Breaking news: It appears that musicians would like to be paid for their work. After Apple announced it’d be giving customers a free three-month trial of its new streaming Music service, artists and others who contribute to making music weren’t too pleased to find out they’d be receiving royalties of 70% of nothing for that time period. The company has now changed its tune, and says it will pay musicians after all. [More]
musicians
Musician Fiddles On Tarmac When US Airways Won’t Let Him Carry-On Violin
By 5.27.14
So you’re a musician who regularly flies with your violin as carry-on luggage, and then one day you go to board a US Airways flight only to be told you have to either stow your instrument in the cargo hold where it could be lost, stolen, damaged or you can forfeit your tickets. What’s left to do but play a tune right then and there on the tarmac. [More]
Delta Kicks Musician Out Of Frequent Flyer Program For Buying Cello Its Own Seat
By 11.13.12
Not wanting to become the Dave Carroll of the classical music world, solo cellist Lynn Harrell purchases a second seat for his cello when they travel together. This should keep everyone happy. The airline sells an extra seat to a very quiet and compliant passenger, and Harrell racks up extra frequent flyer miles that he can put toward future travel for his cello. Delta isn’t happy, though: they’ve kicked him out of their frequent-flyer program and banned him from it forever. His crime? Accruing the frequent-flyer miles that the airline granted to his cello. [More]
Allstate Won’t Cover My Stolen Instrument Because Sometimes I Get Paid To Play Music
By 10.10.12
Jonathan is an amateur musician, but not so amateur that he doesn’t play the occasional gig for pay. He didn’t think that this should matter if anything happened to his instrument, and Allstate didn’t say anything when he took out an additional rider on it as part of his renter’s insurance, with theft protection. When his car was stolen, he recovered the car but not the instrument. In theory, it should have been covered. Jonathan says that they refuse to pay because he does play for compensation on occasion, and the company refuses to budge. [More]
Google To Launch Music Search Service Next Week
By 10.23.09
You’ve probably seen Google Finance, where each company has its own page made up of content scraped from all over the web. Google is about to launch a similar service for musicians, says the Hollywood Reporter: “The music pages will package images of musicians and bands, album artwork, links to news, lyrics and song previews, along with a way to buy songs.”
Dave Carroll Launches Second "United Breaks Guitars" Song And Video
By 8.18.09
Musician Dave Carroll hit the jackpot with his first song, “United Breaks Guitars,” last month. The song, the video, and the subsequent media coverage formed a perfect anti-ad for United’s poor handling of customer property. Now he’s released the second of his planned three-song cycle and this one has more of a “we could have had something together” feel to it. Like any sequel, it’s about 600 times more elaborate. We’ll always love “United Breaks Guitars” most of all, but it’s great to see Carroll continue his one-man shaming of an airline for not doing the right thing when it had the chance.
Dave Carroll Says No To Guitar Hush Money From United
By 7.10.09
We officially love Dave Carroll now. Not only is he cute and a good singer, but he’s classy (check out how he defends the United employee in this video response) and has principles. The best part is at the end he encourages us to stay tuned for song #2. United hoped it could pay for the guitar and put an end to the bad publicity—but it looks like you’re not getting off that easily, United. Check out the full video response below.
By 7.8.09
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Dave Carroll’s “United Breaks Guitars” song and video EECB appears to be having the desired effect. Check out this tweet from United. [Twitter] (Thanks to Chris!) Update: Dave Carroll responds.
United Breaks Guitars
By 7.7.09
When United Airlines broke Dave Carroll’s $3500 Taylor guitar in the the spring of 2008, he contacted them to ask for compensation. After all, he and other passengers watched from the plane as United baggage handlers actually threw his guitar around on the tarmac. United said they wouldn’t pay for the damages, so Carroll wrote this catchy song about how much United sucks. We think it should go in United’s next ad campaign.
Drummer Comes Up With World's Best Tiered Pricing Structure For New Album
By 3.24.09
Trent Reznor and Radiohead have been dealt a serious blow in the tiered pricing war for album releases. Josh Freese, a member of Devo and A Perfect Circle who’s also played for NIN, Sting, The Offspring, and more!, has just released his solo album today. Aside from the free single or vanilla $7 album download option, you can pay anywhere from $15 to $75,000 for increasingly more bizarre package deals.
Who's Scalping Those Concert Tickets? Artists And Agents, Frequently
By 3.11.09
The Wall Street Journal reported today that for many big name concert events, the people behind a good deal of the really expensive secondary market tickets are the artists themselves, along with their agents and promoters. Recent concerts where the artists and promoters resold tickets on the secondary market and split the profits with Ticketmaster include Neil Diamond, Bon Jovi, Celine Dion, Van Halen, Billy Joel, Elton John, and possibly Britney Spears.
Customer Apologizes For Guitar Center Screw-Up
By 2.19.09
Mitch wrote to us last week to complain that he was sent a used guitar instead of the new one he ordered. Musician’s Friend and/or Guitar Center (they’re related) followed up with Mitch and corrected the mistake, but it turns out that Mitch was in the wrong on this one. Here’s his explanation for what happened.
Gibson Awards Prize To Artist As Promised!
By 1.31.08
Yay Internets! Tonedeff—the artist who won Lollapalooza’s Last Band Standing over a year ago but never received the 10k prize package from Gibson—has received his prize. He emailed us today and wrote, “Thanks for covering the story and your support.
