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Digital Jukebox Giant Announces Deals With Corporate Punishment, Bel-Aire, and SoundArt Records LAKE ZURICH, Ill., — Bars and restaurants in northeast Wisconsin that have TouchTunes digital jukeboxes can now serve cold beer and grilled brats with a sizzling side of hard rock by Fahrenheit 420, a Green Bay-area band with a passionate fan base throughout the region. TouchTunes recently began adding music from Corporate Punishment and two other record companies featuring local legends appealing to vastly different tastes. “It seems like TouchTunes is just about everywhere, so having our music available on its online digital jukeboxes is a tremendous opportunity for our bands and their fans,” says Thom Hazaert, Corporate Punishment president. “This can really help our artists’ enlarge their careers, creating fans beyond their home turf and selling more records in the process. When you can be heard in 24,000-plus locations where people want music, the possibilities are thrilling.” Fahrenheit 420 will perform at Dropfest, June 1, at Wisconsin International Raceway, with a lineup including hard-rock hit makers Buckcherry. The quintet has also been nominated for a 2007 Wisconsin Area Music Industry (WAMI) Award in the rock group/artist category, and lead vocalist Jon Shoen has been nominated in the male vocalist category. Corporate Punishment reports that the band has lined up an “amazing summer of high-profile shows,” including performances at major regional events including Summerfest, Bayfest, and Celebrate Americafest, Green Bay’s annual Independence Day gala. “Pretty much anything going on in Wisconsin this summer, Fahrenheit will be there.” Hazaert says. Corporate Punishment Records is known for alternative metal, heavy metal, hard rock, and related rock genres, with a diverse catalog featuring recordings by 3 Mile Scream, Allele, AM Conspiracy (featuring former Drowning Pool vocalist Jason “Gong” Jones), Amity Lane (formerly Trust Company), Broken Teeth, Dangerous Toys, David Reilly (of God Lives Underwater), Defiance, Ghost Machine, KCUF, Kill Cheerleader, Mastery, Nobis, Onesidezero, Re: Ignition, Rikets, Shenoah, Switched, The Pennyroyals, Tinjen, and Trigger Point, among others. Now magazine hailed Kill Cheerleader’s All Hail as a “drunken, messy, balls-to-the-wall good time,” while the band has also received rave press in publications including Spin and Village Voice. In fact, many of CPR’s artists can be found on a regular basis in major publications including Revolver, Metal Edge, Outburn, and more. TouchTunes’ deal with Chicago’s polka-centric Bel-Aire label rolls out a barrel of more than 300 recordings by 75 artists. Bel-Aire was founded in 1962 by Eddie Blazonczyk, a former rock and roll musician who recorded for Mercury Records as “Eddy Bell.” The label continues to be run by Eddie and his family. Blazoncyzk’s own band, the Versatones (now led by his son Eddie Jr.), released a new album this year, Batteries Not Included. Bel-Aire has produced more than a dozen Grammy-nominated recordings and one Grammy Award winner since a polka category was added to the Grammy Awards in 1985. For fans of country, bluegrass, and Americana, TouchTunes has licensed the catalog of Nashville’s SoundArt Recordings, operated by Butch Baldassari, the Music City’s mandolin player extraordinaire and leader of the Nashville Mandolin Ensemble sextet and Nashville Mandolin Trio. Beyond Nashville, Badassari, as solo artist or with one of his ensembles, has been touring in Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Georgia, and beyond. A music writer for the Nashville Tennessean newspaper called Baldassari’s Nashville Mandolin Ensemble “one of the freshest sounds on the instrumental landscape” and praised the group’s “dazzling abilities.” Baldassari has appeared on public radio’s “A Prairie Home Companion,” “CBS This Morning,” CNN, and the country music and cowboy comedy troupe Riders in the Sky’s nationally syndicated “Riders Radio Theatre,” a series that’s been broadcast by more than 170 commercial and public stations. SoundArt albums include, among others, New Classics for Bluegrass Mandolin, American Portraits, Travellers, Appalachian Mandolin & Dulcimer, and A Day in the Country. “Interactive, pay-per-play music systems like TouchTunes’ have never offered more variety and catered to more far-flung musical tastes than they do today,” says Laurie Hughes, TouchTunes’ Nashville-based vice president for business affairs and the company’s principal record-company liaison. TouchTunes’ online network of more than 24,000 Internet jukeboxes in bars, restaurants, and other establishments throughout North America is the industry’s largest, representing a market share of more than 60 percent. To date, its interactive digital jukebox network has played more than 1.6 billion songs. TouchTunes introduced the world’s first digital downloading, pay-per-play commercial jukebox in 1998.
April 4, 2007 |
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