Thursday Thirteen – Supernova style!

This Thursday’s list comes to us from Elliott Hurst, the CEO of Supernova, and Elliott put together for your enjoyment, the top 13 movies about music (in no particular order).  These are the best 13 movies ABOUT music (not just have good soundtracks; but making music is essential to these films).

What else would you expect from a music aficionado like Eliott?!?

 

So let’s go!

 

1. Woodstock
2. This is Spinal Tap
3. Blues Brothers
4. Almost Famous
5. Anvil! The Story of Anvil
6. High Fidelity
7. Gimme Shelter
8. Beastie Boys; Awesome I Fuckin’ Shot That!
9. Singles
10. 8 Mile
11. Walk the Line
12. The Commitments
13. Eddie and the Cruisers

 

So what makes your list?

 

Thursday Thirteen – a little late.

Guest blogger Elliott Hurst, CEO of interactive music technology company Supernova (www.supernova.com) strikes again with a surprise Thursday thirteen.

Here is @supernovelliott

 

As the owner of a growing business, we frequently talk about how to not only build the business, but build the brand of the business as well.  A brand is a promise.  A brand is something that the customer has certain expectations of, and above all, trust.  So it got me thinking of great brands to emulate and take notes from.  And being a proud Canadian, I thought I’d start with Canadian brands.  Brands that are uniquely Canadian.

Top 13 Canadian Corporate brands (not including individuals ie Wayne Gretzky).  What / Who would make your list?

In no order:

1. Tim Hortons
2. Blackberry (RIM)
3. Canadian Tire
4. Toronto Maple Leafs / Montreal Canadiens pick one or both
5. Cirque du Soliel
6. Lululemon
7. TD / RBC pick one or both
8. Roots
9. Air Canada
10. Rogers
11. Muchmusic
12. Molson Canadian / Labatt Blue pick one or both
13. Shoppers Drug Mart

Making this list was not as easy at it appears.  Originally I had Just for Laughs in my list as well as Supernova but removed them for other, better know brands.

 

So?

 

Of Skype, the “defenceless” Bin Laden’s and “educated” NDP MP’s

Today is May 10th!  Happy Census Day…

Yeah, whatever…

What does $8.5 billion dollars get you nowadays?  Skype, if you’re Microsoft and have a few extra nickles in your pocket.  Investors are panning this purchase – saying Microsoft paid too much.  You think?  Hopefully for all you Microsoft investors, this purchase won’t be as big a bst as the 2007, $6-billion dollar purchase of online ad company aQuantive.  Skype, for the record, posted a $7-million dollar loss last year on $860 million dollars in revenue.  I guess with almost 150 million users, there had to be some additional worth here…

See Elliott… Get 150 million users for www.supernova.com and Microsoft will buy your company for $6-billion dollars.  Whatever would you do with the money? 

Anyone else find the irony here;

Osama bin Laden’s eldest son, Omar, issued a statement to the press on behalf of himself and his brothers that said;  ”It is unacceptable — humanely and religiously — to dispose of a person with such importance and status among his people, by throwing his body into the sea in that way, which demeans and humiliates his family and his supporters and which challenges religious provisions and feelings of hundreds of millions of Muslims.”

He went on to say that he holds US president Obama ”legally responsible” for their – get this -  “criminal mission and obliterated an entire defenseless family . . . contrary to the most basic human sentiment, and they rushed to dispose of the body,” he said.

Really?  Did he really go to the press and use the sentance “entire defenceless family”???  I’m sure he must have forgotten the thousands of defenceless people who perished in the World Trade Centre bombings.  What, Omar… They don’t count but you do?  Stop your whining… son of a terrorist!

For a week now, after the May 2, 2011 surprise NDP showing in Quebec, the newly elected  MP for Berthier-Maskinongé, Ellen Beth Brosseau has kept a very low profile in the face of complaints that she speaks little French and the controversy that she vacationed in Las Vegas rather than campaigning in her constituency.

Well add another issue for this single mother – who on the NDP website is advertised as being “an assistant pub manager and a community activist with an interest in animal welfare.”  The website also stated that she has a “diploma in Advertising and Integrated Marketing Communications from St. Lawrence College in Kingston.”

