I was looking up the Street Dogs entry in last.fm and keyed the entry into Bing. Front page bottom of the page links to my Last.fm tag directory (which happens to contain Street Dogs).

Although it’s the German version It seems my opinion of punk music is closely related enough to Street Dogs and Last.fm that Bing’s algorithms tie the pages together.

click for larger

I frankly find this hard to believe (I’m awesome but not that awesome) and suspect that Bing must have some tracker cookie influencing their results to make them a bit more customized to the place I goto. But even if THAT is true it’s still amazing that Bing could make such an amazing connection.

Still maybe I am influential enough that I’m front page news for Bing’s search.

It stems from the fact that I always go through a certain process to prep my new music to be added to my music library. I did a full write up on the process at last.fm a few years ago; one of these day’s I’ll copy and upload it here. Basically I tag using Musicbrainz to get the right album, track, and artist tags. Then move it into a holding folder where I listen to it, put an appropriate genre and sub-genre, and a rating.

The problem is that when you edit the ID3 information in WMP12 it rewrites the ID3 header and corrupts all the non-standard ID3 tags on the MP3.

The metadata for MP3s are held in an ID3 header that is slapped onto the front of the file. All the artist, track, and album names are contained in here, including album art files if you want them. In addition to the standard ID3 tags there is the ability for third party companies to append their own tags into the system. Many programs put their own data in these non-standard tags, sometimes to put their own unique identifier tags on the file or with some they can actually put data that can be read by a player to dynamically change the songs as its played (typical with programs that change the track gain).

However many programs abuse the ID3 header. The worst I encountered was an expensive piece of DJ software that calculated the Beats Per Minute and put this info into the header so their software could quickly synch tracks. The problems is that it bullied the other tags, removing them and replacing all data with its own as if it were the only music player you’d ever need.

Luckily after corrupting my whole music library I was able to reload from a backup then get my money refunded for their bogus software. That also lead to my current methods of tagging and storing music; when you have over 40k songs all individually tagged and rated over the last 13 years you don’t want all that info wiped out by a poorly designed piece of software.

All through WMP9 to 11 there was no problem with the way Windows deals with ID3 tags. If you made a change to a tag it would edit just that tag and leave everybody else’s tags alone. But something changed with the new WMP version that is included in Windows 7 x64 (probably x32 as well).

Because now simply adding a rating in Windows Media Player in Windows 7 will screw up all the non-standard tags for the file, in my case erasing the Musicbrainz unique identifier code so it’s a pain in the ass to update tags later down the line.

First we have a good track, properly tagged a couple years ago. Notice the Rating and Musicbrainz tags:

Now I change the rating in WMP12 to 3 stars. Notice the change to the Musicbrainz tags:

I used MP3Tag to view the ID3 tags. The happens for ANY ID3 change, it doesn’t matter if you change the rating or the track name which is a standard ID3 field.

After some back and forth with Microsoft support I was told that this is a known issue and that hopefully if will be fixed in the future (I’m not holding my breath). And as Microsoft is promoting it’s Zune player and Media Center more heavily I don’t think WMP will be much of a priority. Too bad too, because I really like Windows Media Player better than iTunes, WinAmp, and foobar.

And finally to rub salt into the wound Musicbrainz currently has a bug where it erases all ID3 tags when it writes its own regardless of it’s setting to disable “erase existing tags”. Musicbrainz caught and reported the bug a year ago but new revisions come about as often as Windows media Player is updated. So you can’t work around the problem by doing one before the other. If you tag in Musicbrainz the WMP rating is gone. If you put a rating in WMP then the Musicbrainz UID is gone.

Hopefully one or the other bugs will soon be fixed and the problem eliminated but if you make any tag changes in Windows Media Player be aware that and special third party applications that use customer tags may have their data lost.

Update: Link to Musicbrainz bug report added. Thanks for the reminder!

Everything I said when it was announced still holds true as much as it did half a year ago.
iTunes LP (possibly Cocktail) fails

The final reason this won’t work is that it doesn’t solve the core reason that people online only buy music a track at a time. People are sick of 2-3 good tracks and 10 “filler tracks” that are unwanted.

For getting people to buy LP’s instead of individual tracks EVERY full album purchase on iTunes should come like this by default at the normal album price. This is what iTunes should have been doing from the get-go to entice us into putting up with those 10 filler tracks. As a more expensive version of an normal track only album it’s not worth it.

First Kayo leaving Polysics and now Etsuko leaving Shonen Knife; it’s just not shaping up as a good year for Japanese musicians.

The Shonen Knife lineup has changed quite a bit since they we’re opening for Nirvana back in the 90’s; Naoko (the lead singer) is the only original member left. However when I saw them when they toured the US a few years ago Naoko’s sister, Atsuko the other founding member played with them since she now lives in the US (might as well kick it with the old crew I guess). But when the came through the member that really stood out was their new drummer Etsuko, here’s the quote I made in my last.fm review of the show.

…I ended up totally being taken by the new permanent drummer Etsuko Nakanishi (total hottie) who was a wizard on the drums.

What a bummer, I hope she finds her way back to another band to put those drum skill to use. Plus it’s always comforting to know that somewhere in the world there is a Japanese hottie working herself into a sweat rocking out on a set of drums.

BTW: The picture at the top reminds me of the Little Drummer boy on Robot Chicken.
Caution Dragonball-Z and Akira spoofing.

A3H7VGQ8QJJP

Since I drove roughly 1400 miles to see Polysics I should finally write a new review (I have about 6 shows I’ve seen without reviewing). As I mentioned earlier Kayo is leaving so this is as much a farewell tour as anything else. I know that the band will go on but after this show it’s hard to imagine them without her.

First off it was fun finally taking my new car on a road trip. My sister came along but spent most of the trip napping in the passenger seat. The drive was long but fun; driving around LA is a royal pain in the ass seems like people like to sit in the passing or commuter lane and go slower than the already slow moving traffic.

Anyway the show.

It’s funny that for how different things seem they’re really all the same. At the Roxy, the charge $5 for plastic cup half full of bud and call it a deal; I guess all places are rip offs. I thought it was a bit odd that there is a curtain shutting off the stage until a band is ready. I guess its good since it keeps ignorant fans from cheering when a roadie is tuning up a guitar.

There was also reserved seating which I think was more for the late night club crowd that aren’t there for the show, they just always hang out at at the club.

I didn’t catch the first band’s name, Little red riding hood I think?
Too bad because they had great energy, whole group was onfire regardless of how much the crowd was into it. They eventually got the crowd to at least react which is impressive for a first band of the night.
The platinum blond was hot and sexy, although she was a bit over the top at times. Running your hand over your body = sexy; flat out rubbing your pussy with your hands and the mic is too much. Save that part for the guy’s imagination.
The lead guy had good energy as well and they made a good compliment to the music, although his outfit seemed a bit gay (maybe he is or maybe it’s just a really “artistic” outfit.
They really had a good sound that goes down well with what’s popular in music now. It was independent but not in a boring crybaby emo Iron and Wine sort of way. It was very aggressive and upbeat without being top 40 pop music.
I definitely wish they had been more clear saying their name so I could find them online.

The sound guy for the Roxy is perfect, with ear plugs in the music was just the right volume and just the right balance. After years of suffering through the local SLC sound guys this guys seemed like a master of the craft. Kudos.

2nd band was New Kingdom; first thing I noticed about them was everybody had the same big hair. But once the music started I was pleasantly surprised again. They also had an “indie” sound that is very similar to popular non-mainstream music right now.
The best way I could describe them was like a chilled out more indie sounding band heavily influenced by Jameroquai.

After two great bands like this I was starting to feel bad for how sad the local music groups in Utah were. We have a few good bands of kids who are used to playing in their parents garages but nothing really worthy of grabbing out of the area and pushing for nationwide release, and here were two relatively small bands that seriously need to be “discovered”. All I could do was think back to that crummy local band Vile Blue Shades. Kids in LA are spoiled by too much good talent.

But not all was lost, the third band, Sabrosa Purr, sucked. Indie music treads a fine line between genius and madness, you’re either one of the other. Except in this case madness isn’t like some cool intensity, it’s just shitty ear grating music. It was just slow and moody and it’s hard to tell if they were actually playing music or each in some drug induced trance making noise that sounded like music to them.
Fuck this emo shit.

I don’t mean to dwell on the negative and I know some people really like this stuff (the same people that think Pitchfork Media is the gods of reviewing good music). I’m sorry but if you like this you’ve been brainwashed by the shitty indie overlords who want to destroy music. 20 years from now your kids will ask you why you liked a band that faked its talent by playing really slow AC/DC chords and screaming 14 year old poetry into the mic and you’ll have no response other than you were just trying to fit in (It’s so ironic that people try to dislike the popular so much that they’ll let people convince them this is good music.) Screw this pretentious bullshit.

–Re reading this I realized that everybody drumming at the finale was nice but not revolutionary enough to make up for the crap music. Oh, and the chick playing was kind of hot.

Polysics were Polysics; amazing in just about everyway. Many bands seems so cool when you watch a music video, or look like their shows are amazing; then you see an actual show and it’s utter crap. Polysics are just as energetic and out of control on stage as they are in music videos; maybe more so, in the music videos it’s a bunch of cut scenes with makeup and cool down time in between, live it’s just a marathon of music and energy, it wasn’t 2 songs in before Hiro was already covered in sweat from bouncing all over the place belting out lines and guitar riffs.

