This is MP3Monster's blog. The blog covers music, technology, photography and anything else Monster considers worthy of blogging about.All quiet on the posting front / Basingstoke Tappers
Posted by monster in General, Tappers
I’ve been a bit slower with blog posts over the last few days. That’s because the dance company my wife performs with had their annual summer show the weekend just gone. The culmination of months of hard work by the dancers and crew.
Although my view is a touch biased. The Basingstoke Tapper’s shows look very professional (no small achievement for a community organisation); but then that is in part a reflection of the background of Tracey Kinchenton who runs the company and her husband John Deemer who handles the music side of things. Both Tracey & John have and continue to work in the entertainment business professionally.
My involvement is very much behind the scenes, acting as stage manager for the last couple of years. So it falls to me to learn the show and then on the show nights ensure that everything is where it should be and keep the rest of the crew informed of what is going and reminding them of their cues and any sudden other tasks that may need to be dealt with.
Then after the final night - there is the get out, which means helping breaking down all the staging, props, lighting which typically takes the full until 2 and 3 in the morning.
It may not sound very hard but the job is pretty physical before and after the shows. Then during the show it is noisy, hot and very stressful. You’ve got a headphone over one ear and a microphone attached to it (together know as a can) through which you’re trying to listen to questions and information being passed back and forth between the crew - over which the other microphones will be picking up the sound from the main auditorium. On top of that you’re stood a couple of feed from the stage monitors (speakers) for the entire duration of the show 2 or more hours of show. In the other ear you’re listening for the show director (Tracey Kinchenton) - just incase she needs to issue more requests or changes details of the show; plus listening out for the dancers as they prepare, enter and exit the stage beside you (and it can get very busy).
As this year the music was purely from backing tracks with live vocals rather than the usual live band or orchestra, you’re looking one way to watch the timers on the music sources so you know when things have got to end. You’re watching the stage to make sure that nothing is going wrong - straying props, children getting too close to the stage edge, pyrotechnics or lights. Not to mention keep track of all my cue notes.
To be honest - the largest sense of satisfaction comes from the release of pressure after the final night of the show. The feeling of relief is incredible once you’ve called for house lights to come up and you can ‘come off cans’ as they say and the show has run smoothly.
Flickr
Posted by monster in Photography
This is 
blogging about Monster’s photos.
MSN and other Spaces
Posted by monster in Technology
In the last few days I’ve upgraded my MSN Messenger to the new MSN Live Messenger primarily as it finally offers the first step in the right direction by being able to communicate with Yahoo messenger users plus with the absorbing of the FolderShare technology that I used in the past until the service became a pay for only option.
The look & feel and how some of the previous instant messenger functions don’t appear to as well realised with the new MSN Messenger. For example the colours used to indicator when someone is on or off line aren’t as distinctly different, sa rather recognising someone’s status with a glance you have to look with a little more care - which in my opinion is a step backward.
With the new MSN Live push has been a further promotion of MSNSpaces, the Microsoft alternative to 
MySpace. I have been intrigued by the attraction of MySpace and MSNSpaces has had to people. To be honest, I struggle to see what they offer, beyond features that are already available on the net - bulletin boards exist; blogs do; and online photo albums as well. Having had a quick tinker with MySpace and now MSNSpaces (http://mp3monster.spaces.msn.com/). I can’t say that they offer these features in a manner that beat the best solutions (like WordPress and Flickr). So what is the attraction, simply that they’re all under one virtual roof? The fact that they have drawn a reasonable number of people there already?
If this is the attraction, then whoever integrates the best offerings combined with a good market reach stands an exceptional chance of seizing a very large slice of the market.
Why do I have an MSN Space? Well to be honest, because a friend was setting up a space and in replying to the friendship request Microsoft get you to create a your own address. Content wise it only exists to point people back to this website. I have the ability to work the best of breed solutions together like WordPress and Flickr.
What ever the outcome my current MSNSpace is here, but everything will remain with the website.
Mercury Music Prize 2006
Posted by monster in Music
The Mercury Music Prize nominees have been announced - details can be found here http://www.nationwidemercurys.com/ - personally I’m pleased to see Richard Hawley, Scritti Politti, The Editors and Thom Yorke among the nominations. Although this year the range of musical genres that the nominees cover seems a lot narrower than usual.
