A little drone with your coffee?

I really am a late bloomer.

Throughout my musical career, I've flirted with the idea of gratuitous merchandise like t-shirts, hats, printed thongs, the stuff you buy, but have been mainly focused on producing the music and getting it out there.

Until now.

No, now I've gone all Bing*Mart and have officially cracked open a schwag store on Reverbnation. For starters, because there's more stuff to come, the "Got Drone?" line has finally hit shelves. Dulcimer-land has some pretty famous shirts, clever ones that people like. I know that "Got Milk?" parodies are so very 1980, but as a child of the 70's, that seems jolly progressive to me. The great thing about "Got Drone?" is that it's not just about mountain dulcimers for it could also be about bagpipes, hurdy-gurdy, vacuum cleaners, etc.


Not only t-shirts and tote bags but also stainless steel travel mugs for your morning coffee. The jury is still out regarding "Got Drone?" thongs, mainly due to available printing space and not so much about the social implications.

And then, there's the logo marketing. As many of you have no doubt noticed, I've taken particular care about establishing a cross-platform "look" for my websites and social media networks. In somewhat disgusting marketing-speak, this is called "branding" and though it doesn't involve vaqueros, iron rods or painful heat, it's still a slightly disturbing yet necessary part of raising your visibility in an ever-crowded marketplace.


Back when the internet first became commercialized and open to the public, people were hip to set up web pages, even though they had no idea what on earth to do with them. They'd labor intensively over the thing for a week, proudly set it up and then sit, blankly looking at their static web counters, wondering why no-one knew they were there. With the sheer amount of people rubbing virtual elbows with you on the 'net, you've got to somehow get their attention. Just long enough for you to show them what's inside the box, kind of like walking down a supermarket aisle when blammo! something leaps out at you visually and you have to go over and inspect it. Branding is part of the first line of attraction. Somewhere along the line, I managed to acquire some maddish design skillz, so I eventually came up with my own logos, colors, layouts, etc. If you're not a designer; find a starving art student/webmaster and pay them with Netflix gift cards.


Once you've settled upon a visual identity, allow that to be a common thread in your online presence. Much like the familiar red and white Coca-Cola logo, people will come to recognize you on a crowded shelf. This wasn't such a big deal when mom and pop ran the places, but with more and more of a big-box approach to commerce (aided mostly by the internet and not so much the big box stores), you have to shout awfully loud to be heard even half of once.

You'd think I'd have long been into the merchandising side of this, having really dug into the whole branding concept, but two things have kept me from stocking up on logo jewelry, embroidered toilet paper caddies and signature pool covers.

One. Space.

Two. Cash.

I know. It may seem like I'm on a $&#%@! boat a lot of the time, but remember, the boat was rented. Just like the tux. Great ideas cost great amounts of money and, without investors or that flash-in-the-pan success and advertising, you can end up a million-seller ("got a million of these in the cellar.") But when Reverbnation suddenly opened up a way for artists to sell 0n-demand merchandise, well - that changed everything. You can design your merch, have them pay for production and ship it as well. That is treat-filled. Wish I could work my books and CDs like that (and I know that I can - just have to put that in motion.)

Granted, the retail price of the items is pretty much eaten up by production costs - so what's the profit? The profit is in extending your visual reach beyond the internet. Just the fact that anyone would want to wear a t-shirt with your name on it should be enough to make you pretty happy. What then exceeds happy and clutch-shifts into overdrive glee is knowing that X number of people may see the shirt (or mug or thong), have your name or band float across their frontal lobe, file it away under "Google This" and before you know it, you've got another click on your page views.

Strict marketing talk can be a soul-numbing experience, so be sure to remember that both you and the people who embrace your mission are just that: people. And more important than any flashy bling or schwag is what you have to say, how you say it and what effect it has on others. Sure, there are those out there who are all icing and no cake. But take one bite of that and you may be prone to pass on that particular brand (unless you're an all-icing kind of person in which case there's a special level of misery reserved just for you.)

Now, having said all that, can I interest you in a "Got Drone?" chamois?

Boo Takes Me Back...And Into The Future

Airline breaks instrument, owner makes video, airline makes good (The Sequel)

Today’s guest blogger is an old friend of mine - I have known Bing Futch for going on 20 years now. He wrote articles about my band back in the day (some are HERE and HERE) and we shared stages all over Orlando during the late 90s.

