An interview with Jonathan Matis

On Saturday, April 14, 2012 Zoe Keating, Noveller, and the Low End String Quartet (LESQ) came together at the CenterStage in Reston, Virginia for an evening of new music. LESQ started the night with compositions from founder Jonathan Matis, and closed their set with premieres of new works commissioned from Zoe Keating and Sarah Lipstate (Noveller).

Has LESQ commissioned any works previous to these?  

No. This was our first attempt at commissioning music from other composers. Our other repertoire is from ensemble members. I wrote most of it, our former cellist wrote “Mystery Snail.”

How did you come to choose Sarah and Zoe for the commissions?

I was trying to find composers that would intuitively “get it” in terms of what we’re about. People who already understand why we’re amplified, and how that works. I also wanted to find composers who are working outside of the typical “new music” world. Both Zoe Keating and Sarah Lipstate are great composers, but they aren’t necessarily recognized as such since they’re performers too.

With both of them, I heard their music and I loved it immediately. That’s important to me. I want to play music that has an immediate, visceral appeal. I also want there to be more going on beneath the surface, but I feel like so much contemporary music coming out of the classical tradition is too concerned with its own construction, and not concerned enough with the actual sound and the experience of hearing sound. I’m not interested in music that’s about how clever the composer is. I want music that is awesome. And that feels awesome the first time, and the 100th time you hear it. Zoe’s and Sarah’s music has that quality. It’s beautifully put together, but that’s not what it’s about.

I heard a Noveller show at a club in DC a few years ago. Hearing her music live, it was obvious that she was very thoughtful and intentional in her compositional approach. Other “experimental” electronic music performers I’ve heard are more improvisatory, and they’re turning knobs for the fun of it. Sarah was clearly using electronics in service of the music she was writing, not as a means of inventing the music. That made me think she’d be a perfect choice. Obviously, she has a great command of the electric guitar and its sonic possibilities. I hoped adding the other string instruments to the palette would be fun for her.

With Zoe Keating, my wife actually introduced me to her music. I think it was Last.fm that played it for her. She sent me a text right away after hearing one of Zoe’s pieces asking if I’d heard that music. I hadn’t. She said Zoe’s music sounded kind of like Low End String Quartet, but better. I can’t argue with that. I looked her up for myself and that was a no-brainer. Luckily, Zoe was interested in writing for an ensemble, so she was open to working with us.

What was the process like — was there any back and forth, or were the pieces delivered to you whole and final?

We didn’t have much back and forth during the composing. They both wrote the pieces on their own. We had some conversations at the beginning about the quartet, and about the specific performers so they could be aware of our individual strengths and weaknesses. But they basically did their own thing and sent us a finished product.

For Zoe’s piece, she delivered audio files that we transcribed. Neither Zoe or Sarah typically work with notes on paper. Sarah also gave us a recording, but did make a written score. In both cases we worked with them during rehearsals, but after the pieces were composed.

Did Zoe or Sarah have any input into the performances?

Yes, happily they did. As we rehearsed the pieces, I made recordings that we sent to them for comments. Sarah’s piece required fairly specific guitar sounds so I was able to send her audio files and she could make sure I was getting the right sounds.We weren’t all in the same location until the day of the show, but we did get to spend an hour or so that morning with each composer working on their piece. That rehearsal time made a huge difference, for both pieces. And working with Zoe and Sarah was lots of fun. They were able to zero in on particular things right away and they helped us a lot. I suspect because they are performers themselves, they knew exactly how they wanted to hear it played, and they knew how to explain that clearly.

Zoe didn’t waste any time. She picked up the cello and showed us parts that she bowed a certain way, or articulated certain phrases differently from how we’d learned them. It was easy to take those kinds of pointers and it made the piece sound so much better.

Sarah made some nice adjustments to the guitar effects, and gave me some tips on bowing. I hadn’t played the guitar with a bow before, so that was something I had to learn for her piece. The other players in the quartet gave me a crash-course in bow technique, but Sarah had some guitar-specific tips that she’s figured out over the years.

After hearing the piece, Zoe told us she wants to make some revisions. Her typical process involves playing pieces many times, and they evolve over time. I’m not sure yet how the process will work for us, but I’m eager to find out what kinds of changes she wants to make. There might be some sections that get expanded. Hopefully we’ll get to work on it some with her before too much time passes and it’s still fresh in our ears. She’s so busy, we’ll have to see what’s possible.

Sarah’s piece is pretty much finished. We’re going to take a stab at recording it soon.

Where do you think the audience for new music is coming from?  How are you finding an audience?

