watch tHe skies

I read this article on the BBC website today regarding the announcement that Currys will shortly stop selling equipment with cassette decks. Frankly I’m amazed that they still sell them - where on earth can you get a cassette to put in one anyway?

Of course I have to remind myself that not everyone is in to bleeding edge technology. There must be many people for whom the eternal bluray vs HD-DVD discussion is simply double dutch. And perhaps this is a good thing - for one it is certainly cheaper to be ignorant of the latest technologies, and perhaps it doesn’t actually have that much effect on productivity - I would hate to estimate the time I have spent trying to pair bluetooth devices reliably, let alone find a handsfree set that actually survives long enough for the warranty to expire. Even my trusty Xbox360 only lasted six months before dying a painful death, whereas the good old Sega Megadrive is probably still running quietly and reliably attached to the old black and white TV in the spare bedroom.

It’s a pity that nostalgia can only be felt for past events and scenarios. I don’t feel too much of it for anything in the past as I’m a current \ future focused person. However the death of the cassette deck does indeed remind me of many evenings spent compiling mixtapes. Back then compilations could only be compiled at slightly slower than real time. That is, to compile a mixtape once you had decided on a tracklist, would take slightly longer than the 90 minutes that the good old TDK tape would run for. Longer if your compilation order didn’t split comfortably in to two 45 minute segments. I wonder how many mixtapes I did and how much time I spent lovingly crafting them for people. And the nice thing was that people appreciated the effort that went in to a mixtape. I would always listen to them when given one… because there was a little bit of who that person was recorded in to every single one of them. (more…)

The site will be quiet this weekend as I attend the final module of my NLP Practitioner course - watch this space monday for my thoughts on whether it was a worthy investment.

In the meantime I leave you with an update to my what’s on my iPod page - thoughts on some other good albums (Above & Beyond and Space Manoeuvers), as well as the aural marmite that is Sophie Ellis-Bextor. Enjoy, and have a good weekend

I’ve added a page to the site to document what music I’m currently listening to. As I type this it is probably out of date, however I will endeavour to keep it relatively fresh so you can find out what is currently cool to listen to. Feel free to comment on my taste in music as you see fit!

I’ve just been reading an interesting article by Apple Chief Wizard, Steve Jobs, discussing DRM (digital rights management) on music. He makes some very interesting points about the pressure put on the likes of Apple to open up music from the iTunes store so it can be played on any mp3 player.

He makes some interesting points regarding the requirement from the big four record companies for digital distributors to use DRM to protect all tracks sold, when CDs are entirely DRM free and account for some 97% of music sold.

The points he makes suggest that there is a long way to go before all digitally distributed music is available DRM free. Perhaps the record companies have to accept that there will always be people that will obtain music illegally. Perhaps the way forward is instead of charging per track, you pay a monthly subscription which varies by usage, much like a mobile phone with a set number of minutes. Once you reach your allowance you pay a per hour fee to your monthly subscription, and the royalties are then allocated once the device has been docked with the pc and usage data uploaded.

Although it does sound a little big brother, it would encourage the sharing of new music, because what you have on your ipod or whatever doesn’t matter - it’s how much you listen to it that matters, charts would be based on “earplay” rather than purchases and the whole world would be a happier place. World peace would follow shortly after, and finally, the Vulcans would decide that we are an advanced enough species for them to make First Contact. Hurrah. The End.

Is anyone else enjoying the new tune from Beakfreakz? Superfreak is the combination of (I would imagine) a few old tunes, most notably that of the classic MC Hammer tune “U Can’t Touch This”. In addition to a superbly addictive tune (can’t get it out of my head for love nor money), there is an excellent video that is a spooky mix of Michael Jackson’s Thriller and the aforementioned MC Hammer dancing.

Superfreakz previously released the similarly excellent “Somebody’s Watching Me”, featuring Michael Jackson samples, and I suspect this one will do even better. Question is, when will I get an MC Hammer tune out of my head, because it surely isn’t healthy to be humming it any more…

Check out Beatfreakz website here…

Aaaah the wonders of ebay. Buy a pocket DAB radio for £50 and sell it for £60 on the very same website. Amazing.

Still, sad to see such a thing of beauty go, but as it would only pick up a signal in the village when I was standing still on a hill it was never going to help me listen to the footie whilst mowing the lawn. I guess I should have known, considering that I fitted a DAB aerial in the loft and piped it through the TV co-ax to each room to get a better DAB signal.

In fact I’ve taken the opportunity whilst I was on ebay to clear out some CDs before no-one buys them any more. Sure I’ve made more profit off the postage than on the CDs themselves, but the extra revenue and space can be used to procure a new gadget to keep the monster happy.

