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(04/14/21 10:06pm)
Troll will be performing at the 2021 Culture Shock Music Festival on Saturday, April 17th at 3:20 pm EST. Their performance, along with all others for this year’s festival, will be streamed live on the Culture Shock Website. The festival will begin streaming at 1:30 pm EST. WIUX will also be set up in Dunn Meadow from 1 – 6 pm selling shirts, sweatshirts, and other merch.
(04/14/21 9:47pm)
Rosegirl will be performing at the 2021 Culture Shock Music Festival on Saturday, April 17th at 3:20 pm EST. Their performance, along with all others for this year’s festival, will be streamed live on the Culture Shock Website. The festival will begin streaming at 1:30 pm EST. WIUX will also be set up in Dunn Meadow from 1 – 6 pm selling shirts, sweatshirts, and other merch.
(04/14/21 5:14pm)
Manic Pixie is the newest girl band the Bloomington-music scene needed. Comprised of Maggie Zielinski, Grace Kryder-Reid, Frances Heintzelman, and Sophie Vukmirovich, the girls live and work together, making music from the comfort of their home. Their energy is contagious and the underlying themes of friendship and female autonomy are ever-present in every performance. Having started the band at the beginning of lockdown, Manic Pixie has yet to play big shows, but they're looking forward to playing more in Bloomington as vaccinations become more popularized. You can check out their Instagram @manicpixieband for more updates, live streams, and sneak peeks as they continue to make and release music.
You guys are a relatively new Bloomington band, how did you get started?
We got started by going to shows together all last year. Sophie and I (Maggie) have been going to concerts since we became best friends in middle school, and that has been our favorite thing to do together. We were all sitting outside one night wishing there were more girl bands that were playing in town, and that's when we decided we will just start one ourselves!
What is the story behind your name?
Manic Pixie is a play off of a “manic pixie dream girl” which is a common trope of female characters having little depth and only existing for a male protagonist’s character arc. We wanted to reclaim the term to show that we are more than just side characters in a man’s story. The name is also a bit ironic because as performers, we create a sort of exaggerated, manic pixie dream girl-esque persona with our songs and performance style.
How is it living together and playing together?
We’re like sisters at this point so at any given moment we’re either bickering or communicating telepathically.
As you’ve started finding your sound, how have you found your songwriting process, and what is that like?
For the songs we have written so far, they typically start as someone having a basic idea whether it be musically or lyrically, and we share that with the band and work together to form ideas and finish the song from there. I love writing with the girls because I have always loved writing songs since I was a little girl, but my struggle has always been finishing them! (btw this is maggie talking idk if I need to say my name haah) So it's been really great being able to have an idea in my head and then recording a voice memo of me singing the first verse or chorus that I thought of, and sending it to the girls with the idea I have in mind for the song, and all of us coming together to make it our own.
What are your influences?
Women! Alvvays, Hinds, Big Joanie, Joni Mitchell, HAIM, Lady Gaga, Fiona Apple, Mazzy Star, The Cardigans, Chastity Belt, Mitski, Phoebe Bridgers, Faye Webster and so many other amazing musicians help shape our sound and the musicians we are!
How have you navigated covid and what are you most looking forward to, as campus starts to open up?
Three of us live together, so it’s a lot easier to practice and perform together in quarantine. We’ve done a few livestreams and socially distanced outdoor gigs, but we’re most excited for house shows because they’re what made us want to form a band in the first place.
Style icons?
Tiktok lol :/
Best release of this year?
So hard to choose. Obviously, folklore/evermore by Taylor Swift, Fetch the Bolt Cutters by Fiona Apple, Punisher by Phoebe Bridgers, The New Abnormal by The Strokes, Women in Music Pt. III by HAIM, Crumb’s new singles… also Snail Mail LP2 whenever it gets released.
