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 An outdated model can be dressed up in any short skirt and sexy pose money can buy, but when it all boils down you’re still being tricked into screwing an old lady.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."

That's how much the Crocodile Cafe is gonna cost you.

From the agency's listing (it's real, we checked, and the bolds are mine):

Seattle Area Business Opportunity

$495,000

Approx. 6,400 SF Space with (2) Bars, Kitchen, and Live Music Stage. Brand New 10 Year Lease Term. Fabulous Location on corner of 2nd Ave & Blanchard ideal for any full service restaurant or bar concept. Character-filled single story masonry building. In the Heart of Chic Belltown Scene - Txori, Zoe, Mistral, See Sound Lounge and More! An excerpt from the Seattle Weekly raves:'A central meeting place for Seattle's world famous music scene.' Become part of the Legend that is the Crocodile Cafe.

Thanks to Line Out Tipper Matt

So the Crocodile is closed, that much has been confirmed by a number of (former) employees--booker Eli Anderson cleaned out his office today. But what isn't clear is what's going to happen to the club now.

According to the King County Assessment office, there's no record of sale for the building, and as far as we know Stephanie Dorgan still owns the club, but she hasn't returned phone calls and isn't saying if she plans to sell and if so, to whom. There are currently rumors of a group of local club owners who are considering buying the business. On the top of that list of possibilities are the owners of Nuemo's, Jason Lajeunesse and Steven Severin, but Lajeunesse just confirmed that they aren't currently planning on buying it:

"We have not sat down and put together any plans to buy it," he says. "And we have not spoken to Stephanie. If the price was right, and the stars aligned, anything is possible, but we are not the group that is supposedly looking to buy it. And from what I have heard, she would not sell to us."

From RK in the comments of yesterday's Croc post:

There are already rumors of a co-op effort to buy it and keep it running. We'll see if it happens, but if it does, count me in for 50-100K (yeah exactly, money talks, bullshit walks).

I've heard these rumors, too. The idea is to make the Crocodile the Green Bay Packers of music venues, a venue owned by the fans.

It's probably easier for football because football has rules.

The deadline for New Year's Eve events is TOMORROW!

OMG!

So here's the deal: You are hosting a New Year's event of some sort. Dance party, poetry reading, stitch n' bitch, whatever. You want it listed in "The Stranger's Guide to Everything Happening on New Year's Everywhere! (in Seattle)."

All you gotta do? Email your listing to music@thestranger.com with something about New Year's in the title.

That's it. Bada-bing, bada-boom. But--do it quick, you only got 24 hours!

"New Year's--the only secular holiday the entire world can enjoy!"

Late the other night I found myself at the Safeway down the street from my house with a couple friends, and we were buying more beer. 40s of Olde English to be precise, and some orange juice. I’ve got a dumb drunken swagger on, and by the end of the night I’m not even going to finish that whole 40, but I buy it anyway. When I get to the cashier, I notice that her name tag says: RIAA.

I eye her cautiously, but give her a convincing smile. She says hello and asks how my evening is going, and for my ID.

“Do you know what RIAA means?” I ask.

“Yeah,” she answers bluntly. “It’s my name.”

“No, I meant the Recording…Industry…um…America…Alliance…”

“Way to remember acronyms, dipshit,” one of my friends chimes in.

“Well whatever it stands for, the RIAA are suing people for downloading music. I’m afraid of them.”

“Oh,” she replies. There is an awkward silence. “Well I don’t know anything about that.”

I look her in the eyes. She’s telling the truth.

“Well, I just thought you’d like to know,” I mumble.

But would she want to know? Know how her name incites fear and anger in my people? Hers is a powerful name, like Muad’Dib. I hope she uses it wisely, and for good.

To redress all your illegal-downloading, mixtape-making sins, there is dearrockers.org, a place where one can send letters of apology and five dollars to artists you've ripped off over the years:

Dear Gipsy Kings,
In October 2006 1996 I received a mixed tape from my then boyfriend, who was a Californiangod. I specify, because it’s the only excuse I have for being seduced into accepting a non-purchased gift of your music. I enclose 10$ : that’s 5$ for my sin and 5$ for Surfer-god Tom’s. Thanks for the memories.

