kleerstreem

“There’s a need for a place where fans can go to interact with their favorite entertainers, listen to music, watch videos, share and discover cool stuff and just connect. Myspace has the potential to be that place,” said Timberlake in a statement. “Art is inspired by people and vice versa, so there’s a natural social component to entertainment. I’m excited to help revitalize Myspace by using its social media platform to bring artists and fans together in one community.”

Specific Media says it will also leverage Myspace "to deploy socially-activated advertising campaigns, enabling brands to turn their campaigns viral by allowing users to share their favorite ads with friends."  As part of the agreement, News Corporation will have minority equity stake in Specific Media. Additional terms of the agreement are confidential and will not be disclosed.

By...... Eric de Fontenay (Founder & Publisher)

Sometimes we forget, there is great music talent in all countries of the world.

When I was asked to interview A-Mei, I was somewhat trepidatious at first. Anyone who's followed what I've done over the years knows that I tend to avoid anything Pop, let alone a Pop Diva. These things tend to be so removed from the lives and experiences of the average working musician that have been at the heart of what MusicDish is all about. But as the interview started, I realized that A-Mei is lightyears away from the pop queen caricature. Rather, I was facing an open, engaging and sincere person with a story at the heart of what life and music is all about.

For those of us in the West who might not have heard of the Madonna of Taiwan, A-Mei is one of the most successful musicians in Mandarin-speaking Asia. Over her 15-year career (and still going strong), she has accumulated numerous awards and legions of dedicated fans as I would find out throughout my month-long trip.

What immediately connected us was our shared aboriginal roots (mine being Native American course), which has provided the inspiration to her music. While not professionally trained, she'd grown up surrounded by music her entire life. "I have never learnt to sing or dance, they are just ever-present parts of my native tribe, the Ami (from whence she derived her stage name)". Music is thus innate to her, not just a profession or career. "Singing is a way for me to express my feelings and emotions. Music is a critical part of my life."

Those Taiwanese aboriginal roots have also given A-Mei a truly unique and open approach to her singing and music, which is influenced by the people and experiences that have touched her. "If I was moved by something, I would choose to write a song about it. I like to observe life and learn from it. It is a constantly occurring inspiration." As such, her music is a recording of her own personal life, which draws power and energy from those close to her. "I frequently find inspiration from the people surrounding me, such as my family and friends. Their experiences always reflect distinct kinds of lives."

Over my month-long trip through Taiwan-China-Singapore, I was able to witness first-hand that special connection A-Mei has with her fans that is drawn from the sincerity and raw emotions of her songs. To a large extent, it reminds me of the relationship between Lady Gag and her 'little monsters.' "I think the reason my fans have supported me over the years is that I've never changed my attitude towards music. I want to dedicate my life to my music. For me, what I love and what I want are all pursued through music. I keep growing and transforming through every stage of my life, which I wish to share with my fans. I've insisted on mainting my own music style for so long that I can't be easily manipulated by the latest trends or commercial interests."

While sharing these intimate emotions of pain, sorrow and happiness with her audience, she still manages to maintain a semblance of privacy. "There exists a limitation how much of my emotions I can share. I want to share all my emotions through my music, but sometimes I have to learn to hold them back. My experiences and people are changing with the lapse of time; I would like to share these changes with all."

Being greater China's Mando-Pop Queen for more than 15 years, A-Mei has the three-words to her longevity in music: passion, love and happiness. She doesn't care about being compared to others; it's more important for her to just keep doing music in her own way.

When I ask her if she feels that she's inspired other musicians, she remarks that her music and those of younger musicians' have actually influenced each other. She recalls the Taiwanese indie bands 'Luan Tan' that has been an inspiration for her. A-Mei's advice to young people who want to aspire to success in music is to have real passion and work their heart out. But they also need to know how to balance their dreams with reality. "I think that if you find your true passion in music, you should keep walking on that path. But along the journey, you should also be prepared for failure. Not everyone who works hard will succeed and it may take years with several setbacks. You therefore really need to learn to face that fact."

