Creative Caffeine: Nashville Recording Studio

Original notice from Jesse Cobb…

May 4th at 10:17pm
Stolen Instruments!

Hello friends, Shad Cobb of the John Cowan Band has suffered the loss of four instruments today. Shad has taken the news as only he could and is saddened by the loss but thankful and comforted by all the friends who have reached out to him today.

Sometime in the afternoon of Monday, May 4th, unknown thieves kicked in the back door of his little cabin home in the hood and made off with the following instruments. We would appreciate any help anyone could give in locating them. Unfortunately, we only have a serial number for one of the instruments and limited info on the fiddle and banjo. If you see these instruments for sale anywhere please contact me, Jesse Cobb at: mandocobb@hotmail.com.

1). Nashville Guitar Company. D size, mahogany guitar, very light colored wood on the top. serial# 03115. There is some finger near the bottom of the from posting fingers.

2). Approximately, four year old Bart Rider open back banjo. Shad thinks it was modeled after a White Lady banjo, with no distinguishing marks other than some wear on the head. Shad is trying to contact the builder get the serial number.

3). 7-8 year old Fairfax Abraham fiddle, with a Guarneri (spl?) label inside. The fiddle has a LR Baggs pickup installed and a bit of finish wear by the top of the fingerboard.

4). ‘98-’99 Ratliff F model mandolin. I used to own this one, it has major pick wear on the top, near the scroll. The fingerboard extension has been cutoff and there is a mark on the top where my saw slipped. There is also a repaired crack in the top f-hole. Dark sunburst finish.

Thanks for keeping an eye out for these instruments, wish we had some more information and will let you know if we get any more~JC

The Justice Department has begun an antitrust investigation into the proposed Ticketmaster/Live Nation merger. Many lawmakers, fans and artists believe that combining the two huge companies would result in unfair competition, giving one powerhouse too much control over the live entertainment industry.

Full Article:
Investigation Launches For Live Nation/Ticketmaster Merger : MusicRow

Martina McBride decided it was time for a change when she started contemplating her tenth studio album, set for release March 24 on longtime label home RCA Records. She says teaming with chart-topping producer Dann Huff to record Shine forced her out of her comfort zone and rekindled her creativity. “I think it was time to find somebody with a different, fresh perspective on my music,” she explains. “Creatively I have a renewed energy and I feel like this album reflects that.”

Full Article:
McBride Takes Fresh Approach To New Release : MusicRow

Virgin Entertainment Group North America (VEGNA), owner of the Virgin Megastores as well as three other retail outlets, is expected to close this summer. The company has been working on shuttering its Virgin Megastores in New York City and San Francisco for months. Other retail spaces in Orlando, Denver and Los Angeles will follow soon, with the liquidation process to be complete by summer. VEGNA was acquired by real estate companies the Related Cos. and Vornado in August 2007.

Original Article:
Virgin Stores Shuttering Completely : MusicRow

CC Media Holdings has reported a $5 billion fourth quarter loss due to a major change in the value of its assets such as radio licenses and other permits. CC Media Holdings is the vehicle used by Thomas H. Lee Partners and Bain Capital to privatize Clear Channel Communications last year in what was reportedly a $17.9 billion transaction. The $5 billion loss on revenues of $1.6 billion compares with a fourth quarter profit of $321 million on revenue of $1.9 billion in same period a year earlier. CC Media reports its radio revenue fell 13% in the fourth quarter and revenue from its Outdoor Advertising business dropped 16%.

Full Article:
Clear Channel Reports $5 Billion Loss : MusicRow

When’s the last time you heard someone say they walked up to Justin Timberlake, Taylor Swift or Eminem at a concert and bought a new CD directly from the artist? And, oh yeah, can you believe this, it was autographed right on the spot?

Believe that one and let me unload some shares of GM stocks on you today — for $500 a pop.

So lies a big difference in the rock, pop and Top 40 Country world compared to the stars of bluegrass. Indeed, you can walk right up to Dr. Ralph Stanley’s CD table at a festival, buy his latest release and have him sign it. Or, if you just happen to already have a copy that you didn’t buy at Doctor Ralph’s table full of goodies, no matter — the iconic Ralph Stanley will still oblige you with an autograph.

In a February online survey undertaken by the International Bluegrass Music Association, many respondents — 31 percent –said they most often purchase their recordings that way, directly from the artist or record label. That was topped only by the 42 percent of respondents who said the bought their CDs online from Web sites. Just over 13 percent buy their CDs in the mass retail market while another 10.5 percent get their recorded music products via direct mail.

Full Article:
Bluegrass fans put spin on CD-buying habits | BluegrassJournal.com

A cascading series of booked acts for the March 20 concert, scheduled to both kick off a year-long tribute to The Bluegrass Hotel, and raise funds for the American Cancer Society, have announced that they will not appear on the show. Sam Bush was the first to drop, followed almost immediately by John Cowan and Tony Rice.

