Beatbots Webzine

Audio Reviews : Neon Creeps by O Pioneers!!!

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 23:45:02 -0400

This sorta sounds like some high school aged kids (though apparently they're a bit older) who really like Against Me! and Rancid (and other "punk" with a capital mohawk bands), but have just been introduced to Braid and had their minds blown, so they decided to form a band and have a go at combining those indie pop guitar lines with some uber-defiant lyrics about drama, problems, cool kids, boring towns, and not wanting to fit in. The music's not terrible, and it's actually pretty decent when it most successfully mimics bands like Braid, Christie Front Drive, and early Cursive, but I'm having a really hard time taking it seriously when the lyrics are so insipid. I really feel like I'm listening to a 15-year old talk about how he's gonna tear the system down because he just can't relate to the popular kids at school and if he can just move to the city and become part of a community of like-minded outcasts then life will truly be worth living and everything will be OK. I could maybe turn the other cheek on the lyrics if it seemed like they were an afterthought to some incredibly creative and unique instrumentation, but I'm just not getting that vibe here. The music's not that good. If you're a teenager who just found out about The Broadways, Operation Ivy, and Bright Eyes, or an adult enamored by the simple pleasantries of Ghost Mice and Paul Baribeau then this is an album for you. If you're a bit older and prefer punk bands that know how to age gracefully, keep spinning those None More Black records and hold on to those dreams of another Avail album in the near future.

Audio Reviews : Midwestern Blood by North Lincoln

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 23:27:10 -0400

Gainesville is no longer just a college town in Florida. It is also an apt descriptor for a style of punk music popularized by bands like Hot Water Music and Gunmoll, both originally from Gainesville, with releases out on No Idea Records, based in the town of distinction. North Lincoln, who hail from Grand Rapids, Michigan, fit between those brackets perfectly. In fact, the riff and guitar tone on the album opener, "My Summer Spent Indoors", remind me a lot of the opening track on Gunmoll's 'Board of Rejection' album. It's not exactly the same but the vibe is there for sure. They've even got two vocalists, one whose vocals are a little gruffer than the other's, although they shy away from dual-vocals-singing-different-parts vibe that Hot Water Music did so well. For those of you unaware of the sound I am describing when referencing those bands, think driving mid-paced melodic punk with hoarse vocals barely sung in key, with lyrics about clinging to youthful ideals and holding on to friendships for dear life (that, unbeknownst to the lyric author, inevitably won't matter much five years down the road).

To say this is not a good record would be inaccurate. It's fine for what it is. If the majority of the No Idea Records catalog (the chunk that isn't heavy as hell) appeals to you then you will most likely be perfectly content with this album. If you've cherished your Hot Water Music records since they were first released and you need a bit more from bands' lyrics than "so here we are, on the edge looking at the water, please hold my hand, as we tie these bricks together, as we take flight into the air tonight, they won't understand us until they're staring at us smiling up from the bottom...", then I'd suggest dusting off your copy of 'Fuel For the Hate Game' and waiting until North Lincoln's next record to see if they've come into their own a bit more.

Audio Reviews : Dream Homes by Dear Landlord

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 23:21:27 -0400

This is an album I've been anticipating since I first heard their split with Chinese Telephones (It's Alive Records) two years ago, and it certainly does not disappoint. In the time since that debut release they've also put out a split 7" with Off With Their Heads (with whom they share a guitar player) on No Idea Records, a track on last year's The Fest compilation, as well as some new songs on their MySpace page, all of which have kept my mouth watering for more.

I first heard Dear Landlord when I helped throw together an impromptu show at the Charm City Art Space when the power went out at the Ottobar during the 2007 Insubordination Fest and some bands unfortunately had to get bumped from the main event. I'd seen Adam and Brett in their other band, the Copyrights, who I thoroughly enjoy, so I was excited to see what they'd put together with half of Minneapolis' Rivethead. To say I was blown away would be an understatement. I don't think I had seen a band combine melody and energy like this since Avail first left me awestruck so many years ago. Like a more aggressive Screeching Weasel, the songs were so powerful and so infectious and just so right it was really quite incredible. The basement of the Charm City Art Space was a much superior setting for a band like this than the tall stage of a club like the Ottobar (though you can bet this 33-year old will surely be dusting off the stagedives when they do start inevitably packing the larger clubs). The band's sound and energy demand a place where the crowd reaction is up close and personal. It makes the impact that much more intense.

Dear Landlord open up their debut full-length with the immediately captivating "I Live In Hell". The song packs everything that is great about the band in this just-over-a-minute-long song: group vocals on a heaping chunk of the verses, as well as most of the choruses, peppy tempos, and solid 'fuck you, this is my life and I quite like it' lyrics. The perfect opener for this album. Their lyrics really hit the mark when they ride that theme, especially on "Three To the Beach", which was previously released on the aforementioned split with Chinese Telephones, which is also very possibly their best song. If you ask me, these lyrics just perfectly capture the spirit of punk rock:

"...we're not that hopeless, we're not as fucked as you think
in short lived moments we can do anything
the fucking joke is we're winning when you blink
in short lived moments lousy with victory
we're both sort of right
I don't have much to show, I'll die penniless alone
I'll do what I like, you'll do what you know
never hungry, broke, or cold
that's the way of things I suppose..."

Many of the other songs' subject matter trek the path well blazed by bands like Off With Their Heads, in that they have no problem with self-deprecation and depression, but there's a much stronger element of hope here. Life's not quite so dire with these guys, and if it is, they're comfortable with it and letting music (and alcohol) be the thing that gets them through the struggles of daily existence. "Whiskey and Records" combines the drunken reveling of Rivethead with the powerpop choruses of the Copyrights in the most well-balanced combination of the members' previous/other bands.

Though I do have my gripes with the album (the very-nearly tired allusions to drinking/being drunk/whiskey-soaked nights/etc. [though I'll give the opening lyrics to "Rosa" a pass as they're a bit more clever than most:

"she talks as loud as hell, drinks like she might as well
smokes my cigarette just like it's her last
all kinds of out of key, she sings a lot like me
and it echoes back under the overpass downtown..."]

and the fact that almost of a quarter of the songs on the album have been previously released or readily available for listening for quite some time, the same gripe I had with the Off With Their Heads album) it is a very legitimate contender for record of the year for me. This is one I'll be singing along to in the car for a long long time.

Features : On My Library Card # 2 by Miriam DesHarnais

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 22:30:47 -0400

Hi and welcome to the second installment of On My Library Card. I'm a librarian and these are a few of the items I have checked out. Not only is this update overdue, my books are as well! That may have been a lame joke, but it is also true. Librarians have overdues too. Isn't that comforting?

Below you shall find a hipster anthology, an elephant, a pig, a polygamist soap opera, a Southern humorist, a precursor to Harry Potter and one rapper. I write this representing only myself and not my library.

Requiem for a Paper Bag ed. by Davy Rothbart

Of all the Found-related books and projects this has the most big names attached to it - Andy Samberg, Chuck D, Tom Robbins, Andrew Bird, Jim Carroll, Miranda July and about thirty other celebrities, authors and semi-celebrities - all writing about things they've found or using other people's "finds" that have been published in the magazine as jumping-off points.

It's not that there aren't any good essays in here. There are, but a sameness permeates the book and there are plenty of duds, making it a bit of a slog to the finish line. Too many of the entries provide opportunities for navel-gazing, attempts at poignancy, and sentimental origin myths for the favorite objects of the quirky and famous.

Which is sorta the opposite of why I like Found. On the whole the magazine lets the artifacts speak for themselves. Until I read this anthology I didn't realize how much the lack of context added to the approachability and wide appeal of Found.

Reading detailed accounts of how and where items were found is like hearing a whole lotta second-hand dreams or watching a stranger's cell phone slideshow. It turns out I don't really care about Seth Rogen's first experience finding a porno mag, the subject of not just the first essay, but the second (by Rogen's best friend Evan Goldberg) as well. Wait! Hold the phone! Adolescent Seth Rogen went to great lengths to spend time looking at boobs? I'll keep typing after I come to from my fainting spell. Susan Orlean once read a profile in the paper about an orchid thief and it inspired her to write The Orchid Thief and that totally changed her life? Non-fiction writer finds inspiration in the newspaper? Well I never!

