Sometimes I think that the voices of certain singers are as familiar to me as the voices of my closest friends and family ....Those voices ...are my companions through bad times and great times.
... Some of those...voices... are... keys to my ... heart. They will always guide me through times when I have fits of excessive rationality.

Johnny Cash (I love his deep voice, powerful and fragile, fierce and affectionate. The two times I had the chance to see him live on stage are among the most impressing moments of music I ever experienced.)

It would be an achievement beyond measure if, with a push from this community [and others], the piece stimulates an ever-expanding circle of your fans to reflect upon and address the urgent concerns of our conflict-weary planet. To that end, I will try to get more folks to check it out and give you and KHP more input.

1."Blogosphere" may not be a pretty name for it, but it is a pretty attractive destination -- for women at least
2. more than one-third (35%) of all women in the U.S. aged 18 to 75 participate in the blogosphere at least once a week. And that number increases if less-frequent visits are factored in. Of those women who are online any amount of time, 53% read blogs, 37% post comments to blogs and 28% write or update blogs
3. "We can now see that blogging is mainstream"
4. The study was based on surveys of two sample groups which together included several thousand respondents: one composed of participants in the BlogHer community and the other of online women selected to represent the general population of U.S. women. If anything, blogs do seem to capture a consistent audience.

5. Of the general population of online women who write blogs, 58% post entries at least weekly -- and of those who read blogs, 80% do so at least weekly.
6. Of women who said they write blogs, answers from BlogHer respondents and the general population were "nearly identical," saying they: most often do so for fun (65%); to express themselves (60%); to connect with others (40%); as a personal diary (34%); and to give advice or educate (26%).
7. Women read blogs for fun (46%); to get information (41%); stay up to date on family and friends (36%); stay up to date on specific topics (34%); connect with others (28%); and entertainment (26%).
8. the last finding is significant for all media. "I think other media have to be conscious that this is also entertainment. It's replacing other forms of news gathering, which has newspapers and magazines scared, but it's also [replacing] all of entertainment, which should have TV and movie [companies] scared," Ms. Page said.
9. there has been a noticeable shift away from traditional media. Some 24% of the women overall watch less TV, as do 43% of BlogHer users; another 25% and 22% of the general consumers read fewer magazines and newspapers, respectively, as do 31% in each category of BlogHer users.
10. Demographically, BlogHer users are fairly similar to average online women, although they skew much higher in the 25- to 41-year-old Gen X range, with 68% of the BlogHer users in that age range vs. 42% of overall women.
11. "We are almost a beacon of what's to come," Ms. Des Jardins said

Found on Fuzz

Hey, here’s an artist that I truly 100% found on Fuzz, having no prior knowledge of them beforehand. They live in Austria, a place where most people don’t expect to hear much about new music, but they’re well worth your time and attention.

As luck would have had it, I found them through a best guess match via Blip, the neat little Twitter-like audio application/conversation gestation creation now available in the navigation here on Fuzz. You enter in some keywords or the title of a song you’re listening to; Blip tries to find it, and presents a handful of options–the real thing, close matches and the like from a bunch of sources. Whatever I was looking for didn’t turn up, but a number of tracks by Bell Etage did, and since they didn’t have some sort of crazy name like ThEH FuNkY LoRdZzZ, they seemed worthy of notice.

Grateful for having checked them out, I now share the band Bell Etage with you, the Fuzzpublik. As a five-piece vehicle for singer-songwriter material in a young, poetic vein, Bell Etage struck me as pretty cool for two reasons: the overall restless rhythmic shakeup that’s present even in their calmest musical moments, and their use of blunt force, English-as-second-language lyrical delivery. The former owes a big debt to the bustling, anti-industry activity of ‘90s emo, as it separated into (and against) indie rock/pop ideas and its roots in hardcore. Listen to the snaking guitar lines and jagged wrong notes that pop out of a song like “A Drop of the Universe” and understand that not a whole lot of bands trying to play music this sincere and heartfelt actually have the control that these folks do in their attempt to strike such a balance. It speaks of time, experience, and the willingness to be different, all qualities that are shared by far too few acts out there. It’s redolent of a lot of ideas that usually don’t make it too far into songwriting showcases, and the fact that they can bring it across so naturally is quite remarkable. Their album, We Cried the Sunlight Down in the Day, is loaded with similar moments of wild surprise.

