Saturday, September 29, 2007

The trailer for O CAPACETE DOURADO featuring music by Marqui Adora




The Marqui Adora song Do Anything is featured in O CAPACETE DOURADO, an independent film that was release this September in Portugal.

This trailer also features Do Anything in the beginning.

Grab the song for free from our site or Fuzz.com

Thursday, September 27, 2007

A new favorite quote...

“I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”
Stephen F Roberts

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Amazon comes out swinging in the music download world.

www.amazonmp3.com

Some songs are cheaper then I've ever seen before online. $.89 and some albums for $4.99!

Radiohead in da house.

And I've already found some albums I can't get on iTunes or eMusic.

Wow.

-Tooker
Marqui Adora

Monday, September 24, 2007

Teacher: I was fired, said Bible isn't literal

The community college instructor says the school sided with students offended by his explanation of Adam and Eve.

By MEGAN HAWKINS
REGISTER STAFF WRITER

A community college instructor in Red Oak claims he was fired after he told his students that the biblical story of Adam and Eve should not be literally interpreted.

Steve Bitterman, 60, said officials at Southwestern Community College sided with a handful of students who threatened legal action over his remarks in a western civilization class Tuesday. He said he was fired Thursday.

"I'm just a little bit shocked myself that a college in good standing would back up students who insist that people who have been through college and have a master's degree, a couple actually, have to teach that there were such things as talking snakes or lose their job," Bitterman said.

Sarah Smith, director of the school's Red Oak campus, declined to comment Friday on Bitterman's employment status. The school's president, Barbara Crittenden, said Bitterman taught one course at Southwest. She would not comment, however, on his claim that he was fired over the Bible reference, saying it was a personnel issue.

"I can assure you that the college understands our employees' free-speech rights," she said. "There was no action taken that violated the First Amendment."

Bitterman, who taught part time at Southwestern and Omaha's Metropolitan Community College, said he uses the Old Testament in his western civilization course and always teaches it from an academic standpoint.

Bitterman's Tuesday course was telecast to students in Osceola over the Iowa Communications Network. A few students in the Osceola classroom, he said, thought the lesson was "denigrating their religion."

"I put the Hebrew religion on the same plane as any other religion. Their god wasn't given any more credibility than any other god," Bitterman said. "I told them it was an extremely meaningful story, but you had to see it in a poetic, metaphoric or symbolic sense, that if you took it literally, that you were going to miss a whole lot of meaning there."

Bitterman said he called the story of Adam and Eve a "fairy tale" in a conversation with a student after the class and was told the students had threatened to see an attorney. He declined to identify any of the students in the class.

"I just thought there was such a thing as academic freedom here," he said. "From my point of view, what they're doing is essentially teaching their students very well to function in the eighth century."

Hector Avalos, an atheist religion professor at Iowa State University, said Bitterman's free-speech rights were violated if he was fired simply because he took an academic approach to a Bible story.

"I don't know the circumstances, but if he's teaching something about the Bible and says it is a myth, he shouldn't be fired for that because most academic scholars do believe this is a myth, the story of Adam and Eve," Avalos said.

"So it'd be no different than saying the world was not created in six days in science class.

"You don't fire professors for giving you a scientific answer."

Bitterman said Linda Wild, vice president of academic affairs at Southwest, fired him over the telephone.

Wild did not return telephone or e-mail messages Friday. Bitterman said that he can think of no other reason college officials would fire him and that Smith, the director of the campus, has previously sat in on his classes and complimented his work.

"As a taxpayer, I'd like to know if a tax-supported public institution of higher learning has given veto power over what can and cannot be said in its classrooms to a fundamentalist religious group," he said. "If it has ... then the taxpaying public of Iowa has a right to know. What's next? Whales talk French at the bottom of the sea?"

Reporter Megan Hawkins can be reached at (515) 284-8169 or mehawkins@dmreg.com

Ron Paul switch ad

"This is John Galt speaking..."

Sexual Harrassment Employee Video

Saturday, September 22, 2007

Circa28 recap...

Hey folks,

We had a great time playing at Circa28 last night so a big thank you to everyone who braved the torrential downpour to come to the show. Thanks also to the DJs, staff, and Chrisitian for making it such a positive experience playing a live show again.

We did a brief interview with a film crew from UMTV (the Univerity of Miami TV network) before the show and they filmed some of the set as well for later use. (When we know what will be done with the footage we'll be sure to let everyone know.)

Here's a rundown of the set from last night:

Empty (Hollow Version)
Don't Panic
The March
Reveal
White Buildings
In Motion
Empty
Die In A Disco
Away
Walk Away
Do Anything
I Feel You (Depeche Mode Cover)

Thanks again to everyone for coming out!
-Tooker
Marqui Adora

truth is true

Friday, September 21, 2007

A new Marqui Adora single "I Suppose" is out now.

In the next few weeks we'll be uploading roughly a song a week. Each song has it's own flavor so be sure to collect 'em all. Check out "I Suppose" and see if it is worth paying a buck for...

http://marquiadora.fuzz.com

Cheap bastards need not apply. ;)

-Tooker
Marqui Adora

P.S. Marqui Adora is playing tonight in Miami.

