Adam “MCA” Yauch is home resting after surgery to rid his Cancer and one day following his 44 th birthday on August 5th. He has a long 7 weeks of radiation to follow. We wish him well and couldn’t help but notice all of those who are doing the same. Particularly at All Points West, a show which the Beastie Boys had to cancel due to the medical crisis.  Karen O wore a “Get well MCA” armband and a few artists showed some cover love (Beasties will still get some performance royalties!).

The video quality is a little low, but the message comes across: First up. The Best Rapper Alive: H.O.V.A Jay-Z doing a cover of “No Sleep till Brooklyn”- Sweet!

Next up Coldplay covering “Fight for your right (to Party)” a la ballad. Kind of a cool take.

Still giving you some Indie Spain Love!

Lori Meyers is blowing up in Spain- technically from Granada. this tune is called Dilema and it is straight out of the Indie bin. It’s got a little bit of Beatles on it and feels like it might turn into a Rickenbacker Tribute to “Turn Turn Turn.” I’m digging it though. IT is also an example of an indie band with a video cam making a video. This is not label backed, but without it, you would not have me writing about it.

DILEMA

Also check out: ALTA FIDELIDAD  it’s a little Spanish Bauhaus

Alta Fidelidad - Misssnaile - Lori Meyers

Here is their Myspace Site: Lori Meyers

From their Bio: ”

It’s no secret that I have a man crush on Hall & Oates. Come on “Sara Smile,” “Private Eyes,” “She’s Gone,” “I Can’t Go For That,” Hell, even some of big boom bang got my attention.  I am a blue-eyed soul guy after all. John is a lovely member of our community in Denver (more so the mountains in Colorado) and has been known to show up at industry events- he loves the Flobots. I have only met him once and he is a truly cool dude who made a conscious decision to get off of the Hamster wheel that is the record business and retreat the beauty of Colorado. After a Lennon tribute show in Japan, John’s famous Moustache or Mustache decided to liberate itself from his babyface. What happened next is a mystery, kinda like Jesus’ mid years. It is rumored J-Stache traveled to India and then Tibet and had a child that no one knows about. I think they named him “Harry.” Well, J-Stache is back with animated shorts and it is here for your viewing pleasure.

What does John’s Stache have to do with music industry- Everything? Staches are coming back. H&O were somewhat heroes and victims of the new visual medium at the time MTV, and the stache became a nuisance and yet a very defining part of the band’s history. Think Elvis’ chops! But when he knew it was the butt of joke (no pun intended) John wisely set his stache free. Unfortunately for him, I can’t tell you how many indie kids I see with handlebar staches, or porn staches. It’s coming back and maybe the same is true for Hall & Oates.

Want the full J-Stache experience? Click here to ride the J-Stache

This is the official Trailer from Funny or Die dot come on!

I will be recording this one (one of my all -time favorites) Listen to how good these guys are live!

Rich Girl

Are you spending your hours off-stage playing Rock Band with friends? Can you play tiny little plastic “guitars” with shiny, colorful buttons while looking at a screen? Ever wish that your band, your song could be on the screen? Well, now it can!

It’s not easy, but totally doable, here’s how you can do it: Band and labels will need the premium membership to Microsoft’s XNA Creators Club Online.  Costs $50 for four months, or $100 for a full year.  The Creators Club provides the framework and instructions for creating game-ready tracks, and interfaces with the Rock Band Network. It also includes a test-bed and even a venue for peer review.

“The proven strength and stability of Microsoft’s game development tools, technologies and services allowed [developer] Harmonix to focus on making an easy-to-use experience for authors without needing to reinvent the wheel,” said Dave Mitchell, product unit manager for the XNA.
The songs will all go through an approval process and content creators will set the pricing. As we have discussed before, do not sell it for the cheapest amount, it will devalue your product.  Songs will initially appear on the Xbox 360 for 30 days- most likely live, and stand-out tracks will eventually move to the PS3 and Wii according to MTV Games and Harmonix Music Systems.

The Network will be fully open in late August, and the first songs are scheduled to appear on the Xbox in the fall.

As a band, artist, label, publisher this is yet another idea that appears great. However, it will only work if you promote properly. If no one knows (or cares) that your songs on the XBOX it will not help you. But, if you look at it as creating a large news story, which you should, it just another way to connect to fans.

They call him Adam Yauch, but he’s MCA. You may also know him as Professor Nathaniel Hornblower!

BREAKING NEWS:

Beastie Boy has treatable throat cancer.

Good guy has some of the big ‘C’ in his lymphnode and throat area. Traditionally, very treatable and high rate of surgical success. However, this will delay the new album release and tour for a the foreseeable future. To all the B Boys, much love and light. You have to love the boys for being upfront and honest and announcing it on Video.

Here’s the official announcement just breaking

Last week, this little lovely blog hit over 50,000 readers. Just wanted to take the time to thank each and every one of you all for checking in and giving us some love. Now that it is a serious blog, hee hee- We are going to take this week to upgrade the site and make it prettier and easier to navigate. There will be some posts of course but not daily and it may be offline for a day as we switch.

Here are some questions that many have written in about.

1. Will you be doing another Music Publishing Summit?

Yes and No. The format will be slightly different. We are in talks about doing a series of them possibly associated with different expos and seminars. But, we will keep you posted.

