Does the insurgent atheist movement need a better public relations team?
Maps, maps and more maps–the many different types of maps, and the many different stories they tell.
There’s a lot to want to like in permanently-in-pre-release-beta audio playlist software Songbird, an open-source challenge to iTunes that includes all the post-iPod expected functionality and interfacing, along with a robust mp3 blog searching engine that’s built on top of Firefox. Songbird holds a ton of promise–being able to head over to Fluxblog or the Hype Machine and listen to the tracks as if they were a radio, for example, is pretty cool–and then being able to integrate those mp3′s into a playlist along with music on my hard drive. In concept it’s seamless and brilliant–in fact, the built-in Firefox functionality enables you to scroll through any website, and the mp3′s embedded on it, like you scroll through your own personal mp3 collection. Brilliant.
The bad? Like Firefox, with which I am quickly losing all patience, the software feels like you’re navigating an Abrams Tank: it’s slow, cludgy, and prone to crashes. Like Firefox, you love all the functionality, but can’t help feeling like you could be doing everything you want to be doing much quicker if the code was a ton leaner. Firefox’s unresponsiveness has been driving me increasingly to Safari (even the buggy XP version), which is quick and clean despite far less functionality (the lack of del.icio.us plugin and Gchat support has always been a big dealbreaker for me with Safari.) All the same, Firefox’s behemoth system footprint on both my PC and Mac is growing all the more frustrating, and the thought of using an audio program that somehow is built on Firefox and is even less responsive makes it a tough sell for now.
I have a lot of hope for Songbird–it’s the kick in the ass iTunes desperately needs. iTunes was innovative in its simplicity and usability in its first three or four iterations, but has only grown more maddeningly slow and weighed down by unwanted features. What Songbird needs to do is tighten its code up a ton, and focus on the two things people want: an intuitive audio database for their mp3 collection, and a way to surf audio online, within the same application. Cut out the dross, make it fast and responsive, and the developers will have an open-source iTunes killer on their hands.
A new Frontline documentary examines the Administration’s shocking redefinition of Presidential power through a stunning narrative.
Ah, the heady days of 2002. A time before Bush’s re-election. A time when political engagement was still valued in some social circles. A time before independent rock bridged the gap punk rock had worked so hard to create, by allowing hippies into the tent (see: freak folk). Good days indeed. Still, at the time, my nutrition primarily came from Budweiser and vodka and day-old bagels, and I spent my hours more pissed about asshole customers than media consolidation and the increasing synergy of independent and corporate culture.
Out of personal torpor and an antsiness that defines both of our personalities, my good friend Pete Bernhard and I organized Tastes Like Burning, our first CD-R comp of indie, punk and folk bands from the Santa Cruz local scene along with a number of like-minded folks from other West Coast areas.
Few of these bands exist anymore, though a handful do. The obvious historical quirk is the inclusion of a couple demos by our friends-of-a friend in The Thermals, who have gone on to a well-deserved measure of success (including releasing one of last year’s most critically acclaimed albums). There are some great nuggets in here by musicians who’ve gone on to bigger things (such as Pete, with the Devil Makes Three) as well fantastic songwriters and bands that deserve a bit more historical re-estimation (including great Santa Cruz indie popsters Sin in Space, brilliant songwriter Boaz Vilozny who gave up music for organic chemistry, and Sweatitout, an amalgam of ’80s metal and the Cars that would have made Brooklynite hipsters swoon if they’d formed on the other coast.)
The other day, this blogger Steve, who runs the great Cover Freak blog and had ordered the other two CD-R comps I put together after Tastes Like Burning, sent me an email asking if I had any copies of this comp left. Unfortunately, I only have a couple copies kicking around the apartment anymore, both of which are slowly submitting to the decreptitude that awaits CD-R’s and home-silkscreened covers. His email inspired me to rip the tracks and archive them while I still could, scan the art, and post it all online for posterity.
So I offer to you, gentle readers, a .zip download of a small footnote in Santa Cruz (and west coast) DIY history. For people put off by the 120 MB download, please note the mp3′s are all ripped at 320 kbps VBR, or take a listen to a couple of the tracks first:
Sweatitout – “Takin’ Forever” mp3
Boaz Vilozny – “Waiting All Night” mp3
Download Tastes Like Burning .zip file (120 MB, 320 kbps VBR)
After the jump, the track listing and links to the current musical projects of the bands and musicians involved.
Steve Ballmer of Microsoft says Facebook is probably a fad, and considering the fate of Friendster and the increasingly decrepit Myspace, I suspect he’s right. The larger question, as new media advocates and old-media hangers-on jump from the newest teen fad to the next in a vain attempt to remain on the bleeding edge of the evolving social media, is whether these networks will always have such short life spans. If so, it does not bode well for a well-develop and matured social news network, as such a goal requires a aggregate of trusted users and relationships who have developed an body of individual or collaborative work. I can’t see this mass migration from one well-trafficked network to another, in which the social relationships and body of media that has been developed on the old network is abandoned, to be sustainable in the long term.