While I was watching I realized that the band has an almost perfect setup for the music they’re doing. Masashi in the back, relatively emotionless as the drummer anchor. The two girls to either side doing mostly backup vocals, Fumi is a bit more energetic but Kayo with her robot impersonation. And Hiro trapped between them and the audience bouncing around all over the place. The setup is great, it’s not like justa band crammed up on stage, you could setup a camera and every performance would look like it was setup to be a music video.

Only Hiro attempted any English and it was limited at best, considering all Japanese go though a couple years of english I’m sure they have a bit more understanding then they let on but it was still fun watching them try to break down the language barrier. God know how tough it is, I learned myself from the time I spent in Japan trying not to sound like a fool.

Anyway, well worth the time and gas to head down to see the show. If you have a chance to see them make sure you take it. And that’s not counting the 4-6 hours or so that we had to be tourists the next day before we headed back home. 24 hours driving, 4 hour show, 6 hours car camping, all in about 42 hours. Not bad at all.

New CDs Bought at the show:

Almost everybody assumed that iTunes would integrate lala’s 1 full play, then 30 seconds for every replay after that. However:

Lala will play a critical role in Apple’s music future, but not for the reasons cited above. Lala’s licenses with major labels are non-transferable, so they’re not usable for any new iTunes service. The 10 cent song rental model never gained traction and does not cover mobile devices thus is of little value to Apple.

That is an excellent point.

I am was a long time lala user and when the new streaming features came I really wasn’t interested in it. Last.fm handles all my music streaming, and even Pandora has a better service IMHO. Lala is a bit more on demand but I don’t like taking the time to make playlists and usually listen to my own music on shuffle anyway. Last thing I’m going to do is rent songs for 10 cents.

And the fact that the streaming license doesn’t carryover is something I totally overlooked. Of course the big labels would never let their music be streamed free over the net to a mobile device, it’s so obvious now that it was never a possibility.

That just leaves the odd ability for lala to work as a cloud storage for your personal music as a potential benefit to Apple.

When this first came out on lala I was skeptical about the legalities and the privacy concerns for individuals uploading the music. Here’s how it works (or how it worked when they rolled it out).

Everybody doesn’t upload their full collections. There doesn’t need to be 1.5 million copies of “Toxic” by Britney Spears, just one copy that is registered to 1.5 million people. So when you’re uploading your music you’re really only uploading what music isn’t already in the cloud, it makes things easier on lala and is actually quite logical. Much like multicast vs. broadcast it makes use of the design of the internet to make more optimal use of data. Unless the uploaded copy is crap, in which case everybody with good music is forced to make do with bad music because somebody didn’t know how to rip.

All this works great if you listen to top 40 radio. If you’re like me and 20,000 of your 40,000 songs are from overseas and not available in the US, you’ll be uploading a lot of music. Which is how I found out that you can only upload 5000 songs before it quits (hopefully they removed this cap, or else you may only have A-C of your library in the cloud).

Add to this the fact that the lala software didn’t ask me to upload my music, it just assumed and started uploading without my consent. Now we see where my legality suspicions come in.

-First off I’m not sure from their description but they made it should like this pool of uploaded music was where their streaming service pulls from. Thus if I upload a Japanese indie band that is not available anywhere online, lala now has a copy and can stream their music in the radio (in addition to me and others who “upload” their libraries).

-Second, it seemed shady to take peoples music without their knowing. It’s like what got Kazaa shut down but in reverse, automatic sharing.

-Third a lot of people have music on their computer that they didn’t acquire legally. So if I rip my legally purchased copy of “Cosmogenesis” by Obscura, another person with a downloaded copy will be able to listen to my nice legal rip free of charge. Also people who download illegal music will be able to upload it to lala for themselves and others to listen to, thus lala is streaming illegal music.

The first point may not be illegal based of the way music royalties are paid, which contrary to logic or common knowledge is so backwards and double handed that it makes RIAA’s arguments against piracy seem incredibly hypocritical. So long as you pay your royalty to Sound Exchange you can play any music you want no matter what or who the artist is because theoretically the artist should get paid for it (but often doesn’t).

The second and third point may get under peoples skin when it comes to privacy. Basically lala’s cloud storage is creating a giant list of what music you have, and previously was doing this even without your knowledge. If a virus ran without your knowledge and catalogued your system’s files, then uploaded the info to a private business to use for their monetary gain would you approve of the action?

This doesn’t really bother me, but the “Tin Foil Hat” part of me doesn’t want to give that info out to a company. Especially a company that is so desperate to keep its license for streaming that it may make a deal with the record industry to share its database of ownership.

That is that valuable market research data that I don’t like being given away without letting me wet my beak with the money it makes. And imagine if you’re unfortunate enough to be one of those people who are served with a cease and desist or are sued for illegal downloading. A simple subpoena to lala and the record industry has proof that not only were you on a torrent tracker for a new album, but you downloaded it, kept it, and listen to it regularly.

Still, for apple to harness the power of every iPod, iPad, and iTunes connected device into a giant online cloud of accessible music is a massive achievement. This doesn’t just cement its position as a media provider it sets Apple up to be the media hub for the distribution of content to the world.

Considering that advertising while distributing is traditional media’s bread and butter this has to be have content holders shaking in their boots. Or at least they will when they realized that jobs can clinch even more control than he has now.

Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine are technically retired now, Dick is doing some other projects and is basically taking a year off so his music and influence isn’t gone, just on hiatus or in transition to a new project depending on your interpretation.

However there are still some new CDs coming out in the next few months including the new studio album “Ok Bartender”. Hearing this I ran to his site to pick it up directly and found out they have a great deal going to join his “Super Fan Fun Club”.

I know you’re rolling your eyes hearing the word “fan club” so let me translate it to something you’ll understand.

6 Richard Cheese CDs for $41. Or $6.80 a CD.
(The site looks like it was made in 1997, I’m not sure if that’s fitting RC’s comic mentality or indie nature of the group.)

Now I’ve been meaning to buy his CDs for a long time. I have two at home, but I admit I have his entire works in mp3 form as well. Sorry Richard, but as I stated in a treatise at last.fm once, online downloads are my music preview method. The whole reason I bought 2 CDs in the first place was because I liked what I heard online, now I’m collecting the entire discography as I can find CDs.

Which brings me back to the Super Fun Fan Club. The price for 6 CDs is cheaper than any store you can get them from unless you get them used, and Richard Cheese is too popular to ever be in the used bin. On the rare occurrence you find a used CD is you’ll likely be paying more than $6. They throw in some stickers and stuff too because it’s a “fan club” thing but the CDs that are out will ship ASAP, the new ones are shipped before official release dates.

The main point is $41 for 6 CDs purchased directly from the man himself, to support the band and their endeavors. I know a lot more than just me have their music already but few have taken the extra step to support the band they found the love.

So act now, deal runs out Jan 5th.

PS for those who haven’t heard of Richard Cheese, head over to last.fm, youtube or your favorite preview site and check out a few tracks. The band does covers in a hilarious lounge act style. Kick up your feet with a martini, pretend you’re in the Las Vegas Holiday Inn Lounge, and enjoy the music.

A few weeks ago one of my favorite Japanese bands, Polysics, said they’re touring the US on a new tour, unfortunately they’re not passing though here. The closest shows are about 650 miles ($120 in gas) away by car ($250 by air).

I wasn’t really sure if I was going to go but they just announced Kayo (the girl doing weird synth voices and playing keyboard) is leaving the band, now I’m thinking I might go since this will be their last major tour before a farewell/10th anniversary concert in Tokyo.

Kayo is not my favorite member (Fumi rocks the bass!), but she’s an integral part. A lot of their unique sounds comes from her influence, however some of their more “unique” songs aren’t my favorite I prefer the more recent mainstream punk style they’ve been getting. The question is how much more will they drift into the mainstream without Kayo? They very easily can go from innovative to boring depending on how much she influenced the band.

On the plus side, I’ve wanted to go on a long distance road trip in the new car for a while, this would be a fun way to do that, escape the freezing Utah winter, and see a good concert in one fell swoop. And with car camping I could probably keep the price under $200.

As linked on FG recent performances are nothing like they were in their hey-day. Her vocals are flat now.

And Then:

I used to like ELT but you could tell back then that from the way she sings, even though it creates and interesting and unique sound it’s killing her vocal chords and has been all along. The comparison to then and now is about the same as listening to hear somebody sing before and after they go through puberty. And even though you can force your voice to reach pitches it did before you really have to strain to do so.

It’s not really known generally among many music listeners but singing is a lot like any other workout, if you don’t have good form it puts you through more stress. Stress that can eventually wear you down before your time.

Kaori is was a huge pop singer and should have been exposed to many professional voice trainers that could help her maintain her singing in a way that is less destructive to her vocal chords. But being one of the main draws for the label she was likely pushed to keep straining to keep albums sales high without worrying about the long term effects. A prime example of a label riding their talent hard to bleed them dry.

And considering ELT is part of Avex that’s hardly a surprise; they have been riding the Ayumi train so long they’ve let a lot of good talent fall under the wheels. Talent that could have stepped up to take the reign now that Ayumi and Kaori are fading stars.

