Industry Profile with Grinding Tapes Recording Company

I've always been a big fan of indie record labels. They seem to have the most integrity and passion, and are definitely in it for the right reasons. Boston's own Grinding Tapes, is a perfect example of that—helping indie artists sell records and give back to important social causes at the same time. Take a look at my interview with company founder Jason Rozen to learn more about the label and his personal views on vegetarianism. Introduce yourself—who are you, what do you do, how did you get started in the music industry? My name is Jason Rozen. My involvement in the music business was almost entirely accidental. I was looking for a good way to stay involved with social justice issues after college when I stumbled across an amazing group of young and largely-unsupported folk musicians through my good friend, Elijah Wyman. I started Grinding Tapes as a way to help these artists pay for releases while also supporting important programs by donating part of the proceeds to worthy causes.Since then, some friends have come on board and helped to expand our role to other areas such as promotion, booking, and distribution. I'm very much an amateur at this, so I'm learning new things every day. It's all very exciting! Tell us about Grinding Tapes. When I started the label back in 2005, Grinding Tapes had just three bands: Elijah Wyman, Saint Joe Hazelwood (now The Points North), and Dogs & Trains (now Mr. Sister). Since then, seven more awesome artists have released albums on Grinding Tapes, including an orchestral rock band from Brooklyn called Slowest Runner; an embellished folk band from Italy called Vinegar Socks; a local folk-rock band called Dreamtigers; and a Yann Tiersen-esque pop band from Sweden called Detektivbyrån. I couldn't be happier with our current roster. 2009 was especially big for us, as we added three new bands and released six very successful albums. It's been exhausting, but we're hitting the ground running in 2010 with a new release this month from the minimal folk band, Manners, an electronic split cassette by Sylphid/Seer Group, and a Mr. Sister album on the way. How long have you been vegetarian? Were there any bands, books, videos, etc that influenced your decision? I have been vegetarian for about two and a half years. It's something that I knew I wanted to do since I was in high school, since the nature of the meat industry so fundamentally conflicts with my values. Unfortunately, changing my diet was a mysterious and intimidating challenge, and it took me a long time to actually make the change. Indie rocker Ted Leo was my biggest vegetarian/vegan role model and is also my very favorite musician of all time. There are a lot of reasons to not eat meat, but he always put the animal rights issue right at the center, and I really respect that. I also had the opportunity to meet him recently, which was very exciting. Another key influence was Chris from The Points North (then Saint Joe Hazelwood), whose willingness to enter a tough conversation on the topic was instrumental in my decision to finally make the change. I'm currently reading Animal Liberation by Peter Singer, which I wish I had read long ago. I'd recommend that book to anyone considering or curious about vegetarianism. Another book I started recently is Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer, which makes the important point that you don't always have to go directly to vegetarianism or veganism. Any reduction makes a difference, even if you just avoid meat a couple meals a week. That's something that I believe would have helped me start the transition much earlier. Of all the major animal rights issues what do you feel most strongly about and why? While I do feel very strongly about any mistreatment of animals, I think being a conscious eater is the best way to make a big impact. With just one decision, you can save animals for the rest of your life and maybe even influence others as well. I think it's also important to recognize that cruelty extends to the production of all animal products in factory farming, which is why I'm also trying to cut out eggs and dairy whenever possible. I just found the site leaheyfoods.com, which has some delicious vegan cheese and meat substitutes, which are helping to make the transition easier. xo Megan

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Ashampoo Photo Commander 8.1.0

Ashampoo Photo Commander 8.1.0 View, manage, organize and edit your digital media in one intuitive and powerful program. Ashampoo Photo Commander 7 is an all-in-one application for organizing, editing, sharing and presenting photo collections with additional audio and video playing and management capabilities. All the photo editing tools you need are included. Enhance your images with the one-click optimizer. Remove the red-eye effect, adjust colors, contrast, hue and many other parameters, resize, crop, rotate, add a wide range of special effects. After editing you can then use the integrated creativity tools to turn your photos into slide shows with music, web albums, photo collages, calendars and more.

