Music Promoters Missing the Links Listeners Want

Hey concert promoters, want people to buy tickets?

How about putting a link to hear a music clip in your email or other promo!

Seriously, I'm interested, but I just don't feel like doing the extra work to search and wade through all the results to figure out which one will give me the free listen.

I get emails every week from the 9:30 Club, Ticketmaster and a number of other D.C. area event promoters and it drives me bananas that someone takes the time to put in a great photo, well-written copy, but no link to actually *hear* what this band sounds like!

In a way, I feel like it sends a subtle message that if it isn't worth their time, it isn't worth mine. Oh, but no doubt there is a very prominent "click to purchase" message:

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Ramble On

Outside of Lucero’s hard-living leanings, they’ve also got a knack for writing sincere, Americana-flavored gems. For their upcoming tour, the band are bringing along fellow Memphians Amy LaVere and Cedric Burnside (grandson of noted Delta bluesman R.L. Burnside) and Lightnin’ Malcolm, giving the States a taste of what makes their city so musically unique. Take a break from the hubris of D.C.’s sophisticates, and get down with some real rock n’ rollers.

LUCERO
Ramblin' Roadshow and Memphis Revue
w/ Amy LaVere & Cedric Burnside and Lightnin' Malcolm
This Thursday!
October 15

click here to purchase tickets

(Just for kicks, I went ahead and searched for the above band, got their main site, clicked through to enter the site, then clicked on their MySpace page to get free song samples, then clicked on a song to listen. I count that as 4 clicks plus the search, completely inefficient.)

So, make it about the users and you could actually get more action on your transactions!

This applies to any entertainment promotion and even stories in the news sites. Thankfully, Fritz Hahn of D.C.'s Going Out Gurus does it right!

As you can see in his blog entry Nightlife Edition, he has "listen" text and links throughout that give readers a sample of exactly what he's talking about.

Friday, Oct. 16
French DJ Francois K (listen) has had an indelible touch on dance music since the 1970s, when he spun disco and house at the Paradise Garage and Studio 54 in New York. In the '80s and '90s, he was a producer and remixer for Depeche Mode, the Pet Shop Boys, the Smiths, the Cure, U2 and Kraftwerk. These days, he can fill clubs from London to Ibiza with a mix of house, Detroit techno and electro, and he still holds down a weekly dub-focused residency in New York called Deep Space. When he comes to D.C., he plays ... Muse. Go figure, but don't miss an opportunity to see Francois K in such an intimate setting. Tickets for the 18-and-over event are $10 in advance, $15 at the door before 11 and more afterward.

Tell me, music fans, what motivates you to go from browsing to buying? And which shows are a must-see this winter, wherever you are?

Personal Syle Isn't as Original as You Think

The photo gallery "Exactitudes" is brilliant! I stumbled across it when I was looking up "social memes" on Google and couldn't help but flip through the hundred+ pages of style images.

The photographers show that while people work so hard to develop their own original styles, we are really a part of these memes that reflect culture, personality, likes, ages, and activities -- ultimately, a group identity.


Rotterdam-based photographers Ari Versluis and profiler Ellie Uyttenbroek have worked together since October 1994. Inspired by a shared interest in the striking dress codes of various social groups, they have systematically documented numerous identities over the last 14 years.

They call their series Exactitudes: a contraction of exact and attitude. By registering their subjects in an identical framework, with similar poses and a strictly observed dress code, Versluis and Uyttenbroek provide an almost scientific, anthropological record of people's attempts to distinguish themselves from others by assuming a group identity. (Photos from exactitudes.com.)

Perusing the titles is a joy in itself. I found a couple of my styles and they are spot-on, especially the "naturals" where they show women in jeans and tank tops. Had they put a Red Sox hat on, I'd be looking in a mirror. One of my favorite dresses would put me in with the stars, but it isn't my everyday look. Oh, and my nephew would have easily fit in with the chillers a few years ago.

Men in hats are toppers, women in goth are ghoulies, bleach blondes are bimbos, young men with extensive arm tattoos are sleeves, and these young executives and flexmanagers could be right here from our neighborhood. So, you get the picture.

The part I like best about this is that you can see the types and stereotypes in nearly every category, through simple poses and garb. Their work spans the globe, but any of these fashion statements can be seen in the D.C. metro area. We are both unique and unoriginal.