Recently Every Little Thing has been less prolific than they used to be, the only time they get air time is for 1 or two songs during A-Nation and the occasional TV appearance. I’m not sure if it’s because Kaori knew her vocals were going and is fading out or if Avex has seen ELT’s sales drop and are shuffling her off to pasture but lack of practice and a high strain method of singing has taken it’s toll. It’s too bad to see somebody who had a lot of talent get used up and discarded due to burnout.
I’m guessing Avex’s cash cow Ayumi will be next, she’s already lost hearing in one ear due to the “Rock and Roll” lifestyle of constant performance with no break. I hope they can both get good gigs as TV tarento where they can reminisce with viewers back to the new millennium when they dominated Japanese music.

I was more of a fan of the more upbeat songs rather than the ballads.
4Force was the album that first got me interested.
But I like the Super Eurobeat remixes the best.
Or just hedge your bets and get the Best Singles compilation.

Now all my trading is mostly on Swap-A-CD and MusicBoomerang but not nearly as much as I traded on lala.

What’s interesting is that lala fueled my collector nature and got me a to go out an purchase 1000+ physical CDs, the ones that music labels make all their money off. The ones that are steadily decreasing now because online track sales though iTunes and it’s brethren are outpacing them.

How ironic that lala that once touted itself as a method for keeping physical music moving and supporting artists in that way is potentially getting into bed with iTunes the force that many people attribute with destroying the age of the physical CD.

Just food for thought.

A picture of my current collection while I was putting it in order.

Reel Big Fish – Sell Out (Official Music Video)

Want to know why I feel no guilt watching big labels bleed a slow death, read this great article from an un-recouped band trying to find out how much money they’re making.
It’s a bit long for a “quick” read but it’s great, and as you’re reading keep in mind this is one of the numerous “little guys” once embraced by the corporation that is now discarded by the wayside. And one of the few who has the abilities to see just how bad their getting screwed.

As I asked more questions (Why do we get paid 50% of the income from all the tracks on one album, but only 35.7143% of the income from all the tracks on another? Why did 29 plays of a track on the late, lamented MusicMatch earn a total of 63 cents when 1,016 plays of the exact same track on MySpace earned only 23 cents?) he eventually got to the heart of the matter: “We don’t normally do this for unrecouped bands,” he said. “But, I was told you’d asked.

Time Warner is the 4th largest media conglomerate. They aren’t a mom and pops startup business in danger of dying so that they have to cut costs to stay afloat. Just a few of TW’s lucrative holdings:
New Line Cinema (Makers of Lord of the Rings Trilogy)
Time Inc.
HBO
Turner Broadcasting System
Warner Bros. Entertainment (All Harry Potters, Batmans, and Supermans)
Cartoon Network
Adult Swim
CNN (The “Not Fox or that crappy MSNBC” one)
DC Comics (And all the comic book movie moneys they bring)

My point is a company this big an powerful has the ability to do basic accounting of where their money is coming and going; something they are all too quick to point out to say that illegal downloads of music and movies is apparently killing them.

Making money is making money, it doesn’t matter if you’re up $20,000, or in the hole $300,000 income is just as important. The fact that record labels dismiss the income (debt reduction) owed on artists that are un-recouped is just bad as if they cut a recouped band out of a $10,000 royalty check. The artists aren’t suffering because of downloads like the labels say, they’re suffering because the labels are lying to them and cutting them out of the income they are entitled to.

Alternatively we have proof here that the big labels aren’t losing hardly any money on digital downloads at all. If 1,016 plays of a track on MySpace is only worth 23 cents, why are illegal downloaders being fined $80,000 for downloading a digital copy off the internet?

Either way you slice it the conglomerate labels are lying and exploiting their artists and customers.

Via Giz

They’re touring with Hepcat an old school Ska band that has been around forever but doesn’t release a whole lot of new CDs. And frankly I enjoyed the Hepcat portion of the show more than Flogging Molly. I like energetic ska music like Suburban Legends but sometimes some good ska music to just chill out with is great. The two lead vocalists Greg and Alex were great at setting a good mood to groove to some great ska.

I made a point to go buy a couple Hepcat CDs at the swag table before the post Molly rush crowded the place too much. I was surprised to see Flogging Molly was smart enough to have a credit card reader that their table to run cards. I make a point to bring plenty of cash to shows but I always see countless others who don’t have the experience to plan ahead and end up passing on buying merchandise. Considering how much the artists make off merchandise sales at a show I’m amazed more artists don’t bring card scanners.

I usually don’t have any problems with the staff serving drinks at In the Venue/Club Sound; the servers are usually pretty nice and take care of people well. This time I was pissed however, I think we can all agree that people who cut in front of line when there are 20 people waiting to get a drink are the scum of the earth and deserve a special place in hell. Especially the ones who give that smug look at you after they get served as if to say, “Suckers!”

And what can you do? When I got close enough to the front I’d give a, “Hey!” with a thumb over my shoulder to the back of the line; but even then most people got their drinks anyway, and the people in line with me just looked at the floor and saved their criticisms for muttering under their breath when the line-cutter moved on. Mandy Patinkin does a great job of how we all wish this kind of scenario would usually play out:

But even with people shouting that they shouldn’t be cutting Club Sound’s barmaid Carrie served them anyway. So if line-cutters are assholes that deserve to be kicked out, what does that make her for being the staff that serves them anyway?

I’ve noticed this problem alot in the service industry that goes along with the “The customer is always right” proverb. Some jackass ignores the implied or posted rules but the staff helps them anyway because they don’t want to risk losing a single sale. But what about the 20 other good rule-obeying customers they just alienated by helping somebody that cut in front? Logically a business proprietor would tell the rule breaker to fuck themselves and an lose the 1 bad customer and better serve the 20 good customers, instead in the vein of “The customer is always right” they commonly serve the asshole and screw over the majority.

The sad part is that people put up with it anyway like sheep. Even after remarking, “I can’t believe she’s serving them even though they obviously cut!” I watched a girl leave a substantial tip anyway. Well I’m sticking by my response to the girls comment, “I’m closing my tab, not tipping, and never buying a drink from here again.” Although that’s a lie, I did leave a tip on my recipt:

“Tell Carrie not to serve people who cut”

If a business provides bad service they should receive a bad tip if any at all. They’re lucky we don’t walk out when the staff symbolically joins in the “Suckers!” slight given to the people who waited patiently for them to do their job.

I know that tips are shared among servers and bartenders so good servers at Club Sound are punished as well. Which is too bad since I know two of them are great bartenders and deserve big tips, hence the “Tip” on the receipt that a coworker’s bad decisions are costing them as well and they should set her straight or do themselves a favor and replace her. Because the tip they lost from me is nothing compared to the fact that I refuse to get drinks there from now on. I’m not a frequent customer but losing $15-20 each time I go is more substantial than their share of one nights tip.

That may seem a bit extreme but really it’s more of the straw that broke the camel’s back, the $14.40 price above is for TWO draft beers, and one of those was Coors Light (All other taps were dry at the time, I had no choice); I could get 3 pitchers at Cheers to You for that price. So fuck Club Sound, their overpriced drinks, and lousy service. I’m never buying a drink there again and I recommend you do the same if only to send a message that a tip line on a receipt is no guarantee that you actually deserve the tip.

Back to the concert.

After 30minutes in line I missed Flogging Molly’s opening of course. I was one of the first in line when the last band ended too. I’m sorry for those behind me, they probably missed half the show. The crowd was out of control; people crowding around the bar entrance were jumping up and down or moshing and they’d invariably bump into people coming out with drinks in their hand then complain about it. “Screw you, you jumped into me, what did you think would happen?” I slid into a relatively calm corner and watched the show.

I have to say Flogging Molly is great but I think alot of the music is better listened to as it is on the albums. That is more introspective, music and not “mosh-pit, kicking and shoving” music. Songs that are introspective ballads on the albums were sped up to bouncing high-energy songs, and high energy songs from the albums were so high tempo it was hard to sing along with them. I almost feel sorry for poor Bridget Regan working a fiddle at that speed. She must have massively strong arms to play shows like this every night.

Speaking of which it was great that the normally bad sound mixing at In the Venue was good enough that the fiddle and penny whistle sounded really good. I noticed that Rancid the night before had good sound too. Did In the Venue get a new sound guy or has he finally figured out how to mix for the site?

It was a great show but the crowd that Flogging Molly gathers is kind of an irritation to me. A UK friend at last.fm once mentioned how all Americans pretend to be what they think of as “Irish”. Maybe a bit of an overstatement, we’re not all like that, but Flogging Molly sure draws that crowd. It’s almost like they’re there because they think it gives them some tie to a non-existant Irish heritage even though Flogging Molly is a US band playing Irish-American Punk and far separated from traditional Irish music and culture. It’s the same crowd that claims the reason they drink too much is because “I’m 1/16th Irish!”. No you’re just a drunk. The same crowd that think all Irish people dance like Michael Flatley or Riverdance even though Flatley is American. I actually saw some girls in the crowd doing their own approximation to step dancing during the show!

Most kiddies seemed like they were there for the scene and not the music. Whenever the word Irish came out of Dave King’s mouth a loud cheer would go up regardless of the context. But when there was a reference to the seminal “Irish-Punk” group The Pogues less than half the crowd cheered or understood who they were. Earlier when talking to a self described “Huge Fan” of Flogging Molly I asked if she liked The Pogues or The Tossers as well and all I got back was a blank stare. I think alot of the self professed diehard fans here were those group of newbies that like them because it’s cool in American to claim to be Irish and listen to Irish-American music. Which is fine so long as you don’t start to confuse yourself into thinking that it really means you know something of or are connected to real Irish culture.

