Archive for June, 2008

McCain Rebuffs Critics as Obama Defends Patriotism

Monday, June 30th, 2008

NYTimes.com - John McCain responded to attacks on the relevance of his military service as Barack Obama addressed persistent rumors about his loyalties to the country.

read more at NYTimes.com | digg story

The Netmix point of view:

I usually don’t comment on this kind of politico stuff, but I thought it was interesting enough to blog about.

Funny how the Republican’s get offended when someone questions their favorite son’s military service, but they think it’s okay to attack Senator Kerry’s “swiftboat” service. Can anyone say the word “double standard”?

No doubt about John McCain’s war record, but why is that off limits when the Republican fear machine conjur up images of terrorism by using Barack Obama’s middle name, “Hussein.” As far as I know, Barack’s heritage is about as close to the Middle East and Persia as mine is to China and or Russia.

There should be no reason why McCain shouldn’t be scrutinized and vetted just like Kerry was questioned 4-years ago.  Yes, Kerry didn’t spend 5 self-imposed years in an enemy prison. That’s a huge difference and it should absolutely be respected.

But former Gen. Wesley Clark raises an interesting question: How does John McCain’s military service equate to his ability to govern the nation? Just because someone spent 5 long, hard years in the hands of the enemy doesn’t make him an automatic shoo-in for prez. It’s not that simple, or Barack would be easing his way into the White House with little effort.

We know what McCain stood for when he turned down his own release. That shows guts and fortitude and is certainly relevant to his character as a soldier and man, but it has little to do with governing the country. What’s wrong with asking the question? Are you less of a Patriot because you raise questions? That’s what the right wing in this country would have you think.

Jay Z at the Glastonbury Festival

Sunday, June 29th, 2008

Kallusive’s Leave Your Mark

Sunday, June 29th, 2008

On Saturday, I rolled down to Astor Place to get a hair cut before checking out Remix Hotel at SAE (School of Audio Engineering) in Manhattan. It was still early, so I popped into Rubber Sole on Broadway. It’s one of the last of the “urban fashion boutiques” that are giving way to major chain retailers along the strip from Astor Place and Broadway all the way down to Canal Street.

View Map: Broadway from Astor Place to Canal Street

There are a few new ones that have since opened below Canal, where the rents are probably a bit cheaper than they are in Soho.

Anyway, I found this cool t-shirt from Kallusive that I thought would be perfect to cruise into Remix Hotel wearing. Well, maybe not so perfect, because the turntable on the front looks like a Numark or Stanton. My friends in the Pioneer demonstration area joked that I needed to leave the room.

You can get the Music Maestro shirt online from Kallusive.com. They have an entire line of themed t-shirts like this one. So get’em while they’re hot. I did.

In the pics below, it’s hard to make out the writing on the back. It says:

from the backyard barbeques to the hottest night clubs

everything is perfect and laced with clarity…

beats thumping, drinks flowing, vocals blaring,

the DJ spinning on the turntables is in control.

mixing and cutting with the precision of a surgeon.

the moood is set…

one wrong move or sound can kill the vibe…

but when sounds comes together in unity,

everything is perfect and laced with clarity…

Kallusive Turntable T-Shirt

Kallusive Turntable T-Shirt

Bits: BlogTalkRadio Chats About New Funding and New Plans

Wednesday, June 25th, 2008

BlogTalkRadio, a service that lets anyone host a live online radio show, raises more than four million in a funding round lead by The Kraft Group, owners of the New England Patriots.

read more | digg story

Bits: CBS Radio Plays Tortoise to AOL Music’s Hare

Wednesday, June 25th, 2008

CBS, after a decade, is deciding to get serious about Internet radio. It is investing in technology, new programs, and a distribution deal with AOL.

read more | digg story

Big Music’s “360″ Plans Blow Up. Next?

Monday, June 23rd, 2008

Mr. Cohl had been at odds for weeks with Chief Executive Michael Rapino over how aggressively to pursue the company’s strategy of striking so-called 360 deals with superstar music artists, in which the company offers massive cash advances in exchange for financial participation in a range of revenue streams.

read more | digg story

Workers complain of mold, mystery toxins at RCC

Sunday, June 22nd, 2008

Rockland Community College is in the news for 9 Workman’s Compensation claims for illness due to toxic mold and other possible toxins in the the 171-year-old Brucker Hall.

