BeatPick Blog on music licensing, creative commons music, gigs

The co-operation between our very own Leo Pari and popular Italian comedian Beppe Grillo marches on in the typically incendiary fashion that has counter-marked all the Genovese satire master’s latest actions.

Grillo, some kind of a Poltergeist for the Italian political class, is organizing an initiative called V-day (Vaffanculo Day, ie. “The Fuck off Day”), which will see the participation of thousands of Italian people in the main squares of over 180 cities across the country. The demonstration is aimed straight against the Italian parliament and government, and proposes to sign a series of documents and flyers that protest against an ever more static political regime.

For such an important move in his own campaigns, Grillo needed an official hymn, and unsurprisingly his first choice was Beatpick’s Leo Pari, who had already recorded a track featuring Grillo samples, “Un Grillo per la testa”. The track was used as introduction to the shows in the comedian’s tours across Italy.

Pari’s new Grillo-centered track is just as uncompromising as one would expect, featuring a furious Grillo sample (as well as a tiny sample from Italian trash hero Marco Masini’s 1991 hit “Vaffanculo”) and a hard-hitting video that advances heavy criticism to both sides involved in the Italian political arena.

Check out Leo Pari’s Beatpick profile, here.

To download “Un Grillo per la Testa” for free, click here.

This past week, two of BeatPick’s artists, Henrik Frenzel and Simon Wolfe, were selected for the soundtrack of a nonprofit video created by the Majority Leaders’ Office of Steny Hoyer, in Washington D.C. The Majority Leader is the second-ranking official in the United States House of Representatives. That’s huge, but what is more important to us BeatPickers, is not the politics of this debate but the music surrounding it (yes, politics are important to, but BeatPick does music not politics)!

The video begins with a serious tone, using Henrik Frenzel’s song “See You in Paris,” which is a beautiful slow tempo score from his album Wide Screen Music. The uplifting turn in the video is when Simon Wolfe’s “Power and Glory”, from his album Moving Sound, takes over. The song is a powerful motivational vote for change.

No one can deny that adding music to political statements makes it that much more emotionally stimulating. Who can blame them when most people think of politics they think BORING. Without Henrik Frenzel and Simon Wolfe’s songs, this video would have been just that, less meaningful, boring and impersonal. And not only does an important issue actually receive more attention but so do our much deserving artists.

In no way do the songs of our artists in this video represent their personal opinion. BeatPick and our artists are neither Republican nor Democratic, nor American or European, nor Eastside or Westside! What BeatPick is, what we are, and proud to be, is a FairPlay Music label.

Link to the video and to their website

During the ICommons Summit, the founder of CC, Lawrence Lessig, discussed the endless possibilities of using the cc and how it is economically sound and profits all who use it. He also explained that the future of CC lies in what he called the “crossover” possibility for users, to pass from free services to commercial licensing within the same web site. BeatPick was ecstatic to find that Lessig’s example for such a new typology of web sites, was yours’ truly BeatPick.com! Creative Commons is the basis of how BeatPick works; giving independent artists greater opportunities to break into the money crazed music industry. Without Lessig’s ideas and revisions of the Internet, society and copyright laws, BeatPick wouldn’t be here today.

[”It is no accident that those who understand this are those closest to technology. Our challenge will be to find ways to explain it so other creators get it as well. “Lawrence Lessig.
http://lessig.org/blog/creative_commons.]

As always, our hats off to the creators and innovators of what we believe to be the best thing to happen for all struggling artists in every field. To see BeatPicks placement within the ICommons Summit, click and watch the video below. Our site shows up on the big screen about fifteen minutes into Lessig’s presentation.

