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I feel like the world’s biggest traitor… Coldplay vs. Ryan Adams & The Cardinals

Honestly, right now I feel like a traitor to myself. Within a day of each other (from tomorrow) both tickets for Coldplay and Ryan Adams & The Cardinals Brisbane shows go on sale. Coldplay tickets are between $110-$140 (!!?) and Ryan Adams & The Cardinals tickets are $75 (which is up about another $20 from the last time I saw him play, I’m sure).


So, what’s the problem, you might ask? The problem is that, given the current economic climate of my wallet, I just don’t seem to be able to justify buying tickets to both. I have to choose. And, despite the fact that I would normally sacrifice a toe to see Ryan Adams play live, the choice isn’t as easy as you would expect. So, what would you do in my situation?


Ryan Adams Pros:

  • It’s Ryan Adams, for Pete’s sake. I mean, I write enough about the dude, don’t I?
  • Fix It. ‘Nuff Said.
  • It’s at The Tivoli, one of my favourite venues.

Ryan Adams Cons:

  • I’ve seen The Cardinals perform before at the Tiv. Only once, but that’s a significant factor in the choices here.
  • Dammit. Can’t seem to come up with any more cons, apart from the fact that it’s $75, which really stings.


Coldplay Pros:

  • It’s Coldplay. An iconic band of our generation. Sure, perhaps a bit mainstream for what you would think I’m into, but it’s Coldplay.
  • Um. See above. Oh, and Strawberry Swing is a pretty damn cool tune.
  • Oh yeah. One more… I haven’t seen them live before.

Coldplay Cons:

  • The frikkin’ price. $110-$140? That is, point blank insane. I think the last time I paid that much was for the Bob Dylan concert, and he had The Frames opening… so Coldplay best have some awesomeness opening for them.
  • I’m not so much a fan of the “Viva La Vida” album… it wasn’t bad, just not my favourite. But the majority of tracks on this tour will obviously be from that album.


At this stage, I think that Coldplay has it. But honestly, I want to hear your thoughts… what would YOU do? Let me know below.

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We Need More Keynotes Like This – Ian Rogers

Ian Rogers recently gave the Keynote address at the GRAMMY Northwest MusicTech Summit… and what a Keynote address it was. Ian basically said what we music bloggers have been saying for a long time: online music does not signal the end of the music industry… rather, it signals the end of the CD industry. And you know what his reply was, to those doomsayers?…

That’s right. The guy is sticking it to the music industry straight. Head here to read a transcript of his speech (and you really should), but here are some interesting excerpts:

I don’t care.

The lamenting we read in the press is not the story of the new music business. Continuing to talk about the health of the music industry on these terms is as if we’d all been crying about the dying cassette business in 1995. The difference is that when we moved from cassette to CD the winners were the same (big companies who owned access to cash, distribution, and marketing) and the definition of winning was the same (more units sold for these big companies).

As I’ve been saying for years, the physics of the media space have changed and you shouldn’t expect the winners or even the definition of winning to stay constant, so simply looking at how iTunes replaces CDs doesn’t tell the entire story.

I see news about the health of the music industry as defined by the stock price of WMG or quarterly earnings of UMG, Sony, and EMI every day. What I don’t see, apart from a few articles on Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails, is an update on how the world is changing from the artist point of view. But I tell you, when I talk to managers and artists they feel it, they feel an ability to take their careers into their own hands, to redefine what success means for them, and that is the emergence of the new music business.

….

Music consumption isn’t declining: iPod sales up 59% Y/Y (source: Apple), P2P filesharing volume up 35% Y/Y(source: NPD), audio streaming up 25% Y/Y (source: Accustream). And despite the endless discussions about the “pirates,” there isn’t an unwillingness to pay for music, either: 1.6B decisions to buy music in 2007, up from 1.3B in 2006 (source: Neilsen Soundscan), 40% Y/Y increase in worldwide digital music sales (source: IFPI), 8% Y/Y increase in North American concert revenue — an all-time high (source: Forbes.com), 40% paid an average of $5 in Radiohead’s pay-what-you-want model, Nine Inch Nails self-release generates $1.6M in first week sales, includes sell out of $300 box set in first 48 hours (source: NIN.com).

Here’s a link to his slides from his speech, and I really suggest you follow that link earlier and read his entire speech. If you’re at all interested in the state of the music industry today, it’s well worth your time.

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And now we return to our regularly scheduled programming…

Well, that was relatively painless. After a few false starts – which resulted in Burgo’s Music Blog being down for the entire weekend – the site is now up and running nicely on my new hosting setup.

