The Academy Is… have posted new episodes of TIA TV. Check out episodes 7 and 8 below.
Archives for April 2007
Pete Wentz…really?
Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy was named one of People Magazine’s Most Beautiful People in 2007.
Sullivan Pre-Order
Good Charlotte and Hellogoodbye New Remixes
Remixes of Good Charlotte and Hellogoodbye can be hear here.
Article #19 – Internet Radio [May Be Dead]
Internet radio is this sleeping giant of sorts. Most people have at one time listened on the internet to a radio stream, and some make it a daily habit to tune in online. While having millions and millions of listeners, internet radio still has an underground feel it. That may be partly because that there are a lot of independently run “start upsâ€. When The United States Copyright Royalty Board proposed a rate increase in the royalties payable to performers of recorded works broadcast on the internet it caused a grassroots movement of sorts to stop the seemingly greedy injustice.
The new ruling which would bill based on the number of people listening rather than a potion of the profits. So what does that mean? Very simply it means the more people that tune in the more you pay. Does that make these new fees a popularity tax?
There is a great breakdown on Saveourinternetradio.com/about, to show how this could hurt the small broadcasters. If a station has 1000 listens (which is not much) the royalties for the station would come out to $134,000 for the current year along with having to pay for the previous year on top of that. How is an independent station supposed to make what would essentially be $11 a person (if we use the $134,000 figure).
An interesting point in all this is that major radio such as clear channel (eww), and NPR, is just as upset with these new fees as the person that runs an online station from their house. NPR, along with others, works on a non-profit base and thus does not push advertising heavy, if at all. Little or no advertising is one of the things that attract many people to the online streams.
Unfortunately there may not be much that we can do to change the increased fees and thus can’t save many of the online stations that will shut down because of funding. There are still many sites out there trying to make a difference and so we do encourage those who feel obligated to do so.
http://saveourinternetradio.com
http://savenetradio.org
http://www.petitiononline.com/SIR2007r/petition.html
Sherwood – A Different Light
Artist: Sherwood
Album: A Different Light
Label: Myspace Records
Purchase: Flipside Industries
Release Date: March 13, 2007
Overall: 9.0
Music: 9.0
Lyrics: 9.0
Production: 9.0
Sherwood is a band that simply made a huge music career lately with the online music scene. This album is going to take them from online listeners to a whole new audience. All the songs are just pop-gems dying to be ate up by the mainsteam radio crowd. It’s been a while since I have listened to such a full sounded pop cd such as this. I am very impressed with the album production. Everything is so clean and the guitars are very crisp with the distortion and clean levels. Not to mention the pounding kick drum and bass that drives the rhythm for all the songs. One of the things I love most about Sherwood’s music is the style and feel. They are a pop band that gives off a very happy vibe, unlike most of the depressing emotional pop songs of bands popular in this indie internet scene.
The album kicks off with their single “Song In My Head”, which starts off as a slow song but kick in with the keys and turns into an upbeat pop rock song. The next few tracks have the similar style, which are upbeat and filled with catchy melodic choruses. Then there is “Home”, which slows it down with a hard punching emotional chorus. Then the cd changes up with songs like “Alley Cat” with a lot of key-created drumbeats and soft vocals. For those of you who are familiar with the bands “Summer EP” released on Absolutepunk.net last summer, you will notice three songs from it like “Middle Of The Night”, “The Only Song”, and the softer closing album track “I’m Asking Her To Stay”.
Overall this band has really manage to impress me more than I thought they could. If you are into classic pop rock songs this is definitely the album for you. Even if you aren’t still give it a try, because it just might convert you to a new style of music. This is definitely going down for my nominations of Top Ten albums of the year. Sherwood is a fun rock band that will not only inspire future bands of this genre, but also change the face of indie music all together.
Standout Tracks
“For The Longest Time”, “Middle Of The Night”, “Song In My Head”, “The Only Song”
Tracklisting
1. Song In My Head
2. The Best In Me
3. Middle Of The Night
4. For The Longest Time
5. Home
6. Alley Cat
7. Give Up!
8. Never Ready To Leave
9. The Only Song
10. Alive
11. The Simple Life
12. A Different Light
13. I’m Asking Her To Stay
Tooth & Nail Tour Website
The Tooth & Nail Tour website has been launched. You can find all the info you need about the upcoming tour on the website including bands, music, tour dates, journals, media, contests, downloads and more.
Cartel Respondes To Lefsetz
Will from Cartel has responded to a recent note from Lefsetz about their recording in a bubble for MTV. You can read the response below.
