Maybe it’s her attitude, her facial expressions, her attempts to keep the beat, the Flashdance attire, or the delicious bouillabaisse of all these ingredients, but I can’t stop watching this video. She is absolutely a m a z i n g.

You’ve been warned.

And to live up to my reputation of providing too much information, “Donk” is a real style of electronic music. Yeah, I know. I thought the video was a joke too. There’s even a 30-minute documentary on VBS.tv all about it.

*** Spoiler Alert ***

Britain has rednecks too.

I tried to be helpful and constructive in my response, but I couldn’t help but recall a great piece by Josh Olson entitled, “I Will Not Read Your Fucking Script” for the Village Voice. Josh is best known for writing the screenplay for A History of Violence and I suppose he get’s asked his opinion quite a bit. Josh’s default answer when asked if he would read someone’s script, is a very colorful “No.”

Josh’s reason for saying “No” upfront is that in his experience he’s caught between a rock and a hard place. If he does agree to read the script and offers criticism then the writer will think he’s a jerk, but if he says no upfront, he’ll still be thought of as a jerk. Might as well save the time and energy and just be a jerk from the start.

Well, I chose the latter. I provided a lot of feedback and detail and I suppose time will tell wether or not I made the right decision. I really like this person and respect his work, so I hope it turns out well.

I’ve already pre-ordered the album on iTunes, but since it doesn’t release until August 24^th, I’m thrilled that I don’t have to wait any longer to enjoy her new album. [direct link]

For those that are interested, Imogen has been using her Twitter account to show her creative process which has been very interesting. If you don’t want to catch up on month’s of tweets, you can check out these two videos on YouTube courtesy of Billboard Magazine.

• Imogen Heap on ‘Ellipse’
• Imogen Heap Talks Recording

Today iTunes announced that they have added a new “D-45″ to the music section [iTunes Link]. Their prices range from $1.49 – $1.99, and you get two songs for that price. Right now there are over 20 different artists to choose from and the range is pretty wide.

Personally, I like this idea, but it seems kind of pointless. The B-Side died with the CD, so this seems like too little to late. What do you think?

Via a twitter message late last night, I saw that Mike Rohde had posted an 80′s mix tape. I’ve been listening to it this morning and I have to say that it rocks and I’m happy to see that the intent of the mix tape has lived on.

I think the tape imagery is a bit silly, but clearly their target market is to those of us that remember creating and sharing mix tapes. For those that find that cassettes a bit dated, like my good friend Pickles, perhaps it’s just a cool retro thing. Thinking about that for a moment makes me cringe slightly when I think that my memories have become kitsch. Wow, that’s a really special feeling.

But that’s beside the point — these mix tapes are fun and Rohde’s 80′s mix is quite a trip down memory lane. You can listen to his mix tape below, or create your own at MixWit.com

If you’re not familiar with how Idol works, when the show is down to the final three (I think it’s three) contestants in the finale, an original song is chosen for them to sing. This is the first time in the competition when original music is chosen for them to sing and not something that’s already been recorded.

In the past, the songs chosen by the producers of the show but this year they are opening it up to the public and allowing anyone to submit a song. For the nominal fee of $10 you can submit a song and “Our team of A&R experts will select a shortlist of the top 20 song submissions most suitable for American Idol.”

So when you listen to the song, bear in mind its intended audience. That isn’t a disclaimer, because I think it’s a great song, it’s just that Holly wrote this in the “American Idol Style” so expect a big sound, a key change and notes that can hold for applause. You gotta love it!

Now if her song is chosen, you need to be prepared because there will be an onslaught from me to have you vote as many times as your fingers can press a button. Rest assured that I won’t relent until you’re left with nothing but bloody stumps — you’ve been warned.

To hear the song, simply select the “Play” button from the Flash Player below:

[NULL]

type="application/x-shockwave-flash"
data="http://www.mashby.com/music/player.swf"
id="audioplayer1"
height="24"
width="290">

[/NULL]

If you would prefer to download the file, you may do so using the following link:

This_Is_My_Day_Today.mp3 (4.1MB)

Oh and a couple of technical notes! The song was recorded on my MacBook using GarageBand and consists of two tracks. Nothing fancy here, just Holly belting it out like no one else can.

We hope you like it and feel free to share you opinion of the song in the comments, or privately via e-mail.

I had some security updates to apply for Windows XP this morning and after a reboot, I saw this weird little iTunes like toolbar for all of 2 seconds before it disappeared. Doing a little digging, I found that for Windows users, iTunes 4.7 has a small toolbar to allow you to control iTunes without taking up any desk space. Here’s how you do it.

