SPOTLIGHT: Call To Action Music Videos
Current research shows that the numbers of Americans who are watching and sharing videos online via sites like YouTube and Vimeo has more than doubled over the last 5 years to a whopping 71 percent. Watching videos online now outranks social networking, online banking and other activities as the most frequent online activity.
As new features and capabilities are being added to video sharing sites including the ability to sell music, merch, tickets and more, it is clear the potential impact call to action music videos can have in raising awareness, generating funds or promoting action for a cause or issue an artist cares about–while at the same time promoting an artist’s music and brand.
Tips for Musicians Navigating the Health Insurance World
ATC recently came upon this guest post with some great information for musicians looking for best practices on finding health care coverage. The post’s author, Dennis Carlson, runs Bespoke Benefits, an insurance agency in Davis, California as well as Gaslight-East, an artist development and licensing company.
Using his direct knowledge of the complexities of both the health insurance industry and the music business, Dennis put together a list of some of his best tips and tricks. While they provide no guarantee of getting coverage – they do provide some very helpful guidance and direction for navigating the health insurance world.
LILITH FAIR: VETTING BENEFICIARY ORGANIZATIONS FOR TICKET SURCHARGE
Lilith Fair will be donating a $1 from every ticket to a local charity in each city the festival stops in.
Vetting the charities can be challenging and Lilith Fair is facing some scrutiny for a few of their choices.
The Chicago Reader reports:
”After becoming a fan of the fest on its official Facebook page, people can vote for which organization in their town they want Lilith’s bucks to benefit. The pulldown menu includes about ten choices for most cities, most of them women’s shelters or health centers for the underserved, with a synopsis of the services each offers.
MUSICIANS RESPOND TO HEALTH CARE REFORM BILL
Paste magazine published a series of musician responses to the recent Health Care Reform Bill. Some artists we have worked with are quoted in the article.
From PasteMagazine.com
Nellie McKay: “Well, it’s something. We need a public option. We don’t need mandatory payments to some of the worst corporations on Earth. The President’s support of abortion restrictions is deceptively benign; Obama, why is it always poor women who pay the price? Reform represents a hard-won step in the right direction. But to quote Dave Chappelle, ‘Where would a black man be without his paranoia?’ We are right to be paranoid when something like health care is in the hands of people who are only motivated by profit.”
HAITI UPDATE: TWO MONTHS LATER & HOW YOU CAN HELP
An informative editorial in today’s New York Times outlines the current status of the relief efforts and the major players.
It highlights the very small dent that has been made in the on-going relief efforts and what is still required.
The NY Times Editorial states:
”There are four main strands to the campaign to make sure 1.2 million homeless people are sheltered and safe as the weather turns fierce. All are inadequate…
CHILE 8.8 EARTHQUAKE
Six weeks after the devastation in Haiti, another deadly earthquake has struck Chile. Here is the update from our colleagues at Music for Relief:
Very early on Saturday the 27th of February 2010, an 8.8 magnitude earthquake struck Chile, approx. 56 miles Northeast of the city of Concepcion (population 670,000), followed by hundreds of aftershocks and a tsunami which claimed over 800 lives. The government of Chile has reported that over 2 million people have been affected. Hundreds of thousands of homes have been destroyed as well as highways, bridges and other infrastructure. The extent of damage is still difficult to determine. As with most earthquakes, we expect to see immediate needs for food, water, temporary shelter, medical services and emotional support. Although this was a larger earthquake, since Chile is a developed country with a very capable government it is unlikely that this situation will be as severe as the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake last month.
HAITI AID: RECOMMENDED ORGS FOR MUSICIANS + FANS AND HOW WE SELECT THEM
ATC’s suggestions are the result of talking with disaster philanthropy experts and reviewing what worked and didn’t in previous disaster efforts by musicians.
We focused on those organizations that have a long-standing presence in Haiti, and were focused on poverty and health infrastructure (important for both relief and rebuilding). An added bonus were several have worked with our musicians in the past (Oxfam + Yele). Also, Yele can receive gift via mobile for musicians in a concert setting when people aren’t in front of their computers but motivated to give on-the-spot.
HAITI EARTHQUAKE DISASTER RELIEF>> WHAT YOU CAN DO NOW
Immediate Support: Established disaster recovery organizations and national governments have been mobilized. These organizations are also raising funds for relief efforts:
Oxfam: www.oxfam.org
Click here to donate.
