Music

Well, well, well -- quite the summer has passed.

I traveled through 12 states with my dog Scout, visited some old friends, made some new friends, and am now watching the movie known as “what in the name of sam hell is going on with the financial markets and why are these rich and grasping greedheads ruining our party?”

People were living high off the hog, borrowing money they shouldn’t, but this current nonsense is mind boggling on many levels. I hope those people who bought their kids matching luxury cars because that’s what kids need these days to fit in don’t get burned too bad.

Anyways -- Chance and I are both keeping busy and I have a few posts to write over the next month or so.

Here is some music.

2002 Remake

Original from 1972:

6500.00 dollars means I won’t be buying this anytime soon, but it sounds cool. I have a monophonic analog Moog source synthesizer that I love.

The special sauce: strings that have “a specific metallurgy designed to work with the Moog pickups.” Marketing manager Chris Stack told Listening Post, “the pickups are simultaneously listening to the strings and controlling them.”

Wired article about the new guitar.

This is a fascinating story. The earliest human voice recorded by smoke blackened paper. Amazing. The recording will be presented on Friday at a conference of the Association for Recorded Sound Collections at Stanford University in California, Giovannoni said. It is also posted on the Web here

Listen to an Mp3 of this first recording

American researchers have pieced together a 10-second audio clip of a French folk song which they believe is the oldest recognisable recording of the human voice.

The recording appears to be of a young woman singing a couple of phrases from the 18th century folk song Au Clair de la Lune. It was made in 1860 by Edouard Leon Scott de Martinville, a Parisian typesetter and librarian, on a Heath Robinson-style device he called a “phonautograph”.

But in successfully playing back the clip, the team from the University of California’s Berkeley Lab, may have robbed their compatriot Thomas Edison of the honour long accorded him as the first man to successfully record sound.

Edison’s recording of himself reciting ‘Mary had a little lamb’, recorded on a tinfoil cylinder and no longer playable, dates from 1877. The first playable recording is thought to be from a performance of a Handel oratorio at Crystal Palace in 1888.

Scott’s phonoautograph had a barrel-shaped horn attached to a hog’s bristle stylus which etched sound waves onto sheets of smoke-blackened paper.

The New York Times reported that Scott never intended them to be played back but saw them as merely a visual representation of sound. It said that when Edison unveiled his phonograph, which was designed to play back its recordings, the Frenchman even accused him of misusing the technology.

The recording was discovered earlier this month at the French Academy of Sciences by David Gioavannoni, an “audio historian” who led the effort to find Scott’s original “phonoautograms”.

Mr Giovannoni had found earlier recordings at a Paris patent office, dating back as early as 1857 but he told the newspaper that his “eureka moment” came when he found the immaculately preserved 1860 recording on a sheet of rag paper measuring nine inches by 29 inches.

“It was pristine,” Mr Giovannoni said. “The sound waves were remarkably clear and clean.”

Mr Giovannoni sent scans of the recording to the Berkeley Lab where they were painstakingly converted into sound by scientists using technology designed to salvage historic recordings.

That technology allows the voice of a young French woman, recorded in Paris in the months before Abraham Lincoln’s inauguration as President of the United States, to be heard again.

Times of London Source Article

While some purists dislike David Lynch’s interesting 1984 release of Dune , I have always liked the movie. Its not perfect but for the most part it matched up fairly closely with my mind’s eye that was formed while reading the books when I was a child. Sometimes movies look quite different from what I expected. Between the Omni magazine art about Dune and the movie I was happy enough to have something that complimented the book series.

A re-mastered theatrical trailer of the original movie:

I didn’t care for the 2000 release of the Dune miniseries:

I have heard recently that the movie is in production in the writing phase of the project. Hopefully it will be well made. Will you watch it?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1160419/

Phil and Tim have been friends for years. Their music works well in this video.

Haha. What a world, what a world.

Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails have a new 36 track instrumental album that you can buy. This money goes directly to the artist, the way it should be in my opinion. Trent has been experimenting with new business models and ways of making money from music, and sharing publicly on how each of these experiments have worked. He learned from the Saul Williams album that he produced, and its free or $5 purchase option. This NIN album is sold for $5 and up for options that include CD’s, art, deluxe packages, and more. $5 is virtually free anyways. Be patient though, the site is undergoing heavy traffic issues. My digital download failed at 8MB out of 270MB and I have sent an email to the store site support for assistance.

NIN Ghost Web Site

You can pay $5 for a download of max quality, non DRM infected digital tracks, or choose from a variety of options:

Nine Inch Nails presents Ghosts I – IV, a brand new 36 track instrumental collection available right now. Almost two hours of new music composed and recorded over an intense ten week period last fall, Ghosts I – IV sprawls Nine Inch Nails across a variety of new terrain.

