jeff eaton

So the hot news is that Amazon has launched a DRM-free MP3 download service to compete with iTunes. I took a look, and it will take a lot of polishing to compete with the clean experience of ITMS, but it's a pretty cool development. Wired covered the news with an interesting angle: if Apple hadn't become the dominant force in music downloads, labels would still be trying to compete with proprietary DRM. Now, they're forced to offer DRM-free downloads to compete with Apple's experience.

It's an interesting idea, and one that makes sense. There's an amusing money quote at the end, though, that demonstrates a degree of cluelessness:

"Never before in the history of content has the hardware been more valuable than the software," [Warner Music Group's] Bronfman said. "You think about the VCR or the video cassette -- the video cassette always had more value than the VCR that you shoved it into. Apple has been able to turn that model on its head."

That's not true at all -- a playback device have always been worth more than any individual piece of media that plays on it, even in the days of VCRs or cassette players or phonographs. Most consumers choose hardware based on the aggregate value of what it gives them access to, and for most people the iPod hits the sweet spot. Ripped or torrented music plays on it, and it has the largest selection of legal downloads.

Apple's current position in the market may be unique, but it's not shocking. They got there with the best user experience and nailed down a critical mass of deals with labels. After that, it's all just tactics.

Last night after work I popped over to the Warehouse to get some shots of Jason's band, The Satellite Picture Show. They have a new drummer since they took their last patch of pics, so they needed some updated shots of the band playing. We took a couple of hours and got some nice ones; hopefully they'll work well for them. I posted a few of my favorites on Flickr...

Well. I've definitely been out of circulation for a while as far as the blog is concerned. It's been a busy couple of weeks (of course!) and I've been tinkering with more Drupal code to get some of the old features from ViaPositiva back online (like amazon reviews of books I've read or movies Cat and I have watched).

In the meantime, though, I switched to a new search engine on a whim. http://www.blingo.com is just a front end to Google's search results, so there's not much to learn. The nice bit is that they give away free movie tickets and iTunes gift cards at random. I signed up earlier this week, and this morning while googling for some code snippets, I won. Wahoo!

• Visit New Wave Record Covers

An 80stastic collection of record covers from the New Wave era. It includes a lot of punk that I wouldn't have though to include, but if you're looking for covers of those old Clash and Bangles LPs, this is your place!

It's tricky, sometimes, finding music that I like. There's a lot of stuff I'll listen to, and even enjoy, given the chance. (Those who know me know of my prodigous MP3 collection. If I put the entire archive on shuffle play, it goes without repeating for almost two months.) Music that really jumps out and grabs me, and stays in my shuffle rotation for weeks and months, rather than hours and days, is harder to come by.

Long long ago I blew through the 'new releases' section and dug into the oldies and mined the electronica and jazz and... well. I ask friends for recommendations, and I keep my eye open for new stuff. But as I poke around in obscure corners it gets harder and harder to find stuff that really jumps out at me without spending huge amounts of time hunting and asking and googling and so on.

Today, byrne from predicate.org posted a link to Pandora. Created by the Music Genome Project, it cross-references hojillions of songs and artists, creating taste matrixes based on the listening habits of folks all over the net. I logged on and typed in Pepe Deluxe, an old Emperor Norton band I like. I wasn't expecting much.

"Pepe Deluxe features electronica roots, funk influences, danceable beats, heavy backbeat, and vocal samples. Here's a song by Amon Tobin that's similar. It features a slow moving bass line, synth tweaking, a highly synthetic sonority, and prevalent use of groove." Well. That certainly got my attention. I love Amon Tobin -- I have his entire back catalog -- but the spot-on description of that specific song's peculiarities had me interested.

In the first ten minutes of listening I found two songs by bands I'd never heard of whose styles push my buttons in all the right ways. The Horror, by RJD2, and Rubber, by Williamson. Excellent, scrumptious even. There are a few duds in the mix, but I'm really shocked. Naturally, you can rate individual songs as they shuffle through the playlist, tailoring individual 'stations' to your tastes. The first 10 hours of the service are free, with yearly subscriptions weighing in at $36 a yeah. So very tempting.

Back in the day, the Roland 303 synthesizer helped shape the distinctive sound of rave music and electronica in general. They were flexible, relatively rare -- and expensive. Folks made various 'software 303s' for computer musicians, but most were recordings of 303 sounds plugged into an instrument file.

Then, Propellerhead Software released Rebirth. Instead of using precanned samples, it faithfully emulated the 303's internal analog synthesizer logic -- as well as every knob, slider, and button the original device's case sported. The sound was perfect, and the software took off like a shot. Even I tinkered around with Rebirth's later versions for a while.

In the years since Rebirth's 1997 debut, Propellerhead improved it and launched Reason, a frighteningly impressive and complete virtual electronica studio. It's impressivel, but Reason was always there for the oldschool folks who wanted some 303 goodness with a tight drum machine. Today, Propellerhead has announced that Rebirth's time has come to an end. It's being discontinued, and will no longer be supported... In a gesture of infinite coolness, though, they're releasing it for free download on the net, along with every addon they ever created for it.

Ever wanted to whip up an electronica masterpiece, or just noodle with goofy sounds? Check it out. It's fun. And now, it's free.

I remember hearing Moby for the first time about a decade ago. Cool World had just come out -- a shallow, hypersexualized Roger Rabbit knockoff starring Brad Pitt in one of his first lead roles. I never saw the movie, but Moby's Next Is The E single was on the soundtrack and got loads of attention. Christian Music Industry Boy that I was, I'd heard rumors about Moby being a Christian, and thought his Go release a listen. I liked it. A lot.

Being the conservative kid that I was, the essays scrawled throughout the liner notes for Animal Rights offended me -- the nerve of this liberal! Spouting off about Jesus! But as I got older and grew to appreciate -- if not agree with -- the stuff that Moby was obviously grappling with in his writing, I got back into the habit of listening to his newer stuff. I still don't like all of it -- he's done some weird punk stuff that left me cold, and apparently he even has a few unreleased country tracks lying around that he made for kicks.

Now, though, that scatter shot feel is one of the things I love about his work. He's evolved out of "Techno Poster Boy" and seems to be chilling in "Artist Who Does Whatever He Wants" land. When I pick up a new Moby CD, I'm honestly not sure what I'll hear. There'll be common touches, sure, and he generally stays within arm's reach the previous release's style. From one CD to the next, though, it's cool to hear him experimenting, applying a great ear and good production and his personality to a changing and evolving sound.

It's a refreshing contrast to artists and bands who seem to 'mine a style,' then move on with a calculated freshening-up. U2's new stuff feels like that to me -- less exploration, more thrashing around looking for "a new sound."