Recently in Music Category

This morning I woke up to part of Electric Skychurch's Deus Suite playing on Groove Salad. And the sun was shining through the windows just right. Such a nice peaceful way to wake.

Found today while wandering around the net. A funky video for a song by the japanese group Rip Slyme. It reminds me a lot of what videos over here used to be like. Really creative and fun.

Link to video at YouTube HERE

SFGate.com has an article about the 25th anniversary of Journey's ESC4P3 (early promoters of leet speak?).

Fantastic Journey

What do critics know? The people have spoken, and the verdict is the same as it was 25 years ago: Journey so rocks! A quarter-century after "ESC4P3" -- "Escape" to the straights -- took over the airwaves, it's high time to reconsider just who made the best music ever to come out of the Bay Area.

There have been hundreds of albums over the past few decades that were hated on by critics, only to sell millions of copies. That sentence pretty much describes the entire careers of Meat Loaf, Kansas and Jimmy Buffett.

And yet, what if there was a band, or even a single album, that was falsely persecuted -- the musical version of a Death Row inmate who didn't commit the crime? What if every 1980s critic was completely wrong about that album's alleged failings, a fact that becomes instantly apparent just by playing it again?

It's time to re-evaluate Journey's "Escape," or "ESC4P3" for those who prefer the prog-rock spelling of the era... [SFGate.com] [via waxy links]

I can proudly say I never owned a copy of the album and have no real thoughts on it. But I do remember the popularity of a number of the tracks on it. Still it's an interesting read about a much abused album.

This morning I stumbled upon a neat looking program called MusicIP. It's a tool for analyzing your music library. Once analyzed you can select a song and make a playlist based on that song. You can also do things make a new playlist based on a current playlist (though that seems to require some form of registration that I haven't figured out yet).

The only thing that is a pain about it is that I have a fairly large library in iTunes (around 6,500 songs) and so the analysis phase will be going on for ages (fingerprinting the tracks will take about 20 hours and analyzing the tracks 42 hours!). But so far with just a fraction of my music processed it gave some good results. When I've gotten more of my library processed I'll post an example one

While looking around the iTMS for some new podcasts to listen to today I came across one by Sasha (the DJ). Pretty cool, so far he's just got two mixes up, both live mixes (which I love the best), but it's a cool start. Definitely worth a check out if you're a fan (and even if not).

Now I'm searching for any other DJs who have podcasts. This is also helping to inspire me more to do one of these myself.

I tried playing around with Pandora a bit more tonight. In the past I'd gotten frustrated with it by trying to get it to play techno. The problem is it has next to no techno and when it runs low on selections it seems to start pushing me towards listening to other things I don't care for.

Tonight I started out with The Housemartins. Things started okay, but started to travel away from that style. I thought of other things that might fit my mood tonight and ended up adding The Style Council and The Blow Monkeys in for flavor. I think I fucked the station up because now it is playing Dead or Alive for me. Not what I was really going for.

One thing I'd love to see from Pandora is a more broad selection of ratings for songs you listen to. Like, I want to say "don't only play this song, but don't play anything by the band performing this song because I never want to hear them again. I hate it that much." Just thumbs up or thumbs down doesn't do it for me.

Overall I'm finding Pandora to be frustrating. It's not playing stuff I don't like, but it's not playing stuff I'm not in the mood to hear (though it did just play some Mike Viola).

Delta Heavy is a new documentary covering the 2002 tour of DJs Sasha and Jon Digweed. Newsweek online has an interview with Sasha that I thought was pretty decent. I haven't seen either of them spin in ages. I still remember the first time I saw Sasha spin was back in around '95/'96. That night at Metropolis in Irvine, CA is still one of my top five nights out clubbing. I wasn't tainted by labels on genres as much at that point so I was able to just really kick back and enjoy. It was pure magic.

Maybe I'll be able to go out clubbing again sometime soon. That would be a good thing.

One for all those ravers and former ravers: the top raver flicks of 1999. Courtesy of xaotica.

A great love song for all the geeks out there.

I feel a mix coming on. Hopefully I'll have something to post within a day or two. It's been much too long. Yesterday i started throwing some records together to play around and before I knew it an hour and a half had passed. I love when that happens.

Posted by Accordion Guy, a funky Flash animation called Drum Machine.

I've always been a big fan of earmuffs. Hats tend to bug the crap out of me for some reason. So these would be great to have.

Earmuffs/Headphones, Great Idea!

