The Annex

ITunes

2006-09-13T08:33:00.000-07:00

Latest version of ITunes, for those of you using it, includes the ability to get album art from the ITunes store whether or not you bought the music from there to begin with.

Sweet.

I'll update this once I discover how well it works.

Weird factoid

2006-08-08T19:23:00.000-07:00

Browsing the Wikipedia, which should be a euphemism for something...I came across this....and no, not my computer keyboard.

Death Cab for Cutie is an American rock band formed in Bellingham, Washington in 1997. The band takes its name from a satirical song performed by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band on their 1967 album Gorilla. The song was also performed in a striptease act in The Beatles's film Magical Mystery Tour.

Note the Beatles reference in the end. My memories of MMT, the movie are of me as a child thinking it was too weird, though I liked the music.

D'Artagnan..waaaay after the fact

2006-07-06T06:06:00.000-07:00

Just struck me, as the song came up in my random shuffle, that D'Artagnan was the main character in The Three Musketeers (a movie I saw, I think, after our original comments on Themeless, The New Black). I went back and checked out our comments. It appears that Mixdorf had already discovered the connection.

This is just a factual correction, then. Mixdorf mentions that D'Artagnan "was the principle character of The Three Musketeers, but not an actual musketeer himself." On the contrary, in both the fictionalized account and in real history, D'Artagnan was, in fact, very much a Musketeer-their captain, even.

Thursday's Slow (Hand) Commute

2006-05-18T02:00:00.000-07:00

"Sunshine of your Love," Cream
"Promises," EC
"Pretending," EC

Better Choices

2006-05-15T06:01:00.000-07:00

So, in searching for the title and artists for the two crappy Superman songs, it stuck me how many better Superman songs (or songs that simply mention Superman) there are out there.

"Waitin' for a Superman," Flaming Lips
"Superman's Song," Crash Test Dummies
"Superman," REM
"Fire Escape," Fastball (need to listen to that album again)
"Sunshine Superman," Donovan

I know there are more. Got any?

Also, I came across a reference to one that potentially could have been included on Volume 9. It seems Iron and Wine have covered Flaming Lips "Waitin' for a Superman." Actually that song almost made the cut anyway. I have a version of it, also by Flaming Lips, that is just piano and vocals.

Clark Kent's Monday Commute

2006-05-15T05:50:00.000-07:00

"Superman," Five for Fighting
"Kryptonite," Three Doors Down
"You Don't Mess Around With Jim," Jim Croce

Hmmm. Those first two were back-to-back on Cities 97. Blech. Why must I suffer for my art?

Monday Commute's Cheatin' Heart

2006-05-08T03:21:00.000-07:00

"Hey Joe," Jimi Hendrix
"Always the Last to Know, " Del Amitri
"Take a Letter, Maria," R.B. Greaves

(Finding a common thread through three songs on the way to work is easier than it seems it should be.)

Thank God--It's the Friday Commute

2006-04-21T03:45:00.000-07:00

"My Sweet Lord," George Harrison
"I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" (Rattle and Hum version, U2
"Is This Love," Bob Marley.

A Rare A-List Concert

2006-04-15T05:51:00.000-07:00

Faith and I went to see Death Cab for Cutie and Franz Ferdinand (she's a very ardent FF fan) at Boston University on Wednesday. We got last minute tickets and so our seats were on the side of the stage and practically behind it, but it still turned out to be a good time.

There was a third band that opened, The Cribs, a sort-of pop-punk band from England. They had the levels all wrong so that the vocals were impossible to make out, but underneath the wall of sound appeared to be potentially good music. Not likely to rush out and buy an album, but I will keep an ear out for them.

Death Cab for Cutie was up next and they were much better live than I would have imagined. Contrary to discussions during Miles' CMC submission, they did not rely on electronics hardly at all. They had a keyboard that two separate band memebers played on certain songs (not Wendy and Lisa like) but otherwise they were a straight up 2 guitars, base, drums band. The drummer, in fact, was excellent.

Two highlights. During a song called We Looked Like Giants (from Transatlanticism), they stretched out a bridge into an extended jam during which the roadies set up another small drum kit in the middle of the stage. The lead singer and the drummer proceeded to have a 10 minute drum-off. It was very cool. The other highlight was simply the playing of a song called I Will Follow You Into the Dark, a beautiful acoustic guitar-only song from Plans that is every bit as great as Such Great Heights.

