It started with a
Mandarin lunch, and was followed by a trip out to Oakville, where I had
a couple of double espressos at
Second Cup. That
followed by a scoop of chocolate ice cream.
I'm going to have to cut back on the food.
Later, during the evening, I went out to the
Lula Lounge (NOT the local
PT office) to watch Rosangela and Alan do their Samba thing. Very cool vibe, a
house full of gringos trying to Rebolar (and failing miserably) and
great music.
Yesterday was drug day: cinnabon. These are the food-equivalent of cocaine. And they make you fat. I had a minibon, which was far smaller than I expected, but I excercised a significant amount of self-restraint by not getting another one.
Visited LIFT as well, and head-honcho Roberto gave me a very cool gift... yes, it's that amazing little lavalier mic which has blended well with my otherwise Ikea-only room. Don't ask me if it works.
Very nice day in Toronto. Some
walking around downtown, a quick stop in the
Silver
Snail to say hi to Alexis, some
KFC (oink) and a
splitting headache. And I got a
TTC Day Pass
today as well...
A gaming group is starting to form here,
which is cool. But I'll leave info on that for the Alos site, soon to be
updated.
Some flyers are being made.
Microbrigade is
very close to starting-up. The site is actually ready... the "coming soon"
thing will hopefully disappear by this weekend.
Songs that talk about unhappiness and melancholy are cool.
I spent this past evening recording vocals for an upcoming project by bgm, and I must say I'm really happy with the music. The dark basement studio with the low ceilings really does help in setting the mood.
Someone is wearing out their refresh button hoping this will pop-up on their screen.
Pressplay, which uses Windows Media Audio for streaming files. Content is streamed at 20, 32, or 96 Kbps, depending on your connection speed. In fact, even the downloads are WMAs. You pay for a subscription but don’t get to keep your downloads after it expires, unless you pay more (less than a buck) to make each download permanent.
Rhapsody, another subscription service which declares: “Burn as much music as you want, whenever you want.” But the fact is they have tons of songs you can’t keep. Because they haven’t cleared the rights yet. At Canadian Music Week 2003, I had the privilege to hear Rhapsody’s Director, Tim Quirk, describe his service using terms very similar to those used recently by Jobs to describe iTunes.
And then there’s MusicNet, another service with the “largest catalog of music.”
These services may offer downloads and CD burning (after making you subscribe, then pay extra per song), but their real strength lies in their ability to stream customizable content. They’re super internet radio stations...
Keep in mind, there are some very cool free radio services. And although I like the idea of playlists prepared by other people, I would prefer having the music for offline listening.
As always, some interesting music is keeping me from my blogging. So I keep up by posting pics. This is us at the Essex Green concert last night, which happened at the Horseshoe Tavern. Nice band from brooklyn. Flutes and electric pianos and rock and roll. Everyone there really loved them.
There's an Ice Cream truck stalking me. Not only is it all over the place, but I hear it all the time in this otherwise quiet neighborhood. Could it be that the Eglinton West area is the most popular Ice Cream Market in the world, with herds of children swarming around this lone Ice Cream Truck? Could it be an Alien Conspiracy?
I'm a slow poster. As should be expected, I'm the last one to comment on something interesting...
Like, this morning I had a nice little MSN messenger chat with two internationally distinguished figures, Carol and Carmela. We discussed the difference between horrible Macs and Cool PCs. We practiced communicating via emoticons. And the only thing that I missed was having a webcast of everyone's face on my desktop.
Carol, you need a webcam at work.
I discovered a very nice digital storytelling project about a month ago called Silence Speaks, and not only are they worth a few moments of your time (nice content), but they're looking for royalty-free original music. For those who make music: want to participate?
American Idol. I'd never seen the show before, but I happened to be walking by the tv set tonight as it was playing. Pee Wee Herman look-alike Clay Aiken dukes it out with a guy called Ruben Studdard. Ruben, quite simply, is incredible. This guy sounds like everything that's been missing from soul for the last 20 years.
Herman, err, I mean, Clay, was just... bland. But I'm sure he'd make a good actor in "Son of Pee Wee."
The last two days have been very nice, and trillions of people were out in on the beaches and lined up - an enormous, humongous line - outside the Ontario Place park by the water.
Toronto is going to be very cool during the summer.
(I'd forgotten the Wiseguy Angle: looks better standing upright.)
I'm back. After being forced
into recess by a quick move, I'm now in my new chambers. We're preparing our
studio here in Toronto as well, but that's another story. For the next
couple of days I'll be content with my new lair, being shared with two good
friends.
The place is very cool. Apart
from the many bedrooms, there's a large living room and a brand new kitchen.
Actually, the whole place was renovated. It's almost like moving into a new
home.
I'm now out on Eglinton West. Yes, it's a bit
removed from downtown, which was my original goal, but still only 15 minutes
away on the TTC. And the neighborhood's very calm and pleasant.
(click on the thumbnails to the right to view
larger pictures...)
This was a busy week for other reasons.
The 15th, of course, was Matrix Day. I was a
bit disappointed, as it seemed they were trying to fulfill the public's
expectations. Lot's of action, lot's of fighting, but the story, although
interesting, took on a secondary role. And the whole Neo and Trinity sex
sequence at the beginning was totally forced ("Ain't gonna be no sex in this
flick, so let's stick something at the beginning").
