Calcinator Death Ray

A Quick Blurb About the Vinyl Lovers Label

2011-05-13T16:09:00.004-04:00

Even though they've been putting stuff out since 2008, I just discovered this Russian reissue label called Vinyl Lovers. Apparently it's a subsidary label of Lilith Records and somehow related to 4 Men With Beards. They have some sort of contract with Universal and have a pretty impressive catalog. And that's about all I know about that.

I picked up a couple of Os Mutantes albums and a purple vinyl pressing of the Velvet Underground's "White Light/White Heat" at Half Price Books, who seem to have gotten a bunch of these titles in new. I'll start with the positive and tell you that these are quality pressings. Nice vinyl, flat records, very quiet.

The problem is in the mastering. These all have some harsh upper mids. The Mutantes records just sound kind of thin overall. The VU isn't too bad, but it still gets a little trebley at times. I'd also lay money down that these are from digital masters, if you care about such things.

Would I recommend this label? Probably not, especially at the $30 a pop most places seem to be charging for their stuff. I paid $10 a pop, and that's about what a Scorpio/vinyl.com reissue would cost and quality wise, I'd say sound quality these are similar, though the pressing is definetly nicer.

Record Store Day Thoughts

2011-04-16T17:44:00.003-04:00

Record Store Day is a bit of a scam. There. I said it.

At the same time, there I was, lined up before opening with all the other hipsters and record collector scum, waiting to spend, spend, spend!

Why?

Well, I had a ton of in-store credit burning a hole in my pocket. And, at the same time, I'm enough of a sucker that there was some stuff I actually wanted to buy this year. Sigh. Hook, line and sinker.

But first, let me reel off a quote from the excellent Numero Group which kind of sums up a lot of how I feel about this retail holiday:

For openers, most Record Store Day records are trashy cash-ins. Bogus 7″ repros, expensive and needless live LPs, and perhaps the worst culprit of all, records that aren’t actually limited but are marketed as such (We’re looking at you Flaming Lips Dark Side Of the Moon)

Of course, they then go on to pimp their own Record Store Day special, available in the oh-so-trendy and completely worthless cassette format. Waddayagonnado?

Speaking of worthless, how about that Beach Boys double 78rpm set? How many of those do you think will ever get played? How many people even have something to play 78s? I don't and yet, here I sit looking at #3794 of however many thousands they cranked out, unwrapped and on my table.

The one item I was actually out for, the Big Star Third "test pressing" set, is pretty cool, even the cynic in me must say. But, it's still a fetish item. I had the music already. There's nothing new there. But I still had to have it, for some reason.

Ditto a few "bogus 7" repros", though I stayed away from the live stuff. And I did actually get around to buying some Black Angels stuff I didn't have. So there was that.

But really, at the end of the day, it's all kind of silly. The false scarcity and silly collector's editions and whatnot are, in my not so humble opinion, some of the worst aspects of the music biz. They do nothing other than trivialize the music, which is what it is supposed to be about, I think.

Let me tell you though what I do like about Record Store Day: seeing the stores packed. Sure, it's a herd of folks grabbing at those exclusives, but ultimately, they are putting money in the cash drawers at some of the few record stores we have left. Who knows? Maybe this one day could mean the difference between paying bills and getting evicted for a store?

But it also kind of gives me pause. If they have to go to all this hype and gimmick to get people in, are record stores still relevant in today's world? I know I've moved a lot of my purchasing to on-line and digital sources for reasons of both price and convenience. Yet I still find myself at the record store, every now and again. I don't think I could imagine life without them completely.

And apparently a lot of other people feel the same way. Both of the stores I went to were packed, and I can't believe they were all eBay scalpers. People weren't just buying the exclusives. There must be something to it that people would stand in the kind of lines I stood in for pieces of plastic with music on them.

So I still think Record Store Day is a bit of a scam, as I do any retail holiday, but at the same time, it does make me appreciate living in a town that can support three independent record stores. Though I don't frequent them as much as I used to, I'm glad they're still around. And, even though it's kind of ridiculous, I'm glad to have this Big Star set sitting in front of me.

A Secret Stash of Fake(?) Funk

2011-04-05T12:11:00.004-04:00

Recently, I've picked up some releases on a label called Secret Stash. The albums seemed right up my alley, claiming to be lost porn and blaxploitation soundtracks, funk from Russia and a reggae version of Kind of Blue. However, something about these albums just didn't seem quite right.

Each one of these records is kind of mysterious, which already set alarms off with me. Absolute minimal credits and a suspiciously perfect backstory accompany each record. Me being me, I wanted more info about what I was listening to. If the recordings were really as obscure as they claimed, not knowing the musicians who played wasn't out of the question. But, I figured there should be some reference somewhere to some of the movies the tracks from Porno Grooves are from. Or surely someone is looking for that lost blaxploitation film Mad Dog's Hustle.

Suspiciously, all the information I found about the Porn Groove and Mad Dog's Hustle albums either linked back to those albums or a source which took Secret Stash's promo material verbatim. In other words, outside the scope of these albums, these movies don't seem to exist.

Regarding the Soviet Funk albums, they sure smell fishy, if they aren't out right fakes. This blog post, was one of the first I found and it led me to this message board thread. Pretty damning stuff.

Now I'm not going to say that these releases are fake just because there's no information about the movies or any of the people connected to them out there. And just because there are some wonky Russian titles doesn't necessarly mean it's a fake either. But the evidence sure casts a heap of doubt on the authenticity of these records.

But does it matter? If the music is good, does it really matter where it came from? Well, I kind of think in this case it does. If you're selling something as vintage Russian funk, it's kind of shady to have some guys from the local throw it together for you. I took an interest in these records because of what I thought they were and yeah, I feel a little ripped off that they appear to be fakes.

So how is the music anyway? Well, the one record I haven't mentioned, the Reggae Interpertation of Kind of Blue is very good, though the dub versions on the B side are lacking. The Porno Groove and Mad Dog's Hustle albums are pretty much standard library sounding tracks. Mad Dog leans a little heavier in a blaxplotation groove. Not too bad, but neither is essential.

However, when it comes to the Soviet Funk albums, the origin and back story on the records isn't the only bit of questionable labeling. To be generous, one could call these Jazz-Funk records, but really they are more in an early 70s fusion bag than anything like funk. Aside from not being what I expected, there really wasn't anything that grabbed me on the records. That could be because I was expecting Meters and James Brown and got Return to Forever and Weather Report.

If I'm wrong about these releases being fake, I'd be the first to admit it. I'd also be very suprized. It seems to me like Secret Stash has wrapped some pretty average music in an interesting, but phony, back story and put it out there. Oh well, at least the colored vinyl is nice.

The Weird Al Show

2010-01-11T11:57:00.003-05:00

In 1997, Weird Al Yankovic hosted a Saturday morning show on CBS called, appropriately enough, The Weird Al Show. The show ran 13 episodes before being canceled. A typical episode unspooled like this: an educational objective is displayed on a parchment and literally yelled at the viewer. Al, playing a jerky man-child, behaves in a manner contrary to the educational objective and his friends awkwardly reiterate the message to him. A Fatman cartoon is played, TV is watched, a tween friendly band plays. Finally, Al learns his lesson. Roll credits.

Sound kind of dull? Well, sad to say, it is. But, I think it's safe to say it's not the creative team's fault. It seems they envisioned something more along the lines of Pee-Wee's Playhouse, aimed at a middle school audience. CBS had other things in mind.

Since the network had been stung by past controversial kidvid, like Pee-Wee and the New Adventures of Mighty Mouse, they were looking to play safe with future Saturday morning fare. Additionally, new government mandates required three hours of educational television in the Saturday morning slot. How CBS was pitched The Weird Al Show and decided it would be safe and educational is beyond me.

What appeared on the screen was the product of back and forth between the show's creators and CBS, who insisted on things such as the educational objective and more or less dumbing down the show to reach a Barney aged crowd. Aided by an ever changing time slot, the result was the show never found an audience and was off the air a year after it started.

It is exactly this behind the scenes wrangling that may have ruined the show, but makes this DVD set worth watching. Not because the show itself has improved with age. It hasn't. But because it allowed Al, director Peyton Reed and producer Thomas F. Frank the opportunity to create one of the most blunt and fascinating commentary tracks of all time.

If you are expecting a laugh a minute track like say the one from This Is Spinal Tap, you will be disappointed. However, if you enjoy knowing how the sausage is made, or not as the case is here, it doesn't get much better than this. I'm not talking technical details of how they made shots and things of that nature. Sure, that's there too, but I'm talking pretty blunt airings of the many ways CBS mucked up the show.

The three commentators turn their bitterness and disappointment into a fascinating look at how major networks really view their audience and how removed they really are from the creative process. It's also interesting to get takes on what was removed vs. what was allowed. For instance,Al proudly proclaims the show had the fist television puppet vomit and then marvels that this was allowed while other, much more innocent things, were axed.

The tone of the commentary isn't all bile. They seem very self-aware and willing to poke fun at their own shortcomings as well as dish earned blame to the network. For example, Al notes if they had wanted to avoid comparison to Pee-Wee's show, they probably shouldn't have used the same set designer. There's also some fun trivia, such as they were originally offered the Family Guy characters for the show and Randy "Macho Man" Savage only agreed to a skit where he is pinned by Al's hamster sidekick after he was assured Harvey the Wonder Hamster wasn't a girl. It's also amusing to hear how Al lined up guests by accosting them on the Tonight Show set (which was down the hall) and they aren't afraid to poke fun at some of those same guests. ("John Tesh? There's one for our target demographic. Kids love John Tesh.")

To be fair, the show, as crippled as it is, has it's moments. On the rare occasion Al is allowed to be Al, it works well. The channel surfing bits, especially the Mr. Rogers parody Fred Huggins, are quite funny. And Emo Philips, who makes a guest appearance (much to the networks chagrin, it seems,) is great. But, it's hard to see The Weird Al Show as anything other than a giant missed opportunity, just like it's creators do. It's hard to deny these DVDs are much better with the commentary track on, and I'd highly recommend anyone interested in how messed up network television really is have a listen.

Random thought about Blade Runner

2010-01-11T10:29:00.002-05:00

I know it's popular opinion to hate on the voice over version of Blade Runner originally released, but I don't. Maybe the fact that I saw the original version first helps. (It seems to me a lot of the people really against the voice over version, saw it after the "Director's Cut".) Yes, Harrison Ford phones it in, but that only adds to the noir feel of the film. (Really, it pretty much gives the movie a film noir feeling all by itself.) It also helps me accept the movie as a separate entity from the book. Watching the "Director's Cut," I tend to get mad about all the stuff they cut from the book.

I would stop the projector five minutes before the end though. The ending they tacked on is disgusting anyway you look at it.

Rifftrax DVDs

2010-01-10T13:15:00.004-05:00

Once upon a time, a company called Legend Films, who specialize in colorizing old movies, decided to put out a DVD of their version of Reefer Madness. In their infinite wisdom, they hired Mike Nelson of Mystery Science Theater 3000 to do a humorous commentary track. And it was funny. The project proved successful, so more DVDs followed. Soon, Mike was joined by Bill Corbin and Kevin Murphy, also of MST3K. As the commentary tracks were proving to be very popular, RiffTrax was born, which allows you to purchase commentary tracks for a wide variety of movies, including the public domain fare Legend was releasing.

Soon, the old commentary tracks were remade with all three of the MST3K alumni. These tracks were available for download and synced to the appropriate movie as video on demand. But then someone had the idea to issue new DVDs with the so called "three riffer versions" of the old films as well as two collections of short industrial films the RiffTrax crew had been doing as well. You can buy these discs individually for $9.99 or as a ten pack, which I got for around $60 on Deep Discount.

The only of these I'd seen prior to these DVDs were the shorts and the original Reefer Madness with Mike solo. The shorts are absolutely hilarious. When films like this were shown on MST3K, they were always one of my favorite features and the RiffTrax crew hasn't lost its touch. Reefer Madness is also a hit with few jokes being repeated from Mike's version (or at least few that I can remember.)

After that however, the laughs slow down. I'd passed on Mike's versions of Carnival of Souls and Night of the Living Dead as I'd read some mixed reviews on these. The new versions are pretty mixed as well. The laughs are sparse and I'm not sure why that is exactly. My hunch is that those two movies, aside from being low budget, are fairly well constructed and among some of the best horror films ever made. It's not as easy to riff on something that doesn't give you much to work with.

On the other hand, Plan 9 From Outer Space is one of those movies that bad movie fans know so well, there aren't going to be too many jokes that haven't been thought of already. In an official MST3K FAQ, they said something to that effect in response to the question of why they hadn't done Plan 9. I think this RiffTrax disc proves it was a pretty wise move. Plan 9's jokes practically write themselves and unless you haven't seen the movie before, or if you have no imagination, there's not a lot of new chuckles to be had.

And then there's Swing Parade and Little Shop of Horror, which show the difficulty of riffing on comedy, even when the film is so threadbare as Swing Parade is. You just can't make that much fun of a film that isn't taking itself seriously.

On top of that, these DVDs are pretty barebones. You don't get the colorized versions and, in some cases, it looks like you don't even get the restored prints Legend used to make their colorized versions. Night of the Living Dead and Little Shop of Horror in particular approach streaming web video in quality. Other than that, you get a new song over the menu (meh) and a download code for a Riff on one of the Harry Potter films. Unfortunately, it's the same card in all the DVDs, so once you've downloaded it, there's not much point to the other nine codes you have.

As much as it pains me to slag anything MST3K related, I have to this time. It's pretty difficult to recommend buying all these. The Shorts are really funny and so is Reefer Madness, but if you buy just those, you're halfway to the ten pack in cost. On the other hand, I really can't see myself re-watching any of these other than those three and, my life would be no poorer having skipped the other seven. It's really a toss up. I think I'd say the smart move is to try to score those three used and do a video on demand rental of the rest if you must see them.

eMusic, SonyBMG and how not to roll out a service change

2009-06-05T10:05:00.010-04:00

Those of you who have followed this blog for a while know I've been a huge fan of eMusic. The service, for those who don't know, is a subscription based music service that offers very low rates and a fiercely independent catalog. Earlier this week, eMusic causally announced changes to both of these core features.

From the official statements, the most heralded change is the addition of SonyBMG back catalog. This is a fairly major coup for the service. In the past, the major labels have avoided eMusic due to their low label payouts so for SonyBMG to join up is a pretty radical change of thought on their part.

Or is it? The second announcement was an across the board (a New Your Times article called it "slight") rate increase. Technically, rates are staying the same, but the number of downloads that same money buys is going down. And here's where the story gets really interesting.

The way this was rolled out could be a text book example of how not to handle service changes or how to piss off nearly all your loyal customers. Rather than sending an eMail to subscribers, users would have to log into the site and notice the link on the homepage announcing important changes to your account. For a company that has tried to build a large sense of community, this came as quite an affront to many subscribers.

The SonyBMG announcement, a blog post ironically titled "More of the good stuff" is rather ambiguous and worded heavily with corporate speak. The addition of a major label is certain to change the face of a service that has always been a feisty independent, a fact downplayed in the official word. And one would have to do a bit of leg work to see that this deal is for "selected" SonyBMG back catalog without mentioning what or when it's coming. Neither of the official statements to subscribers mention this, but this LA times blog post fills in some gaps.

Most importantly are the rate changes, which were rather casually tossed in near the end of the statement. A while back, eMusic raised it's rates and sent out an eMail assuring current subscribers they'd have their current rates as long as they remained members in good standing. Two years later, these most loyal, longest subscribing members are seeing their rates more than double without even a proper eMail alerting them to the changes.

Needless to say there's been a healthy sense of outrage at eMusic over these changes and the way they were handled. On eMusic's message boards, the consensus is overwhelmingly negative mostly for the rate changes but the way this was handled and SonyBMG itself isn't exactly popular either. While I think this was really carried out in the worst manner possible, especially for a company that needs customer loyalty in the form of long term subscribers to survive, after the shock has worn off, I'm cautiously optimistic about what lies ahead.

Let's get this out of the way first; I'm not happy my rates are going up. I was grandfathered in on a plan and I'm now paying about double what I was per track. One of the major things I liked about eMusic was the low cost that made experimenting with music rather painless. the new rates are going to make me, and seemingly all other users, a bit more cautious about what I'm downloading.

But, I'm also a musician with music on the service. Our per track take from eMusic is less than half what it is from iTunes or Amazon. In the last couple of years, eMusic has lost major indies like Epitaph and Drag City over these lower per track payments. As an artist without a label selling through TuneCore, the lower payments aren't as big a deal as they may be to a real label with overhead.

I've had arguments with other eMusic users on this point, but I just don't see how the service could have continued to keep the labels they have, let alone attract new ones, with the rates they were charging. There was an unofficial statement now buried on the message board from the site's editor, and public face of eMusic to many of it's subscribers, Yancy Strickler which sounds to me like eMusic was looking at the potential of a mass exodus of labels if they didn't find a way to increase the payouts.

The problem is, they tied this in with the SonyBMG announcement, which was a huge mistake. While the arrival of SonyBMG is certainly related to the rate increase, I don't think it's the only reason for the increase. I can understand why many users feel it is. I did too for a while. But, knowing what little I know about the behind the scenes and label side stuff, I really don't think it was just luring SonyBMG that was the reason for the hike.

But the bigger problem is the way this whole thing has been handled. Most of what I've written is speculation as both a subscriber and a music provider, I know very little other than rates are going up and some SonyBMG back catalog is coming. I'm not trying to suggest my situation entitles me a seat at the board meetings or anything like that. I do think I, and every other subscriber, am entitled to better communication than we've been given.

I find myself very conflicted about everything right now. As an artist, I'm cautiously optimistic that the new rates will mean better payouts. The big question is, will users be as adventurous with fewer and more expensive credits? (This is an issue I addressed a few years ago when Epitaph left.) This may end up going much like iTunes new $1.29 price point where the increase in per track rates doesn't make up the shortfall from users choosing not to download things they would have at the older rates.

As a subscriber of the service, I'm really hoping my hunches are correct and the increased rates mean keeping the quality labels they have as well as adding new ones. Many users feel that Sony is the entire reason for the hike, which, if true, would be a pretty drastic swing in what eMusic is all about. I don't think that's the case, but the rate increase will be much easier to take knowing the money is going towards courting more labels I care about than attracting the back catalog of one I don't.

Whatever the case, the way this was handled has given me some serious doubts about the future of eMusic. Hopefully this was just poorly planned and isn't a sign of the way changes to the service will be handled in the future. But the silence from the top since all this exploded doesn't exactly do much to make me hopeful.

Review: Zachariah (1971)

2009-06-03T19:58:00.003-04:00

Spoilers ahoy, if you care.

Zachariah and his friend Matthew (played by a very young Don Johnson) decide to go off and be gunfighters. They meet up with an inept game, have a few heists, then Zach gets the big idea to meet up with Job Cain, the fastest gun in the west. For some reason never really explained, Zach gets cold feet and he and Matthew split up. He then meets up with a mystical old coot who takes him for a romp in the desert that somehow fills in all the blanks. Matthew guns down his boss Job then comes looking for Zach. He finds him, they don't have a shoot out but instead wrestle and then when Matthew realizes the ridiculousness of it all, they ride off into the sunset together. The end.

Zachariah is clearly a product of it's time, and by that I mean the post-Woodstock, post-Easy Rider era. The movie just reeks of the tail end of the hippie era. That in itself isn't necessarily bad, but the problem comes in when Zachariah tries to be both a deep, loner looking for the greater meaning of life movie and a comedy and a head trip movie and a western. It succeeds at none of these things.

Simply put, this movie is a mess.

Part of the problem is that it is trying to be all those things I mentioned above and succeeds at none. The comedy (written by the Firesign Theater, who I always find the definition of hit or miss) really isn't all that funny. The drama isn't that compelling. The mystical stuff is clearly in the who cares category. Very little of this movie makes sense, motivation for any of the characters is really hard to figure out.

It's clear that this movie was trying to be a hip drive-in flick, so the fact that I'm watching it 35+ years after the fact with no chemical enhancements seems to be the rest of the problem. I have to say though, I'd be curious to know what combination of drugs would make some of these sad sack jokes funny. This movie wasn't for me, so maybe I just don't get it.

However, there are two shining moments in this film and I'm using this review as an excuse to post them. First, you get a totally gratuitous (and nonsensical) opening sequence featuring the James Gang. (They return later in the movie as Job Cain's house band.)

Next, and this is truly the highlight of the film, Job Cain is played by none other than Elvin Jones! And Elvin is truly awesome in his role. This is the best scene in the whole movie, though the beginning is truncated a bit.

I mean, damn. He just shot a man and then he busts out a crazy Elvin Jones drum solo. It really doesn't get much cooler than that.

Well, I just saved you the trouble of seeking this one out as there's really nothing else redeeming about it. Unless you are a hippy western completest, stay far away. If you do get it, do yourself a favor and skip to Elvin's scenes and revel in his awesomeness.

(Here's an alternate viewpoint that goes way more in depth than I think this movie deserves. Two points he makes are especially interesting to me: one is the gay overtones between Zachariah and Matthew, which I noticed but thought it was just my imagination. The second is the film's relationship to Siddhartha, which I missed but find myself slapping my forehead about now.)

Y'know...

2009-05-27T09:20:00.003-04:00

not having a job where you're in front of the computer all day gives a person a lot less time/motivation to blog.

Yuki Show Diary: 4/18/09 Luna Music

2009-04-19T09:15:00.003-04:00

We got asked to play Record Store Day at Luna Music. They've been pretty good supporters of us, so it was kind of a no brainier. Of course, playing at 2 pm on a Saturday afternoon was kind of early for us, but we were helped by beautiful weather and people were out and about in good numbers.

It would seem that we had a good number of people there. I really am not sure because I wasn't looking out at the audience much. I think we had a lot of people listening outside. Yeah, we're a little loud for a small shop like that.

(Photo by Jen Hughes)

Anyway, I feel pretty confident in saying that performance wise, this is the best we've done in a while. I really felt good about it on the way out and I rarely do. I usually hear the mistakes (especially mine) but I really didn't hear many. I hope a video of this show turns up somewhere as this would be the time I didn't see anyone filming.

Fun day though and I go to finally meet Scott, who I've known online for ages, and Koven was there as well. That was the coolest, just having people I've never or rarely see around.

(Photo by Scott Bolderson)

And I got to play my new drums. They rocked, but I'm still not happy with the snare.

Yuki Show Diary: 4/4/09 Zaines Too

2009-04-05T09:49:00.002-04:00

Even though this was pretty close in genres to the line up at the basement show last week (we even played before Stand and Deliver,) I felt more out of place last night. Or maybe it was playing a bar with no band beer that put me in a bad mood. Whatever the case, this was a night where as hard as I tried, I was just not feeling it.

