WE’VE MOVED TO A NEW ADDRESS – bring cookies

THE NIGHT FEED has a new address inside My Damn Channel: 

http://www.mydamnchannel.com/blog/

http://www.mydamnchannel.com/blog/

 

CANNIBALS

Read the morning paper & it’s not hard to think of politics, pop culture, and media as evil bedfellows hellbent on cookin’ up cannibal stew for breakfast. The minute any human or any entity is served up on a silver platter is the same moment we’re all one step closer to seeing them ripped apart by an angry mob.

With every technological step forward, we still seem so closely linked to the coliseum spectacles ages ago.

Best medicine is to TEAR YOURSELF DOWN the second you get set up as the next big thing.

THE COUNCIL OF CO-CONS

We just completed the first, unofficial, official, virtual meeting of the newly-formed COUNCIL OF CO-CONS.

Thank yous to our first victims: Miss Malevolent, ZehnKatzen, Jason Elliot, Ryan Hunter.

Maria Diokno from My Damn Channel is reaching out to a rotating group of humanoids who’ve contributed to the building of our baby so far with comments, feedback, emails, video uploads, hate mail n’ flowers.

As we head past our first 21 million views into phase 2 of DAMN – we’re recommitting to opening up more access, control, and LIVE interaction into your heads and hands.

Feedback from Friday:

– overall site navigation scored as high as 9 on the 10 scale, but one neg called it a “shrinking violet” ? have to revisit the notes to ponder?

– Home Page scorecard gets a 7.5 on the 10 scale with requests for a bit more about WHO WE ARE & WHAT WE DO to be added for the uninitiated

– this Blog (The Night Feed) & the Damn, News items are lost to many since they sit at the bottom of the home page, better placement needed & their text makes them look like google ads

– predictable mega great grades for YSAP & for the brand new Big Fat Brain series: SNATCHBUCKLER’s SECOND CHANCE

– surprisingly good grades for the new experimental home page feature: DAILY GRACE from Grace Helbig….they like you! they really like you! – cautions for us not to overproduce or muck it up were heard

– lower grades for Andy Milonakis….hey Andy: the peops want MORE !

– suggestions went round a bit about a ‘point system’ for ‘super-users’ (more later)

– DEMAND FOR BETTER BRANDED USER PROFILES

– asks for more ‘behind the scenes’ with our artists/channels & a PRIVATE PHOTOSHOP LESSON WITH DONNIE HOYLE if he ever comes back

– more later> THANKS as well to My Damn Channel humans: Paul Gallagher, Kim Brannon, Brad O’Farrell for making this happen

– Commercialus Interruptus gets pretty good grades with most able to swallow the new Google Adsense for Video for its relevance to the video you’re watching & for your ease at swatting away the flies for good with just one X off the ad.

– these lower third ads scored better than pre-roll – of course – but some are open to the reality of bringing in a few bucks this way – IF – the pre-rolls are no longer than :15 – and – if there’s a frequency cap so the same damn ad doesn’t keep returning during the same visit to our site

– email Maria@MyDamnChannel.com if you wanna be a future CO-CON

TIME MAGAZINE

Matt Bledsoe & Troy Hitch

We’re launching our newest MY DAMN CHANNEL series today from the men who brought you “You Suck at Photoshop” (YSAP). Big Fat Brain is: Matt (Bledsoe) & Troy (Hitch) – one vowel away from South Park and please add Amy Austin to your consciousness – since every male lobe needs a brilliant woman behind them…or something like that. 

YSAP is nominated twice by the WEBBY AWARDS for Best Comedy Series and for Best How-To Series.
7 WEBBY nods in all, for our artists & our site.

From Genesis to Revelation & from “YSAP” to “Sn4tchbuck3r’s Second Chance”

Here’s the first exclusive interview with Big Fat Brain by TIME magazine’s Josh Quittner 

 

FAREWELL TO DANNY

This eulogy was delivered by Bruce Springsteen at Danny’s funeral on April 21 in Red Bank, New Jersey:

FAREWELL TO DANNY

 

Let me start with the stories.

Back in the days of miracles, the frontier days when “Mad Dog” Lopez and his temper struck fear into the band, small club owners, innocent civilians and all women, children and small animals.

Back in the days when you could still sign your life away on the hood of a parked car in New York City.

