Dave Menninger

My birthplace of Cincinnati, Ohio has a rich musical history centered around King Records, a tremendously influential record label founded in 1943 by Syd Nathan. King Records began as a hillbilly music label and eventually took a soulful turn into "race records." James Brown's career was launched at King. Other artists on the roster included Ralph Stanley, Hang Ballard, The Platters, the Dominoes, Memphis Slim, John Lee Hooker, and The Stanley Brothers. Almost forty years after King shut, the city is finally recognizing the label with, well, a plaque at the abandoned warehouse where the record plant once operated. Eventually though, a local group hopes to build a King Records Center complete with a working recording studio. My old friend John Curley, former Afghan Whigs bassist and music producer, has signed on to run the studio. Let's hope they can raise the dough to make it happen! The city's alt.weekly, CityBeat, has a feature on the label and the efforts to celebrate its importance. From Cincinnati CityBeat:

“What we’d want to do with the recording studio is provide opportunities for internships and workshops and do more community outreach to get kids interested in learning about recording, performance and all aspects of the music business,” Curley says...

Nathan died in 1968 and the label was sold, moving out of town as many studio musicians faded into clubs and other cities. A couple generations thus grew up with little local awareness of the studio.

Actually, the mainstream (white) media didn’t do much at the time to tout the studio’s work. Little attention was paid in the local media to King’s artistry, especially the R&B acts....

While Nathan was catering to niche audiences, he created a musical stew rarely replicated in the recording world. Black and white session players worked together in what was likely the only truly integrated business in Cincinnati of the ’50s. They often recorded a song with a Country artist, then did it again for the R&B market.

As (Cincinnatian) Bootsy Collins remembers, “He never had a neon sign out front. If you didn’t know it was King Records, you wouldn’t know it. He just wanted to get the music done and get it out. He wasn’t trying to be a star. He was like the man behind the camera. He just wanted to make the movie and make it happen.”

King Records celebrated in Cincinnati

Are you thinking about money this morning? That's what most people are doing--fretting over how much they have to spend and where they can find the best deals. Money should be the first thing on your mind today and, conversely, the last. In case you hadn't heard, Black Friday has an alter ego: Buy Nothing Day. It's a loosely organized event designed to help you unplug from money for a day. No transactions. No gifts. No buying gas. I like it an

The day after Thanksgiving, when I wake up from my Celebration Roast-induced food-coma, I'll be playing football in the park. But I know lots of people who will be hitting the stores to get a jump start on their holiday shopping.

Shopping on the day after Thanksgiving, a.k.a. "Black Friday," means you'll probably be waiting in line, sitting in traffic or dealing with "competitive" shoppers on a quest for this year's it item. (If you're reading this from abroad perhaps you might substitute "Boxing Day" for "Thanksgiving".)

Those who are deliberately deciding to skip Black Friday either wish to avoid this scene all together or want to step away from the consumerist carousal that the holiday season has become. For the latter category, the day after Thanksgiving is known as Buy Nothing Day, an informal day of protest against consumerism. Buy Nothing Day has been heavily promoted on the eye-catching pages of the anti-consumerist magazine Adbusters, but has been shunned from more corporate publications.

It's a tricky time of year for those of us who want to consume less, but still want to be respectful and reciprocal to those loved ones who insist on buying us presents. Also, this year is a different kind of tricky, as buying nothing means buying nothing from local, sustainable businesses who are already suffering from the economic downturn.

If you're taking this chance to cut back or go DIY, then I applaud you for it. But local businesses do need our support. So if you buy, buy local. And buy from local, independent producers who share your desire for responsibly produced products. (Note: as we've said before, just because it says local doesn't mean it is. Be sure to ask if a store or product meets your standards.)

Buying this way keeps more of your dollar circulating in your local economy, helping small businesses to keep their doors open and their employees paid. Loads of local business districts are currently campaigning to get people to spend their money where they live. Not only does it keep dollars invested in your community, but it also encourages the qualities that make dense environments exciting and livable.

So what do you think? Is it better to buy nothing or buy local?

Image credit:Sustainable Connections

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(Posted by Sarah Kuck in Business at 9:49 AM)

The Main branch of the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County has been officially ranked the busiest library building in the country, according to a report by the Public Library Association.

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“If I’d asked people what they wanted, they would have said ‘faster horses.’”

- Attributed to Henry Ford

So I walk all over these arrows and targets every day and never think twice...until...
Living in Someone's Game

I don't know why but this creeps me out a little bit. I followed it around downtown...it's really odd.

MAKE's put my latest column, "Selectable Output Control," online -- it describes a proposal to the FCC to allow broadcasters to shut down parts of your home theater while you're watching their channels, and the consequences for Makers.

Chances are, you haven't heard of Selectable Output Control (SOC), a proposed digital TV technology that would allow broadcasters or copyright holders to tag their video with a list of receiver-outputs that were allowed to carry it. That's because it's an insane idea.

Picture this: you power up your home theater, an near-incomprehensible tangle of game-consoles, AV switchers, cable boxes, PVRs, DVD players, 5.1 speakers, amps -- maybe a home theater PC or a projector, too. After some fiddling and locating the correct remote, you start to surf up the dial. All good. Then you hit MTV and the gorgeous, perfectly balanced sound stops. Why has it stopped? Because your cable-receiver has received a SOC flag from MTV disallowing high-end audio unless it has some obscure DRM that isn't compatible with any of your gear (especially not your beautiful hand-built tube-amp). MTV doesn't want you digitizing the songs that accompany the (increasingly rare) music videos they play, so if you want sound while watching MTV, you've got to turn on the tiny internal speakers that came with your TV.

You flip up the dial (get up again and turn off the internal speakers), and flip to HBO and your screen goes dark. That's because HBO is showing a movie that has been flagged as "no analog" -- which means that your beautiful, 42" plasma display won't work because you connected it via the composite analog video cables coming off the back of your AV switcher, rather than via the DRM-locked HDCP output. To watch the movie, you'll need to move the entire shelving unit (remember to take down the family photos first, doofus, otherwise you risk shattering the glass if they tip over), disconnect the analog cables, find the HDCP cable that came with the TV (or was it the cable box?) in the garage, and rewire your set. When the kids want to play a couple hours of Paper Mario on the Wii, you're going to need to move it again and reconnect things. (Coming soon to a Make issue: HOWTO put your home theater on wheels for easy rewiring).

Selectable Output Control