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Month: February 2017

All Time Low’s Alex Gaskarth Talks Immigration Ban & ACLU T-Shirt Campaign

Jason Tate

All Time Low’s Alex Gaskarth talks with Billboard about the band releasing a t-shirt with the proceeds going to the ACLU and Trump’s immigration ban:

“But then Jack, our guitar player was born in Lebanon, born in the Middle East, which is even closer to this sweeping ban that is taking place. So it’s really close to home within the band,” he continues. “Jack’s parents both live in Lebanon, and it’s only a few degrees of separation between what is happening and directly affecting us. Then from there, we have friends and family who this is directly affecting who are devastated.”

It’s been great to see so many bands and artists speak up about this over the past week.

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Bill Simmons Talks About the First Year of the Ringer

The Ringer
Jason Tate

Recode sat down to talk with Bill Simmons about first year of The Ringer, ESPN, and his canceled HBO show:

We talked to Yahoo. We talked to Vice a little bit. But the thing about my ESPN experience — that I was terrified to replicate — was you align yourself with somebody — and really, you’re aligning yourself with one or two people — that just believes in you and your idea and what you do. If those people go away, or those people change, now you’re stuck with different people who might not believe in what you want to do. I just didn’t want to go through that again.

It sounds like his podcasting network, for the most part, is what’s bringing in the money while the website continues to find its footing. That fits my own habits: I don’t read the website at all, thought the TV show sucked, and listen to quite a few of the podcasts.1

  1. Although with the Patriots winning the Super Bowl that may make those unlistenable for a little while.↩

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An Update on Bandcamp’s ACLU Fundraising

Bandcamp
Jason Tate

Bandcamp has posted an update on their Friday fundraising for the ACLU:

With several hours remaining, we estimate that fans will have bought just over $1,000,000 worth of music today, which is 550% more than a normal Friday (already our biggest sales day of the week). All of our share of that (~12%) goes directly to the ACLU. The other 88% (less transaction fees) goes directly to the labels and artists, more than 400 of whom have pledged to donate their share of sales today as well.

Call Blockers for iOS

iPhone
Jason Tate

Marco:

When I learned about Nomorobo from readers and saw how creepy it wasn’t, I deleted Truecaller immediately and subscribed to Nomorobo, and it works great.

A few days ago, after a 100% success rate for a couple of weeks — every spam call (and zero non-spam calls) identified before I answer — I enabled the option to send spam calls directly to voicemail.

Now, from my point of view, I just don’t get spam calls anymore.

To me, that’s $2/month very well spent.

I must have been put on some list somewhere because I’ve been getting one or two robocalls a day for the past month.1 I finally signed up for Nomorobo after hearing Marco talk about it on the latest episode of ATP and it’s been money well spent.

  1. I love the fake “oh I was just putting my headset on” call the most.↩

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Sponsor: My Thanks to Tourvival

Tourvival
Sponsored Post

My thanks to Tourvival for sponsoring the website this week. Tourvival was founded by a husband and wife team that care deeply about music and DIY culture. The website is a new community for touring bands, promoters, and fans who want to volunteer. Bands can use Tourvival to ask for housing and other hospitality needs while on tour and get help with booking DIY shows. With ratings, reviews, and member verification built in — Tourvival makes it easier to tour in new places with confidence.

Read More “My Thanks to Tourvival”

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