Bob,
I’m the singer and main songwriter for the band Cartel that you so vehemently wrote off as another desperate band in a desperate time. I’ve got to admit that your recent letter got under my skin but I totally understand where you’re coming from and agree with most everything you said. I don’t really care about a response from you. I just want you to hear what the artist is thinking and not what a label/manager/ad agency or anyone else has to say about this.
First off, lets get all the things we agree on out of the way. Of course this is a marketing ploy and a huge one at that. There’s not one person who reads about this fan or not that isn’t going to see this as a stunt. Second, if I were not the subject of the matter I would whole-heartedly agree that whatever band was doing was being suckered in and hoodwinked and hijacked or whatever phrase we can think of. Lastly, the industry nowadays should be about the music and nothing else. The artist should feel that his or her talent and expression of which should be the only thing that matters and nothing more. With all that I agree.Now, to address what assumptions you are making about us as an artist. Well, you admitted right off that you’ve never heard of us and we’ve been touring for 4 years and started on an indie label….yada yada. All that has a lot to do with why we did this. I’m 23 so most of the lifespan of the modern music industry has passed my mature mind by. 10 years ago I couldn’t tell you who sang most of the songs that I had stuck in my head nor did I care. now, things are different. For one, the industry and music for that matter is not one iota comparable to an era such as the 70’s….ever since all those bands became popular and started making labels the juggernauts that they are today it’s been a downward spiral to this point in time….with labels and agencies and managers at the helm. Artists who are selling records and in the spotlight for the most part have little to nothing to do with anything other than the songs and even then I’d make a guess the 90% of the big artists are having someone else write their songs or sample it from a greater era of songwriting.
Cartel is a band tha believes in what we do. We write the kind of songs that could be on the radio….we also write the kind of songs radio programmers would scoff at. When is the last you heard of a band that has a top 40 single on the radio that also had a 12 minute finale that went through about 4 different movements and turned 5 different choruses from the previous songs into a medley reprise at the end. If there is such an artist I haven’t heard of them and most people who have heard the first single on our last record didn’t know we were that kind of band either. That is precisely the point. People don’t know what kind of artist we are. All they see is what radio and mtv want them to see which is the songs that sell records nowadays. 12 minute epics have no place on radio or mtv….hell, the only show that plays videos on mtv anymore only shows about 2 minutes of each video…..AND THOSE ARE THE MOST POPULAR ONES!!!!
See, we only have one record. We’re about to record our 2nd. People don’t really know us from any other band on the radio or mtv. All that is about to change. This bubble shit is stirring up all kinds of dust around the music world. Its something people find ridiculous. People think we’re crazy, sellouts, whores and everything else negative they can think of. Some people see it as cool. (I would venture to say that most of these people don’t have their head up their asses about music in the sense that they don’t think they are the definitive source on music knowledge or “what’s wrong with the industry”). The big point is that people who have never heard of us are hearing about us now. I know that great bands get out there some way…..but how long does that take. Even the upstarts from left field don’t have a career long enough to even call them road tested…..shit, some of them have played less than 100 shows ever by the time they “make it”.
The industry is crumbling. People are losing their jobs. Less established bands are being dropped from major labels everyday…..even ones that sold pretty decently but didn’t get the break everyone was looking for. We are looking at this as our make or break opportunity. If this bubble thing never happened we would release our next record to our 200,000 or so fans with a single to radio that would be negligibly pushed and we would just sit back and see what happens with our career as our tour schedule continued. It might have broke and we could be sitting on cloud nine by the end of the year and everyone is happy with no cred lost and no harm done. That’s best case scenario. What if it flopped in the labels eyes and only sold 300k or so…that’s not good enough for these people. We’d be shitting ourselves still calling it awesome and enjoying the modest loot we make on the road. Now here’s where you say “shouldn’t it only matter what you think…..that you did your best and did it without this whole mess”. Well, it does only matter what we think. It really doesn’t matter what you or any other blogger in the world thinks. We think we fucking rock. We think we’re one of the best bands making popular or any other kind of music right now. Our producers don’t do shit to our songs and we don’t listen to our A&R…he just got fired anyway. We’d dropkick most of the top 40 artists right in the face if we were put up to the tests of live performance or songwriting ability. With that being said, there are artists who are up there who are fantastic and bust their ass and earned it the old fashioned way. We, however, feel we deserve to be up there too and just because pete wentz doesn’t tell everybody they should like our band doesn’t mean we don’t belong.
