Lulu-powered printwiki? 30 January, 2007
Posted by Zack in The Big Stuff.add a comment
I’ve been trying to expand my “Revolution Misses You” series into a booklet that goes into more depth. It’s going to be a pocket sized (4.25″ x 6.75″) book of about 110 pages. I’ve got 90 so far and they still need some serious editing. I’ve been working on this for a few weeks–but other projects are going to push it to the back burner for a bit.
I was hitting a wall anyways. I need comments and feedback. I need to know whether this will make any sense to folks, or whether I need to take a whole different approach to getting across these ideas.
So here’s what I’m gonna do: I’m making a printed book version of the draft available via Lulu.com. This review copy is actually 6″x9″, with two-inch-plus margins in which to scribble your comments. Read the book, write me notes. And then stick a stamp on the back and drop it in the mail. My address is printed on the back cover. It’ll cost you $6.95 at Lulu–but I’ll send you a freebie if you’ll read it, just email me.
If you send me back the book with your comments, I’ll send you the finished version for free.
Who is killing Led Zeppelin? 26 January, 2007
Posted by Zack in question copyright.add a comment
In the 90’s I worked a lot of factory jobs. On most assembly lines or work cells, the workers listened to a boom box. (What do the kids call those now??) This was just outside of Detroit, where the workforce is a mix of Southern whites who’ve migrated north for work, and of Midwestern whites of Eastern-European heritage and African-Americans whose families have been in the auto industry for generationsâ€â€and includes people of all ages. As you can imagine, it was hard for people to agree on music. This was before Eminem, who solved everything, got a record dealâ€â€in fact, at the time, he was working in another factory right down the road.
However, the one band that EVERYONE could agree on was Led Zeppelin. And I mean everyone: the 17 year-old white gang member, the 17 year-old white hick; the 25 year-old black ex-gang member; the 35 year-old black church mom and Kiwanis club leader; the 60 year-old black Muslim; the 40 year-old white Uppie woman (someone from Michigan’s upper peninsula); the 60 year-old white, fundamentalist Christian, Michigan Militia leader; and even the 77 year-old white, retired, shipyard worker with a tattoo of “Pepe Le Piu” on her forearm (that she got on her 70th birthday).
Led Zeppelin was universal. They were so popular, in fact, that whoever owns the catalog thinks there is more money to be made by keeping Zep entirely out of digital format. Not on iTunes, not on Rhapsody, nowhere. This has been annoying me for years, but not quite enough to get me to go buy a bunch of CDs. I’d only listen to a handful of songs, and only every now and then. I’d definitely spend the $6 for those tracks if they were available on iTunes.
The other day, I thought about this and asked a couple of teenagers if they had ever heard of Led Zeppelin. Never.
I’d love to see changes in Led Zep sales over time compared to bands from the same era and genre who are available for download. Anyone know where to find that?
