All politics is not local
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I write about ESRI in this blog on occasion - most recently, in March 2016.
And ESRI just made the news again - not a local news outlet, and not a geo
news...
By day, I perform strategic marketing duties for...well, as of August 2020, for nobody. By night, I manage the Empoprises blogging empire, as well as various portals in Ingress and other games. Formerly known as Ontario Emperor (Ontario California, not Ontario Canada). LCMS Lutheran. Former member of Radio Shack Battery Club. Motorola Yellow Badge recipient. Top 10% of LinkedIn users.
I think that Alan Reiter is angry. The use of phrases such as "amazing demonstration of arrogance" clued me in to Reiter's feelings.
You see, there's been a longstanding fight between the National Association of Broadcasters and the music industry. Normally people don't want to cheer for either of these entities, but the NAB is actually making the music industry look good.
You see, Reiter notes that there has been pending "legislation requiring radio stations to pay record labels and performers for playing songs over the air" - legislation that has been opposed by the NAB and others.
But the NAB is suddenly willing to allow these payments - as long as one teeny weeny little amendment is made to the legislation.
[T]he broadcasting industry wants Congress to mandate FM radios in all cellphones.
Reiter notes that the electronics industry opposes a mandate requiring them to put radios in their phones. (FCC DISCLOSURE: I was previously employed by Motorola.)
Reiter doesn't indicate how the cellular service providers feel about the whole thing, but I'm certain that it depends upon whether the service can be monetized. If Verizon, AT&T, et al can figure out a way to charge you to use an FM radio on a cellphone, you can bet that they'd be in favor of the deal.
But then the NAB would oppose the deal, because monetary limitations on access to the radio would adversely impact radio advertising revenues.
Keith Andrew (whom I've mentioned before, in relation to Edward Anatolevich Hill) posted something that alerted me to a story about Soundgarden's bass player, Ben Shepherd. The story appeared in SPIN Magazine, and opened with the following teaser:
One guy's homeless, one likes sleeping all day, one's in Pearl Jam, and one's Chris Cornell. Beloved '90s titans Soundgarden are back, but where are they going?
The quote that SPIN, and everyone else, focused on is this one:
After dinner, Shepherd, Thayil, and I cross the street to the bar at the Palace Kitchen. Shepherd buys me a beer, and I ask him where he lives.
"Nowhere," he says. "Literally. I've been sleeping on studio couches and at friends' houses. I'm totally broke." Shepherd is part owner of a bar 15 minutes from here called Hazlewood, but he says he sinks any money from it into the solo album he's been working on since last fall. Six months ago, he split with his girlfriend and moved out of their house. "This is my home now," he says, holding up the sides of his slightly gamey overcoat.
There was a ton of reaction to it...and eventually there was reaction from Ben Shepherd himself:
Ben responds to SPIN Syndicate content August 24, 2010 - 6:58pm
I feel the banner saying that I am homeless was merely a sensationalizing stunt done by workers at SPIN magazine to sell their story, or make it seem more exciting than it actually is. It makes me feel embarrassed for the truly homeless people to be associated at all in any way with the likes of me. I seem to have been lucky, as most of you, in never having to survive day to day (on the streets) anyway.
Furthermore, my friends and family have always been by my side so I have never gone without love, care, food, compassion, and understanding. I would actually like to thank whatever editor that played this hand for helping once again bring to light the subject of the homeless and uncared for human beings of this dangerously bleak world. I humbly ask for whoever reads this to realize we are all in this together, and try to just remember that once in a while and not only at some convenient time.
I in no way refute what was written in the article, I say what I mean with someone else's alphabet, so it is no wonder to me that my blathering can be so easily 'shined up' or misinterpreted to whatever purpose, especially to a stranger who has no idea of my horrible humor, or my delusional ideas. There I was thinking i was on top of the world, doing what i love and GET to do- (music I mean)- sure I've been couch surfing but that's a far cry from the plight of many many millions of good people worldwide. I just don't want our loyal and most badderasser fans to be mislead, or a bad light to be shone upon my family or friends who have helped me and tried to help me get along. It would be wholly unfair of me after all this to not stand up for them. Now feck auf, thanks.
Ben
So if we believe Shepherd, either (a) David Peisner or (b) Peisner's editor was either (a) too dim to realize that Shepherd was exaggerating/joking, or (b) knew that Peisner was joshing, but figured that SPIN would sell more copies if the words were taken at face value.