1. Go to “Edit\Preferences” from the top menu within iTunes and select the “Advanced” tab.

2. Make sure that the bottom check box for “Show iTunes icon in system tray” is NOT checked.

3. Right click on your Windows task bar. In the menu that appears, select “Toolbars\iTunes”.

Now whenever you minimize iTunes, the toolbar will appear and give you complete control over the program and you music. How cool is that?
Special thanks to Merlin::Blog for detailing how to enable this feature, because I was unable to figure it out on my own and it’s not documented on Apple’s web site.

We left a little early to make sure we had time to drive around and check out some of the downtown stores and grab a bite to eat before the 6:30pm concert. An accident on North I-65 cut our time a good bit, so we immediately went to the Capitol Theatre to get our tickets. They were close to sold out, but we were lucky enough to get some tickets. David was out front when we arrived, so we were able to visit a little bit with him, which was nice. It was obvious that he was excited that we made it, but it was also obvious that he had 100 things going on to get the show underway, so we let him get back to work.

David is one of the sweetest people I know. Saying that about another guy may sound a bit effeminate and I certainly don’t mean it that way. He has a strong character and would take a bullet for a friend, but he’s a little on the quiet side. He’s the guy who is usually behind the scenes making everything happen, but isn’t usually recognized for it. One of his many claims to fame is that he was the road manager for Foster and Lloyd, a very popular country duo in the 80s. That’s a tough job that entails a lot of details, long hours and huge amounts of stress, but he did it to a “T”.

As I said earlier, Jambodians started as an after Christmas jam session. There are a lot of top notch musicians that have come out of Bowling Green (not to mention the director John Carpenter) and since many were home for the holidays, they’d get together and jam. It started as a jam session in one person’s home, but eventually expanded to the South Street Pub, where it took on the moniker of “Jambodians”. This year the motley crew that make up the Jambodians created a CD and used the 2003 show as a CD release party at the Capitol Theatre. Although there was still the usual jam session at the South Street Pub as an after party.

To say that the concert featured a diverse mix of music is an understatement. From uillean pipes playing Irish jigs, to folk, to classic rock, there was a little something for everyone. Jonell Mosser sang a heartfelt love song to her home state in “Kentucky Take me Home”, then Tommy Womack sang the political song “I Miss Ronald Regan”, then Slickrock cranked out a classic rock homage/anthem “Ode to Billy Joe”. As if that wasn’t enough, there was a HUGE jam session at the end with just about everyone that had already played, but featured Bill Lloyd, and Greg Martin of the Kentucky Headhunters.

Although the music was great, the best part about Jambodians Fest was that all the monies generated from the concert, t-shirt and CD sales, as well as everything from the jam session later at the South Street Pub went to children’s music programs in south central Kentucky. This was done through the Son Rhey Foundation. That’s right, all of this talent and energy was directed at giving back something to the community that they came from.

At the end of the show, my good friend David was brought out for a little recognition. It was explained that David had been the person that made not only the Jambodian Fest such as success, but was instrumental in getting the CD made as well. David, my buddy who would rather remain in the background, was brought front and center and given a standing ovation by his home town and fellow musicians and peers. It was quite a sight and put a huge smile on my face.

It was nice getting a little peek at just how much talent has come out of Bowling Green. The event had a very home town feel to it and I felt like we were allowed to get a little taste at what makes people from Bowling Green so proud about their home town. I figure it must be something in the water, so I made sure to fill up before we left and headed back to Nashville.

If you’d like to purchase the CD, you can do so at the Son Rhey Foundation web site at this link. Please note that the only form of payment they accept is PayPal.

I wrote this early Sunday morning, even though I didn’t get it posted until today. I bring this up because I’ve left the present tense used in the entry since I wrote it before I began playing on Sunday

I’ve been playing the trumpet for around 25 years, since the 6th grade to be exact, and it’s something I really enjoy a lot. Most people don’t know that I have my bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts in Trumpet Performance, but at one point I planned on being a full-time musician. After graduation, I changed paths and I don’t regret the choices that I’ve made. I don’t play as much as I used to and to be completely honest, I simply don’t have a lot of time for it. It takes a lot of practice to keep your chops up and I don’t make the time like I should. However, there are a few gigs that still come my way. This weekend I was asked if I would play for all the masses at church in honor of Memorial day. I readily agreed to perform, but there was a part of me that wanted to say no.

Why? Because the reason I was asked to perform was so that I would play Taps after each mass in remembrance of our fallen soldiers. In all of music, I cannot think of a sadder song than Taps, yet for a trumpet player it is part of the standard repertoire. Think about it, the only time you hear that song is when it’s played for the dead. Funerals, memorials, anything where you’re remembering a soldier that has died, Taps is called for. I suppose that if I did it often enough, I’d grow hardened, or accustomed to the song and the scene that accompanies it. However, that’s not the case so as a result each time I play it, it’s a struggle to get through it.