My girlfriend, Missy Gluckmann, was one of those exposed to mold in the college’s administrative building, Brucker Hall. The college won’t admit to mold in the building, however, they just moved another employee, acknowledging that she was exposed to mold and that they’ve sealed off that office while they repair it. This is a contradictory point in the article that needs to be explored further.

The article does not mention that Missy’s Worker’s Compensation claim against the college was found to be valid by the Worker’s Compensation Court in White Plains. And, it wrongfully states that mold was never found in the building, but it then goes on to cite an article the paper itself published in 2000 about mold being discovered and remediated from parts of the building.

Although the article confuses the issue a bit, it does make it public that both Missy and another employee were exposed to mold in the building and that more employees are filing Worker’s Compensation claims for illness related to working in the building. Many RCC employees who knew Missy heard rumors on campus that she was let go because of some billing issues, however, this article corrects that mistaken belief and confirms that Missy did resign from the college due to illness cause by her exposure to mold in Brucker Hall.

Instead of admitting to the issue, the college is backpedaling and putting their own spin on it, possibly to limit legal exposure. This, of course, is what most companies do when being asked to own up to their failings. And, we’ve all learned is the wrong way to resolve issues in the workplace. RCC is a small college and its President, Dr. Wood, most likely has little to no training in how to deal with these types of employee health issues. In fact, he was notified by my girlfriend in a 4-page letter about her exposure, which gave him web sites and other facts on how to address the proglem. Instead of meeting with Missy to personally get involved and then fixing building, he chose to refer Missy to the college’s lawyer.

Dr. Wood, like the Bush administration or any other dysfunctional organization, chose to ignore the issue until it got worse for Missy and others in the building, who were exposed and are now sick for the rest of their lives. When mold attacks, it can cause permanent respiratory issues that there is no cure for. By not taking this issue seriously, RCC has jeopardized the health of workers in the building and Dr. Wood should be held accountable. There is a county legislative hearing scheduled this week to address the problems at Brucker Hall.

Remember, this is a college folks–a place where they are supposed to TEACH students about why we do the things we do. When a college can’t get their employee’s health looked after appropriately, you have to wonder who is running the asylum?

read more | digg story

Twitter Updates for 2008-06-20

Friday, June 20th, 2008

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New Release - Davidson Ospina Feat. Danil - Take Me

Thursday, June 19th, 2008

Davidson Ospina Feat. Danil - Take Me This is one hot house record for the summer. We’re especially digging the Stripped Mix, but you’ll find something here that suits your tastes. The “Born To Funk Hyped Dub” has a nice swing to it with Danil’s vocals uses sparingly throughout. You’re going to need it if you want to remix the track live with the “Born To Funk Vocal,” which is also available.

Sasha Alazy’s dub treatment of the record keeps the flavor of the original while turning out a bit more of an uptempo sound to bridge the gap from club to mix show radio.

This release is available on Beatport.com, Traxxsource.com, Stompy.com and Xpressbeats.com

Take Me feat. Danil - Original Mix

Take Me feat. Danil - Born To Funk Hyped Dub

Take Me feat. Danil - Born To Funk Vocal Remix

Take Me feat. Danil - Inst. Mix

Take Me feat. Danil - Sasha Alazy Remix

Take Me feat. Danil - Stripped Mix

Twitter Updates for 2008-06-18

Wednesday, June 18th, 2008
  • @jfkjohan sorry baby! Let’s go Cel-tics! Let’s go Cel-tics! #
  • 108 - 72 yeah baby! Let’s go Cel-tics! #
  • 110 - 75 #
  • 113-75 Ray Allen’s 7th 3 pointer of the game…ties NBA finals record! #
  • This is UGLY! #
  • @jfkjohan poor guy…my sympathy is with you my friend…Lakers are dust! #
  • Can you say “Ray Allen”? #
  • Man…another 3 pointer! #
  • @jfkjohan you should just turn the tv off to save you from the utter shock and disappointment #
  • The Lakers were never going to win in Boston…not this time. #
  • ANOTHER 333333333333333! #
  • Up 38 points! #
  • 2:21 seconds away from their next NBA World Championship! #
  • Paul Pierce is the Larry Bird of this era! #
  • It’s ugly that the Lakers have to sit for 8 minutes and watch this debacle. #
  • Oh…that dunk was UGLY! #
  • Up by 43 points! #
  • 40 seconds left! #
  • 30 SECONDS LEFT! #
  • @jfkjohan thanks for the towel…I’m wiping the Lakers tears with it now…sniff sniff #
  • @jfkjohan I’ll give it back to you next year…hope I can wring all that sweat out of it by then #
  • 4 seconds! #
  • IT’S OVER….the Boston Celtics are the 2008 World Champions of Basketball! #
  • INCREDIBLE CELTICs PERFORMANCE TONIGHT! #
  • WOW! Kevin Garnett is overwhelmed! #
  • Firefox 3 is pretty fast…nice UI…love it already #
  • Forgot my key to the office again. darn #