But regardless of how we interpret the spin (or the SPIN), it's undeniable that Shepherd has had some tough times since Soundgarden broke up. But in a way that's understandable. Before I found Ben's side of the story, I had written the following at Keith Andrews' original item:
To be fair to the musicians - and, for that matter, to sports figures - a lot of them reach dizzyingly high levels of fame when they are relatively young - in their early 20s, or even in their late teens. You probably have a better insight on this than I do, but I shudder to think what could have happened to me if by some quirk I had achieved great fame and adulation at age 17, or even age 21.
For the record, Shepherd was approximately 22 years old when he joined Soundgarden, and approximately 29 when Soundgarden broke up. (And no, I don't know how old Keith Andrew was when Dryve came together in 1993.)
And, although I DON'T think this was the band's intent (or SPIN's), but the whole affair does bring publicity to Soundgarden in advance of its forthcoming album.
Now I am certainly not an expert on Pacific Island music, but I have run across it from time to time.
Back when I attended Reed College, I had a show on the college radio station, KRRC. The show had a name (I named it after a former classmate who transferred out), an impressive advertising campaign (assembled via a typewriter, cut-outs from newspapers, and a photocopier), and a theme song. The theme song was taken from a record in the library (back then, the entire library consisted of records). The record included a collection of artists, and was entitled Hawaiian Steel Guitar 1920's To 1950's.
The theme song that I chose for my radio show was "Indiana March" by Roy Smeck. This was a fast number, played on the steel guitar in a semi-Hawaiian style. If Sousa had ever been forced to abandon brass and woodwinds, perhaps he could have played this march. I couldn't find an online copy of Smeck's rendition, but I did find a video with Sol Hoopii's version.
I used this as my radio show theme song for a while, but eventually I dropped it and switched to the next track on the same album, M. K. Moke's "Moana Chimes." This is a much slower number, very peaceful, and had absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the music that I played during my radio show (your typical early 80s mixture of Devo, Talking Heads, Wall of Voodoo, and the like). Again, I couldn't find the original version, but I did find this tribute video.
Josh Haley recently shared a rather scary picture of Celine Dion with a microphone in one hand and a pointing finger on the other.
Except that the picture was not of Celine Dion. The picture was of a Celine impersonator named Gypsy Miller. Follow the link to see the picture, and what Gypsy/Celine can do:
Gypsy Miller performs all Celine Dion's hits,all in the original keys - no lip-synching! Her between song speaking voice, her moves, gestures, and attitude, as well as her ability to sing in both French and English make this one of the most amazing Celine impersonations ever seen.
But Miller does not merely rely on her ability to portray Celine Dion. She can also portray Cher:
Gypsy Miller's Cher Show is a high-energy performance that includes hits from the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s and 00’s as well as plenty of audience participation. She captures the voice, mannerisms, humor, and the spirit of Cher perfectly.
I wonder if she ever switches costumes during a performance so that she can portray both artists. A medley of "Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves" and "My Heart Will Go On" would make for an interesting show.
But Miller does not merely rely on her ability to portray Celine Dion and Cher. No, she has one more trick up her sleeve:
The term EllaVis was first coined to describe Gypsy Miller’s pioneering performance of Elvis "had he been born a woman".
Yes, Gypsy portrays a female Elvis impersonator, complete with jumpsuit or leather as needed.
The advantage of this is that no matter what happens to musical tastes in the future, Miller will probably be able to find work.
There are all sorts of real estate agents throughout southern California, and many of them have websites. Here is the website for one of those agents, Marilyn Wilson-Rutherford.
The musical notes that surround Rutherford's name are no accident, since Rutherford, under her maiden name of Marilyn Rovell, was a member of a 1960s girl group called The Honeys. However, she is more famous in musical circles for being the first wife of Beach Boy Brian Wilson, and being the mother of two thirds of Wilson Phillips.
Rutherford uses her past as an opening to talk about the present. When people ask about her musical fame, it offers her an opening to transition to real estate talk.
She knows her past is a big part of who she is today. And she knows that soon enough the conversation will turn to the present and her work as one of the Westside’s premier real estate professionals. And soon you’ll be talking about the most important issue at hand...your future and your real estate goals.
Having lived in southern California for her entire life, she obviously has an understanding of the area.
Since 1994, Marilyn has been putting her own creative stamp on Brentwood real estate. As one of the premier real estate professionals on the Westside, she simply never compromises when it comes to helping her clients achieve their goals. Her genuine passion for life and her career is music to the ears of buyers and sellers alike because they know that when they work with Marilyn, she simply won’t quit until she’s helped them achieve the results they’re after....