Paying For Fan Site Membership
Posted by monster in Music
Paying For Fan Site Membership
There appears to be a rather evil pattern developing of making people pay membership fees to artist’s fan site (Elton John and Sting are two examples of this). Although paying for fan clubs is nothing new, in the past the membership cost has been a nominal amount which has been to largely to cover the cost of sending magazines etc. However in this day and age of the web where these sort of costs are relatively small, and most organisations/artists have the cost of web presence anyway, asking $60 (~£45) is outragious. So what do the memberships bring, largely the chance to buy concert tickets before the general public, or should I say those of us with slightly less deeply lined pockets. These very same artists alse seem to have the most expensive ticket prices, this certainly holds true for Elton John. I think that those who subscribe to the artists news groups getting advance ticket access to be a good thing, as it means the genuine fans get best seats, not an unreasonable gesture for fan loyalty (as per Peter Gabriel).
rant over.
Annie - Anniemal - 5 minute Review
Posted by monster in Music Reviews
Interesting album, this is an interesting blend of sounds, perhaps not as chilled as Jem (a namely definitely worth watching for over the coming year), slighly less in your face as the chart stuff from Gwen Stefani’s first solo ofering (but also a damn sight better than Gwen which is fine as far as the singles go but after that is to put is baldly crap). The sound often comes across as ideas from the 80s pop to today thrown in a blender and the nicest results being pulled out. For example Me Plus One - sounds a bit like a Madonna singing the Human League’s Love Action, or Always Too Late could be a white Beyonce or a girl band with talent!
If you want to go light a frothy without becoming crappy (aka Girls Aloud)- then this is a good place stop.
Elvis Costello & The Imposters - Delivery Man - 10 Minute Review
Posted by monster in Music Reviews
10 Minute Review
The ever changing Elvis Costello is back again with Delivery Man having completed another classical piece this year and contributing to Mrs Costello’s latest(better known as Diana Krall) with a new album backed with the majority of the Attractions.
Time to rush out to your favourite CD shop, quickly click your way to that cheap online site you’ve found, or simply Amazon cause you they’ll have it listed?
Well the opening track suggests we’re in for something more punk/new wave than Elvis’ hayday; and hey whats the piano motif in the background that keep cropping - damn I know that but where from? Then onto something could have come from his North album (polished nudging towards something Jazz like). Then we’re off to something thats somewhere between Country and Costello’s New Wave roots. This pretty much how the album goes all the way through swinging between Country/Americana and Lounge Jazz with varying degrees of new wave infusions. As usual Costello’s song writing is strong distinctive (and you’d expect nothing less of him).
Do I like it, would I recommend it, on the first listen or two I personally am finding the strong shifting styles a little unsettling, just as I settle into the groove we’re off again. But it is growing on me, the title track, Monkey Man and Nothing Clings Like Ivy are certainly hittin home (with the lovely Emmylou Harris). I’m more than likely to be saying to be saying its a corker in a week or two, but try not not listen to it with any particular expectations.
Collateral Soundtrack - 10 minue Review
Posted by monster in Music Reviews
Michael Mann films are noted for three things :
1. A decent story line
2. Amazing cinematograhy - often of LA
3. Use of music to underline or enhance the atmosphere of the film (for example the downtown shoot out sequence in Heat - which can’t have run on so long if it hadn’t been for the taught underlying music, or closing scene when De Niro is shot featuring Moby’s God Flying Over The Face Of The Water).
Many of Mann’s soundtracks are essenitally compilations with a few additional special sequences written for the film (this time contributed by James Newton Howard). Unlike a lot of main stream soundtracks that work from compilations, Mann doesn’t go for obvious or easy choices - this makes for a refreshing change, and still the soundtracks stand up in their own right as an indpendent piece of music - see The Insider for proof of this. This soundtrack continues with this form, with only one well known track which was remixed for the film (Oakenfold’s Ready Steady Go which has appeared in the Bourne films).
The soundtrack opens with some decent straight ahead rock, which happens whilst the film is introducing Max. Then the you have the fantastic Groove Armada’s Hands Of Time which has a Ritchie Valens vocal. The album is worth investigating purely on the strength of this track alone.