Onto the latter. Nobody’s ever expecting to hear someone singing seriously about masturbating in the opening verse of a song–and nobody really should–but it leaves “Feathers in the Washing Machine” with an uneasy feeling that carries right through to an almost immediate tempo shift to faster and more aggressive, hooky terrain. The dusky delivery of these words–odd ones at times, ones that don’t grasp a native subtlety–speak to a different set of rules. Their hustle is strong.

Anyone who likes Modest Mouse, Rainer Maria, Monochrome, any outfits of the brothers Leo (Ted or Chris, maybe even Danny) or the like really ought to check this band out. For playing within the boundaries of what we know to be an indie sound , Bell Etage takes a lot of chances. Those chances don’t translate to great work all of the time, but their yen for musical miscegenation, to weird things out in ways you wouldn’t expect, provide a bounty of real surprising, complex work that really helps to lift them up to the shoulder level of the faceless hordes out there.

Hey, Doug

Like you, I was first looking for something else and then came across your intriguing review [to say the least] of the Austrian group, Bell Etage.

Using your perspectives as a guide, I gave their pieces a listen and agree that there is experience, control, wild surprise, and hustle in their work. Indeed, I would say that their efforts could raise them to a level that puts them above the faceless hordes.

I moved on to the group's bio and noted their own efforts to provide a literary frame to their pieces as follows:

"It's all about sex. Or loneliness, depending on the different characters...The Mojo never really reaches the surface...My house is crowded with...strangers...the songs are made of the observations from out there...They want to tell you what they have to say but in the same moment they don't want to. There is an aura of alarm to it,...It's all about sex, loneliness and silence. But mostly it's about the hope inside..."

I think Bell Etage will give their followers a worthwhile return on the investment of the social capital that one is prepared to expend on them. I'm investing.

"From FAQ (http://www.fuzz.com/corp/support?tab=faq) it seems that it is currently impossible to edit mixtapes and probably no possibilities to copy it to other user pages. It is possible only to get script and to place it in websites that allow it (like [url=http://webwidgets.ning.com).]http://webwidgets.ning.com).[/url]

There is a trick how you can create mixtapes from your playlists easily:
http://www.fuzz.com/mixtapes/create?playlistId=
When you go to your playlist there should be an ID # and you just plug it in after the = .
Then it remains to follow instructions, clicking on your choices and uploading your image at the very end to place it somewhere within created mixtape."

1. the ultimate concept, that success comes not from trying to deliver one product to satisfy all people, but delivering a skein of products, that satisfy a great swath of the public.
2. Suddenly, with digital files, people could acquire a wide swath of material, essentially for nothing. And it turned out that although there was a demand for major label product, everything from Mariah Carey to Justin Timberlake to Madonna, that demand was far from the entire spectrum of consumer interest. It was just a slice. People wanted more.
3. it turns out many people don't like Mariah Carey. Some like banjo music. Some like emo. There's an infinite variety of musical styles, and an audience for each. Maybe the audience isn't large, but it exists.
4. maybe, if the public was exposed to something different, they'd like it! In enough quantity to make money! For everybody who likes Mariah Carey, there are tons who are turned off and hate her. This is the lesson of the twenty first century. Not that if everybody paid for music Mariah would sell more, but that many people don't want her music at any price, they want something different! He who will rule in the future is he who services all these niches, who gives people something different.
5. As Gladwell says, the search for universals is futile. Because they don't exist. Turns out the public is segmented, horizontally, they want a lot of different things. It's not about the lowest common denominator, but servicing each and every one of these niches.
6. We're presently in a period of chaos. I believe an aggregator will appear in the future, someone servicing artists at a low price to the creator, both artistically and financially.
7. The majors are heading towards marginalization, they're an ever-decreasing sideshow, to focus on them was to watch IBM to see where the personal computer revolution was headed, as opposed to Microsoft and eventually Netscape and Google
8. People don't always know what they want, and they can't explain what they want, so your call-out research is actually winnowing out listeners, those interested in a broader spectrum of music.