Back shortly after a young red-headed accordionist struck gold on the Ted Mack Amateur Hour and he and his mama were sent to Switzerland to show them how it’s really done.

Back before beach bums were featured on the cover of Time magazine.

I’m talking about back when the E Street Band was a communist organization! My pal, quiet, shy Dan Federici, was a one-man creator of some of the hairiest circumstances of our 40 year career… And that wasn’t easy to do. He had “Mad Dog” Lopez to compete with…. Danny just outlasted him.

Maybe it was the “police riot” in Middletown, New Jersey. A show we were doing to raise bail money for “Mad Log” Lopez who was in jail in Richmond, Virginia, for having an altercation with police officers who we’d aggravated by playing too long. Danny allegedly knocked over our huge Marshall stacks on some of Middletown’s finest who had rushed the stage because we broke the law by…playing too long.

As I stood there watching, several police oficers crawled out from underneath the speaker cabinets and rushed away to seek medical attention. Another nice young officer stood in front of me onstage waving his nightstick, poking and calling me nasty names. I looked over to see Danny with a beefy police officer pulling on one arm while Flo Federici, his first wife, pulled on the other, assisting her man in resisting arrest.

A kid leapt from the audience onto the stage, momentarily distracting the beefy officer with the insults of the day. Forever thereafter, “Phantom” Dan Federici slipped into the crowd and disappeared.

A warrant out for his arrest and one month on the lam later, he still hadn’t been brought to justice. We hid him in various places but now we had a problem. We had a show coming at Monmouth College. We needed the money and we had to do the gig. We tried a replacement but it didn’t work out. So Danny, to all of our admiration, stepped up and said he’d risk his freedom, take the chance and play.

Show night. 2,000 screaming fans in the Monmouth College gym. We had it worked out so Danny would not appear onstage until the moment we started playing. We figured the police who were there to arrest him wouldn’t do so onstage during the show and risk starting another riot.

Let me set the scene for you. Danny is hiding, hunkered down in the backseat of a car in the parking lot. At five minutes to eight, our scheduled start time, I go out to whisk him in. I tap on the window.

“Danny, come on, it’s time.”

I hear back, “I’m not going.”

Me: “What do you mean you’re not going?”

Danny: “The cops are on the roof of the gym. I’ve seen them and they’re going to nail me the minute I step out of this car.”

As I open the door, I realize that Danny has been smoking a little something and had grown rather paranoid. I said, “Dan, there are no cops on the roof.”

He says, “Yes, I saw them, I tell you. I’m not coming in.”

So I used a procedure I’d call on often over the next forty years in dealing with my old pal’s concerns. I threatened him…and cajoled. Finally, out he came. Across the parking lot and into the gym we swept for a rapturous concert during which we laughted like thieves at our excellent dodge of the local cops.

At the end of the evening, during the last song, I pulled the entire crowd up onto the stage and Danny slipped into the audience and out the front door. Once again, “Phantom” Dan had made his exit. (I still get the occasional card from the old Chief of Police of Middletown wishing us well. Our histories are forever intertwined.) And that, my friends, was only the beginning.

There was the time Danny quit the band during a rough period at Max’s Kansas City, explaining to me that he was leaving to fix televisions. I asked him to think about that and come back later.

Or Danny, in the band rental car, bouncing off several parked cars after a night of entertainment, smashing out the windshield with his head but saved from severe injury by the huge hard cowboy hat he bought in Texas on our last Western swing.

Or Danny, leaving a large marijuana plant on the front seat of his car in a tow away zone. The car was promptly towed. He said, “Bruce, I’m going to go down and report that it was stolen.” I said, “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

Down he went and straight into the slammer without passing go.

Or Danny, the only member of the E Street Band to be physically thrown out of the Stone Pony. Considering all the money we made them, that wasn’t easy to do.

Or Danny receiving and surviving a “cautionary assault” from an enraged but restrained “Big Man” Clarence Clemons while they were living together and Danny finally drove the “Big Man” over the big top.

Or Danny assisting me in removing my foot from his stereo speaker after being the only band member ever to drive me into a violent rage.

And through it all, Danny played his beautiful, soulful B3 organ for me and our love grew. And continued to grow. Life is funny like that. He was my homeboy, and great, and for that you make considerations… And he was much more tolerant of my failures than I was of his.

