INDIE NEWS BEAT December 6, 2004 Edition
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Sharman Networks Use Weedshare In Australian Court Case
* Marianne Kesler Gives Away The Perfect Christmas iPod Gift
* Indie Artist Album Series Debuts
* Gaz Reynolds Creates An 'Orgazmic' Experience
* Minefield Signs W/ Geska Records
* CatDesigners on iTunes
* New Zealand's Dance Download Label Reaches Their First Birthday
* Volume10.com - A Brand New And Unique Online Music Magazine
* Garage Radio Strikes Partnership With Dirtbag Clothing
* Controversial T-Shirt Hell Ad Pulled From Rolling Stone Magazine
* SU Management Places Platinum Asian Artist In Studio With The Underdogs
* GorillaPop - Connecting The World One Song At A Time
Sharman Networks Use Weedshare In Australian Court Case To Establish Legitimate Use Of Kazaa
Ozmusicweed, the first Australian Weedshare site has this week been involved in the currently unfolding court case in Sydney involving Sharman Networks, providers of the Kazaa software against Universal Music PTY LTD. The major labels are trying to implicate Sharman in the worlds biggest copyright case to date. Kazaa, which holds the title of the worlds most downloaded program is a P2P program used to share files between users, and is notorious for being used to trade illegal copyright infringing files.
Sharman have been trying to establish that Kazaa can be used for legitimate purposes such as sharing Weed files. Today in court, affidavits from Todd Macalpine of Ozmusicweed, and John Leighton Beezer from the Weedshare parent company SML along with 10 other affidavits were rejected as evidence by judge Murray Wilcox.
A representative from Sharman's PR agency said: "The judge agreed there were significant non-infringing users of p2p technology, and there was no need to hear our affidavits putting all that together.". This is good news for Sharman Networks as they have successfully established that Kazaa can be used for legitimate purposes.
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Marianne Kesler Gives Away The Perfect Christmas iPod Gift
Singer/songwriter Marianne Kesler is making her latest release "A Christmas Song" available online for free. A decidedly hippy Christmas, trimmed with Fleetwood Mac construction and stereo peace, you can find out how to download your free copy of "A Christmas Song" and many chances to win her latest CD "Green Room" by visiting http://www.musicdish.net/christmas/
"Marianne perfectly marries her folky style into that original Noel of love, thanks and giving. When the chorus begins, that's when all the lights come on: backing vocals, electric guitar that never knocks out the True spirit of this song - that gloss and plastic Santas and White Christmas royalties aren't what the origin of this holiday is about." Ben Ohmart, MusicDish Reviewer
With influences covering Neil Young, Counting Crows, Judy Collins, Goo Goo Dolls, U2, Kings X, Bob Dylan and James Taylor, she's received an incredible seven ASCAP Popular Awards, with airplay across the US, Chile, Spain, Finland Romania and other unbelievable places. Green Room is Marianne's 5th studio album.
Indie Artist Album Series Debuts
In today's corporate music world, the number of label-backed artists released to the public is kept to a minimum. Add local radio's short play lists and the music landscape is nearly void of new acts.
That's a shame, because hearing a great song from an unknown artist is a pleasure with few equals. It's this hearing-great-music-from-unknown bands "pleasure" that Audio Graphics satisfies with "RadioRow.com - Album of Rock."
"Album of Rock" contains top songs from quality unsigned artists.
Songs/bands:
Brand New Ride - Rusty Trick
Cross My Mind - Johnny Neel
If Your Love Was a River - Tony Koretz
Plastik Lies - Plastik Lies
Raze - Kama Sutras
Regretful Revenge - Time for Change
Serious Man - Iris Ann Barclay
Shadows of Death - Axpi
Sin City - Roger Petersen
Voice - Gatja
"RadioRow.com - Album of Rock" is a first attempt at placing quality unsigned acts from one music genre into a single release.
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Gaz Reynolds Creates An 'Orgazmic' Experience On Radio In South Florida
UK Pop Sensation Gaz Reynolds has been causing quite a stir on US radio stations recently with his hit singles 'In This House' & 'Electric Kama Sutra'.
