Blog
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Chance
New Chance album came out this week. I haven't listened to Chance in about a year, but I'm pretty enthusiastic about the new album. I'm listening to his cover of "Milkshake" right now. Good stuff.
Labels: music
Thursday, September 11, 2008
iTunes playlists
Okay, the Genius playlist thing is actually pretty fun. Here's a playlist I got from "Quiet As A Mouse" by Margot & The Nuclear So & So's. This one was off my MacBook rather than my PC.
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
iTunes 8, continued
Well, my desktop Vista machine finally finished chugging through its "Genius" stuff. Just for yuks, I hit the Genius button on "Why Henry Drinks", by Drive-By Truckers, and iTunes gave me a pretty awesome playlist, which I'd like to paste here, but I'm having trouble exporting the playlist to a format that I can easily paste into Blogger's editor. The best I can do right now is a screenshot:
iTunes 8
I've upgraded all of my home computers to iTunes 8 today. My desktop Vista machine is still running through the "Genius" setup, which apparently takes a long time when you run it on a large library. My one pet peeve with iTunes 8 is that there is no longer a preference pane setting to turn off the Genre column in the browser. It can still be turned off though, using this hint. That worked fine on the Mac, but I'm not sure how to translate that to the PC. It's probably a registry setting or something. I'll have to play around with it later.
Meanwhile, I can't seem to download app updates for my iPod Touch from iTunes right now. I'm hoping that's a temporary glitch related to the iTunes 8 rollout. I've got two apps that need to be updated. I'll have to take a look at that again tomorrow.
One more Apple-related note: I ordered a refurbished Apple TV unit today. I was motivated by the availability of Battlestar Galactica in HD on the iTunes store. I never got around to watching any of BSG season 4 off my Tivo, and now the first few episodes have disappeared. (Apparently, I ran out of room at some point, and they were dropped.) The quality on my Tivo Series 2 isn't great anyway. I don't mind paying $30 or so to get the whole season in HD, and without commercials or those annoying crawls for Ghost Hunters or whatever else SciFi is plugging. Oh, and with the Apple TV, I'll finally be able to watch Torchwood season 2 on my TV. I downloaded that from iTunes while I was in San Diego, and I watched the first episode on my laptop, but I haven't gotten around to watching any more of them.
Meanwhile, I can't seem to download app updates for my iPod Touch from iTunes right now. I'm hoping that's a temporary glitch related to the iTunes 8 rollout. I've got two apps that need to be updated. I'll have to take a look at that again tomorrow.
One more Apple-related note: I ordered a refurbished Apple TV unit today. I was motivated by the availability of Battlestar Galactica in HD on the iTunes store. I never got around to watching any of BSG season 4 off my Tivo, and now the first few episodes have disappeared. (Apparently, I ran out of room at some point, and they were dropped.) The quality on my Tivo Series 2 isn't great anyway. I don't mind paying $30 or so to get the whole season in HD, and without commercials or those annoying crawls for Ghost Hunters or whatever else SciFi is plugging. Oh, and with the Apple TV, I'll finally be able to watch Torchwood season 2 on my TV. I downloaded that from iTunes while I was in San Diego, and I watched the first episode on my laptop, but I haven't gotten around to watching any more of them.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
eMusic price increase
I've been using eMusic for quite a while. Since the beginning, I've been on a download plan that allows 40 songs per month for $9.99. They discontinued that plan a while back, maybe in 2006, but grandfathered existing members, so I kept that rate. My credit card bill this month shows an $11.99 charge, though, so I logged in to my account to see what was up. Apparently, eMusic has raised prices. There's a thread about it on the message board. The announcement is dated June 17, but there's no indication that they ever sent out an email on this to let anyone know. There's another thread on the board, started by a confused customer who didn't see the announcement either.
I can't get too mad about this, since those of us on the $9.99/40 track plan are now apparently on an $11.99/50 track plan, which is still pretty good, and still better than what a new user can get. (The new user $11.99 plan only includes 30 tracks per month.) I really think they should have sent out an e-mail blast on this though.
Interestingly, this is all coming up at the same time as Apple is rumored to be getting ready to roll out iTunes subscriptions, possibly for $129/year. I'd still rather have MP3's from eMusic, assuming any iTunes subscription model would include only DRM'd music that self-destructs if you discontinue your subscription.