2. When is “The New Music Business Model 3.0″ book coming out?

We are looking at late Fall 2009, but it may be pushed back to early 2010.

3. Can we advertise on your site?

We are working on this, but honestly, we are good right now. We are looking for 1 or 2 premium sponsors only.

Check it. I got an email from the management of a band that I absolutely love and I really want to get placed, (maybe with GMR?) and I wanted to share with you the process dear readers. The guitarist is the son of one of the Kinks- yes, those Kinks- I caught them opening up at Red Rocks last year for the Foo Fighters. They have toured for years and yet, you probably have never heard of them. Damn, how hard does a band have to work these days? They have videos and a great name (figuratively/literally), label support, placement on a racing game, Rolling Stone and Yahoo! profiled them and they tour relentlessly worldwide. I tell you all of this for your own good. The business is hard today, f*ing hard. Stop dreaming on a label, stop wishing you could tour nationally or worldwide as if that will be the key to a sold out arena show, it will not. This does not mean you should stop working for it, just be realistic with your goals when it comes to being a world renowned rockstar. Better to become someone’s favorite artist and continually release music.

My little review: Three guys and an attitude, Year Long Disaster stalk the stage like road warriors of the 70’s. Low slung guitars, legs-spread bass playing and frenetic but tight drumming, this band is on to something. A little Zeppelin a lot of Page, a little AC/DC and a little 80’s flair (think Dio, not Dokken) but not too much. It is so refreshing to hear a coke-soaked voice that can hit the notes. This is anti-indie music. It is Rawk, and I love it.

Here is a killer song called “It Ain’t Luck”

This is my Favorite Track called ” Swan on Black Lake” It’s live but worth it. Gotta crank up the volume.

DO NOT BLOG ABOUT HIM. Douche! Girlfriend-beater, Wife Beater, Guard Biter, Riot instigator, Bless those souls that died at your shows so that you could sue a blogger.

Kevin Cogill is a name that will be synonymous with Downloading. He is the blogger “Skwerl” who posted early MP3’s of Guns N’ Roses’ Chinese Democracy. He posted 9 tracks 5 months before their release and in doing so, he violated copyright laws. He was convicted on one single misdemeanor charge- take that “lady who downloaded 25 songs for $80,000 a piece!”

Full Story Here:

As an intellectual property consultant who specializes in the Music Industry, I totally understand the legal ramifications here. He did break the law, but the album was 17 years in the making. How can one make the case that this leak hurt sales? Apparently the RIAA can and they say it was worth $317,000.

Full Disclosure, I heard the advance copies of the tracks as well. So Did Joel Stein of Time and many others in the Media industry See Story here:

I was a big fan of GNR and as an industry guy, I was very interested in the new stuff. After hearing the opening track, I decided not to buy any of them. why? Simply put, it sucked. The production was tired and the mixing was lousy. The Mastering sounded like a Pro Tools Button job. So, I bet that number the RIAA came up with is significantly lower, if anything at all. So, when Axl blames his record company and they blame the RIAA and they blame a Culver city blogger- maybe they should all point the “Guns” at each other. The fact is without Slash and Duff, it ain’t G N’ R. The fact is, the songwriting was weak. The sad reality is that 17 or 10 years or 5 years and $13 million does not ensure a great album. Make it immediate, share it freely. Those who would buy it, will- those who would not have bought it anyway might turn someone on who will.

What is interesting here: none of the reported stories mention how “Skwerl” got the tracks. Where is that A&R guy? Where is the Studio engineer who transfers tracks? These things do not happen by accident. Leaks are normally orchestrated, sorry to disappoint all of you CSI types- but that is the reality.

“We’re on Facebook, We’re on Assbook, we are everywhere on the interwebs!” Love that! Unfortunately, my “Assbook” account was hacked into, so I don’t use it as much as Twitter right now. Spinal Tap is Back From the Dead… and loving it. So am I. The music is actually great as always, and the message is spot on. Indie bands, take a lesson from a fake band, make it interesting and hoar yourself a bit. It is truly what fans want. The reason why Spinal Tap the movie was such a success is because the “band” had the ability to show behind the scenes access and poke fun of itself at the same time. Bands and artists today should take a cue and follow suit. By the way, the music in the video is technically licensed and royalty paying on some sites. Great backdoor strategy.

The following video is one of maybe 100 they have done for various websites and it is a joy to watch. So, borrow your sisters camcorder and make your own promo video, then post on your Assbook account.

So, the day is approaching. The ol’ b-day and all that brings. What to do? What presents do I want? What do I want for dinner? It’s difficult- I’m difficult- around my birthday because I seriously do not care. Some steak and a coke and I am totally happy. I am not really a fan of gifts because the sage buddha in me is really wanting to unload “stuff.” Now, a new guitar or sweet condenser mic- that’ll do. As it it stands, I am slated to go to a fancy shmancy steak house with mom and woman and that sounds great. So, here is my own little musical pre party. These are tracks I can listen to every single day of my life.
I have heard this song more than any other song.

I love Elevaters from LA. Shout out to Suofo! This is a kick ass song called Grandma’s Hands.

Mese is brilliant
Mese \"Ready to Fall\"