Other than spending 30 minutes waiting to get an overpriced beer it was a good show, with Hepcat really being the highlight of the night in my mind. Flogging Molly was overrated. They were still great, I only say that in context of the fact that all the kiddies coming out of the show were acting like it was a transcendent experience when it wasn’t. It was a good show, but I’d hardly agree that “I could die happy now”, as I overheard somebody say on the way out.

CDs Purchased:

In some cases they even create their own labels for self release (like Suburban Legends or Less than Jake’s “Fueled by Ramen”) and these labels can grow to be a dominant force in their genre like Bad Religion launching Epitaph, so that the indie labels can go toe to toe with the big labels… at least in their own genre. However this is unheard of in Japan.

In Japan, “punk” is not an attitude or a spirit, it is just a fashion. So Japanese people will think that the Sex Pistols and Avril Lavigne are the same thing, because they are associated with a trend. The British movie This Is England has just been released here, but young Japanese people in are more interested in the skinheads’ wardrobes than in the historical background. They definitely enjoy it as a fashionable film, but won’t consider its political content. They don’t know what a skinhead really is.
Japanese people have a tendency to think that music is not “art”, but “entertainment”, something to be consumed.

Japan is just the opposite, fans flock to big labels and indie releases are seen as a holding pattern until you’re “discovered”. This leads to the assumption that if you haven’t been picked up by a big label you must not be any good.

There could be a lot of possibilities for this: the article mentions how fans see music as a fashion for consumption and not an art in itself. I personally think it has a lot to do with the Japanese tendency to conform, fit-in, and follow authority without question or without bothering to try something that may be “different”. In the west we pride ourselves for listening to something others don’t, in Japan they pride themselves for being a part of the fanbase of all their peers.

Regardless the outcome the result is a music industry even more top heavy than the US with a few massive labels and an almost non existent indie scene. Really there’s nothing wrong with that in itself, being signed to a big label doesn’t mean your music is any worse than before you signed the contract (although the label may make asinine requests to change or market your music). In America we sometimes go too far thinking that because a good band signed a deal with a big label that the music isn’t as good anymore and they’re nothing more than “sellouts”. This is sometimes true but often times not.

In Japan the trend leads music to become more homogenized that usual, good up-and-coming artists can be absorbed into a giant machine like Avex but never promoted as much as the big name artists like Ayumi Hamasaki, or Koda Kumi. Thus they don’t get the exposure, fans don’t find out about them, and they get swept under the rug.

Although I like a lot of big label music from Japan the times I’ve been to Japan it’s been nearly impossible to find underground punk music comparable to what I like in America. And even what I’ve found is usually bands that have been adopted by big labels so that they have a high enough visibility that an outsider on vacation like me can find them.

But when you do stumble upon the tiny underground scene it’s nothing like America. It’s akin to a watering hole slowly evaporating on the Serengeti, as it shrinks it gets more concentrated than when it was huge. So the underground scene in Japan is much more intense and raw than here in America. Instead of finding shows at big venues attended by a bunch of MySpace/HotTopic kids who are there because it’s popular to like psudo-irish music (Flogging Molly concert review coming soon), you get tiny hole-in-the-wall venues full of fans who truly listen to the music for what it is.

It may be small but when you do find it the indie scene is much more like Agnostic Front at CBGB’s than it is like Blink 182 at Warped Tour.

The shame of it is it’s the fans that miss out by not discovering new music they may like more than Ayu-BoA-Amuro-Kumi, and overseas fans miss out because good indie bands never get to play a venue larger than 200 people, let alone perform for an anime intro that might make it to the Japanophiles in the US.

I saw Resistor Radio a few months ago when they were here and they’re really good, not at all what I’d expect from the “local bands” that usually open shows. It’s not going to take long before they get more popular; in concert they have alot of energy and even though they only have one indies EP out (currently unsigned) it’s a good disc with some really good music.

I’ve heard a bit of Authority Zero but always as part of a compilation disc like “Warped Tour ‘03″ or something so I’m not really up on their music. I was amazed! The band has great energy and reminds me of going to shows back around the 1998-2002 timeframe when I was listening to alot of bands like Dropkick Murphys and Flogging Molly who’s music was going from “walk to run”.

It made me nostalgic for those days of being 20, in college, spending the nights partying with my friends, and catching punk shows as often as my low paying job would afford me to. And like Less Than Jake, Dropkick Murphys, and Street Dogs it’s always great having a lead singer (Jason DeVore) that focuses specifically on singing and getting the crowd riled up. Not that leads with a guitar aren’t as good but there’s something to be said for climbing around the speaker stacks encouraging the people on the balcony to get moving.

Although as much attention that is paid to the lead singer and guitar players it was the drummer (Jim Wilcox) that I thought was really amazing. People always groove the the guitarists grinding away on the axe but if you watch the energy, speed, and precision that a drummer cranks out during a highspeed punk song you start to realize how much talent it takes to get a good drummer.

In The Venue isn’t being as big of dicks as they have in the past. The bouncers were a bit more relaxed and were helping people have a good time rather than playing the “Respect my Authority” game with the people who paid to be there. Even tossing out bottles of water to the kids in front and in the pit (water which had to be bought in back at the “21 and under” bar near the entrance. Giving water out is probably good insurance against possible lawsuits from kids with heat stroke too but before they seemed comfortable to watch you suffer or add to it.

Rancid was off the Friggin’ hook this time. I was a bit critical of them last time they played here because they were so joyless and un-engaging with the crowd. Enough to officially declare they lost the position of my favorite band to Street Dogs.

That tired, old Rancid didn’t show up to play this time.

Instead in their place was a powerful veteran Rancid that came in to show everybody why they’re arguable once of the most influential punk bands in the 1990’s and 2000. Ok, they’re a bit past the time where they could climb up and do backflips off the stacks but they could belt out their definitive punk anthems with and energy that shook the walls. And even though Tim and Lars get plenty of acknowledgements it’s the bassist Matt Freeman that I think really deserves alot more attention. Bassists and Drummers are often relegated to the background but watching Freeman’s technical abilities is amazing at times, keep an eye on his hands when you see these guys and imagine trying to do the same while making it look easy.

There was a good mix of old songs from “…And Out Come the Wolves” for all the causal fans here to see legends, plus a good smattering of songs of the newest album “Let the Dominoes Fall“. Tim and Matt’s ska influence from “Operation Ivy” showed through at times, plus they slowed it down for a few acoustic songs from the new album (be sure to buy the deluxe version so you get the acoustic disc!).

Alot of my favorite songs from Let the Dominoes fall we’re played. “East Bay Night”, “Last one to Die”, “New Oreleans”, and the tribute to the troops (which hits home especially hard for me) “Civilian Ways”. Finally after coming back out for the encore Branden Steineckert (drums) came out in a Real Salt Lake football* jersey, probably given to him by the team who had VIP seating for the show. Lars came out the San Jose Earthquakes jersey on, obviously staying true to his home team. But it’s nice that they had some fun with the local football team.

I’m glad that the definitive punk band Rancid can still perform, I was afraid after the last show that they had passed their prime and were in decline. Luckily it seems that they were just having a bad night that one time. Although no matter how they play live Rancid is still one of the few bands that I can quite honestly say that each consecutive album has set the bar higher than the one before it.

CDs Bought:

Authority Zero
12:34

I already have all the Rancid CDs.
Although while I’m on the subject I want to mention that Rancid is following the method I recommend for maintaining physical CDs in this digital climate (wow that article was 2 years ag0):
-Releasing singles of key songs that will appear in the forth coming album as they’re written.
-Then when the album comes out with those singles, plus some new songs (that aren’t filler).
-Plus releasing a “Limited Edition” of the album with additional bonus tracks and a DVD of the music videos and/or live footage.

This is why indie labels are maintaining while the dinosaur big four are dying.

*Football being the world famous game played by kicking a BALL with your FOOT. Not the often confused American game “HandEgg” where and EGG shaped ball is carried in a players HAND.

As is popular in Japan among celebrities Erika Miyoshi has her own blog now. Mostly odd “currently doing” type posts right now, I guess she’s learning sign language. Surprisingly she’s not on Ameblog like Yaguchi or Star Blog (oricon) like Satoda. Instead she’s on Gree with Kago Ai , who knows what that means.

80% of the people reading this probably have no idea what I’m talking about. It’s ok, the 4 of you probably came in through one of the tech links I have you can skip to the next post if you want.

For the other person who came in from one of the Japanese links, yes, I admit I like music by Hello! Project. Well some of it, mostly the older stuff. Back in its heyday Hello Project was an immense money making machine and everything about it fascinated me.

There’s not really an American comparison to make for people who don’t know. 5 losers of an American Idol style competition were given the chance to sell 50,000 singles on their own to become a real group. After selling the CDs (I have one! ) they quickly rose up the charts and made a habit of bringing in new members, splitting off side groups, and diversifying to every other type of media they could. Eventually it was a conglomerate that was pulling in billions of dollars(est), had ~50 members, and even had their own football (soccer) team.

Imagine Britney spears, and Beyonce teaming up against Christina Aguilera and Rihanna. It’s about that crazy.

Without going into too much detail and rehashing the arguments the makeup 90% of idol group forums, I don’t really see any appeal of the Project now; about 3 years ago all the life and spirit that made it so fun and interesting left. Back in the day it produced good music, had interesting members, and used them in a way that made for some hilarious entertainment; clips from one of their TV shows made it onto The Colbert Report multiple times, even SMAP hasn’t done that.

