Cory Doctorow is a science fiction novelist, blogger and technology activist. He is the co-editor of the popular weblog Boing Boing (boingboing.net), and a contributor to Wired, Popular Science, Make, the New York Times, and many other newspapers, magazines and websites. He was formerly Director of European Affairs for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (eff.org), a non-profit civil liberties group that defends freedom in technology law, policy, standards and treaties. In 2007, he served as the Fulbright Chair at the Annenberg Center for Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California.
Born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada to Trotskyist teachers, Doctorow was raised in a Jewish activist household, working in the nuclear disarmament movement and as a Greenpeace campaigner as a child. He later served on the board of directors for the Grindstone Island Co-operative on Big Rideau Lake in Ontario, helping to run a conference center devoted to peace and social justice education and activist training. He received his high school diploma from SEED School, a free school in Toronto, and dropped out of four universities without attaining a degree.
In 1999, Doctorow founded Opencola along with John Henson and Grad Conn. Opencola was a software company, which distributed their product’s source code under GPL. In 2003, Opencola was sold.
Doctorow moved to Los Angeles in mid-2006 from London, where he had worked as European Affairs Coordinator for the Electronic Frontier Foundation for four years, helping to set up the Open Rights Group, before quitting to pursue writing full-time in January 2006. Upon his departure, Doctorow was named a Fellow of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Doctorow spent the 2006-2007 academic year teaching as a visiting professor at the University of Southern California, despite not holding any academic degree. He then returned to London. He is a frequent public speaker on copyright issues.
Cory Doctorow is a science fiction novelist, blogger and technology activist. He is the co-editor of the popular blog Boing Boing, and a contributor to Wired, Popular Science, Make, the New York Times, and many other newspapers, magazines and websites. Cory is an EFF fellow and the former Director of European Affairs at EFF. Cory will be reading from his novel, “Little Brother,” a story of high-tech teenage rebellion set in the familiar world of San Francisco. As he currently calls the UK home, this is a rare opportunity to to hear Cory read from his work in person.
For decades a champion of technology, the singer has invited the public to record and broadcast his music over the Internet when he performs at the club. He also will have a camera crew film the concert and later post it online. During his North American tour he will be promoting his latest album “Banda Larga Cordel” (“Broadband Cordel”), featuring plenty of MPB (musica popular brasileira).
Gil sings with his baritone or falsetto register, with lyrics and/or scat syllables. His lyrics are on subjects that range from philosophy to religion, folktales, and wordplay.Gil’s musical style incorporates a broad range of influences. The first music he was exposed to included The Beatles and street performers in various metropolitan areas of Bahia. During his first years as a musician, Gil performed primarily in a blend of traditional Brazilian styles with two-step rhythms, such as baião and samba. He states that “My first phase was one of traditional forms. Nothing experimental at all. Caetano [Veloso] and I followed in the tradition of Luiz Gonzaga and Jackson do Pandeiro, combining samba with northeastern music.”
As one of the pioneers of Tropicalismo, influences from genres such as rock and punk have been pervasive in his recordings, as they have been in those of other stars of the period, including Caetano Veloso and Tom Zé. Gil’s interest in the blues-based music of rock pioneer Jimi Hendrix, in particular, has been described by Veloso as having “extremely important consequences for Brazilian music”. Veloso also noted the influence of Brazilian guitarist and singer Jorge Ben on Gil’s musical style, coupled with that of traditional music. After the height of Tropicalismo in the 1960s, Gil became increasingly interested in black culture, particularly in the Jamaican musical genre of reggae. He described the genre as “a form of democratizing, internationalizing, speaking a new language, a Heideggerian form of passing along fundamental messages”.
Visiting Lagos, Nigeria, in 1976, Gil met fellow musicians Fela Kuti and Stevie Wonder. He became inspired by African music and later integrated some of the styles he had heard in Africa, such as juju and highlife, into his own recordings. One of the most famous of these African-influenced records was the 1977 album Refavela, which included “No Norte da Saudade” (To the North of Sadness), a song heavily influenced by reggae. When Gil returned to Brazil after the visit, he focused on Afro-Brazilian culture, becoming a member of the Carnaval afoxé group Filhos de Gandhi.
Conversely, his 1980s musical repertoire presented an increased development of dance trends, such as disco and soul, as well as the previous incorporation of rock and punk. However, Gil says that his 1994 album Acoustic was not such a new direction, as he had previously performed unplugged with Caetano Veloso. He describes the method of playing as easier than other types of performance, as the energy of acoustic playing is simple and influenced by its roots. Gil has been criticized for a conflicting involvement in both authentic Brazilian music and the worldwide moneymaking arena. He has had to walk a fine line, simultaneously remaining true to traditional Bahian styles and engaging with commercial markets. Listeners in Bahia have been much more accepting of his blend of music styles, while those in southeast Brazil felt at odds with it.
I later learned when reading an article in the Union Tribune that Gil actually promotes the recording of his concerts by the audience for later upload to video websites such as Youtube. Gil embraces new technologies as a way to communicate and spread his message, which as Brazil’s Minister of Culture includes a sense of responsibility for Brazil’s music history. It seems that Gil is fully in tune with Remix Culture.
Lessig, just back from Brazil, describes an extraordinary performance/rally/event with Gilberto Gil. Gil is the Brazilian culture minister, a Free Software and Creative Commons activist, and an internationally renowned popstar who was imprisoned and then exiled for the music he perfomed in the sixties, and he blends all three personas seamlessly here in this amazing tale:
My GL Misha ran up stairs the other night to my lil office and pointedly said – “You have to see this !” – Now, she is skeptical of some of my online interests, so, for her to get so enthusiastic about something in the online world makes me stand up and pay attention !
