Category Archives: Treating Fans Like Shit

A to Z of Making It, Copyright, Influenced, Music, My Stories, Stupidity, Treating Fans Like Shit

Shifting Thoughts with Evergrey, Dream Theater and Five Finger Death Punch – Are Corporate Deals the New Music Business?

The internet is flush with information about artists needing to do what is valuable to them. However what is valuable to them doesn’t always mean that it is valuable to everyone else.

So artists are always going back to square one. This is when artists will start to compromise their artistic vision and produce cookie cutter crap. However what an artist should be doing is to keep on writing. In the end, that valuable song will be written and it will translate to your audience. This is when the thing that you love to do, translates to an audience that loves what you do.

Evergrey is a Swedish progressive metal band. They are eight albums in so far. Their first album The Dark Discovery came out in 1998 and the most recent one Glorious Collision came out in 2011. The mainstay of the band is guitarist/vocalist Tom Englund, who also functions as the main songwriter in the band. Around him, band members come and go, with the most recent change happening in 2010.

Englund is remaining true to his artistic vision. He is not compromising on it and he is not changing his vision to chase any current trends. Drummer Jonas Ekdahl and guitarist Henrik Danhage left Evergrey in 2010 to form a metal core outfit called Death Destruction with the lead singer from another Swedish band called Dead By April. Chasing trends.

It all comes down to what the artist wants to achieve from their career. Englund is all about the art and to me it seems like he is happy with the level of success he has. Would he like to be bigger? I am sure the answer would be YES to that, however would he complain about his lot in life. I think not. Englund is doing the thing that he loves to do and he has found an audience that loves what he does.

Bands like Coheed and Cambria, Digital Summer and Protest The Hero all get it.

Digital Summer is all fan funded. They have been around since 2006. They have toured strategically since inception as all the band members hold down full time jobs. They are three albums and one EP in so far and based on their business model, they will be around for a long time.

Protest The Hero is also fan funded. Their recent Indiegogo campaign more than tripled their goal (and YES I am one of those fans that donated). They have even rewarded the super fans that have shared the contribution link and gotten other people to contribute with additional perks.

Coheed and Cambria are a very fan centric band. The way they have packaged The Afterman releases with the digital downloads available on the day of release, along with demos and back stories of each song, as well as an 80 odd page hard cover book is just brilliant. They did it their way and with a price that was just right.

Dream Theater is one band that is sitting on the fringe here. They are still doing it the old way as they know their fan base will lap up the new self-titled album. Their recent co-promotion with mainstream entity USA Today to launch their new single The Enemy Within is just another corporate deal in the same vein as Jay Z partnering with Samsung.

USA Today offer a certain amount of dollars so that they are the exclusive and first on line website to premier the new song. By doing this, Dream Theater, their label, their manager and whoever else has a stake in the band will get paid up front and USA Today will get traffic to their website which they can then use to get a higher ad revenue from their advertisers’.

Before all the DT Forum Elitists start jumping up in arms and start calling me an idiot, every band is entitled to earn money in any way they see fit. This is no different to Dire Straits and Phillips teaming up in the Eighties, to push the new CD format onto consumers. If that what Dream Theater’s business model needs them to do, good on them. In the end the fans will decide the fate of the band, as they have done for every band that came before and that will come after.

Five Finger Death Punch did something similar were they teamed/partnered with Loudwire to produce a track by track webisode series. The Five Finger Death Punch co-promotion was super cool as it focused on delivering back stories to each of the songs. As a fan, it is those little extra details that I really like. That could be the reason why Five Finger Death Punch have reached Gold status with each album release. Those little things, like a track by track webisode.

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Music, My Stories, Stupidity, Treating Fans Like Shit

Dream Theater has a listening party and forgot to invite any fans.

The future and the present is all about going direct to the people who will pay for what you do.

Dream Theater just had a listening party for their new self-titled album and who did they have in attendance? The answer should be their FANS. They should have done the work via their website (which is still showing A Dramatic Turn Of Events graphics – another dumb decision so close to the new album coming out) or on Facebook to identify fans in the local area that should have been there.

