I don’t got no lyrics” – Wocka Flocka

Hemway Industries is proud to announce the launch of a new print by David Choe, “Haitian Girl”, with all proceeds being donated to benefit the Haitian Relief Effort.

Personally paying for the cost of the prints, David Choe created “Haitian Girl” with all proceeds going to Yéle Haiti, a foundation created by Wyclef Jean.  “Haitian Girl” measures 18×24 and is a giclée print on archival paper.  Limited to 50 editions, the print is hand-signed by David Choe and costs $300.  The print is available now for pre-sale but will not ship until February 21, 2010.

David Choe’s next solo exhibition featuring new works, “Character Assassination” opens on February 5, 2010 at FIFTY24SF Gallery.

BUY HERE

The realest, most true, most beautifulest post I’ve ever read from any blog. I really thought I was alone when it came to the LA promise. Derek Sivers nailed it (pause):

When I lived in Los Angeles, I noticed they have a strange speaking pattern.

Everyone speaks in future tense. (Or, more specifically, present-tense inaction, future-tense action.)

“This guy from EMI is interested and going to be presenting it to the VP.”

“We’re in talks to do a pilot for the fall.”

“I’m getting ready to work on some new material with a writer from Friends.”

Of course these are the things some people have to tell themselves to be hopeful when facing another day of challenges.

But of course nothing materializes. You never hear it mentioned again, and you politely don’t ask. (Surprising circumstances always foiled the certain event.)

I felt like wearing a t-shirt that says, “TELL ME WHEN IT’S ACTUALLY HAPPENING.”

So now when I hear a future-tense sentence, my ears shut down. I’ll say “cool!” and hope it helps, but I don’t believe a word.

Try noticing this in yourself and others for a week. Are you speaking more in future tense or present tense? Are they?

- Derek Sivers

Shout out to DA of Chester French for the retweet. Very, very, very good post from Trent Reznor and his thoughts on being an indie artist A.G. (after Google). I’ve been trying to tell yall but hey…what do I know. Check out what Trent has to say:

(disclaimer)
This was written on a bumpy Euro-bus ride across the wilderness – may ramble a bit but I think the point gets across.
TR

I posted a message on Twitter yesterday stating I thought The Beastie Boys and TopSpin Media “got it right” regarding how to sell music in this day and age. Here’s a link to their store:

[illcommunication.beastieboys.com]

Shortly thereafter, I got some responses from people stating the usual “yeah, if you’re an established artist – what if you’re just trying to get heard?” argument. In an interview I did recently this topic came up and I’ll reiterate what I said here.

If you are an unknown / lesser-known artist trying to get noticed / established:

* Establish your goals. What are you trying to do / accomplish? If you are looking for mainstream super-success (think Lady GaGa, Coldplay, U2, Justin Timberlake) – your best bet in my opinion is to look at major labels and prepare to share all revenue streams / creative control / music ownership. To reach that kind of critical mass these days your need old-school marketing muscle and that only comes from major labels. Good luck with that one.

If you’re forging your own path, read on.

* Forget thinking you are going to make any real money from record sales. Make your record cheaply (but great) and GIVE IT AWAY. As an artist you want as many people as possible to hear your work. Word of mouth is the only true marketing that matters.
To clarify:
Parter with a TopSpin or similar or build your own website, but what you NEED to do is this – give your music away as high-quality DRM-free MP3s. Collect people’s email info in exchange (which means having the infrastructure to do so) and start building your database of potential customers. Then, offer a variety of premium packages for sale and make them limited editions / scarce goods. Base the price and amount available on what you think you can sell. Make the packages special – make them by hand, sign them, make them unique, make them something YOU would want to have as a fan. Make a premium download available that includes high-resolution versions (for sale at a reasonable price) and include the download as something immediately available with any physical purchase. Sell T-shirts. Sell buttons, posters… whatever.

