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Posted 2 years, 10 months ago at 10:40. 1 comment
iTunes is great way to organize the music you already own, but these crazy artists insist on making new music, and worse still, entirely new artists keep popping up out of nowhere. How am I possibly supposed to keep up?
Enter Pandora. Given some pretty trivial initial seeding and ongoing rating on your part, it will produce an eerily well-targeted personal radio station for you, complete with old favorites and new selections that match your tastes. My best discovery so far has been Interpol. Highly recommended.
Props to pav for the link.
Current Tunes: Pavement - Grounded | Filed under Music
Posted 3 years ago at 15:09. 0 comments
Kris and I have already treated each other to our Xmas gifts:
- My iPod arrived today. I love it already. I wish the car was in working order so I could take it for an inaugural road trip. Guess that will have to wait for December.
- Kristina’s Austrian Duvet arrived yesterday. Yes, it is, in fact, as decadent as it sounds, but it’s so worth it. No word of a lie, I had the best sleep I’ve had in ages last night. We also get to turn down the thermostat to 16°C at night now, which is an energy-saving boon. You see, I’m cunning because I benefit from Kristina’s gift too!
Not to ride Shaver’s coattails or anything — because I haven’t been doing that for the past, um, 10 years — but if others are looking for Xmas ideas for me and you are coming up blank, you could certainly do worse than a donation to Child’s Play.
Posted 3 years, 3 months ago at 00:02. 5 comments
So there’s this new movie, Serenity, coming out on September 30th. Do not let the fact that this movie is based on a defunct TV show prevent you in any way from seeing it! In fact, if there is anyone in my circle of friends who has still somehow managed to not see some or all of Firefly, I implore you to get your lackadaisical ass over to my house to borrow the DVDs.
I’ve already watched the DVDs many times myself, and have been jonesing for a new Firefly fix for a while. Today I stumbled across The Signal, which is a weekly podcast about all things Firefly. For a fan-based effort, the quality is surprisingly good and has steadily improved, although admittedly, there are times when you will cringe. The best example I can give are the episode reviews. There is a submitted episode review in the first podcast that would have made me want to shiv myself in the ear, had it not also been so boring that I fell asleep. In the most recent podcast (#6), the exact same episode is reviewed. The recent review is done very much in the style of Alan Cross’s ongoing history of new music, and it is fantastic. The Signal is gaining in popularity and stature within the Firefly fan community; the past three podcasts have featured interviews with Adam Baldwin, Gina Torres, and Ron Glass. I listened to all 6.5 podcasts today, and would heartily recommend The Signal to Firefly fans who are getting excited as the Serenity release date approaches.
I’m doubly excited about the release of Serenity because I have made plans to go see the premiere with Ian in Las Vegas. I haven’t visited Ian since he moved out L.A. a few years ago, and I’ve never been to L.A. or Las Vegas, so my week-long working trip capped with the Firefly movie should be pretty sweet. I can’t wait!
Posted 3 years, 7 months ago at 18:31. 2 comments
Everyone I know seems to be falling over themselves trying to give Apple more money these days. I confess, until I lost my job last week, my near future would have probably included an iPod or a Mac mini or…gasp!…perhaps both.
The entry drug of choice — for Windows users at least — is, of course, iTunes. iTunes is head-and-shoulders above any other Windows software I’ve used in recent memory. It does some very cool and intelligent things to organize my music. Sadly, it’s DRM is failing me utterly.
The whiz-bang interface for iTunes includes the ability to hook the Apple music store directly into your veins…but beware! All that arterial AAC action is locked up tight by iTunes. Sure, you can play it through iTunes, download the songs to iPods, and burn single songs to audio CDs, but are you ever SOL if you want to transcode your music from m4p to <insert format of choice here>.
As an aside, all I wanted to do was burn an mp3 CD for Kris for her drive to work every morning, since she seems to be tiring of the current Buffy-themed offerings. There is truly no accounting for some tastes.
I love that the default assumption is always that of guilt or piracy. You know I already bought this music, dammit. Remember the part where I bought it from you? Good times.
I realize Mr. Jobs is simply trying to leverage his iTunes momentum to drive iPod sales, but I have a perfectly serviceable mp3 deck in my car and a stereo in my living room, and I don’t think it’s outrageous to expect to derive some use from these devices, rather than decking out my living room and car anew with cute little Apple-emblazoned boxes. Call me crazy, but I’ve been this way for a while.
Workarounds do exist, but the software-based workaround is currently broken. In the meantime, the alternative is apparently to burn your purchased music to audio CD, and then to rip it back into iTunes.
Boy, does that ever sound like a lot of work for something I already own…in theory, anyway.
Current Tunes: Deckwrecka - Catchwrecka | Filed under Music
Posted 3 years, 7 months ago at 14:21. 2 comments
OK, so Trespassers William is my new favorite band. What can I say? I’m a sucker for haunting female vocals. (Their cover of Vapor Trail by Ride is also fantastic.)
Current Tunes: Trespassers William - In A Song | Filed under Music
Posted 3 years, 8 months ago at 10:23. 0 comments
Let me just say: ditto.