Again we were filmed and I'm not looking forward to seeing this one as much. I felt like I was really sluggish with the tempo (probably compensating for last Saturday where I'm sure everything was way too fast.) I will say this, I had enough stage to set up the entire Vistalite kit, which was pretty cool. I'm not sure how much more I'll be bringing all that out, as it's really a lot to lug around (and it needs reheaded badly.)

I don't know. I guess there isn't much else to say. Not a disaster but just a slightly less than average night.

Links and stuff.

2009-03-30T08:47:00.002-04:00

I've been meaning to get to this forever, but keep forgetting, so here it is now. First off, I'd like to recommend you check out Jeff Rothe's blog for awesome stuff about golden age arcade games. It's become one of my favorite sources for information on restoring and history of machines of the pre-crash era.

Also, I'd recommend you check out my friend and the keyboard player/singer in Yuki Gwynn's blog Cult of Domesticity. She's also making handmade bags and other stuff, so you can check that stuff out there as well.

Alright, I think that gets me caught up. :)

Yuki Show Diary: 3/28/09 Basement Show

2009-03-29T11:44:00.004-04:00

I felt kind of out of place as I knew very few people and it was a basement show with hardcore bands and whatnot. However, it was a show for a good friend of Jason's who passed away recently, so I was more than happy to do it. It was kind of a rough evening though as it was raining a lot and we had to park half way across town, it seemed. Plus there were a lot of people there and that always wigs me out a bit. Luckily Bob Fouts from Stand and Deliver was loaning me drums, which made the night a hell of a lot easier.

So we got there and I think we were all anxious to play and kind of figured we'd go over pretty poorly as we were kind of out of place. It all worked out though. After the line up stopped changing around, things got better. Of course, when we actually got to play, things came together in a big way. I guess I was steaming and I'm amazed I didn't catch pneumonia. I felt our playing was better than in Chicago. Probably looser, but the energy was stronger. I don't know why. Maybe it was the whole basement show vibe.

Oh and yeah, people seemed into it. It was really pretty nice. I'm sure there were people who didn't care for us at all, and that's fine, but we had a pretty packed room from what I could see. I forgot that people at these shows tend to be supportive of all the bands because you don't usually get asked into someone's basement if you're going to really suck. So that was nice.

Anyway, this has been kind of hard to type as I'm in pretty poor shape. I think I was slamming the hell out of Bob's drums (sorry about that.) My left hand especially is blistered and I'm missing a chunk of skin on my pinky. How that happened is a mystery.

Yuki Show Diary: 3/27/09 Darkroom, Chicago

2009-03-28T17:36:00.001-04:00

(I just realized I forgot to do one of these for a show we played earlier in the month. Oops. Well, the 11th, we played the Melody Inn. A good time was had by all and the turnout was strong for a Wednesday. The end.)

Anyway, Jason has been on a booking frenzy and got us a date at this bar in Chicago called the Darkroom. Originally, it was to be a different date, but something fell through and we ended up with this night instead. Worked out better, I think, as this was a monthly show called The Equalizer sponsored buy The Onion and KEXP. Kind of cool, as we're all big fans of The Onion.

I'm still kind of amazed we landed a Friday night as a pretty hip bar in Chicago being that we really don't have a name for ourselves. I guess the power of Yuki is just too strong.

I'd gone back and forth about bringing my own drums since Kristen and I were going up early and are driving a Canyonaro right now. Ultimately I was talked out of it, as Tiger Spirit, who we played before, said we could use their gear. Nice folks and an enjoyable band.

So, I got to play on this old Slingerland kit with large drums. It was fun, but I walked the line between getting things set right and knocking things out of whack for the drummer who's kit is was. Plus I felt like an idiot for forgetting my pedal and throne. The drums were fine, but my playing on them was a bit off because of that.

But I had good monitor for a change and, for the most part, I think we played well but not particularly inspired. The show was taped, so I'll get to hear it, but I'm guessing that it's going to be tight and mostly correct but missing some of the fire we've had in practice lately. So it goes.

The audience was bigger than what I expected and they were polite and more attentive than I'd expected. However, we only sold two shirts, both to family, so I guess the proof is in the pudding.

ADDENDUM: Two things I almost forgot. One, we were interviewed by KEXP and I'm sure it will be absolutely embarrassing. Two, upon entering the club, I was told that if I wanted some moonshine, it was $10 for a jar. Sure enough, a couple hours later, I got a Ball canning jar wrapped in newspaper with a clear liquid in it. I waited until I got home to sample it, but it's fairly smooth going down, but once it hits, it burns all the way up.

Warner Movies On Demand/Made To Order

2009-03-24T11:04:00.003-04:00

Read about it here: http://tinyurl.com/dbrx8r

Summary, if you didn't click the link, Warner is offering films from the vault going back to the 20s not previously available as on demand downloads and made to order DVDs. I have to wonder what's taken them so long, but whatever. It's a good idea at any rate.

Except the downloads won't play on Mac, which leads me to believe they're going to be WMV files DRM encumbered with Microsoft's Plays For Sure. And they'll cost you $15 for the privilege. Want a DVD? It's $20.

I feel like a broken record but, here's another example of just not getting it. The idea, while good, is a bit late. They may think these films are "unarchived" but it's really not that difficult to find tons of "unarchived" movies for free online, if you're not troubled by the legality of it.

In a time when even the control freakish record labels are finally realizing DRM doesn't work, they're bringing out something with it? And, naturally, they've chosen the path which excludes Apple users, who I know are a minority. But they're a minority with money.

And $20 for what I'm assuming is going to be a bare bones DVD might have flown five years ago, but it isn't acceptable today. DVD prices are in the tank and you can get new Blu-Ray releases for $20. While I recognize there's additional cost with to order type services, Something Weird Video has their to order DVDs priced around $8-$10, which is a much more reasonable cost.

So, once again, I'm finding myself writing close, but no cigar. Sometimes I feel like one of those people who just won't be satisfied no matter what. It just irritates me to see time and time again when these companies do something that they should have been done ages ago, but make mistakes so obvious and then complain about how it didn't work and piracy is ruining everything etc., etc. It's especially irritating because, with something like this, I really think it could work, but not the way they're going to do it.

I'll still be interested to see what films they offer up and how long they keep at it. But this also goes back to the "too little, too late" thing because I really can't think of too much from the WB vaults I'd want to see that I couldn't get my hands on if I wanted. Maybe for the people who are as resourceful as I am, this will be a great thing. Who knows?

Hi, I am still here, promise.

2009-03-24T10:56:00.002-04:00

I realized the other day, I'm really slacking on the blog. I meant to post when I got back from school, but never did. Anyway, I am back and school was pretty amazing. I just posted a bunch of pictures of where I lived and you can see them here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/captainwrong/sets/72157615771650386/

Really, I've been spending more time of Facebook as I guess I haven't felt I have much to say that can't be summed up in a few hundred characters. Still, I hope to hit the movie stuff again soon. I've seen a bunch of stuff recently, nothing has really inspired me to write about it.

So there you have it. I'll be back more though. Promise. :D

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2009-02-16T19:10:00.001-05:00

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Originally uploaded by CaptainWrong

DRM free at last...but wait...

2009-01-07T10:07:00.004-05:00

I'm sure you've heard by now, but the iTunes Music Store is finally going all DRM free with higher bitrates and variable pricing. As always the case, there's good and bad here, though for me I'm seeing more bad and indifferent than good.

First off, it's a good thing that Apple and the rest of the majors finally got past their logjam to offer all the tracks DRM free. Nice to see Apple finally catch up with the rest of the world, even if they still are offering tracks in their proprietary AAC format (no surprise) which not all media players support.

Then there's the mixed blessing of variable pricing. The way things were worded, it's implied that most of the catalog will be going to 69 cents a track. New releases are scheduled to stay at 99 cents and might go as high as $1.29 a track. I see this as a mixed blessing at best.

The lower price on the back catalog only makes sense, but the higher price on new releases strikes me as an attempt to break the 99 cents standard, which the majors have been trying to do for ages. We'll see if this higher price rolls out in Amazon and other stores. Since Apple is going to be at a disadvantage here if everyone else is selling new tracks thirty cents cheaper, I can't imagine they'd have agreed to this unless that was in the plans.

Now, like last time, Apple is making the option to "upgrade" your old iTunes purchases that are now iTunes Plus...for a fee. That fee is 30 cents a track. Although this may affect a small number of people, this is the part of the plan that really irritates me.

OK, I know there's no upgrades given or implied with iTunes Music Store purchases. I get that. However, there is a prescient for free upgrades. When some of the other stores converted from DRM encoded WMA files to mp3, users were given tracks in the new formats. To be fair, there's a slight difference here; the WMA files would be useless once the DRM servers were turned off. But, that was a risk the user was expected to assume, yet after the outcry, they were switched over for free as an act of goodwill.

Let's look at the money here. Assuming you paid 99 cents a track, adding the 30 cents upgrade puts you at $1.29. Now, we've also learned that most of the catalog is supposed to drop to 69 cents. If you upgrade your tracks, you've just about paid double for them, based on the information that back catalog is going to drop in price.

The most infuriating thing is that, once again, the upgrades are presented in an "all or nothing" form. Meaning, to upgrade that out of print Quincy Jones album I really like, I'm also going to have to pay 30 cents a pop to upgrade dozens of tracks don't want. While I can at least see where the upgrade fee is coming from, forcing users to convert all their purchases rather than letting them choose the ones they want is completely ridiculous.

While I think it's good that Apple and the labels have worked out their differences, I'm still finding much to be skeptical about. The lowering of back catalog prices is good (assuming it happens,) but I fear the trend is going to be aimed more at raising the price on new releases. And while the option to upgrade is nice, forcing consumers to upgrade everything is not, especially considering they'll have almost paid double for back catalog items once the price drops happen.

Of course, as long as people's old purchased tracks still play, I doubt many are going to care about any of this anyway. And, until new release prices go up, I'd imagine most iTunes Music Store users will continue to make purchases, not really even aware of the changes.

Guilala Gets a Job

2009-01-06T09:29:00.002-05:00

Kevin at WTF films linked this and I had to repost it. You may remember Guilala from The X From Outer Space. Seems he has a new gig:

Clever little ad. Kudos to whoever made it for using real kaiju instead of creating a generic one. (Of course, if memory serves, there's a remake of X From Outer Space in the works, so perhaps this wasn't that much of a stretch.)

Now I'll have an Excuse for the Infrequent Updates

2009-01-02T10:17:00.003-05:00

2008 was not one of my better blogging years. Mostly this is because I wasn't at a job where I was in front of a computer all day, watching crappy movies on the sly. (Nothing quite like viewing a sleezy exploitation film on the clock.) Well, at least for the next couple of months of 2009, I'll have a better excuse for being so lazy.

I'm heading off tomorrow for the Recording Workshop in Chillicothe Ohio. Basically, I'm following through on a long time promise to myself to learn how to be a recording engineer. Though part of me worries I've picked the wrong time to embark on such an endeavor, I don't know when or if there really will be a better time.

So, that's where I'll be until the end of February. I'll still be back in Indy from time to time, but I don't know yet how often. Obviously, I'll have the laptop with me, so if I get a chance to throw up a blog, I will.

But yeah, so happy new year everyone and wish me luck. And if anyone has some recording gig they need filled after February, let me know. I'll be ready to get it on.

Yuki Show Diary: 12/27/08 Radio Radio

2008-12-28T10:02:00.002-05:00

By the week of the show, I think all of us were regretting taking it. There were a number of factors, mostly dealing with the time of year and that most of would just be back from holiday traveling and just want to relax. For me, this was compounded by a party we'd hosted the prior night and that I was feeling so much the shattered man.

Regardless, we continued on and I didn't follow through on my threat to bring an old Rhythm Ace instead of my drums. The night started on a bad note for me as I discovered I'd lost one of my fitted earplugs. Luckily, I happened to have another pair where I'd lost the opposite one, so I still have a matched pair. It's just that they were halfway across the city.

The show itself was better than I'd expected all the way around. We had a very good turnout, which was really surprising given this hadn't been one of our finest promotional pushes and it was two days after Christmas and bad weather was looming.

It took me a while to get my footing though. Tempos have been creeping up in practice and I've been trying to pull them back a bit, but between that and feeling like a chewed piece of gum, I overcompensated the first half of the set. Had a few minor mishaps, but as long as I didn't think about what was going on, I was fine.

The combination of the humidity outside and the club not being ready for 60+ degree weather in December made for a very sweaty night. I think I lost a gallon of fluid on the stage. That was the worst part. Well, that and loading out in the pouring rain. That really sucked.

Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny (1972)

2008-12-13T01:42:00.003-05:00

I love bad movies. If you've been reading this blog, it's a given. And, I love weird kiddie matinee movies from the 60s and 70s. If they're Christmas kiddie matinee movies, even more so. But Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny...wow.

I'm going to start out by saying, this is easily the worst Christmas film I've ever seen. Really, calling it a Christmas film at all is stretching it, as I'll explain later, but for now let's just leave it at that. It's also probably the worst kid's film I've ever seen as well. (Yes, it's even worse than The Magic Land of Mother Goose, another kid's film with a tacked on Christmas tie in.) I'm going to go so far and say it's on the top 10 worst films I've ever seen. (Now there's a list I need to compile some day.)

If you want to read a recap of the film almost as long as the movie itself, block off an hour and click here. If you'd like a more sensible length recap, try this one. But, since you are here, let me give you my quick run down of what goes on in this movie.

First up, we have Santa's sleigh stuck on a beach in Florida. Why? Who knows? Santa magically summons a motley crew of kids to help unstick him, and they try...for nearly fifteen minutes. When they run out of random farm animals to try to hitch to the sleigh, they hunker down for Santa to tell them a story. And by tell them a story, I mean unspool an entirely unrelated movie, complete with opening titles, within this movie.

For the next hour, we are treated to schlockmeister Barry Mahon's take on Thumbelina, apparently filmed two years earlier. The only connection this Thumbelina has to the Santa bits is that they both have parts filmed at the Pirate's World amusement park. I mention this because it is the only thread connecting these two things.

Thumbelina doesn't have squat to do with Christmas and doesn't even try to. The acting is horrible, the songs excruciatingly long and the animal costumes aren't even detailed enough to be nightmare fuel. One thing Thumbelina has is plenty forced cross species romance. My favorite bit is when Thumbelina reels off a list of why she can't marry Mr. Digger, a rich mole, and the fact that he is not human comes in last by a long stretch.

Anyway, eventually, though not soon enough, Thumbelina ends and we're returned to our Santa stuck in the sand already in progress. I'd like to remind you, we're about an hour and fifteen minutes in and we've barely seen Santa and have seen neither hide nor hair of the Ice Cream Bunny. But wait, we're not done yet. Since someone was nice enough to YouTube it, I'd like to present to you the last ten minutes of the film.

If you're worried that you didn't understand what just happened because you came in at the end, let me assure you, I saw the entire thing and I still have no idea what just happened. You will note, as everyone who has seen this movie does, a distinct lack of ice cream. I guess he was in such a hurry slowly driving to save Santa, he completely forgot about his namesake dessert item. Maybe he was made of ice cream, though that would be highly impractical in Florida.

You should also note someone either pushing the fire truck or a kid who has fallen off the back and is attempting to catch up. My guess is the former, as the truck is moving so slowly you'd have to be dead to let it pass you.

There is one detail you missed from the front half of the film. The two kids in the straw hats? Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. Why? No clue. They don't figure into this film at all except for a scene establishing who they are and showing them spying on the Santa scene. When they popped back out at the end, I'd completely forgotten they were ever there, that's how little they added to the movie.

By putting that clip up, I'm afraid I've oversold the film. See, that is literally the best ten minutes in this ninety minute film. It goes downhill from there. All of the stuff I'd read about this movie didn't prepare me for the tedium that sets in quickly while watching.

Other classics in this genre of bad kiddie Christmas movies, like Santa Claus Conquers the Martians or the Mexican Santa Claus, may be inept, but they are never less than entertaining, even if for all the wrong reasons. Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny is just plan boring. The only reason the ending is worth seeing is it's about the only time in the movie anything at all worth watching happens.

Prior to this, I'd have said two of the worst kiddie flick I'd seen were The Magic Land of Mother Goose and Jimmy, The Boy Wonder, two films the great Herschell Gordon Lewis did for other people in between gore and sexploitation films. Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny shares many traits with those two movies (tacked on Christmas theme, nonsensical film with in a film, grade school play production values, terrible songs) but it truly takes them to another level. Jimmy and Mother Goose may be slow in spots, but they're mind blowing in others. The Ice Cream Bunny is just dull.

I sought this one out because it has a bit of a reputation among connoisseurs of crap cinema. After seeing it, I really can't understand the appeal. There's good crap and bad crap and this is definitely bad, boring crap. Unless you are up to an endurance challenge, a completest or a masochist, I'd recommend staying far away from this one.

MST3K Redux

2008-12-05T22:39:00.005-05:00

As much as I love Mystery Science Theater 3000, somehow I've resisted buying any of the Cinematic Titanic releases...until now. Yes, they broke me down with Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. Not only do I love this movie (it's sooo bad,) I found this a surprising and gutsy choice for the CT crew, considering this movie was riffed on MST3K back in the day.

Well, I'm happy to report this disc is a winner. Amazingly enough, despite the fact that most of these folks worked on the MST3K episode, the riffing is all new. And it's really funny stuff here. Check the trailer:

So, as I'm sure a million other MST3K fans have done, I have to contrast this to Rifftrax. It's not entirely fair, as I have more Rifftrax stuff than Cinematic Titanic, but here goes anyway:

Rifftrax was first, so they have that going for them. Since most of what they do is just an mp3 commentary track to be played along with a commercial DVD, their releases are cheaper and quicker to download. They have also done shorts, like MST3K used to, which are the whole deal.

However, most of the Rifftrax are for modern movies that I really don't care about. Since they're just mp3s, I'd have to acquire the movies as well. Aside from the shorts, I haven't really been interested in any Rifftrax in a while, though bringing guest riffers (like Fred Willard) on board has made me interested in checking out some of them eventually.

And speaking of the riffers, here's the big difference: the CT crew, is not only greater in number, but it's pretty much all my favorite people from MST3K. While I have nothing against the Rifftrax crew, there's just something about Joel, Trace and Frank (and the underrated J. Elvis, his riffing was the highlight of MST3K Season 1) that I find funnier.

So that's my two cents. I look forward to checking out some more Cinematic Titanic in the future. And I'll enjoy firing up the Rifftrax take on the Star Wars Christmas Special again this year and hope that they'll do more shorts in the next year.

What If They Held a Chinese Democracy and No One Cared?

2008-12-03T12:21:00.000-05:00

And speaking of hype, the much hyped, in the works even longer than the Beatles on iTunes, Chinese Democracy finally released and...bombed. After all the leaks, the jokes, the money thrown at this, first week sales were only in the area of 250,000-260,000. Ouch.

To anyone who has really been paying attention, I don't think this is much of a surprise, but I'll bet there are some executives at Best Buy who green lighted the huge bonus for making the album a Best Buy exclusive who are trying to figure out what happened. Seems like they already threw in the towel on this one, as Axl Rose was no where to been seen in their most recent circular, after dominating the release week one (and was it really only two weeks ago?)

The record company people are already starting the blame game, pointing the finger at Rose's lack of publicity appearances or talking to the press as what killed it. Seriously, UMG? Who didn't know about this album? For that matter, who really wanted to hear it, but hadn't prior to release? To say Axl's avoidance of the promotional circuit killed the album is just absurd (and if they were shocked by it, they haven't been paying any attention.)

This album cover still looks like a crappy mock up to me,
even after seeing it in the store.

Here's what I think happened: The suits in the entertainment world are still trying to come to terms with this Internet thing. For too many years, they ignored anything from the web, which was very unwise. Now, I think they are going too far in the opposite direction and taking every bit of Internet hype too seriously.

As I'm sure you know, there's a lot of sarcasm on the web. There are also tons of here today, meh tomorrow memes out there. And most of those memes make little sense to the outside world. For instance, how many people had to explain Rickrolling to relatives after watching the Macy's Parade this year?

Chinese Democracy was talked about a lot on the web, but context is king, and the context here was much more gawking at a freak show than genuine interest in this album. Unfortunately for UMG, Best Buy and everyone else, I don't think they got that. I think they saw everyone talking about that album and interpreted it as "it's going to be a smash" rather than realizing the majority of the people saw it as a joke.

Of course, we can also factor in that no one is buying music these days and even when they do, expecting the same level of sales as the Use Your Illusion days is completely unrealistic. It's not a giant leap to imagine the suits seeing the Guns N Roses name and becoming nostalgic for the sales figures of those heady days. Given the kind of logic that seems to prevail in this industry, I'm sure more than a few people thought the GnR name alone would have that magic to sell at that level again.

Well, it didn't and yes, you can blame the economy, blame downloading, etc., etc. That's part of the big picture, to be sure. By comparison, Kanye West fell just under half a million this same chart, which is pretty pathetic for him too. (Of course 808s and Heartbreak isn't exactly his normal thing, so that's a factor there.) But, what I think this comes down to is the suits misinterpreted the Internet hype surrounding Chinese Democracy for real world people actually wanting to buy this album. Other than the theory that they were throwing good money after bad (how many millions did this album cost UMG anyway?) that's the only possible explanation I can think of.

Chinese Democracy is the first Snakes on a Plane album. If you'll recall, Snakes on a Plane had this huge mocking Internet hype surrounding it, which it seems led many of the money people to believe it would be a box office smash. It wasn't and Chinese Democracy won't be either. But, at least some people got a free Dr. Pepper out of the deal and now the Internet can move on to laughing about possible release dates for Dr. Dre's Detox and the next My Bloody Valentine album.

(Sidenote: along this same theme, I'm amazed no one has offered Rick Astley a truckload of cash for a comeback album yet. After the Macy's appearance, I'm going to be even more shocked if this doesn't happen. And yes, it too will bomb.)

More Amazon mp3 Goodness

2008-12-03T09:28:00.012-05:00

Remember how I said iTunes was going to have to step it up to stay competitive with Amazon? Well, I think Amazon raised the bar again with their Black Friday Specials, which are still running, apparently. Not only that, but they are doing a spend $25 in "qualifying purchases," get $5 at the mp3 store free promotion until December. The range of purchases is pretty wide. I managed to get a credit before I even knew of the promotion, for instance.

On the Apple front, I mentioned before Apple's attempt to meet Amazon's Friday deals, which is still pretty underwhelming in my eyes. Scuttlebutt is, the talks to make iTunes DRM free rage on with WMG dipping a toe in the water. It's a start, but, again, it's ironic (and suspicious) that so long after Steve Jobs gave his anti-DRM speech, EMI is still the only major to have totally embraced iTunes Plus.

EDIT: Interesting article at Hypebot on what the hold up is. Did Amazon make these same concessions (other than the one for BMG)? Interesting that one of the main issues is an explicitly stated fear that competition will drive prices lower. Regardless, I can't see a control freak like Steve Jobs bending much.