I can't get too mad about this, since those of us on the $9.99/40 track plan are now apparently on an $11.99/50 track plan, which is still pretty good, and still better than what a new user can get. (The new user $11.99 plan only includes 30 tracks per month.) I really think they should have sent out an e-mail blast on this though.
Interestingly, this is all coming up at the same time as Apple is rumored to be getting ready to roll out iTunes subscriptions, possibly for $129/year. I'd still rather have MP3's from eMusic, assuming any iTunes subscription model would include only DRM'd music that self-destructs if you discontinue your subscription.
Labels: music
Sunday, August 17, 2008
E2-E4
I was going to go into NYC on Friday to see Manuel Gottsching perform E2-E4 at Lincoln Center, but I got stuck dealing with some stuff at work, and it was raining on and off, so I kind of lost my enthusiasm for going to an outdoor concert. I probably should have gone anyway, even though I would have got there late. I found some nice pictures from the concert on Flickr. Looks like it was probably cool.
Friday, August 08, 2008
tonight's entertainment
Friday, July 04, 2008
Rhapsody MP3 store
Rhapsody has just opened an MP3 store, in beta. If you sign up for it now, you can get a $10 credit to your account, which is enough to buy Perception, a 90-track box set of pretty much everything The Doors ever released. And if you want to spend another dollar, you can get The Herbie Hancock Box, which is a 34-track collection. I'm honestly not sure if either of these box sets is at these prices purposely or due to a pricing mix-up, but either way it's a good deal.
Unfortunately, the store itself is a bit of a mess. I had a lot of trouble downloading the Doors set. The download manager they provide just didn't work, so I switched to an option that allowed you to download the tracks in zip files. That got me 81 out of the 90 tracks, but the remaining 9 tracks came down in a corrupt zip file. I had to go through a customer service chat session to get them to credit me for the missing tracks and allow me to re-download them. On the Herbie Hancock set, I found that I could use the download manager if I manually downloaded one track at a time. Queuing up multiple tracks didn't work. So, basically I had to sit in front of my computer and, click on a track, wait for it to download, then go back and click on the next, and so on.
I don't think I'll be ordering much more from them until they get the download manager working well. Still, it's nice to see another outlet for legitimate MP3 downloads!
Unfortunately, the store itself is a bit of a mess. I had a lot of trouble downloading the Doors set. The download manager they provide just didn't work, so I switched to an option that allowed you to download the tracks in zip files. That got me 81 out of the 90 tracks, but the remaining 9 tracks came down in a corrupt zip file. I had to go through a customer service chat session to get them to credit me for the missing tracks and allow me to re-download them. On the Herbie Hancock set, I found that I could use the download manager if I manually downloaded one track at a time. Queuing up multiple tracks didn't work. So, basically I had to sit in front of my computer and, click on a track, wait for it to download, then go back and click on the next, and so on.
I don't think I'll be ordering much more from them until they get the download manager working well. Still, it's nice to see another outlet for legitimate MP3 downloads!
Labels: music
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Pizzicato Five
Pizzicato Five – Baby Love Child - still one of my favorite songs. I can listen to this over and over, and it just doesn't get old.
Labels: music
Sunday, May 11, 2008
summer stuff
Is it time to start thinking about summer concerts yet? I just took at look at the Central Park SummerStage and River To River pages. Someone mentioned to me today that Sonic Youth are playing on July 4th as part of River to River. That sounds good, but will probably be pretty crowded. I see Vampire Weekend on the SummerStage schedule on June 14, and Junot Diaz doing a reading on July 17. I'm curious as to how a reading would work at the SummerStage venue. It just doesn't seem like the kind of space that would work well for something like that. It might be interesting to go to, if only to see if it works.
Labels: music
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Elpuoc Ddo Eht
Want to listen to the new Gnarls Barkley album backwards? Well, you're in luck! You can download it for free here. (This has probably been up for a while, but I just stumbled across it today.)
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Labels: music
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
LaLa.com
I hadn't used LaLa in quite a while, and I don't recall getting any e-mail messages from them either, so it was a bit of a surprise when Donald Fagen's "Nightfly" showed up in my mailbox yesterday, in a LaLa envelope. I guess the ship notice must have gone into my spam folder or something. I hadn't shipped out anything myself since February, and I hadn't received anything since May 2007, almost a whole year ago.