Thanks for your patience while we had some problems there. New posts will be coming soon, I promise!

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Attention… Burgo’s Music Blog might be unavailable for a few days!

Just a quick note to all my readers… starting tomorrow, I will be initiating a move from my current host for Burgo’s Blog to another, new host. Unfortunately, this is something I’m doing myself, as there’s no real tech support at my new hosting. As such (god help me)… I’m expecting this to take a few days. And, really, a large part of me is hoping that I don’t lose the entire blog… if you could hold thumbs for me, that would be great!

 

Anyway… starting tomorrow, you should see a maintenance screen which hopefully won’t last long. Wish me luck!

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Stream Ryan Adams & The Cardinals “Cardinology”

Stream Ryan Adams & The Cardinals Cardinology

Short note… but Cardinals fans can now stream the entire “Cardinology” album here. All in all, I’m actually loving it, although some reviews haven’t been as positive.

Give it a listen and make up your own mind.

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So I’m back…

Burgo at Vanuatu
Burgo – Mele Cascade, Vanuatu

… and it was great. Although we were extremely unlucky with weather (ie. it rained every. single. day. except for one day, which was overcast), it was still a wonderful holiday filled with wonderful people. I’ll have an update with more details over on my personal blog at Matt-Burgess.com sometime within the next week or two.

Keeping this strictly music-related though,  I’m catching up on some random events that occurred while I was offline:

– Yesterday was the anniversary of Elliott Smith’s passing. Five years on, and it’s still a dark day for me. Wherever you are, Elliott, I hope it’s wonderful.
Listen: Elliott Smith – Between the Bars

– Diana from Madmuse dropped me a line to let me know that the video for Bill Madden’s “Unfair” track (which was featured on this blog here) has been released into the wild. I’ve included it below. It’s… well, I’m not sure it lives up to the track itself, but it’s still worth watching.

– Zane from Amiestreet let me know that “Brett Dennen and AmieStreet.com have teamed up to bring fans his highly anticipated new album, Hope for the Hopeless, as a special $5 pre-order — with all proceeds going to benefit Brett’s favorite charity, The Mosaic Project, a non-profit dedicated to youth-empowerment and education.“.
I’ll be featuring a review of the album in the next few days, but I wanted to post this now as the charity preorder is running until the 27th October, so there’s only a few days left.

Brett Dennen was one of the first artists I featured on this blog, so I’m looking forward to reviewing the album sometime within the next week. Watch this space.

– I also noted that my “South African Bands you MUST hear!” post has been sparking some interesting discussion in the comments, with my musical taste being questioned more than once. Heh. I love it when readers swear at me.

… and there’s still a mountain of emails that I have yet to check, so I promise I’ll get through those within the next week or two. Hope you all behaved while I was away.

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Where I’ll be in two days time…

Iririki Island. Posting will be, well… non-existent over the next week and a half, as I go to spend some quality time in Vanuatu on Iririki island. Be good all.

 

Iririki Island

 

Iririki Island

(Photo by Owen-JP)

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A Look Back at Burgo's Blog Thus Far... Uncategorized

Happy Birthday Burgo’s Blog!

Wow. So, something was just pointed out to me. It was officially one year ago today, that “Burgo’s Blog” was born. Not on this domain, of course… it’s only had it’s own domain for just over half a year, by now. But, before that, it started it’s life hosted on WordPress.com as a free subdomain.
It’s been a great ride since a rather inauspicious start, with the first post being (so help me) “Just a quick thought on the “RRS vs God Squad” debate“.

In the time since that first post, 145 other posts have been written, 211 comments have been left, and – according to Google Analytics (which unfortunately I only installed at the end of November, so I’m missing a few months worth of figures) – just over 25,000 unique visitors have stopped by Burgo’s Blog, with around about 40,000 pageviews; with the most popular post being “30 South African Bands you NEED to hear!“, with just over 4,000 pageviews.
Yeah, ok… so I’m no Stereogum or Pitchfork in terms of visitors (although, after this, I’m kinda glad I’m not Pitchfork at the moment; good on you Airborne Toxic Event for saying what most of us have been thinking for a while about their reviews), but I like to think that people are hearing what I’m saying, you know? I mean, really this blog has always been about exposing readers to new music… if it wasn’t for the readers, and the community you guys have formed here, there wouldn’t be much heart left in Burgo’s Blog.

So, I guess this is a “Happy 1st Birthday” post to not only Burgo’s Blog, but also to all you readers. Here’s hoping to many more to come.


Happy 1st Birthday Burgo’s Blog
Happy 1st Birthday Burgo’s Blog!