Jim Alfredson

Soul Stream... I didn't have a gig actually. I was up re-doing the main homepage! I'm looking forward to hearing the Scone date.

I've been meaning to get this one forever. I guess now I have no excuse. Oh wait... I'm broke.

Not having the time to read those articles (hehe) I would first ask how are you doing it now? What's your turntable? How are you connecting it to the computer? What sound card do you have in the computer? What software are you using? I have a VIP turntable running into a dedicated phono pre-amp (McCormack) then out to the computer into a regular Sound Blaster AWE64 card. I've also run the turntable into my music computer which uses a M-Audio Audiophile 2496 (great card). For editing I use Cool Edit. All the above are fairly expensive, but I would think there are cheaper alternatives. So, what are you using?

Done and done.... it's on the main page (which, btw, is available by clicking the big words "organissimo" at the top if you're somewhere else in the website). But y'all better start spending more time here... we haven't been under 300,000 this month!!!

I think there's been a 17% improvement in the quality of posts since yesterday.

Noj, try it now. That was another linking problem thanks to Dreamweaver (or my lack of understanding on how to use the program effectively!) Thanks for trouble-shooting this with me, folks!

Good suggestions, couw. Thank you! I tried to implement the ones you mentioned. I don't quite get what you mean by linking the gigs on the welcome page one-by-one, but I did add links to the dates that take you to the gig page. I also fixed the white bars on the contact, gig, and links pages. Does anyone know if slicing images really helps them load faster (even if they're relatively small to begin with?)

Found this on CDBaby, the online company that handles our credit card orders. Thought it was an interesting read. What do you all think? The Power of Perception Part 1 - "Indie" has a bad name Funny, when IUMA closed, I looked at the message board on fuckedcompany.com There were people ranting about, "Those fucking indie musicians can't pay anyone to listen to their crap. They think just cuz they moaned into a mic that now the world owes them a favor and a dollar. If it was any good, they'd be on a major label." And believe it or not, that was the general consensus, not just a lone nut. Made me wonder if a lot of the world feels that way. Maybe we're off in our little circles of indie musicians talking about empowerment and independence, while the rest of the world is using that "i-word" as a rubber stamp on your forehead to classify as "LOSER". So I'm going to be doing an experiment on CD Baby soon: Removing our references to "indie" or "independent". Marketing these CDs to the public *NOT* as "indie" or "support your local musician" or any of that... ...but just calling them "the best CDs you haven't heard yet." [ I have a cute picture of a baby who doesn't want to eat, mother forcing the spoon into his mouth while he winces in disgust. The obvious slogan would be, "Tired of being force-fed your music?" ] Our biggest returning customers, the ones who buy $200 worth of CDs every WEEK, are often the European or Japanese customers who don't know that these artists aren't in the USA pop charts! As far as they're concerned, this is what's hot in America. Just last week I was talking with artist/friend Bari Koral, who is doing quite well. She hired a publicist to get stories/articles/features in all the cities where she's touring. The publicist is a friend of hers who usually works with major label artists. So they took the approach of NOT mentioning that Bari is an "indie" artist, but just marketing her as "a great new artist coming through _____[your town here]____" - the same way this publicist would have treated any brand new major-label client. And the people coming to her shows now are looking at her thinking she's the next Sheryl Crow or something. The general public doesn't care what label you're on, (who ever looks at the record label logo?), as long as you don't make a point of telling them you're NOT on a big label. (as usual, Ani DiFranco is the exception.) Anyway - this is just one way of looking at it, but one I'm going to try experimenting with. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Part 2 - People listen with their expectations I still STRONGLY believe that people listen only 20% with their ears, 80% with their expectations. If you tell someone, "This is the biggest-selling artist in Australia of all time," then put on a CD, I'll bet they'll listen to it differently than if you said, "This is a girl I went to high school with, who's broke and trying to make a demo tape." Brian Eno calls it "creating context." Which is why I think it's perfectly OK to make up lies. It's all part of the art. It's all just entertainment. (Granted, I'm a California native so excuse this Hollywood approach in my blood.) Just smirk when you're busted. DIFFERENT THINGS TO SAY BEFORE PLAYING SOMEONE A SONG: Stephen King wrote this song. When they played this at a strip club, the dancers liked it so much, it's now being used at every strip club in Florida. Everyone I know hates this song. Oh my god you haven't heard this yet? It's the biggest underground hit at every college in the country. Kids are burning tons of CDs to give to their friends. Rolling Stone just called it "the most bootlegged song in America." This got banned from German TV. This is the new theme song to "Friends" Paul McCartney called this "the best song ever written". I wrote this about you. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Part 3 - my favorite quote: Brian Eno on Miles Davis Brian Eno quote that changed my life: "When you listen to Miles Davis, how much of what you hear is music, and how much is context? Context is everything that isn't physically contained in the grooves of the record. It includes your knowledge that everyone else says he's great: that must modify the way you hear him. That he was a handsome and imposing man, a member of a romantic minority, that he played with Charlie Parker, that he spans generations, that he underwent various addictions, that he married Cicely Tyson, that he dressed well, that Jean-Luc Godard liked him, that he wore shades and was very cool, that he himself said little about his work, and so on. Surely all that affects how you hear him: I mean, could it possibly have felt the same if he'd been an overweight heating engineer from Oslo? When you listen to music, aren't you also 'listening' to all the stuff around it, too?" - Brian Eno

