By: Robby Ripchord

Heard some news recently that John Frusciante, the unsung hero of The Red Hot Chili Peppers has left the band to pursue other musical avenues, including his own solo career. This comes to me as sort of bittersweet because as much as I love Frusciante’s solo stuff I had hoped he would continue to at least record one last album with RHCP. I have been waiting since 2006 for the Peppers to come out with another album and with their extended hiatus now about a year old, it looks like John won’t be a major creative and innovative force for RHCP as he has been in the past.

All is not lost though, John has produced 10 solo albums, most of which have seen a heavy rotation in my MP3 player. He’s quietly put together some of the more creatively simplistic songs I’ve heard since Cat Stevens. Some albums in my opinion are better than others, Shadows Collide with People is arguably his best compilation and is closest to his RHCP guitar persona/style. Then John goes through various approaches to albums and concept albums including Curtains,  The Will to Death, To Record Only Water For 10 Days and 2009’s The Empyrean. Getting synthesizers, piano and a host of other instruments involved you pretty much won’t find on a Chili Peppers album.

I can’t say I really blame Frusciante, the pressure and creative limits imposed by a Record Label to produce songs in line with their vision of what your band should sound like doesn’t always jive with what you had in mind. With that respect, John is now free to be performer, mixer, engineer producer and whatever else he wants to be to produce HIS music. Not music bound by a collective group or subject to approval by anyone other than himself. I think everyone desires that kind of control of their art and for that I do applaud him.

However, being that the Chili Peppers are pretty much my favorite group and me having so much admiration for Frusciante in and outside of that group, it’s kind of tough to take knowing I won’t be hearing John on the next Peppers albums. Yes I’ll get to listen to John in his solo projects, maybe he teams up with Flea for a couple of things as he has done in previous projects but it’s not the Chili Peppers. Just as Frusciante came back to the band for 1999’s Californication and made it whole once again, his departure again leaves a gaping hole at guitar. Luckily it seems that Frusciante friend, collaborator and Peppers touring backup guitarist Josh Klinghoffer is ready to step in a fill some rather large shoes. Only time will tell how things turn out but it doesn’t seem like Frusciante will make a miraculous return to the band anytime soon.

From Frusciante’s Myspace:

That's so gay!

By: Robby RipChord

You know people are all up in arms over some sort of American Music Awards performance by Adam Lambert.  I had to figure out who Adan Lambert was and apparently he was on that American Idol show. I’m not sure if he won or not but he’s also a homosexual (not that there’s anything wrong with that).  I guess he kissed one of his male band members and did some suggestive dancing or something. I can’t really tell you what happened because not only do I not watch award shows for the most part but I also refuse to lookup a video that has guys kissing in it so I can disseminate to you why that doesn’t give me a warm feeling inside.

The performance has been labeled “Outrageous” and there has been a bunch of backlash from it including getting nixed from a Good Morning America interview (instead CBS’ The Early Show picked up the interview).  I really wouldn’t have known about this whole thing if it wasn’t for a coworker who alerted me of the fiasco. The funny part is she described it as disgusting, however, she is absolutely pro gay marriage. When I probed her about this she told me that she was pro gay marriage but she didn’t necessarily want to see it on TV.  I found this quite hypocritical in that gay and lesbian people who want to be married and have a wedding like straight couples would eventually have to kiss at the closing of the ceremony. Can you be pro gay marriage but not want to go to a gay marriage ceremony as well?

Not to say that a gay marriage ceremony would be anything like an Adam Lambert concert make out fest but if someone is claiming to be tolerant and progressive enough to give an enthusiastic yay vote on gay marriage shouldn’t that person also not want to throw up when they see two men slip each other the tongue during an awards show?