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New Releases 6-18-08

Wednesday, June 18th, 2008

Artist : D:Fuse & Hiratzka
Release “Breathe In”
Remixer: Fine Taste
Label: Currve
Catalog: CR041
Release Date: June-18-2008
Genre: Progressive House, Tech House, Chill Out
Format: Digital

Review: Fine Taste remix is repetitive and simple. Not a floor filler by any means. Something to get the crowd warmed up. Neil Colo’s Tech House remix has a lot of structured complexity with dark overtones. If you’re into the darker side of Tech House, this one’s a sure bet. The downtempo, chill out album version is included with the EP download.


Artist: Killfish
Release: Tatooman EP
Label: Jetlag Digital
Catalog: JED002
Release Date: July-04-2008
Genre: Progressive House
Format: Digital

Review: Out of the gate, Jetlag Digital put out a couple of nice tracks. These two are fairly forgettable. They don’t go anywhere or do anything exciting. Simply just filler tracks. “Grinder Cool” has a bit of an electro house flavor to it. A vocal sample drifts in and out, but there’s no reason to really care. The breakdown is fairly simple. Nothing we haven’t seen before. The modulation of the synth warps around as it comes out of the breakdown, but it doesn’t capture the big room, epic transformation you’d expect out of a long breakdown and build up. “The Fisher” is another filler track that I might play in the beginning of the night, but definitely not peak hour. These guys need to go back to the drawing board and take it a notch higher. The label is out of Spain. This sound may do well there, we don’t know, but we don’t expect them to break any records in the U.S. with this release.


San Francisco Lad Publishing & Recordings

Artist: Terry Williams
Release: San Francisco
Label: Lad Publishing & Recordings
Catalog: LADAL08041
Release Date: June-18-2008
Genre: Tech House
Format: Digital

Review: We’re digging this thick track with synth stabs that sound like urgent horns placed evenly along throughout. A nice twangy bass line carries the groove. This track is good for putting that skip in your step when you’re on the floor, grooving to it. If this is the sound of underground San Francisco, then we’re looking forward to hearing it played out the next time we visit. The Natalino Nunes remix takes it a bit darker, but that means it loses a bit of its cheery flavor. So, we’ll stick with the original here.


Incognitao album cover
Artist: Incognito
Release: Tales From The Beach (Album)
Label: Heads Up International
Catalog: HUCD 3141
Release Date: June-24-2008
Genre: Jazz
Format: Digital

Review: Just when you were looking for a smooth, soulful jazz album from Incognito, here it is. The band has returned with lush, gorgeous music and vocals you’d expect from such a legendary group. Incognito fans will be satiated with all that’s great about this group. DJs have three house tracks to pick from, “Love, Joy, Understanding”, “Freedom To Love”, and “Feel The Pressure.” All three are perfect for a Lil Louie Vega set. We’re thinking someone from Giant Step has already called him for a remix.

Head to Giant Step to listen to the DJ Sampler.