Instead they had the people that will not pay for the music there. The usual media suspects and reporters. They surrounded themselves with people that will not write a negative review about them because this is the year 2013 that we live in and everyone wants to be a member of the club. Everyone wants to be invited back and everyone wants to be liked. Has anyone purchased a Dream Theater album because Billboard Magazine rated it highly or poorly or from a Village Voice review? The answer would be a definite NO. Why? Dream Theater built their career outside of the mainstream. It was the mainstream that came knocking on the door for Dream Theater and they let them in.

This is where Dream Theater missed an opportunity to go directly to their fans. They are marketing this album the old way. Yes they are using online blogs and so forth, however they are still not going direct to their fans. Remember back in 1991, Metallica had arena sized listening parties for their fans before the release of the Black album. This is where Dream Theater could have gone in deep with their fan base. This is where Dream Theater could truly CONNECT with them and find out what it is they love about the band. This is where the album could have marketed.

I am a Dream Theater fan and I am negative about the way they are missing out on so many opportunities to connect with fans in the current climate. The webisodes updates have been really lame without any hint of how the new music will sound like.

Don’t get me wrong, I will be purchasing the deluxe edition of the album as I have always done and so will thousands of other fans. The difference here is I believe Dream Theater can sell in the millions, if only they shift their thinking and stop missing opportunities to connect direct to fans.

Remember The Blackening from Machine Head. It has been heralded as the best metal album of the first decade. They also had a listening party in the studio before the album came out with their fans. After that, they went on a three year victory lap touring behind it.

Dream Theater needs to shift their thinking.

In the meantime, go check out the great new song from Trivium called Brave This Storm.

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A to Z of Making It, Music, My Stories, Stupidity, Treating Fans Like Shit

A Small Amount of Too Much with Dream Theater, Bon Jovi and Metallica

“A small amount of too much spoils the whole thing.”

Ever had a feeling when you are at a gig, hearing the songs you like, enjoying the moment and then you just don’t want to hear anymore, you are looking at your watch, thinking that you should leave to go home. That is the quirky relationship between the rock n roll show and its fans. Depending on the band, sometimes 90 minutes is enough and 2 hours is too much.

I watched Dream Theater in Australia on the Systematic Chaos tour and they played for three hours (with an intermission of about 10 minutes in between). For some reason that was just perfect, however when I saw them again on the Black Clouds and Silver Linings Tour, they played just over 2 hours and it was too much. Put that down to the two things, hitting the same market too quickly and the flow of the set list.

The 2009 show took place almost 12 months since the 2008 show. Remember the quote, a small amount of too much spoils the whole thing. I remember them doing Solitary Shell with extended solos. It is not the strongest song in the Dream Theater catalogue, so what happens when you take a song that isn’t your best and make it longer? You get a yawn fest, a toilet break or a beer/smoke break.

Jon Bon Jovi has a big X on his name for treating Bon Jovi fans to a Kings of Suburbia beach party. A 2 hour show, where 1 hour was spent playing cover songs. Nice one. It’s obvious that Jon Bon Jovi didn’t get the memo. The fans want Richie Sambora back and they want him back now. Otherwise, change the name of the concert experience to Jon Bon Jovi and the Kings of Suburbia. Another point to note, a lot of the Bon Jovi memorabilia has the image of Jon Bon Jovi only. Sure, the band is called Bon Jovi, however as far as I am aware it still is a band. So where are the other members of the band on the memorabilia.

Richie Sambora was the person that Jon Bon Jovi could count on, regardless of what Jon says in the media. Richie was the one who was always there when Jon decided he wanted to be a rock star again. Richie always took a step back when Jon wanted to be a sitcom star or a movie star. Richie was the one that delivered a signature riff or a signature song, because the fact is Jon Bon Jovi cant.

FACT: it was Richie Sambora that wrote the majority of the music on Livin On A Prayer, and he was the one that went into bat for the song, when Jon wanted it off the album.

Go on YouTube and give Richie’s new song a listen. It’s called Come Back As Me. Who do you think Richie is referencing, when he sings, “What do you want me to say, I gave you everything I could give, but everything just wasn’t enough, so I just let live and live”. This is the kind of music an artist creates when they are not thinking about how many copies the song will sell. It is honest and heartfelt. Immediately, it makes a connection.

