Earthquake in SF

The strongest earthquake in the last 10+ years has hit the San Francisco area. Merin was at OQO (her "day" job) in the Mission and it was really shaking there. Elise was at the store, and she said stuff was swinging and falling off the shelves. I have nothing to report as I'm in NYC (for some meetings with SoundExchange which I'll report on later).

For now, it seems there was no serious damage, but a lot of rattled nerves.

Washington Post: Web Radio Seeks Resolution

Good article in Washington Post:

SoundExchange has already proposed a fee schedule that is lower than the Copyright Royalty Board's rates for commercial webcasters whose annual revenue is less than $1.25 million, and Ades said about 30 companies have accepted it. SoundExchange and the Digital Media Association also agreed in August to cap the total amount of per-channel fees that a Web service would have to pay, an issue that was of particular concern for webcasters such as Pandora that have millions of channels set up by individual users.

Still, webcasters say that even if there are favorable results to the negotiations, they are hoping for long-term legislation that will force all radio platforms -- including traditional AM/FM radio, which does not currently pay any royalties to SoundExchange -- to pay the same rates.

Read entire article

Internet Radio Hearing this Wednesday: Call your Senator and ask them to attend!

Just found this out a bit late:

This Wednesday morning (tomorrow), the Senate Commerce Committee will meet to hold a hearing on the future of radio in the United States. Representatives from broadcast radio, music industry, and Internet radio will testify before the committee about the current state of the radio industry and how royalty fees and other issues, like competition and innovation, affect the future of the industry. This is an unprecedented opportunity for Internet radio to explain its value to Congress, and we need your help to make sure they are listening.

Call the Senate switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask to be connected to your senator's office. If you don't know your Senator's name, just tell them your state, and they'l connect you.

Or look up their direct number on the senate site.

Here's what you should say:

• I am a constituent, and an Internet radio listener calling to ask that as a member of the Senate Commerce Committee, the Senator attend Wednesday's hearing on the future of radio.
• Internet radio has been a revolutionary force in the music industry since its creation and now empowers artist, consumers, and music lovers of every kind. The Copyright Royalty Board's unprecedented and ill informed decision to increase royalty fees for Webcasters by more than 300% has threatened to bankrupt this important industry and we need the Senator's help.
• The real future of radio for music lovers, artists, and the music industry as a whole is online. To save this industry and allow it to prosper, there must be parity and equality between webcasters, satellite radio, and broadcast radio. Today Internet radio pays a recording royalty fee more than twice that of satellite radio, and terrestrial radio pays none at all. To fix this unfair and inexplicable inequality, please cosponsor the Internet Radio Equality Act, S. 1353, pending in the Senate today.

Details on the hearing:

Full Committee Hearing on the Future of Radio

Wednesday, October 24, 2007, at 10:00 a.m. in Room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building

Witness List

Mr. Mac McCaughan, Musician and Cofounder, Merge Records
Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27514

Mr. W. Russell Withers Jr., President, Withers Broadcasting Group
Mt. Vernon, Illinois 62864

Mr. Tim Westergren, Chief Strategy Officer & Founder, Pandora
Oakland, California 94612

Mr. S. Derek Turner, Research Director, Free Press
Washington, DC 20001

Ms. Carol Pierson, President and CEO, National Federation of Community Broadcasters
Oakland, California 94612

Ms. Dana Davis Rehm, Senior Vice President for Strategy & Partnerships, National Public Radio
Washington, DC 20001

More Details

Blue Lagoon "Hangover Party"

An annual tradition of the Iceland Airwaves music festival is the Saturday "Hangover" party at the Blue Lagoon.

The Blue Lagoon is a huge thermal pool that is a by-product of the adjacent geothermal plant. Seawater is pumped into the ground and super-heated, which then turns turbines and generates electricity. The waste product is hot water full of minerals, silica and algae. The silica is what gives the water its blue look, and the bottom of the lagoon is full of silica mud which feels really nice on your skin.

For the hangover party, a sound system is setup and DJs spin as the audience soaks. This year, Flockids and DJ Detect from France provided the entertainment. The music was fun, upbeat techno which had everyone bobbing in the pools.

You can see the geothermal plant in the background, with all the steam coming of it. I overheard someone saying, "this place is so great. Too bad they built that power plant right next to it!" A bit unclear on the concept I guess.

I'd highly recommend a trip to the Blue Lagoon, it's an amazing sight and the combination of hot water and cold air is exhilarating. There is also a spa, bar, and places to eat. I'm not sure if you can normally drink beer in the lagoon, but for this we could.

