Business
Friday, February 17, 2012
Miss Pearl's Reopens, Drops "Jam House"
Business Rachel Swan — Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 10:29 AM
Good news and changes afoot, guys. Roughly three and a half months since the flooding of Miss Pearl's Jam House, the restaurant is back up and running, according to Inside Scoop SF. The waterfront joint is slated to reopen for Fat Tuesday (February 21), with a newly renovated, modish interior and its menu still largely intact. It will continue hosting live events like Comedy Off Broadway, which soldiered on during the restaurant's hiatus in one of the adjacent Regatta Rooms. By far the biggest change is the venue moniker: It's been rechristened Miss Pearl's Restaurant & Lounge, a name intended to reflect Oakland's increasingly urbane, revitalized entertainment district.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
New Documentary Asks: Is Touring Worth It?
Media / Business / Movies Kathleen Richards — Wed, Feb 8, 2012 at 10:59 AM
Via Invisible Oranges, a new documentary (available online in its entirety) questions whether touring is worth it for metal bands. The film, Why You Do This, follows the Long Island mathcore band Car Bomb as they play funky venues to a handful of people. Most local bands expect touring (and existing, for that matter) to be a money-losing endeavor, but the question is whether hitting the road is necessary, not just financially, but career-wise. Could it even be a career-killer? Or is sleeping in vans and skeezy motels an essential band experience?
Monday, February 6, 2012
Another File-Sharing Service Bites the Dust: Goodbye, BTJunkie
Business Kathleen Richards — Mon, Feb 6, 2012 at 10:57 AM
First it was MegaUpload. Then FileSonic, FileServe, and Uploaded.to dismantled sharing capabilities. And now, one of the biggest BitTorrent trackers, BTJunkie, has shut itself down in what appears to be a preemptive move to avoid federal prosecution, reports Digital Music News. Looks like the chilling effect isn't over yet...
Friday, February 3, 2012
Could BMI Live Help Local Musicians Get Paid?
Business / Bay Area Bands Kathleen Richards — Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 11:49 AM
A year ago, the music licensing giant BMI launched a new endeavor called BMI Live, which allows songwriters to register for free and get paid royalties for their live performance (as far back as six months prior). Yet few musicians seem to know about the program.
BMI Director of Corporate Communications Ari Surdoval said the company is trying to spread the word about BMI Live to bands and encourage them to sign up. Musicians enter their show information online (or through an iPhone app), and royalties are distributed quarterly. According to Surdoval, the amount of royalties depends on various factors such as the venue, how many songs performed were written by you, and if you’re the sole songwriter. “We had people who made thousands of dollars last year,” he said.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
New Emeryville Guitar Center Opening Feb. 2
Business Kathleen Richards — Sat, Jan 21, 2012 at 9:31 AM
Guitar Center will be opening its new location in Emeryville on Thursday, Feb. 2, which means it's your last chance to visit the old location in El Cerrito (which closes January 28). The new GC will be located in the space formerly occupied by Borders Books in the Emeryville Public Market (5925 Shellmound St.).
According to the Contra Costa Times, the retail chain is moving in order to have a more central location, as well as a bigger space in a less-decrepit building. The new store will not only have a larger retail space, but it'll also feature Guitar Center Studios, a "state-of-the-art destination that offers music education, professional rehearsal studios and certified Pro Tools and Logic training." (Apparently trying to compete with nearby Ex'pression College.) The new E-ville GC will also feature "GC Garage," an on-site guitar-repair service.
To celebrate the new store's opening, GC will be having special sales, promotions, and performances, including free GC Garage services and setup (with guitar purchase). Here's the lineup:
Thursday, Feb. 2: Guitar Center’s Your Next Record winners, State Line Empire,
live performance (7:00 p.m.)
Friday, Feb. 3: Music Production 101 Workshop hosted by Avid using Pro Tools
(7:00 p.m.)
Saturday, Feb. 4: Drum and Bass Rhythm Section Workshop with Jeff Friedl and Matt McJunkins (A Perfect Circle/30 Seconds to Mars/Pucifer)
(1:00 p.m.)
