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Music – RI Future http://www.rifuture.org Progressive News, Opinion, and Analysis Sat, 29 Oct 2016 16:03:26 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.25 Hip Hop 4 Flint in Providence Saturday http://www.rifuture.org/hip-hop-4-flint-in-providence-saturday/ http://www.rifuture.org/hip-hop-4-flint-in-providence-saturday/#comments Thu, 17 Mar 2016 00:55:16 +0000 http://www.rifuture.org/?p=60356 Hip Hop for FlintHip Hop 4 Flint, an all ages show, is this Saturday, March 19 from 2-6pm at Avenue Concept, 304 Lockwood Street in Providence. Tickets are available here.

Providence, Rhode Island is one of 42 cities that will participate in a global fundraising initiative bringing together the Hip-Hop community in solidarity and support for the people of Flint and in partnership with the non-profit Price of Peace Missionary Baptist Church. Hip Hop 4 Flint will gather local, national, and international hip-hop artists, journalists, activists, educators and supporters to raise funds to purchase water filtration systems for the homes of the residents of Flint, MI. The lead organizer for Providence is Chenae Bullock. She has built a team of local Providence businesses, organizations, and talent to host an artist showcase that will help to raise $80,000 for the people involved in the Flint water crisis in Flint, MI.

YoNasDa Lonewolf, an emcee, published writer and activist who focuses her work on human rights, indigenous rights, and social justice, is the national leader for Hip-Hop 4 Flint. She was the creator of Hip-Hop 4 Haiti which took place on January 30, 2010 in 32 major cities. The youth and hip hop community hosted events to raise money, relief and awareness for the survivors of the devastating hurricane that hit Haiti in 2010.

Hip Hop 4 Flint will bring together notable Hip Hop artists such as Du “Doital” Kelly of Legendary Lords of the Underground, Hakim Green from Channel Live, Jon Connor of Afterman, Nappy Roots, and local artists from each city to join hearts and hands in support of the people of Flint. To help the cause, we have partnered with emcees OCKZ, SKYZOO, and QUADIR LATEEF who will donate 20 percent of the proceeds from the “Rise Up” iTunes single to #HIPHOP4FLINT. The single sells for $.99 on iTunes.

The overall goal is to raise $80,000 collectively among the 45 cities, about $2,000 from each city. The money will go to purchase water filters that will get the lead & other things out of the water. We are shooting to get two per household, one for the kitchen and one for the bathroom as well as plumbers to install them correctly. Prince of Peace Church is the designated 501c3 organization that will accept the money.

The city of Flint, MI is home to 100,000 residents, of which 40 percent are living in poverty, with an average income of $25,000. In 2014, while the city was under the control of a state appointed emergency manager, the city switched its water source from Lake Huron to the Flint River. The city saw a sharp increase in lead levels that were well above the EPA’s standards of safety, exposing the city’s 9,000 children to water with lead levels that are classified as toxic waste and leading to the declaration of a citywide state of emergency. The children of Flint have been hit the hardest, which some experience permanent and devastating health defects from lead poisoning. In addition to lead contamination, there is a larger problem looming in Flint with a recent outbreak of legionella bacteria, which infects the lungs, causing pneumonia, which is then referred to as Legionnaires Disease. To date there have been ten deaths due to Legionnaires Disease.

Providence will be one of the 42 cities organizing and fundraising to purchase home water filtration systems for residents that will filter both lead and bacteria throughout the entire home, making the water safe for both consumption and washing.

Hip Hop 4 Flint Providence will host an artist showcase that will be streamed live on ALLHIPHOP.com and Stagehound TV.

We currently have a Go Fund Me for those that would like to make a donation. All money will go toward the purchase of filters, which will be delivered personally, home by home, to the residents of Flint by the Hip Hop 4 Flint delegation.

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New low-power FM community radio station coming to Providence http://www.rifuture.org/new-low-power-fm-community-radio-station-coming-to-providence/ http://www.rifuture.org/new-low-power-fm-community-radio-station-coming-to-providence/#comments Fri, 13 Nov 2015 14:33:27 +0000 http://www.rifuture.org/?p=55065 2015-11-12 Community Radio 02Starting next Summer, if all goes as planned, Providence will be home to a new low-power FM community radio station. APB Radio, 101.1 FM is a collaboration between AS220, Brown Student and Community Radio (BSR) and Providence Community Radio (PCR), all nonprofits. The three groups partnered to strengthen their application with the FCC, beating out competitors for what may well be the very last low-power FM radio station license in this area.

Airtime will be split three ways on the new station, with AS220 taking 50 percent of the airtime, PCR programming at least 10 hours a week and BSR the rest. The schedule is staggered and complex to avoid any one group being consigned to the midnight to morning slot, and will probably change going forward.

2015-11-12 Community Radio 04The groups will collaborate on the construction and fundraising phase of the project. Total projected cost is estimated at $25,000. The plan is to mount their antennae on the PBS television tower located in the Cranston St Industrial Park in South Providence. The station will run at about 100 watts and reach a three and a half mile radius.

APB Radio will be advertiser free, supported through underwriters, grants and other means. Almost all content will be developed by the community, and of course it will be parallel streamed on the Internet.

“Providence can communicate with itself in real time,” enthused PCR’s Wesli Dymoke.

Local poet, activist and performer Jared Paul was on hand to give a flavor of what community driven radio might be like.  Reza Clifton and José Ramirez from the BSR show Sonic Watermelons interviewed Paul live as a live demo of Sonic Watermelons, a show they currently do on BSR which would move to APB radio when the station begins broadcasting.

“I’m excited that the radical community in Providence will get to have a crazy amount of shows on the radio, in a central location,” said Paul during the interview.

Questions from the audience concerned foreign language shows. Right now there are more than 29 non-English languages spoken in Rhode Island said a presenter, and commercial radio serves maybe five of them. 101.1 may be able to cover some of that gap.

Another question concerned BMI and ASCAP, music licensing groups that AS220 is currently boycotting. Will that boycott extend to 101.1?

