I received this in my Soundcloud inbox a few days ago: Hi Bj Fornicatti, We've received a report directly from Universal Music Group that your track "MPS HR 11" contains "Family Feud" by Jay Z. As a result, your track has been removed from your profile for the time being. If you think we've made a mistake, you can tell us about it by following the link below and filing a dispute. You can file a dispute if you think the person who reported your track got it wrong - for example, because you are the copyright owner or have permission from the copyright owner(s) to post this track to SoundCloud. If you file a dispute and show us that you have all rights necessary to post this track, we will reinstate your track, no problem. In all other cases, we will need to treat this as copyright infringement and you will receive a “strike” against your account. If you receive three of these strikes, your SoundCloud account will be terminated in accordance ...

A few months ago I did a podcast from The Mousetrap in Broad Ripple that focused on the Family Jam (aka Fam Jam aka From Another Mother Jam) that happens every Wednesday evening. It's an open mic for musicians: a backline of gear and instruments provided on a stage where jammers can meet an collaborate on musical explorations. One of the many people I have met through this network of musicians and artists is a guitarist named Evan Shine, and he is my guest on the podcast this week. I know Evan and have jammed with him several times but this was the first time he and I had a chance to hang out one-on-one outside of any musical premise. He was gracious enough to meet me at a hotel restaurant/bar during a severe rainstorm, and our conversation went on for almost an hour. During the interview I learned a lot about Evan, his personal history, and his tastes in music.  I think this is the best aspect of the podcast experience: learning about other people and what motivates t...

Last week there were two milestones to acknowledge: the death of drummer extraordinaire John Blackwell Jr.; and the birthday of Beatle Ringo Starr. Both are famous percussionists with drastically different styles, and yet there is a bit of a thread that binds them due to being brothers of the skins. After whetting the palate with an audio sample of the infamous episode of What's Happenin' where Rerun bootlegs a Doobie Brothers concert, I play the song "Birthday" from The Beatles (aka The White Album) as I rant and rave about Ringo being the greatest of all time... then proceed to play "I'm The Greatest", a song fellow Beatle John Lennon wrote for Starr on his solo album Ringo in 1973. Then I give props to John Blackwell, who died a little over a year after Prince did. I played a good sample of his work a few times on this podcast but decided that the slowed-down version of "Little Red Corvette" that they performed live in Montreux wa...

Welcome to the Fourth of July edition of Mixtape Preservation Society. The only acknowledgement of this, however, comes in the form of the first song: a demo version of L.A. punk band X's tune "4th Of July". The rest of the hour is spent hanging out with DJ Greenhouse and talking about rap music in particular, all music in general. There is no real theme for the hour but we do run a few tangents and I try to play selections that relate somehow to those topics. After talking about the death of Prodigy from Mobb Deep a little more (Prodigy was a favorite of Greenhouse) we start talking about Jay-Z, which is ironic considering the interview was conducted before he dropped his 4:44 album online. I managed to get a copy of the album after the fact, and I cued up the track "Family Feud" for your listening pleasure. My verdict on the album is that, while not a masterpiece, it is very good; it seems raw, as if Jay were in a rush to get it out, or perhaps stri...