The Buzz: Special Halloween I-Pod Edition
By Matthew Toledo - 10/22/2003
The 2003 Halloween block party is nearly here. For those of you who don't know, here are the basics: It's Saturday November 1st and this year there are TWO stages.
It seems as if the city is taking its first tentative steps to making Halloween more music centric and less of a cheap mardi-gras facsimile. Congrats to the city their progressive actions.
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Here is the tentative lineup. The bands are listed in order of appearance from first to last.
South Stage-----------
Red Shift
Echo Canyon Band
Mutilatia
Shantee
Urban Funk Ordinance
stage closes at 12:00
North Stage
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Buddy (DJ) 45
Jimson Lo-Fi
Cranberry Sause
Audio Bahn
Voodoo Birds
Guest 11:45 done
The North stage is new, and will be located near the BP. Exactly where is a mystery for now. Rumors have it that it will be tucked away near the Dominos Pizza.
The South stage, or "Traditional" location is where the stage has always been for the last few years: on an angle between Union and Court Street.
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What about the hip-hop stage? You know, the pettition? Well, sources tell me that it was just too little too late. Plans for Halloween had already been started, and there was a hard time rasing money for two stages let alone three. Johnathan Holmberg told me over the phone that odds would be better next year if the members of the hip-hop congress start earlier and contribute manpower and financial help via fundraisers for the Clean and Safe Halloween committe.
He went on to say that he has no doubt that eventually an all hip-hop stage could be a reality. Other stages could be formed too, like an all punk stage, all jam stage, etc. It just takes work and dedication. Baby steps. Baby steps. The lack of a hip-hop stage is nothing personal. My advice to the Hip-Hop congress: Please don't protest. The Christian bands tried that a few years back when they didn't get a stage. It was pitiful.
Macintosh computers may only comprise about 3% of all desktop computers but they accounted for a whopping 13 million dollars in online song sales. That is more than any other online song retailer. They accomplished this via their iTunes web site and utilities.
Recognizing the fact that they were only catering to 3% of the world, the geniuses at Apple's marketing department realized there was room to grow. Now PC's can use iTunes as well.
Like other services, iTunes seems to offer an ample supply of tunes from dead artists -- Jimi Hendrix, Johnny Cash and Miles Davis, and so on. But, also like the others, it has only tribute albums for other big acts -- such as the Beatles.
Apple plans to offer 400,000 songs for download by the end of this month, double the amount when iTunes for Mac hit in April. That's still fewer than the 500,000 songs Napster will offer by then, but Apple says it's being more selective.
HINT: Clear Channel and MTV's parent company Vaicom are also "a bit more selective" when it comes to what they broadcast. Let's hope iTunes doesn't turn out to be another company that force feeds us the same top 10 crap tunes.
Which reminds me, Napster has been moving towards online song sales for quite some time now, but has been hampered by the big 5 record companies who are still a little sore about being bent over the table for so long by point to point networks like Napster, Kazaa, Grokster and others.
The drawback to apple's iTunes... it only works best with the I-Pod, which is Apples version of a hand held MP3 player.
Chances are good that if you have a different music player, you'll be unable to use it with iTunes for Windows. Rio Audio says its Rio players won't work with the PC app. However Napster's service will play nice with most existing hand-held mp3 players like Rio and others.
Individual songs can be purchased from each service for about a dollar, albums for ten dollars.
Does this spell the end for your local record store? Not immediately, but as more and more people can afford computers and a high speed connection, the outlook grows dimmer. Once all the record stores are gone, you can expect these new mega online stores to start buying each other out. Then, we'll have another monopoly on our hands. Yea for progress!
Last up. I'm officially old this Halloween as I will be turning 30! Grumpiness
and bitterness will soon follow, I have no doubt :-)
