Pump it Up

There was a time - a glorious time, in the early 90's before iPods, before small stylish iPod speakers - where loud music blarred, pop, and fuzzed out of boomboxes. With cardboard and a boombox propped on your shoulder spontaneous dance parties could held anywhere: an alley, parking lot, parks, the sidewalk.

Deals in the Amazon MP3 Store

DRM perplexes me. It attempts to prevent users from illegally sharing music; however, it just punishes the people who are legally downloading music. The downsides of DRM are well documented:

1. When something better than an iPod comes along, I might not be able to play my songs on it. Sony never made you play Sony Albums on a Sony Record Player.
   
2. What happens if iTunes shuts down its FairPlay servers? I could loose my music that I paid for. Universal decides to are only making movies; demand listeners give back their records.
   
3. Maintaining, implementing, supporting DRM costs money. Someone has to pay for it; the honest user using iTunes Store ends up paying for it, not the college kid downloading music on a torrent.
4. Keeping an honest user honest doesn't do much. Imagine security guards only checking the bags of the people they know aren't shop lifters.
   

Wired has a humorous write up of DRM applied to handbags.

This is why I download music from Amazon's MP3 store. All songs are DRM free. The songs cost less - most songs are 89 cents - and every Friday they have five $5 dollar albums.

Say no to iTunes, say yes to Amazon MP3. Deals deals deals. I love deals.

La Blogotheque

A friend shared La Blogotheque with me a while ago. La Blogotheque is a video blogger who invites artists to perform off stage in atypical situations - elevators, on top of roofs, in a ferry, or walking down the street - and sometimes without proper instruments. The videos are shot in one take on a handheld camera. The performances shine, and the camera seems to dance and float along with the artists.

This one of Sufjan Stevens is my favorite.



The website is in French, but it's a pleasure to browse La Blogotheque's YouTube page. La Blogotheque has posted videos of Arcade Fire, Grizzly Bear, Bon Iver, and Vampire Weekend. Enjoy!

Second Edition Sunday

Friday evening, I attend the Jazz concert in the National Gallery Sculpture Garden. The scene was out in full force with every patch of grass covered with lively 20 somethings pouring wine into plastic cups, snacking on ham and cheese, and dipping their feet in the shallow fountain while palavering - just loud enough to be understood over the Jazz - about "how great it was to be Friday." I'm going again this Friday, bringing wine, and I'm sure I'll be happy that it's Friday.

Thoughts on Rock Band

If you were in a band would you rather play Rock Band or have band practice?

I'm in a Rock Band band, our band practice is Rock Band.

Internet and Money

As I settle into life here in DC, I've begun to look at buying a condo. Real estate is expensive here in Washington, just out of reach at the moment; however, the low interest rates have caught my attention. Zip Realty and Trulia are great tools for searching properties around the country. They're easy to use, see estimates, compare properties, get advice, and see trends. I curiuos to why it took a start-up to make an intelligent tool like this. Large real estate companies had all the expertise, information, and brand; however, they didn't push the limits and make something innovative to create more revenue.

Record companies are the same way they spend too much time fighting internet radio and digital downloads rather than figuring out how to effectively create revenue from them. Streaming music to moblie phones? A rhapsody client for the phone? Publish your own music channel to stream to friends or your phone? Rock Band to promote your new single?

Dear Record Companies,

iTunes is the largest music retailer in the United States. Get over it, you lost this fight.

Sincerely,
A Music Enthusiast

The Scene

I earned double hipster points this week. Once on thursday by showing up at work with a Black Cat stamp on my hand from the Jens Lekman show, and once on Friday by the Black Cat stamp on my hand from the Les Savy Fav show.

Hipster points this month: 2. Good start to April. I'm not positive how the scale works, but I might get a bonus point because both shows were sold out. Tickets to a sold out show are always a great fact for a formulated conversation at work.

"What's that on your hand?"

"Oh, yeah I tried to wash that off. It's from the Black Cat show last night."

"I heard that was sold out! How'd you get tickets?"

The Jens show was fun. The band was dressed in black rather than white, and the airplane dance moves warmed my heart again. Most everyone in the crowd seemed to be in love with Jens; don't blame them.

On Friday, Tim Harrington, the Les Savy Fav singer, spent time in between songs parodying the show 24 and it continued after the encore from backstage. Through all his antics on stage he manage to hold on to the microphone even when he changed light-bulbs while walking on top of the bar - professional. He owns his own textile company.

Long walk today. Got an empanada, and then found the new Target.

Music

For the most part I like working in silence. When I first studied math, I would always play music in the background; however, now I find that it ruins my internal dialog. My thoughts get mashed up with the beat. More and more I've come to appreciate silence. That's why I like mornings, the only noise is the shuffling of my feat and the gurgle of Mr. Coffee. Sometimes I wake up too late, and the custodian is around. She doesn't like to talk, which is good; however she creates a cacophony that my ears don't want to hear so early. It's okay, cleaning is a good thing, and she doesn't sing while she cleans. Mornings are great: no one is around, the whole day is ahead of you, and there's always coffee.