Monthly Archives: June 2007

Should my children enjoy my taste in music?

26 Tuesday Jun 2007

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 Any parent, who also happens to be a music fan is or has probably been pondering the question Graeme Thomson tussles with in the Guardian blog (Guardian Unlimited: Arts blog – music: Should my kids enjoy my taste in music?) – specifically how do you educate your children in good music?

 

Graeme, doesn’t arrive at an answer. I did wonder if there is any credence in taking a similar approach that us brits are stereotyped as using with non in English speakers – just talking more slowly and loudly.  But a friend of mine with two youngsters seems to be having a degree of success – his wife doesn’t get a look in on what gets played on the HiFi, and he has for as long as I’ve known him tried to educate her tastes. Oh, and music is always playing so the children haven’t really had a chance or need to find anything else musically – although they haven’t yet reached their teens yet, so there is still time for it to all go wrong.

 

 

Review: Bitter Bitter Weeks – Peace Is Burning Like a River

25 Monday Jun 2007

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Rather than reviewing an obvious release like Ryan Adam’s latest release, I’m continuing with the less known stuff. 

Bitter Bitter Weeks latest release Peace Is Burning Like a River have diverged from their more somber sounds in a big way. This is full of bright shiny 60s style guitar work, imagine The Delays swapping their synths for guitars. Brian McTear’s vocals match the mood beautifully with a light and sweet vocal.  Even the lyrical content feels more cheerful.

 

I’ve been listening to this album, both in the car and on my MP3 Player – I have to say it does sound far better when given a chance to breath in an open space than with earphones – even these cracking Sennheisers.

 

My recommendation is atleast have a listen to the tracks on Bitter Bitter Weeks’  MySpace site.  If you’re a Delays fan then don’t waste time – order the album NOW!

 

Lots of thumbs up from the Monster.

 

Radio & Webcasters getting demands from all directions – Real pressure for innovative stations

22 Friday Jun 2007

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 With the push massively hiked broadcasting fees for web radio stations, a lot of stations are pushing back as hard as they can, with now a ‘Day of Silence’ where normal broadcasting is being suspended completely or a looped programme (in the case of KCRW) explaining what the issue is and the impact on them. The only players who seem not to be getting involved are the biggest, who are probably both the least innovative and can weather the increased costs – namely Clear Channel and AOL (more details –Additional Details Emerge Ahead of Webcaster Day of Silence).

 

 To add to the pain, live sessions that some stations are noted for and attract a lot of good publicity for the artists involved – such as Morning Becomes Eclectic (on KCRW) and the famous Peel Sessions for the late great John Peel on Radio 1, are under pressure. A number of artists are now pushing for performance or royalty payments (more detail here Musicians To Radio Broadcasters: “Clearly, We’re Not Wealthy Enough” and Variety article). The irony is that the artists that I’ve seen involved probably are smallest beneficiaries from such sessions, and I’m sure that the likes of Christina Aguilera and Mariah Carey can manage without the extra few thousand that such a change would introduce. But those need and benefit from the exposure of live sessions – the smaller and indie artists like Wilco will lose out on the publicity as stations are likely to cut back or stop doing such sessions. 

 

SeeWhy Releases Business Process Management Integration Kit

22 Friday Jun 2007

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 To press releases to day for SeeWhy, one about the ‘BPM Integration Kit’ with a nice quote from Matt Cumberlidge (SeeWhy Releases Business Process Management Integration Kit). The second is finally announcing Version 3.2 of the product (SeeWhy Adds Advanced Profiling to SeeWhy Community Edition 3.2 ) with a good quote from IDC analyst Alys Woodward.

 

 

EMI sees boost in sales thanks to iTunes Plus

21 Thursday Jun 2007

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 According to The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) it would seem that brave move by Apple to sell their music without DRM (iTunes Plus) has resulted in sales increase by 350%, that’s even after there being a few teething problems when iTunes plus was launched.

 

Although an element of this surge will be novelty factor, even having allowed for that the increase in sales, it is a clear testament to how much people loath the idea of DRM.  Hopefully other labels will now follow EMI’s lead.

 

Another exciting development is that V2 have signed up with WE7 – the new free download site as long as you’re happy to accept small adverts attached to the front of the MP3.

 

 

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Sony – struggling in the online music world

19 Tuesday Jun 2007

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According to Digital Music News it would seem that Sony is going to pull the plug on its online music store (Connect), and on recording facilities in LA and New York.  This hasn’t been the first concession to loss of influence in the music space with the decision to no longer develop its ATRAC compression format.

 

I think a time has come where Sony can no longer see itself as dominating & influential player in this market space, until it can come up with something revolutionary (like the original Walkman, not just evolutionary) in a manner that doesn’t look you into Sony.

http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/stories/061707connect

 

 

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Tom McRae – Shepherds Bush Empire

16 Saturday Jun 2007

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We got to see another fine performance by Tom McRae at London’s Shepherds Bush Empire as he tours supporting his latest album King Of Cards.  I managed to capture some pictures with the mobile phone – more can be seen here.

Tom McRae on stage

Tom, has over a number of albums proven himself to a fine singer songwriter. But, for me the songs taken on something special when you hear him perform them live.  Even last night, whilst suffering ‘man flu’ sounded good, and delivered the songs with passion and emotion that lyrics carry.

 

Not only does he perform well, everytime we’ve seen him, he engages with the audience joking and telling stories, something that really makes it feel that he is there for you.

 

This time around Tom’s support was Steve Reynolds, who played a great little set, and went down a treat with the audience (no mean feat for a support artists). All that and playing his guitar while struggling with a broken collar bone. Steve’s performance was engaging enough that we’ve ordered the album (another import).

 

The final gem, of the evening is picking up a EP of Tom’s that I’d not heard of – The Strongroom Sessions (autographed as well).  Having not heard about it, I thought I’d search around for it today on the web and can’t find any reference to it – is his record company letting him down?

 

 

Copy Protection Upsets Another Music Fan

14 Thursday Jun 2007

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 Following on from my earlier blog about a Crawdaddy article – here is a post from a music fan who has come against CD copy protection resulting in it breaking the CD standard (despite the CD carrying the CD logo) and no warning of copyright protection.  After the fiasco with Sony’s rootkits, you’d think that record labels may have learnt a thing or two.

Article here – Some Sort Of Copy Protection Crawling Around In The New Linkin Park CD – Idolator

 

The important thing is that the blog’s author will no longer buy music (legally atleast) from Warner Brothers.