There's a piece missing. That seems to be the problem.

Anyone in the world who can find the "audio in" jack on their soundcard can record, edit, and upload their songs to the internet. Any fool with a video camera and i-movie can make a video. Anyone with a library card has access to a word processor, and the internet.

Welcome to 2008. No flying cars yet, but much of the known world can access the media created by anyone else in the world.

The part that is missing is in-between. Now people have access to all the media in the multiverse, but it seems like a lot of people don't know what to listen to, what to watch, what to read...

...because they don't know what they like...

...because they don't know what other people are watching, reading and listening to.

Stupid, right? Well, there's people who like songs because they like them, and there's people who like songs because other people like them.

You might have heard the term "Pop" before, it's actually short for "Popular", like the cute, blonde girl in your school who is always picked for things: Homecoming Queen, Student Council, 'Most Likely to Succeed', and of course, 'Most Popular'. There's people who like her because they actually know her and think she is a likable person, and there's people who like her because other people like her, because it is the popular and accepted opinion to like her, because it would make you an unpopular minority if you chose Not to like her.

TV shows? Movies? Music? Books? Religion? Politics? Same thing.

The difference is that some people actually have some facts to base their opinion on. There are people who take perceptive observations before coming to a judgement, and there's sheeple who need to check with everyone else before making their decision.

Which brings me back to my point: with all the media in the world a few mouse-clicks away, what do you listen to? What do you watch? What do you read? There used to be a 'man' who was more than happy to decide for you what was popular, in the form of your local papers, radio and TV stations: The Man. The Reference.

But that Reference is gone, and there are far too many sources scrambling to replace it. So do we go by Myspace friends or Facebook? Amazon or Rolling Stone?

There's a piece missing. That seems to be the problem.

Or, is it?

Art Is Resistance
-Zero

Labels: Cultural Observation, Culture, Philosophy

An impossibly amazing set of performances by the female-fronted bands attending the second Flight of the Valkyries show at Station-4.

It seems that every time there's an event at Station 4, I get to the event late. The only exception was the Jagged Spiral show a couple months ago, which is a good thing, because I was in it. Here, I thought the event started at 6PM, but it actually started at 3PM, and so I managed to miss Aria Sharp, Something to Fear, Earthen and Dendura. My loss.

However, I did get to meet Nathan Block, also known as 'The SwordLord' and the promoter of much of the harder edged music that comes to town. It was an honor to meet him and shake his hand. There was enough free stuff handed out by the bands that the $20 cover was well worth the price. I only wish I had gotten there sooner. Station 4 is a great venue for gigs like this, the only thing better would have been an outdoor show with awesome weather! Maybe next year???

Here are the bands from FotV I did get to experience:

Visideon - Visideon played the First FotV in 2007, and were invited back for this year's show. They're a great band, definitely worth hearing, I especially liked the vocals. Many metal bands (especially female-fronted ones) push vocals down into dog-barking obscurity or up into piercingly high-pitched screams, both of these techniques are spices to me, best used sparingly, and Visideon understand that. They call their music, "Classical Chording meets Heavy Guitar", add in some Angelic singing and synth-playing and you've got Visideon. Keep an eye on this band, and get out to see them while you can, they might not remain local for long!

Benedictum - The highlight of the evening, Benedictum (San Diego, CA) really stole the show for me. Their power and energy were set to 'Uber' and their lead singer, Victoria Freeman channelled and focused all of it. She really pulled the audience into the show, running into the crowd, even taking her wireless mic to the other side of Station 4 to make people watching from the "safe seats" feel like they were in the front row! And any band that can pull off a cover of Accept's 'Balls to the Wall'? Wow, these guys are really amazing!

Shadowside - South American Female Fronted Power Metal? Hell yeah! Shadowside was astonishing and beautiful onstage. Check out their myspace page to hear a band that pushes all the power, energy, and intensity of Iron Maiden into their music.

