Music

Milestones

Beau Monday — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 18:22:00 GMT

Some people mark time by remembering where they were during important world events. Kennedy assassination. Berlin Wall. Beetles on Ed Sullivan.

Me, I mark time with music. Pick just about any band, and I can probably tell you where I was and what I was doing when I first heard them. Faithless? Watching otherwise-unintelligible German MTV in a hotel room in Munich, 1998. JJ Cale? On my dad's shitty old cassette player in the backwoods of Idaho, 1979. Thee Michelle Gun Elephant? It was playing over the stereo system as I walked into a record store in Akihabara, back in 1990. I remember hearing Fear for the first time (New York's Alright if You Like Saxophones) in the passenger seat of a college buddy's shitty-ass Ford EXP in New York back in 1989. The first time I heard Mountain Con was while I was sitting in traffic on I-90, on an otherwise dreary Tuesday morning in 2004 (well, you knew that one already). The list goes on.

But my love for a very special few, like Van Halen, brings a whole new granularity to my past.

I remember where I was when I first heard Van Halen's first single off For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, Pound Cake. The year was 1991. I was working at some now-defunct computer store in Las Vegas, and I had just arrived to work when I stopped, turned my ear towards the radio, and asked my coworkers “Is that Eddie Van Halen playing guitar with a god damned DRILL?!?!” It was. I thought Sammy Hagar was an ass until that album came out, but now I like him almost as much as Diamond Dave. Almost.

But recently I have a brand new marker to file away: The Day I Heard Van Halen Was Getting Back Together and Going On Tour in 2007, Probably With David Lee Roth. It was a Thursday. Last Thursday, to be exact.

If I wasn't driving, I'd have been all Snoopy. And let's be clear here: I don't get Snoopy.

Followup on Sony Rootkit Story

Beau Monday — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 01:53:00 GMT

The issue of Sony's CD-borne rootkit software just keeps getting weirder:

Over the weekend a Finnish researcher named Muzzy noticed a potential vulnerability in the web-based uninstaller that Sony offers to users who want to remove the First4Internet XCP copy protection software. We took a detailed look at the software and discovered that it is indeed possible for an attacker to exploit this weakness. For affected users, this represents a far greater security risk than even the original Sony rootkit.

The consequences of the flaw are severe. It allows any web page you visit to download, install, and run any code it likes on your computer. Any web page can seize control of your computer; then it can do anything it likes. That’s about as serious as a security flaw can get.

Let's recap:

Certain unidentified Sony/BMG music CDs require the installation of a software package before they will play on your computer
The software package notifies Sony/BMG every time you play the CD, what CD you are playing, and what your IP address is
The software package often disables other music players on the system
The software package enables other, potentially malicious, software to hide from the operating system simply by following a well-known file naming convention.
The software package polls the system every 10 seconds for possible violations of Sony/BMG digital rights, causing significant performance issues
The software package doesn't come with any standard removal package, and manual removal leaves your CD unusable
The software package's OFFICIAL removal package has to be requested, and is tied to a specific computer, making it impossible to distribute in an enterprise
The software package's OFFICIAL removal package can lead to system crashes and other instability
The software package's OFFICIAL removal package requires the installation of yet another bit of software that enables a malware author to run a hostile program on your system with no warning or notification

Can I ask something? What gives Sony the idea that their copyright to a bit of music gives them the right to thoroughly neuter the security and usability of a customer's computer? Someone needs to sue these fuckers.

Regarding Modest Mouse

Beau Monday — Thu, 20 Jan 2005 01:11:00 GMT

So I live in Issaquah, where Modest Mouse sprang from the proverbial womb. And that's cool, I guess. But for some reason I never really picked them up. I think it was because my first exposure to them a few months back was on 107.7 The End, where they played Float On, and I recall thinking “What the hell is The End doing playing the Stones?”

And so for the first couple songs that ended up getting air time, I wrote them off as a Stones cover band, and I never particularly liked the Stones. Ergo, I didn't really care for Modest Mouse. Even though the album had a really clever title: Good News for People Who Love Bad News.

Then I heard another song off the album that caught my attention immediately: The World At Large. It's a weird Radiohead-esqe ditty that really hit a note with me, and I thought to myself “OK, I want to play that song about a thousand times in a row.”

So I picked up the album at my local music dive (support your local music stores!), and threw it on the MP3 player. And it totally blew me away.

The two tracks that have gotten the most airtime, Float On and Ocean Breathes Salty, are in my mind largely forgettable. But the rest of the album is fucking brilliant. It's one of those rare albums where you reach for the “back“ button to replay a track, only to pull the hand back once you remember the brilliance that comes next.

Tracks like “Bury Me With It” and “Bukowski” charge out of the gate with hypnotic banjo riffs (did I just say “hypnotic banjo riffs“?) that are so addictive I can hardly resist singing along. They even have a fucking ukelele in a couple songs, and it's brilliantly played.