After Hands Of Time we have several Latin/Mexican tinged numbers which build up tempo to an Audioslave number, all of which are worthwhile. But after Audioslave we get a jaring change of style to Jazz from Miles Davis, a fine number but I’m inclined to resequence the album to avoid this jaring (the album’s running order reflects the film’s chronology).
Then we have another dramatic change of style for Paul Oakenfold’s Ready Steady Go - a pretty dramatic piece of electronica, which was brilliantly cut in the film.
The final sequence of the pieces come from James Newton Howard which provide a tremondously pensive close.
Overall, great, but not quiet as brilliant as the Heat soundtrack.
Mindmaps
Posted by monster in Technology
When I tackle a techie book from cover to cover I generate mindmaps to help act both as an aide memoir and as a means to rehearse the key points as I work through a book.
I used to use MindManager, but given that my current employers don’t have licenses to this software that I can use and there are free solutions out there, I now use FreeMind and I can highly recommend it. As there has been a nice flash based viewer created that can handle the FreeMind files I’ll start publishing the mindmaps. Most of them don’t look very exciting as early versions of freemind didn’t support the pretty graphics you can now use.
The first maps can be found here:
Note that the maps will tweaked and improved from time to time. I will of course create an nice index page as I start to make more maps available.
Chris Whitley - War Crime Blues - 10 Minute Review
Posted by monster in Music Reviews
Another 10 minute review!!
It is a rare thing to hear raw authentic blues these days - and we’re talking Robert Johnson style recordings - a guitar, vocal and maybe something simple beating (a foot on the floor, a single drum etc) the basic rhythm. This is a long way from the studio polished efforts from the current blues statesmen (i.e. Eric Clapton et al). But here we have it - minimal mic’ing, all the nuances of guitar strings buzzing and vibrating on the recording. To top this off Chris also plays using a Pedal Steel Guitar - on its own a rare thing, but combined with the rawness of the delivery - something special to hear, particularly as it isn’t muddied by the fact it has had to be mastered from a piece or warn and tired out piece of vinyl or aged master tape. For most people this isn’t a recording that will invoke simple pleasure and emotional response. This is something that should be atleast listened to once for an appreciation of authenticity.
Chris’ voice is far from the smoothest, but then Chris’ isn’t in the easy listening secton of your local CD shop or webstore; his voice is extremely expressive easily changing in strength of delivery and intonation to support the lyrics.
Before I put most people off Chris’ work completely - his recordings so have ranged massively, through the blues (from this raw approach, through to very polished performances), into Americana (check out Living with The Law) and onto more conventional Rock and Grunge (Din Of Ecastasy). But this album is for Chris Whitley fans, and those that love the purest and rawest of blues or want to have a lesson in what it should sound like.
The Producers DVD & The Digital Home
Posted by monster in Technology
If you haven’t seen it yet - then the new take of Mel Brook’s The Producers with Matthew Broderick & Nathan Lane is very much worthy of a viewing, so much so in my opinion that we’ve purchased the DVD. Bully for you, I hear you cry. Well, being a techie I’ve got the house setup to handle streamed media - including video, so now rather than trawling through our DVDs to choose something to watch; we simply flick the TV over to the media device and then navigate through our online collection. The DVDs themselves get stored away, keeping the place nice and clutter free. To store the DVDs, I convert the film to the popular DIVX format which gives me a nice compression of 50%-75% without seriously compromising quality.
Now the point is, the studio has so kindly put some form of copy protection on the disk so I can not do the conversion, so much for the networked home media solution if they keep that up. So what can I do? Well ironically, I can either keep the DVD laying around - not desirable got too many to easily store anyway; or I can turn to the one thing the media moguls love to tell us is both illegal and the source of inferior versions - P2P, and hey thirty seconds and I’ve found someone who is sharing a DIVX conversion of the DVD film. So what has been gained by the effort in figuring out how to stop me converting a DVD to meet my home media requirements, aside from from really annoying me?
The silly thing is, if I download the converted form of the DVD then the studio will scream thats another lost sale. I was going to say that of course this is rubbish in this case, but it occured to me that if you’re looking to do the same thing you may well not bother buying the DVD - not because I’ve said you can find downloads available on the net, but because you like me want to show the film within in your streaming media environment and wont bother buying it now given that you can’t load it into your media system! Not the intention that the film studio or distributors wanted to achieve.
