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The Tape from Hell – War Music

StreetJelly Big Check

Many of you have seen this past week, Frank Podlaha (a.k.a. Frankie) and StreetJelly won first prize in the 2014 Tennessee Veterans Business Association Business-Plan Competition.  Folks have been asking about Frank’s service in the U.S. Army and his time as a helicopter crew chief in Operation Desert Storm.  Here’s one of his stories…

“No shit, there I was…”  All good war stories should start like that.  So there I was, or more precisely, there we were:  Saudi Arabia, December 1990, 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment, somewhere in the desert north of Hafar Al Batin, south of the Iraqi border.  My buddies and I spent our days maintaining AH-1F Cobra Attack Helicopters.  We were crew chiefs, or more accurately, helicopter mechanics and aviation crewmen.  We were getting our aircraft ready for the impending ground invasion for Operation Desert Storm.  Although at the time, it was known as Operation Desert Shield.

Frankie and AH-1F Cobra

We worked out of the back of a 5-ton Army truck converted into a small tool shop.  It was jammed packed in every corner with wrenches, sockets, gauges, you name it.  It had everything we needed to work on the helicopters.  But the one most important thing it didn’t have: music!  That’s ok, though, as we brought along our own portable am/fm radio cassette player.  I can’t remember the brand – but think of a smaller one-speaker Emerson type model.  It was physically the size of a breakfast cereal box.

Frankie,  Gulf War, 1991

Frankie, Gulf War, 1991

We had plenty of C-size batteries to run the mini boom-box, plus we had AC power whenever we stopped rolling and cranked up the generator.  Six or seven guys hung out daily in the back of this truck.  We all had various musical tastes, but for the most part we all liked the rock classics.  At the time, the best pop music could give us was “Ice-Ice Baby.”  I know!

After a few weeks of being in-country, we ran through playing all our cassettes ad nauseam.  No, there were no radio stations way out in the desert, not even the propaganda station Baghdad Betty.  “Play this cassette.”  “No, we just heard that, play this.”  “No way.”  “Don’t even think about putting that junk on.”  That’s what our musical decisions were reduced to.

Then it happened, purely out of frustration or musical despair, Mike Carper …or was it Bryan Benz, laid down the musical law and said while holding up the Rolling Stones Hot Rocks tape, “we will only listen to this cassette in this truck until we get back home!”  Ooooh-kay.  Sounded like absolute silliness to play one tape for the rest of our tour, but what the hey!

Snake DoctorsAnd that’s what we did, play that double-sided greatest-hits album over and over again in that truck.  And I mean over and over and over and over again.  FIVE MONTHS STRAIGHT!  At first, it was kind of fun, then a bit annoying.  But after a while, it was truly an adventure in insanity to see if we could really pull it off.  Days turned into weeks, weeks into months.

We repaired the tape at least five times.  Yep, you remember those old cassette players – 1 out of 20 tapes got chewed up inside.  Not a problem for us, we were ass-kicking Cobra “snake doctors.”  Surely we can repair a cassette tape.  And we did with a pair of jewelers screw drivers and a little bit of scotch tape.  We spliced that recording back together each time.

We traveled 100s of miles through the desert, perhaps 1000s.  We crossed the boarder into Iraq, entered Kuwait from its north, crossed back into Iraq.  Many sleepless nights, many long days – but we always had Hot Rocks to listen to.  The tape sounded horrible after time.  But it didn’t matter, flip it over and let’s listen to it again!
Rolling Stones Hot Rocks
There you have it, we never played another tape in the that truck the entire war.  The cassette made it back with us to Germany in 1991.  We christened it “The Tape from Hell” and eventually mounted it on a plaque.  The team gave it to Mike, our Sergeant, as a gift when he left the Army.

…and yes, I know every word on that dang album.  And to this day, I have not listened to Hot Rocks since.  ~frankie

“Drum roll please… [brrprrprrprrprr]  And now, Ladies and Jellymen, allow me to introduce… The Tape from Hell

The Tape from Hell

New Feature: My Shows

New Feature: My Shows

We’ve added a new page for artists called My Shows.  Here is a quick summary of what’s included:

  • Get detail info about each performance (times, viewers, etc.).
  • Get detail info about tip jar contents (who tipped what).
  • Enter / Update a set list any time (no longer have to only enter songs during a broadcast).
  • This info is not open to the general public or shared with other musicians.

The link to My Shows is only available to musicians and can be found on the main menu drop-down.  Click the arrow on the top-right of any page next to the thumbnail image.  Also, artists will be automatically sent to this page after each show when they click on the “Stop Broadcast” button.