Sarah Vowell's "What Else I Know About History" is typical Sarah Vowell- sharp and amusing. Charles Baxter's short story "The Next Building I Plan to Bomb" is understated but fits a novel's worth of intrigue into seven pages. Weeds creator Jenji Kohan's "The Bloody Jockstrap Incident" and David Simon's "Best Regards, Robert Zimmerman" both have intriguing plots and narrative flair. Which now that I think about it makes some sense, yeah? Aimee Bender's "Don't Include the Police" avoids the pitfalls of some of the other contributions that are responses to finds rather than true stories. It doesn't feel like an assignment to write on a theme. If feels like an Aimee Bender story - off-kilter, funny, more touching than it has a right to be considering it's based on a note that reads "Dear Alex, If you don't give me your brain right now then bring $20 to the front desk Now!!! Don't include the police."

The best stuff here makes me wish that Davy's populist, interested-in-everything style - which serves him so well as the editor of Found - had been tempered with a more selective and critical editorial eye.

Are You Ready to Play Outside: An Elephant and Piggie Book by Mo Willems

Things to know about Mo Willems:

* His blog is called Mo Willems Doodles!
* He is a children's book author, and funny.
* He was recently on All Things Considered.
* He has said that he likes to make his drawings simple enough that kids can copy them and make up their own adventures. This is cool.

All of the Elephant and Piggy books are expressive and joyful, containing the perfect blend of sophisticated humor and graphic and textual simplicity for drawing in a smart new reader. Elephant (whose real name is Gerald) and Piggie are best friends in the same "opposites attract" vein as George and Martha, Frog and Toad, and Bert and Ernie. They have big plans to play outside. Then it starts to rain and Piggie is NOT pleased.

Willems is a master of the gesture drawing: Gerald's cautious and observant nature is communicated through a series of barely-changing awkward poses and upward gazes that serve as a foil to Piggie's frenetic movements and non-stop commentary. But with a few well-chosen statements and use of a single ear and his trunk Gerald manages to save the day for his excitable friend not once, but twice. The scenes of happy frolicking are unusually funny but its the pages of Elephant and Piggie looking glum and dispirited because of the weather that are the most ridiculous.

Mo Willems was already a beloved author before starting this series: Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! became a story hour classic as soon as it came out and parents frequently tell me that reading Knuffle Bunny is their child's bedtime ritual. Willems changed picture books by letting speech bubbles and a basic but effective caricature style drive his books. Obviously the conventions of comics and picture books have intersected regularly for as long as both tropes have existed. But Willems is hugely popular and there's a reason his style has been copied so much in recent years by those hoping to have a hit of their own.

Beginning Readers as a genre have come a long way, both in terms of variety, and ability to stand up as books in their own right, not wholly defined by their niche audience. Since Willems is all about kids feeling empowered to create and do things for themselves it's fitting that kids can now learn to read with this simple series. It's nice to know they don't have to leave his eminently relatable characters behind.

Big Love:The Complete Second Season (DVD)

I can't decide if the second season of Big Love is bogged down by slow pacing or if it's just that the novelty of watching the workings of a religious group marriage has finally worn off for me. Was I just into the first season of Big Love because I knew nothing about polygamous Mormon society and now that I've gotten acclimated to the show's premise, the thrill is gone? I'm only partway through and not sure I'll make it to the end.

There are several tensions central to the show: balance between the three wives (earnest and sweet third wife Margene, Chloe Sevigny's conniving Nicki, and anchored and thoughtful alpha-wife Barb), tension between the comparatively normal central super-family and their fringe-y compound-dwelling brethren, and tension between LDS, non-polygamist Mormons with their group-marriage practicing subgroup.

The first season had one more source of tension - sex. It turns out that was a big part of what gave it an edge. Margene, the easiest to relate to of the wives, has stopped engaging in fun-to-watch inappropriate behaviors like flirting with teens and lying. Now there's no part of the story that gives respite from the family's cohesiveness. In what's essentially a soap opera in a religious setting the absence of sex and rebellion make it that much harder to find common ground with a cast of characters who (with very few exceptions) were never all that likable.

Belle Weather: Mostly Sunny With a Chance of Scattered Hissy Fits by Celia Rivenbark (audio)

If Celia Rivenbark were a man she'd be as famous as David Sedaris. This is the funniest book I've listened to in ages. The author of Stop Dressing Your Six Year Old Like a Skank could make a hunk of granite seem hilarious. In fact she does, in an essay about the obsessiveness that overtakes her as she renovates her home. Like Sedaris she basically just writes about her life, her family and her town, but through the filter of a wise-ass who knows her worldview is cracked, and likes it just fine that way, thanks. After reading several supposedly humorous memoirs/essay collections that cracked me up not at all (I Was Told There Would Be Cake, The Late-Bloomer's Revolution) it was a welcome delight to listen to a Southern lady making fun of Republicans, Bratz dolls, American Girl Dolls, her own daughter, her friends, snobby people, people with too much time on their hands, the IRS, and most of all herself. Self-deprecation needs some panache to be fun, not depressing. Celia Rivenbark's got it covered, y'all.

The Serial Garden : The Complete Armitage Family Stories by Joan Aiken, with introductions by Garth Nix and Joan Aiken's daughter, Lizza Aiken

There are good books. And then there are the really good books- the ones you want to read passages of aloud and that you are conscious you're enjoying the whole time you are reading. I knew of Joan Aiken because as a child I loved The Wolves of Willoughby Chase and whichever other Joan Aiken books I came across. I don't remember them that well, just that the covers (by Edward Gorey) were creepy and that I was pretty into their gothic atmosphere and plucky youthful protagonists .A new publishing imprint, Big Mouth Press, has published this first complete collection of the stories, which were written over a period of almost fifty years. The new interior illustrations are by cartoonist Andi Watson.

Aiken wrote the first few stories as a teen partially to mock her step-father who wrote a popular BBC children's show and had dismissed her earliest stories as "silly." She wrote a satire based on her family where all sorts of fanciful things, the likes of which appeared in his program, happened to the family but no one was very much impressed. It is called "Yes, but Today Is Tuesday" and sets up a premise that plays out through all of the Armitage stories: the Armitages are a completely normal family but every Monday bizarre things happen to them. In a Prelude that was written later it's explained that the oddities are not exclusively limited to Tuesdays, as the whole business is the result of a wish made by Mrs. Armitage on her honeymoon when she gets panicky at the idea of normal married life and wishes for unpredictability to occur weekly, mostly on Mondays.

It's hard to know where to begin in describing what makes these stories great. There's Mr. and Mrs. Armitage, who could easily be prototypes for Harry Potter's Weasleys, and their two unflappable children Mark and Harriet. We learn in the first story that Mark and Harriet have a unicorn but, and this is key, we also learn that Mark and Harriet think the unicorn is just ok or even slightly boring. I think this is what makes these stories the forerunners to so much modern fantasy: the magic and the humor are more potent because they don't take place wholly in some other world, but create intersections at various points of familiarity and unfamiliarity, thus creating a world that has all the richness of reality, and then some. It's not just the Armitages who experience magic. It's a part of daily life to the point of ordinariness. Here's a typical exchange:

"And what's the garden fete in aid of?"
"The S.A.D.O.F.L., of course."
"And that is?"
"The Society for the Aid of Distressed Old Fairy Ladies."
"Do you expect to raise much for them?"
"Oh, yes said Mrs. Armitage confidently. "Last year we made a terrible lot for the N.S. P. C. M. - enough to provide a warm swimming bath for rhematic mermaids and a beach canteen serving them hot soup and fish rolls throughout the winter months."
"Most praiseworthy." Mr Armitage shuddered a little at the thought of the fish rolls and hurriedly took some bacon.