This got me interested in updating my lists on LaLa, and seeing if there was anything I could ship out. I wound up shipping three CDs out. A little while after I did that, I got a notice that another CD was on its way to me: Mazzy Star's "So Tonight That I Might See". Cool.
Poking around on the site a bit, it does look like it's still an ongoing concern, with a modest amount of trading going on. There's talk in the forums about the impending release of LaLa 3.0, but not a lot of solid information that I can find about exactly when this will come out, or what it'll offer. And there are indications in some forum messages that new members aren't currently allowed to trade CDs, just use the other aspects of the site. Weird. There used to be a corporate blog where Bill Nguyen would talk about the site, but that seems to have disappeared, so I guess you have to root through the forums to figure out what's going on.
This got me interested in updating my lists on LaLa, and seeing if there was anything I could ship out. I wound up shipping three CDs out. A little while after I did that, I got a notice that another CD was on its way to me: Mazzy Star's "So Tonight That I Might See". Cool.
Poking around on the site a bit, it does look like it's still an ongoing concern, with a modest amount of trading going on. There's talk in the forums about the impending release of LaLa 3.0, but not a lot of solid information that I can find about exactly when this will come out, or what it'll offer. And there are indications in some forum messages that new members aren't currently allowed to trade CDs, just use the other aspects of the site. Weird. There used to be a corporate blog where Bill Nguyen would talk about the site, but that seems to have disappeared, so I guess you have to root through the forums to figure out what's going on.
Labels: music
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Baby Cruising Love - Perfume
I don't know why I like this song so much, but I do. I may even pick up the CD/DVD!
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
Happy New Year
I didn't do much today, aside from watching football. I'm not making any major resolutions this year either. I did make all the arrangements to go to WonderCon today though. As usual, I wasn't really sure I wanted to go this year, but a few things convinced me to go again. Basically, a good guest lineup, plus a general desire to get out of New Jersey for a few days. And a chance to see the Chinese New Year Parade again!
I haven't really done much reflection on 2007. Normally, I would get kind of reflective on New Year's Day, but I haven't really been in that frame of mind. Well, just for the heck of it, here are some things I've done in 2007:
Books and comics I've read and liked:
Movies & TV shows I've enjoyed:
Music I've liked:
Pointless stuff I've spent money on:
Things I didn't get around to doing:
Well, that's just a bunch of random lists off the top of my head. I guess the two big things that happened in 2007 for me were the office move my company did (from Edison to Somerset), and my mostly successful implementation of GTD.
I haven't really done much reflection on 2007. Normally, I would get kind of reflective on New Year's Day, but I haven't really been in that frame of mind. Well, just for the heck of it, here are some things I've done in 2007:
Books and comics I've read and liked:
- Absolute Watchmen
- Nextwave
- David Allen's Getting Things Done and Ready for Anything (though I haven't finished RFA yet)
- the first two Jasper Fforde "Thursday Next" novels
- a couple of Jim Butcher "Harry Dresden" novels
Movies & TV shows I've enjoyed:
- Paprika (my favorite movie of the year, for whatever that's worth)
- Once
- Ratatouille
- The Simpsons Movie
- Rise: Blood Hunter (okay, not exactly high-brow, but fun)
- Torchwood
- Life on Mars
- Heroes
Music I've liked:
- Wilco - Sky Blue Sky
- Ryan Adams - Easy Tiger
- Paul McCartney - Memory Almost Full
- Pizzicato Five - Made in USA (from 1994, but I'd never heard it until this year)
- Derek and the Dominoes - Layla (I only just got around to buying this CD in 2007)
Pointless stuff I've spent money on:
- new couch
- iPod Touch
- TomTom One LE GPS
- Dell Inspiron laptop
- MacBook
- Microsoft Office 2007
- Motorola SLVR
- 19" widescreen LG monitor
- Toshiba HD-DVD player
Things I didn't get around to doing:
- buying a new car (the old one's still working, but maybe not for much longer)
- checking out the new Greek and Roman galleries at the Met
- visiting the new Morimoto restaurant in NYC
Well, that's just a bunch of random lists off the top of my head. I guess the two big things that happened in 2007 for me were the office move my company did (from Edison to Somerset), and my mostly successful implementation of GTD.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Pizzicato Five - Baby Love Child
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Life on Mars playlist
Life on Mars is a great little show on the BBC. I think season two is supposed to air on BBC America soon. They use a lot of great old 70s rock on the show, so, since I've been messing around with iMixes, I decided to try and create an iMix with all the music from season one. I used the episode guide on the BBC site to get the names of all the songs they used -- there's about 50 songs, over just eight episodes. Some are well-known, like "Baba O'Riley" and "White Room", some are a bit more obscure. I managed to create an iMix with 45 of the songs. Here it is:
I only had about 5 of these songs in my collection already. I used up the last of my iTunes credit to buy a few more of them, and I'll probably buy the rest by cashing in some American Express points for a new iTunes credit.
