Note: In general, I use my blog as an archive of the tidbits that appear on my front page. Occasionally, I'll write directly to the blog about non-music topics. Blog Archive 2008 February/March 2007 January February/March April/May/June July/August Sept. to Dec. 2006 December November October

by George Ziemann ATO Records -- A New Beginning? February 22, 2008 -- Another week has flown past and nothing worth talking about has happened in the music world, as far as I know. So let me direct your attention to a movie you might have missed but need to see, Before the Music Dies. I haven't even seen it yet myself, but I found the trailer and I'm eagerly anticipating its next appearance on IFC. The film is 2 years old, but I've never heard of it before. Carl turned me on to it after seeing it this past weekend. From what's on the site, this appears to be a showcase for ATO Records, which was co-founded by Dave Matthews and seems to be one of the first labels to demonstrate an interest in artist development in two decades. They might even try to pay the artists fairly. It's way too early to tell, but it would be nice if this was the beginning of a trend. Meanwhile, the gang of idiots at the RIAA successfully convinced the judge to throw out Tanya Andersen's class action lawsuit, having provided a list of 32 reasons to do so. The judge agreed with two of the reasons, told Andersen to go fix it and gave her a month to do it. The other 30 seemed to be categorized by the judge as either too little or too late. A new site called SeeqPod showed up that enables you to search the web for mp3 files. Naturally, the RIAA is suing it. To be specific, Warner Music is suing it, verifying that all that crap Bronfman was spewing to stockholders in November about the acknowledgement that they had lost an "inadvertent" war with consumers was a pack of lies to keep the stock price up. The war is still in progress. Nothing inadvertent about it. They haven't learned anything. February 29, 2008 -- Since I started using the RSS feed, I feel somehow obligated to write complete articles with meaningful headlines. It has changed the way I approach the site and I've kind of stopped writing the single paragraph things. Since people keep looking at this page, I thought that maybe I'd write something here for a change. I've been doing my absolute best to ignore all the political news. But even if you don't read the stories, it's pretty difficult to avoid seeing the headlines. So here's my take on that one: McCain is a Republican (strike one) who wants the war to continue indefinitely (strike two). I've voted for McCain several times in the past, but that ended when he started kissing Jerry Falwell's ass (strike three). McCain is also endorsed by Bush, which should be the kiss of death. He promises more of the same, I don't think we want more of the same. Hillary's last name is Clinton (strike one), she's already spent 8 years in the White House (strike two), and you know Bill comes with her (foul ball). Although Bill Clinton did a good job domestically (ball one) and balanced the budget (ball two), he lied about something innocuous (foul ball). While I have no problem with a female president (ball four), this particular woman's husband complicates the issue (foul ball) and gives one the feeling that voting for her would be some sort of attempt to put things back the way they were. It feels like moving backwards (strike three, she's outta there). Ralph Nader, who just jumped into the race, can be discounted because, well, he's Ralph Nader (pop foul, catcher snags it, he's outta there). This leaves us with Barack Obama. I think a black (or at least half-black) president would raise our social status a notch in the eyes of the world (ball one). He is honest enough to admit to inhaling (ball two). Unlike The Decider, he can speak in complete sentences and actually express a thought without making up words (ball three). He's not a Bush, a Clinton or a Republican. His biggest problem so far seems to have been using "Yes We Can" as a slogan, which may infringe upon Bob the Builder (foul ball, strike one). We don't know for sure what he would do. Unlike the other candidates, we don't know for sure which industry sectors are propping him up, but we do know it's not Halliburton (ball four). He's young, he's smart, he's urban, ethnic, not a rich white guy. He doesn't have a southern drawl. He went to Columbia and Harvard, not Yale, so he's not part of the Skull and Bones or the Illuminatae. He could be introduced by John Cleese, with "And now for something completely different..." That's exactly what we need right now. Something completely different. I think the only way Obama can lose this election is by getting caught doing something incredibly stupid. Even then, if he offered an honest, human explanation, it would be a significant improvement over the status quo. So he'd have to do something incredibly stupid and lie about it. Otherwise, it's the first time in my adult lifetime that there's someone to vote for, as opposed to the regular choice of the lesser of two weevils. March 2, 2008 -- I started contributing material to the Boycott-RIAA site in 2003, before they (the RIAA) started suing people. It was so long ago that you always had to explain who the RIAA was. Now everyone understands. Sales have dropped severely. The fans despise them. The artists are shunning them. Our job is done. (Read More) March 5, 2008 -- If you thought the mass acceptance of mp3s was a giant step backward for the quality of music, this one's gonna make your frickin' head explode. The question: Pop stars long ago stopped pretending that they play music. We're down to dancers that sing. How can pop music possibly get any worse? When the critics start saying, "The last thing pop stars need is singing ability." March 30, 2008 -- Today's highly off-topic gem comes from Russia, via Australia, which I found on Fark. It's a wonderful combination of crazy and irony, not to mention a perfect example of how journalists end up having to tell a story backwards and leave out the obvious questions. The original is here. So here's the deal -- There is some doomsday cult in Russia that decided the world was going to end in May. So back in October, 35 of them sealed themselves in a cave, "refusing to come out until the end of the world," which is apparently not going to extend to cave dwellers. The cult leader isn't down there with them. The court had already put him in the Russian version of a psych ward. Then it gets weird... Spring comes and melting snow causes part of the cave to collapse. Do the people in the cave see this as the first rumblings of the end of the world? Hell, no. They begin "intense negotiations with officials." How? Have the officials been hanging around outside the cave for six months? Did the End of the World devotees take a cell phone with them? One that works in a cave? What do they need to negotiate? "Thank you for calling Penza region KGB. How can we help you be a loyal comrade? Are you calling to confess to your crime?" "Not exactly. This is Dmitri, one of the guys in the cave." "Yes. What can you do for us?" "The cave is starting to collapse." "KGB did not cause cave to collapse. We are not responsible." "Some of the women would like to leave." "KGB did not put you in cave. Hiding in cave is okay with us. Not hiding in cave is okay, too." "We can't just come out." "You could stand at the cave entrance for a while to get used to the light." "No, you don't understand. The world is still going to end in May." Anyway, the psycho cult leader is brought to "negotiate" and convinces seven of the women to come out of the cave and go hang out at his house. Reportedly, five more women are thinking about it and one them will bring her kid out with her. Chocolate may have been involved. Started out with 35 people. They're going to be down to 22 and they're running out of women, which is a very important consideration when hiding from the end of the world. So the men are not in the cave because the women talked them into it. If that were true, they would have followed them out. They must be in there because they believed the psycho cult leader when he told them to hide in the cave. Now he's telling them to come out and they don't believe him. Now they think he's crazy.

Quotes "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity" -- Robert Heinlein (in Logic of Empire) "I don't want to go out and see Bob Dylan. I don't want to go out and see the Stones. I wouldn't pay money to go see the Who, not even with new songs." -- Pete Townshend, 2006 "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe." -- Albert Einstein "A watched pot never boils over. " -- GZ "News is what someone wants to suppress. Everything else is advertising." -- Reuven Frank, NBC News President, 1968-72 "I live in my own little world. It's nice there." -- Deborah Harry "Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." -- John Lennon I don't gamble, because winning a hundred dollars doesn't give me great pleasure. But losing a hundred dollars pisses me off. -- Alex Trebeck