Generally, the turned out to be far better live than I would have ever imagined. High energy excellent musically.

Franz Ferdinand (no, not the guy whose assassination led to WWI) is an 'art-damaged rock-quartet' according to All-Music. What they seem to be to me is a somewhat snarky dance-rock band with a slight 80's feel. They had several hits from their first album a couple of years ago. They were also really good live, lots of energy and they sounded great.

We hadn't been to any sort of concert since we saw U2 in 2001, so this was indeed a rarity, but it was quite a bit of fun.

I think I'd like to see DCFC headline so that they could play a longer set (they played about an hour).

My CDs

2006-04-14T04:48:00.000-07:00

Li'l Sis did this. Here's what I have with me at work today.

Create your own Music List @ HotFreeLayouts!

Band on the Run--ing Late for Work

2006-04-07T02:57:00.000-07:00

On my way in this morning I heard:

Band on the Run-KQQL108
Jet-92KQRS
Helen Wheels-JACK-FM

She's Printed and Ready to Send!

2006-04-03T14:20:00.000-07:00

That beautiful woman known as Volume 8.

Creator Comments are done, copies are burned and firmly affixed to the center of slimline jewel cases with finished artwork. I simply await a couple of more listener comments to trickle in for Volume 7 before I send her out.

On a side note-eveyone's done a really great job of keeping their upcoming collections secret, with the exception of Miles creator comments for February, which were posted, like, last October; and Cory, who let slip that his collection was called "C-Songs:"

Cory: I'll tell you this much-it's called "C-Songs." You can try to figure out what that mean if y-
Dan: Songs that start with the letter "C?"
Cory: wh-but..but...DAMN!!!

TMC: Live!

2006-03-17T07:40:00.000-08:00

I will be doing a solo acoustic performance at some point in either April or May and am currently planning on playing no less than three TMC songs in the show. Possibly more, depending on how the set list comes in at for length.

Another List

2006-03-15T20:15:00.000-08:00

This one Dan also did a while back. The next ten songs in my iTunes Party Shuffle:

Men Without Hats: "Safety Dance "
Dizzy Gillespie & Max Roach: "In The Beginning Part 2" Max + Dizzy - Paris 1989 (Disc 1)
John Coltrane: "But Not For Me" My Favorite Things
Kid Dakota: "Pairin' Off" So Pretty
Chick Corea & Friends: "Dusk In Sandi " Remembering Bud Powell
Jane's Addiction: "Jane Says" Nothing's Shocking
Björk Gudmundsdóttir & Trió Gudmundar Ingólfssonar: "Tondeleyo" Gling-Gló
The Specials Featuring Rico: "Ghost Town (12" Vers.)" The Singles Collection
k.d. lang: "Save Me" Ingenue
The Beastie Boys "Ricky's Theme" Ill Communication

Nothing mind blowingly great about these, but a far cry better than my drive to work, no matter what Dan thinks.

Shitty Music Commute

2006-03-15T05:31:00.000-08:00

Flipping through the presets on my way to work this morning, I was subjected to the following:

"She's a Beauty," The Tubes
"Jailbreak," Thin Lizzy
"Rapture," Blondie

A year and a day...

2006-03-13T07:09:00.000-08:00

Dan did this a while back. Here is my yourmusic.com queue for the next thirteen months (as it stands now).

03/27/06
Elvis Costello
When I Was Cruel
Released: 2002

After a stunning series of boundary-crossing collaborations, EC teams w/ex-Attractions Steve Nieve & Pete Thomas on his first rock record in six years.

04/27/06
Cake
Pressure Chief
Released: 2004

John McCrea and co. are back with more pop perfection and sarcastic wit. No Phone, The Guitar Man, Carbon Monoxide, Wheels, She’ll Hang The Baskets, more.

05/27/06
Kronos Quartet
Alban Berg, Lyric Suite
Released: 2003

Leading new-music ensemble the Kronos Quartet triumphs with the modernist composer’s seductive mesh of dark-hued tonality, which features soprano Dawn Upshaw.

