DOMINGO ONLINE: Global Music Network, Inc., featuring complete live performances of classical music, opera, and jazz, announced that Placido Domingo has joined GMN.com's board of directors and is becoming a GMN "family artist." Mr. Domingo has also agreed to produce recordings of himself and colleagues, including emerging young talent which will be available exclusively at GMN.com. This agreement is Domingo's first major venture in the world of online music. Exclusive live performances have eminated from the Kirov Opera, Birdland and the JVC Jazz Festival. The company also announced today an expanded site which includes a new jazz programming channel and the opportunity to purchase music online.
KNAC.COM: Since its broadcasting death in 1995, Long Beach-based hard rock radio station KNAC continued in the hearts and minds of its "Pure Rock" loyalists. But in January 1998 it was reborn as KNAC.com, then and now still the only 24 hour/7 days-a-week live online radio station, now registering over 100,000 hits/month. Many of the original DJs are still spinning the metal, including Philthy Phil, Thrasher, Mike Stark, Nasty Neil, Eveready Ed and Animal AnaLee. There chat room is always busy, they still give away lots of tickets to shows, and feature unsigned and indie metal bands on a regular basis. Listeners can access the netstation's live streams using Windows Media, Real Audio or Quicktime players.
GARAGEBAND: Talking Heads keyboardist (and now successful producer) Jerry Harrison has co-founed a web-based record company, www.garageband.com, to help discover and promote new talent. You can register your band, upload a track or two, and then fans, other bands, and producers (including Harrison, Jim Dickinson, Stephen Hague, Dave Jerden, Tim Palmer and Dave Way) vote on who is the best, earning deserving talent a $250,000 record deal. Voting begins November 1, so get your music to the site now!
PIXELON WHO?: Just when you thought Pete Townsend had lost enough of his hearing, the Who re-formed to perform in Las Vegas as part of the "Pixelon iBash '99." Perfoming along with other top rock, pop, alternative and country acts (including The Dixie Chicks) at the MGM Grand, the live webcast concert was broadcast by Pixelon, Inc., to launch their new broadband Pixelon Player, a Windows-only product, which promises live streaming full motion/full screen video, high quality audio, and choices of multiple camera angles. These promises are contingent, of course, on broadband access (cable modem, ADSL, T1, etc), and a Windows-only browser plug-in.
MUSICSTAFF: Another website featuring a nationwide database of music instructors and teachers is www.musicstaff.com. Currently listing over 5000 teachers, this free site encourages music instructors from around the country to register with the site, then helps music students locate teachers based on region and city. Revenue for the site is (hopefully) generated by advertising and online sales of instruction books and videos.
MUSCIANS CONTACT: What do Herbie Hancock, Tower of Power, Ozzy Ozbourne, Billy Joel, Cindy Lauper and Dishwalla all have in common? Now, be nice... They have all used Musician's Contact Service to find players. Established for 29 years in Los Angeles, the service instituted a custom, computerized phone system in 1983, and has now brought its range of services and tremendous database to the internet (www.musicianscontact.com). Musicians can join (using their secure online credit card form), enter in their resume and contact info, and browse potential gigs. Bands, artists and agents looking for musicians for (paid) work can access the database for free, as well as fill out a form with their gig specifics. New bands looking for members (but not yet earning any $$$) can also access the database for a fee. The new site's interface is fast, and the look is simple, but that's what you want from a database, which is refreshingly vacant of any advertising.
FULL CD DOWNLOADS: Music Choice, a commercial-free digital music site featuring 50 different channels (with many unsigned/indie artists), now offers full-lenghth CD purchasing and downloading. Taking anywhere between 1 and 2 hours, their downlaodable files are encoded in Windows Media Player format (a secure, SDMI compliant compression and delivery scheme). Fans purchasing full CDs are directed to CDNOW, and it will be interesting to see who goes for the full downloads instead of the actual CD (for around the same price). Consumers choice in the matter is the key to the next big move in the industry... we'll see.
WEBTIPS: PAYOLA?MP3.com thinks it has found another way to actually make a bit of cash. "Payola" is a new feature of their auction area, allowing MP3.com artists to promote their music by bidding for song placement in the new section, located on the sites' Main Music page and top genre pages. Each section is different and has 10 available slots for songs, which are all up for bid. The highest 10 bidders every week are added to the top "Payola" listings (note the quotation marks always present aroung the program name). Bidding starts at a $1.00. Their marketing and press release says "Go ahead, blatantly market yourself!" While this new section has no direct relation to MP3.com charts or spotlight positions, it creates a new venue to promote and expose bands on the main music page and top genre pages.Basically, they are encouraging MP3.com artists themselves to spend money to get rated highest on the list, possibly in an attempt to get back some of the money they gave out when they offerred a limited number of IPOs to the artists at the site. How can this possibly be a good thing in any way, except to encourage bands to waste a lot of money and start a new, dangerous trend (based on an old and illlegal trend)? Hey everyone, remember pay-to-play? Yes, and pathetically, just like pay-to-play, I'm sure there will be a few takers for this new scheme. They invite comments on "Payola" at their message board, which is so far decisively negative on the topic (terms like 'offensive,' 'stupid' and 'joke' are tossed around). A few even suggest that they will now no longer post any music at the site, and mention amp3.com as an alternative to the bigger, more commercial attitude MP3.com has been sporting since its massive infusion of cash from Wall Street (such as the index page reflecting a more news/self promotion attitude, with very little actual music/band content and information). Give them a piece of your mind at http://bboard.mp3.com/mp3/ubb/Forum4/HTML/000367.html. |
© Music Connection Magazine 1999.