David Beach's Blog

New Uptones Album!!

My brother's band, The Uptones, have just finished their long awaited latest album - Skankin' Foolz Unite. This is a happy moment indeed! The Uptones have been around for over 20 years. They were part of the early Berkeley punk/ska and Gillman St. movement that launched Green Day, Operation Ivy, Rancid, Mr. T Experience, etc.

"Formed in 1981 in Berkeley while they were still in high school, The Uptones were the first band devoted to playing ska on the West Coast and played to skanking crowds all over the West. Several of their recordings were regional hits, and for a time they were the most popular band in the Bay Area."

I'm really happy for the band. The album sounds awesome. If you like Ska, the Two-Tone sound, or horn sections, check it out!

Listen to The Uptones - Skankin' Fools Unite

Humans - KLRB Interview

Humans - KLRB Interview

Humans was a Santa Cruz new wave, surf, punk band popular in the late 70's and early 80's. They were signed to The Police's label, I.R.S.. I was listening to XM Radio today and heard their only "hit" single called "I Live In The City" and it brought back a rush of memories. I was too young to see them or even know much about them when they were active, but my friends Todd Downing and Randy Hensel were into them so I followed along. We used to watch their long-form video album for "Happy Hour" as much as possible.

After hearing the song on XM, I had to see if I could find their recordings online. There's nothing. I have a 7" of their Play e.p. someplace, but I have no way of digitizing it anyway. The Humans are out out OUT of print.

I did find this awesome interview that a fellow Santa Cruzan digitized from an old cassette. I repost it here for your interest and enjoyment. It's pretty cool. This got me thinking though... more people need to do this. There's barely anything online pre 1993 (if we're lucky). We need more archivists out there. Thanks Dave Bryan.

New Y! Music Web Page Player

I've installed the new Yahoo! Music Player here. I couldn't think of a better way to demonstrate it than by linking to some of the award winning jingles Tim & Eric have made for some of your favorite commercials... enjoy! (it takes a sec for it to load, cause I have a lot of juicy crap on this page)

KFC
Kool Cigarettes
Taco Bell
Celebrex

You can also check it out at Swedelife (where you get actual music)

Top 10 Albums of 2007

Everyone does lists. The only traditional list I feel comfortable with is a music list. I don't think I saw ten movies this year, so albums are it. Here goes:

Top 10 Albums of 2007:

10. Dinosaur Jr. - Beyond
9. White Stripes - Icky Thump
8. Yeasayer - All Hour Cymbals
7. Black Lips - Good Bad Not Evil
6. Black Francis - Bluefinger
5. Okkervil River - The Stage Names
4. Jens Lekman - Night Falls Over Kortedala
3. LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
2. Radiohead - In Rainbows (download - limited time)
1. Flaming Lips - U.F.O's At The Zoo (what did you expect?)

Swedelife AlbumCast

It took me long enough, but I finally posted Swedelife's first albumcast. All thanks to insomnia. Insomnia's awesome!

Anyway, the album is The Dance of Antoine by The Slowest Train In The World.  It's one of my favorite albums of all time. It's definitely on my top 10 list. Up there with Daydream Nation and Double Nickels On The Dime. So it's thrilling to be able to be a part of it and to have the ability to share it with anyone who cares to listen.

Please check it out. I know I've been in self promotion mode lately, but this really does mean a lot to me. There is a single download of the albumcast which plays the entire thing straight through, there's also individual downloads of each song, a zip file of the album, and interviews about the recording of the album. There's also a digital booklet built using ScrabBlog.

If you have Songbird, it makes it that much easier to enjoy.

Saul Willams - Niggy Tardust

Saul Williams teamed up with Trent Reznor to create The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust. This album is available for download in similar fashion as the new Radiohead. Pay $5 or nothing... your choice. Worth checking out. The revolution will be not be DRMed!

Negativland - 180 D'Gs To The Future

Well boopaleep my mcnothing! Negativland has created one of the most original albums of all time. 180 D'Gs to the Future!

They hooked up with Detroit a Capella group 180 Gs to re-record Negativland's most interesting, popular, or controversial media manipulations entirely in doo-wop style a Capella. I don't know how else to describe it other than to say that it's brilliant.

Here's a Negativland favorite to give you a taste: Christianity Is Stupid... give up!

Flaming Lips Zaireeka Celebrates 10 Years

Throw a Zaireeka party October 28th!

A Good Week For The MP3

It's been a good week for the good ol' mp3. A good month really, what with the opening of Amazon's music download store.

Our own Ian Rogers did some testifying of the truth with his post called Convenience Wins, Hubris Loses, And Content vs. Context, A Presentation For Some Music Industry Friends. I highly recommend taking a look. Ian finally said so well what needed to be said about DRM and the crime of control that the music and Web industries have perpetrated upon the consumer.

"8 years. How much opportunity have we lost in those 8 years? How much naivety and hubris did we have when we said, “if we build it they will come”? What did we spend? And what did we gain? We certainly didn’t gain mass user adoption or trust, two prerequisites to success on the Internet.

Inconvenient experiences don’t have Web-scale potential, and platforms which monetize the gigantic scale of the Web is the only way to compete with the control you’ve lost, the only way to reclaim value in the music industry. If your consultants are telling you anything else, they are wrong...

But this isn’t news, nor is it particular to the digital age. History tells us: convenience wins, hubris loses. “Who is going to want a shitty quality LP when these 78s sound so good? Who wants a hissy cassette when they have an awesome quadrophonic system? Who wants digitized music on discs now that we have Dolby on our cassettes? Who wants to listen to compressed audio on their computers?” ANSWER: EVERYONE.  Convenience wins, hubris loses.  [check Fredric Dannen’s comments here]

I’m here to tell you today that I for one am no longer going to fall into this trap. If the licensing labels offer their content to Yahoo! put more barriers in front of the users, I’m not interested. Do what you feel you need to do for your business, I’ll be polite, say thank you, and decline to sign. I won’t let Yahoo! invest any more money in consumer inconvenience. I will tell Yahoo! to give the money they were going to give me to build awesome media applications to Yahoo! Mail or Answers or some other deserving endeavor. I personally don’t have any more time to give and can’t bear to see any more money spent on pathetic attempts for control instead of building consumer value.  Life’s too short.  I want to delight consumers, not bum them out."

In related news, Radiohead released their latest album, In Rainbows... online only, MP3, and pay what you like. Finally free of a record contract and always game to mix it up, Radiohead does something bold. It's a controversial move and only a band like Radiohead can take advantage of the scheme, but I'm glad they did it.

Since 1994 I've been saying that music should be free. I turned my record label into a not-for-profit online museum and began giving away the music. I released the first downloadable album on the Internet then and haven't stopped believing that music wants to be set FREE of the constraints that the industry has placed upon it. I'm not against commerce. I'm against closed, constrained, and contained experiences that control convenience... "C" is for Convenience.

So it's been a good week for the MP3. Thankfully both the Radiohead news and Ian's post have been getting a lot of attention. I can't wait to see what's next... maybe I'll get to play with that possibility as well.

 

Shadia!

I wish I knew more about Shadia and her music.

The Sound of String Theory

and the dimensions of music...

I'm not going to pretend to know squat about theoretical physics, but the subject of multiple dimensions and the relativity of time came up this evening in my dining room. There were burritos involved.

What's the frequency Kenneth?

Music is a series of vibrations and frequencies. Frequencies are vibrations. Every moment in time, and every action we take is like a pebble thrown in a pond with the reverberations flowing from that single point. The concentric vibrations move in all directions to infinity. Is it possible that each degree of the circle represents a different dimension or direction of time?

Dr. Michio Kaku speaks of other dimensions as a koi pond. Staring down at the fish swimming, graceful, and colorful, they live in a world only they understand. In their own dimension. But if you were to reach into that pond and lift a fish out, what has happened? That fish has left its world and is now in yours. If the fish had the ability to consider what has happened to it, what might it think? To the koi, it might think that it has been transported to a new dimension. And perhaps is has.

