Live Performances
Posted: Fri 16 January, 2009 Filed under: Memory, Music, Thoughts 7 Comments »When I go to see a concert – or even watching music programmes on TV etc. – one of the silly things that always impresses me is that the singers remember all the words.
For me, writing something down is the best way yet to forget it. It’s somewhere solid (even if that is only somewhere like here) and it’s somewhere I can find it again. So if I write it down, it’s effectively gone from my head.
That’s why (for me) it’s better to keep ideas in my head, rather than writing them down as an aide memoire – because it won’t aid me, I’ll just forget the entire thing.
So I find myself repeatedly in awe of the people who still know their lyrics, who can still produce them repeatedly at any given performance with seemingly no notes, reminders, hints or clues. To me that’s just awesome, regardless.
So what do you find yourself in awe of?
New MP3 Player
Posted: Sat 10 January, 2009 Filed under: Music, Reviews(ish), Thoughts 1 Comment »Over the Festering Season break, and as part of an impetus to get me back to the gym, I invested in a new MP3 player – the Sony Walkman S638F, with 16Gb of storage. Equally, my last MP3 player (purchased before I even started D4D™!) has now disappeared – although I’m sure we’ll now find it this weekend – so there was another valid reason to buy a new one.
Yes, sure, I could’ve bought an iPod instead, but considering I only paid £85 for it, I couldn’t have got a similar spec (or even a better spec) one for the same price. Plus well, I’m not a massive fan of Apple’s stuff anyway, and I’d rather have something different. The Walkman had a damn good review in the Register, and fitted in with other requirements as well, so it was pretty much the obvious choice.
And I have to say, I’m really pleased with it. The sound quality is spectacular – having been tested on some of my favourite tunes, I’m tempted to say it’s actually the best music player I’ve had since the old Panasonic ‘cobra top’ ghetto-blaster (which still lives on nearly fifteen years after purchase, and is an evil beast of a thing that used to be able to drown out the next-door pub’s disco-night)
As per my last post on MP3 players and storage (back in 2005) I really don’t see myself filling up that 16Gb unless I also download some videos from the BBC iPlayer site to watch on it while at the gym. I might fill it- you never know- but at the moment I’m using 7.5Gb of the available space, and that’s got enough variety to keep me going all week.
We’ll see.
But in the meantime, if someone’s looking for a new MP3 player, the Walkman ‘S’ range comes heavily recommended.
Reducing DRM
Posted: Wed 7 January, 2009 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Geeky, Music 2 Comments »While I’m nowhere even close to being an Apple® fanboy, I do use iTunes for a significant portion of downloading. (particularly when I also use eMusic, which I believe is now owned by iTunes) As such, I’m pleased to see that they’ve announced that iTunes is going to be DRM-free, with 8 million of its 10 million tracks now available without any DRM, and the rest over the next few months.
DRM is (basically) copy protection – it’s the media industry’s way of saying “You can buy our stuff, but we’ll still tell you how you can – and can’t – use it”. It’s horrifically flawed, and something I’m fairly passionately anti at the best of times.
As a perfect example of this, we’ve both recently bought new Sony MP3 players and wanted to put music bought on iTunes onto them. Only because of DRM, you can’t. Well, you can if you burn an audio CD of the downloaded files, re-import them into [Music player of choice] as MP3s, and then put them on the player, but that’s circumvention of the DRM, and thus naughty. You’re using a file you’ve bought and paid for, but in a way that the music industry doesn’t like. They want you to buy it on iTunes and use it through that, but if you want it to go on another MP3 player, you should buy another copy of the same file that’s authorised for use on your MP3 player. Oh, and you shouldn’t be buying the album on CD and then ripping it to MP3 so you can listen to it on your player either.
It’s the same with other download services (and things like BBC iPlayer etc. too) which have historically been only available through Internet Explorer, so that they can use the Windows Media Player DRM – which is also why so many MP3 players etc. insist on using WMP 11, which has the latest/’greatest’ DRM modules on it.