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This past June 21^st 2007, for the first time ever, the European Festival of Music (a free live music celebration held every summer in European cities), was held in Second Life! What is Second Life you ask? Well, let me tell you-it is the strangest, most fascinating and coolest freaking thing on the net. It is a 3-D virtual world entirely constructed and owned by its 8,006,758 users from around the globe. What makes it even cooler to us Beatpickers is that two of our Italian artists, Piergiorgio Lucidi and Leo Pari, performed at this virtual event in 3d characters! It gets even cooler, because not only did two of our artists join this event but so did one of our very own BeatPick colleagues, Teodoro Pizzolante and his band Madreperla!

Second Life has incorporated all aspects of real life on the Internet, so it comes to no surprise that this virtual world has opened it doors to the music industry, because for us, what is life without music? Independent artists now have another outlet for reaching a global fan base with little expense or effort!

[”Second Life is the future right now, offering endless possibilities for artists” - Nick Rhodes, Duran Duran]

What will come next for Second Life and Beatpick…maybe a BeatPick office in this virtual world? Who knows, but for now, stay tuned and rock out to our artists video performance on second life!!

Recently, Heavy Mojo, a band we are particularly proud of here at beatpick.com, notified us that they had been signed with SRC/Universal Motown, a major record label! As sad as we are to see them leave, we are ecstatic for them!

When it comes to Indie artists, us BeatPickers do all we can to commission an artist’s creation. Not only do we make our artists some extra cash but we promote their music professionally at no cost or loss of creative rights. Artists finally have a fair outlet into the the music industry, film and tv. As for Heavy Mojo, a band of this a high caliber super ceded the services that any Indie Label like BeatPick could offer.

With a killer live show that could rival any hardcore band, Heavy Mojo continues to revolutionize and revitalize hip hop, so its no wonder that they have been signed by such a major label! SRC Records is a joint venture between Rifkind and Universal Motown Records, a division Universal Music Group, and the world’s leading music company with wholly owned record operations and licensees in 77 countries. They have worked with artists such as David Banner, Terror Squad, Akon and Young Jeezy.

They are currently recording their first major label release and we can’t wait to hear it! If you are interested in licensing some of Heavy Mojo’s songs before they’re gone, then do it by July 25^th, when Beatpick must say goodbye to its artist and wish them a happy and successful career with SRC/Universal!

Here at BeatPick, we are always on the look out for interesting contacts to publicize our artists even further. Working with Radio DJ’s is a great way to get our new artists out there and create a more diverse fan base, making a musician from the United States popular overseas and visa-versa. Freies Radio Kassel is a non-profit German Radio station that has a monthly show to promote free music, also known as “Open Source Audio”. This past June 5^th 2007, four of our many artists were chosen to be broadcasted by Freies Radio. These artists’ works were also aired the following night June 6^th and will eventually be available as a podcast download.

Freies Radio broadcasting will build a new German fan base for the chosen artists, something that -even through a non profit radio station- should be taken advantage of! So Congratulations to Autobam, Cato_six, Kingbastard and Cooler for their amazing selected beats!

Here is the link (its in German!) http://www.freihoch2.de.vu/

The Podcast Download is Here!!

(short)

http://www.archive.org/details/freihoch2-2007-06-05-FRK-1900

http://freihoch2.nerdbox.de/2007/06/intelligente-musik-bei-freihoch2 (in german)

Congratulations to one of our many artists Sean Haefeli, on being a part of Mercedes newest Mixed Tape compilation CD 17! The Mercedes Mixed Tape combines 15 brand new artists from all around the world into a unique collection of jazz, pop and electronic sound. Mercedes is continuously on the look out for new exciting artists so it comes to no surprise to us BeatPickers that Sean Haefeli’s song Off Speed, was chosen to join the many other artists on this compilation. Not only will Off Speed be on this promotional CD, which is sent out to hundreds of influential journalists, but it will be available for download for free off the Mercedes website, www.mixed-tape.com. What is really amazing is that within 24 months this site had more than 20 million downloads! Think of all that free publicity for our artists like Sean Haefeli!