These artists claim that necessary assurances and contract requirements for them to take part in the concert were never received, while the event promoter insists that these performers have reneged on prior agreements. The tone has turned ugly, with the following headline posted on the official Bluegrass Hotel website: Bluegrass Stars Jilt Major Charity.

Full Article:
The Bluegrass Blog: Bluegrass Hotel Turning Sour

Tradition is good, tradition is important. But just as no one expects rock ’n’ roll albums today to sound like the Sun and Chess records of the genre’s 1950s pioneers, the sonic tastes of bluegrass fans have evolved considerably since the seminal ’40s and ’50s recordings of Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys, Flatt & Scruggs’ Foggy Mountain Boys, the Osborne Brothers, the Sunny Mountain Boys, Ralph and Carter Stanley, and all the other greats who helped define the style. True, there is a certain romance to the gritty mono recordings that were usually cut with just a couple of microphones direct to disc: You can sometimes hear the fiddler or guitarist or mandolin player actually leaning in towards the mic for a solo, and you can feel how the band as a whole balances itself from moment to moment, both in relation to each other and with the soaring vocal harmonies that rise above the instrumental conversation of the ensemble. Good as those recordings might sound—and with today’s restoration techniques, many of them have literally never sounded better—they tend to be light on bass and guitar, somewhat imprecise on both the upper and lower registers of the mandolin, occasionally too ring-y on certain banjo notes, and lacking the ambient “air” that modern ears appreciate.

Full Article:
Recording Bluegrass Instruments Online Extra | Read the Full Recording Bluegrass Instruments May 2008 Mix Article

Music labels can breathe a sigh of relief after a jury concluded that sales through digital download stores like iTunes should be treated like CDs for the purposes of paying royalties.

Eminem’s former production team, F.B.T. Productions, sued Universal over the issue in 2007. The brothers behind F.B.T. claimed that, when Universal provided music to stores like iTunes, it was actually “licensing” the tunes to another distributor rather than distributing them itself.

The distinction makes a huge difference in the royalty rate: Eminem received a 12 percent royalty on CDs, which Universal distributed, but a 50 percent royalty whenever the music was “licensed.”

read entire article:
Eminem producers lose bid for massive iTunes royalties – Ars Technica

The Sizzling Sound of Music – O’Reilly Radar

Are iPods changing our perception of music? Are the sounds of MP3s the music we like to hear most?

Jonathan Berger, professor of music at Stanford, was on a panel with me at a meeting of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Mountain View, CA on Saturday. Berger’s presentation had a slide titled: “Live, Memorex or MP3.” He mentioned that Thomas Edison promoted his phonograph by demonstrating that a person could not tell whether behind a curtain was an opera singer or one of Edison’s cylinders playing a recording of the singer. More recently, the famous Memorex ad challenged us to determine whether it was a live performance of Ella Fitzgerald or a recorded one.

Berger then said that he tests his incoming students each year in a similar way. He has them listen to a variety of recordings which use different formats from MP3 to ones of much higher quality. He described the results with some disappointment and frustration, as a music lover might, that each year the preference for music in MP3 format rises. In other words, students prefer the quality of that kind of sound over the sound of music of much higher quality. He said that they seemed to prefer “sizzle sounds” that MP3s bring to music. It is a sound they are familiar with.

I remember wondering what audiophiles were up to, buying extremely expensive home audio systems to play old vinyl records. They put turntables in sand-filled enclosures with elaborate cabling schemes. I wondered what they heard in that music that I didn’t. Someone explained to me that audiophiles liked the sound artifacts of vinyl records — the crackles of that format. It was familiar and comfortable to them, and maybe those affects became a fetish. Is it now becoming the same with iPod lovers?

Our perception changes and we become attuned to what we like — some like the sizzle and others like the crackle. I wonder if this isn’t also something akin to thinking that hot dogs taste better at the ball park. The hot dog is identical to what you’d buy at a grocery store and there aren’t many restaurants that serve hot dogs. A hot dog is not that special, except in the right setting. The context changes our perception, particularly when it’s so obviously and immediately shared by others. Listening to music on your iPod is not about the sound quality of the music, and it’s more than the convenience of listening to music on the move. It’s that so many people are doing it, and you are in the middle of all this, and all of that colors your perception. All that sizzle is a cultural artifact and a tie that binds us. It’s mostly invisible to us but it is something future generations looking back might find curious because these preferences won’t be obvious to them.

On a related note, a friend commented recently that she doesn’t understand why people put up with such poor sound quality for phone calls on cell phones, and particularly iPhones. “I can hardly hear the person talking to me,” she said. “I don’t think smart phones are making any improvement to the quality of the phone call,” she added. “Is it not important anymore?” She wondered why people accepted such poor quality, and so did Jonathan Berger, but a lot of people just don’t hear it the same way.