“No, it will not extend to 101.1. BMI/ASCAP do not collect radio licensing fees, was the answer.

In the immediate future the station needs money, fundraising, organizing and marketing. An Indiegogo fundraising campaign is planned for January, and the groups will need help putting together a video for that campaign.

All in all, this is an exciting opportunity for Providence, said Dymoke of PCR, but, “if we fumble it, we don’t get another chance.”

2015-11-12 Community Radio Sonic Watermelons

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PawSox Stadium opponents film music video outside McCoy http://www.rifuture.org/pawsox-stadium-opponents-film-music-video-outside-mccoy/ http://www.rifuture.org/pawsox-stadium-opponents-film-music-video-outside-mccoy/#respond Sun, 06 Sep 2015 02:20:39 +0000 http://www.rifuture.org/?p=51990 2015-06-05 McCoy Sing-a-Long 012On Saturday morning over 75 people assembled outside McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket to sing a slightly altered version of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” for a video planned to protest moving the Pawtucket Red Sox to a proposed new stadium in Providence. Director Murray Scott lead the crowd in singing the song, from cue cards, four times as volunteers stopped traffic. Surprisingly, none of the drivers of any of the cars evidenced anything but support for the effort, despite the inconvenience of being stopped. instead drivers honked horns, waved, or gave thumb’s up to the efforts of the singers.

Despite what appears to be recent victories for stadium opponents in the form of RI Speaker of the House Nicholas Mattiello‘s admission that a deal with Brown University and the City of Providence seems unlikely, organizers Tim Empkie, Sharon Steele and David Norton all feel that the pressure needs to be kept on.

Murray Scott says that the video made today will be premiered in a couple of weeks on the Motif Magazine and GoLocal Prov news sites. In the meantime, below is a preview.

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Post Office dedicated to Sister Ann Keefe http://www.rifuture.org/post-office-dedicated-to-sister-ann-keefe/ http://www.rifuture.org/post-office-dedicated-to-sister-ann-keefe/#respond Mon, 27 Jul 2015 12:03:03 +0000 http://www.rifuture.org/?p=50492 DSC_6687Sister Ann Keefe “was not a saint, she was better than that. She was human,” said her sister Kathy Keefe to an impressive crowd of 200 people at the newly christened Sister Ann Keefe Post Office at 820 Elmwood in Providence. Sister Ann, a community activist who started or helped to start nearly two dozen organizations in the service of social justice, including the Institute for the Study and Practice of Nonviolence, ¡City Arts! for Youth and AIDS Care Ocean State died earlier this year from brain cancer. She was 62. The post office, located in South Providence, a community that Sister Ann served so passionately during her lifetime, was named in her honor.

US Representative David Cicilline introduced the legislation that began the process of renaming the building in Sister Ann’s honor in February. In the present political climate, said Cicilline, even getting a bill like this passed presented difficulties. Representative James Langevin cosponsored the bill, and Senators Sheldon Whitehouse and Jack Reed pursued the legislation in the Senate. Ultimately, President Barrack Obama signed H.R. 651 into law in May. Thus, the Sister Ann Keefe Post Office became the first US Post Office named for a nun.

Senators Whitehouse and Reed were not at the dedication ceremony, having been called back to Washington to vote on a transportation/infrastructure bill, but Cicilline and Langevin, along with other many elected officials, were eager to put in an appearance at the event, a tribute to Sister Ann’s influence.

The best parts of the dedication ceremony were the tributes from Sister Ann’s family and the community she served. Her biological sister, Mary Blanchet, read a letter to Sister Ann, recalling memories from their lives. Another sister, Kathy Keefe, read a poem from A.A. Milne.

Elijah Matthews read an award winning poem written by his sister, Victoria Matthews about Sister Ann. Elijah was introduced by his mother, Pamela Matthews. Victoria Matthews was at a sorority event out of town. Elijah’s reading of the poem earned a well deserved standing ovation.

The ¡City Arts! Bucket Drummers and the Saint Michael’s Community Choir provided the music.

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RI Music Hall of Fame is poised to honor the best http://www.rifuture.org/ri-music-hall-of-fame-is-poised-to-honor-the-best/ http://www.rifuture.org/ri-music-hall-of-fame-is-poised-to-honor-the-best/#respond Fri, 02 May 2014 17:00:32 +0000 http://www.rifuture.org/?p=34970 Continue reading "RI Music Hall of Fame is poised to honor the best"

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TavaresBWArthur “Pooch” Tavares, with nearly 60 years in the music business, continues to reach out to his old fans and to new generations as well. The 70 year old Tavares is still performing about 75 concerts a year all over the world with three of the brothers (Perry “Tiny,” Antone “Chubby” and Feliciano “Butch”) who made up the original quintet which became know worldwide as simply Tavares. (Fifth brother Ralph retired from the road in the 1980s.)

The brothers grew up in the Fox Point and South Side neighborhoods of Providence and Tavares says, “The good lord has seen fit to keep us all together.” The most notable moment he remembers from his long career is when The Bee Gees gave his group “More Than A Woman,” one of the key songs in the score to Saturday Night Fever, for which they won a 1977 Grammy Award. But running a close second is being inducted into the Rhode Island Music Hall of Fame

“It’s quite an honor to be recognized for your music in the place where you were born,”  states Tavares.

With just two weeks to go until the induction of this year’s class into the Rhode Island Music Hall of Fame (RIMHOF) on May 4, at The Met at the historic Hope Artiste Village, Vice Chair Rick Bellaire gives this columnist the details about those who are being recognized as Rhode Island’s best.

In announcing the RIMHOF Class of 2014, Bellaire says, “This initiative provides a great opportunity to acknowledge Rhode Island’s musical greats and celebrate their achievements and now we finally have an organization whose primary goal is to promote and preserve our state’s rich musical heritage. With actual exhibit space, coupled with our online archive, we have in place the tools to curate and showcase the best of Rhode Island’s musical artistry.”