{heart} Michelle

Why five bucks? The dearrockers man explains:

When you buy songs from the iTunes music store, artists make 8 to 14 cents per song, depending on their contract. So $5 represents about three albums worth of income for an artist. I encourage you to support musicians in other ways, like attending their live shows, but five bucks seems like a good place to start.

With any luck, dearrockers'll become the postsecret of the music world. But it's new, and there are hardly any letters.

(Nirvana? Never heard of 'em. But there is one for Slash.)

So get on it. Especially you, Molly Hamilton. I'm sure you've got a lot of catching up to do.

If you haven't already, please send in your Halloween parties for the listings I am compiling for online and the web. There are so many awesome-sounding parties in there already, and I'm starting to get super-excited about our mini-guide. It's going to be incredibly comprehensive, with parties or at least Halloween stuff to do (for grown ups) all over the city and every day of the week.

Anyhow, if you are doing anything Halloween-related, please send me a little email with all the details to music@thestranger.com, and put "Halloween" somewhere in the subject line so I can find it in the barrage. It can be literally anything--a pumpkin-carving contest, a costume-trade off, or even a regular-old-rager--whatever it is, we'll list it, as long as it's open to the public and in Seattle or the surrounding areas.

And for the rest of you, look for the listings in the paper and online next week. It'll be like one-stop shopping, but with no money involved!

Bonus-This is a great costume:

Universal Music, the world’s biggest music company, is to release singles on USB memory sticks this month, in an attempt to arrest the decline in music sales.

The Vivendi-owned company plans to charge about £4.99 for USB singles starting on October 29 with releases from piano rock band Keane and Nicole, the lead singer of the Pussycat Dolls. That compares with £2.99 for a typical CD single.

According to the story, the UK is the test market because "the UK is the last important market for singles," according to Universal. So if this flops, the US may never see the new product. But other labels (EMI and Warner Music) are following Universal's lead, and Universal hopes to release full USB albums by the end of the year.

Especially in the shadow of Radiohead's ballsy (and successful) "name your own price" release, I think it's interesting to see the ways major labels are panicking and struggling to find their place in the market. They want to keep up with the technological trends, but they want to remain profitable and offer something physical for consumers to buy.

I mean, USB albums? Would you buy that instead of just downloading the record? Maybe I'm missing the point of it, but I'd be shocked if this was an at all successful venture.

(Full story at TimesOnline, hat tip to punknews.org.)

Rung 6: Almost Famous. An aging hipster with expensive clothes approaches you after a show and claims to be an A&R man for one of the Big Four. Much to everybody’s surprise, including your lawyer’s, he’s legit. You sign the contract, live off the advance, and spend several months in New York or LA or Nashvile, recording with a producer whose name appears on the back of several of your favorite records. Market conditions change, and the label decides to sit on the recording. And sit on it. And sit on it. Any money you earn from shows or paraphenalia goes toward paying back your $500,000 advance, and your contract prohibits you from recording or touring under any other name or with any other musicians. Too late, you realize that Steve Albini was right! Your keyboardist quits to take a job at Microsoft and your guitarist commits drug-assisted suicide. But not all is lost: Several years later, after a Wednesday night show at a small club with your new band, you recount your story to a tatooed anti-corporate type, who takes pity and goes to bed with you. You move in together, find a day job that's not so horrible, and begin to raise a family, all while occasionally playing with friends or making recordings on the side, just for the hell of it. Or maybe you’re lucky enough to ascend to…

Rung 7: One-Hit Wonder. The label releases your catchiest song as a single and bribes every radio station in the country to give it a couple spins. Despite the corporate backing, Nic Harcourt plays it. KROQ’s program director hears Nic play it and adds it. Viacom sees that it’s been added on KROQ and starts playing the video on VH1. Clear Channel sees that it’s on VH1 and adds it to their light rotation list. Kids call in every time The Song is played, and they move it up to heavy rotation in several cities, causing VH1 to play it more. The Song appears in various charts, dragging your album into the top 100. You’re suddenly playing 3,000-seat theaters, where you quickly learn to save The Song for the end so people won’t leave. You open your first BMI statement after The Song has been in heavy rotation for a few months and your jaw drops. You call your responsible older sister and tell her to invest half of it in something you’re not allowed to touch for 10 years, then spend the rest on musical equipment and partying. Soon, your label owes you money rather than the other way around, but they convince you to put all of that money—and then some—into your next recording, which they and your friends and your lawyer and your accountant and your manager tell you is going to set the world totally on fire. Except it doesn’t. Suddenly, you find it harder to ignore the critical sniping from the local weekly and the jaded indie-rock fans who stand up in the front during your set with their arms crossed. Five years later, you can't get a gig in your favorite hometown venue. Your label sells The Song for a TV commercial, and the BMI checks continue to trickle in for a few years, keeping you from the dreaded day job. Years later, a TV call-in show with a vaguely insulting name asks you to reunite and play The Song so a bunch of kids who have only heard it at weddings can vote on whether you are better or worse than a bunch of other one-hit wonders from the same era. But the money’s too good to say no. Occasionally when you’re drunk at a party, you pick up a guitar or sit down at a piano and bang out The Song, and your friends look away. Unless you had a string of hits, in which case you made it to…