Here’s how it will go today. I will arrive about 10 minutes before mass and touch base with the choir director and the priest just to let them know that I’m here and that I know what to do. I’ll sit outside the church proper, in the lobby area, and wait. The priest will conduct the mass, give his homily, take the collection and give communion. After everyone has received communion and is back in their pews, the choir will sing two verses of “America The Beautiful”. When the first verse is done, I’ll take my trumpet and go stand outside the church in the courtyard. When they song is finished, I will play Taps. When I’m done there will be no applause, no fanfare. I’ll simply walk back into the lobby, place my trumpet back into it’s case and leave. I may get a few “Thanks yous”, or other forms of appreciation from the ushers and I’m very thankful for that, but I just want to get out of there as fast as I can.

I will have done this five times this weekend, so why do I flee like I’m leaving the scene of a crime? Because I’m barely holding it together and I don’t want to break down in public. I would hope that my playing causes people to pause for a moment and reflect on the sacrifices that our soldiers have given so many times throughout America’s history. Given the current war on terrorism, there’s plenty to think about. From Afghanistan to Iraq, there are plenty of sacrifices made that are still fresh and on the minds of many Americans. Maybe some will be reminded of 911, Kuwait, Grenada, Vietnam, Korea, or even World War II. There’s plenty to be thankful for and there’s plenty to bring you to tears.

But I can’t think of all that. It’s right there at the edge of my mind, but I have to block it out. It’s easily recalled by flipping through the rolodex of my mind, but if I let it, I won’t be able to finish the song. Taps thumps the heart strings of anyone listening, but I have to harden mine for the few minutes it takes for me to play it. I go numb and simply focus on my playing and doing justice to the song. When it’s over, all those feelings begin to rush back into my mind and my heart. Sometimes I feel like I’m taking on some of the feelings of those that listened to my playing as well. I know that sounds kinda new age, but I can’t think of any other way to describe it. As I’m putting my trumpet back in it’s case, it’s like a tidal wave of emotion that pours out from the church.

So I head for the hills once I’m done. I get in my car and I drive away. It doesn’t matter where I go as long as I can find some small place of isolation. As I make my way down the road, it’s inevitable that I’ll begin crying, no matter how hard I try to fight it. For about five minutes I’ll weep as I face all the images and memories in my mind that I held back and all the emotions that I took on while packing up my trumpet. I’ll purge myself, then my tears will dry up and this wave of emotions will subside. Those feeling will still be there, just under the surface, but the storm will have passed. Then I’ll turn around and go back to the church to play Taps again.

I didn’t want to make this entry such a downer. When I started writing, I just wanted to share an insight into what it’s like for a trumpet player playing Taps. Little did I know just how depressing it would sound once the words hit the page. I’m not trying to give a Mea Culpa, it’s just that there’s more to it than just getting bummed out. Playing Taps is an honor. There’s a ritual to playing it and there is a certain amount of pride that you feel if you’ve done it right. It’s not that it’s a hard song to play, it’s that it’s a very important song and you don’t want to make a mess of it.

Memorial Day is about being thankful and not about feeling depressed. Thankful that someone else took up the responsibility of defending and protecting our nation so that we could live in peace. From World War I to the current war on Terrorism, men and women have been called to duty and many, way to many, have given the ultimate sacrifice by giving their lives. For their sacrifice, we live in the most privileged nation in the world. A nation that gives me the freedom to create a silly little weblog where I can write about almost anything I want. I’m thankful that I’m afforded these luxuries and I’m thankful for my freedom. So today I’ll do my little part and show my appreciation by playing Taps after Mass. It’s the least I could do.

Easy Listening
Prior to listening to music on my computer with iTunes, I used Winamp 2. As a player it had great sound and having never experienced anything all that different with other media players, I was content to stick with Winamp. Well, that is until I tried iTunes.

With Winamp, I had to build playlists before I could listen to music. Granted, I could double click a file and Winamp would play the selected song, but if I wanted to listen to more than one song at a time I had to create a playlist. These playlists could be created by dragging and dropping files only the Playlist Manager, or by selecting directories. Personally I found this to be a pain in the butt. Unless I wanted to spend hours creating playlists, I was limited to how my music library was stored on my hard drive. By selecting “Play Directory” I could select all the music in a given folder, but that was about it.

With iTunes, your music library is stored in an easy to browse and sort XML database. Although some might think of this as a subtle difference, the results are liberating. I can select music by Genre, Artist, Album, or any combination thereof. For example, I might select the genre “Electronic” and all music under this genre (courtesy of the ID3 tag embedded in each file) is available for playback. I select the shuffle button, hit play and I have days of music randomly selected giving me the equivalent to having a personal radio station. Listening to “Electronic” too broad? Then I could select just a handful of artists to pair down the list.