Listening to some of this stuff, I've definitely gained some new respect for bands like Thin Lizzy, T-Rex, and Deep Purple. Go ahead, laugh all you want, but this stuff is fun to listen to!
I only had about 5 of these songs in my collection already. I used up the last of my iTunes credit to buy a few more of them, and I'll probably buy the rest by cashing in some American Express points for a new iTunes credit.
Listening to some of this stuff, I've definitely gained some new respect for bands like Thin Lizzy, T-Rex, and Deep Purple. Go ahead, laugh all you want, but this stuff is fun to listen to!
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Intelligent Life playlist
Intelligent Life is a pretty interesting new web site, apparently affiliated with The Economist. They've posted an iMix playlist with some good stuff on it. I was looking for some random songs to download from iTunes this week. Convenient!
...and I've now made an iMix for this on the iTunes US site, since the other guy's iMix was on the UK site only. Here it is:
...and I've now made an iMix for this on the iTunes US site, since the other guy's iMix was on the UK site only. Here it is:
Labels: music
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Memory Almost Full
I bought the new Paul McCartney album, Memory Almost Full, from iTunes, the "deluxe" version for $15. Right after I bought it, I found out that eMusic has it too, though just the basic album. I could have downloaded it from eMusic under my monthly download allowance, and it would have cost about $3.25, given my current plan. I don't really feel bad about paying $15 for it, though, since it's a good album, and eMusic doesn't have the extra stuff you get from iTunes.
Meanwhile, this guy doesn't really seem too impressed with McCartney's new album. I disagree with almost everything he's saying here. I *do* think that there are a couple of really catchy songs on the album: "Dance Tonight" and "Ever Present Past" strike me as being at least as good as anything by Gnarls Barkley. And I think the album stands up pretty well as a whole. And I know it's about the "art" and not the distribution, but I think it's kind of cool that he's on iTunes and eMusic and YouTube and all that.
Meanwhile, this guy doesn't really seem too impressed with McCartney's new album. I disagree with almost everything he's saying here. I *do* think that there are a couple of really catchy songs on the album: "Dance Tonight" and "Ever Present Past" strike me as being at least as good as anything by Gnarls Barkley. And I think the album stands up pretty well as a whole. And I know it's about the "art" and not the distribution, but I think it's kind of cool that he's on iTunes and eMusic and YouTube and all that.
Labels: music
Sunday, June 03, 2007
Son Volt
I was just listening to Caryatid Easy by Son Volt, and it occured to me that I do not what a caryatid is. Thank you, wikipedia. I would never have guessed that.
Oh, and you can download an old Son Volt concert from NPR for free. I just stumbled across that in my Googling.
Oh, and you can download an old Son Volt concert from NPR for free. I just stumbled across that in my Googling.
Labels: music
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
iTunes Plus
Apple rolled out "iTunes Plus" today, their DRM-free, higher-quality audio format. Any songs you already own that are now available in the new format can be "upgraded" for 30 cents a pop. I think this varies if you're upgrading an entire album -- my collection came to $11.70 for 44 songs, including two full albums and a handful of miscellaneous tracks. I decided to give it a shot, but I couldn't get the purchase to go through. I guess a lot of other people are trying, too. Maybe I'll try again in a day or two. Meanwhile, I'm trying to decide if I want to preorder the new Paul McCartney and Ryan Adams albums.
