Journalism as remix?

Is it art ... or appropriation? Creativity or theft?

Take a look at the web's latest phenom, Kutiman, who makes music videos by mashing up and remixing short clips of other people's YouTube videos.



Daniel Sinker, a member of the journalism faculty at Columbia College in Chicago, comes down on the side of art. So do I.

In a recent Huffington Post piece, Sinker said, "If your reaction to this crate of magic is 'Hm. I wonder how we'd go about suing someone who did this' ... instead of, 'Holy crap, clearly, this is the freaking future of entertainment,' it's probably time to put some ramen on your Visa and start making stuff up for your LinkedIn page."

Perhaps the Associated Press might want to consider taking that advice. Instead of acting like RIAA gestapo and suing Shepard Fairey for "copying" an AP photographer's campaign photo for his now-iconic Obama "Hope" poster, the AP might want to consider adopting similar techniques instead. Instead of regarding Fairey's poster as "a threat to journalism," the AP might want to lighten up and bask in the glow. After all, I doubt anyone would remember that photographer's name, or that photo, if it weren't for Fairey's poster.

I think Kutiman's music ... video ... whatever you want to call it ... is seriously cool and creative. But I also like Sinker's larger point ... that musicians and artists aren't the only ones who can take advantage of the proliferation of raw material on the web. He says journalists should be tapping into that mother lode of material too, instead of viewing the web as a threat.

Sinker advises journalists to "Be like Kutiman: use the millions of blog entries, photos, tweets, and videos that find themselves on the web every day to build something new."

• See Daniel Sinker's "Where is Our Orchestra? What Journalism Can Learn From the Mind-Blowing Remixes of Kutiman" on Huffington Post

• YouTube remixer Kutiman may be the best mashup artist yet -- on Gawker's Things We Actually Like

• AP, artist feud over famous Obama poster, on USA Today

• tags: music, web, youtube, mashup, journalism
  

Linking and sharing

As I work on my computer and listen to music on songza.com, I take a moment to read an LA Times article on musician J.J. Cale. Apparently he's been a source of inspiration for a number of well-known rock 'n' rollers, including Eric Clapton ... but here's what I'm wondering: Why doesn't the LA Times include a link to one of his songs along with the article? Seems like a pretty simple and pretty obvious thing to do ... if they want to make their website more useful.

And it's not like there aren't plenty of links available ... they're just a Google search away, after all. Really, would it be that hard to include a link to the guy's web site?

If newspapers want to compete online, they've got to pay attention this kind of stuff. It's not just about "telling" anymore ... it's also about linking and sharing.

P.S. Here's one more link to a 2004 NPR interview with Cale.

A Little Persuasion

I should have been grading papers, but at the last minute I decided to play hooky for a few hours to see one of my favorites musicians, Richard Thompson, who was "playing real good for free" this afternoon at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Fest in Golden Gate Park.

Traffic was thick and the parking garage I'd found on Google Maps turned out not to exist, but I finally found a tiny parking space on the edge of the park just a few blocks from the stage. I squeezed my little VW Golf into it and hot-footed it into the park.

As I approached the open-air stage, I could hear Richard Thompson striking the opening chords of Bathsheba Smiles. A couple walking in the same direction asked, "Oh, is that Nick Lowe?"

"No," I replied, "that's Richard Thompson."

"Teddy Thompson's dad?"

"Yes, that's him."

On stage, it was just Thompson and his acoustic guitar, putting out enough sound to blow back your hair. He picks so fast and furious it always sounds like there must be two of him.

I found a open spot not too far back and sat cross-legged on the ground. Next up was one of my all-time Thompson favorites, Persuasion. As he sang, a pair of red-tailed hawks circled overhead. All around me, people tapped their feet and nodded their heads in time to the music. Some, like me, sang along on the chorus.

Also on the playlist: Crawl Back, 1952 Vincent Black Lightening, Sunset Song, a lovely ballad, and Dad's Gonna Kill Me, a song about Iraq ("Dad" is soldier slang for Baghdad, he said), and probably one or two others I forgot. He reprised with Valerie.

If you're not familar with Thompson, you can check him out on last.fm at http://www.last.fm/music/Richard+Thompson. Here's a YouTube video of Thompson singing Persuasion with his son, Teddy, who performed in town last month (sorry I missed that).

Tags: Richard Thompson, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass

May nothing evil cross this door

It's been a week since a man walked into a Unitarian-Universalist church in Knoxville, Tennessee, pulled a gun out of a guitar case, and shot and killed two people.

It's been a week of realizing that religious hatred and violence are not just things that happen in places like Bosnia, Africa, Palestine or Iraq; they're alive and well in the United States of America...and sometimes they're directed at people like me. It's been an unsettling realization.

I'm a Unitarian Universalist. For about five years in the mid-'90s, I lived in Knoxville. I attended some Sunday services at that UU church, though I never became a member.

