AIKEN NEWS NETWORK JULY 23

[clayharmony]

Howdy folks!     I'm starting this thread now...so it will be ready for you first thing when you check in this morning.

While we work through the dry spell, I've thought I'd share this utterly delightful post from the Clay Nation's esteemed Berkeley.  Enjoy.

Once upon a time, the fangirliest berkeley who ever fangirled wrote:

All of these recaps start the same: I was so thrilled when I saw that spiky head rising from the stage floor on the elevator lift. As soon as I saw his face and caught the glint of those beautiful eyes...

I felt completely and utterly at peace. I felt no need whatsoever to shout, scream or cry.

There's Clay, I said to myself. There's my guy.

It is true that I can barely remember a single thing about the first half of TITN. I felt so peaceful, so blissful, and my mind stated to race through all of my Clay memories even as I was standing there drinking in his presence.

I forced myself to snap to somewhere at the middle point. I can remember that Clay looked very good, contented, happy to be performing. He did not look sick, tired or ill at all. He doesn't look as thin as I expected; yes, he is lean, but people who describe him as frail are so far off the mark. He is also naturally pale, almost opalescent in coloring under the stage lights. And yes, he is even more handsome in person --- though I think the word "beautiful" describes it better.

It seems to me that he left out one of the trills he has been doing somewhere in the middle of the song, and I immediately started to listen to see if he was in good voice. False alarm: Clay likes to play with his songs, so maybe he just tried something different.

I loved the mic grab! I don't care if I know to look for it. He does everything with such conviction that it seems fresh and new at every venue. And you know what? To him I think it stays fresh and new! It is a move that he chooses to make because it is the perfect expression of the song.

Here is the first time Clay really moved around the stage, so I looked for any signs of a limp. He was moving freely, doing that backward one-footed hop that I think he added for the first time in Raleigh, making little circles with his fist, really being transported by the song and taking us with him. Glad I came to. He was fabulous.

On Clay's hello and introduction of Ruben, I too noticed the "helium voice" when he was speaking. What's with the sound mix? We have all heard Clay speak many, many times, and he has never sounded so high-pitched unless he is giggling and excited. It's not him, it's the soundboard or the arena.

After the ovation, Clay said that he was "glad to be back be in California, where it all started". He then mentioned that he AND Ruben had visited Sheldon High School that morning and pointed to the kids from the school who were sitting in the nosebleeds at stage right. I think they made more noise than the rest of the crowd did all night!

Clay said that they had been at the school filming "for TRL as part of Back to School Week". (Total Request Live on MTV)

Next came Ruben's introduction.

I knew to watch Clay at all times he was on stage (as if I wouldn't have anyway!), and I looked very carefully to see if there was anything I had not heard reported for the other Cellcert and Tour cities. Then I saw it...

I noticed it when the lights had been dimmed and Ruben's video was playing. Clay stands there in the semi-darkness, bopping along to the music, shaking his head, tapping his microphone against his palm, doing these little dance steps ---it was absolutely priceless. I do not recall anyone commenting on that before!

<snip>

Lights down for LIAT. I watched again as Clay was framed in the doorway at the upper part of the stage and watched him walk down the right staircase. Again, no sign of any mobility problems. Clay was all attitude: this is why so many of us think he would make a fine actor. He interprets a song with his whole body as well as with that fluid and flexible face.

All of the dirty dancing is completely staged, but it looks spontaneous because Clay is so good at it. His rapport with all of the women is fabulous, from the way he gives Julia a little kiss on the temple at the end of their dance, to the way he laughs and cracks up when he was with Carmen, to the tenderness he shows as he takes Kim Locke's hand just by the fingertips and leads her to center stage.

I was amazed how good a dancer he has become! He had no problem whatsoever with any of the dance steps. In fact, he is now improvising on them and throwing in all kinds of hand and arm movements, tilting his head and playing to the crowd, laughing and talking to whoever is next to him on the stage... You can tell he is really having a wonderful time.

My notes were scribbled in the dark when he was not on stage, so if I blow the order, I apologize.

