Newsletter 10-20-08

Hey Everyone,

You always hear stories about musicians having big egos and always thinking of themselves, but I think this weekend we proved that that is far from the case with a lot of great musicians.

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You, to all 57 bands who took part in Banding Together: A Benefit For The Spondylitis Association Of America!

And thank you to all of you who tuned into BlowUpRadio.com, ThePenguinRocks.com, and DrainoRadio.com, to hear the webathon and donate to the Spondylitis Association Of America!

In fact, so many of you tuned in that it overloaded BlowUpRadio.com’s webcast and wouldn’t allow some of you to listen at various times. Thankfully, ThePenguinRocks.com and DrainoRadio.com was able to handle all the extra listeners.

Spending 6 months working on this, I was ready for disappointment and problems galore, and while there were a few minor technical glitches, I am overwhelmed by the support that the bands and listeners have given this very personal benefit of mine. There is no way I could possibly be disappointed with how well this turned out.

My wife and the over 1 million others in America that suffer from ankylosing spondylitis also thank you all!

Let’s do this again next year, and do it up bigger and better!

If you didn’t donate and would still like to, you can by going here:
http://blowupradio.tripod.com/spondy.html

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And now it's time for this week's Pissed Off!

It’s that time of the year again…the Asbury Music Awards nominees have been announced. Once again I (Lazlo), and BlowUpRadio.com have been nominated in several categories that I won’t win:

Top Music Website To Support live original music
Top Radio Personality in support of live music
Top Radio Station to support live music

The full list of nominees are available here:
http://www.asburymusic.com/articles/getarticle-asbury.php?ID=59

But of course, every year right after the nominees are announced you start seeing people posting in chat rooms, on blogs and message boards, and talking out in public things like:

“Have you guys seen the noms for best male acoustic??? What a bunch of hacks!!!”

In fairness, I suspect the quote above, taken from a chat room, may have been an attempt at humor, but far too many people seriously do quip about who was nominated and who wasn’t.

Now, I am not saying I agree with all the nominees the AMAs have. I feel a lot of great musicians were overlooked, and some of the nominees aren’t really my cup of tea, but I’m not going to go around trash talking the nominees or the AMAs.

Why?

Well first off, it’s not productive. Our local music scene is fractured enough already. There’s a lot of negativity within the scene and it’s just not cool. Sure there are bands I don’t associate with for various reasons, but I don’t go around bad mouthing bands. What’s the point in doing that?

Secondly, if you don’t like the nominees, start your own award show and give out awards solely to the people you feel deserve them. The people that put together the AMAs clearly believe that the nominees they have chosen are the cream of the crop. You have every right to disagree, but instead of just slagging the awards, an event that is supposed to bring the scene together, and the nominees, make up your own list of nominees and give out your own awards and name the event after yourself if you want.

Lastly, and I already mentioned it above but it deserves to be reiterated, the AMAs are about bringing the scene together for one night, and yeah, some people go home with awards and others don’t, but it’s not about that. It’s about hanging out with other musicians and people from the scene that you may not see often or ever because of your gig schedules, and getting exposed to some bands you may or may not be familiar with.

As someone who has been nominated multiple times for AMAs and never won one, I could be jaded and angry like so many other people, but that just doesn’t make sense to me. Be happy for your peers that win…or be miserable, and unhappy, just don’t make a public stink about it. It’s really not worth it is it?

I suspect I’ll get a few rebuttals on this one. I welcome them.

~~~


That's all for this week folks.

Peace,
Lazlo
www.BlowUpRadio.com