Huh.

King Cobra, Seattle's new rock & roll nightclub and venue is for sale!

King Cobra is a rock & roll club in a great location, next to the Comet Tavern, and across the street from Neumo's. It has a great sound system, a capacity of 475, and a growing reputation throughout Seattle as a great place to see a live show. We have a waiting list of bands who want to play. And our calendar is currently filling up with more quality shows every day.

King Cobra is currently a venue for live music 3 to 4 nights per week. The remaining 3 or 4 nights can be used for more interactive events that encourage audience participation. These events could include karaoke, rock band contests, game show night, and ssp wrestling. We make good use of the 4 projectors and a flat panel tv.

King Cobra is also open for DANCE CLUB nights, and comes with a complete dance floor lighting system with light jockey computer control system, plus DJ equipment, including Technics Turntables, CDJs, Mixers, and monitors.

The current owners, and some citizens of Seattle, would like to sell King Cobra with it's current format, including a great calendar of upcoming events, and an all-star cast of employees.

We regret that we are forced to sell King Cobra.

The business is for sale because of these reasons:
1. Personal financial issues
2. Management mistakes
3. Lack of experience
4. Lack of marketing

Details:

1. Lease is 12,912.46 for about 6,000 sq. ft
2. Basement "greenroom" or private party room available at 1869 for 1869 square feet. Stairs lead down directly from stage. And there is a direct entrance to greenroom from 10th Street.
3. There are 2 years on the lease, and a 2 1/2 year extension
4. Currently, drink sales are 50,000 per month, but can be more with proper marketing, and as we book concerts with bigger draw. The previous owner did sales of 80,000.
5. Sales numbers are for drinks and food only, not including ticket sales.
6. We are up to date on all taxes and bills.
7. We have a good reputation with the city, the Liquor Control Board, and the police.

8. Sprinkler system installed throughout the building, including basement

9. Fully equipped kitchen included
10. Breaking news: we are now approved for all-ages concerts (bar with I.D.)

11. Asking price is 425,000

If you are interested, please contact Jamie Garza at jmegarza@yahoo.com

Thank you,
Jamie Garza
Owner
King Cobra

Dear Apple,

I tried (all frikking day long) to transfer an iTunes library from one PC to another. Someone bought a new computer and asked me to transfer their iTunes library to it. "No problem," I said.

Five hours and three calls to Apple Support later, I failed. You see, it was the Playlists that were important. The person didn't want to lose their Playlists. But I lost them. I printed out the twelve page instructions for 'How to use your iPod to move your music to a new computer' and followed them exactly. But I still lost the Playlists. I would have lost the music too, but thankfully I had backed it up.

How about 'How to use this motherfucking rage I'm feeling?" How about that, Apple?

I hit 'Apply' and everything vanished. Nothing transferred, no music was there. I was so pissed off I could not speak. Then I got to hold for fifteen minutes waiting to talk to a human and got to put those minutes on my phone.

By the time I spoke to someone I had built up a day's worth of frustration. I said to the Apple person, "I'm not cattle, don't treat me like cattle. I am a thinking, feeling, human being who can operate computers."

What gets me is that they know if they make it difficult enough, you will have to go online to the 'help' section where you are shown endless advertising. Then you call them and you are so frantic to fix the problem you give them your email address and they send you more advertising. And finally, you will have to go into the Apple Store, where you will spend every cent to your name.

Apple knows if we see enough product, we will buy. It's like at the grocery store how they put the milk and the bread as far away from each other as possible. They know if we walk through the grocery store, we will buy beer, Kit-Kat bars, and steak.

Hear me now, Apple people. We're not cattle, some of us can walk through the grocery store and not buy beer, Kit-Kats, and steak. (We may browse Heavy Metal Magazine, but we don't buy it.)

Apple needs to simplify the instructions and stop cramming advertising up our asses. You know and they know it doesn't have to be that complicated.

At the place where I spend most of my evenings there is a stereo. My coworkers do not understand what a privilege this stereo is. They can’t see that the full control they wield of this stereo is a mighty gift, a gift rarely enjoyed by the huddled masses cowering near minimum wage. There is no mandated corporate bullshit megamix on loop. No required easy listening. There is an iPod dock and limitless possibilities, unless those possibilities contain swearing. And what do my coworkers do? They piss on this luxury right in its face.

First, there’s the playlist lacking any semblance of innovation. There isn’t a single song on there that hasn’t seen heavy rotation on FM radio. There’s no rhyme or reason behind why the songs are grouped together: “Baby I Love Your Way” moves into “Don’t Worry Be Happy,” on to four Bob Marley songs. “Hit Me Baby One More Time” is followed by the Gin Blossoms and “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” then there’s a Backstreet Boys jam and maybe “What if God Was One of Us.” A brief history of commercial radio, chaotically chosen and piled together in a sloppy heap and put on shuffle. In the list’s inception the creator expends virtually no energy, instead opting to inquire meekly: “What songs have I heard a billion fucking times before, and what can I do to hear them again?” Many of these songs appear to have been chosen for “ironic” value, but seriously, if you keep telling the same ironic joke repeatedly, every three minutes for several hours, day after day, eventually the recipient of that joke is going to start daydreaming about ways he can poison you. With iPods like these, the freedom afforded through the stereo had been utterly disregarded, no chances taken. Even if the songs aren’t "good," they’re familiar, and that’s all some people need to crawl though their workday.