Which of Versluis and Uyttenbroek's groups do you most resemble?

Trash Talk: Dump the Recycling?

These days all the trash talk is about going "green" with more enhanced recycling options. In fact, even when I was a kid (a couple dozen years ago) we were raised to believe that if we just recycled, we could save the Earth. (Imagine that said in a booming James Earl Jones voice.)

So, what if you learned that the trash company you used wasn't actually recycling the paper, plastics, and cardboard that you sorted and set out every week as part of your Earth-saving efforts? Would you be outraged, or just say, "eh, trash is trash."

Many homeowners, or their respective community management groups, pay trash companies extra for recycling services. There is even a county code that defines recycling:

"Recycling" means the process of separating a given waste material from the waste stream and processing it so that it may be used again as a raw material for a product, which may or may not be similar to the original product."

But over the last year, market prices for raw materials have been in decline and waste companies are adjusting their businesses. This makes it more expensive for trash companies to offload recyclables, so they either dump them in the landfills (which is illegal in many places), or they can store them until prices increase and then resell recycling materials at a better margin.

Residents have reported seeing trash companies mixing recycling with trash, but it is tough to prove wrongdoing unless someone is willing to trail the trucks and see what they do with the refuse. So we sit idly by and hope we're getting our money's worth.

I think about the impact of our growing trash problems and wonder if we can do better. In Loudoun, the Evergreen Mill Road landfill is expected to grow and the expansion will run into a wildlife preserve, Banshee Reeks, over the next 10-15 years.

When I used to visit my grandmother in upstate New York, she often had three containers of recycling to one small container of trash. Almost nothing went to waste! And that, I think, is totally impressive. I would be happy with a more aggressive recycling program here, too.

Now it's your turn to talk trash.

What do you think communities should do about recycling, even in this down economy?

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And for those of you who like the stinky details, following is a portion of the Loudoun County Solid Waste Management "Codification of Ordinance 02-08"

1086.06 GENERAL RESTRICTIONS AND SPECIFICALLY PROHIBITED ACTS.
(a) General Restrictions. No person residing in Loudoun County shall fail to separate
recyclable material from household solid waste for recycling, nor shall any business within the County fail to separate at least one principal recyclable material from its waste stream for recycling.
Recyclable material may not be disposed as solid waste but shall be deposited only at a lawful recycling drop-off center, recycling facility, approved facility, or through a permitted collector that provides recycling services.
(b) Specifically Prohibited Acts. No person shall engage in any specifically prohibited act.
Commission of a specifically prohibited act shall be grounds for enforcement actions and penalties as specified in this chapter.
(1) No unauthorized person shall remove or cause to be removed, any recyclable
material which has been deposited in or at an approved container for the purpose of
collection by an authorized recycling collector.
(2) No owner or manager of any apartment, commercial office building, strip mall, or
business shall fail to provide a recycling system to its tenants, employees, and/or
customers.
(3) No person shall willfully dispose of source separated recyclable material as solid
waste.
(4) No person shall mix source separated recyclable material with solid waste intended for disposal.
(5) No person shall cause the contamination of source separated recyclable material by mixing or causing to be mixed such recyclable material with solid waste or other
incompatible recyclable material.
(6) No person shall knowingly contract for collection or recycling services with a
collector that is not permitted in Loudoun County, if such collector is required to be
permitted under Chapter 1084 of these Codified Ordinances.
(Ord. 02-08. Passed 5-20-02.)

Why Save a Life?

This holiday weekend one of our friends saved a boy from drowning. Oh, and another child who was trying to help the boy, too. I'm still perplexed about this whole situation and the aftermath.

The kids were playing on a water trampoline and one of the boys (I'm guessing around age 7 or 8) who said he could not swim, was in the water with no life jacket. When he slid off the trampoline and found himself at the edge of the drop-off, he faltered in the soft silt and began going under. His friend "B," a little older and who could swim, tried to hold him up. But the younger one was sinking and pulling "B" under. Both were clearly struggling.


There was no screaming, no splashing. Just the quiet waves of a couple kids going under in the churned up lake water.

We were on the nearby dock, about 25 feet away from them and the younger child's grandmother was behind us, about another 25 feet away, talking with friends.

The younger one went completely under and "B" had water up to his eyeballs, straining to keep his head above water.