The full interview is available now on YouTube.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qH-d-s1Ph50&ab_channel=WIUX[/embed]
Manic Pixie will be performing at the 2021 Culture Shock Music Festival on Saturday, April 17th at 3:20 pm EST. Their performance, along with all others for this year's festival, will be streamed live on the Culture Shock Website. The festival will begin streaming at 1:30 pm EST. WIUX will also be set up in Dunn Meadow from 1 - 6 pm selling shirts, sweatshirts, and other merch.
(04/14/21 4:44am)
(04/14/21 3:26am)
After recording their set for the 2021 Culture Shock music festival, Russian Cowboy sat down with us and talked about their inspiration for their name and music, what they have been up to in quarantine, and what lies ahead for the group. As we chatted, members of the group pulled out and snacked on different types of cereal, complete with dairy-free milk alternatives, and purple cabbage for bowls.
First thing I want to know, where did you come up with the name ‘Russian Cowboy’?
Luke (singer, lyricist, rhythm guitar): There was a sandwich I really liked! It was the sandwich I ate at Function Brewery. It was like a Reuben type of sandwich, I don’t think they have it anymore!
How long have you guys been performing together?
Roscoe: We’ve been performing together for quite a while, probably about three years I think!
Luke: I mean, we haven't played a bunch of shows because right when we finally got ready to play live shows, COVID hit. So basically, everything got shut down. We're hoping to, you know when outdoor shows and stuff opened back up, get out and start playing again.
Speaking of quarantine, did any of you guys pick up any weird hobbies or habits during quarantine?
Luke: I don't think they developed one really. I've probably slept more than I ever have on the weekends, but that's about it.
Roscoe: Work, hiking, cereal. Usually at the same time!
Alex: I’ve been doing some art stuff but other than that, I guess just relaxing avoiding downtown like the plague because of all the people.
Ryan: Nothing really changed for me. Life in the pandemic is pretty much the same for me, I'm not really a "leave the house" type of person.
I know you guys kind of mentioned that you just started real live performances and then covid shut down everything but, do you guys have any kind of favorite memory from, you know, rehearsing together or performing together?
Ryan: We started off practicing in Luke’s, (points) your parent's basement, and I think that getting to know each other and the early stuff was cool. It started off as Luke, had like basically a singer, songwriter, solo- project type deal and he reached out to these two guys to turn it into a band and then they were looking for a drummer just through Craigslist. So we all met through the band. I think maybe the best times for me were just getting to know each other in that basement and just, you know, hang out.
What are your hopes for the future?
Luke: I don't know, Start playing live again I guess. I would say we probably like recording just as much as we like playing live, so that's lended itself well to our current situation.
Ryan: I will say with the pandemic we've written so much music.
Luke: One of the hardest things, probably about playing tonight was just that finding 5 songs. Because as it currently is, if you count stuff that's like not finished or just partial songs, what would you guys say, right now we have about 50 songs. It's just been like writing two or three songs a week for the past year and a half.
Roscoe: We have one album recorded and so, we are trying to choose stuff that's not recorded.
I really like your sound; you have a ton of different instruments and combinations. How did you guys put these together?
Ryan: I had the idea to make a country Western-themed album and I actually wanted to get a lap steel but then Roscoe ended up beating me to it and getting and getting good at it. So every once in a while when Luke’s, you know, coming up with a song he’ll just pull out the lap steel if we don't have like a clear idea on the electric guitar or if we want a softer thing. We've got a lot of stuff with lap steel that hopefully will you know, metastasize into some kind of album.
Alex: I know that, for the most part, it's been a very curious thing going on because we all kind of have our own certain feel. Like with Roscoe and I, when we were starting out before we met these two guys were doing some kind of psychedelic-ish stuff, or 60s stuff because I grew up with a lot of like Beatles and other stuff. Then when I started playing bass because I was a craft guitarist, I started listening to heavier music and I probably like pick harder than I knew should have, but he's got like kind of like the 60s vibe with his like guitar playing and then Luke. I know he also likes punk stuff and he's been around in the other music scene for a while. Ryan’s like a hardcore or at least you know experimental or a bunch of different things. I think the sound is just the way it all blends together and something that's unique, which I'm really, I'm happy about. I've always wanted to be in a band and have something that's not only like super unique, but I mean something that you know has little bits of elements that you can pick out, you know, and we listen again, and you find you almost rediscover the music, it’s a nice touch.