Then there's the oft rumored, would you please get it over with already, Beatles on iTunes talks which have apparently stalled again. I guess they need another dump truck full of money for that one. But, I'm still unconvinced that it's really that big a deal. Sure it'll be good for impulse purchases but are there really that many people waiting for the Beatles music to be available on iTunes to buy it? I have to wonder, with the availability of the Beatles catalog on CD, the ease at which one can find dozens of fan remasterings and "needledrops" of every Beatles record ever made on the web and the looming end of the 50 year copyright protection period in the EU, what exactly is the value of this catalog for a digital retailer like Apple.

Regardless of what sales will be, I just wish they'd get it over with and do it already.

Review: I Got The Feelin': James Brown in the 60s

2008-11-18T23:30:00.003-05:00

Finally got this three DVD set the other day. Over the course of two nights, I watched the whole thing, and there's a lot here to digest. Unfortunately, there isn't much of the 60s covered and the title is a bit of a misnomer. But what's here is pretty essential for serious James Brown fans.

This set could almost have been called James Brown in March-April 1968 as aside from bonus footage on the third disc, that's really what the focus is on. More specifically, the important date is April 5th, 1968, the date of the concert on the second disc and, as the title of the documentary on the first says, "The Night James Brown Saved Boston."

Context is everything here, as April 4th was the day Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Riots had broken out all over the country and the major cities were breaking out in flames. Boston hadn't been hit yet, but, as luck would have it, there was a big James Brown concert scheduled.

At first, the city leaders considered canceling the show to keep people off the streets. Then, they had a better idea. Televise the concert. Hopefully, people would stay home and watch the show and the city might make it thought the night. A risky plan, but they didn't see many other options.

Too bad they couldn't get a hold of Brown before hand.

Needless to say, when James touched down in Boston, he was furious first at the attempt to shut down the show, then at the idea that the city was going to have it broadcast. Two things you could say about JB, he was a capitalist and he wasn't going to be used by anyone, and it looked like he stood to lose a lot of money and be used by the government of Boston.

Anyway, I won't recount the whole thing for you. It's an interesting story and the documentary covers it well. I'd always heard the Boston thing mentioned in JB lore, but this was the fullest I'd heard the story told. It's not only a pretty amazing piece of history, but it's a pretty good look at how much influence James had in the late 60s. The fact that televising a concert of his contributed to one of the quietest nights in Boston's history, is pretty amazing.

The second disc is the video of that concert. There are a couple of spots where there's missing video, but luckily there's still audio. The circumstances of the filming are unfortunate in more ways than one. WGBH was commissioned to do the telecast with little notice and no prior expirence filming much other than classical concerts. Their director jokes about not using the good mics and sadly, it's apparent, especially in James' vocal mic.

Still, they did a pretty good job. It's just odd how for most of the show, all you see is James in the spotlight. I don't know if that's a combination of early videotape equipment and the lighting in the Boston Gardens, but the effect is kind of eerie. Later in the show, James calls for the house lights while he's trying to keep people off the stage and you get a good look at how few people actually did come out.

Speaking of, the climax of the concert hasn't anything to do with the music. Near the end of the show, some kids jump on stage. A white cop pushes one back into the crowd. Then the stage is filled with people. James orders the cops to back up and handles the situation. It's pretty impressive stuff.

In spite of it all, they turn in a smoking performance. 1968 was kind of a turning point for James music and this show is a great example of what it was like at that time*. It's a shame that none of the other performers in the revue are featured. I would have loved to see Marva Whitney's set, but I'm assuming they only filmed James.

The third disc is kind of odd. The packaging trumpets the footage being from the Apollo in 68 and while it is, it's really a TV special called James Brown: Man to Man. The footage is heavy on the crooner stuff and there's a lengthy sequence of James walking around the ghetto. This special was shot about a month before the Boston show and while it's in color, the picture quality isn't as good as the black and white Boston footage.

The rest of the 60s is apparently represented by two clips from Paris in 67 and the famous TAMI Show appearance from 1964. Shame there wasn't more, but that's it.

Going into this, I knew it was pretty much about the Boston show so I wasn't disappointed. But, to someone who didn't know much about this release, Shout Factory's curious title might be misleading. While it's easy for a hardcore Brown fan like myself to ask for more, I have to say I'm pretty pleased by this set. I hope there's more to come, as I really think Shout did this right and there's still the whole half of the decade to cover. (Not to mention the 70s...hey, Shout Factory! How about a Future Shock box set?)

* Sidenote: another reviewer mentioned something about James starting off the show slow as a tribute to MLK or something like that. The fact of the matter is, James had been starting his shows off with a crooner set for most of the 60s. Based on other recordings around the same time, this is pretty much the same show they did every night on the road.

Yuki is READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL!!!

2008-11-16T23:20:00.002-05:00

A huge thanks to Dave Lindquist at the Star for putting our CD in the right hands to make this happen. Crazy.

In other news, the EP is finally available through the iTunes music store, however, Apple seems to think our name is Yu-Ki. Grr. Hope to have that straightened out soon. Also SnoCap gets the big thumbs down. The information on how to embed their store in a MySpace page is totally wrong and their customer service apparently doesn't read emails. So we're at 50% for the download stores.

Kind of Blue 50th Anniversary Set...Is Sony Insane?

2008-11-14T14:29:00.005-05:00

Miles Davis' Kind of Blue is a pretty amazing album. It was both an important album in the development of jazz music and a commercially successful one, at least in terms of the sales of jazz recordings. It's an album that continues to be revered and continues to sell, two reasons that make a special anniversary set of the album a given, especially in a genre where the labels love to issue the same recordings over and over again.

So, we have Sony's new-ish Kind of Blue 50th Anniversary Set (a year early even, but who's counting?) Just when it seemed like the vaults had been mined to depletion, Sony offers up never before released false starts and studio banter, in addition to the album proper and an additional, previously released, session by this group of musicians (and there was a live set they didn't include for some reason.) There's also a blue vinyl pressing of the album, a new DVD documentary, a 12"x12" hardcover coffee table book and various photos and other odds and ends.

To say the set is a bit obsessive in scope is almost a given. And, if you've been following Sony's series of Miles Davis box set, you know to expect sticker shock to match ($109 list, to be exact.) It's also worth noting, aside from the studio chatter and breakdowns, there isn't any new music here. There's a new documentary on the DVD, but Sony has already announced the CDs and DVD will be available separately.

So, here's my big question: in a time when labels are complaining about no one buying music anymore and how they're losing money, how in the world do they justify such a lavish package for an album in one of the lowest selling genres of music? While I'm not arguing Kind of Blue is worth a super deluxe set, since 1997 this album has been reissued four times I can think of off the top of my head, plus included in a box set and there were at least three audiophile vinyl issues (one on blue wax even!) How much Kind of Blue does one need?

Now prepare to laugh at me because, yes, I bought this set. In my defense, I was able to purchase it at about a 50% discount which is a bit more reasonable price in my eyes. Still expensive, to be sure, but probably closer to what this set should cost than what they're asking.

Is it a nice set? Yes...but, something went seriously wrong in the packaging department at Sony. You have the book, then you have a gatefold LP jacket with the record in the left pocket and the discs tucked in pockets on the right inside. Even under the best circumstances, these discs would get scratched over time, never mind that shipping in such a heavy package pretty much guarantees no one receives a flawless copy.

The record is probably intended more as a novelty item anyway, so I guess I shouldn't be shocked that it's slightly warped. Shame, as it sounds really nice, like they put some care into the mastering.

As for the rest, well, it is what it is: an obsessive look at one of the greatest jazz albums of all time. The music I already had on the Miles & Coltrane set. The documentary was nice, but I don't know how often I'll watch it. Really, the book, with the large pictures, was the best part of the deal. Well, and the record, which had it been a flatter pressing, would have been a real star of this set.

And so it goes. In a time when everyone is crying about their bottom line, Sony brings out an overpriced set with a limited market. On one hand, it's probably the ultimate anti-download, as this is a set as much about having the physical stuff in your hands as it is about the already available music. On the other, this set might be the ultimate "so what" as I can't see how this set gives any further insight to this masterwork that one could have by listening to one of the other currently available CDs and reading Ashley Kahn's Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece.

Apple Steps It Up A Little

2008-11-11T13:33:00.004-05:00

Remember a couple of weeks ago when I was talking about Amazon's mp3 deal of the day and their 5 for $5 on Fridays? Well, it looks like Apple has quietly started doing something similar with a few albums and movies at $4.99. Good step in the right direction, though there's one thing where we're not exactly comparing equals. Four of the seven albums currently available are the lower bit rate and DRM encumbered regular iTunes files. The movies are a little more promising. There's ten available now and if you're a Schwarznegger fan, you're in luck as almost half of them are his films.

It'll be interesting to see what kind of stuff comes up in Apple's store. So far, the titles aren't that interesting, but I'll keep an eye on this to see if there's any must haves offered up. Considering the quality of daily deals Amazon has been throwing out recently, they've got a long way to go.

It's Beginning to Look Too Much Like Christmas

2008-11-08T20:15:00.003-05:00

Once upon a time, when I was young, Christmas seemed to slowly fade in as December grew longer. I don't ever remember an exact day for the official beginning of the Christmas season. It just seemed like more decorations would appear, as if by magic, as you got close to the 25th.

When I got older, I ended up working retail for a while. By this time, there was an unofficial start to the holiday season; black Friday, the Friday after Thanksgiving. The day before, nothing. The day after, it was Christmas season. Decorations, sales, music, the whole works. While I missed the easing into the holidays, it didn't run on long enough to wear out its welcome.

Then the creep began.

I don't remember when it happened, but after I'd gotten out of retail, someone broke ranks and started gearing up for Christmas before Thanksgiving. Not wanting to be outdone (or miss any potential sales,) others followed suit. The Christmas season was starting earlier and earlier each year. Retailers stocked trees and candy canes earlier in November. Radio stations raced to be the first to go all Christmas music. Etc., etc., etc.

This year, about a week and a half before Halloween, I saw the first signs of Christmas. I really couldn't believe it. But more followed. I just got back from Target and here, a week after Halloween, they're practically in full-on Christmas mode. My wife has reported already hearing Christmas tunes in the stores.

Now, I understand that people like Christmas. Who doesn't? But I really think this is getting ridiculous. Do we really need almost two months of Christmas season?

Yes, I am a cynic, but I have a hard time seeing this as anything more than retailers, who are anticipating poor end of year sales, trying to get people to buy as much crap they don't need. I know, that's all the retail game ever is. But, when it's barely November and I'm already being suggested "great gift ideas" in ads, the game feels even more blatant than it already is.

Speaking of the economy, can we call it a recession yet? Who isn't worried about things? Who doesn't have less money in their pocket than they did a year ago? Given that, I understand why retailers might be making the hard push earlier. But, I can't help but wonder if consumers aren't going to be a bit fatigued come December.

With Christmas season starting so early this year, I just can't believe I'm the only one who feels a little cynical about it already. In a year when people are having to tighten the financial belts, how are the Joe Sixpacks going to feel about nearly two months of being told to buy, buy, buy, in the name of Christmas? I'll be real surprised if by December 25th I'm the only one who feels Christmas may have overstayed its welcome this year.

Yuki Music Store Test

2008-11-05T20:29:00.004-05:00

Alright, in addition to the other ways one could buy the Yuki EP, should one want to (and they should,) we have a Snocap store up, which I guess is the only way you can sell your stuff through MySpace. So far, I'm 100% unimpressed with SnoCap, but you can embed your store everywhere, so that's neat. I'm going to try that here, so this is a test post. Please stand by:

Thanks for your patience.

Yuki Update

2008-11-03T09:33:00.002-05:00

Sorry I haven't written anything in a while. Been kind of busy. And speaking of busy, things have been taking off with my band Yuki, which is a good thing. The first run of the CD is just about sold out. You can probably still find copies at Luna Music or Indy CD & Vinyl around town. For those of you not local, you can download a copy at Amazon or from eMusic. (iTunes and MySpace are taking their own sweet time getting these tracks up.)

Additionally, we've received airplay on X103's local music show and one of our songs off the EP is going to be featured in an Indy Star slideshow recapping a Colts game (we're still not sure what about us says "are you read for some football?" but apparently they see something we don't.) And we're going to be playing with Kristeen Young at Radio Radio on December 27th. (We've had a bunch of other show offers that haven't worked out for various reasons, it's a tough time of the year to try to schedule things.)

Other than that, we're just working on new material, hoping to have a followup EP out soon. That's kind of it. Reaction from the show and EP have been great and we're just trying to keep moving.

Best Safety Film EVAR!!!

2008-10-23T13:20:00.004-04:00

If Herschell Gordon Lewis made safety films (and was German)...

Clearance Rack Review: Parappa the Rapper PSP

2008-10-18T12:02:00.004-04:00

This is a new thing I'm going to try to do every so often. Since I end up buying most of my games either used or on clearance, I'll probably be one of the last people to review them. So, with that, I bring you the Clearance Rack Review, an irregular column dedicated to reviewing games I've recently plucked from the clearance (or used) bin.

Game pundits often point to Final Fantasy VII as being the big system seller for the original PlayStation. Well, for me, the game that really sold me on Sony's original gray box was a cartoony game with a rapping dog called Parappa the Rapper. FFVII was pretty but basically more of the same in genre I really didn't care about. Parappa however, was new, novel and something that really couldn't have been done on the cartridge based, last generation systems.

The concept behind Parappa is simple. You are the titular hero of the game, a dog who must rap his way through six levels in order to win the affections of Sunny Funny, who is a flower. The way you rap is by pressing buttons on the controller in time with the music and a cursor on the screen. Sound familiar? As best I can tell, Parappa was the first game to combine the follow the leader concept behind Simon with music, thus creating the modern music game.

The story is weird but funny. Lots of personality is brought in by Rodney Greenblatt's artwork which forms the basis of the game. It's hard not to smile at the characters and things going on, even when you are doing poorly and things start getting really weird.

The songs, except for the final level, are memorable and easily the best in the series. The big problems is, there just aren't enough of them. Even back in 1997 when Parappa was first released, it was hardly packed with replay value. Today's gamer, more familiar with rhythm games, could probably finish Parappa under two hours after taking the shrink wrap off.

There are downloadable remixes (why they aren't already on the disc, I don't know) and an ad-hoc multiplayer mode that I haven't tired yet. Multiplayer would do a lot to give this game replay value and was the was the only way the sequel Um Jammer Lammy topped the original. Still, it might be tough to find someone else willing to play with you, as this game is starting to show it's age.

And speaking of Um Jammer Lammy, I can't think of any reason why that Parappa sequel wasn't included in this package. While it was a lesser game than Parappa, it was fun and would double the length of this very short game and lessen the sting for those who paid full retail.

Which brings me to my bottom line. I paid $15 for Parappa at Target. It took me a while to actually decide to buy it because I knew how short the game is and how little replay value there is. Nostalgia got the best of me that day. I still think the game is fun and worth playing, but I'm not sure how much is nostalgia (this game wrecked many a real band practices back in the day.) The additions are so minor, I think had this been a PSN download for $5 or so, it'd be a no-brainier. At half off, you really have to like it to buy it, but I'd only recommend paying full price to total music game addicts.

Fair Use for Me, not for Thee.

2008-10-15T10:43:00.003-04:00

According to the EFF, John McCain is getting a bunch of frivolous DMCA take down notices for YouTube videos from media corporations such as Fox and the Christian Broadcasting Company. A few weeks ago, the Obama camp was getting the same from NBC. The McCain campaign is claiming fair use, but the rights holders and YouTube don't seem to agree agree.

All politics aside, I'm glad to see the issue of fair use is finally starting to affect the people who could actually do something about it. I've long thought the terms of the DMCA are overreaching and useful concepts like fair use and public domain are being thrown by the wayside in the rush to give the big media corporations more and more rights.

The irony is double considering just this week Bush signed into law the PRO-IP bill creating an Intellectual Property Czar and increasing penalties for allegedly illegal use of intellectual property. According to a letter of decent from the Department of Justice the bill includes provisions whereby "taxpayer-supported Department lawyers would pursue lawsuits for copyright holders, with monetary recovery going to industry." Yet another instance of the federal government stepping in and not only granting more rights to the big media companies, but even taking a stake in insuring those rights by going after alleged infringement violators.

I wonder if the fact that both campaigns were hit with these things, when it seems like the news clips used were likely falling under fair use, might mean that whoever wins the election will take a look at the insanity of the DMCA and the way things are done currently. A dancing baby video with music playing in the background getting yanked might not be enough to get anyone to pay attention, but perhaps both sides losing videos in an election season might make these politicians see the importance of protecting fair use. Or, as soon as the election is over, this is all forgotten, big content lobbies for more legislation, which they get, and the cycle begins again in four years.

Yeah, I know which one I'd bet on.

Yuki Show Diary: 10/11/08 New Albany, IN

2008-10-14T08:48:00.007-04:00

Again, I'm doing this after the fact, so bear with me.

We got asked to play this fest for the New Albanian Brewing Company. The whole situation was pretty sweet as we were paid in advance, they put us up at a hotel, fed us and the beer was free flowing. The only issue was getting there.

We'd thought we were playing at the brewery, but that turned out to not be the case. There was this Harvest Festival in downtown New Albany and we were playing kind of adjacent to that. Unfortunately, our contact didn't have a cell phone and the people at the brewery/restaurant weren't exactly the best with helping us out.

Actually, I lied when I said that was the only issue. We asked for backline as the largest vehicle we had was a Subaru, which we packed to capacity with gear and merch. Someone usually gets the short end of the stick on the backline and Saturday that was me. The kit was one drum and one cymbal stand shorter than what they said I'd have. The four piece kit, I can hang with, but I ended up playing with a high hat and one cymbal. The stand didn't even have a nylon sleeve on it, so I wasn't going to put my cymbal on there. Ended up using their cymbals, which were junk, but ended up being the least of my concern.

The biggest issue was, the heads on this kit were completely dished on both sides. Really, if I can just digress a moment, heads aren't that expensive, at least if you're not buying bass heads. When they get to the point were they are cratered like the moon and won't hold any tension anymore because they've been that stretched out, it's time to replace them. Flipping the drum over and doing the same thing to the resonant side head is not an acceptable substitute.

I tried to get as much as I could out of that set but, of course tuning was impossible as the heads were that shot. I ended up just cranking them down so I at least had some response, but half way through the set, they'd loosened back up. At least I was being miced so you could hear me as there's no way I'd have much volume with that pathetic setup.

Alright, so what about our set? Well, we played between a banjo playing one-man-band kind of thing and a band called Sativa Gumbo. Yeah. We went over better than I'd expected, and we played better than we had at the Mel the night before, but it really wasn't our audience. Still, by the time the flaming hoola hoop girls came on, we had a bit of a group at the stage.

Did I mention the flaming hoopers? They were supposed to do their thing before we played, but ended up not. We wanted to try to coordinate something with them, but didn't. Then, halfway through our set, we were told they were coming out. Sucks that we didn't have much notice (as there were better songs to do their thing to) and now the group that was up front watching us got pushed back as they roped off about 12 feet in front of the stage. Kind of buzz killed a bit, though we would have loved to work something out in advance with them. Maybe next time.

The show itself went well, with one exception. About halfway through, I had what I can only describe as a Stockdale VP debate moment. I knew what song was next, I obviously knew how to play it, but I just blanked out. I recovered, but it was really weird sitting there and feeling like I'd just forgotten why I was there. This is bothering me more than it probably should.

Checking out the next day, this kid with a chipped tooth and looking pretty rough asked me what I though of the Harvest Festival. I said I had a good time. He said there were too many fights. Looked to me like he hadn't won many of them. I'll take in to consideration his advise not to go to the skate park after dark.

We hit ear-X-tacy and this cool shop Ultra Pop! in Louisville on the round about way out of town. Ultra Pop! had this awesome Godzilla vinyl I really wanted, but I'm not quite readly to drop $175 on a toy. Yet.

Anyway, all in all a good time and I guess we're going back to play Louisville December 13th. Groovy.

EDIT: stumbled across a Flickr of photos from the show. Check it out here: http://flickr.com/photos/ivoryocean/sets/72157608206409188/with/2958154339/

Yuki Show Diary: 10/10/08 Melody Inn

2008-10-13T12:09:00.004-04:00

I'm writing this a few days after the fact, so forgive me if the memory is a little hazy. Anyway, we (meaning Yuki) played the late show at the Melody Inn with Red Light Driver and Small Arms Fire. RLD asked us to play, which was cool as I haven't heard them in a while. The show invitation gave us the motivation to get our CD done and all that, as we'd decided not to play a show until we had a CD to sell. Everything came together on the merch front, even though it was a little last minute. The CDs were ready and the shirts were down to the wire, but we got 'em. Groovy.

Alright. So I don't know for sure what happened on the promo front, but there was a good sized crowd for the show. We opened and ended up with a ton of people checking us out. Ended up selling a bunch of CDs and shirts and getting some really great feedback from people. Most often heard was the slightly backhanded compliment "I like this so much better than Svetlana." The intention was well meaning...

Our set went off alright. It's hard to get good sound on stage at the Mel and the vocals suffered a bit as a result. Jason was cranked up louder than usual, so we probably weren't balanced correctly for that anyway. Unfortunately Jarrin, our sound wizard, had a paying gig, so he was on the road and couldn't be around. The Mel is kind of hard to get good sound in anyway.

The other thing about playing the Mel is the set up and size of the stage. Somehow I managed to fit the full Vistalite kit on the stage but I think I was crowding everyone else out as a result. If you were wanting to check out the Vistas in all their glory and didn't show up Friday, you may have missed your chance. Don't think I'll be bringing all that mess out again. It's a drag to have that much gear to cart and set up and tear down.

Other than that, I dropped a stick (and recovered alright) and I knocked a rivet out of my sizzle cymbal. I don't think there was any other gear catastrophes, at least not for me, but I'll know for sure next time we practice. I'll be amazed if there was no other cymbal damage as I was really having to whack those suckers to keep up.

Oh yeah, we were videoed, but our volume completely overwhelmed the camcorder mic, rendering the footage pretty worthless. Boo.

EDIT: check out this rad photo gallery of the show from Charlie Clark at Nuvo!

Shameless Self Promotion: Yuki

2008-10-01T20:45:00.003-04:00

Y'know, I don't think I've mentioned anything about my band because I'm the world's worst self-promoter. So, since I actually have good reason to, allow me to rectify that situation today.

We are Yuki and Yuki is a four piece shoegaze/dream pop/noise pop group from Indianapolis. Loud, pretty, tuneful, ethereal; I think we'll cop to any and all of those.

I've had many people ask me whatever happened to Svetlana? Well, the answer is Yuki. Yuki is pretty much a continuation of Svetlana. New songs, slightly poppier, one fewer member. That's about the difference.

