boston progress radio

 

 Justine covers Alicia Key's "If I Ain't Got You": Play Now | Play in Popup

Justine Ok (who goes by simply Justine) was the East Meets Words October feature, last Friday, October 12th. I can’t believe it’s already October. Here’s a clip from her set, a rousing cover of Alicia Key’s “If I Ain’t Got You.” Take a listen and look out for the interview, coming later this week.

Tags: Podcasts.

Innocuous local news yesterday may be more troubling than it initially appeared: the launch of T-Radio, an effort by the MBTA to run their own radio station that plays on subway platforms, starting out on three of the busiest stations in Boston. According to the Boston Globe, T-Radio is “an experiment that began yesterday at three stations and may someday broadcast on every subway platform in Eastern Massachusetts. Disc jockeys and media personalities will mix in light news, weather, entertainment tips, and the like. If it proves popular enough to go full time, commuters will be subjected to eight to 10 minutes of commercials per hour.”

It makes perfect sense for the MBTA to have a means of communicating with passengers, specifically if there is an emergency, or news of delayed service, and possibly even updates on important local news, such as election results, weather warnings, and big-time sporting events.

T-Radio, however, is not any of that. The fact that the mention of how many commercials will play on the station is in the lede (which was buried in the second paragraph…who taught these reporters to write? William Faulkner?) tells us exactly where this effort is headed. Now I know the MBTA has a budgeted multi-million dollar deficit year after year, but I have to believe there are better ways to go about addressing it than this.

What really sucks is that subway platforms are sometimes the only venues that independent artists can be heard on a regular basis. Suzanne Vega and Tracy Chapman got their starts playing in the T stations, as well as our very own folks like Kevin So and Melissa Li. With the advent of T-Radio, where are these folks going to find space to play now? Options for the struggling artist continue to get slimmer and slimmer.

This kind of news helps remind me what we’re trying to do here. We at BPRLive are committed to existing outside pre-approved industry structures. As limited as we may be, our Internets radio stream still plays 100% independent artists, with explicit approval from the artists themselves. And we don’t sell ad space or airtime, so you can be sure everything up on here is in its original form, raw I’ma give it to ya, with no trivia.

So support indy artists! Forward.

Tags: Commentary, News.

Come check out Kevin So at Club Passim, 47 Palmer St., Cambridge. $15/$13 for Club Passim members.

Kevin So performing solo acoustic. With special guest The Maybelles. All ages welcome. Reservations required. (617) 492-7679 or visit the website: http://www.passimcenter.org

 

 Interview with Kit Yan [20:39m]: Play Now | Play in Popup

Last month, Kit Yan was the East Meets Words open mic featured performer. He read and spit a few pretty amazing pieces. While we weren’t able to record his performance, you can listen to many of the previous open mics sponsored by the Boston Progress Arts Collective by selecting “Podcasts” in the Categories pull-down menu in the sidebar.

Though we didn’t record the open mic, we did have an opportunity to meet with Kit a week before the open mic. He came by the East Meets West Bookstore in Cambridge and I was lucky enough to talk to him for a few minutes about his art, his family, and his inspirations.

When you listen to this interview, imagine that you have the power to bend the space-time continuum like Hiro Nakamura from the show “Heroes” on NBC. That way, when you hear Kit refer to September 14 as though it hasn’t happened yet, you won’t get freaked out. Just pretend that you happened to have zipped back into the past.

Speaking of Hiro Nakamura, did you know that Masi Oka, the actor who plays Hiro was featured in a Time Magazine article about Asian American smart kids. That whole story smells like someone idealizing the Asian American minority group. Masi Oka was most recently a computer engineer for Sony… before he hit the big time. Maybe an engineer like me could one day be an actor like him. Or be better.

That was a total digression. I hope you enjoy the interview. Thanks to Kit for being so candid. If you liked his pieces, he’s performing in Boston at the 2007 BASIC Conference being held at Harvard University on October 13, 2007.

Tags: Interview, Podcasts.

Speaking of power, I saw this video online recently. I think this speaks to the power of music (and maybe to the media too). It made me think a little too, about the power of allies. Of finding support for our collective causes in places where you might not naturally turn.

Defining who we are, what our mission is as Boston Progress Radio can be tricky at times. We’re not here to box anyone in or box anyone out. But, we are here to build community. And in large part, to me, this means supporting our brothers and sisters (however you want to define *that*) and providing a space that is open to dialog, mutual support, and of course, with some fun times thrown in the mix too.

Tags: News, Video.

So, in the October 2nd New York Times, I read a blog entry about how Radiohead is letting fans decide how much to pay for their upcoming new album, “In Rainbows”. The band is planning on letting users pay what they want for a digital version of the album. On top of that, they are going to sell the tunes without any digital-rights management (a.k.a. copy protection) locks.

According to the original article in the Times, this new model to distribute and sell music is being adopted by several mainstream artists including Prince, Madonna and Nine Inch Nails. It certainly challenges Apple’s fixed price structure of 99 cents per song and $10 to $12 per album.

Personally, I think it is an interesting way to sell music. It takes out the middle man, the record companies. It remains to be seen how music consumers will respond. Will music listeners simply pay 1 cent for the whole album? Or will they just wait until somebody buys the album and wait for it to hit the peer-to-peer networks like BitTorrent, Limewire or _______________ (fill in your favorite P2P network here). Interestingly enough, “the blog Idolator.com carried a poll in which the plurality of voters — almost 40 percent — said they would pay from $2.05 to $10.12.”

Read more

Tags: Commentary, News, Online Radio.

I walked in to the office this morning, and I heard a familiar song playing on one of the computers downstairs. When I got up to my office, as usual, I opened up my email, facebook, and itunes. Of course I’m always listening to BPR at work.

The next time I went downstairs, I did a little double take - because the music followed me downstairs. I don’t know why, but it just caught me off guard. So much so that I had to check the recently played list to make sure that my friend (hi Miriam!) downstairs wasn’t just listening to Cynthia Lin by coincidence.

I’m totally digging Cynthia Lin’s cover of time after time. I don’t know why, but I really like that song, especially acoustic-y covers of it.

What are you digging on BPR today?

Before BPRLive was a fully functioning…whatever it is right now, a good friend of ours - Beau Sia - had one of the featured videos on Youtube. It was a response to Rosie O’Donnell chingchonging all over The View. I’d rather not rehash the details here, but let’s just say she was less than sensitive in her original comment, then somewhat indignant in her “apology.”

Beau - who is so down with the cause he’s even helped fold Boston Progress event programs before - used his spoken word superstardom for good instead of evil, and worked on this piece included in the video below. In all likelihood, you have seen this video (judging by the over half a million views Youtube has it listed for), but just in case you haven’t, here’s your chance. The piece is sharp, warm, and satirical without being “funny” in that way that makes you forget the point.

Imagine my surprise when I went on vacation to China and found out the latest news. Read more

Tags: News, Video.