Pseudo spins hip-hop TV show on Kazaa
By Stefanie Olsen for CNET.

Digital broadcaster Pseudo.com plans to release a weekly TV show hosted by rap star Ice-T on the Internet file-sharing network Kazaa, in attempts to start a new model of advertising-supported television.
Pseudo President Edward Salzano said Thursday that the show–a feature on hip-hop culture called “One Nation”–will be available exclusively to Kazaa’s roughly 60 million registered users beginning in the next two weeks. People using Kazaa to trade video, audio and text files will be able to download a new episode of the hour-long show weekly and watch it anytime.
Free to Kazaa users, the show will be supported through advertising in the form of commercials and product placements, Salzano said. Pseudo.com, which is owned by New York-based INTV, has already signed on soft-drink maker Red Bull as a sponsor.
“We believe there’s a lot of money that is going to people it shouldn’t be going to such as studios, producers and advertising agencies,” Salzano said. “But that money should be going directly from the fans to the artist, so we’re trying to come up with ways to make it legitimate and affordable to do that.”

Continue reading →

via The Smoking Gun —
Turns out the band’s rider had no mention of pyrotechnics whatsoever.
I used to get worried about this stuff when I went to a lot of rock shows in the 80’s and early 90’s.
Often, I’d be taking pictures in the pit in front of the stage when things went off — and there didn’t seem to be anyone in charge, or nearly enough safety people. (Or *any* safety people, for that matter.)
I seemed to be the only one who was worried about it. I finally stopped going to a lot of these shows because I wasn’t into the loud explosions anymore, which apparently came into fashion in the early-to-mid-90’s.
I hope this will deter other bands from using pyrotechnics unsafely. (Or at all for that matter — which is safest. I personally don’t think they belong in enclosed areas whatsoever, but I’m a ninny.)
I do also hope that the public shows mercy to Mr. Russell. Apparently, he hasn’t been arrested or anything, yet. Strangely enough. So maybe I’m worried for nothing…Maybe it’s just a horrible accident and no one’s responsible. But I have a feeling there are 95 sets of parents that aren’t going to feel that way.
Great White Rider

TSG today (2/21) obtained copies of the band’s rider from two separate promoters who booked shows by the group during the past month. A copy of the Great White performance specs can be found below. A third promoter, Domenic Santana, told TSG that the band set off a pyrotechnic display without his permission during a show in Asbury Park, New Jersey last Friday (2/14), putting the “lives of a lot of people in danger.” Santana, owner of the Stone Pony, said that he “had no idea” that pyrotechnics were part of the rock band’s show and pointed to Great White’s standard performance rider, which makes no reference to pyrotechnic displays…
Owners of The Station, the Rhode Island club where scores perished, this afternoon released a statement claiming that they, too, were never told about Great White’s pyrotechnic plans.

I’ve even seen Great White a couple times – during the “Sirens” and “Hall of the Mountain King” tours. Note: Yes, of course the “Sirens” show was better than the second one) — but my point is that they used unsupervised pyrotechnics even back then. They’ve been doing it for twenty years! (Oops. I was confusing Savatage with Great White. Ouch. How the hell I did that I dunno. Both high school bands to me at the time, I suppose. Many apologies to Savatage — please be assured I’ve kicked my own ass several times and I promise I’ll never make the same mistake again.)

Continue reading →

Pressplay adds BMG songs
As reprinted in the 10/15/02 San Francisco Chronicle from the NY Times
Pressplay, an online music service that offers consumers the ability to listen to and download more than 100,000 songs for a monthly fee, said Monday that it had added tens of thousands of tracks distributed by BMG to its catalog. The Pressplay service already includes songs from the two major labels that own it, Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group, as well as EMI. Pressplay is expected to announce a deal with Warner Music Group shortly, a move that would make it the only service to offer the ability to download music from all five major labels.

Yeah ok. Let me know when it gets to cable:
Napster Founder Fanning Takes Life Story To MTV

Continue reading →

See the article by David Lieberman for USA Today:
Recording industry faces music: CD prices may need to fall
This quote is pretty ironic:

The Recording Industry Association of America ( news – web sites) (RIAA) likes to remind people that most albums lose money after you factor in artist royalties and marketing. What’s more, a study it recently commissioned found that if CD prices had grown as much as inflation since they rolled out in 1983, they’d now be $38.23.
So $14.70 should be seen as a bargain.

Considering the cost of making CDs has consistently decreased steadily since they were originally introduced in the early 90s.
That’s like saying that we’re lucky blank CDs aren’t $100 a piece since they used to be $12 a pop in 1995 (when I used to be the Asst. Multimedia Editor for CD-ROM Today and it was a *big* deal to have a bad burn). If blank CDs are cheaper for us now ($10 for over 100) the cost has to even less for bulk manufacturers.

Continue reading →

HMV ventures into digital waters

The UK music retailer HMV is expected to confirm this week it has reached a deal with the digital music service On Demand Distribution (OD2) to offer almost 100,000 songs over the net…
Under the arrangement, fans will have access to the largest official catalogue of digital music ever made available in the UK.

Continue reading →