Monthly Archives: May 2014

HEAR WHAT THE EXPERTS SAY ABOUT ISLAND HEAD

“One of the 25 Best Reggae Albums of 2013” – Midnight Raver Blog

“Inspired concept, great playing and a real feel for the music makes Island Head’s ‘Punky Reggae Party’ a top quality, excellent release highly recommended to strengthen the heart and soothe the soul. A winner!” – Chuck Foster, Reggae Grammy Screening Committee/Host of “Reggae Central” on KPFK-LA

“Island Head is an important project to reggae. It’s always great to have substantive, high art.  This work contributes to reggae’s growth. Reminds others of what it really is and what is still possible.  I feel so especially blessed to share this brilliant work with our audience.”  – Pat McKay, SiriusXM program director for “The Joint”

“Island Head musicians tastefully demonstrate that a fresh perspective can still be brought to Bob Marley music.” – Dermot Hussey, Legendary Jamaican Radio Personality

“Island Head are one of the few bands that have an original take on the music, Hipreggaejazzrockvibe.” – Cableman Dan, “Reggae & World Rhythms” on WNTI-FM

“These musicians can play…they feel this music. It has a jazzy vibe to it. The strength of the songs, the talent of these musicians, and the organic connection they share with each other, keeps this album standing strong inna Babylon!” – Ras Michael, Midnight Raver

“Island Head brings life to authentic reggae. No fluff, just great music.” – Chef Chrissy, Famous Jamaican Chef/Restaurateur/Reggae Connoisseur (hosted live Island Head show)

ISLAND HEAD musicians are:

Andy Bassford: guitar     Mikey ‘Mao’ Chung: guitar     Timmy Cappello: sax

David Frank: keyboards   Don Harris: trumpet   Billy Messinetti: drums   Neil Jason: bass

There is talk about Apple buying Beats by Dre.  To me it doesn’t make sense.  Firstly, the design of the headphones don’t meet the Apple standard.  They are not state-of-the-art.  They sound good for a certain type of music that is bass heavy.  There are brands that sound far better such as Bang & Olufsen and Sony.  According to Wikipedia, on July 2, 2012, Beats announced it had acquired the online music service MOG in a purchase reported to have been between $10 million to $16 million.  Now they want $3.2 Billion dollars for the music service and headphone business.

As an artist myself, the scary thing is everyone agrees the new paradigm is you can’t charge money for music anymore.  WHAT?  So, the multi-billion dollar iTunes business is about to crash.  Imagine starting a business and spending billions in research and development (R&D), advertising, etc., that revolutionizes the industry and then some company comes along and gives the same thing away for free!  Why did the music publishers allow this to start?  The pressure came from pirating otherwise known as stealing.  Enough people were stealing music causing the publishers to cave.

Along comes Spotify and Pandora.  They opened the flood gates.  Now, Apple might not only cave in and throw their multi-billion dollar business model out the window, it might cost them $3 Billion dollars to do it.

Here is a great question:  Why are the service that delivers music and the headphones that the music plays through worth $3 Billion dollars and the music coming through the headphones is free?

Are Intellectual properties worthless?  Artists continue do something they love that creates enjoyment for people yet, it has no tangible value in our society.  Luckily for society, artists still create because that is what we do.