I'm not sure I understand concert promotions and marketing anymore. The local radio station I listen to most but not all of the time, WXRV, 92.5 the River, made no mention of the fact that Counting Crows will be performing THIS Friday night at the Paul Tsongas Arena (ghetto website, check out the events schedule... formatting -- horrid. Worst Site Ever). No mention of said event, even though they play them ALL the blasted time. I happened to be scanning the dial while on the way back from Waltham where Geoff saw his eye doctor, and heard a DJ on another station casually mention the event after playing a Counting Crows song.
Now, why is this the first I've heard of it?
Clear Channel Entertainment is sponsoring the Counting Crows tour, which might have something to do with it. They have this stranglehold on radio, music distribution and concert promotions in the country as of late. And I don't listen to any of the four Clear Channel Radio Stations in the Boston area, so if it was advertised over there, I would of course not hear it at all.
The station I heard the mention on was WBOS, which is 2 clicks up the dial from WXRV, and I rarely ever stop there because they play even MORE Don Henley and Bonnie Raitt than WXRV (hard to imagine).
I went to the Tsongas Arena website, tickets are still available, but they are going for thirty bucks a pop.
Screw that.
I thought it would make a nice birthday present for me to go with Jessie and Doug to see them, but feh. Not for 30 bucks a seat. And when it comes down to it, not for a Clear Channel event. Sorry Adam Duritz, you've sold out to the man.
The aboved linked Salon.com articles have got to be some of the more interesting coverage on Clear Channel I've seen. "Why Does Radio Suck?" is the question they ask -- and there's your answer. Venues are owned by Clear Channel, radio stations are owned OR have MAJOR payola accounts with Clear Channel.
I know a lot of the bands I like are part of this scheme... and it breaks my heart. It also makes me sick, because there are talentless slobs who get in on a good contract and then get marketed, shoved, and triple branded into my face everywhere I go.
Today's MF class was fabulous. A few technical glitches, but all told it went well. My buddy from the media department came and hooked up a VCR to one of the PCs and we taped the class. Only one penis in attendance! And we got it on video! Aren't we just the lucky ones!
Cu-SeeMe is introducing private rooms, with advanced features like CuCreeps, where you can ban someone from the room for ever and ever. How sweet it is. I love knowing that this will soon be available, because then I will not have to technically facilitate the classes, and if I get a full time job sometime soon I won't have to worry about MF not being able to run the class, with penii flying through the virtual room. I don't know if our pushing them and whining and complaining all the time has anything to do with their moving in this direction, but it is nice to see it happening. The tech guy I spoke with in May of last year said they were thinking about doing this, but that it wouldn't be free... well. Looks like it is free. And the class is working so well that this is an all new and very exciting way to do education. I'm sure they'll charge us for it eventually, but seriously -- perhaps 20 bucks a kid per class per semester or something. I can see the kids paying that. They pay a lot more for textbooks. This would be cheap in comparison.
Today I got to stop in and see the guys, only Brian and Ben were there. Dan was actually out working someplace. Brian ragged on me for not going up after class last week. I told him to stuff it. Glad to have such great friends.
I've gotten some interesting feedback on the built in entertainment center from friends. Usually in the form of phone calls, but a couple good emails.
"Dude, your TV is too small and pimpy, get a bigger one!"
That's the general consensus. Now, Doug is thinking about our need for a TV which will fill the opening better. That could end up being our Christmas present to ourselves.
See what happens when you do home improvement? What you had was passable. Now you have something nicer, and you gotta improve the stuff that goes with it. Pretty soon, we'll need a new house. Oh well. Anyway. Go check out the Rolling Stone Simpsons stuff. It's a riot.
No comments:
Post a Comment