It's hard to imagine a better antecedent to Hermione Granger's S.P.E.W. (Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare.) There are also shades of Narnia, Hans Christian Anderson and Nancy Willard's Sailing to Cythera. Normal objects and normal parts of domestic life are turned topsy turvy or are gateways to the unusual. In the title story Mark is able to enter a garden that he builds out of special cereal boxes and there discovers his music teacher's long lost love.

The five never-before-published stories near the end of the book are a little startling. It's unclear whether the writer wanted to end the stories by introducing a previously un-hinted at bleakness and a publisher denied her or if the author herself knew they would seem out of sync. There is bittersweetness and loss in the other stories, but hope is always given, even if, as was the case with "The Serial Garden," Aiken had to revisit a sad ending in a later story to provide a ray of comfort. It's odd that an author who would be sensitive enough to her readers to do such a thing would kill off pets and children without fanfare or any chance of reprieve in her final Armitage stories. I suppose critics of J.K. Rowling could level similar criticisms (Hedwig!)but there's not the confusing question of posthumous publication to consider.

Even if I was baffled by these last few stories I've been recommending this book to friends who haven't read anything they loved in a while. It's a prime example that good writing for children works because it's good writing, period.

Troubadour by K'naan (CD)

It's a testament to a performer if you can go to their concert knowing only one of their songs and enjoy it just as much as the people around you who know every word. NPR kept mentioning Somalian rapper K'Naan and after the whole staff of NPR's All Songs Considered became smitten with him at his SXSW show, I was up for seeing him live. I'm glad I did. Not just because K'Naan's crazy-charismatic and engaging onstage or because I doubt he'll be playing ten buck shows much longer (this is K'Naan's fourth album but he seems to finally be hitting it big and is about to tour with Snoop Dogg) but because he and his band had a way of bringing the crowd together.

Troubadour is catchy music about serious shit. Think Mos Def Black on Both Sides or M.I.A.'s Arular. Actually Mos Def appears on Troubadour, as does Damian Marley. It was recorded in Bob Marley's house. Watching him live it's easy to see how the comparison to Marley comes up. K'Naan raps about the brave struggles of the many, but he does it in a mellow voice with a laid-back style, telling truth in a way that's all his own.

This is one of the rare situations where I don't recommend taking your first listen from a library disc. It's the edited version.

Features : Interview: AK Slaughter (part two) by Kim Tabara

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 20:35:44 -0400

AK Slaughter is a rap duo from Baltimore comprised of Aran Keating and Emily Slaughter. Over the course of the past few years, they have been getting heads to nod both locally and nationally with their energizing blend of ribald party rhymes, cogent lyrics, and whip-smart beats. Their live show is a guaranteed good time (listen to a recent set here courtesy of the Beatbots A/V Club).

Their next performance will be a part of the fifth anniversary Taint party this Saturday, June 20th, at DC9. The group will be participating in the third annual all-rap Round Robin, which will be held Friday, July 3rd, at the Load of Fun space, and are also scheduled to appear at Whartscape 2009. They have been included on a new hip hop compilation tape released by John Bachman of Napalm Def (details here). For more information about the band, including how to get their excellent A Personal Matter EP, check their Myspace.

They were kind enough to sit down with me in Emily�s apartment over (baked-from-scratch) cookies. This is the second of two installments. We open with a question that Aran had for Emily.

Aran Keating: When was the first time you had the impulse to rap?

Emily Slaughter: It was the year before (you and I) starting doing stuff� 2004 or 2005�

AK: So, New Face (in Harlem) was your first group?

ES: No, the first thing was the Sophistabits. It was the summer my mom moved out of our condo in Concord (CA). She was going to rent the place out after the summer, and then I was going to go back to college. We had parties and stuff, and then I started a group with my friends called the Sophistabits. We had this thrown-together show. It was the most people that had ever been to my house, this tiny little apartment, and the reason we did it is because we got this drum machine off of Ebay. We put it all together in a matter of weeks. That was the start. Then, I got back to (Goucher), and I tried to keep working on stuff, and I couldn�t really do it on my own. Luckily, Aran was like, �what�s up?� Otherwise, it probably wouldn�t have gone anywhere. I had this little crappy drum machine that didn�t sound the way that I wanted it to because I needed to sample it.

AK: Yeah� I think you were motivated, but you didn�t have the means and the desire to have patience with technology.

To me, the energy of a hip show is typically different from the energy of a DIY basement show. When I saw you two perform, I felt like what you were doing had a great raw energy live. Any thoughts on that?

AK: Well, one of the things I hate about hip hop music is that you can�t create it spontaneously. It comes from this place of very careful sampling. I think that is why it is very important for me for our live show to be as �live� as possible, that it is not just a CD player and hitting �play.� An actual live machine is being used to make sounds, cutting and scratching�

ES: Yeah, when we used to do Mast Production live, we would both use the sampler at the end. But we don�t really use the sampler so much live now. I like that, you know, pressing buttons on stage� �I�m doing something!�

AK: Part of being spontaneous, though, is that there is a chance that things can go wrong. If there is no chance of that, then it�s not going to be as fun to watch, so the fact that things can go very wrong at our shows and sometimes do makes it more interesting.

At one of your recent shows, there was talk of a new Hall and Oates project. What is the story with that?

AK: It�s still in the works, it is just taking forever.

ES: The first song we ever did was a Hall and Oats song. Now, we have another one. So, we now have two that are ready to go and recorded. We know which songs we want to do and Aran is working on arranging them, making beats out of them�

AK: The idea of the Hall and Oats project is that we would just take the tracks that we liked and just pick the samples that we wanted to loop, and that was it.

ES: There are some awesome loops in some of those songs�

AK: Yeah, one of the first things we did was take the loop off of �I Can�t Go for That (No Can Do),� which has been sampled a million times, and just looped it, pasting that on the end of a song. It was really fun and it sounded good. Then, we got into our mutual love of Hall and Oates and decided to do an EP. It�s been taking a little while to get together, probably because we haven�t been working very hard at it.

ES: Yeah, we�ve been really busy with other things. When you don�t have a set deadline, it�s harder. With the A Personal Matter EP, we had some deadlines that we had set for ourselves, and, with this, it�s been different. And now Chromeo did that thing with Daryl Hall with �I Can�t Go for That,� so we gotta make sure they don�t continue to do that. We need to visit Daryl and be like �What�s up? Let us into your house.�

(Laughs)

AK: No, but� it�s still in the works. We�re probably going to do it. We�re probably going to give it away for free so we don�t get sued.

ES: It would be so cool if they sued us! Would we meet them or would we just meet their lawyers?

Speaking of lawsuits, how do you feel about the sampling situation in 2009?

AK: I feel like the best way to be productive and make good music is to be really shameless about where you�re sampling from. You shouldn�t be worried about finding some wicked obscure sample from the back of the crates that no one has ever heard before. I think that what makes good modern hip hop these days is recycling old tracks from the seventies and eighties. If it�s done creatively, I�m all for it. I�m for sampling anything, in fact, even if it came out a week ago. I don�t see why you can�t sample it and flip it. And as far as publishing rights goes, I�m not really worried about it for us. If it comes to the point where I need to start worrying about stuff like that for us, I will start worrying about it.

ES: That would be cool if we had to worry about it.

AK: If it came to that, there are a billion other places I could pull samples from.

ES: And you create a lot of beats, too�

AK: Yeah, for the most part �Quite Fine� is all mine, and Krush Groove is mostly mine as well. But I think what is most important is that we don�t think about it. If we think about it, it�s just going to get in our way.

Tell me about the group�s involvement with the all-rap Round Robin.

AK: That was one of our second or third real gigs.

ES: The first one was in 2007, the second one was in 2008� they always happen in July and it is always our group, Height, Mickey Free, Jones, PT Burnem, Plural� we�re having another one, a third one this July. It�s really a fun thing to do.

AK: The first one was at Current (gallery), the second one was at the Annex (theater), but yeah, that one at Current was the first big show we ever played.

