I'm in a rocking mood these days. Especially UK rock and roll. New and old.
Before i left for my west coast trip I loaded up my macbook with The Who, Stones, the Alarm, Hard-Fi, Editors and one of my absolute favorites, The Clash.
So here is Death or Glory
from London Calling
The song, So Sad About Us, was written by The Who in 1966 and was covered by The Jam.
Here is Paul Weller from The Jam and Pete singing it together a few years back. Absolutely fantastic.
Several years ago I simply gave up on the radio. I decided it wasn't for me. Music on the radio felt stale and I couldn't stand the commercials.
So I decided to listen to my personal music collection as a substitute for radio. It began with a big honking server that stored my Mp3 collection. Even though we love our Sonos and mp3 server, it's not a system to discover new music. It's just a fancy home networked ipod in many ways.
Music discovery for me nowadays is practically 100% online. Places like Hype Machine, Project Playlist, various mp3 blogs, Last.fm give me more than i could imagine.
But I can't get any of that internet radio goodness in the car or on my home audio system. For our cars, we are satellite radio subscribers. Lauren has XM radio. I have SIRIUS in my car. It's better than terrestrial radio but in many ways it's still lame.
The big problem with broadcast radio (satellite or terrestrial) is that it's broadcast. It's one-way. You can't share it with friends. You can't comment on it. You can't keep history. You can't create a playlist. You can't personalize it. And broadcast will never give you the range of internet radio content. Even satellite radio, with all of their channels, has a limited playlist per channel.
The broadcast radio industry is trying to catch up. HD is smart. And they recently agreed on an iTunes-based tagging service. Linking broadcast with the web is a good idea. It's certainly better than my current method of tagging the radio :)
HD radio and satellite radio feel like a band-aid. it's just an interim step while we wait for the inevitable. We want a full internet radio experience in our cars, on our mobile phones and on our home entertainment systems.
That's what I want. Give me Radio 2.0
On Sunday we were hanging around Harvard Square before dinner. There was this guy singing his heart out - playing one beatles song after another. It was great.
Even Ellie & James were taken by the music.
I wish my Curve could have captured video instead of just this photo.
The best song of his mini-set was Here Comes the Sun. Lauren and I were singing right along.
Here's George's version.
Last night Eric, Alan and I wanted to see Clap Your Hands Say Yeah at The Independent but they were sold out. So we ended up getting a beer in the Upper Haight. We had a fun night.
After I left the bar, I took a quick stroll through the Haight before catching a cab to my hotel. My first apartment in San Francisco was just a few blocks away from that neighborhood. It brought back a lot of memories.
I saw a bunch of guys clearly strung out on the street. Made me think of the old Velvet Underground song, I'm Just Waiting For the Man. Classic. Hard to believe it was recorded 40 years ago.
This morning I bought the tune from Amazon's new Mp3 store. Couldn't be easier.
Eddy Vedder has a new solo album for the movie Into the Wild. The soundtrack is coming out in a few weeks.
The single from this record is called "Hard Sun". It's so great. And it makes me want to see the movie.
Here it is. Enjoy.
It feels like I'm in San Francisco more and more these days.
I was just there 2 weeks ago and I'm flying out this evening for a few days.
And I'm making the trip again in another 2 weeks. Then Web 2.0.....
Maybe I don't need dopplr. I just need something that says SF [yes] [no]
;)
Yesterday I was feeling lousy and left the office earlier than usual. And then our little James was up from 1:30am-3am this morning. Ugh.
I don't know if he is getting new teeth or if he's getting sick.
But I'm feeling wiped out.
Time to get another espresso and play some rocking tunes. I've got too much stuff to do today.
Here's the single from the latest from the Shout Out Louds latest album called Our Ill Wills.
I'm loving this album.
I've always been a huge Echo & the Bunnymen fan.
My friend Jason makes fun of me for being stuck in the new wave stage longer than I'm supposed to.
Maybe it's part of the reason why I like Arcade Fire.
Anyway, here is a rocking cover of a Doors classic. Soul Kitchen by Echo & the Bunnymen (live).
Turn up your speakers.
I've been in a Ben Folds groove lately.