In the end, A-Mei reminds her fans to love life. Her philosophy is that it's the tiny moments in our daily life that are precious and inspirational. And she's not only happy to grow with her fans, she's honored to do so. "Although I haven't met many of the fans who have supported me for over the years, I can feel the resonance between us, which I cherish a lot."

For my part, the interview with A-Mei was a high point of the trip. Her sincerity and honesty were simply disarming and I felt a true connection to the person behind the Mando-Pop Queen. I look forward to taking up her invitation to sing and dance with her tribe into the night.

THE ANALOG ERA

The music industry has been around for as long as anyone cares to remember, and not for a lack of trying. Industry killer after industry killer has taken a shot at bringing down this mighty foe, but it still continues to limp along, bitterly writing most of the internet community out of its will. With this two-part post, separated between the Analog Era (or "Golden Age") and the digital era (or "the Apocalypse"), we take a closer look at this rogue's gallery of stone cold killers, each one less successful than the last.

Formative Years
Ever since the early cavemen looked for ways to “punch up” their stories of the Coelacanth that “got away,” man (and occasionally, woman) has expressed himself through music.

Progress was minimal during the next several thousand to several million years (depending on religious beliefs). It wasn't until a young composer named Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart burst on to the scene that music was finally invented.

No sooner had Mozart invented music than he began to reinvent it through inappropriate hairstyles, setting his harpsichord on fire during live performances and marrying various 13-year-old cousins. His wild behavior and manic giggling led to him being credited with “singlehandedly destroying the music industry,” thus undoing all of the groundwork laid by him just earlier that afternoon.

After destroying the music industry, Mozart began to rebuild it, this time with him safely on the inside. After another manic, flaming performance, Mozart gazed into his piles of money and made an eerily prescient remark — “If ever there doth become an effortless way to perform these musicks at home, I am truly fuckt.”

Mozart relentlessly campaigned for protection of his musical ideas, which led to sheet music being horded by royalty, in order to protect their patronized income stream. However, as the price of paper, ink and quills continued to drop, an underground group of transcriptionists began distributing “copied” sheet music. A legislative effort to build so-called "royalty" fees into the price of these items had little effect on early "pirates" and Mozart was often seen hawking waistcoats embroidered with the inscription, “Verily, home transcribing is killing the musick industry.”

Fun fact: Emperor Joseph II was an avid home transcriptionist. His famous remark that Mozart’s music had “too many notes” was not a critique of the piece but rather a complaint about the pending transcription, as he was suffering from a case of “pirate’s elbow.”

Bedroom Composers
Flash forward 50 years: innovations in mass production make musical instruments more affordable than ever. Soon every saloon, bawdy house and tenement has a minimum of one piano. And it’s not just piano companies that see a boost. Manufacturers of harpsichords, claviers, pipe organs and fiddles see exponential growth.

Advances in movable press technology allow sheets of music to be reproduced faster than ever. Early ASCAP pioneers bemoan these developments and attempt to collect performance royalties from bar owners and burlesque house pimps. Even homeowners are subjected to handwritten missives declaring them responsible for “rights and royalties for performance of popular musicks.” The singing telegram industry folds thanks to the crippling fees levied against them.

The Player Piano
As the 19th century wound itself down, another breakthrough in musical entertainment surfaced in the form of the Player Piano (or Auto Pianist), a piano that amazingly “played” itself using perforated paper. (This form of “musick” would later resurface rather noisily in dot-matrix printers.)

Bawdy house proprietors and saloon owners benefited greatly from this invention, firing their drunken, incompetent piano players and replacing them with slightly less drunken and dimwitted paper-loaders (usually an unattended child). The tireless tones of the Mechano-Piano were the soundtrack of the “Gay ’90s” and the less-unfortunately named “Nondescript Aughts.” As usual, this new invention, with its user-friendliness and low-cost, was saddled with the burden of “destroying the musick industry, starting with the extraneous ‘k’.”

Records
The invention of the phonograph by multiple people (and its resulting patent suits) proved to be the “death blow” for the music industry, with its ability to reproduce the sound of a miniature, tinny band playing in your anteroom. No longer could people be expected to leave the house to simply hear music and the resulting struggle for market share saw tours bloom into full-blown juggernauts of light, sound and outdoor toilets.