The only way I see these social networks as having any kind of lasting impact, the sort that could develop a legitimate social-networking media buffet with the credibility of a legitimized old-media powerhouse, is if the networks currently at the top (and the major ones to emerge) strive for some sort of shared standards of interoperability among platforms. Which I know sounds somewhat insane–imagine asking Digg, Myspace and Facebook to all work nice together. But the history of emergent technologies on the web suggests that some interoperability is essential for people’s long-term satisfaction with the basic functions of the site. Email is a killer app because anyone with email can email anyone else with an email account. The web works because of open standards (despite Microsoft’s best efforts otherwise.) RSS is a revolutionary because it’s compatible across platforms, web browsers and devices–in fact, most of Facebook’s value to me comes in its ability to easily integrate RSS feeds I choose, a functionality Myspace lacks–and makes it seem incredibly out of date.
In this sense, I think what a successful and sustainable social media will have to share is some sort of open standard, where people can a least share a login, or profile information, or blend feeds from one network into another seamlessly. I doubt the biggies of today would try such a thing–too convinced they can somehow transform the sharing of web ephemera into a Google-level success–but it could be a very plausible model for whatever platforms will inevitably take their place.
From Wikipedia: The Richat Structure, a prominent circular feature in the Sahara desert of Mauritania near Ouadane, has attracted attention since the earliest space missions because it forms a conspicuous bull’s-eye in the otherwise rather featureless expanse of the desert. Described by some as looking like an outsized ammonite in the desert, the structure, which has a diameter of almost 50 kilometres (30 miles), has become a landmark for space shuttle crews. Initially interpreted as a meteorite impact structure because of its high degree of circularity, it is now thought to be a symmetrical uplift (circular anticline or dome) that has been laid bare by erosion. Paleozoic quartzites form the resistant beds outlining the structure.
An interview with Lou Barlow of Dinosaur Jr., Sebadoh and The Folk Implosion.
Well this is interesting. Radiohead announced last evening on the band’s blog that they will be releasing a new album, In Rainbows, in ten days (presumably self-released,) initially for sale only through the website inrainbows.com. The record will be available on vinyl and via variable-priced digital download
The only CD version (so far announced) will be sold with the vinyl package:
THIS CONSISTS OF THE NEW ALBUM, IN RAINBOWS, ON CD
AND ON 2 X 12 INCH HEAVYWEIGHT VINYL RECORDS.
A SECOND, ENHANCED CD CONTAINS MORE NEW SONGS, ALONG WITH DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHS AND ARTWORK.
THE DISCBOX ALSO INCLUDES ARTWORK AND LYRIC BOOKLETS.
ALL ARE ENCASED IN A HARDBACK BOOK AND SLIPCASE.
While the digital download of the album will be variably priced, with the buyer choosing how much they want to pay for it. Really.
The stunning thing about this move is that while others have experimented with this sort of thing, none with Radiohead’s clout or continued cultural relevance have–the best analogue would be Prince’s ill-fated move to self-released albums in the ’90s, years before distribution of media online was practical to most music fans, and years after his cultural and musical peak. It’ll be fascinating to see how this plays out–the music distribution model I’ve been most impressed with in recent years is the “buy the vinyl, get a free mp3 download” approach that indies such as Touch & Go have been experimenting with. The model acknowledges both the fetish-object appeal of vinyl (which still inspires a generation-transcending collector’s devotion that CD’s never enjoyed) while letting listeners also enjoy the music far more conveniently on their iPods–without having to re-buy an album they already own, or Bittorrent something they legally own in another format.
What will be interesting to see is how much Radiohead’s clout will affect sales and the industry as a whole–since there are no metrics for this sort of thing, the dinosaurs at the major labels and the RIAA will likely declare it a failure outright, but even if the band sells less units on vinyl and makes less gross income from variable-priced downloads, their net income could even out with what they would make by foisting a traditionally-distributed CD at an ever-shrinking market. The RIAA will no doubt declare it a failure regardless of the outcome, just as the anti-industry hordes will declare it a triumph, and only Radiohead and their accountants will really know for sure, after looking at sales, production costs, reduced distribution and marketing costs, and tour ticket sales. But whatever the turnout may be, this clearly marks a turning point for the industry, as the band is uniquely positioned with the cultural and economic clout to land a severely disruptive blow at the industry status quo.
The Secret Government: The Constitution in Crisis is a 1987 documentary by Bill Moyers about the Iran-Contra arms that provides some fascinating context and insight on the current Republican regime and the early days of the neocon agenda. The warnings that Moyers was sounding two decades ago about the Republican party’s systematic disregard and undermining of the constitution are stunningly prescient:
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Download the entire documentary for free at Google Video.