So, I said I had a reason to bring the band up. Well, I have a couple. First off, we sent the EP off to get manufactured. That is really exciting as we've all put a lot of work into it and we're all pretty happy with it.

The second (and third) is that we have a pair of shows coming up. First up is a show October 10th at the Melody Inn with Red Light Driver and Small Arms Fire from NY. This is going to be our debut show and a CD release of sorts.

The following day, October 11th, we'll be playing the New Albanian Brewing Company's Fringe Fest 2008 in New Albany, IN. We're really looking forward to this one and, from what I hear, they're quite looking forward to us as well. Should be a pretty awesome time.

That's about all the band news I have at the moment. Please come out and say hi if you are in the area on the 10th or 11th. I'll have more info on the CDs and where outside the show you can buy them when I know for sure.

My Summer Ride: Part .5

2008-10-01T20:02:00.004-04:00

Well, Fall is starting to fall, so I guess now is as good a time as any to focus on the last of my Summer rides. This time, it's my bike, which is another in a line of wonderful birthday presents from my equally wonderful wife.

See, I have an old Gary Fisher bike, which has served me very well, even in times when it was my only mode of transportation. However, Kristen bought a Electra Amsterdam Classic 3 (read about that here). After being introduced to the Electra line, I developed a very bad case of bike lust, specifically for the Rat Fink.

This bike is a Sting Ray styled chopper, except it's big enough for a 6'3" adult to ride without looking ridiculous. It's a heavy beast, especially compared to my Fisher, and the three speeds and coaster break don't quite equal performance. But, with the green metallic flake paint and Ed "Big Daddy" Roth inspired graphics this bike just oozes cool.

I so love this bike. In fact, the Fisher has been hanging from the garage ceiling since the Rat Fink arrived. Yeah, living in a neighborhood with a ton of hills probably makes this bike a little less practical, but you can't help feel really cool cruising with this one. Well worth the money, if you can find one.

PS: I changed some things around with the blog layout. Let me know if things get wonky in your browser.

Assaulted by Sound: My Bloody Valentine at the Aragon, Chicago 9/27/08

2008-09-28T14:19:00.004-04:00

For years I wondered how the layers of My Bloody Valentine's classic albums Loveless and Isn't Anything would be reproduced live. Well, from what I saw last night, they weren't or at least they didn't appear to be. Yeah, I think I heard them, but just watching what was going on there's no way the simple barre cords Shields was playing and Belinda's almost nonexistent strumming was producing all the melody lines. Being a drummer, I also felt there was a large portion where the drum loops were pulling a little more than their fair share. I have a hunch the glowing Apple logo atop the soundboard stage right was the likely source of a fair amount of the extra sonic chaos.

And speaking of sonic chaos, we were treated to a rather lengthy "holocaust" in You Make Me Realize (21 minutes, according to a friend.) After hearing so much about this infamous climax of the My Bloody Valentine live expirence, I was expecting more. I feel confident in saying I understand what they were trying to accomplish, but the end result was more like having your head inside a jet engine than anything remotely artful.

Which leads me to the volume. Complaining about the volume at a My Bloody Valentine show is missing the point. However, I've been to some loud shows in my time and I've been to several loud shows with fantastically clear sound. I was hoping this would be another, but it wasn't so. About halfway in, it became nearly impossible to determine what they were playing as one sonic glob sounded much like the next. I'm not sure if the sound equipment or the room was to blame, but considering I've heard nearly audiophile sound in Ball State's basketball arena, I know it can be done in most any room, though I do see a history of people complaining abut the sound at the Aragon.

(A quick word about earplugs: without the earplugs, this show was just a rush of white noise and made absolutely no sense. The earplugs were like looking at a Magic Eye poster at that point where you finally get it in focus. It doesn't look exactly right, but you can at least see the shapes in the random patterns. It was one of the more interesting sonic phenomena I've experienced at a concert.)

Unfortunately, this volume, coupled with the sludgy sound, steamrolled over all the things that make My Bloody Valentine such a brilliant band. All the sub-melodies, all those harmonics created from the points where all these layers intersect, all the beauty of the songs underneath it all were swept away in a tidal wave of pure sound. All that remained was a horrifying crush of noise, with drums that crashed down on your throat and an occasional recognizable guitar part rising from the peaks. I can't imagine what someone who hadn't already memorized every nuance of this music would have gotten from this show aside from the blunt physical impact of the sound.

Because of the extreme volume and the amount of stuff obviously happening behind the curtain, it's really difficult to gauge the performance in any meaningful fashion. They showed up, exhibited the exact amount of stage presence they are known for, played a full set and left. Belinda delivered a heartfelt appreciation to the audience and Kevin mumbled a "yeah, thanks." So it went.

The short version would be this: it was exactly the disappointment I expected. And, in some weird way, there is satisfaction in that. I am glad I finally saw them but, even as much as I love this band, I have little desire to see them again.

Dear Amazon and the Record Labels.

2008-09-26T14:17:00.003-04:00

Hiya. I have a confession to make, I've become completely addicted to the Amazon mp3 Store's mp3 Special Deals. Specifically, I check daily to see what the deal of the day is. These deals of the day are albums on sale from .99 cents to $2.99, compared to the usual $5 and up.

Here's the thing about it, these bargain prices, combined with the quality of Amazon's downloads and the ease of using the service have gotten me to buy more music via download than I normally would. For instance, today I bought Jay-Z's Vol. 3. I think I have most of this album floating around on my PC somewhere, but it was .99 cents. At that price, it was a total no brain decision. I've also bought several other albums that I wouldn't have touched at full price or even some that I might have already acquired through less honest means. And I've even bought one or two on the Friday 5 special for the slightly higher price of $5.

My point is, the combination of lower prices and the quality of product and ease of use has made this guy buy more than he normally would, even when he knows where he could get the stuff for free. Perhaps it might be worth trying this with more than just an album of the day (and five on Friday) and seeing what happens?

Yours,

Rob Guernsey

8 Simple Rules for Selling Music in Today's Market

2008-09-24T11:06:00.000-04:00

The music blogsphere is all a twitter having a good laugh at slotMusic, this month's savior of the recording industry. Once again, this is an idea so silly, so outdated (not to mention they've already tried, and failed, at selling music on a memory card once before,) and so clueless that any half interested school kid could tell you why this isn't going to work.

Since I've already missed the first wave of specific slotMusic bashing, and since I'm getting tired of making a post every couple of months outlining all the same reasons whatever new thing big content is trying to roll out is going to fail, I'm going for a more general approach to this post. I feel pretty confident these rules apply to slotMusic or the next download store or whatever else they want to cook up.

So here they are, in a rough order of importance:

1. Your music must be iPod compatible. While other mp3 players are making inroads, the iPod is still the market leader and probably will be for a long time. Tying files with non-Apple compatible DRM or making the files much more difficult to transfer to an iPod than pushing one button is an almost certain trip to the dustbin of history.

2. You are competing with free.The big companies see Apple's .99 cents per track/$9.99 an album as a good starting point, but the truth is, it's pretty much the end of the line. When it's as easy (if not easier) to find an unauthorized free download for a vast majority of the music out there as it is to actually buy it, the closer you are getting to free, the more likely you are to have people turn to legit music services rather than blogs or torrents.

3. Convenience is key. Music blogs don't require the use of a convoluted download manager. Most torrents have files properly tagged and organized. Both bring the music straight to your desktop, ready to load on the mp3 player of your choosing, without having to leave the house. A surprising number of the legal download services I've used miss one or more of these things. When you make people work for something they've already paid for, it tends to push them back to the people offering it as they want it, for free.

4. If you don't have it, they can't buy it. As much as I love eMusic, I don't see anyway a new music service could survive without the full support of the four major labels and a healthy selection of the biggest indies. The iTunes and Amazons of the world have conditioned customers to expect pretty much anything they want, when they want it. If you don't have it, they will find it elsewhere.

5. Physical media is dying. The problem isn't that customers want a shiny new format. They aren't asking for a successor to the CD. They don't want gimmicky memory cards and, once the trend/nostalgia dies down, they won't be buying vinyl. People don't want anything they have to go to the store for. They don't want anything taking up more space. Aside from a dwindling number of holdouts, people just don't want stuff. All they want is the music and it is entirely possible to have one without the other.

6. Less DRM, not more. Ahh, digital rights management. How those on the Internet do love to hate you. Well, that hatred (or at least awareness of what you ever are) is starting to spill over from a small, but vocal, group of people to a more mainstream consumer. (See the Spore backlash on Amazon for instance.) With Yahoo and Microsoft announcing shutdowns of their authentication servers, more people are experiencing the worst case scenario with DRM encoded files and vowing to have nothing to do with them in the future.

7. It's time for bitrates to go up. When the iTunes Music Store launched, the 128kbp was justified by the fact that it created smaller files and boadband was just starting to cut into dial-up's domination. Now that really isn't as much of an issue as the number of users still on dial-up is small. Consumers are also starting to expect higher quality, as the novelity factor of the format has worn off. Devices can store more in smaller packages. There's no reason not to take advantage of this.

8. If you are keeping up, you're falling behind. What I mean is this; look at the market leaders Apple and Amazon. They have a huge market share and I think people are mostly satisfied with the service those two provide. If you are doing less than what they are, you're already dead, but even if you are providing something similar, people are going to need a little more to convince them to check you out. Improving on any of the previous seven rules I've mentioned is a good start, but I'm talking about going above and beyond even that.

For a start, how about bringing album art back? Yes, I know some albums on the iTunes Music Store come with a digital booklet but I think there's plenty of potential to improve on what they've done and make it more common.

Then there's all the extra stuff they've been throwing in with CDs to try to make them more appealing. I'm talking about videos, ringtones, etc. Instead of seeing these things as additional profit centers, how about bundling them with albums, like they do with the physical CD? Give the consumer a little extra reason to buy the album from you (and DON'T raise the price.)

I could go on, but I think I've done enough of the music industry's work for them already today. So, these are my 8 Simple Rules for Selling Music in Today's Market. What do you think? Did I miss something? Am I crazy? Or is it already too late? (I'm still considering that last one as a very real possibility.) Drop a comment and let me know what you think.

Our Summer Rides Part 2: The Beetle

2008-09-16T12:13:00.005-04:00

Warning: this post contains hot topless Beetle action.

Last post I covered what has been essentially my wife's summer ride. Now I'm going to show you mine. I was lucky enough to be driving a 1974 Convertible Volkswagen Beetle that looks about like it rolled off the showroom floor.

The story on this car is that it had a pretty charmed life. I guess it sat in an Al Capone's restaurant for a long time, though we've yet to figure out the connection there. My father-in-law collects cars and found it at auction. So, technically it's not ours, but it pretty much is for as long as we want to drive it.

Aside from a few things, this car looks to be all original with a little over 17k miles on the clock when we got it. I had to have the carburetor rebuilt (don't store old cars with gas in the line, it gums things up) and the mechanics discovered the front end had been rebuilt as a maintenance thing with all new bushings that wouldn't break down like the originals. In fact, the mechanic, a 20 year VW vet, told me this was the nicest driving '74 bug he'd ever been in.

And this car is a joy to drive (or it has been since the carb rebuild. No more random stalling!) Granted, this is a little tougher for me to drive than the Smart as my knees are into the steering wheel. So, I have to sit a little funny, but I've gotten used to it.

The old VW engine is a reliable beast. Not really that exciting, but I have confidence that with proper care, this thing will outlive us all. And aside from a few touch up spots and peeling chrome on one hubcap, this car is in beautiful shape. Ok, so the radio is dead. That's about the only negative.

Unfortunately, we live in the Midwest which means snow and road salt. So, the Beetle is about to get mothballed for the season. It also means I'll probably go back to driving an much less exciting modern Passat. But here's a couple more pictures in the meantime. Enjoy the car pr0n.

----------------
Now playing: Earl Bostic - A Taste Of Fresh Air
via FoxyTunes

Nico's Blue Butt

2008-09-15T13:12:00.002-04:00

P1050423.JPG
Originally uploaded by CaptainWrong

The other day a mysterious blue spot showed up on Nico. I don't know if she sat on a marker or a pen exploded in Kristen's office and she found it. This picture was after I tried to clean her up and mostly I just smudged it and turned the spot into a stripe.

Beans in the Bag

2008-09-14T11:46:00.005-04:00

Sorry for the quality on this. It was a "strike now while the cat is doing something cute" thing.

He's still hanging out in the shoulder strap of the bag.

Our Summer Rides Part 1: The Smart

2008-09-14T09:56:00.000-04:00

A few years ago Kristen and I went to Europe. One of the random sites we both enjoyed was the tiny Smart car which was everywhere. There were two models, a more basic people mover which could be parked perpendicular to the curb, and the mini-roadster. We meant to rent one for an afternoon as we figured they'd never bring them out here.

About a year ago a slightly modified version of the fortwo arrived in the US and now we have one. The US version is slightly longer (no crazy parking with this one) so you might have a fighting chance in a collision with an SUV and has a Mitsubishi engine instead of one made by Smart's parent company Mercedes.

We've had the Smart for a few months now and I think it's safe to say we're both kind of unimpressed. OK, if you want a car to turn heads (for the time being anyway,) you're looking at one. Everywhere we go, we get stopped with dozens of questions about the car. It's kind of annoying, truthfully.

The finish and features on it are very well done. (I think our car has nearly all the options.) The inside is comfortable, even for someone 6'3", though if the seat leaned back my visibility would be greatly improved. You can tell thought went into this vehicle. (Road noise is a bit more than I'd like though.)

And it does get good gas millage, but not as good as you might think. The Honda Fit gets almost the same MPG and has four seats and something closer to a real trunk. I think the MPG was another thing that was compromised in the trip across the ocean, but I might be mistaken in thinking the foreign ones do better with gas.

While it's fun to drive, it's also a bit quirky. The three cylinder engine isn't going to break any land speed records but it gets the job done. However, I just can't get used to the "auto-manual" transmission. I guess this is supposed to give the benefits of a manual with the convenience of a automatic, but it feels to me like it's shifting and someone in the passenger seat is working the clutch.

Then there's the cost. The Passion Cabriolet (kind of a convertible, but more like a glorified sun roof) we're driving starts at almost $17K. Fully outfitted like ours is, it's closer to $19K. Granted, you can go base model at $11.5K but, as difficult as these are to come by now (22 month waiting list, we were told,) I'm sure any dealer is going to up sell as many extras as they can.

So, the Smart is an interesting little car. Until these are easier to come by, I think anyone interested would be better off checking out the Fit or a Scion. The gas mileage isn't that much worse and you get more car for the money.

The questions we always get asked about the Smart:

Q: What kind of millage does that get?
A: We average in the mid-30s with mostly in town driving.

Q: How much did it cost?
A: Ours was in the $18k range, but it's about as top of the line as you can get.

Q: Is it electric/hybrid?
A: No, standard gas engine.

Q: Can you take that thing on the interstate?
A: Yes, though the acceleration makes merging a bit of a nail biter sometimes.

Q: How much does it weight?
A: No clue.

Q: Can you fit in that?
A: Yes, but I have to watch my head putting the top back.

Q: Where' the engine?
A: In the back.

Disneyland vs. Magic Kingdom

2008-09-06T18:24:00.007-04:00

Two theme parks enter...only one will leave...

I have a love/hate relationship with the Disney corporation. I have a deep love and respect for the company's history, but I absolutely hate the way the modern company pisses all over that legacy. I love the fact that Disney extended health benefits to same-sex partners in a time when it was rather risky to do so, but I am completely repulsed by the way Disney's lawyers keep getting copyright laws rewritten to favor Disney.

I could go on like this all day, but one thing is certain: they still know how to run a theme park. (Of course, that whole love/hate thing pops up again, but I'm getting ahead of myself.)

We got back from California a few days ago and before leaving we spent a couple of days at Disneyland. It was my first trip there. About this time last year, we spent a week at Disney World in Florida, which was a return trip for me.

It was pretty cool to me to check the differences between the two. One might assume that they were simply East and West versions of the same thing. Well, yes and no. For a number of reasons, the parks are similar, but not identical.

Two of my favorite retro signs together, Disneyland and Denny's.

Walt Disney World was an attempt to correct a major flaw of Disneyland: limited space. As Disneyland grew in popularity, other businesses moved in around it. The Magic Kingdom is much more spread out than Disneyland and several of the signature landmarks (the princess castles, Space Mountain) are noticeably larger in Florida.

On the other hand, I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that Disneyland was still thought of as the definitive Disney park and the rides in California reflected this fact. Even if this isn't true, that's how it seemed to me for the most part.

Unfortunately, we only got to ride two of my top four favorite rides. Pirates of the Caribbean is definitely better in California (even if all the skeleton stuff happens at the beginning of the ride, which doesn't make much sense to me) with a second drop and a whole scene missing in Florida (plus they still have "We wants the redhead!"). And, after about 27 times through, I had to admit, the completely different Disneyland Space Mountain trumps the one on the other coast.

Best I could do for WDW. Sorry.

As for the rest, well, it seems like Disneyland is a bit more in touch with its history than the Magic Kingdom. Like Mr. Toad's Wild Ride? Go to Cali. Want to see the Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Room closer to what it was (the show is shorter than originally)? Again, California is the place you gotta be. Sure, there's some things axed in Disneyland as well (Peoplemover, Carousel of Progress) but, for the most part Disneyland is a lot more like the Magic Kingdom I remember.

While I appreciate times change and some of the rides are woefully outdated (Mission to Mars, anyone?) it's really not necessary to get rid of things that still work. And while the changes made to Pirates probably make it a better ride, the injecting of new characters and licenses into things "just because" drives me nuts. I noticed a lot less of that at Disneyland and found myself spending a lot less time sulking over changes than I did in the Magic Kingdom. (I'm still kind of nervous about what they're doing to It's a Small World though. Yes, I really like that ride in all it's Mary Blair/'64 World's Fair glory.)

While Disneyland itself might not be as impressive in scope, I found the rides to be better and less tampered with than those at the Magic Kingdom. On the other hand, Disneyland only boasts the California Adventure as a second gate while Walt Disney World adds Epcot (which was more impressive in the 80s,) Disney/MGM Studios*, the water park, Animal Kingdom and the resorts.

If I had to chose one over the other, it would easily be Disneyland. I have to admit, by day three I was starting to feel like we'd done it all (going at off peak time rocks.) Disneyland is somewhere to go on vacation while Disney World is a vacation in itself. However, we ended up with annual passes so we'll be back.

*sidenote: the Florida Tower of Terror blows the Cali one away. Both are fun, but you can tell the Disney/MGM Studios version was put up before they came to their senses and realized it was maybe too complicated of an attraction to run stably. Still, the differences are huge and I'd risk having the ride not running to get the superior expirence.

Universal Studios Hollywood

2008-08-29T00:15:00.006-04:00

We went to Universal Studios out here in Cali. It was a pretty fun way to spend the day. The studio tour is a classic, though from what I understand it was a bit more on the actual studio stuff back in the day. It was kind of sad to see the hole in the ground from where the studio fire was, but apparently they're rebuilding. (Of course, that says nothing for the mystery of what stored film or audio materials were lost, but I doubt that info is ever going to be readily available.)

The Simpsons' ride is really fun. It's a "flight simulator" type ride with the best looking CG Simpsons I've ever seen. Of course, there's a million in jokes for long time viewers of the show. I have to wonder how much of that was lost on the Japanese businessmen that were riding with us the last time through.

The Jurassic Park ride was fun too. It was really a typical boat ride with a huge drop, but it was done well. Some of the dinos are starting to show their age a bit, but other than that, it was pretty cool.

Saw the 3D Terminator 2 and Shrek shows and since I dig 3D stuff, these were cool. T2 3D has dated better than I would have thought, though it is kind of a 20 minute condensation of all the things ridiculous about those movies. (This might possibly have the highest density of Schwarzenegger quips of anything the man has ever done.)

We saw all the shows except Waterworld. The effects stage one was my fave. I think the effects show has the distinction of being the only thing at Universal that doesn't throw water in your face. They should put a sign up as you walk in reading "Welcome to Universal Studios, you will get wet." I'm not sure what that's all about, but it's interesting.

It was also interesting, but not surprising, at how little the classic Universal monsters appear in the park. There's the haunted house thing with the Frankenstein lab and there were Frankenstein and a rather good Dracula walking around. But for the most part, the movie monsters that were a huge part of the studio's legacy are kind of demoted to second tier.

The thing that got me the most about the day was that we could come in the middle of the week in non-peak season and still be surrounded by assholes. The park was nowhere near capacity. There was no need for people to crowd and push and be inconsiderate, but it didn't seem to stop anyone. Granted, I have a low tolerance for crowds, but even Kristen was ready to get away from people by the end of our stay.

And, I should mention that we went through the City Walk shopping district on the way out where I found this crazy bootleg Godzilla in one of the shops.

I'm guessing this is supposed to be meltdown G from Destroyah. Hard to tell as it's pretty off model. There was a smaller one (a little smaller than 6", this one is a little smaller than 12") that even had a tag with Godzilla and a shot from one of the movies on it! Pretty ironic that on the grounds of a studio well known for aggressively protecting it's own intellectual property, you could find some blatant rip-off of another studio's. (Doubly ironic when you consider Universal co-produced King Kong vs. Godzilla.)

Just a technical note.

2008-08-28T12:37:00.002-04:00

If the posts look weird, it's because I'm attempting to blog on the phone via Flickr. We're out in L.A. and I feel it's my duty to bring you up to the minute details of what's going on.

Just found this by accident.

2008-08-27T21:01:00.002-04:00

Bradbury building

2008-08-27T15:32:00.002-04:00

Bradbury building
Originally uploaded by CaptainWrong

I was here.

Mexican Lobby Cards

2008-08-25T18:34:00.004-04:00

Many many many more here. Guy is a dealer, I guess. Pics are kind of blurry and low-rez, which is a shame. But prepare to waste an afternoon on this one.

I think I need to slow my roll.

2008-08-21T10:05:00.006-04:00

I've been up on this big purge still with regards to my media collection. I just hit a wall with all this stuff and needed to clear some of it out. Do I really need a jillion CDs, 500-some-odd DVDs, 400+ Atari 2600 Carts, etc., etc., etc. Maybe this doesn't happen to everyone, but it happened to me. I mean, I have the Highlander on Laserdisc! I'm asking you, in this day and age, who needs that???

Up to know, I've purged a lot of stuff without incident. I'm talking probably close to 1000 cds, perhaps as much (if not more) 12" vinyl, countless videogames, old magazines, books and on and on and on. I think the last batch got me though.

I realized I had a save pile that got mixed in with the stuff to go. Ok, first time that has happened. The embarrassing part about it is, I'm 99% sure one of the CDs in that pile would have been by the band of the person who I sold the CDs to, who happens to be a friend. Whoops. (Antionio, if you see this, yeah, the Thin Fevers CD wasn't supposed to be in that stuff.)

