So once again I'm trying the live Brad Sucks thang, but this time with support. Tomorrow is the first practice with Rob Cosh from redcar. I'm pretty excited about it, I think it'll suck less than when I was trying to do it all by myself.
I've been enjoying the new Personalized Google homepage. It's quick and doesn't piss me off, which must be a Google design mantra. I'm experimentally adding it as my browser homepage and I haven't had one of those for at least five years. This would be a perfect place for them to put a to-do list and a calendar that integrated with Gmail. If it had that I think I'd finally be forced to ditch Outlook for Gmail.
My first thought when reading about the Sony payola settlement was that maybe they're just diverting their payola funds to bribing blogs and this is a nice way to put a positive spin on that. So cynical! This CNet article called 'Indie record labels seeing gold' lifted my spirits though. Apparently the 5 cent per song raise we just got from iTunes was due to some intense activism. Sweet. I like all the dirty payola scams and emails that are coming out, someone should be saving them all. Such as:
The payments often came in creative forms, such as providing the station with "contest prizes" such as digital cameras, laptop computers or concert tickets, which sometimes found their way to DJs. In one case, an executive suggested getting a DJ's shoe size, sending one Adidas sneaker right away, and sending the second shoe of the pair after a particular song had been played at least 10 times.
That's fantastic! Also:
"WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO TO GET AUDIOSLAVE ON WKSS THIS WEEK?!!? Whatever you can dream up, I can make it happen."
"HELLO IS THERE ANYONE I CAN BRIBE IN THERE" "HELLO" "ANYONE??" "OKAY I'M GOING TO LEAVE A STEAMER TRUNK FULL OF MONEY ON THE PORCH" "BE BACK LATER TO SEE IF YOU TOOK IT"
Top 50 Favorite Game Ending Songs - includes MP3s of the songs.
Source for my song Time To Take Out the Trash (41 mb) off I Don't Know What I'm Doing.
Eerie Sounds of Saturn's Radio Emissions - spooky WAV from Saturn.
Apple iTunes raises wholesale price to 70 cents in USA - CD Baby artists now make 63.7 cents per song through iTunes USA after CD Baby's 9% cut. The price is still 99 cents for consumers. Very nice.
An interview I did with Dave Slusher for his July 23rd Clambake podcast is online now.
Here's a video history of the Amen break. It's an interesting story and then it turns into an anti-copyright rant at the end which I'm not feeling. I'm not sure how The Winstons all quitting music and getting nothing while countless artists and companies get rich using their recording is supposed to be some happy ending that everyone trying to make a living in music should be shooting for. "Hey kids, give up the copyright on your music and you too can bust out of the music business and wind up with a PHD in political science!"
Without some sort of success story for The Winstons I think all the example does is serve as a musician horror story: how you can make something that impacts millions of lives and still not be able to support yourself. Spooky!
Electronic Mods for Guitar - a good resource for modifying the guts of your guitar.
Ableton Live 5 beta - get a fully functional beta version of Ableton Live 5 here. [via]
Singer launches career on eBay - "A young Indian singer has managed to raise enough money to release his debut album by selling shares in his future royalties on the internet site eBay."
MP3 Turns 10 Years Old - before that it was ".bit".
A Night at the Feelies - I love this Bob the Angry Flower cartoon.
I was going to feel real bad about making noise in my new neighborhood, but now that I know every other house has a barking dog tied up in its back yard all day maybe I don't care.
Psychedelic Christian Radio - MP3s of Pastor John Rydgren's radio spots from the 60s. Crazy and awesome.
Half-Rack Hack - a camera mini-tripod modified to support half-rack effect devices.
NINJAM is out. (I wrote about it earlier here.) Due to moving I haven't been able to use the latest versions, but I assume it rocks. The GUI looks slick to boot. Congrats, Justin. It'll be fun to see what people get up to with this great tool.
Images of cassettes - it's weird that pictures of cassette tapes can be so nostalgic.
Cringely Podcasting and Blogging - interesting column by Cringely about the market demand for (video) podcasting and blogging and how it's changing his gig.