A Barking Dog

There’s a post over on ORA from Derek Sivers, founder of CD Baby. Sivers is a muso come tech geek that started one of the first independent music retail sites on the Internet. From the lovely city of Portland, Oregon….

Sivers recently took a visit to Japan to get a first hand account of the independent music scene there. I haven’t been over there in the last five years, though always like going. Though when I go, it’s usually with established artists as the cost of mounting any extensive touring there is pretty steep. Most bands do Tokyo and perhaps Osaka, though I’ve had the pleasure of gigging in much of Japan. One don’t miss stop in Toyko is taking the subway to the Ginza station and checking out the Sony showroom as well as Akihabara. Though the Lexington Queen and either of the Gas Panics were good to go particularly for us gaijin. I reckon the kids might have different hip spots these days.

He touches on many of the cultural differences, including the relative lack of online commerce, better cellphone penitration (wireless in the US is an embarassment) and still new availability of downloading music. I enjoyed his perspective and only reinforced my thought that the US is in a far different place than the rest of the world with respect to music distribution. Couple Siver’s Japan experience with what I just read about the Dutch preparing to impose a rather steep copyright tax on MP3 players it makes me realize how far ahead we are of the curve with respect to online music distribution. It also makes me wonder if cultural differences in other parts of the world will limit digital distribution of music.

The All American icon Howard Johnson’s restaurant in Times Square will soon close. The building has been sold and will likely be converted into big box retail. During my younger, low budget touring days it was the first place I ate on my first trip to Manhattan. It was in the early ’80s and we were staying at the Milford Plaza over on Eighth. Hojos was the only place with which I was familiar and that I could afford at the time. My first few times into the city really turned me off. I didn’t dig the rooms, I didn’t dig the vibe. I hated going there. A few tours later a backline guy I was touring with, James Ranft or the Beatdude as we called him, showed me how to get out and enjoy New York. I’ve been hooked every since and over the years stopped in at Hojos many times. My last visit to that Hojos was during my last visit to the city in November. We were staying around the corner, a different corner, at the W. Touring is a little better these days. It was early, the trendy bar at the W wasn’t yet happening and the drink prices were steep. We needed a place to grab a quick bite and formulate what we were going to do that night (we ended up closing the W bar…) so we hit the Hojos.

Guess I’ll have to find a new breakfast place when we stay near Times Square….

This coming Thursday the PNW AES section is hosting “Everything You Wanted to Know About Gain Structure” presented by Mark Rogers and JJ Johnston. It’s at Mackie in Woodinville (which is really Loud Technologies, but old habits die hard with us old guys…) at 7:30 pm. The AES section folks usually have soft drinks and cookies or snacks.

From the PNW AES mailing list….

Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Gain Structure
With Mark Rogers and JJ Johnston

How do you get it right?
Join us on April 28, 2005 when two of our resident experts on such
matters, Mark Rogers ably assisted by JJ Johnston, cut through the fog
and deliver a definitive presentation that dispels the myths,
witchcraft, and misconceptions of this important topic.

Personally, I think I could use a bit more Witchcraft in my life….

There will be a meeting with Bill Whitlock in May. That should be good as well.

The world of megaconglomerate commercial radio is alive and well. Just in case you had any doubts. Sometime earlier this evening Infinity Broadcasting bailed on “classic alternative” station K-Rock Seattle. I noticed leaving the gig this evening when BTO’s “Let It Roll” replaced my normal diet of ’90s grunge rock classics. The treat of BTO was followed by a Mr Radio Voice guy tag, “JACK FM, WE PLAY WHAT WE WANT.” This most recent change comes about a year and a half after Infinity took on the once popular alt radio station KNDD “The-End” in a tussle for the now middle aged (or at least nearing it) grunge rock holdouts that have got real jobs, kids, morgages and SUVs.

Be it the cause or the effect of satellite radio it’s starting to be a trend. We were once shocked to pay for TV that we got over the air for free. Based on satellite radio trends, more of us are willing to pay for radio also. I currently subscribe to sat radio though largely listened to local radio, in the form of K-ROCK. This was only because I enjoyed the local talent and the playlist wasn’t too heinous. Sat radio is great for long trips to the track or the off occasions of a non racing road trip.