As well as appearing on KSCQ & WVIQ Gaz has done several hour long interviews live on 'SPECTRAVILLE' broadcast on South Florida's WOWL station in Boca Raton with the legendary DJ Spectra. It appears that as well as Gaz being a rising star both in UK & USA, DJ Spectra is making quite a name for himself too.
Gaz says "Spectra & I have a real rapport going & every time I'm on his show it gets a little wild but its great fun. What I like about DJ Spectra is his sensible questions & he always takes his show in different directions keeping the audience on their toes and making it educational as well as fun. The show has been a vital tool for me to promote my music in South Florida & has assisted in getting me more air play down that way & has increased my exposure."
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Minefield Signs W/ Geska Records
Canadian Electro-pop act Minefield recently signed a Distribution Agreement with Montreal based Industrial Label Geska Records. All parties are excited about the union, as it will bring Minefield releases into record shops across Canada, the United States and Europe. The partnership paves the way for the release of Minefield's forthcoming record of original material expected in Spring of 2005. The new 12 track album 'Seeing Red' promises to elaborate on the mystery and darkness of their previous recordings, while encorporating a new edge and sexuality into the mix.
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So far CatDesigners' Chemical Jazz has been made available through 24 digital download sites while Strange Little Creature is availble on 22 although physical CDs still seem to be the preferred choice of CatDesignes' fans. However, this week marks the first time that Chemical Jazz has been bought and downloaded in its entirety via iTunes.
In a time when the music industry is speculating that singles and albums are dead because of the new download technology it is reassuring for a band like CatDesigners that the artistic integrity of an album is still valued. Even though download technology has been used, it is the whole album that has been downloaded, not just one or two tracks.
"An album is, or at least should be, greater than the sum of its parts," says CatDesigners singer, Nick. "While some artists have released two singles together with nine filler tracks, the best albums are not simply a list of songs cobbled together at random just to use up 40 minutes of your life. Some of my favourite music has come from albums. David Bowie's 'Quicksand', for example, would never have been released as a single and how much more my life would have been empoverished without it."
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TMet Recordings, New Zealand's Dance Download Label Reaches Their First Birthday!
TMet Recordings New Zealand's digital dance label is one year old on the 1st December, and is riding the growing digital download wave. To celebrate this milestone they have an upcoming release in December by Baxter, one of the biggest names in the Kiwi dance scene. Baxter's mix CDs have reached platinum sales in New Zealand and this will be his debut release.
Other artists that have signed to the Kiwi download label are Javed Haider, winner of the Heineken Found at Thirst NZ competition in 2003, andy qroniq & The WBC, Blazem, Culprit, Chelfyn, Echo, Kyren, Les Filterbrats, Liquid Underground, Mr Sketchy, Nub, Romantech, Ryan Tregurtha, Si-Fi, State of Mind, and Waterboy. TMet's goal is to help Kiwi producers onto the first step of the international ladder, and their youngest producer Lync is only 8 years old!
TMet Recordings are also pleased to announce two new additions to the TMet Whanau (Maori for family). Mistress Dirtbag (Twisted radio's breakfast bitch) is helping Chelfyn & MsBehaviour with core TMet operations, with Justin Sane (Tidy NZ/Fragile) providing support on the A&R side.
MsBehaviour, TMet's Managing Director says, "TMet's growth is testament to the power of the Kiwi creative collective. The sum is greater than the parts."
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Volume10.com - A Brand New And Unique Online Music Magazine
All avid music fans have a favourite site for music news, a favourite site for album reviews, for TV & radio listings etc, and, on occasion, there may be a site that satisfies more than one of these. The team at volume10 have come up with a single site that they believe will meet every requirement of the discerning "muso".
The site features:
* Music news as it happens from a wide variety of trusted sources
* Independent reviews for recommended albums across the full spectrum of genres
* TV listings for recommended live music shows and music-related documentaries
* Radio listings for recommended analogue & DAB radio shows
* Tour dates for selected artists touring over the coming months
* A playlist of current and future singles/album tracks that are suggested
* A forum community allowing members to request and leave opinions, ideas and advice
* Regular competitions and polls relating to music's current hot topics
* Links to the some of the cheapest sites offering recommended albums and gig tickets
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Garage Radio Strikes Partnership With Dirtbag Clothing Co.
