53 posts tagged “music”

I'm not sure why I never have anything to say anymore, on either of my blogs. I'm usually spewing some drivel or another so you might think it would end up here, but well, I have to chalk it up to laziness.

At least with a list like this it proves you can find pretty much anything you want on the Net. And that Stumbleupon rules. Here are a few of my favorites to keep you busy for hours.

 And so, for your lazy link pleasure:

• Sunbeam Poem Projector
• LSD vs Alcohol vs Tree
• Stun your friends with these crazy Latin sayings!
• Mentos and Coke Record Explosion
  
  
  

  Mentos and Coke Record
• An Error
• Lots and lots of cat facts
• I am a Zombie Filled with Love
• The Ten Most Puzzling Ancient Artifacts
• Star Wars Urban Photography
  
  
  

  Don't Mess with Boba Fett
• 100 greatest dance songs of the 90s
• I'm a Creep
• Frank Melech's Dreamworld
• Book Autopsies
• Velociraptor season is here. Are you prepared?
• Don't Panic!
• To satisfy your morbid fascination
• 19.20.21
• Forbidden books
• World of Inspiration
• Sickeningly cute
• How to make roses from maple leaves (useful, I know!)
• CandyKitty will take care of your money (coveting)
• Cottonmonster
• May the force be with you
• 349 scandals in eight years with time for more!
• Face your childhood fears

That should keep you busy for now. :)

oh wait, we were...at this Jens Lekman show. In fact in watching this Joe realized that we were standing next to the guy filming. You can hear us laughing, my screaming and I can even pick out places where you can hear me singing along.

He's telling the story about the song, which is about a time when he went to Berlin to visit his lesbian friend who had lied to her father about him being her fiance--and the embarrassing dinner that ensues.

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  Jens Lekman at the Paradise
• Battlestar Galactica Season 4 (argh it starts the night of Jens Lekman! TG for TiVO!)
• Colin Meloy at the Somerville Theater
• Planning a little wine tasting party
• SPRING at the Mt. Auburn Cemetery
• Spring in general!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• Ice cream season
• Cleaning up the back porch, potting flowers and getting ready for summer.
• Sitting on that same back porch and writing (although half the trees are gone and there is a massive house just feet away from ours now...maybe I'll have to scope out a park)
• Lavinia, by Ursula K. Leguin
• Going to the Langham Chocolate Bar for my birthday in June. I've been wanting to go since I moved here 11 years ago and this year is not going to pass without me going!
• Receiving this in the mail sometime this week!
• And this.

Some guy with far too much time on his hands, but one heck of a lot of creativity and a great ear, has put together a pretty wild soundtrack using only sounds from Windows...

Very excited about seeing the Magnetic Fields next month and Jens Lekman in April. If you aren't familiar with either of them, check them out!

That's what the RIAA is saying in its latest round of lawsuits. According to this Washington Post article:

in an unusual case in which an Arizona recipient of an RIAA letter has fought back in court rather than write a check to avoid hefty legal fees, the industry is taking its argument against music sharing one step further: In legal documents in its federal case against Jeffrey Howell, a Scottsdale, Ariz., man who kept a collection of about 2,000 music recordings on his personal computer, the industry maintains that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer.

The industry's lawyer in the case, Ira Schwartz, argues in a brief filed earlier this month that the MP3 files Howell made on his computer from legally bought CDs are "unauthorized copies" of copyrighted recordings.

This is pretty damn shocking all around. Essentially it means that the only music that is legal to have on your iPod or other mp3 player is music that you bought online. Which is ridiculous. It means that pretty much every single mp3 player owner is in violation according to what the RIAA is now trying to push forth.

The Howell case was not the first time the industry has argued that making a personal copy from a legally purchased CD is illegal. At the Thomas trial in Minnesota, Sony BMG's chief of litigation, Jennifer Pariser, testified that "when an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song." Copying a song you bought is "a nice way of saying 'steals just one copy,' " she said.

But lawyers for consumers point to a series of court rulings over the last few decades that found no violation of copyright law in the use of VCRs and other devices to time-shift TV programs; that is, to make personal copies for the purpose of making portable a legally obtained recording.

The article goes on to talk about how the recording industry is refusing to move out of the dinosaur age and into the digital world. Instead of being innovative and changing their business model, they are spending craploads of money on lawyers to charge teenagers and college kids hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines that they cannot afford to pay.