Incidentally, Sony who have a huge investment in both music and film have announced such a home media streaming device - and I bet you that it wont help you transition from their DRM/protected content to their media network.
Faithless - Forever Faithless (aka Greatest Hits)
Posted by monster in Music Reviews
Well,
The greatest hits album has found its way into the record shops - the album contains:
1. Insomnia
2. Mass Destruction
3. God Is A DJ
4. Don’t Leave
5. Muhammed Ali
6. We Come On
7. Reverence
8. Salva Mea
9. One Step Too Far
10. Bring My Family Back
11. Miss You Less, See You More
12. Tarantula
13. Fatty Boo
14. I Want More
So it would appear that we have one new track in the form of Fatty Boo, and the rest are album cuts that have been released as singles. The tragic thing is Faithless have been innovative (although annoying) by re-releasing the albums with remix disks with some wonderful versions of their songs - non of which appear here. And what of their additional songs contributed to soundtracks such as Woozy for The Beach (it was a toss up between Woozy and Unkle’s contribution for the best track on the album). Then there is the Late Night Sessions and several other mixes.
This is not to say that this isn’t a great set of songs, it simply an unoriginal choice, if you have all the albums so far, then I’d suggest thinking hard before buying, you’d be better off paying for a ticket and seeing them live - great gigs despite Maxi Jazz’ voice suffers a bit on the road; that or a live bootleg if you can find one. But for those who just like the hits, or want to get to know Faithless better, then this is a great starting point.
The question is, come the autumn will we be seeing a double album version with the second disc containing remixes? Something that may well be a lot more interesting, particularly if Sister Bliss and Rollo decide to do some new ones!
Joseph Arthur - Our Shadows Will Remain - 10 minute Review
Posted by monster in Music Reviews
The first and most striking thing about Josepth Arthur’s work is his vocal delivery. This singular thing is most likely to turn people off his work in many ways like the average reaction to Bob Dylan’s vocal performance. This is not to say that his vocals are as demanding as Dylan’s (well atleast in my opnion). His delivery at the at its loudest can come across as a blues shouter as much as anything else, but much of his delivery is a lot slower and quieter, the only point of reference that comes to mind is taking Leonard Cohen and speeding his delivery up slightly, raising it an octave and making it slightly nasal. But what adds the unusual nature of the vocal is Joseph’s tendency to adding a choral/reverb effect to his voice, making things a lot easier to listen to.
If you are comfortable with this vocal sound then you’re in for a treat, as Joseph’s strength isn’t his vocals (and he recognises this - hence the processing) but the music and song writing which have improved with every release, and his debut Big City Secrets was no light weight to start with.
The album’s musical range is very broad from acoustic based tracks like Echo park through to more rocky stuff like Stumble And Pain. The later even incorporates string sections which feel perfectly natural.
This is probably his most accessable album to date, some might say the most mainstream. But I’d recommend any self respecting music fan to give this album a chance.
the slow & painful death of the British Single
Posted by monster in Music
As a die hard music fan I still take an interest in singles. The ‘B sides’ (for want of a name in this age of the CD) can through up some jems. But the single is slowly being killed off - a few years ago the BPI ruled for a single to qualify for the charts it had to have a maximum of three tracks. This was in an age where remixes and extra songs where de-rigour - for artists like Depeche Mode etc it was fantastic you’d get some really interesting takes on their material plus an extra song or two.
With the limitation of the number of tracks, artists started to release multiple versions of a single - a bit of a money spinner for the record companies that one, but at least each version had three tracks for your £2.99; or if you were lucky £1.99 in the first week (the norm seems to be as soon as it breaks the top forty add another £1 to price). For our friends on the far side of the pond we’re talking about ~$3.80 to ~$5.50 - that is to roughly almost half the price of an album.
Now over the last six months, probably in part due to iTunes’ pricing of a track at £0.79, and now that digital purchasing is starting to make a notable impact; you typically only get two tracks on the single priced at £1.99 (still adding that £1 after hitting the top forty). A price that even I’m baulking at, and I have the benefit of a fair level of disposable income. To pour salt onto this open wound we’re starting to see the ‘B-sides’ turn out to be other album tracks or the same track performed live with very little difference in the performance; and can often obtained elsewhere.
