Dinner with Joi Ito

John recently visited Tokyo and spoke at Joi Ito’s New Context Conference http://www.garage.co.jp/ncc2006.

While in Japan, John and Joi talked over an apparently delicious Japanese-Korean fusion dinner. Check out Joi’s blog on iCommons highlighting their discussion: http://icommons.org/2006/10/16/dinner-with-magnatunes-john-buckman

Joi is General Manager of International Operations for Technorati http://www.technorati.com, Chairman of Six Apart Japan http://www.sixapart.jp the weblog software company, and is on the board of Creative Commons http://www.creativecommons.org.

Among his many accomplishments, Joi is also Chairman of iCommons http://icommons.org an organization dedicated to developing a united global commons front by collaborating with open content and free culture communities around the world.

Photograph of John Buckman by Yonnie Kim

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The Podcast is The Thing

The North Fulton Drama Club in Atlanta, Georgia http://www.northfultondramaclub.org has a really innovative podcast that now includes Magnatune music.

This dynamic local theater group produces it's own behind-the-scenes podcasts, covering everything from the challenges of performing Shakespeare to backstage goings on. 

Thomas L. Strickland, artistic director for the “upstart” theatre company recently contacted us about including Magnatune music in the podcasts.  The club had been using podcasts to accompany production progress since April of 2006 and wanted music to enhance the shows.

Since the play’s the thing, two of the podcasts were recorded for a spring production of Love's Labour's Lost. More have been produced for the group’s current show Twelfth Night, which just opened in October.

For their latest, the podcasters used remix of Lisa DeBenedictis’ Below http://www.magnatune.com/artists/lisa_debenedictis

The podcasts can be heard at http://www.gapodcastnetwork.com/network-programs/north-fulton-drama-club/2006

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Space Music
We came, we saw, we are still looking

In honor of the Hubble's Telescope’s 15^th Birthday, The Ott Planetarium at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah put together a special show with Magnatune music.

NASA took the highest resolution pictures ever obtained of two of the Universe's most-beautiful objects: the Eagle Nebula and the Whirlpool Galaxy.  By projecting these amazing images on the planetarium dome along with the compositions of our artists, the show is undoubtedly awe-inspiring.

A nice variety of Magnatune music was used for the presentation, from Celtic harpist Cheryl Ann Fulton
http://www.magnatune.com/artists/fulton

to the choral songs of the Ukrainian Saint Elijah Children’s Choir
http://www.magnatune.com/artists/elijah.

More about the Ott Planetarium can be found on their website at http://community.weber.edu/planetarium/

Worth the time is the complete log of photos from The Hubble Telescope check out website http://hubblesite.org/

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posted by Teresa Malango, Magnatune, 10/19/2006

Future of Music Summit

Guest Blogger:Teresa Malango, Magnatune, teresa@magnatune.com

Magnatune's A&R Director, Shannon Coulter, attended the Future of Music Policy Summit  http://www.futureofmusic.org/events/summit06 in Montreal last week and found David Byrne's keynote speech very relevant to what we are doing at Magnatune. She sent us this report:

“In his keynote address at the 2007 Future of Music Summit in Montreal, David Byrne of the Talking Heads talked about the problems, as he sees them, with DRM restrictions on music sold through Apple's iTunes, and conducted an extensive profit analysis of where record labels' and distributors profits go, noting that despite the fact that overhead costs have dramatically dropped in the last few years for labels and distributors--most artists are still receiving the same exact cut of the profits-- about 20 percent. (Same as it ever was?)

Byrne's address was titled Record Labels: Who Needs Them? He answered the question by saying, repeatedly, that he believes artists still do need labels for their industry expertise, promotional know-how, and in some cases even their contributions to the creative development of an artist, but that labels and distributors must start structuring deals in a manner that is better for the artist.

Byrne also compared major labels' use of DRM to the days of prohibition, observing that when enjoyable commodities are restricted, underground markets invariably develop.

Finally, he discussed his decision to distribute some of his music under a Creative Commons license versus traditional copyright, saying that CC allows for better exchange of information and ideas. "And as we've seen," he concluded, "when information is restricted, society crumbles."

Byrne's next album will be released on Nonesuch, a label he described as very "artist centric." 
-- Shannon

This year Byrne and Brian Eno collaborated with Nonesuch Records & EMI to offer their seminal album My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts. Originally released in 1981, and recorded 25 years ago, the new version has been completely remastered. In an innovative move, they are offering all the multi-tracks of two songs on the album for anyone to sample and remix.

In line with Creative Commons licenses http://www.creativecommons.org, participants are free to edit, remix, sample and mutilate the tracks and post their mixes or songs on the site for others to hear & rate.  To hear the remixes: http://www.bushofghosts.wmg.com/home.php

It’s quite encouraging to see well-known musicians jumping in and successfully using the same open principles as Magnatune.

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Posted by Teresa Malango, Magnatune, 10/10/06