I wish I knew the answer to these questions. The whole world of music is so up in the air right now, and changing so fast. It’s the best of times and the worst of times. Maybe not the worst, actually. There’s so much great music going on all over the place now, and I think people are listening to so much different music. In some ways, people’s ears are more open now than ever, but it’s also so hard to be heard with so much music everywhere. I don’t honestly know how to find “our” audience, since I’m not sure what that really means. Who is our demographic? I have no idea.

I’m curious about where the “new music” (i.e. “post – classical”) audience is coming from, in as much as there is such a thing. I don’t have a lot of faith in new music as a sub-genre of classical music. I don’t think it really works that way as far as audience demographics, but I don’t really know. That’s just my hunch. I think the “new music” audience is made up of people interested in hearing new things, not necessarily a specific genre. Thinking of the big picture, I think the audience for instrumental music of any kind is already such a tiny slice of music audiences overall, I’m not sure how we zoom in within that little piece. Who are audiences for new / modern jazz? Who are the audiences for experimental, instrumental rock bands? I suspect those audiences overlap more with “new music” audience than broader classical music audiences. Nevermind the problems in the classical music business in terms of shrinking audiences over there…

Ultimately, I think it’s probably better to leave the demographics questions to the marketing people. I don’t understand it well enough. It seems to me that, in general, awesome music finds an audience eventually. In some cases that happens quickly, and in some cases it takes a long time, but good music will find appreciative listeners eventually.

Any thoughts on the “business” of music? How can performers sustain themselves under the current conditions?

I wish I understood the “business” better. I don’t think the Low End String Quartet has really figured out a business model yet. My background is on the nonprofit side of the performing arts world, so that’s what I’m more familiar with.

I spent a few years writing grant proposals and trying to keep the group running that way. We had some success with it; our first (and only, so far) studio recording, “Blunt Objects,” was funded mostly by grant money. Support like that, for commissioning new work, and making recordings, is quite difficult to come by. And it’s getting harder.

After the record was done, the only grant funding I could find was for educational programs. So, we put together a pilot program to figure out how to do in-school programming. That project didn’t work as well as I’d hoped. We raised some money, and put together an in-school concert program. My impression now is that to really succeed at educational programming, you need to specialize in it. Since that’s not where my heart is, especially with this group, I’ve set that initiative aside for now. I want this group to stay focused on developing new music, playing shows, and recording.

Since 2008, we’ve had much more trouble finding funding using the nonprofit model. From where I’m sitting, it sure looks like arts funding dried up real fast once the recession started. I don’t know if that’s actually true, more broadly, but it was my personal experience.

For this project, we did a big online fundraising campaign in collaboration with Sarah, and that worked quite well. We qualified for some matching funds and also had a great response from our friends and fans. I guess this move toward “crowd-sourcing” is promising, although that presents its own challenges.

There’s no easy solution to the money thing. Hopefully we can find other opportunities to commission more new music – and hopefully the results will be as good as these two! I think we’re spoiled now, since Zoe and Sarah did such great work for us. In the end, I think we need to stay focused on the music. If we can deliver awesome performances, then we should be able to keep moving forward.

MMT asked Sarah Lipstate about the process of composing her piece for LESQ:

I wrote a lot of the melodies for the piece on piano and then arranged it for violin, cello, and bass.  Most of the guitar parts I wrote on the guitar, though a few were done on the piano and then I had to figure out how to play it on guitar.  I had to create a pretty strange guitar tuning to accommodate those melodies!  I used midi instruments to record the string instruments and to do a reference recording of the piece for the musicians to listen to along with the score.  I did a lot of revision at home and let a few close friends hear the recording and give advice, but I only delivered the final version to the LESQ musicians.

~ Sarah Lipstate (Noveller)

From the Cavern to the Rooftop: This Friday in Washington, DC

In their 6th annual visit to DC, the five core band members of the Fab Faux will perform the rock and roll music of the Beatles from the early days at the Cavern Club to their very last show on the rooftop. The band includes Will Lee from the Late Show with David Letterman, Jimmy Vivino, guitarist and bandleader for Conan, and Rich Pagano of Rich Pagano + the sugarCane cups.

Here’s how one fan described the show:

Went to Northampton show last night. Wow! They performed the rooftop concert, most of side 2 of Abby Road and lots of cuts from the White Album. This is the fourth time I’ve seen them and they are still mining “new” material from the Beatles catalog. Great Show!

~ Mark Morris – The Fab Faux Fan Page

Read my review of the Fab Faux here, and check out “Five things that make the Fab Faux fabulous.”