She doesn’t.

Oops.

Turns out she did not complete her studies for that program and therefore does not have her diploma.  In yet another cover-up, the NDP spokesperson, Kathleen Monk it taking all the blame for this stating that Brosseau told them she did not graduate, but an eager staffer changed her credentials while posting it on the NDP website. 

Sure, blame the party staffer.

The NDP had already blamed a party staffer when the online bio of newly-elected Quebec MP Mylène Freeman wrongly said that she had grown up in her riding of Argenteuil-Papineau Mirabel.

The strange party here is that Brosseau was elected in a riding she has never been to.  She cannot speak French – 77% of the rural population are francophone,  and was elected without conducting any interviews and after spending time in Vegas.

And I thought Toronto voters were stupid for always voting Liberals over and over again throughout all their scandals…

Like my 4-year-old son Stewie said;

“You get what you get and you can’t get upset!”

Sorry Quebec… Ontario lived the NDP nightmare before.  Have fun.

Or maybe Stewie’s line should have been, “I’m going to throw you in the garbage!!!”

 

Guest Blogging time at urban daddy: Elliott Hurst from Supernova.com steps to the plate

It’s about time for another guest blogger.

This time www.supernova.com CEO Elliott Hurst steps up to the plate and provides his insight into the world of social networking and how a movie from the 1980′s called Revenge of the Nerds may have come to life for Facebook CEO MArk Zukerberg.

Elliott, for those of you who may not know, was building Supernova in his basement in Toronto, while Facebook’s Mark Zukerberg was creating the next best addiction in Silicone Valley. There are some parallels…

Elliott, help me here.

Now on to Mr. Hurst’s post;

I just saw the The Social Network and was very intrigued by the story, the characters and the dialogue. Yes, it’s a really good movie. It may even win Best Picture (however, that is a relative term, and I’m definitely not saying it is in the same class as The Godfather, Rocky, American Beauty, Schindler’s List, etc.), but given today’s offerings, it just might.
Oscars are very political and affected by a myriad of factors including money. It may even win due to the fact that the spectacularly visual Avatar won last year and the Academy’s taste pendulum may swing back to a “substance” movie with a story. Plus, it’s a very hot topic.

Whether the story is 100% true, 50% true or even 10% true, it actually makes no difference, because as a story, it has just the right amounts of sub-text, irony, and tragedy and to make it a compelling film.

Sub-text: man seeks out to show the world his value based on his creation ends up alienating his best friend and business partner due to deep seated resentment towards his personal social success, personal success that eludes man.

Irony: man who creates a revolutionary service based on being social is actually socially inept in real life.

Tragedy: man who gains the respect and adulation of the masses, despite not being born into bourgeoisie blood lines nor being aesthetically or athletically gifted to be popular, can’t parlay that popularity into recapturing the love of his life.

But at the core of this film is a simple message that was first brought to light in the purely fictitious, 80’s gross out comedy franchise, Revenge of the Nerds. The premise? As Imdb puts it; “At a big campus, a group of bullied outcasts and misfits resolve to fight back for their peace and self respect.” Ok, so Zuckerberg wasn’t exactly bullied in The Social Network, but the goal was the same, and he and his computer nerd buddies were outcasts and misfits. The clearest example appeared near the beginning of the film when the popularity of Facemash was spreading like wildfire amongst the cool, popular kids through dorm room parties, while the nerds gathered around their lonely computers hatching the idea and tracking its popularity in solitude. In fact, the nerds turned the cool kids’ narcissism upon themselves to create a site so popular, it shut down the Harvard network within hours.

Facebook has accomplished so much more than that. And other sites like it. And all those sites were created by nerds. They are utilities now, as important to the world as the things that made the cool kids popular in school; sports, heritage, money, aesthetics, etc. Brain power. The nerds have it. The world runs on it.

It is now cool to be a nerd.

