Master puppeteer pays tribute to bubblegum music with Halloween marionette spectacular

For immediate release
August 30, 2005

Los Angeles- On October 7, four legendary artists will be honored for their contributions to the under-appreciated genre of bubblegum music at the 2nd biannual Bubblegum Achievement Awards. The ceremony honoring Steve Barri (Lancelot Link), Ron Dante (Archies – "Sugar Sugar"), Joey Levine (Ohio Express – "Yummy Yummy Yummy") and novelty DJ Dr. Demento will be preceded by a spectacular new marionette show written and performed by master puppeteer Bob Baker, who for more than 60 years has amazed the kids of Los Angeles--and their parents--with his inventive and exquisite creations, but who rarely performs at his own theater.

Bob Baker’s puppets have performed for hundreds of film, television and commercial clients, working with stars like Elvis Presley, Judy Garland and the Three Stooges. For the Bubblegum Awards show, Bob Baker dug deep into his massive collection of rare record albums to find the perfect soundtrack to express the horrors of Halloween and the giddy, silly pleasures of bubblegum.

Every Bob Baker puppet show has a show-stopping number, often using black light to startling effect. For the Bubblegum Awards show, Bob is creating a program that’s nothing but show-stoppers, calibrated to keep the audience gasping from start to finish. Among vignettes featured are a bubblegum-powered dance of the gumdrops, an Asian-themed umbrella ballet, a visit from a wacky spaceship brigade from Venus, and an outrageous Monster Rally starring all of Bob’s beloved ghoul, goblin, vampire and skeleton marionettes.

This special edition Bob Baker show has never been seen before, and is being exclusively created to accompany the 2005 Bubblegum Achievement Awards, on October 7 at Bob Baker’s Marionette Theater in downtown Los Angeles. Other featured events include the premiere of Kier-La Janisse’s documentary based on the book “Bubblegum Music is the Naked Truth,” the presentation of dozens of valuable raffle prizes, free cake and Bazooka bubblegum, and live appearances by Canned Hamm, the Bubblegum Queen, Abram the Safety Ape and the Archies’ Ron Dante.

See Bob Baker’s stellar credits at
http://bobbakermarionettes.com/Credits.html

For more info on the Bubblegum Awards, visit http://www.bubblegum-music.com
For photo or interview requests, contact Kim Cooper, amscray@gmail.com, 323-223-2767

The Bubblegum Achievement Awards are sponsored by Art of Bleeding, Bazooka, Bubblegum Society, CD Baby, Chicago Review Press, Continuum, Feral House, Gum Blondes, KRTH, Routledge, Thunder Bay Press, Topps, Twink and Y-Que.

New “L.A. Noir” blog feed launches

For immediate release

RSS version (for blog readers) : http://app.feeddigest.com/digest3/MB0TAXN45L.rss
Web version (for bookmarking): http://app.feeddigest.com/digest3/MB0TAXN45L.html

LOS ANGELES – Two of Los Angeles’s most sinister blogs have joined forces with the release of a new joint feed called “L.A. Noir.” By blending their syndicated feeds into a single source, the editors of 1947project and 8763 Wonderland give their readers a one-stop shop for new and historic information on their sun-soaked city’s darker side.

1947project blogger Kim Cooper says “Although our subjects are separated by more than 50 years, Rodger’s ruminations on contemporary crimes and human depravity illuminate a very similar Los Angeles to the one Nathan and I blog about. Los Angeles has always attracted edge-dwellers, and when they decide to kill each other, they’ve always done it with panache. We look forward to adding other noir-themed blogs to the L.A. Noir feed, and are excited to offer this time-traveling, virtual anthology.”

Half of the blog posts come from 1947project (http://1947project.blogspot.com), a daily recounting of historic true crime and offbeat human interest tales, each retold 58 years from the day they happened, often featuring visits to the crime scenes as they are today. The work of idiosyncratic architectural and social historians Cooper and Nathan Marsak, 1947project has been featured in the LA Times Magazine and at LAist.com, which said “We can't imagine our daily routine without it."

8763 Wonderland (http:// www.8763wonderland.com) is the online home of award-winning journalist, author and documentary producer Rodger Jacobs. Wonderland, says Jacobs, is a dark blend of fact and fiction with a decided emphasis on exposing the underbelly of the L.A. terrain. "I love L.A.," he says, "but day by day and story by story I'm deconstructing the myth that Los Angeles is the most pleasant place on earth to live. Tell that to Sharon Tate or to the millions of aspiring screenwriters and actors destined to die in obscurity and poverty, unknown to anyone outside their immediate families."


For more information about the LA Noir blog feed, or to suggest another blog that might be added to the mix, contact Kim Cooper at amscray@gmail.com or (323) 223-2767, or Rodger Jacobs at rdjacobs@concentric.net or (818) 983-4428.

Royalties languish overseas as performers and songwriters do without.

LOS ANGELES ­ - One of the great mysteries of music publishing is the concept of "Neighboring Rights." Most artists have no idea that every time they perform in a European club, they earn revenue quite apart from what the club owner paid them after the show. Typically that money just sits there, waiting for them, and is never recovered simply because they don¹t know how to ask for it.

Similarly, when an artist gets a song in a film or on TV, they're often thrilled to get royalty statements from ASCAP or BMI - unaware that a big chunk of their earnings, the payments from overseas, never made it into their hands. What too many artists don't understand is that while they just get a flat synchronization fee in the US, in the rest of the world they get paid every single time their song is played, in a movie theater, on radio, in a club or on TV. One prime placement can equal thousands of dollars for the artist who knows how to get it. Artists who handle their own publishing rarely do.

Lost in the Grooves is a new sub-publishing agency founded with one aim: to reclaim the money that independent artists don't even realize they're missing. Working closely with sub-publishers on the ground in Europe, they have the experience and moxie to shake Euros out of the most reluctant pockets.

Founder Phil Drucker spent many years in the music publishing trenches, administering the catalogs of the Doors, Beach Boys and George Benson. Currently working as an intellectual property lawyer and professor, he forgot about publishing until one of the songs he wrote decades ago in the influential post-punk band Savage Republic was used in the remake of "The Manchurian Candidate." Aware of the windfall that awaited him in Europe, Drucker asked around until he found an excellent sub-publisher, obtaining an impressive payout.

Once his own song paid off, Drucker started thinking about all the other artists who had similar windfalls waiting for them, but might never know to ask. Working closely with Scram magazine editrix Kim Cooper, a longtime independent publisher with deep ties to underground labels and indie artists, Drucker knows that with Lost in the Grooves he can help other artists like he helped himself, and uncover unknown treasure that will help support their creative and everyday lives.

For more information about Lost in the Grooves, visit

http://www.scrammagazine.com/subpub.html
or contact Kim Cooper at amscray@gmail.com or (323) 223-2767.