Living in the Hear and Now

/ / Blah-ness, Opinion, rantings

I could be saving money for a new car.

I could buy new faucets for every sink in our house, since every sink could use a new faucet.

I could put more money in savings.

I could save money and go to Portugal in a couple of years.

But I’m not. I’m taking new band suggestions and advice from a guy I’m pretty sure I’ve never met in real life, and I’m  buying CDs left and right. Like … a lot of CDs.

For example, he recommended that I check out Sambassadeur on YouTube. Specifically, this song and this song. I’m very much liking these guys.

So … who are they? All I know is that they’re a Swedish duo that’s been around since about 2002. They have 3 full-length CDs and 2 EPs, all of which are being shipped to my house within the next week. That’s just kind of how I do things.

In addition to the 450+ CD auction, I’ve won a few others as well. All told, I’m getting something like 550-600 CDs in the mail over the next couple of weeks. The question now is … where am I gonna put all of them? I think I have a solution.

In our basement, we have a wood burning stove that has never once burned anything. Not for longer than half a minute, anyway. It’s pretty useless. It just takes up space and lets in cold air in the winter. The wife and I have talked about getting rid of it and turning the area into a media storage rack for our CDs and DVD/Blu-rays. It would certainly hold everything. And it’d look really nice, too. I might even make it myself, but we’ll see. I’m not that great at making stuff, so I’d probably contract out the shelf-building. We’ll see.

So yah. The budget has taken a pretty serious hit the last week. But I bet I can make it all back plus some with the rejects that go to Graywhale or Gamestop. We’ll see.

Music To Soothe the Savage Beast

/ / Blah-ness, Opinion, rantings

When I was in high school, I would stay up late and read Steven King books. Carrie, It, Pet Semetary … I read tons and tons of the Master of the Macabre. When I was done, I’d be all wired and wide awake. Unable to sleep, I’d throw on my headphones and cycle through tape after tape after tape. UK Subs, the Cult, Van Halen, Boston, Journey … hey, I never said I always had the greatest taste.

So there I’d lie, wide awake. What could I do? Where could I turn for rest and relaxation?

“… and Justice for All.”

“Master of Puppets.”

“Ride the Lightning.”

How it was possible that James, Kirk, Lars, Cliff, and Jason were able to lull me to sleep is beyond me, but it never failed to do the job. How’s that for bizarre?

How To Amass a CD Collection Overnight

/ / New Music, Opinion, rantings, review

Win this.

That will constitute approximately 1/3 of my collection.

Awesomesauce.

The beauty is that I have no idea what’s in the mix. Could be utter crap, for all I know. BUT either Graywhale or Gamestop will take all of them, and I’ll more than make my money back. At approximately 11 cents per CD, it wouldn’t take much to make my money back 3 times over, at which point I could just get a bunch of CDs I know I’ll want.

But I’m betting I won’t have to do that. Not with all of them, anyway. Guess we’ll know in a week!

Cloud-Based Programs for your iDevice (a.k.a. Death of the iPod Classic Redux)

/ / iPhone Apps, Opinion, rantings, review

I mentioned a couple of posts ago that it is entirely possible that we have seen the last large-capacity iPod. 160GB might be the max that Apple goes for music devices.

Maybe. Who knows …

The reason very well could be due to the movement of cloud-based music storage. Apple has bought a few different properties and land that could be the basis for their movement to online storage … probably at a monthly or yearly price point. Exciting, but … hmm. Again, my point is that many of us have music collections that far exceed 500GB. It’s ludicrous to think that Apple will provide a fairly decent-sized hard drive for EVERY SINGLE PERSON who wants to use a cloud-based service.

So what are the alternatives? Is there anything out there right now that can provide a similar service? At what cost? Can I get all my music and stuff to my device?!

Yes you can, and little to no cost.

How about “free”? How about “$20”? No subscription rates, no annual or monthly fees … your library, your device.

I’ve done some digging around and have come up with a pretty good list of applications and programs that will keep you earlobes deep in Funkytown.

Audiogalaxy
This is a *great* audi0 library streaming program. Best part–it’s free.  You create an online account on their website, then download and install a desktop application. Once you install it, you specify what folders you want it to scan for music. It finds all the audio files within those folders. Once it completes the scan, it catalogs what it finds on its server. Next, download the Audiogalaxy app, install it, and log in  using the account info you created on AG’s website. Voila! You have access to your entire music collection!

One drawback: you cannot delete files by simply selecting them from AG’s user interface. “Erm … why would I want to delete music from my library?” Let me give you an example. Right now, I have Terry Oldfield’s and Sally Oldfield’s entire discographies on AG. I … meh. I don’t particularly want to listen to them, nor do I care if I have them in my AG library. In order to get them out of AG, I have to move them to a separate file that’s not in my AG database, then I have to rescan the AG folder. Kind of lame … and I’m not a fan.