Listening to his music on my iPhone and Sonos a ton.
The album Speed Graphic is simply wonderful. The first song is a cover of The Cure's In Between Days.
Fantastic cover. His piano and originality are all over this track.
Here are a few more Ben Folds tunes from a playlist I created on Project Playlist. Enjoy.
I was listening to a mix of Arcade Fire tunes on Project Playlist last night.
Winn Butler from the band introduced one particular song and talked about how he first heard it on the radio and just couldn't get enough of it. Fantastic song. I hadn't heard it before.
It turns out the original song is by the Magnetic Fields and is called "Born on a Train". I actually liked the original version better. I agree with Winn though.
This song is magical.
I love when bands perform covers. Sometimes I like covers better than the original. Or at least as much.
Rebel, Rebel by David Bowie has been covered a bazillion times.
But the original is still the best.
Hard to believe this song was written in 1974. It was first released as a single and then appeared on the album Diamond Dogs. Amazing.
Turn it up. Way up.
I love music. One of these days I have to digitize some of the live recorded shows we did in high school and college. It's hilarious for many reaons.
Music is one of the reasons I've gone cold turkey this past week (more on that tomorrow).
And I'm a big-time user of a variety of music services (last.fm, projectplaylist, rhapsody, yottamusic and yes even itunes).
And I'm way into social networks too. I have a nice growing network on facebook, linkedin and the community from this blog.
The funny thing is that I don't have many friends on Last.fm. And I want that to change.
Here is my personal radio station from last.fm based on my music playback history
If you like these tunes than "friend" me on last.fm.
Or, if you are too lazy, send me an email with your last.fm user name and i'll friend you. Or just leave me a comment with your last.fm user name.
Easy enough for ya :)
These guys have been around for awhile but I only recently started listening to them.
I really like the song Pushover
and just ordered their latest record
I'm loving that the band makes their songs available for free on their website. Full length and high quality mp3s. And they have a group on flickr too.
Smart.
It's been a long time since I've listened to the Sex Pistols.
But Holidays in the Sun came on the radio today and I was transported back to my high school days.
Enjoy.
I've been listening to a lot of new music this year. And seeing shows by new artists.
But every now and then I love blasting the speakers with some good old rock and roll. Especially when it comes from roger, pete, john and keith.
Andrew was able to snag tickets so we're going to see Arcade Fire and LCD Soundsystem in Sept at Red Rocks in CO.
This show should be amazing.
I've never been to a show at Red Rocks but I heard it is something special. I remember as a kid watching this U2 video at Red Rocks. i'm sure it was a reason why I picked up my first electric guitar. The Beatles and Tenacious D have played there as well.
Anyone else going? More the merrier.
My current favorite tune from LCD Soundsystems latest album Sound of Silver
Enjoy.
Wow, these bands together will be incredible. I saw Arcade Fire back in May and would love to see them again.
Dear Andrew and/or Kimbal: we need to have our Sept BOD mtgs around the 17th :)
I was in LA last week. Stuck in traffic on the 405 and moving an inch/mile trying desperately to reach the 10 to make a mtg in Santa Monica. Even worse, I couldn't find a decent radio station on the dial. In my despair, i sent off a txt to twitter asking for radio station help in LA from my friends.
Fred came to the rescue on Twitter and suggested I tune to FM 103.1.
Awesome recommendation and a minute later I was jamming along to the Polyphonic Spree, David Bowie and Amy Winehouse. Then I heard a very cool, smooth reggae cover of You Keep Me Hanging On by Madness (original of course by the Supremes.)
This song is from the album The Dangermen Sessions, Vol. 1(which has some hits and misses). I added the tune to my summer party playlist.
Hope you enjoy it.
Updating our ipods workout playlists this morning.
Added a fresh batch of classic rock, indie and some 80's new wave. Last week listening to 1st Wave on Sirius I heard Whisper To A Scream by Icicle Works
Brought back lots of memories. Enjoy.
This is a really wonderful acoustic cover of Hyperballad by Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
The original is from the album Post by Bjork. Worthy addition to any collection.
Last night a friend of mine sent me a link to a 2005 NPR interview with Death Cab for Cutie.