Unexpect - This year's headliner was Unexpect, a seven-piece band from Montreal. Now lots of bands use the term 'progressive' in their band descriptions, and I've pretty much crossed that word out of my dictionary, since it's been misused into meaninglessness. Everybody who writes a song with a bridge or a time-change in it calls themselves 'progressive'. But I might have to pull that word back out, because Unexpect is really, truly avant-garde. The SwordLord had this to say about them: "Think Cirque de Soleil goes black metal amidst an acid-trip version of The Dark Crystal", and I can't think of a better description. The nine-string bass guitar was a trip! I have to admit, their music was a bit over the top for me, chaotic and hard to get ahold of, the same way I feel about 'System of a Down'. Each member of the band is hyper-talented, but I think they are trying too hard to be different. For me, it was like listening to three bands at the same time, but check out their myspace and hear for yourself.

All in all a great festival, Minnesota is lucky to have an event like this here, and The SwordLord enjoys pointing out that it is the ONLY festival of this kind in the United States! Hopefully he will bring it back again, and it will grow in popularity.

Art Is Resistance
-Zero

Labels: Concert, Minneapolis Event, music, music reviews, Ubercool

In about 2 minutes, the 48 hour film fest awards for Minneapolis will go live, and you can see this years winners. I just got back from the awards ceremony, and I can give you a 2-minute heads up that "Birthmarked for Death" took best Picture, and a handful of other awards.

The group team Chiaroscuro was up against had 3 films go to the finals, so it's no surprise that our effort "Fort World" didn't make it to finals, but it's nothing to be ashamed of, we had some great company and great competition.

...next time....

Art Is Resistance
-Zero

Labels: indie movies, Minneapolis Event, Ubercool

Tonight, Team Chiaroscuro got to view their latest work of art on the big screen. Our entry for the 48-Hour Film Festival premiered tonight, alongside a gaggle of some well-done works.

It was a crazy weekend.

Friday 7:30PM. The genre we drew was 'Film de Femme' which aside from being a blatantly sexist genre, is also pretty open to interpretation. The prop was a fish, of all things, and the line of dialog was "You look very familiar".

The group assembled over pizza and beer, and began brainstorming ideas. We tossed around a lot of great ideas, and I think it was the wide-openness of the genre that made it difficult for us to dial in on any particular one. It might have been easier to start with more limitations, but by 9:30 we had a plot roughed out. As part of the script-writing team, I helped to flush out a script by midnight, a heartbreaking work of staggering genius called 'Fort World'.

Saturday Fucking Early AM - I joined the team (late: typical) and began designing the set, which was the interior of FortWorld. I swear, when we got done, it looked like the inside of the bottle from "I Dream Of Jeannie" After shooting started, I headed back home and helped my friend Reid Rejsa put together a few foley sound effects. I actually had time for a nap before the gang came over laden with video. Things were going swimmingly. Josh and I sat down to pick through some music, and "The Sarahs" began slicing and dicing the video...

...when the power went out.

Saturday 10:00 PM - I called the power company, and was informed that power wouldn't likely be restored for 4 hours. So the Sarahs pulled the video workstation, and took it to their place. I went to bed eventually, around 3:30 AM, and still powerless.

Sunday 8:00 AM - Still no power. I pulled my entire goddamned studio apart and fit it into the trunk of a 96 Saturn, and lugged the whole thing over to Josh's place. While I put the foley FX into place, Josh and Colin came up with some quirky musical pieces to slip in. A little touchup on the audio, and we pressed a DVD around 5 on Sunday, leaving us 2.5 hours to turn it in.

Tonight, we got to see FortWorld on the big screen, and I was pretty impressed. Team Chiaroscuro certainly has made some progress since our 2006 submission; this year's entry was much more ambitious. Aside from the power outage, there were no major technical glitches.

The whole project makes me want to do more small film projects, but one thing at a time. I already have one live performance to focus on... plenty of time for video later...

Art Is Resistance
-Zero

Labels: Cool Event, indie movies, Minneapolis Event, Videos

My opinion about Quentin Tarantino is that he couldn't direct a hooker into bed.

So it should be fun to see how much better an improvisation of his movies is, compared to the real thing.


