Versus

http://m.hollywoodreporter.com/v/Esq./WhySteveBallmer039s2

This has been the legal scandal that has gripped the nation for the last month or so. It has spawned two CNN specials, and has been the hot topic on sports radio non-stop. This is the story of Donald Sterling. Sterling is the, soon to be former, owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, an NBA franchise. Donald Sterling found himself embroiled in controversy when someone leaked tapes of conversations, he had with his girlfriend, V. Stiviano, to TMZ where he made racist comments about African Americans in general, and Magic Johnson specifically. That he made these comments were bad enough. The fact that this leaked during one of the greatest first rounds in NBA playoff history was just horrific timing. The backlash from these comments has been coming non-stop, with the biggest being a potential strike not only by members of the Clippers, but from players league wide. They refuse to play for a man they consider a bigot, and they refuse to play in a league that would allow such bigotry. To quell this potential player uprising and continued media backlash, Adam Silver, the NBA’s commissioner, banned Donald Sterling for life from the NBA, fined him the league maximum of $2.5 million, and promised to get Sterling to relinquish his ownership and sell the Clippers.

http://wallstcheatsheet.com/technology/verizon-tells-netflix-to-cease-and-desist-blaming-it-for-slow-streaming.html/

This is a story about Netflix vs Verizon, but it’s also about much more than that. Net neutrality stands to perhaps change the way we consume the Internet altogether. In this case Netflix has consistently blamed Verizon for deliberately slowing down streaming towards their customers. Verizon claims that it’s Netflix’s responsibility to ensure quality streaming and customer service. But as I mentioned earlier this argument all centers around the FCC’s ruling on net neutrality. Netflix is a big proponent and supporter of net neutrality. Verizon is very much against that concept. Net neutrality is the idea/concept that all content and usage of the Internet should be treated alike. Those that oppose this concept, like Verizon, say that they should be able to charge by usage.

http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-amazon-and-hachette-explained-20140602-story.html#page=1

In what’s seemingly becoming a trend, this is a story about a bigger company attempting to bully another company into succumbing to their demands, to get them that much closer to becoming a monopoly. Pretty much what this equates to is that Amazon is attempting to bully publisher Hachette to accept their terms for e-book pricing (retail and wholesale). To force Hachette’s hand Amazon has put artificial delays on their books. They’ve made some of their titles unavailable fro pre-order, increased the shipping time on books they already have available, and have even blocked certain titles from showing up in search the way that they should. Stephen Colbert, one of Hachette’s authors that this affects, gives his take on this situation far better than I ever could…

http://thecolbertreport.cc.com/videos/ukf9gv/amazon-vs--hachette

The Year That Changed My Life

            Ten years ago I embarked on a year and opportunity that changed my life forever. Back in 2004 I earned the opportunity to become a member of Tops in Blue, (TIB). As a member of Tops in Blue we traveled all around the world putting on a show and performing for our troops overseas and nationwide. But Tops in Blue is so much more than that. One of the lessons that priors, former members of Tops in Blue, try to engrain in new members is to not go into TIB looking for what you can get out of it. They tell you to go into the program prepared to give it your all, and you’ll come out of it with so much more. I knew this would prove to be true because I had already gained so much just making it to TIB.

            There are some people that try for years and years to make it to TIB. Some make it and some never do. I was fortunate to have made it my first time out. The first step I had to take to make it to TIB was to compete in the base talent show. This was one of the first times that I had performed in front of a crowd all by myself. Needless to say, I was nervous, and you could hear it when I played. But that was step one of the performer in me emerging from out of my shell. Next up after that was sending in my application and a video of me playing a couple songs in hopes of being selected to compete in the Worldwide Talent Competition that determines the members of that years tour. Worldwide is a whole different beast of a talent competition. Before you got there you had to select what song you were going to perform in front of a theatre full of people. At worldwide, in addition to preparing for your performance, you had to audition in all the other categories there. So while I was there to audition for the band, playing my sax, I also had to do a vocal, dance, and variety audition. Basically auditioning for TIB you had to leave all of your caring what other people think at the door, or you just weren’t going to make it. I made it through all the auditions and my performance, each one bringing something out of me I didn’t realize I had, and a few weeks later I learned that I made it to the team!