Porkchop Hats!

Anyway near the end Biyuuden was the only group left that had any interest to them. Out of all the Hello!Project groups it was probably the one I liked most, and out of the three girls Erika was probably my favorite. She seemed to have a real personality when the rest of the Project was starting to all look like cloned stereotypical idols. She was actually discovered in one of the H!P auditions looking for new members and was going to be a solo artist (similar to Miki Fujimoto before her) but after a year of nothing she was folded into Biyyuden.

Erika was definitely the best actual singer but was in as support for Ishikawa Rika who had plenty of training being an idol from her time in Morning Musume. Okada Yui was also supporting, although her biggest contribution seemed to consist of her… “pair” of talents.

Being made up of actual women (20+) and not the usual pre-teen girls that make up idol groups you could watch them without feeling like a perv. Most of the songs were on the Pop side of normal idol music so they could almost hold their own as a real group and not a manufactured group designed to take money from their fans like Musume and Berryz had evolved into.

Ok, there were some “fan service” songs too but watching hot 20 year olds in bunny costumes is alot better than watching 15 year olds in bunny costumes like AKB48.

Anyway while they were still putting out great music Up Front Agency (their owners) cut the strings and the last good H!P group died. I was actually in Japan at the time and was able to goto the farewell concert in Osaka and actually had a really good time.

Since then Ishikawa has popped up in the occasional TV program, including a recent odd vegetable promotion where it looked like she’d been punched in the eye (maybe the above Rihanna reference was too accurate). And she will be in France playing in Hangry&Angry. Yui does the occasional guest TV host for local TV stations. And Erika was in a few plays but has basically been off the radar.

Here’s hoping that this means her manager has recognized that she actually has some talent and can do something again.

Final Compilation album (yesasia)

Thanks for the heads up.

Last.fm is going to get a FM HD broadcast presence in the US starting with 4 cities. That means more Coldplay and Radiohead than you can shake a stick at! Seriously they’re pretty good with getting a feel for new up and coming artists although the overall charts logically closely resemble a top 40 list.

Unfortunately that means that Ensiferum, The Tossers, and Street Dogs will probably not make an appearance. But it’s still good to have a terrestrial radio station that has music crowd sourced from millions of worldwide listeners rather than a pair of cocaine addled Clear Channel DJ’s playing whatever the recording industry pays them to.

Obviously the radio goes one way so you can’t scrobble your listens so I personally stick with my WM Phone playing music I like and scrobbling it real time over 3G. But it’s good news for normal radio users to at least be able to listen to the overall stream.

However I would still rather they be spending all their time and money getting access to Avex, Universal J, and Sony Music’s catalogs but I know I’m in the minority there.

Disclosure:
I’m a moderator at last.fm so I’m obviously biased in my opinion, ironically
I’m even wearing my last.fm shirt today (sorry, they don’t sell them, it was a gift from the staff). But my enthusiasm isn’t because I was paid or given a shirt, it’s because it’s a really great site for tracking your music habits and discovering new music.

The news via Ars is that “Japanese RIAA wants server-side music DRM for mobile phones.”
So anytime you listen to music on your phone it checks online with a central repository to see if you have the rights to play the song.

It’s mind blowing on so many levels.

First is the gall of any organization to try to pull this. Second is the massive amount of backend resources to log everybody’s DRM rights. And third the huge potential for failure rendering everybody’s legally purchased music worthless. Even though it’s not addressed I’m going to assume they’re smart enough to ignore tracks ripped from legally purchased CD and played on mobile phones. Otherwise multiply the audaciousness of the above list tenfold.

But what really interests me is how this speaks of the differences between culture in Japan and the US.

That there is even a possibility for RIAJ to suggest this speaks volumes about Japanese culture and the adage “The nail that sticks up is the first to be hammered down.” RIAA in the US would love this kind of thing but they know that the public would eviscerate them the moment they even hint at it as a possibility. In Japan I still don’t think they’ll allow it but nationally people are submissive enough towards authority that it actually makes it on the table. “If it’s the law follow it and change it through low pressure means, don’t make waves.”

Next is the incredibly lax copyright respect given to western music on TV and Japanese media. Watch Japanese TV for 20 minutes and you’ll hear a few music clips from western music; watch another 20 minutes and you’ll hear clips played by bands that most definitely did not give permission for the show to play their music. In the US copyright lawyers start circling the waters if you play as small as a three cord riff from a popular song (which speaks volumes of US propensity to litigate). However I think there may be a copyright law that says that you can sample on TV so long as it’s less than 30 seconds, or maybe that only applies to covering another artist’s works. Either way a lot of indie bands get a lot of uncompensated play in Japan.

Another oddity is the fact that piracy in Japan is so much less of a problem than it is in the US. While it’s not non-existent, Japanese people are generally much less inclined to illegally download music. Which is amazing considering how overpriced the music is brand new: $10 for singles, $20 for albums, $30-40 for limited edition albums!
Possibly tempering this is the fact that Japanese youth are less PC oriented and more Mobile Phone savvy. That keeps the act of running torrent servers more in the realm of the tech geeks rather than the everyday Japanese youth. So why in the world would the RIAJ think of such a restrictive process for controlling music?

But the real mind boggler is the fact that even though few people pirate music, when it does happen it’s quite blatant. In Japan they have DVD rental shops just like in the US, but in Japan they also have CDs for rent at the shops. It’s a prime place to get exposure for all the latest releases and will always have new hits the day they drop.

Ok that’s no so shocking but the kicker is that in additional to all your DVD and CD renting needs, the shops also sell all the blank CD, DVD, and MiniDisc’s that you need.

Put two and two together. It’s like one stop shopping for the CD ripping pirate. The icing on the cake is that they have hourly rentals, just enough time to go home, rip, and come back. I took a picture when I was there to prove it because I just couldn’t believe the audacity.

(Sorry the picture is a bit clandestine, I thought I might get in trouble for taking it).

For more check out this interesting article about why RIAJ looks the other way over CD Rental ripping.

So why, with all things considered, is RIAJ thinking of such a draconian scheme as locking down all digital music copies on Mobile Phones?

The good:

1. DRM free, high quality tracks.

2. Music videos (however, not sure how many).

The Bad:

1. No DRM but iTunes only. It might as well be DRM if you can’t play with anything but iTunes.

2. 256kbps AAC is good but not lossless. If it costs more and its meant to be a full LP it should have all the same benefits as buying a physical LP.
3. Costs more for the same things you get free through other sources like last.fm.
4. Not portable.
5. Bad implementation. Hijacks your iTunes.

While the digital world opens a lot of doors almost nobody listening to music ever bothers to invest this much time into music ONLY. Let’s face it; music is basically a background soundtrack to our lives. We listen in the car while driving or have music play while we surf the net, play video games, while you cook, clean house, or run in the park. Apart from watching music videos on youtube, people rarely stare at the screen watching music related videos and music related pictures while you listen to said music. You may listen to a lot of music but how much time do you spend listening and watching the virtualizer make pretty images on your screen?

Even with physical media I only look at the liner notes and read lyrics the first time I listen to an album. I’m not against add-ons to albums, I think it’s a great way to enrich the music purchase but this is a poor way of doing it. The problems is that digitally people aren’t as interested in the add-ons.

In the physical realm I like that I can get a limited edition CD with bonus features the normal CD doesn’t have (actually this is still uncommon in the US market but common overseas). In most cases the bonus consists of more tracks, and usually a companion DVD. To total package of a physical “Limited Edition” is: music, lyrics, liner notes, pictures, music videos, “making of” videos, bonus tracks, and often posters or even t-shirts in some cases.

For this Digital version they’re treating the lyrics and pictures like they’re bonus material even though they’re standard on a normal CD. The addition of music videos is good. But the visualizers and flashy screens are just fluff. And we still don’t get bonus tracks. Plus it’s not a lossless copy, if it was FLAC I could buy the LP online and burn it to Disc for those times I do want a physical copy. We can go Physical -> Digital without loss, why not Digital -> Physical?

Then there is the portability issue. If I buy tracks on iTunes I can take them on the bus with an iPod, but the fancy additions stay on the computer. While the tracks are DRM free and can be converted to non-apple formats for other players the additional features are locked to iTunes or Safari (no WMP WinAmp, Firefox, or Amarok). Although Jay says you can hack the videos out, that shouldn’t be necessary. The labels should sell the tracks so that I can play them on any player, the videos should be a standard file type that can be played on any player as well. Then all of our video capable media players can be filled with a video playlist, not just an audio playlist. So long as everything is Apple proprietary this isn’t possible.

The final reason this won’t work is that it doesn’t solve the core reason that people online only buy music a track at a time. People are sick of 2-3 good tracks and 10 “filler tracks” that are unwanted.

For getting people to buy LP’s instead of individual tracks EVERY full album purchase on iTunes should come like this by default at the normal album price. This is what iTunes should have been doing from the get-go to entice us into putting up with those 10 filler tracks. As a more expensive version of an normal track only album it’s not worth it.

6 months from now I’m sure Apple will tout how this has revolutionized music and now the new tablet will make more use of it; and people will eat it up. But in reality labels will be rumbling that it’s not making a noticeable difference and while many iTunes LPs will have been sold it will still pale in comparison to normal track sales. 2-3 years from now they will fade away and be forgotten as another failed experiment to change with the times.

