I don't have much desire to go to big festival shows these days, I'm much more into smaller, more intimate venues where the musicians (and drinks) are close. But seeing Prince cover Radiohead at Coachella would have been cool. And there's always something to be said for laser light shows.
This saturday, April 19, 2008, is Record Store Day. Go support your independent record store this saturday, and any day you can. Small record store are cool. They usually have well selected collections of music - you can feel a bit better picking out random stuff, knowing it at least meets some level of quality. And you can be sure the staff, surly though they me be, knows their music.
I'm buying more music electronically, but I'm still somewhat uncomfortable with the fact that as time and technology progresses, my music 'format' gets progressively lesser quality - CDs are good but still a compromise due to the storage limits of the medium when it was developed, and MP3/AAC files are compressed, although maybe soon uncompressed FLAC files will be more widely available. I pick up CDs whenever I can (sadly, not too many records these days, although I hope to get another turntable soon!) so that I can at least have an uncompressed source to go back to. Seems like more small record stores are getting into the electronic downloads game - they'll probably have to to really survive.
I met this guy Steve a while (a way while...) back. He used to run a record shop in Park Slope, but closed it in 2004 and now deals online as holycownyc.com. Check it out.
The German company Optimal has developed a CD-vinyl hybrid. A real cd with 3 minutes of 'vinyl' on top. You can plop it on your turntable with a little adapter (45s, anyone?). Can you scratch it, though?
Vinyl has been enjoying something of a revival for a bit, so while this seems strange in a way it makes some sense. The look like they'll make cool promos or concert sale CDs.
If you're a Jungle/Drum & Bass fan like myself, and you started listening to it more than a few years ago, then The Jungle Preserve is for you - mixes from the early days. Lots of ragga, jump-up, beeps, hoover-bass, and all that fun stuff.
The Recording Industry has gone way overboard in somehow getting Florida and Utah (and possibly Rhode Island and Wisconsin) to pass a laws that say:
These are probably much tougher requirements than buying a gun in these states. Does this seem absurd to anyone? What about used book sales? Are used CD sales really that much of a market killer? Why is the recording industry trying to shoot itself in the foot? What a bunch of morons - including the legislators who bought in to this ill-conceived joke.
To my Congressional representatives (and to Congress as a whole) --
As a fan of Internet radio, I was alarmed to learn that music royalty rates were recently determined by the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) which, if enacted, would certainly silence most or all of my favorite online listening services. (For most webcasters, this new royalty rate represents more than 100% of their total revenues!)
The closure of these Internet radio stations would be a loss for not only independent business owners, but also for musical artists, for copyright owners, and for listeners like me who enjoy the wide variety of choices available via Internet radio.
I respectfully request that Congress look into this matter and initiate action to prevent it. As the CRB rate decision is retroactive to January 1, 2006, please understand that time is of the essence -- as the immediate impact of this decision could silence many or most free Internet radio stations forever.
A great use of the visualizer plug-in function of iTunes - iConcertCal. Now you don't have to search specifically for shows by the bands you like, this plug-in looks for shows of all the groups in your music database and lists them in a calendar with links. Super-handy.
I mentioned Steve Jobs' open letter about DRM a week or so ago. Of course it's not quite that clear. Bruce Schneier with some thoughts on why software companies such as Apple or Microsoft might really want to use a proprietary DRM system:
This isn't even about Microsoft satisfying its Hollywood customers at the expense of those of us paying for the privilege of using Vista. This is about the overwhelming majority of honest users and who owns the distribution channels to them. And while it may have started as a partnership, in the end Microsoft is going to end up locking the movie companies into selling content in its proprietary formats.
We saw this trick before; Apple pulled it on the recording industry. First iTunes worked in partnership with the major record labels to distribute content, but soon Warner Music's CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr. found that he wasn't able to dictate a pricing model to Steve Jobs. The same thing will happen here; after Vista is firmly entrenched in the marketplace, Sony's Howard Stringer won't be able to dictate pricing or terms to Bill Gates. This is a war for 21st-century movie distribution and, when the dust settles, Hollywood won't know what hit them.
If you feel like buying some music online, here are two great sites. Both sell their music without any DRM (Digital Rights Management) that restricts what you can do with the digital files. This way you can support artists you like without having to submit to some overbearing corporate profit center.
track it down - the complete source for electronic/dance music. Singles, remixes, All the latest the things you would find on vinyl. And you can get very high quality/high bit rate encodings.
amie street - independent music, songs start out all priced at the same rate (very low, around $.10 or so), and become more expensive as they get more popular. You can earn credits for referring people.
