showing posts in music
The first episode of Mountain Pine Beats should be broadcasting from CIDO Creston tomorrow (Thursday) evening at 9pm (Mountain Time). CIDO streams live on the web, and I’ll probably have it up on the podcast by friday night. Maybe. I’m not sure what I’ll play, but I’ve got a few ideas.
I should link to muxtape, in part to celebrate it’s brilliantness as the best-yet incarnation of a potent concept, in part in appreciation for it’s effective design (design in the good sense) and in part to remind myself to make better use of it in the few remaining days I have umbilically ubiquitous internet connectivity.
Almost a year ago I went on-air for the first time. 30-odd shows later, and I’m already regretting not having the show after I graduate in december.
But that’s a ways off yet. Last night I submitted email proposals for not 1 but 2 new radio shows to not 1 but 2 radio stations. (Including CIDO Creston!)
And then I went to see Mike Doughty play at the pig. It was jam packed by people who knew all the words. Who knew?
Peppermill Records is a little indie outfit based in Terrace, and run in the off-season by planter Peter Krahn. Peter has laboured mightily to bring together a massive compilation of music by planters, for planters and yes, of planters.
It’s cheaper than Outland bidding on a bladed ontario hedgerow block. It’s free.
If you’re a planter then you probably know some of the performers, or know somebody who knows them, or have unknowingly worked fill over top of their hopelessly j-rooted trees from a few seasons back, or they are right now working fill over your hopelessly j-rooted trees from a few seasons back.
And yes, it includes what may still be the greatest planting song of all time.
I’ve been emailing back and forth with Peter since he wanted to use some of my photos for a gallery. (I’m pleased he picked out a couple I took in ’03 with a ziplocked disposable. I forgot about those.) A few weeks back I got excited and played the radio debut of a couple of the tracks. Since then Peter has locked in a bunch of new numbers and officially released the whole thing to the winds.
Plug yer ipod into the crewcab speakers, roll down the windows and blare it into the blasted ex-wilderness like some kind of misguided call to prayer.
Turns out wcbn’s digital archive stretches all the way back to 2005! Apparently, it went live at 7pm on the 3rd of July, ’05. Unlike these heady days of fat pipes and hi-fi, back in 2005 radio was stored in 19kbps .ogg format. Here it is, as a vaguely historical curiosity.
It sounds as though the DJ was not aware of his involvement in that historic moment. Probably nobody told him.
Chances are your player can’t play .ogg. Because chances are you use wonderful itunes. It’s not that it would cost money for Apple to license .ogg and build it into itunes. Ogg is free. It’s not that .ogg is inferior to .mp3 or .mp4 or whatever. In fact, it’s probably better. Apple just doesn’t like things which are open and thus can’t be artificially constricted as a business model. Or maybe it’s just the Apple personality. As Steven Levy famously lied in his 1984 book Hackers, the hacker ethic of openness and sharing has always been central to the Apple Computer corporation.
Man, did I get onto a radio format rant there again? How does that happen.
Anyhow, I would put an online player in to play it for you right from the post, except my player doesn’t play .ogg. Because it’s flash-based, and flash is made by Adobe. It’s not that it it would cost Adobe anything to build .ogg in….
I’m pretty sure I was in a bar the other night, lauding Mike Doughty with another drunk friend. As I recall my friend brought him up, not me, which was great because I’ve been trying to harangue people about Mike Doughty less. Also great is that I think my friend told me he’s coming through town next month. And she bought tickets.
Today I was searching for chords to 40 Grand in the Hole, and discovered Mr. Doughty has a blog and writes a mean random blog post.
“So many fights are about something so, so old; nothing to do with your boyfriend/girlfriend. I feel sometimes like a civil war re-enactor; you were you just a moment ago, but suddenly I’ve cast you as the Confederacy, slash, my Mom!”
Which incidentally translates into: he’s got a new album on the cooker.
“Life’s not always like they tell you in the fashion magazines.”
— Bruce Cockburn, Outside A Broken Phone Booth With Money In My Hand
I don’t take advantage of the local music scene nearly enough around here, but last night I got lured out by a no-cover early-doors My Dear Disco gig at Live at PJs. This is a quick review: good.
The band’s “hey wow great crowd” stage banter sounded sincere, so maybe they don’t inspire the same heated dance implosion everywhere they go, but I can’t think why they wouldn’t. In retrospect, I guess the last time I saw people grooving that hard during the sound check was Tabla Beat Science tuning up at a world music festival in the California gold country foot hills. So yes, it may have been an especially willing crowd. But these guys deploy the basic palette of dance-pop with a really competent inventiveness, all fired up with genuine post-ironic hipster glee. And their special weapon (hold B button and move joystick right twice) is to reveal their second keyboardist as an all-of-sudden champion Irish bag-piper, playing an electrified kit. Good trick that. Taken altogether, I haven’t lost that much sweat on a dancefloor in a while.
Their studio material lacks a certain personality that comes from seeing them in-context, but it’s certainly catchy enough that if you’re into catchy, you might want to have a go. They do succeed in dragging some clever new skin to the old ceremony of electro-pop. They’ve got some files on their website and myspace.
On the down side, I think I screwed up my back.
The Federal Highway Administration of the Department of Transportation brings you this excellent list of road songs. For official reference.
Includes lyrics for most songs. If you have questions about roads, you go to the Highways Administration. So it makes sense that if you have questions about road songs…
Dear Heather. wtf?
I guess that’s what happens when a music legend fails to die young. They reach a point of for-grantedness where even their heavy fans can miss it when they slide an occasional album out. But seriously, it’s 3 1/2 years old? Where was I in 2004?