Go to Ticketmaster and enter Promo Code FAB for the special discounts below:

Gold Circle Tickets (includes post-show meet & greet) - $69.50 / REG $89.50

Premium Tickets - $49.50 / REG $59.50

When: Friday, May 4, 2012
Starts: 8:00 PM
Where: Lisner Auditorium – 730 21st Street, NW, Washington, DC
Tickets: on sale here

The Fab Faux – Abbey Road Side 2 (mostly) from The Fab Faux on Vimeo.

Where does inspiration stop and infringement begin?

Erin McKeown is a two-time MMT Fammy winner, featured performer, and former Free Friday pick. And she writes hit songs. Allegedly. You’ll see.

Her essay below originally appeared in Techdirt, where it garnered over 140 comments, split between supporters and detractors of her copyright suit. Over on Gearslutz.com, someone called out a few of the more egregious anonymous comments under the misdirected title “Why does TechDirt Hate Musicians?” For instance:

Anonymous Coward, Apr 12th, 2012 @ 4:09pm

Stop the lawsuit now and get to work.

Today I had to get up and go to work to earn my money. I worked back in 2003 also, but nobody is paying me for that work today. Why should they pay you?

Did you contact everyone who inspired your song? Who you copied from? No? So why should you expect them to contact you? All creations are fundamentally derivative; yours is not special.

So the meta-battle between copyright, copyleft, and trolls took over, with Mike Masnick’s defense of the original posting pulling in more than twice as many reactions as Erin’s essay. We intend to turn the attention back to Erin’s individual case, so let’s start with her story.

A HIT IS A HIT IS A HIT, RIGHT?

photo by Nancy Palmieri

I always knew my song “Slung-lo” was a hit.

It just took longer than I expected.

“Slung-lo” came out on my 2003 album, grand (Nettwerk). It found its way to the Brittany Murphy masterpiece “Uptown Girls” and into episodes of “Roswell”, “Gilmore Girls”, and “Privileged”. It also found its way into a Tesco F&F commercial, which ran in the Czech Republic in the summer of 2008. Though not a hit by any means, it was a remarkably long life for a song that came out in 2003.

And then last year, I received two separate emails through my website pointing me to this video for a song called “Touch The Sun” sung by the Czech artist, Debbi. (editor’s note: we tried to embed the official video for this song, but Sony Music refuses to allow an embed on the song).

“Have you seen this?” both emails asked. I hadn’t.

From the first moment I heard “Touch The Sun,” it was as clear to me as anything that someone had taken the DNA of my song “Slung-lo” and turned it into another song. At this point, my lawyer wants me to make very clear that IN MY OPINION, THIS IS COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT.

If you want to hear my song again, here’s “Slung-lo” on YouTube or you can click here for a free download from me.

I don’t want to spend a lot of time technically breaking down the two songs, but I’d like to point out a few things. Among the many substantial similarities between them, check out the lyrical content (weather as metaphor for happiness), the almost exact song structure (solo verse, band verse, double-tracked vocal in the chorus…), and the vocal cadence in unison with the descending instrumental line in the chorus. I could go on.

Debbi’s “Touch The Sun” isn’t the proverbial “kid in the bedroom with a laptop” who remixes pop culture and makes mash-ups to show how alike we humans really are. No, it turns out the song was written for a commercial scale beer campaign by the giant European alcohol company Metaxa, which itself is a subsidiary of the global beverage conglomerate Remy Cointreau.

And it is a hit. A huge one. Debbi was the runner up on the Czech version of the “Idol” franchise. The song won “Song of the Year” at the Czech version of the Grammys. The original video that was sent to me has almost a million hits. A quick search of YouTube reveals karaoke versions, animations, “how to play versions,” and plenty of people in their bedrooms playing the song and singing along. The beer ad with the song aired across the Czech Republic more than 1200 times in September of 2010. That’s about 40 times a day.

So, after all this time, “Slung-lo” is finally a hit.

The easy part of this story is that I work with an amazing publishing administrator, Duchamp, who has stepped in to help me. We’ve retained Czech council who have been in contact with Metaxa, Debbi’s record label (Sony!), and the Slovak production house that produced the track. All have denied any infringement, declined to settle, and at this point, court proceedings have started. My lawyers estimate that this could take anywhere from one to five years.

This spring Remy re-launched the ad campaign across all of Europe.

By the way, the writers are Tomas Zubak, Peter Graus, and Maros Kachut. Let’s #kony2012 them.

Actually let’s not.

Instead, I want to talk about the whole host of emotions this experience has brought up for me, and the way it’s forced me to confront and articulate my beliefs about copyright.

