Bonne Nouvelle is a blog I check out now and then. Run by Le Monde, the blog’s mission is to highlight good stuff – things that make you feel happy and hopeful about life. As they put it, “1001 petits trucs qui peuvent rendre la vie plus gaie.”
PRS Guitarbud is advertised as “the guitarist’s interface for iPhone.” Over at the PRS Cables blog, there’s a post up that says this: “The best part is…. I am playing LOUD… and my wife hears nothing!”
Well, I got excited about all that, but unfortunately the cable’s not really working for me. Something is coming through it, because I can hear a sort of spotty signal in the headphones when I hook it up with the PRS JamAmp app. But that spotty signal isn’t registering on the Voice Memos indicator, as it’s supposed to. I don’t know what’s up. Either I haven’t got it hooked up right, or the cable’s junk.
As for the PRS app, the effects seem pretty weak to me, but again, maybe I’m doing something wrong. I’ll keep tinkering. So far, it’s not looking worth the 40 clams for cable and app combo.
On my recent travels, I only had one moment where I was glued to a computer (not including the iPhone): January 14, when tickets for Trey Anastasio’s February 9 gig at the 930 Club went on sale to the general public. At around 9:55am, five minutes before the on sale time, I logged on to the 930 Club’s ticket vendor. I manically refreshed until, shortly after 10am, the screen popped up where you could enter your information to buy tickets.
But no dice. Either the show sold out in like six seconds, or it was all bullshit, and there were never any tickets available for the public to begin with.
Either way, the secondary market offers no comfort at the moment. Over at StubHub, prices start at $90 presently. I’m a fan of both Trey’s solo stuff and the 930 Club, but I wouldn’t pay much more than $50 for that show.
Since I started tweeting my daily music intake, I’ve wanted an iPhone app that would simply transmit song and band information directly from the iPod to Twitter. I’ve found one in iShareTunes. Maybe Blip.fm will come out with something similar, so I can start having fun and playing DJ like MPomy.
Whatever you’re thinking of tweeting is probably bullshit anyway.
Via Le Monde‘s blog, “Bonne Nouvelle” (le blog optimiste):
Exit le cliché du pilleur qui ne file pas un rond aux artistes. En réalité, ceux qui téléchargent le plus de musique illégalement dépensent en moyenne deux fois plus en achats de musique, que ceux qui ne passent jamais par le peer to peer.
Metro shuffle, Primus edition: ‘Jerry was a Race car Driver,’ followed by ‘Pudding Time.’ Primus isn’t a band I listen to regularly, but every so often their music seriously hits the spot.
I heard it was you,
Talking ’bout a world where all is free.
It just couldn’t be,
and only a fool would say that.
- Steely Dan
That was the first song that popped up on my iPod yesterday morning, and it fit perfectly with a few reflections I’d been having on last weekend. The 9/12 right wing demonstrations have been pretty well picked over by now, and there’s part of me that’s reluctant to pay much more attention to that crowd, but here’s my view on it for the record.
FBdN son #1 and I set out on Saturday morning for the U.S. Botanic Garden, a lovely spot right near the Capitol Building. I had forgotten the demonstrations were even happening until I saw, from the bus window, a couple of sign-bearers headed for the White House. Then our bus, which normally would have gone down Pennsylvania Avenue, was forced to detour.
We ended up over by Union Station, so we got off and walked over toward the lawn in front of the Capitol. That meant we had to cross the street, right through the parade. Right into the path of the crazies.
We made it past the parade and into the botanic garden, a haven. For anyone who hasn’t been there, I recommend it. It’s an extraordinary building, and like a lot of things in Washington, it’s free. Some of the wingers had figured this out – a few were straggling in to use the very clean and well-maintained restroom. I saw two even strolling around, taking in the flora. Maybe they needed a break from chanting about socialism.
Now FBdN son #1 and I had some business to take care of: playing trucks in the very clean and well-maintained gardens behind the greenhouse. But our haven was upset by all the yelling and bullshit coming from the serious sound system.
One speaker was some sort of activist from Louisville, KY. I guess she’s got a band, because they busted into a song, ‘The U.S.S. of A,’ warning of impending socialism here in the U.S. (government’s going to take over your churches, etc.) She sounded like a bizarro Grace Slick.
So at best these people are just dumb. I wonder what they think when they ride the Metro? That maybe private enterprise would have done it better?
Conservative Protesters on the Metro, September 12, 2009
I also grabbed a photo of a couple of protesters eating lunch at the excellent Cascade Cafe inside the National Gallery of Art, a government-run museum where the price of admission is zip. You still have to pay for lunch, so I suppose it’s not a world where all is free.
Tea Partiers Enjoying a Quiet Lunch at the National Gallery of Art
Finally, I took a quick a video of the right wing protests from the Mall. Down towards the Washington Monument was the National Black Family Reunion. Quite a contrast to what was going on down by the Capitol.
I downloaded “Joy” this evening, and I’m excited to give it a listen. Dude, I may even have to buy my children “Joy” t-shirts.
It seems like reception to the album has been very positive, including this Associated Press review from today.
I have to do a little calling out on the first paragraph of that story, though.
The finicky fans of Phish have never been much satisfied with the Vermont jamband’s studio offerings — if they were, they wouldn’t go to such extremes to catch the band live.
No band’s success is less related to the popularity of its albums than Phish’s.
Well, that’s less bullshit, I suppose, but not entirely accurate either. A friend of mine worked at Elektra Records back in the day. I think I remember him telling me that one reason Elektra liked Phish was that their records consistently sold a decent amount (can’t remember what). Not gigantor, but consistent. I also remember friends of mine who worked in the record biz telling me that one key to getting signed was the proven ability to sell tens of thousands of records. Phish had that ability. So in that sense, the popularity of the band’s albums has indeed been related to its success.
I was thinking of linking this evening to a blog post on a scientific study suggesting that monkeys find Metallica soothing. On second glance, however, I realized it was bullshit.
Here, instead, is my movie soundtrack project. This may be bullshit too, but it was at least fun to tinker with iMovie. The music is FBdN original material, recorded in June 2009. The length of the tune fit almost perfectly with the length of the video clip.