I've also hit the first twinge of wanting to hear something I got rid of. Considering the amount of stuff I've ditched and that I started this project a while ago, I'd say that isn't doing too bad. Besides, if I'm still jonesing to hear some Ramones a week from now, well, I know where my old CDs ended up.

In related news, I'm quite a fan of Delicious Library. I was a user of Readerware back in my PC days, but my RW catalog was far out of date and Kristen was going to upgrade her Delicious anyway. Plus she bought a version bundled with a Bluetooth UPC scanner that I'd need additional software to run with RW.

A lot of people don't get the point of Delicious and software like it, but for someone with a large media collection, it's a massive help. Not only am I doing an inventory for insurance (the flood kind of renewed that idea for me) but also just to check what the heck I actually own. Once upon a time, I was actually really good at reeling that kind of stuff off the top of my head. Now, not so much.

A couple of complaints about Delicious: one being that it only takes info from Amazon. Readerware has a laundry list of sites it pulls info from so if Amazon has incomplete or missing info, you can find it else ware. It's also a little too easy to get ahead of yourself scanning and then discovering one of the 57 things you just scanned wasn't at Amazon.

My biggest complaint though is that there's no direct way to create a blank entry. You have to go to the search box and then choose blank entry rather than just hitting apple-n or whatever. This is going to be a real problem as I'm contemplating cataloging my vinyl and I'm pretty much going to have to enter it all by hand. I'm considering doing the records in Readerware (which, I think, will pull info from an LP site now anyway) and then exporting it to Delicious.

And speaking of Readerware, the biggest differences between these two programs (as best I can tell) is that Delicious is much prettier, only pulls information from Amazon and will publish a site of your collection to .mac, err... Mobile Me. Also, Delicious will handle videogames, toys and "gadgets" whereas Readerware only does music, movies and books. The videogames thing is a huge plus for Delicious in my eyes and was probably going to convince me to switch even if Kristen hadn't already been using Delicious.

Still, I don't have a huge amount of complaints about it. Oh, if you want to nose around in my collection, here it is. Enjoy.

The Last of the Old School Record Dealers

2008-08-20T15:19:00.000-04:00

I was thinking last night about this Paul Mawhinney story (see yesterday's post for the latest) and why it's hit such a nerve with me, especially given that many of my comments might sound very cold and calloused. While I don't know Mawhinney personally, I am 99% sure I know the type of person he is, and it's seeing the demise of his type that makes this story so interesting to me.

I've been collecting records since I was a kid. I could say I've been at it seriously 20+ years. Back in the late 80s, I attended my first record show. At the time, that was the primary way you bought records, other than mail order. There was no eBay, no GEMM. You had local record stores (if you lived in a hip enough town,) dealer's lists/ads in the back of Goldmine and shows.

Information was a bit harder to come by back then. There were price guides, all of which deserved to be treated with a bit of skepticism as the writers were always dealers. Other than that, you had to rely on talking to dealers and fellow collectors. You had to trust prices you'd see at shows and conversations you'd have there. You also had to learn to separate the BS from the truth, because 90% of the dealers would have you believe they had nothing but the rarest gems that they were doing you a favor to take your money for.

At the last show I attended (which was a while ago,) I remember hearing a lot of dealers crabbing about eBay. For years, these guys had been the rule makers in this game. If they told you a record was rare and worth $100, it was up to you to prove them wrong. Without the Internet, that wasn't always easy. Not only that but you didn't find a great deal of variation in price. Everyone checked everyone else's list out and there wasn't a huge deal of undercutting. Same with the shows (not to mention all the real deals happened before the doors ever opened to the public.)

When eBay came along, not only was it easy to find a dozen copies of a supposedly rare record, you could look through the completed auctions to see that the average price was a fraction of what that guy at the show wanted. You also had a kind of shopping anarchy. While reserve auctions are always an option, for the most part, people would list things and they'd see for what people were willing to pay rather than what some bearded guy with a pot belly (and they always were bearded guys with pot bellys) says it's worth.

I'm not saying that these guys were shady, but they certainly had the advantage in the days before the Internet. The rise of eBay gave people like myself a peek behind the curtain and painted a much more accurate picture of what things were really worth than the old system where the people with a vested interest in the value going up dictated the prices.

If you're still with me, you're probably wondering what this has to do with our friend and "cultural preservationist" Paul Mawhinney? Well, Mr. Mawhinney strikes me as one of the last of this dying breed of old school dealers who seems to think we're still living in pre-eBay times, the times when guys like him dictated how much this stuff is worth. I also think, in spite of attempts to paint him as some sort of protector of culture, the man cares about money first and foremost.

Now, why would I think that about this guy I've never met? Well, part of it is a hunch but, watch that video I posted yesterday. It starts with Mawhinney manhandling a record from the late 1891 (I'd really expect a collector to handle records, especially one so old, better than what we see here) and asking this camera "how can something that old not be worth a lot?" Notice how he refers to his collection as "merchandise?"

"This has gotta be worth a lot of money, right?"
Well, maybe it was before you got your oily fingerprints all over it.

And money is never far from the surface when he's discussing these records. Never once do we see anything about which record do you enjoy listening to, which one gives you the most joy, but he is quick to show us the one worth the most money. That how I remember a lot of those dealers too. The dollars always came before what was in the groove.

As for money, I'm constantly amazed that in all the commentary surrounding his story, rarely does anyone ask where his figure comes from. His "archive" has been for sale since 1993(!) according to this Pittsburgh Business Times article. Considering this collection has been pawed through many times by people who would know, I feel pretty confident in saying if the value was accurate, it would be gone by now.

I'd also like to point your attention some first hand accounts from people who have been to Record-Rama, Mawhinney's store. This thread on a collector's board and this random blog post are kind of interesting. (Back in February, I had read more posts like those, but I didn't have the foresight to bookmark them.) These stories are anecdotal and should be taken with a grain of salt, but they sound a lot more like a hard nosed dealer than an archivist collector .

A lot of people remark that some museum or library should purchase the collection. Putting aside the issue of what public institution has the kind of money Mawhinney is asking, what is a museum going to do with a couple million records? Even as a donation, this would be a huge burden on an institution just to store it and I'll bet he'd have a hard time finding someone to take it (assuming he's still insisting on keeping the whole thing together.) I don't think many libraries have records anymore and considering were talking about an all but obsolete medium, making this stuff available to the public would involve a lot of money and time.

In other words, this stuff as one huge collection is nearly worthless to anyone other than Paul Mawhinney. But that's something Mr. Mawhinney seems reluctant to see, even though he's coming up against this face to face. I think even the most stubborn dealers I used to know from the shows would have just opened the doors and had a fire sale by now. I have to wonder how much Mawhinney could have made if he'd done just that, especially had he done it closer to when he first tried to cash out, before the market really went south.

While I don't doubt that Mawhinney enjoys music, I have a hunch that he enjoys the physical record as much, if not more. There are still people like him out there, there are fewer and fewer each year and his predicament illustrates pretty clearly why. The value of most records is still tanking and who in their right mind wants to invest that much physical space to something that is just sitting around devaluing?

It's not that "nobody gives a damn," Paul. The world just doesn't see these records as being monetarily valuable as you do. If you wish your archive to be available to the world after you're gone, you have that power, but you're going to have to forget about the money. Besides, you've had potential buyers looking at this for for fifteen years, you told the Library of Congress to take a hike and eBay didn't come through. Don't you think maybe it's time to move on?

A Tear for Paul Mawhinney

2008-08-19T16:24:00.002-04:00

The Archive from Sean Dunne on Vimeo.

I previously covered this saga here and here, but this video is making the rounds, so I feel the need to comment again. I guess the thing is, if you look into the whole story, get past the gee-wow factor of the number of records and the money claimed as value, things just don't add up.

First off, the issue of where this alleged value for this collection comes from is again glossed over. Can you take the word of someone who has authored price guides (a fact left out of the video) in a hobby where price guide authors have been known to bump up the book values of their own specialties? And surely I'm not the only one who is a little suspicious about someone selling something so expensive so reluctant to share details of what's exactly in it. Supposedly it's documented. Why not post it at the website?

Well, one thing is shown as again he trots out this Rolling Stones LP as the crown jewel of the collection. While it's a nice piece, if you're into the Stones, it isn't exactly a holy grail. Back in February, when he brought this out on publicity for the eBay auctions of this collection, a copy of the same album was up for $4k buy it now and no takers. Sure, you aren't just going to stumble across a copy at your local vinyl emporium, but I'd really expect a collection that large to have something much rarer as the centerpiece. Certainly something that wouldn't be up on eBay for less than you claimed it was worth and still no one wanting it.

There's also the at the least misleading, though more likely completely dishonest statement that 83% of his collection prior to 1963 isn't available at any price. The only way I can see that to be accurate would be if he owns every copy of 83% of the records produced in that time frame and they were never reissued. Not bloody likely.

And while he's going on and on about how the world just doesn't care, he fails to mention the Library of Congress bid he turned down in 2003, which was more than $3million but less than the $25million he was still expecting to get at the time. He also fails to mention the stipulations that the collection had to remain intact and only duplicates could be sold which accompanied each attempt at a sale.

And while he's painting this as his life's work, he fails to mention that he was in the business of buying cut-outs and remainders by the trailer load. He does tip his hand when he refers to the collection as "merchandise." Of course, I also noticed in researching Mawhinney that one common comment among people who visited his shop was that if he'd actually sold people records instead of insisting the dozens of copies of a title they had on the shelf were too precious to part with and offering a $50 CD-R instead, he probably wouldn't be sitting on millions of records he can't move now.

And the more I've looked at this story, the more it seems to me that this really is dead stock that he hoarded or couldn't sell than any kind of really valuable collection. Again, I feel sorry for the guy as his health is failing and this looks like it was his retirement plan. However, I'm finding the coverage of this to be very dishonest and it's probably only encouraging Mawhinney's unrealistic expectations for his collection.

What's more, this whole "well, they won't have Paul Mawhinney to kick around anymore" tone the video gives off really bugs me. I had trouble buying the "preserving culture" talk before, but after seeing this video I find it out right laughable. Instead of talking about donating all this precious cultural heritage, he's sounds like he'd rather destroy it than give it away for anything less than $3mil.

We're not talking about some lost Shakespeare works here or the legendary Buddy Bolden recording or something of that stature. We're talking about a record dealer who hoarded a ton of cut-outs. No one forced you into it and it's not like you were doing this for any reasons other than your own and your own commercial interests.

So, as always, best of luck to you and your family, Paul. But I really think you need to get real about this. How many more years are you going to keep schlepping this around, fishing for sympathy among people who don't have the resources to buy your "life's work" even if they wanted?

All This and World War II, Part II

2008-08-19T11:54:00.003-04:00

Did I mention I finally saw All This and World War II, a film I'd been obsessing about a little over two years ago? Let me refresh your memory on this one with a (currently live) YouTube version of the trailer:

I remember reading about this one during my Beatlemaniac days and always being intrigued. The soundtrack album is never difficult to find as it was a perennial cut-out bin favorite and isn't exactly worth much more today. The movie however, seemed to have fallen off the face of the Earth. From what I understand, it was yanked a week after it's debut and more or less buried until a copy showed up on the bootleg DVD market a few years ago.

I have a genuine affection for bad taste and bad ideas in cinema and the idea of marrying Beatles covers with World War II footage seemed like a classic. But, the more I read about this film (and since the appearance of the DVD, much has come out about it like this excellent article right here) and the more I put it into context, it just seemed like an excuse to release the soundtrack album, a deluxe box set, I might add.

Watching the film does little to change that opinion. The whole concept is so shaky and so half heartedly executed, you just can't help but feel the producers of this film felt a Beatles revival in the air and wanted to cash in before it passed. (Keep in mind, this film predated the Beatlemania musical and the infamous Sgt. Pepper's movie with the Bee Gees.)

Once the thoughts of "Wow, they really did make this movie" and "I can't believe I'm actually watching this" wear off, you will find yourself repeating the last statement not as a reference to the film's rarity, but to the gawking at a car crash quality of the film. Beyond the novelty of a jawdroppingly bizarre concept poorly executed, the film itself is pretty dull. It's a bit like watching the History Channel while listening to some Beatles covers. Try it yourself and see how long you last.

I'm glad I resisted the impulse to actually pay for a copy of this. All This and World War II is like so many other obscure relics of junk cinema: so much more interesting on paper than on the screen. Still, it's nice to have my curiosity satiated and, if nothing else, I can check another film off my to seek and see list.

Are You Trying to Break My Heart?

2008-07-16T00:17:00.005-04:00

I remember when I first saw the concept drawings of what would be the Lasonic i931. Basically, it looked like someone took the million dollar idea I had right out of my head. Yeah, I thought of the whole "make an iPod dock that looks like an 80s gettoblaster" thing. That was all me. Deal with it.

Now, my idea was more like the Conion C-100F, which is kind of the quintessential 'box. Quick, picture a boom box. I'll bet you have a mental image of the Conion. Gaudy, a little chintzy, but loud and slightly better sound than you might expect.

I wasn't shocked Lasonic would be the ones to run with this. They'd produced a legit getto classic with the TRC-931 and apparently had reissued it (slightly updated) a few years ago. The TRC-931 had that iconic look and sound, so if someone was going to make an iPod boom box, this is a pretty good place to start.

Their iPod version, cleverly called the i931, was announced ages ago with a cheesy looking render that just screamed vaporware. Truth be told, I kinda put it out of my mind as I assumed this would never see market. So, imagine my shock when I'm in Fry's today and there it is, the Lasonic i931 in the flesh!

That shock quickly turned to disappointment when I actually started tinkering with the thing. First off, though it's been ages since I last saw a TRC-931, I'm pretty sure that while it tipped it's hand as a cheap piece of gear, it didn't feel like it would fall apart in your hands. The i931 does. While the original was quite a hulking slab of plastic, this new one feels like it was made from recycled soda bottles. I'm pretty sure the TRCs could take a bit of a beating while the i931 feels like a slight drop would crack it in half.

Plus it's kinda rounded. Gettoblasters are supposed to be boxy and squared off, not aerodynamic. What is up with that?

Next, the details are all wrong. While they put in a fake analog tuner scale, the actual radio tuning is digital. The original's five band EQ has been traded for five EQ presets. The buttons all feel cheap, and there's a ton of them. The simplicity of the original has given way to the confusing menus of the remake.

And speaking of, the display is pretty crummy, as I'm sure you've guessed. It looks like a knockoff Indiglo watch and I'm sure would be unreadable in direct sunlight. The USB and card readers are a nice touch, but between the display and the menus, I couldn't imagine trying to play music off a card or thumb drive.

So, what about the sound? Pretty crappy. Like a $30 iPod dock, but louder. To be fair, I had problems tuning in a radio station, which probably says more about the cavernous Fry's than the Lasonic, and I didn't have my iPod with me. My wife handed me her iPhone, which was a bit too tall to fit in the dock, but I was able to play a bit of LL Cool J. I couldn't manage to make this 'box sound anything but cheap.

And speaking of, it isn't exactly cheap. Fry's wants a cool $200 for the i931. I think list is $219, but I've seen anywhere between $159-$230. The lower end of that is closer to the end where I'd say if you're really really in love with the idea of an old school getto blaster iPod dock, you might consider it, but even then, I think you're going to feel like you overpaid.

Rhapsody in DRM-free mp3.

2008-07-06T19:13:00.003-04:00

Last week was the debut of Real Networks' Rhapsody MP3 store. To celebrate, they offered a $10 credit to the first 100,000 people to sign up. Yours truly was among the people who ended up downloading an album (and then some) on Real.

I didn't even know Real was entering the DRM-free mp3 sales arena until I heard about the sign up offer. And, I'll admit, the $10 credit offer struck me as either ballsy or desperate, I still haven't quite decided, though I'm leaning towards the latter.

The question is, who is Rhapsody trying to reach? At this point, they are the fourth of the five biggest major label download music sellers to go the mp3 route. Their site, which, to be fair, is listed as a beta, isn't all that user friendly. Trying to search for a specific album title may or may not net you what you're looking for, though the artist search seems a bit more fleshed out. The keyword search is just about useless though.

One thing that shouldn't be in beta is their customer support, which needs some serious work. Unfortunately, I've already needed it and clicking through the customer support pages is a frustrating maze which leads you to help for every service Real offers except the mp3 store. I was able to get on the live chat through a page for their subscription service and my issue was resolved. However, it took about a half hour in the chat to get a simple matter cleared up which, if there had been a email address like everyone else has, I wouldn't have had to hang on and re-explain the issue to who or whatever I was talking to over and over.

And then there's the issue of what they are offering. Their selection leaves quite a bit to be desired. At times the albums available almost seemed like a random assortment of an artist's catalog. While they are offering all four major labels and a smattering of indies, Amazon's selection is much better.

Their prices are pretty standard. .99 cents songs and $9.99 albums, which would be fine if it wasn't for the fact that a lot of their content can be purchased cheaper through Amazon. Oddly, there is an apparent mis-pricing of a bunch of box sets, mostly from the Rhino catalog. While it's possible that these prices could be correct (and I would certainly welcome that,) I find it a bit unlikely that a set retailing at Amazon for $97 is correct for $9.99 at Rhapsody.

So, other than a free $10 credit and fishing for cheap, but sure to be price corrected, box sets, what exactly does Rhapsody have to offer in this crowded market? As best I can tell, nothing. I can't really find a single reason to continue using this service. The site is clunky, the normal prices aren't anything special and the selection is smaller than Amazon.

While I'm all in favor of competition, there needs to be something different going on to make it happen. Competition is more than just a different name on your billing statement. It's surely not offering a lesser version of what the market leader is doing. But, unless they have some drastic changes in store, that's exactly what Rhapsody's mp3 store is, at the moment. Time will tell if Real can come up with something to make their store stand out, but personally, I'm doubtful they will.

DVD Review: Phase IV (1974)

2008-07-04T21:33:00.003-04:00

I can't believe I haven't done a review of Phase IV prior to now. I was first exposed to this obscurity via the infamous "season zero" of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Upon tracking down the old VHS, Phase IV has become one of my favorite movies. Now, thanks to Legend Films (who have other DVDs with a Mike Nelson commentary, coincidentally) Phase IV is finally out on DVD.

Phase IV is a movie about ants. Not gigantic ants like a Bert I. Gordon or Corman flick. These are small, regular sized ants. But ants that become highly intelligent and attempt to take over.

So, we have two scientists out in the desert investigating strange occurrences caused by the ants. They've killed livestock, run people off their land and built a bunch of Stonehenge like monoliths. Michael Murphy plays James, the "good cop" scientist, trying to learn their language and figure out what they're after while Nigel Davenport as Dr. Hubbs becomes more and more engrossed in defeating the ants, regardless of the cost.

Hubbs takes delight in shaking the ant farm, so to speak, which always results in disaster and the ants evolving. Because of Hubbs' recklessness, they pick up Kendra (Lynne Frederick,) a wide eyed farm girl who is now orphaned and in shock. Meanwhile, James is trying to decipher the ants messages and get Kendra to safety before Hubbs gets them all killed.

This 1974 film was a directorial debut for Saul Bass, who was an Academy Award winner for his animated title sequences. Phase IV is a post-2001 sci-fi flick, unspooling at a leisurely pace, with heavy philosophical overtones and a trippy, ambiguous ending.

At it's heart, it is another man vs. creature movie. But, because it gets into issues of evolution, the possibilities of communicating with other species and the idea that we might not be the smartest animals on Earth, it becomes more. OK, it's not the greatest movie ever, but it handles a lot of interesting ideas in an intelligent way and, if you can appreciate slow, cerebral sci0fi, I think there's a lot here to enjoy.

The stunning thing about it is the miniature photography. I know it sounds silly to say, but the ants really are the best actors in the film. The way Bass manages to capture them on film and get them to do things that actually advance the plot (we see many of the evolutionary steps) is pretty remarkable. Plus, Bass throws in some style from time to time, so if nothing else, this movie is pretty interesting to watch.

Unfortunately, this DVD is about as bare bones as it gets. No extras, not even a trailer. Just the film itself. While I understand this is a pretty obscure film, I'd have loved even a simple "how they did it" featurette, as from a technical standpoint, there's some interesting stuff going on here.

The ants have more detail than the old VHS I had, this transfer is pretty flat and the print used has quite a bunch of specks and is pretty bland to look at. I'd love to see this film in a good HD transfer, to say nothing of a Blu-Ray release.

This is to say nothing of the fact that the original theatrical release was rumored to be longer with more of an ending. Apparently it was cut down a pinch for home video and this disc runs the same length as my old tape. (Though a little longer than the french TV rip my friend Kevin sent me. I think that had a couple of brief cuts for violence.)

Honestly, I wasn't expecting Phase IV to get a DVD release at all, so just having this is better than nothing. And considering I paid the same amount ($10) for an age old ex-rental VHS, I'm not too disappointed. Still, I feel this movie deserves better than what we got. Hopefully, some day we will, but until then, fans of intelligent sci-fi should feel pretty safe picking this up.

General Cinemas Eastgate

2008-06-30T20:45:00.004-04:00

Shot some pictures at what is left of Eastgate Consumer Mall today. The six screen GC still stands in the out lot and one of the emergency exits was open so I managed to get a couple of shots in one of the auditoriums. However, not feeling like stumbling around in a pitch black abandoned movie theater with air so dusty it set off my allergies almost instantly, there's just a couple of quick shots. Maybe some other day I'll brave the elements and go back with a flashlight (and risk getting pinched for trespassing, I guess.)

Anyway, the shots are here. They're not fantastic and they're all pretty self explanatory. You can see all the dust that got on my lens just from opening the door. For the good of the order, here's shots around Eastgate itself. There's some demo work going on and sadly everything is boarded up. I wish I could have gotten up the main stairs, but I was too late for that.

A little more on the Esquire Theater

2008-06-30T12:51:00.002-04:00

I was doing a little research in to the theaters of my youth and found out a little info about the Esquire. It was part of the Jerry Lewis (yes, that Jerry Lewis) chain, which was designed as a family friendly franchise. From what I've read, the idea was to create a turnkey chain showing G rated movies that all someone had to do was pony up the money and open the doors.

Well, it didn't quite work like that. The chain started in the early 70s, which wasn't exactly a good time for G rated pictures. Additionally, the idea that you didn't need to know anything about running a movie theater to get in this turned out to be fatally incorrect. A lot of people lost their investments as they had no idea how to run a movie theater and set up shop in poor locations.

Rumor has it, many of the theaters tuned into adult houses as a reaction against the strict rules on what type of movies could be shown. I don't think the Esquire ever showed porn, but I think it became a second run house as I'm pretty sure the last thing I saw there was Return of the Jedi in the mid80s, after it had it's first run.

