Archive for May 2009

The Lost Art of The Mixtape

Once in a while, I'll put my iPod on shuffle and hear a few songs that I hadn't heard in quite some time, songs that I miss, and I wonder how it is that I fail to put them on a playlist. The problem isn't an enormous music collection -- I've had one of those since long before Napster threw the music industry into upheaval. There's a lost art to creating the perfect playlist that's been enhanced by the software creating the word. Once upon a time, I'd make mixtapes that would involve a good deal of thought, some overwriting, and in the end, a perfect ninety minute sequence of songs that would work quite well on repeat for a car trip. So how did the software help to destroy the mix?

After a while's thought, I started to remember just how I used to go about making a mix, and I think what's missing is the tactile experience. Now, the process involves scrolling to artists as I think of them, selecting the track in mind, and dragging the song to the playlist. Once upon a time, however, I'd sit in the middle of the floor, surrounded by binders full of discs, CD's in jewel cases that I hadn't put into binders yet, and records. As I'd handle the albums, I'd remember songs from them that would go perfectly, I'd remember songs I'd related to them, I'd remember influences: in general, I'd remember tracks that I'd forgotten about and I'd put them into the mix. Something eclectic, something odd, but at the same time oddly fitting into a particular mix.

It's quite different on iTunes: sure, I see the list, all the same songs are there, but ... the list doesn't do what the artifact itself did. I'm not thinking as I go through, not remembering a track, just thinking of the next artist that might work well. It's something I may have to get back to: using iTunes in the old cover flow mode was awkward, but perhaps there's something to it.

I'll be back to this subject.

28 May, 2009 | Chris |

The GOP Can Have Him...

My jaw dropped when I read a recent story in the Raleigh News and Observer, my local paper, about the Esteemed Dullard and likely Closet Case Former Mayor Tom Fetzer, a Republican running for head of the state party, who is planning to sue a Wilmington radio host for libel for forwarding an e-mail alleging that he is gay [ Link ]. I, like most of you, hate e-mail forwards as much as anyone, but this is beyond a bit ridiculous. Fetzer's comments border on dangerously unbalanced.

In a letter to the N&O [ Link ], Fetzer writes,

"The letter is a lie, written by a lying coward. I can't sue the lying coward, but I have authorized my attorneys to sue [radio host] Curtis Wright and the media outlets he works for. ... I am not gay -- never have been -- never will be. There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever to support any of the scurrilous allegations made in the anonymous attack on me. ... The fact that I'm 54 and single does not mean that I have to put up with vicious rumors that I'm gay" [now, time for the coup de grace] ""The fact that I am heterosexual is a matter of public record."

Hold on. Context cues are leading me one way, but content another. From his judicious phrasing, you'd think the man had been accused of torturing puppies while injecting heroin and stealing from orphans, not having sex with a consenting adult human being. Scurrilous! Vicious! Attack!

As an aside, I'm going to hop in here and point out that anyone who is surprised at an e-mail forward (or anything originating online) accusing someone of being "gay" -- EVEN LIFELONG BACHELORS AT 54 WITH ODDLY ACUTE FASHION SENSE AND A NOTED VANITY ABOUT PERSONAL APPEARANCE -- should not be running for head of anything at all. He shouldn't be running. He should be wearing a helmet, like that weird kid who used to wear a Starfleet uniform to school, just after he got new headgear for his orthodonture.

I can't think of anyone in the present day - particularly someone who managed to rise to the esteemed position of Mayor of the City of Oaks (way back before everyone moved here for all the cool jobs in RTP) - who would take this so far. Honestly, the better part of valor would be to ignore the e-mail and tell the Republican party why you're the better candidate for leader, not to engage in a pissing match over who can pretend to be the most out of touch. This isn't even an election of consequence, and if your opponent for state GOP party chair is desperate enough to point fingers at you and yell, "He's gay! I read it in an e-mail forward," then he's already lost.

Then again, so do the rest of us. Dragging the already wounded right wing further right when they seem to be doing that well enough on their own is NOT a good idea.