Rung 8: The Big Time. You’re all over the radio and TV. You mess with interviewers by answering the same boring, predictable questions differently each time. You show up late to photo shoots, or not at all. Teenagers sleep beneath posters with your picture on them. Your grandparents brag about you to their friends. An entire cottage industry springs up around you, complete with hangers-on and sycophants. You realize that there’s very little difference between playing for 3,000 and playing for 20,000, except that the lighting is better and the audience is louder and farther away. And your drummer always wears a headset and plays to a clicktrack that’s synchronized with the lights. And you occasionally use triggers and backing vocal tracks to cover the parts you know you’re going to fuck up. But you don’t care if people say that you really suck because you can buy any car you want, as well as a nice house in your hometown and a second home in New York or Hawaii. Even if you never work or play another show again, you will always have enough money for you and your children to live comfortably for the rest of their lives. And someday, you might make it to…

Rung 9: Legend. Your label releases greatest hits albums with words like “Legendary” in the title and nobody mistakes it for irony. You’re embedded in the pop cultural DNA—your songs are familiar even to people who don’t like music, while music fans are required to have an opinion about you. You have your own tribute band. You’re rich, famous, and a total sellout.

Let's get back to the ladder of success, shall we?

Rung 4: Local Hero. In your hometown, complete strangers show up at your shows after seeing your name in the paper and buy your CDs from the independent record store near the university. The local college radio station plays several tracks from your CD for several weeks after it comes out, and you get a 100-word review in a local weekly, complete with a clever numerical rating (three stars=frottage; four stars=gloryhole). A national indie label or the boutique imprint of a major label offers you distribution, and you begin to headline shows in nearby cities. Somebody convinces you to hire a manager and a lawyer because everybody else does. You earn a couple thousand dollars per night as the opening act on a national tour for a College Radio Darling, during which other people haul your gear and tune your instruments before you take the stage. Pitchfork gives your album a respectable rating. One day, scanning the “Musicians Wanted” section of the local weekly, you see yourself named as an influence. The music critic for the hometown daily writes a short article about you and begins placing a star next to your shows in the calendar section. You begin to get Aribtron reports with your name on them and BMI royalty checks for $10.38 or $45.12. Your label announces that you’ve sold a respectable multi-thousand CDs, and offers to front the recording costs for the next one. Your band members quit all their side projects and begin taking fewer shifts at work or trading their full-time jobs for temp positions. When you fill out your tax form at the end of the year, you proudly write “Musician” in the “Employment” box, and your accountant introduces you to all sorts of useful and interesting tax deductions. You continue through a few more albums and several lineup changes, but one day find yourself opening for a band that’s younger, better, and more popular than you’ve ever been. The drugs aren’t fun anymore, you can't maintain a relationship because you’re always on tour, you discover that the music business is filled with criminals and former frat boys, and corporate radio still sucks because they won’t play you. Eventually you move on to become a band manager or radio engineer, and occasionally people recognize your name and ask “weren’t you in that band, what were they called?” Or perhaps you rise into the rarified air of…

Rung 5: College Radio Darling. College radio stations play your music even when you don’t have a new record out. When you tour, music writers and college radio program directors in other towns call your manager to set up interviews. You’re playing 1,000-seat clubs and some of your shows sell out, and even if not, you always sell enough tickets and paraphernalia to pay your roadies. You manage to keep your recording budget down in the mid-five figures, pleasing your label overlords enough so they offer you a tour bus and try to bribe commercial stations into playing you. You sell enough CDs to cover both your recording costs and advances, allowing everybody to earn a buck or two of profit from each additional sale. From time to time, you’re featured in Spin and Rolling Stone, and VH1 plays a couple of your videos late at night. Your BMI checks might actually help you pay rent. Other artists give interviews in which they cite you as an important influence or slag your last album as overrated. Your parents are no longer ashamed to tell their friends that you’re a musician. If you’re lucky enough, good enough, and smart enough, you can continue along this path for ten or fifteen years, earning enough along the way to buy a house in Portland and medical insurance. Years after you break up, you will be asked to play the occasional reunion show. Unless you get suckered into climbing to…