What was laughable fiction in the 80’s has actually happened today. Nerds are the new BMOCs. Nerds are the new Rockstars. Nerds are the new Quarterbacks of the football team. Nerds never got the girl. Well, actually, in the end, neither did the nerd in The Social Network. But the reason was best given by Rashinda Jones’ character toward the end of the film where she said, “Mark, you’re not an asshole. You just try too hard to be.” And that’s the tragedy. Whereas in the 80’s hi-jinks screwball comedy nature of Revenge of the Nerds where the main characters remained undaunted in their enthusiasm to prove themselves, the weight of this burden had the reverse effect on The Social Network’s Zuckerberg. Whether he was born with it or it manifested within himself since puberty, Zuckerberg is shown to continuously damage his personal relationships due to deep rooted resentment.

If The Social Network is Revenge of the Nerds 2.0, then today’s Zuckerbergs are finally being given their due.

But at what cost?

 

What would YOU do if offered $15 Billion dollars

I just read a great blog post on www.supernova.com about Facebook creator Mark Zukerberg and the fact he turned down $15 billion dollars from Microsoft for his social media web-site.

You should read it here; http://ht.ly/3nnIv

It brings to mind the power and control over our lives that Facebook has.  Back when I was growing up, parents were worried of the negative impact that Rock stars had on our lives – from Ozzy Osbourne biting the head off a live chicken and Black Sabbath’s song called Suicide solution to Marilyn Manson and the song by Drowning Pool called Let the Bodies Hit the Floor.  But none of this comes even close to the impact Facebook has on our lives.

We update our status, post pictures, even announce when we break up online… It’s opened up our kimono’s in a very real way.

But if you were Mark Zukerberg, all early 30-ish and single, would you take the $15 billion and go home, or say no thank you and take $15.1 billion from Google?  Or… Tell everyone to go away and hope and pray that the next best thing doesn’t come tomorrow at take the 500 million uses away from your site and put you in the category of the also-rans.

Many other products were huge until someone swooped in and stole their thunder… Is Mark making a wise business decision or a colossal mistake.

What do you think and what would you do in his shoes?

 

Working in the Trenches: A tale of a CRA field officer

This post is yet another post that I was encouraged to write by Elliott of Supernova.com, after telling him this tale while our boys were in karate class.

I was spouting off about my days working for the Canadian Tax Authority, when my responsibilities afforded me the opportunity to leave the office and visit clients to discuss their tax debts / compliance issues.

Unlike others who “may” have abused that authority, I loved getting out to visit clients. I’m a social guy, and it was always in my best interest to leave a good impression on them and help them resolve their issues, while also promoting the CRA.

I would always set up a full schedule of visits, and spend the entire day seeing as many as I could. When I first started with this role, I would wear a tie, but as I became comfortable with the role and spoke to many clients I realized the tie made me appears like I was a salesman, or worse, Jehovah’s Witness, so people refused to open their doors for me.

So I kept the nice clothes, but lost the tie.

One fine spring day, I found myself assigned to a business quite far north of the city who had been filing for the GST (now HST) for around 5 years, but they had been getting quite a lot of money in credits and for some reason had stopped filing, and their account had credits sitting there, un-issued.

Over the months proceeding this visit, I had called and left many messages and sent several letters, but there was no response, so I set up a visit during the day to initiate contact.

Upon arriving at the address I located in my Perlies, I realized I was in a very secluded, run down, commercial area which appeared to be pretty vacant – really odd for a weekday.

I approached the unit, the door was open, so I walked in and yelled, “hello, anyone here”.

I heard a voice respond back to me that I should enter the warehouse – that he were back there with another employee.  The front foyer of this unit had some electronics and other electrical gadgets so I briefly stopped to make some quick notes as to what I thought this company did, as I made my way to the back.

Once in the warehouse, I was shocked…

In front of me was this huge dark, empty warehouse with a desk at the back of it.  At the desk were 2 males, and there was one light on in the warehouse and it was just above the desk, like you would see on TV.

I stopped dead in my tracks.

“You can come closer”, the man sitting down calmly said to me.

“No thank you, I’d rather stay here”, I replied surveying the situation.

“What can I do for you?” said the other man, standing to the right of the man sitting at the desk, his arms crossed.