Ben and the guys play a few live songs from the album Plans
NPR is still streaming the show but sadly no podcast. So, I had to use WireTap to create this (lossy) mp3 but its still awesome. Enjoy.
Saturday morning happy 80's music.
Oblivious by Aztec Camera. Enjoy.
After the NNN board mtg, Fred Seibert asked me what music we're listening to these days.
Some new and some old was my response. And a lot of "old new" stuff too.
Ben Gibbard seems to frequently be playing on our speakers at the Sabet household. We're not burnt out by any means.
Here's a great acoustic live performance of Ben playing To Sing For You.mp3 (which is a Donovan cover)
This song then moves right into "brand new colony".
Enjoy.
We just got back from seeing Arcade Fire at the Orpheum tonight.
Oh my god. The music was amazing and these guys just rocked boston. the fans were also fantastic.
They played old and new stuff from Neon Bible
I wish I had my camera but I forgot it. So I grabbed this version of the song "Rebellion" so you can get a feel for what this band is like live. Update: Previous video was taken down so here's another one of the band live.
I recently picked up The Sandworm Cometh
It's a collection of their early songs that were never previously released.
If you are a MMJ fan than you will want this album in your collection
Lots of great songs. I really love this cover of RocketMan from this cd. It's grown on me a lot.
Enjoy.
I've blogged about Streampad in the past
The Streampad player has lived on my side bar on this blog for over a year or so. You can play the mp3s that I have on myblog with the player.
Streampad had built a Java desktop app that makes your home music collection available anywhere thru a web browser. And Streampad offers a bunch of other community features on top of this service (last.fm support, google maps, friends/profiles etc). But while the web service for Streampad has been so cool - the desktop/home server version was not simple.
Dan Kantour who is the founder of Streampad emailed me last week about the new version of the Streampad Desktop that is done in Adobe Apollo. It's the first time I've used an Apollo based app.
I finally got around last night to installing Apollo on my home mac server. it was a breeze to install and set up the new Streampad Desktop to scan my iTunes library. Now I can access my library anywhere through a standard web browser. Works great. This is what it looks like inside of a browser.
I can also configure Streampad Desktop to have up to 5 guests access/stream my home collection. Very helpful.
Nice job Dan!
Leander Kahey writes the Cult of Mac for Wired. His latest article "Why Steve Jobs will never offer music subscriptions" caught my eye.
Since Apple has been the single holdout in offering a subscription services I think this topic is quite interesting.
But I couldn't disagree more with Leander when he says (especially the last sentence).
A lot of people tell the same story. Even die-hard fans of subscription services don’t use them for music discovery. They use Pandora or Last.fm, they hear tunes on the radio or read about bands in magazines. Then they go to their subscription service to download it. I've yet to find anyone who uses a subscription service to find new music.
I use iTunes to buy music frequently. The DRM hassle is a problem for me. However, its the easiest way to buy tunes to load on our ipods. And I often buy tv shows from iTunes before I leave for a cross country flight.
But subscription services like Sirius, Rhapsody (using yottamusic of course) and last.fm is a big part of how I discover new music. I get recommendations from friends in my social network on those services and I also discover similar artists to those I already enjoy because my music history is autoscrobbled.
I somewhat agree with Leander's other point comparing music to drugs. We do tend to obsess on a single artist or tune or album for awhile before we need another hit. I've been in a Ben Kweller & Old 97s funk for awhile and I just can't shake my addiction. But at the same time I love mixing it up and listening to some oldies too. Thats the beauty of having an ipod -- gigabytes of tunes available wherever you are so you can mix it up whenever you want.
I guess I'm not too surprised that Apple hasn't launched a subscription service yet. I think they will when the business model makes sense (ie better licensing terms) and they can nail the user experience.
I think the bigger opportunity for Apple is to offer community features inside and outside of iTunes.
I've been listening to a lot of new music by known and unknown artists lately. Discovering new tunes is a blast.
But this morning I woke up and wanted to hear some classic rock.
The first tune I picked was Peace Frog
by The Doors. This song is from the album Morrison Hotel
Is this record really 37 years old? Anyway, great song and great album.
