This article by Jon Udell is a really scary look at the future of audio processing.
Cheap storage makes it feasible to save voice recordings of many of our meetings, teleconferences, interviews, and other conversations. In some environments -- call centers and certain sectors of finance and government -- that already happens. But audio surveillance isn't yet routine, and the thorny legal, social, and cultural issues it raises haven't yet been widely debated. That's because, until now, there was no practical way to mine voice data.
As with other forms of practical obscurity, this artificial barrier was bound to topple, and now it has. Fast-Talk Communications' revolutionary phonetic indexing and search technology brings the magic of full-text search to the formerly opaque realms of audio recordings and video soundtracks. If you consider the way in which Google has already become everyone's indispensable "outboard brain," and extrapolate that to all the voice data that exists -- and to the vast quantities that soon will exist -- it's hard to avoid the conclusion that Fast-Talk is one of the most disruptive technologies in the pipeline.
The Roots Music Listening Room has converted a bunch of 78 rpm records from the 20's, 30's (mostly, but some from up to the 70s) into mp3s for your listening pleasure.
Tim O'Reilly wrote a great article titled Piracy is Progressive Taxation, and Other Thoughts on the Evolution of Online Distribution.
Here's a cool Foxtrot strip.
Here's a cool flash animation of Billy Joel's We Didn't Start The Fire. Definitely one cool tune and one cool piece of flash.
Read the rest of the article here.I know you’ve been thinking it. And if you haven’t, you probably haven’t been paying attention. The art we once called hip hop has been dead for some time now. But because its rotting carcass has been draped in platinum and propped against a Gucci print car, many of us have missed its demise.
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All one needs to do is watch cribs and notice none of these people showing off their heated indoor pools or the PlayStation Two consoles installed in all twelve of their luxury cars have a library in their home. Or display a bookshelf, for that matter. No rapper on cribs has ever been quoted saying: “Yeah, this is the room where I do all my reading, nahmean?”
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Question: Why haven’t these so-called “ballers” gotten together and bought a farm, a prison, a super market chain, or chartered a school? But they all have clothing lines. Smells like a sucker to me. The lack of social responsibility from people who claim to ‘rep the streets’ is stunning.
Jam Master Jay, the D.J. who provided beats and scratches to the rap group Run-DMC's groundbreaking records, was shot and killed last night at a recording studio in Jamaica, Queens, the authorities said. [Read More at New York Times]
R.I.P. Jason Mizell, This is a huge loss for the hip hop community.
"George Ziemann, an independent musician, made an album with his band and like many small operators, he then produced copies of the the album on CD-R and attempted to sell them on the Web. He listed copies on his own Web page, on MP3.COM, on garageband.com, and on eBay. All was going well... until eBay abruptly began to de-list the auctions.
Ziemann and his band were the authors, engineers, producers, and publishers of the album, and could prove that they owned the copyright and all other rights to it. Yet, eBay's "droids" unilaterally removed all of his auctions merely because the item descriptions stated that the recordings were on CD-R media. (This disclosure is important, because some players will not play CD-Rs.) At the same time -- ironically -- the system left many auctions involving illegitimate copies of copyrighted works undisturbed. Despite his repeated attempts to contact eBay and inform them that his products were legal, Ziemann was unable to prevent them from removing his album each time he listed it for sale.
Ziemann speculates, in his detailed account of the incident, that the RIAA has put pressure upon eBay to block sales of all CD-Rs -- not only to exclude illegal copies but to prevent independent musicians from self-publishing. But regardless of whether this is true or not, it's clear that his travails while attempting to publish legitimate products are a case of security gone awry." [ExtremeTech]
Joni Mitchell 'Ashamed' to Be in Music Business:
"I just think it's a cesspool," the 58-year-old folk-rock icon said in the latest issue of Rolling Stone magazine.
"I hope it all goes down the crapper. I would never take another deal in the record business, which means I may not record again, or I have to figure out a way to sell over the Net or do something else. But I'll be damned if I'll line their pockets."
Posted by adam at 03:46 PM
Heres an mp3 (yea yea i know i'm going to hell for sharing it but it kicks soooo much butt)
Hit MORE for the lyrics that make this track rock
"OoooOOooOOoooooOooOO
*sound of needle scratching across record*
Please do not be alarmed, remain calm. Do not attempt to leave the dancefloor. The DJ booth is conducting a troubleshoot test of the entire system. Somehow, while the party was in progress, an unidentified frequency has been existing in the system for some time. And while many of you have been made too brainwashed to comprehend, this frequency is, and has become a threat to our soceity as we know it.