In the immortal words of Ron Popeil, “but wait, there’s more!” If you desperately love playlists, you can still create those, but instead of having to browse your collection with explorer, you simply browse the database and drag and drop onto the playlist of your making. Want to “kick it up a notch?”, then create a “Smart Playlist“. With a “Smart Playlist,” you create criteria and the playlist automatically pulls music matching your criteria. It’s like Google for your media player! For example, you can create a playlist of only music from 1980 – 1989 and call it your “80′s Music”. After listening to it for awhile, you decide that there’s a lot of junk from the 80′s, so you create a new “Smart Playlist” that selects music from 80-89, but also only selects music that you’ve rated “3 stars” or better.

Anyone who has worked with databases will note that this is nothing but a database query. The beauty of it is that it doesn’t feel that technical and anyone can do it. It’s easy and a fantastic was to sift through your huge library of music to choose just the right music to match your mood.

Internet Radio
If you’ve been into digital music for anytime, you’ve no doubt stumbled onto streaming music, which is often referred to as “Internet Radio.” Web sites, such as Shoutcast provide listings of Internet Radio stations that you can listen to, but you have to go to sites like these to find them. iTunes has built Internet Radio right into the software.

Instead of having to use a web browser, you simply click on the “Radio” icon and a genre list is pulled up, select your preferred genre, such as “Country” and iTunes queries a web server to provide you with the most up-to-date listing of available Internet Radio stations. What could be easier? No longer do I have to bookmark my streams in my browser, iTunes takes care of it all for me.

The thing I like best about this is that for new users, or those unfamiliar with Internet Radio, this is a super easy way to get introduced to this fantastic medium.

Sharing Music
iTunes will also allow you to share your music with other users if you so desire. If you choose to share your music, then any other users on your network will be able to browse and listen to the music in your library. Originally iTunes allowed you to share your music across the Internet, but they’ve disabled that aspect of the music sharing. So, in order to listen to other user’s music, you have to be on the same local network. If other people at your office have iTunes, or if you have more than one computer at your house, or are at a local HotSpot, then you can share your music easily. Anyone sharing their music will simply appear in your list of music sources.

I’ve used music sharing when I’ve been at a local coffee shop. I was listening to my own music, getting some work done, when I noticed that “Joe” was in my list of sources. There were a couple of other laptop users in the cafe, so I’m not sure who Joe was, but I was able to browse his music library and listen to what was stored on his laptop’s hard drive. I ended up discovering an album by Coldplay that I hadn’t heard before and enjoyed browsing Joe’s taste in music. Very, very cool.

For those of you that would like to share your music with others on the Internet, there is a way around iTunes limitation. You can install RendezvousProxy on a Mac or PC and map a port locally for a remote iTunes user. Most people use this for listening to the music they have at home on their machine at work. It’s not hard to do and you can learn more about it here, or here.

Ripping Music
Although I have purchased music from the iTunes Online Store, I still tend to purchase CDs instead for my favorite artists. Digital music has come a long way, but it still has a long way to go. If you’re into liner notes for example, that information is not included in digital music. For that reason, I still purchase CDs and have over 600 CDs at last count and slowly, but surely, I’m importing those CDs into a digital format. This import process is typically referred to as “ripping”.

To rip a CD, you simply insert it into your computer’s CD-ROM drive and iTunes automatically pulls the track information and artwork from the CDDB online database. Click the important button and the songs on your CD are converted into the digital format of your choice (AAC, MP3, AIFF, or WAV) and added to your music library. There are plenty of other software titles that do the same thing. There’s nothing really new here, except that I love the fact that it’s all integrated, oh and the fact that you can rip into AAC format.

A Word About File Types
MP3 has become the staple of digital music formats. It was the first widely accepted compressed format for music and is still VERY popular. Just about every OS, including Palm OS (see Pocket Tunes) can play an .mp3 and the format shows no signs of going away anytime soon.

What made .mp3s so popular was that is compressed digital music into a smaller file, so it was easier to pack more music onto a CD, or your hard drive. However, there were some issues regarding the compression technology, because Thomson wanted to charge for the use of the .mp3 format. They invented it, so they felt they should profit from it. So, in an response to the legal woes surrounding .mp3, another format was created by the Open Source community called Ogg Vorbis.’ve I never played with it and it seems to be a bit of a niche format. Then along came MPEG4 and now we have a new technology that’s actually better than mp3. The file sizes are smaller and the quality is better, so it seems like the natural successor to mp3. The only problem is that corporations are now involved and as a result things are a little bit more complicated.

