Friday, November 20, 2009

2001 Macworld about the Digital Hub = iPhone 3GS

This Daring Fireball post:http://daringfireball.net/2009/11/a_car_and_a_bicycle
linked to this video:


Starts around 3min 10seconds

Cell Phones + Portable CD Players and MP3 players + Digital Camcorders + Portable DVD Players for playing video + Digital Still Cameras + Handheld Organizers = Some of the things the current iPhone 3GS does.

Posted via email from A Total Waste Of Time

Monday, October 26, 2009

Google story in 2 minutes while I work on a 10 year old Mac

They've created so many things I take for granted in the last few years.

As I type this I'm installing Mac OS X on a machine so that I can use a 10.3 upgrade disk so I can run Pro Tools 6.4 with a Digi 001 interface on a Mac G4 built at the same time Google started. (I'm typing on a 3+ year old Macbook Pro.)

Posted via email from A Total Waste Of Time

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

An unexpected email leads to a course correction.

After working on one of the Marqui Adora songs all day I read this email message from Danny Ashe:

Subject:Hey Guys

I've been giving this a lot of thought and have come to a big decision. My days with Marqui Adora are over.
The fact that it doesn't bother me that we haven't done anything in months, tells me my heart is not in it anymore. For months I've been debating whether or not I should do this and I guess certain things have happened lately that have made me realize there's too many things I sacrificed for music. It was fine to sacrifice them at the time, but now I feel I need to move on.

I got a job in Spain, so I'm leaving right after Christmas and will be there for most of, if not all of 2010. Not sure if I'll be coming back to the States though... at least for a while.

It's been great working with you guys but after 20 years of playing music I'm officially ready to concentrate on a new career, new experiences and new goals.
I wish you both the best with the music and if at any point you want vocals done for the songs we haven't finished, let me know.

Take care,

This is Danny Ashe signing off...



So there you go. Joe and I hope Danny does well in everything he chooses to do in his life. (For my part I hope he falls back into making music someday since he is one of the most talented musicians I've ever worked with.)

Thanks for all the good times and good tunes Danny.

-John Tooker
Marqui Adora

Monday, October 19, 2009

Tweaked Walk Away for a few hours today.

I might need to coin a new phrase for doing major corrective/elective surgery on a recording.

Maybe I'll call it Die in a Discoing a song since that was the first Marqui Adora song I did that to.

Posted via email from A Total Waste Of Time

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Trying out an iPhone blogger App

BlogPress Lite a free version just for blogger.
http://bit.ly/4XjKs



Test pic of one of my studio assistants.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

New lessons added to Garageband Store. This one could not be resisted.

And when I finish that one...

Hope they add bass guitar lessons soon.

Posted via email from A Total Waste Of Time

Thursday, September 17, 2009

My happy moment of the day.

Looking at the listeners page on the Marqui Adora Last.FM page shows we have people enjoying our music all over the world. And these are just the people that use last.fm!

 http://www.last.fm/music/Marqui+Adora/+listeners

Posted via email from John Tooker

Monday, September 14, 2009

I learned something today... (From a gay fish)

So Sunday morning I was telling Nikki about a thought I had that week that explained why I liked music and art and didn't really care about professional sports. My thought was that when I've gone to see a band perform I want them to play well. I want them to play well for my sake for the audience and for themselves. When I leave a show I'm excited to have seen someone do something well even if it was a band I don't care about.

 Contrast that to a sports fan. When you are a sports fan you have teams that you like and root for and ones you don't like and root against. You will be disappointed even if you see one of the best games ever if it's not your team that wins in the end. You can't enjoy seeing someone with skill and talent play because they are wearing the wrong jersey.

 I felt great about this analogy and felt it clearly expressed my point of view.

 Then Kanye West feels the need to interrupt someone receiving an award because it wasn't the person he was rooting for.

 http://www.mtv.com/videos/misc/435995/taylor-swift-wins-best-female-video.jhtml#id=1620605

 Thank you Kanye for using your idiot powers to prove my point so elegantly.

