[Audio clip: view full post to listen]Download

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… [Read More]

Guest Writer – Katie Butcher

THERE’S STRANGER THINGS TO DO ON THE INTERNET…

We’re lucky at my firm, West End Enterprises, that we enjoy the benefits of an absurdly qualified team of staff and volunteers when we work here in Nashville. Our events are generally populated with people who come from great educational backgrounds and have solid industry experience. However, even through we made our home-base here, occasionally, like everyone else, we have to leave. Working out of town for almost any firm can be scary. (No, I’m not talking about shipping your gear…but that can be scary, too.) No matter how good your connections are or how well you know the area, at some point, you’ll likely exhaust your resources and need to pull in additional workforce. So you turn to the dreaded internet.

My experience has been that even the most tech-savvy… [Read More]

Full disclosure: I have been a longtime hater of Autotune.

For years, I have found Autotune to be repulsive… in pop music it makes up for singers’ inadequacies and in rap music it creates “music” for those who have no such talent.  This disdain has been only further flamed by artists like T-Pain and Lil Wayne who have built entire careers around this technology (much like Zapp and Roger did on the back of the Talk Box (which at least required the singer to be able to hold a tune)).

Well now it is apparent.  There is a fine use for this technology.  Enter Autotune The News (@autotunethenews on twitter).  I have know about these guys for a while as their antics using news footage of congress, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and the other list of Washington talking heads have brought about the random office chuckle, but not… [Read More]

It is no surprise that technology has launched the distribution of music into an entirely new sphere of creativity. Since the rise of peer-to-peer file sharing software in the 90s (Napster), the invention of iTunes and its associated hardware devices (iPods and iPhones), and the creation of music streaming websites (Pandora, Last.fm), the potential of new media in the music industry is following a path that will ultimately lead to more opportunities to market and sell music. Although a lot of major record labels and Performance Rights Societies are butting heads with these new outlets, it can’t be denied that, whether it’s resisted or embraced, the advent of digital music is spearheading a new business model for the music industry.

We are on the verge of taking yet another step forward; “Cloud-based music services,” as they are commonly called, are starting to surface. Here’s the gist of how they work:… [Read More]

CBS Launch of Radio.com

Radio.com is combining the power of 600+ “real” radio stations along with Last.fm’s scrobbling in an attempt to become the online source of radio. Google shows 3,350,000 searches per month for “radio”, meaning CBS now has one of the most valuable domains on the web. But, Radio.com will have a lot of competition to deal with (Pandora and Grooveshark). What can CBS offer that is different?

The slick user interface, sections for news and sports, along with links to AOL & Yahoo stations are the main selling points of Radio.com. It seems as if they’re trying to give terrestrial radio a live-podcast feel. My first encounters with the service were basically nonstop advertisements for 3 minutes. Fortunately, mute still works.

But once the ads are over, a nice cover-flow appearance of what you’re listening to is displayed above relevant information to the station… [Read More]