What would be your choice and what you recommend everhyone do to meet this goal?
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Saturday, August 8, 2009
RED OR BLUE .... WHICH ARE YOU?
I want to suggest 2 bi-partisan communities be organized by simply doing the following:
Those against all the current health care reforms
start wearing "RED"; those for them start wearing
'BLUE'. If we can organize large RED and
BLUE communities, it will be easy to ascertain what
everyone supports across the USA. Each community,
should have Democrats, Republicans, and Independents
in them., Red will signify how upset/angry and do not support
what Congress is now attempting to do:
in your best interest ... trusting whatever they
enact will be what's right for you.What is needed:
What do you think about this? ....I mean, the visual pics each day
would be awesome indicator or how people feel about this
important debate. Each day, wear at least one visible item
showing which community you support. Remember this is a peaceful bi-partizen effort to demonstrate and
show our representatives and all government officials, in Washington,
what we support or don't support. If health care reform is to be enacted, then, it needs to be written in
under 100 pages or less, with focus on timely quality care for all age
groups.Red or Blue .... which are YOU?
start wearing "RED"; those for them start wearing
'BLUE'. If we can organize large RED and
BLUE communities, it will be easy to ascertain what
everyone supports across the USA. Each community,
should have Democrats, Republicans, and Independents
in them., Red will signify how upset/angry and do not support
what Congress is now attempting to do:
Create another Socialist
arm of Government with
Socialized Health Care. BLUE will indicate you trust Congress to actarm of Government with
in your best interest ... trusting whatever they
enact will be what's right for you.What is needed:
- People with media connections to help
- Get the word out all over the USA
- Discuss this effort with neighbors, family, and friends
- Social media coverage/exposure
- Suggestion how to make this effort better and larger
What do you think about this? ....I mean, the visual pics each day
would be awesome indicator or how people feel about this
important debate. Each day, wear at least one visible item
showing which community you support. Remember this is a peaceful bi-partizen effort to demonstrate and
show our representatives and all government officials, in Washington,
what we support or don't support. If health care reform is to be enacted, then, it needs to be written in
under 100 pages or less, with focus on timely quality care for all age
groups.Red or Blue .... which are YOU?
Friday, August 7, 2009
The Little But Really Useful Guide to Creativity
by Leo Babauta
Don’t be afraid to imagine.
“The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.” - Albert Einstein
Post written by Leo Babauta. Follow me on Twitter.
It’s easier than ever to be creative, to create, to imagine and make what’s imagined become reality.
It’s also tougher than ever, with distractions surrounding us in ways never before imagined.
No matter what kind of creative type you are — writer, painter, musician, marketer, blogger, photographer, designer, parent, business owner — you are likely always looking for inspirations, for ways to let loose your creative genius.
And while there are millions of creativity tips on the Internet, I thought I’d share the ones I’ve found most useful — the ones that I’ve tried and tested and found to be right.
Here they are, in no order at all:
- Play.
- Don’t consume and create at the same time — separate the processes.
- Shut out the outside world.
- Reflect on your life and work daily.
- Look for inspiration all around you, in the smallest places.
- Start small.
- Just get it out, no matter how crappy that first draft.
- Don’t try for perfect. Just get it out there, asap, and get feedback.
- Constantly make it better.
- Ignore the naysayers.
- But let criticism help you grow.
- Teach and you’ll learn.
- Shake things up, see things in new ways.
- Apply things in other fields to your field, in ways not done before.
- Drink ridiculous amounts of coffee.
- Write all ideas down immediately.
- Turn your work into play.
- Play with kids.
- Get out, move, see new things, talk to new people.
- Read wildly different things. Especially stuff you disagree with.
- Get lots of rest. Overwork kills creativity.
- Don’t force it. Relax, play, it will start to flow.
- Allow your mind to wander. Allow distractions, when you’re looking for inspiration.
- Then shut them off when you’re going to create.
- Do it when you’re excited.
- When you’re not, find something else to be excited about.
- Don’t be afraid to be stupid and silly.
- Small ideas are good. You don’t need to change the world — just change one thing.
- When something is killing your creativity, kill it.
- Stop reading creativity advice, clear away everything, and just create.
- Most of all, have fun doing it.
“Sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” - Lewis Carroll
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Effective Communication: A Lost Art?
July 29, 2009 by Lang Bliss
Okay, here’s my beef. I sometimes receive e-mails from potential clients for our studio that start out with something like this: “ i saw your ad and want to know how much you charge? i’m a singer. write back and tell me.”
No introduction, improper punctuation, no please or thank you. No clear idea of what they really want. The list goes on. I delete them. I don’t even bother to respond; it gets under my skin that bad.
I figure if they can’t communicate the basics in a letter, then what will happen in the studio? When we move into more complex areas of discussing the subtleties of artistic concepts, then how will we communicate? What if I think they’re saying one thing when they really mean another? There are too many opportunities for train wrecks to occur, and when money is changing hands it can get ugly.
Our society has lost many of its social graces. We’ve lost what we used to take for granted in the form of respectful, common communication skills. A lot of the responsibility falls on our educational systems and the immediate nature of e-mail, but those are completely other issues.
Here’s the point, for those of you asking “what’s the point?”
The exact same thing occurs every time you get onstage and don’t use the tools of communication that exist between the audience and artist.
Just like in society, there are rules onstage. There are basic understood means by which we communicate ideas, feelings, and concepts that require a certain level of mastery in order for us to be understood and accepted, let alone embraced. And it’s not the responsibility of the receiver (the audience) “to get” what we’re trying to say.