Looks like I’ll have to turn my K-Rock preset into the preset for my sat tuner. With any luck, Andy, Jodi and Steve The Producer will turn up on sat radio.

On Friday Trent Reznor released a Nine Inch Nails tune in Apple Loop format. The single, “Hand That Feeds” is available in a limited license for non commerical, no redistribution, personal use using Apple’s Garageband 2. It’s not a full multitrack release (for example the drums are mixed to a stereo track) but it’s enough to practice a bit of mixing or remix Trent in your favorite musical style. It’s addicting, I’ve spent a nice chunk of the weekend tweaking on it brushing up and my Garageband chops.

It says it requires Garageband 2 but it will work on Garageband 1, you just need to dismiss some error dialogs as each track is initialized and loaded. Of course, you don’t get any of the cool new Garageband 2 features to tweak. I’ve been holding off on my upgrade as the entire suite of new iLife releases are going to be included in the new release of OS X, called “Tiger”, due in little less than two weeks. Saavy users have found the Amazon rebate for 35 bucks for orders prior to May 31st.

EDIT: William Mortensen commented that now the iLife bundle will not be shipping with Tiger, though my pals down that way say for the time being, iLife will still be bundled with hardware. Thanks for the heads up…..

One thing I’ve noticed spending so much time outside the country, is that in many places it seems to be easier to locate public, if not free access outside the US. Last week I returned from a trip to Jacksonville and due to the ground transport arrangements, I had almost a couple of hours to kill. It’s bad enough the concessions were nearly non existent at the gate, but there was no Internet to be found. Contrast that to the hotel which not only offered free WiFi, but free ethernet connectivity as well. Pretty much most of the hotels I’m in these days have some sort of broadband, (airports too) though the fancy hotels still want 10 bucks a day and some of the more modest hotels are including it gratis.

At one point last year even though we had a production we were flying from date to date (which is a whole other story in itself…) and throughout much of Europe, even in the smallest Italian and Spanish airports, there was WiFi. Not always free, but generally always available. Even the tour of Mexico I was on 18 months ago it was pretty easy to get broadband, or at least an Internet cafe or hotel business center with good access.

Seems as though my feeling “the rest of the world is better connected than us” is at least somewhat justified. In a report issued last September, the US has fallen to 13th place in the per capita penetration of broadband Internet connectivity. Noted technorati Om Malik is trying to put a spin on this in that our percentage of penetration is low, but the raw numbers are high. He notes that “It’s easy to wire a country the size of say Florida, but it’s darn hard to wire-up a continent.” One flaw in that reasoning is that the US doesn’t have a national program to deploy and develop connectivity offers. In the States each area is controlled and limited by ILECs and local cable providers. The CLECs have mostly checked out after the bubble and still use the wire and infratructure of ILECs anyway and don’t have access to the cable networks. Could these other countries be gaining faster because they aren’t burdened by disparate standards by monopolistic incombants and outdated Federal laws? Could it be that they just have abetter handle on it than we do? Companies like Orange and Vodaphone are quick to adapt offerings and deploy new technologies whereas over here companies like Verizon, Qwest and Comcast have death grips on the technology and have been slow to invest and deploy the technology.

Although they haven’t blown networking like they did with wireless service. Well, not yet anyway though they seem to be trying…

I heard about a week ago that Peavey was getting ready to close the former Crest New Jersey plant that built Pro Series X001 amps and at one time Century series consoles, including the LM and LMx monitor desks. Word is that those lines will not be replaced. That’s not such a bad thing, as they already have other models that perform better. I’ll take an X8 any day over a Century or LMx. I also heard that Peavey was going to significantly trim the Crest high end pro offerings, though I have not been able to confirm that either.

Word is if you have the original Pro Series amps and Century consoles, you better start stocking up on parts. Contact Peavey to see what the availability is but my source indicated that over the next few quarters parts for those discontinued lines will be difficult to find. If any Peavey/Crest people would like a chance to address/clarifiy what I heard, let me know.