Is there any other specific groups that you'd say you draw inspiration from?
Ryan: Any material by Parquet Courts is good, and The Velvet Underground.
Roscoe: I like Natural Child. They're kind of punk but also like a country. They have country tones and some of the stuff we have with like guitar and lap steel.
Luke: I started writing music when I started listening to David Berman really heavily probably three years ago. I remember he had this lyric that said all of his favorite singers couldn’t sing, and I've never been a singer. I still can't really sing, but that kind of inspired me just to try and I'd kind of stopped playing music for maybe five years with a group and I started listening to him and I thought I could try to emulate kind of writing Lyrics that really meant something and Trying to sing along to them as best I could with my very limited both for managing daily.
Russian Cowboy is hoping to perform some outdoor shows this summer, and their self-titled album is out now.
The full interview is available now on YouTube.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Zi6y-GCByg&ab_channel=WIUX[/embed]
Russian Cowboy will be performing at the 2021 Culture Shock Music Festival on Saturday, April 17th at 5 pm EST. Their performance, along with all others for this year's festival, will be streamed live on the Culture Shock Website. The festival will begin streaming at 1:30 pm EST. WIUX will also be set up in Dunn Meadow from 1 - 6 pm selling shirts, sweatshirts, and other merch.
(04/14/21 2:42am)
(04/14/21 1:06am)
(04/12/21 2:00pm)
Below is part two of a five-part series breaking down music’s value as an asset in the business. Read part one here
In the last article, we left off on a brief history of how music has created value in the markets. The question is, how do popular streaming services provide value? They provide huge libraries of millions of songs that are accessible, downloadable, and affordable. Streaming services are built on freemium models, and they earn revenue through advertisements, paid subscriptions, and acquisitions of related properties. But without the access to these music libraries, there is very little in terms of value that these services provide. With the exception of Spotify’s very recent venture into original podcast production, these streaming services don’t produce any music of their own. Rather, they serve merely as hosts for electronic music distribution.The music is what provides the value for these services, so it stands to reason that streaming platforms would pay accordingly for these assets, right? Let’s take a look.
Spotify pays artists on their platform, on average $0.0032 per stream. To put that into perspective, a solo artist would need 3,770,110 streams on Spotify in order to make the US minimum wage annual salary of $15,080.40 . Apple Music pays $0.0056 per stream, Deezer pays $0.00436 per stream, and Tidal pays $0.0099 cents per stream. You can find the detailed report on these numbers at soundcharts.com for more of a nuanced description. But the main takeaway here is that these numbers focus solely on the payout to the recording owners, and it doesn’t capture the full scope of the expense side of the streaming business.
Indeed, these services will strike a deal with content rights owners and negotiate a payout rate with them (usually between 60 and 70%). These groups include record labels, publishers, and other rights holders. The percentage comes out of the total pool of revenue and is distributed to the rights holders who go on to distribute money to their artists accordingly. When you stream the song “Dreams” on your way to the cranberry juice stand, you aren’t paying Stevie Nicks, Lyndsey Buckingham and the rest, you are throwing a third of a penny into a pool that goes to Warner Music Group who distribute at their discretion based on numbers of streams on the platform, total DSP revenue pool, and the negotiated rate as a percentage of revenue.
