tickets arrived today!
February 8, 2008
It’s official!
February 4, 2008
w00t!
if you don’t feel like following links, that means that the smashing pumpkins have announced on their website that they’ll be in wellington on the 19th of March 2008. We kinda already knew this, but now its official!
I’ll be attending, and after the show i’ll be posting the setlist here with my thoughts on the concert so check back later all you pumpkin fans!
Looking forward to having you NZ guys!
dislike: MP3s recorded at different volumes
January 31, 2008
it makes me so mad! My Zeitgeist album is the worst of all – first 9 songs or so are twice the volume of pretty much everything else in my collection, then the last couple of tracks have half the volume of the rest! grrrr!
new goal: find a program that can normalise my entire collection at once
MySpace dies tomorrow
January 28, 2008
Well for me anyway. My account will cease to exist and hopefully with plenty others dying with it. If you’re not sure how to get rid of you’re account this should help:
If you wish to permanently terminate your MySpace account perform the following steps:
- Make sure you are logged in.
- If you are not on your homepage, click “Home” in the top navigation menu of any MySpace web page.
- Once on your personal homepage, click on “Account Settings” (it’s in the upper left portion of the page, next to your picture).
- Click on ‘Cancel Account’. An email will be sent to the email address (the same one used as the login name) to verify Account Deletion.
Jan 30th… DO IT!
January 26, 2008
found this. Some dude has decided to have an international delete your myspace account day. I am in total agreement. Myspace sucks and this Tom guy really needs to hear that.
myspace has only done one thing for me – it was pretty huge… When in Madrid on tour following the pumpkins I found a secret SP show through myspace. Well it was organised by a myspace group or something. Well anyway the show was amazing (not to mention free!) and it wouldn’t of happened without myspace. But still! come January 30th I will no longer have a myspace account – that is if I can remember my login details…
Smashing Pumpkins – American Gothic
January 2, 2008
The American Gothic EP was released today via the itunes music store today. The release was only announced only two – three weeks before hand on billy’s blog which obviously wasn’t long enough for the folks at itunes to work out that the Smashing Pumpkins fans come from the world over – not just the US. Thats right, to legally obtain this EP you need to be a US citizen, its tougher to get hold of here in New Zealand.
Needless to say I have managed to have a listen or two to the album, and I enjoy it. The opening chords of ‘Again, Again, Again (the crux)’ take me right back to ‘Adore’ whereas Billy’s lighter hearted voice harks back to his days in ZWAN, while some of the chord progressions in ‘Pox’ spark off memories of the Jimmy Chamberlain Complex.
With only 6 months since The Smashing Pumpkin’s release of their most recent full length album ‘Zeitgeist’ ‘American Gothic’ is a real treat for fans.
‘American Gothic’ is the shy younger brother of Zeitgeist – not outspoken, not boisterous, just beautiful. It is gentle and kind, soft and loving, new and nostalgic, sad, true, and all things pumpkins. Thank you once again Billy, Jimmy, Jeff, Ginger, and Lisa. well played.
Happy New Year!
December 31, 2007
happy new year to you all! hope you all have a fantastic 2008
A new breed of shark in the sea?
December 21, 2007
The following is a feature article I wrote based on Grooveshark.com
not really a blog post…
The music industry has encountered a lot of significant changes over the last two decades. A complete move from analogue to digital media has inspired portable music players which can now hold upward of 10,000 songs, and the introduction of the internet has made significant changes to distribution channels. All of this – especially the internet – has made music easier, not only to buy, but also to steal.
Piracy!
Many attempts have been made to try and stop the piracy of digital media. In 2002, the first mainstream music sharing application ‘Napster’ was sued into eventual bankruptcy for their facilitation of music piracy. Since Napster, many other file sharing applications have risen to popularity– most of which are just as illegal as Napster. Many have also been sued heavily by such organisations as the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) which has taken it upon itself to put an end to piracy and safeguard its sales figures.
So how bad is music piracy? The RIAA estimates that the music industry loses $5 billion per year due to piracy worldwide. This hurts the consumers, the artists, the retailers and the record companies. So what is being done to stop piracy other than just suing the enablers and any users caught in the act? The RIAA has tried using Digital Rights Management (DRM) technologies, which have received a strong negative reaction from the media. And now the public are being targeted as well as the companies facilitating piracy. The fear of being sued is just creating further resentment towards the RIAA and doing little to hinder the extent of illegal file sharing. The industry appears to be fresh out of ideas.