The song is a hundred times better than the songs that came out on What About Now. Since Richie only has five song writing credits on this album, you might as well call What About Now a Jon Bon Jovi solo album. Billy Falcon and John Shanks wrote the majority of the songs with Jon Bon Jovi.

Remember a small amount of too much spoils the whole thing.

Do we need a live album from Metallica of songs? They can call it a soundtrack or whatever they like. It’s still a live album. Remember that they released four DVD packages of Live Concerts during the Death Magnetic tour, as well as the Six Feet Down Under EP’s plus all the stuff they release on Live Metallica.

Do we need a Man Of Steel sequel that is going to include Batman? What a stupid decision. The thought of having Superman and Batman in the same movie is ridiculous to me. What the hell can Batman offer over Superman? Superman is the super man whereas Batman is just a bloke with gadgets.

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Music, Stupidity, Treating Fans Like Shit

The Jon Bon Jovi (advertisted as Bon Jovi) and Kings of Suburbia Debacle

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Check out the concert review and then check out the comments from the people that were in attendance on that same page and on the Live Nation website and on various Facebook posts. For those that don’t know this is where Bon Jovi brought out the Kings Of Suburbia, played cover songs mixed in with Bon Jovi songs and charged fans money like it was a Bon Jovi concert.

One fan said the following;

I have seen JBJ over 20 times. Never been let down. Last night was the absolute worst concert I have ever seen. Didn’t realize I was paying over 200 dollars for a COVER BAND! On top of that show was only 2 hours long. What an absolute joke and Phil X is not even good enough to hold Richie’s guitar case! Complete joke last night.

True fans are worth more than crappy news coverage from a reviewer that just wants to be liked. Jon Bon Jovi needs the fans to champion him, not a newspaper reviewer.

Jon , you let your fans down last night in Saratoga , New York at SPAC. We came to see you !!! We came to enjoy the band, your talent, the bands talent…. Instead we got 9 cover tunes???? A band that you brought with you that played more than you the main act!!!!! Sad when they were on stage more than you… Go look at Live Nation and the comments from last night’s show!!! You let a lot of your loyal fans down. But as you stated, hey this is a small place, let’s just make this a beach party??? Well some 26,000 loyal fans came to see you and your band.!!! We paid the same money as everyone else that has gone to your shows on tour…. YOU LET YOUR FANS DOWN Jon….. You let all of us down…… In the words of the band “The WHO” that you covered along with so many other songs…. I won’t get fooled again!!!!!

That’s the problem with Jon Bon Jovi today. He wants the fame and he wants the riches. He is forgetting the thing that got him there. That is writing great music and performing your music.

Disappointed. I paid to see Bon Jovi. If he had advertised it as “Jon Bon Jovi and the Kings of Suburbia” I would have expected the kind of show I saw. But I wanted to see Bon Jovi. While it was interesting to see something different, it is not what I paid for. Imaging paying for Maroon 5 and getting Adam Levine and a different band….playing cover songs all night. Jon, come back and do it right!

Don’t disrespect the fans. Be truthful. This is Jon Bon Jovi seeing if he can pull of a heist, just like Richie Sambora predicted. When is Jon Bon Jovi going to realise that the people are there to hear the songs. If you advertise this as a Bon Jovi show, that is what you need to deliver. As the fan mentioned above, if this was advertised as a Jon Bon Jovi and the Kings of Suburbia show, there would be no complaints as it was transparent, what the fans were buying tickets for.

I find it very interesting that they went back to a pure Bon Jovi set list at Darien Lake after the disaster of Saratoga. Especially given that they stated it was a 2-night thing and “not the new norm”. The experiment of Saratoga failed and we got screwed. Can I get my $250 back. I paid $500 for my family to attend, and the Bon Jovi band was on stage for half the show and some lounge act was on for the other half. A half refund seems fair.

The biggest slap in the face for every fan. Where the next venue gets a normal set list. This is Jon Bon Jovi saying to his 26,000 fans at the show, the crowd numbers is too small for a full Bon Jovi show. Next time it will be smaller.

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A to Z of Making It, Copyright, Music, My Stories, Piracy, Stupidity, Treating Fans Like Shit

Record Label Innovation – Kill Music Service to Protect Old Business Models

What are the Record Labels worth without the talent? ZERO!

