Required reading and listening for this weekend:
In an open letter to the record industry posted by Jack Davey of J*Davey on her blog:
“the age old model is failing . as an industry based on faithful consumers you have lost your connection with the people who matter most : the PEOPLE . you have yet to show them that you are with the changing times & able to adapt to something new . you are proving that you are too afraid to promote good music . you would rather let the monotonous drone of what is today’s music remain unbalanced by substance . you would rather watch more legendary artists abandon you for direct deals with itunes & touring companies .“[emphasis mine, dosage read the rest here.]
Pretty much recommended reading for anyone who listens to digital music in any form. The game isn’t changing – it already changed. And she’s not the only one who feels like this, therapist either – Saul Williams pulled a Radiohead for his latest release (and is doing very well with it, from what I hear), Labratz (hear them on the show here) went straight online on theirs ($8.99 for the full album, damn), I think Suburb is doing something similar, and real talk? We don’t need the industry, the industry needs us.
Switching gears only slightly:
Are you one of those waiting for Jay Electronica’s Act II? There’s a few snippets in here.
“I make music, and I just want you to have it.”
Jay Electronica on the infamous Giles Peterson’s podcast. A lot of insight into Jay’s background in New Orleans and artistic drive. This is damn near an hour long, and some of the tracks will already be familiar to Mixtape Show listeners, but there’s some new snippets in here and it’s overall a very worthwhile listen if you got a minute. here, but check the dude’s site too.
Sneak peek: Act II is coming, and it will be free. Act III will be a commercial release but the proceeds will go to the displaced families of the Magnolia projects in New Orleans. And he’ll continue to put free material out here.
2008 is shaping up to be a very interesting year.
About Saul– I’m not really into punk rock that much but “DNA” & “Scared Money” won me over. But back to Jay..
“this is definitely for all the marketing low lives who fail to avidly push great talent because the world’s fave reality slut randomly decided one day while botoxing her armpits that she wants to be a rockstar.” ka-POW!!
“maybe you should excuse yourself from the next a&r meeting to go take a look in the bathroom mirror . stand there & ask yourself why you took this job , & when you realize it’s simply because you wanted to be cool & “in the mix” then return to the conference room , take that gun out of your pocket , & shoot yourself in the head in front of your coworkers so that you are made an example of” GRILL EM’ JAY!!
You know, the same b.s. is going down on TV regarding this presidential race. ABC, Fox & NBC are all in on it. For instance, the most progressive candidates in the race, Dennis Kucinich & Mike Gravel, were excluded from the New Hampshire debates! Contrary to mainstream opinion, I’m way too sophisticated to vote for Obama based on his race. Unfortunately, issues revolving around racism, misogyny and fund raising seem to dominate the polls. Rhymefest raised some interesting questions regarding this on a track called, “Real Nigga Quotes (Prod. DJ Premier)
If you don’t have time to sit through all the debates & need a fast & easy way to choose the candidate who represents the issues you really care about– then follow the link:
http://www.vajoe.com/candidate_calculator.html
I’ve got to say, hearing the last Jay Electronica, I am pretty exicted about this one. But just yesterday, I heard Feelin’ God by Suhburb and man, IT’S GOOD!
:)
By the way Dex. Shout out for the shout out. I didn’t get time to listen to podcast (Christams Edition) due to Christmas/New Year/Work etc. Anyway, thanks.
And by the way, I would be so grateful if you could e-mail me Tryin’ by Jonas Quant. It was on Soultronica Vol. 3 but I can’t find it anywhere, not even on his myspace.
Anyway, Peace
:)
P.S. Giles Peterson? First place I heard Soil and Pimp Sessions
By the way, Vince, this is mine… Your Top Match
Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich (D)
78.95% match
Your Other Top Matches
Former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel (D) – 68.42%
Illinois Senator Barack Obama (D) – 64.91%
Former North Carolina Senator John Edwards (D) – 57.89%
Vince – yeah, Jack is seriously right on it there. I am hearing some good things behind the scenes about her/J*Davey recently in this same vein.
Mr U. No doubt on the shoutout! And the Suhburb – Yeah, that is a great cut. Did you pick up those mp3s of his we posted on Sweeney Kovar’s blog? And I’m listening to that Soil & Pimp podcast right now.
Back on the politricks – awhile back a friend of mine put me up on this mini-argument that Lupe Fiasco and Rhymefest got into – read the whole of it here.
Basically Fest is behind Obama, while Lupe is cynical as all hell about everything and supports Hillary since it’d be a change to have a woman in office. It’s an interesting exchange, and as Lupe kinda intimates – generally “beef” (though I wouldn’t call this beef) is started over something totally pointless/fake *ahem, Cam/50 or 50/Kanye* – we should all be thanking somebody in the sky that two rappers are getting in a civil, political argument.
For what it’s worth, I got Gravel and Kucinich when I took that quiz. Interesting poll.
Mr. U & Dex— that’s the bidness! Here’s what I got:
1st = Gravel, 2nd = Kucinich, 4th = Clinton, 9th = Obama
I agree—it’s cool to hear a dialogue like this. That’s interesting cause on that song it sounded like he opposed Obama. Well, people change their mind (which is cool) but I just want to comment on a few things.
You probably noticed a ridiculous argument made in favor of Hilary. Now, Madeline Albright was the 1st woman to be prime minister of the UK (ie. euro>dollar) but she sanctioned the crap out of Iraq, which led to about 500,000 deaths (kids included.) Nancy Pelosi, the most powerful person behind Cheney & Bush, was the 1st woman to become speaker of the house. However, her efforts have continued to fund the war in Iraq & impede impeachment proceedings (which Americans are clearly in favor of.) On a positive note, Benazir Bhutto (RIP) captured the hearts of Islamic women around the world & Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf won admiration from my African sista’s. In summary, I think the foundation for women in power has been well established. Neglecting these facts would be like me saying it was Hippocrates, instead of Imhotep, who was the father of medicine.
