Lala shutting down : (

I'm enjoying the last days of the Apple-owned music streaming site, Lala, which will be shutting down May 31.

Word has it Lala couldn't compete with Google's music streaming capability.

As you can see, I embed songs from Lala and have been for a while now. It was super user-friendly and offered cheaper downloads than iTunes (.89 cents rather than .99).

Apparently it's not the first time Apple has left vested users high and dry.

I love my Mac, but in a business sense, Apple is like the little brat in your Kindergarten class that won't share his flourescent Crayons. Urgghg, just give me the fat, flourescent orange one!! I've never seen anything like it and it's way cooler than my boring box of conservative colors! Do they even allow those crazy colors in Catholic school??

It's Rolling Stones Week!

I am looking into sources here, but I'm pretty sure this week is legit Rolling Stones Week. It all comes in anticipation of the band's reissue of 1972's Exile on Main Street, set for release next week (double check that).

Artists will be covering Stones tunes on Jimmy Fallon (including the always sultry Taj Mahal, who I saw in Albany exactly a week ago. He covered "Shine A Light"), Larry King will be interviewing Mick Jagger, and, in short, the Stones are all over the effing place.

Don't believe me? Check out their site (it's pretty sweet).

Farm Aid

Did you know that just one company, Monsanto, controls more than 90% of the soybeans grown in the United States? And that they also control more than 80% of U.S. corn?

This extreme concentration of power is not unique to corn and soy. And it's a big problem - not just for family farmers struggling to compete. Standing between you and the family farmer are a handful of corporations who control our entire food system from seed to plate.

Corporate concentration has many forms: factory farms, the dairy crisis, genetically engineered food - anything that puts the control of our food into the hands of a few companies and forces farmers out of business and off the land.

Speak out now! Tell the government that you trust family farmers with your food!

The issue of corporate concentration in agriculture is finally getting attention - starting today with the first in a series of public workshops held by the Department of Justice and the US Department of Agriculture.

Farm Aid needs you to let Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack know that corporate concentration in agriculture is devastating for family farmers, bad for our health, and wrong for consumers like you and me!

This is an historic opportunity for farmers who have been marginalized by agribusiness giants. But it's just as important for all of us who eat (and who want to know who is controlling our food!). This is your chance to join family farmers in telling the government what is wrong with corporate concentration. The government needs to hear from people like you, people who trust the farmers who grow our food - not corporations facing anti-trust investigation.

Please, take a moment right now to tell Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack how corporate control has created a food system that lines the pockets of a handful of companies while bankrupting family farmers and leaving the rest of us hungry for change.

Thanks so much for taking action today. We'll keep you updated on how things are going with the workshops and let you know more you can do in the coming weeks and months.

Sincerely,
Hilde Steffey
Program Director, Farm Aid

Stream the new Band of Horses album

Christopher Wilson Photography. Check it out.

About a week before its slated release, Band of Horses fans can stream BoH's highly anticipated new album Infinite Arms, in full, on the band's website.

The North/South Carolina-based rock band previously released singles off the album, including Compliments, Laredo, Factory and NW Apt.

As mentioned in a previous post, I am curious about the marketing strategy here. MGMT allowed a stream of their new album a month or more before its release, but they admitted that was because it was leaked. On the other hand, Dr. Dog's April release, Shame, Shame, was streaming on NPR a couple weeks before its release, but that seemed to be more to give the rather under-the-radar band some exposure.

Thoughts/comments?

While you're chewing it over, listen to Infinite Arms here.

Band of Horse's last album, Cease to Begin, with its simplicity and intimacy, hasn't been far from arms reach since I was introduced to it more than a year ago. So, I don't know about you, but my Wednesday just got a lot better.

I got pulled over (while surfing the web)

I thought I'd publish this comment from my April 26 post in regards new Band of Horses material. I researched Web Sheriff and discovered it is a London, UK-based service that specializes in the protection of on-line rights against infringements and abuse.

Web Sheriff's clients include record labels, music publishers, pop stars, film companies, film stars, celebrities, sports personalities, theatre producers, book publishers, video companies, games companies, national newspapers and the media generally. Check out the Web Sheriff website here if you are so inclined, otherwise, check out what happend when I got pulled over (I was let go with a warning ...).


"Hi CAS:EV,

On behalf of Columbia Records and Band of Horses, many thanks for plugging "Infinite Arms" on your site (street date 17th May UK & Europe / 18th May North America) ... .. thanks, also, on behalf of the artist and labels for not posting any pirate links to unreleased (studio) material and, if you / your readers want good quality, non-pirated, preview tracks, then a full length version of "Factory" is available for fans and bloggers to link to / post / host etc on the band’s site at www.bandofhorses.com ... .. for further details of the new album, pre-orders, on-line promotions, videos and 2010 shows, check-out the official site, as well as the band’s MySpace at www.myspace.com/bandofhorses ... .. and keep an eye on these official sources for details of further news, preview material and on-line promotions.

Also and as a goodwill gesture to fans and bloggers, an exclusive widget for the video of “Compliments”, as well as a preview stream of “Laredo” are currently available via the band’s official website ... .. these are for embedding and hyper-linking ONLY / for streaming by fans directly off the band’s site, so please reciprocate this goodwill gesture by NOT ripping and re-posting the audio files.

Thanks again for your plug.

Regards,

WEB SHERIFF "

Does this make me a Web outlaw? Yee-haw.

A casual theory on pre-releases

I've been thinking more about how bands like MGMT, Dr. Dog and Band of Horses have been giving fans more than just a taste of new material, often offering up many new songs off an upcoming release for stream or download, or allowing fans to stream the album in full.

My theory on this is multifaceted:

It seems to me that these bands can do little to prevent new material from being pirated; so, to a record exec sitting in an office somewhere, rather trying to cover things up, why not use the web to your advantage and take the chance a song(s) will go viral.

Rather than just selling EPs on iTunes, throw it to the dogs and cross your fingers that it becomes the top hit on every music blog in the 'sphere. Package it with a video slide show or a full-blown, psycho-mind f***er music video like MGMT did and, suddenly, you've harnessed the power of the web and maybe even cut your losses.

Of course, despite how much is pre-released, the question still remains: How many people purchase your album when it's released.

Thoughts, comments? Like my photo illustration 'Kings of the Blogosphere?'

MMJ bust out!!

It is rumored that My Morning Jacket is recording new songs for its sixth album and the proof is in the pudding, as they busted out a new one, "Friends Again," during their current tour with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band (MMJ lead singer Jim James collaborated with them for a recent LP).

It's a pretty kick ass rock song. Bright and loose with a vintage melody to it that immediately reminded me of "D'yer Maker" (or Jamaica) by Led Zeppelin for reasons probably beyond the obvious.

Here "Friends Again" here

MMJ are slated to play Sasquatch Festival at the end of May, and Mile High Festival (Colorado) in August, before playing in support of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers in late August (not when Petty rolls into SPAC, however. We get CSN instead ... I've already got tickets).