NowPlayIt – Learn to Play Your Favorite Songs Online!

Posted on November 13, 2008 by the OCMD

One of the coolest websites I’ve seen in a while, NowPlayIt, teaches you how to play your favorite songs in an online video tutorial. There are lessons for guitar, drums, bass and piano/keyboard. Many of the tutorials are taught by the artists themselves. Even the greats like Paul McCartney. How fun is that? They have a wide array of popular and indie artists too. But it is UK based so there seems to be a bit of bias toward the Brit Rock set. Which is okay by me. There’s enough Radiohead there to keep anyone happy. As a beginning drummer, I’ll definitely be checking it out.

Enjoy!

Sonos Unveils Free Controller App for iPhone

Posted on October 28, 2008 by the OCMD

I just downloaded the free iPhone App for the Sonos Digital Music Management system today. I didn’t think Sonos could get any better, but it just did.

For those of you who don’t know already, Sonos is my favorite digital music management system, hands down. It allows you to play any music you want in any room of your house from the palm of your hand. You can play your own music library, Internet Radio, Pandora, Last.fm, Sirius Satellite Radio, access millions of songs through Rhapsody, and more. And now with the Sonos for iPhone application, you can control it all with your iPhone. It’s even more fun and functional to use than the out of the box controller. Beautiful.

Check out this demo to see for yourself.

White Denim ‘Exposion’ Released Today

Posted on October 22, 2008 by the OCMD

Whoo hoo! I just bought my first album today via Topspin! And it was the much anticipated debut LP from my favorite Texas rockers, White Denim, to boot. The album is being digitally debuted with the new platform in advance of the album’s physical release on November 3. In case you don’t recall from my prior posts, Topspin is a cool new technology platform that is helping artists circumvent labels and market directly to the fans. It allows artists to offer a variety of ‘value add’ options and services to their fans.

Take a trip to the White Denim site and you’ll see what I mean. You can:

Download the album in MP3 format with artwork for $8.99,
Download the album in lossless FLAC format (for all you sound junkies) for $13.99,
Or subscribe to the ‘band’ for a yearly membership of $29.99 and receive their new album in 320 kbps format, a 12″ copy of the album, a 7″ copy of the “Let’s Talk About It” EP , and a collection of unreleased digital live tracks. Plus a lot more goodies throughout the year.

Cool huh? It’s a whole new way to consume music and the artist gets to reap the rewards. What a concept.

Here’s Shake, Shake, Shake:

8tracks is the New Muxtape

Posted on September 19, 2008 by the OCMD

With Muxtape still battling the RIAA, 8tracks has emerged as the new online MP3 playlist solution. 8tracks allows you to create a playlist of 8 tracks and share it with your friends online. It’s easy to use and they are Beta testing an Uploader feature for Mac users that allows you to drag and drop a playlist directly from iTunes to 8track. Hmmm, given how DRM happy Apple is, I wonder how long that will last. Well, go check it out now before the RIAA shuts them down too.

Here’s a mix I created for the Treasure Island Music Festival this Sunday in San Francisco, featuring Fleet Foxes, Port O’Brien, The Dodos, Okkervil River, The Morning Benders, Vampire Weekend, Dr. Dog and The Raconteurs. Can’t wait!

Listen to Treasure Island Music Festival Playlist.

For a more complete sampler of Sunday’s line up, check out HearYa’s complete playlist of all the artists featured.

Get this album free via eMusic’s 50 Free MP3 Promo

buy it at insound!

Where Have All the Hipsters Gone?

Posted on September 12, 2008 by the OCMD

A couple times a week, I head over to the American Industrial Center in the Dogpatch District of San Francisco to attend my – near complete – patternmaking class at Apparel Arts. Week after week, I would inevitably share the elevator with a group of hipsters heading to 4R. The exclusive floor of Soundflavor. Curious as to what could possibly attract such a huge population of Mission District hipsters to one floor of a building, I asked one day while riding the elevator:

Me: “What is Soundflavor?”
Hipster: “A Music recommendation service.”
Me: “Hmm. Like Pandora or Last.fm?”
Hipster: “Yeah.”

Well, I think it’s safe to say the company needs to polish up that ‘elevator pitch’. I did some research myself and found that company seems to be differentiating themselves in the ‘video playlist’ arena. Meaning you upload your iTunes playlist or type in an artist and the site will turn your musical tastes into a custom video playlist – like your own personal MTV.

I didn’t think much more of the Soundflavor hipsters until they became noticeably absent. I haven’t seen them for months now. Where have you gone, hipsters? I miss your big glasses, scruffy beards, trucker hats, plaid shirts, tight jeans and Converse shoes. I checked your website and, while it says you’re still in the building, your cute little cherry logo is nowhere to be found. 4R is a ghostland. What happened?

iTunes Rumored to Launch Subscription Model – Finally!