Bellaire notes that it’s sometimes easy to forget, and even hard for some to believe, that such world-acclaimed artists actually have roots right here in Ocean State. “For the smallest state, Rhode island has produced an inordinately large number of truly great, successful and important artists and their devoted local fans helped to place them on the world stage. Tavares is a case in point.”

According to Bellaire, from their earliest days in the Fox Point neighborhood of Providence, it was clear the seven Tavares brothers were born to make music. They are recognized as pioneers in the evolution of R&B from the Soul era into the modern Funk and Disco movements of the ’70s and ’80s. They had over a dozen major hits and won a Grammy for “More Than A Woman,” their contribution to Saturday Night Fever. “But,” says Bellaire, “the best part of the Tavares story for me is not about how great they are or how successful they are. Everyone knows that. For me its about their journey. They worked really hard to get to the top. Their story will continue to inspire young musicians for decades to come.” Tavares will appear in concert on May 3 at Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel.

Bellaire provides some background on the other new RIMHOF inductees:

The Castaleers are recognized as the state’s Rhythm & Blues trailblazers. They came together in the mid-1950s when members of various groups formed a permanent lineup consisting of Richard Jones (later replaced by Joe Hill), George Smith, Dell Padgett, Ron Henries and Benny Barros. In partnership with songwriters/producers Myron and Ray Muffs, they had four national releases and paved the way for the rest of Rhode Island’s R&B greats.

Paul Gonsalves of Pawtucket started out playing tenor sax in big bands including Count Basie’s. As a master of many styles, he became a pivotal figure in the evolution of post-war modern jazz. He joined Duke Ellington in 1950 and provided a crucial ingredient in the modernization of Duke’s sound. His place in the history books was guaranteed by his famous 27 chorus improvisation on “Diminuendo and Crescendo In Blue” at the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival.

Randy Hien of Woonsocket entered the music business in 1971 when he took on the job of reopening the old Loew’s State Theatre as The Palace in downtown Providence to present Rock ’n’ Roll concerts. When the Palace closed 1975, Randy purchased the original Living Room on Westminster Street by trading the keys to his Jaguar XKE for the keys to the club and the liquor license. He kickstarted Rhode Island’s original music scene by instituting a policy which welcomed bands who performed their own music. The club became the center of the state’s music scene and Randy its biggest supporter

Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra founder and conductor emeritus Francis Madeira initially came to Providence to teach music at Brown University in 1943. Finding no professional symphonic orchestra, he created one bringing together a 30-member ensemble that would bring the music of the European masters to the Ocean State. Maestro Madeira will be inducted into RIMHOF on May 10 during a performance by the Philharmonic at Veterans Memorial Auditorium in Providence.

Winston Cogswell of Warwick,was literally present at the birth of Rock ’n’ Roll after moving to Memphis, Tennessee in 1954. At Sun Records, as a guitarist, pianist, songwriter, arranger, producer and recording artist under the name “Wayne Powers,” he collaborated with some of the most important figures in music history including Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Roy Orbison. He returned to Warwick in 1960 and began working with pianist/composer Ray Peterson. The duo formed Wye Records with a third partner, engineer Ken Dutton, and their debut release as The Mark II, “Night Theme,” became a national hit. Wye remains the only Rhode Island label to score a Hot 100 hit.

By the end of the 1960s, Duke Robillard of Woonsocket had already earned a reputation as one of the finest blues guitarists in the state after stints with  the short-lived original lineup of Roomful of Blues and Ken Lyon’s Tombstone Blues Band. In 1970, he reformed Roomful with a three-piece horn section to play jump blues and under his leadership, the band practically single-handedly revived the genre with two albums for Island Records. In the early 1980s, Duke began to pursue a solo career at Rounder Records. His jazzier side emerged with the release of “Swing” in 1987 to critical acclaim. “Duke recently told me he feels that, in music, blues is the universal language,” says Bellaire. “So I say, Duke Robillard is fluent in many languages!”

Freddie Scott of Providence  moved to New York in 1956 and began his career as a songwriter for Don Kirshner working alongside to Carole King, Neil Sedaka and Paul Simon. His songs from this period were recorded by Ricky Nelson, Paul Anka, Tommy Hunt and Clyde McPhatter. Freddie entered the charts as a singer himself in 1963 with “Hey Girl” written by his friends Carole King and Gerry Goffin. It hit Billboard’s Top 10 and is considered a classic today.  In 1966, he scored a #1 R&B song with “Are You Lonely For Me.” His last album was “Brand New Man” in 2001.

In 1976, Cheryl Wheeler moved to Rhode Island to pursue a career in music on the Newport folk scene. She was quickly recognized as one of the finest songwriters and singers to surface in a decade or more. In 1986, her first album brought her national attention. Her song “Addicted” was taken all the way to #1 on Billboard’s Top 40 Country chart by superstar Dan Seals in 1988. Since then, she has released a series of albums of her comic and emotionally intense songs which are considered singer-songwriter classics around the world. Says Bellaire, “Cheryl is a treasure. Her songs are perfect – every note and every word propels the story forward. She’s also a masterful performer. She can have you in tears one minute and rolling in the aisle the next. Every show is magical.”

 RIMHOF Chair Bob Billington says, “This year’s honorees are amazing. Their histories in music are superior. Rhode Islanders should meet and greet them in person at our events. They will not be disappointed.”

Tickets for the Saturday, May 3 Tavares concert at Lupo’s and for the induction ceremonies and concert on Sunday, May 4 at The Met can be purchased at www.rhodeislandmusichalloffame.com.

          Herb Weiss, LRI ’12, is a Pawtucket writer who covers aging, health care and medical issues.  He can be reached at hweissri@aol.com. He also serves on RIMHOF’s Board of Directors.

]]> http://www.rifuture.org/ri-music-hall-of-fame-is-poised-to-honor-the-best/feed/ 0 Ticket fairness: Fix it or fail it http://www.rifuture.org/ticket-fairness-fix-it-or-fail-it/ http://www.rifuture.org/ticket-fairness-fix-it-or-fail-it/#respond Thu, 24 Apr 2014 18:03:37 +0000 http://www.rifuture.org/?p=34881 Continue reading "Ticket fairness: Fix it or fail it"

]]> ticketsOn the surface, the Ticket Fairness Act, pending in the General Assembly, looks like a consumer protection act that hurts the scalpers. In reality, it is exactly the opposite. As written, the law allows venues and ticket agents to transfer to themselves any quantity of tickets to resell at inflated prices.