After watching the video for the first time, I was certifiably apoplectic. I was physically shaking with anger. How dare they! I wasn’t so much angry at Debbi — who, from what I eventually read, really just sang the damn thing — as I was at the writers. They had to know what they were doing, I fumed. I mean, the song was just in a commercial there. They had to know about it. How dare they!

And then I felt small. I’m nobody, I thought, so they probably figured they could get away with it. It’s not like they ripped off Beyonce. Just small-time me.

And then I felt defeated. I’ve always wanted to have a hit like “Touch The Sun”. And I thought I wrote one in 2003. It was such a great disappointment to me that no one noticed. There will never be enough people to notice me, I thought.

And then, I would find myself dreaming. Maybe I’ll get a settlement. Maybe it will be large enough to make all my problems go away. I’ll be able to pay for my new record. I’ll be able to afford the best marketing and publicity money can buy. And then there will be some left over to buy a house. My life will change!

Finally, I disconnected. I couldn’t tell very many people about what was happening, and the feelings were overwhelming me. Ok, I thought, I’ll just let the lawyers do their lawyer thing. This is why you pay them. I am powerless. Breathe deep and exhale.

Very early in the process, my lawyers asked me what I wanted to be the goal of my settlement. Did I want 100% of the money made? Did I want a flat fee? How much? Did I want a public apology? Did I want to let it go? Did I just want credit?

These questions became a spiritual exercise. I began to think that how I answered them said something about who I was as a person.

I believe that creativity is an unpredictable, mysterious process. I often have no idea where a song comes from. Other times I am more aware of the hard work. It is not always an easy thing to know where influence ends and mimicry begins. But there is also a way we recognize ourselves in the faces of our children, and a gut instinct that tells me when I am hearing my own musical fingerprint.

I thought for awhile, and decided I would like 50% of all the monies made so far, and 50% on everything moving forward. I didn’t need a public apology. I think this is fair, not punitive, and given the current copyright law system and options available to me, a reasonable request.

Now I just have to wait one to five years to see how it turns out.

Recently, I’ve ended up doing a lot of advocacy and policy work around copyright. This isn’t because I am a copyright crusader, for or against, but because the issue gets tied up with so many other things I care about: media access, fair compensation for artists, creating a sustainable music business.

I actually hate to talk about copyright because, once it’s brought up, it just seems to take over any conversation. Most of the time I feel like that conversation then becomes counterproductive. People throw around complex legal principles. The jargon resembles a foreign language. Often, the emotions get so heated that a room ends up divided at just the time when we need to work together. I’ve also noticed that most of the people crowing about copyright aren’t individual copyright holders. They’re groups of people who make money from the business of policing and administering copyright.

In my advocacy, I want to talk scale. I want to talk relationships and power structures. I want to talk about technology. Copyright is part of this, but it’s not the whole enchilada. I’ve come to think that current copyright law is like an immovable boulder in the middle of a rushing river. It’s not likely to change, so I’m going to have to work with it, as it is. And not let it stop other important work.

Yet here I am facing a difficult situation where copyright is the main issue.

I recently watched Kirby Ferguson’s “Everything Is A Remix” series and found it really helpful to understand the feelings that came up for me around “Touch The Sun.” In part four, Kirby makes the observation that we humans are easily and freely influenced and inspired by the world around us. However, when we feel like something has been taken from us, we get very angry and indignant. Our anger is as natural and essentially human as is our borrowing or being influenced.

Really how I feel about copyright is this: can you please just ask me? I am so easily found. One or two clicks, a badly mangled combination of “erin” and “mck” will get you to me. Let me know what you’re doing. Let’s talk. Take some time and connect with me. I know this is imperfect. Sometimes in the creative economy, there just isn’t time. But how about we try?

I’d also like us all to acknowledge that the current copyright system, the unmovable boulder in the stream, rather than protecting rights holders and acting as a deterrent to infringement, is in its very complications a shelter for those who use others’ material without permission and an obstacle to those who would like to legally use or remix content. Whether it is done consciously or unconsciously, nefariously or in communal bliss, given the complicated, arcane process, the myriad hoops to jump through, the length and cost of the process, who can afford to participate?

So Tomas, Peter, and Maros, I won’t assume your motives in turning my song “Slung-lo” into “Touch The Sun.” Instead, I’ll say this: if you asked me, we might have worked something out. When I found you, we might have worked something out. Who knows, maybe we could have advanced the conversation around copyright and made a radical contribution toward a different type of economy. Instead, it will drag on in court. And I will fight it in court as long as I have to. But this could have gone another way. And for that, I am sad.

Special Thanks to Mike King, Andy Sellars, my lawyers, Lawrence Stanley and Vaclav Schovanek, and Erik Gilbert at Duchamp for their help researching and proofing this post.