When Danny wasn’t causing chaos, he was a sweet, talented, unassuming, unpretentious good-hearted guy who simply had an unchecked ability to make good fortune and things in general go fabulously wrong.

But beyond all of that, he also had a mountain of the right stuff. He had the heart and soul of an engineer. He learned to fly. He was always up on the latest technology and would explain it to you patiently and in enormous detail. He was always “souping” something up, his car, his stereo, his B3. When Patti joined the band, he was the most welcoming, thoughtful, kindest friend to the first woman entering our “boys club.”

He loved his kids, always bragging about Jason, Harley, and Madison, and he loved his wife Maya for the new things she brought into his life.

And then there was his artistry. He was the most intuitive player I’ve ever seen. His style was slippery and fluid, drawn to the spaces the other musicians in the E Street Band left. He wasn’t an assertive player, he was a complementary player. A true accompanist. He naturally supplied the glue that bound the band’s sound together. In doing so, he created for himself a very specific style. When you hear Dan Federici, you don’t hear a blanket of sound, you hear a riff, packed with energy, flying above everything else for a few moments and then gone back in the track. “Phantom” Dan Federici. Now you hear him, now you don’t.

Offstage, Danny couldn’t recite a lyric or a chord progression for one of my songs. Onstage, his ears opened up. He listened, he felt, he played, finding the perfect hole and placement for a chord or a flurry of notes. This style created a tremendous feeling of spontaneity in our ensemble playing.

In the studio, if I wanted to loosen up the track we were recording, I’d put Danny on it and not tell him what to play. I’d just set him loose. He brought with him the sound of the carnival, the amusements, the boardwalk, the beach, the geography of our youth and the heart and soul of the birthplace of the E Street Band.

Then we grew up. Very slowly. We stood together through a lot of trials and tribulations. Danny’s response to a mistake onstage, hard times, catastrophic events was usually a shrug and a smile. Sort of an “I am but one man in a raging sea, but I’m still afloat. And we’re all still here.”

I watched Danny fight and conquer some tough addictions. I watched him struggle to put his life together and in the last decade when the band reunited, thrive on sitting in his seat behind that big B3, filled with life and, yes, a new maturity, passion for his job, his family and his home in the brother and sisterhood of our band.

Finally, I watched him fight his cancer without complaint and with great courage and spirit. When I asked him how things looked, he just said, “what are you going to do? I’m looking forward to tomorrow.” Danny, the sunny side up fatalist. He never gave up right to the end.

A few weeks back we ended up onstage in Indianapolis for what would be the last time. Before we went on I asked him what he wanted to play and he said, “Sandy.” He wanted to strap on the accordion and revisit the boardwalk of our youth during the summer nights when we’d walk along the boards with all the time in the world.

So what if we just smashed into three parked cars, it’s a beautiful night! So what if we’re on the lam from the entire Middletown police department, let’s go take a swim! He wanted to play once more the song that is of course about the end of something wonderful and the beginning of something unknown and new.

Let’s go back to the days of miracles. Pete Townshend said, “a rock and roll band is a crazy thing. You meet some people when you’re a kid and unlike any other occupation in the whole world, you’re stuck with them your whole life no matter who they are or what crazy things they do.”

If we didn’t play together, the E Street Band at this point would probably not know one another. We wouldn’t be in this room together. But we do… We do play together. And every night at 8 p.m., we walk out on stage together and that, my friends, is a place where miracles occur…old and new miracles. And those you are with, in the presence of miracles, you never forget. Life does not separate you. Death does not separate you. Those you are with who create miracles for you, like Danny did for me every night, you are honored to be amongst.

Of course we all grow up and we know “it’s only rock and roll”…but it’s not. After a lifetime of watching a man perform his miracle for you, night after night, it feels an awful lot like love.

So today, making another one of his mysterious exits, we say farewell to Danny, “Phantom” Dan, Federici. Father, husband, my brother, my friend, my mystery, my thorn, my rose, my keyboard player, my miracle man and lifelong member in good standing of the house rockin’, pants droppin’, earth shockin’, hard rockin’, booty shakin’, love makin’, heart breakin’, soul cryin’… and, yes, death defyin’ legendary E Street Band.

