Jim Brunberg, owner of the popular Portland venue Mississippi Studios, has sent out an email update to “music lovers and lovers of the ‘How Things Work’ genre” pointing folks to his new web site razingmississippi.com. The site contains video of the massive expansion into the once vacant property behind the original venue as well as artists such as Laura Gibson, The Dimes and Adam Shearer (of Weinland) playing acoustically at the construction site. Based on the footage it looks as though MS is poised to be a contender in the 200 to 300 person venue’s in Ptown (a much needed addition in my opinion).

Ian Rogers, former head of Yahoo’s music division and one of the founders of Topspin media, gave an inspiring keynote speech at the Grammy Musictech conference a few weeks ago which has now been posted online. Refreshingly, he moves beyond the “record industry is in collapse” headline and focuses on the future for independent artists and how people are trending in the way they discover and consume music. But his point that really struck a chord with me is how he thinks artists should define success. Sure there are going to be the Radiohead’s and U2’s of the world which people are going to aspire to (sigh) but a more reasonable benchmark for success may be in music’s “middle class.” Ian argues if someone can make even a modest living off their art then they should consider themselves successful. Is it settling? Perhaps. But I think the longer I’m involved with music the more I see his point.

Read his speech here

Mitch Mitchell was found dead at the Benson Hotel here in Portland after his show with an all-star Hendrix tribute group. I was seriously considering going to the show - I really wish I had.

Mitchell is definitely one of my heroes and one of the best rock drummers of all time.

According to LogoDesignLove, the Victoria & Albert Museum has purchased the original Rolling Stones logo for about $90,000.
The world-famous logo was designed in 1970 by John Pasche while he was still a student at London’s Royal College of Art. He originally landed the job because Mick Jagger was unhappy with the designs submitted by the Decca record label and searched out students instead.

The logo took about two weeks to create and Pasche was paid a total of £250.00 at the time.

If there’s one thing you can count on with Neil Young it’s the fact that he’s unpredictable. I remember seeing stuff on the web a few months ago about a coast to coast ride that Neil took in his custom gas-to-electric converted ‘59 Lincoln. We’ll apparently that ride has spawned Neil to start his own car conversion company called Linc Volt. Go Neil!

Image from the Floydian Slips Halloween show 2008