If we don’t know how to communicate ourselves in a way that fills them with a desire to understand us, they have no reason to stay committed to some arduous process while we struggle along thinking they should listen! They simply give up and move on.
How many of us still have that wonderful letter written to us by somebody we know –who really cared about us? We hold onto those because they make us feel important and special. That is what your audience wants to feel.
We have to make the effort and go the extra mile, to learn and then put into practice what makes our audience feel special and know we care. Or they really will move on, and we’ll be left wondering why they “hit delete” and never responded.
Lang Bliss, Live Music Producer
Monday, August 3, 2009
Country's New Face: It's Young and Blond
Country's New Face: It's Young and Blond
IN a video posted to YouTube in January 2008, Veronica Ballestrini — then 16, blond, precocious — sits on a wrinkled couch wearing a pink Abercrombie & Fitch zip-up hoodie and clutching a guitar. “Today one of my fans messaged me, and he thought I should do a Taylor Swift song,” the singer said, then began a committed, occasionally imperfect version of Ms. Swift’s “Teardrops on My Guitar.”It was one of several videos she posted over the span of a few months, revealing a streak of determination at apparent odds with the casualness of the videos, each one filmed on a different couch or chair.When she first began recording music at age 13, “I had no idea about anything, nothing about the industry or radio or singles,” Ms. Ballestrini recalled last month, on the phone from Peoria, Ill., during her first tour of country radio stations. “But I did know I needed a lot of fans.” And so from her Connecticut home Ms. Ballestrini set about cultivating an audience online: MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, DigitalRodeo and more.A year and a half later, all the screen time has begun to pay off. Last spring she recorded a proper video for “Amazing,” a single of her own, and uploaded it. After a couple of weeks it was picked up by CMT.com, the digital arm of Country Music Television, and shown on CMT Pure Country, the network’s all-video digital channel.A young female country singer savvily using online media to construct a career built on largely self-written songs about teenage experiences? The Taylor Swift Playbook is making the rounds.Ms. Swift, 19, who has sold more than seven million records in the last four years, has proved to be seismic in Nashville. And thanks to the pop crossover success of Ms. Swift and Carrie Underwood, 26, who has sold 10 million albums, notions of where a country star might fit in are being rewritten almost daily.“Taylor is having such massive success,” said David Ross, publisher and editor of the Nashville trade magazine Music Row. “Should we be surprised that marketers are saying, ‘Hey, I need a Taylor too?’ ”The next generation proposes a range of options. It includes clean-scrubbed country-leaning pop singers like Ms. Ballestrini, chipper country modernists like Jesse Lee, the TV-child-star-turned-musician Jennette McCurdy, sassy country-rock sirens like Jessie James and even some young women with a more traditional Nashville style, like Mallary Hope and Katie Armiger. (Both, perhaps not coincidentally, are brunettes.) Even Miley Cyrus is making a land grab: her single “The Climb,” from the recent “Hannah Montana: The Movie” soundtrack album, has been a hit at pop radio as well as country.The groundwork for this movement was laid in 2005, the year Ms. Swift signed her recording contract and Ms. Underwood won the fourth season of “American Idol,” validating the idea that a country singer could still succeed on a pop stage, something that hadn’t truly happened since Shania Twain in the 1990s.In hidebound Nashville, though, where male acts easily dominate the genre in sales and recognition, their success was by no means a given. In April Ms. Underwood won entertainer of the year, the top prize at the annual Academy of Country Music Awards, making her the first solo female artist to do so since Ms. Twain in 1999.Together, Ms. Swift and Ms. Underwood began clearing huge swaths of brush out of Nashville’s clogged pathways. The duo, along with their fellow blond country singer Kellie Pickler, 23, the former “American Idol” contestant and Ms. Swift’s best friend, were photographed together at a December 2007 Nashville Predators hockey game, making a public show of unity. In July 2008 the three appeared on the cover of Country Weekly magazine under the headline “Girls Rock!”In 2007 Ms. Swift and Ms. Pickler were both opening acts for Brad Paisley; they also appeared in his video for “Online.”“The reaction to these guys was spectacular,” said Bill Simmons, Mr. Paisley’s manager. “We watched Taylor explode.” Mr. Simmons now also manages Mallary Hope, 22, who this week will digitally release her debut EP, “Love Loves On” (MCA Nashville). For “all the kids sitting at home right now who are 12 and 13 and who want to be Carrie and Taylor,” Ms. Hope said, the success of those singers “gives all of these dreamers some hope.”Apart from some notable exceptions — Tanya Tucker, LeAnn Rimes — youth has often been a liability in Nashville. More than any other genre, country music leans heavily on storytelling, an area where life experience, or perceived life experience, makes a difference.Katie Armiger, 18, began coming to Nashville four years ago in search of a record deal. “At that time there were not any artists out like me,” she said, adding that a couple of labels offered her contracts but “told me that I would be on the shelf for five to six years.” Last year Ms. Armiger released “Believe” (Cold River), her second independent album, and her videos play regularly on the GAC (Great American Country) music channel.