As with many things in Rhode Island politics, it’s not so much what the bill says as what it doesn’t say. By comparing the RI bill—which is nearly identical to legislation pushed in other states by the dominant ticketing agent, Ticketmaster—to New York state’s law, considered the gold standard for actual consumer protections, we can see how our legislators are foisting upon us yet another thinly-veiled ripoff.

Hot scalper-on-scalper action!

“The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There’s also a negative side.”

~ Hunter Thompson

Dr. Gonzo only says this because it’s 100% true. This is a story where there are no “good guys”.

The genesis of this legislation is that Ticketmaster and their cronies (Live Nation and Ticket Exchange) are watching other, equally evil entities (StubHub) make giant amounts of money to which they feel entitled. It’s not that they actually want to protect the general public from getting ripped off. It’s that they want to be the ones that do it.

The amount of money in this shallow trench is stupefying, easily enough to motivate the most heinous behavior. That two gangs would fight over controlling it should surprise nobody.

A ticket to a hot concert at the Dunk can sell for 10 or 20 times the face value. If you can get your hand on 1,000 tickets for $50 and resell them for $500, that’s $450,000 in pure profit for basically doing nothing. That’s roughly half a million bucks for one night’s ripoff.

The RI bill does, in fact, make it much harder for StubHub to get their hands on large blocks of tickets. At the same time, it virtually guarantees that either the venue or the ticket agent will sell themselves large blocks of tickets to scalp at outrageous prices.

Are Johnny and Jenny Music Fan protected in any way? Absolutely not.

How a true entertainment capital handles this

In RI, we have maybe three or four venues that attract shows worth the attention of big-time scalpers. In New York City, that’s one block on Broadway. No other place in the US has more invested in a thriving entertainment sector than New York. Not Branson, MO; not Nashville; not Memphis; not even Las Vegas.

New York state has a comprehensive law to regulate ticket sales and resales that truly protects the general public. This law—Article 25—contains provisions that the RI bill lacks. By adding these provisions to the RI bill, the GA could actually do something good for the people of RI.

Specifically, Section 25.30 regulates not ticket resellers but the original sellers, called “operators” in their law and “issuers” in the RI bill. 25.30.3 states:

No operator or operator’s agent shall sell or convey tickets to any secondary  ticket  reseller  owned  or  controlled  by  the operator or operator’s agent.

24 words; problem solved. We find no such provision in the RI bill, but any legislator could introduce such an amendment.

You know what? Bunk that. It shouldn’t be any legislator; it should be Senator Josh Miller, who somehow is a co-sponsor in the senate. Your Frymaster is actually quite disappointed in the feisty Cranstonian that he could be bamboozled to such an extent.

As a savvy business professional, working specifically in the Downcity nightlife sector, one has to wonder how this multi-venue owner could not see through these shenanigans. And it’s much better for all of us if the question is “how” and not “why”.

Senator Miller, please fix this bill or withdraw your support and act to defeat it.

Addendum: E-tickets

Others on the left make an equally strong argument that the “any ticketing means” provision of the RI bill only serves to let venues and agents control resale by regular ticket buyers. This is true, but not the focus of this post. Interested readers can find the fix for this particular nastiness in NY 25.30 (c) that specifies that ticket buyers must be able to control resale of their tickets without interference by the venue or agent.

 

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David Byrne’s song for the One Percent http://www.rifuture.org/david-byrnes-song-for-the-one-percent/ http://www.rifuture.org/david-byrnes-song-for-the-one-percent/#comments Wed, 16 Oct 2013 10:49:24 +0000 http://www.rifuture.org/?p=27724 Continue reading "David Byrne’s song for the One Percent"

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David ByrneFormer Talking Heads frontman David Byrne’s recent article in the Guardian lamenting the impact of streaming services like Spotify has appeared one too many times on my social media timelines to spare you all the following rant. In brief, the piece reveals Byrne as a one-percenter with no real sense of the lives and needs of the 99 percent of musicians and artists in the US.

No, I won’t be making the obvious you-kids-get-off-my-lawn argument. Too easy. Nor will I discuss the qualities of Byrne’s music that might make him concerned about his earning power as he ages.

Rather, this essay discusses copyright laws, the structure of the music industry at various levels and how David Byrne’s zero-point-one percent problem is the desirable outcome of the largely democratizing impact of the Internet on the musical arts. As I often try to do, I’ll add a punchline.

The Talking Heads Catalog Should be Free

Early in the article, Byrne announces that he’s removed as much of his catalog as he can from streaming services. If I were a cynical PR hack, I might think that this article was an explanation to his fan base about why they might not be able to get Artists Only on Spotify anymore. This, in and of itself, is a one percent give-away.

Surely, it’s the Talking Heads catalog and not his later solo work that is streaming at high levels and, as he sees it, depriving him of his deserved revenues. He can thank two extreme conservatives for the privilege of making this argument: Walt Disney and Sonny Bono.

According to the Statute of Anne, the English law from 1710 that is the basis of modern copyright law, all Talking Heads music published before 1985, essentially all of it, would today be in the public domain. The Statute of Anne provided 14 years copyright protection from the time of creation, with an additional 14-year extension if the creator is still alive. 77 + 28 = 105, thus the first Talking Heads record released in 1977 would have entered the public domain around 2005. All the good stuff – the Eno stuff – would be free.

As material in the public sector, these songs could freely be played, covered, added to, sampled, etc., and one could argue that it would keep Talking Heads music a relevant part of the ongoing artistic conversation. Instead, assuming that various composers live past 2030 (just 17 years from now), then this music will not enter the public domain until the late 21st or early 22nd century, depending on authorship. Thanks to the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998, protections last 70 years after the death of the creator or 95 years from publication for corporate (group) creators.