            As a member of the 2004 TIB team, in addition to getting to travel around the world playing music, I received so many valuable lessons, skills, relationships, and more thanks to this tour. I always say that TIB was at the same time one of the hardest and most rewarding things that I’ve ever done in my life. Even if I personally didn’t get anything from TIB, which I did, the effect that I saw it have on our troops, especially the ones in the dessert, made everything that we did and went through more than worth it. But like I said I took so much away from my year with Tops in Blue. I have friendships from this tour that will last a lifetime. I learned how to be a performer, how to produce a show, how to lead a group, how to take charge of the stage, how to work hard and to continue to push through until the task at hand is complete, and much more. So there it is. 2004 is the year that changed my life, and Tops in Blue is the program that was used to do it! 

Won't you be my friend:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jsmithwilliamsmusic
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jsmithwilliams
Instagram: http://instagram.com/jsmithwilliamsmusic
YouTube: Justin Smith-Williams

Josiah James Interview

Josiah's latest EP. Coming to you soon!

            For those that have read any of my previous blog posts know how big of a proponent I am of people following after their dreams.  Recently I had the pleasure of interviewing Northern California, indie artists +Josiah James. Josiah exhibits doing what it takes to go after the dream that’s in your heart. As a freshman in college Josiah decided that instead of attempting to juggle the responsibilities of college along with song writing, recording, and touring that he would hold off on school, and pursue music full time. As other great luminaries before him that left college early to pursue their passions, such as +Steve Jobs, the gamble paid off.  Since that time Josiah has done numerous tours, over 500 shows, and has released three albums, and he is currently readying the release of his new EP, Identity.

            On the journey to our dreams, especially as independent artists, we often learn as we go when it comes to the business end of things. I asked Josiah about some of the stories he’s experienced with his business dealings and working with other, artists, bands, and musicians. When it came to touring Josiah often worked out mutually beneficial arrangements with those that he toured with. He would often work out deals with the other bands. Deals along the line of if it was their tour maybe they’d get the guarantee at the door, but he would get to ride with them on the tour, wouldn’t have to pay for gas, and he would make money from album and merch sales. 

Unfortunately there are times when individuals in the industry use dirty tactics or tricks in their dealings, and we learn very quickly that we need to protect ourselves in this business. Josiah recalled a time with a certain band. They were in a hotel room. While they were in their hotel room Josiah was working on a potential new song, with the other band in the room. He didn’t see a reason to not trust these guys, but they ended up trying to steal the song, and claim as there own. It took a lot of backtracking, going through voice memos and such to prove that the song was his work. For a while Josiah didn’t think that he would get to release this new song to the public, but eventually he was able to prove the song was his. That’s just one of the dirty tactics that independent and major label artists might have to face in this industry. 

As an independent artist there are times when there just isn’t a lot of money to bargain with. Sometimes you have to just find musicians that are just down to help you, and can work with what you can afford. That’s the case for Josiah. He has a set amount that he can work with. Sometimes he can do a little bit more than that, but if there’s a musician that just wants more and more money he has no qualms with not using them. In fact there are times where he’s worked not using a band into his live show. During a live show Josiah will create a full song right in front of his audience. Using his acoustic guitar and a live looping technique, Josiah will layer guitar parts, percussion, and his voice and create a whole song live in front of the crowd. I’ve never seen it, but it sounds pretty amazing to me, and it’s easy for me to understand why there were so many people in my circle raving about this guy before I ever met him.

Josiah James epitomizes the new school independent artist. He does it on his own when he has to, and he has expertly engaged his audience using social media. Over the years he has amassed thousands of fans that have supported his music, and he has exemplified living the dream!