Thanks, JVC. These headphone/ear warmers arrived just time for us here on the icy east coast. Stoked with Polartec Wind Pro and Thermolite Active 100 materials to keep you warm, these babies promise good tunes and toasty earlobes. Well, warm earlobes anyhow. The cool cats in NYC are opting for ginormous earphones with earcups that double as muffs. Trouble is, you gotta wear those things around your neck like some wandering nightclub DJ for the rest of the day. These things look like they fold up nicely—although they aren't exactly babe magnets.

Hot stuff [GadgetCandy]

[via Gizmodo]

Some music videos for your entertainment (click on the image to view):

Just what I needed on a lazy thursday.

There are a crazy amount of iPod accessories out there, but this is the most... uh, interesting one yet. For that special someone in your life.

iBuzz—iPod Controlled Vibrator

Merry Christmas, Mom! Apparently this little device, which hooks up to the iPod and buzzes in time to your music library, is the hottest Christmas gift going. It's great for getting to sore muscles and aching bones and might even be used for a bit of extracurricular self-induced carnival time after hours, but we wouldn't condone that at all. The body is a temple.

Huge buzz for iPod gizmo [The Sun]

[via Gizmodo]

Today I did some music shopping while my sister met a friend at the mall for coffee and discovered they'd re-released the original Sasha & John Digweed Renaissance mixes. A friend of mine had the original release and I'd had burned copies, but I definitely wanted to get my own copies eventually (even if the packaging isn't quite as slick as they were).

And it looks like there are more mix CDs coming out again. It seems like there'd been a bit of a lull for a while there. I noticed a new Digweed CD and two new Sasha ones. I'm not sure how new they actually are, but I hadn't seen them before.

Now playing: Song For Life (Steppin Razor Mix) from the album "Renaissance The Mix Collection (Disc 1) Re-mastered 10th Anniversary Edition" by Leftfield

This weekend I was futzing around on the turntables and decided to just record what I was spinning for a bit. The end result is a short 45 minute mix that pulled out some older tracks I had laying around.

Track Listing: Foolin' Around (Download: AAC) (I'll do mp3 if enough people whine)

1. Luzon - The Baguio Track (Unreleased Flatline Remix) -
2. Marmion - Schoneberg (Thomas Schumacer's Rumpshakers Galore Mix) - Superstition
3. Slide vs Healy - Fear (Sense and Catt's Twisted Casa Mix) - Fire
4. Circulation - Grey (Nathan Larsen's Doric Reply) - Hooj Choons
5. the real - debbie does deptford - Eukahouse
6. Robert Armani - Circus Bells (Hardfloor Remix) - S12
7. Wink - Higher State of Consciousness (Original Tweekin' Acid Funk Mix) - Manifesto

Hmm, maybe I'll start churning out a short mix every week and make a podcast out of it just to be trendy.

And the world has turned around again.

Taken from LJ:

How many total songs?
7580

Sort by Song Title
First: 'Till the End of Time, Delerium
Last: track 8 (it's in japanese: 黒い翼) off of Los Angeles by the brilliant green

Sort by time:
First: Let's Hear It For Nine Inch Nails, Nine Inch nails
Last: Essential Mix - 04.01.2001, Carl Cox Live @ Space

Sort by Album:
First track: (We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thing, Heaven 17, (We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thing (cd single)
Last track: LITTLE BUSTERS, The Pillows・他, フリクリ オリジナルサウンドトラック

Top Ten Most Played:
I Love Love You, Hideki Naganuma/Guitar Vader
READY STEADY GO, L'Arc~en~Ciel
HEY! JIMMY, HAV
Super Shooter, RIP SLYME
Cutie Honey, Koda Kumi
The Concept of Love, Hideki Nagnuma
A Place in the Country, Adam Ant
Puss n' Boots, Adam Ant
Future Is What We Are, Ken Ishii
Run Rabbit Junk, Yoko Kanno

10 most recently played: (Same comment as last one):
Place in the Country, Adam Ant
Take Me To The River, Talking Heads
You Won't See Me Coming, Jean-Jacques Burnel
Screw, The Cure
It Only Makes Me Laugh, Oingo Boingo
No One Lives Forever, Oingo Boingo
Greetings to the New Brunette, Billy Bragg
Like a Prayer, Bigod 20
Run Rabbit Junk, Yoko Kanno
HIT IN THE USA, BEAT CRUSADERS

Find "sex", how many songs show up?
18

Find "death", how many songs show up?
13

Find "love", how many songs show up?
442

So this morning I decided to record myself spinning and do up a little mix. This was pretty much my first time touching my turntables in at least a year (with the exception of around 15 minutes over the weekend). Overall it wasn't as bad as it could have been. I'm definitely not as tight as I was before, but that's just practice. And I still love that feeling of just blocking out everything else and spinning for a while. I just have to make sure and close the door to my room so that I'm not seen bopping about and looking silly.