The record brought music to the masses in a handy 12″ or smaller package, which most men found non-threatening and women found non-overwhelming. These flat discs could hold more than 20 minutes of music per “side” and were played via a “stylus” or “needle” when not being used to sort seeds and stems.

Due to its multiple formats and speeds, the record had something for everyone, from Jethro Tull 4-disc opuses to Flexi-discs from local punk bands whom no one other than the band members ever cared about. The record seemed to be the zenith of home audio. However, a change was coming, much like the prophet Bob Dylan warned, and the musical media landscape would never be the same.

Fun fact: Audiophiles still cite the medium’s “warmth” and “crackliness” as preferable to those formats that don’t make your music sound like it’s being performed in a fireplace.

8-Track
During the mid-’60s, the music industry added another “horse” (and possible "industry killer") to the race: a three-legged Clydesdale called the 8-Track. Its peculiar formatting and general hideousness did nothing to endear it to the general population and its reputation was further harmed by its performance in auto-reverse decks, where changing from Side A to Side B resulted in a violent action that registered in the low 5′s on the Richter Scale and frequently left small children and pets dazed and bleeding.

Perhaps sensing that this format would never achieve the success of vinyl or sheet musick, the music labels altered their distribution scheme and began shipping 8-tracks directly to swap meet vendors and pawn shop owners.

Cassettes
Highly touted by everyone (but audiophiles) as more “portable” than records, if slightly less useful, the cassette soon proved to be the “medium of the people.” Blank cassettes, in particular, had universal appeal as even novices could record their bulky records or capture “streaming audio” via the radio. They could then give these “tapes” to anybody, including friends, family and that chick they were trying to score with.

Widely hailed as the “death of the music industry,” cassettes soon became a ubiquitous feature of shoulder-mounted boomboxes, which were replaced with slightly less spine-maiming Walkmans. The Walkman also added a headphone jack, thus allowing the user to keep their shitty music to themselves while blocking out your stream of obscenities as they repeatedly roller-skated over your foot.

Despite cassettes and home taping having been fingered for “killing the music industry,” (usually in the form of t-shirts, bumper stickers and PSAs), the music industry enjoyed the monetary reward of having three “horses” in the race, not to mention the royalty fee levied on blank cassettes (aka, The Hissing Killer).

THE DIGITAL ERA

Compact Discs
If LPs and cassettes were the show ponies of the media race, the “CD” (or “See Dee”) was Manowar, Secretariat and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse’s horses rolled into one.

Popular, cheap to produce and yet another format to gouge completists with, the CD had it all. Distribution cost? $0. Paid out of the artists’ royalties. Production costs? Studio time? Blow? Free. All paid for by the artists. Plastic, paper, ink – all cheap. Lots and lots and lots of profit.

The music industry responded to their incredible fortune the way any short-sighted leviathan would: by steadily increasing prices. Soon customers were paying $19 for one good song and 11 shitty ones. On top of that, the new format ran 20-25 minutes longer than the LP, leading many bands to pack their albums with filler their drummer wrote. Finally, after so many other formats repeatedly “killing the music industry,” they had found a savior in a nice, cheap plastic disc.

But there was trouble on the horizon. The twin specters of “used CDs” and “blank CDs” soon cast a shadow over the hookers and blow purchased with its ill-gotten gains.

The first, “used CDs,” was decried by artists as disparate and incredibly wealthy as Garth Brooks (68 million albums sold) and Chris Gaines (1.1 million albums traded in at used CD stores). They now demanded to be reimbursed every time the album changed hands, claiming that purchasing music in this format subjected you to a vague and ever-shifting contract, filled with more rule changes than a drinking game.

The other, “blank CDs,” when combined with affordable CD writers, shoved a slightly-battered industry towards the edge of a long flight of stairs. The industry responded with more built-in fees and cries of “Home burning is killing music.” This cry was misinterpreted by various local fire departments and indie-leaning arsonists, who both quickly sprung into counterproductive action.

MiniDisc
Having learned nothing from its “Betamax” experiment, Sony forged ahead with a boldly miscalculated attempt to corner a non-existent market with the MiniDisc. Like a CD, only smaller, more easily lost/damaged and handcuffed to Sony hardware, the MiniDisc never had a chance.

