“Music of Athens” on Wikipedia

A friend sent me that link.  “Music of Athens” was yesterday’s featured article on Wikipedia.  I thought it would be nice for you to find out more about the Athens music scene, too.  Which famous bands come out of Athens?  What club’s does Athens offer?  Wikipedia offers the answers!

Guitar shop apprentice gone mad!

It’s late at night at the guitar shop.  Keller finally is alone;  his boss left him telling him to lock the door after he was done checking and tuning the new instruments.  Keller loves this time, when it’s just him and all the instrument in the shop.   It feels peaceful and somewhat unreal.  The hollow bodies of the instruments that pick up the tiniest noise and carry it on for several seconds give the shop a sense of infiniteness.  Keller picks up this huge 12-string guitar, a Guild that he loves so much.  He starts playing one of his favorite tunes when his eyes spotting the pile of loop stations he has to unpack tomorrow suddenly light up.

Corey Smith and The Future of Music

I am back in Athens for what is going to be my last semester at UGA.  I’ve spent the last three weeks traveling.  I went back to New Orleans for another visit this time without habitat work, spending Christmas with my girlfriend and her family and also spent some time in Kansas with my host parents from my high school year in 1997-1998.  I had a huge agenda and an array of books that I wanted to read.  Away from my college work environment, I ended up sleeping more than usual, playing a lot of cards and talking to people.  I did read two books though.  One of which “The Future of Music” by David Kusek and Gerd Leonhard was actually mentioned by the guest speaker in our first Music Business class of this semester.  Corey Smith told us how his career started and how this book influenced his way of thinking about music.  The book suggests that music should be treated and paid for like a utility like water or electricity.  It also states that file sharing is not as bad as the record companies and their law suits make it seem.  They have just never figured out how they can turn one of the strongest music distribution systems into a money making entity and thus have lost their previous control of the market.  Though I think that a lot of the things described in the book have already happened by now (it was published in 2005) it was nevertheless an interesting read.  Reading the book you will easily understand that Corey liked the book.

Dumpstaphunk & Inca Maya 12/8/08 @ the Georgia Theatre (Athens, GA)

After my visit to Fuzebox on Monday I decided to shed some of my accumulated energy that evening by getting out and going to the Georgia Theater to watch Ivan Neville’s Dumpstaphunk band.  Neville’s band was appearing along with another funky band called Inca Maya.  Since it snowed in New Orleans that day, a rare occurrence in that southern city, creating excitement for those folks and footage for news programs, I figured I would talk about Neville’s Band whose members missed the wintry white weather of their hometown and conversely heated up the stage here in Athens.

Fuzebox Inc. – Changing the Music Business Game?

While those working for the major labels are still trying to figure out how they can reassert control of the current music market, Les Ottolenghi and team seem to know the answer to that and proactively ponder the strategies that will be useful in future markets.  While Les concentrates on the business feasibility of different strategies, his team thinks more in bits and bytes.  Visiting Ottolenghi’s company, Fuzebox Inc., with Bruce Burch and Keith Perissi of the UGA Music Business Program, I was reminded of the Terminator ride at Orlando Universal Theme Park combined with the company Cyberdine Systems and its new Terminator technology.  Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not talking about any negative image that Cyberdine Systems may call up, I’m talking about the rush, excitement, and amazement that I felt viewing and learning about the goings-on at Fuzebox.

Recommended reading for your holidays – Feeds

I have only one more week left before I start all the traveling around Christmas. That makes me think about what to read over the holidays. The semester will be over, and I am ready to dump some of the MBA stuff in my brain into the garbage and replace it with some music business insights.  So, if you know a book that you think I  should really read, please go ahead and tell me.  Here is my recommendation for your holiday reading:

Create your own music business book.  After reading a blog story about the advantages of RSS-feeds for artists I realized how I use this technology myself already and want to share how you can do it, too.  First you need to find a feed reader.  I myself use Bloglines, but there are numerous others like Rssreader or Feedreader.  Now create an account in your feed reader and add the music business blogs that you want to follow into your reader.  Each time one of these bloggers posts a new message you will notice it in your feed reader and can check out a preview or possibly the whole post.  No more search marathons through your favorite blogs.  It’s all there!!!

Here is a small list of good music business blogs that will get you started:

When is “Club-Mate” coming to Athens?

I just had dinner and realized that I am really missing something from Germany here in Athens, GA.  It is time to bring one of the coolest drinks of the world to this music town.  Where is my Athens “Club-Mate” distributor???  Maybe I should do that.  I will write them now.  I will keep you posted what they say.

Check the “Club-Mate” US-website to find some more information about this incredible drink or go to its Wikipedia entry.

I wish they would pay me for this…

Lotus & Seepeoples 11/08/08 @ the Georgia Theatre (Athens, GA)

Is there a better way to end a Saturday night (or Sunday morning) than going to “The Grill” having the “Superbird” Sandwich?  I don’t think so.

That night Lotus stopped in Athens on their “Hammerstrike Tour” in order to promote their latest CD release of the same name.  The show was opened by a trio called Seepeoples – a band from North Carolina.  It is fair to say that the band was much better than its audience.  That is overly harsh, but Seepeoples really did a good job, while the audience slowly trickled in for Lotus with only a handful of people assembling in front of the stage.  The band’s style was very diverse often playing around with break beats, impulsive bass-lines, and an ice cold piercing Les Paul guitar sound.  As much as this band made jam related music they still sounded a lot like a pop band.  I liked it though!  What really threw me off was the style of Dan Ingenthron, their bass-player.  His right hand just looked insanely fast.

Lotus came on around 11.30 p.m. to start their two sets.  We had talked earlier because due to our Mars Mushrooms Japan experience Lotus and I had a mutual friend (for those of you who know, I am talking of Kengo from Freaky Machine).  Lotus has toured Japan twice already.  Kengo had helped both bands in Japan and is an important character in the Japanese jam band scene.  <!–[if gte mso 9]> Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE <![endif]–><!–[if gte mso 9]> <![endif]–>