I have been thinking this for such a long time--how stuck in the past the RIAA is. I used to work in the record industry and for the most part, it's run by a bunch of old stodgy men who wouldn't know a creative money making idea if it bit them in the ass. In this day and age, you don't own the consumer. They are smarter, better informed and you can no longer walk all over them by charging an 80% markup on your products. They just don't go for that. What they want is collaboration, integration, discussion and ways to feed the obsession that they have with the artists they admire. There are ways to make money...but the old way is increasingly not going to be one of those ways.

I subscribe to eMusic, which I think is one of the coolest music services out there, especially if you are into indie music. I've found more interesting artists through that service than I ever dreamed. I've stocked up on lots of music from indie bands that I would never have heard about from some record company promotion. Instead I relied on suggestions from other members, recommends based on reviews of music I know and by being able to listen to snippets of the music before I purchased. I can buy whole albums or just songs. I often will choose 2-3 songs from an album to see if I like it, then will go back the next month and get the remainder of the songs.  I pay $25 a month for 100 songs...which is about 6-8 CDs...which would cost you at least $60 on iTunes. The thing is, I'm more likely to buy more music over time because I have greater value. And in turn I'm discovering more music, and may go to shows and buy merchandise of the bands that I discover. If I had to rely on hard CDs or iTunes, I wouldn't buy as much. I imagine that those costs are what drive teens to the free download sites.

Record companies need to pay attention to these new types of patterns and learn to diversify their product offerings. Services is where it is at. Because of eMusic I have been slowly stocking up on as much of the Labrador catalog as I can...I've found that I really love the music that those crazy Swedes distribute. If it weren't for a service like eMusic I would never have discovered them nor would they have been likely to get money from me each and every month as a result. I'm a steady customer now...looking for more tunes by the same company vs. just buying one offs like I typically do from other labels.

The RIAA should hire me to help the labels revamp their marketing strategy. It's not really rocket science--you just need to have an understanding of the audience, the new technologies and be willing to take a leap forward and create the next hot revenue stream for today's generations of music lovers. Sigh. Instead, I shake my head, my mind absolutely boggled by their scare-tactic, doomed-to-fail campaign against people who just plain don't know that what they are doing is so wrong in the first place. Instead of spending money to keep money, spend a little money to develop ideas to make more...

Methinks that the lawyers are running the show. Lots and lots of dollar signs to be had for those guys!

How random is this?  Siouxsie Sioux has a solo album out...some gazillion years after the Banshees and the Creatures. I need to pick it up still but a cursory listen at her site is promising (click on the butterflies to navigate).

I saw the Banshees perform at the first Lollapalooza. I've always loved her music and am very excited to see this new effort.

And damn, I want to look like that when I turn 50!

Yes yes, well, sort of you heard me right.

My good friend Sean is the god of the new Pixies tribute album due out tomorrow, Dig for Fire. But the thing is I'd be excited for this album even if I wasn't helping him schill a few extra pennies on the sale of this new little friend. Because it's pretty darn cool with bands like  OK Go, They Might Be Giants, Mogwai, The Rosebuds and British Sea Power.  Listen at the link above.

And pick it up tomorrow by download on iTunes or at:  www.alr-music.com/shop.php

It's worth it for the TMBG Havalina cover alone. And damn, does OK Go give good cover or what? While you are futzing around iTunes, make sure you check out their cover of The Cure's Lovecats.

I really was a record promoter in my past life. Well, maybe in this life, many years ago. ;-)

EDIT: This will be available internationally on the 27th and if I'm not mistaken, on CD in stores around the same time.

were born in 1989, the year I graduated from high school. Wow.

In order to help their professors, every year Beloit College puts together a profile ofincoming college Freshmen.The entire 70 point list can be found here, but here are some of the most disturbing or interesting for me:

• What Berlin wall?
• They never “rolled down” a car window.
• Nelson Mandela has always been free and a force in South Africa.
• “Off the hook” has never had anything to do with a telephone.
• Wal-Mart has always been a larger retailer than Sears and has always employed more workers than GM.
• Al Gore has always been running for president or thinking about it.
• They were too young to understand Judas Priest’s subliminal messages.
• They were introduced to Jack Nicholson as “The Joker.”
• Women’s studies majors have always been offered on campus.
• High definition television has always been available.
• Microbreweries have always been ubiquitous.
• Time has always worked with Warner.
• Tiananmen Square is a 2008 Olympics venue, not the scene of a massacre.
• MTV has never featured music videos.
• The World Wide Web has been an online tool since they were born.
• Burma has always been Myanmar.
• Dilbert has always been ridiculing cubicle culture.
• Food packaging has always included nutritional labeling.