Again - a side note, do you think it's because they lost the election that this is happening? For the decade or so, Republican strategy seemed to dictate that whenever danger lurked, a candidate needed to run to the right, and this might explain why the party seems to be selecting Rush Limbaugh -- drug addict and college dropout (after two failing his first two semesters at the oh-so-prestigious Southeast Missouri State University) -- as its ideological and intellectual leader over former Secretary of State, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Former Four Star General, MBA from George Washington University-holding Colin Powell. God forbid that someone with the wisdom of Powell's experience and proven track record should actually take the party somewhere slightly left of Genghis Khan.

Indeed, if our electoral process has become so flawed that a minor campaign for a meaningless position should deviate into this stark a revelation of hate spilling onto the landsacape, then our republic is in greater danger than I've ever thought.

I digress (again). The most stunning bit of the whole Fetzer note is his final statement, which I will type once more because it will serve as a perfect summary representative for the entire debacle, encompassing the scope of pure hate, mindless spin control, and complete stupidity: "The fact that I am heterosexual is a matter of public record."

How? There isn't even circumstantial evidence you're straight or gay. For those not in the know about something called privacy and something else called freedom, there shouldn't be, and there should not have to be For it to be a matter of public record, I suppose you took your penis and a woman (with her vagina) to a Notary Public for a documented act of sexual congress, then ensured that everyone signed the "Witness" fields, paid the notary his going rate, and got an official, notarized document of your Straightitude. Still, though, I wanna know how it was done. How did your sex life become public record? OH YEAH -- YOU made it that way with your ASININE babbling about scurrilous attacks...

Ahh well... I suppose someone should notify him that falsely accusing someone of homosexuality is not grounds for libel (1994, NC US Court of appeals), Oh, and while you're at it, that the internet will call you bad names (monitor one active web forum for an hour or two and see how many times the word "faggot" or "fag" is hurled by one poster at another). Finally, that, above all else, I you should know that nobody likes you. That's a matter of public record.

If this is the best the GOP can do to lead their party (and my former party, I might add), perhaps we're better off without them in charge for a while.

23 May, 2009 | Chris |

MPAA Vs. RealDVD Update: The Arguments

I already posted my rant about the DRM wars, but I thought I'd update the discussion by addressing the arguments being made in the case that sparked that entry, the Motion Picture Association of America vs. Real Networks, creators of Real DVD, software that allows users to create a perfect copy of a commercial DVD. Arguments by Real insist that movie studios are trying -- through litigation -- to prevent fair use, which allows digital content owners to create a backup copy of that content. The MPAA's contention? Fair use is not a defense against the DMCA's anticircumvention provisions, since the law makes no reference to such.

This is - like much of the ill conceived Digital Millenium Copyright Act - an untested area of the law. The DMCA, which was, unfortunately, the product of a media frenzy mad Congress ("Downloaded music will destroy the American capitalist system! Aaaaiiigh!") and entertainment lobbyists, has proven itself disturbingly conflicted with many existing laws, especially those pertaining to the rights of the content purchaser.

Real's specific argument is that, by creating a complete archive of the protected DVD on a hard drive, without bypassing CSS encryption [ Wikipedia ], indeed, keeping the encryption intact and adding an extra layer of protection - locking the created files to the user and system on which they were created - all RealDVD does is allow users to create a backup, archival copy, which is permitted under the DMCA.

The MPAA's argument is that this method of copying and archiving is circumvention -- handily bypassing the copyright argument altogether -- fair use rights be damned. In fact, their argument seems to indicate that there can be no fair use of content taken directly from a DVD. This is in line with their previous statements in which they showed government officials how teachers could create a legal clip for a classroom by pointing a camcorder at a video screen that was showing a DVD - for more on this, see the article on ArsTechnica detailing the absurdity [ Link ].

Watching this unfold could make you ill, and the end result could have dire implications for anyone with a DVD, CD, or other digital content collection. What remains to be seen is if the computer savvy Obama administration will keep its head in ways the Bush folks never could - this could be the test case.