Yet I can’t decide which is worse: squandering your gift on radio banality, or exploiting it with vapid independent internet garbage? There are some young college kids who work at my shop. They listen to music like a god damn fourteen year old girl. It’s like they’ve embraced every swoopy-haired emo power pop band trying to make a million dollars on Myspace, and they play them, all the time. Normally this stuff chunks by under my radar, purposefully, but now it’s in my face whether I want to deal with it or not. It sounds sort of like the "Emo" I listened to a decade ago, but it’s devolved. Its forefathers had barely figured out thumbs - there really wasn’t room to dumb it down any farther. When New Found Glory was getting a lot of attention I never thought about what the bands that would later reference them as inspirations would sound like. I didn't want to think about it. Now I get to ALL THE TIME. Pop punk is the ”Boy Band” of the 2000s. At work I hear group after group - I don’t know most of the band names and don’t bother to check. Because they are all doing the same thing (namely, playing Warped Tour). Every song is a formula, each lyric purposefully picked to stimulate a teenager’s angst gland. To finger it delicately, but defiantly. With 5150s. And jump kicks. The messages are innocuous and clichéd; there is no emotion in the Emo. It is now merely the streamlined essence of a former "independent" scene. If a bunch of a band's songs use the ubiquitous halftime/double-bass judding breakdown then they get to call themselves “Hardcore.” For people who get off on actual hard music these bands are the equivalent of dry-humping in stiff jeans. Just like high school, all over again.

Some effort had to be spent finding these crappy bands. Obviously a normal person can ignore them with great ease. Is the attempt to reach out and discover these groups worthy of any praise? When it comes to choosing music for the work stereo which is the greater sin: taking no risks and only listening to what the radio tells you, or trying to “think outside the box” and getting trapped in an arguably stupider one?

In what is sure to go over about as well as wearing a clown suit to a funeral, I've decided to take on the task of making my mother a mix CD for her birthday. I'm broke and I feel like my heart is in the right place, but I am pretty sure it's going to be a flop. I don't even think my Mom listens to anything besides 97.3 KBSG, and even then probably only likes Billy Joel. Am I setting myself up for failure? What are good songs for Mom's? Should I just buy flowers? Will I flop like Jeff did with his mom?

Track listing after the jump...

Continue reading "Songs for Moms" »

One way musicians learn is by listening, studying, playing to, and mimicking the music that they like. For guitar players, a high percentage of them go through a Jimmy Page phase. The same could be true for keyboard players and Stevie Wonder, or bass players and Flea.

This in from ‘Kev’:

My band’s guitar player is a big Jimmy Page fan. Particularly Zeppelin II Jimmy Page. But he’s taken it too far. He’s starting to wear unbuttoned tight blouse shirts and bell bottoms. He’s let his hair grow long and I swear the other day I heard him speak with an English accent. He's from Ohio.

He has been watching tons and tons of Zeppelin DVD’s and recently bought that two DVD set that was released in 2003.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Zeppelin, and that 2003 DVD is incredible. But I think it’s starting to take away from our band’s originality. We had a show last week and someone asked me if we were supposed to be a Zeppelin cover band.

A response: Well Kev,

Does your band sound like Led Zeppelin? Ask yourself that. If you think you might sound too much like them, maybe try to change up a couple sections, or effects, or production, that can give your band more of its own sound.

Influences are a good thing. Don’t be ashamed. But also, don’t copy them. Try to harness the parts of Zeppelin’s sound you like and put your own spin on it.

Ride out your guitar player’s Page phase. Don’t hassle him too much about it. If he’s spending hours a day learning Page riffs, that will prove useful once he can incorporate them into his own style.

If the blouses have dragons on them, get him out of the blouses. Tell him people are starting to ask you if you’re a Zeppelin cover band, and you’re worried the blouses may be contributing to the confusion. Take him to Goodwill and keep him out of the dragon section.

As for the English accent, we as humans are chameleons. With all the hours your guitar player has spent watching Page interviews, it is very possible he’s picked up a thing or two speech wise and isn't aware of it.

Encourage him to go out a little more. Take him to see some live shows. Get him a Lynyrd Skynyrd DVD.

Every time we post something about Microsoft's Zune MP3 player, we get all these, "You Apple drones don't know what your talking about!" comments.

I have never been a fan of the Zune, which was rolled out in the most idiotic way by Microsoft. In classic MS style, they put all sorts of restrictions on its use, and only when they discovered that, "Hey, no one wants to by a useless MP3 player that acts as cop, judge and jury on the purchaser!" did they roll back some of the restrictions.

Well, how about this Zune fans (from the front page of the business section in today's P-I):

Microsoft Corp.'s Entertainment and Devices Division is full of people thinking about upcoming Xbox 360 video games, Windows Mobile software and Zune music products.

One group in the division does it for a different reason -- to figure out how best to put ads in front of the people who use them.

The division's 40-person advertising business group has been working behind the scenes since October to expand Microsoft's advertising footprint outside the realm of traditional Internet search and display ads.

On Tuesday, Microsoft is expected to show some of the first results of the group's work -- including a plan to test advertising on the online site Zune Social and, in a limited way, on the Zune music devices themselves.

Okay! I get it! When you release a device that fails to "capture the imaginations" of the public, you just make it worse by putting advertising on it! Can't wait!

Mark Kroese [head of the Division] acknowledged that users may be sensitive to the idea of advertising on a music device. Overall, he said, the company will use feedback from the pilot program to decide how to proceed.

How about this for some feedback:

Dear Microsoft,

You are the dumbest people on earth if you think this shit will fly.

xo, Terry

And one more time for fun. Here's that great picture of the egg-shaped-headed John Richards and Mr. Gates.

(Courtesy of Google images and, like, a million websites...)

And you get Fruity Pebbles. Seriously.

There was King Cobra friction last week. Words exchanged. Disagreement and name calling arose. Shoulders had chips on them. A source was finally cited. (Pictured to the right: Owner Che Sabado as the Flintstone Godfather, Bamm-Bamm Rubble.)

Friday night, a meet up was arranged. I was to talk face to face with booker Jason Rothman, owner Che Sabado, and Bobcat, the club’s web designer / DJ / wrestler. Apprehensive and alone, I entered the club.

Once inside, a cold Pabst beverage was placed in my hand and the threesome said there was something they wanted to show me – in the back alley. “What could be in the back alley?” I thought.