So marking the 22nd century as the next time Talking Heads music will be a relevant part of the artistic conversation assumes, probably wrongly, that Congress won’t extend the term again as we approach the magic 70 years after Walt Disney’s death. That’s 2036, if you’re keeping score at home.

The new and radically progressive English parliament created the Statute of Anne to encourage creators to create, to provide a financial incentive for them and not the publishers, who tended to censor the content available to the public. Thus the limited term sought to reward creators for a reasonable period and then allow the public free access to do with the material what they would. In this regard, it is one of the most progressive laws ever created.

The framers of the Constitution patterned US copyright law on the Statute of Anne, enshrining in the Constitution that copyright would be for a “limited period.” Legend is that Rep. Sonny Bono (R-CA) once argued that copyright should be forever. When informed that this was unconstitutional, he suggested that it be “forever minus one day.”

As it stands today in the US, publishers enjoy nearly complete control over the material available to the public. Or they did, until the Internet happened.

“Because a Record Label Believed in Us”

“I can’t deny that label support gave me a leg up,” Byrne states, while simultaneously admitting that it’s not a requirement. Indeed, Metallica – one of the biggest Internet haters of all – grew their fan base organically with live performances and self-produced records sold by mail-order. Granted, Metallica was a heavy-metal band back then, so it’s apples-and-oranges. But I digress.

Byrne argues rightly that services like Pandora and Spotify make most of their payouts to record labels and that the labels usually keep most of this for themselves. What he doesn’t say is that this is no different from any other kind of sale of label-managed music. From the dawn of the industry, most publishers have taken advantage of desperate and/or poorly-informed artists.

In all likelihood, Byrne was one of these. When Byrne talks about pulling as much of his catalog as he can, he intimates that some of the material – most likely the early and high-quality TH material – is out of his and probably the other band members’ control. Its the most common trick in the record label book to give artists a big advance with an unrealistically short repayment window so that they forfeit their rights for non-payment.

Labels are similarly famous for not paying artists according to contracts. I heard a story once of a CPA in LA who specialized in auditing record labels on behalf of artists. After hundreds of audits over more than a decade, he found zero instances where labels had fairly compensated artists. Not a single one.

One might wonder if Byrne is under a gag order not to defame his current or past labels, but only Byrne, the labels and the NSA know for sure.

Byrne makes passing allusions to things like live performances and sales of non-music items like t-shirts, but the basic premise of his article is that musical artists generate the majority of their income from sales of recordings. This is the one percent give-away. In fact, it’s more likely that just one tenth of one percent of musical artists make the majority of their income from recordings. As a local reference, Deer Tick would likely be in this group.

The second zero-point-nine percent cobble together income from small-venue performances and merchandise sales to make such meager existence as they can. The Low Anthem, whom I’ve come to know to some extent recently, are signed to a significant label – Nonesuch. But they are in this second point-nine percent, needing strong performance revenue to make ends meet.

The 99 percent of musicians have other jobs. Even a band as apparently successful as Roz Raskin and the Rice Cakes all have jobs. I know this because I patronize the shop where Roz and drummer Casey work. (Magma video…teh awesome.)

Technology and the Democratization of Music

So where is Mr. Byrne on these issues? 1977, apparently. The reason that fewer and fewer musicians make significant revenue from recordings is not the Internet itself; it’s the value of recorded music, which is significantly lower than it was before two key technological changes altered the equation.

At $0.99, the price of a “single” recording is lower than it was. But that lower price is due to an enormously expanded supply of such recordings.

When the labels could control what and how much music the public could access, they did so by virtue of the high costs of creating a recording and the significant logistical challenges of distributing that recording on even a regional basis. Under such an arrangement, signed artists like Byrne could benefit greatly, if they were savvy enough to protect their interests. The 99.9 percent had to keep their day jobs.

Since 1977, that second point-nine percent has entered the market, increasing by 900% (assuming these rough estimates) the number of options available to the music consumer. It’s supply-and-demand revolution, enabled by the combination of cheap, high-quality recording technology and free/freemium, Internet-based distribution outlets like Bandcamp, Soundcloud and Spotify. As an added benefit, it eliminated the labels from the equation.

Thus, for 90% of the content providers that use them, these streaming services act as their primary marketing vehicle to drive sales at their live shows. This, Mr. Byrne, is the modern music industry for almost everybody. You and the people you know are the elite.

Where are you, Mr. Byrne, on issues like universal health care that would make it so that we wouldn’t need to hold charity drives when one of our own gets leukemia? Where are you, Mr. Byrne, on the issue of living wage, which would make it possible for a person to have a decent half-time job that provides subsistence such that they could play music as a second career? Where are you, Mr. Byrne, on cutting back on the outrageous copyright laws that enable the tyranny of the labels against which you rail so meekly.

Oh, that’s right…you’re not a US citizen. (I should note that Byrne’s native UK government went even farther than the US government in its most recent copyright shenanigans, actually reinstating copyrights and thus removing material from the public domain. This villainy shames the parliamentary institution as nothing else can. Queen Anne would puke.)

And the Punch Line…

Byrne’s previous article in the Guardian…?

If the 1% stifles New York’s creative talent, I’m out of here.

Here’s your coat. What’s your hurry?

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What’s really wrong with the master lever http://www.rifuture.org/whats-really-wrong-with-the-master-lever/ http://www.rifuture.org/whats-really-wrong-with-the-master-lever/#comments Mon, 15 Apr 2013 04:12:39 +0000 http://www.rifuture.org//?p=21804 Continue reading "What’s really wrong with the master lever"

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Bob Plain has spent a lot of time in a back and forth with Ken Block about the issue of eliminating the straight-party option (a.k.a. master lever), even bringing in Speaker Gordon Fox to defend its place on the ballot. I’d like to move the debate away from questions of political motivation and toward some facts. My argument is simple; the straight-party option discriminates against the elderly, African-Americans, those with less-education, and those with less experience using technology.