(video tribute to Danny at www.BruceSpringsteen.net)

HIRED GUNS

Heaven moved on Earth Day
The ‘Damned’ were blessed
Our voice grew stronger
Our feet moved faster
Shiny new bullets inside a happy, warm gun  

RIFFS

• Daily Grace – our new homepage feature from Grace Helbig – & we’re turning over more DAMN to you – want sum? – email Grace@MyDamnChannel.com & say whatcha watcha watcha want on this site.

• THE ALPHAS will change the game…Harry Shearer already has…

Hillary & Barack look like they’re both about to puke if the campaign goes another day

• Fri 4/25 opens up a new chapter in the book of “DONNIE” – amen

• Danny Federici is the newest member of God’s best band
  
• Steven shrunk smaller
  
• HORRIBLE PEOPLE made history
  
• Coolio uses too much balsamic
  
• The Carnival needs more stuff
  
• Was (Not Was) is coming to YOUR TOWN
  
• Andy Milonakis is going to turn up da juice
  
• Wainy Days – season 3 – is coming in JUNE
  

HEADLINING VEGAS

Thanks to the NAB and especially to Ashley Howell, Chris Marlowe, and Rochelle Winters for inviting us to present in Vegas yesterday. Thanks to Jon Healey from the LA Times for moderating – and to Harry Shearer & Andy Milonakis for making the trip.

We filled a room of about 350-400 humans and started by showing a few of our original videos.  Fun seeing hundreds LOL at YSAP – up on a huge megascreen – and cool to see a crowd feel the bass of music produced by Don Was.

Harry Shearer made news – announcing “THE ALPHAS” – a project he’s been developing for 10 years – and the most ambitious new work making its way to My Damn Channel.

“THE ALPHAS” is motion-capture animation of the highest quality (Beowulf) – done in the fastest turnaround ever achieved (less than 5 day production cycles). Here’s more:

Imagine seeing the best-known people in politics and the media, every week, in hilariously private situations.  Not actors in makeup, but what looks and sounds like the real President, candidates, anchors, and the rest. That’s the idea behind “The Alphas”, a revolutionary new concept in topical sketch comedy.  Written and performed by Harry Shearer, who’s notched more than two decades as a creator of topical satire on his weekly public radio broadcast, “Le Show”, along with two memorable seasons on “Saturday Night Live”, “The Alphas” includes no makeup, no celebrity cameos.  Instead, utlizing a trio of cutting-edge motion-capture technologies–harnessed for the first time to a “week-of-air” production schedule, “The Alphas” features startlingly realistic computer-animated versions of the movers, shakers and yakkers.  They’re not lifelike–thanks to the technology and Shearer’s performances, they’re alive.  And every week, they’re deftly and drolly revealed for all their pretensions, resentments, jealousies and anxieties–all the good stuff, online just days after production.

Here’s the first news coverage from the LA Times and the Digital Content Producer Magazine with thanks for the ‘ink’ & correction to Michael Goldman.

THE FILTER

Peter Gabriel’s filter

The rock star hopes to shock Amazon with a new web-based recommendation service.

 

By Devin Leonard, senior writer

(Fortune) — There’s a reason Peter Gabriel is a household name. One of the founders of the super-group Genesis, the British rock star went on to have great success as a solo artist known for his outlandish costumes, his cutting edge music videos, and of course, his ’80s hits like “Sledgehammer” and “Shock The Monkey,” which were both artistic and commercial milestones.

What’s less known is that the 58-year-old Gabriel has done rather well since then as a digital media entrepreneur. In 2000, he co-founded OD2, which quickly became the leading European digital music provider with clients like Nokia and MSN. OD2’s owners reportedly later sold the company for an estimated $20 million.

Okay, so Sammy Hagar reportedly sold a majority stake in his tequila business for four times that amount last year. But now Gabriel has a new business that’s potentially much bigger. On Tuesday, he and a new group of partners launch the private-beta version of a web-based service called The Filter that will sort through the vast inventory of content on the Internet and recommend songs, movies, television show and web videos to its users. In May, The Filter website will be open to the public.

Ultimately, Gabriel and his partners in his Bath, England-based company have a grander vision for the Filter than telling you that if you like Sammy Hager, you might also like Van Halen’s earlier stuff with David Lee Roth. They hope you’ll one day be able to log in and find the perfect place to dine on your upcoming trip to, say, Barcelona — and a suggestion for the right clothes to wear on your night out. Now that sounds like something an art rocker like Peter Gabriel would go for — as opposed to a night of tequila swilling at Hagar’s nightclub in Mexico.