The Esquire was at the end of the Esquire Plaza strip mall on Pendelton Pike. As such, it was sandwiched between two other theaters, the Eastwood, which was a really nice place, and the Pendelton Pike Drive-In. I don't know for sure when it stopped showing movies. My guess is it didn't make it to the 90s as neither of the other theaters on Pendelton Pike did. The building still stands and today houses a Pip Printing.

(Sidenote, the anchor store for the strip was a Zaires, another long gone relic. I'm pretty sure it became an Ames, like most of the Zaires in the area, and then closed up for good. Currently it houses a cut rate furniture store.)

The reason I mention all this is I found a pretty interesting YouTube video of a Jerry Lewis in Frankfort prior to being demolished. This one was a standalone, so the building itself isn't much like the Eastwood, but the inside and auditorium are a lot like what I remember.

I know of at least two other Jerry Lewis Cinemas in and around Indianapolis. Both of them still show movies, which seems to be kind of a rarity for this former chain. One is the Greenbriar Cinema Grill on 86th st. The other is now Key Cinemas on west Keystone.

Addendum to my Theaters post.

2008-06-27T16:27:00.004-04:00

First off, I got so swept up in my General Cinemas love, that I totally forgot the last theater I was going to talk about. That would be the Loews Cherry Tree Plaza theater. Here's a picture of what it looked like before it got flattened:

Not my pic, but I'll get to that in a minute.

I really can't remember how many screens this had, I'm pretty sure it was six just like the General Cinemas Eastgate theater that opened a little later, if I'm remembering correctly. There wasn't a whole lot special about this one. It looked pretty much like every other Loews in the area, with the kind of olde timey paintings of famous movie people at the top of the entrance. To me, this had less character than the mall General Cinemas I remember so vividly.

Anyway, I think it closed for a while, reopened as a Sony theater then went back to being Loews. Now it's just a lot next to a strip mall that itself is decaying on a side of town that has some pretty bad rot itself. There's a nearly identical theater to this one on the northwest side that is still operating, I think. I used to work up there, but I only paid passing attention.

I only mention the Loews as I saw a ton of films there as a youth, though I don't have the affection for it that I do for the ones I mentioned in my last post.

I snagged the picture from a site called Cinema Tour. Another one I've used for some nostalgia tripping is Cinema Treasures. Both of the sites are kind of light on the information about theaters I was looking for. Treasures had more than Tours, but Treasures doesn't even list the Washington Square GC or the Cherry Tree Loews. Still, I'm throwing these out there as I know Koven mentioned in the comments a place he used to see some movies and maybe it's listed at one of those sites.

And, in case anyone was wondering if I was going to do a follow up post on the theaters of my driving years, the answer is no. Really, there's the Cinemark Movies 8, which was manna for a poor high school student, the Loews and the Eastgate GC, which I may touch on if I do another GC post, and the random mall GCs that were left. That's about it. Movies 8 isn't quite interesting to devote a post to, but I will leave you with this, which if you were there will bring back some memories:

MST3K does General Cinemas

2008-06-26T11:45:00.002-04:00

One of my favorite MST3K host skits, for obvious reasons.

(PS- I'm using this clip for non-commercial purposes under what I believe to be Fair Use. Thanks.)

Theaters I have known and loved

2008-06-25T23:05:00.005-04:00

I haven't done a DVD review in forever, and I'm not quite ready to kick one out there, but I wanted to write about a bit of a nostalgia trip I've been on as of late. For some reason, I've really been interested in the places I used to see movies, especially in my pre-driving days. The kicker of it is, I just realized that none of them show movies anymore. Most don't even exist today.

Let's take the Pendelton Pike Drive-In. This was the first place I ever remember seeing a movie. For my folks, this must have been a godsend as it was five minutes from where we lived and, being as it was a drive-in, they could bring me along with no problems. I remember laying in the back of their Monza station wagon with my sleeping bag usually watching a bit of the movie but falling asleep before the second feature. (Though I distinctly remember seeing Stripes there. And I'm pretty sure I saw Star Wars there, not on the first run, more on that in a moment.)

As I recall, the Pendelton Pike was a very old school drive-in. One screen, speaker boxes, rusty playground, kind of scary concession stand. I can't remember if they had double or triple bills. I suppose it may have varied. Strangely enough, I seem to remember the intermission clocks more than anything else.

We still went there occasional after we moved from that side of town. I don't remember how often though. I'm sure we went to some of the other drive-ins around town, none of which, except for the Tibbs are still running. The Pendelton Pike shut down in 1993 and all that stands is the screen.

There are two other places on Pendelton Pike I remember seeing movies. One was the Esquire Cinema in Esquire Plaza. Another single screen relic, the building still stands, but I don't know what is in there these days. I really don't remember too much about this place except going there once for someone's birthday to see Return of the Jedi and we all were kind of nonplussed as we'd each seen it about a dozen times by then.

The other is the mighty Eastwood Theater and this place I have vivid memories of. I mentioned Stars Wars earlier and there's a good chance I may have seen Star Wars there as it had the exclusive on the first run. In fact, Star Wars seems to be one of the only reasons anyone mentions the Eastwood on-line.

OK, let me tell you what I remember of this place. It was located in kind of a sketchy part of Pendelton Pike, adult bookstores and whatnot. It looked like a barn on the outside, but inside it was totally cool. Again, this was a single screen, but it was a huge curved Cinerama screen! There were mechanized curtains that opened up and the whole nine yards. In fact, the place reminded me a little of the Seattle Cinerama, though I may be imagining things.

Mostly what I remember seeing at the Eastwood were Disney flicks. Pretty much all of them came around in the early 80s and we went to them. Specifically, I remember Fantasia making a huge impact in that theater with the surrounds (back when not all theaters were even stereo, let alone Dolby,) and that massive curved screen. I might have seen Star Wars there, but I'm not going to lie and say I remember it. (I'm still convinced I saw it at the drive-in, somewhere.)

The Eastwood went downhill in the late 80s. If I recall correctly, it may have been showing porn for a while before converting to a music venue and then folding entirely. Now there's a Menards where it used to be. Shame, as that was a movie theater with soul.

So, to the opposite end of the spectrum, I have a huge amount of nostalgia for the old General Cinemas. Specifically, the twin at Washington Square, though I know I saw stuff at Glendale, Eastgate and Castleton Square. Those old GC theaters in the mall were pretty funky and soulless, but I still have some nostalgia for them. I remember them being kind of squatty and ugly. In fact, I know one of them had a screen split into two very long and narrow rooms, which always kind of freaked me out when we saw a movie in one of those.

Still, I have a lot of stupid good feelings for those ugly things. And aside from a lot of red and orange carpet, what do I remember most about General Cinema? The intro bumpers!!! w00T!

I know I've had that one on the blog before, but you know, for years that thing was impossible to see and it was driving me crazy. Then there was this later one which, for some reason, I don't remember liking as well:

Then there's this one, which I remember very fondly:

And then there's this popular one, though now we're well into the multiplex era:

I still dig the psychedelic projector one the best. The fact that the music (which I believe is from an Optigan) is all jacked and out of time just adds to the charm and funky feel I remember those little shopping mall theaters had.

So that's what I've been thinking about as we prepare ourselves for drive-in season (though daylight savings time plays hell with that.) Even though I don't get out to see movies as much these days, I still miss the old theaters I used to visit, back when there weren't a dozen screens and the sound systems didn't move your bowels. I wish I had more pictures to go with this, but there just isn't a lot out there. If anyone know of anything, or wants to share some memories of these theaters, leave a comment.

The Score, So Far.

2008-06-13T15:20:00.003-04:00

Well, the Man Moat is not a moat any longer, but it sure feels naked without anything in it. We decided to toss all the carpet in there and the fancy title stuff didn't seem worth putting back down as it would need to get pulled again if we had another flood.

I have about 80 some odd records with covers that are in various states of disarray. I think the actual records are going to be ok, but the covers are pretty trashed. Among the losses were titles by James Brown, John Coltrane, Sunn0))), Jesu, Albert Alyer and Ornette Coleman.

Because I needed to pull some files off my laptop and decided I had nothing to lose, I just checked out one of my drives. This one was a little USB drive that was completely submerged and discovered on the other side of the room from where I left it. It worked fine. This gives me hope for the other drives, though my backup drive that didn't get flooded decided to work finally and I have early April images if need be.

The computers themselves are still untested. I'm not feeling that brave yet. I'm also unsure about a handful of power supplies and a fancy schmancy Monster power strip which were completely submerged.

My Grestch bass drum seems to have dried out fine and obviously the Vistalites are ok.

That's pretty much it right now.

Dogzilla vs. Ultramonkey

2008-06-12T11:11:00.001-04:00

I love Japan.

Man Lair, Flooded.

2008-06-04T15:44:00.004-04:00

I am a very sad panda this morning. After valiantly fighting torrents of rain on several occasions, the elements finally caught up with us last night while we were sleeping. Ironically, I'd been checking the flood situation all through the day and was lulled into thinking everything was ok.

When I went into the basement this morning (ironically to try and coax a backup image out of my submerged Windows XP machine that was giving me headaches yesterday,) the carpet squished. I looked over at a copy of Gato Barberi's Chapeter One I'd just bought two days prior and noticed the bottom corner of the gatefold was sticking out at a 90 degree angle, throughly saturated. The entire basement had flooded.

Before when we'd had problems, it was just isolated to a small area. Judging by the waterline on my PC, we got about three inches all the way to the back wall last night. Several things floated away from where they were, waiting to be found in corners were I hadn't put them.

The good news/bad news is that most of what I had was off the floor. The bad news is that I now have a crate of records throughly waterlogged.

So far, that seems to be the biggest loss, though I have two computers whose conditions are as yet unknown. The bass drum from my vintage Grestch kit got a bit damp as did the amber Vistalite bass drum, which is at least the second time that poor drum went in the drink.

Anyway, I'm a bit numb at the moment. It could have been much worse, and it still might be. I guess I'm hoping at least I can salvage the drives from the computer and maybe insurance will cover some of the records. I hope.

UPDATED: Fire at Universal Studios

2008-06-02T11:09:00.004-04:00

UPDATE: False alarm. Nevermind. Thanks to Idolator for the tip.

However, reports of Bo Diddly's death are sadly accurate.

It's kind of old news now, but in case you didn't hear, there was a fire at Universal Studios over the weekend. This wouldn't be news except this wasn't just a small fire somewhere on the property, this was a big one which, apparently, started on the back lot and ended up in the vault.

What got damaged? Well, they aren't exactly saying yet, but the reports I'm seeing look as is music masters stored in rented space in the video vault. (Uni Records is a separate organization from the film and TV Universal but were renting vault space from them. Confused yet?) According to this report, they managed to save the video backups but lost the music masters, which, apparently hadn't been backed up.

I know it's popular to pile on Uni and Doug Morris, I've done it here, and they usually deserve it. But, depending on how forward thinking they were about making safety copies, this could be a devastating loss for music lovers.

Anyway, I'll be curious to hear what the official statement is on this and what was lost.

Usborne Guide To Computer And Video Games

2008-05-23T09:58:00.004-04:00

Found this via Game, Set, Watch. Talk about something I hadn't thought about in years, this was my favorite book as a youngster. It's still pretty cool today as a piece of retrofuturism. (Speaking of, I had a dream about Disney's Space Mountain last night, back when RCA was still sponsoring it.)

http://www.pointlessmuseum.com/museum/usbornecomputergamesindex.php

Looking at this book now, the interesting thing to me is all the handheld and tabletop games in it. At the time, I assumed many of these were made up as I'd never seen them. Well, in the time since then, I think I've seen every one of those somewhere.

I also still love the diagram of how a computer works with all the little robots running information around. Way cool.

Cheap eMusic, Acid and Green's Leak

2008-05-19T15:31:00.004-04:00

First off, I should mention that if anyone out there is an eMusic subscriber, it might be worth your while to swing by Circuit City some time soon. They have starter subscription packs that work like booster packs for the blow out price of $4.98 for 65 tracks. A really good deal, considering the usual eMusic booster price is something like $19.95 for 50.

Unfortunately, you can't still get Ray Baretto's Acid through eMusic (though a bunch of other Fania titles are available, seems they switched distributors and not everything is through the new one yet) but it's an album worth checking out. I'm no expert, but I think it's considered a high point of boogaloo music and it's one of those albums I come back to often.

About the only track on there you might know is "Deeper Shade of Soul" which, of course, was sampled by Urban Dance Squad ages ago. There's also "The Soul Drummers," which has appeared on a comp or two. Really though, it's all killer Latin soul which kind of makes you glad to be alive.

I also wanted to mention the new Al Green. Yeah, I was naughty and downloaded a leak. I've been a big fan of his for ages and was pretty impressed with his two previous comeback albums. (I think I did a review of one for Nuvo. I really can't remember.) I'm also a big fan of ?uestlove, so when I found out he was producing this time around, I couldn't wait to hear the results.

It's kind of ironic that this album nails the whole mid 70s vibe better than "I Can't Stop" and "Everything's OK" considering those two albums were produced by Green's old producer (Willie Mitchell) at the old Royal Studios with as many of the old musicians as are still around. "Lay It Down" features younger cats such as the Dap-Tone horns and a younger producer but really sounds like someone dug up some old tapes and put them out. Just roll the treble off a big and compress it a hair to get the sound of those old 45s and you'd think it was some mid-70s Hi release that fell through the cracks.

The problem is, while "Lay It Down" may have vibe to spare, the material is weaker this time around. Green's two previous Blue Note albums each had a single or two worth of classic stuff (and, after all, Green is a singles artist at heart.) This time around, there just isn't anything that gets under your skin like an Al Green classic should.

Add to that a few completely unnecessary guest shots. John Legend and especially Anthony Hamilton at least hold their own but Corinne Bailey Rae (who?) is totally outclassed. An interview with ?uestlove in Wax Poetics implies the record company would have like more guests and he talked them down to three. I feel it was three too many. Granted, I'm not a big fan of these appearances anyway as they always feel shoehorned in, no exception here. But I really think on an Al Green record, when the man is still in fine form, why do I want to hear someone else?

And that is the bottom line. Green still has it. I think his voice has a little more "air" on top than it did on "Everything's OK" but he's still got the fire and is still pretty much nailing it. The problem is, despite Green and all the talent surrounding him on "Lay It Down," the lack of any memorable songs makes this one a pretty big disappointment.

To be fair, I'm judging a leaked copy I picked up about a month ago. As far as I know, the album drops next week, so I don't know how much different the release will be from the advance. Maybe they have a tune or two that they held back. Somehow I kinda doubt it.

I Smell Like an Exhaust Pipe

2008-05-17T23:21:00.001-04:00

IMG_0042.JPG
Originally uploaded by CaptainWrong

because I went to the auto auction at the state fairgrounds today. This wasn't my favorite car, but it was close. I dig the late 60s Mopar. I got better pics coming soon.

Speed Racer Goes Crazy

2008-05-06T10:50:00.002-04:00

From the blog Catroon Brew:

I only hope the upcoming movie is this good.

Got my first YouTube takedown notice.

2008-05-06T00:42:00.003-04:00

Kind of surprised I hadn't received one of these before. About two (maybe it was three?) years ago, I uploaded a bunch of clips to YouTube from this random pile of VHS tapes I thrifted. One of which was SCTV's Michael McDonald parody. (This was before yacht rock, I think.) Well, that was the one pulled.

It's kind of a shame as it's a funny clip and due to the use of Christopher Cross' "Ride Like The Wind," I doubt its going to get a video release. I know there have been a couple of SCTV collections, but they were low budget and, judging by the number I've seen at Big Lots and Half Price Books, I'm guessing didn't sell too well.

Oh well, that's life, I guess.

UPDATE: looks like they torched my entire account over that one clip. Thank SCTV.

Got my Pinball Machine.

2008-05-02T18:39:00.003-04:00

A little over two years ago, I acquired a pinball machine. This morning, it finally arrived at my house.

I always wanted a pinball machine with the image of a bigoted actor and that plays C&C Music Factory.

Mel sez: I got a bad reputation.

You sure do, pal.

This may not be my dream machine (that would probably be Gotleib's 1982 Haunted House or Bally's Fireball) but this is still a lot of fun. Good table, lots of action, slightly odd license, but ok. Kind of an obscure table, but who cares? It's fun!

This Was My House A Few Nights Ago.

2008-04-22T00:07:00.000-04:00

(I don't mean that literally, just the same scenario.)

Brilliant Site!

2008-04-21T10:50:00.007-04:00

I have a hunch I'm the last to know about this, but check out Trailers From Hell. Directors of a mostly cultish nature, giving commentary over trailers of Psychotronic films that influenced them. On the negative side, there's a lot of Eli Roth. However, there's alot of Joe Dante, so it all balances out. (To be fair, the Roth stuff I've watched is actually pretty good.)

Be cautious though, there's loads of spoilers in the commentaries, though you can just watch the trailers as they are.

Here's a good one, where the director of Shaun of the Dead discusses Danger: Diabolik (aka the source for the Beastie Boys' "Body Movin'" video.)

Joe Dante nails From Hell It Came:

PS: dunno if it's just me or my connection, but the trailers really stutter on the streaming.

Music To Assemble Ikea Furniture By

2008-04-19T22:16:00.008-04:00

The last couple of nights I've been putting together a bunch of Ikea furniture so I loaded up the CD player with some Mosaic sets I've been meaning to spend some time with. If you don't know, Mosaic is a small jazz specialist label who do primarily high end box sets centered around a complete segment of an artist's work.

Their big boxes are pretty neat. They have a consistent look and bring together a lot of hard to find material. They're also highly collectible so the sting of the cost of admission is tempered by the fact that everything they've put out has gone up in value, if you care about such things. I've been real lucky that I've found most of mine really cheap. I've only paid collector's price once and managed to buy another on sale.

Of course, when they started out, the music was much harder to get than it is now. A growing criticism about Mosaic is that much of the music in their sets gets reissued by the licensing labels once the Mosaic set goes out of print. For instance, I'm pretty sure almost everything in the Jackie McLean Complete Blue Note 1964-66 Sessions set (which was the second Mosaic I bought) is available through Blue Note at a much cheaper cost. But, people still like the Mosaic sets as they generally have great liner notes and lots of cool pictures.

Recently Mosaic has created a second line of smaller sets called Mosaic Select and this was what I started with. Specifically, it was the Duke Pearson set. The Select series has been a bit controversial as the stuff contained in these sets hasn't been as hard to find. The Pearson set is a good example of this as I think one could assemble this set with a combination of domestic and Japanese Blue Note discs, but if you don't want to import, this is a cheaper alternative.

Anyway, Duke Pearson was a pianist who ended up as an A&R, house arranger and kind of all round go to guy at Blue Note in the 60s. This set focused on his last batch of sessions for the label in the late 60s. If you know anything about Blue Note, you know this was a transitional period for the label (and jazz itself.) These recordings have a commercial bend, to be sure, but I think there's some gems in there.

Specifically, the first session which came out on LP as "The Phantom" is a keeper. It's also been recently reissued domestically on Water Records. Bobby Hutcherson, who is maybe my favorite vibe player, adds a lot to these soulful bossa nova tunes. Duke must have been really feeling the Latin vibe as pretty much all the stuff on the first two discs continues in this groove. As a comparison, it's kind of like a stripped down version of some of what CTI was doing at the same time. It's maybe a little lightweight, but I dug it.

However, the third disc tripped me up. It ends with "Merry Old Soul" a Christmas album. This actually sounded kind of cool, but I'm just not ready for Christmas music yet. But, prior to that, is a session with a chorus that is straight up old school dentist office music. I really wanted to find something to like on this stuff, but it was way too easy listening for me to dig.

My recomendation would be for someone to get the reissue of "The Phantom" and pass on the whole set unless you can hear some samples first. This is not going to be everyone's bag and while I'm glad to have it in the collection, it's pretty non-essential stuff.

The bulk of my furnature building was done to the Classic Argo, Emarcy and Verve Small Group Buddy Rich Sessions. This was the one I actually bought new. Most of this stuff is hard to come by as little of it has been released on CD domestically. Plus, there's an entire unreleased session of about an album's worth of material.

This stuff is really interesting to me. It's squarely between two big band periods for Rich. During this time, Buddy was kind of in flux, even giving up drums to become a song and dance man for a while. What's really interesting about this set is hearing how good an accompanist he could be when he wanted to. As he was trying to downplay the drumming, there's not a ton of fireworks here. Just Buddy grooving behind some great musicians. (Not to worry though, he does whip out a solo often enough that you don't ever forget whose name is on the label.)

For my money, the best stuff in this set is on the last four discs when Buddy has a working group going with vibe man Mike Mainieri. What possessed Rich to put together a front line with vibes and flute, I'll never know, but it works. And you'd think it would be all lightweight west coast stuff, but there's some fire here.

I also really like the live set that kicks off disc four. Flip Phillips is a player I'm not terribly familiar with, but he really steals the show there. The first three discs are quality as well. Lots of Basie alumni and lots of Basie tunes. Nothing wrong with it at all, but I just think the later stuff with Buddy's working group, as opposed to the people thrown together for the session, is more interesting.

To be sure, for someone who only listens to Buddy Rich for the drum solos, I'd say avoid this and stick with the 60s and 70s big band stuff. If you dig the 50s Verve stuff and mainstream early 60s jazz, I'd say this is a good set to pick up. Plus, if you're the kind of person who thinks Buddy overplays, I think you'll be surprised.

Speaking of overplaying, I batted cleanup with the Stan Kenton Complete Holman/Russo Charts. This set holds the distinction of being the one I paid the least for. (And I mean a ridiculously low amount, less than the cost of a single CD.) It's also the one that I don't think I'm ever going to really get into.

See, I can appreciate arrangers. I can appreciate the idea of arranger's bands. I dig Gil Evans, for instance. I think I just don't like the Kenton style. It's too loud, to brassy, not swinging enough for me. Frankly, a lot of this set sounded like mediocre soundtrack material. Then there were some vocal sides that were just corny.

So, anyway, if you like the idea of jazz played by a marching band, maybe you should seek this one out. I don't think I'll be putting this one back in the player any time soon, if ever.

And, in case you were wondering, I got a new computer desk and a dresser that is going to be perfect for CD storage. I like Ikea stuff, but their store freaks me out.

You Shoulda Been Here...

2008-04-11T23:15:00.003-04:00

because you would have heard all this while I was fixing the computer:

Eric Dolphy - The Complete Prestige Recordings (Discs 1 & 2) I bought this set when it came out. It was pretty expensive and I was still a neophyte on the jazz tip. What possessed me to take a $120 (I think) leap of faith, I'll never know. But glad I did.

And the crazy thing is, I bought this sucker at Best Buy! Try finding ANY jazz at Best Buy today that isn't Miles' Greatest Hits, A Love Supreme or whatever Kenny G. poops out, let alone a nine CD comprehensive set from a bass clarinet avant playing cult figure.

But I digress...

