Phish

Phish is an American rock and roll band noted for their musical improvisation, extended jams, blending of musical genres, and dedicated fan base. Formed at the University of Vermont in 1983 (with the current line-up solidifying in 1985), the band's four members—Trey Anastasio (guitars, lead vocals), Mike Gordon (bass, vocals), Jon Fishman (drums, percussion, vacuum, vocals), and Page McConnell (keyboards, vocals)—performed together for nearly 20 years before going on hiatus in August 2004. They reunited in March 2009 for a series of three consecutive concerts played in the Hampton Coliseum in Hampton, Virginia, and have since resumed performing regularly.

Phish's music blends elements of a wide variety of genres, including including funk, progressive rock, psychedelic rock, folk, country, jazz, blues, bluegrass and pop. Although the band has received little radio play or mainstream exposure, Phish has developed a large and dedicated following by word of mouth, the exchange of live recordings, and selling over 8 million albums and DVDs in the United States.Rolling Stone stated that the band helped to "...spawn a new wave of bands oriented around group improvisation and super-extended grooves". They remain a very popular and successful touring act.

Phish (album)

Phish (also known as The White Tape) is a self-produced album released by the American rock band Phish on cassette in 1986. Often cited as the first Phish "album", The White Tape was originally a collection of original material that the band used as a demo/sample tape for venues, and was sometimes labelled "Phish" or simply "Demo". The album was widely circulated among Phish fans for more than a decade before being officially released in 1998.

The album was created from four-track recordings over a period of three years and includes a number of outside musicians performing on various songs. Only "Alumni Blues", "AC/DC Bag", "Slave To The Traffic Light" and "Dog Gone Dog" (a.k.a. "Dog Log") have the four band members together. The remaining tracks were recorded separately by various members and blended together to create the finished album.

The White Tape includes an early version of the Phish epic "You Enjoy Myself", performed a cappella with the band members singing the opening guitar lines. The album also contains avant-garde experimental pieces, instrumental passages, electronic noises and studio trickery. Some songs were further developed and figure heavily in the band's live performances, while a few have rarely been heard since.

Free (The Party album)

Free is The Party's second studio album. Teddy Riley wrote three songs for the album, including the new jack swing-tinged title song, "Free," which was also remixed by house-music legends Steve "Silk" Hurley and E-Smoove. Dr. Dre produced the song "Let's Get Right Down to It," and the group itself also got involved in the writing and producing of the album, which would once again land it another concert tour opening spot with Color Me Badd, its last special for the Disney Channel, "All About The Party," and an appearance on Blossom. However, the album was not as successful on the charts as previous ones, which prompted Damon Pampolina to leave the group.

Track listing

Free: The Future of a Radical Price

Free: The Future of a Radical Price is the second book written by Chris Anderson, Editor in chief of Wired magazine. The book was published on July 7, 2009 by Hyperion. He is also the author of The Long Tail, published in 2006.

Overview

Free follows a thread from the previous work. It examines the rise of pricing models which give products and services to customers for free, often as a strategy for attracting users and up-selling some of them to a premium level. That class of model has become widely referred to as "freemium" and has become very popular for a variety of digital products and services.

Release

Free was released in the United States on July 7, 2009, though the night before, on his blog, Chris Anderson posted a browser readable version of the book and the unabridged audiobook version. Anderson generated controversy for plagiarizing content from the online encyclopedia Wikipedia in Free. Anderson responded to the claim on his The Long Tail blog, stating that there were disagreements between him and the publisher over accurate citation of Wikipedia due to the changing nature of its content, leading him to integrate footnotes into the text. Also on his blog, he took full responsibility for the mistakes and noted that the digital editions of Free were corrected. The notes and sources were later provided as a download on his blog.

Gratis

Gratis /ˈɡrɑːtᵻs/ or /ˈɡreɪtᵻs/ is the quality of an action where the action is willingly provided without any requirement by the provider for compensation or monetary remuneration. It is often referred to in English and Dutch as free of charge (FOC), complimentary, or on the house. Companies, producers, and service providers often provide certain things free of charge as part of a larger business model, pricing strategy, or as a donation.

Etymology

The English term gratis has its origins in late Middle English; from Latin. A contraction of gratiis, meaning 'as a kindness' or 'a show of goodwill', which in turn stems from the root gratia meaning 'grace' or 'kindness'. It is widely used in the Afrikaans, Slovakia, Czech, Hungarian, Croatian, Serbian, Polish, French, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Indonesian, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, German and some of the other Germanic languages, with the same meaning.

Marketing

In a standard business model where goods and services are exchanged for a monetary compensation, pricing of the goods is a fundamental element of the marketing process. While it would defeat the business model if companies provide all of their goods and services free of charge, it is common for them to provide limited amount of free goods in their promotional mix. Many companies often provide free samples to the press in order to generate media coverage for their products. Depending on the product, companies may provide free samples to prospective buyers.