For more on Josiah James you can check him out on his website www.josiahjames.com, and on social media outlets everywhere:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/josiahjamesofficial

Twitter: www.twitter.com/josiahjames

Instagram: @josiahjames

Why I'm a WWE fan

Its Wrestlemania season everybody. It’s the most exciting time of the year for +WWE fans. When I people find out that I'm a wrestling fan I get hit with the usual questions and responses. Responses such as; Why?, You know it's fake right?, and Really? I’m a fan because I love being able to watch people who are passionate about what they’re doing, and have sacrificed so much in their lives, getting to live their dreams in front of a national audience. That’s the reason why reality shows like American Idol and The Voice are so popular. I’m a fan because I’ve learned a lot in the areas of marketing, branding, and promoting by watching them over the years. In fact I believe that’s one of the reasons that outside of music, I’ve always wanted to get into marketing and promoting as well. These are a few of the reasons why I'm a fan, and below I will cover three main areas why the WWE is one of my top five favorite companies and why I’m a fan. When it's all said and done I believe you'll understand why.

 I can relate with their journey:

As a musician, that dreams of being able to do music full time, my journey isn't so different from the journey of say +Stone Cold Steven Austin. When you listen to their stories of how they got to where they are, it often starts out many years ago with them struggling. They'll reminisce about performing in front of crowds of 10 people, and if they're lucky 50 people. Sometimes as they travel to these places to perform they would end up having to pay to perform. The gas to get there and back would cost them $80 and they would get paid $40/50 for that night’s work.

During my time as a musician I’ve had the pleasure of getting to perform in fronts of hundreds and even thousands of people before. But I have also experienced thosemoments of having 10-20 people in the crowd. We’ve traveled hours away from home for a show with the only payment being the experience, but the experience alone was worth it because we love what we do.

Entrepreneurial Spirit and a Willingness to risk it all:

Vince McMahon, WWE’s owner and chairman of the board, love him or hate him, is an entrepreneur through and through, and he is not afraid to risk everything for an idea that he believes in. From the first Wrestlemania to their newly launched WWE Network, the WWE and Vince McMahon have stayed at the forefront of technology, often pioneering into new formats i.e. PPV and over the top streaming with live content, and rolled the dice on big ideas that if they didn’t work out would mark the end of the WWE. It’s widely noted that had the first Wrestlemaniabeen a failure there would be no WWE here today, or at the very least not as we know it today.

It’s this spirit, boldness, and willingness that musicians must embrace as well.  The ones that grasp this are the ones that find the career/life that they dreamed of on the other side.

Taken failure head on:

Along with that entrepreneurial spirit comes the inevitable failure, and this is something that Vince and the WWE have embraced as well. The XFL is one of the most highly published failures of all time. Vince McMahon with all his boldness and brashness thought that he could take on and compete with the mighty NFL. Needless to say that experiment failed after only one season. They did bring some innovations to the game, and those innovations are currently being used by the NFL today.

As artists we can’t be afraid of failure either. We must embrace it as well. Every song isn’t going to be a hit, and we won’t be able to please everybody with the music we put out. But we have to be willing to embrace those risky ideas. It’s those risky ideas that quite possibly could bring us our greatest success.

And that’s why I’m a fan!

TED Speaker Steve Jobs: How to Live Before You Die

http://youtu.be/UF8uR6Z6KLc

In Steve Job's commencement speech, How to Live Before You Die, at Stanford he focused on three main points; connecting the dots, love and lost, and death.  I had read transcriptions of this speech before, but I never got to hear the full thing. Well let me just say that it is definitely worth listening to. There are a lot of great points in there about life and finding that thing that you love to do, or as I like to call it, living your dream. Anybody that knows me knows that this is an area that I'm incredibly passionate about. I'm always doing what I can to encourage people to go for it, including myself. So, listening to this speech truly hit home for me.

Connecting the dots

In this section of his speech Steve said two things that resonated with me. He said, "You can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future," and "believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart even when it leads you off the well worn path, and that will make all the difference." This has certainly been true in my life. There's no way that I could've peered into the future, back when I was living at home in Detroit and taking classes at Wayne State University, and knew that one day I would live in Lincoln, Ca and that it would be the best move for me to make for my life, musically and beyond. But that's exactly what happened.

Love and lost

This is where he talked about the time that he got fired from Apple, the company that he created, and then got brought back to lead the company to its greatest success yet. I can't even fathom that. I would be UPSET if something like that happened to me and the company I created. The cool thing about Steve is that he got fired from one amazing company, and went and started another amazing company. A little movie studio named Pixar. Maybe you've heard of it?! The quote that I love from this one is, "your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work, and the only way to do great work is to love what you do." I feel you Steve, and I'm working on it!