So what do the Record Labels do to their talent?

They treat them to a world of creative accounting.

They treat them to a world where they spend monies on DMCA takedowns and litigation to protect the old income streams, instead of nurturing new income streams for their talent. Throughout life, people are always looking for something new, however the recording industry believe in selling the same old thing in music. When something different comes out like Mumford & Sons, Adele, PSY and Imagine Dragons it triumphs in unforseen ways.

The whole approach of the Record Labels and the RIAA has been if they can’t control a business, their next best option is to kill the business off. Napster showed the music business what the fans wanted, however they killed it off and to this day, not one legal service has risen to offer what Napster offered, which was Community and Convenience.

There is a song called Red City on the new Stone Sour release, House Of Gold and Bones II. In the story line, our hero is in the clutches of the bad guys and the song Red City marks the beginning of the end for the main character. If the Entertainment Industries and their stooges get their way, it is the beginning of the end for the Internet and the opportunities it gives to creators.

Sort of like the lyrics in the new Black Sabbath song, End of The Beginning that states “rewind the future to the past”. That is what the Entertainment industries want. The past to return. That is the future they want.

Look at the recent behaviour of the one they call Prince. Even the Electronic Frontiers Foundation has inducted Prince into its “Takedown Hall of Shame”. To sum up, Prince has issued DMCA takedowns on six second clips of a Prince concert, on fan recorded concert videos of him covering Creep from Radiohead (which by the way he doesn’t even own the rights to the song), threatening to sue people for thinking of doing a tribute album to him and a takedown of YouTube video of a toddler dancing to a Prince song (which is in the Courts at the moment).

The reason why I am mentioning Prince is to show people what a misguided artist he has become. The labels send millions of DMCA takedowns each day and in a lot of cases they censor free speech under a copyright claim. They have even taken down their own websites. Universal Music Group even took down Black Sabbath’s God Is Dead YouTube stream from the Black Sabbath YouTube page.

When is the Recording industry and people like Prince going to stop complaining? When are they going to stop lamenting the passage of the good old days? When are they going to stop blaming the technologists and the fans for ruining their business models. There is a reason why Indie labels have claimed a large slice of music sales this year than the three majors. It’s because they are working on the outside, digging deep and finding those real stars, the real golden nuggets.

Music used to be cutting edge and it used to drive the conversation and the culture. These days music is just another consumable, ready to be consumed like milk. Musicians like Prince, Jon Bon Jovi, Jay Z and so forth are trying to get in bed with the Fortune 500. Where is it written that musicians must be rich? You create quality that resonates and connects, then you will be a star.

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Copyright, Music, My Stories, Piracy, Stupidity, Treating Fans Like Shit

The Prophetic Writings of Dave Mustaine

Throughout my life, bands like Megadeth, Metallica and Queensryche, have commented a fair bit on governments, democracy and the corruption that happens.

In the last 10 years, the Entertainment Industries have shown to the world, how corrupt they really are, and how they would do anything to protect obsolete business models. When I started writing this post, the themes that started to appear, reminded me of Megadeth songs.

Dave Mustaine is renowned for his mouth and his witty/snarly lyrical writing. Remember a time when musicians used to lead. Dave Mustaine is one of those musicians.

Seeking Asylum

There is a current role reversal happening in our lives today. Once upon a time in a galaxy far far away, political dissidents would actually SEEK asylum in Democratic Free countries like the US, UK, Australia and Canada. Now people are looking for asylum in other countries to get AWAY from the Democratic Free countries. How the times have changed?

It reminds me of the lyrics to The World Needs A Hero (from the album The World Needs A Hero, released in 2001).

An Iron Fist quietly sits inside the Velvet Glove
Take control, untouchable just like God above
I can’t escape, wrapped in red tape, what will become of me?
If I object, then I defect my country tis of thee

Bradley Manning, detained in red tape and military courts. What will become of him? He didn’t kill anyone? He didn’t terrorise anyone? He didn’t bomb any public infrastructure? So why is he imprisoned? All he did was to embarrass a government.