Microsoft has Windows Media Player which encodes and plays .wmm files, among others. Apple has iTunes, which encodes and plays .aac files, among others. Both .aac and .wmm are derived from the same MPEG4 spec, but each took their own path and included their own distinct Digital Rights Management (DRM). Why is this important? Well, because each company has a copyright on their respective format and not all players will play each others version. In other words, if you purchase music from Napster, you won’t be able to play it in iTunes. Likewise, if you purchase music from the iTunes Online Store, you won’t be able to play it in Winamp, etc.

Things get a bit easier if you don’t purchase music. If you prefer the AAC format that Apple has developed, then iTunes can encode into that format if you so choose and Winamp and a few other media players can play it. iTunes will also record into .mp3 if you want to keep your library in that specific format, but by default it will encode in .aac. Personally, I like AAC, so I’m planning on importing all of my CDs into that format. Since I can play the music with Winamp, I’m not 100% locked into iTunes, so it’s flexible enough for me. Beside, the file sizes a MUCH smaller and much higher quality. If having the ability to play your music from the widest number of players and operating systems, stick with MP3.

iPod and Burning CDs
Ok, so you have all this music on your hard drive, what if you’re not sitting at your computer? Well, if you purchase an iPod, you have the perfect companion to your music library. In fact your entire library can actually LIVE on your iPod and you can use iTunes to play it through your computer. However, I don’t have an iPod (yet), so I can’t really wax poetic about the merits of an iPod, so I’ll leave it at that. However, I do have a CD player in my car, so I can talk about that.

Like most people, I don’t have an .mp3 capable stereo system in my car. Instead, I have the standard CD player that came with the vehicle. That’s OK though because iTunes can burn my music onto a CD and I can play it in any standard CD player. I simply insert a blank CD-ROM drive (which is capable of burning CDs of course) and I can burn any playlist onto CD. iTunes also lets me know if my playlist goes beyond a single CD and will give me the option of burning onto multiple CDs. Very handy if you’re doing an archive, or taking your tunes on the road. I’ve heard that the error correction isn’t all that great, but I haven’t made a coaster yet using iTunes and it’s become my default CD burning software.

Managing Your Music
Maybe you have a terra byte of digital music (.mp3, ogg vorbis, real audio, etc.) already, or only a couple of songs. Whatever the case may be, at the heart of the iTunes software beats the pulse of a librarian, ready to manage your music at your discretion. If you enable the option, iTunes can easily manage the folder and renaming of individual files for you, quickly and easily. iTunes uses the ID3 tags found in your digital music to file everything in it’s appropriate place. This is great if all your ID3 tags are consistent, but if you’re a big Kazaa user and you have a lot of files already, you may want to hold off on having iTunes manage your music until you’re sure your files are ready.

I had about 15GB of digital music already when I began using iTunes and when I saw that it could manage my music, I had to give that some serious consideration. Before iTunes, I would create the folders manually and then edit the ID3 tags via Winamp until I had an album’s worth of music in pristine condition. Well, at least that was my intent. In reality, I had about 30% of my music collection in pristine condition and the other 70% was hit or miss. By enabling iTunes to manage my music, I knew that things would get messed up in a hurry. Although I had all the right music in the right folder, the ID3 tags would tell a different story. Since that’s what iTunes uses to manage your music, I knew that 70% of my collection would get re-filed and I would have to fix it. I was feeling caviler that day, so I said “What the hell.” and enabled the option.

Just like I suspected, the bulk of my collection was scattered to the winds. My folder for the artist BT was split from one folder into about 20, since there were ID3 tags with BT, B_T, Brian Transeau and every other imaginable combination. So my music collection was hosed right? Wrong.

The Dream Library
Although I’m painting a somewhat scary picture, iTunes made it so easy to clean up and re-organize my music. The interface allows me to selects groups of music and edit them globally, or edit each file one by one. For example, when I saw that all my BT music had a ton of Genre listings ranging from Pop to Electronic to Trance, I simply selected all of the music listing BT as the Artist and then in one step, changed them all the Electronic.

So although my library was in disarray, I was easily able to re-organize it rather quickly. Now maybe your tags are much more consistent. If the bulk of your collection consists of music ripped directly from CDs you own, then this process would be much easier for you. However, if you’ve been a big fan of Kazaa, or the old *cough* Napster, then the process may take a little bit longer to clean up, as it was in my case. Also, you don’t HAVE to let iTunes manage your music. You can still do that by hand if you like and iTunes will just rock along. So take a look at what you have in your current library and then make your decision.

No Assembly Required
For me, I like the fact that I can use one piece of software to manage anything regarding my music, instead of 3. Before iTunes I would rip using MusicMatch or CDex and then I would clean up the tags in Winamp, or more recently with Tag&Rename and then I’d listen to the music in Winamp. Granted, I could have just used MusicMatch for the whole process, but I didn’t like the player all that much. I chose those three programs because each one did one particular aspect well. MusicMatch ripped well, Tag&Rename cleaned up ID3 tags well and Winamp was a good player. Throw Kazaa in the mix and it gets more labor intensive. With iTunes, I just use one program for handing all those tasks.