JGBOCCELLA, I have just started to check out your Op-Ed and youtube series about a
"Totally Unique Way to Talk about Race Relations" . Your undertaking to take on the defining issue of our country ignites the mind and inspires the soul. I will think on how best to join this dialogue and expand upon it.

My intuition is that independent artists and venues such as fuzz [and similar vehicles] working together with our political leaders using the viral leverage of "pop culture" may be a potent combination to continue the unfinished business of this country. There are few things that inspire and promote change in our societies like indie artists and their music and things that are considered "cool".

With your kind permission I will repost your original note to me [see below] on a few more fuzz pages to get this important subject about race in AmeriKa started. TCC [Tom]

ps: I started to address this topic on the fuzz site awhile back following on Dr. James Patterson's essay posted here and I take the liberty to revive this important discussion with my note to Dr. Patterson:

thecapitalclinic said:

posted on Jun 19 at 1:13 am
While surfing the Fuzz site by using the new word search facility on the Buzz page, I was sent to your essay on B-Boy Rules and Hip Hop Intellectuals several times on the basis of random words that have been turning over in my head recently.

With apologies and the caveat that I am not familiar with the literature of Hip Hop, in reviewing your essay and the views of other Fuzz blog participants, I thought I would offer a few random comments on your blog that center on a few points embedded in your piece in respect of what Hip Hop means for the future of the inner city and the broader American experience.

1. I recall fondly the days of my youth, when we played "the dozens", a game of insult and fun for those of us in the inside, largely poking fun at ourselves, but often in the context of a distinction between those on the "inside" separated by race or economic circumstance from others on the "outside". The dozens began to take on the rhythm of the streets and may well have provided important elements in what was to become Hip Hop [of course, together with many other influences on the genre/social movement you discuss in your essay].

2. I also am old enough to remember that to be "cool" [now a mainstream sentiment] was a sentiment that connoted the delicious and dangerous inner city experience. It would be instructive to analyze how and why what was considered "cool" then as an inner city experience is now considered "cool" globally as a positive mainstream sentiment. Surely, the Hip Hop movement as a culturally framing phenomenon is part of the evolution of "cool".

3. Having lived overseas for almost two decades, upon my return I have been struck almost every day by the growing disparity between the "haves" and the "have-nots" in our country in terms of material wealth and opportunity. The "inside" and the "outside" is a distinction that is becoming even more pronounced and the dozens and its successor in sentiment, Hip Hop, becoming more strident and desperate.

4. Those in the inner city are becoming daily less and less invested in mainstream social norms. The plight [if I many characterize it as such] of the inner city and a way forward should be developed on the basis of a clear-headed [if you will, intellectually grounded] understanding of the framing phenomenon at work, as exemplified by Hip Hop and its possibilities to become "way cool" as a mainstream sentiment. This is easier said than done [witness the sturm and drang over Cosby before and now Imu]and I appreciate that Hip Hop speaks to mind, heart, and soul at many levels as you point out in your essay; but we are all in this together, brother.

5. Back to the Fuzz platform, music, and what I refer to as Cottage Industries 2.0. It is my intuition that we have a unique opportunity to use Fuzz as a vehicle to "disaggregate" many of the things that are broken in our system and rebuild the damn thing step by step. Perhaps a useful first step might well be to take another look at the many dimensions of Hip Hop and see if we can use this platform to develop clarity on what each element in the Hip Hop "movement" means.

------- Original message (Apr 21 at 1:12 pm) -------

Hello CC -

I just read your reply to Marion Kind's Obama post and I wanted to share some stuff with you.