22 May, 2009 | Chris |

This is NOT the Twilight Zone

From Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic comes a most interesting story from the September 1, 1926 issue of The Washington Post, concerning what had to be the most difficult-to-umpire baseball games of all time. Goldberg's receipt of this clipping, from the archives at the Baseball Hall of Fame, was at least third hand, likely because everyone involved knew it was a ripe opportunity, but the content seems more like something from The Family Guy than 1920's America.

One wonders who won... but I'm betting it was the Hebrew All Stars. The ongoing antipathy of the Klan for the Jewish population might be a clue: as far as I know, only baseball fans can hold a grudge for this long.

12 May, 2009 | Chris |

No Coasting for NoFX

Review of: NoFX - Coaster
Released: 28 Apr. 2009
Label: Fat Wreck Chords

Counted among the founding fathers of So-Cal punk rock, NoFX haven't stopped since they got started in Berkeley over 25 years ago. Eschewing major labels since their first full length album, most of the band's incredibly long list of EPs, albums, and side projects (Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, anyone?) have appeared on vocalist/bassist Fat Mike's label, Fat Wreck Chords (say it out loud, you'll get the joke). The band's influence is so wide-reaching that it would be nearly impossible to list all of the bands we wouldn't have today without their music, but you can be sure we wouldn't have a Vans Warped Tour, and bands like Green Day, Sum-41, and recently reunited blink-182 would sound quite a bit different.

[Coaster Sampler] Coaster, the band's 16th full length album, and they're still loud, fast, and bear the same feeling of irritated smartasses that they always have. NoFX's musicianship is singularly excellent among punk bands, in that they can not only play fast as hell, but they know how to play in the first place (or they've figured it out over the decades). The first track, "We Called it America," catches you with the most blistering 30 second opener I've heard in years. While they do slow down on a few songs, including "Best God In Show" (the second sample in the track), "Creeping Out Sara", and, most notably, a rare Fat Mike confessional entitled "My Orphan Year," about the days following the deaths of both his parents, the majority of the album is dedicated to drinking, poking fun at religion (the last sample on the track, "Blasphemy (The Victimless Crime)," is a great example, and poking fun at Republicans.

Not much has changed, and it would be hard to classify Coaster as one of NoFX's top records - the size of their discography notwithstanding, classics like White Trash, Two Heebs & a Bean (1992), Punk in Drublic (1994), and Pump Up the Valuum (2000) will always be the touchstone albums that music geeks bring up - it's still a good listen, and worth the 7-10 bucks you'll spend.

11 May, 2009 | Chris |

Pearl Jam - Ten Reissue

In my last entry, I mentioned the recent Pearl Jam reissue of Ten, one of the most notable features of which is a copy as remixed by Brendan O'Brien. There are two CD versions of the album included in the reissue: the "Legacy Edition," which is a necessary remastering of the original disc. When Ten came out originally, audio engineers weren't quite up to the task of mastering audio for a digital environment, to compensating for the "warmth" of vinyl by making certain sounds more clear, more crisp, and increasing the depth of Jeff Ament's incredible bass line. This version sounds much better on CD than the original... other than that, the "Legacy" disc is just a copy of the same Ten that has gone platinum thirteen times.

Alive-Redux Sample-The other disc, Ten Redux, contains not only the Brendan O'Brien remixes of the original songs but also several gems of deleted music, notably "Brother," which has never before been released with lyrics included. As Stone Gossard and Eddie Vedder note in numerous interviews about the release, these remixed songs really do sound as though they belong to the Pearl Jam of every other release. The tracks are outstanding: the overproduction typical to Epic Records releases of the late 1980's is gone completely, and the sound is cleaner, with a few different takes used in place of the classics. Click the link at the head of this paragraph to hear a bit of the remixed version of "Alive," to get a feeling for some of the strength of this new version, the way the band feels it should sound. The guitars are much cleaner, the vocals clearer and - in a way - stronger because of a lack of overdubs.