Don’t have a TopSpin as a partner? Use Amazon for your transactions and fulfillment. [www.amazon.com]

Use TuneCore to get your music everywhere. [www.tunecore.com]

Have a realistic idea of what you can expect to make from these and budget your recording appropriately.
The point is this: music IS free whether you want to believe that or not. Every piece of music you can think of is available free right now a click away. This is a fact – it sucks as the musician BUT THAT’S THE WAY IT IS (for now). So… have the public get what they want FROM YOU instead of a torrent site and garner good will in the process (plus build your database).

The Beastie Boys’ site offers everything you could possibly want in the formats you would want it in – available right from them, right now. The prices they are charging are more than you should be charging – they are established and you are not. Think this through.

The database you are amassing should not be abused, but used to inform people that are interested in what you do when you have something going on – like a few shows, or a tour, or a new record, or a webcast, etc.
Have your MySpace page, but get a site outside MySpace – it’s dying and reads as cheap / generic. Remove all Flash from your website. Remove all stupid intros and load-times. MAKE IT SIMPLE TO NAVIGATE AND EASY TO FIND AND HEAR MUSIC (but don’t autoplay). Constantly update your site with content – pictures, blogs, whatever. Give people a reason to return to your site all the time. Put up a bulletin board and start a community. Engage your fans (with caution!) Make cheap videos. Film yourself talking. Play shows. Make interesting things. Get a Twitter account. Be interesting. Be real. Submit your music to blogs that may be interested. NEVER CHASE TRENDS. Utilize the multitude of tools available to you for very little cost of any – Flickr / YouTube / Vimeo / SoundCloud / Twitter etc.

If you don’t know anything about new media or how people communicate these days, none of this will work. The role of an independent musician these days requires a mastery of first hand use of these tools. If you don’t get it – find someone who does to do this for you. If you are waiting around for the phone to ring or that A & R guy to show up at your gig – good luck, you’re going to be waiting a while.

Hope this helps, and I’ll scour responses for intelligent comments I can respond to.

TR

So my boy Shep’s Obama cover will be on newsstands by the time you nerds read this, but he had a little something to say about Rick Warren’s participation during Obama’s inaugural address. This was spotted over at Fairey’s website (we need more people like this guy):

Tomorrow my illustration for Time Magazine’s  “Person of The Year” hits the newsstands. While I’m very honored to be validated by a periodical that is nothing short of an American institution, the moment is bittersweet because I’m very disappointed by Obama’s appointment of Rick Warren to deliver his invocation during Obama’s inaugural address. Rick Warren is against gay marriage and reproductive rights, and he does not believe in evolution (maybe he offers himself as proof of lack of evolution). I understand that Obama is trying to appeal to conservatives and evangelicals, but this move is symbolically a slap in the face to many people. Warren is not a uniter, but a divider… he is intolerant in many of his views. I still think Obama is the best choice for president, but I can’t condone Warren’s involvement in Obama’s inauguration, no matter how insignificant it is. While I’m on the subject of gay marriage, I will be donating a chunk of the proceeds from an inauguration poster of Obama I was asked to create to the movement to overturn Prop 8.  At first I was considering pulling my inauguration poster, but I think re-directing funds from it to put into a cause I care about is actually more constructive. Plus, I wouldn’t want withdrawing the image to come across as a blanket boycott of Obama.  I’m sure I will ultimately disagree with Obama about many things, but I think I will agree with him on more. I think it is important to speak one’s mind, but also to not let the narcissism of petty differences sabotage our unity and progress.

Saigon has always been one of my favorite rappers as far as lyrics and common sense (for the most part). Here is Saigon talking about the state of hip hop and I must say that I agree with him. Rappers need to start pushing boundaries and setting new standards. BTW, is his album still dropping. I hope its not on the same time line as Dr. Dre’s Detox.

By now you nerds know that I gotta hit you with a flintstone vitamin or two every once in awhile. Jay hasn’t posted in a New York minute, but now he seems back to business as usual. Its funny because I found myself hesitant to post my thoughts on one of the greatest wins for American history as well. I guess I’m waiting until I have the right words to describe everything that is about to go down. I feel like its almost a contradictory win but more on my thoughts later. For now, here is Jay…

Fall Out Boy – MTV Shows

A quick clip featuring the homie Carter and Fall Out Boy on why each and every one of you nerds need to vote. I’m not gonna tell yall who to vote for (Obama), but just make sure to vote damnit!