The discussion this evening brought all this up, but what intrigued me was the notion that music is more than entertainment. Creatures respond to music because it resonates on a molecular level.  The vibrations affect and harmonize with the essence of everything and is felt more than it is heard. But what if these vibrations can be absorbed before they exist in linear time? How would you respond? Or since everything is vibrating and vibrations are frequencies, could sound cure cancer?

Then we finished our burritos. Carnitas mmm,.

Rhino Records Blows It!

I'm no Deadhead. In fact I've never liked the Dead and can not see the appeal. Especially when they count Ann Coulter as part of their brood (my mind is bleeding just thinking about it). But I've always had a respect for their live show taping and sharing policy. Such a great thing. Look at that photo on the left with all the microphones... very cool.

Recently dead.net relaunched under the direction and ownership of Rhino Records. Rhino is now in charge of the Dead assets. The new site is pretty sweet with an emphasis on community and sharing. Exactly how it should be. It was even built using the open source publishing system Drupal. Again, perfect for a Grateful Dead site.

One of the sections of the new site is called "The Tapers Section". Perfect! This section featured downloadable mp3s of their shows each week. There could not be a more perfect marriage of the medium and communal the philosophy that the Dead stood for. Here's a quote:

"In this space, every Monday, you will find information on the recorded history of the Grateful Dead’s music as it pertains to that week, specifically focusing on the shows for that week, through the band’s 30 year performing history, that reside in the Grateful Dead’s storied tape vault. Although not everything is in there, with more than 1,600 of the band’s 2,400-odd shows represented, there is plenty about which to talk. Check back weekly for new entries and insight into the vault, as well as exclusive audio clips relating to that week in the Grateful Dead’s recorded history."

The site gave the music away to be listened to at any time, just the way the band intended even before there was an Internet.

Then came yesterday and this announcement:

"Please note that beginning today all Taper’s Section audio streams are served via a new media player in both Windows Media Audio and QuickTime Audio formats."

Take a wild guess as to what happened? Total and complete outrage, bitterness, and chaos:

"up your's rhino", "the ice cream man is not happy. Bad move Rhino" "BOO RHINO!", "I tried to use the wma format choice and it won't play im my FX browser or in IE 7.The Quicktime format works--is this my problem or DeadNet's? I join the line of supplicants requesting you to reinstate the 192kmp3 downloadable links--they provided delicacies with a quality rarely matched by any other source.", after 10 min no sounds in the plugin
this is the end.", Please tell me this is a joke.  Please reconsider on the side of music and what the Dead stand for!", "QUIT BUYING EVERYTHING AND ANYTHING RHINO RELEASES FROM NOW ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!", "

Why did you have to do this?

... Jerry would definately NOT be happy with this move........." , "...I think it is important to point out that just as the war on drugs has failed, this site will also eventually fail by driving those in search of quality Dead music to other sites and places where we can get our fix...", "window pops up but nothing plays :(", "Your company creates the problem by making it hard on fans by doing little things like this. I come here every Monday and dl the tunes and it makes my day. My computer won't even load the tunes now. I don't feel I am owed anything, but what is up with this corporate nonsense.", "the new format SUCKS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

 

This is just another example of the music industry getting it wrong. But it's worse than that. They got it right the first time, then some idiot or group of idiots who know nothing of the medium decided to fuck things up. The music industry and major labels deserve what they are getting because of decisions like this. They don't understand the medium and are too out of touch to ever get it. They should do the world a favor and quit their jobs now so that people who actually have a clue can step in and make things right.

I love music, but I HATE THE MUSIC BUSINESS.  This makes it difficult to love music. Shit, sometimes I wish I was deaf.

Rhino, I used to love you too. You brought me Dr. Demento records and the like. You were weird and cool. What the hell happened? Can you help me go deaf? I want to be deaf!