~ Erin McKeown

Here are the two songs available for side-by-side comparison:

All creative work may be derivative, but at what point do influence and inspiration become infringement?  We put that question to a group of listeners including a music professor, a professional musician, a music student, and two music fans.  The first reaction after hearing a few bars of “Slung-lo” was: “How is that song not being used in an Apple commercial?”

More on that later, first we’d like to hear your opinion.  Take the quick, 3-question MMT survey here and let us know how you would rule on Erin’s case.  Let’s assume the case is heard in the US — if there are any Czech copyright experts out there, speak up in the comments below.  Here are some salient points on US law from Alan Korn:

HOW IS INFRINGEMENT PROVED IN A COURT OF LAW?

To establish copyright infringement in a court of law, a copyright owner must establish proof copyright ownership and proof of copying. Proof of copying may be established either by direct evidence of copying (i.e., an admission) or by indirect evidence showing 1) access to the original work; and 2) “substantial similarity” between the original and allegedly infringing work.

Courts will not find copyright infringement if two people independently come up with the same or a “substantially similar” work. Also, the less original a copyrighted work is, the less protection it may be entitled to under copyright law.

HOW DOES ONE SONG “INFRINGE” ANOTHER?

Proving access to a popular song is usually not difficult in copyright litigation. If two works are strikingly similar, some courts may even infer that a defendant had access to the copyrighted work. Whether a work infringes another usually turns on the issue of substantial similarity. In the case of music, courts have ruled that infringement may occur where the “whole meritorious part of the song” is incorporated into another song, without any substantial alteration.

One of the more famous U.S music infringement cases involved ex-Beatle George Harrison, who was found by a jury to have “unconsciously” copied the Shirelle’s composition “He’s So Fine” in his 1971 hit “My Sweet Lord.” Although George Harrison’s hit was found to be strikingly similar to the Shirelle’s song, it is even possible to infringe another song if only just a few notes are “borrowed.” Because the most memorable part of a song may be quite brief, infringement of a musical composition may be found even where only a small portion of a song was copied.

~ Alan Korn

via explore-blog:

 ”Guernica 2012” – composer Daniel Starr-Tambor, who gave us the solar system set to music, commemorates the 75th anniversary of the Bombing of Guernica with a powerful piece, in which each note represents a life lost during “Operation Enduring Freedom” in and around Afghanistan, using only the fundamental notes and harmonics of the symphony orchestra

Get started: Set up iTunes Match and upgrade your audio files

Wondering whether iTunes Match is worth $24.99 a year?  Assuming you have iTunes on your computer and a music library of several hundred or thousands of songs, ask yourself two questions:

1. Do you own an Android or iOS device (iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch)?

2. Are most of your songs at a bit-rate lower than 256 kbps?

If you answered yes to either one, iTunes Match is definitely worth at least a one-time investment to upgrade and clean up your music library. If you’re not sure about the bit rates for your songs, open iTunes and select your Music library.  Now right-click the column header and make sure Bit Rate is checked. Click Bit Rate to sort your library and check it out.

If you’re not up to paying $24.99 every year, we will show you how to quickly download upgraded files to your computers and devices, and store the shiny new library in the cloud using Google Play (née Music).

If you currently use Google Play, your first step should be to open Preferences and UNcheck “Automatically add songs uploaded to iTunes”.  This will prevent the upload of duplicate songs to your Play library.

More details on dealing with duplicates and working with Google Play are coming in Part 2.  Let’s start with signing up for iTunes and upgrading the audio quality of your music Library.

Subscribing to iTunes Match

You must have a valid credit card on file, and your subscription will automatically renew for one year periods until you cancel.  Open iTunes on your computer, choose iTunes Match in the sidebar, enter your Apple ID and password, and click Subscribe.  (Use the Apple ID that is associated with the majority of your music purchases.)

iTunes Match will then:

1. Match the songs in your library with those in the iTunes Store.
2. Create an index in the cloud to DRM-free 256 kbps AAC files that match the songs in your library.
3. Upload any songs in your library that it could not match.*

* Apple fine print: 

Tunes Match works with libraries that contain up to 25,000 songs which are either (i) not currently available on the iTunes Service, or (ii) not purchased from the iTunes Service with your Account.

• Songs with quality less than 96 kbps or that are not authorized for your computer are not eligible for iTunes Match.
• Song files over 200 MB will not be uploaded to iCloud.
• Songs containing DRM (Digital Rights Management) will not be matched or uploaded to iCloud unless your computer is authorized for playback of that content.
• Songs encoded in ALAC, WAV, or AIFF will be transcoded to a separate temporary AAC 256 kbps file locally, prior to uploading to iCloud. The original files will remain untouched.