ES: And it was a big show. I was freaked out. We were a very new group, and all these dudes were like �we want you guys to play this show.' It all turned out really good, except I had to freestyle and that was not good.

AK: Have you listened to that recording? Everyone was so behind you�

ES: No, I can�t listen to myself.

What does the future hold for AK Slaughter?

AK: Okay� what kinds of bombs do we want to drop on this man?

ES: Oh, yeah�

AK: Remember, some of these projects are confidential�

ES: I don�t what you are talking about! Anyway� I came over yesterday to work on a song and Aran is like �I have our next album planned out,� and he shows me this list and it�s all these songs and a lot of them are on the theme of the Cyclops, who is this character we�ve been toying with the idea of using, putting the life of Cyclops on an album.

You mean Polyphemus, the Cyclops from the Odyssey?

ES: Yeah. So, anyway, we have this intro that�s like �Cyclops emerges from the cave�� and, from there, we just wanted to expand and have this whole �life of Cyclops� thing. What I�m excited about is that Cyclops�s mom is a nymph, right? And his dad was Poseidon, and I guess (Polyphemus� conception) was kind of like a rape, but I�m going to make it seem like it�s a sexy, seductive, cave orgy. So, I�m excited to write a song about that, about these two mythical creatures� and I want it to be a slow jam with talking in the background. That would be cool.

That could have some educational value, maybe�

ES: Yeah� we had this idea a little while ago about doing the school circuit, and writing about hygiene and things like that, but we never actually did it. The closest we came was playing this library in Virginia. It was not family friendly. It�s really hard for me not to curse. It fucks up all the rhymes.

(Laughs)

Emily, do your true-to-life lyrics ever cause you any problems?

ES: Well, it is kind of awkward writing about people that are alive, that can see and hear what you are doing. It�s hard for me to write in general. It comes back to Aran writing about things that are more out there and me writing about things that are more concrete. Not that I don�t have an imagination, but it�s hard for me to just pull things out of nothing. I have to base things on experience, and it�s hard. For example, I drive a car now, so I don�t get harassed all the time on the street. Not that I want to get harassed, but-

AK: - that�s fuel, right?

ES: Yeah. I�m really happy right now, I�m in a really great relationship, and things are going really well so it�s harder to write-

AK: - so now we write about Cyclops!

(Laughs)

ES: Yeah, the last time I wrote, it was all about �love stuff.� I guess that sells� I feel like anger is more of a motivator than anything else. Anger and sadness, I can do so much more with that than with anything.

AK: Whatever your conflict is-

ES: -without it, there�s no creative energy-

AK: - because even LL Cool J, he needs love, he�s not in love, you know what I mean?

ES: Yeah. He got a lot of shit for that song, didn�t he?

AK: I think he did, but he sold like ten million copies of it.

And so concludes my conversation with AK Slaughter. Look for this fearless rap duo to emerge from the cave somewhere near you sometime soon.

Features : Interview: AK Slaughter (part one) by Kim Tabara

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 21:03:38 -0400

AK Slaughter is a rap duo from Baltimore comprised of Aran Keating and Emily Slaughter. Over the course of the past few years, they have been getting heads to nod both locally and nationally with their energizing blend of ribald party rhymes, cogent lyrics, and whip-smart beats. Their live show is a guaranteed good time.

Their next performance happens this Friday, June 12th, at Joe Squared Pizza and Bar with The Agrarians, Krestovsky, and Dr. Turborg. For more information about the band, including how to get their excellent A Personal Matter EP, check their Myspace.

They were kind enough to sit down with me in Emily�s apartment over baked-from-scratch cookies. This interview will be parceled out over two installments.

Why are you in Baltimore? Why Baltimore?

Emily Slaughter: it is always such an interesting question because usually the reason is like �I stayed because of the cheap housing� or something like that which is kind of sad. I grew up in California, and moved here because I went to Goucher (College). After Goucher, there was no reason for me to go back to California and I had already established some good connections in the city before I graduated school, so it just made sense to stay.

Aran Keating: I went to Goucher as well. I�m from Annapolis, so I�m not from far away. I moved here when I went to school and liked it� dug it� had no reason to leave� I think when I graduated I was staying here until I found out where I wanted to move, but now I am lodged in pretty hard.

When I listened to your EP again, it is like each song has a point. Would you say that this is true? What is your process when you come up with these songs?

AK: I think the stuff that is more structured comes from Emily.

ES: I always like to have a running theme. I have been working on getting away from that, because it is limiting to try to always have that structure. The way that Aran works is that he will talk about random things and it will just come together. The way that I do it is that I collect the random ideas and put them in a way that makes sense� so, I think I do more story rhymes.

AK: Yeah, she�s very methodical about her rhymes� (she) is always trying to go from �Point A� to �Point B� and tell the story and have it make sense�

ES: Especially in shorter songs, I try to pull away from that because it doesn�t make sense� you spend too much time making it a story.

AK: I try not to think when I�m doing it; I just try to let it out. When I�m writing anything, I try to do it as quickly as possible. Then, I will go back and work it through so that it flows better. But, for the most part, I try to think about it as little as possible.

ES: (Aran) always has his stuff written down on the computer and I always have my stuff written down on little notes�

AK: (Emily) is just generally more of a Luddite. She doesn�t really like technology at all�

ES: Yeah, I don�t have a computer�

AK: I�m the exact opposite way.

ES: I feel like the way that you do it sets the scene for quick thoughts, and my method is to write it down and keep the little scraps and compile them later, so it takes months for things to come together.

It�s interesting, because I like the way the approaches mesh together, like how on "Mast Production" (Emily) rhymes really slow and (Aran) rhymes really fast at the same time.

ES: It is funny the way that happened, the way we were writing that song. When we write songs we do sit down together, and we were just kind of going over our lyrics -

AK: -we wrote them separately that time-

ES: - and he just started doing his and I just started doing mine, and it was like �woah!�

AK: I wasn�t at all excited about that song. I was just like �hey, I have this beat� let�s see what we can do with it�� and it turned out really cool.

My next question was going to be �do you guys write rhymes together or separately?�, and I think you just gave the answer there.

ES: Yeah, a little of both. Sometimes, I�ll be completely stuck on something, like �what rhymes with tongue?� or something and we will discuss it.

AK: Yeah, and we�ll just hash it out. I think I generally write most of the choruses-

ES: -but I wrote the one for Krush Groove, though! It�s hard for me to come up with choruses that connect to the rest of the song, typically.

Who comes up with your beats? Do you both come up with beats?

AK: I pretty much do all the beats. Emily will come to me with things that she wants to have sampled, or how she wants a song to go�

ES: Like with "Heart Breakerrr", I really wanted to do that, and it took a while� there was a lot of discussion on how to do that�

AK: "Heart Breakerrr" was an Aretha Franklin sample, the song was in 3/4, so it took us a while to figure out how it would work, because Emily writes this straightforward old-school style, so I was like �listen, you can rap in three, but no one is going to want to listen to it, but maybe we could try it,� but it didn�t really work at all. She really wanted to use that sample, so then I took that one part and made a beat out of it.

Let�s talk about the skits on the record. How have people reacted to the skits?

ES: I mean I�ve gotten a lot of people who have complimented me on the skits, but Aran wrote them�

AK: We�ve mostly had a good response, but I feel like the people who would hate the skits wouldn�t tell us. It�s not like we�re getting reviewed and people are like �there are all these wack skits on this record!�

ES: I think the skits are fun.

AK: They�re really fun to do, but the first thing I say when I give it to someone is �I�m really sorry, there�s four skits on this record.�

(Laughs)

ES: I think you wanted to have more (skits)�

AK: I might have wanted to throw in some other things.

ES: It�s not like the skits are attached to the tracks! I hate when they do that, when you have to go through the skits to get to the song-

AK: - like on the Fugees record� the skits just get in the way more than anything else.

What is the song you are most proud of on the record?

AK: "Right or Wrong" is probably the track that I was most proud about on the record. I mean it�s basically a song, but there is talking on it. It�s not like a song that is fully elaborated, but I still like it, you know?