TGIM was a riot. A flurry of items arrived on the stage, with Clay picking up a longline bra and Ruben picking up a red Clifford dog. Then a long rolled up item landed next to Clay and he stooped to pick it up.

I knew what it was before he unrolled it. Clay opens it and then gets this funny, kind of proud look on his face as he looks at the item.

Ruben: "What's that, man?"

Clay: "I had not seen this before..." (nodding and smiling, he turns it around to show the audience).

And there it was in all of its end of summer glory:

Clay Aiken on the cover on Entertainment Weekly!

Clay has his arms full of all of these items, but he goes over stage right and puts the magazine away for safekeeping. Good job, Clay fan, whoever you are! He's keeping that one for sure!

There was all of that great laughing and teasing during the buildup to the song --- I could tell these guys love being in each others company. Ruben does the bit about how the Clifford dog was family friendly because they could give it to the hospitals, and Clay holds up the long line bra as Ruben says "But we can't give this."

Clay ad-libs, "I don't know, they might like it!"

Sister and I are laughing so hard we have to cover our mouths so we don't miss anything.

Ruben says, "Clay, somebody's throwing their shoes now. We don't want this dirty old shoe..." and picks up a red rubber thong. Clay is laughing hard, but Ruben doesn't get it at all.

As for the performance, their voices went really well together. This is a wonderful duet, a real highlight of the show. (Sister wants Clay to be allowed to hit Ruben back! She doesn't want Clay to be the punching bag!)

Clay was wearing his white jacket unbuttoned. Whenever he made eye contact with someone down close, he would grab it and open the jacket just a little bit and reveal a nicely fitted white t-shirt, as if he was flashing us! There is no doubt in my mind that Clay has a friend telling him what's on the boards!

TLS was another occasion to simply blow me away. His ability to interpret a lyric, no, to live inside a lyric and sustain the mood was really evident again here.

Next came Sister's finest hour. During the introduction of Ruben's new song (fire those songwriters! Sister and I were singing, "Poor Ruben! Poor Ruben!" Awful song!), Clay was directly in front of us. Trenyce was yelling to the right side of the audience about how to do the 205 shout-out, and Clay was looking into the audience. A lot of people were looking at Trenyce, since she was talking. Clay looked our way, and Sister shot up her hand and waved. CLAY SAW HER AND WAVED BACK! Nobody else in our area was waving, so it had to be for her! Sister is now Unofficial proud keeper of Clay's Sacramento Wave!

CYFTLT has become Sister's favorite song on this tour, simply because it fits Clay so well. We were feeling and giving the love! This time Clay threw in a lot of extra trills, with some subtle usage of melisma and a lot of vocalizing that seems improvisational. He was also mightily amused at something, as he was doing everything in his power to keep from laughing. What a charming mood he was in!

Once again, CYFTLT was beautifully sung, but I need to mention a bit about how he looked. That black shirt is a keeper! The caressing stares, those intimate gazes --- it is like being absolutely alone in a room with this man and knowing exactly what is going to happen next! Clay Aiken: Master of the Eye Flirt!

I have a feeling that we just missed out on a first. During the introduction of the band, they play “It’s getting hot in here, so take off all your clothes.” Clay started unbuttoning his black shirt, making faces and flipping down the collar! I was convinced that he was going to undo a few more buttons, but Ruben said “Clay, do I have to make another public service announcement? This is a family friendly show!” Clay started laughing so hard that I am convinced that he was going to go off script and pop a few of those buttons! Even with the white tee underneath, there was something really exciting about the possibility! MYOB Roob! LOL!

Skipping ahead to "Invisible", with general comments about the rest of the show to follow.

We live in an insular world on this board. I spent about 15 minutes talking to fans around the merchandise tables before the show. I was commenting about how different Clay looks now, and several of them looked puzzled. They did not know that he is almost blond now! They did not know about "Invisible"! They did not know that there are bootlegs of at least two dozen of Clay's AI tour performances making the rounds! I warned them not to leave after "TOML" or they would miss Clay's new song!