In the alley, the henchman Bobcat put me in a headlock, and I was shown the Fruity Pebbles. “You made a big mistake,” Rothman sneered. Sabado slowly and meticulously opened the box.

I pled, “Not the Fruity Pebbles, ANYTHING BUT THE FRUITY PEBBLES. Please, I’ll never not cite you again.”

Then they showed me to the upper level of the club where more cereal awaited, with milk this time. It was delicious. Rothman said, “Fruity Pebbles is fortified with vitamins and minerals. It’s a fun, wholesome, and tasty way to start your day.”

After the cereal fun, we talked about numbers and operating costs of the club. “King Cobra has nothing to hide,” they said. “We want to be known as a place that’s good to bands.”

Lastly, we bro’d down, cried into our beers, and buried hatchets. Face to face there was love. On stage, the Femurs and No-Fi Soul Rebellion had killer sets. King Cobra is a great club.

(Pictures taken by Matt Harvey)

According to several people who were at the show, King Cobra waived the cover charge last Friday when the place was empty. By night's end, the room was full. They passed a hat around so the bands could make some money. From yesterday’s comments on Payout: The Split:

When the first band started the place was pretty empty so the club waived the cover charge. By the end of the night the club was full. All those folks were buying lots of drinks. The bands had to "pass the hat" to raise money. When confronted the club said the bands were lucky to get the $$ from the passing of the hat. Bullshit move by King Cobra.

Statement from King Cobra booker, Jason Rothman:

We did in fact pay the bands at the end of the night. It is true they passed the hat too, but I PERSONALLY gave the lead singer of Blackie (a blondie tribute band) $100. Now that is far from a windfall, but it is definately $100 more than anyone would have received if the club owners did not do something to get people in there.

If you have any question about how we treat bands ask Neon Nights,
 Emeralds,
 Brent Amaker & the Rodeo,
 Tennis Pro,
 Iceage Cobra, the Whore Moans,
 the Greatest Hits,
the Cute Lepers,
 Strong Killings,
 the Pharmacy,
 or the Pleasureboaters
 to name a few. I am willing to bet they will tell you a much different story about how they were treated. All we were trying to do was create a situation so bands could (and in fact did) get paid.


Update interview of Jason and owner Che Sabado. They said:

From 8 to 10:30 there were no paid customers. By 10:45 we were sending employees home. Those are employees who lost wages. It was a terrible night numbers wise. We waived the cover and tried to make the best out of a bad situation.

Which room would you rather play?

Your band plays a local show. It’s a Wednesday night, you’ve hustled on self-promoting and there was a decent turnout to see you. You made posters, hung them yourself, and made sure people were there. For a school night, it’s a good show.

The end of the night arrives and you are handed an envelope with $37 in it. The posters you made cost you $30. The manager says, “Sorry, the headliner (who no one came to see) had a guarantee, and we took $50 for the posters.” $50 for the posters? The club didn’t put posters up. You saw one poster in the bathroom that the club made. You tell the manager about the posters you hung and he says, “Sorry.”

It was a four-band bill, after the headliner and poster fee, they split the money evenly between the other three bands. You give your band members $5 each and consider it a good promotional show – “To get the name out there.”

Other clubs pay the bands after the bar makes a certain amount. Some clubs pay a percentage of the door. The club has costs. There are sound engineers, bookers, and promoters to pay, lights and equipment to run, and employees to pay.

Sometimes the bands that have made the club money don’t make money themselves. But it’s worth it, because you had a good show, and hopefully you can get a weekend show there and make some money.

One question – who keeps the club honest? It sure seems like you should have made more than $37.

You’re on tour and you just played a show at a good club in another city. It’s the end of the night and it’s time to get paid. The manager calls you into his office and shows you a chart for the breakdown of the payout. The club bases their payout on attendance.

If there had been six more people there, according to the manager’s numbers, you would have gotten another hundred dollars. His figures are way off. You know there were at least a hundred more people there. And over the course of the evening, maybe two-hundred more. You tell him you think his numbers might be off but he stonewalls you. He sits back in his chair, smirks, and says, “Nope, those are the numbers from the door man. He has a click-counter.” The manager sounds like a robot. The words are scripted. You realize it’s a scam, but what can you do?

You don’t want to piss him off and get on his bad side, because you want to play there again. You try again to tell him you think there were lots more people there than his numbers show, but he gets agitated, “Look, I don’t know what to tell you, this is what the doorguy gave me.” Not wanting to make a scene and get blacklisted, you suck it up and take the money. You’ve been ripped off, but it’s such a good venue, you want to play there again. (So you can get ripped off again!)

Venues hold the cards when they base the payout on attendance. You can hire your own door guy to count, but that’s someone you have to pay.

Negotiating a guarantee beforehand is the way to go. Print out the email that says how much you get paid. When the club tries to lowball you after the show, or tell you there is no food buyout, having that email is nice. (Even if it’s a local show.)

Another scam is the vanishing bar manager. At the end of the night, they are nowhere to be found. There’s no one there to pay you. It’s late, and you need to get on the road. You try to call the manager, and harass the staff for an hour, but they tell you there’s nothing they can do. You wait until the tour is over and harass the manager for three months with emails. Maybe you’ll get paid, maybe not.

Usually touring bands are taken care of. Usually club managers are on the level. But when it comes to the click-counting power sleaze and the vanishing bar manager, you have to watch your back and be as proactive as possible. That $100 they take from your cut is spent fast.

Jack Johnson and Willie Nelson top the list of musicians who are practicing earth-friendly habits--Jack Johnson built a solar-powered studio and Willie Nelson sells his own biodiesel fuel in six states.

