Is The Consumer Always Right?
:: Posted by Sid Smith on Thu., Dec 8, 2011
CD Faces Death By Download is the heading in an article which looks at the growth of streaming services such as Spotify. Innerviews author Anil Prasad makes this interesting observation in the piece: "The bottom line is, streaming is a great thing for the streaming companies, their label partners and consumers, but it is horrifically unfair to the artists. Until this is corrected, listeners need to understand that they are fundamentally harming the artists they love by using these services...Remember, Spotify is partly owned by the record labels. They're having a grand old time paying themselves. The artists? Forget about it."

Then there’s this quote from Erin Ward:"Remember when listening to music meant you had to sit in front of a stereo and speakers? If we cared about sonic quality, there would be a reason to buy music again. And most importantly, it would inspire bands, allow them to make money again and to make more creative records. Otherwise, they just won't bother anymore. And then we'll be stuck with Justin Bieber."

You can read the whole article here.

Some Fun With Funkytown
:: Posted by Sid Smith on Thu., Dec 8, 2011
My thanks to Cuicawrangler for sending in this story about the writer of the hit single Funkytown and UMG.

Guitar Craft Themes
:: Posted by Sid Smith on Wed., Dec 7, 2011
Some of the most enduring pieces associated with the Guitar Craft and Guitar Circle communities are soon to be available in notation form via a new book book, Seven Guitar Craft Themes.

Cynical Grooveshark
:: Posted by Sid Smith on Tue., Dec 6, 2011
DGMLive visitor NotSoGroovy highlights his two favourite moments of Grooveshark's breathtaking (and moneymaking) cynicism from the recently featured CNet article: How We Built A Music Service Without,Um, Paying For Music.

First up: “…we are achieving all this growth without paying a dime to any of the labels… My favorite story related to our case is the story of a kid who appears in front of the judge for sentencing for the crime of having murdered both his parents saying judge have mercy on me cuz I am an orphan.”

And this one: “In our case, we use the label’s songs till we get a 100 (million) uniques, by which time we can tell the labels who is listening to their music, where, and then turn around and charge them for the very data we got from them, ensuring that what we pay them in total for streaming is less than what they pay us for data mining. Let’s keep this quite for as long as we can.”

Belew's First Two Reviewed
:: Posted by Sid Smith on Tue., Dec 6, 2011
My thanks to michaelocfor giving us the heads-up about this review of Adrian Belew's first two solo albums.

More 1981 Frippertronics Go Live
:: Posted by Sid Smith on Mon., Dec 5, 2011
Alex has restored three Frippertronics concerts from Fripp's benefit gigs for the University of Pennsylvania's radio station, WXPN FM. The three concerts are available as single downloads or as a bundle.

Gerrits-Rich Quick Scheme
:: Posted by Sid Smith on Mon., Dec 5, 2011
My thanks to Sean Hollenhors for sending this snippet about allegedly corrupt practices and ironic rum goings-on in cinematic anti-piracy campaign. There's more on this subject here.  

Steven Wilson Gets 3rd Grammy Nomination
:: Posted by Sid Smith on Thu., Dec 1, 2011
Steven Wilson's album Grace For Drowning has been nominated for a Grammy in the surround sound category. The album,  which has contributions from Tony Levin, Pat Mastelotto and Theo Travis, is up against the following releases:

"An Evening With Dave Grusin" - Frank Filipetti & Eric Schilling, surround mix engineers; Frank Filipetti, surround mastering engineer; Phil Ramone, surround producer (Various Artists)

"Kind" - Morten Lindberg, surround mix engineer; Morten Lindberg, surround mastering engineer; Morten Lindberg, surround producer (Kjetil Almenning, Ensemble 96 & Nidaros String Quartet)

"Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs (Super Deluxe Edition)" - Elliot Scheiner, surround mix engineer; Bob Ludwig, surround mastering engineer; Bill Levenson & Elliot Scheiner, surround producers (Derek & The Dominos)

"Spohr: String Sextet In C Major, Op. 140 & Nonet In F Major, Op. 31" - Andreas Spreer, surround mix engineer; Andreas Spreer, surround mastering engineer; Andreas Spreer, surround producer (Camerata Freden).

This will be the third time Steven has been nominated for a Grammy. Let's hope it's third time lucky, eh?

Have 7-String Will Travel
:: Posted by Sid Smith on Thu., Dec 1, 2011
Here's a piece about guitarist Nigel Gavin who some visitors will know as Gitbox Rebellion.  

Berlin Guitar Ensemble Assembles!
:: Posted by Sid Smith on Tue., Nov 29, 2011
The Berlin Guitar Ensemble (8 acoustic guitars) and 1605munro (electronic-ambient performer) will be performing at Hotel Bogota in Berlin on Sunday 10th December.