Dave "Boo" Rhea lived the life of a rock-star for quite some time, first with his brother Vaughn's band Von Ra (and later Vonray) and later with Dust For Life. Von Ra was one of the band's I often interviewed on the run-up to their getting a record deal and appearing on "Party of Five." The trip to see Willie Nelson in Clearwater was a wild trip indeed (Willie signed my dulcimer.)

My Online Anniversary

It was on July 22nd, 1994 that I bought an IBM computer with a 128 mb hard drive and a 1200 baud modem, fired it up and installed the included Prodigy Online software, logged on and proclaimed to myself "I'm going to make my money back with this combination." I knew that this would be my preferred method of work from there on into the future.

In fact, I sent an e-mail to Prodigy staffer Jenny Ambrozek and told her that she needed to hire me straight away (part of this was ambition, part of this had to do with the free ID, since Prodigy cost money at the time.) She told me in no uncertain terms, "hold your horses, let's see if you've got anything to offer us yet." Within six months, I was a Special Contributor on the Hobbies Bulletin Board, leading the charge for a sanctioned Disney Fans BB on the service. Within a year, I had become Special Contributor on the newly created Disney Fans BB and, within another year, had become Board Leader. During all of this time, new things were being unveiled to the online community; things like the World Wide Web, Chat Rooms, Web Pages and Interest Groups.



I remember when the WWW was rolled out; headquarters in White Plains, New York was trying to get moderators up to speed on what it was, exactly, and how to design content for it. Those early days of learning HTML were like learning a foreign language and I recall seeing lots of seriously ugly sites, mostly mine. Along the way, there were the first efforts to build community within the Disney Fans virtual world, those first real-time connections in-person, discovering the hard way how to conduct chat room events with special guests and, most importantly, how to connect via dial-up while on the road.



In 1996, Prodigy realized that its proprietary software wasn't a good match for the up and coming internet and they decided to fly their flag on this new "series of tubes." Prodigy Internet was launched with a series of Interest Groups that collected data from various parts of the web and arranged them via topic for PI subscribers. The groups were available only to PI members and, along with AOL, Compuserve, Delphi and some other premium content sites, we were the last of the "private community" sites offering services on the newly commercial internet. As a member of the roll-out time, my Theme Parks Interest Group stirred up news that summer with the Coast-2-Coast Coaster Tour, a madcap dash across the country, riding and reporting on roller coasters (a tour later copied by USA Today.)

Alas, Prodigy's business model wasn't as solid as they had hoped, and one by one, the moderators were told that they could stay if they wished, but on a free subscription basis. Most of us were used to income upwards of $2000 a month and realized that the dream was coming to an end (this was the de facto beginning of the dot com bust.) Not willing to do all of that hard work for free, many of us opted out and eventually settled in with our own virtual ports of call. I've had the Darkstudios.com site since 1996 and it has morphed much over the years; a cached museum of changing designs, attitudes, sensibilities, direction and vision.

Today, as I reflect on 15 years of sitting in front of a monitor, tapping on a keyboard and attempting to navigate our increasingly technological world by way of the information superhighway, I've got to say that for all of the frustrations and hang-ups, tech support and customer service nightmares, constant upgrades and money pumped into equipment - the flip side has been a wondrous experience connecting with people from all around the world, discovering and exploring new concepts, places and ideas, learning and applying knowledge and plying my trade as an artist. That original statement as I fired up that first computer was made by a younger man who still sits down every day, turns on the iMac and says, "today, something wonderful is going to happen."

And part of making it happen is by leaning forward into the adventure and spreading your wings in preparation for departure, isn't it?

Translated Babel Page From German Blog

Translation result for http://www.legourmand.de/?p=1729

But meanwhile the Netzcommunity has recognized that the customer with a simple complaint, a problem does not get ahead any longer, it is ignored. And the next musicians weight about handling their instrument via video. In “Northwest Folk singer Bing Futch describes BREAK Dulcimers” like its Folkcraft double-hits a corner Dulcimer on 14 June 2009 on Northwest Airlines the flight 2363 from Detroit, MI after Ft. Wayne, IN was damaged. This is its contribution:

Is this still a story?

http://www.examiner.com/x-5745-Houston-Music-Examiner~y2009m7d16-Another-musician-with-a-broken-instrument-writes-a-song-airline-opens-check-book

Wow, does this story have legs or what?