I was going to ask about influences. What is it that inspires you to do this? When I first heard the EP it reminded me of De La Soul�

AK: Well I think the first two De La Soul records are kind of what I�m aiming at in terms of my production. I mean, I absolutely love Prince Paul to death� I think he�s a genius. At the same time, his hip hop production is fairly conventional, very old school, a lot of soul samples and that sort of thing, and a lot of skits. I was thinking about this recently, especially since we have been playing out so much and we�re sort of planning out what we�re going to do next, and I�m thinking about the next record, and I�m thinking about Three Feet High and Rising.

In terms of influences on (Emily�s) rapping, I read Roxanne Shante�

ES: I never even really thought about that until someone brought it up and I was like �oh yeah, I guess so� and I have The Real Roxanne record. I like her stuff a lot. I don�t know... when it comes to writing lyrics, I listen to a lot of country music. I think Tammy Wynette and other country singers like the Carter Family come up when I�m thinking about lyrics. I�ve said this before� it�s not that I don�t like rap, I like it a lot, but if I could sing I would probably sing country music instead of rap.

AK: But, at the same time, you haven�t been able to sing your whole life, so�

ES: I know! It�s like I�ll write the songs thinking that I could make them country songs, but they turn out to be rap songs and I really like the way they turn out. They�re very similar, the two genres, I think. They talk about the same things but in different ways. Like "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk"� think about it.

Up next, more with our fearless rap duo on topics such as sampling, Hall and Oates, Rap Round Robins, and so much more. Look for a continuation of this conversation on Beatbots next week.

Features : Hip to the Groove #5: Milking the Cow by Tom K�rp

Sun, 31 May 2009 17:20:58 -0400

We�ve all heard that saying: the cautionary, finger-wagging line about not giving the milk away for free, because then no one will want to buy the proverbial cow. It�s an old favourite, and mom, dad, and the grandparents have doubtless dropped that one on each of us at some point in our lives.

Considering how ubiquitous that mercantile adage has become, it�s surprising to see how many businesses are doing the exact opposite of what the grands and the �rents have been advising all these years. I�m not talking about small scale freebies and promos to entice the consumer�the supermarket finger foods, complimentary beverages, CD samplers, shareware, demos, and trial memberships�since those intentionally limited experiences are designed to inspire desire for something that was previously unneeded or unknown. They are simply smart self-promotion and marketing techniques, examples of the time-tested �try it, you�ll like it� approach to salesmanship.

Rather, I�m talking about businesses that, for whatever reason, have decided they should give their core product away, free of charge.

Newspapers, for one, have pioneered the questionable practice of undermining their print runs by providing the entirety of their bread-and-butter business�that is, reporting the news�online at no up-front cost to the reader. To use The New York Times as a concrete example: as of this posting, a resident of western New Jersey has the option of paying for a yearly print subscription at $10.60/week (less promos and sign-up specials), $1.50/day for single copy ($5.00 on Sunday), or browsing the paper and its magazines online for free, with or without a registration (which is also free).

The wisdom, if you can call it that, behind the shift from an analog, printed-and-purchased format to one that is digital, online, and (mostly) free-to-use is based primarily on advertising revenues. Without boring you with the details, most newspapers and magazines do not make much in the way of profit from subscription fees and single copy sales; if anything, said income is used to defer the cost of printing, shelving, and delivery. The true �secret� to making a buck in the news industry is advertising, plain and simple. As such, the more subscribers, site hits, and registered users you have on your audit sheets, the more attractive you are to potential advertisers�meaning that you can also charge said advertisers more money per column inch, pixel, and kilobyte. It�s like supply and demand, except you need to supply more readers before you can demand a higher advertising rate.

It looks great on paper, until you realize that the paper itself�the original news medium�is a losing proposition. For one thing, the profit margins are grossly skewed towards the online component of the business, which is insanely profitable only in the sense that it costs so much less to maintain a website than to lay out, print, package, and distribute a newspaper. Generally speaking, revenue per ad tends to be less for a website (note: it�s hard to convince someone to pay as much for an intangible product as a tangible one), but there�s little-to-no space limitations (more space = more ads = more potential revenue), and operating expenses are minimal, since the profit margins of online distribution methods, being ancillary to the main newspaper, often do not factor in the cost of maintaining a stable of journalists, editors, photographers, features writers, graphic artists, and paginators, let alone the printers, bundlers, and delivery persons responsible for creating and shipping the physical product. Hardly; with few exceptions, embracing the promise of the Internet Age means sending the old horses out to pasture (via layoffs, buyouts, etc.) and expecting a skeleton crew of roaming freelancers, telecommuting bloggers, uninsured part-timers, non-contract workers, and harried IT personnel to pick up the slack. Working smarter often means working thinner, and common practice these days is to cut fat and muscle in service of the bottom line. So it goes.

As evidenced by the February shuttering of Colorado�s Rocky Mountain News , solvency issues plaguing the likes of Tribune Co. (layoffs for everyone!), The Philadelphia Inquirer, and The Boston Globe, plus the foreboding digital migration of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer this past March, the newspaper industry is in the midst of a sea change the likes of which it has never experienced before. Sure, radio and television had co-opted their fair shares of the readership in the past, but broadcast news and entertainment were��til the advent of TiVo-like DVR services, Podcasts, YouTube, and Hulu�dogged by a sense of fleeting timeliness, an in-the-moment urgency that, barring syndication, cassette tapes, and VCR-finagling, precluded repeat listening and viewing. Printed media like newspapers and magazines had the distinct advantage of remaining in the home for a few days or even weeks at a time, permitting readers to browse repeatedly and at their leisure, absorbing information at their own pace and passing it along thereafter. Where radio and television had immediacy, newspapers and magazines had breadth, depth, and durability. Now, the scions of the Digital Revolution meet all of those needs: browse for news updates 24/7 with an RSS feed, watch television shows on-demand, tailor you own streaming radio station to suit your taste, and share all of those things through the social networking service of your choice. The vastness of the Internet has birthed the virtual �bermedia: an easily- and ever-accessible triune of literature, film, and sound, all-consuming, all-producing, all-involving, and all-sharing. It has changed�and continues to change�our daily lives in ways we cannot even begin to fathom, let alone anticipate. And, as in the case of newspapers, some in-real-life businesses find themselves undercutting their income with the very thing they had hoped would supplement it, effectively making their original business model obsolete in the process.

But, for the sake of this article, newspapers are merely an example of what has already happened: the laying low of a once-proud industry, followed by its well-documented struggle to stay afloat in a wide and turbulent sea where one would be better off growing a set of gills and learning to swim. Really, it�s a case of Social Darwinism meets the (ostensibly) Free Market. Resist and drown. Adapt and survive. Convert or die.

Such forced evolution is one of the more painful side-affects of the Digital Revolution, and the music industry is yet another example of a large-scale business model in the midst of a decidedly uncomfortable transformation. Not that this is the first time that the music industry�collectively: those individuals and businesses responsible for the recording, production, manufacture, and distribution of a physical record�has had to reevaluate its modes and methods, nor will it likely be the last. Think back to the transition from the stand-alone single to the long player album as the primary saleable good, as well as the numerous storage format shifts (successful and otherwise) of the past twenty years, from LPs and 8-tracks to cassette tapes and CDs, MiniDiscs and downloadable MP3s. Truly, the music industry is no stranger to change, though it is far more familiar with expansion than contraction.

There is no doubt that the advent of the Internet has impacted the music industry in a profound and multifaceted way, exposing its artists, performers, labels, and retailers to an infinitely wider (and increasingly international) market, as well as providing a vast array of easy-to-use promotional and info-marketing tools like MySpace, YouTube, Pandora, Last.fm, MOG, and imeem. Not to mention direct-to-consumer sales via artist- and label-specific websites, increased/alternative distribution through online merchants like Amazon and Insound, digital download stores like Apple�s iTunes and Microsoft�s Zune Marketplace, and hybrid subscription services like eMusic and the Roxio-revised Napster.

