Haiti Benefit Show in NYC: 1/25/10

Taken from CityWinery.com: A host of special guests from New York's Indie music scene will join forces on Monday night @ 7PM (1/25/10) for the final evening of fundraising.

Amber Rubarth, Ian Axel, Vienna Teng, Wes Hutchinson, Ari Hest, Will Knox, Joey Ryan, Rosi Golan, Nate Campany, Martin Rivas, Dov Rosenblatt, Alex Berger, Greg Holden and the Haiti Benefit House Band – Kevin Rice, Chris Kuffner, Adam Christgau, Tony Maceli, Melissa Tong, Ward Williams, Marika Hughes.

Big Hearted Donor Tickets Here - 100% Donated - 100% Tax Deductible. (includes a bottle of City Winery wine signed by every artist appearing that night.)

100% of funds raised from this benefit will be directed to Doctors Without Borders, Partners in Health and an emergency mobile hospital aid mission organized by the Jewish Renaissance Medical Center. The cost of your ticket is a charitable donation and is tax deductible as allowed by law. We ask that you give any way you can.

•Partners in Health
•Doctors without Borders
•Jewish Renaissance Medical Center

We need your help to raise $100,000 in four nights to help the victims of Haiti’s catastrophic earthquake. No country in the Western Hemisphere has been battered more than Haiti in the last 500 years—the nearly complete annihilation of its native population over two decades, a brutal slave regime, ongoing foreign military interventions over hundreds of years, brutal dictatorships supported by western powers, blockades of aid and more recently, devastating natural disasters from hurricanes to this latest earthquake.

Below are some other important places to donate:
Americares
Partners In Health
Doctors Without Borders
Red Cross

RIP MySpace.

It's been occuring to me that MySpace is dying a slow and painful death. Poor comatozed thing has been on life support for a while, with thousands of musicians' bots* all typing the same message to each other day after day. Is it time to pull the plug Tom?

Don't get me wrong. As far as independent music's growth on the internet, MySpace was the evolutionary equivalent of the opposable thumb. Then the inevitable happened. It was bought by media slut, Rupert Murdoch via Fox. Anyone who has watched Fox News within the last...well, ever....will have noticed its quality control department is hardly at Stradivarius' standards. An invasive onslaught of advertizing, constant spamming and hacking, and horrendous load times started turning MySpace in to the Times Square of the internet - lots of noise, flashy lights and really annoying.

Much like Times Square, we were suddenly surrounded by every rapper, singer-songwriter and hooker looking to make a name for themselves - including myself ;). It became too much, and as a promoter it was too easy to harrass people. *All you needed was some software (called a 'bot') like Spyder, and you could message & friend request up to 300 people a day.. you could even specify what location, age and gender you wanted to target. I know because I did this for months, and I apologize. It turned people off. But by this point it was too late - Facebook had arrived, and was doing MySpace's job so much better. YouTube, eHarmony, Spotify, Pandora & Twitter were rusty nails in the coffin.

With this said, it is still an industry standard for checking out bands because it's simple layout of shows and streaming music is very accesible.. though if I was Mark Zuckerberg I'd be thinking it's all for the taking.

FArts

I've been scouring Craig's List today, trying to find ways to supplement my rock and roll lifestyle (currently consisting of paying rent and some heating bills). I ended up in the 'creative gigs' section only to find that everyone wants free arts, or as I'm now dubbing it, FArts. Photographers, take a look at this generous offer:

"IM A MALE 80S FASHION MODEL AND LOOKING FOR A PHOTOGRAPHER..AND ALSO SOMEONE THAT CAN BE A PERSONAL PHOTOGRAPHER FOR ME AND MY RETRO 80S CREW....ONLY BUSINESS... P.S.This isnt a paying ad " -

God only knows what our creepster was thinking when he mentioned 'ONLY BUSINESS'. But before you photographers go raising your fists in the air, have a look at this benevolent happy snapper:

"Photographer is seeking lifestyle models of all ages for a photoshoot {Think high end Tiffany style but for a bakery} Please send face and FULL body photos....with stats

This is a non paying gig... but you will get your pictures on a cd after a waiver is signed allowing our company full rights to use your pictures."

It tickled me that the up-side of not getting paid was that you lose all your rights! Brilliant way to turn a negative in to a positive (excuse the photography pun).

Are you a dancer? Then look no further:

"NEED FEMALE & MALE DANCERS 4 SAT 26th night - NEED DANCERSSS!!!!! ASAP ITS NOT PAIDED"

Paided? I'm hoping our friend is saving his money for a dictionary.

Perhaps you've been studying at the Fashion Institute for a few years, and you're looking for some design work? Could this be your dream job?:

"I need T-Shirts for cool designs(No Pay-But you get credit)"

I don't even want to get started on the lack of paying gigs for musicians, though I know musicians can be the worst when it comes to paying photographers, directors, engineers etc. And by all means, build up your modelling portfolio! Get some photography experience! Play free shows and make new fans! But don't let people take advantage of you and your craft.

The only way this will stop is when we realise our worth and refuse to give people everything for nothing. Trade some services and make a deal, but let's say no to FArts!

Elliott Smith & Christmas Radio

I'm about ready to do a van Gogh on my ears after 5 days of Christmas radio - thank you Elliott Smith for being on my iPod. It wasn't always like this though..

I met a girl in Boston a few years ago, she asked if I liked Elliott Smith, and I said I didn't know. She made me sit in front of her computer until we'd listened through one of Elliott's records on her PC speakers. I was drunk on cheap whiskey and forgot most of this event, though later that month I got my hands on Elliott Smith's 'From a Basement on the Hill', and disliked nearly all of it. I'm in the process of inventing a time machine so I can visit my former self and knock some sense in to my thick, juvenile ears.

A couple of months ago I picked up Figure 8 from Nicole's iPod, and I've been feeding myself small doses of Smith since. I couldn't believe I'd never liked these songs before, and now I'm downloading XO, having put New Moon and Either Or on repeat for a month. I came home to London last week and played Speed Trials while walking through the snow. I had one of those moments where your iPod becomes the soundtrack to your bland day-to-day life, and for a moment it's awesome. Then you realise you're that dick with the iPod who thinks its the soundtrack to his life.

For all you MP3 fans, please check out my new record 'The Matador & The Acrobat" on iTunes!

Or feel free to continue the vinyl revolution.

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Adventures from the Internet

This is funny on at least 2 levels..

Day 6: Mecersburg, PA - Flannery's Tavern

Woke up in Philly with the excitement of knowing I'd be in Mercersburg by day's end. Nobody knows where Mercersburg is. You might never hear of it again after reading about it in this blog. However, it is probably the most exciting leg of the tour. Flannery's Tavern is the local pub & restaurant, run by local legend, John Flannery. We play the show with our friends 'The Hello Strangers', and proceed to get hammered with half of Mercersburg. Thanks to Nate Fochtman for this video of 'Bullets':



What then followed still spooks me out, as John Flannery took us on a tour of the Tavern, built in 1809: