E-commerce & the Economy - Micropayments edition

Fascinating blog posting over at the Reflexions Insider on the Rebirth of Micropayments and how the music industry is leading the way forward in this e-commerce movement. Dan Leslie argues that small payments online of less than a dollar will become more routine, largely because of places like the iTunes Store. He also gives a shout-out to our friends at TuneCore.com, who are at the forefront of the digital music universe.

Dollars to Doughnuts it's Diana's Birthday

Diana D'Angelo picked a big spread of offerings from the Lower East Side's popular spot the Doughnut Plant for her birthday party yesterday. Cut in pieces, the assembled staff made short work of the delectable array...take a look at the remains. Happy Birthday Diana!

Barack Music

A few Shore Fire clients were in DC this weekend for various inauguration events. Here's a snapshot of Herbie Hancock pretending to give a speech taken before his performance on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial for the We Are One event.


But this T-shirt featuring our new President is my favorite example of the meeting of music and politics. It's sold at http://rundc08.com/SHOP.html

Toubab Krewe Live in New York

Our clients Toubab Krewe are world travelers who within the past couple of years have played throughout the US, the Caribbean snd West Africa, where they were special guests at Mali's Festival of the Desert, the world's remotest, a trip they document in their "Buncombe to Badala" video.

Last week, they were in New York to play a packed show at S.O.B.'s for an enthusiastically dancing crowd (another client, Jar-e, opened), about which one review said, “Toubab Krewe are what Vampire Weekend would have sounded like if their parents took away their BMWs, dosed their white wine spritzers and locked them in Fela’s basement.”

The next day, Toubab Krewe did a much more intimate performance over a pizza lunch at the SoHo offices of ADA, which is distributing their new Upstream Records release, "Live at the Orange Peel." Of course, we took a photo to commemorate the occasion:


From left: Drew Heller (guitar, soku), Greg Vegas (ADA), Jake Frankel (Upstream), Luke Quaranta (percussion), Justin Perkins (kamel ngoni, kora, guitar), David Pransky (bass), me (Blackberry), Teal Brown (drumset), Andy Silva (iPhone).

Running With The Songsmith.

This has been making the rounds lately, a new product from Microsoft that apparently is not at all a joke, designed to add music to anything you sing. The ad is clearly intended to be humorous but the product is definitely real:



Heh. I don't claim to be Quincy Jones or nothin' but I don't think making music is quite that easy. As this person demonstrates to hilarious effect by trying it out with a clean track of David Lee Roth's performance of "Running With The Devil."

Priceless link here.

I'm feeling real actual musicians are still safe from the threat of software replacement, at least for the time being.

Birthday Cake Cage Match: Old School vs New School

In the left corner, it's Lauretta Charlton, with a Fruit Surprise cake from the venerable East Village bakery Veniero's squaring off with Maggie Poulos and her L.E.S. upstart Babycakes' vegan, everything-free-but-the-taste chocolate cake. The winner? All of us here at Shore Fire who got a flavorful and sweet start to the new year courtesy of these two birthday girls. See the action shots below.