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Fuzz.com, PayPal and barriers to buying on the internet

When I made a recent request to the Fuzzies to create a player/store for embedding into other sites I also made the suggestion that it use PayPal as a means of checkout. They seemed to like the idea but wondered why I suggested Paypal. So here's my reasons why.

I buy stuff online a few times a year and have had mostly good experiences so far. But I do hesitate before trusting any new vendor online with my credit card information. Sometime it becomes a deal breaker and something like a piece of software I might've bought will go unpurchased if I have to spend the time and trust to enter my CC information.

The bizarre exception for me has been when a site offers a way to purchase using PayPal. One reason is that I don't have to enter as much information which means the transaction is quicker and can be more of an impulse buy then it is when I have to sign up for or enter a ton of information.

I think it is a function of sales that isn't often considered in online purchases but if I need to go get my wallet, find the Credit Card I will use, enter all the information required to register with a site and then make the purchase I have several steps to possibly abort my purchase. If I stood in line at a grocery store and had to enter all of the same information I would likely not return to shop at that location. In the real world credit cards are easier to use then cash which is why the USA has so many people in deep credit card debit. If you take something that is usually easy then start making it hard you will always lose customers.

Now when you compare the experience using paypal to buy something online the experience can become easy again.

Click yes.

Enter your PayPal info.

You are finished.

I think this is very important in the entertainment field. Since it's disposable income that is being spent you don't want the costomer to consider the money they are spending. You want them to have the fewest steps to go from thinking of buying to bought in the shortest time possible.

I think that Apple has really driven this point home with the iTunes music store in several important ways. When you download the software for iTunes you enter your information and can choose to always "buy now" or use a shopping cart. People who choose buy now never do more then click one button and the song, album, movie or TV show is downloaded to their machine and added to their library. They don't get confronted with the money they are spending so the money doesn't register it. People like me who use the shopping cart still have it very easy because we can buy a song with only one additional mouse click per file or buy everything in our carts with one click of the buy all now button.

So the distance to go from finding something to buying it in the iTunes store is at most two mouse clicks of confirmation. Not something that could be beaten so it must at least be matched.

I think this is one of the major things that seperates iTunes from the rest of the online music stores. Most of the others use a web interface that can also direct you to anywhere on the planet. The iTunes Store sticks to the store so you remain single task oriented. (In fact if fuzz created something similar to the iLike sidebar for iTunes that might help bring them into that fold. Wow that would be really cool. Me want!)

When I shop using eMusic my experience is not as nice. Buying an album opens a separate application that then downloads the songs to your hard drive. Once they are downloaded you must then move them into your library. (Sorry PC folks but that shit reminds me of Windows! It reminds me that I'm using a computer which I don't get from Mac applications like iTunes.)

So again why PayPal... It's all about the number of clicks and what I have to type to spend my money. Don't make me work for it or I will lose the burning desire to Rock and/or Roll!

Thanks,
-Tooker
Marqui Adora

P.S. The Fuzz store is easy and simple but I think you could get a few more degrees of comfynesstitude by adding paypal as an option for payment.

A few suggestions for Fuzz.com

I also posted this to my fuzz blog:

This post is slightly long and rambling but I think it's fairly short considering the topics I cover: Gig Trading, Event Sharing, "fan Photos", RSS reading blogs, live show ratings,"The buzz" localized, Profiles for clubs promoters and DJs

To begin with, one of the functions I really enjoy about fuzz.com is the browse function and it's integration with google maps.

If you haven't chcecked it out yet then go here for browsing music

http://www.fuzz.com/music/map

And here for browsing people:

http://www.fuzz.com/people/map

You can check out bands in your local area or somewhere you might soon visit very quickly and easily.

One thing that is very obviously missing is a way to view events and show in a given area on a given date. Some sort of spreadsheet/calander pulled from the gigs listed in one area. Several clubs in Miami are still open when the sun is coming up and you might visit several clubs in any given night so having a way to see all the events of one night would be very useful. But the implementation could be handled way better then it is on a site like MySpace.

So let me give you a look into a night out as I think it could be.

Let's say that this guy named Joe decides to head to Miami one night to meet up with his friend Danny. Before heading out, Danny checks Fuzz.com for an overview of the entertainment choices for the night. He sees that Modernage is playing at Studio A near the design district so they decide to start the night by going to that show.

The opening band is an excellent. They play live dub reggae and go by the name Grimy Styles. Joe uses his iPhone to find them on Fuzz and add them to his favorites and gives the show that night a five star rating so that others will know this band really impressed him with their performance. While he's at it he e-mails some of the photos he took of the band to his @fuzz.com photo email address with his iPhone. He adds the tags Fan Photos, Grimy Styles, Live and the date to the title of the e-mail so that they will show up under his "fan photos" and will also appear on the Grimy Styles fuzz page after the band gives the photos a quick approval. (Flickr has a way to auto e-mail a photo to your account like this at the moment)

When Modernage take the stage they play three songs Joe and Danny haven't heard before that really show the band growing and exploring new sounds. Joe makes a quick blog post on his blogger page with his iPhone. The next time someone looks at his homepage on fuzz.com his blog entry from blogger has been automatically added as a new entry to his fuzz homepage. (Marqui Adora already uses this RSS feed reader idea on our homepage and our VIRB profile. We post once to blogger and it appears at the other places without having to do anything else.)