But this expanded toolset is the silver lining to the music industry�s sordid love affair with the World Wide Web. Hindsight being 20/20, the development of the MP3 compressed audio file format in the mid nineties was the first stone sent a-rolling down the digital hill, a seemingly innocuous prelude to the late nineties� avalanche of legally questionable peer-to-peer file-sharing made possible by IRC chat rooms and a host of decentralized P2P networks and their attendant websites. Even so, music downloads were tied down to an Internet-enabled computer, or relegated to a mix CD; the MP3 was new, yes, but it wasn�t yet its own. Despite earlier attempts at creating mass-marketed portable digital audio players�most famously by South Korea�s SaeHan Information Systems� MPMan and Diamond Multimedia�s Rio PMP300, both introduced in 1998�it was not until the introduction of Apple�s iPod portable digital music player in 2001 and the launch of its associated iTunes online music store in 2003 that the digital audio revolution finally cut its tether and hit its stride. And, thanks to no shortage of very prominent public advertising, the iPod-fueled MP3 craze has kept a steady pace ever since. It was sleek, it was mobile, and it was not looking back.

Really, the music industry is still reacting (and sometimes overreacting) to the ongoing format shift from its flagship CD format to the relative newcomer MP3 (an admittedly catchall term for the multifarious audio codecs in current use), and it seems as though the industry is constantly developing new ways to promote, purchase, and copyright-protect digital downloads. We have computer audio player applications with self-contained download shops; store-bought gift cards for downloaded music sold side-by-side with physical albums; MP3 kiosks in shopping malls and supermarkets; song recognition software and instant access to the MP3 storefront of your choice via your smartphone. As if it were not a complicated enough process to begin with, this marketing shift from the material to the ethereal (often using the former to promote the latter) has been regularly confounded by the rampant spread of Gnutella- and BitTorrent-enabled digital �piracy��the for-free online distribution of copyrighted files without the expressed consent of, let alone monetary compensation to, the creators and copyright owners.

But I�m getting ahead of myself. Even with the specter of piracy lurking in the background, from the perspective of record stores specializing in CDs, the ongoing shift to e-sales and MP3s has been a nightmare in terms of slumping sales and retracting revenues. In addition to the cultural cachet, storage capacity, and portability of the iPod and its competitors�with the latest versions of Apple�s miracle devices (the iPhone included) giving the user 24/7 WiFi connectivity to the digital music marketplace�there�s also the glaring price difference between a CD and a legitimately purchased MP3. Presuming that audiophile quality and collectibility are not a consideration, when an individual can purchase an album like the Yeah Yeah Yeah�s It�s Blitz for the standard price of $9.99 via iTunes, why in the world would he or she shell out $17.95 for that same album at FYE, $13.98 at Target, or $9.99 (plus ~$2.98 S&H) on Amazon? Moreover, what reason does the individual have to purchase the entire album, physical or digital, if he or she only wants its hit single(s)? Returning to our introductory adage from another angle: how do you convince your customers to buy the cow if they only want a glass of milk?

This specific variety of personal choice meets cost/benefit analysis is the key to understanding the current plight of the music industry. According to the U.S. Manufacturers� Unit Shipments and Value Chart, a year-end report provided by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), total CD sales for its constituent members (most notably the �Big Four�: Universal, Sony BMG, Warner, and EMI) have dropped steadily over the past eight years, plummeting from 942.5 million units in 2000 to 384.7 million units in 2008. In contrast, legitimate digital downloads have risen drastically, growing from 4.6 million albums in 2004 to nearly 57 million in 2008, though this is still far from what would be needed to meet the difference in physical CD sales. Even more impressive (and telling) is the resurgence of single purchases in terms of digital downloads, which exploded from 139.4 million in 2004 to over 1 billion in 2008. Compared with the sales figures for CD singles�which nosedived from 56 million in 1998 to 3.1 million in 2004 and dropped even further to less than 700,000 in 2008�the difference is astounding, and indicative of the MP3�s growing importance in music marketing.

In spite of the meteoric rise of digital albums and downloadable singles, whether by habit or by choice, people are still buying the physical product�and will likely continue to do so until such time as Steve Jobs and Bill Gates can put an iPod or a Zune in the hand of every person on the planet. �Til then, the CD remains a viable option to the MP3 juggernaut; stranger still, the rampant growth of digital audio seems to have caused an unexpected (albeit small-scale) jump in the analog and nostalgia markets. In an intriguingly retro-minded market move, LP sales were up 124% from 2007 to 2008 (from 1.3 to 2.9 million records), and trend-watching national retailers like Best Buy and FYE are now devoting entire sections of their stores to new and re-released vinyl records from contemporary artists like Radiohead, M.I.A., Coldplay, MGMT, Santigold, and Green Day. Moreover, RIAA sales figures�which, notably, neither include nor account for independent artists and record labels in the United States, an 18% market share according to Nielsen SoundScan�show that the total unit shipments (over 1.8 billion) for 2008 were split 68% physical (CDs, cassettes, LPs/EPs, vinyl singles and DVDs) and 32% digital, with a combined net value of nearly $8.5 billion. While that many billions of dollars is nothing to sneeze at, it�s nevertheless a nearly 42% decrease in revenue since 1999�the cusp of the Napster-spurred P2P file-sharing craze�when combined sales netted over $14.5 billion for only 1.1 billion units shipped, the entirety of which were physical.

Think about it: as of 2008, digital audio content owned a nearly one third share of the (legally purchased) music market in the United States. One third! All after less than ten years of popular, post-Napster existence�merely five with iTunes present�during which time net sales for the music industry have declined by over 40%. This is a huge drop in revenue, period. And, despite the still-growing popularity of online audio retailers and monthly subscription services, the music industry, like the newspaper industry, is being forced to confront the harsh reality of the Digital Revolution: selling more of a digital product does not necessarily generate more revenue, especially when that implicitly cheaper digital product is effectively undercutting sales of the physical product�a process which is likely to worsen if the trend from the physical to the digital continues with the rapidity it has shown thus far.

And, to once again revisit our bovine metaphor, no one is going to buy the cow if is both cheaper and easier to just buy a glass of milk. It doesn�t take an economist to figure that one out, does it?

Unfortunately, the music industry�s reaction to the inherent shortcomings of its digital dairy discounting ways has been, well, reactionary. Whereas newspapers have inflicted the vast majority of their problems upon themselves through attrition and poor planning (and seem latently resigned to that fact, however resolute they may appear), the music industry has found a rather convenient scapegoat for its own implosion. Namely: digital piracy. Slumping revenues? It�s that damned digital piracy, which, according to an August 2007 report by the public policy wonks of the Lewisville, Texas-based Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI), costs the US economy $12.5 billion and 71,060 jobs annually. Yikes. Alright then, let�s sue a single mother of two to send a message to those thieving bastards. Case closed. What? Piracy is trending upward? Hrm� sue a �tweenager this time, that�ll teach �em. No? You�re kidding! Sales are still down!? Avast, ye scurvy bilge rats, it be time to indict some Swedes.

What the RIAA and its international affiliates have yet to realize is that the prosecution of digital pirates and websites (deserving or not) and the attempted coercion of Internet Service Providers to disclose users� identities (and potentially deny them service) are not optimal, let alone realistic, solutions to the problems plaguing the industry. Obviously, it�s not just a matter of closing down the aggregating sites and nixing the BitTorrent links. Those are mere facilitators, the virtual �guy who knows a guy�, pointing other offenders in the direction of what they�re after. As the RIAA has slowly but surely learned, music piracy is the Lernaean Hydra of the digital world�cut off the head of one Pirate Bay (if you can), and two more will rise up to take its place. Prosecute one copyright offender, and you�re still leaving millions of others untouched, with more joining their ranks every day.

