“I bounce around between the upper Midwest, Kentucky and eastern Canada for work as a consultant and from time to time I do tour management for companies like World music. I have a nice place outside of Shelbyville and rarely expose myself to inner Louisville these days.

I had just picked up my first copy of Louisville Music News yesterday and it was the first time I had read something published in Louisville that didn’t have the stench of mediocrity dripping from each and every page. It reminds me of Max INK (Maximum Ink Music Magazine) in Madison, Wisconsin. Just music, great information and the ads don’t make it look like you have sold your soul to Satan.

When I operate outside of Kentucky and try to put ‘Louisville’ and ‘media’ in the same sentences, people typically think I am joking with them or they ask me what ‘Louisville, Kentucky’ is. Which is really sad because I see potential here, just none of the honest effort. Most of the problem stems from the involvement of things like Insight cable and MetroMojo (franchise owner of Louisvillemojo) in the local media market. So not only is Louisville a top national polluter but it is infested with corrupt media outlets that are strangling the present-ability of this city to the outside world. The Public access cable and Public television/PBS analysts I work with often refer to Louisville as some kind of black hole in the heart of America.

Louisville Mojo

The first thing you have to take into account about Louisville Mojo is that it is a franchise of a large company (metro mojo) that is essentially a pyramid scam. The franchise is sold as this PHP based web group(like many of the ALT-Porn websites use) and investment groups or potential web group owners shop it out for their cities. The catch is that the franchise owner metro mojo demands a hefty fee for operating costs and proliferation. The Madfam.com web group in Madison Wisconsin operates a flash and PHP web group not unlike mojo, with all the same bells and whistles BUT they have better security and media share options for music, video and pictures. Their monthly costs are no more than$500.00 to operate but they get a marketing and advertisement return of about $1200.00.

Louisvillemojo operates (by the admission of their own administrators) for around $5000.00 a month. When I heard this figure I thought they were joking. There are PHP based ALT-porn web groups out there with four times the members as Louisville mojo and their operating costs hardly reach $4500 a month. Keep in mind, that figure includes what they pay porn models for video and pictures which is not in louisvillemojo’s budget. Of course these alt- porn websites require ALL their members to pay a membership fee of anywhere from $7 to $15.00 a month.

Louisville mojo does have a paid membership option called the ‘inner circle’ or ‘hottie’ membership and strangely enough, these sell for $7 a month. Although instead of being able to view pornography, the “inner circle” membership with mojo grants the user, the ability to stalk and harass non-paying members with no worry of being thrown off the site or reprimanded by the administrators. This is probably because of the fact that LouisvilleMojo has run from hand to mouth on their paid memberships from day one.

I myself have been harassed by their ‘inner circle’ members after I made an initial assessment of Louisville mojo to the BBB. The problem became so big that eventually I sought a restraining order against a gentleman who had been harassing my co-workers and clients.

LouisvilleMojo is what is fast becoming known as a bully web group, or a ‘cyberstalker nest,’ a place where the ethical guidelines of internet conduct have melted away. This is because the administrators are in a financial situation that they deem it necessary to sacrifice the ethics of administration to keep paying customers.

Jason Ashcraft’s assessment of Louisvillemojo was just the tip of the iceberg and a very well written piece.

The administrators of Louisvillemojo are drunken trust fund babies who thought they found the golden fleece of investment opportunities but are now strapped with a franchise that is being overcharged on administration through plain and simple ignorance. So their only saving grace is to use the face value as the largest native web group in Louisville to get drunker and lower their standards further rather than doing any real work.

For this and many other reasons, you don’t see a MadisonMojo, LosAngelesMojo, or NewYorkMojo. These cities have all seen this kind of thing before and are wise to it. I’m fairly sure Louisville will be one day as well.

Promotion of your band online

I do web videos with one group in LA called “spotlights and stars”. They use myspace as a standard web group space from their website but they also use these two amazing website called garageband.com and snocap.com. Garage band is an indie group site but it is the one site that more of the large labels monitor for up can coming acts. Especially in regard to traditional rock groups, punk and emo. Snocap is probably one of the best and least known websites for indie groups I have heard of this year. With snocap you can sell downloads of your music online without some huge distribution company eating you alive. Their BBB listing is 100% positive. The website takes a minimal percentage of each download cost and you can pick and choose what you sell. Snocap also has a myspace music player that can be embedded into your myspace page as your preview player. Snocap ALSO has a listing at the bottom of it’s FrontPage for an entire network of other similar websites for networking and promotions in different types of music like Hip-hop,classical and electronic.”