“In the past, I’ve seen talent at a young age and was averse to starting a business relationship,” said Mike Dungan, the president and chief executive of Capitol Records Nashville. “I felt our radio partners wouldn’t be receptive to it.” Last month Capitol announced the signing of Jennette McCurdy, 17, a star of the Nickelodeon show “iCarly,” who arrives with a built-in fan base. When she began posting videos of herself singing in a husky, twangy voice, she said, “I got a huge response from my online site community.”Veronica Ballestrini, who has cultivated fans using an online strategy, at a fund-raiser in Nashville.Even though Ms. McCurdy has a leg up on her peers thanks to her acting profile, her use of video and social media to promote herself reflects a new approach to generating attention that, while common in other genres, is still coming slowly to country, which has long lived and died with radio airplay.But as the radio industry has consolidated, playlists have become more restricted. The target demographic for country radio, which has historically been middle-aged women, hasn’t helped usher in younger stars, though executives say that for new artists to have stability they must attract mothers as well as their children. As a result, Mr. Dungan said, “as the talent has changed, and as the lines have blurred between genres, there’s been opportunities that have been missed.”To a degree, video has filled in the gaps. “In this current environment, video channels can play a more important role in breaking an artist,” said Ed Hardy, president of GAC. “We’re playing young artists next to the superstars.” The channel was an early supporter of Ms. Swift, featuring her in a series of biographical shorts as she released her first single in 2006.And such exposure is translating into sales. Take Gloriana, an exuberant new roots-pop group featuring two female singers: Cheyenne Kimball, 19, and Rachel Reinert, 20. The group will release its vibrant self-titled debut album on Tuesday on Emblem/Warner Brothers, but it has already sold more than 200,000 digital singles, a number Gator Michaels, senior vice president at Warner Brothers Records Nashville, said was “disproportionately high” given its radio airplay. He attributes the sales to the band’s heavy presence on video channels and aggressive online marketing. Gloriana is also an opening act, along with Ms. Pickler, on Ms. Swift’s current arena tour. (It arrives at Madison Square Garden Aug. 27.)“What you’re seeing is a greater divide than ever in the correlation of radio hits and record sales,” said Craig Kallman, the chairman and chief executive of Atlantic Records, a major label that has been increasingly making overtures to Nashville, most recently with the signing of Jesse Lee, 22.“Everything points to Taylor Swift,” Ms. Lee said. “The timing for me couldn’t have been any better.” Ms. Lee will release her charming debut album, “It’s a Girl Thing,” this fall, featuring production by Mark Bright, who has worked with Carrie Underwood, and Nathan Chapman, a main producer on both of Taylor Swift’s albums. The result is a fusion of styles palatable to mainstream pop tastes, Ms. Lee said: “I get all these messages from these young fans: ‘I don’t really like country, but I like your song.’“My iTunes sales have far exceeded my chart position on radio, so if it’s not radio play, what is it?” Ms. Lee continued. “I answer back every person who writes me. I’m active on Twitter. People are finding me through YouTube.”Meanwhile, the radio industry, in the early stages of a sea change in how it tracks listener habits, has lost its position as the genre’s reliable indicator of success. “Airplay,” Mr. Michaels said, “feeds our egos well, but what we actually do is sell music.”Ms. Swift was among the first country artists to aggressively use online media to promote herself. “That helped apply a lot of pressure to radio, or helped them notice her, depending how you look at it,” Mr. Ross said. But country music still lags behind other genres in its use of the Internet. Music Row recently began publishing a chart tracking Twitter followers of country acts. Apart from Ms. Swift, Ms. Cyrus and her father, Billy Ray, no country artist has more than 100,000 followers, a threshold crossed by several major and minor stars in other genres: Justin Timberlake, Moby, Matisyahu, Jim Jones, even Jon Secada.So when someone like Ms. Ballestrini arrives essentially unannounced and begins to attract attention, it’s significant. She is “really the first artist to pop up in a completely independent sense, getting noticeable figures online on her own without a major machine,” said Jay Frank, the senior vice president for music strategy at Country Music Television.One of the first label meetings Ms. Ballestrini, who will release her album “What I’m All About (TimBob) this month, took was with Jive Records, home to Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake. “They saw me as a pop artist,” she said. “Without the banjo and the fiddle, this could be a pop album.”Hearing Ms. Swift and Ms. Underwood on pop radio stations means that for a new generation of listener, country is no longer taboo. “Eighteen- to 29-year-olds, you used to ask them what they listen to, and they’d say ‘All kinds of music except country,’ ” Mr. Frank said. “Now that’s changed. If we nail it right as a community, we’ve got an audience that we’ll take with us for the next 20 years.”Regenerating its audience is something that’s been heavily on the mind of Nashville of late. In March the Country Music Association released the results of a 2008 marketplace study it commissioned, the largest in its history. The findings identified one of the largest locuses of growth potential as “pop country” listeners, whom it described as “very urban, responding to new, female, pop-leaning country artists.”Whitney Duncan, 24, whose debut album, “Right Road Now” (Warner Brothers Nashville), is due out this fall and who as a teenager languished on Capitol Nashville for three years, said, “If they’re listening to Taylor, maybe they’ll turn on CMT and watch other videos.”Or if Jessie James, 21, whose glossy self-titled debut will be released on Mercury this month, has her way, maybe they won’t have to turn on CMT at all. Her album features a mélange of influences, from country to soul to teen-pop.Last month, coming off a brief run supporting the Jonas Brothers (they share a management team), Ms. James opened for the rising pop-rock band the Honor Society at the Gramercy Theater, trying to win over a few hundred skeptical teenage girls.“I always wanted to be a country singer,” Ms. James said before the show, recalling her experiences trying to get a Nashville record deal. “They thought I was too pop, too sexy, too brunette.”So rather than force pop into her country, she’s opted for the opposite approach. “It’s been a struggle to continue keeping my country influences, but I’ve fought for it,” she said of being on a mainstream record label.For Ms. James, the best way to infiltrate a newly flexible Nashville is from the outside. “I want to be able to play the Grand Ole Opry on Tuesday and then fly off and do the MTV Awards on Saturday,” she said. “I want to do what Taylor’s doing: I want to be able to go both ways.”