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Mom Meets Social Media: 5 Tips for Facebook First-Timers

“What happens if I ‘befriend’ someone who doesn’t want to ‘befriend’ me back?” asks my Mom. “It’s just ‘friend’ Ma,” I respond. “Ditch the ‘be-friend.’ You sound like Hamlet.” “No, that’s wrong,” she tells me. “'Friend' isn’t a verb.” My Mom is in her late 50s and recently got a Facebook account. An admitted skeptic, she previously didn’t see the value or purpose of “doing Facebook.” She thought it was a kid thing -- something too technically complicated and too socially intrusive for moms in their late 50s. That was until this past Christmas, when my Mom’s inbox saw more holiday greetings than her mailbox. Many of the expected annual family letters and pictures from her childhood and college friends came in the form of emails, with links to blogs and Flickr accounts, and “Happy New Year” signatures ending with lines like, “check out my Facebook page for pictures of my son’s wedding.” It was a bittersweet change for my Mom to have the good news of the past year living in her laptop rather than hanging on her door frame on familiar holiday stationary for all to see. Yet, she now saw the value in having her very own Facebook account. (It's only the beginning; other social media accounts are soon to follow!) I got her set up and gave her the following words of wisdom -- words that can be helpful to any Facebook first-timer: 1. Your Profile is Your Canvas You’re not required to share everything. Make your profile truly your own, and express yourself as you please. Whether you want to emphasize your career and education, your family life, or both, or just your name -- your Facebook profile is whatever you want it to be. Take some time to figure out what that is. 2. Take a Deep Tech Breath News Feed? Group Invitations? Farmville? Okay, so there’s a lot to take in if this is your first social media platform, and a lot of it won’t make sense at first. Play around (You can’t break anything!), and don’t feel stupid about asking your kids or coworkers what to do. They will be psyched to pass on their knowledge. Keep in mind, too: Social media technology is changing all the time, so we are all constantly learning. 3. Don’t Throw Away Your Stamps ... or address book, business cards or photo albums. Sure, a lot of what you need to keep in touch is accessible through Facebook and other social media outlets, but that doesn’t mean you have to part with all of your old ways. Take baby steps. Make note of those with who you can keep in touch sans paper, and see how this list grows over time. 4. Don’t Friend Fret The concept of asking someone to be your friend may seem a little 1st grade-like, but don’t revert to thinking that way. If you find someone you want to connect or reconnect with -- friend them! Don’t worry about whether they will friend you back, or how they will react to your friend request. This is the Facebook way of saying, “Hi, how are you?” 5. Expand Your Reach So maybe you initially signed up to see pictures of your friend’s new grandchildren. Still, don't hesitate to explore everything Facebook has to offer. Search for groups that relate to your personal and career interests, check out Marketplace, see who Facebook suggests you reconnect with. Are you small business owner or marketer? Explore how other businesses are taking advantage of Facebook and consider the option and benefit of creating a Facebook business page. You’ll be surprised to see how easy it is to navigate Facebook to build a network beyond those with who you initially signed up to keep in touch during the holidays! I received a Facebook message from my Mom on Valentine’s Day. It was something that thoroughly impressed me but also gave me the same twinge of sadness she likely felt during the holiday season with the lack of red and green envelopes in her mailbox. Since I’ve been on my own, my Mom has always sent a card -– for everything. “Did you see I Facebook messaged you for Valentine’s Day?” she asked me today, proudly. “I did. Great job, Ma!” “Okay, good!” she replied. “Oh, and your card is in the mail too.” This article was written by Julie Devaney, a member of our consultant team at HubSpot. Check out Julie's Bio. Photo by Kevin Dooley Webinar: How to Sell Social Media to Your Boss Social media guru Chris Brogan explains how to demonstrate the value of social media marketing. Download the free webinar to learn how to get your company started with social media. Connect with HubSpot:

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The lunchtime newsbucket - chock full o'links