The water is different temperatures in different areas of the pools. The entire thing is warm, but some sections are really hot, so by moving around you get your choice of heat. Hot water with cold air feels great; it really is a good way to wake yourself up on a Saturday. I wish I had taken some before and after shots of the people on the bus with us... everyone was half awake going out, and totally happy and relaxed on the way back.

Merin suggested SomaFM do some some sound installation there; Groove Salad and Cliqhop music in the "lounge" pool, and a Drone Zone-inspired multispeaker/multichannel installation through the larger and more distant pools. Maybe even some underwater sounds. (Like a giant version of the "Drone Dome" we did at Burning Man a couple years ago.)

Friday Night Update from Iceland Airwaves

I'm a bit backlogged on updates; it's taking forever to edit and upload all the media (not to mention I filled up my macbook drive)... perhaps if I wouldn't shoot so indiscriminately I wouldn't have this problem!

Quickly: saw the Samúel J. Samúelsson Big Band give an incredible performance, too bad they didn't have more time. Imagine the "Taking of Pehlam 123" soundtrack meets James Brown and you kind of get the drift.

Then, the Motion Boys - Icelandic German Electro sassiness...

The big performances of the evening finished up with Gusgus at NASA.

(All images in this message are actually video grabs from a Canon TX1!)

PS- Hi to Jerry, Kelly, Paul and a bunch of other nice folks we hung out with tonight!

CDs are SO EXPENSIVE in Iceland

I am amazed that there is any CD market at all in Iceland when CDs sell for 1995-2295 ISK, or about $30 each.

Even when artists are selling their CDs directly at the venues, they sell them for 1500 ISK, or about $23.

I can't believe how expensive CDs are here.

I was hoping to come back with a big wad of CDs. But I'm not so sure now.

Radio Royalty Update

Official Internet Radio Royalty Update: both sides still "in discussions". Nothing has changed there. The Internet Radio Equality Act is feeling doomed as congress is more interested in a long term copyright change.

I think what Congress is hoping is that everyone can keep "negotiating" long enough for them to pass the next set of laws. That forces net radio into an uncomfortable position- we're potentially assuming some huge royalty obligations.

I think we still need to put pressure on congress. But I think we've lost their ear.

What's in the Bag?

Moe asked: "What's in the bag?"

I'm sure you're referring to the goodie bag that you get at festivals like SXSW. In the case of Iceland Airwaves, the only goodie bag is to the press, so while we got one, unlike SXSW the typical attendee didn't.

So what's in it? Not too much. Mostly just a bunch of flyers, party invites, a couple CDs.

Unlike SXSW, I could actually look at everything in the bag. Also unlike SXSW, I will save most of the stuff because it's useful info.

If you're not there is still a lot of schwag and tshirts you can buy, and it's being sold at most of the venues and the show HQ.

Food Prices in Reykjavik

Last night, we had dinner at Vegamot, a bistro/bar in the city center. The decor is stylish, nordic modernist; the music was good and just loud enough that you could still talk but actively listen to the music as well. It was a combo of chill-house and downtempo, right up my alley... and the food looked good so we sat down.

I was surprised when I saw how relatively affordable it was. Merin had the curry satay salad and I had the chicken enchiladas. US$42.35. Food was good, although the Enchiladas were a creative yet non-standard configuration (i.e. not rolled). A glass of wine each would have added another $20 to that, but we just had water. Ok, I know, that sounds insane by US standards (or European standards!) but food is really expensive in Iceland; generally 50%-100% more than food in the US or EU.

The day before we shared a large pizza at Eldsmiðjunnar, supposedly one of the best pizza places in town. (They were playing some hipster indie rock, one song was an indy/emo cover of Michael Jackson's "Billy Jean" that was really well done.) With a local beer each, it cost US$54.32.

It was a real pizza, not as good as the best I've had in Italy, or not as good as Pizzeria Delfina in San Francisco, but definitely a good pie. Still, that gives you a price check. Comporable Pizza in San Francisco would have been $30 with two beers.

I won't even go into the cocktail prices here... in the land of the $10 beer, the $13 baby shot, and the $16-20 cocktail you realize that people do a lot of drinking at home before they go out... luckily there is lots of housing close to the city center so you can live near the action and not have to drive.

This also has the side-effect of people in music venues coming more for the music and less for the drinking. When a band is playing, people are watching and listening... not ignoring them like often happens in US clubs.

Internet/Telecom in Iceland

I can't make a good judgement call about the net in Iceland, because I have a weak WiFi signal at the hotel, so I'm not sure how much of the slow net is due to the WiFi, the connection of the Hotel, or the connection of the continent.

I did notice that .is sites come up faster than US .com sites... and my photo upload speeds to Flickr seem to be in the 10-15k range a second at best.