Stare Down: A Tarantino Make 'Em Up - A one-hour improvised Quentin Tarantino movie, on stage and in your face. Fridays, July 11, 18 and 25 7 p.m. at the Bryant-Lake Bowl, 810 W Lake St.

Tickets $10, $8 for students and Fringe button holders.

Call (612)825-8949 for reservations.

Art Is Resistance
-Zero

Labels: Minneapolis Event

The annual Design Fiesta blossoms once again at the Soap Factory. More than 40 vendors selling their arts and crafts, alongside DJ's A-Ray and TalkRadio are sure to make this FREE event a fun one. Food and Beverages available for purchase.

Open to All Ages!

Price: Free

When
Jun 7, Sat. -- 12:00 pm to 6:00 pm

Where
Soap Factory
518 2nd St. SE.
Minneapolis, MN
612-623-9176
http://soapfactory.org/

Art Is Resistance
-Zero

Labels: Cool Event, Minneapolis Event

It isn't often that Minneapolis gets to host events like this. If you care about the state of media, here is the place to share ammunition for the revolution...

http://www.freepress.net/conference

Art Is Resistance
-Zero

Labels: Cool Event, Minneapolis Event, Music Industry, Ubercool

A recent article written for the Future of Music Coalition left me with mixed feelings.

The Effects of Media Consolidation on Urban Radio by Eric K Arnold analyzes how the Telecommunications Act of 1996 has impacted "Urban Radio". Don't worry, I didn't know what it was either. Here is the definition directly from Mr. Arnold's article.

"Generally speaking, urban radio is defined as programming whose primary demographic targets people of color living in urban areas."

Anyway, you could already guess the impact of governmental decisions on American business. Do you think it made things better or worse for big businesses? Do you think it made things better or worse for artists and small/indie businesses?

The effect is summed up in the first paragraph of the article:

"Let's cut to the chase: urban radio sucks. You know it, artists know it, and programmers know it too. It offers little room for creative programming, tends to favor established artists at the expense of new voices, and kills any halfway-decent song that does manage to land in rotation by playing it as much as three times an hour. Most of all, urban radio sucks because it rarely meets the needs of the local community from which its listeners are drawn. "

I agree wholeheartedly with all of this, *BUT* try this simple test: Reread the quote and replace the words "urban radio" with your own favorite genre of music. Country? Metal? Adult Urban Contemporary? It doesn't change the truth of the quote, does it? The bigger truth is that All Terrestrial Radio Sucks, for the exact same reasons. The problem isn't limited to Urban Radio at all.

So I have to take issue with Mr. Arnold's narrowing of the problem to how it only affects his chosen genre of music. Don't get me wrong, the article is truthful and accurate. But the conclusion we are left to draw is that the deregulation of terrestrial radio has ruined it for Black Urban America. It's not wrong, but it is being narrow minded at least.

So I'm all for whatever positive change can come from his article, and he mentions several things that YOU CAN DO to make things better, but I have a hard time endorsing discrimination, especially from a 'journalist' who should know better.

One thing Mr. Arnold does not mention regarding Things You Can Do to help is to grow some balls and not sell out if you are running a radio station. This is a part of the problem that cannot be overlooked. The stations that cared about the needs of the local community and used to play local music are gone because the owners sold off to the large corporates, or they tried to compete/cash in and started playing what everyone else was playing, to get a piece of the bigger pie. Either way, they had the option to continue playing independent music BUT THEY CHOSE NOT TO.

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 made it possible for large corporate radio stations to make buyout offers to the smaller independant stations, but did not force any of them to sell out. The owners and operators who sold out are more guilty than the government for what happened. You can look them up in the phone book and ask them why they didn't stand up for [fill in the genre] radio. Another thing you can do is open a radio station that plays local music. Then, when the big media moguls come around and offer you a fat wad of cash for your radio station, you can see what it's like to be in their shoes and see what kind of decision you would make.

Art Is Resistance
-Zero

Labels: Business Phenomena, Music Industry, Open Letter