Letter to anyone interested in setting up local rock shows.

Dear Friend,

I live in a one-horse town and I have done lots of shows here and in the surrounding waist land. You can do shows at community centers, firehouses, through schools, at parks (summer is a great time for outdoor show), community theaters etc. Out here we do what we call barn parties. Find someone with a big open field set up like a make shift stage, run electricity out from the house or barn, set up your PA system. People love barn parties and they usually get a pretty good turn out as long as they’re not to far out of the way. I got involved through an open mike here in town. Most business (including Starbucks) will let you host acoustic “shows,” which can provide a great opportunity to meet and network with people who are interested in music. There are lots of possibilities.

Don’t let the fact that you don’t have a local nightclub stop you from setting up shows. Sometimes those places can be very selective, and dominate the scene with one genre, and making introducing new music into the scene that much harder.

Rock, Punk, and Metal have never been well expected by the mainstream. The DIY attitude is an integral part of the underground scene. Creating alternatives to mainstream out lets is part of hardcore. Everyone involved in the hard rock subculture that has sprung up since the Harlem Renaissance is proud to be deviating from popular culture. Defying the bureaucracy of the establishment is part of our collective identity. If we weren’t the innovators of the music industry we wouldn’t be on the cutting edge.

If you want to read a great book about the origins of the hardcore scene in our area, read: “Get in the Van” by Henry Rollins. You can buy the book here at InterPunk or on Amazon:
http://www.interpunk.com/item.cfm?Item=47768&.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Get-Van-Henry-Rollins/dp/1880985764

If you’re not into reading, there is a documentary out on the history of hardcore music (based on the book) called “American Hardcore” You can watch the trailer and buy the DVD from the website:
http://www.americanhardcoremovie.com/

It will give you some great insight into how this whole crazy thing got started.

Sincerely,

-Dara

Dr. Uwe Boll To Stop Making Films?

According to an article posted on JoBlo.com, Uwe Boll, maker of some of the worst movies ever made, stated in an interview that if the petition for him to stop making movies reaches 1 Million signatures, he will stop making movies. I myself have already signed this petition. Why? I had to sit through 'House of the Dead" and it is without a doubt the worst movie I have ever seen in my entire life. I wish that film upon the eyes of no one. So I urge you, Sign the petition!

This Will Be Boring or Useful

So at my job (and at does not pertain to a where, since I do not go anywhere for my job, I work from home) I optimize websites for search engines. To some of you, that may sound interesting, others will not know what that means nor will they care. Regardless, this is more commonly known as Search Engine Optimization, or SEO.

Try as I might to practice this on my own website, or at least all those crazy sites like Myspace, deviantART and Fickr to which I contribute samples of music and art that I create, it's difficult to do without spending money.

Ever wonder why you can type a search term into Google's search engine and find something that seems much less related to the thing you're looking for?

How It Works

Google has become such a successful website because the algorythm they use is very complicated, measuring nearly every last possible piece of information on the internet to determine which pages show up first on their searches.

The first step is measuring key word relevance. Based on what was typed in, Google searches its database for those words or that word. These keywords are found on the websites themselves as the following:

1) Title Tags - text which will appear at the top of the browser window and on searches
2) Header Tags - those which are denoted as titles of sub-sections (H1, H2, H3, etc.)
3) Body Text - as pertaining to the header and title tags, words in the body that relate
4) Links - those typicially blue and/or underlined words that take you to other pages
5) Meta Tags - hidden tags that do not show up on a rendered html site

It should be noted that meta tags are not as useful as they once were. This is where Google shines. The google algorythm is key in discarding meta tag information on web pages. The reason being, too many people were abusing the ability to add lots of keywords to a page that could not be seen by viewing the page in a browser. This is called keyword stuffing.

The rest of these, however, are very relevant to Google's searches, as they point to actual information on the page.

The second step is to measure the importance of the page itself. If any of you have the Google Toolbar installed in your browser, you will find a little green bar that measures page rank. This is how Google assigns importance. How do they decide? They have a cock measuring contest!

No, seriously...think about how we measure the importance of people in the world. Basically, it's by who they know, how important the people they know are, what they can do, how useful they are to the rest of us, how good looking they are, how much money they make, what they wear, what car they drive, etc. While this may not be applicable in every case, it should serve as a decent analogy to help you understand how Google decides which pages are important. This is also where the line between ON-site and OFF-site SEO is drawn.

In A Nutshell

Joe Shmo creates a personal website with information about videogames. He mentions a lot of useful things, has a well designed site, properly uses header tags, and his body text is rife with information relevant to videogames. Even his title contains the text 'Video Games'. However, no one else on the internet thinks highly enough of his website to link to any of his webpages. Real world comparison: he has no friends, no professional references and a small dick. Poor shmuck.

Now let's look at IGN.com. They are ranked 7/10 by Google. I don't have the exact statistics for their site, but you can imagine how many blogs, websites, myspace pages, partners, etc are linked to them. Not to mention, many of the websites which link to the site have ranking websites. Real world comparison: they are informative, relevant and have lots of friends, including many famous musicians and actors - like me, see, I just linked to them and I rule!

Google ranks itself 10/10. How selfish, but how appropriate. The main reason for this is...well, let's be honest, there should be no question as to how the most well known website in the world is the most important. But on top of these things, Google has set up a vast network of advertising tools that billions upon billions of companies, professionals and single people use to improve their own relevance on the internet. This is Google AdWords, which I also use from time to time.

