Mertz Grade Paved Trail Restoration Project Concept & Volunteer

Mertz Grade Paved Trail Restoration Concept & 1st Volunteer...I'll volunteer 1 month of my time (5 days a week, 6 hours per day) next spring to the project of clearing the Mertz Grade footpath on Bobcat Trail & Hartwick Pines Roads if anyone wants to secure me the use of (or rental, or funds to rent) a backhoe, a commercial grade sweeper and a chainsaw to do the work with. Email my wife at LisaMarieCiofani@yahoo.com if interested in volunteering time or equipment, or if interested in donating to an equipment rental fund.

You can donate to the equipment rental fund using this button

ATTN: Daily Unsigned Radio; Submission's NOT "FREE"

To submit to the Daily Unsigned Radio contest through ReverbNation requires an EPK or an RPK that not all artists can afford to maintain. This only accesses you to "buy-in" talent, not the REAL talent that may not have the extra cash to dump into maintaining a venue to enter into contests. If you should decide to expand your search to artists, bands and musicians who may not be carrying RPKs through ReverbNation (ARTISTS AND BANDS JUST LIKE US) then you're invited to peruse our work and play any of our songs that we've provided downloads for...

A side note on the download subject is that, by providing a download, the artist has entered into a "hope" lottery that it may be downloaded and shared on a massive scale, such as on the radio or via streaming...Once a song is provided as a free download, you do have the right to stream it...that much is true regarding us (play our songs all you want!).

So, with that said, we now provide you with a pasted copy of the email we received warning us not to contact you directly:

Get Radio Airplay in Millions of Vehicles on Daily Unsigned Radio



Dates: Aug 15, 2013 - Dec 31, 2013

Location: Online

Submissions Open: Tue Aug 6

Submissions Close: Sat Nov 30

Submission Fee: FREE

Learn More
Event Description:

Daily Unsigned Radio will select at least 100 songs from ReverbNation artists to be added to its radio station which will be included on the Aha platform that is built into the vehicles of ten automotive manufacturers, including Acura, Honda and Subaru.

Daily Unsigned Radio offers unsigned artists a platform to gain fans and gives music lovers a great way to discover new music they might not otherwise hear.

Selection Criteria: Originality, Songwriting, Commercial viability and Vocals

Note: This opportunity is exclusive to ReverbNation. Any artist who contacts the staff at DU directly in regards to these featured opportunity slots will be disqualified from the opportunity. DU reserves the right to take further action regarding eligibility to submit to future opportunities.

About Daily Unsigned (DU): DU is the premier and highly curated New Music Discovery website. Since launching in June 2010, DU boasts 128 record label signings while featuring the best up and coming Unsigned Artists Worldwide. DU highlights all genres of music to ensure their listenership the finest of musical choices. A number of DU alumni have gone on to grace the pages of Rolling Stone, Spin, Alternative Press, Kerrang!, Billboard, XXL, NME, New York Timesand have performed on such national TV shows as Jimmy Kimmel Live, Carson Daily, Jimmy Fallon, MTV, MTV2 and The Voice on NBC.

Learn More »

Thank you,

ReverbNation Team

Submission requires a free ReverbNation account and active subscription to ReverbNation Press Kits.

Do you see that last line just above this one (where the copy and paste ends)? There's your "FREE" submission for you (it's rigged)...The subscription to a ReverbNation Press Kit requires a credit card and money every month...You may rob yourself of that prolific, astoundingly talented family oriented artist who's too financially strapped from taking care of family to be able to afford this luxury that's being transformed into a necessity, unnecessarily...For this reason (because of the unfair advantage), some of us have opted to never carry RPKs through ReverbNation in passive protest to what's being done to the less fortunate artists who can't afford them. Some of us have opted to avoid FaceBook for much the same reason: It's becoming a cyber bullying monster, in itself, that's making talented musicians appear weak and neglected by their fans with all of the "stats" regarding Likes, visits and who's talking about them. FaceBook has too much power over the perception of artists' development and popularity on ReverbNation and now has become downright abusive. But the "Like" sellers, who can make any site (or musician) appear more popular so the followers will start liking it, are raking it in. Does FaceBook own those companies, too? Is that what's happening here? Make 'em unpopular and then sell 'em back their own stolen popularity? (Oops, didn't mean to pull your blankies back to expose your pissed-in bed like that). It really all comes down to this: Do you want talent or just some spoiled assholes with big credit ratings and too much money (some of whom would neglect family obligations to carry these RPKs)? That's the question you should ask yourself here. ReverbNation is charging the wrong end, the artists, when they should be charging you and every other contest runner who presents such "opportunities". They should charge you for contacting us and associating their name to your contests instead of charging us...WE are the talent being provided for FREE here and it's more than insulting to want to charge the talent as a perverse, backhanded reward for providing yet another awesome reference in their talent bank. We need a ReverbNation-like site that understands that and handles it accordingly. Then the playing field would be leveled and you'd see music take a positive turn back towards talented artists and real musicians (who can play musical instruments) ruling the mainstream and airwaves again. And we'd stop being insulted by these "opportunities" that're nothing more than rubbing our noses in the shit that it truly is that we'll be passed-over, yet again, for some sluggards who had more money to dump on backdoor buy-ins than we did. ``` Learn how to get your song on itunes at ReverbNation.com