Doctors Without Borders: www.doctorswithoutborders.org
Click here to donate.
Wyclef Jean’s Yele Foundation: www.yele.org
Click here to donate.
Long-term Support: Crucial recovery and rebuilding efforts are always under funded in comparison to immediate relief efforts. ATC will continue to research and resource the music community with organizations and projects working on long-term recovery efforts that have a long-standing, grassroots presence in Haiti. Here are three that have distributed staff in the country now and are well positioned to aid in the long-term recovery effort.
ATC’S RECOMMENDED NON-PROFITS FOR 2009 HOLIDAY GIVING
ATC’s recommended non-profits for giving include: Sweet Home New Orleans, The Roots of Music, Jail Guitar Doors, Energy Action Coalition, Students for a Free Tibet, Innocence Project, DonorsChoose, Future of Music, Heifer International and more…
Below is a list of ATC’s recommended non-profits for the 2009 holiday giving season. Please let us know if you have any questions. Happy Holidays from the ATC staff!
Arts Corps
Arts Corps is Seattle’s largest nonprofit arts organization working to inspire creative habits in young people through a passionate corps of teaching artists. They hire professional teaching artists who work with a variety of art disciplines and place them in school and after-school sites in the area. They have also been picked to lead the MusicianCorps Seattle pilot.
MUSIC SAVES MOUNTAINS
Country singers and other musicians including Sheryl Crow, Emmylou Harris, Kathy Mattea and Big Kenny band together to stop mountaintop removal coal mining.
Music Saves Mountains is an artists’ initiative sponsored by the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Gibson Foundation intended to help protect the Appalachian mountains from a form of strip mining called mountaintop removal.
The campaigns slogan “Let’s keep the ‘country’ in country music” speaks to the close connection that many country singers have to the songs, both new and old, written about or in the region.
THE ONLY REPUBLICAN TO VOTE FOR HEALTH CARE IS FROM NOLA
This weekend, when the U.S. House voted on their version of the Health Care Reform Bill, only one Republican out of 177 crossed party lines to support it: Rep. Anh Cao from New Orleans district.
When asked why he voted in favor of the bill Rep. Cao said he, “had to make a decision of conscience based on the needs of the people in my district.”
END THE NEED FOR BENEFIT CONCERTS – CHICAGO TRIBUNE
Nan Warshaw, Bloodshot Records co-founder, and Alex Maiolo, project coordinator for HINT atFuture of Music Coalition (FMC), wrote a perspective piece for the Chicago Tribune about health care and the impact the current system has on musicians.
Citing a 2003 FMC survey that found 45% of musicians surveyed did not have health care coverage, Warshaw and Maiolo point out the “tired tune” of musicians constantly performing benefits for their sick peers.
They go on to point out how the American tradition and culture of entrepreneurship is greatly compromised when individuals must choose between a job with health coverage or the danger of none at all.
CALIFORNIA RESTORES STATE FUNDING FOR DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SHELTERS THANKS TO MOBY
The California Legislature recently voted in favor of restoring $16.3 million of funding to domestic-violence shelters.
This came after Moby announced that he would donate profits from his California shows to affected shelters and rallied support to restore the funds Governor Schwarzenegger voted to cut.
August Brown recently reported for the L.A. Times:
“It was such an insignificant amount of money, it felt like somebody was going out of their way to be mean-spirited,” he said, from his dressing room before his show Wednesday night at the Wiltern. “The people that use their services are the most disenfranchised of the disenfranchised. If these shelters are open, people’s lives improve, and if they close, people die. There’s nothing abstract about it.”
LIVE EARTH + THE TIBETAN FREEDOM CONCERTS: MUSIC’S ABILITY TO INFLUENCE
A recent study on the impact of the 2007 Live Earth concerts may lead some to deduce that large-scale concerts have little influence in social change. ATC’s research and experience shows the opposite: when done right, concerts can be an extremely effective way to build movements.
A recent report on the public opinion impact of Live Earth, the environmental concerts from 2007, drew the conclusion that the event and campaign seemed to have “no immediate impact on American public opinion” on climate change, but that it “did reinforce and amplify attitudes about global warming amongst those watchers who were already concerned”. Cynics are likely to throw the baby out with the bathwater and say that mega-concerts or musicians cannot change how people think or act.
