| From: SIer formerly known as Joe B. | 3/3/2013 1:52:02 PM | | | | | |  Bands build brands and fans by streaming shows
techhive.com
Streaming media music, streaming video
Caitlin McGarry@Caitlin_McGarry
Mar 2, 2013 3:00 AM print
Caitlin McGarryReporter, TechHive[iframe style="WIDTH: 157px; HEIGHT: 20px" class="twitter-follow-button twitter-follow-button" title="Twitter Follow Button" src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets/follow_button.1362008198.html#_=1362336908774&id=twitter-widget-2&lang=en&screen_name=Caitlin_McGarry&show_count=false&show_screen_name=true&size=m" frameBorder=0 allowTransparency scrolling=no data-twttr-rendered="true"][/iframe]
Nothing compares to the feeling you get from being one fan in a sea of thousands, the words to your favorite song bursting from your mouth as the band you’ve waited weeks, months, even years to see, jams on stage.
Though watching a live stream of a concert online doesn’t come close to the real thing, it’s another way for artists to connect with their fans and for fans to share that experience with each other.
Streaming music or events online isn’t exactly a newfangled notion, but today’s tech can turn obscure artists into huge stars with millions of fans thanks to just one video clip. Services like YouTube, Ustream, Justin.tv, Concert Window, and others let musicians build a community and capitalize on their performances.
Digital music services, which include streaming subscriptions, contributed to a slight uptick in global music industry revenue last year for the first time since 1999, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. Broadcasting concerts online can help artists recoup cash they may be losing to piracy.
 Ustream lets you watch concerts in real time. From bootlegs to broadcasts Grateful Dead fans are considered the standard-bearers of capturing that breathless live concert experience and sharing it with others. Deadheads built such an extensive trading network and such a wealth of material that the band is thought to be the most documented in music history.
The Dead realized in the 1960s what the music industry is only now coming to terms with: that making music available in a variety of formats—whether officially sanctioned or unofficially encouraged—is a win for both the artists and the fans.
Early online concert streaming was a technical feat. Producers had to band together multiple ISDN channels to get a connection that today is handily beaten by wireless 3G and 4G smartphones.
The first large-scale streaming event was the Tibetan Freedom Concert in 1996. Some 36,000 viewers watched online in real time as the Beastie Boys, Red Hot Chili Peppers, No Doubt, and a slew of other popular bands performed over the two-day festival. The connection speed capped out at 1.2 Mbps.
 The Tibetan Freedom Concert (1998) with Luscious Jackson performing. Photos courtesy of Marc Scarpa. Marc Scarpa, executive producer of Simplynew, was one of streaming video’s pioneers. He coordinated the live streams of the Tibetan Freedom Concert series, the Woodstock 1999 festival, the first presidential town hall with President Clinton in 1999, and the first social network concert broadcast in 2006 (a Paul Oakenfold show on MySpace).
Scarpa realized that the Grateful Dead revenue model of capitalizing on live performances rather than relying solely on album sales was a smart way for musicians to make money in an era of digital piracy. The appeal for fans is obvious, he says.
“What’s the appeal of watching the Super Bowl or the Oscars? What’s the appeal in watching Wimbledon or the Olympics? What’s the appeal of watching the news? The difference between watching those live events on TV and experiencing them online is that online you can have a participatory experience,” Scarpa says. “The idea of the real-time water cooler has finally been realized. These are all things we were doing in ’96 but just on a very low bit rate.”
 Paul Oakenfold's performance for MySpace Live. Brave new world Technology has advanced far beyond just faster bit rates. Streaming music services are everywhere; Pandora, Spotify, Slacker Radio, Rhapsody, and others have tens of millions of users among them.
But live concert streaming is still a relatively new phenomenon, with new options popping up every month. YouTube, Ustream, and Justin.tv have carved out niches in the video streaming space, but each company uses different tactics to tackle the issue.
YouTube is known for its user-generated videos, but the site has also partnered with major music brands like the Coachella music festival to stream behind-the-scenes concert footage. Ustream this month launched a pay-per-view service for broadcasters to set their own ticket prices for live shows streamed on the site. BitTorrent is testing a peer-to-peer service called BitTorrent Live for viewers to stream broadcasts and share them with little to no delays.
