Elvis Costello & Hubert Sumlin as seen in the film.
If you are a musician and ever wonder about the state of radio in the USA then this movie will certainly enlighten you. I will be part of a panel discussion after the movie.
One of the biggest complaints I hear from independent musicians is how they can not receive any airplay on commercial radio stations. It is common knowledge that the corporate-owned radio stations do not support local music and only play pre-programmed playlists in certain genres to satisfy a mysterious demographic, a demographic that advertisers want to reach. In other words it is all about commerce and not about the music.
Well along comes a movie that hopes to spread the word on this particular state of affairs via a grassroots network. Portland plays host to the film on Saturday February 3rd at 1:30PM in the Whitsell Auditorium at the Portland Art Museum as part of the Reel Music Film Festival. This award-winning film is called Before The Music Dies and all the details are here at the web site.
“Never have so few companies controlled so much of the music played on the radio and for sale at retail stores. At the same time, there are more bands and more ways to discover their music than ever. Music seems to have split in two – the homogenous corporate product that is spoonfed to consumers and the diverse independent music that finds devoted fans online and at clubs across the country.”
If you can’t make the screening, and I urge all local musicians to see it if you can, then you can always own the DVD.
This looks cool, Dave. Thanks for the heads up.
January 4th, 2007 at 2:36 pmMarcus, yes of course, I knew you’d be very into it. Perhaps in the post-screening discussion you can tell folks about TablesTurned.com’s endeavors…?
January 4th, 2007 at 5:06 pmMarcus,
I’d love to do a feature on Tables Turned for Gearwire.com. Drop me a line
(jwallace at Gearwire dot com) and we can set something up….
Cheers,
Joe Wallace
January 5th, 2007 at 8:40 amEditor
Gearwire.com
The BEST part of this film is the sequence where they pluck a 17-year old’s out-of tune voice into electronically – fixed perfection and create a glossy top 40 potential hit song…out of utter garbage. The singer is attractive, flaunts some naughty underage sexuality (without going far enough to be more than a nod and a wink) and basically coos and flirts with the camera long enough to be tweezed into heavy rotation, if she catches on with the Post-Brittney kids.
Nice work. The Eryka B. interview was hilarious, too. They should have let her talk over the closing credits, just riffing on the stuff she said in snippets through the film. Brilliant. For me, she was the best voice in the documentary.
January 31st, 2007 at 2:43 pm