Don't be a Stones-hating stooge like me. Go get yourself some Modest Mouse.

Tiptoeing through the music collection

Beau Monday — Sat, 18 Dec 2004 04:03:00 GMT

I'm up to around 250 CDs in my music collection these days. Well, 220 if you throw out the duplicates like the 3 copies of Hole's Live Through This or my 2 copies of Radiohead's OK Computer. (I can't really explain why I have 3 copies of Live Through This, it wasn't label trickery like that Radiohead boondoggle.)

Recently I've been on a kick to archive them all in Windows Media Player format. There are a couple reasons for this. First, my new Jeep is so insecure, I don't even bother locking the doors. Remember the bike locks that can be opened with a ball-point pen? I'm pretty sure that same pen could have my Jeep open in about 10 seconds. So the Jeep is not a safe place for $4000 worth of CDs, some of which are irreplaceable. If I can make copies of my existing collection to carry around in the Jeep, I won't care so much if they get jacked.

The other reason is that while I really like Real's Rhapsody service, they have some major holes in their catalog. So if I want to listen to Pearl Jam, or Radiohead, or Mountain Con, or any number of other favorites, I have to hunt down my CDs.

A trip through the CD collection is a trip back through time for me. There's a story behind most of the CDs in my collection. Some of my most treasured CDs are ones I got while travelling abroad (Michelle Gun Elephant from Japan and Guano Apes from Germany are some of my most treasured imports during business trips). Some CDs are indelibly associated with odd times in my life. For example, I can't listen to Offspring's Come Out and Play album without reminiscing about the time I was dating that chick who was in jail for assault at the time. ZZ Top was the soundtrack of my middle school years (Sharp Dressed Man remains the only song I have ever attempted to karaoke). And JJ Cale's album 5 will always be at the top of my list when I want to relax, because it's one of the half-dozen cassette tapes my dad owned when I was growing up in the back woods of Idaho, and my brother and I would often fall asleep listening to it (I actually don't own this on CD, oddly, but it's on the top of my list at Rhapsody).

As I travel through the collection, I come to relate to what Randy recently waxed poetic about, the shame that comes with the unintended revelation about some weird music interest that you have. I remember a good friend of mine (who I haven't seen in 4 years because, well, that's what I do with friends) flipping through my collection one day, and commenting “Wow, you have a really wide taste in music”. I looked over and saw that the page he had flipped to had CDs from JJ Cale, Daft Punk, Smashing Pumpkins, Dire Straits, ZZ Top, Rage Against the Machine, Tony Toni Tone, Sir Mixalot and (to my ultimate horror) Neil Diamond.

“That Neil Diamond CD was a gift,” I said as I chuckled nervously. I was trying to come up with a cool reason to have JJ Cale's Anthology in there, and came up blank.
”Who knew a Jew could put out such a great collection of Christmas songs,” said he. And I looked at him like he was insane. But he was right, that damn album is one of the best Christmas albums ever (disclaimer: I haven't heard Jessica Simpson's Christmas Album, and don't intend to. Ever.).

Isn't it funny how integral to our lives music becomes? That memories 20 years buried can be brought back to life by a song that was playing at the time?

New Artist: Mountain Con

Beau Monday — Wed, 06 Oct 2004 22:18:00 GMT

One of the great benefits of living in Seattle is that this town is a magnet for great musical acts. And my favorite radio station, 107.7 The End, has a passion for bringing new talent to the radio waves as frequently as possible. For example, every Tuesday the morning phenom NoName takes 20-30 minutes during his prime time show and brings in a guest (usually one of the folks from Sonic Boom) to talk about the new CDs coming out during the week, and play some tracks from them. It's great radio, and a refreshing change from the sewage that I normally find on morning radio.

If you're not careful, No-Name (or any of The End's staff) can totally spring some new stuff on you that'll blow your mind.

Such was the case this morning, when he spun a track called “I woke up and the morning was grey“ [download] from previously-unheard-of Seattle band Mountain Con. Mountain Con is an odd mix of Franz Ferdinand guitar riffs and a lyrical style that can only be described as “Beck meets Bob Dylan“. And damn if it doesn't work.

Sadly, they are not yet listed on Real Rhapsody (my audio source of choice), but the band does let you download all the tracks from their albums, and play them 3 times for free (Weed downloads).

I highly recommend you check these guys out if you are into fresh alternative music.

Marconi gets fired

Beau Monday — Fri, 14 May 2004 18:02:00 GMT

Earlier today I noticed a spike of referrer hits to my post a while back about the craptacular state of Morning Radio in Seattle. I didn't really think anything of it until I saw this news headline on Fox: Shock Jocks Fired For Joking About Berg's Death. I thought to myself: “Oh, I bet that was that Portland assclown Marconi”.