Anyways, here it is: I Know You Want It (it's in AAC, cope) (Oh, and you might have to right click and do save as).

So I finally got my turntables set up again. It's been over a year since I spun. And pretty much all of my records are stashed away still. So I've decided to celebrate with a mix. This morning I went down and just randomly grabbed records from the ones that were easily accessible and I'll see what I can do with them.

The interesting thing is that a lot of what I spin has changed since I first started. There's a lot of old progressive trance in there that I probably wouldn't touch these days. Some of it is pretty good, but I'm sure there are more than a few things I picked up over the years that are trash. So it is definitely a tossup as to the quality of the tracks I'm working with. I guess this is a good time to go through and weed out any of the records I'll definitely never spin.

Hopefully I'll have a new mix up within a few days.

Lately I seem to have this bad habit of buying CDs and then letting them sit around for a few months before I open them up to listen to them. The latest was Derrick Carter & Mark Farina Live at Om. I really have no idea why I waited so long and now I'm kicking myself. I've been bopping around to it all morning. I think I like the Mark Farina mix a bit more out of the two, but they're both great. Now I just need to put it on my ipod.

One of the things I love best about World of Warcraft is its sense of humor and pop culture references. I started a new undead character today and while running through starting area ran across three zombies. Their names: Daniel Ulfman, Karrel Grayves, and Stephen Bhartec. Every once in a while Daniel says things like "You really couldn't blame him...", "No one lives forever...", and "Where's the rest of the guys?"

I couldn't stop chuckling about it the whole time I was playing. Brilliant.

Edit: And I just had to kill Samual Fipps.

Seen over on a friend's LJ, a flash movie with a dancing and singing bunny.

Thinking that students might be threatening the president by performing Bob Dylan's "Masters of War", the Secret Service paid a visit to a Boulder, CO high school this week.

School Talent Show Draws Secret Service

Colorado Band Singing Dylan Song Seen as Threatening President Bush

BOULDER, Colo., Nov. 12, 2004 — Parents and students say they are outraged and offended by a proposed band name and song scheduled for a high school talent show in Boulder this evening, but members of the band, named Coalition of the Willing, said the whole thing is being blown out of proportion.

The students told ABC News affiliate KMGH-TV in Denver they are performing Bob Dylan's song "Masters of War" during the Boulder High School Talent Exposé because they are Dylan fans. They said they want to express their views and show off their musical abilities.

But some students and adults who heard the band rehearse called a radio talk show Thursday morning, saying the song the band sang ended with a call for President Bush to die.

Threatening the president is a federal crime, so the Secret Service was called to the school to investigate. [abcnews.com]

For further reading, here's the lyrics to "Masters of War" (which was first released in 1963).

Derrick Story writes about his Favorite Stewart Copeland Story:

The next day, when we had a few moments to talk, I asked him what he thought of the laptop. Stewart was in a great mood. He said that since he didn't have any of his stuff on it, he just nosed around, and quickly discovered GarageBand. Stewart is more of a ProTools kind of guy, so he's never taken the time to check out GB.

"I saw this cool looking guitar on the dock," he said. "So I clicked on it. It seemed like about 20 minutes had passed, but it was more like a couple hours. Next thing I knew, I had some pretty sweet tracks put together. And that was without a USB keyboard (as in the musical type). I was just tapping on the computer itself." [O'reilly:Derrick Story]

Oh yes, there is nothing like watching a new anime and realizing that the theme song was done by Dimitri from Paris. It is quite slick. Neko Mimi Mode (AAC) is a bit of a variation on Love Love Mode, and is a nice little bit of grooviness (and it's even better with the animation (with the cute vampire girl with cat ears on)). Definitely a fun little song that had to be shared.

Of course I now keep having it run through my head and hearing Chiwa Saito say "Neko Mimi Mode" all day long.

When Microsoft opened up the MSN Music Store the other day, there was a comment about Apple and how their system is "closed". This was given as a reason that MSN is better.

"iTunes has done a great job of helping to elevate the [digital music] market," said Christine Andrews, lead product manager of MSN. "We're different because Apple is a closed system. If you want Apple, you have to use the iPod. A lot of people want choice and we offer that." [macnn.com]

So let's see. My choice is use iTMS and an iPod, or buy a whole second computer in order to use the MSN Music Store. Let's be honest, they're both closed in different ways. IMHO MSN's is more closed because I can't even use it on my computer. Though I wouldn't hate Apple if they opened up access to their DRM a little bit. Given their market share I think they can afford to let people use a few other players. There is still a market for flash players that aren't that expensive.

