Good cause so we are passing this along to you. 826LA PRESENTS CHICKENS IN LOVE- A benefit concert for 826LA, Hosted by Dianna Agron (GLEE) with special guest Thao Nguyen. Read the rest of this entry »
Hugh Cornwell Tour Dates
March 2nd, 2010
Hugh Cornwell of The Stranglers fame is coming on tour shortly. Seriously, what else can we say about this dude! Legend, badass and not to be missed. Read the rest of this entry »
Jens Lekman @ The Echo
May 29th, 2009
Jens, Jens, JENS! I had the pleasure of watching one of my favorite vocalists, Jens Lekman, the first performance of two this week at The Echo on Wednesday night. I was in the front of the audience for once and was delighted to be there watching Jens play with his band. Read the rest of this entry »
Duffy, Santogold Contest Winners
October 15th, 2008We wanted to thank all the people that have been loggin’ unto Loudvine.com and entering our contests. As you well know, you can also register for our newsletter and be entered to win tickets. We have been getting a boatload of emails and we have other tix to some upcoming shows. We also will be announcing some new contests shortly so keep entering!
T. Tran – Winner of Duffy Tickets
H. Halor – Winner of Santogold & Ting Ting Tickets
Loudvine Contest Winners
October 7th, 2008
We wanted to thank all the people that responded to our contests over the last two weeks. Last week alone, we got over 350 emails for our free tickets to see Cut Copy(at The Glass House) and LA Weekly Detour Festival were we gave out FREE tickets.
See our contests page for these upcoming ticket giveaways.
B. Ngai, Winner for the Detour Tickets!
S. Urabe, Winner for the Cut Copy Tickets!
We have a bunch more great tickets to give away.
So, what about playing my songs on Loudvine?
September 5th, 2008I get this question a lot via email these days. So this is what we are going to do.
Send us one or two MP3′ and please no more.
Send it to info (at) loudvine.com and if we like it, we will play it on the blog and kiss your ass a little by writing about it so all our friends, who are constantly looking for new music, can know about it as well.
We’re excited about this, since that is the whole point behind this crazy thing called Loudvine–to help as many bands as we can and get the word out on you.
Loudvine @ F Yesh Fest: The Sticker Festival
August 31st, 2008To the chaos that was and to all the cool people we met, thanks again for taking our little stickers and putting the word out on what we are trying to…we appreciate it. And to the world’s best street team, it was a blast.
Flashback to Another Video Fiasco
August 29th, 2008Is it 1991 or 2008? You all get the reference to another famous video cover up.
Lets admit it, we’ve all had some run-ins with the po po. But what are you do when you do nothing wrong? Luckily for us there is this thing called the web and a certain phone number so you know where this is going!
As you well know and blogged by our buddies at LA Weekly and just about everywhere, Michael Reich of videothing.com had a really unfortunate but let’s call it what its- a fucked up encounter with some overzealous rent-a-cops and po po during the Radiohead show at the Hollywood bowl.
Now he is urgently looking to get this footage back from that nights show. Lets help him.
This is what we need: Please jam this guys phone by calling and leaving messages urging him to give Michael his video back:
Here is the contact information
JIM SERVICE
jservice@csc-usa.com
t. 818.885.5150
Have some fun guys. Thanks.
Only As Good As Your Lawyers
August 29th, 2008Ok, so this bullshit has been going on for what, ten years? I am not referring to me trying to get a meeting with Heidi Klum to convince her that I can spin her house parties. Wait I am actually talking about two things happening simultaneously.
1) One the fact that records business is in such demise (poor poppy shit, over manufactured rap beats, and silly white kids hawking their Disney shows) is killing the masses. If Mao were alive today, he would say “shit music is the opiate of the masses.”
2)And the insistence of the Record Labels forgetting that although content is king, it’s actually more like the prince, waiting to take the reins and that true kings of the digital age of music are actually the fans who, gasp are still actually wanting to buy music in whatever format.
This rant might be in code for fear of getting sued today. I am clearly annoyed today. Just bear with me.