Ed Snowden, leaked information about the NSA spying on US Citizens and now he is treated as a criminal, seeking asylum in countries that will not hand him over to the US. Remember the time when Communist defectors seeked asylum in the US. This is what corrupted democracy leads too? All Snowden did was to embarrass a government.

Copyright Levy

Most of Europe has a Copyright Levy imposed on the purchase of storage media, smartphones, tablets and any other connected devices.  In my view, since there is such a levy on digital products, whether devices or storage media, then non-commercial infringement should be permitted. The copyright monopolies shouldn’t get to have it both ways – either they need to go after alleged “pirates”, or they can tax the items “pirates” use. Makes you wonder why organisations like HADOPI (in France) were formed, since the public had already paid for the content without even wanting to?

Sort of like the song Dread and The Fugitive Mind (from the album The World Needs A Hero, released in 2001).

What’s yours is mine and what’s mine is mine too
If you shake my hand better count your fingers

Nothing else can sum up the Entertainment lobby groups and the Copyright Cartels better than the above two lines from Dave Mustaine.

ENFORCEMENT

Speaking of enforcement, Hadopi in France, has been a total waste of time and money. It was created as a gradual response system to piracy. Basically three warnings and then no internet. The aim of Hadopi was to push people to legal paid services.

“While illicit file sharing has dropped, legal paid services have not benefited as was hoped.”

The entertainment industry focus should be trying to figure out ways to make more money however the entertainment industries believe that getting rid of piracy will lead to more money. All it will do is push piracy further into a darknet.

Sort of like the lyrics in Symphony Of Destruction (from the album Countdown To Extinction, released in 1992).

You take a mortal man
And put him in control
Watch him become a god
Watch people’s heads a roll

Let’s change them up to suit;

You take the RIAA
And put them in control
Watch them become gods
Watch people’s heads a roll

BLOCKADES

All over the world, blockades of websites is becoming common. The site they are all after is The Pirate Bay. The labels claim that the infamous torrent site facilitates copyright infringement. In countries like the UK and Ireland the courts agreed and ISP’s are forced to implement the block. Of course, users can easily bypass any blockade by using one of the many available Pirate Bay proxy sites. It’s that old whac-a-mole game. The Recording Associations around the world are spending monies in costly legal avenues and lobbying/bribery, instead of innovating.

Reminds me of the song New World Order  (originally recorded for the Youthanasia album of 1994 and released on the Th1rt3en album in 2011).

Monitoring all wages
New world order comes in stages
Your currency is obsolete
Feel the agony of defeat

Power resides in the ones that can purchase legal solutions to assist in their bad business models. The currency of fairness and justice is obsolete, against the power of money. We are all slaves to it. The whole blockade of websites is due to money, not piracy.

THE ART OF WAR VIA THE ARM OF THE LAW

The Entertainment industries like the RIAA seem to think that by using the arm of the law to extract money by force or to threaten people by force is a satisfactory response for copyright infringements. Remember people, copyright infringement is a civil matter not a criminal matter. However when power resides with the ones that control government, anything is possible.

Reminds me of the song Endgame (from the album Endgame, released in 2009).

The Ex-President signed a secret bill that can land a legal US Citizen in jail
And the Patriot Act stripped away our Constitutional Rights

All rights removed, you’re punished, captured and enslaved
Believe me when I say, This is the Endgame

Admins of websites have been found guilty for facilitating copyright infringement, have been given sentences harsher then murderers and drug dealers. These admins didn’t kill anyone, however if you take a penny from the wealthy, you have committed a grievous crime that needs to be punished severely.

INNOVATION STIFLING

Spotify has been far more successful in tackling piracy than any law. So what does the RIAA do? They want to charge more for the licensing fees. I am waiting for the punch line to come from the RIAA that this increase is needed to protect the artists that create the content. When it comes to money people just become dumb and those people are in charge of companies that make dumb decisions.

Sort of like the song, Millennium Of The Blind (from the album Th1rt3en, released in 2011)

All your money’s ours to bankroll corrupt wars
You can’t see what you’re fighting for
Trust your leaders as they send you out to die
The true face of evil can’t be seen without eyes

You can tweak the above to read;

All the money’s ours to bankroll shakedown wars
You can’t see what we are legislating for
Trust in the RIAA as they protect what you create
Through bribery and corruption so that politicians legislate

JUDGES SET MARKET PRICES

A 3 judge panel has set prices on the rates that internet services like Pandora need to pay, so that they can play music on line and the RIAA claims it is a free market.