ATTN: Sire Records/Warner Bros Records A&R

ATTN: Sire Records/Warner Bros Records A&R

Regarding your search for new talent on ReverbNation:

I don't have an RPK. ReverbNation may not've told you that they cost money and that they won't submit any of us who don't invest in RPKs thru' them to any of their opportunities, such as your search for new talent. In the email informing us of this opportunity (if we have an RPK, that is), ReverbNation went on to warn us that any of us who contacted you directly would be disqualified from consideration.

So, it looks like you may not be allowed to "discover" me on ReverbNation.

But if you decide to defy the establishment with me, you can check out my profile on your own and cut out the middleman who only wants to provide you with "buy-in" talent (mix tape, anyone?).

The links are as follows:

https://soundcloud.com/BelaCulo

http://www.reverbnation.com/BelaCulo 

http://www.youtube.com/user/CuloBela

http://belaculo.tumblr.com/ 

https://twitter.com/BellaCulo

Comparing ReverbNation & SoundCloud Widgets

Okay. I got some emails that the songs in the ReverbNation player are playing "noticeably slow". I didn't hear it when I listened, so maybe it's sporadic, I don't know. I'm placing both widgets here in case someone else wants to compare them side by side.

~~

Learn how to put a song on itunes at ReverbNation.com
;)

How To Share The WHOLE SoundCloud Widget

A little detail about this widget some have noticed is that when they go to "share" it they only get the embed for the song they're listening to at the time and not the whole widget. What you can do if you'd like to share the whole player in a widget is to click the link on the player that takes you to the profile page and then click "share". From the profile page (e.i: http://www.soundcloud.com/BelaCulo ) the share button will include all of the songs in the player in the widget embed code and display the player just as you see the one included in this post. You can even customize the colors!

You Can Still Hear Estranged On SoundCloud Or Myspace

Okay, I didn't used to think that ReverbNation was homophobic or would sabotage someone like me, but perhaps I was wrong. As many of you have found-out, my 1st song in my player, Estranged, won't play. It's even holding-up the player initialization on the widgets. Then, to add insult to injury (how many of you'd be tiffed, if not totally distressed over it?), there's no way to contact ReverbNation to try to get an answer or get it fixed...a "forum"? Really?!? You've got my promo song all jammed-up and you refer me to a "forum"? Alright, to spite this obvious blatant disregard or sheer sabotage, whichever the case may be (can't ask them), I ask that anyone who wanted to check-out Estranged to NOT let ReverbNation have the satisfaction of depriving you of it and that you simply click on our SoundCloud or Myspace links and check it out there. If ReverbNation addresses and fixes this problem, I'll remove this post since it'll be a non-issue at that point.

In update to this post:

I re-uploaded Estranged on ReverbNation and moved the initial, broken upload from the top of the player down to the bottom, which messes with my 5 song EP number (6 uploads to equal 5 songs). I'm not concerned with the loss of (count) statistics so much as I'd like for my promo song to actually PLAY when someone clicks the play button.

Not too long after doing this, and renaming the initial upload with "BROKENupload" added-on to the title, it started playing again. But this was after I already stopped trusting ReverbNation's player to properly rep me and switched-out all of their widgets for SoundCloud player widgets on the various websites I'd embedded to. That, in itself, was a major unexpected inconvenience and hassle. But I couldn't leave my fans at the mercy of a ReverbNation music widget that simply refused to initialize or play, now, could I? I had no idea how long it was going to hang in limbo or if it was ever going to work again. I know people are checking out my sites and expect to hear a song when they hit play and that simply wasn't happening with ReverbNation, all of a sudden, and it was all due to one song (the top one) hanging-up; the rest played fine.