Why is it more socially acceptable for Britney Spears, Christina Aguilerra and Madonna all make out in succession but Adam Lambert can’t make out with his own band members without getting ditched from interviews?  Not to say there’s a double standard but, well maybe that is what I’m saying.  Why can guys like Stifler from American Pie and Ashton Kutcher make out or Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal movie but Adam Lambert is given the boot from a morning show interview? Is it because those movies are done for laughs or art and the other is done for perceived shock entertainment? Is it because Adam Lambert is admittedly gay and the other actors mentioned are (as far as I know) not?

I’m playing Devil’s Advocate a little here but I just want to point out some hypocrisy that is going on in America.  You can be for Gay Marriage and not particularly want to see dudes make out, i get that. Just don’t be so be adamant about your support for the gay politics and then be disgusted when they make a scene in public, because they are going to make a scene it’s pretty much inevitable.

All this reminds me of a Public Service Announcement I saw recently which tries to fight back against the phrase “That’ so gay”.

I think this PSA proves without a doubt that it’s pretty gay to say “That’s so gay”!

By: Robby RipChord

lala.com is a site that streams music to you via your web browser.  They have over 8 million licensed songs to hear for free.  They have whole albums, singles, every genre and time period you could want.  You can even listen to New Releases the day they come out all over the internet. Well you’re waiting for the catch right?  Well here’s the catch, you can only hear them once in they’re entirety.  After that you get a 30 second preview. So say you want to listen to Dire Strait’s, Money For Nothing again, well you get a 30 second clip of it and are asked to buy the song (hint: if you go to a different computer you can hear the song again for free.).

The beauty of this is that it’s all licensed content and there’s tons of it.  There’s 8 million songs.  You could listen to a couple of albums a day for free.  If you really like the album, you buy it.  If you really like a particular song, pick that one up for .89 cents or so.

Go back to the 60’s and listen to some great music from that decade. Find the albums that defined the 70’s.  Listen to the entire Phil Collins catalog from the 80’s.  Recheck the Fugees, The Score. It doesn’t matter because there’s so much music on there that you may never get to listen to all of it in your lifetime.  So check out Rolling Stones 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, find an album you’re interested in and listen to it on lala.com.

Studies have found that people have to problem paying for music they really like.  In fact, Illegal Downloaders spend more money on music than people who do not download illegally.  Why is that you ask, because more than half the time someone will illegally download an album just to hear it. If it sucks they simply delete it, but if it’s good a person is more inclined to go out and purchase the album or download it legally.  lala.com takes the illegal downloading step out of that equation and lets you hear the entire album once for free. Enjoy it and download it, if not move onto another album or artist. It’s that simple. Grab your headphones, take them to work and plug them into your computer audio jack.  You just got yourself an all day music fest friend. Enjoy!

It Doesn't actually teach you how to be a DJ. Much like Guitar hero doesn't teach you how to play Guitar.

By: Robby RipChord

I’m not really mad at Eminem or Jay-Z for selling out to do DJ Hero but there must have been some serious postulating on both sides before they committed.  Something like this, as a hardcore rapper, can seriously hurt your street credibility in terms of fan base and the ability to sell records in the future.  Maybe they are both worried about record sales for the industry in general and are trying to make as much money as possible right now, who knows.

There’s something different about DJ Hero as opposed to most of the other “Hero” games in that Jay-Z and Eminem are still in a position to sell a major amount of records any time they drop an album.  They could debut at number one just from name recognition alone for the most part and one or two singles on the radio. With the popularity of Guitar Hero and Rock Band it’s an easy progression to try and make money off of hip-hop too and what a better instrument than the turntable.  But while Guitar Hero and Rock Band are highlighted by back in the day bands like The Beatles, Aerosmith, Metallica and others who really haven’t had a viable hit in years (or decades), the makers of the game chose to go with current rap/hip-hop stars instead of going with back in the day talent.  They didn’t even get DJ’s to front their product they got rappers instead of DJ legends.  Why not pick out The Beastie Boys, Run DMC, Wu Tang, Public Enemy, Rakim, Salt N Peppa, Nas or one of 50 other artists who deserve to be kind of honored (and compensated) for their role in Rap and Hip-Hop?  We’re these people approached and told the Video Game Company to fuck off, “We’re not going on a video game”?

