WUFT News News and Public Media for North Central Florida from the University of Florida in Gainesville
This is the full-length version of the interview that aired on Florida’s 89.1 WUFT-FM’s Morning Edition. Host Glenn Richards spoke with musician, producer, writer, mathematician, serial entrepreneur, and artist’s rights activist, David Lowery of Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven. Lowery also teaches music business at the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business in Athens, Georgia, where he also he helped establish the Athens Angel Investment Fund.
Lowery and his band Cracker are in Gainesville for Changeville Presents Cracker at High Dive in downtown Gainesville Friday, February 9th at 10pm, part of the Changeville Music & Arts Festival 2018, Gainesville’s Social Change Festival.
The Cracker show is scheduled to start after Benjamin Booker + Dirty Dozen at Changeville/Bo Diddley Plaza, so you should be able to catch both. More details about Changeville at changeville.us/.
As an activist, David Lowery is a major advocate for artist’s rights in the digital age, having testified to Congress twice on behalf of artists. He’s also part of class-action lawsuits against streaming companies like Pandora, Rhapsody, and Spotify. A $43.4 million dollar settlement with Spotify was announced in May, 2017, but still needs to be approved by the court. Lowery also recently published the 2017 Streaming Price Bible at his artist’s rights blog, The Trichordist.com.
This extended conversation covers the latest on some of these class action lawsuits against music streaming services, what music fans can do to help songwriters and musicians, what’s happening with Lowery’s bands Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven, and the benefits of music placement and Sharknado.