Ok so that isn’t the actual name of this piece and I have no idea of the title nor creator. This was spotted over at Infart and their site is in French (I think). So anybody out there that can translate, throw me a frickin’ bone here. Until then, we’re sticking to my title…

Blood splatter close-up inside of post…

The cover art of this book says it all. With art by Derek Hess and text by Cleveland area politician, Kent Smith, this book is sure to stir up some emotions and question the current “powers” that be. “Please God Save Us” takes a variety of hot topics, ranging from religion to government and everything in between, and displays them in a thought-provoking and witty book. “The art itself was created as an outlet for my frustration with the current administration,” Hess says. “And I was obviously very frustrated as I produced enough pieces for an entire book.” Be sure to catch their book signing at a city near you throughout October while spreading their ideas and thoughts. Tour dates below:

Oct 10 2008  7:00P

“Please God Save Us” book signing at Visible Voice Books in Tremont @ Visible Voice Books

Oct 16 2008 7:00P

“Please God Save Us” book signing at North Water St. Gallery in Kent @ North Water Street Gallery

Oct 17 2008 5:00P

“Please God Save Us” book signing at Eide’s Entertainment @ Eide’s Entertainment

Oct 17 2008 8:00P

“Please God Save Us” book signing at Jester’s Court Tattoos @ Jester’s Court Tattoos

Oct 24 2008 7:30P

“Please God Save Us” book signing in Ann Arbor @ Lucky Monkey Tattoo Parlor

Oct 25 2008 4:00P

“Please God Save Us” book signing in Chicago @ Blue 13 Restaurant

Oct 28 2008 7:00P

“Please God Save Us” book signing at Joseph Beth in Legacy Village @ Joseph Beth Booksellers in Legacy Village

Click banner below for purchase:

So I’ve heard about this whole bleaching thing here and there, but I didn’t realize it was out of control like this. I love my Jamaican people but c’mon….put the bleach down! I thought we were passed the days of dark skin people wanting to be light skin. As a matter of fact, I thought dark skin has been “in” ever since Wesley Snipes first came on the scene. What irony….caucasians with the tanning phenomenon and blacks bleaching……go figure. All jokes aside though, we really need to break the slave/master mentality of thinking. And that goes for black, brown, white, yellow, puple……..everybody. That’s my positive rant for the day, I’m out like trout.

Dear Mr. Record Label Guy,

I have noticed that you have been scrambling since 2000 trying to figure out how the internet works, but the answer is right in front of your face. Instead of trying to put file sharers and bloggers in jail, you need to take advantage of what’s going on in cyberspace.

For those of you not familiar with the subscription model, this is the napster/limewire like service where you pay x-amount of dollars per month for unlimited access to mp3 files. Now throw streaming internet radio into the mix (i.e. pandora, last fm, etc.) and you have yet another outlet that is reaching millions of listeners daily. As everyone knows (except for you suits), first week record sales are no longer important nor do they measure the success of an artist (just ask Usher or Mariah). A new system needs to be put in place for artists. Album sales probably won’t exist anymore in the near future so you’re going to have to start thinking of how revenue can be made by cutting deals with different services while using albums as promotional tools (just ask Prince or Radiohead). I think it’s obvious that listeners don’t want to pay for music unless there is some sort of benefit/product that is being offered. So please, wake up and smell the hard drive (pause) and start putting some thought into these artist’s future instead of throwing a bunch of crap at the wall and seeing what sticks.

Sincerely,

Fresh

Mike is at it again. This time around he brings us a piece that focuses on his 60 city tour to help get the young vote going. Here is what Mr. Moore had to say:

“This is being done entirely as a gift to my fans. The only return any of us are hoping for is the largest turnout of young voters ever at the polls in November.” – Michael Moore

This movie will be available for free download via his website on Sept. 23rd. The only requirement is that you must be a resident of the U.S. or Canada.