My Shows

This is the first in a series of StreetJelly improvements for set list management and every musician’s reporting requirements to the songwriter’s associations.  Stay tuned, we are currently working on “My Repertoire” so musicians can enter a list of songs once, and easily build a show’s set list by point and clicking.  Musicians will also have the option to share their repertoire on their EPK profile page and during performances.

 

Year One in the Books

Happy First Year Anniversary, StreetJelly!

Jellypalooza Cake…and what a year it has been.  StreetJelly.com is a year old now.  We’ve come a long way from our “opening night,” learned a lot, made a ton of new friends, and mostly importantly had a whole lot of fun watching live music on webcam from phenomenal musicians.  Here are some quick stats from our first year:

  • 26,000 visitors came to the site 95,000 times
  • ½ million page hits
  • 250,000 minutes of streaming video, 4,200 hours
  • 5,900 musicial performances
  • 700 musicians joined StreetJelly
  • 81,095 tokens tipped to musicians, $13,000.

Timeline Highlights

August 15th, 2012 – web site launched.

August 17th, 2012 – First performance by Teo_Doro.

The First Two Weeks – The following famous SJ musicians found and joined the site: JerseyJB (day 5), MountainMelodies (day 7), Miea (day 9).

Big Deal Rocker PinDecember 26th, 2012 – First Big Deal rocker pin (500 tokens) tipped to Image and Family.  It’s an exclusive club – just ask Clifty, or Merv!

New Year’s Eve 2012 – Rang in the New Year with live performances and Auld Lang Syne for each five U.S. time zones.

February 2013bumS_lie completes 100 Midnight Shows in a row.

February 26-28, 2013 – StreetJelly participates and sponsors the first Virtual Music Conference hosted by IndieConnect in Nashville, TN.Marriage Proposal Jelly Style

April 6th, 2013Merv proposes marriage to Amanda live during their show.  Very sneaky, Amanda was totally surprised.  Watch the YouTube video.

April 13th, 2013 – First StreetJelly Meetup in Nashville, TN to celebrate the Flyer Contest, draw the contest winners, and meet local Jelly Musicians in person.
King Haggis
April 27th, 2013 – The Haggis Challenge, ’nuff said.

April 30th, 2013 – 100 Song music marathon by JerseyJB.  514 minutes, 8½ hours of continuous jamming by one musician on The Jelly!  Jersey wasn’t seen for days after that.

June 2013 – Radio advertising campaign blitz in Nashville market. (Buy me a beer sometime and I’ll tell you how that went.  Oy!  ~frankie)

July 2013 – StreetJelly’s first Singer Songwriter Contest.  62 entries, 10 Semi-finalists, Second Place Winner: Third Prong, First Place: Scott ThomasClifty Play Behind Back

August 3rd, 2013Clifton Printy performs his 450th broadcast.

August 17th, 2013Scott Thomas gets married and performs as the band for his own wedding …and streams live on StreetJelly!

Jellypalooza
August 18th, 2013 – Jellypalooza Online Music Festival!  StreetJelly celebrates its one-year anniversary with the first ever truly Online Live Streaming Music Festival.  12 hours straight of continuous multiple streaming musicians.  All the great Jelly Fish were there performing: Jayro, Maestro, Damian, Ben, Mountain Melodies, Life and Times, Image and Family, Clifty, Kurt, Jersey, and many more.  The wonderful Jelly Musicians also secretly conspired to present Frank Podlaha, a.k.a. Frankie, founder of StreetJelly, with a commemorative plaque.

StreetJelly One Year Anniversay

“What a year it has been!  We could never have imagined how successful, and how much fun StreetJelly has become.  And thank you to ALL the folks that helped so hard in making this the best live streaming music site on the ‘net!”  ~frankie

Singer Songwriter Contest Thank You

StreetJelly Singer Songwriter Contest – Summer 2013
The Winner Is…   Scott Thomas, Paper Moon

A heart felt Thank You from Scott Thomas…

His winning song, Paper Moon.

And don’t forget our 2nd Place Winner:
Third Prong, Time Machine

The runner up Finalists!
Joshua Belliardo, Many reasons
Damian Trujillo, BYEBYE
Life and Times, Starfish
Meadow Ryann, A Girl’s Advice (The Xbox Song)
ChrisJ (Dan Pirchner), Hypnotized
Joey McGowan , Samantha
Nash Rambler, St. Johns’ River Line
(click artist for SJ profile, click song for YouTube vid)

It was a lot of fun for everyone involved in the contest. Many thanks go out to all the judges, all that voted, and especially ALL the musicians that worked so hard on their original songs, posted videos, and encouraged each other. Here is the complete list of entries.