This frequency has been used by a secret society in conjunction with Lucifer to lure and prey on innocent partygoers. With hypnotism, syncroprism, tricknology, lies, scandal, and pornography. While the party is still in progress we will keep you updated on our current status.
We repeat, this is only a test, this is only a test. This station in conjunction with other airwave announcements will conduct this exact test without prejudice, under the juricepurdence of the soul, the mind, the body, the positive, the negitive, the ground, the proton, the neutron, the electron, the ying, the yang, the young, the sun, the moon, the star.
This is only a test.
This station in conjunction with other airwave announcements will conduct this exact test without prejudice, under the juricepurdence of the soul, the mind, the body, the positive, the negitive, the ground, the proton, the neutron, the electron, the ying, the yang, the young, the sun, the moon, the star, the man, the woman, the child, the plaitiff, the defendant, the judgement, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, the past, the present, the future."
(note: this was posted to the 604 email list (goa trance discussion group) months ago and I can't find the original post or who the author was)
"it's been a long time, since you felt it. but now it's returned...
it vibrates. it thunders. it rumbles. it lures.
and you, you are standing on the side of the dance floor, a cigarette in one, a beer in the other hand, talking to somebody - as much as it is even possible to talk standing next to the speakers - and you feel the desire to drop the beer and the cigarette and let your conversation partner, as nice as they might be, just stand there to - d a n c e."
"it lures. is pulls you where there steel floor is, made from steel as to not be danced to pieces by all the feet moving rhytmically yet chaotically, following a secret yet thunderingly loud order. you want to disappear between them. dive into the brimming mass of steaming, sweating, jerking bodies. to become a part of it, of the all encompassing music. you want your heartbeat to become beat and the beat heartbeat. and then you do it: you let go of world, mania and senses and follow the beckoning call, hesitantly putting your first foot on the dance floor, finding a crack between the dancers that are dancing like indians around a campfire that doesn't exist.
you carefully swing your hips, begin to let the music seep into your pores. slow and hesitant you are, a little bit uptight, doesn't that look stupid? but something is reaching for you, and immediately you become wilder, faster, your movements more wide and complicated. an old and familiar but half forgotten euphoria begins to flow through your veins. happiness, anger, what is that? it drowns your mind, you stop to think. that all these people are here watching you concerns you less and less. the thing that was reaching for you before now has you tightly in its grip. you dont care about anything now, no, no forced let-them-think-what-they-want carelessness, but the absence of all will and want, all thought processes. there's only you and the beat. no, only the beat.
because you are not more than a manifestation, an incarnation of the music. you are the tool, that the rhythm uses to become visible, touchable. is that your sweat, that's dripping out of your pores now?
the time has come, this is what all this was leading to: are aren't dancing, but you are being danced. from something, that's bigger than you, and totally alien, and totally familiar. your eyes are closed, there is no world around you now. of course there are other people, other bodies, sweat sources, executing organs of the same spirit, that is ruling you now right here. but you don't care, you are alone, completely alone with the music. it's a type of being alone that has nothing to do with loneliness thought, because something is with you, something is in you, something is you.
at some point you wake up. you open your eyes, and the world is still there. and everything shifts back to its old place: there is you, and there is the others, and there again in the music, just noise blaring from speakers. you are relieved and disappointed at once. the smoke scratches in your throat, and you are out of breath. now you feel the sweat sticking on you, the wet streaks of hair in your neck. your friends are giving your looks of wonder, envy, concern, scorn, joy.
you sink heavy against the wall, smile tiredly, with the last twinkle in your eyes.
hell what did i just go off, you sigh."
I'm going to start writing about music a little more so as I'm searching for blogs that deal with music I thought I'd share them with you.
John Book: Opinions & Shit's Journal: John Book is an interesting guy. He hosts the DJ Shadow samples page I talked about a while back. He also does a cool MP3 of the Week thing where he digs up stuff off old 45s and puts an mp3 up.
....So I was going to list more of the music blogs I found on google but then I realized I don't know much about them so giving you the link to the google search is just as good.
If anyone knows of any other blogs that deal with music creation/listening/issues than could you be so kind as to email me.