Pink Floyd, Vodafone malware, Windows's origins, WiMAX, Apple's iTunesLP, ad blockers, iPhone App licensing, I Can Afford Cheezburger?, CEOP lack of buttons and more... A quick burst of links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team Pink Floyd Suing EMI Label Over Online Royalties - BusinessWeek Because their songs are seamless, see, and fade into each other, every single download should count as an album. Something like that. Forecast: could get ugly. Of course in the old days, a top person at EMI would have just said "Get me Pink on the phone - he and I can sort this out..." Vodafone distributes phone that spreads Mariposa botnet >> Panda Research Blog Ooh, dear, Vodafone, we think that this counts as an enormous mistake. The Secret Origin of Windows >> Technologizer.com A year after first being announced, Windows was still vapourware - which meant Tandy Trower (no, really) had the job of wrestling it into real, running code in a product with a price tag and a strategy. When he started, it looked "a bit clunky" due to the system font. A fascinating read. Melting down the crown jewels >> Information World Review Tim Buckley Owen on the contradictions generated by the fact that data.gov.uk will make Ordnance Survey data available, but hasn't managed to get Royal Mail to do the same for postcode data. (Note though that the OS consultation proposes making CodePoint - a long/lat set of postcode locations - available for free reuse.) Gaming sites losing out to 'social networking games' >> BBC News As the Games Developers Conference comes into sight, the problem is that Farmville and Mafia Wars are sucking up peoples' time that used to be spent on games sites Another one bites the dust: Cisco steps out of the WiMAX game >> Engadget WiMAX isn't quite a dead duck, but it's starting to look distinctly peaky. Apple's iTunes LP 6 Months Later: LP What? >> GigaOM Noticed how everyone is talking about Apple's iTunes LP format? Um...perhaps they're doing it on Google Wave? Or perhaps it was launched in a hurry to placate the record industry, which wanted to have some way to tempt people to buy albums, rather than singles. Even so, it might work well with the iPad, if that ever reaches us... Should you use ad blockers or not? >> Guardian Technology Worth reading for the debate in the comments too - but why is nobody discussing the idea of the subscription to get rid of ads? All Your Apps Are Belong to Apple: The iPhone Developer Program License - EFF The Electronic Frontier Foundation "used the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to ask NASA for a copy, so that the general public could see what rules conrolled the technology they could use with their phones". Inside the Low-Paying Cheezburger Empire >> Ben Huh - Gawker Those pictures of furry cats won't post themselves, you know. Oh, wait, they do. Unexplained: why are the people working at cheezburger so lowly paid? Should Microsoft get into the PC hardware business? >> Ed Bott at ZDNet.com Maybe not all PCs, but a few reference versions? Click CEOP Button - Add-ons Gallery >> IEAddons: where's the Firefox one? CEOP has a "panic button" so kids can report scary people, but is this really only available for IE8? Can't they implement a bookmarklet? Tim Berners-Lee: The year open data went worldwide >> TED.com That's *Sir* TBL to you. The year before, he was getting the audience to chant "raw data now". This year, he's showing them the how of raw data. Popular [not Frequently Asked?] Questions >> UK Council for Child Internet Safety Perhaps a frequently asked question might be "why is your website so amazingly uninformative?" You can follow Guardian Technology's linkbucket on delicious Charles Arthur guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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Albums: The White Stripes, Under Great White Northern Lights (XL)Pixies, Doolittle Live (Live Here Now)

Listening to live albums is, all too often, an experience akin to watching porn: all very well, but no substitute for actually being there, and too often leaving you with the empty feeling that comes from watching other people having all the fun.

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Photo of the Day: Chevy Hot Rod

Today’s photo comes from shb4photos. Be sure to look at all of sjb4photos’ photos and our other albums. And if you would like to recommend your favorite photo with a GM car or truck in it, put it up on Flickr and tag it with “gmfyi.”

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Photo of the Day: 2011 Chevy Cruze

Today’s photo comes from kykorvette. Be sure to look at all of kykorvette’s photos and our other albums. And if you would like to recommend your favorite photo with a GM car or truck in it, put it up on Flickr and tag it with “gmfyi.”

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Photo of the Day: 2010 Camaro SS/RS

Today’s photo comes from kykorvette.Be sure to look at all of* kykorvette’s photos and our other albums. And if you would like to recommend your...

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Bad Religion says thank you with free live album