So to me it’s a sign that perhaps the music studios and media producers are finally beginning to see some sense if they’ll allow iTunes to finally sell music without DRM on it.
Tracy Chapman
Posted: Mon 15 December, 2008 Filed under: Music, Travel Leave a comment »Oh yeah, and tonight we’re down in That There Lunnun, seeing Tracy Chapman at the Hammersmith Apollo.
I just hope the people aren’t as annoying as last time round.
Whatever, I doubt we’ll be back in Norfolk much before 1am…
NIN Photos
Posted: Wed 19 November, 2008 Filed under: Customer Services, Music, Photography Leave a comment »One band who have always seemed to grasp the power of t’internet is Nine Inch Nails. I’ve been a fan of theirs right back to the first album (Which I originally had on cassette, to give an example of timescale) so it’s been great to see that they’ve now launched an official photostream on Flickr.
Among the photos are hi-res images of the photos taken for the cover-art of Downward Spiral, which will make an excellent desktop image as well.
In addition, there’s photos from their concerts, and a bundle of other goodies.
Fantastic!
Seven Songs
Posted: Tue 17 June, 2008 Filed under: D4D™, Domestic, Music 4 Comments »Damn you, Tom, just as I was doing some work, you land me with a meme that’s actually quite cool…
“List seven songs you’re into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring.”
I’m neck-deep in other stuff at the moment, and wasn’t going to add links to them, but it turned out to be pretty easy to find stuff on so most likely won’t attach links to the songs/videos (unless I can find them easily) but here goes, in no particular order, seven songs currently infecting my head…
- Nick Cave’s “Song of Joy” from the “Murder Ballads” album. A long-time favourite, and now a small part of the inspiration for a short screenplay I’m writing when I get time/chance/opportunity
- Pendulum’s “Propane Nightmares” from “In Silico” (and the most recent single) – there’s just something unidentifiably fantastic about this for me, and I’m a definite fan of the video as well, creepy preacher and all.
- Nine Inch Nail’s “Something I Can Never Have“, a long-time favourite that still just plays into my head at various points.
- Bobbie Gentry’s “Ode to Billy Jo” – I first heard this way back on a David Holmes Essential Mix for Radio One, and it’s always been a favourite. I downloaded a Bobbie Gentry album recently, and this was on it
- Dead Can Dance’s “Ubiquitous Mr Lovegrove” – another favourite that is currently being part of the soundtrack for the short screenplay. It won’t be in the finished product, but it’s in my head now, so there we go.
- Duffy’s “Stepping Stone” – I like a lot of Duffy’s album, but for me this is the one that keeps coming back
and finally - back to Nick Cave for “The Curse of Millhaven“, again from “Murder Ballads”. I’ve been revisiting this album recently, and the chorus (small as it is) is just too catchy by far. And the lyrics, well, they’re just genius.
Who will I tag with this pain-in-the-ass? Hmm, I think it’ll be
- Gordon
- Woman
- Blue Witch (Who I bet won’t do it)
and - Skytower
Meltdown
Posted: Fri 25 April, 2008 Filed under: Domestic, Geeky, Music Leave a comment »When it was announced that Massive Attack would be the curators of this year’s Meltdown Festival at London’s South Bank Centre, I knew it’d be interesting.
And indeed it was – if I lived closer to London, there were three or four things I’d have liked to go and see. As it is, though, the big thing was that Massive Attack themselves would be doing two shows – one at the start of the festival, and one at the end. (as well as a remixing of the Blade Runner soundtrack with live orchestra, which I would’ve loved to see)
Tickets went on sale at 9am today – at which time I was, as mentioned below, in an interview. I doubt I could’ve got away with saying “Oh, can I start it a bit late, so I can try and get tickets for a concert“, so instead I just had to hope that all would be well.
As it turned out, I’ve been lucky – a ticket to the show at the end of the Festival is now mine! The start-up show is already sold out, but the finale should be a pretty good one too, so I’m happy.