Back to the 90’s, there was this little rapper called Jay Z. No one would give him a chance. So what he and his crew did still rings true today and no more than in Los Angeles, where the crappy bands get signed and get exposure, and the truly unique ones, are left looking for deals.
Jay Z would hang out by this hotdog stand on 6th Avenue and 8th Street in Manhattan and start slinging CD’s and he got the word out there. We know the rest. Which now brings me to the real point of my rant.
More and more I am hearing about bands bitch about piracy and illegal downloads blah blah. Sorry, I know your coke habit is expensive and dressing your 23 year old girls in Gucci is expensive (your like a rock and roll equivalents of John McCain who have truly forgotten what it’s really like for the rest of us) but really keeping people waiting ten years plus for new material is kinda of like a promise ring…I might get bored having to wait that long and in the mean time, you have fallen off the map.
Whether I am talking about the Guns & Roses-Anti Quiet lawsuit and arrest or something else is up to you determine. I am down with what Anti Quiet did and know it must be huge if the LA Times actually reports it! But seriously, Anti-Quiet drummed up interest for a bunch of long hairs and now is paying for it, why is that?
I don’t want some overly priced ESQ. coming after me for libel or some shit like that. What I am thinking though, is the old adage, “any pr is good pr,” so in an era where you have not surfaced for years, you’re still rich and the digital media has totally changed (unlike your hair styles), I challenge these big timers to come out for a night at Mr. T’s or The Echo to see how the world of music has changed. Please leave your lawyers at home.
Music and its distribution have changed and are changing so dramatically, almost it feels hourly. What has not changed is the establishment trying to fend off this small thing called the Internet. And I remind you, the web is democratic, all and everyone can share in, whether it is through blogs, social networking, and youtube and beyond. And it’s free. As it should. Get my point. The actual content we all bump in our apple products should be free because now, as opposed to fifteen years ago, there are more avenues for artists to distribute their music and in turn get paid – video games, ring tones, TV, kiosks, satellite radio and shows on AA flights, get my point? Lead with free music and make it up and more via all these new avenues.
Look at the landscape now and you see the real pulse of music is the bands doing everything truly on their own. They connect with “friends” via Facebook and Myspace, send out event invites and you get them to come out to listen to you because they were given mp’3 before your show. They press their own CD’s, collaborate, mix, re-engineer virtually and they oversee their own public identity and still having to put on a great show that night!
The record labels and their attorneys are essentially like the old monopoly telephone companies, whose response to change is, “well its always been this way” as they bleed more profits from us just because they can. And they like to add, we have put all this money into your band, so now what…? Recoupment is like being an indentured servant. It is totally unacceptable.
Lefsetz was right, if you let the content out you’re constantly reminding a newer generation that it’s there and you open yourself up to the discovery of new fans. So why sue when you get people talking about you?
Very simply, because you don’t mind a leak if the music is good. If its crap, you sue, because you know people won’t come out and dig for it. What we have now, is really an amazing opportunity, nothing as crazy a true Chinese Democracy (even the Olympics won’t change that) but a music democracy where the people and artists own the content and the ability to put it where it mostly belongs—in the hands of the people who listen to music (not the suits, not the dj’s, not the lawyers) and watch it spread virally if its any good.
And no, I am not advocating selling out to the local bands we cover here at Loudvine. You are part of the reason music distribution is changing, because we now have access to more real music, more imagination then ever. Don’t lose your soul looking for a deal. Rather the opposite. Continue to put your content out there and let it be what guides the process and bring people in yourselves, create your own buzz. Don’t be like those pampered fools. When the labels come calling, don’t forget to do two things. Forget your lawyers and continue making great music. It wins out in the end. It might not help you end up with a mansion overlooking Sunset but at least you know that one thing has not changed in the music industry– no one can knock the hustle.
Good Post By Lefsetz
August 28th, 2008As received in my inbox this am. Good Blog by Lefsetz
Isn’t this how the labels got in trouble to begin with? By making customers buy an entire, overpriced CD to get the single, the only track they wanted, oftentimes the only good track on the album?