Rung 2: This Band I Know. You get a call from a decent club, and not only do your friends show up for the first gig, but the soundguy or bartender or club owner decides they like your music, as do a couple of strangers who work in other bars or play in other bands. Word spreads, and you begin to get gig offers through your MySpace contacts and e-mail inbox. Even though you’re not making any money, you decide to spend several thousand dollars to record a full-length album at a reasonably well-known studio staffed by a Professional Producer who’s worked with some Local Heroes (see Rung 4). When you’ve spent approximately twice as much time and money as you expected (mastering? what’s that?), you print up several hundred copies and send it to local college radio stations and weekly newspapers and boutique record labels who specialize in music like yours. They ignore it. You continue to get offers to play on Wednesdays at the small-but-prestigious club where the staff is competent and pleasant, or on Saturdays at the bar where the soundguy's paycheck comes out of your door take. Eventually, your friends stop coming to shows and get sick of hearing about your band. The guitarist’s hissy fits are getting on your nerves so you fire him, and the drummer starts spending more time with his other band. You’re stuck with a closet full of very expensive and immaculately designed drink coasters. Or, if you’re really good, and a little bit lucky, you might get to…

Rung 3: I’ve Heard of Them. Complete strangers sign your mailing list, then actually attend future shows. Sometimes they bring their friends, who also sign your mailing list. Your hometown college radio station spins your designated single a couple of times and features you on a local new music hour. The local weekly writes a quick show preview in which they pigeonhole you into the same category as some of your favorite bands and use mostly positive words like “thunderous” or “world-weary” or “pop sensibilities.” A small independent label agrees to distribute your album and offer tour support, which consists of renting you a van that breaks down only in the precise middle of nowhere. On tour, you play small clubs in front of 50 or maybe 100 paying customers, most of whom are there to see the headlining band from their home town. Some of them like you enough to buy merch and sign your mailing list. A handful of them like you enough to offer you sex, drugs, or sleeping quarters. You end the tour in the hole, but return to a triumphant hometown gig with a Local Hero in that big club you always wanted to play. You repeat this cycle for two or three or five years, earning just enough to pay for band expenses and drugs. Then the bassist gets pregnant and quits, and the keyboardist gets a promotion at work that requires more travel. When the band finally disintegrates, you put “formerly of” on your bio, raising the odds that club owners and college radio program directors will listen to the first track on the first album of your new project. Unless you’re one of the lucky few who makes it to…

God, what a mess, the ladder of success. Take one step and miss the whole first rung.
--The Replacements, "Bastards of Young."

So you're in a band. Who isn't? What I really want to know is are you in a band, like, in your mind? Or is it a real band where you actually write songs and play instruments with other people? Do you play out? Where do you play? Who have you played with?

Amusing anecdote: I once told the co-owner of a small local label that I was playing that night. She wanted to know where. The Rendezvous, actually. Her response: "Oh, how cute." It turned out to be a fun show, and well-attended. But. You know. I was beneath her.

My point: after a while one gets sick of hearing (and asking) these types of questions to assess one's place in the Seattle music scene pecking order. Hence, I've developed a shorthand which I call the "Ladder of Success." I will be presenting it to you over the course of the day in hopes of shortening these conversations so we can get down to the business of doing whatever comes after these conversations are finished. ("Buy me a drink" is a good place to start.)

(CONFESSION: This is a revised edited version of something I wrote a couple years ago for my own entertainment. So if you see it out there on the Web in another form, I didn't steal it. Except from myself.