If you’ve ever posted a video on YouTube, then Kutiman is coming for you. On Mar. 7, the Jerusalem-born DJ (whose offline name is Ophir Kutiel) launched ThruYOU, a project with a simple enough premise: to create visual symphonies using random YouTube footage of school concerts, piano lessons, weirdly intimate soliloquies and American Idol-esque performances uploaded by people across the world. In one of his creations, dubbed “This Is What It Became,” the 26-year-old artist juxtaposes clips of a “Glitch Monster Love Bot,” a tutorial called “How to Play Conga Drums,” a dimly lit monologue for the legalization of marijuana and a demo for a toy keyboard/ tape deck that YouTuber CosmoHelectraStudio, who posted the video of the gadget, describes as “a very bad sound” and “a poor tape player.”
And that’s why Kutiman’s viral orchestras are so fascinating. Unlike Philadelphia mash-up guru Gregg Gillis (a.k.a Girl Talk), who mixes hit pop songs and familiar classics, many of the YouTube clips selected by Kutiman, when viewed apart from one another, are … well… bunk. Who wants to watch — or, for that matter, hear — a vintage fire siren wailing away on a piece of plywood? Or a Cuban percussion instrument made from a gourd. OK, that one is kinda cool, but footage of a trombone recital recorded by an unsteady, possibly intoxicated cameraman? No, thank you. In the Israeli maestro’s hands, though, such raw material becomes … well… awesome. See for yourself:
I have returned to this music blog – I have been neglecting it an many of my other sites. I follow the music industry quite closely – ans have fo a while. So I have decided to relite this and other site to post issues that interest me in the online music scene.
I built this site more as a device and a test bed, but now that it has been index well in the music space, I have decided to do a redesign and change things around.
Stay tuned – I know people still visit this site. Time to start the fire.
Been following TechDirt for a few years now, and I believe he is square on the money on this one !
Techdirt founder Mike Masnick has followed the twists and turns of the digital music debate for more than a decade, offering some of the most prescient and lucid information and arguments on the topic anywhere. Today he tackles growing calls for a voluntary music-licensing scheme, pushed most recently by Warner Music Group to universities, that would basically allow file sharing by having ISPs impose a surcharge on all users to be paid out to copyright holders. (A version of this has been done before with blank media like tape cassettes in some markets, including Canada, but this would be a massive expansion of the idea.)
Really excited to see this getting picked up by Wired, for it puts the discussion one step closer to mainstream media, which in the end is where it needs to head to have more people engage in a public debate at large.
STAR CATCHER
my true adverntures with the stars
and the songs they sing
part two
Don’t miss this return engagement of last year’s Standing Room Only hit!
Maurice Peterson tells more juicy stories of his personal encounters with the superstars
including Cher, Barbra Streisand, Robert Redford, Lionel Hampton, Lisa Left Eye, Eartha Kitt, Joan Collins, Beyoncé and more A-list celebrities,
and sings the songs they made famous.
featuring special guest stars: Berkshire Idol winner, Catie Damon & Michael Lowe
SATURDAY, May 3 2008
two shows: 8:00 & 10:00
Rumpy’s
(the cabaret of The Village Inn)
16 Church Street
Lenox, MA 01232
The record industry is careering towards meltdown. A good thing too, says Simon Napier-Bell, after 40 years of working with its most notorious moguls:
Everyone had the same story. ‘Systematic thievery,’ said the Dixie Chicks in their writ against Sony. ‘Intentionally fraudulent,’ claimed US music lawyer Don Engel.”
“For 50 years the major labels have thought of themselves as guardians of the music industry; in fact they’ve been its bouncers. Getting into the club used to be highly desirable. Now it doesn’t matter any more.For artists and managers, this is the moment to take things into their own hands. Artists no longer need to be held for 10 years and they no longer need to sign away ownership of their recorded copyrights. These days, an artist working closely with his manager can ensure that everything is done in the artist’s best interest. Majors have never done that. And never will.”
Thank you Simon Napier-Bell for some truth about the thugs of the RIAA !
Release Party for 33Hz’s new single ‘Paris Texas’ featuring Teki Latex and Devin The Dude.
The talent bookings for this party kinda got out of control, which usually translates into a good time.
Surkin is a top notch electro DJ from the institubes label in Paris, Teki is the main guy from Parisienne hip-hop outfit TTC, 33Hz have never been better and have been ripping up dancefloors all over the place lately, while Lucky Beer, who are supplying the open bar, are proving to be a winner with the customers who enjoy a fresh, cold, delicious bottle of preservative-free beer in a very nice bottle.
Drinks Specials:
Lucky Beer Open Bar – 11pm to Midnight
Two-4-One Vodka drinks 2am-3am
$8 Tiger-Beer-and-Whisky-Chaser-Combo, and $4 Sparks all night
No Cover if you RSVP!!!
Just hit the RSVP button and sign up… (and remember to click the opt-in box if you want to get emails from us about similar events).
VHS or Beta, Moving Units & 33Hz Live
Free Live Show in Atlantic City!!!
Here’s a great excuse to get out to Atlantic City… Unbelievably, we are able to offer our loyal GBH customers free admission to this top notch bill….
VHS or Beta (who have never sounded better), Moving Units (who have been away for toooo long) and 33Hz (who are set to take off any minute now) will be playing live at House of Blues…
and it is free to everyone on the GBH list…
For free admission for you and your friends, just RSVP with your name and number of guests to info@gbh.tv
Remember to say you are on the GBH Guest List when you arrive at the door.
It’s all taking place at:
Club Harlem in the House of Blues
at the Showboat Hotel,
Atlantic City.
Doors 8.30pm. 18+ w/I.D.
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