I posted about Audioscrobbler ages ago. It is a service that tracks what music you play on your computer so that you can see what artists/songs you listen to the most. It also tries to recommend music to you based on what your profile (here's mine). An added bonus is getting to listen to a radio station based on other users with similar profiles, or one with your profile at last.fm.

So, I've added a link to listen to my radio on the left that looks like this: . So give a listen and enjoy.

The other week i wrote complaining about the iTunes Music Store. After going back and forth with support a few times I finally got a nice note from their technical support team saying to check back in a few weeks while they fixed the tracks I wanted. I just went and checked the store to see if they were still listed and Lard - Last Temptation of Reid isn't even listed anymore. Also, they've removed the short version of Original Sin from INXS - The Swing.

Good job so far. Now we'll wait and see if that Lard album ever comes back.

The other day I posted about the Apple Music Store and how I felt they were misrepresenting what they sell. While out shopping yesterday, I found a copy of the CD I wanted to buy, The Swing by INXS. So in honor of that, I'm posting the actual version of Original Sin (aac) from the CD (though other folks had also gotten it to me).

I also happened to check back at iTMS to see if the listing was still incorrect, and it was. So here's the question I have. How should Apple handle this kind of thing? Should they pull it from their site till it is fixed? Or just let people keep buying it? The first seems like the correct answer.

I think the reason this is annoying me so much is that I had a similar issue with an audiobook I bought there. In the middle of the second file it suddenly jumped a bunch of chapters ahead, and in the third file, it jumped back. So it had obviously been encoded out of order. Yet when I called customer service on it, they just credited me back, and then didn't change the version online, it was still available. It makes me wonder how much they really pay attention to problems.

Anyway, enjoy the song.

This is from one of my all time favorite albums Morning Dove White. It was one of my favorite CDs to listen to coming home from a party. This is the second song on the CD: White Love (Guitar Paradise Mix), by One Dove. It was actually a tough choice on what song to put up, as when I was looking at the track listing I was really tempted to put up the title track Fallen.

A friend of mine over on LJ was posting some old songs and it put me in the mood to hear an old Depeche Mode b-side that I hadn't listened to in ages. Dangerous (Sensual Mix) - Depeche Mode (aac). They really did have some nice b-sides to their singles back then. The other I remember liking a lot was Set Me Free.

I just fired up iTunes because I wanted to listen to some music, but also wanted to hear one song in particular first. So I hit shuffle and then searched for the song. The scroll bar barely moved and I noticed that it was the second song in the shuffle. Coincidence? I think not.

But only a little bit because they didn't get it all right. I have a few different bands I'll search for on iTMS every now and then to see if they've made it into the store. An old favorite, Lard, had shown up a few months ago, but it was missing the album I really wanted: The Last Temptation of Reid. On that point iTMS has done well.

On the other hand, when I go to select the album to buy. It gives me an Unknown Error and tells me to try again later. DAMN YOU APPLE FOR TEASING ME!

I was poking around in the iTunes Music Store early this morning and discovered they had The Swing by INXS. I was quite psyched since that is one of my all time favorite albums. I remember my high school roommate and I used to have it playing on shuffle play all night long many many times. I clicked to add it to my shopping cart and did some more browsing. When I was done I was just about to click on 'Buy Now' when I noticed something. The version of "Original Sin" they have as part of the album is the wrong version. The listed time for the track is 3:46. According to allmusic.com, the actual length of the track is 5:19, which sounded more like what I remembered.

The most annoying part of this is that I've had my eye out for this for ages and it feels like it is almost within my grasp. Maybe I should ask around to see if any of my friends have it.

Yesterday I set out for Newbury Comics in search of two CDs and I was quite happy to find that they had both of them. Usually I feel like I go off in search of CDs and never find what I'm looking for and end up buying way too much stuff because I start browsing. So, yesterday's purchaes were:

• Make the Music go Bang! - X: I've been an X fan since high school and have about 3/4s of their CDs, but wanted to pick this up after reading a short article about the band on CNN.com a day or two ago. I've given a listen to the beginning of the first CD and still love their sound so much.