Sony once again walked away empty-handed from the R&D roulette table, having shown only that early adopters will buy anything as long as it’s shiny and prohibitively expensive. Its ability to record music onto the midget-sized discs threatened to destroy the music industry, or at least kick it a little when it was safely down. The music industry responded to this pint-sized miscreant with “Awwww. The little guy’s trying to say something” and slapped it with some punitive fees.

mp3
Not content to be merely a threat to the entire music industry, the mp3′s storage-friendly compression rate and ultra-portability did what no other medium had, and actually destroyed the music industry. The music industry was now truly “fuckt,” as Mozart had so aptly put it millions of years ago. Its Rasputin-like longevity was threatened as was its Rasputin-like propensity for evil behavior. Now every Tom, Dick and Harry with an eMachine could download and dump hundreds of pirated songs onto jump drives, mp3 players and CDs with absolutely no physical effort. And, thanks to the major labels and their years of price gouging, no one was troubled in the least to see them limping into port covered in pirate wounds.

Soon the good ship “Outdated Industry” was leaking money from a million tiny holes. So-called “experts”, in the guise of lawyers and yes-men, were consulted. They all agreed on two things:

1. Something should be done at some vague point in the future.
2. Someone should be sued.

It summoned Dark Elf Lars Ulrich to attack the face of international music piracy: a certain Shawn Fanning. Coming off their most successful album to date, Metallica forged ahead in (self-)righteous indignation, alienating an entire generation of potential fans. With Napster on the ropes, the recording industry went from barn to barn to verify that all the horses were indeed missing and methodically began slamming shut door after door.

A nation of tweens and octogenarians were summoned to court and threatened with usurious fines for downloading/uploading “Happy Birthday” and other such top 40 songs. Kazaa watched in horror as its user base (which numbered in the dozens) was swept into lawsuit after lawsuit. Meanwhile, malware creators watched in horror as their remaining victims lost their internet privileges and a great deal of money, both being very key components of their continued success.

Other high-dollar performers got into the act. Madonna seeded file sharers with mp3s of her asking, “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Most pirates found this immensely preferable to her second-rate electronica and occasional British accent. Alicia Silverstone hastened her irrelevance by appearing in magazine ads reminding people that stealing mp3s was exactly like stealing cars, a move that upped the “cool” factor of file sharing to the Nth degree. The youth of the world, properly chastened, switched from P2P to torrents, in essence moving from joyriding to Gone in 60 Seconds.

As the industry bled out, it summoned its archangel, Bono, to appear in the “paper of record,” flatly stating that America needed to follow the lead of Communist China and track every piece of information travelling the internet. This was met with sneers of derision and cries of “Fuck you, Bono! Find some other way to finance your malfunctioning electro-lemons!”

Panicked lawsuits filled countless courtrooms and lined countless corporate lawyers’ pockets. Bills for "lost revenue" were presented to anyone who acknowledged that “music” existed. Everyone and anyone was asked to “give until it hurts,” in order to prop up a sagging multi-billion dollar industry. No one was spared. YouTube, bloggers, Girl Scouts, mom & pop stores, animal shelters, cop shops, hotels, bars and nightclubs all became notches on rent-seeking industry’s bedpost.

Nothing stopped the bleeding. The mighty mp3, victorious over King Music(k), waved its variable bit rate triumphantly, zipped itself into a compacted file and hid itself amongst the overstuffed shelves of Mediafire, RapidShare and Megaupload.

The "Cloud"
The industry wasn't done being killed yet, despite the best efforts of a new compression format. The latest and greatest thing to change the music scene was something referred to euphemistically as "the cloud." Now this "the cloud" wasn't so much "little" and "fluffy" like the clouds Rickie Lee Jones sued about so many years ago, but rather an unpicturesque rack of redundant servers. With Amazon taking the lead and Google following shortly thereafter, music fans now had a new and ultra-portable way to enjoy their music. 