IN a video posted to YouTube in January 2008, Veronica Ballestrini — then 16, blond, precocious — sits on a wrinkled couch wearing a pink Abercrombie & Fitch zip-up hoodie and clutching a guitar. “Today one of my fans messaged me, and he thought I should do a Taylor Swift song,” the singer said, then began a committed, occasionally imperfect version of Ms. Swift’s “Teardrops on My Guitar.”It was one of several videos she posted over the span of a few months, revealing a streak of determination at apparent odds with the casualness of the videos, each one filmed on a different couch or chair.When she first began recording music at age 13, “I had no idea about anything, nothing about the industry or radio or singles,” Ms. Ballestrini recalled last month, on the phone from Peoria, Ill., during her first tour of country radio stations. “But I did know I needed a lot of fans.” And so from her Connecticut home Ms. Ballestrini set about cultivating an audience online: MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, DigitalRodeo and more.A year and a half later, all the screen time has begun to pay off. Last spring she recorded a proper video for “Amazing,” a single of her own, and uploaded it. After a couple of weeks it was picked up by CMT.com, the digital arm of Country Music Television, and shown on CMT Pure Country, the network’s all-video digital channel.A young female country singer savvily using online media to construct a career built on largely self-written songs about teenage experiences? The Taylor Swift Playbook is making the rounds.Ms. Swift, 19, who has sold more than seven million records in the last four years, has proved to be seismic in Nashville. And thanks to the pop crossover success of Ms. Swift and Carrie Underwood, 26, who has sold 10 million albums, notions of where a country star might fit in are being rewritten almost daily.“Taylor is having such massive success,” said David Ross, publisher and editor of the Nashville trade magazine Music Row. “Should we be surprised that marketers are saying, ‘Hey, I need a Taylor too?’ ”The next generation proposes a range of options. It includes clean-scrubbed country-leaning pop singers like Ms. Ballestrini, chipper country modernists like Jesse Lee, the TV-child-star-turned-musician Jennette McCurdy, sassy country-rock sirens like Jessie James and even some young women with a more traditional Nashville style, like Mallary Hope and Katie Armiger. (Both, perhaps not coincidentally, are brunettes.) Even Miley Cyrus is making a land grab: her single “The Climb,” from the recent “Hannah Montana: The Movie” soundtrack album, has been a hit at pop radio as well as country.The groundwork for this movement was laid in 2005, the year Ms. Swift signed her recording contract and Ms. Underwood won the fourth season of “American Idol,” validating the idea that a country singer could still succeed on a pop stage, something that hadn’t truly happened since Shania Twain in the 1990s.In hidebound Nashville, though, where male acts easily dominate the genre in sales and recognition, their success was by no means a given. In April Ms. Underwood won entertainer of the year, the top prize at the annual Academy of Country Music Awards, making her the first solo female artist to do so since Ms. Twain in 1999.Together, Ms. Swift and Ms. Underwood began clearing huge swaths of brush out of Nashville’s clogged pathways. The duo, along with their fellow blond country singer Kellie Pickler, 23, the former “American Idol” contestant and Ms. Swift’s best friend, were photographed together at a December 2007 Nashville Predators hockey game, making a public show of unity. In July 2008 the three appeared on the cover of Country Weekly magazine under the headline “Girls Rock!”In 2007 Ms. Swift and Ms. Pickler were both opening acts for Brad Paisley; they also appeared in his video for “Online.”“The reaction to these guys was spectacular,” said Bill Simmons, Mr. Paisley’s manager. “We watched Taylor explode.” Mr. Simmons now also manages Mallary Hope, 22, who this week will digitally release her debut EP, “Love Loves On” (MCA Nashville). For “all the kids sitting at home right now who are 12 and 13 and who want to be Carrie and Taylor,” Ms. Hope said, the success of those singers “gives all of these dreamers some hope.”Apart from some notable exceptions — Tanya Tucker, LeAnn Rimes — youth has often been a liability in Nashville. More than any other genre, country music leans heavily on storytelling, an area where life experience, or perceived life experience, makes a difference.Katie Armiger, 18, began coming to Nashville four years ago in search of a record deal. “At that time there were not any artists out like me,” she said, adding that a couple of labels offered her contracts but “told me that I would be on the shelf for five to six years.” Last year Ms. Armiger released “Believe” (Cold River), her second independent album, and her videos play regularly on the GAC (Great American Country) music channel.“In the past, I’ve seen talent at a young age and was averse to starting a business relationship,” said Mike Dungan, the president and chief executive of Capitol Records Nashville. “I felt our radio partners wouldn’t be receptive to it.” Last month Capitol announced the signing of Jennette McCurdy, 17, a star of the Nickelodeon show “iCarly,” who arrives with a built-in fan base. When she began posting videos of herself singing in a husky, twangy voice, she said, “I got a huge response from my online site community.”Veronica Ballestrini, who has cultivated fans using an online strategy, at a fund-raiser in Nashville.Even though Ms. McCurdy has a leg up on her peers thanks to her acting profile, her use of video and social media to promote herself reflects a new approach to generating attention that, while common in other genres, is still coming slowly to country, which has long lived and died with radio airplay.But as the radio industry has consolidated, playlists have become more restricted. The target demographic for country radio, which has historically been middle-aged women, hasn’t helped usher in younger stars, though