As Joe and Danny watch the rest of the set from Modernage the Buzz page shows Joe's latest blog entry. When you browse the Modernage gig for that night you also see the photos tagged with the name of the club taken that night or any that list Grimy Styles or Modernage and the current date. A fuzz friend of the guys decides to head to the show before it's over and try to catch the rest of the set because of Joe's blog and the pictures showing a dancing crowd.

When the show is over the guys head over to another part of town to catch a DJ set by a drum n' bass DJ named Mendez. The promoter for the event had entered all the details into the profile he created for the weekly party he books. His promoter profile also sent a request to the profile Mendez had set up as a DJ to add the event to his fuzz page. Once Mendez accepted the request the event was added to the events listed on Mendez's page.

The club that the event was held at also authorized the promoter to auto add the events he listed on those days of the week that the promoter held events at their club. So when you went to the clubs page you would see the information that the promoter entered for that night.

(This type of system would cut back on the problem other sites have of multiple listings for a single event. Also having DJs and promoters have a distinct kind of profile would help another problem where every club has a page that never gets updated but they want you as a friend and every DJ is trying to shout over the noise of the crowd by posting 20 bulletins.)

Browsing the fuzz music map from his iPhone after the DJ set Joe notices that The Nerd Parade is playing just a few blocks over that night. Before they head over to the club Joe makes another quick blog entry telling people to head over to this new place to watch The Nerd Parade. His post shows up on the buzz page for that area so anyone looking at the map sees he said he'd be there. When they walk the few blocks to reach the club they find a few Miami friend already there and grab a few beers.

While they sit waiting for the band Joe checks out the fuzz.com page for the Nerd Parade and sees that they have booked a show for the following night at a place called the Poor House in Ft. Lauderddale. He notices that they also need a second band for the show since the band they intended to play with cancelled. The details of the post say the second band would need to have it's own PA since The Nerd Parade can't stay late. Joe finds one of the guys in the band and offers for his band, Marqui Adora, to play the Ft. Lauderdale gig with them. They accept and one of the Nerd Parade updates the post on fuzz.com to list Marqui Adora and send a request to the Marqui Adora fuzz page to add the event.

(The idea is that a band playing a show in it's own town or even out of town could list a show that they need another band to play and could pick who they'd like to add based on the offers and the details they'd receive.)

Okay that's enough typing for today.

-Tooker
Marqui Adora

Friday, September 14, 2007

A conversation about I Walk For Miles (Acoustic) on todays podcast.

A podcast with us discussing the way we wrote and recorded our song I Walk For Miles (Acoustic) is up. You can hear the whole song on yesterdays podcast.

If you've already got us in your iTunes feeds then just refresh the feed to download.

If you've got iTunes but haven't yet subscribed then CLICK THIS LINK!

If you don't have iTunes then GO HERE and get it FREE!

Free stuff is good....


Stay subscribed!
-Tooker
Marqui Adora

"Hope you like our new direction..."

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Got an iPod? Feed that sucker some Marqui Adora!

Both EPs are now available through Apple's iTunes Store.
Marqui Adora


If you are feeling the urge please leave a customer review saying how fucking great our songs are. And about our modesty of course.


Thank you for your support,
-Tooker
Marqui Adora

p.s. If you don't have an iPod the iTunes Store also lets you burn CDs from the files you download.

P.S.P.S Don't like the iTunes Store? Then try Fuzz.com instead.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Monday, September 10, 2007

Saturday, September 08, 2007

Friday, September 07, 2007

I want this kind of car...

Maybe they could make a Challenger that runs like this.

The part that is exciting is that the small gas motor only acts as an electrical generator and doesn't move the wheels at all.

And since it is a plug-in hybrid the engine may need very little servicing.

ME WANT!

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Frank Zappa explains the decline of the music business




I'm not a Zappa fan but this is very insightful.

Battlestar Chicken

This is wrongwrongwrong!

star

Vadim Perelman to direct 'Atlas'

I wish they would make it a TV show like Lost, Heroes or Battlestar...

READ

Goats sacrificed to fix Nepal jet

Wow.

Monday, September 03, 2007

Sunday, September 02, 2007

Empty (Hollow Version) video

A video of us recording the Hollow version of Empty.



It's also on our Podcast feed for downloading.

If you've already got us in your iTunes feeds then just refresh the feed to download.

If you've got iTunes but haven't yet subscribed then CLICK THIS LINK!

If you don't have iTunes then GO HERE and get it FREE!

Free stuff is good....


Stay subscribed!
-Tooker
Marqui Adora

"Hope you like our new direction..."

Power is the bane of live music!

Working as a live sound engineer for a number of years I experienced one constant truth. No matter how much power they say a venue will have they always lie!

Watch Trent Reznor enjoy this fact while touring in Europe....







Man that shit sucks.

-Tooker

Saturday, September 01, 2007