10 Monday Mar 2008
Posted in Music
If you’re a fan of 80s electro pop such as Human League, Depeche Mode, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark then I can pass on a recommendation that a friend of mine made to me, Northern Kind’s 52°N (go here), they can also be found on myspace (here). Both their own site and myspace have tracks that can be listened to. Go check it out.
07 Friday Mar 2008
Posted in General
The last weekend in July is traditionally the weekend of the Basingstoke Tappers & Jazz Dance Company’s summer show at the Anvil Theatre. Back in January the dance company’s director set the theme for the show and started developing ideas for routines. The dance classes now will start to incorporate the development of the routines now.
As the webmaster and for the last few years stage manager my involvement comes in short bursts. Currently the site is getting updated with show details, the information has to be disseminated to various (largely) community sites. This is a slow process as these sort of sites and their impact change year on year. This year I’ve been using Google Alerts to help identify when sites get updated and how quickly Google picks up the information.
Once all of that is done, it is increasingly quiet, largely because my other half is going to classes five days a week plus performances for community organisations to help with PR. Then at the start of July (a couple of weeks before the show) it all goes a little crazy. I need to attend the rehearsals so I can see how things should work and produce a set of notes for the crew. Plus contributing with some media for the dancers and last year late on I had additional video media to produce for the show.
Things don’t end after the performance. Between shows if there are any little hitches from the previous night these get worked through – which could be a technical job for the crew with the scenery, or rehearsing part of a routine for the Tappers. Then there is the get out – stripping all the staging, lighting, sound (and there is a lot of cabling for a 20 piece Jazz Orchestra plus mics for picking up the tap from the stage plus monitors for the sound around the Orchestra and dancers), band, scenery that is being ‘flown’ in from above need to be backed and shipped out of the theatre straight after the last show.
If you would like to know more about the Basingstoke Tappers – go here. To book tickets with the Anvil Theatre go here.
07 Friday Mar 2008
Posted in Technology
The RIAA are being sued by a woman who was mistakenly sued for file sharing. The case is likely to result in the RIAA disclosing both their process model (lawyers fees, what money goes back to the artists from settlements, how organisations such as Media Sentry are paid, how settlement figures are arrived at) and how they acquire the information on which their cases are built. Given the RIAA’s apparent track record in the area of acquiring information this could look bad, if not criminal.
If the disclosure of such information does look criminal and reach the public domain then it could trigger off a class action from all those who have been on the receiving end of the RIAA’s claims. It would be very ironic if the class action does come to court as it could end up costing the RIAA more than they have recovered in settlements. It would validate the argument that its bad business to sue all of your customers.
What ever happens, the outcome is likely to be months away, possibly even years. For more detail on the case see the Wired article here.
07 Friday Mar 2008
Posted in Music
As previously blogged the Charlatans latest album is being made available as free download via the Xfm radio station. The download is MP3 at 192kbps. The download can be retrieved from here. The album will also be released as a CD as normal.
05 Wednesday Mar 2008
Posted in Music
It would seem that Nine Inch Nail’s experiment with a free album download and paid options is seriously paying off within days of the album being made available. According to Trent Reznor, the $300 limited edition has sold out of its limited 2500 copies. and the album has already made $750,000.
05 Wednesday Mar 2008
Posted in Music
The build up for South by South West is well under way with torrents showing up with all the sample material provided by the show casing artists. I’d recommend keeping an eye on the SWSW site as podcasts of some of the conferences presentations can be released as some of them can be very interesting rather than just record company rhetoric.
One day I’ll get a chance to go.
05 Wednesday Mar 2008
Posted in Technology
I have to admit having been a little unconvinced by social networking sites, they seem to only offer a poor man’s version of a web presence, photo sharing that pails besides Flickr, blogging that can’t touch WordPress et al. So my MySpace presence is only because I use MSN Messenger and it gives me a chance to create more links back to my own site – verging on anti-google-bashing. I picked up on LinkedIn purely because it provides a professional presence (something that some may suggest my domain name might not provide).
Then I signed up to Facebook, more out of curiosity, and a bit more more anti-google-bashing. But the provision of the APIs has made a world of difference. I can integrate my Flickr and LinkedIn profiles along with a dozen other best of bread solutions.
03 Monday Mar 2008
Posted in Music
Whether or not you like Chumbawamba, the cover art for their new album says it all …
03 Monday Mar 2008
Posted in Music
Trent Reznor has released a new instrumental album following the same basic model as Radiohead did with In Rainbows. A basic 9 track version of Ghosts I-IX is free (with high quality audio i.e. 320bps MP3 or FLAC), $5 for a 36 track edition, with a CD edition at $10 and a serious Ulta Deluxe Limited Edition costing $300. All versions come with as a minimum a 40 page PDF booklet.
The album came about as a result of an experiment with Adrian Belew, Alessandro Cortini and Brian Viglione with some basic rules:10 weeks, no clear agenda, no over thinking and every driven by impulse, and what ever happens the results will be released in some form.
Checkout http://ghosts.nin.com for more information and ordering the album.
03 Monday Mar 2008
Posted in General
Another book being made available to read, but restricted to read on line. Use the link to get to the book.
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  Browse Inside this book
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