 I'm glad I'm not you and don't see the world through your retarded eyes.

 http://www.southparkstudios.com/episodes/220762

Posted via email from John Tooker

Monday, September 07, 2009

The dead whale carcass of the music could feed a lot of smaller fish and a few sharks.

Two good reads about the current music business.

 Artists Find Backers as Labels Wane : http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/22/technology/internet/22music.html?_r=2

 Music and money: http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2009/08/23/On-Music

  
Related video:

 

  
(The sharks would be ticketmaster and livenations 360 deals in this case.)

Posted via email from John Tooker

Thursday, September 03, 2009

Only six songs remain in the drums folder onto the Bass folder!

Since the 10th of last month I've moved along a bunch of songs from the need to finish drums folder to the need to finish bass folder. Only 6 remain in the drums folder of the 14 and of those six I have worked on 4 of them to some degree or other. I'm rather pleased with that progress since I also was trying to pass a certification for Soundtrack Pro 2 at the same time. (Which I did.) Logic 9 continues to help things move forward at a brisker pace and since installing Snow Leopard I've recovered almost 16GB of space!

So I think my next plan of attack will be to move the songs in the bass folder forward until most of them are ready for guitars. Some of them might not even require much to move onto the guitar folder. Here are the ones currently in the 02 Track Bass folder:

Posted via email from John Tooker

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Things I've noticed about Logic 9 while getting my oil changed and tire repaired.

Logic 9 uses an image of the arrange window as the sessions icon image and for the quick look preview. Very handy for figuring out which version of an arrangement you are looking for without having to load the session. You can see the Logic 8 below session to compare. The screen shot even removes the toolbar so it doesn't have wasted space.

Also tried out the Flex time on this song slowing the tracks from 77bpm to 65bpm and the results did impress me. (Though I will be re-tracking the parts for performance reasons.)
 
The new groups floating window is very useful.
 
I like the new zoom commands even though I will have to retrain my hands. They are more useful and I don't have to twist my hands into bizzare shapes just to zoom in or out. If you've used a previous version you have to choose the defaults since it doesn't automatically replace them when you upgrade.

Posted via email from John Tooker

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

My new trick for programming Hi-Hat parts

Instead of using a single MIDI instrument to play a Hi-Hat pattern, which tends to sound very mechanical, I'll layer a second Hi-Hat instrument with varying velocities so that the sound changes more then it can with a single instrument. By varying the hits velocities I'm able to achieve a very unique sound as well.

 So far I have the best luck mixing Logics sounds along with rewired sounds from Reason's Reason Drum Kit sounds which have a high number of samples per instrument. I also tend to put both sets of Hi-Hats in mono to avoid phasey weirdness.

Posted via email from John Tooker

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Moved a few songs up the ladder.

Finished tweaking the drums for a few songs so they get to move up to the next folder. I'll do a few more of the drum parts and then move onto the Bass guitar bits.

Posted via email from John Tooker

Monday, August 17, 2009

Tweaking drums and sorting files...

Moved one song up a level in my 8 folder system and moved a few others towards that moment by fixing drum tuning and cleaning parts up. Here's the bottom row as of today. (Other songs live in the higher numbered folders as well. My thinking at the moment is to move them up in waves.)

Posted via email from John Tooker

Friday, August 14, 2009

These things make me so damn happy. Baptazia-Super Sunday

Baptazia - Super Sunday - Master x / Rhymes & Noisia

Posted via email from John Tooker

These things make me so damn happy. Baptazia-Super Sunday

Baptazia - Super Sunday - Master x / Rhymes & Noisia

Posted via email from John Tooker

For my dead homies...

A fitting Les Paul tribute indeed.

Spin seems to be actually using the web correctly...
First time I've seen a magazine really do that..

Very busy doing nothing.

Wouldn't it be great if the above video was followed by this one?

Posted via email from John Tooker

Thursday, August 13, 2009

New Radiohead soon? Leaked track...

