Nashville’s diverse music scene, you’ve noticed me talking about it a lot on this blog even though I haven’t moved outside of the singer/songwriter & Americana genres…until today.  While spending some time on BandCamp.com I came across an album called the “Bobby Thompson Reels Vol. 1” by the experimental rock group De Novo Dahl. Because I work in the Bluegrass music industry I automatically knew who Bobby Thompson was. For those unfamiliar with him he was one of the greatest session players in Nashville. Playing with the likes of Bill Monroe, Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Dolly Parton, the list goes on & on. In 2005 Bobby’s nephew, Rob Rickman Jr., came across some old reel to reel tapes from the various sessions Bobby Thompson was a part of. Here is his description on how these tapes were used by De Novo Dahl to form the “Bobby Thompson Reels Vol. 1”.

“Bobby passed away in May of 2005 after living with multiple sclerosis for the better part of two decades, during which time he lost his ability to play music. Following his death, I visited my aunt and learned of these reels that are largely comprised of unreleased material. An amateur audio archivist, I undertook transferring them to digital format as a way of ensuring that his work would be preserved for generations to come, while also wanting to allow my aunt to hear any given piece without having to fire up the reel-to-reel player.

Being rather obsessed with finding samples at the time, Joel and I heard lots of potential in these reels that dated from the 1950’s through the 80’s. Several years had passed when Joel informed me this past fall that he intended to release a DND EP centered on samples from the reels that he had started to piece together four years ago. Though I’m biased, this is such a cool, unique project. I’m very grateful to Joel for putting his energy into it.”

The “Bobby Thompson Reels” is a 4 track EP that will have you bobbing your head from the kickoff of “Country Funky” to the last track “Golden Gates”. The song I’ve decided to highlight from this EP is “Country Funky”. The song kicks off with Bobby’s signature banjo playing, which remains a staple throughout the song, & builds the longer it plays with drum loops, distorted electronic sounds & the occasional interlude of Bobby talking about different types of banjos & styles of playing. This is an album worth checking out in its entirety as each song as creative as the last.

For more info on De Nova Dahl visit their homepage & BandCamp.com. For those interested in hearing/learning more about Bobby Thompson visit BobbyThompsonBanjo.com

The Wilderness Downtown – The Arcade Fire

Flash vs. HTML5 – who will win? If the Arcade Fire promotional website (The Wilderness Downtown) is any indication, HTML5 all the way. Ad Age recently included the Creativity’s best ad “Arcade Fire: The Wilderness Downtown Trailer” in their morning newsletter, and the ad is amazing. It’s essentially a trailer for the music video. The whole concept was designed by Chris Milk from @radical.media and Google’s Aaron Koblin from the Google Creative Lab.

Basically, it’s an interactive music video for the song “We Used to Wait” that utilizes Google’s Chrome Browser and HTML5. You type in the address that you grew up in, and it takes you on a journey incorporating Google Maps. It is way cool and the functionality is amazing. You even get to type a letter to yourself that might be included in the Arcade Fire’s promo stuff.

I really hope we see more interactive music videos like this. It gives fans one more way to connect with the music beyond “I like it” to “I’m in it!” And who doesn’t want to feel like a rockstar – or at least to be part of the entourage?

Nashville lays claim to the beginnings of a lot of musical styles. Bluegrass music was first heard here, & Country music was made famous here. But there is one style of roots music that Nashville can’t lay claim to & that’s the mixture of Bluegrass & Folk music commonly referred to as “newgrass.” It’s based on the progressive Bluegrass band Newgrass Revival, circa 1972 and Louisville lays claim to them. Since then, bands from all over have been playing “newgrass” while adding their own creativity & stylings. North Carolina has the Avett Brothers, Texas has Cadillac Sky, Boston has Crooked Still & we are lucky here in Nashville to have the Vespers.

The Vespers are a group of siblings, Callie and Phoebe Cryar, and Taylor and Bruno Jones. They didn’t start out as a band though. Taylor & Bruno were the rhythm section in another group, while Callie & Phoebe were playing in coffee shops singing their own folk songs. Each were pursuing their own careers before Phoebe & Callie invited Taylor & Bruno to play with them, just to see how well they jammed together. What started out so simply has now become a full time pursuit for a band who now tours all over the US.

The Vespers released their first CD “Tell Your Mama” back in March of this year to critical acclaim. If you haven’t picked up your copy yet, don’t worry because it’s now available for free from NoiseTrade.com for a limited time. “Tell Your Mama” is a blend of bluegrass, folk, & alternative music all held together tightly by Callie & Phoebe’s angelic harmonies & Taylor & Bruno’s hypnotic rhythms.