Yes, another collaboration “Youth on the Road” to be released 10/21. This time with “The Collectors”. Here’s a translation from Google (I’d clean it up but my Japanese isn’t great and you can get the gist).

“Rock plan titled” BEAT CRUSADERS, New Rote’ka, the first anniversary activities Mellon has collaborated with artists Midori 4 has decided to collaborate Collector’s series.
Single “Youth on the Road” to 10/21 (Wed) will be released nationwide at Tower Records. Lyrics / Music: Hisashi Kato, produced: Hitoshi Yoshida, music: THE COLLECTORS by Pre-one songs.
Melon Kinenbi’s official blog, click here.
Melon Day Event hosted by the conjunction “MELON LONGE” also appeared in the decision. 10/17 (Sat) will be held at Harajuku Astro Hall. See “SCHEDULE” Please see the page.

The last few collabs have been with Punk bands and I’ve loved them, The Collectors (not the 60’s Canadian psychedelic group) are more of a Mod-Rock group that has been playing in Japan since the late 80’s. I’ve never heard the The Collectors so it will be interesting to see if it appeals to me as much as the recent Punk bands.

I’m just really shocked how Mellon Kinenbi has gone from being a part of one of the most over produced organization in Japanese music to jumping with both feet into more independent rock scene. It’s hard to think of an American example that would be as drastic of a change. Maybe if Justin Timberlake started touring with Iron and Wine or something like that.

Check out the Previous Collaborations here and here.

The problem is that beat is horribly repetitive with these guys. I’m not sure who arranges the music but the walking dance beat is identical for 90% of their songs. 1 song at a time it’s not bad at all but listening to their whole album all together is mindlessly repetitive.

So why am I talking about them. They are a produced pop group, they’re basically guaranteed placing on the Oricon just because they’re hand held to the top by big name producers, remixers, and arrangers. So it seems their first few songs have bee kind of a warm-up to get a feel for where they should be positioned musically. Their last single would arguably be considered their breakout single by hitting the #1 slot in the charts (it’s an anime intro, that gives a bigger “bump” than anything in Japan), but I still wasn’t impressed and was about to write them off and quit listening. The latest single on the other hand finally has some variety to it and may be a sign that they’ve found a niche and may be able to carve out a corner of their own in the Avex roster.

Check it out, it’s pretty good stuff. Again it really reminds me of the “Every Little Thing” except the singer Chisa has a more natural sound to her voice unlike Kaori who sounds like she’s doing damage to her vocal chords everytime the performs. Maybe that will a lot Girl Next Door to continue on now that ELT is slowing down.

To tell you the truth it’s probably from going to the free Iron & Wine concert at the Galivan on Thursday (after the Rifftrax show, which was awesome!!). The Galivan plaza was packed shoulder to shoulder, the biggest I’ve seen this year and probably ever. I’m not a fan of Iron & Wine and this show confirmed that, but I do like going to big events to do some people watching. However it looks like this time it bit me in the ass, somebody there had a bug and it’s probably spreading like wildfire among the indie-yuppies of Salt Lake City now.

Anyway reading through some news today was an article in the Mainichi News that swine flu is approaching epidemic levels in Japan. The part that got me was this:

Between Aug. 3 and 9, when the average reached 0.99, the total number of infections in Japan was estimated to be over 60,000. There is a high possibility that the figure has been increasing since then.
…
Analysis by public health institutes across Japan has determined that roughly 80 percent of cases are swine flu cases. Most of the remaining cases are infections of the Hong Kong A strain. The National Institute of Infectious Diseases estimates that almost all of the people infected from July onwards have been infected with swine flu.

80% of the cases are swine flu! If that same stat holds true for America that mean I have a 4 in 5 chance of having swine flu!

Although I’m not too worried according to the CDC about 36,000 people in America die every year from flu-related causes. I’m not sure how many people have died nation wide from swine flu but considering how big of a deal the news makes when people become infected with it I think it’s still well below 36 thousand deaths. In which case I’m lucky to have swine flu, it’s less likely to kill me than the regular flu.

Anyway it seems to be hitting pretty hard in Japan too (not surprising how densely packed people are there). Maximum the Hormone had to cancel a few shows because the lead singer caught H1N1 (check’em out, it’s one of my favorite Japanese bands). And six of the thousands of AKB48 members have been stricken with the flu as well (they’re an Idol Group similar to Hello!Project).

4 Years of careful digital re-mastering of the Beatles master tapes is finally coming to fruition (no, not a remix like the Love album).

The albums have been remastered by a team of EMI’s Abbey Road Studios in London, using original vintage analog equipment and the latest digital conversion systems. After a long time of initial testing, the digital transfer of the original analogue master tapes was done—one track at a time—using a Prism A-D converter and Pro Tools operating at 24-bit with 192kHz resolution. The tapes didn’t have any defects, but they were covered with dust, which had to be carefully removed from the playback equipment after each theme was digitized.

The teams—Paul Hicks, Sean Magee with Guy Massey and Steve Rooke for the mono albums, and Guy Massey, Steve Rooke, Sam Okell with Paul Hicks and Sean Magee for the stereo ones—put extra care on keeping every single bit of detail from the original tapes intact, including electrical clicks, microphone pops, and even bad edits. The whole process was painfully long, four entire years from start to finish, with the teams obsessed with keeping the spirit and quality of the original recordings intact.

I won’t bother to get into the CD vs LP sound quality debate other than I prefer CDs. Oh hell with it-
It doesn’t matter that LPs are analog, the master tapes themselves are digital so at least one point of the recording process the sound is sampled from its original analog source.
LPs are Analog->Digital->Analog
CDs are Analog->Digital->Digital
Assuming that the CDs are created with the proper standards they can be more true to the original recording than LPs (less conversions of conversions). Which is a moot point because the speakers you play music through can’t react fast enough to reproduce a digital “sawtooth” signal; they naturally blur the digital sample wave back to a smooth analog wave anyway.
And never mind the fact that the LPs is such a delicate format that the very act of listening to an LP slowly destroys the sound quality; even the humidity in the air can affect needle and thus the sound coming from an LP.
On the other hand CD’s digitized info is identical every time it’s played, CDs have error correction algorithms that can remove (to a point) the effect of surface imperfections, environmental effects, and scratches. CDs are the best personal physical music storage medium available now (Let’s leave SACD, DVD, etc. out of this for simplicity).

Sorry. I’ve been through enough arguments with “Audiophiles” that I had to get that off my chest.
These new CD releases are going to be as accurate to the original recordings as possible. Imagine being able to own and listen to the Beatles entire history sounding exactly as they sounded when they were recorded at the studio. Plus the first 4 Beatles albums will be in CD Stereo for the first time! They say they had to do a bit of peak limiting on the stereo versions to keep the volume somewhat consistent but so long as they don’t blow the gain through the roof like most modern CDs I won’t mind a bit of consistency.

I’m also very curious how they will sound when compared to the 1981 MFSL releases that did essentially the same thing. Will the CD versions using 2009 technology compare or surpass LPs using 1980 technology?

Over the years I’ve owned and lost or traded most of the Beatles catalogue, and my parents still own their original LPs of Help! and Abbey Road. I think it’s time to get the complete set to keep for posterity’s sake so I’ll always have the complete works of the #1 most influential, and famous rock band of all time.

Amazon has the Stereo set up for pre-order, I’m sure the Mono version will follow soon.

Another Twilight concert. I need to start putting my attendance for these in last.fm but I never know I’m going till just minutes before. It’s great those few times that SLC starts to show some semblance of a nightlife.

After the show chilling out with the night crew downtown reminds you that any where YOU are is where "the party’s at".

Reuters just published some additional info on “Cocktail” the new music agreement between Apple and the Big record labels. They verify my fears from the end of my previous post, they’re just going to polish the latest Blink182 turd with some pictures and digital content and expect us to think it’s better music. Oh, and charge you more for it than a traditional album, let’s not forget that.

Plus TechCrunch is musing that “Cocktails” may be small apps that are the albums themselves, that create a package of music and album related comment. This is almost exactly like my fears that they will be like those shitty Shockwave apps that are sometimes bundled with CDs as “Interactive content”. The very name makes me think that TechCrunch is onto something; I wouldn’t doubt this all a way to start marketing musical “Cocktails” to people. I can hear Jobs keynote speech already, “First we revolutionized music by making it portable with the iPod. Then we discovered a new feature to help you sort music called “Shuffle”. Then we gave you a way to carry music on your phone and still charge you $0.99 for an additional 30 second ringtone. Now we will revolutionize music again by turning music into an app that can’t use that archaic shuffle feature some moron came up with.”

Anyway, Cocktail smells. Smells bad. Smells real bad.

From Reuters via TechCrunch.

That’s right! Sonic Youth for free at a “chilled out”, outdoor venue suckers!

Although i’m not paying $5 for 6oz of beer. Thats highway robbery, especially when Murphy’s is across the street and there is no more club charges.

It’s upbeat, fun to listen to, fun to watch, simple, and puts you in a good energetic mood. I haven’t listened to Asia Engineer too much but I think I’m going to have to check them out more. It also features Haruna Ai, everybody’s favorite transgender Taranto. Seriously, I didn’t like her when she started with her Aya Matsuura bit but now that she has moved off that she’s funny.