More info:
http://www.ateaseweb.com/2009/08/13/new-radiohead-track-leaked/

 

Posted via email from John Tooker

Wow...

This has a few moments of WTF? to it.

 related
Thom Yorke Analyse (From The Basement)

Posted via email from John Tooker

Make noise keep clean keep busy

New Dave Smith Synth

 

  
Keep clean!
http://mashable.com/2009/08/13/iphone-soap/

  
I might try this one out...
https://www.rescuetime.com/

Posted via email from John Tooker

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Monday, August 10, 2009

The new-new-new plan of attack for the Marqui Adora recordings.

Joe and I both share files using a service called DropBox (Click this link to try it and both you and I will get extra space for FREE!) Since the two of us use Logic Pro 8 (Soon to be Logic Pro 9) we can both open up the project on our home machine and get right to work without having to exchange DVDs or hard drives. (On a side note we did find one glitch. We have to save as... a copy to get DropBox to work well each time we change the session. So we add a new three digit number each time Song Blah 005 as an example.) Sadly Danny still doesn't own a Mac so he can't join in our reindeer games.

The one thing I've changed today is I've created several numbered folders that show the songs current progress by showing what is needed to be finished.

01-Track Drums
Means a recording that needs the drums to be finished.

02-Track Bass
Drums are finished now the bass needs to be.

03-Track Guitars
Drums and Bass finished but not the guitars.

04-Track Vocals
Drums/Bass/Guitars are finished needs Vocals.

05-Track BG Vocals
I think you can guess this one.

06-Mix
Means all the recording should be done, including any Keyboards, and it should be ready for editing and mixing.

07-Master
Mix is approved by everyone else now it will wait until it is joined by others so it can be mastered and released with them.

08-Finished
Song is released or about to be released.

I decided against a dedicated keyboard section since we add those at will though the whole process.

Saturday, August 08, 2009

Logic 9 looks good and songs to be shaped.

So a new version of Logic Studio was release this month. I plan to upgrade when the cash appears since several of the new features fall in the category of things that made me go "wow I wish I had that when I needed to fix problem X in recording Y." The thing I can't wait to play with the most though is the send region to sampler instrument since that is what I have done manually or with ReCycle since first owning a sampler.

In other news reading older entries combined with Danny heading to Spain for a few months (or much longer) starting around next year has inspired me to work on music with a get it finished motivation. I noticed a few songs listed in a blog from almost 5 years back are still unfinished recordings and that seems like a shame. So I'll just focus on getting them to the level that Danny's vocals will be all we need to finish them so that hopefully he can just whip them out and I could mix them even when he's not here.

I will review them each in turn for worthiness but here are some older tunes on the older blogs I think I'll look into completing. I reserve the right to skip any that would take to much work to finish!

In no particular order some of these might get finished:

In Motion
Love Hangover
What are you waiting for?
The Pretty Ones
The Fall
Window to the Shore
Gloom
Body and Mind
Walk Away
Simple Lies
An Entire Nation

Other songs not listed here will also move forward.

Updates to come as things happen.

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Music you should see! The Holy Rave Party

Holy Rave Party



I wish every Drum N' Bass party I went to 10 years ago was like this. I will need a lot more of this kind of video remix. It made me happy in a way I can only express like this...

REWIND!!!!!!!

-John Tooker
Marqui Adora

Thursday, July 02, 2009

Monday, June 22, 2009

The postmodern death of pop music as an art.

So I stumbled on this today...

Lady Gaga Live at Much Music Awards 2009



I found it from here.

When I read Lady Gaga performs two songs “Love Game”/”Poker Face” I thought "okay I have to know if Poker Face means what I think it does." At this point the only exposure to Lady Gaga I have is seeing her with a lot of make up on various music magazines and websites and a brief listen to a few songs in the iTunes store. I checked out the songs because I had hoped for something along the lines of Lady Saw (a female reggae artist). Instead my ears started to bleed from auto-tune overdoses so I dismissed her as more of a recorded company/industry creation.