This morning at my UU church, we sang May Nothing Evil Cross This Door. The words carried a new layer of meaning. My eyes teared, at times my voice faltered.

In her sermon, our minister spoke about the Tennessee killings. She spoke of the usher who put himself between the shooter and the rest of the congregation, and was shot and killed. She spoke of those who made sure the children got out safely, and of the brave souls who tackled the gunman and held him down until police arrived. And of the woman interviewed outside the church shortly after the shootings, who was asked what the killer had said as he shot at them. She told the reporter the man said hateful things, but declined to elaborate. She told the reporter, "The hate ends here."

I've been thinking about that. Would I have had the presence of mind, or the "control of mouth," to have stopped myself from repeating -- and perpetuating -- those words of hate. Honestly, I doubt it. I even talk back to the TV sometimes.

As a former reporter, I understand why journalists asked what the killer said. But I'm glad she didn't tell them. If she had, those hateful words would have become lurid headlines, fodder for breathless newscasts and talk radio hatemongers nationwide. Some things are better left unsaid.

The day before the shooting, at the BlogHer conference, I attended a session on "Beautiful Blogging." One speaker defined it as staying open to the positive in spite of difficulties. Another put it more bluntly. Alyssa Royse of JustCauseIt.com said, "Do I want to put my crap in the world, or do I want to put out something that will make people feel better and be better?" She said she chooses to focus on the positive.

And I guess that's what we did in church this Sunday. All the money in today's collection plates, along with notes of support and caring, will go to the Knoxville Relief Fund to help those affected by the shooting.

The final verse of May Nothing Evil Cross This Door:

With laughter drown the raucous shout,
and, though these sheltering walls are thin,
may they be strong to keep hate out
and hold love in.

The hate stops here.

Link to a story on the rededication of the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church.

Time out

For those of us who don't have enough to do (and those who prefer to procrastinate), there's...

• Graphic fun at Colorflip.com: Just put your cursor at any corner, and drag.
• Musical fun at last.fm.com with The Accidental's new CD, There Were Wolves, my latest find.

I know, I know...I should be grading. Later.

The return of the dimes

Just found out one of my favorite indie groups, the dimes, will be playing in the Bay Area in a couple of weeks. They'll be playing at SJSU on Wednesday, April 25...the bad news for me is they're scheduled to play at 6 p.m., which is when my evening class starts. Rats!

(Hmm, I wonder if I could interest my students in catching some music for the first hour of class....)

Oh well, if I can't catch them at SJSU, maybe I catch them at SF State, Santa Clara U or Stanford.

If you want to check them out, here's a link to the dimes' web site and their MySpace site, where you can listen to (and download) their four latest songs. My favorite: 'Til I'm Broken.

P.S. The pic shows the dimes playing in the amphitheater at the Student Union at SJSU last fall.

Musicians must also blog

If you're an aspiring musician, forget the demo tape or CD...and start blogging.

That's the word from Sony BMG, the world's second-largest music company, which has announced that it will no longer accept hard copy formats. A Reuters article quotes Ged Doherty, Sony BMG's U.K. and Ireland Music Entertainment chairman and chief executive, on the change. He said:

"Blogging is clearly one of the major trends in music, media and entertainment...so it makes complete sense for the major labels to use the process in a creative way to encourage, discover and communicate with new artists."

Doherty added that he hoped the new blog initiative would help break down the barriers between new artists and music companies.

Sony BMG is following the lead of social networking sites such as Bebo and MySpace, which already bring together musicians and music fans.

Explore the "big picture" of this story at http://news.com.com/2104-1027_3-6172257.html?tag=st.bp

California Dreamin'

All the leaves are brown
and the sky is grey...

The lyrics may talk about winter, but California Dreamin' always makes me think of summer...the summer of '66, to be exact. I grew up on the East Coast, not the West. I remember standing in the kitchen on a summer morning, washing dishes and singing along with the Mamas and the Papas as California Dreamin' played on the radio. I was 13, and I hated doing the dishes. (Still do.) But the singing helped.

God, how my brother and I bickered. We fought so much that my mother made us do the dishes in shifts. One would wash and stack clean dishes on the drainer, then it was the dryer's turn. It seems stupid now, but we managed not to kill each other that way.

I've been for a walk
On a winter's day.

The Mamas and the Papas had problems with bickering too. It probably didn't help that both the men in the group, John Phillips and Denny Doherty, were enamored of the willowy Michelle, who married John and had an affair with Denny. And then there was Cass Eliott, the big woman with the big voice, who also loved Denny. She died of a heart attack in 1974.

I'd be safe and warm
If I was in L.A.

I read in the newspaper this morning that Doherty had died. He was 66. John died in 2001, so Michelle is now the only one left of the original foursome. I don't think she sings anymore. But sometimes I do, and I still remember most of the words to...

California dreamin'
On such a winter's day.

I never could have guessed, in 1966, that I'd end up living in California. But I do. And I'm still California Dreamin'.