1 word...Fantastic!

It has been 2 days ago that Toto had their show in Amsterdam. I was a show that I'll never forget. It was a two hour during show with great medley's and perfect solo's. Especially Simon Phillips, an idol of mine, had a great 5 minute during solo. The sound of the band was fantastic. The musical instruments of the band members sounded very beautiful. Lee Sklar also did a fantastic job, he is a worthy replacement for the great Mike Porcaro. This gig was again, a show I'll never forget.

Falling in Between

I've been waiting for the 19th of March for 6 months now. Monday finally Toto comes to the Heineken music hall in Amsterdam. Only mike porcaro won't be there. He has some difficulties with his left hand. Lee sklar will replace him. Yes the one with the big beard XD. I've seen him performing with Phil Collins and Lee really is a great musician. So only three days left and I'll see them live again :D. Counting down.....

They just don't get it

"Yo Yo! everybody! respect the police 4 life!" Pfff they just don't get it. The regional police of Amsterdam wants to have more coloured people in their corps.

How do they reach this group of people? The answer is rap.
The police of Amsterdam is organising a rap battle where rap talents can show their qualities. It's like the Idols for rap. But the lyrics aren't the same as the ones of big stars like 50 Cent or The Game, the lyrics are about Respect to the police. The people who call themselves "The Blue squad" are no local heroes. The blue squad only contains people who think they can rap. They are just a bunch of rappers from Amsterdam Bijlmer who told the police that they are really cool! Their not. They made this stupid song in which they rap about how the police needs Respect. And if they want to convince people to join the corps of Amsterdam, this is the way how not to do it.

If you think approaching your target group with a urban tone of voice is cool. Your wrong. You just look silly. Unless you add local heroes in your campaign. In this campaign they didn't. The police tried to promote their urban rap battle by giving away thousands of copies of Cd's, which contains nothing but the worst rap about Respect. I also got a copy at the Amstelstation and I just wondered what crap it was. 100 meters further I knew some people thought the same. I saw hundreds of Cd's in the trash. And everybody in the Netherlands pays tax for this. If some company financed it, I could laugh about it. Now I can just cry about it.

If the police really want to add some coloured people to the corps of Amsterdam. Don't come up with a stupid rap battle about respect to the police. Just say you want coloured people in the corps. Don't make the target group feel stupid by thinking every young person likes urban rap.

Que Pasa?!

Yesterday I signed up at Molinos de Viento ( http://www.molinosdeviento.nl/ ). A private school specified for the Spanish Language. The only thing I miss at my study at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam is that I don't learn new languages. So I decided to learn one myself, at this private school in Amsterdam. I think it's important that you can communicate with people all over the world. And since my English is pretty good I thought I could use some Spanish lessons.

My vision of the Future of the Music Industry

Downloading will definitely take over the music industry. However not in the way it is developing now. I think the whole pay per track and DRM is going to die. I have some experience with DRM and I simply hate it. I think it’s good that musicians get there share but not this way. The future of downloading will be something like Itunes but you won’t need to download the music, you just pay for a subcription to stream the music. You'll only get access the music and you won't need to download it to your harddrive. This will be around 15 euro per month. This maybe seem a low price, cause you get so access to so many kinds of music. But imagine if 3 million people in The Netherlands will use this. That will be 3.000.000 * 15= 45.000.000 million a month! And if the musicians get there share of that 45 million a month. I don’t think you are going to hear them complain. If the user wants to use the music on his/her Ipod or maybe on an other mp3 player. The user needs a gold or premium membership this will cost 20 euro a month. The DRM system won’t be applied to this product. This way, a whole family can take advantage of the music supplied from this system.

I also think in the future the cdshops will be replaced by mp3 shops. Like the ones at Schiphol (airport in Amsterdam). If a new track is published by DJ Tiesto and you are wandering around in Amsterdam you just walk in the shop and buy the track (just like singles), and upload it to your MP3 player. This is my vision of the Music industry in 5-15 years. I think if people can easily download tracks (No difficulties with creditcards or bankaccounts) they eventually will pay for music. I don’t think the P2P programs will die, simply because it is free. But if you give people the opportunity to support their favourite musicians and if you can provide them to get access to (all) the music in the world they will pay for it. And if you don’t bother them with crap like DRM they eventually step over to legal downloads

Iphone

The 9th of January Apple came with their new product, the Iphone. This is a really sexy product. But I'm not sure if people want this product with all these functions on it. It's not a phone anymore. It's like a small computer that calls. I really like the fancy design and the interface of the phone but I'm not sure people want this product for the functions.Maybe business people, but not fellow students of mine. Unless Vodafone or Orange (or one of the other big providers) comes with a great deal, people won't buy this phone. I think we just have to wait for the release in Europe. Another thing is that Cisco owns the trademark for Iphone so Apple just can't call the new product Iphone. Looks like Apple needs to come with a new name.

New job

Working at the Butcher shop is over now. I started a new chapter in my life. Last Saturday I started to work for my dad Jonathan Marks. I find this really exciting and now that I work in the Media world, I can gain loads of working experience. I think this really can add something to my future career. I also have plans for 2007. I'm planning to write more on my blog, and add some articles that I'm working on.