Death

"If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?"

That's an exceptionally poignant question right there Steve. All I can say about it right now is that I'm working to get myself to that point.

This was a truly on point speech, I highly recommend that you give it a listen, its inspired me, and I hope that it'll do the same for you. I'll let Steve finish up this post for me.

"There is no reason not to follow your heart."

Avengers Assemble

The journey to a dream, much like a good summer movie, is a fantastic adventure, riddled with challenges and obstacles to overcome, and characters that become a part of your story along the way. On my journey, I experienced a lot of ups and downs, and moments of wondering if things were going to come together the way I had envisioned. This journey required individuals with all sorts of talents, skills, and abilities, talents, skills, and abilities that I did not possess. There was no way that this was something that I could bring together, or make happen on my own. To make my dream a reality this past year I had to assemble my own personal dream team of, "musical", +Avengers.

Without these guys, and gals, whom I like to refer to as my musical fusion family, nothing that we accomplished would have been possible, and I am forever grateful to all of them for their help and contributions to this adventure. The world of music and entertainment is filled with all kinds of teams and partnerships that have helped to make each other better, and provide the world with a great by product as a result. From +Michael Jackson and +Quincy Jones to +Justin Timberlake and +Timbaland, the world of music was blessed with amazing sounds that we may have never experienced had these individuals turned teams never "assembled." 

I write all this to say that whatever dream it is that you have in your heart to accomplish, that dream is going to require a team of people to help make it possible. The cool thing is that a good portion of that team is already located within your inner circle of people. That's where I found mine. I was fortunate and blessed to be able to go on this journey with my friends, and that made the experience that much more rewarding for me. Along the way people that I had never met became part of the journey, and my life, but I started with what I had available to me. So start "assembling" your team now, and bring something great to the world!

Is the concept of the album over?

I ran across this article a couple weeks ago on +Variety's  website that talked about how the concept of the album doesn't work anymore for today's music listener. There are a lot of good points in this article, and his thoughts are further proven with the reception to +Lady Gaga's new album. As a musician/artist, that just released his first album, the surprising thing is that I agree with him, to a point. If there is a reason that fans/consumers don't want to buy albums anymore it's covered in these two statements from the article: "There are so many diversions that no one's got time for mediocre anymore," and, "No one wants album tracks anymore unless they're every bit as satisfying as the hit." I know we've all been a victim of this at one point or another. You hear the hit single from an artist. You really like that song, so you buy the album. Upon listening to the album you realize the only good song on there is the single, and maybe one or two more songs if you're lucky. The music industry became such a singles driven industry that, that's where the focus was put instead of on the entire project, and as a result the music listener got burned one too many times. Even huge artist have fallen victim to this mindset at labels. I remember reading an interview with +Eminem around the time when the 1st Marshall Mathers LP was coming out. The label was really harping on him to create another silly song in the vain of, "My Name Is." He eventually complied and created the song, "The Real Slim Shady," but out of his frustration he also wrote the song, "The Way I Am," which ended up being one of the biggest selling singles from that album.

So what's the answer to this conundrum? Is their a solution to this problem? Should artists give up on the idea of a straight up album? With the advances in technology we are no longer forced to buy an entire album to hear a song that we like. We can buy the single for .99 on +iTunes, look it up for free on +YouTube , or stream it from +Spotify. Well, there have been a few artist that have shown that it is still possible to numbers in this new technological environment. Artist such as +Taylor Swift, Eminem, +Justin Timberlake, and +Adele have managed to find success and do big numbers. They find this success by simply being the best at what they do and consistently putting out quality work, no gimmicks necessary, and their labels marketing budget didn't hurt either. But these artists proved that if you prove yourself consistently to your audience, they will come out in droves to support you, and will wait with excitement for your next project.

Is the concept of the album over? No, it's not. Nothing beats the anticipation of getting ready to listen to the latest masterpiece from your favorite artist. But, as artist we do need to constantly be working on out craft, becoming better and better at what we do. We have to put out a quality product every time so that our audience knows they're going to get something special when they sit down and listen to our latest project. Otherwise we will be relegated to the Spotify playlists, checking out our latest song on YouTube, and if they really like it downloading the song from iTunes.