“I’m here from Revenue Canada, it would appear that there were some errors on your GST reports and I had left several messages but no one called me back, so I came to visit to see if we could resolve this in person”.

The response I got shocked me…

The man sitting down said to me; “Do you see that baseball bat behind the door?!?  We use that to take care of people like you!”  He then stood up.

I looked at the 2 of them and said; “The CRA owes you guys money, however I do not feel welcomed here so I am leaving.”

I turned around and left, hoping not to hear them come running after me.  I must say thinking about it now that I must have raced out of there, and I remember my heart pounding – thinking about my family.

I had parked across the parking lot facing the unit so that when I arrived I could take notes in my car about the business – like traffic, registered names, condition of the building…  I opened my door, sat down, locked my door and called my team leader.  As the phone was ringing the 2 guys rushed out of the unit and came towards my car.  I rolled down my window very slightly and told them I was talking to my boss and they should stay back from my car.  I turned it on.

They asked me to hang up – said it was a misunderstanding, that they were expecting a “bill collector” and they had been harassed.  They wanted the money owed to them as it might be enough to get this debt off their books.  My TL answered the phone and I told him briefly the situation.  I told the guys I would not leave my car, and have to come back with my TL, possibly tomorrow.  I handed them both the information they needed including the missing returns and the amount of the credit on file with the CRA.

They stood there looking at me…

My TL told me to leave.

I did.

One week later we returned with the RCMP.

The place was raided, the men arrested and a bunch of weapons seized.  All the electronics were stolen goods.  The credit on the GST account was seized by the RCMP as having been proceeds from crime.

I closed the GST account.

From that day forth I realized some people are intimidated when they receive a visit from the tax department.  I used this to my advantage, but never entered a building which made my spidy-sense tingle.  From that day on I clearly identified myself and my intentions up front before I would enter a building or house.   If it looked shady I would come back with another person bigger than myself (I’m 5 foot 11, 225 pounds).  We looked like thugs there to break some legs. 

So now you know.

 

Scott Pilgram vs. The World vs. Club Rockit vs. Supernova.com

I received a copy of this internal press release from my buddy, Elliott Hurst, the CEO of www.supernova.com, the Indie music specialists.

I thought it was awesome and wanted to pass it along to my wonderful readership…

Here it is (with some of my comments);

Hey Supernovaers,

You may have heard of a new movie coming out called Scott Pilgrim vs The World – the movie stars Michael Cera, and is directed by Edgar Wright (Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead). his movie has a MAJOR tie in to Supernova.com!

In the movie, a 23-year-old Canadian Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera), is a slacker, hero and part-time bassist who is living in Toronto and plays bass guitar in the band “Sex Bob-Omb.” He falls in love with American delivery girl Ramona V. Flowers, but must defeat her seven “evil exes” in order to date her. I’m sure you have seen the preview of this movie and thought it looked cool, as I did.

So here is the tie in… Back in the year 2002, current Supernova.com owners Elliott and Sandy Hurst became the owners of a commercial property in downtown Toronto’s club district, which they turned into a branded venue building with live event capabilities. The Supernova Brothers were involved in every detail of the project, from inception to the launch of ‘Club Rockit’.

Now HERE’S THE COOL PART! Besides the Toronto rock reference (and the awesome seven samurai reference), the ‘Battle of the Bands’ that Scott Pilgrim competes in takes place in Toronto, during 2003-04, at Club Rockit!!!!

Is that cool? A movie was made based on a guys experience participating in the “Battle of the Bands” at Club Rockit! They use the name of the club in the movie, the name of the event and event have a video game which uses the actual layout of the club.

Universal pictures not only uses Club Rockit in the movie BUT ALSO in the Ubisoft video game! (they literally re-created Elliott and Sandy’s venue!)

Really, how cool is that??

Please feel free to tell your friends that Supernova’s Battle of the Bands is being featured in this movie.

Movie trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgOLmjhxVVU&NR=1

Video game trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAY4vNJd7A8

I’m just thinking… Shouldn’t Universal music be giving some props to Supernova.com since they are using their event and venue to make money selling their movie AND video game? Maybe give credit to them in the films credits? Or maybe a digital version of them in the video game? What about royalties?