Twitter Updates for 2008-06-17

Tuesday, June 17th, 2008
  • Working on my Friday meetings at the W Hotel between 10 am and 6 pm. Should be a fun day catching up with folks. #

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WSJ.com - The Dish on Satellite Radio’s Future

Tuesday, June 17th, 2008

The merger of satellite radio services XM and Sirius may finally be at hand, but it will likely be several months before the benefits — including price flexibility and programming choice — become a reality for consumers.

read more | digg story

Broadcom Founder Was Rockin’ The Coked-out ‘Orgy’ Cave

Monday, June 16th, 2008

Henry Nicholas III“In an Oriental-themed, tricked-out parlor, Nicholas, his friends and a bevy of prostitutes would party and have sex for days - abusing cocaine, laughing gas and other drugs, as music from such chart-toppers as Led Zeppelin and Phil Collins played.” — from the New York Post

During the Web 1.0 heyday, the founders of Polyverse, the company that had acquired Netmix and then spent our investment money on a half-a-million dollar Randalls Island rave that lost over a quarter of our funding, introduced me to this guy and Kenji Kato, his assistant.

They ended up partying with him well into the night, while I was taking care of Netmix business. They thought Nicholas might invest in the company, as he was keenly interested in youth culture Internet plays, having funded a youth-driven startup in Denver. While Nicholas was in town, they ended up partying at Lotus and a few other spots, taking a break in between to meet with me and some of my staff at the time.

Although I was excited to meet with the billionaire, I was still very cautious and direct, knowing that the Polyverse folks were playing the party game, while I was trying to grow a business. When Nicholas asked me if I was ready to work 24-hours a day, I said I’d work 26, just to see Netmix grow .

It turned out that Henry Nicholas wasn’t much feeling the partners in Polyverse. Despite his partying ways, he could see through them, as I did while constantly battling with them to do the right thing. Unfortunately, I was stuck with them.

In August of 2000, I caught one of our sales people doing cocaine with a client in a hotel room at the MGM Grand during the DJ Times Expo in Atlantic City. I wanted her fired, but I was told by the Polyverse folks after a series of personnel meetings that “this is the way business is done” in the advertising world. Needless to say, that girl didn’t sell one piece of advertising for the company while taking in a $90K salary in all the time she worked there. Although they didn’t fire her, she was persona non grata in the Netmix offices and I forced them to move her to another location. That memory of her is forever etched in my mind. If that’s how you want to be remembered in this world, more power to you.

If you need to use cocaine to sell a product, then in my eyes, you’re not that much of a sales person. Once you get known as the drug provider, that reflects on everyone in the company, undeservedly tarnishing the reputations of the company’s other employees and forever damaging your organization’s reputation.

The Henry Nicholas Jr. story just goes to show that the crazy days of Web 1.0, where the money to fuel the parties seemed endless, was a time of extraordinary mismanagement, greed and self destruction. Anything goes, but then you had nothing to show for it. Fortunately for me, I never transferred the Netmix domain to Polyverse. They broke the purchase and sale agreement, and I still own the brand that I cultivated.

I, unfortunately, chose the wrong path. I could have opted to go with an angel investor in the Philadelphia area that had backed a successful world music concert series, but we decided that it might be better to work with the Polyverse folks, given their ties to companies like SonicNet, MTV and others. It was probably my biggest mistake and one that taught me a very valuable lesson.

I’m certainly glad that Henry Nicholas decided not to fund us. Seeing his very public downfall reminds me that you can have all the money in the world, but it doesn’t matter if you end up in a $66,000 a month rehab facility, your personal assistant is suing you for being your personal drug courier and all your former employees think you’re ass. The money doesn’t matter when you have no friends.

I always turn to this one quote from a David Halberstam book, “The Breaks of the Game,” which reads: “Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident and money takes wings. The only thing that endures, is character.”

Now that I know what Henry Nicholas Jr. is really all about, he’s just another two-bit hustler like the rest of them. I’ve totally lost the ounce of respect I had for him for achieving so much. If you lose $4 Billion in personal net worth, although you still have $2 Billion, it isn’t all that impressive to me. Henry Nicholas III could have been the next Steve Jobs or Bill Gates, but those guys aren’t in rehab and he is. Pretty pathetic if you ask me. Certainly glad I don’t have to deal with him every day. I’d rather run Netmix as the hobby that it now is, then be around spoiled billionaires who’s self-defeating ego turns the entire world against them.

I know too many people who’s lives have been tarnished by extreme drug use. I’m certainly glad mine is not one of them.

read more (New York Post story) | digg story

EMI’s New Boss Sees Cracks in Music World

Monday, June 16th, 2008

The takeover of the music company EMI, a cherished icon in Britain, by the private equity financier Guy Hands has been a chaotic culture clash.

read more | digg story