Also on the list, Dave Matthews Band, who apparently didn't lose too many points when they dumped a bunch of shit on people (and I don't mean with their music):

4. DAVE MATTHEWS BAND The U.S. rock band, through environmental nonprofit Reverb, has calculated the CO2 emissions from every stop on its upcoming summer tour and purchased the renewable energy credits to make up for the footprint left by each venue, hotel, flight, tour vehicle and even fan travel. Fans can sign up online for a carpool.

But they forgot Piebald. They aren't a good band at all anymore (I still like If it Weren't for Venetian Blinds...), but they've been using using vegetable oil as tour fuel for years now.

Record stores across America are dying. Maybe everyone stealing music from the internet is what's killing them. Maybe bands giving their albums away for free is what's killing them. Maybe it's MySpace, maybe it's YouTube, maybe it's YOU.

In order to celebrate independent record stores across the nation, give them love (and business) Alliance of Independent Media Stores, Coalition Of Independent Music Stores, Music Monitor Network, Newbury Comics, Value Music Group of Indie Stores have founded April 19th as Record Store Day.

"On this day, all of these stores will simultaneously link and act as one with the purpose of celebrating the culture and unique place that they occupy both in their local communities and nationally," says RecordStoreDay.com. Record stores across the nation will be having sales, selling exclusive merchandise, hosting in-stores, and giving away free shit all day long.

A bunch of local businesses are participating. Here's the rundown of what'll be happening around town:

Easy Street: In-store performances by Mark Pickerel and Jesse Sykes & the Sweet Hereafter at the Queen Anne location. 5 pm, free. Also, everything in both stores not already on sale will be 20% off all day long.

Everyday Music: Enter to win an autographed copy of the Tom Waits box set People Take Warning! Murder Ballads & Disaster Songs 1913-1938. There will also be free CD samplers, a storewide sale, and other goodies.

Silver Platters: All four locations (Queen Anne, Bellevue, Southcenter, and Northgate) are offering 20% off on all vinyl, box sets, CD singles, and Billboard Collections CDs, and one day only DVD specials (starting at $3.99). Each location has it's own in-store specials and they also have tons of live music through the day.

Queen Anne:
1:00 The Mary McPage Band
2:00 Matt Jorgensen + 451
3:00 Pat Monahan
4:00 Kim Archer Band
5:00 Bee Simonds
6:00 Speaker Speaker
7:00 Low-Fi
8:00 The Pharmacy
9:00 How and Lightning

Bellevue Crossroads:
1:00 Interlake High School Jazz Band
2:30 Tribaljazz
3:30 Amateur Radio Operator
5:00 Hadley Caliman

Southcenter:
1:00 DJ ECM/Slantooth

Sonic Boom: Both locations (Capitol Hill and Ballard) will be selling Cupcake Royale cupcakes and new Sonic Boom slip mats, with all the proceeds going to the Vera project. They'll also have exclusive vinyl including a Stephen Malkmus 10" and 7"s from Built to Spill, Death Cab, Black Keys, REM, and more. There will be other free surprises included with every purchase, and a sidewalk sale with CDs, rock books, posters, and more starting at $1. 10% of Saturday's sales will be donated to Music4life. Topping it off, they have live music and DJs all day.

Capitol Hill:
1:00 Vinnie Blackshadow
3:00 John Roderick (Long Winters) DJ Set
5:00 The Dutchess and The Duke

Ballard:
3:00 Vinnie Blackshadow
4:00 Aqueduct
5:30 Mono in VCF
7:00 The Moondoggies

Of course, there are more stores around town that shouldn't go ignored--Jive Time, Bop Street, Wall of Sound, and Singles Going Steady.

For more information about Record Store Day, visit www.recordstoreday.com.

Got something going on at your store? E-mail megan@thestranger.com and I'll add it to the list.

Everyday Music is one of the few businesses still open on east side block of Broadway between Denny and John. For the past month or two, all the neighboring stores have been relocating in preparation for the light rail construction that's supposed to start later this spring. But Everyday has stayed put mostly because they still didn't have a place to go.

"They wanted us out at the end of March," says the store's manager David Miranda. "And we had been searching for a new place since November. For awhile it looked like we were all going to be out of jobs."

But Everyday has finally found a new home--Miranda happily reports that their plan is to move into the building on the corner of Broadway and Pine, the one with the Jimi Hendrix statue in front of it.

"Our doors are going to be right behind the statue," he says. The building is set to be developed in two years, so Everday will only be able to sign a year and a half lease, but it will buy them some more time to find a more permanent solution. "We want to stay on Capitol Hill."

There is another downside--"It’s about half the size of the space we're in now," says Miranda. "So were feverishly trying to condense everything."

Still, a smaller space is better than no space at all. They should be in the new building by June 1st.

He's supposedly getting $4.8 million to do it.

A: TAG Body Spray running a record label.

From Billboard.com:

Island Def Jam Music Group and Procter & Gamble's TAG brand are teaming for a joint-venture hip-hop label, which will be led by Island Urban president Jermaine Dupri.

"My goal is to find artists that have longevity written all over their face," says Dupri, adding that TAG is expected to launch two artists per year during the course of the three-year deal.

According to Dupri, Proctor & Gamble, which produces TAG body spray, approached Island via ACME Brand Content Company for the joint venture. P&G views the union as a great way to reach its pop culture-influenced teen demographic. The label launch is also part of TAG's initiative to cultivate relationships with the urban community through programs that give opportunities to aspiring MCs.

Neither IDJ or P&G would comment on speculation that TAG artists will be supported with up to, but not limited to, $10 million in marketing dollars, an unprecedented figure for any contemporary new artist.

"Most artists get probably $1 million for a marketing budget," says Dupri. "The TAG artists will receive 10 times the typical marketing support. It will give these artists a chance to be and feel just as big as a Kanye West because the marketing budget is 10 to 20 times as much as the average. While it's not actually $10-20 million, the numbers are up in that area and further north."

Looks like the wealthy deodorant industry has some money to throw into the dying music industry.