What do you think?

 

An Urbandaddy Exclusive Interview

An Urbandaddy exclusive Interview with the El Train, co-founder and CEO of www.supernova.com, the brainchild behind the world’s leading Indie music community.

Elliott took some time from his hectic schedule to allow me to ask him 5 questions about his wildly successful business.

1. What is “Indie” music?

A: Indie music seems to mean a few things today.  The term originated as a short form for “Independent” music, which referred to music recorded, marketed and distributed by non-major label means (the big five labels at the time were Universal, Sony, Warner, EMI, and BMG).  Indie represented a small but growing group of artists and the music type had a certain non-mainstream appeal to it, and generally targeted to the young college radio crowd, embracers of the new and on the edge.  But as the monetization of music became a shrinking model, labels stopped signing new bands to develop, leaving the majority of the process up to the bands and Indie labels, when they could then scoop them up after a certain level of success. Further complicating the issue was the major labels’ strategy of buying up Indie labels but allowing them to retain their branding, image, and type of music they became known for producing. Today, Indie can be considered as one of two things: 1) that same college demo targeted new edgy style (e.g. Feist, The Stills, Arcade Fire) or 2) garage bands just starting out and have nothing more than a home recorded demo and a handful of original songs, unknown to the masses, yearning for that big break.  I’ve personally limited my use of the term, as I primarily deal with #2 but some maybe think I’m referring to #1.  With #1, what once was a movement is really now just another genre.

2. Ok so you don’t like to use the term “Indie”, so what do you do for these #2 type bands?

A: We created Supernova.com, a community for bands, fans, and industry to discover, connect, and expose new music.  We’re the only social network that actually promotes the bands in live gigs across North America.  The gigs we produce (over 250 a year) are part of a growing list of “opportunities” that we provide to bands, which in turn, allows them to activate their fans, and get exposure.

3) Give me an example of “opportunities”?

A: Just getting online exposure to a target market of music savvy afictionados is a good one, our community isn’t a general social network, its specifically for fans of Indie music (yes, I used the term again, sue me).  Many of the opportunities are live concert based, as those are amongst the most valuable and wanted by bands as its hard to get clubs to book them and they are hard to organize on their own.  We do a lot of contests,with “opportunity” prizing such as playing festivals, or opening up for big name bands, radio exposure, music placements in TV shows, etc.

4) Seems like a good service, what’s the revenue model then? Or is this just a passion play?

At first it was a passion play, but eventually, to keep it going, you do need money eventually. Robust websites like ours are expensive to build and maintain, as well as update with new features to stay current and useful. Concert events are low margin and financially risky. We made a decision a long time ago never to “put our hands in the bands’ pockets”, so everything we offer is free to the bands.  We faced a difficult problem, and the solution became corporate America.  First it was sponsorships, then it was marketing campaigns for brands. Today, we’ve gone totally “B2B” and white labeled our own social network to give media companies and brands their own music community to build loyalty, membership, and generate ad impressions.  A white label is the entire infrastructure and back end support of Supernova.com, stripped of Supernova branding, and replaced with the client’s. We just launched it and our clients have included Rogers, Molson, and Corus Entertainment.  That is the future of Supernova.com, growth of the community through corporate partners.

5) So what’s next for Supernova?

Take a look at http://cfox.supernova.com for an example of where we’re headed.  Local music communities on Supernova sponsored/presented by the major radio or music television station in the community.  This site currently is a contest called the Seeds talent search, which is in it’s 31st year and discovered bands such as Nickelback, Bif Naked, and Default over the years.  At the end of the competition, the site will morph into an ongoing local music community.  This year we will be rolling out four more in Toronto, Winnipeg, London, and Hamilton, all Corus Entertainment radio stations.  The tie in with radio represents a major opportunity for both the bands and the radio stations, as each fulfils a need the other has.  Traditional media companies like radio need to stay relevant, get a foot into new media, and show they support local talent.  Bands need exposure opportunities traditional media can afford them.  Then corporate sponsors and advertisers also benefit from getting exclusive access to a very targeted and engaged demographic.  And we grow our platform.  Its a win-win-win-win situation, and those are rare.  So I think we’re on to something here, and the plan is to roll out across local communities in North America over the next two years.

