3rd June is No Service Fee Wednesday at LiveNation

Got the above email from LiveNation detailing that this Wednesday, 3rd June, is No Service Fee Wednesday - for all amphitheatre shows. And presumably only those shows outlined in the above screencap (if, um, you can read that...), although I don't know for sure. Still, if you're planning on attending one of said shows and haven't bought your tickets, Wednesday would be a good time to do that.

Also, I want to write #noservicefeewed. Stupid Twitter.


ETA : Here's a pretty scathing article by the LimeWire blog on the whole we'll-charge-you-crazy-"service-fees"-and-then-like-bait-you-by-getting-rid-of-them-for-a-day thing.

OPP : Boozy bands, Coachella, 99 cents, and Paste.

Here are a few mismatched OPPs 'cause...it's Friday. And I'm lazy.

New York Magazine : The Hold Steady and Music's Booziest Bands and Artists

Interesting. Topping the list are Guided by Voices, The Pogues, Cat Power, and, um. The Hold Steady. As stated in the title. Do you agree with their choices?

.....

Paid Content.org : Price Hikes Dampened iTunes Sales

Sales figures from iTunes show that tracks that now sell for $1.29, up from $0.99, sold 12.5 percent fewer units than during the previous week, while tracks whose prices were unchanged sold 10 percent more than the week before.

Although a commenter pointed out, "Well, from a purely financial perspective, they got the perfect result, if they sold fewer items, but made more revenue. that means higher operating margin, and therefore more profit."

.....

Pitchfork posted their scheduling guide for Coachella this weekend. If you're interested in that sort of thing. Or are, ya' know. Actually going to Coachella.

.....

In honour of Record Store Day, which is TOMORROW, Paste is doing their Name Your Own Subscription Price thing again. 12 issues and 12 samplers, for whatever you feel like paying.

I actually don't know what/if I'll be doing anything for RSD - I'd love to, but most of my day will be spent in transit heading to see those "sorely missed powerpoppers" in Boston. But don't miss out, if you can avoid it.

Grab your FREE Homosexuals mp3s.

Clicking on the above link will give you the opportunity to grab SIX totally FREE Homosexuals mp3s ("Fanfare," "Slow Guns," "3AM (Pink Pony)" from the Love Guns? EP, "Pentecost 2016," "Fay Gash," and "In Search of the Perfect Baby" from the upcoming Important if True EP), courtesy of Serious Business.

The Homosexuals played SXSW and then embarked on a follow-up tour that garnered a whole lot of incredible press. Seriously. That's just three links of like, a million. I can't even list it all here. Which is why all the pictures, press, videos, and more have been culled together by Ser Biz for your viewing pleasure over here.

Missed the Homos on tour? If you live in Boston, they'll be playing at the 'Dise on 7th May.

OPP : Stereogum writes about Tweets, Passion Pit gets Cracker Barrel, I'm so amused.

I don't use Twitter, although I've considered it as of late. (As if I need another "social networking"/"microblogging" site to take over my life...thanks, Facebook, but I still hate your new layout.) Anyway. Stereogum does, they've started doing a "best Tweets of the week" feature (what would you call that? writing about people tweeting? meta-tweeting?), and this tweet from Passion Pit totally made my day:

@passionpit: Cracker.Barrel. :)http://twitpic.com/2dqa9



HA. 'Cause that's how I met these guys, donchaknow.

Seriously, I don't want an mp3 player approximately the size of my fingernail.

I thought this was great:

<

Although maybe you shouldn't be recording yourself while you're driving, guy.

Holiday songs: 21, 22, 23, 24 December

We're going to play "two-for" with this edition- you get two versions of the same song.

When Benji Cossa put out his Christmas record this year, I had never heard of Big Star or their song "Jesus Christ." Here's both the original and Benji's cover, which he performed live at the Serious Business Holiday Party.

Big Star - "Jesus Christ"
Benji Cossa - "Jesus Christ"


And since we've already heard both Elvis and Hanson today, why not stick with what we know? Here's "Merry Christmas Baby" from both.

Elvis Presely - "Merry Christmas Baby"
Hanson - "Merry Christmas Baby"


Also, if you're looking for more to play at tonight's Christmas Eve bash, check out Bag of Songs' Christmas Song of the Day list, which is far superior to mine and includes this awesome cover of "Last Christmas" by The Fire Apes.

Back tomorrow with a few more Christmas songs, if I make it through the annual crazy Italian family get-together...

M.I.A., "Paper Planes" vs. The Man?

There's a whole lotta' shit flying over at Brooklyn Vegan regarding M.I.A's "Paper Planes". Apparently there was a whole to-do with MTV and Letterman censoring the vid and the song. The comments over there range from "OMG I LOVE M.I.A. SHE'S SO INSPIRATIONAL" to "Her dad's a terrorist, don't support her!" and it's all a bit crazy how worked up everyone is.

It's certainly not like M.I.A. is the first artist EVAR to be censored (nor will she be the last), and it's a tad annoying WHEN SHE WRITES IN CAPS ALL THE TIME. But I think her anger and frustration is, to a degree, warranted, and I don't think that pointing out that her dad is part of what is mainly considered to be a terrorist organisation is a valid way of invalidating her music or her message. All of which are, of course, open to individual interpretation.



But when it all comes down to it, say what you will- I like the song and I like the video.

Also: a non-holiday post, yay!

Introducing Popshifter.com

Popshifter.com: A Webzine For Everyone Who Is Tired Of Feeling Guilty For Caring About Pop Culture


TORONTO, ONTARIO—November 30, 2007.