So, in short: I'll stick with the SoundCloud widgets for now, since they're there already.

What Is Pseudo Punk? The Answer & True Definition

If the question is "what is Pseudo Punk?" the proper answer would be that it's a genre of music created in 1992 by Vincent-Nick Ciofani of Detroit. The songs fit the definition in the lyrical sense by seeming to be about one subject but they're actually about another (ergo: "pseudo"). There are also musical details that come together to create the distinctive sound that also sets it apart from other Punk genres. The term "Pseudo Punk" was originally coined to describe the genre created by Ciofani. All other uses of the term since then are improper uses of the descriptive that almost appear to be in existence solely to sabotage the true meaning or the genre it describes.

Pseudo Punk Turns 21 Years Old This Week

This weekend marks the 21st anniversary of the creation of Pseudo Punk!

To commemorate the 21st birthday of Pseudo Punk, a 5 song EP was created to celebrate its endurance.

Although many social networking sites for musicians were reluctant to acknowledge the genre, some super cool sites do provide a "sub" genre option for writing it in, even though Pseudo Punk is a category of its own.

Pseudo Punk and Acoustic Pseudo Punk were created in Detroit in 1992 by Vincent-Nick Ciofani III. While a few musicians and artists dabbled in it, Vini was the primary standing artist who kept churning out the Pseudo cuts in spite of the adversities, like a loss of players/band members, homelessness, betrayal, and a loss of family to a feud, he suddenly faced once he dubbed his new creation.

A pioneer of the mix tape, Vini created a mix tape from the various acts he was working with at the time. By 1993-94, Acoustic Pseudo Punk appeared on the "Sons Of Thunder" and "Boanerges" mixtapes Vini was selling in the Detroit area. Only released on cassette, the tape included 3 acts: "Sons of Thunder", "Brother John" (they were unaware of the real Brother John at the time), and "Mr Bigstuff" (which created 1 powerhouse God rap/church rhyme titled "the Walk").

Although more than a thousand tapes were sold, all word-of-mouth, with no internet involvement, you'd be hard-pressed to find one still in existence due to the fact that those who bought them listened to them until they were wore out. Long after Vini had sold-out and stopped selling the tapes, he was bombarded with requests for replacements to the ones his fans had worn-out and was asked by some to replace them with CDs "so they'd last longer". Had Vini responded to the market demand for his songs back then, perhaps there'd be a CD in existence now that's not a lossy dub from an old tape.

Vini's powerhouse cut, "Estranged", was written in 1998-99 while he was fronting a Gaylord act going by "Nebula" (they were unaware of the other guys already using the name). After a confusing false start with the band and 2 shows they bombed, Vini left for awhile and then returned to them with his Pseudo Punk as a peace offering and a "secret weapon". Two other songs were also written from this temporary reunion, "Prick" and "Super Freek". Both were very good and accomplished, even though they needed to be rerecorded; but "Estranged" was the cut that refused to go away.

So, with the Bela Culo Pseudo Punk release comes the 21st birthday of Vincent Ciofani's still unrecognized (underdog) genres, Pseudo Punk and Acoustic Pseudo Punk.

A gift for the die-hard Pseudo fans is this widget that they can share with others online.

A Free Song For Charitable Causes & Fundraisers

If you’re conducting a fundraiser for a good cause and lack a reciprocal product or gift, you may select a song for downloading from the Bela Culo Pseudo Punk EP at https://soundcloud.com/BelaCulo (for FREE) with our blessing. If you create a hard copy CD for your cause that any of our songs appear on, we’d also like a copy: POB 105 Grayling, MI 49738…If you’d like to secure a WAV copy for your CD (which will sound lots better than an mp3), email BelaCulo@gmail.com 

http://belaculo.tumblr.com/post/56058674483/a-song-for-charitable-fundraising-purposes 

Estranged Video

Estranged

written by Vincent-Nick Ciofani III

a Pseudo Punk original

Ride Video

Ride

written by

Jim Dooley (Drums)

&

Vincent-Nick Ciofani III

Come Down Video

Come Down

written by Jim Dooley (drums)

&

Vincent-Nick Ciofani III

Hot Enuff Video

Hot Enuff

written by Jim Dooley (drums)

&

Vincent-Nick Ciofani III

the Girl/Void Video

the Girl/Void with fan-made wav audio

written by Vincent-Nick Ciofani III