Do Jay-Z and Eminem really need the money that bad? Jay-Z is always rapping about how much money he has and he’s a mogul but how do you justify all this to your “street” fanbase and becoming overly commercial?  Eminem I don’t really see with the same problem because I’m not sure anyone ever took him for a Gangsta but doesn’t this cheapen his work as an “Artist”? I’m all for people making money but at what cost to your reputation?

It's more like 42 minutes and 18 minutes of commercials.

By: Billy BeerSlugger

I didn’t actually see this episode of the investigative news/magazine 60 Minutes since the Phillies were on but from what I and other people on the internet can tell you, their editor needs to do a little better in the fact checking department.

Their segment was on how illegal downloading was costing Hollywood 6 billion a year, which may or may not be that far off, however, the reasoning they give to support this claim is pretty much fabrication or conjecture which ever way you want to look at it.

First there is the claim that Organized Crime (the Mafia?) is making most of it’s money off of counterfeit movies.  Now I’m not going to dispute the fact that there are bootlegged movies out there but 60 Minutes is having me believe that Tony Soprano is behind all of this and not some dude with a DVD burner in his basement looking for some extra cash. I mean I could at least warm up to the idea if 60 Minutes gave me any proof. There was some talk about gangs of pirates using mafia style pickups but the focus quickly turned to illegal downloading.

Second, there is the segments claims by director Steven Soderbergh that piracy is costing the movie industry 6 billion a year.  Neglected is the fact that Hollywood continues to make more and more money each year. Another Soderbergh assertion is that fewer movies are being made and will continue to be made because of piracy.  Another assertion debunked given the statistics on movies 567 movies made in 2004 and 1038 in 2008, almost doubling inside of 4 years and still increasing.

I’ll give you that if movie tickets continue to go up every year then revenues should go up every year but you can’t really say that in this kind of economy.  Bottom line Hollywood made more money last year than the year before and the year before that.

The segment also delved into the role Bit torrent plays into illegal downloading and then cutting to a guy saying, “what we have done for 15 years is not put in any speed bumps, any technological blocks in the way of individuals so that the conclusion that the younger generation in particular draws is that if it’s so easy it cant be wrong.”

Well yes it is easy, people can choose to share anything they want on Bit torrent and if they choose to share or download things illegally it is on the government and the copyright holders to find a solution that does not intrude on the openness of the internet. The blocks and speed bumps the guy interviewed in 60 minutes is advocating sound a lot like bandwidth throttling and packet sniffing, things which go against the principles of net neutrality.

While there are millions of Bittorrent users out there, I only know about 3 people who could use Bittorrent effectively enough to download music, movies and the like. So if it’s so easy and so popular, why don’t I know more people that do it? Why can they use iPhones and computers but have no idea how to use Bittorrent even after I wrote an article on it?

I digress, the real focus here is on 60 Minutes and it’s one sided affair with File Sharing and the Motion Picture Industry.  There were a few facts thrown in about how the movie Wolverine was leaked and still did extremely well at the box office but overall there was not a peep from anyone on the opposing side of issue of illegal downloading.  Further, the “so called facts” that they gave didn’t coincide with any of the generally accepted statistics reported all over the internet.

I wonder how much money CBS makes off of Movie Advertisements a year?  Could this be yet another sacrifice of journalism for advertising dollars?  The whole thing to me seemed like a propaganda piece for the MPAA, chock full of bogus facts and subjective estimations.

Maybe more people would go to see movies if 90% of them were not lacking in substance, didn’t recycle old stories, didn’t remake old movies or have plots which are so horribly obvious as to the outcome that all you really needed to see was the previews.

What about the film-makers who are using file sharing technology to get their movies seen by the masses or the ones exploring new business models like some in the music business are. Let’s not talk to the copyright professionals or consumer advocates who render baseless most of the MPAA’s claims 60 Minutes. That wouldn’t be a balanced approach to the issue, would it?

