Be The Media

How do you start a revolution in music? Try E-Flat

Tune in to PBS for the San Francisco Symphony's groundbreaking series "Keeping Score: Revolutions in Music."

Find out how a few inflammatory notes from the minds of Beethoven, Stravinsky, and Copland changed music forever. The first in the series is Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 in E-Flat Major (Eroica, or "The Heroic").

"The composition witnesses the powerful emotions of hope and despair and conflicts of death and life that Beethoven tells us are reflections of the life of a hero. But who is the hero - the Emperor Napoleon, Beethoven, or everyman?"

Find out! Watch an excerpt on PBS site or on YouTube. And check local listings for the next installment.

Monster Mashup

Got a favorite Mashup? Share the love.

It's Friday night, let's get this party started:

Eminem vs No Doubt:
(It's Hella Good) Without Me (MP3) Lyrics
Chrstina Aguilera vs Velvet Underground:
Girl Wants to Say Goodbye (to Rock and Roll) (MP3) Lyrics

Video mashup of Christina Aguilera vs the Strokes: A Stroke of Genius (Lyrics)

Happy Birthday, Jerry Garcia

How do you celebrate the soul of the Dead, Jerry Garcia? Sunshine Daydream celebrates Jerry's life and music with their 21st annual Jerry Garcia Birthday Bash Aug 4-5 in Terra Alta, WV. Jerry was born on August 1, 1942.

No matter what song I post in memory of Jerry, I will certainly hear otherwise from fans. So since I am celebrating Jerry's birthday in audience with David Bromberg tomorrow night at the Mystic Theater in Petaluma, I thought I would give props to both with this clip of an informal jam from Woodstock 1969 featuring Jerry and Mimi Farina singing "If I Could Be The Rain." If you watch closely at the end, you will see a very young David Bromberg on bottleneck!

Often referred to as a "musician's musician," Bromberg was sideman to Bob Dylan and Jerry Jeff Walker, and fronted his own band for quite a while (discography here). The 'iconic and eclectic string master' - he plays guitar, dobro, mandolin, banjo, fiddle - is a graduate of the Kenneth Warren School of Violin Making in Chicago, and bought a violin shop in Wilmington DE in 2002. The city requested that Mr Bromberg revitalize the local arts community, and he holds twice-a-week jams at the local cafe - lucky Wilmington!

Lyrics here
If I could be the rain, I'd wash down to the sea;
If I could be the wind, there'd be no more of me;
If I could hide the way I feel I'd never sing again;
Sometimes I wish that I could be the rain.

Bob Marley: Forever Loving Jah

Rastafarians sometimes refer to God as 'JAH,' a shortened form of Jehovah found in Psalm 68:4 (KJV) which encourages believers to sing praises to God. Rastafari believe that the former emperor of Ethiopia - Haile Selassi I - was Jah, God incarnate on Earth. They believe their religion is a blend of the purest forms of both Judaism and Christianity, and accept the Egyptian origins of both. More here.

The Rastafari movement spread throughout the world in the 70's and 80's thanks to the words and music of the Jamaican born reggae singer/songwriter and mystic prophet Bob Marley. This classic video of "Forever Loving Jah" is from a rehearsal session in Kingston Jamaica in 1980. The song appeared on the album "Uprising" in 1980, a year before Bob left his physical body on May 11, 1981.

This song is very easy to play - just three chords - F#m, Bm and C#m - Chords & lyrics from 911Tabs. The C#m doesn't sound quite right, but I am tone deaf. Any ideas? Let me know!

Cause only a fool lean up on, lean upon His own misunderstanding
And what has been hidden from the wise and the prudent
Been revealed to the babe and the suckling
In every thing, in every way I say

We'll be forever loving Jah
We'll be forever
We'll be forever loving Jah

Cause just like a tree planted planted by the river of water
That bringeth forth bringeth forth, fruits in due season
Every thing in life got its purpose
Find its reason in every season, forever Yeah!

We'll be forever loving Jah

Tim Hughes teaches you how to play "Beautiful One" on guitar

A beautiful song, dedicated to a beautiful person - YOU!