Trent Reznor explains, “I’ve been considering and wanting to make this kind of record for years, but by its very nature it wouldn’t have made sense until this point. This collection of music is the result of working from a very visual perspective – dressing imagined locations and scenarios with sound and texture; a soundtrack for daydreams. I’m very pleased with the result and the ability to present it directly to you without interference. I hope you enjoy the first four volumes of Ghosts.”

I recently read about an interesting approach to the currently failing / struggling / changing-/ evolving /-eating itself music business. I have a theory about the music business – their focus on short term success and hit singles has not been healthy. The music industry has never treated the artists fairly. The R.I.A.A always seems to be suing people for pirating music, often under questionable legal grounds. Then there is the continual bribing of politicians / donating to election campaigns / funding slippery lobbyists to protect the music biz’s rotting business model. The lawyers seem to benefit the most from this state of affairs. Ultimately, the industries head in the sand approach to new media and technology will be their undoing.

The E.F.F recently posted a PDF of various R.I.A.A law suits. PDF Link to EFF Document

Anyways – there is a web site called Slicethepie. Slice the Pie Web Site

Here is how it works:

What is Slicethepie?

Slicethepie enables artists to raise money directly from their fans to professionally record and release an album.

How? We turn every music fan into a record label.

On Slicethepie:

o Artists can raise money directly from their fans to professionally record albums
o Fans can become emotionally and financially involved at all levels of the music industry – scouting, breaking, investing in and influencing real artists
o Investors can gamble on, trade in and profit from the success of these artists
o Artists who secure finance pay Slicethepie a small royalty on album sales but keep all their copyright and publishing rights.

How It Works

This is how it works:

1. Artists sign up, upload their profile and join an Arena.
2. When the Arena is full (up to 1,000 Artists) the Scout Room opens.
3. Music fans earn money scouting each track at least 10 times rating it 1-10 and writing detailed reviews.
4. The 20 highest rated artists from the Scout Room go forward to the Showcase.
5. Music fans vote for and finance Showcase Artists by buying Backstage Passes.
6. Backstage Passes give fans exclusive access to the artist, participation in the recording process, a free copy of the album and exclusive rights to buy Contracts in the artist at a discount.
7. Fans buy Contracts that entitle them to a return based on the number of singles and albums sold by the Artist over a 2 year period
8. The Artist receives the money (non-recoupable) and goes off to record the album, keeping in close contact with Backstage Pass holders in a private area of the site.
9. The Contracts become fully tradable on the Slicethepie Exchange, fluctuating in value depending on the anticipated number of album and single sales.
10. The album is released and Slicethepie receives £2 royalty on every album sale.
11. The Artist keeps all their copyright and publishing rights and remains free to sign a record deal at any time.

If you already have a dedicated fanbase of over 5,000 fans then you may be able to go directly to the financing stage, if this is the case, then please contact us, alternatively, if you are not yet well established, you can join a Slicethepie Arena.

LOVE HATE WAR: THE WATCHING ALICE STORY 320 KBS MP3

EARTHLING 

SLAVED

DOLL HUT SLUT 

KINGS OF SLEEP / BIT PLAYERS TRILOGY 

PATHETIC LITTLE FREAK

JUST LIKE IT NEVER WAS 

CAREERS

EVANDELLOR HOLLIS ON TOP OF THE WORLD TONIGHT

CONGRATULATIONS DAY 

Skot Pollok: Guitars

Freddie Clagg: Guitars

Darrin DelCastillo: Drums

Tony DelDuca: Bass

Geoff (Hefe) Yeaton: Saxaphones

Chance Derek Gregory: Vocals

All songs pretty much by Watching Alice except for “Doll Hut Slut” which was all Freddie. We were influenced by a million different things impossible to explain in words, so we used pictures instead. There is no genre worth preserving here. We were trying to transcend all of that in our own way; the big bang on a slightly smaller stage. What was born there sounded exactly like no one else anywhere — ever.

2008 Nowhere Records

Japan was an influential band from the late 70’s and early 80’s. They have a cool sound, with great bass lines.

Wikipedia Article

History

Original members:

* David Sylvian (original name David Batt): vocals, guitar, keyboards
* Mick Karn (original name Anthony Michaelides): bass guitar, saxophone, oboe
* Rob Dean: guitar
* Steve Jansen (Sylvian’s brother, Steve Batt): drums and percussion
* Richard Barbieri: keyboards

The band debuted on record with 1978’s Adolescent Sex and subsequently Obscure Alternatives, which both sold well in Japan and the Netherlands (where the single “Adolescent Sex” was a Top 30 hit), they also gained some popularity in Canada, but nowhere else. Though influenced by artists such as The New York Dolls, Roxy Music and David Bowie, both albums were widely dismissed by the British music press as being distinctly outmoded at a time when punk and New Wave bands were in ascendence. However, tracks such as “Suburban Berlin”, “State Line” and “Rhodesia” suggested a creative depth and sense of melody to the band’s output which would hint at their future direction.

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