Posts

Borrowing, Stealing, and Copyright Infringement

/1 Comment/in /by

New artists imitate, great artists steal.

(I was asked to write a post explaining the basics of copyright in music. This is not really that post.)

An original musical work is protected by copyright law the instant that the artist (or artists) first records it or writes it down. An unrecorded session doesn’t create any lasting rights, copyright-wise at least. After a first recording, a musician has a protected copyright in both the song as a musical composition and the recorded version of the song as a sound recording. This assumes the songwriter and performer are the same. It seems strange now, but back in the old days music had to be put in notational form to gain copyright protection. In practice, a musical composition and a sound recording are typically owned by different people and different sets of rules and rights apply to each. Read more

Listen to Bushwick On The Air Every Day This Week

/0 Comments/in /by

The Bellevue the Library was the last stop of our recent King County Library Systems: A Place at the Table tour, where Bushwick performed original music inspired by Michael Pollan’s The Botany of Desire and The Omnivore’s Dilemma. KBCS 91.3 FM was on hand to record this event and interview the artists. They put together some fun little 10 minute radio segments of each artist and every day this week at 4:20pm they will be broadcasting a new Bushwick segment. Yay! The schedule is posted below. Read more

Kickstarter Funds Documentary on Seattle DJ Marco Collins

/0 Comments/in /by

Remember that thing they did in Seattle that one time? With the flannel and the stringy hair and the preternaturally low voices? I believe they called it…Grunge? And remember how there used to not be an internet? When what DJs chose to play on the radio shaped whole genres of music for the public?

Seattle Weekly photo of Marco Collins

Marco Collins, Seattle Weekly photo

All that may be decades gone, but you’ll soon be able live it again through a local documentary film called The Glamour and The Squalor. This film, recently funded on Kickstarter.com follows the career of Rock and Roll Hall of Famer and legendary Seattle radio personality Marco Collins.

This guy is no small deal. Championing unknown bands on 107.7 The End’s The Young and The Restless radio show, Marco broke careers wide open. Little bands like, oh I don’t know, Beck. Weezer. Nirvana. Pearl Jam. The Presidents of the United States of America. Maybe you’ve heard of them? By fighting to play these untested artists, Collins truly became the architect of the defining musical movement of the 90s. Seriously, people. This is badass.

The Glamour and The Squalor will feature interviews with local and national radio personalities and with members of the bands whose careers he helped launch. It won’t focus solely on the music, however. The film will also tackle Marco’s fall from grace because of cocaine addiction, his recovery and later reemergence in the music scene, his time as champion of electronic music, and his involvement with Music for Marriage Equality (once again being a midwife to social change/revolution/movement).

The filmmakers are dedicated to making a lyrical, layered, poignant, artistic, complicated tribute to local music’s most influential everyman. I know I can’t wait to see it.

For more info visit the film’s website, and you can check out the trailer below.