executives say that for new artists to have stability they must attract mothers as well as their children. As a result, Mr. Dungan said, “as the talent has changed, and as the lines have blurred between genres, there’s been opportunities that have been missed.”To a degree, video has filled in the gaps. “In this current environment, video channels can play a more important role in breaking an artist,” said Ed Hardy, president of GAC. “We’re playing young artists next to the superstars.” The channel was an early supporter of Ms. Swift, featuring her in a series of biographical shorts as she released her first single in 2006.And such exposure is translating into sales. Take Gloriana, an exuberant new roots-pop group featuring two female singers: Cheyenne Kimball, 19, and Rachel Reinert, 20. The group will release its vibrant self-titled debut album on Tuesday on Emblem/Warner Brothers, but it has already sold more than 200,000 digital singles, a number Gator Michaels, senior vice president at Warner Brothers Records Nashville, said was “disproportionately high” given its radio airplay. He attributes the sales to the band’s heavy presence on video channels and aggressive online marketing. Gloriana is also an opening act, along with Ms. Pickler, on Ms. Swift’s current arena tour. (It arrives at Madison Square Garden Aug. 27.)“What you’re seeing is a greater divide than ever in the correlation of radio hits and record sales,” said Craig Kallman, the chairman and chief executive of Atlantic Records, a major label that has been increasingly making overtures to Nashville, most recently with the signing of Jesse Lee, 22.“Everything points to Taylor Swift,” Ms. Lee said. “The timing for me couldn’t have been any better.” Ms. Lee will release her charming debut album, “It’s a Girl Thing,” this fall, featuring production by Mark Bright, who has worked with Carrie Underwood, and Nathan Chapman, a main producer on both of Taylor Swift’s albums. The result is a fusion of styles palatable to mainstream pop tastes, Ms. Lee said: “I get all these messages from these young fans: ‘I don’t really like country, but I like your song.’“My iTunes sales have far exceeded my chart position on radio, so if it’s not radio play, what is it?” Ms. Lee continued. “I answer back every person who writes me. I’m active on Twitter. People are finding me through YouTube.”Meanwhile, the radio industry, in the early stages of a sea change in how it tracks listener habits, has lost its position as the genre’s reliable indicator of success. “Airplay,” Mr. Michaels said, “feeds our egos well, but what we actually do is sell music.”Ms. Swift was among the first country artists to aggressively use online media to promote herself. “That helped apply a lot of pressure to radio, or helped them notice her, depending how you look at it,” Mr. Ross said. But country music still lags behind other genres in its use of the Internet. Music Row recently began publishing a chart tracking Twitter followers of country acts. Apart from Ms. Swift, Ms. Cyrus and her father, Billy Ray, no country artist has more than 100,000 followers, a threshold crossed by several major and minor stars in other genres: Justin Timberlake, Moby, Matisyahu, Jim Jones, even Jon Secada.So when someone like Ms. Ballestrini arrives essentially unannounced and begins to attract attention, it’s significant. She is “really the first artist to pop up in a completely independent sense, getting noticeable figures online on her own without a major machine,” said Jay Frank, the senior vice president for music strategy at Country Music Television.One of the first label meetings Ms. Ballestrini, who will release her album “What I’m All About (TimBob) this month, took was with Jive Records, home to Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake. “They saw me as a pop artist,” she said. “Without the banjo and the fiddle, this could be a pop album.”Hearing Ms. Swift and Ms. Underwood on pop radio stations means that for a new generation of listener, country is no longer taboo. “Eighteen- to 29-year-olds, you used to ask them what they listen to, and they’d say ‘All kinds of music except country,’ ” Mr. Frank said. “Now that’s changed. If we nail it right as a community, we’ve got an audience that we’ll take with us for the next 20 years.”Regenerating its audience is something that’s been heavily on the mind of Nashville of late. In March the Country Music Association released the results of a 2008 marketplace study it commissioned, the largest in its history. The findings identified one of the largest locuses of growth potential as “pop country” listeners, whom it described as “very urban, responding to new, female, pop-leaning country artists.”Whitney Duncan, 24, whose debut album, “Right Road Now” (Warner Brothers Nashville), is due out this fall and who as a teenager languished on Capitol Nashville for three years, said, “If they’re listening to Taylor, maybe they’ll turn on CMT and watch other videos.”Or if Jessie James, 21, whose glossy self-titled debut will be released on Mercury this month, has her way, maybe they won’t have to turn on CMT at all. Her album features a mélange of influences, from country to soul to teen-pop.Last month, coming off a brief run supporting the Jonas Brothers (they share a management team), Ms. James opened for the rising pop-rock band the Honor Society at the Gramercy Theater, trying to win over a few hundred skeptical teenage girls.“I always wanted to be a country singer,” Ms. James said before the show, recalling her experiences trying to get a Nashville record deal. “They thought I was too pop, too sexy, too brunette.”So rather than force pop into her country, she’s opted for the opposite approach. “It’s been a struggle to continue keeping my country influences, but I’ve fought for it,” she said of being on a mainstream record label.For Ms. James, the best way to infiltrate a newly flexible Nashville is from the outside. “I want to be able to play the Grand Ole Opry on Tuesday and then fly off and do the MTV Awards on Saturday,” she said. “I want to do what Taylor’s doing: I want to be able to go both ways.”