As I watch the usual overly-dramatic-awards-show-dance-routine I notice that "hey she is actually singing a few lines live!" Then I realize something odd. The whole dance performance makes no sense unless you've seen Madonna or Brittany or Janet or some other female lip-sync artist performing on an awards show. Then, as if to prove my point, it ends with two female dancers grabbing her chest before doing a costume switch where she has a cone shaped bra shooting off fireworks from her breasts. I feel pretty sure she would've done it nude just for the shock value. Madonna would be proud.

The awards show itself reminded me of a cargo cult type of behavior where certain rituals are performed in the hope of receiving certain rewards. The catch is the behavior has nothing to do with gaining the desired rewards. Getting an award doesn't make the music good. Doing a shocking(!) performance doesn't make you a pop star. Wearing almost no cloths doesn't make you sexy.

I can only conclude that the music industry has no idea what it is doing and is thrashing around and using every kind of trick that might've once worked for them to brainwash the publics ears one last time.

Someone should tell them John Frum is not coming...

-Tooker
Marqui Adora

P.S. While the song "Poker Face" seems to refer the singer being unreadable, after the exploding tits moment it was definitely ment to reference "poke her face" with a snicker snicker... Or maybe I'm just being cynical?

Friday, June 19, 2009

Penn Says:Happy High Taxes

I love this video.

The 9 out of 10 part is gold.

Monday, June 01, 2009

Music you should hear: Theresa Andersson

Interesting pop music made with one woman and a lot of delay pedals. Her Myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/theresaanderssonmusic





iTunes Link

-John

Monday, May 25, 2009

I need to get a barbecue...

Just found some cooking videos on YouTube for BBQ cooking.

http://www.youtube.com/BarbecueWeb



Still need Good Eats on Netflix damn it!
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=LikeTheHat&view=videos

Sunday, May 24, 2009

A quick update: Chefs and Rough Drafts

Hello folks,

While Danny studies to be a Chef, Howard plays with a few other bands and Joe and I continue our individual paths to ultimate Mac Geekery not much has been happening in the world of Marqui Adora. Fact is you won't see very much from us in the near future unless one of us finds that million dollars we misplaced the other day. (Let us know if you find it.) We still plan on eventually releasing some new music and one day (when the economy recovers) even playing a few shows again.

Until such a time we've decided on a more open approach to the recording process we fight with so much. You'll notice the main site has a new Drafts section that will let you hear some of our less finished recordings. We make no guaranty as to the quality of the recordings but we do think at least a few have a genuine sparkle that you might enjoy.

-John Tooker
Marqui Adora

P.S. twitter.com/marquiadora

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Penn Says: The NEA Ruined Famous Artists

An interesting idea...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-lHAkX8sLM

Thursday, May 07, 2009

Monday, May 04, 2009

Sometimes I don't understand humans. (Teach a man he doesn't need to fish...)

One of my friends (we'll call them Starbuck) was asked by a co-workers (Luke) to download music from iTunes and burn the album to a CD because they couldn't do it themselves.

So I'm sure you are thinking that the Luke must not have a computer right?
Nope, they do.

So then they don't have an internet connection to get the software and use it right?
No they've got a connection.

So Luke just hasn't downloaded music from the internet because he doesn't want to use a credit card online?
No they've downloaded music already.

But the songs on iTunes and they don't have an account there then right?
No Luke has previously downloaded music from the iTunes store.

Oh so they must have a computer that's 10 years old and doesn't have a burner right?
His computer is around 2 years old.

So why doesn't Luke just do it himself?
Because LUKE DOESN"T WANT TO LEARN HOW TO PUSH A BUTTON OR TWO AND DRAG A FEW THINGS ONSCREEN!