Also looks to be a cross promotion with Fanta. “MOMI MOMI” being the vocalized word to squeeze something but I’ve only heard it used in references to squeezing breasts. But I may be just traveling in the wrong circles as it seems to be used here for a squeeze bottle for a fanta drink.

Drawback is that it isn’t out until August 19th. But it’s already available for preorder:
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YesAsia

From the CD Catalog number it looks like ASia Engineer is on Rhythm Zone along with

target="_blank">Koda Kumi and Maki Goto.

It won’t. This is the same tired dream that has been talked about and failed before.

While I totally support the Album format it just isn’t well balanced for online sales. The problem is that nobody trusts albums anymore; so many years of selling albums with 2 good tracks and 10 filler tracks has lead people to distrust the big labels when it comes to music. The only reason albums still sell in America is that they don’t market singles here.

Too bad too, an album that is 90% filler isn’t the album format’s fault, it’s the fault of the producers and labels that crank out BS. I’ve talked a few times about how physical sales could become more attractive to consumers (that old post reminds me I need to get that “Switch” single.) It’s easy to find good albums that are full of great content from start to finish that even flow from song to create a real musical experience. They usually just come from smaller independent bands who have to rely on good music to make sales. One reason “cocktail” will fail is that it’s a collaboration between Apple and those big labels that crank out crap, only now it will be digital crap.

The main reason this is a bad idea is that online digital liner notes and images don’t have any appeal. I can goto last.fm for all the bios and images I need, and a plugin that feeds lyrics gets the rest of the liner notes. Besides when I’m on my computer listening I don’t want desktop real-estate taken up with static images or text, it’s just a background soundtrack for my actions. And if you cram this stuff into an iPod screen there will be no room to really see anything.
When people listen to music they don’t stare at the album art while they listen; they just queue up the track and pop the iPod back in their pocket while the stare wistfully out the window of the bus.

Digital format can only really be enhanced by adding video, and it can excel at this as I’ve mentioned in other writings I’ve made. But this can be done just as easily with singles, so it’s not really going to help the online album format any more. All the efforts the big labels are working on would work better in the physical format. In fact that YesAsia link I put above for the limited edition of “Switch” proves the point, it already has the lyrics and typical liner notes, adds in additional promotional photo shoot pictures, a DVD with the song’s music video and “making of” video, plus the commercial advertising the song. Suddenly having a physical copy seems a lot more interesting than a song with DRM locked flash programs attached.

Which is another big point, many CDs have been enriched with digital content that comes in the form of a DRM laden, bloated, adobe flash or shockwave piece-o-crap. Or worse some proprietary program that is nothing more than legal malware screwing up your computer. And you know that whatever way they use to display all this additional content it will be locked down with DRM just like those “enhanced content” CDs.

The idea of enriching music is a good one, but big labels aren’t smart enough to make it happen in a meaningful or useful way. Online all the things you can add are usually already available through other sources, the only appeal is to give you something you can keep on your hard-drive for offline use. If the big labels want to revive the album, make albums that aren’t 90% filler; make them so that when listened to as a whole the album becomes more than the sum of their parts. Songs that lead well into other songs, or songs that through the album tell a story or take the listener through a series of emotional experiences. It takes more work and talent but that is what they need to increase sales; don’t just polish the latest Blink182 turd with some pictures and expect us to think it’s better.

Thanks to Ars Technica and the many other blogs reporting this.

BTW: I’m planning on addressing the Apple tablet issue in another post.

The problem is that the microphone recording the sound is the size of a pencil eraser and the concert already has deafeningly over-amped music to begin with; so you end up with a grainy shaky video that has such distorted sound you can’t make out a single word.

I’m thinking the ?Zoom Q3 Handy Video Recorder was created for these exact circumstances. It focuses in getting good sound sacrificing video to only VGA resolution. But this makes it the perfect camcorder for uploading video to the net and even includes software to assist in Youtube uploads.

If you regularly record concert video and upload it to the net, do us and yourselves a favor and get this camcorder.

Thanks engadget

A music chart where your vote is stronger if you have more twitter followers? Even when it’s not being “Rick Rolled” this is a bad idea. One person, one vote has its flaws but its still light years better than this.

Another plug for my friends at Last.fm where you can get less biased charts and charts that adapt based upon what artist you’re looking at.

I’m not very knowledge able about Sour’s music but it seems to be indie pop music. I’m not a big fan of the genre; the song is good, just not my taste.

If you like it their EP is for sale:

SOUR – Water Flavor EP (Japan Version)

The kind of good news is that they’re a MySpace band and so there is the remote chance they may be invited to tour outside of Japan. Although MySpace will likely hose it like they did when Polysics toured through.

Via Gizmodo

When you hear the god-awful deals that musicians have to sign with big labels to get their music sold it’s hard not to hate the music industry. They literally take every penny, taking a multimillion selling artist and skiming off so much money the artist makes the equivalent of a one of us normals at $20-30 an hour, the other 95% goes to the industry coffers to promote Britney’s new album and fund the Super Bowl Halftime show.

The problem is that you need to play the game if you want to distribute albums beyond the back of your Pinto in the venue parking lot. If you want to be sold in record stores then the label gets all you music. I discussed this with a guy working for the punk band “Charged GBH” who was pissed that the band was limited to selling one crappy CD that even they didn’t like because the rest of the catalog was tied up in a former, competing label.

But Universal has partnered with TuneCore, creating a path independent artists can take that let them keep their rights during their early formative releases and still get sold in big commercial stores. Universal doesn’t do a million unit pressing worldwide for them, but being sold side by side with multi platinum albums in their local market is a big bonus. Then if they make it big and are ready to go to wider distribution they can expand the relationship and make a full deal with Universal and become a commercial artist.

Personally I think it’s a great idea and something that is a big step towards the music industry adapting to modern times. It seems to be slipping under the radar in most news circles I know of but this could be one of the more influential steps in changing the music business in the long run. Any smart label would try to setup a similar program as quick as possible to get access to new talent, and any smart indie band would be smart to make use of a very mainstream way of getting commercial distribution without signing a deal with the devil.

Here’s to friendly Big Music Labels!

Thanks to the great Ars Technica.

And unfortunately with it this release date this far out there is no previews online yet but this collaboration is with ミドリ (midori) which probably means more punk style.

Like I said before, this is nothing but good news if you ask me. The more releases they have the better; they’ve been overlooked for so long by UFA. Plus I’d love if some of this style rubs off on their independent releases. And again I’m not really that surprised either, even though Melon Kinenbi was tied to the idol heavy Up Front Agency they always seems like they wanted to split off on a more aggressive tangent like this.

Or at least they seemed like this a year or so in when they started to develop their own personalities and not the bizarre image Hello Project was developing for them early on.

Backstory: At the behest of the fatcats that control music the government began enforcing new royalty laws that significantly raised the price of internet music streaming in the US. The rates were much higher than previously and many US internet radio stations feared they wouldn’t be able to stay afloat so they protested by taking themselves off the air, akin to “You can’t fire me. I QUIT!” Last.fm was criticized for not participating but as they said, they had been paying higher fees all along since they were dealing with global distribution. i.e. We’ve been paying this much all along and we’re alright, suck it up now that you have to play by the taught rules we had to play by.

The protest of course was useless and it seemed that US internet radio was doomed (or at least the heydays of cheap royalties was gone). But now a deal has been cut with SoundExchange that will lower the fees. Hooray, but don’t be fooled, SoundExchange is still sitting pretty with this deal. It’s all pretty sick considering how arbitrary their method of “reimbursing” their artists is. My friend was an independent musician with one limited CD release but never sees a dime.

SoundExchange divies up their royalties by percentage; polling radios (and any other transmission format) on what they played and figuring out who gets what based on who was played the most. So if I play my friends music 24/7 on my radio but play all Metallica on the day that SoundEx polls my listening, Metallica gets 100% of the royalties. Considering how draconian SoundEx is on collecting royalties this kind of inaccuracy is absurd in the age of computers where you can track music plays in real time.

The point is internet radio shouldn’t be adjusting their business models to fit the modern industry, SoundExchange and there other music controllers need to update their business model to fit the new modern music industry.

Via TechCrunch and everywhere else on the techno-blogosphere.

I was excited to know that a new Easy Star All-Stars album was coming out. For anybody who doesn’t know, Easy Star All-Stars put out albums that cover other bands music but everything is Reggae. Their first album Dub Side of the Moon (Pink Floyd) was excellent. Next up was Radiodread (Radiohead) which I didn’t like as much but I’m not a Radiohead fan either. But I was excited that the next was going to be “Easy Star’s Lonely Hearts Dub Band” (Beatles).

I’ve finally gotten time to listen to the album and it’s everything I expected and more. If you’re not a fan of covers or you think it’s sacrilege to touch anything by the Beatles then it may not be your cup of tea. For the rest of us, especially those of us who love covers or Reggae it’s a great CD. I actually have 3 other CDs of VA Reggae Beatles covers but they’re weren’t nearly as good as this (oddly enough they were rfom the UK and I got them from a used CD store in Matsumoto Japan and brought them to the US). I definitely recommend getting it if you can, although they are on their own label so it’s not going to be as easy to find as a big label release. All the more reason to pick up a copy because you know more money will be going directly to the artist.

Amazon has the whole album for streaming, click the image below and checkout track 2: “With a Little Help From My Friends”. Excellent stuff, I can’t wait until next weekend to chill on the beach in Bear Lake listening to this album.

