HeadCount Blog

Stewart Butterworth, who accidentally helped invent Flickr in 2003 when his company’s socially interactive online pursuit Game Neverending didn’t work out, started his career in computing like many a lad, according to this Globe and Mail piece:

At the University of Victoria, where he did his undergrad in philosophy with a focus on neuropsychology, cognitive science and linguistics – the workings of the mind – he got an account on the school’s Unix server, basically geek heaven. He was also a big Phish fan and connected with other lovers of the jam band to trade tapes. “That seemed to be the principal application” of the Web, Mr. Butterfield joked.

Butterworth went on to sell Flickr to Yahoo for $30 million, and worked there for a few years until entrepreneurialism called him back.

His well-funded Canadian company, Tiny Speck, is cooking up something that sounds even cooler: a massive, multiplayer, socially interactive online game they hope will appeal to everyone from kids to grandparents. Yeah, I know. But it’s hard not to get excited about something described like this:

Inspired in part by the artistry and sensibilities of writers Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss) and Jorge Luis Borges, Mr. Butterfield says Tiny Speck’s goal is to create a “fun and really interesting world with its own rules, absurdist and strange but fully realized, if imaginary.”

Sounds a bit Gamehenge-y to me.

After reading Debra’s great post on the federal investigation of Gibson Guitars’ Nashville factory for violating the Lacy Act, I remembered watching an episode of “Big Ideas for a Small Planet” on the Sundance Channel that focused on the art of sustainable guitar making. While guitars aren’t the biggest threat to our forests, without sustainable practices guitar companies may find themselves running out of wood. The special focused on Martin Guitars and interviewed the company’s CEO Chris Martin. I couldn’t find a clip from “Big Ideas” but did find a short clip from “Eco Biz” (above).

Martin Guitars, along with Taylor, Gibson, Yamaha, and Fender have all teamed up with Greenpeace to form the Music Wood Campaign.

The Greenpeace Music Wood Campaign is partnering with the music industry to protect threatened forest habitats and safeguard the future of the trees critical to making musical instruments. We are working together to increase the availability of traditional woods used by musical instrument manufacturers that can be certified to the exacting management standards of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and demonstrating, one species at a time, that there is a strong and growing market for well-managed, FSC certified wood.

Television personalities Stephanie Pratt (left), Ben Gleib and Aisha Taylor were among the faces at HeadCount’s first ever fundraiser in Los Angeles, the “Rock. Laugh. Dance” party at the House of Blues on Sunset Strip. It was quite the L.A. welcome.

Also on hand were Wayne Kramer of the MC5, “American Pie” star Jason Biggs, and representatives of Live Nation, Creative Artists Agency, and Red Light Management. Most important, it was an occasion for the HeadCount leadership to meet members of the Southern California philanthropic and political communities.

We enjoyed hilarious stand-up comedy from Ben Gleib and Aisha Taylor. In an unexpected twist, comic Ben Morrison was on hand to warm up the crowd with a few minutes of his own standup. Ben, we realized pretty quickly, was the same comic who emceed the Disco Biscuits’ 2003 New Year’s Eve show and was pelted with ice by an impatient audience. As he recounted the story, this time he was greeted only by laughs – the loudest being from HeadCount co-chair Marc Brownstein.

The evening ended with a performance by local rocker Samantha Mollen and DJ Racebanner.

We’d like to thank our sponsor Livity Outernational, the House of Blues, Courtney Ross-Tait, Keely Field, Alex De Ocampo, and all the wonderful people who helped us put together this outstanding event.

Co-host Keely Field and actor/comedian Ben Gleib

Maura Foster of Livity Outernational and actor Jason Biggs

Last week the number crunchers at Overthinking It produced this chart correlating the production of oil with creativity in rock. According to “The Hubbert Peak Theory of Rock, or, Why We’re All Out of Good Songs,” rock creativity topped out relatively soon after U.S. oil production (at least in the lower 48 states) – at least according to Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Based on the assumption that Rolling Stone’s collective critics know whereof they picked, it’s a depressing chart that penalizes new music simply for being, well, new. On the other hand, they don’t call it “classic rock” for nothing. And those early rock hits were all originally released on vinyl, which is made from oil, so…

Underwhelmed by this coincidence, I poked around for other unorthodox musical indicators. According to the Wave Principle developed by Socionomic Institute Executive Director Robert R. Prechter, society’s general mood causes trends in popular music that are also reflected in the stock market. As this clip from the institute’s self-produced movie, History’s Hidden Engine, indicates, a positive social environment leads to happier, more upbeat sounds. So the pop, bubble gum, and British invasion sounds that followed the market’s rise in the late sixties gave way to the hard rock, heavy metal, and punk rock of the late seventies when it declined. Pop, disco, and dance music rose during the eighties and nineties and, presumably were replaced by hard rock, gangsta rap, and emo after the downturn of 2002.