Sure enough, it was. I guess the no-talent moron scraped the absolute bottom of the barrel and played the audio portion of Berg's execution during his radio show. And then made jokes about it. The management of the radio station fired him before the day was out.

It makes my physically ill to think I share the world with people like this. The human race is so fucking broken. Sometimes I think we deserve a huge fucking asteroid right in the kisser to ensure we don't spread our cancerous ways beyond this doomed planet. We don't deserve to propogate.

I need a beer.

Morning Radio in Seattle

Beau Monday — Thu, 01 Apr 2004 10:55:00 GMT

(This started out as a short commentary on morning radio, inspired by Steve's recent admission that he's a Stern listener, FAN even. But it got away from me. Deal.)

I am not a morning person, I freely admit this. I also don't drink coffee, which probably doesn't help.

And maybe that explains my frustration with morning radio, as a whole. Why is it that radio stations that are completely satisfied with playing music 20 hours out of the day, feel compelled to throw some unfunny jackass (or crew of jackasses, in many cases) at their listeners in the mornings, abandoning entirely their music format? If I want to listen to some, I dunno, music, on the radio in the morning, I have nowhere to turn.

I remember my New York days, when WFAN sports talk radio would have Imus In The Morning on for 4.5 hours every day. Actually I loved Imus, because he interviewed cool people, and nothing sports-related was happening at that time in the morning anyway. He hated sports radio too, ironically. He was fond of saying things like “WFAN: 4 and a half hours of brilliant radio and 19 and a half hours of pointless drivel that nobody cares about.“

I think in Seattle we've had it worse than most. My favorite music station, 107.7 KNDD has been through a host (no pun intended) of morning shows the past 2-3 years. The last one (Marconi, simulcast from Portland (or Porkland, as he was fond of calling his home)) was so freaking bad it was beyond belief. The guy actually thought the listeners would want to hear a phone call to his girlfriend while she went shopping for ingredients to make brownies. It went on for 15 freaking minutes! And the guy before Marconi, whose name my subconscious has blocked from my memory apparently, was so lame he actually asked callers to call in with “your most shocking story“. That's right, he wanted to be a shock jock, but couldn't actually pull it off, so was asking callers to come up with content for his show. And then on another station we have Bob Rivers, who can be funny, teamed up with complete idiots who go into “slack jaw yokel” mode when they are about to say anything funny. It makes me want to stick something sharp into my ears just to make it stop. For the sake of having some music on for my 20-30 minute morning commute, I was actually considering buying some form of satellite radio.

Recently, KNDD, bless their souls, has refocused their format, and now the tagline is “It's about the music”. For weeks they abandoned the morning show concept entirely, and played actual music, glorious music, in the morning. Marconi got sent back to “Porkland” (sorry Portland, you're not pushing that smeghead off on us!), and we reveled in the sounds of Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and all the other musical geniuses that grace the airwaves during the sane hours of the day.

About a month into the new format, KNDD decided to put their most popular DJ into the morning slot. “DJ NoName”, as he is known, had an afternoon show called the “Afternoon Experiment” which was a mix of music and some largely unfunny morning-show type antics. I wasn't a regular listener of NoName, but he didn't make me want to immediately change the station when I did happen to catch him on. Maybe I was more tolerant in the afternoons, I dunno. Make no mistake, there were some painful segments, like his regular interviews with some Bigfoot hunting scientist that was far more tolerant of stupid questions that I could ever be.

So I was a little apprehensive when they moved him to the mornings, but the station's program manager insisted that KNDD was still “About the music”, and music would dominate the morning show. And so far it's worked really well. NoName and his sidekick Timberlake have managed a great mix of music and news, and I hope their ratings reflect that.

But that's not what this blog entry is about. I'm here to talk about Howard Stern. I'm not a fan of Howard, but I will flip over to him if all the other stations on my preset list are in commercial breaks or something. His style of radio isn't what I'm looking for in the mornings. I don't see the humor or fascination of having strippers undress on a radio show. And far too many fart jokes, which are the lamest form of humor.

But, with that said, what Howard is being put through at the hands of the FCC is wrong. I have the ability to change to another radio station if I don't want to listen to what Howard is doing. Nobody is being tricked into listening to the show. Nobody is tuning in to see a football game, and then suddenly presented with Janet Jackson's breast. You tune into Howard Stern, you know exactly what to expect, and that's what you get. His show hasn't changed for years. And for 20-some million people it works for them. For me it doesn't. So I don't listen. But I respect his right to do his thing, because that's what we're about here in America. If the people didn't like Howard, he'd have faded into the sunset years ago. That's capitalism for ya.

The politicians and religious groups in America would do well to remember that fact. Few things concern me more about American politics than the increasing bravado shown by religious factions trying to push their special brand of morality onto the rest of us. I can make my own decisions about my entertainment choices, thanks.