This is MP3Monster's blog. The blog covers music, technology, photography and anything else Monster considers worthy of blogging about.JPod by Doug Coupland
Posted by monster in Books
I’ve just finished reading Doug Coupland’s JPod. Its an odd book, some of the characters seem fairly plausible, albeit exaggerated, and others are just completely improbable.
Set in an IT context, Doug like Scott Adams must have spent some time in an IT office environment, in many respects the book often feels like Dilbert on acid.
What really irked me with this is the self referencing (Doug is also a character in his own book, and also has his characters make reference his other books - self promotion in extreme?) and the strange ‘interludes’ where he has done things like include wholesale assignments that one of the book’s characters was doing which really don’t add anything to the story.
If you want a light pointless read and like things such as Dilbert and the TV series the IT crowd, then I’d recommend borrowing a copy of the book otherwise don’t pick it up.
Official Bootlegs
Posted by monster in Music
With the cost of reasonable quality recording from a sound/mixing desk and practicalities of moving the technology getting cheaper and easier there seems to be a trend towards official ‘bootlegs’ seems to be increasing with Tori Amos being another convert. With CD sales reportedly dropping its another avenue to replace any lost income, and a good one for artists who have a reputation for good live performances.
Call me a luddite if you like, but apart from the fact that there is now a price tag associated to the concert recording what has happened to the romance of smugging in recording equipment and trying to get yourself a spot where the sound is perfect. The trick of timing when to swap recording media and so on.
It does also leave an interesting question when is a live recording a bootleg or an official live album ?
CBGB’s founder passes away
Posted by monster in Music
The founder of one of the most famous clubs ever CBGB’s - Hilly Kristal has died due to complications from Lung Cancer. CBGB’s will always be remembered as the spiritual home of US Punk. Sadly the club closed last year as a result of being forced out by the landlords.
I don’t know if its me getting older - but we do seem to be receiving news of a lot of influential people from the music world passing on in recent months.
Hilly Kristal’s obituary at NME can be found here.
Chris Whitely - Living With the Law
Posted by monster in Music
Crawdaddy seem to be keeping up with their excellent standard of articles and subject matter, this time with a crate digger article on Chris Whitley’s debut album.
Crate Digger - Chris Whitely: Living With the Law
Published photos
Posted by monster in Photography
A little while ago I was approached by Schmap travel guides seeking permission to use one of the photos I’d taken when I was in Las Vegas. I heard back today - the photo will be used, but as a result of a technical glitch the picture wont be in the guide until the next edition. You can see where the photo will appear in the guide by going here.
The photo they will be using can be found on Flickr here.
Site for making MySpace music streams downloads
Posted by monster in Music, Technology
A site called MySpaceMP3.org has appeared that allows you to download music from artists that is intended to be only streamed using MySpace’s own controls. Apparently the site’s results can occasionally be flawed but it certainly presents a problem for MySpace.
Pull down the walled gardens of social networks
Posted by monster in Technology
Michael Geist has written a good article on the BBC news site about the ‘walled gardens’ of social network sites such as MySpace which at the moment means that to have a complete social network you’ve probably got identities on several of these sites which need maintaining, rather than one which can be linked or shared with the other services. The full article is here : BBC NEWS - Technology - Pull down the walled gardens.
In addition to Michael’s point about interoperability is the information about which sites are most populate in different parts of the world. For example Facebook is the leading site in the UK, but Bebo is in Ireland and New Zealand.
Anthony H Wilson 1950-2007
Posted by monster in Music
Tony Wilson the founder and former head honcho of Factory Records has sadly died. He will be remembered for a great many things, including the work with Joy Division and New Order as well as founding and creating a successful independent record label on which many have based their own businesses.
Many eulogies and tributes have been written and said of Tony, and I will leave it to them to show how great and influential a person he was.
Anthony H Wilson 1950-2007 - NME.COM
Those pesky kids …
Posted by monster in Technology
I’ve been having to sort out some websites after some ’script kiddies’ attacked it. My own fault really for not acting upon vulnerability announcements quickly enough (having been too occupied with other demands). Although to be honest I didn’t expect these sites to warrant such attention.