There's a good article on iTunes Plus over at Ars Technica.
There's a good article on iTunes Plus over at Ars Technica.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Once
I went into NYC and saw Once today. It's really good. It's a shame it's not in more theaters. I haven't listened to The Frames recently, but this film reminded me of how good they are. I may need to pull out a couple of old Frames CDs now, and/or pick up the Once soundtrack.
Friday, May 18, 2007
Vbrfix
I had a little problem with some MP3s today that turned out to be easily fixable with Vbrfix. I remember using this program for something a while ago, but I'd pretty much forgotten about it. Basically, if you've got a VBR MP3 that iTunes (and/or your iPod) cuts off before it's done, then you might have a problem that's fixable with Vbrfix. I never bothered to learn all the details, but basically iTunes just thinks that the file is shorter than it really is, and Vbrfix cleans up the header so iTunes understands it.
Labels: music
more iTunes silliness
I preordered the new Wilco album from iTunes a couple weeks ago. It was released this week, so I went into iTunes to download it, but I kept getting an error 5002. I contacted support, and found out that there's a really weird bug in the iTunes store: if you've got song credits (as opposed to dollar credit) in your account, you can't download a pre-ordered album! How weird is that? The support guy told me that if I used up all my credits, then downloaded the album, he'd then replace the credits for me. So, basically, I'm getting 21 free songs out of this bug.
I'd been meaning to download the Essental Gram Parsons collection, so I went ahead and did that. Unfortunately, that used up dollar credit instead of song credits for some reason. It's not an album, just a collection of songs, so I don't see why the "buy all songs" button wouldn't use song credit before dollar credit, but that's what it did. So, I then decided to download the Essential Ryan Adams and Essential Sol Volt collections too (just the "basics" part, not the whole thing), but I did it song by song, so I'd use up the song credit.
So now I've got quite a pile of alt-country (and related) stuff -- Wilco, Son Volt, Ryan Adams, and Gram Parsons! A lot of stuff to listen to. I haven't heard from the support guy about putting those credits back in my account, but I'm assuming that'll happen by Monday.
I'd been meaning to download the Essental Gram Parsons collection, so I went ahead and did that. Unfortunately, that used up dollar credit instead of song credits for some reason. It's not an album, just a collection of songs, so I don't see why the "buy all songs" button wouldn't use song credit before dollar credit, but that's what it did. So, I then decided to download the Essential Ryan Adams and Essential Sol Volt collections too (just the "basics" part, not the whole thing), but I did it song by song, so I'd use up the song credit.
So now I've got quite a pile of alt-country (and related) stuff -- Wilco, Son Volt, Ryan Adams, and Gram Parsons! A lot of stuff to listen to. I haven't heard from the support guy about putting those credits back in my account, but I'm assuming that'll happen by Monday.
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
iTunes economics
Lately, I've been adding money to my iTunes account from various sources, rather than just putting stuff on my credit card. I've been cashing in pennnies, nickels, and dimes at CoinStar, and getting iTunes credit in return. And, a while ago, I bought a $50 iTunes card at CostCo for $45, and put that into my account.
Today, I was buying a gift certificate for someone from AmEx, using my rewards points, and I decided to spend some points on an iTunes certificate for myself while I was at it. I didn't look at the fine print too closely, though. The certificate you get through AmEx is a 50 song certificate, rather than, say, a $50 certificate. The difference seems to be that you can only use it towards individual song purchases, as explained in this tech note on Apple's site. So, that's a bit of a pain, since I'm usually only buying albums. Also, song credits expire after six months or so; regular dollar-value credit doesn't. I guess I'll have to spend it on individual songs, and maybe buy some albums song-by-song rather than all at once.