“What is?” I hear you ask. Well, I will tell you shortly. Has anyone else noticed that there are some really cool advertd on the TV at the moment. From the Citroen ice-skating Transformer, to the ever so slightly odd Orange advert with inflatable animals, my attention is often drawn more to the advert than the dross that is the stale white bread to its juicy multi-sensory filling in that sandwich that is television.

Eh? Thirty seconds aint long to entrance a consumer, and modern adverts assault you with a multisensory experience that means that adding up the total sensory stimuation time (6 times 30) might be enough to get you to part with your money.

And that’s where the music comes in. In the absence of smellyvision, advertisers search for the perfect tune to stimulate the senses, to add to the lush visuals and to create multiple anchors in your mind to get you to buy buy buy.

Does it work? Sometimes. I suspect that they get it wrong more often than right. A good example of right for me is the O2 campaign with Sean Bean. It uses a recognisable audio theme, with futuristic “looking forward” visuals and lots of happy people - O2 will look after you. The old Vodafone advert with the Dandy Warhols music was another inspiring ad that I bet sold a lot of contracts. Does the Citroen Ad sell more cars? Doubt it. And although the Megane ad with the lovely lady bums is very nice, I don’t see it drumming up more sales.

So what is the point of all that? Actually it was that the upshot is that I’ve found a website that tells you what music is used on all of the ads. it’s http://www.commercialbreaksandbeats.co.uk. It has a neat search facility, which you can use with iTunes to find, listen to and buy the tune without shelling for an album.

I ain’t buying new phones or cars, but it’s got me spending more at iTunes!

(Like I needed a reason)

So the “It’s showtime” event from Apple came and went yesterday, leaving me all a bit happy and sad. Happy because they have finally eliminated the gaps between songs on the iPod and Nano. Sad because it isn’t a firmware upgrade to existing machines and also because the new iPods have little else new about them to tempt me to buy one.

Sure the big daddy iPod is now 80gb with a better battery, but the screen is still the same size. There is some new search feature but really the way I manage my music I know where everything is so that’s of no use to me.

Nanos get an upgrade in memory and some whizzy new colours, neither of which affects me as I can fit all of my “in favour” music on a 4gb Nano without too much concern.

Now Steve Jobs did promise a media streamer in Q1/07. This could be the device I’ve been waiting for, with a simple Apple menu system, DRM-AAC compatible and quicktime video encoding all wirelessly streamed from PC to TV could be a winner, so I am looking forward to that. Also the upgrade of iTunes to version 7 has got some very neat features, such as a new view of your library that lets you flick through your album covers like old vinyl - lovely, and the fact that it now gets album art for you when it is missing. I tried this last night on a new album and it is quick.

So, a bit of a disappointment really as I was looking forward to getting a whizzy new iPod. Looks like my secret gadget fund will remain in tact until sometime next year…

Oh I forgot to mention that in the US you can now buy movies for your iPod the same day as the DVD comes out. But as this won’t hit UK shores until next year at the earliest, I couldn’t really care that much to comment.

Having a baby has changed our home lives quite considerably, particularly in the amount of TV that we seem to be watching recently. Watching movies isn’t easy, as Ben needs feeding, playing with etc. So we have tended to watch more TV, and on saturdays, X-Factor takes up much of the evening.

I’ve not really watched that much of X-Factor in the past. These talent shows leave me cold. The one thing that does interest me is how people with zero musical ability are so shocked to be rejected.

If a contestant turns to the camera and says “I have the X-Factor”, you know for sure that he or she can’t sing or dance, and probably looks like they fell out of the ugly tree. So how come they are so shocked?

I listen to music in the car all of the time, my trusty ipod is forever blasting out some choice toons, and I love to sing along at the top of my voice. Occasionally I think “hmm, that sounded alright”, but more often than not that thought is knocked dead in the next instant when I can’t reach the notes in the song or I am terribly out of tune, even in my own ear. Add to this my complete inability to dance in any other style than “dad”, and I am fairly sure of failure should I somehow audition for X-Factor…

I can’t sing. If I go to a wedding or something similar I generally just mouth the words, particularly if it is being videoed, as I don’t want to spoil the recording with my caterwauling. Now Shad Helmstatter would probably tell me that “you are what you say you are”, and that telling myself I can sing would improve both my voice and my motivation to sing better. To that I would say “that’s how you end up on X-Factor!!”.

Now I may be proved wrong but I would say that most of the people who can’t sing would NEVER in a million years of practice, be popstars, so no amount of positive thinking is going to make me a good dancer or most of the X-factor wannabes in to the next Robbie or Britney.

Well if we hadn’t lost Freddie Mercury to AIDS\HIV , we would be celebrating his birthday today. No doubt Freddie would have thrown an elaborate birthday party, something he approached with zeal every year, many of which have become legend: the black and white cross-dressing Munich event; the hat party at home at Garden Lodge.

So put on a Queen album and remember how great Freddie was. Happy birthday Freddie.