Our friend Dave (who is a former police officer, and overall do-gooder) was up from his chair and running off the dock and into the water in the eight to ten seconds it took for both those boys to go under. It really does happen that fast.

When he pulled them up to the shore and handed them off to their families, the response was so odd. Not one "thank you" nor other acknowledgment that he had just prevented them from a trip to the hospital or morgue.

In fact, there was some muttering that our group, sitting closest to the water, had overreacted.

One of the other parents who was in the deeper part of the lake, supervising children with rafts and life jackets, said she didn't see or hear anything unusual and was surprised to later find out that the boys had been pulled to safety.

But that is the point -- the quiet of drowning.

This comes up too often at community pools, where we lament that the life guards are mostly focused on noisy, boisterous play, running and rough-housing, and not so focused on the quiet of kids struggling under water.

So, why bother to save a life?

Because it is the right thing to do. I admit, I am frustrated that the adults responsible did not take simple precautions to make sure their kids would be safe; and that to add insult to injury, they couldn't muster the decency to simply thank Dave for his help.

I can't thank him enough.

Culture & Community: Food Is Love

Earlier this year, I took part in a "Spirituality of Food" class through UU Sterling's adult education program. It was a fun and intellectually stimulating discussion group with topics ranging from culture and community to dissecting the ingredients of a cookie recipe. At the conclusion, participants were asked to turn the experience into a Sunday service, "Are You What You Eat?"

My contribution was a personal reflection on food and family. Following is the written portion of my presentation. But for those who know me best, you know that I don't always follow the script, like my recipes, adding a little extra. :) Enjoy!


In my family, food is love.

Everyone who walked through the door was welcomed with a beverage, invited for dinner, lunch or whatever snack was available.

Sit at our table,
talk with us,
break bread,

and before you know it, friendships were sown and a community was cultivated through hospitality.


Bowls of fruit left on the table to share, recipes passed down from great-grandmother to great-grandchildren. Hearing stories about growing up, or spending summers on the aunt and uncle’s farm, and knowing exactly where your daily meal came from.

The unspoken message was: Eat with us, you are welcomed as one of us. Even if for a brief time, but often a sentiment that lasted decades.

I have also observed and experienced that in some families, food is about control -- Eat everything on your plate, or else. Don’t touch anything in the pantry or fridge between meals. The kitchen is closed.

It is hard to enjoy a meal when a host’s body language of huffing and puffing reeks of “inconvenience” that making a holiday meal was too much and they couldn’t wait to get everyone out the door.

In my 20's, holiday visit with then-boyfriend’s family in Connecticut. I brought my mom’s “famous” banana bread to share.

I offered it to his mother when I arrived and she took it from my hands and said, “We don’t eat that kind of thing here, you can take it home with you after the weekend.” And she hid it behind a small appliance on the counter. Those words stung, words that meant, you are not, nor will you ever be, one of us.

Culturally we’re so tied to our food rituals and recipes. There is the unspoken sense that if you reject my food, you reject me, my culture, my community. When we break bread, we create community -- this is a sacred space shared.

Two years ago we learned that one of our children has food allergies. The need to eliminate this ingredient from her diet, and often ours, means she was often excluded from communion of meals. It also stressed out many people who invited us to their homes. (We always travel with “safe” food though.)

While we tried to keep this issue low-key, it was a neon light, illuminating the differences in her ability to be a part of her school and social community. No birthday cake, no cookies, and more – a big deal in the life of a child who just wants to have what her friends are having.

We entered a new level within food world, intensely reading labels and finding out that a lot of information is left off. Also, understanding exactly what names of ingredients mean and code words for what manufactures don’t want you to know they’ve added to their products.

With heightened awareness of what we were putting into our bodies, we began to change the way we view nutrition and how we eat our food.

If we are what we eat – are we fuel or poison? Are we substance or filler?

The food allergy has been a blessing in disguise because, while I wouldn’t wish an allergy on anyone, we are so thankful to have been given this gift of awareness.

The Spirituality of Food class took my relationship with food to a new level. It made me think consciously about how important food is to me, my family, my community and our place in the world’s food chain (from business, agricultural and health perspectives).

