|
Posts Tagged ‘rant’
Wednesday, April 21st, 2010
 You know TwoGroove is not a tech blog, but you may also know that I like to bitch and moan from time to time. This is one of those times. While uploading a DJ mix, I was looking around for better upload speeds. This got me thinking about the latest wireless internet contender in town, CLEAR, and their recent invasion of Austin. Yep, “invasion”. You know it’s going to be one of those kind of posts.
Disclaimer: I’m a relatively average Austin tech consumer. I work from a laptop most of the time, I have an iPhone, I think the iPad is interesting but not ultimately something I want, I use local wireless hotspots, I upload pictures and music. I require internet access and am willing to pay for it. I do not currently use CLEAR wireless and will not switch any time soon. I have used the service on a couple computers in a few locations in Austin but don’t have enough firsthand info to make this a proper review. My opinion comes from a conglomeration of first-hand experience, comments from friends, online reviews, and hearsay. Just gotta get that out of the way.
 Background: If you’re in Austin, you have seen or heard CLEAR’s’ advertising. Since SXSW, they have been advertising like mad trying to make sure you know they are hip and cool and you can be too. From taking over Do512.com to driving their branded cars around during SXSW, CLEAR wants to make sure that you know about their “4G” wireless network in Austin.
For those that don’t know, they advertise “next-generation WiMAX technology to turn your entire city into a wireless hotspot. With CLEAR, you can stream videos, play online games and video chat at home or on the go. CLEAR gives you the wireless freedom to stay connected and get more done.” It’s home and mobile wireless so you can effectively get online from anywhere. Speeds are supposed to be the same as standard broadband (6mbps down and 1mbps up). Prices are 40 to 75 bucks a month, depending if you just get home internet or if you pick up their mobile internet service as well. If you need more info go to their website, where you can see a bunch of happy white people use their products.
To me, this sounds pretty good. I find myself out and about with my laptop and would love to be able to stop relying on local wireless hotspots. I’m not going to touch on the home internet much. Word is that is isn’t a good replacement for your current internet; read online reviews from reputable sources (read: not TwoGroove) before taking the plunge.
The Good: I’ll be honest; it’s pretty great to be able to browse the web and be online regardless of location. The speeds while out and about aren’t too bad; faster than the AT&T 3G network for sure. The price for mobile internet only is $40 a month, or about the price of your iPhone’s data plan. Competitive, but nothing special. Personally, I’m holding out for Google to come to Austin.
The Bad: Reliability. Austin is a tech-crazy city; we consume tons of online content but we also share and upload. It’s damn important that our internet access is reliable, even if it isn’t super-fast (although fast is good). Reports from around town are that the service provides speeds well under what’s advertised and that service can be spotty, especially in central Austin. This makes sense, as you’re sharing a wireless tower with everyone else in range, but it’s not acceptable. Plus, you can pay an extra $15 a month to have the service auto-switches to 3G mode when outside the 4G range complete with lower speeds and a per-MB charge if you go over the cap. That’s right, you can pay more to have a roaming feature and a per-MB fee.
The rant: I’ve done my best to ignore the blatant advertising blanket CLEAR has thrown over Austin since SXSW but I’m tired of seeing, hearing, and “experiencing” their ads. Seriously, stop it already. As a friend of mine said, “our generation hates being advertised to”. Ain’t that the truth. CLEAR’s solution seems to be to just advertise more.
 What really pisses me off is when companies come in claiming to be hot shit and they deliver an inferior product (i.e. hype). It’s the same with music: hype can cause disappointment. Self-hype just makes you look like a fool. Having Austin be one big wireless hotspot it a fantastic idea and I’m all for it. Too bad CLEAR doesn’t deliver on it.
CLEAR rolls out a saturation campaign that feels like it was designed by old white guys and declares that we, the consumers, are to be condescended to because we get “internet from a cell phone company”. Ok, fine, its a call to action. Then, once you try it, you find out that WiMAX signals are subject to interference from other networks, that walls and cloud cover are the bane of its existence, and that the speeds you thought you were paying for are only available at 3am…maybe. If speeds vary, then I care less about the upper speed limit and care more about the average speed. What’s the average speed at peak usage in the greater Austin area?
So, for about $40 bucks a month I get spotty wireless coverage and unreliable speeds? I already get that from my iPhone. For even more money, I can have home internet where I get to watch the number of bars on the modem to see how good my internet connection is going to be? No thanks. I will stick to my current home internet where I get reliable, fast access. Maybe in a few generations, the technology will progress and we can have it all. But for now, CLEAR is fast or reliable. Choose one.
Why get internet from a cell phone company? Because it fucking works.
Edit: Ouch. A dedicated Clearwire sucks site. Apparently they sue people that talk bad about them. Uh-oh.