Sonya Jevette, How You Gonna
Sonya Jevette, Whenever you’re Around
Sonya Jevette, My Dreams
Michael Whitehead, Feels This Way
Meadow Ryann, A Girl’s Advice (The Xbox Song)
Scott Thomas, Paper Moon
Scott Thomas, Any Other Way
Scott Thomas, Lay You Down
Life and Times (Dave Wesley), Rebecca
Life and Times (Dave Wesley), Starfish
ChrisJ (Dan Pirchner), Paper Heart
ChrisJ (Dan Pirchner), Show
ChrisJ (Dan Pirchner), Hypnotized
Mark and Mary King, I Remember
Mark Allan Jensen, Joanna’s Song
Meia Borden, Complicated
Damian Trujillo, One Gate
Joe Morin, Dad-D Blues
Damian Trujillo, Hell Or Highwater
Chuck Foster, America’s Colors: Red,White and Blue
Chuck Foster, I’ve Got a Tie Dye Heart
Chuck Foster, Naked to the World
7000feetintheair, My Bone
Chris Langer, Woody’s Demise
Damian Trujillo, BYEBYE
Ricky Manwell, 550lb Loving Machine
Ricky Manwell, Let’s Pretend
Cecilee Linke, I Don’t Write Love Songs
Cecilee Linke, Island Girl
Cecilee Linke, Out Of My Depth
Joe Collins, Not Worth My Time
Meadow Ryann, All Night Long
John Perks, Sandcastles
Sue Rarick, Long Legs – Short Skirt
Sue Rarick, Another Thank You
Sue Rarick, Street Corner Blues
Colin Williams, One life to live
Joey McGowan , Samantha
Morgan Bosman, Just Let Go
Nash Rambler, Gonna Have a Good Time
Nash Rambler, St. Johns’ River Line
Nash Rambler, I Got Mine
John Perks, Broken
Robbie Hancock, As Good As Gold
Robbie Hancock, Love In The World
Joshua Belliardo, Many reasons
Joshua Belliardo, I’m in love
Joshua Belliardo, Butterflies

Random Token Winners

New Feature: Random Token Winners

SJ Winners CupWe’ve added a new fun feature on StreetJelly.  Every time someone tips a musician, they have a chance to win back Free Tokens!  Yes, every tip is run through our Jelly Randomizer Engine to determine if that viewer wins free tokens.  The more tokens one tips, and the more often one tips, the better chances to win.  It’s simple – tip the musician and we give away tokens.

When a viewer wins tokens, they will see this pink message popup in the chat window.  The winning tokens will be added to their account.

Screenshot Winner Message

The Jelly Randomizer Engine will continually run different winning amounts, odds of winning, special promotion nights, etc.  You never know what you may win.  So check in with the site often, follow the Facebook page, and ask the folks on the site what’s new.

 

New Updates – Keeping out the Riff Raff

News – March 2013

Mugshot of Riff RaffNew Feature – Room Banning.

Hopefully you will never need this feature, but we’ve updated the room banning capabilities on StreetJelly.  It’s a fact of life on the Wacky Wide Web that inevitably there will be jerks in the chat during a show.  Musicians now have more controls on keeping out the riff raff.  Inside the chat message window, you may have always noticed the red-x button on each person’s message.  When an artist clicks on this link, a new pop-up box will appear with these options:

  1. Remove a user from your chat window (same feature as before).  The annoying person will be removed from your chat window only.  They won’t know it, nor will anyone else know it.  This is basically an ignore setting.
  2. Remove user from everyone’s chat .  This is new and removes the offender completely from your show.  It’s like bouncers are dragging the douche out of the audience.  The viewer will get bounced to a “you’ve been banned” webpage and will no longer be allowed back into your show.  This is a full room ban.  It’s a bit extreme, but sometimes necessary.
  3. Ban permanently from all shows for a musician.  Same as #2, but that jerk-wad will never be allowed back into any show for that one musician.

The room banning features are available to all musicians during their shows.  StreetJelly Moderators also have the ability to ban any user from a broadcast on behalf of a musician.  Regular viewers, and artists viewing another show, still have the ability to remove (ignore) a user from their own chat window.

It’s worth repeating: StreetJelly is a family friendly site.  We are not the cultural police, but please keep it clean.  When in doubt, think of being PG-13 as your guide.

 

Give Yourself a Big Smiley

Happy Thumbs UpYep Smiley

StreetJelly News: we’ve updated our Smileys to bigger and better fun!

There’s a bit of a story behind this.  We originally used smileys, emoticons in our chat windows, that were borrowed from another instant messaging system.  We had these in place during our beta phase and applied for the proper permission and licensing to use on the site.  The paperwork took a while, but we finally heard back from this large national company.  For whatever reason they declined our application to license their artwork.  They didn’t even offer a chance to pay a licensing fee.  Oh well, that’s the way it goes in this business.

HurrayWe moved ahead with Plan B.  We found a new supplier of artwork that was happy to take our money.  I know, right!  Originally, we didn’t choose this company because their smileys were so large and didn’t quite fit into the chat window.  But StreetJelly evolves.  Turns out, bigger IS better for the site.  While performing, the musicians are often further back from the screen and have a harder time viewing and reading the chat messages.  The larger smileys are much easier to see.  And, we increased the font size and thumbnail pics while we were updating the code.

Hoola-hoopThere is a lesson here, too.  It’s about copyrights, ownership of artwork, licensing, and all that legal mumbo-jumbo that follows.  Everything that applies to smiley graphic files also applies to songs and songwriters.  We believe strongly in the rights of any artist, their art work, and fair compensation for use of their work.  At StreetJelly, we do our best to make sure everyone is credited or compensated properly.  We hold web licenses through songwriter associations, like BMI, ASCAP, SECAS, for the cover music performed by our musicians.  These fees come out of our budget, not musicians’ tokens.  We do this not because we’re supposed to, but because it’s the right thing to do.  Check out our friends at FarePlay.org and all the great work they are doing to curtail illegal downloading of music.  We support them, you should too.

Remember, if you didn’t create something, make sure you are giving credit or paying the person who did.  It’s that simple.

Hope everyone enjoys the new smileys!

Broadband Allows Access to Global Music Community

Damian TrujilloStreetJelly musician Damian Trujillo featured in his city newspaper, The Sheridan Press, Sheridan, WY.

SHERIDAN — Damian Trujillo isn’t your typical street musician. The Americana-inspired instrumentalist and vocalist may specialize in many of the same styles as public performers in some of the country’s largest cities, but unlike his urban counterparts, Trujillo makes his home in small-town Wyoming…

Read the full article here… Broadband allows access to global community

The World Didn’t End, It Just Started

Celebrate a great year with StreetJelly.comI know the world didn’t end last month from the Mayan doomsday calendar.  You and I are still here.  I’m pretty smart, huh?  Or I’m just a smarty-pants stating the obvious.  Don’t answer that.  I do know that great things are happening for StreetJelly.

Last month on StreetJelly I witnessed a growing community of musicians meet each other, start friendships, share the holidays, and even build a team to raise money for charity.  Here’s a recap of some notable days in December 2012.

End of the World Shows  On 12/21, the Mayan Doomsday, a few musicians scheduled “End of the World” concerts on StreetJelly.  That must have sparked everyone’s urge to perform one last time before the calamity of global destruction.  Starting around 10:30am, musicians performed one after another all day in one big long concert.  It lasted well into the night.  Fun was had by all.

Christmas Eve  12/24 was a special night.  Yes, it was holiday fun and most musicians were singing Christmas carols.  But a wonderful thing happened during one performance.  A group of musicians were all chatting together watching Maestro when the conversation turned to benefit concerts and performing for charities.  Long story short, this group has teamed up to start performing monthly concerts on StreetJelly for charities.  All tokens collected by these musicians on such days will be donated to a specific charity.  The team is currently working hard behind the scenes to put this all together – stay tuned for more details and a chance to contribute.

New Year’s Eve  Drinking songs, distortion, and …well …more drinking songs capped off the night.  Musicians were performing all night long, and a crew of us were able to celebrate the New Year in most of the US time zones (sorry Hawaii).  Our master jam band extraordinaire Clifton played for hours with his band at a local Shriner’s basement.  The sound took a few to get right, but everyone still enjoyed themselves.  Even when the laptop went flying, nothing was broken!

These were just a few of the great times in December on StreetJelly.  But what stands out to me is that all these events were made special by the people who took part.  It had nothing to do with marketing, or advertising, or social media shenanigans.  It all happened spontaneously from the nice folks that found StreetJelly in 2012.  That makes me very happy, as I know this can only lead to bigger and better things for the site.  It’s just getting started!