Voting is the interaction of four factors; the voter, the ballot, the machine used to tabulate the results, and the institutions governing the election. Typically studies about how voters behave have to rely on aggregate level data because of the secret ballot. As I will show later we now have micro-level information about voter behavior that will demonstrate problems with the straight-party option, particularly for some groups of voters.

In Rhode Island state law dictates that a paper ballot be used and the names of candidates be arranged by office [referred to in the literature as an office bloc ballot compared to the older party-column design].  Paper ballots are the only way to produce a truly verifiable trail for recounts (though Carlos Tobon can attest other changes in state law are needed to ensure that) and RI shouldn’t consider moving away from their use. There is no better system for verifying the results than the use of paper.

State law also requires use of an optical scanner to tabulate the results. While there are advantages to touch screen voting, particularly for accessibility, optical scanners with the requisite paper ballots are much better than black box touch screen systems. Optical scanners are by no means infallible, just read this scary report from the Brennan Center to see why we need to start auditing the results of our scanners.

The final pieces of the puzzle are our institutional structures. Typically in a Rhode Island election you have a number of different offices (federal, state, local) and ballot questions (state and local) that are a result of the many institutions that govern us. This too plays into why the straight party option is harmful.

Straight-party voting becomes a problem because of the interaction of those four factors.  Optical scanners, for all their positive properties, cannot tell the voter that they have made an inadvertent error on the ballot.  One of the few redeeming qualities of the old mechanical voting machines (sometimes referred to as the lever machines) was that when you pulled the actual “master lever” the only way you could bullet vote was to physically undo your vote for an office and then bullet vote (see pictures) and if you undervoted for it was literally staring you in the face.

Machine with straight-party option not selected.
Machine with straight-party option selected.
Machine with straight party overridden.

Compare the old machine to the current paper ballot (see pictures below).  With the new ballots and scanners if you chose the straight party option nothing on the ballot will tell you what choices you made (or did not make) further down the ballot.  And if you make a change, the ballot does not indicate what impact that might have on other parts of the ballot.

Paper ballot with straight party option not selected.
Paper ballot with straight party option selected.
Paper ballot with straight party option overridden.

Of course because of the secret ballot we cannot know what the voter was really thinking when they used the straight party option and whether what we perceive to be undervotes and errors are intentional.

Fortunately, social science comes to the rescue.  Several political scientists conducted an extensive experiment funded by the National Science Foundation (funding attacked recently in an amendment born out of the ignorance of Senator Tom Coburn) using the same type of ballot and brand of scanner (albeit a newer model) that we have here in Rhode Island.[1]  Because their work was experimental, they could interview voters and examine their ballots to determine if the voters’ expressed preference were captured in the tabulation and thus avoid the ecological inference problem.  And because they were using an experimental design they used a diverse set of participants and could test for how the interaction of ballot [similar in design to Rhode Island], machine [same brand, newer model than Rhode Island], institutions, and humans worked.

The best way to present the results is to quote directly from the authors:

 Our research demonstrates that ballot design matters. It influences the number of errors of commission—that is selecting an unintended candidate—and omission—so-called undervoting.  Voters who use standard office bloc ballots make fewer candidate-selection errors than those who use ballots with a straight-party option. These are the most serious type of error because not only do they deprive a candidate of a vote, they also give it to one of the candidate’s opponents. Wrong candidate errors also occur with substantial frequency—as the 2000 presidential election showed. Ballot style does not have a uniform effect on all voters. Older, less educated, and Black voters, are more likely to commit wrong candidate errors when using a ballot with a straight-party feature than a standard office bloc ballot. The same is true of voters who are using a specific voting system for the first time.[2]

Put into plain English, the researchers found that when using paper ballots with optical scanners and an office block ballot design, older, less-educated, African-Americans and those with less exposure to the optical scan voting machine all had more problems casting the correct vote when the straight-party option was available.  It’s not that they undervoted (failed to cast a vote down ballot), but they actually voted for a candidate other than the one they intended to vote for.  There were instances where the presence of the straight-party option led to undervotes, but that problem was minimized by the optical scan system, and dwarfed by the problem of actual errors being committed by the voters.

In Speaker Fox’s interview with Bob Plain he says, “you have to presume that they [voters] know what they are doing and that they are using the master lever.”  We believe that the analysis we highlight here shows that, unfortunately, many voters do not.  The mix of voters, ballot design, machine type and institutions we currently have just doesn’t work.

Hopefully providing this analysis allows us to move past the arguments about political motivation for removing the straight-party option.  Quite simply, its presence does a disservice to a significant number of voters by preventing them from having their true preferences recorded as a cast vote.  The bill to remove the straight party option has been “held for further study” once again this year.  We have provided all the “study” that is needed to prove that it’s time for it to go.


[1] Paul S. Herrnson, Michael J. Hanmer, Richard G. Niemi, The Impact of Ballot Type and Voting Systems on Voting Errors, April 2008, accessed at http://www.bsos.umd.edu/gvpt/apworkshop/herrnson-hanmer08.pdf.

[2] Ibid, pp. 20-21.

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Songs of Rage http://www.rifuture.org/16658/ http://www.rifuture.org/16658/#respond Thu, 13 Dec 2012 21:28:23 +0000 http://www.rifuture.org//?p=16658 Continue reading "Songs of Rage"

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“What do I know that would cause me, a reticent, Midwestern scientist, to get myself arrested in front of the White House protesting? And what would you do if you knew what I know?” With these questions James Hansen opens his riveting presentation Why I must speak out about climate change on TED. Hansen, whom the Bush administration tried to silence in one of their numerous attempts to change reality by denial, is known for his 1980s congressional testimony in which he started raising awareness of global warming and its threat to the biosphere.

I too start with questions: “What would cause us, upstanding seniors, to stand on street corners, dressed like fools, singing songs with our own, supposedly epoch-making Raging Granny lyrics? And, you who know what we know, what are you doing?”