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Founding Fathers
* The Founders were conservatives by today's standards -- for gun rights, limited government, and religion in public life * George Washington fervently believed that God Himself saved the Revolution * Thomas Jefferson would have vetoed all federal domestic programs of the last one hundred years * John Adams considered virtue, morality, and religion to the bulwarks of a free republic * Alexander Hamilton did not believe in direct taxation or a large government debt * John Taylor of Caroline County, Virginia, predicted the problems of modern state capitalism and central banking * The Founders believed in states' rights -- including the right to secede from the Union # How the Founders meant something very different by “all men are created equal” than most of us have been taught
# Why the Declaration of Independence did not refer to a “ United State” or even a “ United States” -- but rather to “ united States,” with each individual State having full power as an independent country
# How “national history standards” established in 1995 eliminated George Washington and many other Founding Fathers from curricula, replacing them with politically correct individuals and issues
# The U.S. a democracy? Why such a notion would have appalled the Founders -- who established us as something quite different: a republic
# Why the framers of the Constitution established the much-maligned and much-misunderstood Electoral College
# Did Thomas Jefferson father a child by a slave? How, if he were to stand trial with the current evidence in hand, an honest jury would find him “not guilty”
# How the Founders believed in religious liberty, but were not complete opponents of state-sponsored churches
# Samuel Adams: He predicted the Civil War and perceptively identified the weaknesses of a federal government -- weaknesses that are abundantly on display today
# The Founding Father who, although a slave holder, was an early proponent of the abolition of slavery, and is the antidote to the “politically correct” interpretation of the Founding generation (which is why he is so often ignored, forgotten, or misrepresented)
# The Founder who challenged the proposed Constitution, criticizing it for consolidating the states into one general government which could not, in his estimation, protect the lives, liberty, and property of the people
# The forgotten Founder who, when pressed about the powers of the central government, stated the only objectives of a Union of the states should be “first, defense against foreign danger; secondly, against internal disputes and a resort to force; thirdly, treaties with foreign nations; fourthly, regulating foreign commerce, and drawing revenue from it. ...All other matters, civil and criminal, would be much better left in the hands of the states.”
# Elbridge Gerry -- known for more than just gerrymandering: How he believed Congress should have little power and the other government branches even less
# The sense of conservatism that separated the American Revolution from the French Revolution that sought to create an entirely new politics and even a new religion
# The Founder who declared he was “a friend to a strong and efficient government” but warned “we may erect a system that will destroy the liberties of the people”
# Why the Declaration of Independence did not refer to a “ United State” or even a “ United States” -- but rather to “ united States,” with each individual State having full power as an independent country
# How “national history standards” established in 1995 eliminated George Washington and many other Founding Fathers from curricula, replacing them with politically correct individuals and issues
# The U.S. a democracy? Why such a notion would have appalled the Founders -- who established us as something quite different: a republic
# Why the framers of the Constitution established the much-maligned and much-misunderstood Electoral College
# Did Thomas Jefferson father a child by a slave? How, if he were to stand trial with the current evidence in hand, an honest jury would find him “not guilty”
# How the Founders believed in religious liberty, but were not complete opponents of state-sponsored churches
# Samuel Adams: He predicted the Civil War and perceptively identified the weaknesses of a federal government -- weaknesses that are abundantly on display today
# The Founding Father who, although a slave holder, was an early proponent of the abolition of slavery, and is the antidote to the “politically correct” interpretation of the Founding generation (which is why he is so often ignored, forgotten, or misrepresented)
# The Founder who challenged the proposed Constitution, criticizing it for consolidating the states into one general government which could not, in his estimation, protect the lives, liberty, and property of the people
# The forgotten Founder who, when pressed about the powers of the central government, stated the only objectives of a Union of the states should be “first, defense against foreign danger; secondly, against internal disputes and a resort to force; thirdly, treaties with foreign nations; fourthly, regulating foreign commerce, and drawing revenue from it. ...All other matters, civil and criminal, would be much better left in the hands of the states.”
# Elbridge Gerry -- known for more than just gerrymandering: How he believed Congress should have little power and the other government branches even less
# The sense of conservatism that separated the American Revolution from the French Revolution that sought to create an entirely new politics and even a new religion
# The Founder who declared he was “a friend to a strong and efficient government” but warned “we may erect a system that will destroy the liberties of the people”
Artist Failure
“Most artist fail. Not because their product wasn’t any good. They failed because not enough people knew about it. In other words, the marketing failed. Not only is marketing important, it’s pretty much
everything. Being a successful artist requires so much more than just being a great singer” You are welcome to contact KleerStreem Entertainment for an honest discussion of marketing you and your music. KleerStreem Entertainment is an artist development company. We address and plan all areas of an artist's career. Email: kleerstreem@gmail.com
everything. Being a successful artist requires so much more than just being a great singer” You are welcome to contact KleerStreem Entertainment for an honest discussion of marketing you and your music. KleerStreem Entertainment is an artist development company. We address and plan all areas of an artist's career. Email: kleerstreem@gmail.com
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Transcript: Sen. Thune delivers weekly Republican Address
Posted on August 1, 2009
“Hello, I’m Senator John Thune of South Dakota. With summer in full swing, children across the country are enjoying vacations and time off from school. Too many of their parents, however, don’t get a vacation from their worries about important issues like the rising costs of health care. Those parents, like many Americans, are looking to us in Washington for help, and for real solutions.
“Republicans in Congress know that serious health care reform is a top priority of the American people, and we are committed to getting it done. But we need to get the right reform, rather than just rush something through that could leave us in far worse shape in the future.
“Republicans want health care reform that works. Reform that brings down costs for families and small businesses, and reform that provides better care to more people. On all these points, the current proposals by the President and the Democrat leadership in Congress fall short. Their plan for government-run health care would disrupt our current system and force millions of Americans who currently enjoy their employer-based coverage into a new health care plan run by government bureaucrats.
“In this difficult recession, Americans and our government are already over-extended. The Democrats who control Congress have been spending money and racking up debt at an unprecedented pace. And their plan for government-run health care would only make things worse. Once implemented, the Democrat plan would spend more than $2 trillion and further increase our exploding deficit. Their plan would pile up higher costs, create new Washington bureaucracies, and burden every state through new requirements on Medicaid.