And with a new Esquire essay, "Teenage Music Purchases: Anyone Seen My $4.2 Billion?", Klosterman shares his simple theory on the matter and asks "What is happening to all the money not being spent on music?"

When the Associated Press did its (now annual) story about How the Music Industry Is Failing this past January, it tried to answer my question with one sentence: "The recording industry has experienced declines in CD album sales for years, in part because of the rise of online file-sharing, but also because consumers have spent more of their leisure dollars on other entertainment, like DVDs and video games." This is a rational explanation supported by the precipitous commercial rise in both idioms. (Video-game revenue has more than doubled since 2000, and DVD sales grew from $2.5 billion in 2000 to $23.4 billion last year.) The only problem is while CDs, DVDs, and video games are physically similar, and they're sold in the same outlet, the experiences they offer aren't logically connected. I don't see why not having to pay for a Band of Horses album would make a person any more likely to buy a copy of Knocked Up, as opposed to buying four gallons of gas or a pair of sunglasses or a turtle. I don't think young people swap out items in their "leisure" budget that explicitly. What seems more likely is that this extra $4.2 billion -- unequally distributed among all the music fans who didn't pay for music in 2006 -- entered the overall economy in lots of disparate ways. And while we'll never know exactly where all those bones disappeared, my specific theory is this: A lot of the money not spent on music in the twenty-first century is being used to pay off credit-card debt that was incurred during the nineties. In other words, not paying for In Rainbows today is helping people eliminate the balance they still owe for buying Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness when they were broke in 1995.

Read the whole thing here.

Hat tip to the thankfully revived Gerard vs Bear and story via thedailyswarm:

Pop culture-focused social media site Buzznet, based in Los Angeles, has raised a big-ish third round of funding, as much as $25 million, we have learned, and that Universal Music-owned Interscope has invested a few million in it. We haven’t been able to confirm the other investors, but last year the company raised about $6 million led by Redpoint Ventures and Anthem Venture Partners. The previous investors might have put some of the new money as well.

The site’s primary focus is on music and offers related blogs, videos, photo-sharing and band-related features. In particular, Buzznet has struck alliances with indie bands by promoting specific online community channels for them. The company has also been working with established popstars, like Avril Lavigne.

Also, recently, investors Bob Pittman, of the Pilot Group and Sling Media’s Jason Hirschhorn traded their equity stakes in the influential indie music blog Stereogum for an ownership percentage of BuzzNet. We have confirmed through sources that Buzznet now fully owns Stereogum. Not sure how this plays into the new funding, but the financing may be used in making some other music and entertainment related content acquisitions and possibly rollups, our sources say.

The company has not responded to our repeated e-mails.

It’s March Madness tournament time in NCAA Basketball Land. The joyous spirit of head to head competition abounds. It’s also tournament time on Line Out. Sixteen teams are left. You decide who moves on. Mano a mano, a Buzzo. Will it be a Kaz – Slats showdown? And James Murphy vs. Tim Harrington looks to be an interesting match up. The ‘Elite 8’ will be played Friday. Final Four next week.

Here are the teams that have made it to the round of Sweet 16:

1. Kaz – PWRFL Power
2. Slats – Pain Cocktail
3. EYE – Boredoms
4. King Buzzo – the Melvins
5. Barfly – the Saturday Knights
6. Robin Pecknold – Fleet Foxes
7. James Murphy – LCD Soundsystem
8. Jackie Hell
9. Geologic – Blue Scholars
10. Tim Harrington – Les Savy Fav
11. Ms. Kristen Dupré - Elliot Spitzer prostitute
12. Amy Winehouse
13. Phil Collins – Genesis
14. ‘bing’ – Anonymous Commenter
15. Ben Gibbard – Death Cab for Cutie
16. Lemmy Kilmister – Motorhead

Jump ball. Play ball:

You wake up to news that Clear Channel's stock dropped 22% yesterday.

I think this is what you meant, Kirbs.

This is the cover of the new Dolly Parton record, Backwoods Barbie, which was released last month. The clothing, the pose, the setting – all very alluring, as if the purchase of the album implies you and Dolly are going to have a “roll in the hay.” An outdated model can be dressed up in any short skirt and sexy pose money can buy, but when it all boils down you’re still being tricked into screwing an old lady.

Via AP:

LOS ANGELES - The Smashing Pumpkins are suing Virgin Records, saying the record label has illegally used their name and music in promotional deals that hurt the band's credibility with fans. In a breach-of-contract lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Monday, the rockers said they have "worked hard for over two decades to accumulate a considerable amount of goodwill in the eyes of the public," and that Virgin's use of the band in a "Pepsi Stuff" promotion with Amazon.com and Pepsi Co. threatens their reputation for "artistic integrity."

Virgin released the Smashing Pumpkins' music for more than 17 years, but the only active agreement between the two parties, the lawsuit claims, is a deal granting Virgin permission to sell digital downloads of the band's songs. The agreement does not give Virgin the right to use the band in promotional campaigns to sell outside products, the lawsuit said.

I'd say Billy's poetry threatened their "artistic integrity" more than Pepsi ever could...

Via punknews.org:

Be Your Own Pet have seen three tracks from their new album, Get Awkward pulled from the US version due to "violent content." The three tracks "Blow Yr Mind", "Black Hole", and "Becky" were on the original promos released by the label and are widely available in the UK and Europe.

Lyrics in question include "We'll wait with knives after class!" and "Eating pizza is really great / So is destroying everything you hate." There are also some songs about zombies which may be offensive to bloodthirsty corpses hungering for brains.

Having heard the album (and the songs in question), they weren't worth pulling. They were just raucous punk rock songs with fantasizing lyrics. Is a song about eating pizza and destroying things you hate really that threatening to America's kids? Will that cause an uproar? Will Be Your Own Pet cause a spike in girls waiting with knives after class? Really? REALLY?

This is what life is like in the post-Columbine (and all those other school shootings) era... it's a shame. That album, the full version of the album, is solid.