Reminds me of the song Bite The Hand That Feeds (from the album Endgame, released in 2009).

They ball-gagged Lady Justice
And blindfolded her so she can’t see

They took everything and anything
As long as it once belonged to me

When the Courts have Judges that used to work for the Copyright Monopolies, the verdict is always the same. Good for business, bad for the people.

POLITICIANS PUSH CORPORATE PROPAGANDA

When are politicians going to stand for the people again. Instead we have the people that we voted in, pushing the agendas of corporations. A good example is the new RIAA stooge Marsha Blackburn. Enough said.

All of this reminds me of Peace Sells (from the album Peace Sells But Who’s Buying, released in 1986) and We The People (from the album Th1rt3en, released in 2011).

What do you mean “I couldn’t be President of the United States of America?”
Tell me something, it’s still “We The People” right

Nope, it is not we the people anymore and it hasn’t been for a long time. It is We With The Money.

Violate your rights, no more equality
Surrender freedom, your social security

When our politicians started to want to earn the same as Wall Street bankers, the writing was on the wall for equality and justice. Looking at all of the headings in this post, it makes me feel like I am living in a dictatorship. All of this is happening in Democracy. Peace Sells people, and the Copyright Cartels have purchased it all up.

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Music, Stupidity, Treating Fans Like Shit

Record Label Innovation – Bring Back The CD in Blu-Ray?

For years the compact disc was the preferred audio format for music fans. In addition those years were the most profitable in the recording industry’s history.

Fans/collectors of vinyl and cassettes started to re-purchase albums they already owned for the sake of convenience. That is what the CD offered. Convenience.

It saddens me to keep on hearing that the recording industry still prefers a return to that era instead of innovating.

The most recent “innovation” comes from Universal Music Group.

UMG is launching a new audio format called High Fidelity Pure Audio. Basically it is a Blu-ray disc that delivers high definition audio recordings. This is yet another attempt to reinstate a long-gone profit margin that has all been done before.

There is nothing innovative about re-factoring the compact disc.

Remember convenience. Fans didn’t choose to replace the CD format with MP3’s simply because MP3s sounded better. It was about convenience. Convenience is key here. For personal use, portability and speed is worth more. That is what UMG fails to understand.

UMG is banking on a demand for high-fidelity re-releases of their back catalogs.

The label business models are built upon lack of competition in their market. Once upon a time the only music available came from the established recording industry. They told us what we were going to listen to and in what format.

I liked CDs, I really did, but after a while I ran out of space. I still buy physical CDs from time to time however I never buy CDs for the music itself.

The last physical discs I bought were for the special edition of Coheed and Cambria’s Afterman: Ascension / Descension double album. This package was was sold when Ascension released in September 2012 and Descension was months away (February 2013).

So when the package arrived The Descension disc in the box is completely blank. The purpose of this is that I am meant to burn the 320 high-quality Descension track downloads to it. I still haven’t bothered to do it, however the art book that came with it is priceless.

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Music, Stupidity, Treating Fans Like Shit

Sambora to Bon Jovi – Hire The Edge

It took the comment, “he’s been through it before,” from the lips of Jon Bon Jovi to finally break the silence from Richie Sambora.

I took that comment to mean that Sambora is going through alcohol issues again.

Sambora then didn’t see the next big right hook coming his way, when Jon Bon Jovi stated that if Sambora was like The Edge he would be harder to replace, however since he is not The Edge, he is replaceable.

That comment would piss me off as well. It sure pissed Sambora off. He sent Jon Bon Jovi an email saying, “Hire the Edge,”.

Sambora has gone on record stating that he wants to return, however he still hasn’t. I wonder why.

Jon Bon Jovi needs a reality check. Its not always about the money in music. Music is about the camaraderie. It is about people from different walks of life coming together as one.

From reading all the news on the Internet, I am getting the impression that Jon Bon Jovi is just focused on himself. Hell, the fan club is in his name. He has isolated himself. In time, the fans will isolate him.