Also just heard about the class-action lawsuit against Clearwire (which markets CLEAR) from Wikipedia. “In April, 2009, a class-action lawsuit was filed against Clearwire. The complaint alleges that the company’s advertisements are deceptive in their promises of fast, reliable internet access, and of internet-based telephone service that’s superior to conventional land-line service. More specifically, it alleges that consumers of the firm’s internet access service frequently experience speeds that are as slow as those available with a dial-up modem, and that both internet access and internet telephone service are often entirely unavailable. The lawsuit also claims that when consumers try to cancel their contracts for these or any other reasons, the company charges a pro-rata early termination fee of up to $220, and that this fee cannot be lawfully imposed or collected. Clearwire has declined to comment on these allegations, citing corporate policy.”
Tags: 4G my ass, Austin, clear, clearwire, rant
Posted in Musical Musings | 12 Comments »
Monday, March 8th, 2010
Here is what’s going to happen: I’m going to rant a little bit about pay for play during SXSW. I’ll get all high and mighty, my arms will be flailing (as much as is possible while typing), and I’ll probably use one or two big words that I’m not completely confident that I know the meaning of. All of this will be done to get across one simple point: Bands shouldn’t EVER pay for a SXSW show. That’s it.
So, here’s the background info: TwoGroove has been working to put together a little showcase (more info on that shortly!). In doing that, I’ve talked with a lot of bands about their schedules and what their plans for SXSW are. From those conversations and anecdotes from other promoters I started to hear about people paying to play unofficial SXSW showcases and to be on compilation CDs. At best, it’s not worth the hundreds of dollars for one show. At worst, it’s a outright scam.
One of the main offenders is a “radio station” called Radio RNR. I highly suggest you read this first hand experience from the band Conflict in the Sky. However, there are smaller examples where bands are asked to sell presale tickets or pay a fee. Yes, this happens outside of SXSW as well. It just seems more pronounced when some bands are able to get on 10 shows during the week without paying a single cent. No legitimate promoter will ever ask you to pay a fee to play a show (with tour buy-ins and co-promotion deals being notable exceptions), and shows are plentiful during SXSW.
And that’s the secondary point of this post: You can get a SXSW show if you do your homework. Everyone and their dog wants to throw a SXSW party. Those people need bands and DJs to play. The opportunity is there if you ask around early enough. Case in point, Random Ninjas heard about the TwoGroove party through Twitter and asked if we had set the lineup. We hadn’t, I offered them a slot, and now they are playing the show. You just need to keep apprised of what’s going on and be willing to reach out to promoters/blogs/whoever is possibly throwing a show.
Finally, if you’re late to the game just go ahead and chalk it up as a loss. You probably won’t find a worthwhile gig 2 weeks before SXSW starts. Either figure out some creative ways to promote your band (guerrilla shows on 6th street are always fun) or just go enjoy the festivities.
Tags: Radio Rnr, Random Ninjas, rant, SXSW
Posted in Musical Musings | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010
 Google just launched their Buzz service, which looks to be yet another social media application. Buzz is built into Gmail and resembles Twitter and Facebook’s bastard child in that you can “follow” your contacts, share information/links/photos, comment on posts, etc. It’s an interesting and wholly logical step for Google but, both as a local music promoter and internet citizen, I am getting really tired of all this focus on social media promotion.
As a promoter: How do you hear about an upcoming show or event? Do you find out via Facebook, Twitter, word of mouth, a poster in a shop window? Promoters go to great lengths to get your attention, and one of the easiest/cheapest ways to get our information in front of you is through social media sites like Facebook. We post events, invite our friends, post on blogs, tweet about the event, retweet others’ information, and generally waste away in front of the computer trying to get you to come to our events. Since Buzz is hardwired into Gmail (unless there is an opt-out button I haven’t found edit: Found it, check the bottom of the post), it stands to reason that people will begin to use this service. That means, to stay current and competitive, promoters have to use it as well, which leads to…
In general: Arg, it’s another social media outlet! Like you, I get bombarded with requests, messages, and event invitations from Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter. Now that Google is getting into the game, and making Buzz a standard feature of Gmail, I can’t get away from it. Sure, I can try to ignore it but eventually I will check my “Google Buzz”. I think social media marketing is interesting and effective, but I don’t need a bunch of social media applications to manage. I find myself pulling away from the current generation of social media: I almost never check/update MySpace, find myself checking Facebook less and less, and scan a few tweets instead of looking at them all. It’s happened, social media fatigue has arrived.
The solution? I hope someone already has this idea and is working on it (or does it already exist?): social media aggregation. One place for me to do it all. I want to post my event information once and have it push out to some or all of my social media accounts. That way, people can still use their social media sites of choice, but I just have to post it once. On the non-promoter side, I could go to one place to check all my social media accounts as well. Tweets, Facebook posts, etc would be in one damn location instead of spread across all the sites.
UPDATE: There is a “turn off Buzz” option. It’s at the very bottom of your Gmail screen. I’ll be turning off Buzz until it proves itself as a useful social media application. 
Tags: rant
Posted in Musical Musings | Comments Off
Monday, November 23rd, 2009
 Having worked on both sides of band guarantees (both paying them and asking for them), I have come to this conclusion: Guarantees are like communism. In theory, it sounds good. In practice, it royally sucks.