Musicians Dan Gurney and Forrest O’Connor in 2010 started Concert Window, a subscription-based site largely geared toward folk music fans. The company works with 15 venues around the country to stream shows live every night. For $8.99 a month, subscribers get an all-access pass to watch every concert on the site. Concert Window takes a third of the revenue, venues get a third, and musicians get a third.
 Concert Window was one of the early show-streaming subscription services. “It’s early enough in this industry that there’s a lot of different ways to approach the same problem,” Gurney says. “We’re doing it via venues, via artists. We’re trying to set some baselines as far as how artists should be compensated for their work. As a consumer, Spotify is great. It’s free. But as a musician, it’s really not great for me, because I get a hundredth of a cent per track. There’s no way to turn that into a sustainable revenue stream. Live concert streaming is basically the Wild West at this point. We wanted to set some baselines as to what’s fair.”
Crowd-sourced concertgoing The Wild West is quickly going mainstream. About 100 million people around the world watched live streaming video online last year, according to a report from iRocke.com. An average of 1200 concerts were streamed each month in the latter half of the year, doubling the average number of concerts streamed in the first six months.
Live streaming is a far cry from bootleg tape-trading networks. People can still record live performances and upload them to video-sharing sites. But when high-quality concert streams are available for free or with a cheap subscription, then watching someone’s shaky iPhone video recorded from the nosebleed seats is a lot less appealing.
Musicians are still figuring out how to use streaming video to supplement record and ticket sales. Scarpa says legacy artists like the Rolling Stones and David Bowie, who might not feel like touring extensively anymore, can use streaming to connect with fans and give them a glimpse of what life is like backstage. Streaming can also help a fledgling singer become a star (see: Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga).
“It’s better for [musicians] to get on the bus than it is to fight it,” Scarpa says. “[Streaming] gives them a direct conversation with their audience. It allows them to bypass the gatekeepers. The role of the gatekeeper is changing and evolving. Now artists are able to have a more direct relationship than ever before with their fans. It empowers smart artists to set up their own distribution channels and keep their audience and community engaged with what that artist has to create. Ultimately, it’s about music, but there’s an experience around music.”
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| From: SIer formerly known as Joe B. | 3/4/2013 9:04:09 AM | | | | | | *****************************************************************
Former Allman Brothers Lead Guitarist “Dangerous” Dan Toler Passes
SARASOTA, FL - Legendary Southern Rock guitarist Dan Toler died the morning of February 25th, at his home in Sarasota Florida. Dan passed away after a long battle against (ALS) Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.
Dan Toler was celebrated in the late 1970s for his astonishing guitar work as a member of the Dickey Betts & Great Southern band. He was featured on the two albums with Dickey Betts & Great Southern and later become a member of The Allman Brothers Band in 1979 and remained until 1982. Dan’s guitar work was featured on the ABB’s hit album, Enlightened Rogues, in 1979; Reach for the Sky in 1980 and Brothers of the Road in 1981.
Dan Toler and his late brother David (Frankie) Toler were members of the Gregg Allman Band in the 1980s, and were featured on his hit album, I'm No Angel, in 1987; and again on Just Before the Bullets Fly in 1988.
In 2005, Dan along with other Southern Rock Royalty joined “The Renegades of Southern Rock,” whose members included George McCorkle of The Marshall Tucker Band, John Townsend from the Sanford-Townsend Band and Jack Hall from Wet Willie.
In 2008, Dan and his friends Ron Gary and Ed Zinner formed “TGZ,” an ethereal Blues-Jazz combination that received world attention when released on the indie label, King Mojo Records.
Dan teamed up again with John Townsend in 2009 and formed the Toler/Townsend Band. Their self-titled album was released that same year on the Garage Door Records indie label.
Dan Toler is survived by his wife Debbie, their daughter Danielle Franz, her husband Dan and his Mother-in-law, Louise Rose. Memorial arrangements are currently pending and will be announced as soon as they are made available.
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Santana Reforms Santana!