Remember when I talked about the sheer volume of data that Spotify has on my listening habits? They use this information to help determine their payout scheme. I pay for the student version of Spotify Premium, which is $5/month. Spotify has 96 million paying users as of December 2018, but 207 million active users on the platform. Spotify also boasts an average revenue per user (ARPU) of $4.81, of which $0.51 is contributed by ad-supported users. This means that, while my streams are considered “more valuable,” ad-supported streams dilute the power and impact of my usage. Additionally, these prices change based off of the markets that streaming services operate within. Spotify knows that I live in Indiana, and thus they price the service accordingly at $5/month. But if I slice off the tag, and live in India, the price of Spotify Premium would fall to $1.70/month. However, if India were still under British rule, the premium price would jump to $13/month. This flexibility in price keeps Spotify competitive in a market where local services set the expectation for users in terms of economic contributions and relative values.
You might notice something that makes no sense whatsoever. When you compare streaming service payout rates, you will see that the highest payout rate belongs to Napster. Before you scurry about and drop $100 for a year’s worth of Napster, let me highlight one more element about the payout rate. In simple terms, the payout rate equation is balanced: if I pay $5 for Spotify and I play 1 song a month, my individual payout rate is $5 to the artist. But if I play 5000 songs a month, my individual artist payout rate is a tenth of a cent. The equation is balanced because there’s no variation in the input, as I am putting in $5 each month without change. As user engagement on the platform goes up and total streams increase, the payout rate per stream decreases to balance it out, making the rate somewhat stable. When you see a higher payout rate from a streaming service, it is more often a sign of low user-engagement than fairness to the artists.
Those of you who are plugged into the music scene will notice that I haven’t mentioned the Chad of all music libraries that is Bandcamp. The reason that I haven’t mentioned them thus far in our discussion of streaming is because Bandcamp really isn’t a streaming service. Honestly speaking, the revenue model of Bandcamp functions more as an online record store. This is because they operate on an artist-centered model rather than a streaming-centered model. You buy music directly from the artist rather than putting your money in a central pool, and the user interface and UX of Bandcamp support this model. Bandcamp serves purely as a middle-man in purchases made on the platform, taking the typical agents cut of 10-15%, while other streaming services are the item you're purchasing to enable access to the songs. While music is still an asset on Bandcamp just as anywhere else, it is the main resource creating value on the site.
In the next installment, we break down ownership and music licensing, and detail how Taylor Swift’s music is one of the most interesting assets on the market.
(04/08/21 4:02pm)
(04/08/21 12:00am)
** WARNING: THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS SPOILERS**
Marvel Studios’ limited series WandaVision just concluded its run on Disney+ last month, becoming one of the most talked-about shows of 2021 so far.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sj9J2ecsSpo&ab_channel=MarvelEntertainment[/embed]
WandaVision picks up after the events of Avengers: Endgame (2019) following Wanda Maximoff and The Vision, who actually died in Avengers: Infinity War (2018). Throughout the series, audience members are given the chance to know more about Wanda while she tries to understand the true potential for her powers. Along the way, we meet Agnes and Monica Rambeau who are set up to be key characters in future Marvel movies.
The format of the show is what makes it compelling; WandaVision is a show within a show. Each episode is inspired by a popular sitcom in each decade—the first one being set in the 1950s taking inspiration from The Dick Van Dyke Show, all the way to the 2010s where The Office and Modern Family are paid homage. Questions pertaining to the series set up get answered later on in the series, however, despite not directly making mention of the main conflict in the series, it still serves to move the story forward. There are even fake commercials during the episodes which serve as easter eggs derived from Avengers: Age of Ultron and Captain America: Civil War—films that had a focus on Wanda and Vision’s characters.
Most know the Marvel Cinematic Universe for being action-packed with explosions and fight scenes, but WandaVision was the total opposite. The lack of action was substituted for emotional conversations and confrontations with Wanda’s grief and self-exploration— a character development concept that is quite foreign in most Marvel films. The series is essentially crafted to portray the stages of grief within the 9 episodes: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. It’s safe to say the writers executed the discussion of grief quite well considering how successful the quote “What is grief, if not love persevering?” became, causing audience members on Twitter to become emotional and, of course, create memes of it as well.