P.S: Maybe if Steven Soderbergh didn’t put out pieces of crap like The Girlfriend Experience people wouldn’t walk out of the movie theater requesting their money back like me.

This parody video showcases how completely avant garde and ahead of their time that 80’s Music Videos can be. Lots of hidden meaning, metaphors and symbolism out the ass.  If you listen to the regular version which was immortalized in my generation by the movie Old School and a cursing wedding band, you know it’s classic 80’s ballad. However, with this dubbed version of the song on Youtube, the words and visuals mesh so well that I figured you needed to see it.  So here it is for your viewing and listening pleasure.

The video also reminds me of how obsessed our culture is with looks. There’s no way (even with a dynamite voice and flowing locks of teased blonde hair) that Bonnie Tyler gets airplay today. Maybe on the John Tesh radio program but that’s about it.

An artifact for later generations to discover

By: Robby RipChord

I Want My MTV MP3!

With the sale of The Pirate Bay to a company and their plans to turn it into a legal file distribution site (the same route Napster went) it would seem to be a monumental victory for the Recording and Motion Picture Industries.  As monumental or bigger than the fall of free Napster.  However, what these organizations fail to realize is that they are treating a symptom, not the problem and effectively putting a band-aid over a bullet wound.

The RIAA has an antiquated business model particularly.  You won’t even see a CD in 10 years the way you don’t see a Vinyl Record nowadays.  While for the last 70+ years recording labels have had a monopoly on where music could be sold and at what price, those days are gone.  The distribution of music for our and subsequent generations will be the digital way, downloads.  The problem with this and the problem that the Recording industry has not yet come up with a solution for is the unlimited amount of copies that a digital version of a song can birth.  As they are leaked onto the internet the copies go up in numbers exponentially. There have been tries to mitigate music piracy, Digital rights management (DRM) is a systematic approach to copyright protection for digital media.  This endeavor has failed miserably to curb illegal downloading although I believe is still used in iTunes.

What some of the smarter Record Labels are realizing is that the money from artists is shifting from CD sales to concert ticket sales.  That’s one part of the equation. Though to really weather the storm that is file sharing, the Record labels and or Artists need to adapt their business models.  Artists like Trent Reznor (a born Pennsylvanian I might add) have shown that you can give your music away for free and still make buttloads of money. Of course Trent and band Nine Inch Nails became famous before the tide turned the way of illegally downloading music and this business model probably would not work in most instances given NIN’s already large fan base but Trent began growing weary of the corporate greed earlier.  A quote from Reznor in states, “…the climate grows more and more desperate for record labels, their answer to their mostly self-inflicted wounds seems to be to screw the consumer over even more.” in response to Interscope’s price gouging of NIN’s latest offering. He even encouraged people to steal their albums online.

I’m not necessarily a Nine Inch Nails fan but I don’t think there’s doubt that Reznor is a true visionary on this battlefront.

Other artists have begun to embrace a new way of distributing their music online, offering something tangible.  Mos Def has offered a free t-shirt with the purchase of his album or rather a free album with the purchase of a t-shirt.  Some artists have experimented with sending autographed album or other band related artwork in poster form to fans who buy limited edition albums. The concept of offering a physical product with a digital download of an album is a novel one and somewhat makes up for the lack of a material album in fans hands.

Whatever the idea, it has been proven that real fans will shell out money for their favorite artists for their newest release no matter if they can get it free or not.  That does not help the struggling garage band make it to the big time without an already large following but if their ideas are smart enough, viral enough and the band is actually good enough that people will want to see them then they will survive.  Just as Music Video’s catapulted artists in the 80’s and 90’s into mainstream consciousness so can it’s cousin YouTube.