Justin La Plante

Producer
WYCS & CW, Louisville

Multimedia Consultant
NBC, CNN, BET, World Music Inc. and Music Plus, Quebec

Photo by Stephanie Wilson

Hugo Ferreira’s Tantric along with tour mates Framing Hanley, and Fosterchild made a tour pit stop on Friday May 16th at a highlands live music venue. This was Tantric’s first performance in Louisville since Ferreira reorganized the band and added all new members. The new lineup now includes Louisville native Marcus Ratzenboek (electric violin) formerly of the Louisville Orchestra, Erik Leonhardt (bass) formerly of Freak, Joe Pessia (guitar) formerly of Dramagods, and Kevin Miller (drums) formerly of Fuel. Both Leonhardt and Miller also play in Fosterchild too.

I had the chance to sit down with Ferreira and Tantric and chat about the new lineup and their new album, “The End Begins,” which posted as high as 15 in the Billboard charts. Check back here at scuttlebutt again soon for a review of their performance along with some commentary from Ferreira and Tantric.

ash_ent@yahoo.com

Photo by Tanya Anderson

Lava/Atlantic Records recording artist Hot Action Cop played a reunion show at Wicks on Dixie Highway Saturday May 17th. Also sharing the stage that night was Nova Red, Audio At War, and Thomas Medicine.

Hot Action Cop features Louisville natives Tim Flaherty, also currently with Antkythera, and Juan Chavolla of the recently disbanded Never The Man. On vocals is Rob Werthner, from Nashville, who along with Flaherty, are the remaining original members of the band. Chavolla recently joined after the breakup of Never The Man. Officially they are still yet to name a permanent drummer.

Hot Action Cop is currently negotiating a deal that will release them from Atlantic Records which I anticipate will enable them to release a new album on a new label. More to come on that subject as it develops.

I sat down with Hot Action Cop and will have review and some commentary from the band on their recent reunion. That will be out in the July 08′ edition of scuttlebutt. By then they should have something announced as to which label they will sign with. Yet another topic on the ole’ content to do list…….

ash_ent@yahoo.com

Leather Clad. That’s my two word summary of the Shooter Jennings’ show at Headliners on Thursday April 3. The ore’ that Shooter brought and maintained to the stage was that music is his life, and his life is recorded in the songs he sings. If your listening like I did, it’s easy to see how they are bounded into his heart and sewn shut with leather.

Photo by Meredith Hunter

He adorns a .357 long barrel tattooed on the inside of his left foreman. His eyes remained covered with sunglasses throughout the evening, seemingly minimizing your contemplation of whether or not he is under the influence of one or more substances. He is road worn and looks like he needs a bath by most people’s standards, except his. Shooter is a walking Waylon Jr. at heart, carrying on his father’s road hardened, whiskey bent legacy. He is one of the few remaining ‘born’ musicians carrying on his fathers legacy of dirty rock ‘n’ roll mixed with just as much country western as you can tolerate.

Shooter started the night out somewhat mellow like he had just woken up on the tour bus a few minutes prior and had to run out to stage. But, he quickly amplified his performance right after I contemplated my ‘mellow’ theory thought. He went half wild and erupted into this acoustic twang mealy of interesting sounds and country licks. The intensity of the crowd also escalated his performance as they wanted to hear him rock it out. The song Shooter responded with was “This Ole’ Wheel,” a song reflecting on the times of his adolescence when he used listen to his father and Johnny Cash’s music. At times he almost sounded like he was rapping the lyrics, just with a lot of redneck twang. The song eventually migrated to some good ole’ redneck yelling about his army of friends, and how they came from where he’s been, and how they picked the dark house and they’re going to ride to the end.. His ‘old wheel’ is still turning stronger than ever carrying out his family’s pre-written law of music , booze, and a ridiculous amount of miles logged on the road.

Shooter consistently displayed his whiskey saturated soul through the lyrics which were perfectly keyed to the melodic riffs he strummed on his Fender with equal distributions of country, rock, and blues. Even though he sings mainly about drunken road stories and family history rooted in mayhem, you can’t help but to find yourself singing along and at least momentarily relating to his stories. I was so inspired by his stories that I decided to go on a three day drinking binge myself to ensure I wasn’t being hypocritical about the life he was born into. Thus, my pictorial inspiration for writing this review is pictured here.

Photo by Jason Ashcraft

Back to Shooter. Whatever your opinion of him to this point is, he makes it hard to dislike a good ole’ country boy like himself. Even when he dropped his guitar and pulled up a chair to his keyboard, he still kept that rough and road hardened feeling with a touch of more blues than he typically is known for. The crowd reacted in unison to his every move on stage though even as he changed up the pace of the set.