So, if I’m representative of a singles buyer then all we can see is a slow steady decline to sales as more and more people decide they’re not going to bend over for the record companies. Naturally, the record companies will cry foul and blame illegal downloading.
Flickr missing an opportunity?
Posted by monster in Photography, Technology
Best start with my cards out on the table - I’m a big fan of Flickr, no doubt about it. I love the fact that they’ve provided APIs and people are creating lots of cool extras like screen savers etc etc
But I think Flickr maybe missing a great opportunity. Let me first give some background. I enjoy photography, and could reasonably labelled as an amateur photographer rather than just a snapper. Some of the photos I’ve taken friends have blogged about (Richard’s Blog) and one particular friend has been encoruaging me to perhaps get my photos used. For me, that means allowing my photos to be used is a stock photo library (these are libraries where photos for commercial calendars etc are purchased). So started looking around a bit at services where I could submit photos for use in a stock library.
I have to admit I was a little shocked. Some libraries charge a considerable amount (£60+ or ~$100 per year) for holding your photos which may or may not be picked up and used, and or a large chunk (around the 60% mark)of any payment you might get. I’ve also seen criteria for a minimum number of photos, and if you’re starting out in this area you’re probably not going to have enough photos!
So here we are with Flickr - which if you hadn’t noticed allows you specify a Creative Commons license on your photos (i.e. free to use as long as you don’t modify) - so by default you still own copyright. With a means by which you can track down photos on a theme, you have several elements of what it would take to provide a stock library (i.e. indicate licensing, find photos by type, see the photos and download them). From here surely all they need to do is to allow people looking photos to buy a means to make a purchase.
There is a question of quality of picture - well Flickr could provide a premium service to buyers by reviewing photos marked as stock usable; and resolution - well Flickr already has the idea of the pro account that allows higher quality images for a fraction of the price being offered by the stock library services), so could they offer a pro plus account for a few more dollars which allows you submit even higher res images or the images with their associated RAW format?
Perhaps someone could implement a brokerage solution using the Flickr API?
G8 - compaign continues for Make Povery History
Posted by monster in General, Music
The Make Poverty History organisation are continuing to apply pressure to the G8 to try and keep the commitments made last year at Gleneagles being turned into a reality. The compaign included Travis slapping a nice big postit on 10 Downing Street’s door - more here. If you would like to do you bit - then go to the http://www.live8live.com/postit site here.
Crazy Diamond No Longer Shines
Posted by monster in Music
The passing of Syd Barrett is going to get a lot of press for the next day or so. I’ll not clutter the web further ramblings. If you’d like to read about his life and significance to Pink Floyd - go here.
Hilary Rosen - oh how tunes change
Posted by monster in Music
So who is Hilary Rosen you may ask. Well until a couple of years ago she headed up the RIAA (yes those nice people who sue their clients’ customers; aka Recording Industry Association of America). Hilary was responsible initiating the legal pursuit of downloaders, original closure of Napster, promotion of DRM etc. Hilary has a business partner (Jason Berman) a former member of the IFPI (the global parent of the RIAA, BPI etc).
So these two aren’t much loved by a notable proportion of net users. Now, I’m not going to argue about the legalities of downloading, beyond saying that some artists allow recordings to be made freely available and for free, and fans should be allowed take advantage of this. My message being, and this is important - downloading music does not automatically equate to illegal activity. One further final beef with the thinking within the RIAA et al - if I purchase music, regardless of means I should be allowed to listen to it on the device of my choice.
Right now lets get back to Hilary & co. So you’d think a consultancy with these people would be all up for restriction of music, but nope; they have changed their tune a little. Well actually I’d say a lot, to the point of a U turn. Perhaps they’ve seen how much the RIAA has alienated people to the point record label bosses are rebelling. So what is Hilary saying now? Well she now consults for XM Satellite. The XM Satellite company that is delivering radio via satellite for the USA and has some very serious backing. The really intriguing thing is that XM are also involved in pushing receivers for their service including a time shifting receiver/player. A Tivo or Sky+ for radio if you like. So believe it or not, Rosen is backing XM saying that there is nothing wrong with this, although the RIAA beg to differ and it’s all going to end up in court.