The exercises and homework we had, from a meditation on food to practicing different religious prayers before meals, brought to light connections as I had not seen them before – creator and creation, the growth of a seed in the earth and an infinite variety of forms of soil and climate, the miracle that a sliver of green can nourish, power and heal the human body.

I love food:

Strong fibrous greens, rich, creamy (and sometimes stinky) cheese, crusty bread, sweet fruits, and decadent chocolate.

Yes, I am what I eat.

LoudounExtra.com Going Dark

Updated 8/19/09 @8:24 a.m.

Word on the street is that LoudounExtra.com (owned by The Washington Post), a site that I helped launch back in 2007, is going dark by August 24. (previously noted as September 1, 2009.)

I was asked by other local media to comment on this event, as I was back when the technical creator of the site departed in 2008. But instead of politely declining, as I had previously, I answered today and am sharing the information here, too.

Comment sent to Jason Jacks at Loudouni.com:

I am so proud of what we accomplished and am sorry to see the Post let this endeavor go. I launched the blog component, Living in LoCo, on washingtonpost.com before LoudounExtra.com went live in 2007, and it was a game changer for how Loudoun media approached web content.

The impact of daily news coverage was a powerful and positive force in our community. Fact-based reporting with a local personality was key, and we were so fortunate to have a team of smart, interesting community correspondents who shared their lives and insight with us.

Parts of this venture were hugely successful -- I loved the blog and the readers who weighed in with comments (of course, as it was all-encompassing in my life for a year) and the "Deals" section (for finding timely and relevant coupons for businesses in my neighborhood).

But the Post spun a lot of cycles on parts of the site that were high-maintenance, and never pushed some of the more creative (and potentially more financially viable) plans to light. It will be interesting to see how community news in Loudoun continues to evolve -- there is great opportunity here.

Online media is my livelihood, so those of us who are saturated in the constant churn of problems and solutions will be hedging our bets and watching for success, wherever it turns up.

I wish the staff and supporters of LoudounExtra.com well in their future endeavors. Life is short, do something good. :)

- - - -
There has been some buzz about this news on other sites and Twitter. In response to another blog item about this, I made the following comment:

The main hurdle for success (outside of finding top-notch writers/bloggers/news people) is ADVERTISING. This component of the media industry has not had to bend and twist and mangle itself in the ways "content" has in order to meet the needs of the changing landscape.
When someone figures out that puzzle piece, these hyperlocal ventures will be successful. (Yes, we're watching Mark Potts and Bob Benz to see how their new cos. will work.)

One of my fellow Loudouners did hyperlocal on his own with Loudounprepsports.com, which was bought by DigitalSports, and recently sold to an education company. But he's now back on his own. And there is confidence he can do what he did before -- make enough money to pay for his site, his salary, and a couple freelancers.

Another thing to consider: It is a big risk for people to go out and do the kind of reporting we did at LE.com/Washingtonpost.com without some good legal backing. I was able to do the more in-depth reporting on controversial political figures and issues because of the security a big company brings to the table.

With all the talk there is and will be about the Post's "failure" in hyperlocal, I want to provide some clarity through the spin:

Parts of the LoudounExtra.com experiment were HUGELY SUCCESSFUL, other parts were high-maintenance, expensive vis-a-vis user want/need, and not sustainable in the long run.

The Post is smart to cut some losses, regroup and refocus. I can only hope that when they transition the new page on the post.com site, it will contain those elements that made a difference in the community.

But if they don't, there are opportunities for someone to step in and own this space, and - as shown with Patch and Everyblock - every local community.

Space Nuts Celebrate 40th Anniversary of Apollo 11 Moon Landing

There is so much going on with today's 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing that I'd like to share a few of my favorite things with you.

See a "live" videocast and Twitter feed of the mission through WeChoosetheMoon.org. Great countdown widget and more.

There is a well produced Washington Post slide show of the Apollo 11 mission, which includes an original song by Last Train Home's Eric Brace. Brace's music video includes footage NASA shared and gave permission to use for "Tranquility Base."

The Onion gives great headline: "Holy Sh#%, Man Walks on F*^)+#* Moon!"

NASA, apparently, lost or taped over the original footage. Read more about the mess and how the scrounged up footage from other sources has been digitized.

And finally, Sesame Street's Ernie, singing “I Don’t Want to Live on the Moon,” with Aaron Neville:



Share your favorite moon stories!