Up until now I’ve looked at hackers as at worst a mild pain (same as spammers) - when compared to say, virus writers. If they get into your site, and make it clear to you that they can get in, you really can’t complain too much. What really is annoying is when they destroy all your content, and then get their scripts to keep hitting you when you’re trying to identify and fix the vulnerability and restore things.
For me the worst aspect of it is that I’ve had to take sites down for a day or so, as I can only sort things out in my spare time. This means that mean time the innocent victims are the users can’t make use of the resource. Like many, aside from my own domain, the other domains I run are done as a charitable thing, and I’d rather they didn’t lose out.
Universal to test DRM-free music sales
Posted by monster in Music, Technology
According to engadget Universal is going to follow EMI’s lead and provide a DRM free offering! The only catch is that it wont be available through the biggest online music store - iTunes as Universal continue their childish (particularly as iTunes is currently far larger than any other player in the space)bickering with iTunes.
Engadget storey : Link to Universal to test DRM-free music sales, snubs iTunes
MP3 eating computer virus
Posted by monster in Music, Technology
According to the NME there is a nasty little virus out there in the wild now that will trash any MP3 files that finds (Link to NME article) . Is this the RIAA starting to play below the belt?
JBoss jBPM
Posted by monster in Work
Well I got my copy of Matt’s book today, and had a look through - and I can say that it looks very good - if you want to get an idea of what BPM can offer without any licensing costs then this book with a download of jBPM is perfect.
I can’t resist taking two quotes though. The first is from About the author
I’d like to thank Phil Wilkins from SeeWhy for going way beyond the call of duty in helping me.
and from the closing section about using SeeWhy with jBPM:
There is a great deal to discover and put to use in the SeeWhy business intelligence platform, and have merely scratched the surface of what’s possible:we could write a whole book about it.
Any, congratulations to Matt for a great book. The book can be found at Amazon here.
Picnik - online picture editing
Posted by monster in Photography
I was reading a photography magazine and came across the mention of an interesting site - www.picnik.com - it allows you do photo editing online. This includes neat integration info Flickr. As the article I read said, if you’re on the road and want to tweak and post some pictures - how much easier could it be?
Virgin Megastores US Quarterly Revenues Up
Posted by monster in Music
According to this (Link to Virgin Megastores Post US-Based Quarterly Increases — Digital Music News) Digital Music News article Virgin have posted an improvement of 9% for music sales. Given that they can’t have pushed up prices by 9% (if anything the likes of CD-Wow are forcing retail prices down), I can only read that CD sales aren’t all doom and gloom like the RIAA would like to paint.
Beyond the Sea with the Basingstoke Tappers at Exigency In Specie
Posted by monster in Tappers
Friends - Richard & Veth, have attended this year’s Tapper’s show and again blogged about it. See what they have to say here:
Link to Beyond the Sea with the Basingstoke Tappers at Exigency In Specie
Peter Lik Photography
Posted by monster in Photography
We’ve had an email today from Peter Lik’s gallery in Sydney announcing some more photos (an image one of the pictures can be seen below). Like his other work the images are just stunning, beautiful shapes and colour that can be seen in nature. For those not in the know, Peter was born in Australia started shooting the amazing scenery down under; but has over the last few years been shooting in the South West America and has garnered a raft of awards for his work.
We first came across Peter through friends, when they came back from Australia they gave us a book of some of his work. So when we headed to Australia, and again when stopping over on our way to New Zealand we paid visits to his gallery in Sydney (in the beautiful QvB), and been fortunate enough to be able bring back limited, signed prints of his work.
These small images don’t do any real justice to the power of the work, you have to see them in their full size (1 meter across or bigger). So if you’re in Australia or the USA we’d very highly recommend going to a gallery and seeing for yourself.
A River Blue - A Youth Empowerment Project for the Children of Northern Uganda
Posted by monster in General
It doesn’t take doesn’t need bullying, blunt spoken or multi-platinum selling artists to enable music to be used to help those less fortunate parts of the world such as Uganda. Joseph Arthur has contributed to the A River Blue project to help displaced children by recording a song with the children being helped. 
The background to how Joseph got involved and be read about by going to A River Blue website. The site allows you to download and listen to the song, and if you like it, they ask that you make a donation.
