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Speak, oh angels of podcasting! On today’s show we have Broadway singer and songwriter D.C. Anderson, singer joining us to talk about playing the part of “André” in the touring Broadway production of Phantom of […]
Fausto Fernós is the host of iTunes’ #1 LGBT talk show, the Feast of Fun podcast, which he produces and hosts with his partner, Marc Felion.
Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Fausto Fernós created the Feast of Fools in 1998 as wacky artists variety show in Chicago, Illinois. Feast of Fun grew out of an audio blog to promote the live show into the world’s most downloaded talk show aimed for gay people.
When he’s not blogging, recording or sleeping, Fausto can be found at the gym or appreciating the beauty found in nature.
Comments
Piracy helps the artist by forcing the music industry to change. If you think Artists are the ones losing money I am doubting it. The end of big music will lead to better music and not continuous derivative crap. If the art is good enough it will generate money. The industry has changed because the technology ahs changed. If the the industry continues to fight technology it will continue to lose. Music will not go away and the artform will not die. The way in which it is distributed will. I still purchase compact discs, many many compact discs. Most of them I have discovered via bittorrent and most are indie artists who are not played on radio. This guy seriously gives his friends 40 seconds of a song?…. lol yeah right.
*** removes feather from ass *** I agree that sharing music is a good way to get the word out about peoples new stuff and what not but, I have friends who put out stuff that I buy from them because I know how they feel about it. I don’t know how I feel about major artists who make a gazillion dollars more than I will ever make in my entire life music being downloaded. Honestly, I’m tired of replacing my music. going from 8-track, to cassette, to cd… and some I’m going to have to replace because of cd rot… it’s like geez. How many times have I had to replace my music? As for whether or not I support the artists by other means, I’ve bought gear from my friends with their logos, I’ve bought their albums at the festivals they perform at, yah.. I support them BUT, I still dont download their stuff. I’m wierd that way with them but I’m not with major recording artists.
Well ilegal downloading can be helpful as you said fausto i do agree with that but i dunno til what point is good for an artist to promote that way there are other ways like myspace music or so any ways like the show
If D.C. is worried about people “stealing” his music, why is he giving it away on his own site?
http://www.dcanderson.net/dcanderson/listen.html
You should have got DC & Gregg to sit on a cake.
LAME on the hate mail from Edmonton!
Seriously, most of us love The Gay.
Also, I saw phantom, and it was fantastic! Awesome awesome awesome work.
I saw phantom in High School right when it came to LA with Michael Crawford, and then again with Robert Guillaume. Was a great show. Honestly, I didn’t know it was still out touring. We even did a bunch of the numbers in show choir in High School.
Downloading is still limited in most places in the world. In Taiwan we can’t download anything from iTunes, Amazon or anywhere else. Because of piracy issues, they simply don’t trust us I guess. I’m dying to buy individual songs online but I can’t.
I was however, able to buy the new Radiohead cd directly from their website. I’m looking forward to the day when all music can be bought directly from the websites and not through sites I can’t buy from like iTunes.
I was so excited he mentioned Christine Lavin. I’m a huge fan of hers but I don’t often hear her mentioned anywhere. I know that Amanda talked about one of her songs on the show once, but that was it. And I’m the only one of any of my friends who knows who she is. I was happy to hear DC say that she was an influence. And even though she writes some really funny stuff, she also has some great somber music too. She has a song called “The Dakota” about John Lennon’s death that contains a line that still gives me goosebumps every time I hear it.
I have mixed feelings about downloading music. On the one hand, I agree with Minoan Jeff that you pay for the music in one format then you have to go and pay for it again every time a new format comes out. And for those of us who have been around since Albums were the main source of music, then you have to think about every good album you had to replace with CD, and if the CD rots you have to buy it again and now we’ll have to buy it on another format and what have you. Not to mention when the record company puts out a new version of the album with two new tracks on it and you can only buy it as a full CD. I mean, it’s maddening. But on the other hand, I think it’s deplorable to illegally download music and then justify it by saying you’re helping the industry. I’m sorry patchouli_stink, I have to disagree with you. If you want to force the industry to change, start a letter writing campaign, host a protest, start a website touting your views on the unfairness of the industry. By stealing music you don’t want to pay for you are doing just that. Stealing music. Don’t try to say it’s anything other than what it is.