The song I’ve decided to highlight from this album is the title track, “Tell Your Mama”. “Tell Your Mama” kicks off with Callie’s striking vocals backed by Phoebe’s strong mandolin playing. The song builds towards the chorus where the bands musicianship & vocal talent is displayed in full force. Phoebe & Callie’s harmonies are perfect as they sing “Tell your mama that you’re following her ways, that you’re going to the place that the preacher prays”. They sing with such intensity that you can’t help but think that these lyrics are coming from a personal place.

If you haven’t seen the Vespers live please do yourself a favor & check them out the next time they’re in your town. For those in Nashville they will be back around on October 21^st playing with Cadillac Sky at Trevecca Nazarene College. I know I’ll be there & I hope you will be too!!

http://thevespersband.com/

The proper legal term for this is “de minimis” use.  Or in the long form latin, “de minimis non curat lex” -meaning the law does not care about trivial things.  This is in fact a common defense to a law suit (much like it’s more overused big brother Fair Use).  This is not a RIGHT… but a DEFENSE.  There is a big difference in these two words.

De Minimis VS  Infringement

photocopying a cartoon and putting it on the fridge = de minimis

photocopying a cartoon and placing it in an advertisement or displaying it publicly even in a very trivial way= infringement

So how does this apply to musical recordings…?  The fact is, the de minimis rule does NOT apply to sound recordings.  As decided by the Sixth Circuit court of appeals in Bridgeport Music Inc. VS Dimension Films.  The use of any part of a sound recording in sampling or otherwise is infringement.  Whether you agree or not, this is in fact the law now.

For more information on this and other topics in copyright infringement check out this page

Bottom line is-  if you are going to use music in any length, way , or form-  Pay the owner of the intellectual property.

From the site:

How does this work?
You can now place calls to landline and mobile phones from within Gmail. Just dial any phone number and you’ll be connected. Learn more.

Rates
Calls to the U.S. and Canada are free in 2010. International calls are billed at our insanely low rates.

You can call Afghanistan for $.27 a minute or Zimbabwe for the premium price of $.46 a minute, and some rates are as low as $.02 a minute. Not bad.

Have you tried it yet? How does it compare to Skype?

Suddenly any music user with an Internet connection indirectly became a potential criminal by default; the leading copyright protectors morphed into copyright enforcers. The RIAA — an institution that helped popularize classic records by spawning systems that allowed artists to track sales — began incriminating thousands of individuals for millions of dollars in copyright damages.

On the flip side, copyright protectors are realizing the negative impact of their hostile means of enforcement. In recent interviews, both the President of the RIAA and a licensing executive for BMI have spoken out in hopes to reconcile the damaged image their respective companies have acquired.

Education is more important than persecution. Copyright is very serious and those who infringe and abuse it should pay the consequences, but if more steps are taken to teach music users about exclusive rights, then the problem of file sharing will alleviate out of mutual respect for the music community. I’ll leave you with a poignant marketing campaign ran by Pepsi that was not only among the first of its kind, but also completely described the state of the music industry at that time.

Hello I’m David Beronja a web designer/developer with 15+ years of experience and 8 years in the belly of the music industry beast. I’d like to welcome you to the first post of hopefully many of for the Nashville Feed podcasts on Music City Interactive website.

A little backstory on the Nashville Feed, it was started way back in 2006 as a independent music podcast featuring artists in Tennessee. After a few episodes it became a frustrating experience with confusion of what a podcast was back then, time involved and music licensing. After about 10 episodes I put it on hiatus and started blogging about new media and how the independent artist can take advantage of it.

A few years later I escaped the music industry alive and had an ich to start podcasting again. The Nashville Feed podcast was reborn as the Nashville Tech Feed a talk podcast covering technology, music and culture. It’s a panel discussion of talented people living and working in Music City. We cover topics like the nashville flood, entrepreneurship and the last episode self publishing. The show runs anywhere between 30 min to an hour depending how much fun we are having.

So now you know a little about the podcast give it a listen on the webpage above or subscribe via iTunes or your own podcasting software using the RSS feed. We love feedback so if you like it please leave a comment, twitter or even a voicemail at 615-280-0505. Back episodes can be found at NashvilleTechFeed.com

Episode #24 Overview

We have a special episode focusing on the Nashville Technology Council and what they have coming up including news. Tod Fetherling & Katy Kirby from the Tech Council join us with their insights.  Co-hosting this episode is Craig Havighurst from String Theory Media.

The Nashville Tech Feed podcast is hosted on Site5.com:

Show Hosts/Guests:

• David Beronja
• Craig Havighurst – String Theory Media
• Tod Fetherling – Nashville Tech Council
• Katy Kirby – Nashville Tech Council