The labels and various rights groups were none too pleased as these new "clouds" rolled out. The performance rights groups indicated that it was really only interested in one kind of "streaming": that of money into their pockets. The major labels declared this to be a violation of its unwritten end-user agreement, which didn't allow for music that could be accessed anywhere at any time. "Music wasn't meant to be portable," it bitched. "After all, it never has been before," it said as it looked back fondly on the heady days of cassettes, CDs, 8-tracks and MiniDiscs.

While no lawsuits have been filed yet, it can only be a matter of time before the shambling, corpse-like music industry attempts to sue Amazon, Google, et al into the Stone Age, musically speaking. Its only hope now is to return to the days before music could be carried around like so many photos on an SD card, a golden era when listening to music meant purchasing an ultra-expensive, hand-cranked phonograph, whose incredible heft required a team of child laborers to install.

So, as Big Music limps into the future, cursing the whole way, unsteadily clutching its Congressional life support system, music lovers can be sure of one thing: behind every technological step forward, there's an irate record exec dying (not literally, of course) to take everyone two steps back.

Sonora Dodd and the first Father's Day

In 1909, Sonora Smart Dodd of Spokane, Washington, was inspired to create a holiday honoring fathers. William Jackson Smart, her father, was a farmer and Civil War veteran that raised Sonora and her five younger brothers by himself after his wife, Ellen, died giving birth to their youngest child in 1898. While attending a Mother’s Day church service in 1909, Sonora, then 27, came up with the idea.

Within a few months, Sonora had convinced the Spokane Ministerial Association and the YMCA to set aside a Sunday in June to celebrate fathers. She proposed June 5, her father’s birthday, but the ministers chose the third Sunday in June so that they would have more time after Mother’s Day (the second Sunday in May) to prepare their sermons. So it was that on June 19, 1910, Sonora delivered presents to handicapped fathers, boys from the YMCA decorated their lapels with fresh-cut roses (red for living fathers, white for the deceased), and the city’s ministers devoted their homilies to fatherhood.

A National Holiday

The widely publicized events in Spokane struck a chord that reached all the way to Washington, D.C., and Sonora's celebration started it's path to becoming a national holiday.

• In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson and his family personally observed the day.
• Eight years later, President Calvin Coolidge signed a resolution in favor of Father’s Day “to establish more intimate relations between fathers and their children and to impress upon fathers the full measure of their obligations.”
• In 1966, President Lyndon Johnson signed an executive order that the holiday be celebrated on the third Sunday in June.
• Under President Richard Nixon, in 1972, Congress passed an act officially making Father’s Day a national holiday. (Six years later, Sonora died at age 96.)

Different Days for Different Dads

North America is not the only place where Father’s Day is celebrated.

• In traditionally Catholic countries such as Spain and Portugal, Father’s Day is observed on March 19, the Feast of St. Joseph.
• Taiwanese celebrate Father’s Day on August 8, the eighth day of the eighth month, because the Mandarin Chinese word for eight sounds like the word for “Papa.”
• In Thailand, Father’s Day occurs on the king’s birthday, which for current King Bhumibol Adulyadej is December 5.

If you are interested in any of them just let me know.  The writer is not opposed to changes in these songs.  Standard recording/licenses  terms apply.

Thanks,

Lee
KleerStreem Entertainment
Dallas, Tx.

Wanna Be by Harper Mead Listen on Posterous

Sister Of The Holy Order (Demo) by Harper Mead Listen on Posterous

Sanctuary (Pop Mix) by Harper Mead Listen on Posterous

All I Want by Harper Mead Listen on Posterous

Forever Man by Harper Mead Listen on Posterous

Actually, lying to the Police can be illegal depending on the circumstances. If an officer is investigating a crime and asks you a question in the course of his investigation, then you do have the right to state that you want to speak to a lawyer.

But if you outright lie in an attempt to hinder or prevent the investigation, you may be arrested for obstruction of justice.

Noticed, in the political arena, many 'little clicks' have formed for the purpose of patting each other on the back and to give the impression they are running America...nothing but hogwash.  The folks running America don't even live in America...wake up!

What I am seeing is not Constitutional Patriotism, it's more like little so-called dictatorships!