On the other hand (I have many hands), I think it’s okay to trade music that is not commercially available. I know some people will not agree with me on this. But what about those records that are not in print, or old dance 12″ remixes? Why should it be bad for people to trade things that were once sold but are no longer?
I just realized that I should not have used the term “deplorable”. There are many things worse than justifying an action. I don’t think it’s fair but it’s hardly deplorable. My apologies if I offended anyone. It was not my intention.
Phantom of the Opera will always hold a special place in the musical-theater ventricle of my heart. What a great day job. I loved D.C.’s stories about the little girls getting yanked away by their moms in pursuit of a more high-profile autograph. Don’t worry, the phantom will get them in the end.
DC’s music is fun and light! I really enjoyed it. And I always enjoy listening to Greg Shapiro. Just a smart guy…
In terms of the subject of downloading music, I have to say I agree with both Fausto and DC. I think it sucks that the system is stacked against the small independent artist. The law only benefits an artist who has the means to sue, like major record labels or artists like Madonna or Metallica. For artists like DC, where the price of the album actually goes to the artist AND its actually alot of money to them, they could never enforce their copyrights as artists.
But I’m marching out to buy DC’s music right now!!
Oh, and by “marching out” I mean, clicking on the iTunes link above, so FOF gets the credit!
Hey guys, excellent show as always.
I work for a domain name registrar, so I thought I could offer you some advice on the whole feastoffools.com issue, and I’m afraid I have some bad news for you.
If the Feast of Fools was a trademark, then you could try to reclaim the domain name via the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) – which every domain registrar needs to adhere to – via an agreement with, or court action against the current registrant. At a basic level, you’d need to prove that the current registrant is abusing the domain name and taking business away from you.
Unfortunately in this case, the current registrant is not abusing the domain name and is, in fact, bringing business to you by redirecting to your site after displaying a message that the domain name is for sale.
Because of the way gTLD domains (.com, .net, .org etc) are governed, anyone can register any name (unless it’s a trademark etc) and are perfectly within in their rights to on-sell that domain for whatever price they want. As an example, creditcards.com was sold in 2004 for a whopping $US 2.75 million!
This means that the only thing you can do is wait until the domain name license expires (05 Jan 2009) and hope the current registrant doesn’t renew it. Many domain registrars offer a tracking service to let you know if/when the domain name has expired and whether or not you can register it.
All in all, as you said on the show, it’s probably too much hassle to be worth following it up, but good luck if you do.
Brad
Thanks for the insight. I really appreciate it and we’d be happy to sell the dot net if he’s able to sell it as a bundle with the dot com because right now all we do is depreciate the value of his dot com. We’d be just as fine with http://www.gayfunshow.com
As a person who “steals” music I am sure I spend many times more per year on music related purchases than anyone else on this forum. I work at a record store. Music is my livelyhood. I deal with the asinine thinking of the record companys daily. Itunes drm protects a large amount of their music and when I switched to open source software I could no longer even access these songs(luckily I found out how to crack the drm without losing sound quality) Recently when Oink.cd went down which was one of the largest private torrent trackers for music a member of that website Trent Reznor (of Nine Inch Nails) came out and said that it was a shame such a place was taken away. It was a form of book burning in my opinion. Oink.cd was one of the greatest archives of musical history that existed. The record companies again failed with this takedown since now the torrent community has just moved to sweedish servers which are in neutral gorund and they have also created multiple databases thus making a “hydra” of sites which cannot be taken down. The way in which information is sent and received has changed. Time to come up with a new way to make your product feasible or jump ship. In the long run sharing of music whether it be with one or one hundred is still that sharing, and it will lead to nothing but more music fans and greater varities of music. The big record companies are dying and this is only by their own choice.