Sunday, Feb. 5: Jeff Friedl (Perfect Circle/Devo/Puscifer), live performance
(3:00 p.m.)
Friday, January 20, 2012
Lessons on Cloud Sharing Post MegaUpload Shutdown
Business Kathleen Richards — Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 9:57 AM
Now that MegaUpload has been shut down, and all the content people stored on the site gone, some folks are starting to question the risks of cloud sharing. After all, nothing could be worse than uploading your entire music collection online only to have it disappear in an instant. No one is saying to avoid cloud storage completely, but certainly it'd be wise to think carefully about how and where you store your files.
Extreme Tech cautions that cloud storage could expose ones files to others if the site doesn't encrypt the data. Besides privacy concerns, there's also the issue of data security (failing hard drives, pirated content, government raids, etc.) PC World recommends using sites run by reliable companies that aren't rife with pirated content. And, of course, to always have a backup on your own personal hard drive.
It remains to be seen just how much of a chilling effect the MegaUpload shutdown will have on file-sharing sites, including music blogs — the main source for many people to get new music. But, in the meantime, start backing up those files.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Lookout! Records Calls It Quits
Breaking News / Business / Bay Area Bands Kathleen Richards — Tue, Jan 17, 2012 at 9:43 AM
It's been a little more than six years since Lookout! Records released any material, but today the famed Berkeley punk rock label officially called it quits. On its website, Lookout! Records owner Chris Appelgren cited several factors in the decision, including the loss of Green Day and Operation Ivy to its catalog, as well as the demise of its CD manufacturer/distributor and mail order partner.
Appelgren writes: "We considered all options but kept coming back to realization that the best use of our energies would be to shut the doors once and for all - for the legacy of the label, for the bands, and for benefit of the relationships and friendships with artists, partners, and stakeholders."
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Good Vibes Triumphantly Announces Its New Oakland Store
Business Rachel Swan — Tue, Dec 13, 2011 at 11:14 AM
It took a good deal of squabbling, and a little effort to placate the "family-friendly" denizens of Oakland's Lake Merritt district. But sex-positive retailer Good Vibrations finally emerged triumphant. The well-established Bay Area sex shop will open a new outpost on Lakeshore Avenue on January 28, with a special inaugural party, featuring Real Housewife of Atlanta Kandi Burgess, who will showcase her new "intimate luxury line," Bedroom Kandi. Not to mention the store will offer sex toy giveaways, a photo booth, and drink specials from the bar next door. Hopefully the storeowners' munificence will help neighbors warm up to it — even the ones who thought a sex toy shop had no business being on the same block as a real toy shop. For now, Good Vibes reps are sanguine: "It's too soon to sound the trumpets just yet, since we're still doing construction," publicity manager Camilla Lombard wrote in a recent email. Still, she couldn't hide her excitement.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Pandora Goes Public, Provoking Joy and Consternation
Business Rachel Swan — Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 2:46 PM
Despite reservations from SF Weekly columnist (and prominent tech reporter) Dan Mitchell, Pandora appears to be doing well since going public today. Like, really well. It's generated $235 million to investors, thus far, and the company is now valued at $3 billion. The New York Times reports that shares opened at $20 and rose as high as $26 over the course of the day. Still, the Weekly's music editor Ian S. Port has his doubts. He and Mitchell both pointed out that the cost of music royalties will probably always exceed the company's ad revenue, and that Pandora is always doomed to be a profit-losing operation. But try telling that to its underwriters — Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorganChase. Or any other investors enjoying the contact high of fast-growing Internet companies, many of which are defying expectations on the stock market. No one's forgotten the dot com bubble, but for now, shareholders are remarkably sanguine.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Your Guide to Record Store Day Tomorrow
Business Kathleen Richards — Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 3:25 PM
So tomorrow is Record Store Day, which means that despite the fact that scores of vinyl/cassette/CD purveyors have closed in the last decade or so, we should rejoice in the fact that many are still open. To celebrate their most-cherished existence, indie record stores across the country, and right here, will host live in-store performances and sell all kinds of special, limited-edition releases by your favorite artists. Here’s what’s going down:
