I will pass that Warren Theatres info on to a friend who moved from Austin to Kansas and misses the Drafthouse terribly.
But it takes more than just booze to make a movie theatre good--you also need imaginative programming. I grew up near Indy, where Hollywood Bar & Filmworks opened in 1991, several years before the Drafthouse. But all it would run were second-run movies and Rocky Horror weekends at midnight. It wound up closing.
It might be interesting to contrast Starbucks' aborted attempt at the music biz with the piece on NPR Music in the Washington Post. They're not directly selling, but they've become a new branding channel. One thing they've done better than Starbucks is allow for previewing: full albums streamed the week before they're released and full-length concert podcasts. The other thing is their emphasis on new indie acts (LCD Soundsystem, Decemberists) instead of, well, overpriced has-beens (Paul McCartney, Carly Simon).
Here's a personal example: the All Songs Considered podcast played "Airplanes" by Local Natives. I saw one of their SXSW sets, then bought their album on iTunes the next day and went to their next Austin show.
I grew up in a small Indiana town in the 80s, where there were two department stores that sold music. They only had room for standard Top 40/country stuff. I had to wait until evenings to be able to tune into college-rock stations fifty miles away in order to hear anything interesting. Man, I would've been thrilled by the internet back then.
It is true that the part of iTunes directly responsible for recommending new music (Genius) is relatively new and not as good yet as personalized internet radio (Slacker, Pandora, the late lamented Yahoo Launchcast). But one thing that iTunes does that indirectly serves that purpose is to make new-music podcasts easy to download and use (All Songs Considered, Sound Opinions, etc.).
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I will pass that Warren Theatres info on to a friend who moved from Austin to Kansas and misses the Drafthouse terribly.
But it takes more than just booze to make a movie theatre good--you also need imaginative programming. I grew up near Indy, where Hollywood Bar & Filmworks opened in 1991, several years before the Drafthouse. But all it would run were second-run movies and Rocky Horror weekends at midnight. It wound up closing.
NPR Music
It might be interesting to contrast Starbucks' aborted attempt at the music biz with the piece on NPR Music in the Washington Post. They're not directly selling, but they've become a new branding channel. One thing they've done better than Starbucks is allow for previewing: full albums streamed the week before they're released and full-length concert podcasts. The other thing is their emphasis on new indie acts (LCD Soundsystem, Decemberists) instead of, well, overpriced has-beens (Paul McCartney, Carly Simon).
Here's a personal example: the All Songs Considered podcast played "Airplanes" by Local Natives. I saw one of their SXSW sets, then bought their album on iTunes the next day and went to their next Austin show.
I grew up in a small Indiana town in the 80s, where there were two department stores that sold music. They only had room for standard Top 40/country stuff. I had to wait until evenings to be able to tune into college-rock stations fifty miles away in order to hear anything interesting. Man, I would've been thrilled by the internet back then.
It is true that the part of iTunes directly responsible for recommending new music (Genius) is relatively new and not as good yet as personalized internet radio (Slacker, Pandora, the late lamented Yahoo Launchcast). But one thing that iTunes does that indirectly serves that purpose is to make new-music podcasts easy to download and use (All Songs Considered, Sound Opinions, etc.).