Oh and one more thing if you want to know what is really hurting the artist is the destruction and slicing up of their albums that ITunes is doing. Why should people be able to buy one song if a artist doesnt want to sell one song. An Album used to be a complete piece of work not a damn 30 second ringtone. Its ok PupDon if you want to call me deplorable lol just give me a firm swat when you do it
There are some things that are out of print that I’ve put on cassettes because I don’t have a way to hook up my turntable to my computer or I’d load them on my big fatty. Not to mention the stuff my parents have on Reel to Reel. *sigh* DAMN YOU RAI!!!!
er… RIA!!!
great show! very entertaining..he was a lot of fun….
and as for the music sharing thing… i’ll admit that i do it religiously. >_> but… sometimes i only download a few songs of a artist because i don’t want to buy the whole album…or there is some music that i have a lot of (techno and classical music) that isn’t always easy to find on CDs..and i may just wanna pick and choose certain songs…
but lately, i’ve gotten into downloading entire albums by using a torrent….now sometimes i feel guilty about doing this.. but most of the time i am skeptical to whether or not i will enjoy the entire album, and every second of each song, cos sometimes the 30 second previews don’t cut it for me..so i’ll resort to downloading the album instead.
i used to buy from iTunes cos you could get albums cheaper that way.. but i don’t trust them anymore after seeing random charges on the credit card bill every month…
but there are artists that i have been a huge fan of for years, and i always buy the hard copy of their album at the store, or thru amazon. and its interesting you guys mentioned the Radiohead thing.. when i found out about their new album, and went on the site…when it said you decide how much money you wanna pay for it i was stunned. i could have given nothing, but that wouldn’t be fair… so since the album was very short, and i had heard no previews of any of the songs, i gave them a little over 4 bucks which would equate to over 8 pounds for the band.
but as to music sharing in general…i think its good to support the musicians by buying their albums, but sometimes its easier to just download it…..ah dunno.. its hard for me to give a strong opinion since i do it myself. :/
Great thing is artists are changing things themselves such as Saul Williams has dont with his album The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust just click order on his site and you can order it for 5 dollars or just get it for free… and unlike Radioheads deal you actually get a decent quality rip http://niggytardust.com/saulwilliams/moreinfo
Great show (as if there was any doubt!) Just to let you all know that the MP3s that are for sale on that big .com place you mentioned today are actually made available by the record labels and “big .com place” sets up a contract and pretty much lets the labels set the prices…for the most part, but it’s not like I have “inside” information *wink. DC, loved the chocolate song and the cupcake song…or was that the song about someone’s mom…damn, I have to listen to it again. Can’t wait for tomorrows show. ^_^
My comment on the whole stealing music thing is this. I napstered the hell out of napster back in the day and to be honest i have replaced almost all of those free songs with paid versions via itunes. I would rather pay for a good quality download than wade through a bunch of crap. however itunes doesn’t have everything so there are times when you have to find your music elsewhere. I always try to support the artist in some way.
Oh and great show by the way greg is always awesome! Marc and Fasuto have very energy when he is on. I love it
J.S. is hot… um, I mean I agree with J.S. about the contracts between big evil music dealers and the download site. It’s not like the artists get to say how much an album, or song for that matter, cost. They have no control over their music. So much for the music belonging to the artist, huh?
Excellent show. I think that illegally downloading music most likely affects the record companies the most and not the artist, unless it is an independent unsigned artist. I do not like downloading from itunes, because I do not like the limitations they put on the number of machines you can play a song. (however, I recently discovered that if you reach the maximum of 5 authorized computers. Itunes does give you the option to deauthorize all computers which can be done once a year)
I have recently joined a different mp3 music store that showcases indie artists and only charges about 50 cents a song and has no restrictions. I enjoy this site a lot because it has helped me discover a lot of new music by artists I have never heard of. I really feel that with the internet and mp3s artist should be moving towards selling the music themselves and really getting the money they deserve. I recently downloaded Saul Williams: Niggy Tardust which was available at any price you wanted to pay. I ended up giving $6, which is probably much more than the artist would have received from a record label.
I used to download a lot of pirated music and I am glad I did not pay for it because most of what I downloaded, I have only listened to a couple times. When I have found artists that I really enjoy, and if I find that I listen to it more than a dozen times, or add it to one of my favorites play list, then I do either purchase the cd or mp3s online. I think if you listen to an illegally downloaded mp3 say 6 times then it is no more harmful than listening to the same song on the radio 6 times.