Bad Religion announces 30th anniversary European tour and says thank you to fans for 30 years of support with a free live album. Pioneering So-Cal Punk Band Offer Fans Free Limited Live Album On May 14. 2010 marks the 30th anniversary of quintessential Los Angeles punk rock pioneers Bad Religion and the band will kick off their European celebration at Groezrock in Belgium on April 24th, followed by a big list of festival and headlining club shows throughout the summer. As part of the celebration of three decades of groundbreaking music, the band has announced plans to record a live album, 30 Years Live (during their upcoming spring 2010 House of Blues tour in the US) and offer it as a free “thank you” to loyal fans. Fans are invited to sign up at www.badreligion.com for a free digital download of “30 Years Live” that will be available for a limited time only beginning May 18. Sign up now to reserve your download! The celebration continues as Bad Religion prepares to enter the studio to record their 15th studio album which is expected for release this fall. In a recent interview, prolific singer/professor/author Greg Graffin disclosed new information about Bad Religion’s recording plans. Read more here… Formed in 1980 in the suburbs of Los Angeles by teenage friends; guitarist Brett Gurewitz, bassist Jay Bentley and singer Greg Graffin, with the additions of Greg Hetson (1984-Present), Brian Baker (1994-Present) and Brooks Wackerman (2001-Present), Bad Religion have become synonymous with intelligent and provocative West Coast punk rock and are considered one of the most influential and important bands in the genre. Over the past 3 decades the band has continually pushed social boundaries and questioned authority and beliefs armed only with propulsive guitars, charging drumbeats, thoughtful lyrics and an undying will to inspire and provoke anyone who will listen. “The greatest feeling about this anniversary is that it is happening at all,” says Graffin. “I’m mostly uplifted by the fact that a vibrant and evolving punk scene still inspires young people all over the world. If Bad Religion somehow serves as a symbol for the lasting importance of punk, then I am satisfied beyond words by reaching this milestone.” With 14 studio albums, countless worldwide tours and sold out shows, crossbusters tattooed, stitched and worn globally and a universal community of fans among other accolades, Bad Religion have earned their spot in punk rock history and will continue the celebration of their distinguished career with extensive touring, new website, exclusive merchandise, surprise releases and a new album in 2010. Bad Religion Tourdaten 24.04.2010: Groezrock Festival Belgien 25.04.2010: Duisburg – T-Mobile Extreme Playgrounds 04.06.2010: Rock im Park 06.06.2010: Rock am Ring 07.06.2010: Bielefeld – Ringlokschuppen 08.06.2010: Berlin – Huxley’s 09.06.2010: Hamburg – Docks Club Stay punk!

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Strokes Playing Lollapalooza, Album Out In September

It looks like it's going to be even more difficult to get tickets to this year's Lollapalooza (as if it isn't already hard enough). That's because The Strokes have confirmed they'll headline the Chicago festival this summer. Singer Julian Casablancas told the Chicago Tribune the New York rockers would top the bill on one of the dates. Lady Gaga, Arcade Fire, Soundgarden and Green Day are also rumoured to play this year's festival, but the lineup has yet to be announced. Lollapalooza 2010 takes place Aug. 6 to 8 at Chicago's Grant Park. As for the follow-up to 2006's First Impressions Of Earth, Casablancas says the long-awaited album will be out in September. "I've written a lot of melodies for it, but the other guys have also contributed a lot more: melodies, choruses, parts," he told the Chicago Tribune. "It's way more collaborative. So it'll have a different feel than our other albums." In the meantime, Casablancas is still on the road supporting his Phrazes For The Young debut solo album. He'll wrap up that tour at the end of April. You can see The Strokes on June 13 at Newport, England's Seaclose Park as part of the Isle Of Wight Festival. They'll also pay this year's Hurricane Festival and Southside Festival in Scheesel, Germany and Neuhausen Ob Eck, Germany in June. In the meantime, you can see Casablancas here: March 23 Providence, RI @ Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel March 24 New York, NY @ The Fillmore at Irving Plaza March 26 Atlanta, GA @ Center Stage March 27 Charlotte, NC @ The Fillmore Charlotte March 28 Baltimore, MD @ Ram's Head Live! March 30 Sayreville, NJ @ Starland Ballroom April 1 Montreal, QC @ Le National April 2 Toronto, ON @ Phoenix Concert Theatre April 3 Cleveland, OH @ House Of Blues Cleveland April 5 Detroit, MI @ St. Andrews Hall April 6 Chicago, IL @ Vic Theatre April 8 Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue April 9 Indianapolis, IN @ The Vogue Theatre April 10 Kansas City, MO @ Beaumont Club April 12 Houston, TX @ House Of Blues Houston April 13 Dallas, TX @ House Of Blues Dallas April 14 Austin, TX @ La Zona Rosa April 18 Indio, CA @ Empire Polo Club (Coachella Valley Music And Arts Festival) April 21 Denver, CO @ Ogden Theatre April 22 Omaha, NE @ Sokol Auditorium April 23 Des Moines, IA @ People's April 25 Columbia, MD @ The Blue Note April 26 St. Louis, MO @ The Pageant April 27 Nashville, TN @ Cannery Ballroom April 29 New Orleans, LA @ Republic

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