• Grab a handful of your garden soil. If you can form it into a ball, the soil is too wet for planting. (Chances are the seeds will rot.) If it crumbles through your fingers, it's ready for planting.
• Here's another soil test. Make a ball of soil and drop it. If the ball crumbles, your garden is ready for seeds. If it holds its shape or breaks into two clumps, it's still too wet for planting.
• You can also step into the garden and then step back and look at the footprint you've left in the soil. If it's shiny, then there's too much water near the soil's surface to dig and plant. If it's dull, then excess water has drained away and it's time to plant.
• Old farmers had an even easier guideline: When the weeds start to grow in your garden, it's time to plant your hardy vegetables.

As soon as the soil is ready for planting, stir it well and let it sit for several days. Then top-dress it with compost or well-rotted manure and get to work.

Facebook has become the Google of social networks. If you're not updating your status right now, chances are that you are uploading photos or taking some sort of odd quiz. We post tons of intimate details about our lives that we normally wouldn't share with anyone. We think that as long as we make sure our privacy settings are set correctly that we are safe and snug within our circle of friends.

The problem is that we never know who's really looking at our information. Our friend's account could have been hacked when they installed some rogue application, or their creepy uncle might be using their account because they forgot to log out. For the sake of the safety of you and your family, there is some information that you should never post on Facebook. Here are 5 things you should consider removing or not posting to Facebook and/or other social networks.

1. You or Your Family's Full Birth Dates

We all love getting “happy birthdays” from our friends on our Facebook wall. It makes us feel all warm inside knowing that people remembered and cared enough to write us a short note on our special day. The problem is when you list your birthday you are providing identity thieves with one of the 3 or 4 pieces of personal information that is needed to steal your identity. It’s best to not list the date at all, but if you must, at least leave out the year. Your real friends should know this info anyway.

2. Your Relationship Status

Whether you are in a relationship or not, it may be best not to make it public knowledge. Stalkers would love to know that you just became newly single. If you change your status to "single" it gives them the green light they were looking for to resume stalking now that you're back on the market. It also lets them know that you might be home alone since your significant other is no longer around. Your best bet is to just leave this blank on your profile.

3. Your Current Location

There are a lot of people who love the location tagging feature on Facebook that allows them to let people know where they are 24/7. The problem is that you have just told everyone that you're on vacation (and not at your house). If you add how long your trip is then thieves know exactly how much time they have to rob you. My advice is not to provide your location at all. You can always upload your vacation pictures when you get home or text your friends to let them know how jealous they should be that you're sipping an umbrella drink while they toil away at work.

4. The Fact That You Are Home Alone

It is extremely important that parents make sure their children never put the fact that they are home alone in their status. Again, you wouldn’t walk into a room of strangers and tell them you are going to be all alone at your house so don’t do it on Facebook either.

We may think that only our friends have access to our status, but we really have no idea who is reading it. Your friend may have had their account hacked or someone could be reading over their shoulder at the library. The best rule of thumb is not to put anything in your profile or status that you wouldn’t want a stranger to know. You may have the most stringent privacy settings possible, but if your friend’s account gets compromised than those settings go out the window.

5. Pictures of Your Kids Tagged With Their Names

We love our kids. We would do anything to keep them safe, but most people post hundreds of tagged pictures and videos of their kids to Facebook without even giving it a second thought. We even go so far as to replace our profile pictures with that of our children.

Probably 9 out of 10 parents posted their child’s full name, and exact date and time of birth while they were still in the hospital after delivery. We post pictures of our kids and tag them and their friends, siblings, and other relatives. This kind of information could be used by predators to lure your child. They could use your child’s name and the names of their relatives and friends to build trust and convince them that they are not really a stranger because they know detailed information that allows them to build a rapport with your child.

If you must post pictures of your children then you should at least remove personally identifying information such as their full names and birth dates. Untag them in pictures. Your real friends know their names anyway.

I would be a hypocrite if I said that I have completely removed all tagged pictures of my kids on facebook. It is a daunting task given the amount of pictures that we take as proud parents, but I have started on it and I'll do a little bit each day until it's finished.

Lastly, think twice before you tag pictures of the children of friends and relatives. They might not want you tagging their kids for the reasons mentioned above. You can send them a link to the pictures and they can tag themselves in place of their children if they want to.