Archive for the 'Music' Category

The record industry: Killed by it’s own stupidity

Published
by
Sal
on October 3, 2007
in Music
. 0 Comments

Jennifer Pariser (who is Sony BMG’s chief litigator) thinks she has found the perfect scape-goat for the continued decline of the recording industy - and funnily enough it’s the same scape-goat that music execs have always blamed ever since the days of “Home taping is killing music“:

200px-home_taping_is_killing_music.png

“It’s my personal belief that Sony BMG is half the size now as it was in 2000, … thanks to piracy… when people steal, when they take music without compensation, we are harmed.”

An alternative explanation is that her company has declined because Sony BMG’s business model is no-longer relevant. We might also point out that since 2000 the record companies have invested all their limited intelligence in devising technology such as DRM or CDs with root-kits that take-over your computer, technologies which serve no purpose other than causing annoyance to people who might otherwise become Sony BMG customers.

Rather than develop new methods to engage and entertain music fans the record companies have been led by bunker-mentality lawyers like Ms Pariser who have guaranteed that companies like Sony BMG will have no role in the future of music distribution.

Why buy an official product from Sony BMG when the exact same recording can be bought from iomoio.com for a fraction of the price and without any of the annoying encumbrances. The market has found a price for music, and it’s about ten times less than what Sony BMG want to charge us. History shows that one cannot ignore the market for long before having to face the inevitable financial consequences:

As one commentator on Digg said: “I can’t wait for those idiots to go bankrupt“.

The DRM train-wreck continues

Published
by
Sal
on September 24, 2007
in Music
. 0 Comments

The Register are reporting that Virgin Media are shutting down their music download service, which theoretically was once a competitor to Apple’s iTunes, but failed to capture a significant market.

Unfortunately this has the unintended consequence of rendering every download from the Virgin site unplayable. This is because every single file ever sold by Virgin Media contains “DRM”, a technology designed to limit how files can be played.

In this case every time a media-player wishes to play a download the player-software must first contact an authorizing server for ‘permission’ to play. If the server is switched-off then there is nobody to ask, and so the audio can never be played again.  An entire music collection could be rendered unplayable.

Music-fans will realize that the files they get for free and do not contain any DRM are  much better deal: Customers who buy from Virgin or Apple are paying a premium for an intangible product which is built to self-destruct at the whim of a corporate oligarch. Pirated audio and DRM free audio will last until you decided to delete it.

Rate Dan’s Rap

Published
by
Sal
on January 29, 2006
in Music
. 0 Comments

Dan Wilson, (who you may remember from Epistaxis Time and The Exciting Hellebore Shew) needs your help. Only five minutes of your time can help this young man achieve his musical ambitions.

Some of you may be aware of the site called “Rate My Rap”, a music site for people to upload and share their big-upping gangsta stylin’ raps, in order to see who amongst the site’s users is the most “street” or “ghetto”. The other day I uploaded Wilson’s epic “Got Bruised 4 Real“, a gritty rhyme about life on the mean-streets of Bishop’s Stortford and the all to horrific practice of “Happy Slapping”, and the dangers of cycling a BMX on a pavement.

Last week I uploaded wilson’s track onto the RateMyRap.com archive, and the track hit the site’s top 20 in less than a day. Unfortunately, over the weekend other rappers have attempted to deprive Wilson of the #1 slot which he so clearly deserves. It’s your task to help him up to number one. He needs your votes.

Wilson is clearly the freshest phenomena in the whole moribund genre of Rap; He deserves your votes. He needs your votes if his track is to remain at the number one slot on RateMyRap.com.

Vote here:
http://www.ratemyrap.com/ratemyrap/details.php?image_id=216

Meadow House - Tongue Under a Ton of Nine Volters

Published
by
Sal
on April 30, 2005
in Interesting, Music and Strange
. 0 Comments

UPDATE This album is now available from the Resonance FM Shop.

Fans of Resonance FM and The Exciting Hellebore Shew will no doubt appreciate this collection of haphazard audio from poet and musician Dan Wilson a.k.a. Meadow House. I’ve been obsessing about it (Check out my AudioScrobbler chart).

For as long as I have known him, Dan has been a prolific producer and composer of wonky beats, hilarious suicidal poems and destressed noise. Dan is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, and lyricist. He has a natural talent for melody, rhyme and harmony which he uses to effortlessly subvert the music industry. If Dan had a gram of commercial instinct, he could be as famous as Paul Mcartney, however I think he would rather entertain himself.