For Marilyn, her career, like life itself, is all about harmony. It’s about using her knowledge, insight and experience in Westside real estate to bring buyers and sellers together and create winning results for both. It’s about carefully listening to the goals and aspirations of her clients and then matching them with the ideal property to turn those dreams into reality. But more than anything, it’s about truly making a positive difference in the lives of those who put their trust in her each and every day.
I don't anticipate that I'll be buying a house in Brentwood any time in the near future, but if you plan to do so, this is presumably a real estate agent who will make you Smile.
It's ironic to apply the word "harmony" to the mid-1970s/early-1980s version of Fleetwood Mac (see my previous post on the various versions of the band), since their personal relationships were anything but harmonic. But despite everything, Christine, Stevie, and Lindsey still managed to come up with the best vocal harmonies this side of the Beach Boys.
When considering musical movies, you have both the people in front of the camera, singing and playing, and those behind the camera, doing what needs to be done to get the movie out and get people singing the tunes.
Charley Sherwood Cryer, born in 1926, was known professionally as Sherwood Cryer. A welder at Shell, he opened up a club named Shelly's in Pasadena, Texas. But things began changing when he ran into a musician named Mickey Gilley, who at the time was not as well known as his more famous cousin Jerry Lee - and perhaps Jimmy was better known at the time also. They teamed up, the club was renamed Gilley's, and Cryer added an attraction:
Gilley's didn't really begin to take off until after Cryer installed a mechanical bull for all the pipe-fitters and glass-cutters to work out some of their aggression somewhere besides each other. Gilley and most of the club's other performers hated it, but it was making too much money for Cryer to shut down....
Eventually the club caught the attention of some people who wanted to make a movie about urban cowboys. The Music's Over:
When the Urban Cowboy filmmakers wanted to recreate the bar on a sound stage, it was Cryer who convinced them to film the now-famous scenes right there in the club.
But massive success spelled the end of Gilley's as the partners split up and the building burned to the ground in 1989. Cryer subsequently owned an establishment in Deer Park called G's Ice House, as documented in this aggravated assault case that occurred on the premises.
Orelsan and his friend The Toxic Avenger love Facebook. The Frenchmen love it so much they've made an entire video, filmed in Venice, featuring the social networking site.
[A]n online video of a song he wrote two years ago, Sale Pute (Dirty Slut), came to the attention of feminists for its explicitly violent lyrics about beating up a girlfriend caught cheating. "If I break your arm, consider that we parted on good terms," was a rare printable lyric from his sexually explicit descriptions of violence.
Women's groups and the Communist party denounced "an incitement to hatred against women" and called for the rapper to be banned from one of France's biggest rock festivals...Le Printemps de Bourges. The Socialist party supported the call, stressing that France was battling high levels of violence against women.
The government joined the outcry, and the culture minister, Christine Albanel, asked YouTube and its French equivalent, Dailymotion, to remove the video from their sites.
I don't know if any French politicians have complained about the poking yet.
When I was growing up, I usually bought my music on round pieces of vinyl. Nowadays people don't even buy music in tangible form - it's just electrons and stuff.
But you don't have to download your music from Apple and Amazon. There's a store in my area called Rhino Records (and other similar stores), and there's a store in RoadDog's area called Vinyl Frontier.
Friday was...a visit to the Vinyl Frontier in McHenry, one of the last local mom and pop record stores.
Spent a lot of time looking for CDs and talking with the owner...[who] showed my why analog is better than digital.
That is something I like about going to record stores that there is no way you're going to get it downloading. I feel sort of sorry for kids who will never get this opportunity.
When a new artist chooses to appropriate and modify the work of an existing artist, sometimes the relationship goes smoothly, while sometimes it doesn't.
The band Blurred Vision has released a video which adapts the Pink Floyd song "Another Brick in the Wall (Pt. 2)" to the specific situation in Iran. The new title is "Another Brick In The Wall (Hey Ayatollah, Leave Those Kids Alone!)," and the lyrics have also been modified.
Roger Waters, a founding member of Pink Floyd, gave the rights to Blurred Vision, a duo living in Canada, to remake the classic under the title Another Brick in the Wall (Hey Ayatollah, Leave Those Kids Alone).
Some time ago, Brain Damage posted a quote from Jeffrey Morgan about the song:
"Rarely in the history of rock 'n' roll does a cover version come along that actually dares to exist at the right reactionary time. By cleverly updating Pink Floyd's 1979 iconic protest anthem "Another Brick In The Wall" exactly thirty years to the month that it was originally released, Blurred Vision are wielding their activist music as an irresistible force irrevocably set in motion to shake up the staid conventions of repressive regimes and show solidarity with common street soldiers everywhere. Thanks to Blurred Vision, the revolution will be downloaded."