Clay came up on the lift either sitting cross legged or crouching down --- my powers of observation failed me. He was wearing a white Sacramento Kings basketball jersey that said "Aiken" on the back. He has on one of those ubiquitous white t-shirts under it (Aside: burn 'em all!) The jersey was massive, nearly down to his knees as it hung in the back and barely tucked in at the front. I knew that wouldn't survive the first tug!

Clay: talks about how he just had to wear the Kings jersey tonight. I think he said something about them winning this season, but I couldn't hear over the cheers. (Berkeley's aside: Yeah, good luck getting past my Lakers! LOL! )

Clay: It's getting close to the end of the show, as well as the end of the tour. We only have two shows left. You can tell I haven't been in California for a while. My arms are whiter than this jersey! (huge laughs from the crowd).

A lot of us are screaming "Invisible".

Clay: None of us would be up here tonight if it wasn't for you, the fans, and I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. One of the things I've been able to do is record an album (Sister and I are saying it along with him...). This song is called "Invisible", and it's for you, Sacramento.

Most of us could dance along to this song, if we knew how to dance, having seen the video so many times. But if you are going to San Jose or Anaheim, don't worry: this thing is as hot as if you'd never seen it before. Clay was all over the stage, but that first explosive YANK pulled the jersey right out. (Oh, well, no "sightings" last night, anyway!)

Clay was dancing, skipping, running, caressing, tugging, yanking. WOW! He is such an incredibly dynamic performer that he was more than half way through the song before I noticed --- Clay did not do any deep knee bends. There was one little half bend where he lowered just one knee. This is the first time in the evening that I felt that he might still be having some kind of problem with the ankle, knee, leg, whatever injury he sustained earlier this week.

His voice was once again clear and strong, he played to the audience and the camera (all throughout he finds the camera --- I glanced at the Jumbotron for a few seconds on occasion to see what they were showing, and was hit with the image of ALL OF THAT FACE!).

I loved everything about "Invisible"...

but when he left the stage, I turned to Sister and screamed "What number did he have on!"

Both of us were so mesmerized, we had NO IDEA. Guess I'll find it in one of the other concert reports!

Clay laughed during Imagine, laughed during GBTUSA, laughed all night, really, He seemed to be so happy, so alive and present in the moment. I just felt myself quietly loving him, feeling like I was watching one of my best friends on stage. It was a wonderful and blessed way to feel.

It was a bit hard watching him walk out through the curtain at the end of the song. I am so glad I am going to San Jose. I am not ready to say goodbye to Clay just yet!

A few general observations:

Everytime it was Clay's turn to sing, whether solo, in the medley, in group songs or in duets, he would shine so brightly and soar so high above the rest of the idols that it isn't even fair to them to dwell on the difference. All were entertaining, a few have real potential, and then there is Clay. Sui generis. Without peer. Forming his own class. Unique. In a league of his own.

He does nothing to try to hog the spotlight. I don't think he even knows how far out ahead of the rest of the field he stands (and I am a serious fan of Kim Locke's, as well as liking Ruben quite a lot). But watching Clay is like watching the best in any field. The dancer who fully extends an arm until the tip of the smallest finger is in exactly the right position. The ballplayer who legs out a ground ball and then twists in the air while throwing it for an out at home. And that perfectly sustained and articulated note, until you know in your heart just what that lyric means.

He is so completely, throughly and deeply a born performer that I have to remind myself that he has another calling at which he is, from all reports, every bit as good.

Everything about him seems so free and effortless, but we all know how hard he works to perfect his talents. I don't have it in my vocabulary to describe Clay's astonishing range, his stage presence, that electric charisma, that megawatt sex appeal...

Simply put, Clay Aiken is a Natural.


In my career, I've worked with Grammy, Tony, Oscar and Emmy winners and nominees. I've sat at the lunch table across from household names, exchanged Christmas cards and family news with some very well-known people, and to this day there is not a single night of primetime television that doesn't feature someone I've worked with. Now, after meeting Clay four times and talking to him like a normal person, I'll never react like I did on that hot night in Sacramento five summers ago, but I will always smile at the memory.

My reaction to seeing him? It was the damnedest thing...

I don't care about a long-ago vote. Clay Aiken was the anomaly in my life.

Thank the good lord for him.