Posted on August 22, 2008 by the OCMD

I read today on the ListeningPost about rumors that iTunes is planning to launch an unlimited music subscription service in late October with the release of iTunes 7.8. It’s reported the annual subscription fee will be $130/year (or $100 for MobileMe subscribers) and will give users the ability to download to nearly half of all the songs in the iTunes store in a 256-Kbps format. The other half apparently will require a new deal with copyright holders.

It sounds like the model will operate similar to Rhapsody. Subscription songs would be playable in iTunes and would be transportable and playable on certain devices – namely the iPod and iPhone. According to the tipster, when you log on to iTunes, you will get the option to ‘Buy’ (purchase and keep) or ‘Get’ your music (download and Play throughout iTunes Unlimited Subscription).

Hooray for Apple for taking a step in the right direction. I’ve long been a proponent of the subscription-based music model and a huge fan of services like Rhapsody. It just makes sense. And with the emergence of even more technologies like Topspin, we will see more and more artist going direct to fans with subscription-based offers.

Now if only Apple would budge on their DRM policy and move to pure MP3s.

Pandora Ready to Pull the Plug

Posted on August 20, 2008 by the OCMD

I read a disturbing article today in the Washington Post that Oakland-based Internet radio giant, Pandora, is struggling on the verge of collapse due to exorbitant royalty fees. This came as shocking news to me. How can the leading Internet music site, with over 1 million listeners a day and nearly 40,000 new subscribers arriving daily, be failing?

Turns out some federal panel last year, called the Copyright Royalty Board, ordered a doubling of the per-song performance royalty that Web radio stations pay to performers and record companies. What do traditional radio stations pay for royalties? Nothing, thanks to their corporate parents and lobbying power. Satellite radio stations? About 1.6 cents per listener per hour. But Pandora and other Internet radio stations will have to pay 2.91 cents under this new ruling. This year, 70% of Pandora’s revenue will be eaten up by royalty fees – threatening to drive them out of business along with many other Internet radio stations like it.

Is no one outraged by this? Have we all become so complacent in our expectations of free and easy digital music distribution that we’ve stopped paying attention to this issue? Because clearly the fight is not over. And maybe it will take a giant like Pandora to fall before people start feeling the pain and actually caring.

3 Million Records and “No one gives a damn”

Posted on August 19, 2008 by the OCMD

If you want evidence that the digital music era is here to stay, look no further than this story. An interesting post on Gizmodo reported that Paul Mawhinney, owner of the worlds largest vinyl record collection, is trying to sell his inventory of 3 million records. Unfortunately, he says “no one gives a damn.”

Paul used to run a record store and never sold the last copy of any album or single. Over the years he has amassed an impressive collection of over 3 million records. Now in failing health, he’s trying to sell it. The collection has been appraised at $50 million but he’s asking a mere $3 million. He’s had no serious offers.

While this is clearly a sign of the times, it is pretty sad that no one is stepping up to preserve such a piece of history as this. Hey, why doesn’t the RIAA buy it? Clearly they’re stuck in the analog music model anyway. That would actually be a useful function of the organization – to preserve history, as opposed to thwarting progress.

Anatomy of a Remodel – Part 1

Posted on August 19, 2008 by the OCMD

Our living room has sat unfinished since the day we moved in. And it’s all because of that couch. I love it; it’s got that classic, vintage modern, low slung, sexy vibe. Adam hates it. So we sat at an impasse for the past three years until we decided to call in the professional, Ken Fulk, to mediate and take this project to the finish line. We both love and trust his style and taste – as a professional and a friend. He’s the best in San Francisco and has an eclectic, rock star style that’s hard to replicate. So we decided his call was the final call on the couch. The verdict? I win. YES! Justice prevails….and perseverance. The couch is being refinish and reupholstered as I write this.

So what does this have to do with technology? Well, part of the overhaul of this room is the sound system. We’re installing new reference series Paradigm SA-15R in ceiling speakers for our Sonos system. And since I’ve preached so many times before on this blog how important it is to have in wall speakers in every room to truly leverage the capabilities of the Sonos system, I thought I would give you an inside look into the installation process. It does require professional installation, but the aesthetics and audio experience are totally worth it.

Stay tuned for more remodel updates…

Cutting speaker holes in ceiling.

Pulling wires through walls.

Speaker wire pulled and ready to mount.

Paradigm Speaker installed

the OCMD

Obsessive Compulsive Music Disorder :: An Indie Music Blog

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