…
Time to play catch-up, since I seem to be down ten at present. So, without further ado (or belly-aching about the process itself), here are my top five songs:
- One by U2 - The first one is easy. Craig Betts got me hooked on Achtung Baby back in high school. We used to listen to that album almost exclusively while enroute to afternoon “classes” at the arcade, and One has been my all-time favorite song ever since.
- Vapour Trail by Ride - I may have mentioned Ride before. I love this track, and not just because it has a big shark on the cover of the single.
- Halcyon+On+On by Orbital - this song is transcendent, despite being associated with the final scene in Mortal Kombat.
- The Drinking Song by Moxy Früvous - Jian Ghomeshi, you’ve come so far. Ian and I saw Früvous at Centrepointe back during high school, and it turns out my wife was at the same concert. The Drinking Song has outstanding sing-along value, although it has been linked with an increased desire to play Nintendo and rooftop nudism.
- The Private Psychedelic Reel by The Chemical Brothers - best concert-ending song I’ve ever witnessed, and I was stone-sober at the time. Everytime I hear this song, I am instantly transported back to that night in Montreal.
And the NBA Sixth Man award goes to Annalee by Nerf Herder.
Current Tunes: U2 - All I Want Is You | Filed under Mozilla, Music
Posted 3 years, 8 months ago at 10:16. 3 comments
Perhaps it is telling that as I go to respond to Axe’s post, I am not actually listening to anything. This isn’t really the proverbial gauntlet that others are making it out to be. I look at it more as letting the Internet trick us into fighting on its level. Pretty soon we’ll be coming together to bitch about movies and share pornography with one another.
Anyway, at least he’s letting us pick 5 albums in true High Fidelity fashion, rather than forcing us to pick only one. I’m pretty sure we already had this discussion on IRC a few years ago, but I’ll be damned if I can find the logs.
So, starting afresh:
- Endtroducing… by DJ Shadow - best album ever in whatever genre you happen to think it belongs, period;
- The Fat of the Land by The Prodigy - not going to get a lot of support on this one, I fear. Lots of great memories associated with this album, though, almost on a song-by-song basis;
- Fear of a Black Planet by Public Enemy - it’s hard to find a more seminal rap album;
- Nowhere by Ride - not well-known, but this is my favorite brit-pop album of all time;
- Mezzanine by Massive Attack - dark and beautiful.
Lots of honorable mentions…too many to list, really. I made a conscious effort to leave more recent albums off the list until they prove themselves. This list is also radically different than the one I discussed with Kris just a few days ago, so YMMV.
Current Tunes: Nothing | Filed under Music
Posted 3 years, 9 months ago at 10:08. 0 comments
The last six weeks have been pretty busy work-wise, but not with the kind of work that leaves you feeling deeply satisfied when it’s finished. I’ve felt very much like one of those poor suckers on the freeway most days. I think the end may finally be in sight though. If I never hear the words “test 17” again, it will be too soon.
To “amuse” myself between firing off test runs and gathering logs, I’ve been trying to catch up on my CD ripping. By far the most annoying part of this process is correcting the CD information that iTunes downloads from CDDB, although iTunes does markedly improve on the correction process when compared to any other tool I’ve used before. Sometimes though, it seems almost easier to start from scratch then to try to update the partial or just-plain-wrong information that people have put into the database.
The two most egregious examples I’ve found so far concerned two 3-disc CD sets I own, one entitled “This is…Rap” and the other entitled “Non-Stop Disco Mix.” Not my finest hour, musically, sure, but I was in college and into experimentation…you know how it is. Anyway, you would think it would be pretty easy to assign a Genre tag to these two CD sets, and it is. It’s just hard to get it right. According to CDDB, “This is…Rap” is apparently a collection of “blues” CDs, and “Non-Stop Disco Mix” is officially “unclassifiable.” Huh.
Current Tunes: Naughty By Nature - Respect Due | Filed under Mozilla, Music
Posted 3 years, 9 months ago at 11:13. 0 comments
3 THE WEE COOPER O’ FIFE
In these days of Marriage Guidance Councils, it is interesting to hear how this “wee cooper” of another age, dealt with his comely wife, who would neither bake, brew, card spin, wash nor wring. Her reasons were to him invalid. He placed a sheepskin on her back and prepared to thrash it. Not for him common wife-beating — it was the sheepskin which was to feel the weight of his arm. The message was delivered — and received, loud and clear and the harmony of home was quickly restored, with a Nickety, Nackety — Noo — Noo — Noo!
Taken from the album jacket of Folk Songs from Scotland’s Heritage, by Kenneth McKellar, © 1964
I love having our turntable hooked up again. Believe it or not, the above selection came from Kristina’s record collection.
Current Tunes: Aphex Twin - Taking Control | Filed under Music
Posted 3 years, 9 months ago at 10:48. 0 comments
So we didn’t actually get to see the Jimmy Swift Band tonight. Kris and I ventured down to the Market and did try to get in to the bar around 9:30pm, but the bouncer informed us that the show was sold out. He could have been serious, or he could have meant “If you’re willing to wait around in the -30°C cold for two hours, you’ll get in,” but that was effectively the same message. Unimpressed, we returned home.
No reflection on the band, although as Phil has noted, they may want to consider a better manager to help them book their venues.
Current Tunes: Sandra Collins - Essential Mix - 2003-03-23 | Filed under Music