[claydevotee]

JOANNA, thanks for stepping forward to help out with ANN.  This job is a perfect fit for you!
 

[clayharmony]

Thank you Thea...I appreciate the welcoming post so much! 

A follow on to the digital discussion of a day or so ago, here's an article on the topic (and url)

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10293815-56.html

Digital music suffering from entrepreneur drain

by Ina Fried

PASADENA, Calif.-Of all the losses suffered by the music industry, one of the biggest may be the fact that nearly all of the investors that once were building digital music services have moved on.

"There are not a lot of entrepreneurs involved in this space," said David Pakman, a music industry veteran and now venture capitalist at Venrock Associates.

By Pakman's count, there have been 109 venture backed digital music startups. Fewer than five, though, produced a substantial return, he said.

"Investors lost a lot of money in this space," he said, speaking on a breakfast panel at the Fortune Brainstorm: Tech conference here. The loss for the industry, he said is that entrepreneurs have moved on to areas like Twitter and Facebook.

Those two services both have an application programming interface that allows anyone with an idea to connect to their service using generic terms. That, Pakman, said, is missing in music.

"What the music industry never encouraged or even allowed was building an ecosystem around its product," Pakman said.

For his part, MySpace Music President Courtney Holt said he thinks a big part of his opportunity is in providing new tools for music artists, building on MySpace's existing strength of helping connect musicians with their fans.

He also wants to make more of the "social music leaders" on MySpace.

"There are people at MySpace that curate music that have audiences that would rival terrestrial radio," Holt said. "I'm trying to figure out how I can give them more power."

Pakman agreed that such influencers are a key factor. "Bloggers are the music critics (of today)," Pakman said. 

[clayharmony]

An interesting article regarding the demise of record labels...
(and url)

http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/22/artists-find-backers-as-labels-wane/

Artists Find Backers as Labels Wane

July 22, 2009, 3:36 am

There was a time when most aspiring musicians had the same dream: to sign a deal with a major record label.

Now, with the structure of the music business shifting radically, some industry iconoclasts are sidestepping the music giants and inventing new ways for artists to make and market their music — without ever signing a traditional recording contract, The New York Times’s Brad Stone writes.

The latest effort comes from Brian Message, manager of the alternative band Radiohead, which gave away its last album, “In Rainbows,” on the Internet. His venture, called Polyphonic, which was announced this month, will look to invest a few hundred thousand dollars in new and rising artists who are not signed to record deals and then help them create their own direct links to audiences over the Internet.

“Artists are at the point where they realize going back to the old model doesn’t make any sense,” Mr. Message told The Times. “There is a hunger for a new way of doing things.”

Polyphonic and similar new ventures are symptomatic of deep shifts in the music business. The major labels — Sony Music, Warner Music, EMI and Universal Music — no longer have such a firm grip on creating and selling professional music and minting hits with prime placement on the radio.

Much of that has to do with the rise of the Internet as a means of promoting and distributing music. Physical album sales fell 20 percent, to 362.6 million last year, according to Nielsen, while sales of individual digital tracks rose 27 percent, to 1.07 billion, failing to compensate for the drop. Mindful of these changes, in the last few years marquee musicians like Trent Reznor, the Beastie Boys and Barenaked Ladies have created their own artist-run labels and reaped significant rewards by keeping a larger share of their revenue.

Under the Polyphonic model, bands that receive investments from the firm will operate like start-up companies, recording their own music and choosing outside contractors to handle their publicity, merchandise and touring.

Instead of receiving an advance and then possibly reaping royalties later if they have a hit, musicians will share in all the profits from their music and touring. In another departure from tradition in the music business, they will also maintain ownership of their own copyrights and master recordings — meaning they and their heirs can keep earning money from their music.

“We are all witnessing major labels starting to shed artists that are hitting only 80,000 or 100,000 unit sales,” Adam Driscoll, another Polyphonic founder and chief executive of the British media company MAMA Group, told The Times. “Do a quick calculation on those sales, with an artist who can tour in multiple cities, and that is a good business. You can take that as a foundation and build on it.”

The third Polyphonic principal is Terry McBride, founder of the Vancouver-based management firm Nettwerk Music Group and manager of Barenaked Ladies.