Thanks, Flight Wisdom!

Flight Wisdom Breaks Fiddles | Flight Wisdom

Flight Wisdom Breaks Fiddles

We enjoyed Dave Carroll’s unique approach to speaking out against customer service. Apparently we were not alone in this. It seems a lot of people did. It struck a chord with Westjet, the Canadian discount airline, which invited Dave not only to jam with them, but to fly with them next time. While we were writing this post, Westjet removed its video for reasons unknown.


Gory Bateson shared his thoughts on his favorite airline to fly, Southwest, and how they have always handled his guitar with car.

Then we get to the most unique one yet…Northwest Breaks Dulcimers, by Bing Futch. We were not aware there was a dulcimer podcast, but we learn something new every day.

This blog deals with flying in general and features the Gory Bateson song "Southwest Never Broke My Guitar", which is pretty funny. Watch it to the end.

Linking to the connections

Blog about jazz music » Jazz Guitar Music

Must be a mirror site of some sort for this:
http://www.socializedpr.com/united-breaks-guitars-case-study-in-old-media-failure/

Meanwhile, Bing Futch, whose mountain dulcimer had been damaged by Northwest Airlines, recorded his own video Northwest Breaks Dulcimers. Wisely, according to the Times Online, Northwest jumped in quickly and agreed to compensate Futch before becoming another bad customer service viral video case study.

“‘We’ve reached out to the customer and offered our apologies and compensation,’ said Susan Elliott, a spokeswoman for Delta, who owns Northwest airlines. She said that his dulcimer was damaged, in part, because it was packaged in a soft-shell case but they still decided to offer compensation.”

Futch’s video had just over 2500 views as of this afternoon.

Orlando Weekly Blog Coverage

Orlando Weekly - Music Blog

So local dulimist(?) Bing Futch - suck on that name, Carroll - figured he'd ride the United coattails for the whole week it's popular and capitalize with his own similar-sounding jaunt called "Only a Northwest Song," (Beatles reference win?) in which Futch (really with that name?) explains how...well, you can guess the rest.

Pretty funny little blurb and very indicative of the writing for the mag (I used to write for them back when I did a lot of music journalism.)

Out of 179 videos that I've uploaded to YouTube over a span of two years, "Only A Northwest Song" ranks number 24 in total viewings (as of this posting), and that's after three days of being posted. It's sort of like watching a single chart. Kinda.

So THAT'S Why!

YouTube heroes Dave Carroll and Bing Futch win airline compensation - Times Online

Futch’s song, in a similar tune to Go West by the Pet Shop Boys, has an even more memorable chorus. “Northwest! Where baggage handlers roam. Northwest! You’ll be taking pieces home.”

After yesterday's resigned resolution with Northwest Airlines, I had pretty much turned eyes towards the future and have been continuing work on some new projects. The number of hits to the "Only A Northwest Song" videos (both long and short) were nowhere in the neighborhood of 2.5 million hits, but the numbers were still impressive for such a short span of time.

Sometime last night, however, I began to notice an uptick in views. Chalking it up to residual viewings from mirror sites, and thanking the internet gods for any kind of exposure I can get, I thought nothing more about it until this morning when I glanced at the view count and saw that it had very nearly doubled since I went to sleep. With a strange mixture of curiosity and giddiness, I did some Google searches and turned up the link at the top of this post. Well, God bless the U.K.

And, of course, being a musician, the tag of the article is my favorite part. It never gets old when someone likes your stuff.

"We're Done" says Northwest

Kristine Brown, Assistant Manager of Luggage Service for Northwest/Delta, said "we're done" in regards to my compensation claim for the mountain dulcimer damaged on June 14th, 2009.

"The transport of musical instruments (as checked baggage) is at the customers' own risk, as our tariffs (the rules governing Luggage handling and claims) excludes liability for this type of property. As much as we wish we could guarantee that any fragile items can be transported without incident as checked luggage, our systems and the vastly differing aircraft types used to support our routes preclude this kind of guarantee."

United broke policy in offering compensation for Dave Carroll's guitar, she said, because there was evidence of mishandling (i.e. the eyewitnesses throwing guitar cases around.) My problem here is not so much the mishandling which caused the damage, but the fact that the carry-on bag had to be gate-checked when there was obviously room on board the plane for it.