Upgrade your local files to 256 kbps

You now have two iTunes Libraries:

iTunes in the Cloud – All the songs that were matched, plus all of the unmatched songs that were uploaded.  The matched songs are AAC 256 kbps files.  Eligible unmatched MP3 or AAC files are uploaded at their original bit rates, other file types are transcoded to 256 kbps AAC.

Local iTunes Library – This contains all of your non-music audio content (e.g., podcasts, audiobooks) plus other file types for books, videos, photos and apps.  Your original music files are still there, and still at their original bit rates.

This is where the magic happens.  We need to identify the music that is eligible for upgrade: all files under 256 kbps that iTunes has marked as matched or purchased.  And thanks to Jason Snell and MacWorld, we can do this quickly with a smart playlist.

From the iTunes menu select File > New Smart Playlist
Click the dropdown boxes and select Bit Rate | is less than | 256
Click + to add a new condition
Select Media Kind | is | Music

Add a second set of conditions:

Hold down the alt/option key and click the + button (now an ellipsis)
Select Any of the following are true
Select iCloud Status | is | Matched
Click + to add a new condition
Select iCloud Status | is | Purchased

Your selection window should now look like this:

Click OK and name your new playlist “Upgradeable”

The new playlist should show all your files that are eligible for upgrade:

Now would be a good time to empty your trash, so you’ll have a clean can for all of the files you’re about to delete.  In order to bring the new files down from iCloud, you will need to delete the local versions.

• Select all of the songs in the Upgradeable playlist
• Hold down the alt/option key (shift key on PC) and press delete
• Make sure that “Also delete these songs from iCloud.” is NOT checked
• Click Delete Songs
• Click Yes when asked if you want to move the files to the trash

Your upgradeable playlist should now show that these songs are available for download from iCloud:

To bring the files down from iCloud:

• Select all songs in the Upgradeable Playlist
• Control-click (or right click) and select Download

That’s it!  Make sure you have all the files you want keep before emptying the trash, and get ready for some serious cleanup in Part 2.

MOG released their first iPad app today, and it’s a good one. Purpose-built for the iPad and the new Retina display, it features smooth scrolling, intuitive navigation and controls, and dazzling full-screen album art.  Combine all this with Wi-Fi and AirPlay streaming at 320 kbps, and it’s easy to see why Josh Constine at TechCrunch calls it “The Best iPad Streaming Music App“.

Take a look at the screenshots below: both show what is displayed for New Releases while a song is playing.

You can see that MOG has made excellent use of the extra real estate on the iPad, providing easy and obvious access to all features.  The first thing you will want to do is tap Settings, and set High Quality Streaming and High Quality Downloads to On.

Features

• Built-in AirPlay support.

• Unlimited, one-click mobile downloads for offline listening.

• Stream or download in 320kbps – the highest quality listening experience.

• Editable play queue for maximum control.

• Charts, Editor’s Picks, Featured Playlists, and New Releases refreshed every week.

• Automatic sync between all platforms for “playlists” and “favorites” created in the desktop app and on the Web.

If you’re ready to give MOG a try, you can support My Music Thing by signing up for a 14-day free trial here, or downloading the new iPad app here.  Thanks!

The Metro Music Source & DC Setlist will be hosting a SXSW debrief panel discussion this Thursday, March 29th at The Dunes as part of their monthly music industry meet-up event. Fresh from their return from Austin, Texas, Ryan Holladay of BLUEBRAIN, the Listen Local First team, and promoter Sasha Lord will be sharing their SXSW 2012 experiences. The evening will feature a performance from Gypsy jazz vocalist and Strathmore Artist In Residence, Mary Alouette.

Ryan Holladay is one half of the innovative music duo, BLUEBRAIN. They’ve been featured in everything from WIRED Magazine to the New York Times for their work, which blurs the line between art and technology. Their “location-aware album” for The National Mall is the first ever iPhone app to be included in the Washington Post’s Top 10 Albums of the Year awards. Ryan also serves as the new media curator at Artisphere.

Listen Local First DC (LLF) is a local music initiative devoted to building awareness and creating opportunities for local musicians and venues in order to raise the profile of DC’s local music scene. At the beginning of the year, LLF launched a campaign to get a mobile music venue to SXSW with the aim of showcasing the talent and diversity of the DC area music scene to a wider audience.