Today, I was buying a gift certificate for someone from AmEx, using my rewards points, and I decided to spend some points on an iTunes certificate for myself while I was at it. I didn't look at the fine print too closely, though. The certificate you get through AmEx is a 50 song certificate, rather than, say, a $50 certificate. The difference seems to be that you can only use it towards individual song purchases, as explained in this tech note on Apple's site. So, that's a bit of a pain, since I'm usually only buying albums. Also, song credits expire after six months or so; regular dollar-value credit doesn't. I guess I'll have to spend it on individual songs, and maybe buy some albums song-by-song rather than all at once.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
iBook problems and Jethro Tull
I noticed that Apple added a bunch of Jethro Tull stuff to the iTunes store this week. Tull was my very favorite band back in my teen years. They're still a sentimental favorite, though I don't listen to them much anymore. Browsing through the stuff in iTunes made me think a bit about which Tull albums I had on CD, vs. the ones I only ever had on cassette or vinyl. While I have about a dozen Tull CDs, I'm missing a few key albums that I never got around to re-purchasing. I also realized that I'd never ripped any Tull into my iTunes library. I decided to correct that by ripping the 20 Years of Jethro Tull box set.
I didn't get very far, since my iBook wouldn't pull the first CD into the drive. Nor would it pull any other CD into the drive. After some research, I eventually figured out that you can fix this problem by inserting a CD into the drive right as the iBook starts. OK, that's kind of weird. The drive sounds kind of funny now, but it's loading, reading, and ejecting CDs fine.
Getting back to Tull, I found a few casettes that I didn't have on CD, so I figured I'd look into buying them from iTunes, or maybe just getting the CDs from Amazon. As usual, the iTunes version is more expensive than buying the physical CD from Amazon in most cases -- usually $10 from iTunes and $8 from Amazon. The one notable exception is "A", which comes with a bonus DVD if you get it from Amazon, so it costs a bit more than just buying the album from iTunes.
I didn't get very far, since my iBook wouldn't pull the first CD into the drive. Nor would it pull any other CD into the drive. After some research, I eventually figured out that you can fix this problem by inserting a CD into the drive right as the iBook starts. OK, that's kind of weird. The drive sounds kind of funny now, but it's loading, reading, and ejecting CDs fine.
Getting back to Tull, I found a few casettes that I didn't have on CD, so I figured I'd look into buying them from iTunes, or maybe just getting the CDs from Amazon. As usual, the iTunes version is more expensive than buying the physical CD from Amazon in most cases -- usually $10 from iTunes and $8 from Amazon. The one notable exception is "A", which comes with a bonus DVD if you get it from Amazon, so it costs a bit more than just buying the album from iTunes.
Saturday, December 30, 2006
emusic
I just spent some time going through my Amazon.com wish list, looking for CDs that I've had on there for awhile, and that might be available on eMusic or through iTunes. I was surprised to find a couple of oddball items on eMusic. "Fishing With John" by John Lurie, the soundtrack to his odd TV show on IFC, is available on eMusic and iTunes. It's $17 on Amazon, and the usual $10 on iTunes. Through eMusic, it would cost about $5.75, since there are 23 tracks, and I pay (generally) a quarter a track. So, a pretty good deal.
"Angles Without Edges," by Yesterday's New Quintet, is also $17 on Amazon. It's got 19 tracks, so it's about $4.75 at eMusic. I have to remember to keep checking eMusic before I buy something at Amazon or iTunes!
Alas, The Brak Album doesn't seem to be available on either eMusic or iTunes, so that'll stay on the Amazon wish list for now.
"Angles Without Edges," by Yesterday's New Quintet, is also $17 on Amazon. It's got 19 tracks, so it's about $4.75 at eMusic. I have to remember to keep checking eMusic before I buy something at Amazon or iTunes!
Alas, The Brak Album doesn't seem to be available on either eMusic or iTunes, so that'll stay on the Amazon wish list for now.
Labels: music
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Delicious Library
I've been entering my audio CDs into Delicious Library. I've entered about 200 so far; probably another 200 to go. I just found one good reason why it's worth my time to do this. I bought a (used) copy of "Are You OK?" by Was (Not Was) from Amazon a couple of weeks ago. I was quite sure that I only had that album on vinyl and not CD. Well, now I have two copies on CD, since I just found my original CD while I was entering stuff into Delicious. As a side note, the main reason I bought the new copy was due to a strange desire to listen to "I Feel Better Than James Brown". Now, I'm feeling a little conflicted about that.
Monday, December 11, 2006
cataloging stuff
I just bought a license for Delicious Library, as part of a bundle of Mac apps from MacHeist. I haven't really tried to catalog my CDs, DVDs and/or books at any time in the last twenty years, but I'm always at least slightly tempted to give it a go. If I did, I'd want to be able to sync my library to LibraryThing.com, so it'd all be out there on the internet too.
