And How Was YOUR Thanksgiving?

 
After a very interesting day on Friday, I have decided to remove the Listening Party feature completely from my website as well as rethink my commitment to That’s Country.

The day began quite normally with my resolve to catch up on posting the many albums that were coming up in the near future. I also had a couple of listening parties I needed to post as well. One of them was the new Billy Currington album, which I had permission to do. I had all of my posting done by 11 am, and quite pleased with myself, I went on to other tasks that needed my attention.

My “That’s Country” line rang at about 2:30 and that’s when I should have just let the machine pick up! Of course I didn’t, and the fun began. The call was from someone called Michael from Universal Music demanding to know who gave me permission to post the Billy Currington Listening Party and whether I had streaming rights for it. I should have just taken his words calmly and tried to reason with him, but you know I didn’t. Like a bull in a china shop, I felt threatened and I charged ahead! Assuming the guy who gave me permission to do the listening party had made a mistake, I wasn’t about to hand this guy his head on a platter so I refused to tell him who gave me permission. The call ended with me telling the guy I would be taking Billy Currington down along with everything else Universal, said goodbye and hung up in his ear.

After I removed all the offending material from my website, I had sufficient cool-off time and thought that just because the guy on the other end of the phone had been an intimidating jerk, I should have remained cool, calm and collected. I decided to call him back and apologize for my unprofessional behaviour. I did a little research and found out the person was Michael Deputato who was the vice president of New Media at Universal Nashville. When I called back, I got his voicemail and left him a message basically letting him know that I should have handled the call in a more professional manner.

Shortly after I got a call from Mr. Deputato, apologizing for his gruffness and asking if we could start over. I’m not going to go into the whole call; just the most important points. He still wanted to know who had given me permission and after letting him know I didn’t want to have someone’s unemployment on my conscience, I let him know that I work with Universal people from all over two countries… Toronto, New York City, Nashville, Los Angeles and a few other places that I only had area codes for! After mentioning that he wasn’t aware of a country division in LA, I told him there definitely was and gave him the name of one of the guys I work with out there, also letting him know that LA wasn’t where I had gotten the permission. That was my next BIG mistake! He also let me know it was Billy Currington’s management who alerted him to the Listening Party in the first place and were jumping ten feet high about it.

The call ended with him telling me that I could put the Listening Party back up on the 14th, could continue streaming George Strait’s Christmas album and that we would be continuing our working relationship.

Not long after we had ended the call, he called back to ask what number of unique visitors I got a month on That’s Country. He also mentioned since I was in Canada, I should deal with the Canadian label. Interesting since almost 70% of my visitors are from the US and Canada doesn’t release everything the US does and a lot of the product is released at a later date than the US. I should have sensed what was to come…..

Next was a call from my LA guy letting me know everyone thought it was him who had given me the permission for the listening party. This was interesting since we were working on the “Toby Keith Takeover” and he had never even mentioned Billy Currington to me. We ended the call on a good note and I didn’t think too much more about it…..

Until Monday morning…..

My Thanksgiving Day turned into a disaster after I checked my email. Toby Keith’s “Love Me If you Can” video, which had been on YouTube for over a year, had been shut down by the label, claiming ownership of the video. Since I was working on Toby Keith material with Brian from LA, I phoned him and left a voicemail. This was unreal and all I had done was what I was given permission for! I went on YouTube and removed all of the videos Universal had sent me to post.

In the meantime, I still hadn’t heard from Brian and I was getting a little uneasy. He had asked me to do a contest, giving away an autographed Toby Keith guitar but now I didn’t want to take the chance of keeping the contest there and they didn’t come through with the prize. I didn’t hear back from Brian so I have taken the contest down. I apologize to all of you who took the time to enter the contest but I have a strange feeling that there won’t be a guitar at the end of this.

I have decided to reevaluate where I’m going with That’s Country. This episode has shown me, even though I have done nothing wrong ( I only followed directions), ultimately, I am the one who will suffer the consequences. I can close down the site and the only thing I will lose is…..