I am amazed we ever came down from the trees. Can it be that every teacher Luke ever had actively discouraged thinking and self reliance? Do people not realize the awe they should feel at the flood of knowledge they could access by typing a few words into google or wikipedia? I can understand feeling a lack of confidence in an ability to accomplish a task but this person actively discouraged my friend Starbuck teaching them how to do this task that they want done! AHHHHHHH

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Music you should hear! Playing for Change...

I'm pretty sure Bob Marley would love this.



More info here: http://www.playingforchange.com/



Monday, April 20, 2009

Where the web is broken Part 1: Why the Twitter is more betterer than Facebook

A million trees falling in a million forests and no one is listening because it's so damn loud!



I can say with some experience that all of the social networking sites are big messy piles of stuff that barely works or mostly irritates the users. The only thing I feel these sites do well is connect you to people you may have lost touch with. However they all do so behind a "walled garden" so you must first join the site to know if it's worth your time to join the site. The number of sites I've tried out is in the dozens and without a doubt most are useless unless people you know are on them.

I think that their might be a better way. I think most people would be better served dividing their attention between two main tools, a personal Blog and Twitter (until it dies or something better comes along.) I'll make the case for my point of view with an exploration of my experiences with the social sites most people use.

Let's start with MySpace.



When MySpace was a new and interesting place to find people who shared common interests and old friends you'd lost touch with it served a very useful purpose. The members of my band, Marqui Adora, joined MySpace in the early days of the site and MySpace is partially responsible for connecting the members of the band to one another. We even have had our music placed in a Toyota advertising campaign through some of the connections we made on the site. We interacted with people all over the world and made some of their days a little better with a few rock tunes, which is more then I could've hoped for as a musician playing in a band in Florida.

Now the bad news. By the time we reached 10,000 MySpace friends we had largely lost touch with those who gave a damn about the band. We had to turn on every spam blocking tool on the site to stop the flood of band and business friend requests. Anyone who was genuinely interested could not be separated from the users who just wanted to let us know about a brilliant business opportunity. Our time on the page became triage and delivered none of the creative inspiration that it did when we'd get a ringing endorsement from one of our MySpace friends. It stopped being a communication tool and became a shitty neighborhood where everyone has bars on the windows. It went from open and wild to closed and regulated with no one searching for new music or new friends. I deleted almost every friend on the band page in an attempt to re-boot the site to something more useful. At the moment most of our "friends" have not even noticed we are gone from their friend lists.

The problem with MySpace is that if you are interested in a person or band they have to add you per your request and when they create that link you have equal claim to their attention in a 1 to 1 relationship even if they have 10,000 followers. It's as if everyone watching a play could talk to the actors all at once while they are on stage in the middle of the play. As you might imagine your attention gets further removed from the creative work that attracted the new friends in your efforts to keep them happy. A cycle is created in which the more people you connect with the less you will create the thing they liked in the first place the more they introduce you to their friends. (I'll come back to this idea when I get to Twitter so keep it in mind.)

MySpace to Facebook is a step down not a step up.



Around the same time Facebook was becoming a new place that people started to flock to. So we each created profiles and searched for friends again. At the time I thought, and still do think, that Facebook is one of the worst designed websites ever. If Jonathan Ives or Steve Jobs ever created a social website it would look nothing like the unorganized clutter that Facebook represents. Your Facebook page has crap on the left. crap on the right, crap at the top, stuff on the bottom left, stuff on the bottom right and some other junk in the middle with no sense of what is and what is not important. It's user interface is embarrassingly childlike and should be taken out back and shot.

On MySpace you would encounter the problem of pictures, gifs and animated videos being put on your page at random by friends. On Facebook they added the ability for poking-snowball-vampire-mafia apps. FUCK YOU! It's as if they decided to make the internet a place where otherwise intelligent and thoughtful people would behave like idiots!