With money raised from a Kickstarter campaign, Listen Local First purchased a van, decked it out with sound equipment, and took to the road. They successfully showcased 15 DC bands/ musicians and hosted upwards of 25 different mobile music venue performances over the course of 3 days. The process, adventure and music were documented via their blog, and soon-to-be-released web series.

Sasha Lord co-produced the “DC Does SXSW” event which showcased a diverse set of DC artists including Hume, Deleted Scenes, Edie Sedgwick and DJ Baby Alcatraz. Sasha is the booker and promoter for Comet Ping Pong in DC.

LLF founders Christopher Naoum and René Moffatt will join Sasha and Ryan to share insights from their trip and answer questions from the DC area music community. MMS is an informal monthly music industry meet-up event with the goal of bringing focus to the vibrant DC music scene, encouraging support, collaboration, and knowledge sharing amongst music creators and industry professionals, as well as helping to raise the profile of our music scene on a national level.

The National Mall by BLUEBRAIN. The First Location-Aware Album from BLUEBRAIN on Vimeo.

Past MMS events have brought together local musicians, record label reps, artist managers, publicists, filmmakers, music publishers, producer/engineers, and many others. This month’s event is co-hosted with DC Setlist, a popular music platform which recommends, discovers and discusses all things music in the DC area and beyond.

The evening will end with music from Gypsy jazz vocalist and Strathmore Artist In Residence Mary Alouette. Alouette describes her sound as “Gypsy jazz, post dubstep, beautiful music and dangerous rhythms”. Her core inspiration is the gypsy legend virtuoso guitarist Django Reinhardt, but her musical influences also range from the great Billie Holiday, Nina Simone and Edith Piaf through to progressive contemporaries like Grimes, St. Vincent, and Modeselektor. Mary will be previewing tracks from her debut EP Midas, ahead of her CD Release Show on April 25th at the Mansion at Strathmore.

Runnin’ – Mary Alouette

When: Thursday, March 29th, 2012
Time: 6pm-9pm
Venue: The Dunes, 1402 Meridian Place, NW Washington, DC 20009
Cost: Free!

SXSW: Showcase > Panel > House Concert – All Bleu, All the Time

It’s all about the songs. Forget The Voice, American Idol, X Factor.  There are plenty of talented singers out there, but can any of them write a song that will be remembered fifteen minutes from now?  That’s where Bleu comes in.

A Berklee graduate, William James McAuley III crafts pop songs that are clever without being cloying, and with hooks that are deserving of the name.  Power Pop, Alt-Pop, Pop Rock and sometimes just Pop — Bleu delivers catchy songs with style, substance and an extra bit of bleuness.

We first featured Bleu in a Free Friday: Power Pop Edition that served up ‘Could Be Worse’ from Redhead.  NPR picked Redhead as one of the top ten records of 2003.  Since then, he’s written songs for himself, his bands, and a diverse set of artists including Demi Lovato, Selena Gomez, Hanson, and Meatloaf.

But the best stuff is on his own albums, most recently Four – which won the 2010 Kickstarter Award for Best Music Project, and is currently up for Best Independent Pop Album.  (Voting instructions here.)  Bleu has described the album as a more adult version of Redhead, with “a lot of weirdly morbid, upbeat stuff.”  Try track 4. (Dead in the Mornin’) for a sample.

Can’t get enough Bleu? You can sample other performances and get more information from Bleu’s featured artist profile, available from the dropdown list at the top of each page and previewed below.  Oh, and you can watch the debut of his new music video with doppelgänger and Weeds star Justin Kirk.  And you can see him at SXSW.  Enough already!

[click through for full profile]

photo: David J Dowling

Bleu’s SXSW Schedule

If you’re lucky enough to be in Austin this week, you can find Bleu there too:

Wed 3/14 at 3pm
Showcase: Quantum Collective presents: Filmmakers Alliance Acoustic BBQ at the Section 101 Launchpad
[Looks to be sold out.]

Wed 3/14 at 8pm
Showcase: Sea Shepherd Conservation Society & popantipop SXSW 2012 party – SEA NOW!
The Brew Exchange
706 West 6th St.
click the link above to RSVP!

SXSW® starts  today with long lines, pouring rain, and a trademarked nickname for those officially in the know: SOUTH BY™ (seriously).  The music portion of the festival doesn’t begin until March 13th, and badges are still available.

If you can’t make it to Austin this year, MMT℠ has several no cost, no hassle, no passport or federal registration required alternatives.

