June 2008 Archives

(originally published 17 September 2007 here.)

Saturday night. The parking lot of a road house motel hard by the Aurora Bridge in Fremont. Of course, the ideal setting for a one-night-only art show before the blighted (by many) and beloved (by some) Bridge Motel gets torn in the name of "green building" and, yes, more town homes in Seattle.

Seemingly borrowing a page from the one day/one soon-to-be-demolished building/tons of bands Burn to Shine videos, D.K. Pan of the free sheep foundation and Mike Min of Seattle School put out a call to conceptual and performance artists to let loose on the Bridge. By about 10 PM, the place was overstuffed, but the fire marshals let the revelry continue (though they did ask that the fire in one of the rooms be put out).

Once the word was out the entire motel became a canvas. Tom Chapel covered a majority of the exterior with Basquiat-esque crowns. Robert Zverina laid out the largest version of his "Flattened Can Spiral," an urban take on the mandala.

At times the concept was a bit too, um, conceptual. I didn't quite get Dike Din's "Don't Come A-Knockin'," a van blasting TOOL and serving chicken. But a lone bed set up in the parking lot facing an ancient TV perched on a ratty dresser summed up the notion of "motel" quite succinctly. In the individual rooms, Studio IoUP's intricate spider web, "8 Legs," worked on multiple levels, and Paul Rucker's hands-on music/video mash-up piece was a personal highlight.

A couple days removed and a notion still kicking in my head is that of memory. By the end of this week, if not sooner, the Bridge will be razed and those looking for a one month, one week, one hour stop-over will need to continue north on 99. Fifty-five years from now (the Bridge was erected in 1952), will the to-be-built town homes still exist? The Motel "moment" ended around midnight Saturday, but lives on via stories, flickr, newspaper articles and beyond. So-called "Pop-Up Stores" may have already had their 15 minutes of fame. Anyone remember them?

(originally published 12 October 2007 here.)

A thousand congrats, Mr. Nobel Laureate. Well deserved, and I feel you've only just begun the current phase of your public life. So, please, please, please, a thousand times please DO NOT throw your hat into the Democratic primary ring for the Presidency.

I've seen the movie. I saw you present the slide show at Key Arena. (BTW, did you offer that woman a job who handed you her résumé during Q&A?) I stayed up until the middle of the night to watch the Ghosties rock the Sydney stage during Live Earth. I use CFL bulbs at home, carry around a travel coffee mug featuring one of Don Cherry's loud suits, have plastic tumblers at my desk for the water cooler, reduce, reuse, recycle, and take the bus.

And yes, I also saw the NY Times ad this week from Draft Gore.

Even though I have no doubt that you could "re-invent" -- to use a trite term -- the Presidency, you long ago expanded your bully pulpit beyond the Rose Garden. To wit: author, new media entrepreneur, Academy Award recipient, corporate board member, inventor (well, maybe not that last one, but thanks for the internet, just in case!). And, most importantly, public intellectual. While some may still be disappointed in a lack of fire in your belly in and around a certain date in November 2000, your grace afterwards was inspirational to me. Four years later you opted out of the national election and I hope you do the same this time as well.

Many people spend their entire lives searching for their true calling, changing the color of their parachutes. You've found it. Keep challenging, keep speaking, keep exhorting, keep enlightening. Keep off of the campaign stump.

(originally posted 5 December 2007 here.)

They couldn't find a typeface that was bold enough to take her...to borrow liberally from one of Jenny's countless clever and intelligent lyrics.

Jenny Toomey, former Simple Machines Records co-founder, former singer/songwriter for Tsunami, former Liquorice whip, former founder and Executive Director of the Future of Music Coalition, former DC punk, is going to the Ford Foundation as Program Officer for Media and Cultural Policy. All this and she's not yet 40. Whew!

The first two descriptors in her bio are "intellectual" and "activist" though I think the one that's missing is "educator," to say nothing of "inspiring." The Mechanics Guide, a book written and distributed via Simple Machines was a how-to primer for musicians about producing and distributing (and getting paid for) their craft. The Future of Music Coalition's web site is a treasure trove of plain-spoken explanations about Congressional rulings, the changing media ownership landscape, music economics, copyright in the digital world and much more.

Far from just being an NPR underwriter, the Ford Foundation has been disbursing grants and loans for more than 50 years to groups and individuals that exemplify the Foundation's mission:

• Strengthen democratic values,
• Reduce poverty and injustice,
• Promote international cooperation and
• Advance human achievement.

At the Foundation, the Media and Cultural Policy division's work "strengthens free and responsible media that address important civic and social issues, and promotes policies and regulations that ensure media and information systems serve the public's diverse constituencies and interests" as well as "increase[s] opportunities for cultural and artistic expression for people of all backgrounds." From her educational, professional and personal experience, she should be phenomenally suited for this role.

Best of luck Jenny and thanks for not being a loadhog all this time.

(originally published 2 October 2007 here)

Radiohead are about to launch an interesting experiment; the latest in a series of attempts to uncover a new revenue model for the music industry. Next Wednesday, October 10th, the band's latest album, In Rainbows, will be released. Initially, it will only be available as a digital download, and purchasers will decide what they want to pay. No, really, you can pay Radiohead whatever you want to have access their newest tracks.

News bulletin: CD sales are sinking. OK, not so newsworthy.

Why? For one, there is a ton a free music to be had quite easily via the internet: the still-popular file sharing programs like Limewire, bit torrent sites that specialize in audio and video full concert performances, the opportunity to stream music from everywhere - be it KCRW's renowned show "Morning Becomes Eclectic" or what's hot in Croatia right now - or be your own DJ on countless sites including lastfm and Live365, and the unlimited exposure to new music through Pandora's Music Genome Project.

Oh, and then there's that iTunes store. I know, iTunes song downloads aren't free, but its runaway success has both spawned others experimenting with both subscription and pay-per-song models(Rhapsody, Amazon, eMusic), and has certainly given the record industry pause about how it distributes and sells its "content."

So will the virtual tip jar work? For a while these proliferated on content web sites in the early '00's in an egalitarian (far-fetched?) hope that the effort put into the sites you visited on your employer's nickel were worth at least as much as the change from your latte that you tossed into your barista's counter cup adorned with some guilt-inducing and not terribly funny phrase. Perhaps the most lucrative tip-jar collector at the time was conservative columnist Andrew Sullivan's blog, but today he's sponsored in part by the Atlantic.

The cynic will point out that it doesn't matter, financially speaking, for Radiohead, one of the pop music universe's critical and commercial successes. In Rainbows will be released as a "traditional" CD to stores in early 2008, though the band is currently without a label. Should that matter? For the über-fan/collector, there is also a deluxe package including two CDs, one with additional tracks plus photos and original artwork, two vinyl discs with all of the same songs, plus a lyric book, another goodie or two and the download code to get digital files for the low, low price of £40, north of $80 at today's stellar dollar exchange rates.

I tip my hat to Radiohead's tip jar, exploring and expanding the boundaries for musicians to distribute and be compensated for that which gives me, and millions of others, untold joy. I also plan on filling the tip jar for my copy of In Rainbows. How much should I pitch in?