Grab your guitar and play along!
Chords & lyrics at Ultimate Guitar

Beautiful One I love You
Beautiful One I adore
Beautiful One my soul must sing

You opened my eyes to Your wonders anew
You captured my heart with this love
Because nothing on earth is as beautiful as YOU

Katie Melua at Great American Music Hall - 9 Million Bicycles

Thanks to Lisa 'Pilates' for the company (and ALICE 97.3 for the tix) to see the wonderful Katie Melua tonight at San Francisco's Great American Music Hall.

Ms Melua is an extremely powerful stage presence and a very talented, young singer/songwriter. After "I Cried For You," there was not a dry eye in the house. If Eva Cassidy were to be re-incarnated, she would come back as Katie Melua.

Katie blew the crowd away with her captivating renditions of Shy Boy; Just Like Heaven; Nine Million Bicycles; Piece By Piece; I Cried For You; My Aphrodisiac Is You; Spider's Web; Crawling Up A Hill; Call Off The Search; Belfast; Blame It On The Moon; I Do Believe in Love; Halfway Up The Hindu Kush and encores Mockingbird; The Closest Thing to Crazy (my favorite!); Faraway Voice (a tribute to Eva Cassidy).

Grab your guitar and play along! Visit Ultimate Guitar for the chords and lyrics. It's just five chords - Am, Em, Dm, F, and C. Well, ok, seven if you include the lovely, feminine Fm contrasted with the strong, masculine G she throws in for good measure in the chorus. Easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy!

Check out more of her music at KatieMelua.com. Thanks again Lisa for an inspired, enchanting evening

Future of Music Coalition Policy Summit

The 5th annual Future of Music Coalition Policy Summit will be September 11-13 in Washington, DC. Moving into its fifth year in 2005, the FMC Policy Summit is a forum for musicians, lawyers, academics, policymakers and music industry executives to come together to discuss and debate some of the most contentious issues surrounding digital technology, artists’ rights and the current state of the music industry.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - Click here for more info!

Payola is dead! Now what will we listen to?

Eric Boehlert in Salon:

"The new year brings some good news for artists, record companies and music fans. Independent promotion, the entrenched system by which record companies pay middlemen to get songs played on FM stations, has finally been reined in. It's the practice that's sucked hundreds of millions of dollars from the pockets of labels and artists, been tagged by critics as nothing more than legalized bribery, while helping dumb down radio playlists.

"Ding-dong the witch is dead," crows one record company executive, who, like most people contacted for this article, agreed to talk only on the condition of anonymity. (The indie system may be going down but the topic remains sensitive inside record companies, where neither executives nor artists want to jeopardize potential radio airplay because of public statements.)

Under pressure from New York's nosy attorney general, who has already posted an impressive track record weeding out corporate fraud in other major industries, the system is finally collapsing — or at least contracting — from its own weight. In recent months, chain after chain of radio stations has announced it's cutting official ties with the middlemen or indies, who are now struggling to come to grips with the radically changed landscape around them. "We're not becoming millionaires anymore," says one longtime indie promoter for top 40 radio. "We're just paying our bills. I'm hoping I'll still be in business next year." They shouldn't bother looking to the record company counterparts for any sympathy, though. "Let's face it," says a label source, "the system was a scam."

Charter prevails over RIAA

By Ted Hearn in MultiChannel News:

"A Federal Appeals Court ruled Tuesday that Charter Communications Inc. was served with illegal subpoenas as part of an effort by the music industry to obtain the names of high-speed-data subscribers suspected of illegally swapping songs over the Internet.

The decision was handed down by a divided three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, which held that Charter was not required to comply with the subpoenas because the cable company had acted as a disinterested conduit that file swappers utilized allegedly to exchange copyrighted material.

“With its ruling, the [court] has concurred with our belief that no statutory basis exists for the issuance of subpoenas requiring the disclosure of customer information to the RIAA [Recording Industry Association of America] by Charter,” Charter spokesman David Andersen said in a prepared statement."

Sony-MGM deal cleared by regulators

From the Los Angeles Times:

"A consortium led by Sony Corp. on Thursday cleared U.S. antitrust hurdles in its efforts to buy the historic film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc.

MGM's acquisition, valued at about $4.9 billion in cash and assumed debt, is still subject to the OK of MGM shareholders Dec. 17. Approval is expected because billionaire Kirk Kerkorian controls nearly 75% of the studio."