"We have to be more aggressive when it comes to motivating the casual consumer."

There are simply more concerts to choose from. "The pressure on the consumer entertainment dollar becomes very dramatic between Memorial Day and Labor Day."

Clear Channel had hoped to exploit synergies between radio and concerts through advertising and tour sponsorships. Those extra advantages never materialized. Last week, Clear Channel Music announced some steps aimed at getting more people into the cheap seats.

It is not clear whether price reductions will increase demand for tickets.

"The promoter gets 15 percent of the upside and 100 percent of the downside."

"With the increase in the cost of talent, we increased ticket prices. And when fewer people show up, we can lose money on what otherwise would be a great show."

The Trick of Making a Hot Ticket Pay

It took only a few ambushes, roadside bombs and corpses for Neal Saunders to know what he had to do: turn the streets of Baghdad into rap music. So the First Cavalry sergeant, then newly arrived for a year of duty in Sadr City, began hoarding his monthly paychecks and seeking out a U.S. supplier willing to ship a keyboard, digital mixer, cable, microphones and headphones to an overseas military address. He hammered together a plywood shack, tacked up some cheap mattress pads for soundproofing and invited other Task Force 112 members to join him in his jerry-built studio. They call themselves "4th25"—pronounced fourth quarter, like the final do-or-die minutes of a game—and their album is "Live From Iraq." The sound may be raw, even by rap standards, but it expresses things that soldiers usually keep bottled up. "You can't call home and tell your mom your door got blown off by an IED," says Saunders. "No one talks about what we're going through. Sure, there are generals on the TV, but they're not speaking for us. We're venting for everybody."

The downloadable trailer for the album can be obtained at 4th25.com.

Soldier Rap, The Pulse of War - Newsweek World News - MSNBC.com

Don't miss this... Its an interactive java applet the maps samples.

The History of Sampling

Dinosaur Jr has reunited and is going to embark on a tour. I know a few MemeStreamers will be quite happy about this.

07-08 Atlanta, GA - Variety Playhouse

Dinosaur Jr Back Together

] I've been really excited about this idea I had to remove
] everything from N.W.A.'s Straight Outta Compton album
] except for the curse words. It's like a reverse censored
] version of the album I'm calling "Explicit Content Only".
] I want to do the entire album but below is the title
] track as an example of what it would sound like. I love
] this idea but feel like it must have been done before. If
] so please leave a comment and let me know so that I can
] save a lot of wasted audio editing time. If it has not
] been done than stay tuned to the ni9e.com site for the
] complete album in the next few weeks.

ni9e blog: Explicit Content Only....

flynn23 wrote:
] Not really. CC license would allow you to commercialize the
] content as long as you gave proper citation. While I think
] it's a great idea to give to people the ability to 'play' with
] the material (it's a great educational tool), the idea that
] artists (particularly *this* artist) is restricting your
] ability to manipulate it for commercial purposes, smacks of
] the highest order of hypocracy.

Most of the CC licenses include a Non-Commercial use clause as well. Its one of the most common options on the CC licenses.

I think what NIN and Interscope is doing here is quite fair. They are reserving commercial usage of the track for themselves. Non-commercial usage is just fine with them. If you are making money, they are going to want a piece. Its their asset; they invested the money to have it created. You are using it.

What really matters, is if you do have a commercial usage for the material they have released, how are they going to handle it? Repackaging in different forms is also an issue. Are they just going to flat out say 'no'? Or are they going to have unreasonable terms? These are very valid questions.. However, if someone wants to reserve their right to profit from their works, that should be regarded as ok. Anything else is a form of extremism. Nothing about this closes the door to using it commercially, you just have to contact them. As it all stands right now, this is still an increase of the freedoms granted to the end user. No matter which way I look at it, its a step in the right direction.

Yes, it would have been nice if they used a CC license for this, so that the terms were formalized based upon a widely agreed framework. At this point, I'm just glad to see them experimenting with these types of usages and releases. The single is undergoing innovation.

It would also be nice if you could still sample anything you wanted to, and as much as you wanted to, a la the golden age you mentioned. Doing another Paul's Boutique style album would be a nightmare now due to having to clear all the samples. And yes, it has effected expression because people either can't or their labels will not go through that process. The only way this situation is going to improve is better clearing houses for clearing sample rights, and explicit licensing. The golden age is over. We are starting into something else right now. The asset holders are going to be on the conservative side.

From the perspective of culture, and not straight IP, this is an extremely good thing. The artist is inviting the listener into the process. That's something which has been mostly lost, not due to IP issues, but due to the changing styles of music and the technology used to create it. If we were still in the 60's, and a new Neil Young album came out, we would not have a problem sitting around with our guitars and harmonicas jamming on Heart of Gold. We'd have the tools that produced the sounds. That's not the easiest thing to do with a release from an artist like NIN. Given releases like this, that changes, again. Changes back actually..

We need to keep our eyeballs on the culture before the law. The law will be bent to fit the culture and the market that exists to support it. It _is_ just a matter of time, people coming up with the uses, and the need to exploit them. You would still have had an issue if you wanted to record and release the version of Heart of Gold your friends came up with. That has not changed. (Unless of course it was a parody, thanks to 2 Live Crew.)

RE: Boing Boing: NIN's Trent Reznor releases song as GarageBand file

] On nin.com, Trent Reznor is offering a complete mix of a
] song from the forthcoming Nine Inch Nails album as a
] Garageband 2.0 file.

I need to get Garageband upgraded.

This is a very cool thing, in several ways. The license is very CC like.

Boing Boing: NIN's Trent Reznor releases song as GarageBand file

] Believe it or not, it's real. But it's not near done.
] Details have leaked out about a prototype Numark DJ mixer
] that can mix two iPods. I know what you're thinking: Wow,
] what a scoop! Where are the lawyers? Is it a fake?
]
] In fact, in a gesture of spectacularly poor industrial
] secrecy, it seems Numark showed off an early prototype at
] the Musikmesse show in Frankfurt. (see the discussion at
] skratchworx that was the source of the 'rumor'; via
] engadget) Later in the show, head honchos asked that
] visitors not take photos, but not earlier in the show;
] hence we have a couple of images from German hip hop site
] WebBeatz.

Neat! It would be a damn expensive rig, but a very cool one..

Analysis: Prototype Numark iPod DJ Mixer - createdigitalmusic.com

] With him, as usual, was his indispensable new exercise
] toy: an iPod music player loaded with country and popular
] rock tunes aimed at getting the presidential heart rate
] up to a chest-pounding 170 beats per minute.
]
] Which brings up the inevitable question. What, exactly,
] is on the First iPod?

Yes, Fortunate Son is present.

NYT | White House Letter: Tunes for the Freewheelin' George Bush

A Photographic History of Michael Jackson's Face, with commentary.

We continue to ask the question.. What the fuck is Michael Jackson?

The History of Michael Jackson's face