This Is The Last…

On my drive home today I was listening to NPR. They were doing a piece on how more musicians are turning away from conventional ways of promotion, and instead are choosing the internet. They mentioned the music blogs: Said the Gramophone, Brooklyn Vegan, and Stereo Gum. They talked about how these blogs helped more people find out about Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Which set off a wave of internet buzz.

Here’s the actual article. I’ve paraphrased it below…

Alec Ounsworth of CYHSY was interviewed. They were initally doing all the distribution themselves. But after all the buzz, they hired a distribution company. By self-releasing their album they were able to maintain control over all aspects of their music. Alec said that by producing their cds independently, they were able to make $4 on each cd, which is a lot more than bands on major labels. CYHSY started getting a lot of attention from major labels, but they decided they were gonna stick with their approach.

The article ended by saying that the power of the internet has the potential to threaten the mainstream industry. Probably if the internet didn’t exist, CYHSY would eventually been found and had the following that they now have. But the internet has definitely sped up the rate at which a band could be found and talked about.

Hopefully more bands will realize that they don’t need major labels to put out an album. The internet has now made it all possible.

The picture is taken from Goldfrapp’s video for their song “Number One”, which can be downloaded here.

This video makes me nostalgic for the days when MTV actually played music videos.

(Link via Brooklyn Vegan)

I came across this BBC article on Prefix.

Do you remember Looper? They are a little known, electronic side project of Belle and Sebastian’s Stuart David. They did something that I think is really cool. They’ve given up on selling their music to consumers after making 500,000 pounds from one of their songs being used in TV commerical and movies. The band says they’ve made enough from the song to support themselves for the past five years, and can now just give their music away to fans rather than worry about selling it. So while labels try to make money by distributing rootkits, some bands are pursuing other strategies.

From the BBC article…

“The four of us have been able to live on this song for the last five years.”

The band are currently working on an album which fans will be able to download from their website for free.

“I am pleased that Looper didn’t take off in a big way - it’s not good for you in the long run, I don’t think.”

Their songs have been used in a Xerox commercial and in the movie Vanilla Sky. Some people may look at using their music for commercials as selling out, but I don’t see it that way. They found a way that they can quit their day jobs and make music. They’re living modest lifestyles if the 4 of them could split the 500,000 pounds and live on that for 5 years (that averages to about $42,000 a year per member).

Hearing all this, makes me love these people even more.

I’m came across this on Prefix.

Here’s a list of some funny URLs, where the designer didn’t thinking about how people would read the name of the site:

1) Who Represents?, a database for agencies to the rich and famous:
http://www.whorepresents.com

2) Experts Exchange, a knowledge base where programmers can exchange advice and views:
http://www.expertsexchange.com

3) Looking for a pen? Look no further than Pen Island:
http://www.penisland.net

4) Need a therapist?
http://www.therapistfinder.com

5) Mole Station Native Nursery, based in New South Wales:
http://www.molestationnursery.com

6) Gas central heating anyone?
http://www.gasheating.co.uk

7) New to Milan and you need electric light? Why not sign up on-line with Power-Gen?
http://www.powergenitalia.com

(Link via Spadassin)

On Boing Boing…

DJ Panzah Zandahz’s “Me and This Army” is a collection of 16 Radiohead tracks remixed with snippets of artists such as MF Doom, Jurassic 5, De La Soul, and more. It’s as if the white label gods planted sensors inside my brain; they heard my innermost mashup prayers, and answered them here. It’s delicious. Now all it needs is some remixed Stanley Donwood cover art…

Link to info, tracklisting, and torrent.

Or it can be purchased here

I had a chance to listen to this yesterday and its really good. It was nice to hear Radiohead songs with hip-hop beats behind them. This is a great mash-up. Definitely worth checking out.

Saturday night Jorge and Eman had a French 60’s party. People got dressed up. It was so much fun. Jorge had a nice 60’s mix playing and people were dancing.

We made Escargot. We cleaned the shells and the snails. Cindy helped me make a buttery sauce. We pushed the snails into the shells and then poured the sauce in. We put the snails in the oven. I pulled them out and was looking for some way to get the snails out of the shells (a fork’s too big). I got toothpicks. I came back to the kitchen and the guys were already eating them. Just picking them up and sucking them down. Most people tried the snails, with little coaxing. They were chewy. It reminded me of eating seafood like a mussel or a clam.

Then came the frog legs. Surprisingly, frog legs were easy to purchase. Jason and I breaded them and cooked them in a garlic butter with parsley, shallots, and tomatoes. Cindy had told me that she had tried frog legs before. She said that they tasted like water to her. I kinda have to agree. They sort of taste like chicken and sort of taste like fish. It was like eating buffalo wings. Everyone tried them, even the vegetarian girl. Someone noticed that frog legs look sort of like Barbie legs.

We had a lot of fun. Eman got digits. Taz philosophized. The Finnish guy kept getting his butt grabbed. Love was in the air. I went to bed happy.

Nice job Jorge. What’s the next party gonna be?

I take the 504 bus to Rozelle at 7.25am for work. I like the idea of using public transportation everyday. The bus ride takes around fifteen minutes, depending on traffic. It gives me a chance to read a few pages and see how loud my earphones can go. I get off where Victoria Road meets Darling Street. I pass a discount rug store where someone wrote on the wall with a marker, ‘I’m not emo, I just hate people!’ Walking on my way to work I pass four bakeries, three churches, a nice used book store, and a seven year-old wearing superman pajamas with a Uruguay flag for a cape. (tonight Uruguay plays Australia in a soccer match to decide who will advance to the 2006 World Cup tournament)

I work in a health food market/café in Rozelle called About Life. First I was hired to drive catering orders to clients around the city. For two days I delivered late food to the wrong places. Now I stock the shelves of the store and fumble my way thru an explanation of ‘bio-dynamic’ brown rice to customers. I help people find saffron and serve coffees and boysenberry spelt cakes. I love my job, but they play strange music over the speakers. I heard Portishead, Moby, and a cool Bjork remix yesterday, but mostly it’s crappy modern jazz.

