Pandora's Box

I've been reading up on the unfolding saga of Pandora's fight to decrease royalty payments to artists. Pandora is currently in the process of lobbying congress to lower their already absurdly low royalty rates by 85%. The singer David Lowery recently wrote in a blog post about being paid $16.89 for over 1 million plays on Pandora of the hit song "Low".

He was also interviewed on NPR's Studio 360.

Many other artists, including Pink Floyd have been speaking out about this issue, and also about Pandora's attempt to get artists behind them by writing "letters of support" for internet radio.

Pandora's founder Tim Westergen claims that the 85% royalty cut is "misinformation", but doesn't really address what they're hoping to achieve in their negotiations with Congress.

Internet radio streaming services like Pandora and Spotify offer an incredible experience for listeners, but the fact is that they make no sense as business models. Both of them lose money every year and they'd prefer to find ways to pay artists less rather than improving their business models. At least Spotify has a subscription plan! It will be interesting to see what becomes of these companies in the near future.

Minerva at Spectrum tonight!

Minerva is playing at Spectrum in the Lower East Side tonight. I'm excited to play the Steinway grand!
This is the 2nd installment of the Canyons music series, here's tonight's lineup:

Tuesday, July 2

@ Spectrum (121 Rivington)
Admission: 10 bucks (suggested)

8pm, Minerva:
Carlo Costa
JP Schlegelmilch
Pascal Niggenkemper


9pm,
Ben Gerstein, trombone
Gian Luigi Diana, laptop/live electronics
Morgan O'Hara, pencils/live transmission drawing

Free-improvisation for trombone and live electronics with attention and performative drawing.

10pm,
Todd Neufeld
Eivind Opsvik
Flin van Hemmen

Flin will be premiering a brand new piece in which preconceived sound meditations and improvisations will be in close dialogue. Possibly these lines will be blurred until one is not sure which is which, for life is a composition. Eivind plays bass, Todd the acoustic guitar, and Flin will play piano as well as drums.