You know, Megan (and Idolator and David-at-the-Guardian), I don't think we need to wring our hands about this. The Raconteurs' press whiteout seems more an attack on the record and p.r. industries than music writers.

Timeliness isn't really a virtue in criticism, which is why people still read these guys:

Criticism isn't about being the first, it's about being the smartest.

Hype is about being first. So for the record-p.r. industry and media outlets that live to serve the interests of hype (see radio), the Raconteurs move is a big fuck you.

For smart critics who will have smart things to say about this record a week, a month, or a decade from now? Not so much.

The Raconteurs' press move seems more like Radiohead's pay-what-you-can fuck you—an end-run around the ossified music-radio-advertising machine, not an attack on writers with actual ideas.

... Ticketmaster is an an embarrassment to the music industry and the fans who've been judo-flipped into playing—paying—along.

And, in case you needed reminding, Sean Moriarty, CEO of Ticketmaster, consented to a public interview at SXSW during which he couldn't help but be true to his nature—a mega-market automaton. As reported by the Chicago Trib's Greg Kot:

Moriarty was presented a grand opportunity to make a case for Ticketmaster as a company that doesn’t deserve its reputation for gouging consumers and kicking back the spoils to its clients. But his responses were the equivalent of a carefully tailored corporate press release that pretends to say something profound while in reality thumbing its nose at the recipient:

Ticket prices and fees are determined by “people’s willingness to pay for them.”

The reasons behind high service fees “are more complex than people know.”

People who complain about high service fees “don’t understand the underlying infrastructure.”

Even though concert promoter Live Nation will soon disconnect from Ticketmaster, and in the process take away 15 percent of its business, “competition is good for consumers and good for business.”

“Being a lightning rod [for criticism] is not a good service business to be in… It’s a detriment to the brand.”

Moriarty managed to veer from the stock answers only when talking about the lucrative secondary ticket market, in which brokers resell tickets for big events at huge mark-ups. The CEO was unusually transparent in his desire to cash in on the “multibillion-dollar global opportunity” presented overseas, following Ticketmaster’s recent purchase of TicketsNow, the nation’s second largest secondary-ticket outlet. For Ticketmaster, the resale market is one in which “we can and should have category leadership.”

Now there’s something to dread.

Okay, SXSW’ers. Sure I’m happy that you’re all having the time of your lives or whatever, but someone has to say it. All of us back here in Seattle are fucking miserable. It’s rainy, it’s windy, we can’t skateboard, we can’t sit outside at Bauhaus, and things couldn’t get much worse. You know the stuff. That slimy, cold Seattle weather? It’s the kind that makes you want to skip school or work to curl up in bed with a good book, a warm cup of Joose, and some tunes to enhance the mood. While the new Beach House album is a wonderful example of a rainy day record, I’m realizing that when I go home today I don’t have a go-to, fail safe album to put on while I hibernate. I’m wondering what you guys think. Does anyone out there have an ultimate, hands down, best ever album to listen to on a rainy day? Something that captures the mood that only our fair city’s trademark weather can put you in? I know someone out there has an answer. I just hope that person isn’t drunk/passed out somewhere in the Lone Star State.

It might be a lack of sleep, my messy room, or a late case of seasonal depression setting in, but something's been making it very difficult for me to wake up in the morning. As I barely made it out of bed this morning, I started to think about ways that waking up could be made easier. Inspired by Megan’s post yesterday about Atom & His Package, I started to think about how life would be so much better if Japanther played a show in my bedroom every morning. You know, just to lift my mood, and get the day started right! Wanna sleep in? Too bad! The band tears through three songs before you can even get out of your pajamas. I feel like this would not only make my life a lot more fun, but also much easier. So there’s your hypothetical: If you could have a band play in your room, acting as your alarm clock every morning, who would it be?

In a previous post, I aimed disparaging words toward the band Genesis and how much money they made on their 2007 tour. Commenter, ‘Tiktok’ did not agree with me and said:

Regardless of one's personal opinion of the music of Genesis, to ignore their decades of albums, big big eighties hits and the fact that they hadn't toured in any form for quite some time and have strong Boomer appeal suggests that the crack being smoked is on the other side of the keyboard in this case.

I respond to Tiktok now:

Tiktok, Genesis are a sham, a slap in the face to the world of music, and the world at large. People paying whatever the ridiculous ticket costs were for their 2007 concerts, and the $11 glasses of white wine once inside, and the $35 t-shirt, well, they might as well cut open the hull of an oil tanker or elect Bush for a 3rd term. Phil Collins needs to stop. He's done enough damage. He needs to stop polluting the world with cartoon Tarzan soundtracks and blitzkriegingly boring schlopp.

Speaking of the 80’s, what a travesty it was when Phil Collins tried to play with Led Zeppelin at Live Aid. It was so bad, Zeppelin refused to allow the footage to be included on the Live Aid DVD.

You see, Phil refused to rehearse for Zeppelin’s Live Aid set. He refused to rehearse with the greatest band of all time for arguably one of the largest concerts of all time. Then he fucks it up big time and blames the other drummer that played. In Line Out language, I believe that is called being an ‘asshat’ or a ‘douchebag’. About his Live Aid appearance, Phil said:

They wanted me there early to rehearse the old Zeppelin songs, but I couldn't make it and I told them, "Listen, I know the songs. I know them backward and forward." Well, that day the tempos were all over the place, and it may have seemed like it was my fault, because I was the one who hadn't rehearsed, but I would pledge to my dying day that it wasn't me. In fact, it was Tony Thompson who was racing a bit; he was a bit nervous, I guess. It came off because of the magic of being Zeppelin; but I remember in the middle of the thing, I actually thought, How do I get out of here?

So he wanted out of there. But here’s Phil in a backstage interview with Zep after the Live Aid set saying he’s the one who asked Plant if he could play with them in the first place.