Shooter on multiple occasions hinted at his own ability to match his father’s own vocal styles and kept the audience reminded that he too was a Jennings music rebel. He really carries out Waylon’s musical approach with solid roots in old school country and western, happily mixed with elements of rhythm and blues and undeniable rock ‘n’ roll brass tracks that slightly set him apart from his father. But the sum total of his musical style still equates to good country drinking anthems, which just happens to be a Jennings family specialty.

Photo by Meredith Hunter

Make sure you visit Shooter and the .357’s on their Myspace page. All the necessities are posted there. He gets pretty close to Louisville again on August 23 in Owensboro at the Beir Stube. Road trip anyone?

ash_ent@yahoo.com

The question of whether Myspace or LouisvilleMojo (a.k.a. Mojo) as a promotional resource for musicians has became something to ponder once again. Let me quickly review the undeniable facts with both of the websites, as it pertains to extra promotional exposure for musicians.

With Myspace, musicians have a much larger audience than with Mojo. Almost everyone who has a Mojo account has a Myspace account. Myspace also offers more versatile features that enable musicians to directly connect with fans by streaming audio and video of their music directly from their Myspace homepage. Additionally, Myspace does not allow the overtly sexually explicit audience onto the site with the consistency that LouisvilleMojo does. And for those types of profiles that slip through the security cracks on Myspace, they can be easily filtered out of your mail inbox and/or promotional tags on your profile, by enabling a few security features that is designed to filter for that type of material.

On the other hand, LouisvilleMojo is light years behind with respect to almost all of the Myspace features. Many ‘Mojo-ers’ as commonly referred to, concur that the site’s biggest failure is that its’ administrators allow the seemingly endless population of cheating spouses, transsexuals, underage kids, possible pedophiles and all the other obnoxious freak-a-zoid users of the “hotties” profiles to keep their accounts active. On top of that, there is no structured way to filter these types of profiles from your inbox other then to blacklist them after the fact that they have already annoyed or offended you in some way. Some of these Mojo freak-a-zoids are probably better known on LMPD’s online watch list more they are on LouisvilleMojo’s “hotties” profiles. By the way, I absolutely do not intend to so label everyone who has a LouisvilleMojo “hottie” profile, just the seemingly vast majority of them.

The bottom line seems to be this: As a musician, you get no more extra promotion on LouisvilleMojo than you are already getting by having a Myspace page – multiplied by ten. And whatever you may get from LouisvilleMojo, do you really want to be associated with a website that is best known for intimate encounters than for promoting the “Louisville” music scene? You shouldn’t.

The only thing LouisvilleMojo has done for Louisville musicians is host a few poorly promoted shows to their freak-a-zoid user base. They have demonstrated on a few occasions that they are not even capable of filling Headliners and barely were able to fill half the outfield of the Turners of Louisville’s softball field. The proof is in the pudding here. I attended these events and honestly half-way felt sorry for the great bands that were talked into playing these events. They didn’t deserve that. But, obviously the LouisvilleMojo’s management team, or “Team Mojo” as they are noted on their “hottie” profiles as, are trying to act as if the majority of their users are not just people trying to get drunk and laid versus going to see a good live music gig.

That being said, until LouisvilleMojo cleans up its member base, incorporates some stricter security standards and adds more audio/video capabilities that directly connect musicians to their intended fans, put all of your promotional resources into Myspace and use the extra time you gain to write some new songs. God knows some of you guys need to do that.

Nonetheless, it will better time spent as you musicians continue to try and find meaningful, effective ways to promote your music to your fans. Right now LouisvilleMojo is just not really interested or prepared in partnering with Louisville musicians in a meaningful manner. And Mojo, quit freeloading (as in ’not paying’) off of WildLifeRadio.com’s DJ Fender and his studio. It’s already established that your demographic does not consist of enough music lovers for Fender or any musicians to be getting anything in trade, especially when you’re offering no money for their services.

So, LouisvilleMojo in closing here is my suggestion to you: Run a big ad in LEO’s exotic and erotic advertising pages and watch your number of “hottie” profiles grow by leaps and bounds. Simultaneously, you can just go ahead and trash the idea of cleaning up and deleting all those “hottie” profiles. Go have a few beers instead. But you can now just market yourself to your real audience by doing this. That’s your demographic, folks, so don’t try and deny it. It is what it is.

If you’re going to do something, then do it to the best of your ability, without hesitation, or don’t do it at all. If you need a lesson in that regard of life, then my email address is ash_ent@yahoo.com. But please just quit trying to ride the coat tails of the Louisville music community to get some extra page views. Make your site something both respectful and effective for all musicians.

And by the way Mojo, you just learned the hard way that if you throw rocks at me, then I will throw grenades back. That’s how it goes when you mess with a jarhead.

ash_ent@yahoo.com