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Aloha PONO

A Message from our CEO Neil Young

Hi pono family!

What a pono time the VIP dinners were with our Kickstarter supporters.

It was incredible meeting those of you who were there, and feeling the passion you bring to the pono movement.

Thank you so much from all of us.

Welcome to the pono experience.

You, our Kickstarter Supporters, will be the first to use our beta website and music store. We welcome your feedback and comments, as they will help us to ensure the best service for music lovers.

We will offer a very large selection of ponomusic.

All ponomusic is 44.1/16 resolution or higher, up to and including 192/24 resolution. 44.1/16 is the resolution that is used on CDs.

We are continually in contact with artists, producers, and record companies, requesting the highest resolution possible for their music.

Some artists’ works have been provided to us in multiple resolutions so we are currently processing these files, eliminating all but the highest resolution from our music store.

As a Kickstarter supporter, if you purchase ponomusic and files that are higher resolution become available then you will be eligible to receive free upgrades for life, because we greatly appreciate your support. You are pono.

Thank you!

Neil Young,AlohaPonoSmall

Trent Reznor compares Neil Young’s Pono player to ‘a Toblerone’

tobleroneTrent Reznor has joked that Neil Young’s Pono Player “looks like a Toblerone,” reports NME.com
The Nine Inch Nails frontman discusses Young’s much publicised high quality music service this week’s NME, which is on newsstands and available digitally now, comparing the appearance of the player  to that of the triangular chocolate bar.
Reznor says he approves of Pono, which will consist of a digital music service (PonoMusic) and 128GB portable device (PonoPlayer) capable of storing 1-2,000 high resolution songs when it launches later this year. Reznor is also involved with Dr Dre’s Beats Music, which launched a music streaming service in 2013.
Speaking about Pono, Reznor says: “Anything that elevates music back to where it should be is inherently cool. I have great admiration for Neil Young as an artist. But as a device I can’t pretend it doesn’t look a bit like a Toblerone.

Read more at http://www.nme.com/news/nine-inch-nails/76409#hRpXhlVl2T2REMvm.99

More Pono naysayers

neil with medicine bagNeil Young’s music service has no chance, says Troy Wolverton, technology columnist  the Mercury News in San Jose, Calif.

“Oh Po-No…”

His article appeared in The Columbia Dispatch and he writes that: “Pono would have consumers step back in time. They would have to carry around separate phones and music players again. And they would pay $400 for that music device — which, in an increasingly connected world, is resolutely disconnected. The only way to get music on it is by transferring it from a computer over a USB cable.”

“You can’t buy a song when you’re away from your computer and you can’t stream it to the device. The company’s not even working on a smartphone application that might be able to offer Pono customers some connectivity or instant gratification.

“Because the PonoPlayer isn’t connected, it can’t access to your entire music collection or the universe of available music. Instead, it can only play what’s stored on it, which, if the songs are all in the high-resolution format it’s promoting, is only about 800 songs.”

Read more at: http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/business/2014/03/24/neil-youngs-music-service-has-no-chance.html

David Crosby talks health, solo album and Neil Young

Davide CrosbyDavid Crosby mentions Neil Young in an interview posted on AccessAtlanta.com.

Melissa Ruggieri writes of Crosby: “There’s  a different kind of love for the erstwhile Neil Young, who is currently  working on another album and book as well as helping develop Pono, a  high-resolution digital music download service and music player set to  debut in October. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that CSNY is  extinct. Or maybe it is. No one is ever quite sure, it seems.”

“It’s  difficult to know. He already told us once that he was going to (be  back with us) and changed his mind, and now he’s making noises that he  wants to do it again,” Crosby said. “God bless Neil. I love him and I  love working with him because he so completely wants to push the edge,  but he’s a very mercurial guy. I can’t count on him, but I do love to  play with him.”

Read more at: http://www.accessatlanta.com/weblogs/atlanta-music-scene/2014/mar/19/david-crosby-talks-health-solo-album-and-neil-youn/

This one is for Wolle.

How superfans drive the entertainment business

Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Getty Images, via Pono Music

Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Getty Images, via Pono Music

This is hardcore, says Slate .

Superfans are driving the entertainment business. Neil Young’s Pono digital musical player has raised more than $4 million from fans on Kickstarter. Yikes.

The lead in the article talks about Neil but the rest is a tale of how things fans are driving the things they love through these sorts of campaigns.

It’s been a big month for small projects on Kickstarter, writes Slate author Jon Nathanson. First a consortium of musicians and industry veterans, fronted by Neil Young, used the site to launch Pono, a digital music player and download service. Young and his partners set a fundraising goal of $800,000, to be reached within 35 days.

Instead, they met that goal in under a day, then broke $2.5 million in their first 60 hours. At the time of this writing, Pono has exceeded $4 million in pledges. (The campaign will run through April 15; Pono is scheduled to launch in October.)

A few days later, Warner Bros. released a Veronica Mars movie in theaters and online. The film grossed $2 million at only 291 theaters worldwide, with a healthy $6,945 per-screen average. The movie owed its existence to Kickstarter—Rob Thomas, creator of the original TV series, raised $5.7 million on Kickstarter last year to fund production of the feature.

überfans.

Nathanson writes: “But crowdfunding isn’t catering to the mainstream crowd. When 3 million of us pledged $480 million to Kickstarter projects in 2013, we didn’t establish any new industries or shake up any old ones. Instead, we identified ourselves as the early adopters: the hardcores, the überfans. We’re the kind of people who, in absence of Kickstarter, would have bought the special edition of a Veronica Mars DVD or paid extra for better seats at a Neil Young concert. We’re the kind of people who download all the value-added content in our favorite video games. When something’s labeled “collectible,” we’re the ones collecting it.”

Read more at: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_bet/2014/03/kickstarter_neil_young_veronica_mars_how_hard_core_fans_drive_the_entertainment.html

Random Quote

You see your baby loves to dance.
by -- Neil Young

Neil Young on Tour

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Sugar Mountain setlists

Tom Hambleton provides BNB with setlists, thankfully. His website is the most comprehensive searchable archives on the Internets about anything Neil Young related setlists. Goto Sugar Mountain.

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HH-Radio + NY Info

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Human Highway

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