Elliott, thank you for taking time to answer these questions, but I have just one more question that has bugged me for a while as I zip through your great website looking for new music…

6.  What’s up with that reality show band, Rock Star: Supernova that featured Dave Navarro, I believe.  Who came first?

A: We were first but being first in Canada against reality show giant Burnett Productions equates to being a flea on a walrus.  However, they did have to talk to us when they wanted to promote the TV show in Canada.  So we came to a nice agreement, we let them use the term Supernova in Canada for their TV show and they let us use the term Supernova throughout the rest of the world for any non-TV show (the registered the name throughout the rest of the world, which is an expensive and time consuming process, so I think we made out pretty well on that deal).  Ultimately the last laugh was on them because a little known band out of LA called Supernova (“Chewbacca”) that didn’t go for the settlement money and fought Burnett on principle to retain the name.  Thus, the band had to be marketed and known as “Rockstar Supernova”.

With that, if you would like to access the young adult / youth access demographics, you can reach Elliott at elliott@supernova.com, but for sure follow Elliott on Twitter @ supernovelliott, or @ supernovacom.

 

For a Monday

My Monday rant..  How did your day go?  Let me know if any of these strike a nerve with you too…

I hate when my coffee cup lid does not clip back as it should when I open it. When it flips back towards the shut position it sprays me with coffee. All over my work clothes. #$%^&*&^%$%*&&^

Listening to Alice in Chains – Check my brain.

The Leafs suck, I mean really suck. It’s a tough pill to swallow considering they have no prize for finishing last, like the right to draft the best junior player in the country.

Minimum wage is going up… again. What are the Ontario Liberals trying to do to this province? I might have to jump on to the Toronto as a province party since idiot Ontarians vote Liberal regardless and the Liberals and NDP are killing us!

I’m going to have an opinion about the race for Toronto Mayor coming up as I care about who is going to screw up, errr, lead this city even though I didn’t make the Toronto Star’s list of 30 local active bloggers in the city.
I did raise funds for current city councillor Karen Stintz, revised and ran a ratepayers organization, volunteered on several other ratepayer groups, helped coordinate the Mayor’s community clean-up in my ward, and was on working groups to discuss local developments… No credentials.

Now listening to Fallen Leaves by… Billy Talent

Looking for my referral for physiotherapy on my Achilles… I tried running after a very long lay-off but it’s still bugging me.  @#$^%^%#  I’ve managed to stay in the gym – personal training on Monday – and do that pain-free, but I really like the way I feel after a good long run.

Heard on the weekend that there was a ruling relating to my former government position and as a result the Feds have to make up some payments to be “fair” to those staff who were incorrectly classified since 2007.  Only in the government.    I’ll be sitting by my mailbox waiting for my cheque.

My friend and the brains behind www.supernova.com (the world’s leader in Indie music) told me I need to create and post a video on the correct way to roll up the rim to win on a cup of Tim Horton’s coffee.  After many years in the government and many coffee breaks I have perfected it.  Showed him on the weekend while our kids were in their karate class and him and I were pounding back the XL double doubles.

Speaking of karate… There is a kid in the class with my oldest boy and this kid is a complete distraction.  He’s all over the place!  Sure he makes me laugh at his over the top antics but he also distracts my boy and that bugs me.  It’s almost like this kids over way too bored and would rather do karat-ballet than actual karate.  Poor kid.  In the meanwhile, I had to ask the owner to keep that kid away from mine!!!

Hear a London Ontario dentist has been jailed after performing dental surgery from his garage.  Really?  There are complete idiots who think it’s okay to have dental surgery in a garage???  Were there not any clues that this was not ok… Like the car in the garage at the same time?!?  Seriously folks… Wake the fuck up!

 

Supernova Sunday

Here are the Top 100 Indie Songs according to www.supernova.com

http://www.supernova.com/music/radio/top100

Sign up to read and comment on the blogs…  Membership has it’s benefits.