Let me walk you through an example. Let’s say you have a file of an obscure 80′s group that broke up almost before they released their one album. You downloaded the .mp3 using Kazaa because you can’t find any other method of purchasing the song. All you have to do is drag and drop the file into iTunes and it easily creates the folders and adds the song to your library. But wait, the file doesn’t have the right name of the artist. Instead of “Ebn-Ozn“, it’s listed as “Eb Oz”. You right click on the file, change the name and while you’re at it, you add the album artwork, enter the correct genre, year, etc. and presto the file is renamed and the folders changed automatically. It’s that simple.

And Yes, You Can Buy Music
Like I said earlier, you don’t HAVE to purchase music from the iTunes Online Store, but more than likely you eventually will. Once you fall in love with how easy it is to import, burn, manage and of course listen to music with iTunes, you’re sure to purchase a song every now and again.

Using the wonderful interface that you’ve grown accustomed to in browsing and listening to your own music, you simply click on the “Music Store” icon listed in “Sources” and you’re instantly in the iTunes Online Store. With it’s integrated web browser interface, you simply browse and/or search your way though the millions of songs contained therein. You can preview any song and then choose to purchase single songs, or entire albums. Most single songs are $0.99 and albums average $9.99, depending on the number of songs contained on the album.

After you’d decided on what music to buy, you can either do one-click shopping, or use a familiar shopping cart style and the purchase process is a piece of cake. Once purchased, your music downloads into your library with proper ID3 tags and album artwork. If you’re into music, this can be like crack and get out of control in a hurry.

Often times iTunes Online Store will offer exclusive content or early releases. I ran into this with BT’s release, “Technology EP“. It was slated for release later in April, but went online on April 6th. I was faced with the quandary of waiting 2-3 weeks for the release of the EP, or I could purchase it instantly online through iTunes. Add to this equation the fact that the CD included a video and other goodies and I was face to face with a serious dilemma. So I did what any self-respecting BT fan would do, I purchased both. My point is that with unique and exclusive content, purchasing music can be a lot of fun and a real advantage for those artists that you’re serious fans of.

Although the iTunes Online Store has been restricted to browsing via iTunes exclusively, the Downhill Battle Peer-to-Peer Legal Defense Fund has created a script that can search the iTunes Music Store via the Web. It’s not as nice of an experience as it is in iTunes, but you can finally see what iTunes users have access to without installing the software. :O

Streaming Your Own Music
About the only think you can’t do with iTunes at the moment is stream music over the Internet. Well, if you’re a Mac user you can thanks to Nicecast, but there isn’t currently a solution for Windows users. If you’re a Winamp user you can stream any music you’re listening to via Shoutcast, but it’s not a very simple process. It’s not that it’s hard, but it can be a bit of a kludge for first timers.

Streaming music isn’t all that common for the average user, but personally I’d like to share what I’m listening to with friends and unfortunately I can’t do that at this point. Hopefully the nice guys at Nicecast will come out with a Windows version shortly.

It’s So Easy To Fall In Love
This turned into a MUCH longer entry than I had intended, but it’s a clear testimony of just how powerful iTunes is. There’s almost nothing you can’t do in managing and listening to your music and yet Apple has made a program with an intuitive and easy to use interface. The things you can do with your music may be very powerful, but to the end user, it’s a walk in the park. It’s not that the power is hidden from the user, just the complexity.

Winamp 5 has come out recently and offers similar features to iTunes, but I find the interface a little clunky and not near as well designed and implemented. In that same vein, there are plenty of other software solutions out there, such as Real and MusicMatch, but IMHO none are as elegant and easy to use. If you happen to be a fan of other software, feel free to “educate me” in the comments.

If you’re using something else to manage your music, I’d strongly urge you to download and play with iTunes. As long as you don’t enable iTunes to manage your music library, there’s no harm in giving her a test drive. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at just how much fun it is to use.

When I think about some of the classic TV shows, they all had a theme song. Cheers, All In The Family, Three’s Company all had memorable theme songs that you could probably sing parts of, if not the entire thing. “Come and knock on our door…” or “One, Two, Three, O’Clock, Four O’Clock, rock…”, each of those makes you immediately think of the television show associated with it. Not all shows had words in their theme songs, but they still had distinctive songs that you could quickly identify the show from, such as Bonanza, Seinfield, and Law and Order.

Yet in recent years, it seems like most television programs are opting for quick little snippets for their theme music. Will and Grace is minimal at best and so are many of the new shows this season. And this lack of good music isn’t just restricted to regular programming, commercials are even worse. What ever happened to “You deserve a break today…” or one of the many other jingles that has captured our heart. Now days just using some obscure techno song seems to be enough. I’ll take a “I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing” over some girl dancing weird sitting in a car any day.