This is just the beginning for our BeatPick artists! Every six months Mercedes creates a new compilation of songs from their mix tapes called the “Best Of Mixed Tape” which is uploaded onto the iTunes store. If selected for this collection, our artists will receive a sales compensation for every compilation bundle or single download that is made. Wow, tons of free publicity and potential financial gain…and here I thought Mercedes just made cars! So once again, congratulations to Sean Haefeli for a well deserved spot on the Mercedes MixTape collection, CD17.

Download for free and let us know what you think. Who knows, maybe your music is next!

Last week we were contacted by a representative of a Southern Italian cultural association called RadioKreattiva.

RadioKreattiva.net is an online radio station that was developed in order to tackle corruption and the Mafia and the need for children to express themselves and create their own identity through communication and exchange. The station is run by children who are between the ages of 9 and 12 and who come from the southern city of Bari. The episodes are introduced by a grown-up but are otherwise entirely hosted by the children who get to discuss many topics that are important for them. The issue of the Mafia and corruption is one of the most discussed and tends to overshadow a lot of the shows’ different themes.

It would seem obvious that a project of this kind not only benefits those involved but also those who listen to it and most importantly the regional government whose job it is to fight the mafia and corruption. As a result it would appear essential that a not-for-profit radio of this kind be given as much support as possible including, for example, a possible subsidisation or agreement with the SIAE (the Italian Royalties Collecting Society) to allow the radio to play music free of charge or at least at accessible prices. After all what kind of a radio is it if it doesn’t have music? You will at this point have guessed that this is not the case. The association was stuck with a great idea, the desire to get it off the ground, the means to kick start it into action but an inability to access any kind of music that could soften it around the edges and attract listeners from far and wide. That is until a quick search on the internet brought fourth the word BeatPick and they discovered that after all not all was lost….

For their first episode, the kids at Radiokreativa chose to use the music of our Municipale Balcanica who they were glad to discover come from exactly their neck of the woods. For their next one who knows… I’m, sure I’m going to tune in and find out, you should too!

BeatPick has been closely following the ORG since it took off last year. We are happy to announce that they will be hosting this very important event next month….

This is a chance for ORG supporters to meet each other, chat to volunteers and staff and celebrate how far the ORG has come since it started. There’ll be ‘public domain’ DJs, remixed visuals and free culture goodie bags, as well as a special guest speaker to be announced.
Beneath all this revelry lies a hidden motive. We need you to bring a friend, colleague or family member who doesn’t yet support ORG, but who you think would like to, if they knew more about our work.
The party starts at 6pm on Wednesday 11 April at Bar Kick, E1, and lasts until 11pm. See you there!

Event details
Support ORG! (and Party)
Date: Wednesday 11 April
Time: 1800-2300
Place: Downstairs @ Bar Kick, 127 Shoreditch High Street, London. E1 6JE

Signup and info page http://supportorgandparty.eventbrite.com/ 

More info: info[at]openrightsgroup.org 

Beppe Grillo is an established comedian who has been satirising the Italian political establishment for well over 20 years. You’d be hard pushed to find an Italian who hasn’t heard of him.

Back in 2006 our very own Leo Pari sampled Beppe Grillo’s voice to use it in a humorous bootleg he was composing. The tune was an overnight internet success and before long it had reached the ears of Beppe Grillo himself. Instead of reacting indignantly and threatening with copyright legal action, the comedian decided he thought the track was hilarious and that what he wanted it to be the theme tune to his new v blog “Pillola Rossa” and consequently as the songtrack to his DVD out on general release.

You have but to type the words “Pillola Rossa” onto youtube and you’ll see that the videos have hundreds of thousands of hits. So here it is for your very own enjoyment here on the BeatPick blog! Unfortunately the video is Italian so for those of you who cannot exactly understand Italian this might be a bit problematic. I am perfectly happy to explain what it means if you so desire, otherwise maybe it can be an inspiration for you to pop down to your local language school and sign up to that Italian class you’ve been putting off for ages!

Enjoy…..