DRM
Digital Rights Management is a term that refers to access control technologies used by copyright holders in the music industry. A CD with DRM features on it prevents the user from copying the content onto their computer or their portable music player by attempting to make the files unconvertible.
Many users claim that DRM prevents fair use of the content of the CD, and the system has been publicly criticised by many technology reporters and is referred to as a bad way of going about preventing piracy.
Pirates have already developed technologies to counter DRM.
Sharks> Pirates?
Two Florida students, Sam Tarantino and Josh Greenburg, believe they have come up with a possible solution to internet music piracy through their new business ‘Grooveshark’. They have developed an online peer to peer (P2P) network and website that rewards the users for their contribution to the site, providing incentives to use the legal service over the illegal alternatives. Unlike current online file sharing where music is shared with no money changing hands, Grooveshark offers up the user’s music collection for sale to other users. The proceeds from the sales are then split between the artist, the record company, grooveshark.com, and the user. Everyone gets paid.
The theory is that the majority of people are happy to pay for music provided it is: on offer at a reasonable price; it is in a format the buyer approves of; and, the buyer knows what they are purchasing. Grooveshark allows users to stream all of the music available from the website for free, so users can check the quality of the file and whether or not they like the song before they buy it. Grooveshark has declared that all the music on their site will be DRM free.
Another advantage of Grooveshark over piracy is the moderation of the content. Users get paid not only for uploading music, but also for editing the content and providing album art, writing bios, and cleaning up the tags on the music. Therefore, the downloadable content from Grooveshark.com will, in all likelihood, be of a higher standard than that of the content available from illegal P2P networks, which have no moderation.
So how does it work?
When a user buys a song from Grooveshark.com the revenue is split multiple ways. For example, if a song costs US$0.99c, approximately US$0.30c goes to the artist, US$0.30c goes to the record label, US$0.20c goes to Grooveshark, and the remaining US$0.19c is split amongst the users who have contributed to that file in some way, whether it be uploading the song or editing its details.
The system keeps track of which users have edited which songs in what way, so a user who goes from song to song making errors will be flagged as a bad editor and will be left out of the payment loop. Whereas users who make it their mission to correct the details of every song they find will build themselves a good reputation and be duly compensated.
Will it work?
The one thing this whole system hinges on in order to legally ‘work’ is getting the record companies to agree and sign on with Grooveshark. Currently Grooveshark has agreements with roughly 400 minor and indie labels. However a quick scan of the list of ‘on board’ labels revealed that all of the four ‘big’ labels (Sony, Universal, EMI, and Warner) are yet to sign on. These four labels collectively make up approximately 70-80% of the world’s music market. Until one of these labels signs up, the service will be selling copyrighted material without permission. Discussions with Grooveshark staff have revealed that all money that would be owing to an unsigned record label or artist will be held in escrow until such time of their signing. This, however, does little to make the sale legal.
Sam Tarantino believes that once one of the four big labels sign, the others will see how much money is made from the venture and will quickly follow.
Is it safe for me to use?
In an interview with CNet on the 4th of October, 2007, Tarantino stated that Grooveshark would indemnify its users, protecting them from RIAA lawsuits. However the Grooveshark End User Licence Agreement (EULA) states that Grooveshark cannot be held liable: where does that leave the users?
Further reading of the EULA reveals that all users have agreed not to share files that are copyrighted and not represented by a signed label. This rule has certainly been broken by a large majority of users as currently there are well over 100,000 songs available at Grooveshark.com, amongst these one can find tracks from ‘The Beatles’, a group famous for having never allowed their music to be sold online by anyone. So, despite their good intentions, Grooveshark users are still in fact breaking the law, whether they know it or not.
Grooveshark is however still only in its BETA phase and will undoubtedly address some of the issues regarding legality prior to the final release, until then, I will be watching the list of signed record labels with interest. Tarantino really does appear to be on the right track with regard to tackling the music piracy issues – and indeed profiting from it.
Like: Calpico – Ramens perfect accompaniment
December 12, 2007
Went out for Ramen with Evan, Adam, Nick, and George earlier in the week. I decided to order the most obscure drink on the menu (I was familiar with none of the drinks). Anyhoo, they didn’t have the drink I was after so they gave me this:
“‘Calpico’ the softer sensation”
This stuff is crazy. it contains lactose, it is uncarbonated. I was expecting milk in a can. I dont even know what it tasted like but it was perfect with the ramen! it was kinda like a smooth milky sherbet. Or somethin, i dont really know. All I do know is that I will be going back for more today!
