First Crack 67. Steve McClellan on Developing Musicians and Independence

Steve McClellan’s name is synonymous with and as legendary as First Avenue where he worked for 30+ years. Lately, he’s been working with the Diverse Emerging Music Organization – a non-profit focused on connecting independent venues and new artists. We sat down at the Acadia Cafe, I had a Duval (Acadia has an amazing beer selection) and he jumped right into it.

Keep up and you’ll hear about:

This is one of my favorite conversations ever. I couldn’t have asked for anything better to end First Crack’s month hiatus.

Special thanks to Bill Boulger from IndieTickets for connecting us.

Listen to Steve McClellan on Developing Musicians and Independence [49 min]

Check out my FastCast for a 10 minutes bonus track with Steve McClellan focused on DEMO, the Bootleg CD, and the December 14th CD release party.

CDs for Good and Not Evil

Now that the Sony rootkit fiasco is behind us. Here’s a selection of CDs that support a good cause and won’t destroy your computer. Just in time for Christmas.

Hey Dan Klass, when do I add The Bitterest Pill Vol. One to this list?

UPDATE 12 Dec 2005: Dan’s taking orders – definitely a steal at $10.

Sports Night – Still Best Show Not on TV

Sports Night on DVD finally bubbled up our Netflix Queue. More than 5 years later, it still has the best dialogue of any television series ever.

It’d translate perfectly to the video iPod also; audio that doesn’t need video and very basic video (people talking, generally not moving quickly). Hopefully, iTunes will become a strong enough distribution platform that studios will make more shows like Sports Night and send them straight to the fans.

Amazing Race 8 – Episode 9

“The Amazing Race has cured me.”

The promos for this week’s episode were edited to look like a hot air balloon collision caused the Weavers to freak out. After watching the episode in its entirety – it’s clear that wasn’t the case.

Detour: Spike it or Steam it?
We’re spiking it. Knowing how a railroad gets put together seems more interesting than hauling coal. Coal Haulers: feel free to comment.

Raodblock: cattle drive.
Since it’s just Jen and I in this armchair Amazing Race, we’re both doing it.

There’s soooo much driving in this season – blah. I’m longing for the last-minute airport counter negotiations of the previous seasons. We’ve driven some of these stretches. Honestly, being at each others throats in a car in the desert is never cool.

On a related note – anyone know what the “production errors” are that cause the car batteries to be drained? Seems to have happened a handful of times already.

Current Standing of Garrick’s Favorites:

  • Lintz – #3

Tuesday’s Triple Play – 3 From Wonderlick

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Ever since enticing me with their LL Cool J and 2Live Crew covers then switching it up with some of the most painfully melancholy audio, Tim Quirk and the guys from Too Much Joy have always hit me pretty hard. This week’s Triple play are 3 songs from Wonderlick – one of their latest incarnations – that always make me want to crawl back in bed.

All tracks are from their debut self-titled CD Wonderlick ($12 gets you the CD and t-shirt).

A Podcaster’s Christmas List

It’s the holiday shopping season and I thought it’d be useful to pull together a quick list of computer gear and accessories for the beginning podcaster. Things that would put the best foot forward and provide a good foundation to grow and expand…or not.

Anyway, I was pretty surprised at how low the final price was for all the gear (less than $2,000), and that if you already have a computer with an audio recording application, it’s less than $100 for the mic and cables to get you started. Amazing.

Happy Holidays.

Oh, and send me the podcast if you pull one together this holiday season.

The Difference Between Consumers and Customers Part Three

I’ve always found the Cathedral and Bazaar metaphor compelling.

Movie theaters, newspapers, television, radio, magazines are all cathedrals. The publishers place an artificial separation between them and the audience/consumers/eyeballs/gullets for their complete, discrete, highly-produced artifacts. One-size fitting all.

Weblogs, Wikis, Bulletin Boards are bazaars. Down in the dirt. Personal connections, relationships, conversations, building-blocks. Each new topic, event, person, site, the start of a new conversation. Custom, individual interactions.

This weekend I finally watched the Aviator on DVD. I’m sure this was fantastic in the theaters, on my non-HD, non-50″ television – the special effects were obvious and cheap looking. The story itself was good. Though, with the lack of Hughes biographical information and resources on the DVD, it felt like the end of a conversation. Not the start.

Things That Mean Nothing to Cooper

My mom has this great collection of 45s. I remember spending some fantastic afternoons as a kid spinning Joan Jett, the Beatles, and so many other classics.

This lazy Saturday afternoon, we had the 89.3 the Current on for Cooper and they played a song by the Pixies.

Jen to Cooper: “This was the first CD your mom bought. At the music store in the mall….Back when there were music stores….and malls.”

I’m sure that CD is in one of the many boxes of CDs, cassettes, and VHS tapes in the cloest. I know my first CD – They Might Be Giants – Flood is up there. I have a hard time imagining Cooper ever digging through those boxes – especially when he’s already got a playlist on my iPod.

Obviously, Cooper also doesn’t know anything about Sept. 11, 2001 or the Iraq War. I feel real good about that. Hopefully, those events will end up meaning the same to him as the Korean War does to me: it happened and it’s over.

3 July 2007 Update: We inherited an old early Little Tikes kitchen, circa 1980. With a wall-mounted rotary phone. I don’t know that Cooper’s ever acknowledged it as a phone. Though he’s already racking up the minutes on his green Parent’s flip phone.