Gabriel put up $8.5 million along with England’s Eden Ventures to start The Filter because he fears that people are being overwhelmed by the web. “Everyone got really excited about the concept of infinite choice through the Internet,” he says. “The reality is a little like getting a sore thumb with your remote on your television. Too much choice is not always a good thing.”

He describes the solution to this machine-age dilemma in the sort of terms you might expect from a thinking man’s rock star. “My friend [recording studio guru to Talking Heads, U2 and Coldplay] Brian Eno has been going on for some time about the increasingly important role of the curator over the creator,” Gabriel explains. “In many ways, the disc jockey has become as important as the musician, which is one of the best illustrations of that. I would like a life jockey as well as a disc jockey.”

The Filter’s founders say their service could play that role nicely, claiming its recommendation engine is more sophisticated than anything else on the market. Unlike competing services, the Filter doesn’t rely on the ratings that people assign to songs or movies online. It determines its users tastes by observing what they actually do with these items on the Internet.

The engine is particularly interested if someone buys a song, streams it or clicks on a related link. “We like to get real evidence of people’s tastes,” says Martin Hopkins, co-founder of The Filter and creator of its recommendation technology.

Hopkins also notes that The Filter’s engine doesn’t push people choices based on what they bought years ago. It slowly forgets what it learned because peoples’ tastes change. Don’t you wish Amazon’s (AMZN, Fortune 500) service did the same?

Gabriel and his partners hope to generate revenue at The Filter by selling advertising. They also hope to license their technology to other digital media companies. The company already provides recommendations to the users of its former OD2 customers like MSN (MSFT, Fortune 500) and Nokia (NOK). That’s why the service launches with a database of over 50 million transactions from which to make suggestions.

It’s a long leap from recommending music to choosing their restaurants in foreign cities. Still, the idea is intriguing. Gabriel isn’t just taking about this either. He’s putting up a lot of money to make it happen. “This is definitely something that’s worth watching,” says Gartner analyst Mike McGuire who, like Fortune, was briefed by The Filter before the private beta launch.

As you might expect, Gabriel is in the studio working on new music, too. He owes one more album to EMI. After that, he plans to release his music on his own a la Radiohead. The graying rocker is thrilled that the Internet is giving artists a new means of distributing their music — especially the ones who couldn’t get a record deal even in the industry’s better days. “I like it that the inmates are running the asylum,’ says Gabriel.

This, of course means more choices for those overwhelmed consumers that Gabriel is so concerned about. All the more reason for his new company, right? No wonder he’s so pleased.  

First Published: April 15, 2008: 4:21 AM EDT\

If you’ve made it this far…..here’s a gift from a time when a music video could give you a free therapy session better than the Sopranos.

 

TRUSTING TALENT pt. 3

We built My Damn Channel with a few of patron saints in mind. Johnny Rotten is usually painted by critics with such a simple brush. Most miss the point. John may often be brutal – but he’s alway honest. 

During the “Rotten TV” run, we walked the red carpet, as a goof on the way into that year’s VH1 Fashion Awards. Out of the corner of his eye, John spotted four important looking humans standing a few feet away from all the action, surveying the scene.

“Who are they!?” – he challenged….  I looked over my shoulder to see Sumner Redstone, flanked by Tom Freston, Judy McGrath & John Sykes.  “Don’t – just don’t,” was my hapless request, knowing full well I was screwed.  Rotten headed straight for Sumner. He grabbed his hand first. Then he shook the rest & asked the group one simple question: “How much money are you lot all making on this tonight?”

As we turned to walk on, Freston grabbed my arm and offered, “I love that show.”  It was one of the moments that was supposed to go horribly wrong, and somehow went surprisingly well. Probably just luck.

As we head to Vegas to try to haplessly explain why My Damn Channel trusts our talent – here are a few of our gold-plated rules – we’ll think of a few more before tomorrow’s event – Wed 4/16 – 2pm – here:

Never lie
Don’t hold back bad news
Don’t use ‘creative input’ as an excuse for ‘J J” (Job Justification)
Make decisive decisions
Never bait & switch 
Communicate constantly
Avoid the ‘handlers’ – go direct
Be specific
Move fast – no waiting
Work the press
Pay on time – every time
Pick up the check – almost every time