However, the internet is everywhere here. Tons of cafés have free WiFi, and every café has people working on laptops in them.

Until I can test speeds at a few more places, I can't really attest to the speed of the net here.

The GSM network supports EDGE but because of the high data roaming charges, I haven't tested it. The cell coverage is pretty impressive, it works everywhere I've been since getting here.

Some of the standout acts tonight at Iceland Airwaves

Two bands who I really liked tonight both have a lot in common: they mix "indie rock" (e.g. guitars and emotion-laden vocals) with electronics.

This is a direction in music that I'm very interested in, there is some really creative stuff being done, and did I mention that Elise and I are working on a new SomaFM channel for just this kind of music? (Coming January 2008 under the current plans.)

Icelandic bands do this really well. Björk is an obvious one to point out. Múm is another. Emily Torrini. You get the idea. They're really into this fusion of rock and electronica over here, and tonight I heard a couple of bands that I really liked and we'll be featuring on the new channel.

Soundspell

Their guitar player also plays synths, often at the same time. They have another keyboard player who mostly plays piano and a few synths. A simplistic description of them would be Jeff Buckley meets Radiohead, but it's more than that.

And they can rock when they need to.

Listen to some of their music here

Shadow Parade

I'm not sure how to describe these guys except that they are a little less electronic than Soundspell, but I'm sure they all grew up listening to progressive rock. Their songs are catchy yet complex, backed by rock-style beats that make you want to dance like a good house track. Some people call this "post rock".

Listen to some of their music here

That's the 2 bands that impressed me tonight.

NASA is a good space; the sound quality was excellent - not too loud but just about right.

Not all pre-parties are created equal

I was a little nervous because we went to a pre-party at Organ on the "second floor", a sort of loft space with just a bunch of bright florescent lights and a "bar" that only had 2 bottles of vodka that ran out before we arrived. Not only was their nothing to drink, but there was no vibe, and while I stuck around to hear a couple songs by Skakkamanage I felt sorry for them having to play in what felt more like rehearsal space than a performance venue. Luckily, this turned out to be a fluke and didn't set the tone for the rest of the evening.

(Note to self: if Finlandia ever sponsors a party of ours, they better bring a lot more than 2 bottles of Vodka!)

The music I've heard so far has been very good. The Reykjavik music scene is very good; I'm looking forward to what we'll hear in the next few days.

The weather has taken a slight turn for the worse. It's started raining, and the wind is now blowing hard. Let's hope that changes before tomorrow night. Reykjavik is a walking town, and the city center is small but still, walking 4 blocks in 30 degree weather with 25 mile an hour winds is pretty harsh.

Groove Salad, HD Radio, and is there anybody out there?

You know that we do a special version of Groove Salad for NPR, right? The catch is that it's for NPR member stations to use on their HD2 channels, which require a special HD radio, which hardly anyone actually owns.

Still, we've got a few NPR affiliates that carry us, and KPBS in San Diego was one of the first. Alas, apparently they switched formats and no one noticed:

KPBS-FM changed formats last week on its subchannel and nobody seemed to notice or call the station to complain, a surprising development considering how rabid KPBS listeners are about griping when the station does anything. (North County Times)

They go on to say:

KPBS plans to begin offering a second subchannel, known as HD-3, within the next few weeks. In a bit of a switcheroo, it will offer a format called "Groove Salad" that was previously on its first subchannel, known as HD-2.

Despite its godawful name, Groove Salad apparently has an audience, at least on the Internet. It features a lot of "chill" music that helps people relax and, if they're HD Radio executives, forget their woes for the moment. (Listen yourself at somafm.com.)

Meanwhile, a 24-hour classical music feed from Minneapolis that provides programming to KPBS at night replaced Groove Salad on the station's HD-2 subchannel.

Whew. We're coming back. And by the time we're back, there might be more than 50 people in San Diego with HD radio receivers!

Which reminds me: If you want Groove Salad in your car, and are willing to spend $200-300 on a HD radio receiver, call your local NPR station and ask them if they have plans to carry Groove Salad on their HD2 channel.

I'm going to be tired the next few days!

We have the press pass, we have the goodie bag. We have invites to lots of parties. We've gotten a bunch of CDs. Now we just have to cover it all, edit the audio/video, write the blog entries, upload the audio/video, etc.

And let me know if you think there are some artists that I have to see which I may not know about, especially the off-venue stuff.

Did I mention it's cold here? Time for a coffee.

Iceland Airwaves starts tonight!

Iceland Airwaves kicks off tonight, with a pre-opening party at Hressingarskálinn (aka Hressó) in downtown Reykjavik.