This is by far one of my favorite vlogs from Jay over at Illdoctrine.
This video is a mandatory must see for anybody who is ambitious (or awake as I call it). Watch this once a day if you have to….I do (??).

1. Experience things fully, vividly, selflessly. Throw yourself into the experiencing of something: concentrate on it fully, let it totally absorb you
2. Life is an ongoing process of choosing between safety (out of fear and need for defense) and risk (for the sake of progress and growth): Make the growth choice a dozen times a day.
3. Let the self emerge. Try to shut out the external clues as to what you should think, feel, say, and so on, and let your experience enable you to say what you truly feel.
4. When in doubt, be honest. If you look into yourself and are honest, you will also take responsibility. Taking responsibility is self-actualizing.
5. Listen to your own tastes. Be prepared to be unpopular.
6. Use your intelligence, work to do well the things you want to do, no matter how insignificant they seem to be.
7. Make peak experiencing more likely: get rid of illusions and false notions. Learn what you are good at and what your potentialities are not.
8. Find out who you are, what you are, what you like and don’t like, what is good and what is bad for you, where you are going, what your mission is. Opening yourself up to yourself in this way means identifying defenses – and then finding the courage to give them up.

Who knew???

“For those who appreciate music with both soul and social commentary, this video will offer an intriguing look into the lives of people who suffer from genocide, starvation and war. It was very important for me to make this song after my travels to London where I had an opportunity to speak to a former child soldier from Sierra Leone. If you listen to the song, I document that conversation. I am sure you will find it as fascinating as I did. In an industry that is dominated by the replication of whatever the last club banger was, this song and video come from unadulterated inspiration provided by the trials of life.” – Rhymefest

Meanwhile, America soon bruk….half a trillion deficit before yu add Iraq and Afghanistan. Bridge dem soon mash up, $140 million and risin’. Merril Lynch just borro $11 billion afta dem just borro and say everyting allright. Star, wi clott dark. Whoeva become president a ded man to raas. 

Let me start by saying that I’m not big on conspiracy theories or talk of New World Order, but after watching this clip I realized that we may not be too far off. If you thought HMO medical plans were controlling (I know from experience), medical insurance companies are taking it a step further with microchip implants. Of course they’re telling us it is for the patient’s benefit only, but I think ulterior motives are being set in place. Don’t say I didn’t warn you…..

and those who graduated will appreciate this video. This is called “A Vision of Students Today” by Michael Wesch. This short video summarizes some of the most important characteristics of students today – how they learn, what they need to learn, their goals, hopes, dreams, what their lives will be like, and what kinds of changes they will experience in their lifetime. 

Where do I start…….this is a fuct up cover. A very interesting strategy I must say. Let’s scare the voters with an image that will stick in their heads come election time but we’ll just say its satire. Or better yet, we’ll tell America to get a grip, it’s just a joke. Momma always told me that there is truth behind every joke and this is probably how the staff really feels about the situation. Just a joke my ass……I don’t know, you tell me.

So I ran across this today and thought I’d give the nerds some food for thought. This is for all of you iPhone users, you know who you are (yea, you too Miki)

I read this article and thought I would help get it out there. This explains the importance of a web presence and how to actually navigate in www dot land. Pay up nerds…..

Courtesy of PMPWorldwide

For any music business entrepreneur the dilemma of monetizing a company’s entertainment content online becomes more intense on an almost daily basis. The ever expanding sea of content on the internet is constantly being filled by, in many cases, the same people that you’re trying to entice to consume your content (product). By now were all aware that there are many popular websites catering to people’s desire to shout out loud “LOOK at ME… LISTEN to MY music”, all the while the typical web user has become more a consumer of processes than product. The irony is that these are the very processes that the modern era music business entity has to master and coordinate in order to filter out their target audience, determine how these folk interface with media and understand what types of entertainment they desire to consume (monetarily).