Blurred Vision's website is here, which lists all the usual social media accounts, including the Twitter account @b_v_music.
There have certainly been bands that have changed their sound over the years. Sometimes this is because of a change in interest of the band members - the Beatles come to mind here. And sometimes it is because of personnel changes - Van Halen and Genesis come to mind here.
But probably the most vivid example of a popular band undergoing a dramatic change in sound has to be Fleetwood Mac. Just take a listen to "Albatross" and "Gold Dust Woman." Go ahead, I'll wait.
While the bass and drums - the "Fleetwood Mac" part of Fleetwood Mac - remained constant over this period, all of the treble underwent a wholesale change. Blues fanatics were replaced by a melodic Englishwoman and two melodic Americans. Now Albatross was of course an instrumental, but the mid-1970s Fleetwood Mac certainly hit on some wonderful three-part harmonies.
And the guitar. How does one compare Peter Green and Lindsey Buckingham, two guitarists with very distinctive styles?
First of all, I would like to thank you very much, Mr. Green, for taking the time to answer our questions. It really means a lot. My question is: What did you think of Fleetwood Mac's evolution from a heavy blues band in the late 60s, to a Rock/Pop group in the 70s and 80s? You did start Fleetwood Mac as a blues band, so what did you think when they became so popular playing a different type of music? (Josh Williams, East Liverpool, Ohio, USA)
It was a natural progression from blues to middle of the road stuff. I was very pleased for them when they became successful with Lindsey and Stevie.
How do you feel about the guitarists who followed you in Fleetwood Mac (Lindsey Buckingham, Rick Vito, etc.) ? Also, when you briefly worked with the band on TUSK, how did you feel about working with Lindsey as a producer? (Beau, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA)
I don't know what I feel about them. I was quite ill at the time that they popular. I felt that they had a more technical technique than I did. I didn't play guitar on the "Tusk" album.
In a separate interview, Lindsey talked about his influences, which weren't necessarily Chicago blues:
How did you get started on guitar?
I started playing guitar first of all when i was eight, because my older brother used to bring home all the Elvis records, Buddy Holly, the old Everly Brothers, Jerry Lee Lewis. Then I got into folk stuff and acoustic fingerpicking.
One influence was interesting.
What rock guitarists did you later get into?
I guess Eric Clapton and that whole thing--but at the time I wasn't into playing that stuff much. Peter Green, oddly enough, has a little bit of influence on me, because Then Play On [Reprise, 6368] was released around that time. I really liked his style of playing where a few notes mean a lot--even one note.
Now I don't know if Buckingham has ever played "Albatross," and I don't know that Peter has ever accompanied a singer on "Gold Dust Woman," but I'd love to hear the results. And of course you can hear Rick Vito taking the lead on "Albatross".
But what I didn't know now is that the album that contained the original version of this song (and the similarly named one) actually got its title from...well, it didn't come from John Lydon:
There are several urban legends revolving around the album title's origins. Rumor has it that the group Devo came up with the slogan as part of an advertising campaign for the product Rustoleum, a rust inhibitor. Neil has confirmed that he got the phrase "Rust Never Sleeps" from Devo but whether it was ever seriously created for an ad campaign is unknown.
Of course, the song is often tied to two other musicians - the aforementioned Lydon, who was mentioned (under his "Johnny Rotten" pseudonym) in the lyrics, and Kurt Cobain, who cited a phrase from the song in his suicide note. Cobain's wife, Courtney Love, put Cobain's interpretation of Young's line in the proper context:
[Cobain] "It's better to burn out than to fade away."
"I read something and someone told me a few things that made me think he was in trouble that week," sighs Young. For the first time, he is not looking directly at me, but staring off across the table. He describes how he tried, over three or four days in the first week of April in 1994, to reach Cobain. "I even had my office look for him." By that Friday evening, Cobain had taken a life-threatening dose of heroin and shot himself....
Destroyed by grief, Young hit the studio and recorded his bleakest work, Sleeps With Angels. It was released with a moratorium on interviews. "I've never really spoken about why I made that album," Young told an interviewer in 1995. "I don't want to start now."