Carlos Santana has confirmed he is putting the original Santana band together for his next album.
In an interview with Noise11.com Carlos said that he is putting the line-up from the first three albums back together for his next record. “So far we have invited the original members like Greg Rolie from the first three albums,” he told Noise11. “It will be like Santana IV because we stopped at ‘Santana III’”.
Journey’s Neal Schon broke the news of the reunion to Noise11 this week and Carlos has confirmed that he has just about everyone on board for the project. “As well as Neal we have the two Mikes, Mike Carabello and Michael Shrieve. I am pretty sure Greg’s going to do it. So that is pretty much everyone,” he says.
Bass player David Brown passed away in 2000.
According to Carlos, the album will have the African feel of the first three Santana records. “We have been checking out a lot of African music, African patterns,” he says. “Each artist has his own thing that he listens to. Led Zeppelin listened to Otis Rush. Cream listened to Freddie King and Albert King. We all had someone that we listened to. It was a beautiful common ground for Santana to play African music”.
The band will start work on the album after Carlos finishes a big year of touring that will see him head to Deniliquin in New South Wales this month for the Deni Blues and Roots Festival. He says to “expect it in 2014”.
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Source: 2013 Punmaster's MusicWire punmaster.com |
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| From: SIer formerly known as Joe B. | 3/4/2013 9:09:21 AM | | | | | | Hot Club of Cowtown has a new CD and tour coming up. I won't be able to make their show at Joe's Pub but I'm hoping their April 13th show from Tupelo Music hall is on Concert Window.
HOT CLUB OF COWTOWN’S RENDEZVOUS IN RHYTHM
TO BE RELEASED IN U.S. MAY 28, 2013,
ON GOLD STRIKE RECORDS
Collection of 14 fiery Gypsy jazz and American Songbook standards
is the Hot Club’s first album
to exclusively celebrate the band’s Left Bank influences.
“It takes considerable bravery to name your band after one of the greatest jazz ensembles of the last century. Hot Club get away with it because they have spirit, originality and skill that would surely have impressed Stephane Grappelli
and Django Reinhardt back in 1930s.”
—The Guardian
AUSTIN, Texas — Hot Club of Cowtown’s new Lloyd Maines-produced release, Rendezvous in Rhythm, out May 28, 2013 on Gold Strike Records, is an exuberant collection of Gypsy songs and American Songbook standards played acoustically and recorded in the hot jazz style of legendary violin and guitar masters Stephane Grappelli and Django Reinhardt. Recorded last July at the Zone Recording Studio in Dripping Springs, Texas, it’s the Hot Club’s first-ever dedicated foray into the Gypsy jazz and French swing of Paris in the ’30s and features the band’s sparkling spins on standards in the style of Reinhardt and Grappelli including “Crazy Rhythm,” “Minor Swing,” “Dark Eyes,” “The Continental,” “I'm in the Mood for Love,” “Douce Ambiance,” and many more.
You’d think a band from Austin, Texas with the word “Cowtown” in its name spends its time off from touring herding cattle at a West Texas ranch or maybe in Nashville writing songs about whiskey and loose women. Not the Hot Club of Cowtown. “We recently took a band vacation to the Gypsy Festival at St. Maries de la Mer in the South of France,” says the band’s fiddler and vocalist, Elana James. Whit Smith, Hot Club’s guitar player and vocalist, is a regular at the prestigious Djangofest Northwest in Whidbey, Island, Washington, and bass player Jake Erwin has the Hungarian folk band Csokolom in regular rotation on his home stereo.
“Our band is fiddle, guitar, and bass, and they can do anything together. We’ve always played a combination of hot jazz and Western swing, but it’s been really a joy to finally distill part of our essence and serve up a record that is purely jazzy,” says James, who in fact was once a horse wrangler in Colorado, as well as a former student of classical music at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau, France. Says Smith, “Once Elana became aware that in jazz music and swing, you could express yourself more in improvisation, I think that attracted her to it. She still likes classical, and I do too.” Smith grew up hearing his parents play lots of folk music, especially acoustic blues, but as a teenager he naturally rebelled and turned sharply toward hard rock, which still informs his approach to hot jazz and Western swing. The impression that the band is in some way a country act, especially in the current climate of American popular music, is somewhat misleading since the Hot Club’s influences have always been as much the musette music of the smoky bistros of 1930s Paris as they are the hoedowns and Western swing of the mythic American West.
Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that the Hot Club of Cowtown, whose collection of recorded work now stretches to seven studio albums, is finally releasing Rendezvous in Rhythm, a thrilling display of this Texas trio’s breathtaking virtuosity and, for the first time with such focus, its elegant, more European inspirations. “We had lots of people asking us to make a record of standards,” says Smith, “So there you go, here’s a record full of swing standards. We’re not trying to compete with anyone who’s writing the songs. It’s more of a vehicle for one way we really like to play — starting with familiar ground and then improvising from there.” By way of inspiration James adds, “One of the most thrilling nights of my life was when Gheorghe Anghel (the violinist from legendary Romanian Gypsy band Taraf de Haidouks) came over to my house and he and Whit and I jammed on songs like ‘Avalon’ and ‘Exactly Like You’ in my living room ’til four in the morning. And then he asked if he could use my phone to call home to Romania. It was absolutely the coolest thing ever.”
We can all be grateful then, for whatever inspiration an insistent fan base or a visiting Romanian fiddler may have sparked, for Rendezvous in Rhythm is an utterly superb collection of traditional material, by far the Hot Club’s most polished and sophisticated work to date. From the first hypnotic phrases of the lead track “Ochi Chornye” (a Russian folk song also known as “Dark Eyes”), which builds from an atmospheric reverie into a frenzy à la Ravel’s “Bolero,” Rendezvous in Rhythm takes us on a lively, deeply satisfying journey of raw joy and authentic energy. Disarmingly intimate ballads (“If I Had You,” “I’m Confessin’”) give way to instrumental virtuosity in the extreme (“Dark Eyes,” “Minor Swing,” “Douce Ambiance”). Pre-WWII influences abound throughout, as with “Back in Your Own Backyard,” a classic made famous by Billie Holliday, Al Jolson’s “Avalon,” and Fred Loesser’s “Slow Boat to China.” “Crazy Rhythm,” through which James sings and swings with sassy authority — including an obscure verse on fiddling while Rome burns — first appeared in 1928 but sounds as current as any of the band’s original material. “The Continental,” a Reinhardt and Grappelli showpiece, has been intricately rearranged by Smith, whose vocal and hot twin lines warn of the dangers of dancing and the spells it can cast. Smith’s lush treatment of the Fields and McHugh masterpiece “I’m in the Mood for Love” is alone worth the price of admission.
Though many songs in this collection — some of the finest and most familiar songs in history — have been resuscitated in recent years by well-known artists, Rendezvous in Rhythmis the first release by a major touring act to ignite this material with the danceable, swinging vivaciousness that first put it on the map. In order to capture lightning in a bottle, says Smith, “We went back to our way of having everyone in the room together. We recorded it live, right there next to each other so we could hear each other play. I play acoustic on it — not big news, but usually in the past, I would play a mixture of electric and acoustic and sometimes overdub the electric guitar or vice versa. The majority of this album is the three of us there and playing acoustic. We tried to capture the feel of our live shows as much as possible.”
TOUR DATES
Wed., March 6 AUSTIN, TX Continental Club
Wed., March 13 AUSTIN, TX Continental Club
Sat., March 16 GRUENE, TX Gruene Hall 1-5 p.m.