Two names synonymous with new music have come together to offer a full line of street and sport apparel from a new outlet. The Dirtbag Clothing company has offered Garage Radio an exclusive wholesale opportunity to resell their popular collection of extreme clothing and accessories in the GR Store, which will be unveiled in January of 2005. Both companies also expect to manufacture a select assortment of custom, co-branded designs in the subsequent months.
"This is very exciting for us," said John Foxworthy, Chief Editor and Co-Founder of Garage Radio, "We've worked very hard to maintain a reputation of quality and integrity, so it was only natural to offer Dirtbag's designs in our new store. In fact, they were our first choice based solely on reputation and attitude ... these guys have supported the same ideals GR was built on since before we were around."
Dirtbag Clothing was recently commissioned to design custom styles for Dimebag Darrell (Pantera/Damageplan) and his "Dimebag Hardware" line. They have also outfitted several major and independent bands such as Soulfly, Drowning Pool, The Mimsies and From The Desk Of Sally. Additionally, Dirtbag Clothing has just opened their first retail outlet in Northern California. Their slogan, "Wear it 'til it stinks," can be heard ringing throughout many underground scenes across the globe.
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Controversial T-Shirt Hell Ad Pulled From Rolling Stone Magazine
When tshirthell.com decided to make a public statement about Corporate America, they found it wasn't easy to get the word out. Corporate America, it seems was determined to keep them quiet.
T-Shirt Hell has always been a magnet for controversy. The last two months have been no exception. At the end of October, The Olsen Twins issued a Cease and Desist order to try and stop the distribution of a parody shirt; followed in November by one from eBay in response to a Christopher Reeve/eBay parody shirt.
"Our response was to write an open letter to Corporate America." said internationally renowned businessman and owner of tshirthell.com, Aaron Landau Schwarz. "The next step was to find a place to publish it. We don't normally purchase advertising. (Schwarz claims that even though tshirthell.com is the internet's largest t-shirt company he's only purchased one advertisement in just over 3 years of being in business). We had previously purchased ad space in Rolling Stone Magazine to promote our crazy, holiday gift-wrap. So, we decided to work with them again. We figured an open minded, anti-establishment, rock and roll magazine was the perfect place to make our statement."
Rolling Stone Magazine had other ideas. They declined to print the ad.
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SU Management Places Double Platinum Selling Asian Artist In Studio With The Underdogs
Sahirah Uqdah, former Head of Artist Development for Tonos (Babyface, David Foster, and Carole Bayer Sager's music website), recently formed her own company to hook up producers and artists.
Her company placed double platinum Universal Asian artist Sun in the studio with the Underdogs. The Underdogs, Harvey Mason Jr, and Damon Thomas, made their mark in history producing superstar acts like Jo Jo ( Baby It's You), Ruben Studdard (Sorry 2004) , B2k (Got's To Be), Justin Timberlake, Tyrese, Toni Braxton, Jennifer Lopez, and Pink just to name a few. Harvey Mason Jr, and Damon Thomas have signed on an exclusive label deal with Clive Davis' J Records.
The Underdogs produced and wrote "Ends of the Earth" for Sun for her third and will be released in the U. S. in February 2005.
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GorillaPop - Connecting The World One Song At A Time
GorillaPop is a new web site that matches people based on the kinds of music they like.
For artists looking to find new fans, GorillaPop's patent pending algorithms automatically pre-select from members who have already indicated they like your style of music. In addition to all the functionality of typical social networking sites, GorillaPop is also providing new playlisting features offered nowhere else.
Fans can also sign up to find new artists, or to find others with similar tastes. Plus, the unique "Web Sharing" feature lets fans share their personal web sites from wherever they may connect!
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Provided by the MusicDish Network. Copyright © Tag It 2004 - Republished with Permission