In truth, the larger, more confounding problem is the consumers themselves. According to the 2009 Digital Music Report from the London-based International Federation of the Phonograph Industry (IFPI)�an umbrella organization for defending and enforcing musical copyright law on the world stage�approximately 40 billion audio files were illegally shared in 2008. Jupiter Research also cited an estimated annual loss of �180 million in the UK music industry alone, with a projected loss of �1.1 billion by 2012. Additionally, the IFPI�s study claims that 16% of Internet users in Europe were found to have engaged in digital copyright infringement that same year. Given an approximate total population of 830.4 million and assuming that 50% of said population has Internet access, this would mean that roughly 66 million Europeans committed acts of digital copyright infringement in 2008 alone. Even if the IFPI�s findings are exaggerated, I somehow doubt that prosecuting each and every one of those individual users is tenable. There�s simply not enough time and money (or copyright attorneys, though I could be wrong) to handle all of the legal proceedings.

Which leads us to the other problem plaguing the music industry�or, at least, plaguing the RIAA, the Big Four, and their subsidiaries and associates: they�re the bad guys.

Rather, that�s how they�re coming across. Non-profit agencies like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) have made it their mission (well, part of their mission) to document and educate Internet users about the RIAA�s copyright-infringement lawsuits, which, since 2003, have been launched against the likes of single mothers, laid-off secretaries, college professors, and high school students, resulting in settlements and judgments ranging from $2,000 to $222,000. Then there is the 2007-onward �deterrence and education initiative� campaign. Focused primarily on college students in the United States, the D&E initiative makes use of IP address-identification methods and �pre-litigation� letters sent to college administrators. Per the RIAA�s request, said letters are then quietly forwarded to the IP-identified �John Does�, complete with instructions on how the offender can agree to a quasi-anonymous, non-negotiable, out-of-court settlement of roughly $3,000, payable by credit or debit card through P2Plawsuits.com.

Oddly enough, targeting student offenders this way makes a good amount of sense, especially when you consider that the widespread computer access and large peer groups inherent to modern college campuses helped spawn the Ur-P2P Napster, and that many college campuses continue to be hotbeds of casual copyright infringement for those same reasons. The RIAA is trying to go straight to the source with its compensatory claims, and without all of the time-consuming court proceedings and damning media kerfuffle. At face value, it�s an incredibly shrewd move.

But, even while the RIAA is well within its rights to file civil suits against copyright infringers, the severity and limited scope of the fines imposed seems a haphazard means of defending the intellectual property rights of its member artists and publishers. Putting select individuals into thousands of dollars� worth of legal debt over a mere handful of pirated songs hardly seems fair, does it? In this sense, the RIAA�s litigation efforts amount to little more than �tough love� bullying and blatant scare-tactics: spankings, public hangings, and shots fired across the bow of the largely ignorant and apathetic pirate ships that comprise the global collection of P2P file-sharing networks and their users. According to the EFF�s September 2008 whitepaper, �RIAA v. The People: Five Years Later�, studies performed by Beverly Hills-based media measurement group BigChampagne show that the number of simultaneous P2P users in the United States reached as high as 9.35 million in 2007�up from an estimated 8.9 million in 2005, which was reportedly double the amount of simultaneous US P2P users in 2003. Yet another EFF-mentioned study, this one by Santa Monica�s Digital Music News Research Group, asserts that, as of February 2007, over 18% of desktop computers worldwide have the Gnutella-based P2P application LimeWire installed.

Okay, math time again�total world population being roughly 6.7 billion, and assuming that maybe 25% of the population has Internet access, this 18% works out to be about 301.5 million people with access to P2P networks and illegal file-sharing. If, in the RIAA�s wettest of dreams, it had the jurisdiction, financial resources, and manpower to file the above-mentioned pre-litigation letters against that many people, at $3,000 a head, it would generate close to $904.5 billion in settlements. Compare this with the IPI�s and IFPI�s estimated annual losses of $12.5 billion in the US and �180 million (approx. $288 million) in the UK, and you begin to see how disproportionate the RIAA�s response has been. Download one album�s worth of songs, if that, and you run the risk of being fined $3,000 for illegally acquiring the contents of a $15-$20 piece of plastic. Nothing like justice under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, eh?

Litigious lunacy aside, what, if anything, is the optimal solution to digital piracy? How can you keep people from stealing the milk, let alone convince them to buy the whole cow instead of just the occasional pint of cream?

How, indeed. The threat of lawsuits has obviously been less than effective, particularly if the continuing P2P network growth documented by BigChampagne and others is on target. Though punishment seems far from the answer (the number of potential offenders alone makes it impractical), prevention has proven itself to be even less effective. Legal threats aside, the music industry�s main deterrence method�a variety of data encoding and encryption methods collectively known as Digital Rights Management (DRM)�has been an abject failure, often managing to do little more than delay the inevitable. Given the large and frequently tech-savvy population invested both casually and professionally in digital piracy, workarounds utilizing decryption keys, software patches, and analog loopholes are easily created, promulgated, and employed by others to bypass the usage and reproduction restrictions of most DRM-encoded file formats, effectively reducing a brick wall to little more than a bump in the road. Worse yet, very public snafus like Sony�s implementation and subsequent recall of CDs using the malware-like Extended Copy Protection (XCP) have further diminished the credibility and perceived effectiveness of DRM technologies. Striking yet another blow (and a potentially fatal one at that) to proponents of Digital Rights Management, a recent announcement from Apple stated that, as of April 2009, its industry-standard iTunes store would begin the process of converting its entire store to high-quality, DRM-free �iTunes Plus� AAC files. I don�t know about you, but that sounded like DRM�s death knell to me.

So, if punishment and prevention are failing miserably to curb the Internet-enabled public�s seemingly insatiable appetite for �free� digital music, what alternatives are there? Maybe run some adverts showing the human face of the music industry? Appeal to some vague idea of a shared morality? Perhaps send a sternly-worded e-mail to all 301.5 million suspected pirates, asking them, politely, to stop�pretty-please with sugar on top?

Yeah, good luck with that.

Still, even with the music industry evolving (alternatively: self-destructing) the way it has, the question remains: how, oh how, do you sell that goddamned cow?

Bear with me now, but here�s a thought: maybe, instead of trying to sell it, you should just give it away. Read the writing on the wall, cut your losses, and stop fighting a virtual war you could never hope to win. Reinvent your business so that recorded music serves less as a product in and of itself, and more as a means of promoting the real deal�concerts and live performances�plus or minus ancillary merchandizing near the lines for the bar and the bathroom. Forget about the Billboard Charts. Forget about going gold. Make CDs, like LPs, into collector�s items, with limited runs at limited expense. Defer physical production costs and limit your overruns by harnessing the power of the pre-order. Strip it down. Keep it simple. Get smaller, work smarter. It might not make you a multi-millionaire (it might not even make you a thousandaire), but it�s a more readily-sustainable business model that should keep you from going bankrupt playing search-and-destroy with the infinite flotilla of pirates, P2P networks, and Torrent sites who make their roving homes on the digital sea. Hell, the public might even lose interest in downloading through less-than-legal channels if you�re giving it away for free to begin with.

Better yet, you could even come up with your own, faster, more reliable P2P networks. Beat the bastards at their own game, yeah? Maybe charge a small monthly service fee, sell some ad space, throw up some links to artists� online merch shops and ticket booths, monetize the user data, and cobble together a few smartphone and social-network apps to give it that extra, viral touch. Make it a one-two promo punch, y�dig? The people get their music cheap-as-free, the artists get their royalties, the industry gets its marketing statistics, et voil��everyone�s fat and happy. Sure, it might sound like a crazy idea� but, then again, it just might be crazy enough to work.