Of course, it works best over wi-fi, but it holds up extremely well with as little as two bars on my phone. Buffering is minimal.

Zumocast

First off, if you don’t already have Zumocast downloaded and installed, looks like you’ll be waiting a couple of months before you can get it. Bummer, since it’ll stream audio, music, docs … pretty much anything. So … that sucks. I was looking forward to watching Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Guess that’s not happening. Yet. When it was available in the App store, it was free. Here’s hoping it returns as the same.

The beauty of Zumocast is that it will stream audio AND video. That’s pretty slick … except it’s not available right now. Someday …

Sorry if anyone finds the ellipses condescending (YOU know who you are!!). 🙂

ooTunes

Not free. $19.99. And it uses a browser to stream. And it hella-sucks to set up. Unless your last name is “Gates” or “Jobs,” I wouldn’t mess with this. No program should be this difficult to set up.

Air Video

Similar to Audiogalaxy, except it doesn’t play music files; it streams only video files. However, this was too good to pass up. Same process as AG: go to website; download desktop app; install; search for vid files; download iPhone app ($4.99, no freebie version); xyz, blah blah blah. End result: 1300 video files streaming to my phone. Yah. I can deal with with that. I would like to be able to have “one app to rule them all,” as it were, but I can wait until Zumocast is back up and running. Meanwhile, this app will be fine.

There is one *tiny* little drawback, and it’s probably just some tweak that I haven’t properly configured … I can’t get this to work over 3G. It works great on my home wi-fi network, but I don’t know about wandering out of my router’s range. I’ll have to test that later. But if you’re just bumming around the house and you have a wireless network, it’s definitely worth the $5.

End result of all apps tested: Audiogalaxy for streaming all your music; Air Video to stream your vids … UNTIL Zumocast is re-released!

Death of the iPod Classic?!

/ / Opinion, rantings

I have a 160GB iPod Classic. It holds approximately 1/3 of my music collection. That’s just mp3s. This doesn’t include audio book, FLAC or wav files, or miscellaneous audio files. JUST music. I’m past the point of wanting to continually load/unload songs from my iPod.

There is no solution forthcoming.

I have searched high and low for the scrap of a hint of a rumor that Apple is working on a larger iPod size. Not only could I not find a single whiff of a clue as to if/when a larger iPod would be released … I found quite the opposite. It is entirely possible that Apple is phasing out their classic model in favor of the much smaller capacity touches, nanos and iPhones.

To Steve Jobs et al, I have a simple, basic, one-word question: “WHY?!”

I mean, really … who amongst us anymore has a scant 160GB music collection? Anyone? No? That’s what I thought. Not to mention that iTunes has an incredibly robust and rounded-out video library. Those take up tons more space than does a single song. So why the seeming slide backwards in the size department?

Let me pose this question: What if size really didn’t matter?

For all you female readers, I’ll give you a moment to quit your snide snickering. Done yet? Good.

Fact: Apple is buying up property left and right: old HP campuses, private land owned by old people (Fullbrights, anyone?) … what do they plan on doing with all that land?

Fact: Apple is moving away from the classic iPods with the larger storage capacities in favor of the smaller, slimmer, slicker looking iPhone and Touch devices.

What if capacity were no longer a necessity?

What if all your media resided “in the cloud?”

Think about it. It wouldn’t matter what capacity your device has: it would pull it ALL from a cloud-based location. All of the sudden, your 160GB iPod is moot.

Or is it? What about those who don’t have access to their “cloud?” Hikers? Anyone going “off the grid” is going to have a difficult time accessing their media content.

So in a nutshell, I went from being super-down about the classic line going away, to realizing what the potential reason for its demise is and actually getting excited about the prospects, to being upset about the whole “cloud” concept and not having access to all my music and stuff in a localized location. Interesting.

To be fair, most of these thoughts are based on articles that have been written in the last few months. This is pure speculation on my part, paired with the speculations of others who have written on similar topics. Will we see the end of the iPod classic? I bet we do. In favor of smaller-capacity devices? It would certainly seem so. Will it matter if iTunes goes cloud-based? Who knows?

RIP, Children

/ / Blah-ness, Opinion, rantings

So, I had a post written. It sucked. Here’s a new one. It will probably suck too cuz I have no idea what I’m going to write.

Earlier in the day, I was listening to the Moody Blues. They were a high school staple of mine. I wore thin every tape of theirs I had. On the way to school, at lunch, during free periods, on the way home, on the way to my job, doing homework … I listened to them a LOT. Of course, I listened other things too, but for a while, they were my main band.

Times they do change …

As the years have passed, my tastes have broadened–become more refined. Gone are the days sitting around enjoying a rousing round of the Sea Hags. Yes … that’s an actual band. Anyway, those days are gone. In their place is an appreciation of more musical bands–ones with talent.