Now please consider this, when was the last time you saw a post on Facebook that was a clear and unique perspective or thought? It can happen but I bet that you remember it happening more on MySpace. The reason, MySpace has blogs and blogs are ment to be journals and places for introspection. I would never write something this long for Facebook because the medium gives it no weight or permanence in the eyes of most Facebook users. (Those of you reading this on my Facebook notes page it is really being reposted from my Blog, "A Total Waste of Time" over HERE.) I have a page on Facebook mostly to keep in contact with people I don't otherwise see or talk to. Both Facebook and MySpace are good for that purpose but that is all in my opinion. I'd rather everyone I know have a blog on Blogger or Wordpress and a Twitter account and I'll explain why in another post to follow shortly. (...maybe)

As an aside, to give credit to Facebook, it has one advantage over MySpace in that my status updates come from my Twitter posts not from the site itself because of Facebook's ability to interact with other sites outside of it's walled garden. Having said that some of the functions added by Facebook Apps are useful but the vast majority are very spammy.

What makes Twitter different.



The most obvious differences are that Twitter only allows for 140 character posts and limits the customization of the users page to choosing a background image and a few short notes about who you are. With a sparse homepage your use of Twitter is not about flashing gifs and snowballs but is instead focused on the content of the brief messages you transmit into the electronic landscape of your followers. The 140 character limit has spawned a range of applications like URL shorteners, the Diggbar and music search engines that let you link to a music file. A great many sites now have a letter T that lets you post a story to Twitter in a few clicks. Also the sparse nature of Twitter has inspired truly creative people to come up with Twitter clients like my favorite for the iPhone and Mac OS X, Tweetie.

A less obvious difference is the way that Twitter allows you to follow anyone without requiring them to do anything or follow you back. And to me that is one of the most important differences to the site and it's usefulness.

How Twitter is better from the follower's perspective.



One of the reasons I enjoy Twitter is it fixes the way most of the web is slanted towards those who comment rather than those who create. If Merlin Mann posts something funny and insightful on Twitter I don't have to read or even see the 30 people who feel they must inform the world that it is neither funny nor insightful. I can enjoy his art for what it is in it's own context. Now consider a typical MySpace or Facebook page and how that would differ. First it would be reposted and fill up your entire bulletin list in an attempt to spread it beyond just Merlin's followers. Second it would be reposted with additional commentary like "This is Funny!" so it will lose some of it's subtle surprise. (Side note: if it's funny I'll know it when I laugh.) On Twitter there is no room to comment other then a "RT" or a "via" so it can maintain most of it's original intentions without having additional opinion or commentary. That doesn't mean you can't comment all you like it just means you will not likely interfere with the experience of most of his Twitter followers. And that is why Twitter wins for me, I get to hear from the people I want without having to wade though the commentary from strangers who might put only the effort required to say "sucks" and push a button to pollute my absorption of an idea.

Twitter behaves more like a news program that can occasionally take calls when they want to. The main content is a one way exchange of ideas from the person you follow to you the follower with some interaction between the people that person follows. Interaction only occurs at the choice of each participant and so it becomes more meaningful. (well it could at least, YMMV)


How Twitter is better from the creator's perspective.



For the person doing creative work it also allows the creator to regain control of their interactions with those who consume their creative output. On Twitter following everyone who follows you is not required and is actually the wrong way to do things. When someone becomes a burden on your Twitter timeline you can simply un-follow them either temporarily or permanently and regain control. It allows the artist to communicate to their fans in a way that has no cost on their time beyond what they choose to allow. The 140 character limit encourages them to be brief and get back to making things for their followers to consume and enjoy. An example of this type of use is Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails who has a Twitter account and actively uses it in a way he never has with the multiple NIN.com sites he's had over the years. Another telling example is Amanda Fucking Palmer, who uses Twitter to invite fans to impromptu concerts and also to get song request while onstage at the venue each night while she performs.

If these artist opened their Twitter and saw every comment from the peanut gallery they would likely close the window and never come back again or never have time to go make something new and exciting because they would feel compelled to read all the incoming messages and reply to them. This is one of the major advantages to Twitter. If you are interested in someone they do not need to be interested in you for you to be able to follow what they do. Trent Reznor does not know my name but he can tell me his thoughts on a new synth or an album without him needing to know me as an individual.