The Music Industry needs to embrace these ways of selling albums rather than relying on and defending a dying business model.  There will be piracy no matter what now that we have entered the digital age, the Record Labels that adapt will be around as long as they have a product that is relevant to fans. And true, die hard fans are always going to be there and support their favorite acts.  It is now a matter of making these acts matter to the public and I’ll leave that up to the music industry and the artists themselves to figure out.

By: Robby RipChord

I have been following Lucero since about 2004 and have seen them in concert about 3 or 4 times.  They’re a real tried and true rock band from Memphis Tennessee with various influences ranging from The Pouges to The Ramones but most notably Springsteen.  It’s country(ish) music with stories of love, hope and despair at a faster, more unique pace with often sweeping and or crunching guitar, sweet piano and Ben Nichols’ whiskey soaked voice. Lucero lacks the banal copycat nature of traditional country rock. It’s music that lends itself as much to a rock show as it does to an acoustic session without missing a beat.

I just found out they officially got signed to Universal for 4 albums, the first to be released in October, and couldn’t be more happy for them.  The band makes a living on the road, touring all over America, and apparently hard work does pay off in the music business if you don’t suck or sell out.

Last October I saw lead singer Ben Nichols in Chuck Ragan’s Revival Tour and the man was on crutches. I met him as he was hobbling along amongst the crowd at the First Unitarian Church and he had explained to me and some other people how he had hurt his ankle but I was too drunk to remember.  All I know is the guy got up on stage on one leg and played guitar and sang like nothing was wrong.  The first time I saw Lucero in concert at the North Star Bar, one of the guitarists messed up a bunch of songs towards the end of the last set, as i have heard drinking is something they also do pretty well.  The shows are usually sing-alongs, with every audience member screaming along with Nichols.

There has been steady progression in their work from the self titled Lucero in 2001 to the well produced Rebels, Rogues & Sworn Brothers in 2006 and Im sure their upcoming release 1372 Overton Park will be another step in the right direction.

Check them out in Philly on October 16th at:

Starlight Ballroom
460 N. 9th St.
Philadelphia, PA 19123

Tickets are $16.

Check out most of their albums on MySpace

Robby Ripchord with Music

You know I haven’t even considered buying an album in a long long time. I couldn’t even tell you the last album I actually bought instead of downloading, but if Pearl Jam’s latest single “The Fixer” is any indication of the way the forthcoming album “Backspacer” will turn out, I may just have to.

It brings Pearl Jam back to Vitalogy in my eyes though some will argue they never really went astray.

Pearl Jam, ever the rock band is famous for feuding with ticketmaster on ticket prices and to my recollection not playing a huge Philly gig until that situation was resolved.  Gotta give some cred to that.  Now Pearl Jam is operating without a label.  They have agreements with target as well as several other outlets and I believe even filmed a commercial for Target.  The Fixer also could be heard during the MLB All Star game and while this and the Target relationship may seem like “selling out”, given the current state of the music business and their lack of a label is exactly the right thing to do.

Pearl Jam also debuted a song called “Get Some” on the first Conan O’brien show as Late Night Host.  Great song and keeps in the mold of throwback PJ but The Fixer is still the winner.

I’m hoping Pearl Jam does not disappoint with the rest of the album but only time will tell.  Overall it’s nice to see PJ going back to it’s roots a little in terms of style.

So usually I’m doing 90’s Tuesdays and 80’s Thursdays but I got drunk last night and I didn’t get to it.

So here we are with the 80’s Flashback a day late: Hall & Oates, “Out of Touch”. Sons of Philadelphia, Hall & Oates had many hits including “Rich Girl”, “Kiss on My List”, “Private Eyes”, “I Can’t Go for That (No Can Do)”, “Maneater”.

They are on Philadelphia’s little known walk of fame on South Broad St. between Locust and Spruce along with other Philadelphia acts like Will Smith and DJ. Jazzy Jeff (I’m not making this up). I only know that this walk of fame is there because I used to live behind the Wilma Theater. Most people just walk over it not even knowing it’s there.