So it is with a continually heavying heart as I listened to the Moody Blues’ 2nd album, To Our Children’s Children’s Children today. Now … to caveat that statement, I have to go on record as saying that most of their older music holds up nicely. They were innovative for their time for incorporating orchestral arrangements in a lot of their music, so that’s pretty cool. Lyrically … wow. I don’t remember them being so cheesy. Granted, it was the late 60s/early-to-mid 70s when they wrote a majority of their stuff. Lots of cheesy lyrics. Talking about a rocket launch as if it were “10 million buttefly sneezes”? Come on … really?  Granted, it’s off their sophomore,  and sure–“Higher and Higher” is more an environmental statement, but … ugh. “10 million butterfly kisses.” Not the best line.

And that album is riddled with lines like that. Incredibly simple and … elementary, cheesy, and … well, dare I say it–weak. “Do as you please with so much ease.” So I’m labeling today “Nit-picky Sunday” cuz that’s pretty much what I’m doing. TO ONE OF MY FAVORITE BANDS.

It kind of makes me sad. I’ve kind of known that there was a high cheese factor to a some of their lyrics for years, but today it just *really* grated it on my nerves. Sad! I’m blaming it on the Percocet. I can do that … right?

White Stripes – Under Great White Northern Lights

/ / Concerts, Opinion, review

So I guess DirecTV still has us on the 3 free months of Showtime and Starz. That’s swell. Time to scan the channels and see what’s coming on.

Oh, look. The White Stripes. They’re always fun. Let’s record that.

Also, let’s forget that we ever recorded it and skip ahead a few weeks.

Next, let’s decide to see if a new episode of Bones came on Thursday. No? Oh well … wonder what other mystery surprises the DVR holds.

Oh look–that White Stripes vid I forgot that I recorded. Wonder how that is.

Pure awesomeness?

Energetic?

Personal?

And we’re back to pure awesomeness.

So I guess the premise behind the video is that they had never played in Canada. They’ve been to tons of other countries, but they had never set foot in Canada. Odd, considering they grew up with Canada practically being their backyard. So at some point, Jack and Meg decided that they would tour all of Canada. Not just the major cities, either. We’re talking Inuit villages, Yukon territory, frozen solid towns … they played a LOT of shows. In every one of them, they had little pre-concert warm-up shows. My favorite was the the first thing shown on the video: One-Note Concert. A crowd of several hundred greet them as they exit their car, get out, and walk to the stage. Jack dons his guitar, Meg grasps her drumsticks with full intent, and they promptly launch into  … one note. Then they leave the stage. The crowd immediately starts chanting for more, which is absolutely hilarious.

What amazed me most about the video is just how personable Jack is with everyone. He and Meg played a warm-up gig at what looked like a convalescent home located just a bit south of the north pole. So at a lot of these pre-gig warm-up shows, they’d play a regular, White Stripe-style show, just scaled, way, way down and back. This particular show, however, featured Jack with an acoustic, Meg with a hand-held percussiony thing (can’t remember if it was a tambourine or some maracas), and they played this folksy little ditty. The tenants loved it so much that they decided to reciprocate with a song of their own. Very cool. They also played “The Wheels on the Bus Go ‘Round and ‘Round” while riding a bus all through the town. What?!  Yes–all through the town. And the fellow bus-riders were LOVING it … singing along, laughing … awesomeness.

How a two-person band can have that much energy and intensity is beyond me, but they bring it to each and every one of their shows. They live in the moment, for the moment.

So yah. If you have a chance to pick up this incredible documentary concert footage DVD, I would highly recommend it. It’s worthy of your time, your TV, and your disc player. Or if you have cable or satellite, see if it’s on and record it. If you’re a fan of raw and intense energy, pick this up.

In This Moment …

/ / Opinion, review

At work, I tend to throw my music on shuffle and let play whatever comes up. Yesterday, I was buzzing along with all my lovely table formatting, In This Moment came on, and it struck me pretty hard. So I thought I’d take it off of shuffle and listen to their library.

You know how sometimes you have that rare, un-listened to gem in your music collection that makes you wonder how this particular band has escaped your attention for so long? Yah. That’s where I am right now with ITM.

So to start off with, the genre: Some want to classify them as metal. I can see that, but really … there’s more there than just thrash this and speed that. Chord progression, depth of layering, technical skill … I’d have to throw them solidly in the progressive rock/metal category … if even that can come close to defining their sound. Most of their stuff is high energy, some notable exceptions being discussed later.

The band consists of Jeff Fabb on drums, Chris Howorth and Blake Bunzel on guitars, Josh Newell on bass (though Kyle Konkiel takes over for the new CD), and Maria Brink on vocals (I … well, just read the rest of the post).

