Category: Series of posts
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The Core is Getting Soft.8: Couture on the Cheap
When you have friends with similar interests and desires as you, sometimes you have to be willing to experience the pangs of jealousy. I’m not just talking about romantic jealousy – for us musicians, it can be about the gear. When I was in grade school, there was a bright and talented kid a year…
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Corporate Welfare.6: Pulling a Fast One
UC Berkeley’s Labor Center has published a new study on the role public subsidies play in the business model of fast food chains like McDonald’s, Burger King, and Wendy’s. Like the other corporations in this series of posts, it turns out that these firms surreptitiously pocket billions in public subsidies while preaching the doctrine of…
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Top 40 over 40.14: Susan Te Kahurangi King
This series of posts is mostly about musicians who had growth spurts after 40, but today I’m posting about a visual artist I read about today thanks to Alastair Galbraith, whose records I very much admire. I consider his album Mass to be among the finest in our genre. Alastair posted a link to a…
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Corporate Welfare.5: Pigskin welfare
Some corporations, like GE and Bank of America, have to resort to creative accounting to make it look like they lost money to avoid paying federal taxes. The National Football League is not one of them. A recent Change.org petition reads as follows: “Despite the fact that it is a $9Billion/Year industry, the National Football…
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Corporate Welfare.4: Avoid Amazon
Salon.com published a piece today with the provocative title, “Amazon is worse than Walmart.” Their argument centers on the notion that Amazon’s business strategy for years has been to accept near-perennial losses on a quarterly and yearly basis in exchange for achieving a near monopoly size “market share.” Walmart, by contrast, actually makes a profit.…
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The Core Is Getting Soft.7: The Kunst of Kunz
A quick look at ebay tells me that a used Roland Juno 60 can run you in the neighborhood of $550 to $1,195. If you’re really lucky, you can pick one up that was used on tour by Ministry, with their own presets still intact! I once considered purchasing a used Juno 60 at a…
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Corporate Welfare.3: Welfare Wings
Today the Real News Network, who I encourage you to support during their current drive to win a matching gift, is reporting that “the Michigan strategic fund has decided to issue $450 million in bonds for a new stadium for the Detroit Red Wings, 44% of which will be financed publicly,” while the city is…
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The Core is Getting Soft.6: Ohm…Ohm….Ohm….
While the last post in this series on plug ins and virtual instruments, “Tuba Time,” proved that there are some truly atrocious digital products out there, this should not cause one to give up hope. One of the best software developers out there, the French company Ohm Force, make fantastic products, and they are on…
johnhdavis / inundation records 