• The Name of This Band is Talking Heads - Talking Heads: This is one of the Talking Heads albums I never got around to picking up. When I heard they were finally releasing it on CD I had to pick it up. The album was originally released in 1982 and had never been released on CD before. It has also been expanded with a bunch of unreleased material. I think this one will get its first listen today in the car, where I can turn it up really loud.

Possibly more comments to come as I listen.

Maybe if I share this with the world it will get out of my head. Those wonderful wacky people at weebls have a little cartoon that I'm finding more addicting than Badgers. I mean, Everyone Love Magical Trevor. He makes cows disappear than reappear! I blame ladysissyphus for my knowledge of this.

Today while looking for a wireless mouse I picked up an Airport Express. For those of you who aren't aware of this device, it is Apple's mini base-station, music streaming, usb printer sharing, network extending device. Currently, I have it set up downstairs hooked to the stereo and had it cranked up while I sat out on the porch. Currently, any mac in the house can stream music to it from iTunes. In some ways it's not a perfect solution, since in my parent's case they'd have to go upstairs to their mac to start iTunes. But for someone with a laptop or a laptop and a desktop it just plain rocks. And I'm not the only one who is loving it.

Here's where I think Apple was smart with this device. They've made it so easy to want more than one of them. I've already got one and can easily justify two more. The second I'll use in my room as a print server/wireless client. The third will go on the third floor hooked into the home theatre setup. At around $130 each it isn't something I'll pick up right away, but once I get my laser printer I know I'll be eyeing it.

Of course, then I may want one for when I'm on the road. MacMegasite has a neat article about using the Airport Express in a hotel room.

Thanks go out to Suw for two posts that I'm pointing at tonight. I blogged about this last month, but here's some more information about Mr. Shatner's effort to revive his singing career (ew).

William Shatner does something unspeakable to Pulp's Common People

You remember James T Kirk… er, I mean, William Shatner's last foray into musical endeavour? His stunning - and that's 'stunning' in the same way that a sharp blow to the head is stunning - rendition of The Beatles'Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds? Think that's the depths of JT Hooker… er, I mean, Shatner's depravity?

Think again.

Shatner has teamed up with Ben Folds, of Ben Folds Five, to record a slew of new tracks. According to XFM, the new album, ‘Has Been', will be released on the Shout! Factory label this September.

Earlier today I heard Shatner's cover of Pulp's Common People, and I can assure you, it will blow... you... a... way..., featuring as it does Shatner's thespy spoken-word vocals and Joe Jackson, (yes, that Joe Jackson), doing the wail-y impaled art student bits.

You really, really do need to listen to this. You absolutely must. I have scoured the web for a link to a full length version, but all I can find is this (fairly substantial) snippet. (Quicktime. Other formats available.) [Chocolate and Vodka]

Today's song is one that I tend to listen to when all my health issues get to me and I'm feeling a bit down. Off of Boingo Alive, here's It Only Makes Me Laugh. Because darkness can never last too long, when you laugh in its face.

Here's a music video made my synchronizing Soul Calibur with a dance track:

Music video made with Soul Calibur video game footage

Dance, Voldo, Dance is a music video made by synchronizing the movements of gladiators from the game Soul Calibur with a dance track, so that they appear to be getting down with their nasty selves to the music. It's quite good!

11.2 MB Quicktime Link

[via Boing Boing Blog] [via Waxy]

There's also notes about it linked to from the video. Pretty cool.

Apple's new Airport Express sounds great. It's one of the things I've really been looking for. A nice way to have a wireless repeater that (hopefully) doesn't kill the network speed. Everything else is just really good icing. Mini base station, great. Printer server, great. Streaming audio receiver: great. AirTunes, which is part of iTunes 4.6, here's where I think they missed slightly. You can only stream to an Airport Express box. I would have loved to have seen the ability to stream to any other box running iTunes. Yes, there is music sharing, which is great, but I can think of times when I might want to be just streaming to a laptop. Or both a laptop and an airport express. I live in a fairly good sized house and maybe people in multiple places want to be able to tune in.

I think Apple also needs to come out with some kind of stereo/AV component for listening to music and viewing photos (and maybe even movies) on your home theatre system. Something that works like TiVo's Home Media Option (which is now included in the TiVo subscription instead of as an add-on), but more tuned to how Apple does things. It would let you listen to AAC encoded files, and AAC files you bought from iTMS. But it would act more like the iTunes music sharing does. To me, this could be the killer box for Apple. Roku comes close with their products, but it still isn't exactly what I'm looking for. The one thing I know I don't really want is a full computer attached to my home theatre system. It just seems like overkill to me when I have a server already that has all that stuff stored on it.