Oceans Samples-One of the easiest songs in which the casual listener will hear this difference is in "Oceans," Vedder's paean to San Diego and surfing. If you click the file link at the head of this paragraph, you can listen to the difference in brief samples of the song, the first from the original, the second from Redux. About a thirty second sample from the beginning of the track should give you a proper feeling for the remix vs. original. I think what I'm getting at, in the end, is that if you - like most of my generation - ever really loved this record, I really recommend picking up a copy of one of the editions.

08 May, 2009 | Chris |

Big Content Still Not Learning

Evidently, Big Film hasn't learned the lessons that Big Music just seems to be sorting out for itself. From BBC News this morning:

Hollywood has locked horns with the technology industry over who will control digital entertainment and how it is watched. The six big film studios say a program called RealDVD violates copyright. This week a San Francisco court could decide if DVD users can make personal backups the way people do with audio. [ Link ]

The first mistake these companies make is in believing that digital content can ever be free of infringement. How many times do the attorneys have to be told what engineers have been telling them for over a decade? DRM (Digital Rights Management) doesn't work. Jeremy Allison, a software engineer at Google, says it better in a blog posting at ZDNet: "Trying to make Digital Rights Management (DRM) work in the real world is like asking engineers to do "Star Trek" style magic, rather than real engineering. DRM simply cannot work" [ Link ]. Why?

A content provider will "protect" digital content with DRM software, which will encrypt the data using an encryption algorithm and a key. This content, once sold to the consumer, requires a decryption key in order to be played. To the non-techie reading this, it's probably starting to sound complicated. It's not. Take, for instance, a DVD. Every DVD sold is so encrypted, and every DVD player within a region has a decryption key for every DVD sold within that region (say, North America). Insert the disc, the player decodes the data, and you can watch the latest Jerry Bruckheimer explosions in way-cool surround sound. All it takes is for content to be playable on a computer, or for some clever little git to connect one with a debugger or logic analyzer to the player, and voila! someone who understands code can now copy the files at will. DRM can never work because, simply put, the decryption code must be available in order for the "protected" content to play. Nobody's going to buy a DVD player that requires Sony Pictures reps to come to his home and enter a password.

The problem I really have with all of this is that we saw it before with music: declining quality in product (eg, a CD with one decent song and 12 fillers), plus consumer frustration with cost, plus the ease with which digital content can be replicated perfectly and redistributed equals a recipe for people to no longer pay for overpriced trash. The worst thing record companies ever did for music was doing away with singles and EPs: it got people out of the habit of going to the local record shop on Tuesday and made them wary of spending $18 on a one hit wonder and getting burned. I say it all the time: I prefer having the CD, the artwork, the physical artifact; however I really only buy albums if I can enjoy 85% of them. I'll buy a single online, but I buy albums at the local store (which has a better selection of music I like than iTunes or Amazon anyway).

People are applying the same logic to movies. If a movie is worth a dollar, they'll rent it from a Redbox and watch it. If it's worth fifteen, they'll buy a DVD. If it's worth less than five, but more than one, and they forsee themselves watching it occasionally, or if its a piece of crap that the kid loves enough to watch on repeat but not be careful about smudging with peanut butter, they'll rent it from a Redbox, or Netflix, or Blockbuster, rip it, and stick it on a burnable disc. Load it up with cool extra features, and if it's good enough, people will buy the original just to retain all that content without the extra work of making a real DVD from all the ripped clips. In short, my advice is to ADD QUALITY to the product. Make it worth shelling out the extra bucks.

Take the recent Pearl Jam reissue of Ten. They offered a few editions, some had the remix and the original only on CD, some had concert downloads included, etc. They offered a wide range of sets at varying price points, but to the real fan, they made a golden ticket deluxe edition (pictured), with vinyl and CD versions of the original mixes and remixes, bonus tracks never released, a double LP concert album with a digital download ticket for iPods, a DVD of the previously unreleased MTV Unplugged appearance, a composition-notebook formatted (and thick) scrapbook of the Ten tour, lyrics, notes, and memorabilia, photo prints, a huge poster, replica memorabilia, and so on. The band even spent half a day autographing boxed sets that were ordered through the fan club. They added value and original content, and were able to sell a TON of sets for $150+.

05 May, 2009 | Chris |