Saturday, December 09, 2006
Cornelius - Sensuous
Some nifty videos from the new Cornelius album can be found here. I really enjoyed Point, and this stuff sounds pretty good too. Point came out in the US on Matador, but I don't see any indication that Sensuous will be coming out in the US any time soon. I do see it available as an import on Amazon.com, at a variety of price points, the cheapest being a little over $20, available in early January.
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
more Christmas music
And just to get carried away with the whole Christmas music thing, I also just downloaded the bonus tracks from A Charlie Brown Christmas that are available on eMusic. (I downloaded the original album from them a couple of years ago.) And A Bing Crosby Christmas, just to use up my remaining credits for the month. Boy howdy, I'm in a Christmas mood now!
Santastic 2
I posted about Santastic last year. I just noticed that Santastic 2 is out, for 2006. I'll be downloading that soon. I also just heard something from Christmas Remixed, which is another fun Christmas album, and (luckily for me) downloadable from eMusic. And there's a sequel to that one too.
Sunday, November 26, 2006
Avoid the loony Zune
Andy Ihnatko's Zune review in the Chicago Sun-Times is a classic. You gotta love it when phrases like "colossal blunder" and "complete, humiliating failure" appear in a review. Admittedly, Ihnatko is a long-time Apple fan, but he has some serious points about the Zune. I kind of hope he's right when he says "the Zune will be dead and gone within six months." If this thing is a success, it'll just encourage other companies to take the same approach to DRM and functionality.
Labels: music
Saturday, November 25, 2006
too much Christmas music
Okay, it's two days after Thanksgiving, and I'm already tired of Christmas music. They started piping in music here on Main St. yesterday, and kept it going until a little after 10pm. They're doing it again today. I'd really like to stay in for the most part this weekend, and get some stuff done, but I may have to go out just to escape having "Feliz Navidad" pounded into my head for the thirteenth time today.
Labels: music
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Dare to Be Stupid
"In defense, praise, and unrelenting awe of the increasingly vital Weird Al."
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Labels: music
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Iggy Pop
This concert rider for Iggy and the Stooges is hilarious.
Labels: music
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
"Weird Al" Yankovic
The new Weird Al album is out today! I've already heard "White and Nerdy" and "Don't Download This Song", and they're both great. I'm pretty sure I'll be getting this album, but I'm not sure if I should get the actual DualDisc, or just get it from iTunes.
Labels: music
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Charlie Rose - Trey Anastasio
A bunch of Charlie Rose episodes are free to view today on Google Video, including the one with Trey Anastasio.
Labels: music
Sunday, June 11, 2006
Stuff I'm Listening To Right Now
- Hobotalk -- I'm not sure where I first heard these guys, but it was probably on the Tartan Podcast, since they're Scottish.
- Margot and the Nuclear So and So's -- First heard these guys on Insomnia Radio. I picked up their CD at Tower Records, which might not seem like a big deal, but I think that's the first time I've seen a CD from an indie band that I first heard on a podcast for sale at a big record store like Tower.
- Gnarls Barkley -- gotta love Cee-Lo.
- Berman -- another band I heard on Insomnia Radio.
Tags:
Labels: music
Monday, June 05, 2006
this.
For some strange reason, I just searched my iTunes library for "this". I got a pretty nice playlist out of that:
The Clash - This is Radio Clash
The Cure - A Night Like This
The Police - No Time This Time
Arcade File - This Must Be The Place (live Talking Heads cover)
Kinda cool, huh?
Kinda cool, huh?
Labels: music
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
They Might Be Giants
I've been humming Don't Let's Start all day. No clue why. I'm not complaining though. It must be time to pull out my TMBG CDs and start listening.
Labels: music
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Tommy Keene - Crashing The Ether
New Tommy Keene CD! This is a good thing indeed. It's been a while since his last. I remember having the "Places That Are Gone" EP on vinyl long ago, and just wearing it out. The new CD is available on emusic, so it's almost free if you're a subscriber. Otherwise, $10 on iTunes, $14.50 from notlame, or $16.98 from Amazon. Oh, and Amazon has a nice list of Tommy Keene's Music You Should Hear.