Funny how things change over 5 years, although not too surprising with a musical group whose roster is constantly rotating. All I could think was, “Too bad they waited till their popularity was waning before they tried to get more overseas fans”. It seems all big label bands wait until they’re in dire straits until they start reaching out to larger audiences to try to stabilize sales. Not surprising MM has painted themselves into a corner in Japan by appealing to only whacked out idol fans. Too bad too, they have the ablility to broaden their fans there if they didn’t keep sticking to the whole idol image.

So good luck in the US, but I won’t be there. They killed or cut off all their groups they have an appeal beyond giggly prepubescent girls, unless they grow up their fans overseas will be the same narrow genre they have in Japan, and there are even fewer idol otaku here.

Now bring back Biyuuden, bring over Melon Kinenbi, or create a group with the maturity closer to what Morning Musume had during Daite Hold on Me, and I might be bothered to take notice.

Besides it seems like UFA is keeping a tight leash on their products on a tight leash even over here where 0.00001% of the people know who they are.

Update: Hmm… I bad mouth the Cutsie ,idols path that Hello Project takes but I was just listening to some blacklog of my music and “My Boy” by Buono is pretty good (PV is a little absurd though)… I guess I’ll shut up now.

Simply put this is classic Rancid. I may have gripes when I see them live but on CD they’re still one of the best bands out there and definitely the top of the Punk totem pole.

The biggest sign this is the new album is how diverse the songs are, since Tim Armstrong has been experimenting with some alternate styles in alternate bands and songs he’s produced it shows on the album with all the songs being definitely punk but with some influence from other genres.

“Up to no good” and “Liberty and Freedom” have a good punk/ska, sound with an upbeat tempo. Not surprising from a former Operation Ivy member; but also making the album easily accessible to the ska crowd. “Disconnected” is another song that is great and differs from the album enough to give a diverse album that keeps it sounding repetitive like a lot of mass produced corporate CDs that are mostly “filler” (see some of my previous posts on the sad state of American filler albums).

The whole band is involved in the album, it’s not just a Tim Armstrong Joint. I think all members of Rancid have been producing side projects of their own in the last few years which is why their CDs have been so few and far between (that last album being a “B-sides and rarities album doesn’t count” The benefit of all this is that as a band they have a lot of diverse experience to make a vibrant album that isn’t just a collection of new songs that sound the same (*ahem* AC/DC).

Even some slower songs like “Civilian Ways” that have a kind of a country twang to them. “Civilian Ways” a song close to me since it reminds me how I felt coming back from Iraq and still some time feel now, coming home and feeling the culture shock going from Military life back to a civilian life. People feel that they’re connected with what goes on overseas when soldiers are fighting, but they don’t really know how little they know about the pain suffered by the soldiers cut off from everything they know. As for the song it’s pretty interesting how pro military (soldier) punk music is now considering it’s anarchist roots. So many bands are anti-government but pro soldier. Love the soldier, not the war or the people who started the war.

Except the voices “LA River” you wouldn’t think it was Rancid; “That’s Just The Way It Is Now” and “The Highway” is similar it’s obvious that Tim likes experimenting with new sounds and I’m all for artists that diversify their music. It doesn’t always work but in cases like this it makes for an even better album.

The album is good “unity punk” to get crowds singing along. Ironic because the last two times I saw Rancid play live they didn’t have the stage presence other groups had. I don’t know if Rancid is just getting a bit older but they’re definitely stronger on CD than on stage.
Like I said I got the Deluxe edition of the album so I need to mention the acoustic CD. It mostly the same songs except for a couple that were acoustic versions of bonus tracks on the overseas albums.

The acoustic versions are great too and in some cases with the more country sounding songs they are even better because they lend themselves so well to the format. And the acoustic versions aren’t just acoustic guitar like the acoustic bootlegs tat are currently floating around. They have alot of instruments making up a full band and just lacking the electric guitars and bass. The inclusion of accordion adds an interesting sound similar to Flogging Molly and The Tossers.

All in all I would definitely recommend getting this album. I haven’t listened to it enough to see if it’s going to surpass their others as my favorite album but it’s definitely got the potential. Like a friend of mine said, Rancid just gets better with every release that comes out. I’d highly recommend this to anybody that listens to Punk ad even most who don’t and just want to diversify their listening or get a good album with a bit of energy to it.

Hello Project’s (former?) girl group Melon Kinenbi (メロン記念日) is going to see if it’s actually possible just having done a collab with <Beat Crusaders (Good, Lightweight, not quite “Pop Punk”, Punk) and now one with New Rote’ka (ニューロティカ) (more underground, energetic punk).

Beat Crusaders Collaboration
New Rote’ka Collab

Of all the Hello Pro girls, Kinenbi seems most likely to fit in at a punk show but that’s still not saying much. I know Japanese punk shows are usually a bit more tame than some here in the US (no brass knuckle fights for one) but I still wonder what happens when you drop a few idols in the middle of a screaming Punk show.

Still I hope it works good because I think seeing the wild side of some idols would be great. Besides the fact that it’s been over a year since Kinenbi had a release. What’s really shocking is that Kinenbi formed shortly after Maki Goto joined Morning Musume and are still the same group! Ok, maybe that was too much of my personal H!P nerd knowledge coming out, but seriously when you understand how they work it’s amazing. Up Front Agency always kept them on the back burner and now that they’re free they’re taking their act in a direction I really like. Hopefully this is just the first of a new image for them.

The only trouble now is getting hands on these singles over here in the US. Like a tragically overlooked idol group isn’t hard enough to come by they’re teamed up with punk bands that are unknown in the US.
Come on Japan! You did a good job of starting up a Ska movement. Show us the wild punk scene that’s hidden behind Japan’s conservative image!

Melon x Crusaders on youtube (which means nothing when you have a CD collecting personality like me).

Good but doesn’t stand out other than sounding like Melon Kinenbi with that “Beat Crusaders sound”. Chorus still sounds like an idol group song.

Melon x New Rote’ka

Bad recording. Melon is straining in a format they’re not used to but I think they could defiantly go in this direction and do great.

If UFA had taken Hello Pro in a direction more like this I don’t think I would have given up on them. But The New Rote’ka collaboration “Pinch wa chance,baka ni narouze!” is an excellent start (we hope!)

Friday the 19th of June The Aquabats came back to Salt Lake and its always worth catching them if you can.

I barely caught the first show, Resistor Radio but I decided it was worth getting the EP to see how it is. They had a good Punk feel to them, with a bit of polish they could be good, seems they’re being produced by Rancid’s Drummer Branden Steineckert so they could have some good backing while starting out.

Next was Two and a Half White Guys, I’d seen them before in Provo but in a real show at in the venue it was a bit different, they had more energy, and it was a bit more like a real show. They’re a good local ska band that doesn’t sound like just a local band; good two tone ska music. Good music to chill out to, and the band was good at engaging the crowd even during take-down the lead singer was still engaging the crowd and taking pictures of the fans. They also ended it with a good cover of Oingo Boing’s Who Do You Want to Be?

Aquabats had a new intro, they could make their performance into the cheesiest tv show and it would be awesome. But yet again the local sound tech sucks; I can barely hear MC Bat Commander. And I love the clips they play during the music, they could make a DVD of the videos on the projector and I’d seriously buy it. But “In the Venue” has draconian security, nobody gets on stage or on the crowd before the security pulls them off by their feet.

For their song “Baked” they brought on a ton of baked goods from Dick’s Market in Bountiful and proceeded to throw them into the crowd, cookies, muffins, and whole frosted cakes. Then for pool party they had beach balls and even an inflatable pool, they threw on top of the crowd. And if you have a pool on top of the crowd why not throw one of the kids on stage into the pool, luckily the security saw that pulling the kid out of the crowd would have caused the band and crowd to riot.

Another excellent Aquabats show.

CD’s Bought:

Resistor Radio – Beggar’s Cuisine

Two and A Half White Men – Gringo

Already have all Aquabats CDs!!!!
Come-on guys! Make more!!!

First off for those who don’t know, singles are new songs by artists that are released in between albums. We used to have them in the US but in the 70’s they disappeared as the music industry realized that they could make more off albums by cranking them out faster with a few good tracks and a bunch of filler tracks. Nowadays that sales model has collapsed as the single download has taken over and the music industry is falling apart without the physical money cow they got fat on for the last 3 decades. I went into this more indepth a while ago in a last.fm journal about bringing back the single and album as a cheap distribution alternative to downloads or by packing them with additional content that isn’t available online to make physical formats have more appeal again (think “special edition” albums).

The benefit of the single is that it allows you to buy new music from your favorite artists every few months, rather than waiting a couple years between albums. Often times I’m surprised that a favorite band of mine is releasing a new album because it’s been so long that I’ve nearly forgot about them. Singles consist of an “A Side” for the main song, and a “B Side” for a backup “filler” song, but also usually have alternate versions of the songs that aren’t available on the albums.

What got me started thinking about it was that amazon.de has the new Mihimaru GT single, “Switch“, out and it seems like they just released another single a couple months ago. And what’s with one amazon site getting music the other doesn’t have? amz.us is still stuck on Naki Natsu Anyway, I wish bands Dropkick Murphys or Street Dogs had new discs out as often as the overseas bands (although at a more reasonable price). Many bands on indie labels do have singles overseas but in the US we get nothing. Obviously the manufacturing and infrastructure exists for these, they just need to stock the US shelves with them so we can get them as well.

Mihimaru GT – Switch