Creative Caffeine: Nashville Recording Studio

Update: the bill has since been approved on a 14-4 vote.

The United States Congress returned to work this week, and senators appear to have copyright on the brain: A broad intellectual property enforcement bill introduced in July is slated for markup by the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday, and another aimed at cracking down on piracy overseas was introduced Wednesday.

Full Article:
Copyright bill blasted as “enormous gift” to Big Content

It’s been a depressing summer for the delusional record industry. We’re seeing a total disconnect between labels’ unrealistic, old-school revenue expectations and what the market can bear. On the streaming-music front, the sad reality is that advertising revenue may never fully support the music industry wishful-thinking profit margins.

Full Article:
How the Music Business Spent the Summer Killing Itself - Advertising Age - The Media Guy

Slipknot vocalist and frontman Corey Taylor says it’s time for the music industry to stop taking legal action against downloaders. He feels it is the labels themselves who are to blame for online piracy, since the quality of released music is so bad, no-one wants to buy it.

Full Article:
Slipknot Frontman Says Labels Cause Piracy | TorrentFreak

Greg Cahill, IBMA President/Board Chair spoke about the show’s return to the Ryman Auditorium ………

“The decision by the IBMA Board of Directors to move the Awards Show back to the Ryman Auditorium was twofold. Attendees at the annual World of Bluegrass convention, which includes the Awards Show, have consistently mentioned that they appreciated seeing the Awards Show in the hallowed Ryman Auditorium hall and the Board saw moving the show back to the Ryman as both a response to the wishes of the fans as well as an opportunity to make the show more conveniently accessible to the World of Bluegrass attendees, who can simply walk across the street from the convention center to the Ryman. Although there were more available seats at the Grand Ole Opry House, Awards Show attendees had to either drive to the facility or pay to take a shuttle from the convention center.

We are excited about once again having the IBMA Awards Show in the historic Ryman Auditorium and look forward to another wonderful show that will honor our award recipients and will include dynamic musical performances by many of the nominees.”

The award ceremony is scheduled for Thursday, October 2, 8:30pm CST.

The Bluegrass Blog » IBMA Awards Show returns to the Ryman: bluegrass music news

THE NOMINEES

for the

2008 INTERNATIONAL BLUEGRASS
MUSIC AWARDS

ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR

• Dailey & Vincent
• The Grascals
• Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver
• The Del McCoury Band
• Rhonda Vincent & The Rage

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UPDATE: Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart said Thursday night that Universal Music Publishing and Sony BMG have sent a cease and desist notice to the McCain-Palin campaign over their use of ‘Barracuda.’

Full Article:

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Heart condemns McCain-Palin use of ‘Barracuda’ « - Blogs from CNN.com

 While the niche may still be small measured against overall sales of recorded music, the surge of interest in vinyl — and, particularly, its rising cachet among young listeners — is providing a rare glimmer of hope in a hemorrhaging industry.

“Even if the industry doesn’t do all that well going forward, we could really carve this out to be a nice profitable niche,” said Bill Gagnon, a senior vice president at EMI Catalog Marketing, who is in charge of vinyl releases. He said that people who buy vinyl nowadays are charmed by the format’s earthy authenticity.

Link to Article:

Digg - Another Spin for Vinyl Records

Online music sales continue to skyrocket at the expense of CDs. iTunes continues to be the leader of the pack, too, not only in online sales, but music sales overall. But a small rebellion is brewing against iTunes as artists become disgruntled with the hit they’re taking on overall album sales thanks to the now-wildly-popular method of cherry-picking favorite tracks for download.

Full Article:

Album-loving artists blame iTunes for changed music tastes

The nominees for the 2008 Americana Music Association Honors and Awards have been announced, and as is usually the case, a number of bluegrass or bluegrass-related acts are in the running.

Alison Krauss and Robert Plant are nominated for Album Of The Year for their duet project, Raising Sand; Jim Lauderdale for Artist Of The Year; Chris Thile and Sam Bush for Instrumentalist Of The Year; Steeldrivers for New Emerging Artist Of The Year; Gone, Gone, Gone by Plant and Krauss for Song Of The Year; and Plant and Krauss for Duo/Group Of The Year.

Read the complete slate of nominees on the AMA web site.

The award winners will be announced on September 18, 2008 at the 7th Annual Americana Honors & Awards Show at The Ryman Auditorium in Nashville.

The show will be broadcast live on XM Satellite Radio, and taped for a later rebroadcast on Sirius Satellite Radio and BBC2 Radio.

The Bluegrass Blog » AMA nominations include bluegrass artists: bluegrass music news

Original Article:  MuchMusic.com | Blog
We’ve all come in contact with that drunken guy at the party (hell, perhaps you’ve been that drunken guy) who corners you and makes you listen to a song that’s “changed his life.” Because music has this ability to really affect its listeners, the creators of said music are often worshipped or idolized. This fan worship can often go straight to the musicians’ heads, and can cause them to do things that are considered to be very schmuck-like by their fans. Frankly, these things have the ability to piss us right off and, to put it politely, can make us think uncharitable thoughts. Very uncharitable. Such as the recent incident at the Bonnaroo Music Festival where Kanye West didn’t play his set until 4:45 in the morning, making fans wait 2+ hours! Mmhmm - schmuck-like, indeed. (In response to this, one fan told Kanye to “S my D.”)

So what follows is a list of things that musicians have done that has caused outrage and scorn among listeners and, if you get right down to it, are pretty asshat things to do.

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