Raging Grannies protesting. (Photo by Danielle Dirocco)

What, in fact, do I know that deeply concerns my inner scientist-grandfather? As Hansen explains, greenhouse gasses cover the Earth with a blanket that makes it absorb more solar power than it radiates back into space. To restore the energy balance, the Earth heats up as required by laws of physics, laws soon to be repealed by an ALEC inspired legislature near you.

Let Hansen speak:

The total energy imbalance now is about six-tenths of a watt per square meter. That may not sound like much, but when added up over the whole world, it’s enormous. It’s about 20 times greater than the rate of energy use by all of humanity. It’s equivalent to exploding 400,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs per day 365 days per year. That’s how much extra energy Earth is gaining each day. This imbalance, if we want to stabilize climate, means that we must reduce CO2 from 391 ppm, parts per million, back to 350 ppm. That is the change needed to restore energy balance and prevent further warming.

Those of us who are not addicted to this so-last-century medium called TV know the problems caused by global warming, but not all may realize the magnitude and frequency of the extremes that have ravaged the Earth during the last decades. Yes, we have seen the heat waves, the droughts, the wild fires, and the record breaking hurricanes and typhoons. But nothing is more variable than the weather! So, why should we be worried by a list like this? Indeed, no particular item is anything new under the Sun, but new is the frequency of extreme weather events. Hansen and coworkers[1] did the statistics and found —emphasis mine— that:

An important change is the emergence of a category of summertime extremely hot outliers, more than three standard deviations (3σ) warmer than the climatology of the 1951-1980 base period. This hot extreme, which covered much less than 1% of Earth’s surface during the base period, now typically covers about 10% of the land area. It follows that we can state, with a high degree of confidence, that extreme anomalies such as those in Texas and Oklahoma in 2011 and Moscow in 2010 were a consequence of global warming because their likelihood in the absence of global warming was exceedingly small. We discuss practical implications of this substantial, growing, climate change.

How does the focus-group driven world of denial, aka American politics, respond to this string of disasters? In an interview with Jessica Sites of In These Times indefatigable Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!’ comments:

We are the ones making that connection; the corporate media does not. In all three debates between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, do you know how many times the words ‘climate change’ came up? None.

Am I the only one who thinks that these so-called leaders should be tried for complicity in a conspiracy to commit genocide? It seems that to those of us who do not have their brains washed by the Supreme Courtisans of the Corporate States of America this should be a clear a case:

Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide: “(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;”

“Group” here refers to that half of humanity who cannot afford privatized, distilled water, and filtered, cold air, to be sold by the Corporations of Mass Destruction that own government.

Oh well, those ElecToon debates took place before we won the elections, which, as we all know, ended in a mandate for change, as they always do. Yet, somehow, we are wasting time on inane fiscal cliff theatrics. Why? To further the bipartisan program of shredding the social contract by unbridled privatization and imperial overreach, brought to us by the “world’s best military.” Indeed, as Major Ralph Peters describes it: “The de facto role of the US armed forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault. To those ends, we will do a fair amount of killing.”

Chief Sitting Bull (Tatanka Iyotake) diagnoses this sick conduct of the “developed” world like this:

Strangely enough, they have a mind to till the soil, and the love of possessions is a disease in them. These people have made many rules that the rich may break, but the poor may not! They have a religion in which the poor worship, but the rich will not! They even take tithes of the poor and weak to support the rich and those who rule. They claim this mother of ours, the Earth, for their own use, and fence their neighbors away from her, and deface her with their buildings and their refuse. They compel her to produce out of season, and when sterile she is made to take medicine in order to produce again. All this is sacrilege.

You can find this quote in Days of Destruction Days of Revolt, Chris Hedges’ and Joe Sacco’s agonizing account of their travels in “sacrifice zones,” those areas ruined in the name of unbridled profit, progress, and industrial advancement. This exchange between
Chris Hedges and Bill Moyers sums it up perfectly:

CHRIS HEDGES: There’s no way to control corporate power. The system has broken down, whether it’s Democrat or Republican. And because of that, we’ve all become commodities. Just as the natural world has become a commodity that is being exploited until it is exhausted, or it collapses.
BILL MOYERS: You call them sacrifice zones.
CHRIS HEDGES: Right.
BILL MOYERS: Explain what you mean by that.
CHRIS HEDGES: Well, they have the individuals who live within those areas have no power. The political system is bought off, the judicial system is bought off, the law enforcement system services the interests of power, they have been rendered powerless. You see that in the coal fields of Southern West Virginia.
[…]
And when we flew over the Appalachians, and it’s a terrifying experience, because you realize only then do you realize how vast the devastation is. Just as when we were both in the war in Bosnia, you couldn’t grasp the destruction of ethnic cleansing until you actually flew over Bosnia, and village after village after village had been razed and destroyed.

And the same was true in the Appalachian Mountains. And these people are poisoned. The water is poisoned, it smells, the soil is poisoned. And the people who are making tremendous profits from this don’t even live in West Virginia—

Of course, the World according to Peabody Coal Company and Bechtel Corporation, assisted by their flunkies of government by and for the Ruling Class was documented in Broken Rainbow(1985). Libraries have been filled with accounts of our colonial exploits. Indeed, in 1860 the Dutch writer known by his pen name Multatuli wrote about the former Dutch colonial sacrifice zone, today’s Indonesia, and lamented: “I told you, reader, that my story is monotonous.” Therefore, let us sing Songs of Rage by Grannies Marlies and Paige, and the Raging Grannies of Greater Westerly:

Miner’s Lament
(Tune of My Darling Clementine)

In the cabins
In the canyons
Live our families on the dole
They have asthma
They have cancer
And the wind blows black as coal

Oh my homeland
Oh my homeland
Oh my Blue Ridge Mountain home
Once I was a simple miner
Now the mountain tops are gone

With the treasures
In our valleys
We should all be millionaires
Corporations took our profits
Left the landscape scarred and bare

Oh my homeland
Oh my homeland
Oh my Blue Ridge Mountain home
You are lost and gone forever
And the mountain tops are blown
        (right off!)