When you utilize different websites to conduct business are you setting forth a series of tasks that you want to accomplish through each site, or do you try to accomplish every task you need to complete on every site you’re working? The fact is that some sites can be more effective tools for promoting video while other sites are designed primarily with a listening experience in mind, but there are very few websites that are all things to all people. Knowing which online platform corresponds best to which task you need to complete is becoming increasingly important on the wild internet frontier and learning how to manage these diverse tasks can help you chisel your business efforts into a viable online operation. Let’s look at an example of how an Indy project release might use a task-related diversity approach to growing a target audience:

A 23 year old session singer from the Midwest US just finished uploading a video blog about her latest song which was written, arranged and performed in collaboration with her sister and produced by an up and coming producer from Japan she had found on line. On her group’s Youtube page there are 2500 subscribers who hit an embedded link to the new song and are instantly redirected to her Imeem playlist, there they can hear a 1:45 sec snippet of the new work as well as additional songs that the visitor might not be familiar with. At the same time a bulletin goes out to all of the group’s Myspace and Facebook friends and now 50,000 people from 8 different countries know about the new song and are directed via link to CD baby and Itunes to download the complete version of the song.

Next up for the group is to increase their brand presence on Last.FM, their goal is to have one of their songs played more than 30,000 times in a week so that they can chart on the “Top Artists for the Week” list. To pull this off the sisters know that they have to grow their target audience by another 5 to ten thousand people that are interested in their music. Once again as part of the plan to expand on their online influence they’ve set their eyes on a producer from outside their home country with a solid internet following to provide the track and collaborate on an internet based cross-promotions campaign. Their goal is to introduce their sound to a few thousand new potential fans that already support this producer’s exploits. This time the full link to their newest song will redirect their supporters to Last.Fm and a full compilation of their work will be available via Amazon.com and Itunes, along with a podcast of a recent performance.

This approach, which is not particularly difficult to carry out, enabled these artists to expand their online influence in a way that begins to identify potential members of a target audience. By fine tuning your business’ use of social networking sites it’s still possible direct potential fans away from their social networking comfort zone (where they’re just as important as you) to an interconnected world managed by your company. Sites like IMEEM, YouTube, Myspace and Facebook make it easy to encourage feedback from your potential audience, and they also make it possible for you to maintain numerous relationships that are beneficial to your brand. However, as I mentioned earlier, due to subtle differences in their functionality designs they each have a different type of effect on user experience.
Most social network style websites incorporate a strong content discovery component that entices those wanting to promote any and everything under the sun to go on pseudo-spamming campaigns in an attempt to build awareness for their content. When you take the time to develop a diverse task oriented strategy that utilizes the appropriate website for the job it’s best suited, you can bet that there will be a noticeable effect on the project that you’re working. If you can grow an awareness of your product across various online communities, while retaining control over what content is accessed and how, sustaining a cohesive project shouldn’t be much of a logistical problem for you.
Another task that can be accomplished in a diverse internet environment is the growth of an artist or group’s international accessibility. By using the work of producers from potential markets outside of the US to build an awareness of their project the group in this example has effectively expanded their circle of influence on the net. If producer x from the UK is willing to promote your work to their audience then you have, by default, grown the acceptance of your product beyond your normal sphere of influence. If you’re skilled at maintaining relationships the internet is the perfect tool to reach international audiences and expand your existing markets. Involving outside entities in the development of your product is one of the most effective forms of viral marketing and, at the end of the day, maintaining a diverse task oriented approach to marketing /promoting on line with the help of other business entities can reduce the one-off transactions (thanks for the add homie, check the new songs on my page!!!) that are so prevalent on social networking sites.

As the entertainment industry advances toward the age of the niche target audience we may soon see the day that knowing how to diversify project related tasks across numerous online destinations will become an essential element of any effective online campaign. If you’re able to successfully interconnect the various web based applications, whether via giant social networking sites or smaller special interest destinations, you’ll have a heads up on the operating tactics that will surely be needed to effectively function in the entertainment business of the future. With portability technologies continuing to boom, enormous sites Such as Myspace and Facebook will become more and more like an interchangeable commodity. Enhancements in RSS reader and instant messenger technology may someday rewrite the concept of “friend” from someone who asks permission to be added to an online digital photo album to someone that has direct access to data files protected by an electronic privacy permission statement in your company’s online address book.