But today, he opens up. "I like to think that I possibly could have done something," he says, concentrating on finding the right words. "I was just trying to reach him. Trying to connect up with him." He pauses and thinks again. "It's just too bad I didn't get a shot. I had an impulse to connect. Only when he used my song in that suicide note was the connection made. Then, I felt it was really unfortunate that I didn't get through to him. I might've been able to make things a little lighter for him, that's all. Just lighten it up a little bit."
But how do Devo and Kurt Cobain fit together? Very well:
"Of all the bands who came from the underground and made it in the mainstream," declared Kurt Cobain, "Devo were the most challenging and subversive of all."
However, Devo and Young survived their brushes with fame. Cobain did not.
I know that I've been writing about Dala a lot lately, but here's one more Dala video. In this one, they're covering "Ohio" at a Neil Young-themed event.
Let's face it, Dala's version is pretty different from Devo's version (see this post to see one reason why Devo covered the song), but both Dala and Devo have a definition admiration for Neil Young.
Last Saturday I posted Will APRA Survive?, a post that discussed the possible negative backlash to the Australasian Performing Right Association's copyright objections to Jane Korman's viral video (which shows Korman's grandfather and various grandkids dancing to Gaynor's "I Will Survive" - at Auschwitz).
For someone like Gaynor who continues to work in the industry, this would provide a wonderful opportunity for self-promotion. If handled correctly, she could issue a public statement saying that she was "delighted" with the video and its message of overcoming obstacles that most of us will never face.
Or, if she were so inclined, she could issue a public statement saying that she was "devastated" by the video and that, while she understands Korman's sentiments, the subject is just too painful for other survivors to see.
So to see what Gaynor actually did say, I went to the news page on her website and found her latest news release:
Ferring Pharmaceuticals Announces Disco Icon Gloria Gaynor as National Spokesperson for EUFLEXXA® May 24, 2010
Ferring Pharmaceuticals Announces Gloria Gaynor as National Spokesperson for Euflexxa.
Please visit www.gloriasknee.com
Click Here to read the press release for further details.
If she could, I'm sure that Gloria would be kicking herself over the missed opportunity.
To be serious for a moment, Gaynor's website does include a realization of how the words "I Will Survive" have touched people, and she has included some words of encouragement on her site. Gaynor is not Jewish (she is Christian), but one of the words on this page may be relevant to someone like Jane Korman's grandfather who was wronged by others:
To forgive does not mean to excuse a person for wrong-doing; it simply means you stop wanting them to pay, and start wanting them simply to realize and repent of the wrong, for their own good. This is why you need God's help to forgive.
On the other hand, I can imagine Hitler's reaction if he were to find out that a Jew not only survived Auschwitz, but returned to the site to dance to the song of a black woman. "Everyone who ever owned a disco record, leave the room now."
After running across a mention of Dala in California (I blogged about this), I found myself listening to and watching the video of "Anywhere Under the Moon" over and over and over.
I first saw this video on Dish Network's IMF Channel, and as I watched the video, I remembered the day when IMF was no more. I didn't have the Empoprise-MU blog at the time, so I wrote about it in a post on mrontemp. Here's a brief snippet of how other people reacted to Ovation's purchase of IMF:
Son of a bitch. They replaced IMF with some crappy art channel called Ovation TV. For ***** sake.
In short, IMF fans were not happy. In the comments to my post, Vinny said:
Ahh!! IMF was the best channel to find out about new singers around the world. Ovation is boring. Right now a show called "How to Draw a Bunny" is on. And theyre showing how to draw a bunny. We need to stop this. IMF has to come back to channel 157! Now!
I responded:
If Veronica Maggio showed us how to draw a bunny, I'd tune in.
Well, it's been a couple of years, so I figured it was time to revisit Ovation and see where things stood. But before I did, I figured that I'd find that petition that Matt Dowski started:
To: Universal Music Group / Ovation
The International Music Feed was a television music channel that played music from around the world. It was the only channel in the US that focused on combining music from American artists with music from other countries across the globe. IMF maintained the increasingly rare format based very largely on playing music videos rather than other programming. IMF was on air from 2005 to 2008.
After its initial widespread removal, IMF was removed from the channel lineups of various smaller television providers over the course of February 2008. Finally, as of March 31, 2008 the station was no longer available.
We Would Like You to Bring Back IMF.
It had become part of everyones lives, in a world that preaches diversity and open mindedness IMF was one of the last things left that brought that to everyones lives through music.
66 people have signed the petition, and it turns out that there is a Facebook group devoted to the effort. I wasn't a member of Facebook in 2008, but I am now, so I joined.