After the Matrix sequel, I got out to the Broadcast show at Lee's Palace. Very interesting, very cool, and "Come On Let's Go" was beautiful. Alex liked it more than I did, although he'd never heard their music before that night. And this was Brian's second time watching them... "And the last," he told us on the way out.
Soon to come... projects by Cholly an Alex in
Toronto = Microbrigade.
I'm officially moving to my new place here in Toronto. Soon, there'll be maps and pictures and tons of info on the new place... In the mean time, my Internet access is nil. I'll only be on adsl again next week, and my laptop is packed up in my new room.
There's so much happening in the Toronto band scene. Opening Eye reveals immense lists of bands playing every week, and from what I've been able to gather, alot of it is great music.
Last night I went out to the Revival, where Rob performed with the superb house band. Very cool.
iTunes is
being hyped as the most amazing concept since Bow-lingual.
Apple has a
long list of reasons why their service is going to change the world.
"You're
only paying 99 cents per song! You get to keep
the song! It’s not a subscription service! You can listen to files in real time
from other computers on your home network! It has audio books! Music downloaded
from iTunes can be used as soundtracks for your computer-edited home movies!
Burn CDs! And… EXPERT LISTENERS have judged that the audio encoding sounds
JUST LIKE the original source!"
So is this
what the fuss is all about? Apparently, this is what a fraction of 3% of the world's
computer users are using avidly. "Thank you Apple!!" Heck, you’d might as well delete your copy of Morpheus,
WinMX and Kazaa. The world is a new and better place.
Thing is,
these features are all irrelevant. Apple has apparently not found any good
solution to the dilemma of online music sharing. They can only spruce-up a
system that the wrong people have been trying to implement for years.
"Rip-Mix-Burn" has become "Acquire.
Manage. Listen." What had been a push for major change is now just a way of
settling for something less offensive.
Charging 99 cents per download.
The entire
hassle of pulling out your credit card, or doing anything apart from just
immediately downloading music, is fatal. The difference between a buck
and nothing is vast. Heck, even a nickel would be too much.
There's a very nice idea being thrown
around which, I believe, I first saw in a column by
Don Tapscott.
The concept is to have a fixed tax that could be built-in to the user's
monthly ISP costs. People would be charged painlessly, almost
unknowingly. The money would be
funneled to the right people. Now that's in line with our times.
The bottom line is that the most
essential factor is obviously money. Why would anyone subject themselves to the
horrors of Kazaa? Because most people are very aware of
having more time to invest in the slow and unreliable response of these networks than they have money
to spend at iTunes.
The biggest problem lies with
those kids who want gratification
to be brutally instant. But then who has to pay? Make the parents do it. Make it
something the kid won't even know exists. Let them continue feeling cool.
Once you
have the music file on your computer, all the other iTunes features are not an
issue. People can do all the burning and sharing right now with MP3s downloaded
from Kazaa. The only feature people are really looking for is the ability to possess a
sound file of their favorite music.
When this becomes available to
PC users, the free services will continue to thrive. And unless something more in
line with the expectations of today's user can be achieved, iTunes will be
remembered as a beautiful idea that only a tiny fraction of the public
supported.
People in the music industry had been moping for some time, arguing that illegal online music trading and CD piracy would put them out of business. The culture of portable, downloaded digital music has gone mainstream. A bunch of so-called visionaries (prophets?) have surfaced to tell us how things will be in the future. Companies have tried creating viable alternatives to the free swapping services. And I’m finally ready to accept some of the changes that will most certainly come to the music industry in the next few years.
Courtesy of Bob Lefsetz - one of the prophets who I actually think is original - today I watched a cool little video about Apple’s new releases, including iTunes and the new iPod. It’s great to see the Apple people fervently working to make their products competitive. In fact, I even liked the iPod.
Now, I’m going to warn you that I tend to be mean concerning Apple. I’ve actually used Macs in the past, and think they’re fine. But does Apple need me to defend them? No. So there’s no need to be nice, agreed?
The great thing about addressing some of my concerns regarding Apple’s product line is that I get to cover alot of current events in the industry. So here go a few posts with a long list of facts, and some insane criticism of the industry and the direction in which it’s heading.
Over the last week I've been going out alot to see bands. On Saturday, it was More Plastic at the 360. They're an amazing group and sound like a demented mixture of Jon Spencer and Pavement. Worth checking out. I met the vocalist and got a sticker too.
Last night I went to Lee's Palace (amazing venue!) and, for absolutely free, watched a band called 40 Foot Echo. Really, really sad. These guys have a record deal with major distribution but manage to sound absolutely unoriginal.
Last night was spent at an awards ceremony held at the Indian Motorcycle Company Cafe. David was receiving a Visual Arts award. I had a fun time, and apart from being in the company of friends, the food was great.
The event ended with David playing one of his own compositions, accompanied by lap steel. Certainly one the night's high points. Too bad my camera didn't like the low light at the bar... And since I don't like using a flash: no pictures.
After the event we went down to the Cameron House, which is a very cool little bar on Queen. I'm not a beer guy, so I just borrowed a coke...
"Misterrogers" can be found between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, and is about 218 million miles from the sun, which it takes about 31/2 years to orbit. Local address.