Twitter allows for a creator to speak directly to his audience with no intermediary dulling down or altering his message. It allows for the creator, at their choosing, to respond to something they perceive as an inaccuracy in a reporters story or to let their audience know that they've created something for them.

Twitter is not a replacement for a blog.



It may be called a micro-blogging service but Twitter is not the same as a dedicated blog page. A blog is a place for long form thoughts or a series of thoughts or photos or videos collected together as a record of prior events. It is ment to be a journal and should be used in that way. Not everyone needs a blog or Twitter but I think both provide unique forums for people to express who they are and what interests them.

I have more thoughts on this I'll post next time...
-John
Marqui Adora

P.S.

In the meantime:

twitter.com/marquiadora

marquiadora.blogspot.com

twitter.com/johntooker

www.johntooker.com

Sunday, April 19, 2009

White Wedding: Literal Video Version

Steve Agee 5k

Nikki's 10 seconds of fame...

Llamas with Hats

"That kills people!"

Stuff from the past week or so...

Batteries That Feed on Blood


Watch as people lose their capacity for reasonable thought. Baracknophobia - Obey http://digg.com/d1oE9I
The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c
Baracknophobia - Obey
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show
Full Episodes
Economic CrisisPolitical Humor



A good read for musicians.--Topspin GRAMMY MusicTech Summit Keynote, http://digg.com/d1eE4L

Another good read on why there will not be a music industry anymore but might still be music. http://digg.com/d1FbmA


Twitter and how to use it well. http://digg.com/d1mPhX


Ferrets - Sometimes you Really Just Need a Happy Song, http://digg.com/d1hGDo

Delivered with passion, music you should hear.

Amanda Fucking Palmer covers Muse with Zoe Keating on cello at Coachella.



-John

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Friday, April 10, 2009

Thursday, April 09, 2009

Tuesday, April 07, 2009

Hey look it's a modern President!

He did forget to mention those of us who don't believe in fairy tales but I still think it was a positive statement.

Monday, April 06, 2009

Friday, March 27, 2009

Little Red... Remixed


Slagsmålsklubben - Sponsored by destiny from Tomas Nilsson on Vimeo.

This is amazing.

I'd like to spend under $1000 and buy a new computer.

Here are some features I'm looking for.
-Ugly
-Covered in stickers telling me how great the internal parts and software are.
-No way to learn how to use the included software.
-I'd like to pretend to be an IT person and install tons of virus protection software.
-I'd like to see a few billion "helpful" pop-up windows.
-I might need conficker...
-Cheap plastic enclosure please.
-I'd like every piece of software to live in it's own little island of design, sharing no common interface ideas or sharing data.
-I don't want to be cool.
-I am not a member of the screen actors guild.

<a href="http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-US&playlist=videoByUuids:uuids:0bb6a07c-c829-4562-8375-49e6693810c7&showPlaylist=true&from=shared" target="_new" title="Laptop Hunters $1000 &#8211; Lauren Gets an HP Pavilion">Video: Laptop Hunters $1000 &#8211; Lauren Gets an HP Pavilion</a>

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Friday, March 20, 2009

I've got another puzzle for you...



Atlas Shrugged moment of the day: Associated Steel

Can we bail out of the bailouts?
What if we let companies that are 'too big to fail' do just that?


Someone is to fat and stupid to move themselves so we have to feed them...

What?

As for the Banks in general:

I had an account with Barnett Bank in 1992.

They were bought by NationsBank in 1996.

They were bought by Bank of America in 1998.

Now they need a few billion in tax money...

Maybe we should let them fail and have 3 different banks again so when one of the three fails they won't be "too big to fail". Oh wait, then we'd have to let them fail first. Which is somehow a really bad idea?

Updated:

One More Thing...