Popshifter.com— A revolutionary new webzine that aims to take the pop culture road less traveled and make people love, laugh, cry, and think. Popshifter.com will take the "dumb" out of fandom and make it enjoyable again. Popshifter.com will focus on those facets of pop culture that deserve a second glance.

After the untimely demise of the infamous fanzine Smack Dab in 1998, there was a void. Fans across the world were devastated. "Where will we find information about pop culture?" they wailed as they gnashed their teeth.

At the same time, the Internet was exploding and hundreds of pop culture websites sprang up like toadstools after a heavy rain. Yet none of these websites met the needs of the devastated fans, the fans crying for a magazine that was a "perfect combination of Sixteen and Creem."

Their cries have now been answered. Less Lee Moore, writer, editor, bon vivant, gadfly, and creator of Smack Dab and TheAutomatik.com, has now created Popshifter.com, the webzine for everyone who is tired of feeling guilty for caring about pop culture. Less Lee Moore states, "I have fantastic writers from Portland, Oregon to New York City and beyond, so there will be something for everyone at Popshifter.com."

Internet scientists have proclaimed that "Popshifter.com will have more site hits than Jesus," but laboratory tests have proved inconclusive thus far.

Popshifter.com: One Giant Leap For Fankind. For further information contact Less Lee Moore at Popshifter.com

One of my LJ friends runs this, and she pretty much has exceptional taste in, well, everything, and she's a great writer, and she's gotten a bunch of other great writers with great taste to write stuff with her, all in the name of taking the "dumb" out of fandom, putting the "cult" back in pop culture, and avoiding the ironic indie hipster like the plague. Sound like my kind of people.

So if you're bored, procrastinating, fed up, avoiding work, or whatever your excuse is, give it a spin.

Happy Belated Turkey Day!

And Happy Belated Birthday to myself.

I guess now that it's post-Thanksgiving and that the Christmas season has officially started (HAHA LOOK AT ALL OF YOU SUCKERS DRIVING AROUND THE MALL PARKING LOT, TRYING TO GET A SPOT HAHAHA....sorry....), I can't yell about people putting up Christmas decorations or playing Christmas music anymore.

So if you're going to get your season started, musically at least, then do it the right way: Benji Cossa, indie recording genius and the guy who brought you "What's That Sound?" for Hallowe'en, has released a Christmas record entitled Merry Christmas to Friends and Family. Love, Benji Cossa. Mostly long-standing Christmas carols and classics, offered up Cossa-style (think lo-fi, think banjos, acoustic guitars, harmonicas, and steel drums), plus a new song, "Friends and Family," by Mr. Cossa himself. (Check out this pretty awesome rendition of "Silver Bells".)

Best part of it all is that the entire record is available for free. Think of it as an early Christmas gift from Benji and SBR.

Click here to see track listing, commentary, etc.
Click here if you're in a total rush to download a .Zip file of the entire record.




Okay, I've got some leftovers to eat and some partying to do, so if you'll excuse me...


ETA: So it's a day late, but mixlist master EarFarm whipped together a Thanksgiving Day mix, so maybe you should listen to that one before you run out of turkey and stuffing.

Interesting reads.

FluxBlog: It's Too Bad That Your Music Doesn't Matter

Idolator: An Idolator Real Talk Special Report: The Black Kids Hype Must Be Stopped

(This is more in reaction to the comments made than the actual essays themselves.)

Hmmm so makes me wonder if I, as the bedroom blogger, am contributing to this problem. Am I just trying to hype up bands that I like? Admittedly, one of my goals is to share songs and artists that I enjoy and try to get more people to pay attention to them. Although I don't really have a problem with saying that I don't like a particular band.

Am I "untrustworthy" because I openly admit that I blog about what I like? I suppose you could look at it that way. I'm not a music critic, and I know that. I may try to write something critical; but I'm not truly a music critic. So I guess you'd have to take what I write with a grain of salt and know that it's coming from my personal tastes, and not necessarily from an objective, neutral source. Although what I mean when I say "I write about what I like" is less of "I write about bands that I like" and more of "I stick to genres of music that I like," and the hell with trying to find "the next big thing." The hype machines post music from their "bands to watch," but if I'm not taken in by the song in the first 30 seconds, to hell with it. I know what I like, what I think sounds good, so even if every other blogger is screaming "OMG AMAZING," why bother? If I don't like it, I don't like it, period. Then again, like I said, does that mean, by sticking to the music I do like, I'm just contributing to this over-positive hype? Hmm.

In any case, it's true that the music blogosphere's pacing is ridiculous. Nobody could possibly keep up with it, with what's "hot right now" and stay happy with what they're doing. I'm feeling overwhelmed by my own iTunes library right now, because I've got so much crap on there that I've downloaded from I-have-no-idea-where and how much of it is good and how much of it should I just delete? But I don't usually take the time to shift through my library because I'm too busy listening to the music that I enjoy, stuff that I'm already familiar with and love usually because I took the time to discover it on my own and at my own pace. Honestly, now that I think about it, I don't think there's a single band or artist that I've fell in love with grace à a blog, but some of my favourite artists are the ones I've stumbled on myself or that a friend shared with me.

And I don't care for the "I got there first. I knew about them before you did. Away with you, teenyboppers."- or worse, the "I got there first, I knew about them first, and now that they're popular, they're not awesome anymore"- attitude that you find everywhere in pop culture, basically, although it's probably felt the most acutely in the realm of music. Although I am totally guilty feeling that way. (That's right, bitches, I was listening to these guys way before they got on their effing treadmills. YouTube success, pssh. Whatevs.) (Okay. Maybe not the greatest example. But it's the only one I really have. :S)

In the end, I don't want to be a "taste maker." Or do I? I'm not quite sure.

Anyway. /ramblings