IMNSHO, if companies want their customers to relate and identify with their products they need to take the time and effort to brand the product in all aspects. Sure a cool commercial is important, but there’s nothing quite like having your customers singing the tune in their head all day. Isn’t the point that you want it to be “…Where everybody knows your name.”?

The song featured Phil by himself with an acoustic guitar. It began simple enough with a him strumming and singing. Then he stopped and began playing percussion on the face of the guitar. He had an effect pedal that allowed him to sample and playback in a loop what he had just played, so after playing percussion for 4 bars, he started strumming the guitar again. The percussion part he had played just before looped behind him. He kept adding more and more parts to the point where he was a one man band. On top of all this was a great song!

There has only been one other time where a musician has blown me away from the start and yet kept going and going, totally blowing my mind with what is possible on an instrument. The other time was on October 26, 1995 when Omar Hakim did a drum solo in the song “I Burn For You” during Sting’s Dream Of The Blue Turtles world tour. Omar started his solo just slamming and it just kept getting better and better. The same thing was happening with Phil’s song. It started out good, but it just kept getting better and better. Sure I had heard musicians use loops to build a song before, but not done this smoothly and this well.

Just when I didn’t think it could get any better, or any more impressive, Phil Keaggy flips is guitar up to his face, ala Jimi Hendrix and sang into the pickup of his acoustic guitar! I’ve never seen THAT before. The effect created was akin to a far away reply and he did it four times so that it would loop behind him as he sang the chorus again. I was completely floored. Tears were streaming down my face because I was simply not prepared for this musical onslaught. I was a deer in the headlights.

Throughout the whole performance, the thing that made the biggest impression on me was Phil Keaggy himself. He’s a fairly diminutive man with short grey hair on the sides, but he plays with such enthusiasm and joy it’s clear that you’re watching a legend at the top of his game. It was like watching Michael Jordan or Lance Armstrong doing what they do. He was so relaxed, yet completely filled joy that it was just bursting out of his music. He may be just a guy with an acoustic guitar, but he was tearing it up!

When he finished his song, he was given a standing ovation. Even though BCC is a bit of a charismatic church, I can’t recall the congregation ever giving a standing ovation before. Clearly I was not the only one affected by his music. Now I’m a big Phil Keaggy fan and I’m going out this week to get a CD so I can hear more of his work. I just can’t believe someone didn’t turn me on to him earlier. How could such a gem be hidden like that? :O

It’s been over 3 years since BT released an original work (read all about it here), but it was definitely worth the wait. There isn’t a weak track to be found anywhere and in my book, this is his best work yet. From the first track to the last, BT takes you on a journey through an incredible landscape of sound. Along the way he drops some kickin’ hooks that you just can’t get out of your head.

If I had to pick some of the standout tracks, I’d have to say "Superfabulous", "Somnambulist" and "The Force of Gravity" are some of my favorites. However, with most artists that would mean that those are the tracks that I pick out for a playlist. With Emotional Technology though, I just start it from the beginning and let her rip all the way through and then repeat. As a side note, "Somnambulist" has been entered into the Guinness Book of World Records for the most edits most edits in a recorded piece of music. How many you ask? 6,178 on the vocal track alone. :O

BT always surprises with the directions he takes with his craft. Every time I think I know what he might do next, I find I’m way off. One of the surprises on this CD is the amount of vocal work that he did. He’s no stranger to having guest artists, and there’s plenty here including Rose McGowan on “Superfabulous”, but BT has a great voice and this is his first time it’s been featured so much. In a quote from BT Network he once said "Dude, if I could have afforded a decent microphone IMA would have had more vocals." So, he must have finally purchased a good mic.

If you’re a BT fan, then this CD is a must have. If you’re new to BT, then this would be a great album to cut your teeth on. The best part is that you can listen to it, in it’s entirety at http://www.briantranseau.com. Granted it’s low quality, but it’s enough to let you know what you’re buying before you buy it.

For those of you that may not be familiar with the Country Music market, Matraca Berg has a solo career, but is most noted for her songwriting. She’s penned such hits as Back In The Saddle, Wrong Side Of Memphis (Trisha Yearwood), and Strawberry Wine (Dena Carter). Her husband, Jeff is in the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, which is where Jackson Browne launched his solo career from. Not quite on the level of Garth Brooks, or Faith Hill, but definitely big stars in the own right. They were leaving the Essential Therapy Store and Spa and drove away in their gold Volvo station wagon.

Just goes to show you what living in Nashville is like. You never know who you’re going to run into when you just stand still for a few moments.