The show has captured the attention of millions and has even attracted new fans to the Marvel Universe. One of the biggest takeaways of the show has been the theories curated by fans regarding easter eggs presented within the series. The idea of discussing theories with other viewers only supports how Disney’s format of releasing new episodes weekly rather than all together, is attempting to keep the idea of TV alive. Since a new episode WAS released weekly, it caused #WandaVision to trend every week with nearly 500,000+ tweets, creating conversation, and expanding the fanbase. Some might say the release format was a drag, but this execution made WandaVision the #1 show in the country during its 8-week run.
Perhaps it was the fan theories and teasers made by cast members that made the series finale of the show feel underwhelming. Many believed the show would serve as a crossover with X-Men or even an introduction of another comic book superhero. However, fans were left to wonder what Wanda is to do next and won’t know until 2022, where she’ll make an appearance in Dr. Strange: Multiverse of Madness.
Marvel Studio’s Phase Four has just started. Fans eager to find more content won’t need to wait any longer as the next limited series, The Falcon & The Winter Soldier, is now streaming on Disney+.
(04/07/21 11:34pm)
This week was packed with news, with a Nintendo collaboration, more AAA games coming to Xbox Game Pass, Xbox Series X mini-fridge, and a record-breaking video game sale.
Build-A-Bear x Animal Crossing Collaboration
Build-A-Bear Workshop and Nintendo have collaborated to bring Animal Crossing characters to the real world! For the time being, only two characters are offered (Isabelle and Tom Nook) and are available exclusively online. They will be coming to physical retail stores later this summer. On the day of their launch, the stuffed animals gathered crowds in online waiting rooms that opened 30-minutes prior to their release. Some fans were delighted with the release, while others showed disappointment at the lack of selection. With a game that boasts more hundreds of characters, the selection left some fans wanting more.
Xbox Game Pass Collection of Games Continues to Grow
Grand Theft Auto V will be returning to Xbox Game Pass on April 5th, nearly a year after its removal from the platform. GTA V has become one of the bestselling games of all time, selling more than 140 million copies since its release in 2013. Xbox Game Pass continues growing its collection of both AAA and indie video games, making its value nearly unbeatable. Many other games were announced for April’s list of Game Pass additions, most notably San Diego Studio’s MLB The Show 21, which will join Game Pass on launch day (April 16th)!
Xbox Series X Mini Fridge
Xbox went head-to-head with Skittles on Twitter for Twitter’s first #BestOfTweets Brand Bracket. Aaron Greenberg (Xbox Games Marketing) promised that if Xbox came out victorious, they would release Xbox Series X mini-fridges to the public. Skittles made the promise to bring back the lime-flavored Skittle. With promises made, Xbox went on to beat Skittles by just 1% of the total vote. Other than the confirmation on Twitter, we know nothing more than the production of these mini-fridges will begin sometime this year.
Sealed Super Mario Bros. Breaks Records
A sealed copy of Super Mario Bros. for the Nintendo Entertainment System has sold at auction for $660,000 making it the highest price ever paid for a video game. The game sold at an auction house based in Dallas, Texas. The game was a part of a limited run of Super Mario Bros. that was released in 1986 before Nintendo switched from shrink-wrapped seals to sticker-based seals. The seller said the game was received as a Christmas gift in 1986 and was forgotten about for 35 years in a desk drawer.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_zfrG2bAsQ&ab_channel=Mr.Sujano[/embed]
(04/07/21 9:10pm)
silkscreen print with water-base ink and yarn
(04/07/21 9:09pm)
intaglio print with oil-based ink and digital Niyodo Kozo chine-collet
(04/07/21 9:07pm)
intaglio print with oil-based ink
(04/07/21 9:06pm)
silkscreen print with water-based ink
(04/07/21 9:04pm)
embroidery floss on fabric
(04/07/21 9:03pm)
silkscreen print with water-based ink
(04/07/21 9:01pm)
embroidery floss on fabric
(04/07/21 8:59pm)
intaglio print with water-based ink
(04/06/21 6:47pm)