SXSWfm
New for 2012 are four channels streaming the music of SXSW Artists, now with even more Hip Hop:

Channel 1: Indie Rock and Pop
Channel 2: Americana and Singer/Songwriter
Channel 3: Electronic, Dance, World and Hip Hop
Channel 4: Rock, Metal, Punk and even more Hip Hop

The Austin 100: A SXSW Mix
The NPR crew sorts through 2,000 acts to bring you 100 hand-picked songs.  And since this is Free Friday, 71 of them are available for free download.

CXCW: Couch by Couchwest
The slacker alternative, CouchBy™ brings the music to you.  Musicians can submit YouTube or Vimeo links of their CXCW videos through March 17, 2012.  The videos must be made expressly for Couch by Couchwest, and can be recorded anywhere except a stage.  Fans can view the festival online from March 11 – 18, and are encouraged to share their experience via twitter, facebook or email.

photo: Aaron Bruno of AWOLNATION by David D’Agostino

Free HD video production and global distribution for your music

If you’re making music the world needs to hear, and your best concert footage was captured on a flip-phone, you should check out BAMM.tv. Founded by brothers Chris and Nick Hansen, BAMM.tv works with emerging artists to capture performances in HD video and high-quality audio in their San Francisco studio, or at music festivals and venues around the world. For free.

The typical deal results in 5 videos: one goes to the artist for promotion and distribution through whatever channels they choose. In exchange, BAMM.tv has exclusive rights to distribute the remaining videos through a network with an estimated reach of 15 million people in 150 countries. Net profit will be split 50/50 with the artists.

I spoke with co-founder Chris Hansen, and he expects BAMM will break even in early 2013. But they plan to start paying bands some money before then, in part to test out their payments system. Once they are profitable, artist payments will be based on their percentage of plays on the network.

BAMM continues to sign up distribution partners, which currently include Taiwan’s Chunghwa Telecom, a global deal with Samsung to include a BAMM.tv app on all of their tablets and smartphones, and Flingo, which provides video content to over seven million smart TVs. They are also working on an iPad app that will help promote the participating artists, with a $1,000 cash prize for the “Artist of the Month” and other sponsored promotions.

The future of music and artist compensation

Last September, we wrote about the Future of Music Coaltition and their Artist Revenue Streams project, which they describe as “a multi-method, cross-genre examination of how US-based musicians’ revenue streams are changing, and why.” The project has spawned a new website, and the 29 streams have spread into 40 (or 42, but who’s counting?).

We’ll dig deeper into the ARS results for an upcoming report, but why has BAMM.tv has gone out and created a 43rd revenue stream?  According to Chris:

I don’t think any business model that’s solely reliant upon revenues from copyright and publishing rights is going to survive long-term. The only way forward is providing access to experiences that can’t be downloaded on torrents, and the only way to do that is to ease the grip on traditional rights that made a lot of sense in the 20th century but are long outdated. Spotify seems to be the labels’ collective acknowledgement of this fact, but I still think they have a long road ahead.

First of all, the $100 million raised seems to have gone straight to the labels, and the next mega-round of funding is just around the corner. I look at the unfavorable terms toward streaming services and lack of transparency as well as the mounting cost structure as major competitive disadvantages for Spotify and other streaming services that rely on major label licensing.

On scaling and superstars

So far, BAMM.tv has worked with around 150 bands, and they’re preparing to add to that number with a return trip to SXSW. Although Bay area artists are disproportionately represented, BAMM uses Southby and other festivals to catch up with bands they have been tracking from around the world. They are also looking at adding some sound stages in SF, and recently rented a studio in Amsterdam to produce videos for European acts.

There will always be limits on how many acts can participate, so curation is an essential part of their work.  Happily, they appear to be comfortable traveling outside of the mainstream for talent, as evidenced by the diverse selection of artists in the YouTube playlist above. Artists that are interested in working with BAMM.tv can submit their information here.

Chris is upbeat about the future of BAMM.tv, and looking for innovative ways to get artists paid. In our Music 2.0 series, we have seen that the future of music can’t be just one thing, and the new business models are unlikely to emerge from the entrenched players.  BAMM.tv may succeed in part because they can side-step the obstacles that have been built up by the labels and license holders over the years.

What I like about BAMM’s business model is that our competitive disadvantage is upfront and obvious: we don’t get to work with superstars. After that, things start looking pretty good for us. Our variable cost is extremely low. Our license is straightforward, global, perpetual, and allows us to remix, sample, synch, make derivative works, etc. Therefore we can make deals with OEMs, telcos, MSOs and other service providers at will, and we can afford to commoditize the music product to an extent that the major players cannot.

I hope we are able to demonstrate in the coming months that the choice between piracy and Spotify is a false dilemma. There are other models that work, and we’re quietly pursuing a few that I’m very excited about.

~ Chris Hansen, BAMM.tv