Re-Meet the Beatles, *Really* This Time

Last night at Beat Research the employees of Cambridge-based video game makers Harmonix swarmed the E Room with their friends, their gadgets, and their various musical side projects. They put on quite a show, and to a packed house! Video killed the radio star, but Rock Band might make some rock stars yet. Harmonix is […]

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Bearing Witness, or Not – Part 3

As many of you may have heard, the trial concluded on Friday with the absurd award of $675k in statutory damages to the RIAA — in other words, Joel Tenenbaum, a 25 year old physics grad student, was found liable, at the whopping cost of $22,500 each, for the willful infringement of the copyrights to […]

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Bearing Witness, or Not

Speaking of family and defending the truth, the Joel Tenenbaum case begins today. And it’s looking like it’s not going to be the trial that Charlie was hoping it would; instead it will be, no surprise, the judge’s trial. Judge Gertner made a series of rulings this weekend, including one at 1:37 this morning — […]

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Songs as Shared Things

charlie sporting a hat bearing the name of his boat, a name inspired by some songs No doubt most readers of this blog are aware that my father-in-law, Charlie Nesson (aka eon), is also very much IN LAW. And he’s been making the news a lot recently, mainly for defending (pro bono) Joel Tenenbaum against […]

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A La Plenísima

Plena is Spanish for ‘full.’ But it has other meanings too, depending where yr @ —                      In Puerto Rico, plena refers to street music played on panderetas (see, e.g., Sorongo‘s comments here). In Panama, plena refers to reggae — homegrown reggae en español in particular. The riddim method has been alive and well in […]

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Re:Wine Wine Wine Wine Wine Wine Wine (We Like It)

As things ramp up for carnival, the strains of soca seem increasingly in the air (& my inbox). Believe it or not, there actually is a likkle soca in the air here in Boston. One key source projecting the strains of carnival into the city’s soundscape is BIG CITY FM, my fave “pirate” reggae/soca channel […]

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Meta Matters!

ok, second post in a row jacking a video from those canny video jackers @ immanentdiscursivity — i love this. don’t you? not only is kid downright adorable, he’s using a youtube vid of a solo piano rendition of the akon song (now a duet!) to accompany himself. that’s some srsly born digital creativity right […]

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Pop Champagne, Pop Copyright

Listening to the Federation‘s recent mixx of reggae hottage for Mad Decent, a few things struck me per recent conversations here: [audio:http://media.libsyn.com/media/maddecent/mad_decent_radio_44_federation.mp3] 1) the use of the “hey” sample in the intro (0:30-0:40), like an airhorn or any other selector sound effect (speaking of which, check the first sound on that page — you can’t […]

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Dem Nuh Ramp

What is it, copywrong week in Jamaica? Tip o’ the proverbial hat to Ripley for pointing me to an article in the Jamaica Star which reports that EMI have served Vybz Kartel with a SERIOUS cease&desist on behalf of none other than (now former) w&w faves, Ne-Yo and Stargate (aka, Shaffer Smith, Tor Erik Hermansen […]

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Showtime (for Lawsuits), Unfinished Business (for Lawyers)

Dancehall.mobi has the scoop today on a lawsuit instigated by producer Dave Kelly — In Jamaican dancehall culture, “re-licking” a riddim has undoubtedly been a way of life. Almost monthly there seems to be a remake of a dancehall, reggae or rocksteady riddim that originated anywhere from just a few years ago to decades ago, […]

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(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Publish)

First things first, here’s a biographical essay about Kool Herc* I wrote (almost 3 years ago!). I don’t have a good excuse for posting it so late, but I do have a good reason for being able to post it on my site at all: because I made sure I could. In other words, when […]

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Iron Chic

Bidoun Magazine – Art & Culture from the Middle East | Twilight of the Iron Sheik | By Negar Azimi the story of the iron sheik :: 'An Iranian impersonating an Arab dressed as a Turk, he was part pirate, part djinn, all man. The WWF that Vaziri joined was in the midst of reinventing […]

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Immersion Blender

WireTap Magazine – Free Association: Sound of Silence larisa/ripley's article on the recent rash of dubious takedowns in the mp3blogspotosphere :: written for a youth/general readership, so pretty backgroundy, but a good explanation of the current lay of the land :: bye bye blogspots (tags: mp3blog blogging copyright copywrong digital culture p2p) Beat Diaspora: Beats, […]

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A Farce To Be Reckoned With

todo mundo » Blog Archive » Crank Dat ROFLCon taken down from YouTube! kevin records a message for souljaboy, in souljaboy style (ms.xu = the new ayrab!), after the ROFLCon version of "crank dat" (in which a roomful of MIT folk / internet geeks did the dance) got served with a take-down notice :: ah, […]

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Patriotic License

Mixin’ It Up: Downtown | Discobelle.net thx to boima for pointing me to this — quite a mix — enjoy the minimal steez and that intro track/mix, despite some serious schizophonia, works remarkably well :: ethno techno sez wha? thought so. (tags: minimal techno mix DJ mp3blog funkcarioca) FINAL REPORT | DIGITAL YOUTH RESEARCH "Social […]

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Arabic Ebonics

ethnotechno :: the best in left-field asian-tinged electronica an unabashed embrace of the "ethnotechno" tag — sooooo 90s, no? (tags: worldmusic representation ethnicity orientalism electronic fusion) Blackdown: The man who cycles through glass walls interesting post by blackdown about photographing london's "margins" (tags: london photography representation urban architecture space race class blogpost) Scene and heard: […]

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Most Deft

Techdirt: Big Guns Come Out In Effort To Show RIAA's Lawsuits Are Unconstitutional my father-in-LAW, charlie nesson, is taking it to the RIAA (finally) with the help of his students at HLS — a nice summary / discussion here :: "In the past, it's been noted that the RIAA has curiously avoided suing any Harvard […]

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Linkthink #2111: Make It Take It?

AllHipHop.com Daily News – : The Game, Timbaland, Sued Over ‘Put You On The Game’ a more recent case of saregama v. aftermath (tags: hip-hop sampling bollywood filmi copyright law) China’s All-Seeing Eye : Rolling Stone naomi klein on the rise of CCTV & other forms of surveillance in china — oh yah, and the […]

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Where Do I Begin (To Tell the Story)?

As long as we’re on the topic of “Arab Face” I’ve decided to dust off and finish up this post that’s long been sitting in my drafts folder. (It’s post #100, and I’ve recently published #400, if that’s any indication of how long it’s been on a backburner.) There are countless twisty, tangly stories of […]

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linkthink #8233: Time Passes and Things Look Different

Tomgram: Mike Davis, Welcome to the Next Epoch ‘Although the idea of the “Anthropocene” — an Earth epoch defined by the emergence of urban-industrial society as a geological force — has been long debated, stratigraphers have refused to acknowledge compelling evidence for its advent.’ (tags: climate oil energy history essay critique middleeast economics global) Fight […]

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