One and Two cover Dolphy's "Outward Bound," Oliver Nelson's "Screamin' the Blues" and Ken McIntyre's "Looking Ahead." If you know anything about early 60s jazz, those titles should tell you everything you need to know about the contents. If you don't, well, the first and third are more "modern" with what was then pretty avant guard stuff while the second is more downhomey, Saturday night BBQ.

When I first got this set, the Nelson sides (and there's two albums worth here) didn't impress me as much as the more "out" stuff. Now I've really come to appreciate just the soulful bluesy stuff. Of the listening, this was probably what hit me closest to right the other day, though it's all pretty good. Of course, the Five Spot set with Booker Little is the crown jewel of this box, but really it's all good.

Sonny Rollins - The Complete Prestige Recordings (Discs 5, 6 & 7) Oh man, Now here is some classic, classic stuff. You want state of the art mid-50s small group jazz? It doesn't get much better than this batch of recordings.

Disc five starts off with "Sonny Rollins Plus Four" which is the legendary Clifford Brown/Max Roach group in all but name. You simply can not argue with that group of players at that time. I went through a period where I bought any Brown/Roach album I could find and I was never disappointed.

Then we move to "Tenor Madness." Stupid title, but you get Sonny with Miles' rhythm section of the time and a guest shot from Coltrane. It's easy to argue that this album is a bit overrated. It gets reissued every couple of years based on the combination of Sonny and Trane playing together. Alright, sure, but you can't deny it's still good stuff. Maybe not Sonny's best, but so what?

Speaking of, here comes "Saxophone Colossus," another dumb title, but probably Rollins' first masterpiece. If I had to pick one album out of this box to have and to hold forever and ever amen, it'd probably be this one. Everything just comes together here. And as much as "Blue 7" has been mythologized, it's still an impressive bit of improvisation. Plus, I'll always dig "St. Thomas," even if this version is a bit stiffer rhythmically than later versions.

Then there's "Rollins Plays for Bird" and "Tour de Force." I have to admit, listening to these two after "Colossus" is a bit of a let down. Don't get me wrong, there's some great stuff and I have a budding appreciation for Kenny Dorham, so hearing him on the Bird stuff is always cool. But it's just that "Colossus" was so strong, so inspired, that most anything following directly is going to pale a bit.

And that's kind of the problem with a set like this. You can't really sit down and listen to all of it, or even a large chunk like I did, at once because the amazing moments tend to wash out the merely fantastic. But, when you're babysitting a bunch of installs, you've got the time and that's just what happens.

So tonight it was:

Booker Ervin - Texbook Tenor I have to confess, this one was just background for me tonight. I love Booker and I'm sure when I get a chance to really dig into this, I'll dig it too. Dig?

Larry Young - Lawrence of Newark Wow. Outsville, baby. This ain't no backgound music here. I've been wanting this one for ages and didn't even know it was on CD until I saw it at Dusty Groove earlier this week. Really, it was all I expected and then some.

I loved Lifetime. (Tony Williams' Lifetime I mean, I think there's some emo band out there using the name, so let's be clear.) And as much as I loved Young's Blue Note stuff, the Lifetime records just blew my mind. This is an extension of that. The best way I can describe it would be if Pharaoh Sanders had been in Lifetime, this might have been the album. It's got that rock bottom fusion stuff, but with some free/spiritual stuff on top. Kooky, crazy stuff. I love it. Three hundred stars.

Big John Patton - Blue John Gadzooks, I hadn't listened to this one in forever. After the Lou Donaldson platter the other night, I was in the mood to hear more Grant Green/Ben Dixon and Big John.

So, yeah, good stuff. Kind of a legendary session in so far as the album cover showed up on the back of other Blue Note LPs, but it was ever released. Oops.

Now, the one thing about this that I'm still not sure about is George Braith. When I first heard him, I was not impressed at all. It's too easy to write him off as a Roland Kirk imitator doing the two horns at once bit. But, I've heard a lot of his stuff since then and getting back to this album, well, let's just say he doesn't mess things up. Still, I think there's probably a half dozen other sax players I would have liked to hear here(including Kirk himself!), but still , he does bring something different to the album.

Charles Kynard - The Soul Brotherhood From Larry Young's spacey freak outs, to Kynard's funky soul. Have definitely been in a Hammond mood as of late.

So this is a two albums on one disc set. I'm not going to lie to you, the first part was enjoyable enough, but didn't really grab me as too much different than a million other soul jazz sets I've heard (most of which feature Grant Green on guitar, as does this one.) I'll need to give it another spin because I've heard there's some really hot playing from Mr. Green here. I just didn't hear it in the first pass.

The second album here, is something a little more special, IMVHO. Right away, the rhythm section grabbed me and refused to let go. Kind of odd to have a bass player on an organ jazz record, but it's Carole Kay! And you got Paul Humphreys on drums (sounding a ton like Pretty Purdie, not that that's a bad thing.) Then you got Wilton Felder from the Crusaders on tenor and Joe Pass (!) on guitar. It's like a weird left coast session jam.

And believe you me, this record smokes! Seriously, I didn't know what to expect here because, on paper, this really looks like a straight session gig where everyone plays like worker bees. But dang dang DANG. I don't know what got into everyone, but this is some sweaty, greasy, funky stuff going on here. B3 sets come a dime a dozen and, as much as I like them, they do tend to sound similar after a while. But this, man, this is good stuff.

Goodbye Vista

2008-04-11T19:28:00.002-04:00

If I had to make a list of the worst decisions I've made computing, installing Vista would be near the top. At the time, it made sense. I was in IT and Vista had been out early to us. I was using it on my machine at work, as were my co-workers. No one had really come across any issues. The future looked bright.

Since I was putting new dives in my machine anyway, I figured I'd go ahead and make the jump. It seemed like everything was headed that was, so I could do it now with a clean install that I was going to make anyway or wait a while and do it later. I've never had any luck going the upgrade route with Microsoft, so it seemed logical to do it then rather than wipe and do the whole bit at that time.

Well, that was a few months before Vista hit the streets. For a while, everything was fine. Then the crashes started. And the performance dragged. And dragged. And dragged.

To be fair, I have an older machine. But everything I'd checked with, including Microsoft's own upgrade adviser, led me to believe I would be able to run Vista fine on my machine. Yeah, I could use a new video card, but still, the specs were above the minimum and comfortably in the recommended area.

What went wrong? I really don't know. I leave my machine on all the time and with XP it was never a problem. Vista would crash at least once a week, usually more, with absolutely no reason why. The closest I ever came to an answer was a nebulous driver issue. Rigorous checking and double checking of drivers, pulling hardware, etc., never uncovered the culprit.

Additionally, I had to remove all the graphical candy and run what looked like a stripped down XP anyway to make little things like opening folders or switching between applications less of a "start process and go make a cup of coffee" affair.

I waited out for SP1 and found it to be no better. No help. Nothing changed. If anything, I was crashing more and moving slower.

So, that's it. I'm done with Vista. As painful as starting over on XP has been (three days later and I'm only now to the point where I can start installing software,) I'm up. It's working. It starts up fast. I can switch between programs and not have time to read War and Peace while waiting.

However, there were some causalities along the way. Somehow my older Western Digital My Book got hosed. I mean, it's completely toast. As it was just my redundant backup, I'm not too worried about that, but I am a little irritated that I lost a drive that was less than two years old and old used for backups. If you can't trust the backup drive, what can you trust?

Also, I'm irritated that I had to buy floppy discs. Really irritated. All because this SATA card drivers came on CDROM and, for some reason, I couldn't ever coax the XP installer to read the disc. Once I got the floppy, all was well. However, I now have nine other floppy discs I bet I'll never use (to say nothing of the fact that I'd just thrown out a dozen of the damned thing in the last couple of months.)

The upside to the floppy situation is what I found along the way. See, my clever wife suggested I hit the Goodwill for some floppy loving. Clever and sensible, though they turned out not to have any. I did find an original copy of the infamous Sensational Dan & Dale Batman album which is actually Sun Ra and the Blues Image in disguise. Yeah, it's a bit beat, but it had the original inner sleeve and I now have a copy and you don't so there!

Connecting Two Totally Unconnected Thoughts About Music in 1993-4

2008-04-10T11:06:00.006-04:00

For some reason, I've had the music of my high school years (that would be 90'-'93, went to a three year high school) on my mind lately. Specifically, the music from "Nevermind" to about the time Kurt Cobain snuffed himself, because that was the time I shifted away from listening to hip-hop and back to rock, alt-rock, grunge, whatever you wanna call it.

It was never as absolute as that. I discovered the Cows and Black Flag while I was a huge Public Enemy fan and likewise was heavy into the Roots while I was buying the first Shellac 7"s. But, for the most part, once I heard "Smells Like Teen Spirit," I got interested in rock again and that was where my money went.

Of course, it didn't help that hip-hop was moving towards the pop-gansta kind of stuff that dominates today. Yeah, I dug "The Chronic" and "Doggystyle" but I didn't need endless clones and I missed hip-hop what wasn't just about partying or fighting.

Needless to say, I missed some classics. Probably the biggest one, and an album I'm embarrassed to say I hadn't even heard until last year, was Nas' "Illmatic." And it's a shame that it took me so long because at the time this came out, I would have been burning out on my punk phase and trying to find some indie rock that didn't bore the hell out of me. This album probably would have convinced me there was still life left in rap.

What's so good about "Illmatic"? For starters, we have intelligent lyrics delivered expertly over classic beats. That right there is pretty much everything I look for in a hip-hop album. While Nas addresses street life, he never blows himself up to a Blaxsploitation stereotype. Nas is a good storyteller, and the stories he tells are worth listening to.

"Illmatic" is also lean and mean. There's not a wasted track on here and while the trend in the 90s was towards longer and longer albums, padded with stupid skits* and pointless posse cuts, "Illmatic" was just shy of 40 minutes. I'd rather have 40 minutes of quality than have to dig through 70 minutes to find them.

On the flip side of things, in the alt-rock world, was Stone Temple Pilots, who Steve Hyden at the Onion AV Club thinks are ripe for a reevaluation.

If you were about my age then and semi-connected to any cool music, I'm sure you remember how STP was pretty much the poster band for corporate grunge/alt-rock. Everyone slagged these guys. They sold a gazillion albums, yet I don't remember ever meeting anyone who would cop to buying one. (Kind of like Nickleback now. Who is buying their crap anyway?)

Well, I'll confess. I had "Core." Got it as a freebie through the BMG CD Club. Basically, I got it just to see if they were really as bad as we all thought. I mean, it was hard to ignore the singles being shoved down your throat a million times a day. But, maybe, just maybe, there was some redemption on the album proper.

No. There wasn't.

Luckily for me, this was the brief period of time when a used CD store would actually take a copy of "Core," so I'm sure I marched that down to Discount Den and came back with Mercury Rev or something like that. Never looked back and, as much as I normally like the writing at the Onion AV Club, I don't plan on it now.

Sure, I still ended up hearing all the singles after "Core," so people can spare me the "well, you just need to hear ______." You couldn't help but hear them and you can still hear them on local radio without trying too hard. And they just don't impress me.

I know there's a tendency to get nostalgic as one ages. Critics especially tend to get nostalgic and what was once trash becomes undiscovered treasure. Strangely, I'm finding myself judging the music of my high school years even harsher as time goes on.

For instance, in a used CD store yesterday, they were blasting "Nevermind," which I haven't heard in years. Some tracks (like "Territorial Pissing") actually made me wince. To be fair, there were still highlights. But as a whole, I found a lot more wrong with that album than I did the first time around.

Getting back to STP, it doesn't surprise me that some critics are changing their opinion on the band. However, that doesn't make it right. And hearing Nirvana yesterday only brought home to me that even many of the critic approved from the beginning bands of that period weren't always as good as people thing.

But, even as I have to chuckle over seeing my youth becoming enshrined in the amber of nostalgia, it's always pretty cool to find a true, new to me, gem from that period like "Illmatic." I'm just hoping that twenty years from now we can still agree that the Spin Doctors did indeed suck.

* if you are not Prince Paul, Dr. Dre or Wu Tang, you have no need to be doing skits on you record. Thank you.

Move Backwards Stopped by Obsolete Technology

2008-04-10T01:21:00.003-04:00

Dang.

This weekend was it. I finally decided enough was enough. I am tired of the bottlenecks, tired of the crashing, tired of the piss poor performance. I am finally ditching Vista and going back to XP.

I've tried before and just couldn't pull the trigger. Plus, my computer wasn't making things easy. I've done a million XP installs, and for some reason my machine was flat out refusing to boot from the disc.

Long story short, finally got past that. Finally got on the right track. Worked up the nerve to do it. After a whole day of backing up the data on the drive I was going to wipe, I was ready.

Then the XP installer couldn't find a disc. Ok, well, it must need a third party driver for the SATA card I have in there. Alright found the CD, cool.

What? You want that on a floppy? Umm...ok. Now let's see...

oh, yeah...

I JUST GOT RID OF ALL MY FLOPPIES ABOUT THREE MONTHS AGO!!!

Oh man, I need to break something.

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Now playing: Mel Rhyne - Yesterdays
via FoxyTunes

A Fist Full of Reviews

2008-04-08T22:56:00.007-04:00

Hey! You! Wanna pretend like you were chilling with me in the Manlair tonight, slapping wax on the Rega? Arrite, here we go...

Jimmy Castor Bunch - It's Just Begun: OK, Mr. Castor really isn't an album artist, per se, but this thing hangs together really well. The title track is a killer, I mean one of the heaviest funk tracks ever. The rest of the album leans more to Castor's "Mr. Everything" philosophy, but it never dips into the schmaltz like some of his later records. Very enjoyable. Dull sounding Scorpio reissue on red wax (and why in the heck is an OG copy of this so hard to find? I've never seen one, and I've been looking.)

Joe Chambers/Larry Young - Double Exposure: Impulse purchase. One of those things I didn't know existed. Duet album between underrated drummer and one of my fave organists. But hold on! I didn't realize Chambers also played piano. First side is piano and organ duets. After Chambers doing a solo "After the Rain," he finished out the second side on drums. Sounds a little like Lifetime without guitar. Sadly, Young was dead about four months after this session. Sadly, this record left me really wanting more from these two. Both sides give you just a taste and leave you wanting a lot more. Sadly, this is a typical Scorpio reissue and side two is slightly off center.

Lou Donaldson - Musty Rusty: Oh snap! This album is smoking. Prime Lou with Grant Green and Ben Dixon (who is quickly becoming a new favorite drummer.) Billy Gardner is no Big John Patton, but he still keeps things going on the B3. This is house party jazz, stuff you can dance to, though it's not out and out funky like Lou would get about three years later. This music makes you glad to be alive and it's a damn shame Universal keeps this stuff locked up in the vaults, though there is a Spanish bootleg CD out there. And I'm convinced that Chess, like Motown, used the cheapest vinyl possible as this record looks beautiful but plays like Snap, Crackle and Pop made an uncredited cameo.

Marva Whitney with Osaka Monaurail - I Am What I Am: Finally, damn! First off, the Monaurail have NAILED the classic JB's sound. I mean, close your eyes and you'd swear you were listening to some unreleased track with Fred Wesley. And these dudes are Japanese! So, when they hook up with Marva, perhaps the most underrated of all James Brown's ladies, you know it's going to be good. And it is...mostly. There are a couple of songs on here that make me go "meh." I suppose that's keeping authentic to the 1969 vibe they have going on here, though I don't think it's intentional, that's just my taste. Still, I like this album a lot, maybe not as much as Osaka Monaurail's own Reality for the People, but when this hits, it hits hard. The big question for anyone who is not me will be is this worth the import price? The vinyl was $20. I've seen the CD as much as $15 more.

Johnny Sokko on Hulu

2008-04-07T16:56:00.002-04:00

It strikes me as very odd that you can't (legally) buy a DVD of Johnny Sokko here in the US, but you can watch it for free at Hulu. There's 10 episodes up, pretty rad. I'd stayed away from the site as I assumed it was not Apple friendly, but the video is Flash based, so there's no compatability problems.

Anyway, enjoy. This is a killer show. Maybe someday we'll get it on DVD restored and all that.

Sirius is just alright with me.

2008-04-03T19:18:00.004-04:00

I've had Sirius in the ride for a few months now and with the big Sirius/XM merger passing hurdles and on it's way to happening, I figured this would be kind of a good time to take a look at what this music obsessive who used to dabble in a little radio thinks of the service.

Well, on the surface, it has a lot going for it. There's a ton of commercial free music channels. There's a bunch of talk. The reception is better than terrestrial radio plus, if you're on the road, Sirrus stays with you so you don't have to scan around for stations each city you hit.

On the other hand, there may be a lot of music stations, but there's a definite skewing towards boomer rock. Off the top of my head, I can think of about half a dozen stations that would fall into this category, with a lot of crossover between their playlists.

If, like me, you're into jazz, you have one station. Wait, maybe there's a fuzak station as well. Popular genre like hip-hop only has a couple of choices, the main one, Eminem's vanity station, the "blazin' hip-hop and r&b hits" station and Backspin, the oldies.

Which brings me to the next thing. I listen to Backspin from time to time and I'll be damn if any time I tune in it's not Das Efx, Arrested Development or MC Lyte "Shut the Eff Up!" I could give other examples on some of the other music stations I check out, but the point is, for all Sirius portrays itself as better than terrestrial radio, their programing shares a lot of the same problems. It seems like the play lists are fairly shallow with a good amount of repetition, just like any Clear Channel owned station.

Still, I could overlook that, to an extent, and I'd be willing to listen to more music if the sound quality wasn't so poor. Remember the first mp3 you ever heard? Remember how cymbals sounded wooshy and vocals sounded slightly metallic? Yeah, that's pretty much what Sirius sounds like, even in the car with all kinds of road noise. They advertise CD quality, but they're pretty far from it.

Because of all that, I end up listening to a bunch of talk. While the music stations maybe commercial free, the talk stations most certainly are not. There are so many commercials on the talk stations (NPR excepted, though they have their station breaks with ads for other Sirius channels) that it feels like close to a 1:1 ratio of programming to advertising. It's enough to really drive a person crazy.

So, if you get the impression I'm not terribly impressed with Sirius, you're right. If the merger with XM goes through, which I'm guessing it will, I don't see any of these things improving. However, I'm not sure it matters.

I think satellite radio was an interesting idea, but I think it's time is starting to pass. For one thing, it's too easy to carry an iPod if you really want to listen to music. Most new cars have some type of dock or aux input making connecting an iPod very easy business.

For another thing, there's competition from HD radio and internet radio. I'm not sure how much competition these two mediums will be as HD radio is starting to feel like a non-starter to me and internet radio isn't quite ready for breaking free of its computer tether.

But, in my mind, it goes back to the iPod factor. It's just too easy to create and carry your own radio station wherever you are. These two titans may merge, but I don't think it's going to matter that much in a market that may have already peaked.

My New Favortie Drummer.

2008-04-03T15:39:00.000-04:00

Politics is ugly business.

2008-04-01T11:23:00.003-04:00

What I find most interesting about this is, there's no way of knowing (yet) if this is for real or not. My first inclination is to say, this has to be a parody. However, ther lead singer posted a short, salty, explicative laden follow-up video that has me thinking that this may be the real deal.

Plus, the story behind it makes me think this may be authentic. Apparently this sat on YouTube a little while until someone on Huffington Post discovered it. That still doesn't prove anything, but I'd think if this was an opposition party trick, it would have gotten more press before that.

The thing of it is, it doesn't really matter if it's authentic or not. It's out there and it's been spreading. Most people are likely to think about it whatever they want, so the issue of whether it's real or fake is almost irrelevant.

That's what I think is interesting about the time we are living it. It's practically a post-irony world. There's so much more information easily accessible than ever before but, at the same time, it's so much harder to separate the fact from fiction. And fiction still has a way of traveling faster than the truth.

Of course, it's also a commentary on the time we are living in that something like this even has the ability to be come known outside of a handful of people. The theory behind the internet's democratization of the means of distribution is that the cream will rise. Time and time again, it's the truly awful that become "internet phenomenon." I think there's something inherent in human nature that we must enjoy laughing at others. That's about the only way to describe 90% of what's popular on YouTube as well as "reality" TV and so many other things.

Either way, this video is pretty amazing. Though it wouldn't surprise me to find out a Hillary or Obama supporter is behind it, I just think the McCain Girls are a little too authentic to not be real.

Protect your hearing

2008-03-31T10:51:00.004-04:00

OK, sorry I've been kinda lazy on the posting, but I have to drop kind of a heavy post here for a second. I have a friend who went to an audiologist recently and found out that he is pretty much deaf in one ear and is very close in the other. He's a musician and has years of going to loud shows (metal, hardcore, electronic, industrial, etc.) It also doesn't help that he works in a very noisy environment, though he told me he always wears earplugs at work.

And that's the key. It's easy to not think about hearing protection when you go out, but too many clubs run the sound too damn loud. If you are involved in a music scene for any length of time and you're going to shows often without earplugs, you're going to feel the effects sooner or later.

I know that it took me a long time before I was wearing earplugs with any regularity. Basically, by the time I really got serious about it, I'd already developed a high pitch ring in both ears. I've had my hearing checked and apparently I haven't suffered any loss, but I can't help but wonder if I'd started wearing earplugs sooner if I'd have this ringing.

So, what I'm saying is, invest in some earplugs. You don't have to get custom ones, though if you are a musician or someone who goes to a lot of shows, I think it's the smartest money you can spend. The foam stoppers are ok, but even the slightly more expensive ones with the filters that you can get at music stores are better. Anything is better than nothing.

Also, watch the volume on the ear buds. I know sometimes when I'm listening to the iPod I catch myself turning it up too loud. Now I start at a volume that seems a little too low and let my ears get used to it rather than turning it up.

Well, that's my public service message for the month. Protect your hearing. Seriously though, it's easy to do and so often overlooked. And the alternative is pretty depressing.

Once more...with feeling!

2008-03-24T18:44:00.005-04:00

The so-called "World's Greatest Music Collection" hits eBay again. And again, with a $3 million starting bid. And again, as the whole enchilada. Except this time, approved bidders can access the 45 database. Whoo, hoo.

It's funny. You'd think this guy would be tired of flogging this thing. He's been at it for, what, four or five years? Each year, the number of people interested goes down.

And I remember the follow up to the first eBay auction. After the winner was found to be a fraud, they announced they were in talks with the runner ups and they had a deal, they just needed to work out the details.

Yeah, it was all BS.

So, here we are. Same scenario, except they must approve bidders first. Any guesses at to if this thing sells this time?

(See also here and especially here.)

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Now playing: Liasons Dangereuses - Los Ninos Del Parque (12" MIX)
via FoxyTunes

iTunes to add subscription service?

2008-03-19T13:51:00.004-04:00

Usually I don't pay much attention to Apple rumors, but this one caught my eye. According to the Financial Times, Apple is in talks (with whom?) to add an "all you can eat" subscription service to the cost of a new iPod. What I've seen on the article (it's hidden behind a subscriber login,) it seems they would do something similar to the Nokia/Universal deal.