Anna met me after work and we headed down to the London Hotel in Balmain. We had beers on the balcony and watched it rain, on and off, for a few hours above the street, overlooking the harbor bridge around sunset.

from Wednesday, November 16th, 2004

There has been a lot of drama over the debate of Digital Rights Management (DRM). Who has the right to dictate how you use your music? Some companies will sell you a song and then say you can only make copies of it up to a certain number of times. Some companies will sell you a song and then only allow you to use it on certain music players (ie. Windows Media player only, or iTunes only).

Some of you may have heard Sony mentioned in the news in the last few weeks and something about them sneakily installing a rootkit on their customers’ computers. If you’re like me, you’re probably like what is this all about? What the heck is a rootkit?

According to Wikipedia…

A rootkit is a set of software tools frequently used by a third party (usually an intruder) after gaining access to a computer system. These tools are intended to conceal running processes, files or system data, which helps an intruder maintain access to a system without the user’s knowledge.

Sony made it so that its invisible, and even if you went looking for it in your computer, you wouldn’t be able to find it, because the files are hidden. That was insidious. Sony put this rootkit on 52 albums that they sell. Here’s a list of the infected cd’s.

If you only listen to your music on cd players and in your car, then you’re safe. But if you’re a person that listens to your cd’s through your computer, and you’ve bought one of Sony’s infected cd’s then you have a problem. Sony wants to dictate how you use your music that you bought. They force you to use their media player to listen to their cd’s. They also installed spyware that talks to their homebase and tells them what you’re doing with your music. If you try to uninstall rootkit it will kill your Windows operating system. If you leave the rootkit on your computer, you’re left vulnerable. This makes it very easy for people that write viruses to do extremely scary things, such as giving up bank account numbers and login passwords.

On November 4, in an interview with NPR, Sony BMG’s Global Digital Business President Thomas Hesse downplayed the recent DRM fiasco saying he objected to terms such as malware, spyware and rootkit. “Most people, I think, don’t even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?” he said.

Sony released something that was supposed to help its customers remove rootkit from their computers. Come to find out that the remover doesn’t work and it makes your computer vulnerable to viruses. Sony will stop shipping infectious CDs. Sony will no longer be putting malicious rootkit software on its CDs. Sony is beginning a limited recall of some of the CDs from stores. But they still haven’t fixed the problem that they caused.

Granted Sony’s not the only company that is guilty of being so evil. For a long time I didn’t get why Digital Rights Management was such a big issue, but now I get it. Its all about control. The record companies want to dictate how you use your music, music you bought with your own money. Informed consumers can play a vital role in this DRM controversy.

Most of this information can be found at Boing Boing here and on Beta News here.

I’ve come to realize more and more that Icelanders are hot dog fanatics! Don’t get me wrong I like hot dogs but I just don’t get how this nation can be so hocked on hot dogs that every where you go there’s some crazy Icelander eating a hot dog!

Ok so for you people that haven’t had the pleasure of tasting The Icelandic hot dog let me break it to ya. Eina með öllu, which basically means one with all, is a hot dog with ketchup, fresh onion, mustard, fried onion and remoulade. A lot of people think its similar to the New York hot dog and I have to agree with them.

Still its just a hot dog! I mean how many places that sell hot dogs are there just in down town Reykjavík alone? Probable over 15 or something and its not like Reykjavík is so crowed with people! Take for example one of the more popular hot dog stands in town, Bæjarins best (=best in town), I don’t think I have ever walked passed it with out being a queue in front of it!

When people move to this country one of first 10 phrases that they learn is either Eina með öllu (= one hot dog with everything) or �slendingar borða SS-pylsur (= Icelanders eat SS-hot dogs) which is phrase from a hot dog commercial.

A few months ago I was driving in the country side and I passed by this small village, Selbrekka, with about 10-15 inhabitants and they have their own hot dog stand!! Its middle of nowhere and still they just had to have there very own hot dog stand!!! I just had to get out of the car and take a picture of it. Its probable the smallest hot dog stand I’ve seen in this country really cutie and all but still its insane!!!

Once again I want to remind people that I do like hot dogs that’s not the issue there, I don’t want to get any death treats here, ok! I just think we are over doing it here people. I’m curious to know if anybody knows how many hot dog stands we’ve got in the hole country. I think the number would shock a lot of people. If you feel like finding out for ourselves if the Icelandic hot dog is really worth all that fuss you can buy everything you need to make your very own icelandic hot dog at Nordic Store. Now how crazy is that!!!

This week Morrissey released the names of the songs on his new album entitled “Ringleader of the Tormentors”. The album will be released March 21 in the US, and March 20 in the UK.

They are…
1. I Will See You In Far-off Places
2. Dear God Please Help Me
3. You Have Killed Me
4. The Youngest Was The Most Loved
5. In The Future When All’s Well
6. The Father Who Must Be Killed
7. Life Is A Pigsty
8. I’ll Never Be Anybody’s Hero Now
9. On The Streets I Ran
10. To Me You Are A Work Of Art
11. I Just Want To See The Boy Happy
12. At Last I Am Born

Producer Tony Visconti’s site he has a bit of a diary about the recording process, with pix. It looks like there’s a small kids-choir on one of the songs (a bit of a “Panic” pt. 2 perhaps?)

(Link via Torr)