The Polyphonic founders, who have provided the company with $20 million in seed financing, say they plan to invest around $300,000 in each band. The company will then guide musicians and their business managers — who will function a little like the band’s chief executive — to services like Topspin, which helps manage a band’s online presence, and TuneCore, a company that distributes music to online services like iTunes, Amazon and Napster.

The partners say they have been thinking about such a venture for several years. They recently tried to raise money for the company from venture capitalists in Silicon Valley, but met with initial skepticism.

“Returns on entertainment products when portfolios are small are typically very erratic,” David Pakman, a partner at venture capital firm Venrock, which passed on the deal, told The Times. Mr. Pakman doubted that Polyphonic and similar firms could produce the kind of returns on investment that venture firms typically look for.

Polyphonic, which will be based in London and in Nettwerk’s offices in New York and Los Angeles, says it plans to approach private investors again after it has proved its model works.

The new company will have plenty of company in exploring new ways for artists to maintain control over their creations.

Marc Geiger, an agent at William Morris Endeavor, who tried a similar venture in the late 1990s called ArtistDirect, is now developing a program for musicians at his agency that will be called Self Serve. Mr. Geiger said he was not ready to divulge the details yet, but said that Self Serve would provide tools and financing for artists to create businesses independent of major recording labels.

Even the major labels themselves are demonstrating new flexibility for musicians who do not want to sign the immersive partnerships known as 360 deals, in which the label manages and profits from every part of the artist’s business.

In late November, for example, EMI took the unusual step of creating a music services division to provide an array of services — like touring and merchandise support — to musicians who were not signed to the label.

“We all know the role that the record label has traditionally played needs to change,” Ronn Werre, president of EMI’s new division, told The Times. “There are artists that want to have more creative control and long-term ownership of their masters, and they may want to take on more of the financial risk. To be successful we need to have a great deal of flexibility in how we work with artists.”

Artists who have produced their own music and contracted with EMI to run parts of their business include the R&B singer Bobby Valentino and Raekwon, a member of the Wu-Tang Clan.

Mr. Message said that “there are many artists who still want to go with labels, which do still have abilities to really ram home hit singles.”

Bands who take the Polyphonic route, he said, will need to have considerable entrepreneurial energy. For example, they might stay after concerts to “go to the merchandise store and sign their shirts and talk to fans, because they know they are right at the heart of their own business,” he said.

Bands that have taken this approach say it can be arduous. In 2007, after releasing three records with independent labels, Metric, an alternative band from Toronto, finally got several offers from the big record companies. But the band declined to sign after concluding that the labels were asking for too many rights and not offering enough in return.

With help from a grant from the Canadian government, the band cut its own album in April, “Fantasies,” and started selling it directly to fans on services like iTunes, where it has scaled the popularity charts.

“It certainly has not been easy,” said Matt Drouin, Metric’s manager. “When I get up at 6 a.m. the British are e-mailing me. When I go to bed at 2 in the morning the Australians are e-mailing me. It’s an extremely empowering position, but one hell of an undertaking.”

[clayharmony]

From one of Clay's bloggers:

Thursday, July 23, 2009
Clay Aiken, Miami and That Blue Shirt
So, I'm out on my morning Internet constitutional, visiting all my favorite Clay Aiken sites.

Read the rest and view some fabulous clack here:

http://clayaikenjourney.blogspot.com/

[clayharmony]

From Idol Chatter, the latest CD sales for Clay...note current Playlist increased total (and url):

http://blogs.usatoday.com/idolchatter/2009/07/bonus-sales-numbers-and-free-downloads-too.html#more

Because you asked, here are the current sales totals for Clay Aiken's album catalog:

Measure of a Man: 2.78
Merry Christmas With Love: 1.37
A Thousand Different Ways: 530,000
On My Way Here: 163,000
All Is Well: Songs for Christmas: 53,000
Playlist: The Very Best of Clay Aiken: 7,000

[Mary]

Thanks fo the news, Joanna. It's good to see you here.

[mimi]

Great job Johanna....Very interesting articles ~ THANKS!

Marlene