Pulling acts from iTunes is akin to winning the pennant but refusing to play in the World Series because the TV network and its advertisers would be unjustly enriched. Like being the world champion but not going to the Olympics because these same entities would profit and China’s image would be burnished at the athlete’s expense. Is that what we’re going to see next? Michael Phelps suing China for a percentage of its gross national product? Since he focused the world’s eyes upon the country?
iTunes was not launched as the definitive future of music acquisition but as an alternative to theft. Pulling music from iTunes just incentivizes people to steal, to learn new techniques for stealing. At the height of the original Napster grandmothers were downloading. The key is to develop a reasonable alternative that makes stealing not worth it. Raising the price is not a solution.
That’s what labels want to do, raise prices at the iTunes Store. Why not tell that to GM! Ford and Chrysler too! Why don’t we raise the price for SUVs! Make more on each one! Eureka, that’s the solution! But at least most drivers only need and purchase one automobile. Whereas we’re now in the golden age of music acquisition. Kids who might not have owned any music in decades past now possess thousands of cuts. And believe me, they didn’t pay a buck for each. And this is good, the more people music own, the more enriched their lives are. Furthermore, the greater benefit to the acts’ whose tracks have been stolen. File-trading kept Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and AC/DC alive. How else would kids have heard this music? And now AC/DC are going to go on the road and sell every single ticket. This wouldn’t have happened without the easy, in this case free, acquisition of music online.
And unlike the Eagles, AC/DC is not a geriatric act. Kids like AC/DC. To keep them off the iTunes Store is an insult to the band’s fanbase. Like forcing you to go to a liquor store to buy Coke, refusing to sell it in the supermarket. The Eagles may have sold millions of albums, but in the consciousness of America, their latest double album, “Long Road Out Of Eden”, is an incredible stiff. It had zero cultural impact. Are you only interested in short term money? Not the act’s good will, career and legacy? Then make a deal with one retailer with a guaranteed payment. You’re on a direct train to the graveyard.
The Eagles are unique. No one expected a new album and the band didn’t need it, they’re coasting on their hits, they can tour until they die. But what if you still have an active career? What if you need your music in the public consciousness? What if you are still building? To keep your music off the Internet is like writing a novel and refusing to publish it. Believe me, kids barely know what a CD is, and they don’t want to go to a store to purchase it. Shit, I do my best to never go into a retail store, it’s easier to shop online, where inventory is plentiful and one can easily find the lowest price and delivery is straight to your door.
As for delivering CDs via the Internet… That’s like selling typewriter ribbons via the Net. Like delivering dot matrix printer ribbons. Why online would we want anything but files?
As for making users buy the complete album, a la Amazon… This just ends up frustrating the user base, causing revolt. The RIAA/major labels are hated by the average consumer, kids know artists get shitty royalty rates, and this is because of the backlash against overpriced CDs with only one good track and the useless anti-piracy scheme known as suing file traders.
Kid Rock is a career artist who is seen as an album artist. He happens to have the single of the summer. This is driving CD sales. How often is this formula replicable? If we’re lucky, we’ve got one single of the summer, and it usually can’t be predicted in advance. And oftentimes, it’s by a one hit wonder. And, outside of the U.S., Kid Rock’s music is available on iTunes…
And then we’ve got the strange case of the Rolling Stones. They sold essentially double the online singles of Pink Floyd and the Eagles, but only half the albums. Could it be that the consumer is smart? And knows that whereas Pink Floyd is the quintessential album act, with the Stones it’s now about the singles? Maybe you’ve got to buy “Beggars Banquet”, then again, when was the last time the Stones played “Parachute Woman” in concert? In other words, if you want the customer to buy complete albums, you’ve got to make better albums!
I’d say it’s best if music labels stopped trying to scam their way to profits. Yes, it’s not the consumer who’s underhanded so much as the sellers. They’re looking for endless ways to rip off their customers instead of producing music so desirable that it sells itself.