Jeff has some serious double bass kick talent. I’ve been a fan of good drumming since I discovered Rush, so the bar is set pretty high. He thrashes away on his kit with excellent precision and explosive bomasticism (yes, I just made “bombastic” into a noun. Suck it–I’m an English major). Check out “Circles” on Beautiful Tragedy for a hint at his ability to shift from 1st gear to 5th in a matter of one bar.

I love how Chris and Blake trade licks back and forth across the stereo spectrum. There’s kind of  a Dream Theater concept of round-robin instruments between them, and it works really well. They can play an amazing acoustic track like “When the Storm Subsides,” then turn around and kick you in the ear drums with tracks like “Next Life.” Awesomesauce!

Josh. I know this is supposd to be a “speed metal” band, but he’s one of the reasons I’m a tad reticent to immediately lump ITM in such a category. There times that you catch him pulling some very Chris Wolstenhume-like licks. That’s not very speed metal, now is it? It’s rare that a bassist gets to shine. Of course there are notable exceptions, but mostly, bassists are background. And yes–most of Josh’s brilliance is low-key and takes a back seat to Chris and Blake. But he does have his moments where he utterly dominates. Again, check out “Circles” towards the end. I love that bass line he pulls. Subtle, but a perfect compliment to round out the track.

And then there’s Maria Brink, for whom I can only think of 3 words to describe her: What. The. Hell.

I will be the first to admit that I dig chick singers. Most of the time when I’m music shopping, I will base a purchase upon whether a band has a female vocalist. Regardless of whether it’s lo-fi, alternative, metal, indie … what have you.

And so it is that I have a new found infatuation with ITM.

She can sing as soft as an island breeze on an August morning. She can also scream the evil out of you. And she has no compunction against utilizing her range on any given track. One great example of her control is the track “Her Kiss.” She reigns in her uber power with such restraint that you just *want* her to unleash … but no. Then you take a track like “Ashes” off of Beautiful Tragedy. And she just untethers herself with a vocal attack of nuclear proportions.

On “When the Storm Subsides” from Beautiful Tragedy, she seems to pull off a very Ani Difranco sound with her vocals. Intentional or not, it was kind of surprising.

Easily the most haunting track on their entire discography (which, really, at this point is only 3 CDs, one of which I don’t even have yet …) is “Into the Light” on The Dream. Depressingly lovely, it is anything but a break from the intensity of the rest of the CD. The theme of loss and death is evident, but … wow. Amy Lee has nothing on Maria. And I like Evanescence. I don’t know if it’s about someone who was ripped from her too early and with no warning, or if it’s about someone who committed suicide (and, in retrospect, the two theories are definitely not mutually exclusive), or what it’s about. What I do know is that it can make a person weep.

Their newest CD, A Star-Crossed Wasteland, was released in July of this year. Like I said, I haven’t picked it up yet. However, tomorrow is pay day. 🙂 iTunes, look out.

In summary, do yourself a favor. Pick up Beautiful Tragedy and The Dream (I would recommend the ultraviolet edition, if you can find it).

WHEW!

/ / Blah-ness, Opinion, rantings

All the music from my phone remained intact. THAT’s a relief.

So, the point of my concern was that a few months back, I had to re-install Windows (guess Bill didn’t like me using my “evaluation” Windows 7 OS anymore …). Unfortunately, my iTunes library wasn’t backed up entirely. All the purchased material was flushed with the hard drive re-format. Fortunately, that consisted of a total of two songs from my friend in Seattle, who sings with the band Paisley Rose out of Portland. Again, just two tracks, and I most certainly did not mind re-purchasing them … but what if i had lost my whole library? I’m not an iTunes guru by any stretch, but from the attempts I made at finding a way to re-download my already purchased tracks, I seemed to be up the proverbial creek without so much as a canoe, much less a paddle. 

Anyway, so it was a great relief to me to see that my phone did not purge the purchases when I connected it to my desktop for the first time.

And stand by for another post! A concert announcement that I didn’t know was even on the docket. SWEET.

This Post Has No Title

/ / Blah-ness, Opinion, rantings

Well la-de-frickin’-da. Fidelity screwed me over. One day, I’m making bank and gainfully employed. Next day, out of work, no warning, and seriously wondering what just happened. Thus was my day on August 19th. Since then, I’ve been in a funk, not really feeling like doing much of anything other than wondering, “What …? Why?”

Well, writing funk is over. It’s time to get back into it. So hopefully, things will be a lot more regular on here. It’s not like I don’t have time, right? 🙂

So my friend Crystal went to the Big Gig show in Denver. Her review was excellent. Some local bands that look pretty promising. Gonna check out their stuff and see what they’re like. Hopefully, there’ll be at least one good band in there, right?

So, as of this moment forward, be looking for more posts. I’m done wallowing.

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