06/27/06
Cannonball Adderley
Mercy, Mercy, Mercy
Released: 1966

Adderley was the funkiest jazz saxophonist of his generation, and this well-known recording captures him at his most soulful.

07/27/06
Lyle Lovett
Dr. T & The Women/Sdtrk.
Released: 2000

Instrumental score to the Robert Altman film, plus three new Lovett songs. You've Been So Good Up To Now, Ain't It Somethin', more.

08/27/06
Led Zeppelin
IV (ZOSO) (Remastered)
Released:

A classic rock essential. Includes the immortal Stairway To Heaven, Black Dog, Rock And Roll, When The Levee Breaks, Going To California and more.

09/27/06
Radiohead
OK Computer
Released: 1997

Infectious melodies and masterful dynamics mark the alt-rock pioneers' acclaimed 1997 effort. Karma Police, No Surprises, Paranoid Android, much more.

10/27/06
Wilco
A Ghost Is Born
Released: 2004

Tweedy & compadres stretch out on loose, adventurous set. At Least That's What You Said, Handshake Drugs, Hummingbirds, Spiders (Kidsmoke), I'm A Wheel, more.

11/27/06
Elvis Costello
North
Released: 2003

Heartwrenching, exquisitely sung ballads about love's loss and rebirth. Still, Let Me Tell You About Her, When Did I Stop Dreaming, I'm In The Mood Again, Fallen, more.

12/27/06
Thelonious Monk
Monk's Dream (Remastered)
Released: 2002

Remastered classic set, with four bonus tracks! Title track, Body And Soul, Bright Mississippi, Just A Gigolo, Sweet And Lovely, Blues Five Spot and more.

01/27/07
Art Blakey
Indestructible (Remastered)
Released: 2003

Remastered 1964 set, with Lee Morgan, Wayne Shorter, Curtis Fuller, Cedar Walton, and Reggie Workman. One bonus track. The Egyptian, When Love Is New, more.

02/27/07
U2
War
Released:

The Irish quartet's powerful third set. Sunday Bloody Sunday, New Year's Day, Two Hearts Beat As One, 40, Surrender, Like A Song, Seconds, The Refugee, Red Light, etc.

03/27/07
Bob Dylan
The Times They Are A-Changin' (Remastered)
Released: 2005

Acoustic classic! When The Ship Comes In, Restless Farewell, North Country Blues, With God On Our Side, The Times They Are A-Changin’, etc.

Stinking Stubborn Microsoft & Apple!

2006-03-06T07:55:00.000-08:00

But mostly Microsoft. I downloaded a song last night that I could only find at MSN (not in the iTunes Store). MSN has it copy protected, so I am unable to import it into iTunes, nor burn it to a disc as anything other than a copy-protected .WMA. So ridiculous! How can they expect you to simultaneously keep two (or more) disparate music libraries!?!?!? How petty can you get???

cool music websites

2006-02-23T19:19:00.000-08:00

So pat offered up allmusic.com as a good music site/resource. I thought maybe we could all offer some of our favorite websources or whatnot. I ran across this recently. Not sure how to describe it but it's pretty cool, makes me wish I was back at EGA at a desk all day with an internet connection and headphones:

http://pandora.com/

Response to iTunes catalog

2006-02-05T23:46:00.000-08:00

I started this as a comment but it was awfully long so I thought I'd make a new post - don't kick my ass!

iTunes Music Store is starting to catch up. Some albums now come with digital booklets which are basically the liner notes in PDF format. The iTMS definitely needs to work on 'partial albums' however. There's no way I'm gonna buy the digital version of an album if I can't get all the tracks.

I bought an older version of Kavasoft's program and was under whelmed. It searches the internet for album art but has no care for image size, quality, or even correctness. It's also supposed to allow you to create webpages for your playlists but the result was pretty clunky and uninspired.