Oh, and since we’re on the subject of country music stars, Holly will be performing on June 26th at the Gibson Bluegrass Showcase. She’s performing in the Nashville Country Show talent contest. This is the first of many performances that we’re lining up in promotion of her new demo CD. If you’re in the area, we look forward to seeing you there.

This isn’t the first time that a company has bastardized a popular song to peddle their products. I remember back in 1987 when Nike used a single version of “Revolution” as part of a $7 million campaign to sell Nike shoes. I remember thinking at the time that it was no big deal. It was a good song, but it wasn’t part of my cultural history, so I didn’t see the harm in it.

This past year or so has been a bit of a different story. More and more commercials are using old “hits” from the 80′s – unbeknownst to me, I seem to have some emotional attachment to some of these songs and as such, groan when I hear them played. So when “Always Something Their To Remind Me” came on I was horrified that they would take a song I listened to a LOT in high school and rip it out of my chest and throw it up on the TV screen to lure women to the mall. The stench of it all just made me cringe. I couldn’t even look at the television. %)

Music has this uncanny ability to bring you back in time to a special moment, or period when a song defined a small piece of your life. Naked Eyes was a band I really liked back when I was coming of age. I danced to their music at the high school dances when we all just showed up without dates because none of us could drive. And I remember playing their album over and over and I dreamed of becoming a rock star when I grew up. It was an innocent time, at least compared to now, and hearing that song just brought it all back. Unfortunately, the Hechts commercial bastardized it and as a result soiled a cherished memory if only for a brief second.

Of course there’s nothing I can do about it and like I said earlier, it’s been done before and will no doubt continue. Our culture likes to recycle itself from time to time. That’s why there’s the New Beetle, Ultra Low-Rise Boot-Cut Jeans and the TV show American Dreams. Some people probably feel it’s nothing more than healthy recycling. Others find it to be a regurgitation – it can never be as good as the original.

One man’s trash…

Back in 1996 I read a book by Nicholas Negroponte entitled “Being Digital.” The basic tenant of the book was that for all the talk of the world entering the “Information Age,” the reality was that the information age was over and that we were actually entering the “digital age.” The difference being that anything that could be delivered digitally would be and that any industry that was not aware of the change and prepared for this change would face severe hardships.

Brick and mortar retail stores have already witnessed this first hand – each year more and more purchases are being made on-line and dollars that normally funneled through traditional retail channels are drying up. Of course this doesn’t apply to all retail systems. The simple fact remains consumers do have brand loyalty when it comes to some retail stores and continue to purchase from them in spite of lower priced alternatives. The reason? Convenience and service. It’s the basic rules of sales, you don’t sell on price, you sell on service. If you sell on price, then anyone with a lower price will beat you. Sell based on service and you’re selling a superior product.

For some reason the RIAA simply have not woken up to this fact. With the advent of broadband, music was a natural for digitalization. With so much time being spent by students and knowledge workers in front of computers, digitalizing your CD collection and having the convenience of listening to it on your computer was a logical evolution. So when Napster reared it’s head, it responded to a need that was already in existance – a need that the RIAA was not attuned to. Instead of finding a way to adapt and capitalize on this new business model, they instead went “sue” happy. Should they have sued Napster? Yes – if only to give them some time to play catch up. But now they are suing college kids simply to “send a message?”

And let’s face it, it’s not the artists that they are protecting but the record labels. The money that’s being “lost” isn’t being given to the artists (the one’s who created the music) but the channels that distribute the music. We’ve seen the same thing happen with CD-R and DAT (Digital Audio Tape) technologies in the past, yet instead of responding to modify their business model, they’ve simply dug in their heels and spent millions trying to stop progress.

Digital music isn’t going away and I think most people genuinely want to be legal and honest. In other words, I think that the general public is willing to pay for a service that would provide digital music that was inexpensive and at the same time of high quality. Using an on-line file sharing system is ok, but the quality of the product received is too random and often times less than desirable. I wouldn’t pay for a service based on this model. Most of the stuff that I download isn’t of high quality, so of course I expect it to be free. In fact, I think the quality issue is the main reason that CD sales were boosted by Napster. Napster came into existence and CD Sales boomed. The RIAA killed Napster and CD sales have dropped. When I download a file I have to edit the mp3 tags, clean up the title listen to make sure the bit rate isn’t funky, or the last 30 seconds of the song isn’t missing. This is a lot of work and the end result is never 100% consistent. As a result, when I find an album, or an artist that I really like, then I go out and buy the CD and rip it to mp3 for my collection.

But what if I could subscribe to a service where I could be provided a high quality digital product? A service where the titles were correct, the ID3 tags were properly filled out and the bit rate was ideal. I would pay for this and I think most people would. An affordable high quality service, man I just gush thinking about it. But what do I know, perhaps suing college kids is a better business model. %)