Meadow House - Tongue under a ton of Nine Volters
“Tongue under a ton of Nine Volters” the first album from Meadow House, a.k.a. Dan Wilson.

This album is partly a retrospective of some of the greatest musical moments from Dan’s first series, however for your listening pleasure they have been re-mastered by Resonance FM’s Xentos. These have been collected together and published by London’s ultra-alternative Alcohol Records.

For me, the track that stands out the most is “Lavendar Picking” - recorded spesifically for this album. This song is about the unfortunate consequences of trespassing in order to collect Lavendar for a girl. I suspect that the buzzy stringed instrument we hear through this song is the Elastic-Band Zyther, a trademark wilson instrument.

According to this review, we can expect to see it in all good record shops in a month or so. This album (ALDW1CD) will be released by Alcohol Records: P.O.Box 556, London SE5 0RL, England, UK

Update - Ed Baxter noted the following on the Resonance Forum: Send ten pounds sterling payable to “Alcohol” , PO Box 556, London SE5 0RW and we will send you a copy by return. Official release date: June 1st, i.e. reviews will not appear much before then, although Dave Mandl of WFMU and The Brooklyn Rail has received his advance copy already (check out Brooklyn Rail, March 05 for review). It should also be available soon on the Resonance104.4fm shop, with half the proceeds of these sales going to the radio station.

Take on Me - A-Ha

Published
by
admin
on April 18, 2005
in Music
. 0 Comments

Somehow a website called MP3 arena has been getting away with offering an enormous quantity of copyrighted MP3 files. You would be wrong and amoral to use this link to download “Take on Me” by A-Ha.

Or if you want to download choons at 1/10th of the price of the iTunes Music Store (and in Ogg Vorbis too), try allofmp3. This Russian website will custom encode the music you require, entirely free of DRM.

Warning - using these websites might earn you ten years in the cooler courtesy of the RIAA.

8-bit peoples

Published
by
Dan
on April 18, 2005
in Games, General, Gentoo, Music and voffle
. 4 Comments

Recently I’ve been haunted by the cute, funky bleeps and clanks of 8-bit music. Especially pecan medley by an artist named yuppster, which includes a short but stirring tribute to the seminal eighties hit Take On Me, which is notable for its use of rotoscoping.

Feeling inspired, I tried to find out how to make music like this, but it seems that there is no easy way - you have to plug Game boy carts into your brain-stem or compile some somethings. I even tried installing the CPC6128 emulator on the Mac and loading up an old music program, figuring I could use… I don’t know, some Audio program… to record to MP3. but the interface was taking too long and my initial squirt of enthusiasm was soon smothered in the labyrinth of procedure.

It all got me to thinking about the lo-fi music I grew up hearing on my Amstrad CPC 464 and how evocative negative space can be, like the black backgrounds in those old games. Since Wipeout hit the Playstation about ten years ago, all the blank space in video games seems to have been taken up all kinds of stuff, adverts, flashing things, rendered landscapes etc. Sometimes this is how I feel walking through London - it’s like a hundred He-Man adverts a minute, all screaming for my attention. I defy you, He-Man! I am Skeletor!

skeletor

All your music is illegal…

Published
by
Sal
on September 9, 2004
in Music
. 0 Comments

Whats all this modern pop music about anyway? it sounds like a bunch of stupid beeps and rude men shouting swearwords. Thats not real music is it, like Elvis used to play.

Why do the youngsters listen to it so loud, and whats with those why-pod things? I suppose they have to listen to something when they go car-jacking or smoking their E’s…If I was in charge I would make it all illegal, and that would teach those young people some respect…

A federal appeals court in Nashville ruled that musicians would have to pay for every musical sample included in their work

The Exciting Hellebore Shew

Published
by
Sal
on April 4, 2004
in Music
. 0 Comments

The Hellebore Shew was a series of approximately thirty shows broadcast on London’s Resonance FM. This programme features original poems and music composed by Dan Wilson.

I have built an incredibly detailed archive including downloads in both MP3 and Ogg Vorbis format. Now that the series has ended, you can enjoy it in the comfort of your own home.

Choon!

Published
by
Andy
on March 12, 2004
in Music
. 0 Comments

This lady rocks! Her mixes are great - a range of stuff from break-beaty sillynesses through to bangin’ trancey stuff. Plenty of downloads to keep your connection and your ears busy here. I’m listening to the chill-out one at the moment, although I wouldn’t say it’s particularly chillifying…