I always saw Bon Jovi as a band. A lot of other fans see it the same way. It looks like Jon Bon Jovi sees it differently.

If the Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora partnership truly ends, it is a damn shame that it had to be after the release of the worst Bon Jovi album ever.

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Music, Stupidity, Treating Fans Like Shit

Adrenaline Mob and Mike Portnoy – Is He Serious?

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Is he serious?

From where I sit, this was a major misstep. Mike Portnoy isn’t a star in the sense of commanding multiple projects and making each one thrive on name alone. He’s a drummer. That’s it. Talented, relentless, precise, but a drummer first, not a solo brand.

It looks like the Portnoy philosophy goes something like this: start a band, convince yourself you’re the main songwriter, the driving force, maybe even a god in the room, and then spin up another band, and another, and another. When one starts to gain traction, walk away, schedules conflict, priorities shift. It’s a pattern. It’s ambitious, but it’s also scattershot. It’s not a strategy built to last.

Adrenaline Mob had legs. That band could have grown into something bigger. Flying Colors? Already stale. Winery Dogs? Lacks direction. Transatlantic? A cult following, yes, but niche, not career-sustaining.

Look at the chatter online. Facebook, YouTube, blogs, Twitter, the fans are speaking. And fans are everything now. They amplify a release, they create buzz, they breathe life into a project. When they start to shrug, disengage, move on, that’s when it all dies.

Portnoy’s peak came with Petrucci. That was the alignment that created Dream Theater’s defining moments. And walking away from that partnership was a gamble. He may not have meant to squander it, but when the chemistry that made the magic was gone, the results were inevitable. Because the truth is simple: the music isn’t about one drummer, it’s about the sum of the parts, and some parts carry more weight than others.

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Alternate Reality, Copyright, Music, Piracy, Stupidity, Treating Fans Like Shit

Fear of the New – Alternate History

The Pirate Bay celebrated their 7 year raid anniversary a few days ago, so the question needs to be asked, what can the music business learn from The Pirate Bay?  The Pirate Bay has been court blocked in various countries, however, that still hasn’t stopped people in those countries from accessing the website, via proxies.  On top of all that, the site has gone through numerous changes, like removing its tracker then moving to magnet links, and a few months ago the torrent site moved to the cloud. The site has also switched domain names on multiple occasions.

All of these changes make the site more resilient and it all started seven years ago, when the Pirate Bay was first raided.

So let’s think about this for a second.  The Pirate Bay, is a site that wants to escape the long arm of justice and in order to do so, they keep on innovating so that they remain open.

So what has the RIAA (the music labels lobby group) done during the last 7 years on the innovation front.  All I keep on reading, is that Google keeps on getting millions of take down requests from the RIAA and the labels.  They still want legislation enacted that will put the internet under their control.  They still want others (like ISP’s) to enforce copyright breaches.  Basically, they still want others to pay for their own short comings.

Let’s see what an alternate history could have been created, if the RIAA innovated instead of legislated.

2003 – The Pirate Bay and MySpace is established.  The RIAA and MPAA take the opportunity to purchase the technology and employ the creators.  With integration between both technologies, both sites are relaunched as The Entertainment Portal. Users that want to upload, need to create an account, however users that want to download don’t need to be members.  Downloading is all free and the The Entertainment Portal makes money from advertisements.

2004 – The Entertainment Portal want to engage more people to upload their collections, especially hard to find and long forgotten titles.  They even give out awards to the people who upload the most, much in the same way they give out gold records to artists who sell.

In the meantime, The Entertainment Portal has been working on advancing the MySpace technology, so that users can also personalise it and share their own stories.

2005 – Cyber lockers start to become a threat, however The Entertainment Portal is too busy innovating to care.  A video sharing technology is released.  It is called YouTube.  A new feature is also added where users can do status updates.  Everything is rebranded to become The Portal, a one stop shop for anything to do with entertainment.  

2006 – A streaming service is offered for both music and movies.  Users can also stream new release movies into their homes on the same day of release.  The Portal encourages users to do movie launch parties and to share it over the Portal.  Users are also encouraged to create their own “hangouts”, where they can play radio DJ to other people in the hangout.

… to be continued

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