To me the argument over radio time shifting is no different to the argument about video recorders when they first came out - and we saw what happened there. So logic would dictate Hilary might be right here. But hey, the MGM vs Grokster case which used the same video recorder argument (often called the Sony Betamax ruling) which argues that the technology and how it was applied are separate issues was overturned, so the device can record and the content being recorded is down to the user. So the situation isn’t so cut and dried. Given the outcome of these cases it seems that money talks even in the law courts in the US of A, so this could end up being who has deepest pockets.
End of story? Well no, funnily enough that other pain in digitised music - DRM as been criticised by Hilary. Well more specifically the fact that Apple will not share their DRM so locking you into iTunes. You can see what she says here in the Huffington Post.
So with the French legislation pushing towards breaking the iTunes lock-in and increasing clamour for FairTrade DRM to be changed. The coming months are going to interesting for the future of digital music.
This does leave me in the position of saying I have to agree with Hilary Rosen at the moment. But who knows for next year.
Artist’s web sites - all Flash and no RSS?
Posted by monster in Music, Technology
As a result of vast volumes and numerous sources of information available through the web; evnough that even the best information worker, let alone the average punter can be swamped. We’ve seen the rapid adoption of RSS (and for RSS you can also include Atom and others). Anyone more than the most casual of users will know RSS gives you the means to gather together sources of information and see when they change (give or take a bit in the technicalities).
With all of these feeds combined with a personal news aggregator - which could be something like delicious or pluck (my preference), it starts becoming a relatively easy task to keep with your favourite artists and wider happenings in the world of music. Well almost; if you follow your favourite artists through fan sites, you’re probably ok. But if you want to hear get the news from the source, then you’re likely to have a few problems. Lets take the new Scissor Sisters site. The ’sisters have just launched a fresh site as part of the build up to the new album. Looks pretty, but no RSS feed to pickup the news. Which means either you have to sign up to their email or visit the site regularly, navigating through the unnecessary flash animation of entering the site - pretty, but pointless (but thats a whole different kettle of fish - but of you want to know more now checkout Jakob Nielsen).
To keep up with news from their site you have no choice but join their email list, but it does mean that you now have to keep track of which sites you’ve given your email to. What happens you email account gets spammed to death or compromised? Besides, all your other news is coming through your RSS feed, so why do these sites insist on going against the flow. All I wanted to do is keep abreast of the release dates for the singles and new album; I do not want to be emailed everytime their is a ticket auction for gigs in Witchita when I live in London.
The Scissor Sister’s are far from the only artists who have a website like this (I could bore you with the length of the list of sites that I have a grievence with); pretty with the use of Flash but far from quick for access to news when it happens. It seems to be a terrible sin amongst many artists sites to use Flash and no RSS. It would be interesting to know if the record labels/management people sit around wondering how it is they pour lots of money into website teams or companies (and given the glossy look of the sites founded by ex PR/Ad Agency people) and wonder why the fan sites attract so much more traffic and run by people in their spare time.
The biggest sinners are some of the print journals - like NME. I know that the website is paid for through advertising revenue (an evil I can live with), but that doesn’t stop you having an RSS feed - I’ve seen a couple of sites with feeds where they’ve incorporated ads into the feed information without it being annoying. Ironically, I think the NME have possibly lost out here, as a major news source people have ended up making an RSS feeds available by regularly scraping the website, filtering out all forms of advertising. This does mean that the sites that provide of this RSS can exploit the situation to the NME’s detriment - a situation already created some ripples on the web elsewhere. But a revenue stream lost for the NME which could at least pay for the service, at best funder a richer friendlier site.
So will these sites stop being all Flash and no RSS? I hope sooner rather than later, but I have my doubts.
Website
Posted by monster in General
Welcome to the nearly revamped MP3Monster website. Things are progressing slowly but surely. This revamp is being created using various tools on the best of breed approach rather than trying to integrate everything into one CMS as we did last time. So Flickr provide the photo functionality, WordPress for the blog and so on. We hope that you find something here you like.
Oh, and if you’re looking to buy anything from Amazon, we’d be grateful if you could use our Sponsors link.
Cheers