Now, I think i've mentioned it before, but I'm a big supporter of the subscription music thing. Well, at least I'm a supporter in principal because as of yet, I haven't been able to take advantage of one of the few in operation. And this leads me to the criticisms that people always trot out when you bring up subscription bases music services and why I think they're off the mark.

One of my favorites is the ever popular "it's doesn't work/it's a failed business model." This implies that there has been some large scale subscription music service out there that people just don't want a part of. Well, there are two companies offering such a thing, Napster and Rhapsody. Both of them only offer tracks as protected Windows Media, which won't work on the iPod (or Microsoft's own Zune.) So, is it really fair to declare the whole idea a failure when the only companies to try it have made their product incompatible with the most popular music player out there (and completely incompatible with an entire computer operating system as well.)

Then there's the "people want to own, not rent, their music" crowd. Sure, there's a lot of people who feel that way. For many things, I agree with them. But, I think the reality of the current music biz doesn't play this one out. Sales are dropping. Used CD are glutting the market. People are still downloading music though.

OK, I'm one of those people who doesn't equate downloading with owning the music, especially when it's DRM laden. To my eyes, if people really cared that much about owning the music, CD sales would still be climbing, not falling. People wouldn't be ripping and tossing their CD collections. I just don't think it's all that important for most people to "own" their music as long as they have access to it, which is what the subscription thing is really about.

And let's take a look as the kind of stuff people are buying. Something like fifty skadillion people downloaded "Crank That." How many of those people do you thing really feel the need to own that one? How many will want to hear it five years from now? This time next year, I guarantee that CD will be clogging used bins.

Now, let's say those people were offered a chance to download that on a subscription basis. They could listen to it as much as they wanted as long as they were paid up, and they could listen to millions of other songs too. When they were sick of Solja Boy, that track disappears and they never have to think about it again. Unless they want to hear it and it's just a click away.

I think the people making this argument are also creating a false dichotomy. The existence of subscription based music service does not mean CDs are going to disappear. I'm sure the music industry will be more than happy to accommodate, for an additional fee, those who wish to "own" all the Solja Boys and Nicklebacks and whatever else. As I understand, even Napster and Rhapsody's subscriptions allow one to purchase tracks if they want.

Now, there are a few things I think are valid. The big one is who is making money off this and where it is going. I'm already skeptical about how much money actually goes back to the artists in the current download system. If things change to a one time fee of $20 - $80 (as the Times article mentions,) how is anyone making anything out of this? Specifically, how does that filter to the artists actually making the music? My guess is, like the RIAA settlements, it doesn't.

And when the industry is moaning about lost profit etc., doesn't turning over the keys to the shop for a one-time payout (and a small one at that) seem counterintuitive? Far be it for me to cry for the major labels, but I find it curious they would even consider something like this when it seems like every other day we hear about how in the crapper they are. (Of course, business decisions like this might have something to do with it.)

The other thing that I think needs to be addressed is, will this be optional? Let's say you are someone who really has no interest in downloading stuff and you're only planning to use your iPod for your own rips. Why should you be charged for a service you'll never use? (Let's face it, the Times article makes it sound like Apple is paying for this, but we all know it will come back to the consumer. Apple is not a charity and they don't need to take a loss to add something like this, even though I think it would totally decimate the competition if they could pull it off.)

So there's my take on this whole thing. As a consumer and music fan, I think it's a great idea, if they can make it work. As a musician, I'm a little concerned about following the money.

R.I.P. $4 Thrift Store Philips 212 Turntable

2008-03-13T15:00:00.001-04:00

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to celebrate the passing on to audio gear heaven of a dear friend, the Philips 212 turntable I paid $4.04 for at the thrift store at least three, possibly five, years ago. I really can't remember.

See, I wasn't looking for another turntable at the time. And the only reason I picked this one up was I had a friend enamored with this particular model at the time. He'd just got burnt on one on eBay, so I thought I'd give him this one. However, he'd already changed his attention to some other make, and I was stuck with the Philips.

Even though it was homely as all hell, with it's chipped and scratched dust cover and missing top part of the head shell, I figured I'd throw a cartridge on there and see what happened.

Well, I actually liked this turntable a lot. It was very easy to use with a great suspension chassis design that held rock sold even in the less than optimal place I was using it (on top of a dresser. And I could open and close drawers while playing records and not have it jump. Nice.)

Eventually I put a better stylus on it, moving up the Grado line. I always appreciated the irony of using a stylus that cost about 30 times more than the turntable, but I actually felt the results were pretty good. I used this deck for tons of needle drops and never had a complaint.

One day, while I was out of town, my upstairs neighbor's bathroom flooded, sending a cascade of water into my room and all over the little Philips. Never had a problem, though the turntable gained a little water damage in the process. I'm pretty sure I've dropped this thing once or twice and still no problems.

Then, not to long ago, it's like the wiring just cut loose. At first, I was missing one channel, then both. Seemed like a short somewhere, but now it's just dead. I almost feel like I should put some effort into finding out what's going on, as this deck is such a survivor, but I just can't justify it.

So, anyway, it's the end of the line for the little Philips 212. $4.04 well spent. If you're looking for a good old school deck for not much scratch (these go for cheap on eBay), I'd highly recommend checking one out.

It's been a while...

2008-03-10T19:43:00.000-04:00

hope this will make up for it.

More thoughts on the World's Greatest Music Collection auction.

2008-02-22T19:39:00.005-05:00

Well, there were some bidders, but *shock* the winner has vanished into thin air. Who didn't see that one coming?

As a certified record nerd, I've been thinking about this auction and I think I have it figured out. See, there's a lot about it that just didn't make sense to me (as I noted last post.) But there's even more, like why didn't they use a real auction house instead of eBay? And, considering they've mentioned it's inventoried, why wouldn't you put an inventory list up, or at least the most valuable stuff, to entice a buyer? The actual listing was pretty poor and the Q & A with the selling agent really didn't give much more insight.

Then it hit me, they didn't expect to sell this on eBay. I mean, if they did, cool. But, I think this turned out exactly like they planned.

Why? Well, you can't buy the kind of publicity this auction got. A lot more people are aware this guy is cashing out than would be if this was just done at Christie's or announced in the record collecting press.

The three million starting price was a joke and they knew it. I'm sure they would have taken it had it been seriously offered, but I don't think they expected to get any real action at that opening bid. But, they did get the word out and now the world knows this guy is looking to sell.

I'm still highly skeptical of the estimated $50 million value. How many $10K Rolling Stone albums (currently available on eBay, buy it now for $4000, BTW) does it take to offset the hundreds of "Here Comes the Hotstepper" I'm sure are in this bounty? And I think that right there is a lot of the reason the guy is having a hard time finding anyone to pony up for this collection. It isn't worth nearly as much as he thinks.

On that note, if my theory is correct, they might have hurt themselves with the auction. We already know the collection isn't really worth $50 million as no one is willing to pay that for it. Same for $25 million, which, IIRC was what he was shopping it around for prior to eBay. Now we can safely say it isn't worth $3 million either as no one was willing to pay that for it.

I guess the big question is, what is this collection really worth? The truth is, no one really can say until it sells.

The other side of this is that a collection this large is going to be a constant money drain. He has this in a warehouse I'm guessing he owns. How many people in the country own enough space to house something like this? And managing this beast would be a full time job on it's own. No private collector has those resources, to say nothing of the fact that it's way to broad a collection for anyone not obsessed with owning a copy of every record pressed to keep together (which is one of Paul Mawhinney goals in selling this thing.) Unless you're Bill Gates, you'd have to sell parts of this thing full time just for upkeep on the parts you want.

Regardless, I think this was a neat way for them to get publicity. As to what happens now, I think one of two things will occur. First off, I'm really skeptical anyone is going to come through and buy the whole thing. I could see a group of people wanting to get into selling, but even then, I have a hunch this would be a poor investment and if Mawhinney really wants to keep this together, I don't see this happening.

So, that's the question. How serious is Paul Mawhinney about not breaking up his collection? Assuming he's serious, he'll end up donating it somewhere, if he can find someone who has the resources to deal with a collection of this size. (And really, what museum would this collection fit into anyway? That's the part I can't figure out.) If it's the money he's after, he's going to have to begin the long process of selling it off piecemeal.

Now, this guy has been a dealer for a long time and I think he knows what's up. While many people in the media were portraying this as the bargain of the century, I really think he'd take a bigger bath selling out one at a time than all at once. (See the Rolling Stones auction above.)

It'll be interesting to see what happens now, that's for sure. Having just taken a pittance for selling a huge load of records at a chain reseller, I guess there's some solace in knowing there's at least one guy doing even worse than I am.

EDIT: I'd like to add this link to a 2003 Pittsburgh Business Journal article about the two previous failed sales of this collection. I'd encourage you to read it and make up your own mind, but I think it's just making me a bit more convinced I'm on to something here.

EDIT #2: After reading a bit more about this guy and going over the part in the above link about the Library of Congress' offer in 2003 that he told them to go shove (and I'm assuming it was more than the eBay thing,) I'm starting to doubt my theory after all. The picture I'm seeing is a dealer guy who knows the "book value" of what he has and wants nothing less. The funny part is, most of the current articles highlight a few records that really aren't that impressive (17 first editions of Elvis' Christmas album! Whoopie!) so I'm beginning to really doubt the value of this collection. Historical value, sure. Financial value, maybe not.

At the Corner of Preservation and Profit.

2008-02-20T09:08:00.004-05:00

While I've been taking a bit of a bath on the records and CDs I've been getting rid of, at least I'm not Paul Mawhinney, owner of the self proclaimed World's Greatest Music Collection. (I'm assuming the definition of "great" would have to equal 20th century American music. But I digress.)

Paul's collection consists of an estimated 6 million unique titles. It's value is claimed (according to whom?) to be $50mil. It's in a climate controlled warehouse. It's amazing! It's colossal! It's for sale!!! ...again.

After offering this bounty for sale twice with no one able to cough up the asking amount, off to eBay it goes. Less than 24 hours left (as of now) and no one has touched the $3mil starting bid. I'd be shocked if anyone did.

Now, here's the problem: if you read the info, they are only interested in selling to someone who will keep the collection intact. It's been offered to museums and I get the impression that's where they'd like it to go. And that's really where it should go.

However, no museum has that kind of cash, not to mention the logistical nightmare or transporting and storing this massive collection. $3mil is a lot of scratch, even if this is the bargain of the century (is it?)

And I'm not so sure a big old record collection would exactly be worth building a museum around, although if they really want to keep this collection preserved this way, I think that's their only choice. Either that or they are going to have to donate it and as I music fan, I'd love to see this end up in the Library of Congress.

The big thing I have to wonder is why? Why does this collection exist? They estimate on the site it'd take someone fifty some odd years, listening 24 hours a day, to hear it all. This sounds like a "life's work" project. Mawhinney was a dealer, owned a few indie labels and some publishing. Sounds like kind of an "American Graffiti" era fan. I have huge respect for all of that. There's obviously passion (or obsession) here, but passion doesn't pay the bills, as Mawhinney is discovering.

If he really intended this to be some archive of recorded music, why didn't he look into setting up a museum himself or find a worth donor to give it to? I don't begrudge the man wanting to leave something for his children, but intending to do so on the back of a record collection is a very poor financial decision, especially in this market.

If I can play armchair quarterback for a minute, I think this collection is going to be broken up and sold off, which in itself is going to be a massive undertaking. I just don't see any other way this guy is going to get anywhere near what this collection is estimated to be worth.

It's going to be interesting to see what happens next. Maybe someone will come in with a last minute bid and take it all. I find that unlikely though. I think, at the end of the day, the finances are going to override the historical value and that will be that.

And I can't imagine what is going through this guy's head right now. To have find that what has essentially been one's passion for decades isn't worth a fraction to anyone other than themselves has got to be crushing.

Anyway, I wish him the best of luck. Like I said, I honestly don't begrudge the man wanting to get some return on his investment. It's not my collection, but I know what I'd like to see happen with it. It will be interesting to see which path Mawhinney chooses.

New Vinyl Has Me a Bit Perplexed

2008-02-18T20:42:00.003-05:00

After all the writing I've done recently about ditching my CDs and not wanting to put cash into a stereo upgrade I've been lusting after for years that I didn't think I'd use, I've done a partial about face. I'm still ditching a ton of CDs (and LPs too, for that matter,) but I decided to finally sink some money into upgrading my stereo. This is due in part to the fact that all my thrifted gear from the 70s is finally giving up the ghost, but I digress...

Anyway, I'm focusing mainly on records, as that's what I still enjoy listening to and it's what I'm keeping the most of. That said, I'm not new to this. I've owned a record cleaner for a few years. I know how to set up a turntable and properly care for the vinyl disc.

What I'm discovering is just how lousy modern record pressings are. Now, I'm someone who can deal with noisy vinyl. A lot of what I own has come from the thrifts and is in much less than fantastic condition. I can listen past pops and clicks, especially on a platter I've spent less than a dollar on. But when I plunk down $15+ for a new album and rip off the shrink wrap (and all the stickers bragging about the weight of the pressing,) that sucker better sound like a new record. Saddly, that's rarely the case.

Now, I know how records are made. I know it's as much an art as a science and I know if you want perfectly quiet, you might as well snag the CD. What I'm talking about is this Amy Winehouse LP I have that first time on the turntable has some terrible surface noise during the first couple of songs on both sides. Or the new Dungen album with what sounds to my ears like the distortion from an LP being repeatedly played with a mis-tracking tonearm.

Those are just two instances off the top of my head. I can say for certainty it's not my table as it plays other records just fine. I was still buying new vinyl on into the 90s and even then it sounded fine. I guess I just don't understand what the deal is. Maybe it's too many people jumping into the vinyl bandwagon assuming people either aren't going to play the things or that they have no idea new records aren't supposed to snap crackle and pop.

Speaking of suspect vinyl pressing, I believe I've written before about all these reissues showing up in shops of a seemingly suspicious origin. What I mean is, there are legit reissue labels like Sundazed, Simply Vinyl, 4 Men with Beards, etc. Then there are these other LPs that don't have any information about their origin. They look like photocopies of the originals. Some are colored vinyl, some claim 180g wax. They retail for about $9-$15 and they have a lot of stuff that isn't even out on CD.

Well, I believed the name of the company was Scorpio and I've had that confirmed. What I didn't know was that they have a website (vinyl.com) and are apparently on the up and up. I find it a little weird that they claim to be legit when they have some real "who the heck owns that" type obscurities, but that's what they claim.

What I can tell you about them is, their discs are mastered from DATs or CDs and are really hit or miss as far as it goes. Sound quality can vary from really great to pretty dull and unimpressive. The biggest problem they have is a high rate of warped records. It's happened to me, and even the next batch of that title was warped as well.

Still, I have a bunch of their stuff, as sometimes it's the only way to find it without paying collector's prices. However, I think they are aiming mostly at the hip-hop DJ market, which is pretty smart. Why ruin your original JB vinyl, when you can get a Scorpio for $9?

Anyway, fun stuff and if you're into the fetishism of vinyl (not *that* kind, you perv) you can pick up that stuff with confidence. If you're looking for the "magic" of vinyl, you might want to pass though.

Welcome to my personal hell...

2008-02-01T19:18:00.000-05:00

Whitney Houston has so much to answer for.

Et tu, U2?

2008-01-29T18:47:00.000-05:00

U2 manager Paul McGuiness thinks the technology industry is to blame for the record industry's woes. He things they should do more to filter and spy on users. He thinks Dell and Apple should be be paying money to the music companies for (alleged) lost revenue*.

I could go on for days about the number of faulty pretenses this bozo is basing his screed on, but why bother? If you're reading this, chances are, you could do. What I will say is this: people like U2 and Paul McGuiness could eliminate a large chunk of illegal tomorrow if they really wanted to. But it would involve rich rock stars (and the parasites feeding on them) finally saying "we're rich enough."

U2 made news with the first digital download "boxset", The Complete U2. Though they opened the vaults and collected some tracks, there wasn't anything really that new there. They threw together a digital booklet. No physical product was made. Expenses to put this thing together were pretty low, I'm guessing.

The set cost $150, for which you got 398 unique DRM encrusted 128kbp AAC files. Some might look at that as a great deal, at about 38 cents a track, but I'm saying, if you really want to kill illegal downloading, you can do better.

$150? How about $30? I can go out and buy The Complete Spiderman, all the issues from '63-2006 for less than $50. And those weren't in a digital format to begin with. I'm going to guess it was a lot more complicated to transfer hundreds of comics to the digital domain than essentially ripping stuff already digital to AAC.

Don't like $30 for the whole shooting match? Well, how about this: let's drop the album prices. $10 for a download of The Joshua Tree? How about $5? $3? $2? Make it so ridiculously low that one would be stupid not to purchase it legally.

And let's take an album like The Joshua Tree. At this point in it's life, it's pure profit, if we're getting in the download world. The recording expenses have long since been recouped, there's no physical product and the cost of delivery is very small.

Anyone want to tell me why back catalog albums from megastars have to sell for close to the cost of a physical CD? OK, I know, I know. It's because they are pretty much pure profit at this point. I can't say I blame a person for wanting to get fat checks rolling in for doing nothing.

But the system isn't working like that anymore. Rather than finding creative new ways to work within it, these dinosaurs are making fools of themselves whining about technology and suing their fans.

It's funny. I am a musician and a huge music fan, but everyday someone opens their mouth and makes me a little less sympathetic to the plight of the folks at the top.

*Sidenote: anyone else choke on the irony that this guy comes out railing against Apple when Bono was (and still is, to an extent) the poster boy for the friggin' iPod? Come on, there was a U2 signature model iPod fer gawdsakes!

Care for a Me-LT?

2008-01-28T20:25:00.001-05:00

New Yacht Rock.

New Glasses

2008-01-26T18:03:00.001-05:00

Oh wee ohhh I look just like Buddy Holly...

Second pair:

They're like 3D without the red/blue lenses. From the side:

And finally, the glasses that have more personality than I do.

We have nicknamed these the poop glasses.

Thanks to our friend Jenny at SEE Optical in Skokie, IL for the hook up.

Music vs. Fidelity = Emotion?

2008-01-24T20:22:00.000-05:00

Audiophiles often claim their expensive stereo rigs bring them closer to the music and allow them to be more emotionally involved with the performances. I had an experience like that myself this afternoon. It was a performance I hadn't heard before or a piece I really wasn't familiar with. Honestly, it moved me quite deeply, which was a totally unexpected thing. The ferociousness of the playing, the depth of emotion in the playing...what was coming from the speakers caught me by surprise and pulled me in.

Now, here's the punch line: aurally what I was listening to was a nightmare. The track was "Ogunde" from John Coltrane's Olatunji Concert album. The concert, which was a full on free jazz blow out, took place in an auditorium and was recorded by an amateur in what amounts to an authorized bootleg. The balance is way off. The recording is a maelstrom of tenor sax and cymbal*. To add insult to injury, I was listening to a transcoded mp3 (from 128kbp WMA) which was being streamed to an iPod dock** across the room.

Yet, "Ogunde" completely stopped me in my tracks. And it, specifically Pharoah Sanders, scared the hell out of me. I was totally engrossed, despite the sonic scum.

Now, one could say even recorded and reproduced well, this album would be a wash of noise. I won't argue that 'Trane from this period is the very definition of difficult listening. In fact, it'd been so long since I've dug into this period (I've been heavy on the Fearless Leader box set from '57-'58 as of late) I'd really forgotten how out he got post '65.

However, the poor sound quality all the way down the line didn't take away the music's ability to hit me on an emotional level. Nor does the poor sound of early Louis Armstrong prevent me from enjoying those records either. And I still remember the first time I "got" Sgt. Pepper, it was on a cheap Walkman with crappy headphones.

High fidelity is fun and it can enhance your enjoyment of music, but it will never replace the intrinsic qualities of the music itself. The feeling, the spark, the emotion is either there or it isn't. While a high end stereo set up and a properly recorded source can make you feel like you're in the room with the musicians, it won't put that intangible "thing" into music that didn't have it before.

When I read reviews of high end gear, I have to feel sorry for people who seem to need $20k of speaker cable to get the same emotional impact from their music I can through a crappy pair of earbuds and an iPod. Granted, if I have a choice, I'd take better sound quality. In the end, the music is going to win out for me no matter what kind of audio roadblocks it's up against.

* and a duet for Jimmy Garrison's bass and car horn at the beginning of "My Favorite Things." Seems the taper was sitting close to an open window.

** Technically a PSP dock with an aux in. And to be fair, the amp in this critter is the (seriously, no joke) audiophile approved Sonic Impact T-Amp, but we're still talking about two 3" drivers about two feet apart for the loudspeaker section of this set up.

I was in the paper...

2008-01-15T11:41:00.000-05:00

In this article in the weekend section about ditching CDs for mp3s. It's nothing that readers of my scribbles here won't be shocked to read, but as always Dave Lindquist does a good job and it's a pretty nifty piece.

There were a couple of things I didn't get to touch on with him that I want to throw out here. One of which being the legality of ripping and then disposing of the discs. As I understand the law (IANAL) it's illegal. So yeah, I'm probably admitting and advocating illegal activity in the pages of the Star*. Whoo-hoo.

The thing is, right now, I think the RIAA and other interested parties are more interested in file sharing than some chuckle head like me who is ripping and getting pennies on the dollar for his CD collection. Yeah there's scuttlebut that the majors who have given Amazon DRM free mp3s are leaning on them about their used CD sales, but honestly, I think the desire of these folks to break Apple's deathlock on the on-line music sales is stronger than their desire to squelch used CD sales...at least at the moment. (If Amazon's mp3 sales really take off, expect this to change.)

The other thing I mentioned to Dave is I do miss liner notes. Just this morning, I've been thumbing through the excellent booklet from John Coltrane's Fearless Leader set (I'm contemplating buying the next set in this series.) If I'd downloaded those tracks from eMusic or just ripped the discs, I wouldn't have that to go back to. In fact, I recently bought an Art Tatum box set I had downloaded from eMusic for this reason. Granted, more times than not, all you get is lyrics and credits, both of which can be found on line. But I buy a lot of jazz reissues and do enjoy the pictures and information you get with most of those.

Also, the timing of this article is really interesting for me as I've been contemplating finally throwing some money into the stereo I've always wanted. But, then I look at it and ask myself why? The fact of the matter is, I so rarely have time to really sit down and listen to music. What's the point of dropping several grand into a system that is just going to collect dust most of the time?

So, what do you, fair reader, think?

* In the print version, one of the program directors for WTTS was interviewed and straight up said she had two iPods full of music ripped from the station library. My jaw kind of dropped at that one. Considering how touchy everyone is about leaks that originat from promos given to media and radio, I don't think I'd be admitting to ripping my station's library. At least not if it was a paying gig like hers.