Oh we'll do another one, regardless of cost. Like my man Ice Froggy Frog says in "Fear Of A Black Hat"... "I gotta lotta shit to say!" What about your record with Braith? How's that coming? Is you want independent distribution, consider signing up for CDBaby. Their starting to get into digital distribution (via iTunes, emusic, etc) and they recently sent me an email saying "go to your favorite online music store and type in your name and see what happens... more info later..." So I went to Tower Records online, typed in Organissimo, and what did I see? As Joe G pointed out to me, they have us under "Dance/Electronica" and I'm not sure you can actually order the disc yet, but that's pretty darn cool that they're even trying to get something like that set up.

You JT and DB readers, let me know if you see our record in there in the future! I sent both magazines copies for review.

Thanks Peter! Every little bit helps! Don't forget, there are short samples on our webpage www.organissimo.org but there are also full song-length samples on CDBaby.com! If you likey, why not buy-ey?

Thanks everyone! Man, you would think Dreamweaver would automatically update the links for pages that I transfered from the old site to the new one! Instead it just linked all the pictures to files on my harddrive, instead of on the server. Doh! So I fixed that, I believe. I also fixed the link on the homepage "More information here". Thanks Rooster. I changed the welcome.... thanks Chaney. Is that bold enough? I'm not sure what else to do with it. rockefeller, which font would you prefer? I like the one I'm using and it should be standard across all browsers. It's supposed to be "Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif" according to Dreamweaver. On the old page I used Courier and I got tired of that. I'm open to suggestions. couw, concerning the flash animation in the corner, I meant the top bar to not be as thick as the corner. Is this a design no-no? I supposed I could line the welcome box right up to the top bar... it would fill that space in nicely. Whaddya think?

AH HA! I knew playing all those video games was good for somethin'!

Just picked up 8 myself. Great deal! Thanks vibes!

Hey folks... I just got done re-doing the home page at www.organissimo.org I just realized I didn't put the Alexa counter on... oh well. Comments, criticisms, suggestions?

Really? 'Cos we sure as hell haven't sold 370+ copies via the internet yet! Randy's right, we're still paying this one off, but I'm anxious to get back into the studio. I was hanging out with the engineer the other day and he was anxious to get us back in as well! He had all sorts of ideas on how to improve on the sound. Right now my mind is completely occupied with trying to book us some dates in support of the Clearwater Jazz Festival appearance in October and buying a house! It's crazy times!

So I purusing the Downbeat website just for kicks and notice that 12 issues (a year's subscription) costs $34.95!!! Is it just me or is that really expensive for a magazine? Jazztimes, according to their website is $23.95 which is more inline with most magazines. Weird...

West Nile Virus? Been bitten by any skeeters lately?

Blue Note no-likey organissimo. Make B3-er cry...

Hey-oh!

Bingo!

Not at all. I love it when listeners are engaged to the point where they make requests that are interesting. So is it academia that's killing jazz or the attitude of academia? From my experience, my participation in academia could very well have killed my playing and it's taken some time to get that out of my system. The attitude when I was in school was "it's played this way... you have to do it this way... the way you're doing it is wrong... why do you want to play that?... that's wrong..." etc. I think my old teacher would be horrified by our record (I sent him one... never heard from him). But I'm extremely proud of it and happy with the direction the group is going. Concerning pick-up gigs, it is hard. One of the reasons we choose a band name, rather than calling the group "The Jim Alfredson Trio" or whatever is that we are an actual group. There is no substitution in our group. It's hard to do... sometimes one of the three of us has to give up a higher paying gig to play a trio gig, but that's just the sacrifice we have to make. In fact, I'm giving up a $400+ weekend with the blues/R&B band I play with to play two nights with the trio this weekend for WAY less than that. But we're a group... that's what we have to do. One of my biggest bitches about modern jazz is that very few groups actually stick together. I loved that record Brecker did with Larry Goldings, Metheny, and the three different drummers, but I knew they'd never do another one. It was a one-off project and we'll probably never see them together again. And you can hear it on record or in a performance when a group actually plays together often. I think that's one of the things that sets our record apart from a lot of other records... from the first note you can hear that we play together a lot. It makes a difference. Like Larry Goldings trio with Bernstein and Bill Stewart... those guys have been playing together for over 10 years. And you can hear it from note one.

Aha! Brilliant idea Joe! I'm sure he wouldn't mind....

I really didn't need to read that.... where's the "I'm going to hurl" emoticon?! I'll listen to anything, as long as it's greazy... does that count?

Oh yes... we'll be performing for two nights at the Bird of Paradise in beautiful downtown Ann Arbor. If you're anywhere near, you should come on out and hang with us! We'll be having a blast! Bird Of Paradise 312 S Main St Ann Arbor, MI 48104 Phone: (734) 662-8310 9:00pm - 1:00am www.birdofparadise.com If you do come, definately introduce yourself as a nutty Organissimo Forum member!!!!