Scamming musicians is nothing new. They’re easy marks, whose best defense mechanism against the scammers lining up to get a hand in their wallets, is the lack of funds within. But musicians’ lack of money doesn’t stop these scam artists from trying… it just means they have to scam in bulk.
Case in point: Music Xray. Music Xray will tell you they are providing a service to these musicians by offering “exposure opportunities”, that put their music in front of “Music Industry Professional”… for a fee. Right, so if you’re a musician, instead of buying that QuickStop burrito, you can pay $3+ to submit your music to one of these “exposure opportunities” and have your music reviewed by an “industry professional”. Of course, anyone can sign up to be one of these said “professionals”. Yup, anyone and their uncle can sign up as one and start creating “opportunities” that charge musicians a submission fee. Or you could just cut out the middle man and give your uncle Lenny $3 to tell you how great you are (thanks Lenny!).
Think American Idol, except all the thousands and thousands of contestants have to pay to have to pay each judge for every “opportunity” to perform for them and instead of Simon, you get berated by uncle Lenny (who was in a band once). And in this scenario, Music Xray would be the TV producers who get to make coin off the whole thing, while declaring their innocence of any wrong-doing. It’s not their fault Lenny is really a refrigerator repair man and can’t cary a tune in a bucket.
Want more proof? Music Xray are also prolific spammers. Once you’re on their list, they will email you constantly with “opportunities” from a range of email domains, so you can’t kill them off with a spam filter. You can keep trying to “unsubscribe” but it won’t do you any good. Classy! How much money would you give to a spammer?
And Music Xray also searches for, and responds to, articles that discus their business as being a scam (like this one). This in itself is an obvious mark of a shady business.
So, is Music Xray a scam? Maybe it depends on how much you like QuickStop burritos. Judge for yourself…
Every six months I am required to play a little game with Charter Communications. They offer me a special promotional price on my internet and cable TV that lasts for 6 months. At the end of the 6 months, I call back and renew the promotion. Obviously they expect me to forget but I just set a Google Calendar reminder a day before it expires and poof; new promotion. It’s pretty stupid but I’ve been doing it for many years. For my participation in this little dance, I get internet and basic analog cable for $44.98–which is cheaper than just internet alone. Otherwise I would just cancel cable TV altogether… which I would gladly do; HD over the air is great and more than I need.
Our little requisite dance also gives them the opportunity to try and up-sell me on their phone service… with the ridiculous notion that if somehow I spend more money on their crap, I will save more money. Whatever. But my question is: are they completely stupid or some of their customer are. Probably a bit of both.
Long story only slightly longer… if you want cheaper internet and could give a crap about cable TV, this is the way to go and only requires about 4 minutes of your life biannually.
UPDATE: I received an email in response to this post from a manager at Charter (Eric K.). He informed me that Charter now offers an internet only, 2 year contract for $29.99. As I explained to Eric, I’m not a fan of contracts or companies that use them as they’re an obvious sign of poor business practices. That said, I would also prefer to just pay a fair price for internet and lose the cable TV altogether (free, over-the-air HD is more than enough TV for me).
So I’ve signed up for this contracted $29.99/mo internet-only service and canceled TV (though it did take two calls to make it happen; the first agent stating (incorrectly) that I needed a TV service to get the deal). Maybe in the future they’ll lose the contracts and promotions and whatnot… we’ll see. For now, my dance card is full for two years.
If you can’t spare the time to enjoy the entire 85 glorious minutes of the Prez at the GOP lunch, at least watch Jon Stewart’s short recap of the event. Awesomeness level is 9.3.
Tradition dictates that I sit courtside at a Bulls game every year… this tradition also includes them losing whenever we go. Brought to you in beautiful HTML5…
As I’m blowing out the candle on my birthday muffin today, I’ll be wishing for one thing… that everyone in Wisconsin would take this driving test, and after they fail horribly, read the correct answers and learn. It may actually save lives but more importantly, it might make my daily commute less infuriating.
Here’s a hint for the second question Sconnies… the left lane is for PASSING. Also, not on the test but equally important are:
Turn signals… use ‘em
Parallel driving is bad and causes traffic
Don’t drive in someone’s blind spot
Driving under the speed limit doesn’t get you into heaven
Cell phones make your bad driving worse
Stopping traffic, regardless of intentions, is bad
If you have any further questions about driving, just ask a FIB.
I have the honor to be playing with two Bluegrass Boys on these upcoming tribute shows. We’ll be playing the entire Kenny Baker Plays Bill Monroe record start to finish. Shows are Friday, Nov 6th at Mother Fools Coffee Shop, Madison, WI, 8pm, and Saturday, the 7th at the Richland Center City Auditorium in Richland Center, WI. Now excuse me, I have to practice…
It is very unlikely that Glenn Beck Raped and Murdered a Young Girl in 1990. And just because he has never denied that he raped and murdered a young girl in 1990, does not mean that he definitely did do it.
I personally do not think Glenn Beck raped and murdered a young girl in 1990 but I support the rights of the many, many Americans that have their doubts and think it should be discussed…
Scamming musicians is nothing new. They’re easy marks, whose best defense mechanism against the scammers lining up to get a hand in their wallets, is the lack of funds within. But musicians’ lack of money doesn’t stop these scam artists from trying… it just means they have to scam in bulk.