In my history of flying Northwest, I've either encountered flight attendants who expressed doubt that the bag would fit, only to watch me slide it easily into the overhead compartment, or they've put up resistance, only to give in after I've politely told them that gate-checking was a dangerous proposition for an acoustic instrument in a soft case. Brown argues that their policy states there is no guarantee that carry-on luggage won't be subject to gate-checking should room become scarce on board the airplane.

I argue back that policy wasn't an issue with any of the numerous flight attendants on previous Northwest flights who allowed me to find available space for the dulcimer. A lack of consistency in their approach to policy gave me the knowledge that as long as I could find space on board a plane, I was good to go. So I've made a point to book seats in the rear of the aircraft, knowing that there is always overhead bin space back there. It's never been a problem; until now. With a flight attendant who clearly saw that there was space towards the front of the aircraft, I feel that it was whim, rather than policy, that dictated the fate of my instrument.

On behalf of Delta/Northwest, Brown said "we are concerned about your perception of this experience and as a gesture of our concern, I have issued you an Electronic Credit Voucher in the amount of $200." I suppose, in the corporate scheme of things, that meeting in the middle is as sure a victory for the little guy as anything, eh?

Northwest Breaks Dulcimers - the story continues

Dave Carroll shows online gripes can get results -- chicagotribune.com

Inspired by Carroll, Bing Futch said he wrote a song and crafted a video Friday about a dulcimer splintered by Northwest Airlines workers because he wanted to avoid a lengthy battle to be reimbursed.

Futch said he filed an online claim after the June 14 incident, but not within the 24 hours specified by the airline. "Since then I've gotten crickets," the Orlando-based musician said.

That changed quickly when Delta Air Lines, which acquired Northwest last fall, learned of his video, "Northwest Breaks Dulcimers," on Monday. "We've reached out to the customer and offered our apologies and compensation," said Susan Elliott, a Delta spokeswoman. She said his dulcimer was damaged, in part, because it was packaged in a soft-shell case. She urged passengers to carefully pack musical instruments.

The excerpt above is from the story published in today's Chicago Tribune. There were a couple of surprises included. One, I wasn't aware that Delta had acquired Northwest. Another surprise in the article was the paragraph beginning with "That changed quickly.." Shortly after my phone interview with Julie Johnsson, I received another phone call from Kristine Brown of Northwest Airlines. After talking through the situation, she did indeed make an offer of compensation. Since this situation is still developing, I'll leave it at that.

The article makes it appear as though I willy-nilly offered up my dulcimer as a sacrifice to the baggage handling gods. Suffice it to say that, even by Northwest/Delta's own carry-on allowances, my soft carry-on dulcimer bag was intended to go inside the plane and not in the cargo hold. Though there was space for the bag in a closet near the front of the plane, I was told to gate-check it by a Northwest flight attendant who ignored my protestations that it was an acoustic instrument in a soft case unfit for cargo transportation.

Notice that even Delta spokeswoman Susan Elliott stated that damage was sustained, "in part", due to the softness of the case. The part left unstated had to do with the actions of the flight attendant.

Only one time before have I been forced to gate-check an instrument and that was a Delta flight. Delta has a notorious history, known for their intolerance regarding musical instruments as carry-ons, to the point of a boycott against the airline instituted by the American Federation of Musicians.

The AFM also has been working with the airline industry to institute uniform carry on and storage policies in respect to instruments. While most airlines have shown sympathy toward musicians, Delta Airlines remains uncooperative and has created numerous problems for AFM members. In response, the AFM issued a boycott of Delta. Recently, the AFM has been informed that Delta is reviewing its policies.

The pressure worked and the boycott was called off, according to a press release dated April 26, 2007:

In addition to its carry-on policy, Delta also improved its checked baggage policy. Previously, Delta only accepted checked baggage that measured 80 linear inches or less with a weight limit of 80 pounds. Checked items can now measure up to 120 linear inches and weigh up to 100 pounds, good news for musicians traveling with large instruments.

While "Only A Northwest Song" hasn't gotten nearly the quantity of hits that "United Breaks Guitars" did, the rate of views has picked up considerably over the past 24 hours. In all of the 179 videos posted on my YouTube page, it is absolutely the fastest racker of hits.

Stay tuned.