This marketing scheme shows the world that we are a real band with real inspiration and real songs. Not some american idol winner or a label lottery contestant. People get to see us do what we do under intense pressure and scrutiny and still hit a fucking grand slam while in the meantime people in your position are hating like there’s no tomorrow on a band that they know little to nothing about.
Popular music is still the standard. Every legendary artist is the most popular at what they do and have accrued many platinum records……why? Because millions of people like their music….not the 500k or so indie kids who are too busy sucking their thumbs to realize that a really good band is being passed by because they “soldout”. We’re even losing some of our fans by trying to play more technical and less “bouncy” rock. They think we’ve started to become boring to watch because we don’t encite mosh pits. That’s not what we’re about. We aspire to such bands as pearl jam and oasis and radiohead and the beatles and the beach boys and led zepplin….shit Yes is our lead guitar players favorite band. Steve howe is fucking god. Now how many top 40 artist could even name yes or steve howe for that matter.
All you guys think we’re just another dickless band with mediocre songs without even giving us a chance. That’s no way to find out about a band you might actually like. We will gladly accept all the fans that will have us even if they are of the generation that only listens to radio…..why? Because they just listen to music…..they don’t analyze business decisions or marketing ploys. They only care what’s coming in their ears and that’s what we’re about. Not some scene that’s too stuck in the past to do anything worthwhile anymore.
So we put our necks on the chopping block. We throw ourselves at everyone’s mercy with the belief that we wrote badass songs and that’s all that should matter. Which, as you say, that’s all that should matter. Not a bubble, not a gimmick, not a marketing stunt, not even mtv…..but the tunes. If we fail at that then that’s our mistake and ours alone. But if we knock it out of the park then we bypass all the lame fucks who are too full of themselves to take on opportunities such as this. Its not for everybody but its for us. Fuck selling records if that’s what you think this is all about. We want people to know that we will write rock songs and ballads and shit you probably haven’t heard before right in front of everyone’s eyes with no strings and no puppeteers doing the work for us. Listen to the record and decide then what to do with us.
Call this my manifesto but for one I’m sick of all the ninnies running around acting like they know anything about what it takes to create music. To all of them and you I ask……where’s your albums?
Thanks for your time if you actually read this. If you did I appreciate your attention and hopefully this shed some light on the darkness surrounding the bubble.
Take care.
—Will Pugh
-www.cartelrocks.com-
My American Heart Post New Song
My American Heart has posted a new song titled “Boy’s Grab Your Guns” from their upcoming album Hiding Inside The Horrible Weather.
Daphne Loves Derby – Good Night, Witness Light
Artist: Daphne Loves Derby
Album: Good Night, Witness Light
Label: Outlook
Purchase: Smart Punk
Release Date: March 23rd, 2007
Overall: 8.0
Music: 8.0
Lyrics: 7.5
Production: 8.0
If you have ever been a fan of Daphne Loves Derby or thought you might ever want to be then “Good Night, Witness Lightâ€, the latest full length from the band, is for you. The second full length release under the Outlook Music label blends together everything that made this band big in the indie scene and everything it takes to become accessible with the mainstream crowd.
Catchy choruses along with hooks scattered throughout the verses are a common thing on “Good Night, Witness Lightâ€. I can appreciate a band that can bust out an acoustic guitar on several songs and not have it define their sound. “Cue The Sun!†is a mellow example of this which eventually builds to a harmonica appearance. A couple of the poppier songs include “Hello, Color Redâ€, “Miniature Christmas Tree†and “Stranger, You and I†which I feel give the album the feeling that Daphne Loves Derby haven’t forgotten their roots.
While “Marching Band Intro†and “That’s Our Hero Shot†sound really cool with the use of different instruments they do feel like the odd songs out on the record. My guess is the diversity will be a welcome change though. “Good Night, Witness Light†is a Christmas/New Year’s record in disguise, with more than a couple songs mentioning one of the two.
All in all a great record that would be a welcome to any collection with its songs that couple fit any type of mood. I was not a huge fan of “On The Strength of All Convicted†but this latest record sure has won me back.
Tracklisting
1. Are Two Chords Enough, Dear?
2. Stranger, You and I
3. Iron In The Backseat
4. No One Is Convinced
5. Marching Band Intro
6. That’s Our Hero Shot
7. To Struggle With Light
8. Cue The Sun
9. Miniature Christmas Tree
10. Love and Mercy
11. Hello Color Red
12. The Best Part About It Honey
13. How’s It Going To End?
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