Breakbeat Science no longer has their cool looking store on Orchard Street, they are now in a hidden back room of BBlessing, a clothing store that is right next door from where they used to be. Seems like they are concentrating on driving all their business through their web site, unless you want to pick up just the latest vinyl.
you may be right, but if a very large, well-funded entity brings a lawsuit against you -- being right and being able to win in a court of law usually takes a lot of money. Well it looks like the MPAA finally picked on someone who has the money to defend himself. Hopefully Mr. Hogan is able to decisively showed them the error of their ham-fisted legalistic ways.
Coachella is this weekend. The festival web site has a cool time lapse video from the 2005 main stage.
David Byrne has a sound installation currently in Stockholm, Sweden, called "Playing The Building." An organ console is attached to the various structural and other elements of the interior of a building which are used to make the sound.
If you happen to be going to London, Time Out London did a list recently of twenty record shops. (PDF) I would add one more shop to that list:
bmsoho (formerly Black Market Record)
25 D'Arblay Street, London
W1F 8EJ, UK
+44 (0)207 437 0478
I went to see the Bob Mould Band last night at Irving Plaza, and it was one of the best shows I have seen in years. Bob has a new album out that is a return to the driving rock of his Sugar years, and the four piece band burned through an hour and and half of music - one-third from the new album, one-third from Sugar and his solo albums, and one-third from Hüsker Dü. They made me a very happy man by playing "I Apologize" and "Celebrated Summer" from New Day Rising, my favorite Hüsker Dü album. Bob looks much happier then he ever did - I saw him once before on a solo tour in the early 90s - and he and the band had great energy that they put into every song. The packed house loved it also, screaming at them back for two encores, with the calls for more only cut off by the house lights.
There are many bands who would love to be as heavy as Bob and his band were last night. Watching and listening to him as a Rock'n'Roll veteran at 44 years old - the pain and emotion in his songs is expressed with even greater depth than it was before. The band's version of "Too Far Down" hit me just as hard last night and as it did the first time I heard it eighteen years ago. Beyond loving pretty much all of his music (although I have not heard his recent electronic forays), I have always respected Bob for being able to create such a large amount of beautiful music that expresses so much, well, negative emotion. Life is not always happy, but to play so much of it, and play it well for so long without losing it or killing himself or giving up - I think that says something about him and something about music itself.
(The Houston Chronicle has a good article about Bob and his recent activities)
Go Home Productions is the home of an extraordinary producer of remixes and mash-ups. A large collection of great tracks to download.
An awesome application that visually shows songs and groups that sample old hip-hop, soul and funk, and those same songs and groups along a timeline. Interactive. Definitely check it out.
The son of a guy I used to work with out in California is in a ska band. Cool!
I want one of these cool mixing devices!
If you're a jazz fan, check out the Jazz Record Center when in Manhattan next. A hidden 8th floor shop with banker's hours, this place has an amazing selection of vinyl, CDs and memorabilia.
A friend of mine is the bassist and sings in a pretty good country/rock band, Gowanus Corral. They play shows mostly in Brooklyn and some here in Manhattan. Definitely check them out. Hopefully they will play our local favorite bar The Rodeo sometime soon.
The Creative Commons - Mixter project released the winners of its Fine Art Of Sampling Contest. All the tracks use Creative Commons licenses and allow sampling and remixing and are derived from The Wired Album put out by Wired Magazine. The tracks are all pretty good, I particularly like four of them: Dangerouse, Revolve, out of my way, My Fair Hiphop
A fun Negativland re-spin on the Apple Special Edition U2 iPod for sale on eBay. Extra profit above the costs goes to downhill battle.
If you are one of those people who checks out several different movie reviews to get a 'consensus review', metacritic is for you. It averages the reviews of several different critics/sites for movies (new releases and video), music and video games.
I have been looking at a couple music recommendation services that some friends pointed out to me. Music Plasma is quite visually interesting, with its planet-like display of bands and their relationships to each other, but it definitely needs more information (many bands don't have their albums listed, and not enough bands are in it).
Audioscrobbler is more interesting and I have signed up for it to see what recommendations it produces. It uses plugins for your music player to track what you are listening to and eventually give you recommendations based on some kind of matching scheme with other listeners. It will also set up a personal internet radio station for you based on your listening patterns. It is free, and they don't really collect any personal info except what songs you listen to.
Shahkar Binesh-Pajouh has a Ph.D. in urban planning but floats the rhymes on the mic in his home country of Iran to, like MCs everywhere, try and get the message of the people out.
I can't wait to see one of my favorite bands, Tortoise, this coming Thursday at the Bowery Ballroom. They have a new album out - It's All Around You - which is quite amazing and coming closer with each listen to displacing my past favorite albums, tnt.
Always high concept, this new album is an oblique environmental statement in music. There is so much and we throw it all away. It's all around us, we just have to decide that we want it.
Download a live Tortoise show!