From the description page:
This is the full length 90 min. version of Bill Moyer’s 1987 scathing critique of the criminal subterfuge carried out by the Executive … all
In the various music-related roles that I have encompassed over the past few years (musician, bandleader, freelance writer, publicist, show promoter and blogger) I have spent a fair amount of time browsing band websites and reached a critical mass navigating band sites that are ugly, anti-functional, slow-loading and profoundly frustrating to the people they are presumably trying to impress.
Here are some simple observations that I’m presenting as axiomatic. Granted, a lot of them display my subjective preferences about web functionality, but the simple fact is that many of these simple mistakes drive away fans, writers, editors, label people, etc
If there’s one group I never envy it would be teachers–I can think of few more underpaid individuals who are at the mercy of the alarmism that grips parents in aggregate. A group whose livelihoods depend on ill-defined and constantly shifting standards of what is deemed acceptable by community standards. It makes for odd, confounding political decisions by school administrations and fear-mongering by individuals often ill-suited to rear children much less have a major impact on community standards.
Bear in mind this case described in the New Haven Register:
GUILFORD
It seems like there’s three acceptable ways to approach old-time string band music nowadays: either play wanktastic academic jam-band bluegrass for the dreadies, affect a pissed-off punk-grass posture, or play it so straight that any sense of life is effectively drained out of musical forms that once celebrated the earthly, the visceral, the emotional and the carnal–hence the term “folk” music. (Let’s not talk about the faux-hillbilly schtick approach, which should have been dead and buried about fourteen years ago.)
I’ve never had much time for the first option, as I openly despise anything reeking of “jam” band music, and the third option feels too much like a classical recital to get any enjoyment out of. Increasingly, I’ve grown bored with the punk-grass phenomenon.
That’s why I appreciate San Francisco’s Crooked Jades as much as I do–not all of their music appeals to me, but frontman Jeff Kazor makes a strong effort to unearth truly obscurantist threads of American folk music, the bizarre strands that have disappeared in the decades as ideas of folk, string-band music and bluegrass have been codified and rendered painfully dull. Here’s an excerpt from a feature I did on the band for the Metro Santa Cruz a couple years back:
“People want the form frozen in time, but when you do that it becomes stagnant,” says Kazor. “We’re artists sensitive to the world and the environment, and it’s impossible to stay in a bubble to what’s going on in the world.”
To this end, the band aims for an eclecticism in its music that has been largely forgotten by the strict bluegrass traditionalists and old-time revivalists. Kazor points back to the original world music folk forms that influenced the development of old-time music, and aims to reconnect it to European and African traditions that disappeared from the form as it cemented itself into the very strict formalism of bluegrass.
“Some people may feel that there is too much of an edge to the Crooked Jades. … We’re really into restoring all that lost music. It seems bluegrass straightened it out and made it more accessible,” Kazor explains. “The band is really all about restoring what has been lost.”
The Jades are all over the place, and sometimes can test your patience, but at least they’re leaping high and reaching for some truly unique and original art, unlike most of their ilk who fail to breathe any new life or sense of relevance into music forms that desperately need new, revolutionary lifeblood. The Crooked Jades are great because they’re revolutionary, but not in a slavish, obvious way–they’re tweaking the form, ripping it asunder, and rediscovering much of what has been lost in modern folk.
You could make a strong argument that bro-speak is the lingua franca of young American males. I once thought it was primarily a west coast thing–in beach towns like Santa Cruz, “bro” is used for exclamation, punctuation, and to fill any dead air. Then I moved to Chicago to find that yes, people in the midwest aren’t past using a well-placed “bro” here or there. Over the past couple of weeks, the bro meme has been seemingly everywhere, first with the Onion article Bro, You’re a God Among Bros and now with the unavoidable and stomach-churning Internet meme “Don’t Tase Me Bro.”
The quote refers to Andrew Meyer, who was tasered and arrested on Monday at the University of Florida when he refused to stop asking speaker John Kerry a series of pointed questions about the 2004 election, using Greg Palast’s Armed Madhouse for a playbook. When police apprehended him, Meyer freaked out and the Police reacted extremely. Unlike the Onion piece above, there’s not much funny in this, even though many are playing it for laughs:
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Mark Glaser at PBS’ generally-excellent media blog Mediashift breaks down the two major camps in the debate over the print-to-digital transition. He makes the distinction of older readers who still prefer the tactile appeal of print (among other factors) and younger readers who prefer the networked, get-it-anywhere-for-free qualities of Internet content. He’s not wrong about the shift–it’s certainly happening–but I still can’t shake the feeling that print is going through what economists euphemistically call a “correction”, not a slow death.
He makes a point made often in these discussions about youth’s content-consuming habits:
…the younger set finds what they want through social networks and be-friending their favorite bands on MySpace. The digital natives don
Paul M Davis