JPF Home Page Forums General Messages Brian Austin Whitney Blog Thursday, May 18th, 2006

Hi Folks,

Advanced warning: This has not been proof read. Grammar police read at your own risk! = )

So here I am wide awake on hour 23 in a row. I did try to sleep but after laying in bed with my mind racing for several hours, I got back up and kept working. We finished Instrumental Jazz yesterday so that leaves us with 42 more genres (of the 75) to complete round 3 on. We're still searching for qualified judges to help with Jewish, Ambient, Techno and Self Help/Motivational/Educational CD's. (We got nearly 100 of those believe it or not). The one I am most worried about is Jewish because it's in Hebrew and that just not something someone can do without being fluent in it.

I also realized it's time to start searching for the 2006 Awards Show venue in earnest and that's part of what has me wired and up all night, even though there's nothing I can do about it after hours and on East Coast time. I think we'll need a venue that can seat at least 600 for dinner with all the stage set up for live performances. We enjoyed the Galaxy in Orange County last year and haven't ruled that out for consideration, but we'd like to explore venues in Hollywood as well. I know our out of town (and out of country) members enjoyed our 2003 show at the Highlands Complex (yes, that's where they do the Oscars and the American Idol finals). We outgrew that venue unfortunately (it kicked butt) so if anyone knows of some possible locations right in Hollywood, please let us know. There was one venue we considered at the last minute last time near Hollywood and Vine I think (on Hollywood) but for the life of me I can't remember it. If anyone thinks they know the name, please get back with me.

Right now our target date for the awards show is one of the first 3 Saturdays in November. The 11th is probably the primary target date, but we'd consider the 4th or the 18th for the right venue and circumstances. The TAXI Road Rally is very early this year starting at the end of October I believe, so it will be difficult for us to match up our awards show with their conference. We could do it on the 3rd, which is the last day of the Rally, but I hate to conflict with their event. We have discussed it with them however and are keeping options open. I would much prefer to do it a week later just for logistical purposes. I will likely be in Montreal in October for the Future of Music Coalition Policy Summit and it will be tough to get back from that and be ready by the 3rd. Lots of conflicts this year. I even considered pushing it back into December, but that worries me that too many folks would have holiday conflicts even in Early December. So right now we're sticking with Nov 11th, give or take a week.

I've gotten some interesting feedback so far about Demos for our Studio project. I've only gotten negative feedback on 1 studio and that was because they never even recorded the music they were paid for. Otherwise, all the feedback I have gotten about the various companies has been glowing. I am finding some interesting pricing situations from folks who use the same studios but pay different rates. That's one thing we hope to incorporate in our partnership and that is 1 fair rate for everyone, rather than forcing people to negotiate. A service has a set value and should be fairly charged to everyone (unless there's a publicized special deal that everyone can take advantage of). In at least 1 case, one studio was charging nearly double for the same level of demo between 2 writers. Perhaps there are some other factors that we weren't made aware of, but if there isn't, it's too bad that someone is either getting a really better deal or worse, someone is just getting hosed. Always do your homework to be sure you're getting a fair and common rate. I am sure people offer extra discounts to friends and people they trade favors with, but I didn't get the feeling that these 2 writers were friends of this studio, but rather just customers being charged 2 very different rates.

I am also happy to see a couple names come up multiple times with seemingly universally positive feedback. It's hard to keep people happy. I did notice that one particular studio seems to have prompted a LOT of their customers to hit us up with info and samples. When you're getting 1 or 2 examples from a wide variety of studios and then suddenly in 1 day you get 5 all from the same with a similar glowing review, it's a bit obvious what's going on. Nonetheless.. at least they can produce happy customers to vouch for them. I know a lot of busy companies out there with famous names that have never had a single positive comment ever from one of our members, yet they do hundreds (if not thousands) of pricey bad demos a year. If we can get some quality partners lined up, perhaps we can put a dent in their crappy services.

I watched American Idol last night and I'm sort of sorry that Nashville Star is already over and AI is ending as well. It's fun to have such a low pressure diversion to watch that is music related but doesn't require any feedback or work from me to occur! = ) I've also been enjoying some visits from JPF members on tour who I normally only see elsewhere when I am on the road. It's nice to have the folks come to me now and then, especially now when I can't get out on the road until the awards are past the nominations stage.

Oh, and we got a new camera for the Roadtrips. My trust Sony digital cam started to get out of synch with it's flash so I bit the bullet and got a new Canon Digital SLR so that we can upgrade all the photos we take. I think we've averaged about 10-15K photos a year on the road, so we'll certainly get a lot of use out of it. I know I more than got my money's worth out of the Sony. Kind of sorry to see it go. The new camera is too large for me to take pics of myself with members, so I am still gonna have to get the Sony fixed or buy a new small camera for those traditional Brian and (fill in the blank) photos you often see on the home page. When you mostly travel alone, you gotta do what you gotta do.

I'll probably work on getting a newsletter out within the week so we can remind folks to enter the Lyric Award and to send us their Videos. We still don't have enough top notch videos for the video category yet, and we may need to extend entries another month or perhaps go out and recruit some film school students to send us their stuff. The goal is to recognize cool Video work, but we need enough cool stuff to recognize in the first place. We have far more full length movies and live show performances than we have single song videos. Odd but true. If you're holding out, please get your video sent to us soon. And post your lyric. I am hoping we'll get close to the 2002 size. You have a far better chance to get a nomination in the Lyric category than any other JPF Award category. So enter something already!

Have a great day.. I'm going to go pass out now.

Brian

[This message has been edited by Brian Austin Whitney (edited 05-18-2006).]