Tags:
Labels: music
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Jonathan Coulton
Jonathan Coulton has been getting a bit of attention lately. I remember hearing his "Mandelbrot Set" song some time ago and enjoying it greatly. He's got a new one named "Code Monkey" that's pretty good. And I really like "Skullcrusher Mountain" too.
Tags:
Labels: music
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Lisa Furukawa Ray
I heard an interview with Lisa Ray on a podcast a few days ago. They played a couple of oddball tracks from her, "Tennessee Waltz" and Tori Amos' "Winter", both translated into Japanese. They were both pretty cool. I just got around to checking out her web site and listening to some of her original music. It's really good. "Girl in a Bubble", in particular, sounds a lot like vintage Kate Bush to me.
Labels: music
Monday, January 03, 2005
CD Review: Top 10 of 2004
Another interesting Top 10 of 2004 list.
Labels: music
Friday, August 29, 2003
Okay, it's bugging me that no one I talk to seems to know who Wesley Willis was. They had a bit on him on NPR this morning, actually, so he's getting some respect.
If you want to hear some samples of his music, look at this stuff on emusic:
- Greatest Hits
- Live EP
- Shake Your Piggy Bank
And look here for some of his art.
For an hour or so of fun, type "Wesley Willis" into Google and see where it leads you. Say what you want, but here's a guy who overcame mental illness and homelessness to become a recording artist with a major label contract (for a little while, at least).
If you want to hear some samples of his music, look at this stuff on emusic:
- Greatest Hits
- Live EP
- Shake Your Piggy Bank
And look here for some of his art.
For an hour or so of fun, type "Wesley Willis" into Google and see where it leads you. Say what you want, but here's a guy who overcame mental illness and homelessness to become a recording artist with a major label contract (for a little while, at least).
Labels: music
Wednesday, March 12, 2003
Zagat has a music survey running right now. Just for yuks, here are my selections for some of the best albums of all time:
Selected from their list:
AC/DC, Back in Black
Beatles, The, The Beatles (White Album)
Devo, Q: Are We Not Men A: We Are Devo!
DiFranco, Ani, Living in Clip
Led Zeppelin, IV
New Order, Power, Corruption & Lies
Queens of Stone Age, Songs for the Deaf
R.E.M., Murmur
Replacements, The, Let it Be
Roxy Music, Avalon
Rundgren, Todd, Something/Anything?
Rush, Moving Pictures
They Might Be Giants, Flood
U2, War
Uncle Tupelo, No Depression
My write-ins:
Ani DiFranco, Dilate
The Smiths, The Smiths
Jimi Hendrix Experience, Axis: Bold As Love
Husker Du, Candy Apple Grey
Not a complete list of my favorite albums, by any means, but a good start, based on the stuff they had to choose from, and a few things that popped into my head at the time.
Selected from their list:
AC/DC, Back in Black
Beatles, The, The Beatles (White Album)
Devo, Q: Are We Not Men A: We Are Devo!
DiFranco, Ani, Living in Clip
Led Zeppelin, IV
New Order, Power, Corruption & Lies
Queens of Stone Age, Songs for the Deaf
R.E.M., Murmur
Replacements, The, Let it Be
Roxy Music, Avalon
Rundgren, Todd, Something/Anything?
Rush, Moving Pictures
They Might Be Giants, Flood
U2, War
Uncle Tupelo, No Depression
My write-ins:
Ani DiFranco, Dilate
The Smiths, The Smiths
Jimi Hendrix Experience, Axis: Bold As Love
Husker Du, Candy Apple Grey
Not a complete list of my favorite albums, by any means, but a good start, based on the stuff they had to choose from, and a few things that popped into my head at the time.
Labels: music
Friday, March 29, 2002
Song of the week:
Capitalism Stole My Virginity, by (International) Noise Conspiracy
Download the MP3 here. (Legally, too, I think!)
Capitalism Stole My Virginity, by (International) Noise Conspiracy
Download the MP3 here. (Legally, too, I think!)
Labels: music
Sunday, March 24, 2002
Saturday, January 26, 2002
Now playing: Cornelius, Point, Bird Watching at Inner Forest.
Labels: music
Monday, January 21, 2002
Now playing: Melody Unit, Choose Your Own Adventure
Labels: music
© 2008 Andrew Huey