Wed., March 20 AUSTIN, TX Continental Club
Fri.,, March 22 PROVO, UT BYU Department of Dance
Wed., March 27 AUSTIN, TX Continental Club
Tues., April 9 VIENNA, VA Jammin’ Java
Wed., April 10 WILMINGTON, DE Grand opera house
Thurs., 11 NEW YORK, NY Joe’s Pub
Fri., 12 MARBLEHEAD, MA (BOSTON) Me and Thee Coffeehouse
Sat., April 13 WHITE RIVER JUNCTION, VT Tupelo Music Hall
Sun., April 14 TRURO, MA Payomet
Fri., April 19 BURBANK, CA (LOS ANGELES) Joe’s Great American
Sat. & Sun., April 20 & 21 SANTA CLARITA, CA Cowboy Festival
Fri., May 3 GENOA, NV Cowboy Poetry Festival
Sat., May 4 RAMONA, CA Ramona Bluegrass and Western Festival
Sun., May 5 SAN DIEGO, CA AMSD
Fri., May 17 EDWARDSVILLE , IL (ST. LOUIS) Wildey Theater
Sat., May 18 KANSAS CITY, MO Knuckleheads
Sun., May 19 IOWA CITY, IA Englert Theater
Tues., May 21 CHICAGO IL City Winery
Wed., May 22 MINNEAPOLIS, MN Dakota Jazz Club
Thurs., May 23 WISCONSIN RAPIDS, WI McMillan Memorial Library
Sat., May 25 BLACK FOREST, CO MeadowGrass Music Festival
More dates at click.icptrack.com |
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| From: SIer formerly known as Joe B. | 3/7/2013 12:36:00 PM | | | | | | Crowd Chatter Incites Bob Weir to Walk Off Stage at Sweetwater
Grateful Dead legend gets angered by people who reportedly wouldn't stop talking while he played a solo acoustic set. He later returned for a set with his new Ratdog Quartet.
Bob Weir performing at the Sweetwater Music Hall on March 4, 2013. Credit Bob Minkin Photography/Courtesy
In a move the Sweetwater Music Hall's manager called "heartbreaking," Grateful Dead legend and Mill Valley resident Bob Weir walked off the stage at the venue Monday night in the face of unrelenting crowd chatter.
Weir, who was playing a solo acoustic set prior to a performance by his new Ratdog Quartet, walked off angrily in the middle of a rendition of Bob Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall.” The walk-off was preceded by a number of indications that Weir was growing irritated with the chatter, and he asked those engaged in extended conversation if he was interrupting them (5:20 in the video above).
After a few more seconds, Weir said, "OK I give up. I'll be back up later with an electric band and we'll be loud enough and that will be that."
Venue manager Aaron Kayce said a disruptively talkative crowd is one of the one of the most difficult aspects to navigate for a music hall, especially considering that everyone in the audience – "some to listen, eyes closed, immersed in the music, others to blow off steam and catch up with friends" – bought tickets to the show.
"Though we can encourage people to be quiet, and in retrospect I wish we had taken more steps to ensure a quieter room, there is unfortunately no law or rule against talking at a bar," Kayce said. "We hope that folks who have spent their hard earned money to come see an artist will be quiet when said artist is performing, but we also know that's not always the case and people go to shows for different reasons."
Kayce said the incident has caused venue management to implement some new protocols and reinstitute some old ones for acoustic shows. Those include making solo acoustic shows by big-name artists seated affairs, which they've done in the past for Weir as well as Justin Townes Earle.
"When we know it's a more delicate show, we will also make an announcement before the set reminding folks to be aware of their volume levels and ask that if they really need to chat to please head into the cafe," Kayce said, adding that they'll be posting signs to that effect for similar shows.
"And we'll have security guards going through the room asking folks to please keep it down, though we did this to an extent but it simply got away from us," Kayce said.
Weir later returned to the stage with his new RatDog Quartet, telling the crowd, “It’s okay, we’re not going to try to do anything particularly delicate now,” before kicking off the set with “Friend of the Devil” and “Deep Elem Blues,” according to Jambands.com.
Weir was evidently still frustrated with those in the crowd who would not stay quiet, as he shouted “Shut the f**k up,” in the middle of the encore rendition of Bob Dylan’s “Knocking On Heaven’s Door,” Jambands reported.
The incident sparked a backlash on social media Tuesday, particularly on the Sweetwater's Facebook page, with Johnny Dempster writing, "In 34 years of me going to see Bob Weir either with the GD ..Solo ..or Ratdog, I have never seen him get upset with the audience ...respect the artist and show some class ... Everyone should have gotten the message when he first told the audience 'shhh' ..the band deserves an apology from those in the audience who made him have to say, 'shut the f**k up ...Twice!" |
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