Fiscal Cliff Talk
(Tune of Little Boxes)

Fiscal cliff talk as the globe warms,
Fiscal cliff talk as they dilly dally,
Fiscal cliff talk on the bube tube,
Fiscal cliff talk is a scam.
There’s the wild fires and the dust bowl,
And the heat waves and the hurricanes,
And the pols seem but to dilly dally,
And they all want just the same.

Fiscal cliff talk on the bube tube,
Fiscal cliff talk but to dilly dally,
Fiscal cliff talk, fiscal cliff talk,
Fiscal cliff talk is a scam.
There’s the Blue Dogs and the Red Dogs,
And the Dem talk and the Repub talk,
And they all seem but to dilly dally,
And they all want just the same.

See the people on the bube tube
Carry water for the ruling class,
Medicare cuts, Medicaid cuts,
Payoffs for gigantic greed.
And there’s home loans and there’s student loans,
And the debt collectors agencies,
‘Cuz the rich need their entitlements.
Let the common good be damned!

With austerity and with deep cuts,
They shall tear up social safety nets.
For all drama ’bout posterity,
Fiscal cliff talk is a scam.
With their pipelines and their tar sands,
They will sell off the environment,
But they don’t care ’bout posterity,
As they buy and sell the Earth.

1. Hansen, J., Mki. Sato, and R. Ruedy, 2012: Perception of climate change, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., 109, 14726-14727, E2415-E2423, doi:10.1073/pnas.1205276109.

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Reza Rites and RI Future at SXSW in Austin, TX http://www.rifuture.org/reza-rites-and-ri-future-at-sxsw-in-austin-tx/ http://www.rifuture.org/reza-rites-and-ri-future-at-sxsw-in-austin-tx/#respond Mon, 12 Mar 2012 18:38:29 +0000 http://www.rifuture.org//?p=3495 Continue reading "Reza Rites and RI Future at SXSW in Austin, TX"

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Heard of South by Southwest, but can’t be in Austin yourself? Pop in daily to “Take 5 with Reza Rites” on RIFuture.org for photos and live updates about her adventures at the annual festival – or follow her on Twitter and Facebook @rezaclif. Besides blogging for RI Future, Reza will be recording interviews and footage for an election-year multimedia project being released in June, “Rhode 2 Africa: Elect the Arts 2012.”

PROVIDENCE, RI & AUSTIN, TX – For those who don’t follow me or RI Future on Twitter (and I recommend that you do), you may have missed some pretty cool news: RI Future is going down to South by Southwest in Austin, TX – represented by me, Reza Rites!

Now, for those not quite sure about what SXSW is…

It’s only one of the biggest annual cultural festivals for techies, filmmakers, and musicians! And Reza Rites / RI Future won’t be the only New England folks there. So far I’ve received tips and tweets from peeps and tweeps about artists from Worcester, Providence, and Narragansett (Shane Hall, Soldiers of Life, Joe Fletcher and the Wrong Reasons, Boo City, and 5th Elament to name my current list) – and those are only local / regional folks!

I leave later this afternoon, but to get mentally prepared, I spent the last two weeks talking to representatives from Boo City and ERB about what to expect. To summarize their answers – it’ll be a big party.

So yes, I’ll be taking some of my music and dancing shoes out there because the DJ and music consumer in me can’t be silenced.  But if you know me or have been following my posts here on RIFuture.org, then you know that I view music as more than just gateway to fun. And my participation in SXSW could be no better demonstration than this.

Not only will I be in Austin blogging for RI Future and capturing the “cool,” I’ll also be down there talking about politics and election year 2012. That is because this trip represents the final phase of filming for a a multimedia project I began in October called “Rhode 2 Africa: Elect the Arts 2012” (R2A 2012).

Below is an excerpt about the film/series; for additional information, visit www.Rhode2Africa.wordpress.com or click here to access the information page. To make a donation toward the project to help me with producer and artist travel costs, equipment purchases, or staff supports, click here.

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Riders Against the Storm (RAS) is a husband-wife hip hop duo who relocated from Providence to Austin, bringing their political and social justice message right with them. They are participating in SXSW and they will be featured in Rhode 2 Africa: Elect The Arts 2012. Prior to moving, RAS participated in R2A Year One. 

ABOUT RHODE 2 AFRICA: ELECT THE ARTS 2012

There is room at every election to hear and examine new voices and ideas. This year is no different. As a matter of fact, as protesters part of Occupy Wall Street, and break-off movements like Women Occupy and Occupy The Hood have demonstrated, citizens across this country have grown tired of never hearing from the variety of voices making up the “99%.” Still, if you pay attention to major news outlets, you would think that the only people who care about the November elections are the all-white Republican candidates and their party followers.

One place in which you can hear alternative voices and views on politics is within the music community. Besides being heads of households, tax-payers, insurance-holders, and voters, there are many performers who play at political events, directly and indirectly endorsing candidates; hip hop artists who “rap” about reform and rebellion; and emerging and established artists who’ve performed at The Whitehouse.

Rhode 2 Africa: Elect the Arts 2012 is about sharing the voices of Black musicians engaged in this type of work. Standing in contrast to the limited news coverage we see daily, R2A will provide election 2012 coverage and awareness through conversations on race, politics and music.  Our goal is to make sure that diverse constituencies are motivated to vote in November and engaged in political conversations at the local, national, and global level.

***

CONTACT INFO

Reza Corinne Clifton:
“Reza Rites / Venus Sings / DJ Reza Wreckage”
rezaclif@gmail.com / 401-217-9680 / singsvenus@gmail.com

www.Rhode2Africa.wordpress.com / www.VenusSings.com /
www.RIFuture.org / www.IsisStorm.com /

Facebook & Twitter @rezaclif

NEXT STEPS

Learn more about R2A 2012 by clicking here and getting more information about the project, which is in-production and scheduled to be broadcast-ready and screening-ready in June, 2012.

Learn more about R2A Year One by clicking here to watch and listen to R2A Year One episodes.

Help fund the project by clicking here to make a donation toward the project to help with producer and artist travel costs, equipment purchases, and staff supports.

Tell a friend or potential sponsor/donor.

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