We've gotten our badges and wristbands, now it's time to get lunch, take in a few sights, do a bit of planning and get ready to see Soundspell and Shadow Parade at NASA tonight. (NASA the club, not the space agency!)

It's a chilling 33 degrees right now around 1300 local time, good thing we'll be inside for most of the night!

Halloween programming and more

I sent this out to the SomaFM mailing list today:

It's almost Halloween! And our annual Halloween channel has turned into a full-time station from SomaFM called "Doomed" - but just because it's not a special channel, don't forget it's there this Halloween! It's the perfect soundtrack for your halloween party, or just to have playing in the house when the kids come trick or treat-ing.

Two more things:

1) It's music festival time. If you're in New York at the CMJ Music Marathon, keep an eye out for Elise Nordling host of Indie Pop Rocks. Or if your in Iceland for the Airwaves music festival, keep an eye out for Rusty (me!) who will be there as well (hint: come to Ione on Saturday night, I brought a bunch of T-shirts to give away to SomaFM fans).

2) We've revamped the website a bit so that when you launch the station, it now brings up a page showing what's played and gives you a chance to buy downloads from iTunes and CDs from Amazon.com - we make a 5% commission on these sales so whatever you buy helps us out!

AND FINALLY REMEMBER:

SomaFM is listener supported and commercial free! We do this by relying entirely on your for our financial support. Thanks to everyone who has supported SomaFM in the last year and if you haven't supported SomaFM lately, we'd love to have your financial support. We even have automatic monthly subscription programs now, or you can contribute in a lump sum.

If you listen all the time, please support us at the $7.99 a month level minimum. If you only tune in once or twice a week, the $2.99 level. And if you're too poor to support us, even $1 a month will help us. Think of it. You spend more than that on coffee or sodas.

We're a tiny operation and we do this because we love it. But love doesn't pay the bills. (And it costs a lot to run a radio station).

http://somafm.com/support

Thanks for being part of the SomaFM family!

Rusty

Rusty on CNET TV live today

Rusty will be on CNET LIVE today at 1pm Pacific.

Update

I'll update the link when the archive is up. It was great to talk to CNET's Brian Cooley. Brian and I both worked at KPIX (CBS) in San Francisco and were responsible for getting them on the 'net back in 1995.

Senator Clinton "backs webcaster compromise"

Wired is reporting that Sen. Clinton Backs SoundExchange/Webcaster Compromise, although the letter they print from her to her NY constituents isn't that much different from the letters coming from all other senators: namely, "we don't want to legislate, but back a compromise between webcasters and SoundExchange".

Alas the big problem is that if there is no change in legislation, only SoundExchange member artists and labels will be affected; stations will still have to pay the highest CRB rates for non-SX material.

And that's a serious problem because of how few of the artists played by independent webcasters are SX members.

Links, Streams, Widgets, etc

A lot of people have been requesting Widgets for MySpace, Facebook, etc. I'd love to hear some feedback on what these widgets should include. It could be as simple as what's currently playing or it could actually be a player that you embed in your page, that starts playing when you go to your page.

I'm not sure how I feel about making the station start auto-playing when you land on a page- but if you want that, give me some feedback and let me know.

I was also thinking about something that showed what was playing on all the channels and sequenced through them - tickertape style - and then had a menu to jump directly to listen to one of the stations.

I'm also about to roll out 128k streams for Windows Media Player... and I'm wondering if that should be the default for Windows users when people click on the station logos? Or if we should still default to whatever app (iTunes, Winamp, etc) handles .pls files?

Can Internet Radio survive under current legislation?

No, it can't legally in the US.

We still have a long way to go to get legislation passed. Congress seems to have lost interest in us, and is satisfied now that a few very small webcasters have taken the so-called "offer" from SoundExchange (that only covers big label and SX-member artists, not useful for independent broadcasters!)

Meanwhile, attention has turned to the new bill which will put a royalty on over-the-air broadcasters as well. Alas, that royalty will be "penies on the dollar", well below the 10-12% paid in the past by webcasters, and way below the rates set by the CRB last March.

Paul Gathard at Daily Tech says it well:

Becoming a pirate internet radio station is no way to run a business or to live in peace and harmony with the law. The risk is far too great for rewards that are elusive at best for even well funded statutorily licensed internet radio stations.

If you have a passion for the medium and the music, the answer is new legislation. If you have an overwhelming desire to build an internet radio empire, the answer is new legislation. If you simply want to listen to your favorite internet radio station any time you want, the answer is new legislation. There will be few options or choices for any internet radio ambitions unless the current CRB ruling is overturned and a new law crafted.

Read the whole article...