Enjoy.
I've been using YottaMusic for awhile. It's a great front end for Rhapsody. My yottamusic profile says that I've played 2200 tracks on YottaMusic.
Back in November I suggested to Luke on their forums and email that we need a way to sync the YottaMusic library and playlists with Rhapsody. Then any playlist on YottaMusic would be accessible on our Sonos
Well yesterday Luke emailed me and told me that YottaMusic now syncs with Rhapsody. If you want to give it a try this new beta feature then go here for the easy steps to sync. It's a one time thing. And it works great.
YottaMusic started out as a super cool search & discovery front end to Rhapsody. Then they added Last.fm support and now Rhapsody sync. This has become one of my favorite online services.
Well done.
We are big fans of Ben Kweller in our house. Even little Ellie sings along to "Sundress" which is adorable.
Last month when we saw Ben live he talked about his grandma starring in his new upcoming video for "Penny on a traintrack". I showed the kids this morning and they were howling and dancing along.
Awesome video. I really dig the exchange b/w Ben and his grandma at the end of the video. Enjoy.
I've been listening to The Jam for a long time.
They just rock.
Here's a great tune. In the City . Turn it up and enjoy.
It's hard to keep a secret
In a world where you talk to entrepreneurs and VCs every day you hear stuff. Sometimes really cool stuff.
But it's important to keep your word and keep secrets.
I'm so glad this story broke about Yahoo and my friend Tim Bucher's company Zing. I saw a demo of the Yahoo Music integration at Zing's offices back in January but I had to keep mum about until now. It's really a beautiful product and I'm looking forward to getting one.
Congrats Tim.
The last of the snow & ice seems to be gone now
This tune seems timely.
Here Comes the Sun by Belle & Sebastian (original by John and Paul).
Arcade Fire has a new single coming out next month. The b-side has a wonderfully mellow single called Broken Window
Enjoy.
(pre-order here)
Thanks to The Hype Machine, I found this very cool cover of Age of Consent by Arcade Fire (original by New Order). I hope they play it when we see them in May.
Enjoy.
This morning I'm making a CD for a friend that wants a mellow playlist.
So many songs, so little time.
We are still playing a lot of Old 97's in our house/car. Rhett Miller, the lead singer/guitarist, has a solo career as well but I never really got into it until recently. I'm digging his last album, The Believer.
I picked Question as the first track on this cd i'm putting together. Great tune. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
We are going to see Arcade Fire in May at the Orpheum Theater. Many thanks to Steve for getting us the tix. The latest album, Neon Bible, is so sweet. Really looking forward to the show.
Looks like a lot of other people agree.
Damien Rice's first album was overplayed or at least I overplayed it. I haven't listened to him in a long time.
But in my day of all things Irish, I checked out his latest album 9 (amazon link) on YottaMusic/Rhapsody.
Here's the first track - 9 Crimes . If you like this song you will really enjoy the album.
It's a cold gray day in Boston with a foot of snow from yesterdays dumping. We have this album playing on our Sonos now and sipping on cafe lattes.
Perfect.
In honor of my redheaded wife who is 50% irish and my irish kids, here's a rocking tune from the best irish band at an irish castle. The opening of this song when the Edge hits the first power chord at the same time as the camera shot of the crowd in lights is so cool.
Internet radio sites are about to get hit with a very big bill. I heard about this last week but it didn't sink it at the time. I guess I didn't take it seriously. I mean why would the labels kill off something that is so popular with end users. What would be the logic in that?
Well it looks much more serious than I thought. This is actually ugly news. I've become addicted to internet radio. I recently upgraded to the pay version of last.fm which might be the only way to enjoy the service in the future if this happens.
Internet radio on our Sonos is a joy. We never listen to local terrestrial radio anymore. One of my favorite internet radio stations, SomaFM, is now asking their listeners for donations. They spell out the impact of the new royalties on their site.
The idea of these internet sites shutting down is depressing.
Dan Kantour points out a site called Save the Streams that has a petition to help stop this rate hike.
Pass the link along.
Last night Lauren and I saw David Wilcox at Club Passim in Harvard Square. I think the place holds 120 people max and it was sold out with loyal David Wilcox fans young and old.