Here's footage of the set. Look the 7:50 mark. Yeah, Phil you didn’t need to rehearse, it’s the other guy’s fault, right. That's a "Whole Lotta You Can't Hang":

Yes, Jimmy Page is drunk. But he’s Jimmy Page. He can do whatever the hell he wants. Phil Collins is not Jimmy Page, Phil Collins wrote “Invisible Touch”.

Talk about boomers and demographics all you want, but I stand by my original assertion: Everyone that went to those Genesis concerts in 2007 was on crack.

Tell me Tiktok, did you go? What did you pay for the tickets? How was the show?

Or if anyone is out there that went to one of these concerts, please, show the me the light. Tell me how the big big eighties hits were and that you were not on crack when you paid $14 for a 3 oz. glass of Riesling and then heard Phil sing, “She has a built in ability, to take everything she sees / And now it seems I’m falling, falling for her.”

Reads: "You will need to relax today."

For right now, No Kids are helping. But it's a Sisyphian task.

CD duplication (and replication) are tricky facets to music creation. The smaller the batch, the more each CD costs. To get the cheaper run of CD’s sometimes you have to press 1000. But do you really need 1000 CD’s? Some bands putting out their own music don’t.

Introducing Bad Horses Productions – Affordable short run CD batches.

$1 per CD. Yes. Need 100 CD’s? It’s $100. Need 10? It’s $10. Imagine that. Get your demo looking good.

Replicate any image on to the CD. Add a slim case and shrink wrap too. No need to get 1000 units anymore.

The man behind Bad Horses is Kelly ‘Kurly’ Sorbel. He also books shows for local and touring bands. He pays bands and promotes them. He also books a monthly night at Sunset Tavern.

Don’t let CD duplication get you by the short and curlies. Get short batch runs made by Kurly.

Contact Kurly: bhpshow (at) hotmail.com

March 13th, is Sammy Drain Day. As issued by Larry Gossett of the Metropolitan King County Council. Sammy was a childhood friend of Jimi Hendrix and they learned guitar together. Sammy is smooth like his rhythm and blues. He performs every Tuesday night at China Harbor - 2040 Westlake Ave. N. He says, “Even as a kid, Jimi had vision. There were mirrors and feathers on his bike.” Sammy is also an actor and was in the show L.A. Law.

A woman recently walked into the post office on 23rd and Union. Sammy was standing near the front door. She asked Sammy if he was waiting in line and he said, “No Ma’am, and if I was, I’d let you cut in front of me.” Sammy is a gentleman and he also the real deal.

I can’t wait until March 13th, so I am celebrating Sammy Drain Day today:

Proclamation transcribed:

WHEREAS, Sammy Drain and his bands have done an outstanding job keeping alive the African American art form of the Blues in Seattle and King County for more than forty years, and

WHEREAS, his music has enriched the cultural fabric of the entire scene in our community, and

WHEREAS, Sammy has always made himself available to teach and play with his guitar, his renditions of “soulful” rhythm and blues songs to untold numbers of young people – both black and white – no matter how busy he was, always believing in the importance of passing along his passion and appreciation of the Blues to the younger generation, and

WHEREAS, Sammy has taught and learned from such legendary guitarists as Jimi Hendrix, whom he played with in the 1960’s when they both were growing up in Seattle’s Central Area, and

WHEREAS, Sammy was born to the union of Andrew and Carrie Drain on March 13, 1945,

NOW THEREFORE, I, Councilmember Larry Gossett, on behalf of King County Executive Ron Sims and the Metropolitan King County Council, do hereby proclaim this to be

SAMMY DRAIN DAY

throughout Martin Luther King Jr. County and ask all the citizens of this great community to join us in wishing Mr. Drain a wonderful and happy birthday
DATED this thirteenth day of March, 2004

_____________________
Larry Gosset, District Ten
Metropolitan King County Council

So, maybe this is old news. Here's a fresh question: How are Jason Rothman (former editor of Disheveled Mag, no booking experience) and Bendel (who's been booking Sunday matinee shows at the Sunset) going to fill a 500 person capacity room across the street from Neumo's?

According to the Indo-Asian News Service, Mary J. Blige thinks "the future of music depends on" Amy Winehouse.

Clive Thompson, whose Collision Detection blog is a must-feed for mostly non-musical reasons, read the recent Rolling Stone article on the declining sound quality of modern music, which stated that "the age of the audiophile is over," and said:

Thank god.

To elaborate:

Speaking as someone who loves music, who has actually played and recorded pop music for 20 years, and who still plays six different instruments, I think music is crucial to the human spirit.

But audiophiles? Audiophiles are jackasses. You know who I'm talking about: The guys -- and they're almost always guys -- who own $54,000 stereo systems and have their entire apartments dominated by thousands of vinyl albums of rare imports that are boring beyond description but which they force you to listen to, when you make the ghastly mistake of actually visiting their sonic sanctuaries.

There's a lot more in the post that's worth reading, mainly to do with the notion that if it takes a fuckton or two of high-end gear to appreciate the music, maybe the music ain't that good.

He's probably right about that, and I suppose we could argue for days about it. But here's something different: I wonder whether he's being fair to the extreme audiophiles by assuming that in addition to being really into speakers, they're also into music. Perhaps audiophilia and musicophilia are two different things that are sometimes, but not always, present in the same brain.

So there's music and then there's sound. A lot of people like both, but maybe some who like sound don't much care for music -- they might be happy just listening to test tones or Boston^* records or whatever, as long as it sounds great on their system.

I'm probably 5dB short of being an audiophile. Before I bought my first record, I was really into listening to the vacuum cleaner. Today, I can sometimes get into hearing awesomely produced music on a high-end system that costs more than my house, but I think the part of my brain that gets off on such things is separate from the part that actually likes music. In the same way that I enjoy making sushi for entirely different reasons than I enjoy eating it.