United Breaks Guitars - Northwest Breaks Dulcimers (Song Only)

Here's the short form of the video with just "Only A Northwest Song."

Dulcimerica 125 - "Only A Northwest Song"

On June 14th, 2009 - Northwest Airlines baggage handlers damaged Bing's Folkcraft double-neck dulcimer on flight 2363 from Detroit, MI to Ft. Wayne, IN. Many people requested that Bing write a song about the situation, much like Tom Paxton did in his tune "Thank You Republic Airlines."

When Dave Carroll released the video for "United Breaks Guitars", Bing saw an opportunity for even more awareness in the area of baggage handling guidelines for airlines, not to mention perhaps an opportunity to have Northwest finally hear his story out and pay for the damages inflicted by their ground crew. "Only A Northwest Song" was written and recorded on Friday, July 10th. The video was partially shot on the day of and after the incident with editing taking place also on July 10th.

Only A Northwest Song

[UPDATE] The song got a remix, plus a few extra touches, now that I've had a little time.

[UPDATE] Welcome everyone from Facebook, Twitter and other networks - traffic has definitely picked up around here. For the whole story on Annie's June 14th crushing at the hands of Northwest Airlines, see this blog entry.

Wrote the lyrics and music this morning (July 10th), recorded this arrangement in the afternoon. It's an odd little tune.

• The title is a play on the George Harrison-penned Beatles tune "Only A Northern Song." Why, I don't know.

• I listened to both "United Breaks Guitars" and "Thank You Republic Airlines" to make sure I didn't go in either of those directions. 'Twas easy with the Tom Paxton tune. A little more difficult with Dave Carroll's song, because he plays it in the international key of dulcimer - D. Anything I did in D sounded pretty close to this tune, so I went with the key of G instead. A little high in my range, but a good stretching exercise.

• Originally, I was going to rock this one out, but decided to go with a mixture of techno drum loops and dulcimer. The bass is synthesized and played live.

• Except for the male chorus under the bridge, all voices are mine.

It definitely needs some polish, but I'm happy to post it as a demo and see what y'all think. [UPDATE] Thanks to everyone on Blip.FM who has blipped this tune!




Only A Northwest Song
music and lyrics by Bing Futch
Copyright © 2009 J.O.B. Entertainment Inc.

you may have heard the song about the guy from Nova Scotia
how United Airlines busted his guitar
Tom Paxton hit that barrier with Republic as a carrier
and he wrote a tune to serve as a memoir

my heart goes out to both these gents in their respective incidents
and with these words I'm joining the protest
for I had just one expenditure in the shape of a mountain dulcimer
and that instrument got splintered by Northwest


NORTHWEST

Where the baggage handlers roam

NORTHWEST

You'll be taking pieces home

NORTHWEST

You've killed many guitars, for sure

add to that: one mangled mountain dulcimer


"gate check that piece"
"no," I said - "it fits right in the overhead
as easy as a cord fits in a plug"
but in Motor City, my connection had the bins all sliced into little sections
the whole plane looked just like a Volkswagen bug

I've had my share of heart-thumpers, flying these puddle-jumpers
my dulcimer in the belly of the beast
the case was strong, I said a prayer as we lifted up into the air
with Ft. Wayne as my next stop in the east

bridge

The two girls on the ground crew seemed afraid
And watched me from afar, grabbing the last bag on the cart
If I had looked inside, they would have paid
three hours later, I saw the mess
and shouted "curses to you, Northwest!"

So, listen up, American, Delta, Frontier , Air Tran
Continental, PSA , Jet Blue
US Airways, Allegiant Air, Southwest, Compass, Martinaire
Virgin Atlantic, yeah I'm talkin' to you

and all you other commercial flights, your passengers have all got rights
to baggage that is never treated wrong
and if you slip, then so will we, along comes Dave or Tom or ME
to tell the world that you suck, in a song

Press from last month's Gebhard Woods fest

morrisdailyherald.com | Back to music's roots

Musicians come from all over the United States to participate in and teach workshops at the Dulcimer Festival held in Gebhard Woods State Park each year.

Bing Futch performed this year at this festival for the second time.

From Florida, Futch said he travels all over the United States to participate in dulcimer festivals.

"This is a beautiful setting next to the canal and ponds and among the trees," he said. "The people in Morris are also very friendly."