September 2003 Archives

A couple of weeks ago, "Black Flag" tortured thousands of humans in the LA area over the course of three nights. Wanda and I were apart of that crowd at the Sunday night show.

The only really good thing to come out of these "shows" has been a few exceptionally funny reviews:

Chris Ziegler's review in the OC Weekly notes:

Flag founder Greg Ginn is a guitar genius, but this show demonstrated further talents: "Wow," said one Flag apologist, watching a wave of meatheads try and find a beat to mosh to. "Ginn’s like an idiot savant—at pissing people off."

Tim Jamison's review in Razorcake notes:

After the Robo part they lose the bass player and drummer. Then they plug Dale back in and Dez continues to sing. This went on for nearly two hours. But hey, I could have been in St. Louis trying to kill time on a Friday night instead of being bummed out at a Black Flag show. Did I mention this was all for cats? Rock for cats? I will allow the obvious joke about why guys get into bands slide right by me.

Mr. John Hargrave is truly brillant. His 6 or so pages of documentation on prank phone calling the RIAA and various record companies is very funny.

The Recording Industry Association of America has been making headlines with their recent threat to sue anyone engaged in digital piracy, even my grandmother. Although my grandmother has about 300GB of warez, hackz, crackz, cheatz, pr0n, and MP3s stored away on her nitrogen-cooled dual-RAID systems, she is no thief. She's simply keeping them for a friend.

Still, the RIAA continues to go after innocent file-sharers like my grandmother, who recently got a monster tat of Dr. Dre flipping the bird to a bunch of cops inked across her back. But that's beside the point. The point is that I was trying desperately to get someone in the music industry to take my money. I had called the RIAA, online music stores, and even the music companies themselves.

But what about the artists? They're the bottom of the food chain in the music industry, the musicians that get their cut after the producers, executives, distributors, retailers, and RIAA lawyers take their share. Why not just send some money directly to the bands, and eliminate the middlemob? So that's exactly what I did next: I mailed checks to ten artists, ranging from the mega-successful to the ultra-obscure.

"Cash once credited his mother, Carrie Rivers Cash, with encouraging him to pursue a singing career.

'My mother told me to keep on singing, and that kept me working through the cotton fields. She said God has his hand on you. You'll be singing for the world someday.' "

Thank God he did. Rest in peace, Johnny.

The showdown between the music industry, as represented by the RIAA, and the average music fan who file shares seems have come to a big head this week. There are multiple articles whirling around about the RIAA's lawsuits, about their amnesty program, about ... about... about...

Fred Von Lohmann, senior intellectual property attorney for the EFF, has a well balanced opinion column in the LA Times today that actually proposes solutions that could possibly work for all parties. 'Amnesty' for Music File Sharing Is a Sham:

Here's what the RIAA has proposed as its "solution" to file-sharing: an "amnesty" for file-sharers. Just delete the MP3s you've downloaded, shred those CD-R copies, confess your guilt and, in return, the most change-resistant companies in the nation will give you nothing. Oh, the RIAA promises not to assist copyright owners in suing you. But its major-label members reserve the right to go after you, as do thousands of music publishers and artists like Metallica.

In other words, once you have come forward, you are more vulnerable to a lawsuit, not less. This is more "sham-nesty" than "amnesty." What a waste.

Rather than trying to sue Americans into submission, imagine a real solution for the problem. What if the labels legitimized music swapping by offering a real amnesty for all file-sharing, past, present and future, in exchange for say, $5 a month from each person who steps forward?

Additional links to the EFF:
The Electronic Frontier Foundation's "File Sharing: It's Music to our ears"

The Queens of the Stone Age and The Cramps will be playing together at the Greek Theatre on Halloween. Is it just me or does this strike you as an odd combo?