However, SEO has to do with the natural search. This is the main list of results that shows up after you type in your keyword and click the little button that says "search" on it. AdWords results show up on the right side of the natural search results, under "Sponsored Links". Sponsored!? Yeah, because people are paying for them :-P

Making Friends

SEO isn't exactly free. So what better way to gain popularity than by buying it! There are a few ways to do this:

1) Buy Links - many websites will put a link to your website for a one-time, monthly or yearly fee, of which a one time fee is the best and buying links from higher ranked pages is optimal, however more expensive.
2) Submit Press Releases/Articles - websites like PR.com, PRweb.com and PRleapfrog.com have relatively high page ranks. For a fee of $100 - $600 one can purchase a corresponding level of online visibility. Sites like eZine.com and ArticleDashBaord.com are free, however some require a setup fee or something minimal for using the service. Both are good options, but the key is to vary your submissions and the keywords written into each one.
3) Buy Blog Posts - thats right, for all you know, I'm writing this for my own firm! But no, I don't get paid to perform SEO on my own companies site, I get paid to do it for our clients' websites. But there is one site imparticular, PayPerPost, which connects professional bloggers and SEO related professionals in order to provide an easy exchange. With these sites, I offer money to bloggers to post about the topic I choose, using a link to a website I specify, with as many words as I decide, etc. Basically, i set the parameters and the price and the bloggers are free to choose. I also set the restrictions so, for example, Blogger.com in ineligable. Sorry!


One last thought here. One more thing that Google serves as is the Internet Police. That's right, if they find some webmaster getting out of hand with their SEO practices and such, key word stuffing, etc., they will not hesitate to punish them. How do they do this? By penalizing their page rank, of course! You might be thinking, how mean! Well, this only helps ensures a safer, more relevant internet. Suck it up. Google PWNS you!



Anyways, now that I've officially bored and/or informed you, I'm out!

Also, don't bother clicking any links in this post - they all go to my Myspace page :-)
Happy late April Fools! (I'm a dick, I know)

Economy not a Problem for Gamestop

While American consumers find themselves wondering what will happen after the current housing crisis, or when gas prices will drop, they sure aren't wondering about how to entertain themselves. According to this article posted on CNN, while the economy seems to be in a slump, video game retailer Gamestop is seeing growth like never before.

The company says the growth can be attributed to consoles like the Wii, reaching out to more than just the hardcore market by offering simplicity to the casual market, and upcoming blockbuster releases like Grand Theft Auto IV, which could net the company $100 million....in the first week. Other big titles in the pipeline this year, including a new Metal Gear Solid game for the Playstation 3, and another World of Warcraft Expansion, bode well for sales in the coming months. In turn, bidders on Wall Street have been buying up shares left and right, pulling the company's shares to $55 a pop...they expect the shares to jump to $70 in the next year.

U.S Dollar vs. In-Game Money

The folks over at Maxim have thrown together a somewhat detailed look at video game currency, and its actual value against the U.S Dollar. The list takes the value of objects in-game and weighs them against their real-world counterparts to calculate value. For instance, In Grand Theft Auto III, one hundred bucks will buy you a Colt .45 pistol, in real life a Custom model 1911 A1 pistol made by Springfield Armory costs $2,500...that means that one GTA3 dollar equals Twenty five U.S dollars.

Of course their isn't really a way to generate actual currency from collecting things in-game, but the idea is very interesting. Other items looked at include the gold coin from Super Mario Bros., The Rupee from The Legend of Zelda and the Gold Ring from Sonic the Hedgehog.

Take a look here!

April Fools and the Internet

Naturally, April 1st is a day of fun on the Internet, where absolutely NOTHING is taken seriously. While radio stations across the nation pulled pranks planned weeks in advance, Websites announced their closure or fake products, and the average individual claimed they had brain cancer or confessed to being pregnant or something just as mundane and average, the Internet was ablaze with tom foolery.

IGN released a fake trailer for a 'Legend of Zelda' film, which actually supports some decent special effects, though everyone and their mother knew it was a hoax, it was still brilliantly executed. Google and Virgin Announced project Virgle, a 100 year plan for Mars colonization. They also announced they were accepting applications for individuals to become pioneers of Mars and travel with the assembled team to start a new life on the red planet.

Destructoid.com, a hilarious yet informative video game blog, redesigned its website to look as though Fox News had taken the website over. They posted ridiculous and outlandish claims, humorous photos and updated consistently through the day. Speaking of video games, World of Warcraft makers Blizzard told people about the new class for the game, which rocks out guitar hero style to damage opponents. Ubisoft and Konami also collaborated, showing a kick ass video of Assassins Creed lead character Altaïr mysteriously placed in Metal Gear Solid 4, which was later revealed to be Solid Snake in the Assassin's garb! This joke was also the first game play footage revealed of MGS4, which was a welcomed treat.

Perhaps the most clever prank pulled, was from acclaimed 'fake news' website The Onion, which simply posted REAL news instead of the fake news they come up with every day. While simple, it didn't stretch to the over the top retarded nature of most pranks and was pulled with dignity and grace (which is the beauty of the prank as most of the fake news posted on the onion, while hilarious, usually IS over the top).

Over at the viral websites for this summer's blockbuster Batman Sequel "The Dark Knight", a different April Fool was playing about. The Websites, made to look like the Joker's secret websites, showed an envelope that opened on April 1st. Inside was the locations of places around the country with locker numbers and combinations for people to travel to. Lucky participants got a free bowling ball and a cell phone (with a cell number etched into the ball for them to call) for a chance to further participate. April Fool indeed.

Lots of fun was had on April 1st, and while many are left out of this article, almost every active community website had some type of prank up their sleeve. Want to share your April Fools day prank? Have another noteworthy prank to mention? comment on this article below, or join the Earjack Forums!