“Governors and state legislators from both parties have said that increased Medicaid costs would overwhelm their already-strained state budgets. In fact, one Democratic governor last week called the increases proposed by Congressional Democrats ‘the mother of all unfunded mandates.’’
“In my home state of South Dakota, the new Medicaid requirements could require $45 million a year in new state spending. That may not sound like much, but for a small state that’s required by law to balance its budget every year, it’s a lot. That money would have to come from somewhere, and that means either higher taxes or cuts to other priorities. That’s what we’re facing not just in South Dakota, but nationwide.
“Americans don’t want to lose their high quality health care, and they definitely don’t want to pay trillions of dollars for a government takeover of health care that could lead to the same denial, delay, and rationing of treatment that we’ve seen in other countries that have gone down this path.
“Republicans think there’s a better way. We’ve put forth proposals that will cut costs and improve care. And we can accomplish health care reform while keeping patients and their doctors in charge, not bureaucrats and politicians.
“Real reform should allow small businesses to pool together to buy affordable health insurance for their employees.
“Real reform should protect doctors and hospitals from frivolous lawsuits, so they can stop practicing defensive medicine and instead focus on practicing patient-focused medicine.
“Real reform should encourage wellness and prevention programs that have been proven to cut costs.
“And real reform should give people who buy their own insurance the same tax breaks as those who get insurance through their employers.
“These and other commonsense solutions would provide real reform for our health care system rather than the dangerous and costly experiment that Democrats are proposing.
“I hope that as we continue this important debate, we can put aside the politics of Washington and tackle health care reform in the bipartisan way that Americans deserve.
“It’s time for real reform that works, not the same old answers of more money and more government. Real health care reform should cost Americans less money, not more. It should provide better quality, not worse. And it should empower patients, not government bureaucrats. By working together, we can do just that.
“Thank you.”
Five Keys To Songplugging
In the Nashville music industry there is one position that is
arguably the most crucial to the success of the business as a
whole: the songplugger. Most songwriters and publishers depend on
the plugger to pitch their songs, and the artists and record
labels look to the plugger to bring them the hits they need for
their projects. Of the songs not written by the artist, the
songplugger is said to be responsible for the majority of the
cuts released on commercial country recordings, and that
translates into much of the revenue generated for copyright
owners. For the artists and labels that depend on hit songs to
launch careers and drive sales, the songplugger is undeniably an
indispensable ally. There are two types of songpluggers: the "in-house" plugger who
works as an employee of a publishing company, and the
"independent" plugger who works on a contractual basis for
various clients. And how they go about pitching songs can be
broken down into five key steps:
1. Networking
2. Finding Great Songs to Pitch
3. Finding Out Who's Recording
4. Making the Pitch,
5. Getting paid. If you've ever wondered how the pros do what they do, this is it
in a nutshell. Networking: The first step in songplugging is to develop a
personal and professional network of contacts. I cover networking
first, because if you are an indie plugger, you will need
established contacts to attract clients, but in the real world,
the first two steps are probably happening simultaneously. Networking itself can be broken down into two categories:
researching contacts, and making the connection. When it comes to
researching, there are various ways of finding out who the movers
and shakers are on Music Row. Two of the most effective are
reading the local publications, and attending industry events. As
you read articles on artists or other industry insiders, make a
note of their names, then use the internet to research as much
information as you can about who they are, what positions they
hold, company names, and who they work with. As you attend
industry events, such as writers nights, showcases and other
industry related events and seminars, don't be afraid to
introduce yourself. Create a list of people you want to develop a
relationship with. Like all social situations the way you handle
yourself is extremely important. Everything counts, especially
the way you engage the people you meet. In Nashville, there is a
basic networking etiquette, and you would do well to learn what
is acceptable and what is not. Of all the do's and don'ts on
proper behavior, there is one "don't" in particular that you
should be mindful of - don't gherm. A "gherm" is someone who
latches on to someone of importance with the agenda of promoting
their own careers. Instead of coming across as someone on a
mission, one of the do's of networking etiquette is … do be
genuine. People can tell if you are being sincere. So make every
interaction casual, and real. Finding Great Songs to Pitch: For an in-house songplugger who
works exclusively for a publishing company, it means being
familiar with their catalog and meeting with the current writers.
For indie pluggers, it usually means finding pro writers and
publishers who are looking to outsource or increase their catalog
representation. As an in-house songplugger, you will probably be assigned as the
"point person" for a group of writers. These are usually the
active songwriters who are not only signed to the publishing
company, but are consistently turning in new material. You will
find your songs among the CDs they turn in, but you may also need
to work the back catalog. A catalog often has songs that were
acquired through mergers or acquisitions. One hallmark of an
in-house plugger is their exclusivity to a single publisher, and
as such, they are limited to pitching only those songs that are
in their employer's catalog. For the independent songplugger, finding great songs to represent
can be much more challenging at times, and their ability to do so
hinges primarily on their reputation. The less established indie
plugger may have trouble convincing potential clients that they
have the connections to get the job done, namely, to get their
songs cut. So the more connections you have, and the stronger
those connections are, the more clients you will be able to
attract. Indie pluggers find most of their songs through writers
who have an established name and available catalog, or smaller
publishers who either don't have the means to hire an in-house
plugger, or simply choose to outsource their pitching needs. The
up side to being an indie plugger is you aren't exclusive, and
can work with several writers and publishers. This way you can
represent catalogs that you're excited about and that cover from
the very traditional to the very contemporary. Finding Out Who's Recording: Once you have songs to represent,
you will need to know who is recording and the type of songs
they're looking for. One of the easiest ways to find out who's looking for songs is to
subscribe to industry tip sheets. These are weekly or monthly
publications that list some basic information on artists and
their current projects, including the artist's label, producer,
contact person, the type of songs they are looking for and the
month or specific date they are set to record. Perhaps the most
popular tip sheet known is the Music Row Fax. This is a
subscription service that offers a weekly tip sheet via email,
and access to an online contact directory. You can find out more
about this service at www.musicrow.com. Another great resource for finding out who's recording is from
your personal network. If you've done your homework and made your
connections, you have a list of people you can call to get the
inside scoop on current projects. It's important to develop your
personal references, so it's a good idea to not only keep a
record of your contacts, but also be familiar with your contacts'
contacts. If you are good friends with a rep from your PRO, you
might be surprised to learn that back in college they were
roommates with someone who has just started in A&R. It's like
MySpace; find out who is in your "extended" network.