Absolutely NOTHING! Since about $150 every 3 months from Google Ads is my ONLY revenue, I am out of pocket on everything it takes to bring That’s Country to you. Contrary to what everyone thinks, the work I do for the labels is completely FREE! Running That’s Country isn’t. I pay out $300 monthly for my server, which I need to house That’s Country. I have equipment that needs frequent maintenance, which isn’t cheap. The only thing I will be out is the satisfaction I get from working on That’s Country. Since I broke my back in 1988, working on That’s Country is what’s kept me looking forward to tomorrow. Maybe I will even be able to afford to go to Myrtle Beach next October since I couldn’t this year!

Stay tuned… I’m sure there’s more!

 

Leaky Living Rooms, ETC.

I’m here to vent this time!  Since our move to Toronto 4 years ago, we have lived in this great penthouse apartment.  We thought it was a real find 4 years ago as it’s quite reasonably priced compared to other two-storey penthouse apartments with large decks.  We also enjoyed living here until last Spring, when a new property manager took over.

This new person (I’m trying to be kind) is so full of herself and is on some kind of superiority kick.  She allows none of her staff (who might I add are being turned over almost monthly) to make decisions on their own and everything has to go through her.  Any problems we’ve had since she came in the picture have taken a lot of stressful days until they were fixed.

Our latest problem is water literally pouring into our livingroom from the hot-water heating system we have.  The super was up to look at is last Thursday and said he would get someone to fix it.  Meanwhile, since he did nothing to contain the water, I ripped out the damaged flooring (parquet tiles) tried to dry what was there and placed a baking pan under the area where the water is leaking.  I change this every morning and I get about 3 – 4 cups of water.

Fast forward a week….  I’m still waiting for someone to come.  I have spoken to pretty near everyone at the property mgmt company and the reply is always, “We’ll try to get somewhere over to look at the problem.”  They don’t seem to think that water leaking out on the livingroom floor is a problem that needs to be dealt with.

Meanwhile, I am house-bound waiting for someone to come.  I know, they can come in to fix this themselves but since I have a lot of expensive equipment here and I don’t trust them as far as I can throw them, I am staying put.  I haven’t left the house in a week now!

Is anyone else having problems like this and how did you solve the problem…  besides moving, that is?  We will be retiring in maximum 5 years and just don’t want to move again until then.

 

Top 9 – Canadian Idol

Although I’m happy with the choice Canada made to get rid of Adam Castelli (I thought he was a good singer but too stiff onstage), I’m really frustrated at some of the past choices. 

Just the fact that Mark Day made it to the Top 10 irritates me to no end!  I feel like I’m reliving the Sanjaya craze!  Mark isn’t a bad singer but he’s not Idol material.  He’s so full of himself it’s not surprising to see him standing by himself at the end of the show when others are hugging and chatting.  He went over to the backup singers at the end of the show this past Monday and tried to do that hip swivel thing in front of them and the security told him to move back over with the other contestants.  He can thank the loyal east coasters for their votes although I really do think the sounds of the ocean must create tone deafness!

I was so sure Oliver and Omar would make it to the final 3 with Theo Tams.  Now if Theo doesn’t win the honors this year, I will be totally shocked at the Canadian voters (more than I am already!).  He is by far superior to anyone who has EVER graced the idol stage.  Even though country is my genre of choice, I will definitely buy any album Theo records in the future (and past albums if he has any).

I do think this year’s contestants have raised the bar though.  There are a lot of talented youngsters in this bunch.  Let’s just hope the talented ones outlast the clown(s)!

 

From the Mind of a Total Country Geek!

I finally came to the conclusion I should start a blog of my own…. not to copy and paste press releases but to actually express my own opinions and ideas!  This could actually be a very scary prospect because most of my friends have classified me as being VERY opinionated!

Since it’s been a long day, I’m going to cut this first session very short.

Last night marked the beginning of the third year I have been attending Canadian Idol as media.  I have regularily talked to the same security guard at the door for the last two years.  One thing that really bothers me is that she stands out there for hours (I got there at 3:30 this afternoon and left after 8:30 and she was still standing there.  I really do think they should make some kind of seating available for the guards at the doors.  Stools are great because they’re easy to get up from but they give the legs and back some relief.  I can’t imagine that she would be very quick at executing any kind of problem after standing in the same place for 8 hours.

That’s it!  I’m going to try and write something here every day so come back often.

PHOTO: Mona Brown and I with Zack Werner