And, if that�s not punk enough for ya, there�s always the option to just plain give it away for nothin�. Consider the strange tale of Quote Unquote Records (QUR), a microcosmic �Bizarro World� take on the recording industry headed by former arrogant son of a bitch and current Bomb the Music Industry! frontman Jeff Rosenstock. Less a record label than a group of musician friends with a shared distribution method, QUR bills itself as �the first ever donation based record label�, and its mission statement is just that. �We are just trying to do something different because different = fun,� reads the label�s website, �We have simple goals which is [sic] to put out good music, put out fun music and help our artists get heard.�

With or without making an entirely optional donation (ideally $5 per full-length album), listeners can stop by the QUR website, peruse its wares�including endearingly scrappy punk and earnestly roughshod rock from the likes of Chotto Ghetto, Bomb the Music Industry!, Cheeky, Shinobu, and O Pioneers!!!�and download what they like for free. Maybe people donate a buck or two, maybe they throw down $50. Maybe they find out who�s playing where and when, go to a show, hang out, and buy a t-shirt or an LP (most QUR bands have their music available in a physical format, be it CD or LP). Maybe they don�t. For Rosenstock and his friends at Quote Unquote Records, making the sale isn�t the point; the point is that people are listening.

On the whole, that�s a lesson in customer appreciation that the music industry could stand to learn. Sales revenue may be down, but demand is higher than ever; legally or not, the ranks of listeners at home and abroad are swelling at a phenomenal rate, with more artists and performers being able to reach more and more potential fans every day. To say that the Internet is destroying the music industry�or the newspaper industry, for that matter�is narrow-mindedness of the highest order. This is not the hour of the industries� extinctions, but the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for each to reinvent itself, to shed the weight of their old ways and embrace the potential of near-infinite readerships and listenerships, and to be able to cater to the needs and wants of each with a level of precision and flexibility never before imagined. Though the process may be painful, for either industry to forego their digital evolutions is to renege on the very promise of openness and accessibility that is the Digital Revolution. Resist, and they will drown. Adapt, and they will survive. Convert, and they shall thrive.

Either way, the end of an era is nigh�so stop worrying about avoiding the inevitable, and start planning for what comes after.

Features : BOLT! Dance Party: A New Approach to Booty Shakin' by Anna Louise!

Thu, 21 May 2009 13:13:33 -0400

There�s a new dance night coming out from the shadows of the rising club scene in the Baltimore music community. It�s refreshing and brings an excitement to the rapidly active night life that Baltimore has been experiencing through recent years. BOLT! is a monthly dance party that seems to have found its permanent home at the collectively-run venue The Hexagon. BOLT! Dance Party is the masterpiece of both DJ Dolce Vita and LEMZ, the duo behind the idea of starting a dance party and Alex Ghinger who decided that the party should differ from the �typical�, incorporating philanthropic purposes for the event.

BOLT! strives to bring more awareness about the community that we are all a part of by donating all proceeds and sponsoring local charities and organizations. The last BOLT! Dance Party featured the improvisational and theatrical glam-rock band Dazzlestorm! and local indie pop band In Every Room. This particular night Art with a Heart was the selected organization for all BOLT! proceeds.

This kind of dance party is really unheard of in all club music communities. Whereas, there are many band-related shows that have been accomplishing benefit shows for years, dance parties function in a music community entirely built with a different agenda. Many aspects of dj and club music communities is about bringing out a good crowd, drink specials, who gets paid at the end of the night, and often can create a faux-star status among audience, promoters, and dj relationships. But the organizers of BOLT! feel that this disconnect between a music community so culturally engrained in capitalizing on spinning records (or recordings on a laptop) shouldn�t be the only approach to live dance and club music; thus, responding in a way that informs the audience about local activism, breaks down the fake rock star status, and maintains the integrity of a good dance party�-boozin�, shaking booty, and maybe even a little babe-cruisin� and just having a good time. Did we mention that BOLT! events are typically BYOB?

The next BOLT! Dance party is Saturday May 24, 2009 at the Hexagon. According to the website doors open at 9pm and the first artist goes on at 10 pm sharp. This month BOLT! Brings the cd release party of Claire Hux a trio bringing you electro and house remixes of hip hop, indie, and r&b tunes. It�s a pleasure to have Libby Pickens in the mix of the night bringing you d&b, and sublime electro-house. Ten Elevenths continues with electronic incorporation of idm and ambient electro and of course LEMZ and Dj Dolce Vita brings their consistent flow of Britpop, 80�s, tech house and other versions of electro-somethings.
Hampden Family center is the organization that BOLT! Has decided to donate their proceeds for this event. For more information on Hampden Family Center as well as the featured artist please visit the links listed below.

Links:

http://www.hampdenfamilycenter.org
http://www.artwithaheart.net/
http://www.myspace.com/clairehuxmusic
http://www.myspace.com/tenelevenths
http://www.myspace.com/dazzlestorm
http://www.myspace.com/libbypickens
http://www.myspace.com/ineveryroom
http://myspace.com/djlemz
http://myspace.com/lemzmakesmusic

Poetry : There is an unwrapping inside me, by Anna Louise!

Mon, 18 May 2009 16:23:25 -0400

it is like ribbons that later are deposited on the floor and disregarded.
I felt a shattering detonating inside my chest;
it makes my whole body quiver inside, shaken like an earthquake.

I dont even know what this is anymore--
I keep thinking about birdcages, barriers, open up gates!
or if it's even worth it? to untangle this ribbon of mess,
these silly thoughts that keep plaguing me.

Why July? Why must you burn a hole through me
and leave puddles of me in such a mess? a sweaty mess--
tear-drop shaped like buttons perspiring from the my dress.

Evaporated, I'm air-conditioned to feel this from you.
This wrangle of heat a force between
this ray of disease, smooth wind-winding breeze.
Just warn me like an annual celebration
that you're going to fuck with me.

Audio Reviews : A Woman a Man Walked By by PJ Harvey & John Parish

Fri, 08 May 2009 11:13:54 -0400

The last time PJ Harvey and John Parish co-starred on an album was 1996's Dance Hall at Louse Point. Now, 13 years and a combined 7 albums later, the duo has taken the stage again with A Woman a Man Walked By.

Despite the decade between them, the two albums aren't without similarities. Once again, John Parish has composed the music while PJ Harvey has written the lyrics. And just as the singles from Dance Hall did nothing to convey the abrasive, schizophrenic album just over the horizon, "Black Hearted Love," the first single and opening track to A Woman a Man, is more a palate cleanser than anything else. Over the next 9 songs, Harvey and Parish weave tales of dead children, disturbed soldiers, and even a hateful hermaphrodite. And like she did for Dance Hall, Polly Jean takes her endlessly elastic voice to its outer limits of both range and theatricality.

Simply stated, it may not be the best album to play for the uninitiated.

Both artists have grown quite a bit over the past decade. Thus, A Woman a Man is far more polished than its predecessor in terms of both composition and production. The haunting piece "The Chair" shows off precise and engaging rhythmic shifts throughout. And the aforementioned "Black Hearted Love" is so slick it's almost suspiciously radio friendly.

But this display of progress is both a blessing and a curse for the album.

When A Woman a Man strives for beauty, it reaches heights that Dance Hall never came near. "The Soldier" is a gorgeous ballad that seems to improve upon the intricate, delicate contrapuntal style of Harvey's White Chalk pieces. "April" and "Passionless, Pointless" are both wonderfully textured, sonically and lyrically. And the album's loveliest moment, closing number "Cracks in the Canvas," is difficult to listen to less than twice in a row.

The problems arise when the album attempts a turn towards the dark side. The fact is Dance Hall did it better. There's nothing on this new record that can compare to the disturbing effects of "City of No Sun" or "Taut" from the previous Harvey/Parish collaboration. The title track comes frustratingly close, but it's weighed down by the incongruous "The Crow Knows Where All the Little Children Go," an instrumental piece that seems haphazardly tacked on to the end. "Pig Will Not," on the other hand, is just plain awkward. Clumsy lyrics like "I am your guardian / I am your fairy / Do my will!" are presented in a way that seems like self-conscious performance art rather than bracing emotional outbursts.

Harvey and Parish may just be too mature and accomplished to pull off the histrionics of their earlier work with the same illusion of spontaneity. Truthfully, that's not such a bad thing; it would have been a shame for the artists to tread the same ground again 13 years later. But because of this maturity, the album is less than convincing when it attempts the attention-grabbing stunts of its predecessor. Fortunately, these moments are few, and the majority ofA Woman a Man Walked By is well worth the listen.