Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Comment on Yesterday's Post Regarding Pete Berwick

I had copied and pasted yesterdays blog on Myspace. My good friend Rob Mazurek made a very good comment on it, and I wanted to share it as well as my response for the benefit of those who read my blogs on here.

Nothing offence about Pete's picture that I can see here Jack,pair of handcuffs..-so what ? . I've seen women on myspace post almost completely nude shots of themselves and never get them yanked from their pages (then again who would complain... I guess thats a bad example...lol) Seriously though, Pete's picture here is completely harmless- I think you may be onto somthing Jack, it's not the pictures at all-but the music that the major labels find to be a threat to their existance-so yeah,they nit-pick away at the indie guys for creating music just as good (and in some cases better-then some of their major artists)

What I find sad and pathetic is...the world of music is digitalized now,downloads are the norm as opposed to buying CD's- the market is huge for everyone to make a buck, there's no need for childlike greed on anyones part. I wont mention any major label artists names here but if certain female artists can make half-naked videos and sell music based on "Sex" and have their videos freely posted on myspace for the world to see (including impressionable 13 year old girls) , than Pete's pic is very harmless compared to that !! , Ive also seen womens websites with pics depicting/suggesting bondage- so the handcuffs obviously cannot be the "Real issue" here.

- Just my Two Cents people.

Posted by Rob Mazurek on Wednesday, June 03, 2009 - 6:13 AM


I think he hit the nail right on the head. Reposting my response here for the benefit of my blogger readers.

Rob I think you make a very good point. We've all seen some pretty suggestive pictures here on Myspace, generally from legit users of the site. As the world of music has become more digitized social networking sites like Myspace are the perfect tool for independent musicians to promote themselves, get their work heard and do all this without being with a major label. The majors meanwhile want to promote THEIR people, and the music that THEY think people should be listening to, never mind that there are a lot of people who have gotten tired of the cookie-cutter crap that the majors keep churning out. Keeping in mind that the major recording studios (or the companies that own THEM) have bought up the majority of the radio stations here in the states, they control who gets heard, its not like it was before where a locally owned station would give the "little guy" airplay.

So, with all this in mind, the only real avenues that the independents have are live shows, and the internet. The internet is a powerful tool as we all know. Independents have used and embraced Myspace because of the potential to promote yourself to thousands (some cases tens of thousands) of people, and create a fan base. All this being done without any help from the majors whatsoever and I really think that this is where the problem lies. The major labels continue to insist that musicians NEED THEM. Well, no, you don't. I really think that because of this the majors feel threatened, and pull below the belt crap like this.

When you consider that the 4 major labels all have bought stakes into Myspace, it's easy to read between the lines and see what's really going on.


Just thought I'd share the conversation for the benefit of my blogger readers.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Myspace Threatens Pete Berwick with Account Deletion!!




First of all, does anyone find anything offensive about this album cover? Obviously it's Pete's new album, Just Another Day in Hell.

Some asshole over at Myspace seems to think that this is offensive, believe it or not. Pete had it posted as his main profile pic, and Myspam, oops I mean myspace pulled it down, and sent him an email threatening him with an account deletion if he continues to "post pictures that are violating Myspaces' terms of use"

Isn't this some bullshit?

Seems Myspace continues to go after independent musicians, first they wouldn't let Black Angel upload music for 3 weeks because they posted a copyrighted song, that believe it or not was an original Black Angel song.

Now they are harassing Pete Berwick. Could it be that maybe these Indie guys create and perform music that is much better than the Majors Flavor Of The Week? It's interesting that we get almost naked pictures of Carrie Underwood on the front page of Myspace, and yet an unsigned artist can't have a profile picture of himself wearing handcuffs.

Oh shit, thats right I forgot, Myspace is partly owned by the Music Mafia, silly me.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

With 2 blogtv Shows Under My Belt...

I guess it's time to quit screwing around and start doing show planning again. I think tonight went really well, although we had some issues with Skype (the one thing that actually worked last week..lol)

The crowd over on blogtv, is awesome. When I got to my show there were people already waiting for me which was totally awesome. We got off to a nice start just chilling out, then Deb came on (once we got skype working) and we ranted about the music industry. As it's a new show with a new crowd we decided to talk about some of the things about podcasting, playing music over the internet, and some things about the Music Mafia that our viewers had never heard about. People were shocked at some of the wonderful things the industry has done to innocent people, especially some of the shit that the RIAA has pulled.

We had a great time, and it's only the beginning of a new era for Indie Spotlight!

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Great music I found on Magnatune.com!

Check out the site, alot of great music over there. I actually had the Founder/CEO on my blogtalkradio show back in March, really cool guy!











Prospects by Chris Juergensen

Monday, May 18, 2009

Time Well Spent

Well last night we did our first show over on blogtv. Most of the time was spent tweaking the video and sound. My setups a bit tricky as I had to adjust the settings on my computer, then tweak them on the adobe player on blogtv.


Then I had to adjust them on the computer again, I learned alot about how sound plays out over the internet, especially when we went to play music.

The part I thought was going to be a complete klusterfuck was the Skype call, which is how Deb is going to co-host the show with me.

Once we got the sound setting right on that one, it worked just fine....

Go figure.

I imagine given the time spent this week just tweaking sound, it's going to be a little rough over there the next couple of weeks, but I'll still take it over the bullshit we had to deal with on blogtalkradio any day.

I did post a recording we did over there last night, it's the blog post right below this one. Overall it went well, I see where it's going to be alot of fun.

Take a look!

Here is a test recording we did during the show tonight, take a look!


First Show - Broadcast your self LIVE

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Join Us This Sunday at Our New Home!

Indie Music Spotlight is now Indie Spotlight but that's not the only change, starting this Sunday at 9 pm (eastern) we begin our new show over on blogtv!

Joining blogtv is real easy, just follow this link it only takes seconds to register!

Then, follow this link to my new showpage! Should be a ton of fun, and I'm looking forward to seeing everyone there!

Saturday, May 9, 2009

Tomorrow....

Tomorrow will be our final broadcast on blogtalkradio. Starting May 17th we will be moving over to blogtv.

Please join us at 9 pm (eastern) tomorrow (May 10th) as we replay some of our favorite moments from some of the musician interviews we've done over on btr.

Then, reset your bookmarks to http://www.blogtv.com/People/riskybusiness04 to our new home on blogtv.

See ya there!