Without further ado:

Rung 0: Some Guy With A Guitar. You go to Guitar Center and buy the cheap knockoff version of the guitar that the guitarist in your favorite band plays. You place an ad for musicians who sound like your favorite bands, or at least have heard of them. Or you ask your friends if they know anybody, or failing that, try to talk them into playing the secondhand drum kit you've got set up in your basement. You meet a lot of wannabes and flakes, but at least you get some good drug hookups. Or maybe you make it to…

Rung 1: Garage Band You find other people who play instruments and aren't total assholes. You practice once a week in your garage or a pay-by-the-hour studio. You get the money together to record a short demo, either on the Band Yuppie's laptop or with a recording school student at some old hippie’s hobby studio. You send the demo out. Your only responses are that bar that'll hire anybody and a struggling club in a bad neighborhood that has a pay-to-play new music night every Monday. All your friends show up to the first gig and it’s great fun. But your second gig is sparsely attended, and the bookers eventually stop returning your e-mails. The band breaks up and you start over again, or you give up in frustration and sell your gear on eBay. But if you’re any good, you should be able to get to…

Already reported on Slog by Josh Feit, but what the hell. From Wired:

DULUTH, Minnesota -- Jammie Thomas, a single mother of two, was found liable Thursday for copyright infringement in the nation's first file-sharing case to go before a jury.

Twelve jurors here said the Minnesota woman must pay $9,250 for each of 24 shared songs that were the subject of the lawsuit, amounting to $222,000 in penalties.

They could have dinged her for up to $3.6 million in damages, or awarded as little as $18,000. She was found liable for infringing songs from bands such as Journey, Green Day, Aerosmith and others.

"This is what can happen if you don't settle," RIAA attorney Richard Gabriel told reporters outside the courthouse. "I think we have sent a message we are willing to go to trial."

Still, it's unlikely the RIAA's courtroom victory will translate into a financial windfall or stop piracy, which the industry claims costs it billions in lost sales. Despite the thousands of lawsuits -- the majority of them settling while others have been dismissed or are pending -- the RIAA's litigation war on internet piracy has neither dented illegal, peer-to-peer file sharing or put much fear in the hearts of music swappers.

Cheers to Radiohead indeed.

But how many of you are planning on paying for the new Radiohead album? And if you are going to offer up some cash, how much?

(You can leave your why/why not explanation, if you'd like, in the comments.)

The LA Times has an editorial today about Radiohead's decision to let fans pay what they want for their next album.

The results of this experiment will be hard to judge unless the band reveals how many albums it sells and what people paid. It should share that information because it could be vital to the health of the music industry. There's a wide gap between the demand for music and the public's willingness to pay for it, yet the most popular legal outlet for music online--Apple's iTunes store--gives artists and labels little pricing flexibility.

The whole thing's here. (Hat tip, Arts Journal.)

The Stranger now has a reader-powered photo pool, Stranger Photos on Flickr.

We're looking for Seattle-area photography—rock shows, art shows, politicians, punks, puppies, nature, graffiti, parades, street preachers, clouds, crime scenes… Whatever you're shooting around town. (No porn and no copyrighted images, please.) Don't forget to include a caption and your name and/or URL.

How to add your photos:

1. Join Flickr, if you haven't already.
2. Join the Stranger Photos Flickr group: www.flickr.com/groups/strangerphotos.
3. Upload your photos to Flikr.
4. Add photos to the Stranger Photos group by clicking "Send to Group" on the Flickr page of the photo you'd like to add. That’s it!

Devo Fan at the Puyallup Fair by Kelly O

Bear Snatch by Donita Reason

The Ditty Bops at the Triple Door by Pretty-Kitty

The New York Times has an excellent conversation about the impending doom of the record industry.

The real story here is the numbers: 957,000 is an astounding number of albums to sell the first week out these days. Hell, even 691,000 is pretty good. Also, 50 Cent's no dummy (no, seriously)—he only ever promised to stop making solo records. Even if 50 follows through on his threat/boast/wonderful promise, we can still expect a lot guest appearances, G-Unit posse albums, and the like.

But, say, have you heard this rumor—courtesy of Jonah's stoner buddy—that 50 Cent supposedly purchased hundreds of thousands of copies of his own record to inflate sales? True or not (ok, probably not), that could be a revolutionary new business model for the famously ailing music industry: Let the millionaires buy all their own albums to keep the major labels afloat, and the RIAA can stop suing poor downloaders for relative pocket change.

According to AP:

Graduation widely outsold 50 Cent's Curtis in first week sales, according to Nielsen SoundScan: 957,000 copies to 691,000 copies.

So now 50 has to stop making music, right? RIGHT?