For you lucky people that don’t know about band guarantees, here’s a quick overview. When a band agrees to play a show, the typically specify a certain amount of money to receive at the end of the night. That’s their guarantee; so if the show sucks the venue still owes them the guaranteed amount. In some instances the guarantee is a minimum, but most of the time the guarantee is what you get paid, no more no less.
A disclaimer before my rant – I am applying this to DIY local bands, smaller touring acts and the like. Big national acts with a good following usually have some hired help in pricing their musical services, have lengthy contracts (which are also annoying), and have lots of ticket sale data to pore over to fine-tune pricing.
Why guarantees suck for bands: It’s simple. If your guarantee is too high, you’re going to get a reputation for being overpriced and get fewer offers to play. Yes you can lower it, but the hit to your reputation can really hurt. To justify a high price, you need to bring a lot of people and do a good deal of promotion.
If it’s too low, you’re leaving money behind as a cut of the door would be more profitable. It is very difficult to achieve the Goldilocksian ideal price, and it’s hard to know when you’ve done it. It’s a process of trial and error, where the “error” part of the equation hurts your rep and your wallet.
Why guarantees suck for venues: If you knew you were going to get paid the same amount regardless of the amount of work you do, would you go the extra mile and do more work? The “work” here, of course, being band promotion. Guarantees remove the monetary incentive for bands to push their promotion hard and get people out to see them. This is no good for the venue, especially in Austin. We’re over-saturated with music here and have multiple venues clamoring for our attention every night. Very few venues have built-in crowds and most of them rely on the strength of the bands playing there to draw people.
I’m all for bands getting paid. In fact, I wish there were a city ordinance stating that no band leave a show without some token minimum payment. In my idealism I believe bands should be paid based on merit. We already know it’s all about the money, let’s at least make it a semi-meritocracy. Venues can’t pay based on the quality of the music, but they can pay in relation to the amount of people that pay to see the show and drink. Pay more to bands that bring out a lot of people, reinforcing and rewarding bands that do good promotion and play music people like.
Maybe it’s just that damn idealism again, but the solution seems simple enough. Quit with the guarantee nonsense and get paid in proportion to the job you perform.
Even for smaller shows, a band and the venue need to work together before the show to clearly lay out the terms of payment. If it is going to be a 70/30 split of the door, then say so. Venues tend to be vague on their payment terms leading to bands being surprised one way or the other when they peek inside the envelope at the end of the night. Some venues pay the night of the show, some pay later, some hold the payment for no more than 3 days, etc. Whether you are a band or work for a venue, just be clear and upfront with your terms, jointly agree on them, have a good show, and stick to them when it’s time to pony up the dough.
Tags: money, payment, rant
Posted in Musical Musings | 1 Comment »
|
|
|
|
Background: If you’re in Austin, you have seen or heard CLEAR’s’ advertising. Since SXSW, they have been advertising like mad trying to make sure you know they are hip and cool and you can be too. From taking over Do512.com to driving their branded cars around during SXSW, CLEAR wants to make sure that you know about their “4G” wireless network in Austin.
What really pisses me off is when companies come in claiming to be hot shit and they deliver an inferior product (i.e. hype). It’s the same with music: hype can cause disappointment. Self-hype just makes you look like a fool. Having Austin be one big wireless hotspot it a fantastic idea and I’m all for it. Too bad CLEAR doesn’t deliver on it.
Designed by Inspired Roots
Austin Police Union officials whine about spending money on music
Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009Ok, over at Examiner I had to play nice. Here, I say what I want.
The summary for the tl;dr types: Austin created a Live Music Task Force to provide recommendations to maintain and improve our reputation as the Live Music Capitol of the World. A key recommendation was to create a city office specifically for that purpose, the Austin Music Office. The creation of the office is estimated to cost $330k and there was to be a vote by the City Council on June 18th. The vote was delayed after the police union threatened to withdraw its offer to defer or forfeit their 2010 raises, which will save the city $5 million.
Police union officials pulled a lame stunt, informing the City Council of their disapproval mere minutes before the vote, threatening to withdraw their offer. They think we shouldn’t be spending the money when the city is expecting a $30 million shortfall. First, the money to pay for the music office probably wouldn’t come out of the general fund. Second, sometimes you have to suck it up in a down economy. Third, when did the police union get to decide how the city gets to spend money? $330k to sustain and, hopefully, improve a $1 billion local industry. An industry the city counts on to help set it apart from the rest of Texas.
(Y’all are going to love this) There are what, a million people in the Austin area? Tax us the 33 cents one time and let’s move on. You know what? Tax me at 100x the rate; I’ll gladly pay $33. The police union can continue to whine about things and wield their raises as political capital, the city can have it’s music office, musicians benefit, and the taxpayers are out 1.5 gumballs.
Disclaimer: I am not in favor of putting the burden on the taxpayer often, so don’t go there. The price is small and one-time, the return is big, and it sidesteps political panty-bunching. Music is important enough to Austin that we should willingly offer up our 33 cents.
Tags: Austin, City Council, commentary, Live Music Task Force, Music Office, police union, rant
Posted in Music News, Musical Musings | 5 Comments »