arguably the most crucial to the success of the business as a
whole: the songplugger. Most songwriters and publishers depend on
the plugger to pitch their songs, and the artists and record
labels look to the plugger to bring them the hits they need for
their projects. Of the songs not written by the artist, the
songplugger is said to be responsible for the majority of the
cuts released on commercial country recordings, and that
translates into much of the revenue generated for copyright
owners. For the artists and labels that depend on hit songs to
launch careers and drive sales, the songplugger is undeniably an
indispensable ally. There are two types of songpluggers: the "in-house" plugger who
works as an employee of a publishing company, and the
"independent" plugger who works on a contractual basis for
various clients. And how they go about pitching songs can be
broken down into five key steps:
1. Networking
2. Finding Great Songs to Pitch
3. Finding Out Who's Recording
4. Making the Pitch,
5. Getting paid. If you've ever wondered how the pros do what they do, this is it
in a nutshell. Networking: The first step in songplugging is to develop a
personal and professional network of contacts. I cover networking
first, because if you are an indie plugger, you will need
established contacts to attract clients, but in the real world,
the first two steps are probably happening simultaneously. Networking itself can be broken down into two categories:
researching contacts, and making the connection. When it comes to
researching, there are various ways of finding out who the movers
and shakers are on Music Row. Two of the most effective are
reading the local publications, and attending industry events. As
you read articles on artists or other industry insiders, make a
note of their names, then use the internet to research as much
information as you can about who they are, what positions they
hold, company names, and who they work with. As you attend
industry events, such as writers nights, showcases and other
industry related events and seminars, don't be afraid to
introduce yourself. Create a list of people you want to develop a
relationship with. Like all social situations the way you handle
yourself is extremely important. Everything counts, especially
the way you engage the people you meet. In Nashville, there is a
basic networking etiquette, and you would do well to learn what
is acceptable and what is not. Of all the do's and don'ts on
proper behavior, there is one "don't" in particular that you
should be mindful of - don't gherm. A "gherm" is someone who
latches on to someone of importance with the agenda of promoting
their own careers. Instead of coming across as someone on a
mission, one of the do's of networking etiquette is … do be
genuine. People can tell if you are being sincere. So make every
interaction casual, and real. Finding Great Songs to Pitch: For an in-house songplugger who
works exclusively for a publishing company, it means being
familiar with their catalog and meeting with the current writers.
For indie pluggers, it usually means finding pro writers and
publishers who are looking to outsource or increase their catalog
representation. As an in-house songplugger, you will probably be assigned as the
"point person" for a group of writers. These are usually the
active songwriters who are not only signed to the publishing
company, but are consistently turning in new material. You will
find your songs among the CDs they turn in, but you may also need
to work the back catalog. A catalog often has songs that were
acquired through mergers or acquisitions. One hallmark of an
in-house plugger is their exclusivity to a single publisher, and
as such, they are limited to pitching only those songs that are
in their employer's catalog. For the independent songplugger, finding great songs to represent
can be much more challenging at times, and their ability to do so
hinges primarily on their reputation. The less established indie
plugger may have trouble convincing potential clients that they
have the connections to get the job done, namely, to get their
songs cut. So the more connections you have, and the stronger
those connections are, the more clients you will be able to
attract. Indie pluggers find most of their songs through writers
who have an established name and available catalog, or smaller
publishers who either don't have the means to hire an in-house
plugger, or simply choose to outsource their pitching needs. The
up side to being an indie plugger is you aren't exclusive, and
can work with several writers and publishers. This way you can
represent catalogs that you're excited about and that cover from
the very traditional to the very contemporary. Finding Out Who's Recording: Once you have songs to represent,
you will need to know who is recording and the type of songs
they're looking for. One of the easiest ways to find out who's looking for songs is to
subscribe to industry tip sheets. These are weekly or monthly
publications that list some basic information on artists and
their current projects, including the artist's label, producer,
contact person, the type of songs they are looking for and the
month or specific date they are set to record. Perhaps the most
popular tip sheet known is the Music Row Fax. This is a
subscription service that offers a weekly tip sheet via email,
and access to an online contact directory. You can find out more
about this service at www.musicrow.com. Another great resource for finding out who's recording is from
your personal network. If you've done your homework and made your
connections, you have a list of people you can call to get the
inside scoop on current projects. It's important to develop your
personal references, so it's a good idea to not only keep a
record of your contacts, but also be familiar with your contacts'
contacts. If you are good friends with a rep from your PRO, you
might be surprised to learn that back in college they were
roommates with someone who has just started in A&R. It's like
MySpace; find out who is in your "extended" network.
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