Ovation: The only network focused on art and personal creativity - showcases programming featuring the best of performance, people, art, music and film. From world renowned artists to everyday people, Ovation entertains, inspires and engages the artist in all of us. Move. Explore. Dream. Create. Ovation: Make Life Creative.
12:00 Every Picture Tells a Story: Boy Bitten By a Lizard
12:30 Every Picture Tells a Story: Le Dejeuner Sur L'Herbe
01:00 Paul Potts: By Royal Command
02:00 Blue Note: A History of Modern Jazz
04:00 Every Picture Tells a Story: Boy Bitten By a Lizard
04:30 Every Picture Tells a Story: Le Dejeuner Sur L'Herbe
05:00 Paul Potts: By Royal Command
06:00 Blue Note: A History of Modern Jazz
08:00 Sweet and Lowdown
10:30 Sweet and Lowdown
11:00 Sweet and Lowdown
AM
01:00 Hollywoods Best Film Directors: Brett Ratner
01:30 Hollywoods Best Film Directors: Francis Ford Coppola
02:00 Blue Note: A History of Modern Jazz
04:00 Later...with Jools Holland: Ep. 31/3
Now if you want to watch music videos from all over the world...you're still out of luck. But the IMF fans are still passionate...this was written on June 2, 2010:
I need help identifying this song I heard on IMF a couple years ago (sucks it went off the air, fuse and Mtv suck) and i’ve no clue what the lyrics were or anything besides that in the video the singer was a blonde girl, and she was in a snowy setting, and that the sky or ceiling.. upper area, was purple-ish pink, I think it was from russia, but I can’t be sure, any help’s appreciated
Some of you know that I used to release synthetica songs on the old mp3.com before it stopped supporting bad indie artists like myself. While I was issuing CDs of "Road Array" and similar songs, there were other artists on mp3.com. My favorite was someone called Doctor Orange, known for a song called "Buried Alive" in which someone was buried alive. But Doctor Orange was better known for his ode to tacos, "Taco Taco Taco."
I enjoyed listening to it at the time, but by October 2003 I could no longer find it. By November 2003 I was defending the song against a non-believer. In February 2008 (in the comments of a December 2003 post) I was discussing the song with another believer, regretting that I could not find the song anywhere.
Until now. Or at least in January 2009. "Taco Taco Taco" is now on YouTube, along with video pictures of tacos. Enjoy.
Don't you agree that this is the most meaningful song that was released in the 20th century - even more meaningful than "96 Tears"?
Dala came to California earlier this year, and I missed the news. But Sheila Carabine blogged about it.
Amanda and I are flying high above the clouds, literally and figuratively. We spent Memorial Day weekend in Yosemite National Park, in the company of towering trees and friendly Strawberry folks. I can see why it is so hard for people to leave California.
Dala played at Amy's Orchid Cafe (picture here; since the pictures are under copyright control, I can't post them on my blog), the Ampitheater stage (picture here), Birch Lake, and the main stage.
They will come back to California in September. These tour dates were announced in April:
Sep 18 2010 8:00P De Lobero Theatre Santa Barbara, California Sep 20 2010 8:00P Performances To Grow On,Matilija Auditorium Ojai,Ventura, California Sep 21 2010 8:00P Performances To Grow On,Matilija Auditorium Ojai,Ventura, California Sep 22 2010 8:00P Performances To Grow On,Matilija Auditorium Ojai,Ventura, California Sep 23 2010 8:00P Performances To Grow On,Matilija Auditorium Ojai,Ventura, California Sep 24 2010 8:00P Performances To Grow On,Matilija Auditorium Ojai,Ventura, California Sep 25 2010 8:00P Pepperdine University Center For The Arts, Smothers Theatre Malibu, California
Benny6Toes points us to a story about an Auschwitz survivor, who went back to Auswitz (sic) with his grandkids and recently filmed a video of them dancing to Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive -- as a way to celebrate life and the ability to overcome obstacles. The story is about the basic controversy over the video, as some folks find it offensive and others find it heartwarming. However, Benny notes that the video has been taken down. The video attached to that HuffPo story, when you click on it, says "This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim made by APRA."
Ignoring for the moment TechDirt's next point (how can an Australian group affect the entire world?), there's a question about public relations vs. principle.
On the other hand, APRA or whoever could argue that while they're sympathetic to the cause, the video producer did violate copyright law, and if they granted an exception for this video, then they'd be forced to grant an exception for every other video.
On the other hand, APRA comes off looking bad, which can't help their cause. People might download Men at Work's "Down Under" in protest.
