XM Ben attended the Rolling Stones concert Monday night (DC) and managed to get backstage where he had his photo taken spooning Ron Wood. I think that qualifies as a Brush with Near Greatness.
It flashed me back to 1964 (my sophomore year in high school) when the Rolling Stones were all over the radio. We had never heard anything remotely like them. How can they possibly be touring 40 years later?
Kennett correspondent Viretta got an early listen to the new CD by Trent Tomlinson (son of Bragg City/Kennett basketball star Don Tomlinson) and tags it “incredible.” Trent’s been in Nashville for about 12 years and recently signed with Lyric Street Records, a division of Disney headed up by another good old Kennett boy, Doug Howard. Viretta reports the CD will be coming out soon and describes Trent’s lyrcis as “fantastic.” And she would know.
In other music news, we received an email from a nice lady at VH1 asking for permission to use some of the photos of Sheryl Crow at the dedication of the Aquatic Center for a news package they’re putting together. I confessed that all of the good pix were shot by professional photog Bill Greenblatt.
Dave Winer reports hearing rumors that Google is readying an iTunes-clone, based on RSS 2.0, and fully podcast-capable. Says he has multiple sources on the rumor. I loves the Google and suspect this will be oh so nifty.
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows the war is over
And everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor and the rich get rich
Thats how it goes
And everybody knows
— From Everybody Knows by Leonard Cohen
“That he is a sexagenarian didn’t seem to faze Mr. Jagger’s fans on nearby rooftops and around the stage as they pumped their fists in the air and watched the band perform. True to form, Mr. Jagger, 61, waved his hands in the air and jumped up and down, showing off his still rail-thin stomach. “I’ll never stop, never stop, never stop,” he sang, strutting back and forth.” [NYTimes.com]
I wouldn’t trade the sixties for an extra 10 years.
“Doug Howard, senior vice president of A&R at Lyric Street Records, has been named senior vice president and general manager of the new soon-to-be-opened Disney Music Publishing/Nashville. The record label and publishing company are both part of the Buena Vista Music Group, the recorded music and music publishing division of the Walt Disney Company.” – CMT.com
Doug is a good ole boy from Kennett, MO who could actually get your lame-ass country song published.
“A friend who relocated to California from NY said she missed hearing all the odd variety of music that was played around the office here. I miss hearing what you all are listening to,” she wrote. This “radio” is my response. It will stream for a few hours and then it will recycle. Maybe it will run longer in the future. The artists played here are respectful of one another and gunplay is forbidden.”
David Byrne explains why he started his own Internet radio station. What an interesting idea. I confess I like most of the songs I’ve heard, even though I’ve never heard of any of the artists. Other Internet radio stations to which I would listen: Radio McVey, Virettarama.
“Music Choice and Sprint are launching a music service that allows mobile phone users to view short videoclips and listen to radio-like programming on their handsets. For $5.99 per month, users can listen to a range of genres and formats, including R&B/hip-hop, pop, country and rock. Earlier this year, the company announced Sprint PCS Vision Multimedia Services, which delivers streaming audio and video content from NBC, CNN, ABC News, Fox Sports, the Weather Channel, Discovery, E Entertainment, and others.” (Reuters/MSNBC.com)
I just purchased my first song online. I downloaded a few songs back in the early days of Napster and KaZaA but never really got into it and –later– hated the way KaZaA scewed with your system. While I love the look of the iPod, I don’t have one and probably won’t buy one, again, just because I’m not into walking around with ear-buds. While the new MSN Music Store might be inferior in every way to iTunes, I found it very easy to use. My Net Passport info was already on file so it took about 15 seconds to agree to let them bill me for music downloads (which will play on just about any device). Jackson Browne’s Stay was my choice for first legal download. MS made this pretty easy and I suspect I’ll buy more music online than I ever have (or would) at the music store.
Oh Boy Records has signed Daniel “Slick” Ballinger. “…Slick is the real deal. The spirit of the blues moves him like the spirit of the lord moves a preacher.” According to the Oh Boy website, an album is coming in 2005. Oh Boy Records is the home of John Prine, Kris Kristofferson, Janis Ian, Steve Goodman and others. Slick could do worse. [Thanks to Terry McVey for heads-up.]