Kudos on an excellent show guys
After listening to the show I looked in my Phantom playbill and found out I had seen D.C. just a few weeks ago in Birmingham. Very cool. As for the music downloading thing, I tend to download, then actually purchase music from the artists I love, which can get expensive since most artists I listen to aren’t American and import costs are high. Utada Hikaru is mah girl! But when it comes to Broadway soundtracks, I have no problem spending the money. You should always support the artists you love.
I think FOF should trademark their logo and register some kind of copyright on their podcast name or something.
But not my initial point. Did Fausto mention something about An American Tail being made into a musical? Is that for real? I could find it with Google…
And I was supercompletelytotallywholeheartedly in LOVE with that movie as a kid. And all of those sappy Don Bluth movies featuring all kind of odd sort-of disneyesque-but-not-quite characters.
You guys who think stealing songs is okay are totally full of sh_t! It’s not like the FOF, which you hear for free but they rely that you show some other financial support (buying a t-shirt). Without that, eventually it won’t happen anymore. But with musicians, that song is IT- there’s nothing else for them to sell. That’s how they make their money. Musicians also have bills to pay and have to put food on the table- do you seriously think independant artists are all made of money???? And do you think because music is something you can’t see, then it doesn’t have a value? Stop listening to music for a while and see how great you feel. I’m a musician, and if you steal songs, I’m gonna come to your houses and steal everything I can get my hands on and take away your means of making money- see how that makes you feel…godammit!!!! Gets me so fucking angry…
What’s important to understand about the fat-cat recording industry people you seem to hate- if you think you’re just trying to get back at them by stealing songs, you’re still harming the artist, because with the prospect of making less sales, the recording companies make fewer recordings. And it’s not Madonna or 50cent or the big guys who are most hit, again, it’s the lesser-known independant artists who won’t get a chance to start out because of the shit financial situation caused by YOU dickheads who steal music. IT STILL HARMS THE ARTIST– DON’T FUCKING STEAL MUSIC!!!!!!! Give something back, guys- do the right thing.
I can’t speak for everyone Aussieman, but I do understand who gets hurt when you steal music, hence the reason why the first places I check for music are Amazon.com and iTunes. If I can’t find the music on their, I look for the CD. If I enjoy someone’s music I have no problem supporting the artist and the recording company that “took a chance” on the artist and recorded their music. It shows that the public is interested in their music. Maybe it’s just the way it works for me, where it’s about shear numbers, how many albums sold etc. I think that’s what the “fat-cat” industry people have to go on, is the mass number of sales an artist accomplishes. I mean, if the recording industry people could do it, I’m sure they’d find a way to release a Trojan to literally infiltrate music sharing communities and count how much of their artists someone has on their computer, then pay the artists based on that, but then the industry wouldn’t be making any money, just the artist, and since the studios are out for mostly financial success they want the sales to be the basis for their and the artist’s pay. Anyways, I’m just sharing my view point in the hopes that it might help you release some of the anger you feel towards those who do not purchase their music legally.
Why, YUM, don’t mind if I steal Aussieman…
Thank you J.S., you make a good point there. I’m really glad you, and indeed many people like you, treat music with respect.
Though I feel I forgot to express before that it’s not only the artist who gets cheated, but also the army of gifted people who also work on every single cd, such as sound engineers, technicians, the people who provide the graphics and artwork, not to mentions marketers and publicists, photographers…and so forth. A musician could try to fund all of this work him or herself, but not to the same degree, or possibly on the same level of quality as with bigger companies, and of course, the publicity and distribution side can’t be matched. Musicians need a healthy recording industry.
Stealing music is like as if I went to some poor innocent person’s work place and pulled the plug on their company’s finances to spite the boss. It wouldn’t be the boss though who’d be first to lose their job, but the poor employee. I wish those pirates out there could understand that.
I do agree with Aussieman. If you want the Music then it is only right to pay for it!
GreAT episode! I love that Maury song!!
thanks for bringing this great artist to my attention! and Fausto I agree with F*** Tony Kushner – I love your sidesplitting antics!
GAH! I can’t get the Maury song out of my head… which would be fine if the only line I can remember is “Maury, I’m unhappy” it just keeps playing over and over and over…
I listened to this yesterday on the way home and I really enjoyed the music. Thank you!