I wrote a song called "CHANGE" and I would love to hear what you think of it and my OP-ED piece about Barack (FYI: I wrote it before his speech on race)

-JG
J.G. Boccella

"CHANGE TOUR" WEBSITE:
www.TheChangeTour.com

CBS RADIO INTERVIEW:
www.YouTube.com/jgboccella

PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE OP-ED PIECE:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08055/859696-35.stm

=============================================
We Are Pleased to Announce a Visit by Recording Artist and Civil
Rights Advocate, J.G. Boccella

For a speaking program on:
CHANGE: A Different Kind of Conversation about Race in America

"This is where we are right now. It's a racial stalemate we've been
stuck in for years."
- Senator Barack Obama

What if white people had a doorway into a conversation about race that
felt like an invitation and not an indictment? What if people of color
across the country felt as though their voices could be heard on a new
and different channel?

Using music as a catalyst for dialogue, musician and speaker, J.G.
Boccella, is inviting America to a different kind of conversation
about race. With his "CHANGE" Tour, he has created a unique approach
to this often-thorny topic.

What makes it so unique is that Boccella has an uncanny knack for
"speaking the unspoken," in a way that puts people at ease, on a topic
that usually tends to make people uncomfortable.

In this special speaker-program with J.G. Boccella, he will talk about
how we can, as a nation, fundamentally change the manner in which we
discuss race. Asks Boccella, "What happens when we try to talk about
race in America?"

"I think a lot of white people are uncomfortable having a real
conversation about race because they think someone will try to blame
them or make them feel guilty for something they didn't do"

Boccella says that what makes his approach different is a new paradigm
for dealing with the topic. Instead or the "Either/Or" polarities of
political correctness vs. angry intolerance, Boccella employs the
"Both/And" approach.

TESTIMONIAL:
"I heard wonderful feedback about your performance from the students
who attended and I'm so thankful that you came to Rollins and made
such a positive influence on our campus." - Erika Shoemaker, Office of
Multicultural Affairs, Rollins College

"So I was looking around the site and I realized something. It feels like it has become such a small little community. I mean look at the top 10 people and blogs. Look at who comments and writes those blogs. It's always the same people. I mean I love all of US and what we have to say and everything else, but there are more than just our little circle of about 15 people on Fuzz. How do you suggest we expand? Reach out and not be in this little bubble?
Do you know what I mean? Is it just me? I'm not saying it's bad! But it's a social network, so why are we so limited with who we communicate with? or rather, why is everyone else so limited?"

Miss B, as always you ask some stimulating questions. In trying to answer the basic thrust of your query as to why there appears to be, on the surface, a limited number of familiar "avatars" creating a small community, let me try to answer in several ways:

1. First, I recommend that you re-read the following article written in February 2003 by Clay Shirky, one of the most knowledgeable of the "web gurus" studying the dynamics of web-based social networks, on "Power Laws, Weblogs, and Inequality" . In the article, Shirky explains why, typically, an "A-List" [being a small set of webloggers] account for a majority of traffic in the weblog world. There are several take-aways worth quoting in his article:

Diversity plus freedom of choice creates inequality, and the greater the diversity, the more extreme the inequality...If you run a website with more than a couple dozen pages, pick any time period where the traffic amounted to at least 1000 page views, and you will find that both the page views themselves and the traffic from the referring sites will follow power laws...Blogs are not a good place to rest on your laurels

2. Keeping in mind Shirky's point regarding page views and web traffic following "power laws", you should consider that the "top 10 bloggers" in any arbitrary score-keeping system [or top 50 or top-whatever] is merely describing an inevitable [but transitory!!!] phenomenon that at any given time there are a limited number of "supernodes" that seem to have "system-wide" connectivity that derives much of its "apparent energy" from the fact that "supernodes" tend to inter-connect with other "supernodes".