Here’s another one, TRUE-OR-FALSE:
Obama doesn’t take money from lobbyists (answer: FALSE)
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-070725obama,1,5894874.story
Also, I think the El Che dude was defending Obama’s stance on Iran. Problem is he failed to state his position regarding the use of nuclear weapons. For instance, Obama opposes any talk of removing OUR nuclear option from the table. Now, I don’t support the use of nuclear weapons (unless it’s in defense of the entire planet against asteroids or alien aggression) So, I have a hard time endorsing any candidate who’s down to use them as leveraging tools for a negotiation-slash-Hiroshima-slash-whatever
Alien Aggression?! Why aren’t we grilling candidates about that?!
Seriously though, I’d love to see Ron Paul do well. Only GOP candidate talking about a humble foreign policy and sorting the absolute mess that is the american economy. He’s talking about re-establishing some kind of Gold Standard (or equivalent) for the Dollar instead of just perpetually printing money. Imagine if you guys got into a hyper-inflation situation. Could happen.
By the way Iain, that would fuck us up seriously too. Remember Northern Rock? Anyway, just dropped to say that you’re music is really nice (the stuff on the myspace page), excellent shit, keep up the good work :)
Anyway, Peace
:)
Iain– Why? I don’t know. Probably the same reason debates don’t revolve around the hypocrisy surrounding the non-proliferation treaty. Or it could be the same reason why someone would conveniently fail to mention the contributions and endorsements received from various white supremacy groups.
Peace : >
P.S. Quant – Tryin’, send it to me Dex!
Peace
:)
Vince – i did read about the white supremacist group stuff, I agree its not a good look. But there hasn’t been anything in his campaign that I’ve seen that would suggest he’s a racist or white supremacist. I think its worth remembering that the vast majority of his supporters are very liberal people.
Mr U – thanks for the compliment, always lovely to hear! I’m not sure what you mean about Northern Rock though, it went belly up due to a credit problems when raising funds in money markets due to the US subprime crisis.
Or quite possibly, I’ve got it wrong. Someone school me please.
Iain– That makes sense. Actually, I’ve been attracted to his campaign for a while (esp. his foreign policy approach.) I noticed dude while watching a documentary on the Fed. Reserve that Aaron Russo put together. So, I’m definitely down w/ kicking our tax structure to the curb. However, like Gravel said, he doesn’t really seem to have a solution (@ least one I can grasp.) For instance, Gravel say’s here– you want to get rid of the IRS.. fine. Replace it w/ a progressive fair tax system (cause it works like this-this & that.) Then I’m like, “COOL, I CAN DIG IT” cause he broke it down in lamens terms, but when Ron tries to articulate it I’m stuck on stupid– maybe it’s just me though.
I just got to say this & I’m done— if Paul makes it to the white house & addresses the nation w/ a pillow case on his head– don’t say I didn’t warn you
good read …rapper kay on rappersiknow.com was just talking about the same subject …
Talat – hm, site seems to be down now, I’ll check later. This is a conversation that is happening more and more though, so I’m not surprised to see Jack or Kay or anyone, really, coming out and talking about this.
Mr U – That track is on iTunes, you can grab it from there if you do a search for Quant. Seems that Lax Recordings folded or something, but Quant himself is still around…
Talat & Dex– nice site & great discovery for me cause I never listented to H.I.S.D. The tracks sound beautiful so I’m gonna lab that soon.
Kay is saying some good stuff in defense of the industry by placing a greater responsibility on consumers to support quality artists but overall I can’t blame them cause I’m one myself.
If somebody’s into crate digging– cool. Do ya thing, but really I feel a vast majority of people don’t have that passion– which doesn’t mean that they don’t enjoy quality music.. it just means they happen to focus their days on doing different unrealated sh*t. That’s the whole idea of paying a DJ to come spin for you since you figure that’s what they do. People place their faith in the DJ to deliver quality sh*t the same way they place their faith in these record labels to put out a quality product; the same way they place their faith in a TRL, MTV, Vh-1, etc. to bring them some quality video’s.
Kay also brought up something about going to the music store & gambling money away based on irrelevant factors like cover art, word of mouth, etc. & honestly I’ve tried those approaches. They don’t work cause most of the time I’ll get an entire cd full of garbage minus 1 or two tracks if I’m lucky.
A huge portion of this music industry has made a business out of hustlin’ the consumer. Therefore it’s hard for me to blame the victim. Especially if you had one of them Grandma’s that use to tell you sh*t like, “Money don’t grow on trees”
Wow, bet they have no clue brown people have this many educated opinions about them. I’m voting out of the handfull of candidates who aren’t trying to take guns out of civilian hands and keep nuclear weapons in theirs. If the shit hits the fan, like it has so many times before, i want to be able to protect me..not count on the government to. Couldn’t care less about race debates or puting some pushy ass broad in office. Try and keep in mind, these cats will say whatever it takes to win but not necessarily do it.
Jack put out thEE truth. Wishing some record execs would read it, but probably wont happen. It’s unfortunate.
J electros’ mp3 is still looping in my phones along with your last ep. ahh the sound of the primaries…
Here’s an interesting dialogue w/ Jared Ball. Let me know what you think:
http://www.voxunion.com/realaudio/coupradio/JBHeady2.mp3
i like the new layout
yes. layout’s fabulous.