NONALIGNMENT PACT

I read a lengthy conversation on LinkedIn today in which a songwriter took a stand against pay-to-play schemes in the music licensing industry. It resonated with many people in the discussion group, and there were many other artists who chimed in to decry services that charge for a shot at getting your song into a film, [...]

I was the thrilled recipient of an Amazon Kindle DX for Christmas. I knew that the Kindle had wireless Internet via a fee-free arrangement with Sprint. I knew that I could use the Kindle to buy books on the fly and surf the web from a basic browser. But what I did not know was that [...]

‘Tis the season for Christmas songs everywhere — on the radio, in department stores, on television and in movie theaters. It may seem as if you’re hearing an unfiltered stream of the same songs, played over and over, but in fact someone put a lot of time and care into selecting and obtaining the rights to [...]

One of my friends recently said that Dream Theater is the equivalent of girl repellent.

I have in my lifetime dated exactly two diehard Dream Theater fans.

At this very moment, my boyfriend is in the other room watching live videos of the band, complete with closeups of John Petrucci’s fingers during the more blistering guitar [...]

This blog post from Derek Sivers, CD Baby founder and former CEO, made the rounds online last week. Everybody was talking about “Why I gave away my company to charity”.

I had the distinct pleasure of crashing on the floor of Derek Sivers’ apartment when my tour came through Portland many years ago. The Mount Tabor Theater [...]

In music, interpolation refers to “the addition of new material in a performance or recording of a previously existing piece of music.” The Wikipedia article notes that interpolation has become “generally synonymous with the term ‘cover version’”. However, in my line of work, it is important to be able to distinguish between a cover and an [...]

I sat in on a demo review session last week after a music business seminar presented by one of my colleagues. It was my job to give frank and constructive feedback on the music written and recorded by seminar attendees.

Everyone was supposed to send only one song. Of course, our music coordinator received between three to [...]

I have busy preparing for the San Francisco Mixtape Society event, even though it isn’t until next year. The theme will be Cities vs. Towns.

I have a few playlists in iTunes which are still in the song dump phase. This means that I add songs to them whenever I come across a tune that is relevant [...]

Recently I worked on a music search for a documentary film where we needed to replace several David Byrne cues for the opening and closing sequences.

This was a harder search than I had initially thought it would be. The lyrics needed to convey the start of something new or summertime without bringing up the subject [...]

This week has been quiet.

No rock shows, no morning commute music and no CDs to review because I am on vacation in wine country.

No Thomas Dybdahl, Carissa’s Wierd or Wilco for the scenic drive along Highway 1 because I forgot to bring the car adapter for the iPhone.

We made the drive from San Francisco to Inverness [...]