The Police are coming back through the US and will be stopping in Phoenix again.  [This is, my friends, a small miracle.  Despite Phoenix being the 5th most populous city in the US, many great acts refuse to make a stop here.  I digress...]  In an amazing lineup, Elvis Costello is "opening" for them, despite Elvis calling The Police "bloody dreadful."

Today, I purchased my tickets for the show through Ticketmaster.  The process is not the quickest, but that I can live with.  I start to get really steamed when I calculate that for every dollar I spent, Ticketmaster, the venue and/or the promoter made an additional $0.47 above and beyond the cost of my ticktes.  So here I sit, $80 worth of tickets costing me $115.25.

But here's what really chaps my hide: of the methods available to get your tickets, Ticketmaster charges $2.50 to deliver your tickets via email. 

For those of you not-so-technically-inclined, let me explain this to you.  It costs Ticketmaster first class postage to mail your tickets to you.  Today, that's $0.41.  They do not charge you a dime for that service.  Email, if you don't remember, is free.  The tools they use to make the tickets were long-ago paid for.  (Software to create bar codes and PDFs are relatively inexpensive; ~$1000 one time charge.)  So, can you tell me why they charge $2.50 for something that is essentially free?!

This, my dear friends, is highway robbery and just another reason why the music industry is collapsing under it's own weight.  Hangers-on and companies with nominal value-add are squeezing every last dime out of the consumer.  And they wonder why music is being pirated?

[Programming note: I'm going to try to keep my music posts to Monday mornings.  That is all.]

For months, there's been a low buzz in the internet about when The Beatles and Radiohead are going to break down and sign a deal with Apple to provide their music on iTunes.  Radiohead last night told Apple (and the rest of the industry that treats musicians as slaves) where they can stick their 1s and 0s.

Last night, Radiohead announced they will not only be selling their next album, In Rainbows, on their own site, but they'll allow the purchaser to name the price, from $0.00 to $1,000,000 (or whatever your credit card max is).  From their site,

Radiohead have made a record.  So far, it is only available from this website.

The release will come in two flavors: digital download, and in a "diskbox" which will contain

the new album, In Rainbows, on CD and on 2 x 12 inch heavyweight vinyl records.  A second, enhanced CD contains more new songs, along with digital photographs and artwork.

The latter diskbox will cost 40EUR, or roughly $57USD.

You can get more information about the purchase by wandering through Radiohead's website, or by going directly to the order page for In Rainbows. 

I think there are a couple of very interesting things to note here.  The first is that witness to a significant paradigm shift in the world of music distribution.  This isn't the first band to distribute directly, nor will they be the last.  But they are arguably the biggest band to do it.  Beck has been toying with direct-to-consumer material for over a year, and Barenaked Ladies released Barenaked Ladies Are Me tracks before their album was complete.  With BNL, Avril Lavigne, Dido, Jars of Clay, and Sarah McLachlan have moved their management to the non-traditional Nettwerk Music Group, who is foregoing the traditional methods of band conscription by (among other things) offering alternative methods of distribution.

The second, more geeky, and real deal maker/breaker, is whether Radiohead's site will be able to manage the traffic gracefully.  Their site is very cool, but at the sake of being lightweight.  The main store page for example is nothing but imagery which makes the page about 100x bigger than it would otherwise be if it were the textual analog.  The rub is this: if they can't manage the traffic that will be hitting them on 10/10/2007, the band's goodwill might be shot.  What's the over/under on Radiohead.com and the download site denying connections by the time NYC wakes up?

I love finding new music that speaks to me on a different level; meaning that it's not the same style music I've been playing or listening to in the recent past.  About a year ago, I came across Marcus Eaton, whose most recent album is rhythmically reminiscent of old Dave Matthews or Duncan Sheik.  Something I appreciate Marcus Eaton for is that he embraces technology and allows you to listen to his entire album just by visiting his site.  Sure, it's not high fidelity, but it whets the appetite.

Anyway, I was looking over this weekend's Austin City Limits Music Festival lineup, and although I came across quite a few bands that are new to me, Gotan Project really jumped out.  Maybe they remind me of my most recent trip to Paris, or maybe they're a little pop-tastic, but there's something very cool about their sound.