​The comments sections on several articles about Linda Chorney, the woman who gamed the system and social networked her way onto the final Grammy ballot in the Americana category, tend to be pretty negative, although Chorney's publicist, husband and a few friends are trying to staunch the flow of irate bile that has gushed like BP's Gulf well last year.

Lonesome, Onry and Mean has been following Americana music since long before we first went to work in country radio in the early Seventies, and we've never witnessed anything quite as shameful as Chorney's calculated internet march to the Grammy ballot. We were revolted by our first listen to Chorney's tepid folky Emotional Jukebox. We can think of a handful of women in Houston who could kick Chorney's musical ass with one arm behind their backs.

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The subtle front page of Chorney's website.

​As if the Grammys didn't have enough credibility issues, NARAS, the organization that controls the process, has left a loophole large enough for a complete unknown to manipulate her way onto the final ballot in the Americana category.

The news broke two days ago in Variety that virtual unknown Linda Chorney had employed the organization's interactive Grammy 365 site to connect with voting members and get her music heard. Somehow she got enough members to vote for her to get her album Emotional Jukebox on the final ballot with Emmylou Harris, Levon Helm, Ry Cooder, and Lucinda Williams, who have collected among themselves 23 Grammys.

On one hand, we have to applaud Chorney for her effort and determination and for her ability to work the system to her advantage. On the other hand, after hearing her music, we want to projectile vomit.

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​Nielsen SoundScan released its annual report on music sales Monday, and the results were less than surprising. Physical sales continued to decline, digital sales continued to rise, and crap pop continues to reign supreme both at the cash register and on the airwaves.

During the period of Jan. 4, 2010 to Jan. 2, 2011, overall sales came in at 1.507 billion units, down 2.5 percent from 2009's total of 1.545 billion. Total album sales dropped almost 13 percent to 326.2 million, while digital album sales rose 13 percent to 86.3 million. Physical album sales dropped 19 percent to 240 million units sold.

To put that in perspective, that means every man, woman and child in the U.S. bought almost five units of recorded music in 2010, based on the census bureau's reported population of a little more than 308 million.

Sales of vinyl LPs continued to rise, up another 14 percent to 2.8 million units from 2.5 million in 2009, accounting for a whopping 1 percent of overall sales. Seventy-one percent of vinyl sales came from independent record stores, which in turn recorded about 7 percent of overall sales.

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Sometimes getting signed to a major is no guarantee they'll push your music either... just ask Spoon's Britt Daniel.

The likes of Facebook and MySpace have made it easier than ever for musicians' music to be available worldwide, but it crossed our minds that it also might be much more difficult to market, especially for musicians - in Houston, or anywhere, really - who undertake such a task all by themselves.

So last week Rocks Off sat down with Chris Macek, lead engineer at Houston's Barron Studios, to discuss how his clients market both themselves and their music. Macek wouldn't give us any bands' names to use on record - he's had trouble in the past when he's mentioned bands to interviewers, only to be contacted later by an band that was upset he didn't mention them - but nevertheless, he gave us a lot of good information.

"Houston is a really tough market to be a musician [in]," Macek says. "Local musicians, especially rappers, will get spins in Dallas, Atlanta, Seattle and even Europe."

However, in something that won't come as much of a surprise to many Rocks Off readers, Macek says there isn't much of a market for bands playing original music in the City of Syrup. Houston is kind of odd, he told us, because musicians don't get much press here unless they get big outside of the city then come back; please see ZZ Top, Beyonce, Blue October, etc.

So... Houston bands have to get signed before they get any recognition in their hometown, right? Not really.

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[UPDATED to include AEG President and CEO Timothy J. Leiwecke's statement about the merger.] ​

Via CNBC, businessinsider.com reported Monday morning that the U.S. Justice Department has approved the merger of Live Nation and Ticketmaster into a multi-platform entertainment corporation that can do everything but wash your car and walk your dog (and may even do that). First announced last February and approved by both companies' shareholders earlier this month, the merger is expected to take effect immediately.

The deal comes after the United Kingdom's Competition Commission approved the merger after determining it would not have an adverse effect on Blighty's retail ticket pricing "or in any other market," writes businessinsider's Gillian Reagan. (Read the full text of the CC's report here.)