So here's the plan:
1-Pay Taxes for services the government provides you.
2-Government passes laws allowing and encouraging Banks to do shady shit.
3-Government overspends on poorly planned wars and other related items.
4-Banks lend money to people and institutions that they otherwise wouldn't do because they are risky.
5-Econmey slows down because people no longer have money to spend since they spent themselves into debt at the banks expense. Now they have to pay those bills.
6-Banks can't get people to spend money they don't have or pay them back.
7-Banks start to fail.
8-Government "helps" banks that can't manage themselves.
9-Banks give out bonuses instead of pink slips.
10-People are surprised, government is shocked!
11-Government wants to Tax bonuses 90% rather then let that money at least be in the economy somewhere.
12-10% of the money that made it out of the Government is back in the economy and the rest is fed to the government again. And the government will spend some of it to re-spend it.

Result=Less money in our economy.

You fed the dog steak so the dog will protect your house. He gave it to the robbers. You caught the robbers eating your steak. The dog is outraged and demands 90% of the steak back from the robbers. The result is you will still need to feed the dog another steak because he didn't get his full meal... And all that extra work sure made him hungry!


Haven't read Atlas Shrugged? Buy it here.

Sunday, March 15, 2009

A well written blog about the newspaper industry in the internet age.

I think it could also apply to the music industry in many ways. Click Here!

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Monday, March 02, 2009

Bad news and good news...

Bad news:
We didn't finish new recordings for the RPM Challenge. Maybe next year!

Good news:
We have some new songs that are real close to finished.

Gooder news:
We seem to have hit upon a method for working on new music even with our widely different schedules. So while we had planned on continuing our break for the next several months, we will more likely have some new recordings for your ears soon. In fact we recorded vocals for And it Begins today which means that song is a few steps from the finished pile. (Several others are almost to that point as well.) We plan on collecting a few of these into an album to be released in the next few months. After that we plan on keeping the momentum we've maintained for the last month and stretching it out further. Like anything else our plans are always subject to change...

-John

15 albums

Think of 15 albums that had such a profound effect on you that they changed your life. Then, when you finish, tag 15 others, including myself. Make sure you copy and paste this message so the people you tag will know the drill.

In no particular order:

Pink Floyd - The Wall
Janes Addiction - Nothings Shocking
Radiohead - OK Computer
Aphex Twin - Richard D James Album
Black Sabbath - We Sold Our Souls For Rock n Roll
Skinny Puppy - Last Rights
Iron Maiden - Number Of The Beast
Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral
Ministry - The Mind Is A Terrible Thing to Taste
Garbage - Garbage
DJ Shadow - Entroducing
The Dead Kennedys - Give Me Connivence or Give me Death
PJ Harvey - Rid Of Me
Rush - Moving Pictures
Greensleeves Compilation - Ragga Jungle Anthems Vol 1

Sunday, March 01, 2009

Neat little trick for the iTunes Music Store

Type the url itunes.com with a band name added to the end in your web browser to open the iTunes Store on the artists page:

A few helpful examples:

http://www.itunes.com/marquiadora

http://www.itunes.com/modernage

Friday, February 27, 2009

Some music I think you should hear (and see)

Rob Sheridan shot some video with the Cannon 5D Mark II at some of the Nine Inch Nails shows in Sydney.

New drummer seems to be fitting right in.


1,000,000 Live from on stage, Sydney 2.22.09 [HD] from Nine Inch Nails on Vimeo.



Burn Live from on stage, Melbourne 2.25.09 [HD] from Nine Inch Nails on Vimeo.

Wanna bet?

Do you think he heard the Rocky theme in his head?

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

The Crisis of Credit

This is what education should look like in the 21st Century...

Why aren't more news programs and schools based on this kind of entertainment learning?


The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

Under the sea...

Mermaid!

I knew it!



Tuesday, February 24, 2009

It don't mean a thing...

Duke Ellington becomes first African-American on U.S. coin

I associate teen sex with teenagers having fully functional sexual organs but maybe music is to blame! Not.

So what happens when the teenage couple listens to music while staring at an album cover?




Monday, February 23, 2009

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Kill 'em all