The Socionomic Institute argues that all aspects of society are in accord with the Wave Principle, which follows a fractal model. “This is not a coincidence,” says Prechter. “This is the entertainment industry giving the public what it wants, when it wants it.” People want to wear colorful clothes, shake their booty, and buy stocks in good social mood. When things are grimmer, like now, not so much.

The slightly weird part is how the Wave Theory aligns with late psychdelic guru Terence McKenna’s Timewave Zero. Inspired by a meeting with a remarkable mushroom, McKenna’s theory is based on the I Ching and postulates that a steadily increasing rate of novelty, either on Earth or in the space-time continuum as a whole, will eventually reaching a singularity of infinite complexity in December 2012. And as many current 2012 hucksters realize, that’s snake oil you can take to the bank.

The Socionomic Institute also believes anti-drug laws in the US tend to coincide with high share prices, and legalisation with low — good news for the legalize-it crowd. Alcohol was legalized just as the Depression bottomed out and, according to Socionomics researcher Euan Wilson, “The current mood is very similar to the 1930s.” We look forward to the screwball comedies, big-band dance music, and legal bong hits that await us.

Last week the American Medical Association (AMA) announced its support of moving marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule II status. The AMA has refused to budge on this for decades, and opponents of marijuana law reform often cite the organization’s stance as an argument that marijuana should remain illegal.

The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), which has used the AMA’s stance in just such a manner, has yet to comment on the AMA’s suggestion. Yesterday, however, the agency removed that particular bulletpoint from its list of reasons why pot should remain illegal.

The change can probably be attributed to Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), a group of police officers, judges, lawyers, and many other law-enforcement officials who oppose drug prohibition. LEAP organized a letter-writing campaign to Attorney General Eric Holder requesting the site be updated.

One question, though: If the DEA were truly transparent, as it claims to be, wouldn’t it not only remove the previous AMA position but replace it with the association’s new stance?

Federal agents raided Gibson Guitars‘ Nashville factory yesterday, seizing wood, guitars, computers and files. Sources told the Nashville Post that Gibson is suspected of violating the Lacey Act by helping to illegally import Madagascar rosewood into the U.S. via Germany.

Clearcut logging has destroyed thousands of acres of lemur habitat unique to the island, threatening the animal with extinction. Scott Paul, director of Greenpeace’s forest campaign, defended the company’s record to The Tennessean, saying, “Historically, Gibson has shown an awful lot of leadership; they are one of the manufacturers far ahead of the field.” The raid, he says, “proves that even if you’re very serious about buying only certified, well-managed supplies, it’s still possible to get caught up….There are a lot of middle men between the guitar manufacturer and the company that is logging the ground [and] a lot of people who are not that honest in the timber business worldwide.”

Madagascar, an island off the east coast of Africa, is home to 47 types of rosewood and a uniquely diverse blend of plants and animals found nowhere else in the world. This includes 88 species of lemur, an animal the Malagasy people have traditionally regarded as sacred. Rosewood sells for $5,000 per cubic meter. Despite strong opposition from environmental groups, the new president of the financially strapped nation, Andry Rajoelina, issued an executive order in September legalizing the export of rosewood and ebony. Read the rest of this entry »

I have seen the future of entertainment a few times already this millennium.

1. The Simpsons Ride. Just do it.

2. On August 15, 2004, I watched Phish’s emotionally wrenching Coventry swan song in Manhattan’s Regal Union Square Cinema, where it was simulacast. I’ve seen Metropolitan Opera simulcasts since then at the same theater, but they hold no candle to the sturm and drang of that weird and grim August day. Unlike the live audience, I was warm, dry, and clean. I was also a little boozy from beers consumed during setbreaks, when the audience shuffled out into the streets only to return for more dark musical drama played out in intense video closeups and pristine digital sound. This wasn’t only the next best thing to being in Vermont, it was in many ways so much better. Simulcast performances seemed the wave of the future that weekend. I still don’t know why they haven’t caught on.

3. For music fans averse to large crowds, simulcast seems the way to go. The only thing that would make it better, I discovered last year while watching U2 3D would be an extra dimension. The world’s first live-action digital 3D film, U2 3D was shot by 3ality (whose owners include HeadCount board member Peter Shapiro). I don’t love U2’s bombast rock but the movie blew me away anyway through sheer spectacle alone. Why can’t all concert films look like this? Maybe it was a tad cold and removed, but it certainly beat standing among 100,000 people in a South America soccer stadium (even though they seemed to be the 100,000 most attractive people in the world). Subsequent 3D concert films include Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: The Best of Both Worlds and The Jonas Brother: The 3D Concert Experience, which were also released in 2D. Read the rest of this entry »