What we need to do, for the second time this week, is ask science. Dear Science, sorry to bug you again, but could you please direct us to any studies that involve doing fMRI scans of high-end stereo geeks to see whether the parts of their brains that light up when they hear music are the same as those of the average fan? Is there music that activates our lizard-brain bits for fucking, fighting and food, and sound that taps into some higher-level ability to identify prey at a distance? Do hard-core audiophiles have unusually large gazelle-locating cortices? I need to know.

^* I kind of like Boston, actually.

There was a song I couldn’t help singing along to - here. It became stuck in my head. I asked the Stranger’s resident doctor and Dear Science columnist, Jonathan “the Glob” Golob if there was a brain cleanse I could do to get the song out of my head.

Dr. Golob said:

Music does something plain old weird to the brain. I'd have to research, but take this tid-bit as a treat:

People with brain damage that destroys the speech part of the brain can still sing, including singing lyrics. There is an entire therapy based around getting people to first "converse" in song, and eventually return to speech after strokes or accidents.

I then asked him if people expend energy when they think and how that energy is measured.

Dr. Golob said:

The brain is super picky about what it'll burn--only sugar or ketones (little short fat-like molecules made by the liver during starvation.) The brain also eats up a ton of oxygen.

Any activity in the brain locally increases the consumption of both food and oxygen in the brain. So when you hear a study using fMRI, PET scans or the like, it's this local increase in energy consumption that we're reading.

When someone has suffered brain damage, it's common practice to put them in a temporary drug-induced coma. A comatose brain needs less oxygen and food and therefore has a better chance of healing.

What about seeing? Do we expend energy to see? Does it take energy for the cones and rods to fire signals through the optic nerve? I would think so. But where does that energy come from?

Ok, this is even niftier. All of the brain cells use the same energy plan: burn off sugar, fat or protein to run pumps. One pump shoves Sodium ions out of the cell, and potassium ions in. Another shoves calcium out of the cell. So, when the cell wants to do something, like spread a signal, it simply opens up a door and lets calcium or sodium in (or potassium out, or both). The doors shut and the energy-burning pumps clean everything up for the next round.

In vision, a little packet of light energy hits a protein inside of the rod or cone cell, causing the protein to change shape. Eventually this shape change causes some of the doors to close, the sodium and calcium levels drop inside of the cell, and it releases a small amount of chemical signal. The chemical signal turns on the next cell. And so on.

Music is unusual because so much of the brain gets activated. Instead of just a few splotches, almost the whole brain lights up with these energy-use-detecting tests.

I fucking love biology!

Still scrambling to find that perfect gift for a significant other, best friend forever (bff), or loving parent? The Easy Street Records in Queen Anne has, while supplies last, the two perfect gifts for any important person in your life. The first:

Slipknot's Voliminal: Inside the Nine
Quoth Amazon: "It isn't a concert film or documentary, but rather an impressionistic look at the group on the road with frequent Ring-type special effects. To quote singer Corey Taylor, also known as #8, 'Being in Slipknot is a lot like having cysts removed from your body. It's gotta be done and... at the end of the day, it feels really, really good.'" For some reason, the DVD has been put on clearance and is now only $5.99! Don't let this one slip away!

Secondly:

Powerman 5000 - Backstage & Beyond the Infinite
From the back cover: "On July 20, 1999 Powerman 5000 released their second full-length album. Five months later it had sold over one million copies. This seemingly overnight success was in reality, a journey ten years in the making. Step into the world of one of the most unique and powerful bands today, this is your chance to go Backstage and Beyond the Infinite!" No one can deny this gem, and due to an almost certainly accidental pricing mistake, this titular piece of musical introspection only costs $1.99! It's the perfect gift for everyone involved!

Good luck out there, guys!

Ewwwww, MARY. I love this bit. If not for the very tenuous, gossipy tale woven, then for this bulldagger's dialect and phonation; it's ridiculously specific. She doesn't pronounce it "Remy," with a rhotic R—but like, Nwemy or Ngwemy. My friend insists it's [!]emy, but I think that's really pushing it.

Oh, do you even know who Remy Ma is? I know everyone's all up in Th' Program right now. I just don't see that house; no shade.

And just so you know, Remy denied the rumor two days later, via my personal favorite PR tactic—the Official Statement:

"The fraudulent video hoax that has surfaced of an alleged female lover of Remy Ma is completely false and reps for Remy Ma emphatically deny these claims. The staged video and storyline, as well as the voice on the phone posing as Remy are all fictitious and have made it very obvious that this is a deliberate attempt to undermine Remy's name and character. Remy Ma has not nor has she ever been involved in a same sex relationship with the accuser or any other woman however Remy is respectful of those who choose the alternative lifestyle. Again, this video and claim are both 100% untrue and we hope that the involved accusers are aware of the civil liberties violated in the taping of this video."

Actually the video and storyline—while they may be fictional—are not "fictitious"; I mean, you and I both just witnessed them actually happening, right? This statement is meaningless, useless, and boring.

Have a blessed-ass day.

Wired has an excellent piece by David Byrne on the future of the music business. He lays out six models for survival, ranging from the so-called 360 deals to the totally DIY route, and weighs the benefits and costs of each. He has a chat with Thom Yorke, Brian Eno, and Mac McCaughan. He makes some charts and graphs. Idolator pegs it as an updated, maybe more thoughtful version of Steve Albini's infamous screed, The Problem With Music. It's a pretty great article. Read it here.

Why not the Comet? From Craigslist:

Seattle's oldest bar - $400000

Seattle’s oldest tavern/bar, centrally located in Capitol Hill. Very established. Possible Class H and pull tabs. NDA required. DO NOT TALK TO EMPLOYEES.

I took the listing down to the Comet and showed bartender Raymond Kemp. He hadn't seen it, but he didn't seem surprised.

"Well, there you go," he said. "Every bar in town is for sale."