Here she is during her last trip to Dakar in April.

‘Fired Up & Ready to Go’ is by Fojeba, a musician born in Cameroon now living in Canada. His song is a Central African makossa. Fojeba uses samples from Obama’s speeches in the music including his signature “Fired Up, Ready to Go” as a refrain.

Via Calabash Music’s blog, which also features other music inspired by Obama.

I downloaded the MP3 version. While I’m not really a NIN fan, Trent Reznor has earned my highest respect. He may be the only musician who truly understands online music distribution methods. For that reason, I will support all of his efforts.

Trent’s success is important for the entire music industry. By proving that an artist can continue to make music and profit from it without the benefit of a label will only hasten the overdue demise of the big labels. Today’s music labels are nothing more than parasites who claim to support musicians while paying them only a minimal amount as the companies themselves make a huge profit.

With online distribution there’s very little need for physical media. Even an individual artist can set up a web site and distribute his music just as effectively as any platinum-selling band.

This summer, Mike Doughty makes his Broadway debut with Ruby Vroom: The Musical, a stage adaptation of the first Soul Coughing album, with book by Tim Rice and choreography by Twyla Tharp.

Ruby Vroom: The Musical tells the story of Ruby (Scarlett Johansson), a transgendered youth growing up in 1970s Chicago. After a botched, self-administered sex change operation, Ruby enters a series of ill-fated love affairs, all set to the musical backdrop of her caustic avant-punk trio, The 5% Nation. Convinced that one of her lovers is Satan, she travels from Chicago to Kansas, Detroit and eventually Los Angeles, where she is sidetracked by drugs, mad kidnapping plots and the tawdry allure of the Hollywood lifestyle. And just when she is about to succumb to bitterness, an older woman, Janine (Patti LuPone), enters her life and changes everything.

Press previews for Ruby Vroom: The Musical will begin in late June at the St. James Theater on West 44th St., with a public opening in mid-July. Says Mike, currently on tour with his band, “I am immensely excited about the opportunity to work with the fabulous Ms. LuPone. She is the bucket of shoes in my foyer.”

For ticket information, see http://www.rubyvroomtickets.com/.

Make sure you visit the website, http://www.rubyvroomtickets.com/.

I created my Muxtape at http://mike3k.muxtape.com/.

Trent Reznor explains:

“I’ve been considering and wanting to make this kind of record for years, but by its very nature it wouldn’t have made sense until this point. This collection of music is the result of working from a very visual perspective - dressing imagined locations and scenarios with sound and texture; a soundtrack for daydreams. I’m very pleased with the result and the ability to present it directly to you without interference. I hope you enjoy the first four volumes of Ghosts.”

Although I’m not a particularly big NIN fan, I’m a strong supporter of any artist that self-distributes their music, so I purchased their $5 download. This is the future of music. Any artist who says “F* you” to their record label and sells their music directly deserves our support. As more artists take the initiative, the big record labels will go out of business, yet there will be more and better music available and artists will make more money by eliminating the middleman.

Unfortunately, the purchase didn’t go smoothly. Their servers are getting hit very hard, so it took several tries before I was able to get a confirmation page and my download link (thankfully PayPal was charged only once). When I actually tried to download it, every attempt timed out and failed in less than a minute. Finally, I got the “download limit exceeded” error. As it stands, I’m now waiting to hear from support@store.nin.com to resolve the issue.

What artists can learn from this is that their servers better be prepared for unexpected amounts of download traffic. A single server most likely wouldn’t be able to handle the demand. Instead, they should use a content delivery network such as Akamai or a high availability server such as Amazon’s S3 rather than hosting it on their regular server.

IMGA0788.JPG, originally uploaded by Barack Obama.

Arcade Fire played at an Obama rally in Nelsonville, OH. My favorite band promoting my favorite candidate.