We love his music and lyrics. His recorded albums are nothing compared to his live shows where his storytelling and humor and gift is something special. We've seen him several times now on the east coast and the west coast. The smaller the room the better. For the guitarists out there his alternate tunings on every song is amazing as well.
This little video clip I took last night doesn't do it justice but anyway.
I was flying around our music collection on Sonos this morning and I came to The Trashcan Sinatras first cd The Cake. I always loved this album.
Here is the first song. Obscurity Knocks
Enjoy
We saw Ben Kweller last night in Boston.
Lauren's favorite song from the night was Penny on the Train Track. I think my favorite tune from the night was The Rules.
He rocked.
Lauren and I and some friends are going to see Ben Kweller this Tuesday night at Avalon in Boston.
I'm really looking forward to it. He's playing with Gomez. (Does anyone know who is opening? I couldn't find it online anywhere.)
Anyway, here's video of Ben playing an acoustic version of Sundress. This is guy is so cool. Down to earth and just plays his heart out. Enjoy.
I've been listening to a lot of older tunes lately. Music that I listened to in high school and college.
And while I enjoy covers its sometimes better to listen to the original version.
Another girl, another planet (best if you turn up your speakers)
This song has been covered by the Replacements, Blink-182, Mighy Lemon Drops and others.
But the original is the best in my opinion.
XM and SIRIUS want to merge. I don't know if the deal will happen or not but as a SIRIUS customer I hope it does.
I didn't think I was going to like satellite radio. A year ago I picked up a new car and it came with SIRIUS built in and a free 30 day trial. By the end of the 30 days I was hooked. Commercial free, subscription music is great. I also love getting the track info. It's funny to pay for radio but I'm a happy subscriber. My favorite channels are The Coffee House (Channel 30) and Alt Nation (Channel 21).
But there are areas that need improvement:
Programming. They need to beef up the playlists. Sometimes they get into a rut and the playlists feel stale. Feels like it happens every few weeks.
Products. The combined company should doubledown with Zing and ship more killer products. I wish other service providers worked with startups like SIRIUS did with Zing.
Better Internet services. I'd love to see better internet functionality/API needed. Sonos support would be sweet. Build community around the online offering. Current forum is weak.
I'm really thinking about this as a consumer. I want satellite radio as a long term viable service.
There are others that are better at following this deal as a prospective public investor. My friend Howard is pretty negative on this deal and he's a smart guy.
Update: Jeff Jarvis has a great link that spells why satellite radio has arrived.
I was first introduced to The Jam sometime high school. I can't remember exactly but I'm sure it
was probably my friend Greg or Pete that made me a mixed tape and I heard Paul Weller's voice for the first time.
Unfortunately The Jam isn't on Rhapsody but here's one of my favorite tunes by the band. That's Entertainment.
If you like this song than do yourself a favor and buy this album from Amazon.
Last.fm is a big part of how I discover new music. The community is amazing. But it only keeps track if you are listening to tunes on your PC/Mac.
Probably the biggest bummer is that it doesn't track Sonos activity. Hopefully the Sonos folks are working on this (and a better search app). It shouldn't be too hard. Luke at YottaMusic added Last.fm support just a few days after I sent him an email asking him for this (those guys are awesome by the way).
In the meantime it would be cool if someone created a web service that allowed users to manually enter their musicstreams into last.fm. MOG allows for manual entry for their service which is great but I want it for last.fm.
It would be a temporary hack but anyone addicted to Last.fm and listening to music outside of their of their PC/Mac (e.g. sonos, ipod, satellite radio, etc) would get a lot more value from the last.fm community.
Today is my birthday.
Having a birthday at the end of a vacation week with my family feels good. And this song feels right.
In My Life by Richie Havens.
I love the original by John and Paul but this cover by Richie Havens is pretty special to me.
Anyway, I hope you like it as much as I do.
My irish/italian wife was itching to hear live irish music. So last night we went to The Burren in Davis Square, ordered a few pints ofGuinness and enjoyed some irish music. Lively crowd, happy music. It was really fun.
Afterwards we had a late dinner at a place n