The New York Times' DealBook blog picked up a New York Post report last week that Live Nation's chief U.S. concert-promotion rival, the Anschutz Entertainment Group - better known around Houston as Warehouse Live owner/promoter The Messina Group's parent company - agreed to drop its opposition to the merger in exchange for Live Nation agreeing to sell some of its venues to AEG "on favorable terms."

Live Nation's Southern regional headquarters are located in Houston, and the company currently owns area venues House of Blues and Verizon Wireless Theater and also promotes shows at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion and Toyota Center.

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​

Last week, shareholders of both Ticketmaster and Live Nation voted to approve the companies' impending merger, which was first announced last February. The stock price of both companies rose sharply after the announcement, and the Dow Jones Newswire reported that the U.S. Justice Department could approve the merger as early as this month. The deal is worth a reported $720 million.

In a twist Rocks Off probably would not understand even if we had gone to business school, this means that, effective immediately, tickets for all Live Nation shows are no longer available through Ticketmaster.com. Instead, they are available through livenation.com or area LN venues' individual sites: hob.com/houston for House of Blues, woodlandscenter.org for the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion or toyotacentertix.com for Toyota Center. (Not all Toyota Center concerts are produced by Live Nation, however.) Since it does not have a dedicated Web site, tickets for Verizon Wireless Theater shows are only available through Live Nation's site.

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Michael Hogue

​A little over seven years ago, we wrote about the South Park Mexican trial.

The rapper, born Carlos Coy, had it all: money, his own record label, a nightclub and, most importantly, the ear of a generation. He was the voice of a new type of person: the Southern and Southwestern Mexican-American who acclimated to American life through black culture - specifically hip-hop - instead of white. As Tejano music and culture started to wither and die in the wake of the murder of Selena, SPM stepped into the breach with a new style and swagger.

As the '90s progressed, young Texas Latinos stashed their hand-tooled leather belts, ostrich-skin boots and Charro-style hats and replaced them with, as commentator Rolando Rodriguez recently put it, " 'south side fades,' fitted Astros hats, oversized t-shirts, [and] gold grills in the mouth spittin' Southern slang."

And then Coy's weakness - a predilection for sex with underage girls - came to light. In June of 2002, Coy was convicted of the aggravated sexual assault of the nine-year-old daughter of two family friends and sentenced to 45 years in prison.

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The boards of directors of concert-industry giants Live Nation and Ticketmaster have approved a merger agreement, CNNmoney.com reported today, a deal expected to take effect later this year. The deal is a stock swap that awards Ticketmaster shareholders 1,374 shares in Live Nation per share. Not including debt, the value of the newly named Live Nation Entertainment is estimated at $2.5 billion.

The deal will bring almost every aspect of the live-music business - promotion, marketing, ticketing, merchandising, artist management - under one umbrella and, understandably, is expected to come under heavy scrutiny from antitrust regulators and elected officials. One, Senator Charles Schumer (D-N.Y., right), is already on the warpath over the recent debacle where people logging onto Ticketmaster's Web site to buy tickets for Bruce Springsteen's upcoming Working on a Dream tour received a "technical difficulties" message and were directed to secondary ticket broker TicketsNow - a Ticketmaster subsidiary - which was selling them at a considerable markup.

 "This merger would give a giant, new entity unrivaled power over concertgoers and the prices they pay to see their favorite artists and bands," Shumer said. "It must be viewed skeptically and scrutinized with a fine-tooth comb by the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission."

Ticketmaster chairman Barry Diller called Schumer's statement "factually untrue." If you think the fur is flying now, just wait until Bob Lefsetz weighs in. 

The Wall Street Journal reported this morning that entertainment megacorp Live Nation and Ticketmaster, the world's leading ticketing agency and an important player in artist management, are in talks to merge the two companies. "The resulting firm" - called, appropriately, Live Nation Ticketmaster - "would be able to manage everything from recorded music to ticket sales and tour sponsorship," reporter Ethan Smith wrote.

The deal is still subject to the approval of both the Live Nation and Ticketmaster boards - "it was unclear which company would be acquiring the other" - and because it would create such a dominant entity in the live-entertainment field, would also be subject to Congressional antitrust review.

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