3. Equally important, however, is to also keep in mind that at any given time, a node [any point of connectivity on a network] can become a "supernode" depending on the context of the network that is being inter-connected. Put it another way, remember back in high school, when you interacted with your boyfriend, each of you was a "supernode" vis-a-vis each other [although technically many say, two nodes do not constitute of "network" - which, generally speaking, requires three or more transmitters and receivers]. In your clique of, say, ten friends, sometimes one was a "supernode" and at other times just a more quiet "node" in receiving mode rather than transmitting mode most of the time. As student council member, one tended to be a "supernode" vis-a-vis your constituency [say, as representative of the freshman class speaking to other freshmen] but maybe just a "node" mostly in receiving mode vis-a-vis the more vocal seniors in the student council. Thus, being a node or supernode depends upon context. That is what is happening here at fuzz [and what happens in other social networks]. That is, what you see as inter-activity among a limited number of "supernodes" in one context among a larger group of nodes [primarily in quiet receiving mode] obscures the interactivity of these nodes as "supernodes" in another context [like kissing your boyfriend or having lunch with your core group of friends in high school].

4. Again, I want to stress that everyone is a "supernode" in one context, but just a "node" in another context, and nothing is permanent about this situation. One month you are prom queen, and the next month another bevy of beauties show up [although I am sure you will give them all a run for their money. :=)].

5. This blog response deserves much more discussion, so I will stop here; but I hope that I have clarified rather than confused you regarding an inevitable web phenomenon which obtains when you have networks within networks within networks within networks in nested hierarchy [you get the point].

Thank you for raising an important point regarding the creation of "social capital" - the burning issue of this artist community and passionate lovers of music. Most people on the web do not have the same instincts that you do on how to optimize the context of your activities as a "transmitter" [rather than just passive "receiver"] across many networks and, thus, avail themselves of the mulitiplier effect that derives from being a "supernode" in as many network contexts at the same time. Most folks tend to limit their activity as "supernodes" [in active transmitting and receiving mode] in just one or two dimensions of comfort and familiarity. To me, the name of the game [of course, there are other approaches as well] is to push out the envelope of connectivity and content beyond the zone of your comfort.

[NB: due to its general interest, I take the liberty to repost this exchange as a Q & A blog.]

Ben Miller has uploaded a treasure trove of songs at Fuzz. He describes his body of work as rock, jazz, blues, alternabluesrock, and progressive. Hey, baby, what more can you want. These songs rock! More on Ben and this space later.

author: Bill Bentley
Ben Miller, Strumming With The King (BMR) Talk about fighting the good fight. Musician Ben Miller took ten of his best original songs into the studio, playing all the lead, rhythm and bass guitars himself, then added drum parts to the vocal tracks and sent them out into the world. Even in a time that’s seen and heard just about everything, Strumming With The King still manages to catch afire. The mark of Mark Knopfler may be written in a deep groove on these songs, but Miller is and always will be his own man. His guitar has the relentless fire of so many greats, and while the young musician continues the search for his own sound, he’s found a musical path that will take him there with talent to spare. One to watch.

Ben Miller has the talent,and his new album is the strongest music he's made. Keep an eye on him.

In the latest effort by the ailing music industry to bolster its declining prospects, three of the industry’s four major companies have struck a deal with the social networking site MySpace to start a music Web site… The music companies are expected to make their entire digital music catalogs available for listening and downloading on the new site, which will be introduced later this year…But first MySpace will have to prove that it can actually sell music. Though the company earns $70 million a month in advertising for the News Corporation, according to estimates by Pali Capital, it has never successfully sold products on a wide scale. A download service for independent music, begun in 2006 with Snocap, a music start-up, was considered a disappointment.

"Wanted to say" was written with her brother Timothy Vreeland while they were sitting on a couch playing around. But later Michele fine tuned the music and lyrics to be what it is today! "I'm a person", written after she made it out of a bad relationship, is lyrically compelling and empowers you to feel stronger about who you are as a person. And her delivery when singing "Just me, I can be just me", defines high notes that have never sounded so fluid and clear! " Want more" an epic song, beautifully showcases Michele Vreeland's clean and clear low alto vocals mixed in with her signature charging high notes when she sings the line "you can sacrifice everything when you don't do, don't do what makes you sing" send you soaring to another plane! "Who I am", a rock infused ballad to moving on, leaves you wanting to know more!