If I already offered this link somewhere forgive me(!):
iTunes Album Art Finder

My iMac has a Mac program called Frontrow. It allows it to be used as a media player. It has a small remote and when Frontrow is enabled it takes you to a screen with 'readable from the couch' menus and a simple navigation. I can play DVDs, listen to music, play slide shows of my images and watch Quicktime content. It's good for use in my room and would be sweet in a dorm room but is probably too small for most people's living rooms (the largest iMac screen is 20"). Anyway, in Frontrow, album art is displayed during song play back. I used to pick images whose size was around 300pi x 300pi but realized that all those images looked like crap next to the images provided with iTMS purchased music. Turns out iTMS artowrk is 600pi x 600pi. So the link above - if available, go to the album in iTMS. Right click on the album cover and copy the URL. Paste that URL into the field provided in the link above. It'll take you to that image's URL and offer you a large version or a small one. The large one is six hundy pixels while the small is one point seven hundy pixels. I'd guess the small one is fine for video iPods.

Lyrics. Do any of you guys have a Mac? Go get one, I'll wait.
What, you didn't buy one?!?! OK, here's a typical Windows knock off of a cool Mac feature:
Konfabulator Widget

Konfabulator is a Windows version of Mac's Dashboard. Widgets are teeny programs that run in the background and make themselves available when needed. Examples would be calculators, weather forecasts, dictionaries, language translators, etc. The widget above looks at the song playing in iTunes and then does what you'd do - it searches the web for lyrics. It's free and it works as well as can be expected given the state of affairs with music lyrics. That is, lyric sites are created by users and not the artists. So if some Bright Eyes fan grabs the lyrics to Lua from the liner notes perhaps they'll be spot on. If however he tries to transcribe them himself - well we'd have MT's "sleigh bells and snow". Regardless, the widget is nifty.

OK, seriously you all should buy Macs. If you have time check out this video of OS X features:
Quicktime tour of Mac OS X

Wither McCartpilation McComments?

2006-01-29T14:20:00.000-08:00

I realize this was pre-TMC, but with extraordinary care and a little effort, I put together McCartpilation around a year ago and was happy to share it with all the members (with the exception of Miles) currently in the Coalescence. While I realize that no one was under any obligation at the time to make official comments, the response I got to giving out that collection was...well...nothing.

If just as an homage to its status as, perhaps, an inspiration for what became the Coalescence, perhaps it deserves something. But also, just out of common courtesy, it would be nice for you guys to let me know I wasn't just jerking off when I decided to put that together. It really was totally in the spirit of this current project we're doing. If you still have it lying around, I'd love for you guys to listen to it again and maybe make comments in the Annex. Feel free to refer to the original liner notes: http://www.geocities.com/hylton44/mccartpilation.doc

iTunes Catalog 1.8

2006-01-19T08:13:00.000-08:00

The next logical (& necessary) step in my iTunes revolution. I think this amazingly cost-effective software ($14.99) allows you to import artwork, lyrics, & other stuff into your "get info" section, but I haven't tried it out yet (they have a demo version that will work for all artists with names A-E).

For those of us squarely among the iTunes faithful, this is potentialy a great find...

http://www.kavasoft.com/iTunesCatalog/

CMC Synchronicity

2006-01-02T06:01:00.000-08:00

Saturday Iron and Wine popped up with iTunes in party shuffle mode. In my car, less than an hour later, I heard Such Great Heights again, this time from The Postal Service on Drive 105.

Cherry Tree Carol: Redux

2005-12-27T05:24:00.000-08:00

To preface this, Sharon is a big Mixdorf fan.

That said, upon reading his comments on this song, Mixdorf, Sharon's reaction was one of, "who says it's just some narrative that has no connection to anything? It's a traditional song. What if it has a long history behind it and come connection to something bigger that we just don't know about?" On Sunday night, she got around to looking it up in Wikipedia. The history went a lot farther back than even she realized. It's actually directly from one of the gospels, albeit not one of the gospels that made it into our modern day Bibles-the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew. The very interesting history of the song is here. My favorite part of the article is at the end, when it details the song retelling's differences from the actual "events:"

...Joseph's truculence is unrelated to any dismay over Mary's pregnancy, but has to do with an inability to reach the fruits of the palm and a concern over the family's lack of water.

A Spoonful Weighs a Ton

2005-12-16T02:29:00.000-08:00

My first, and only, real exposure to The Flaming Lips came with Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. Until two weeks ago. My YourMusic.com selection of the month brought the Lips' The Soft Bulletin to my mailbox, and I have been mildly obsessed with it for these past two weeks.

Listening has me wondering if Mighty Tom had any exposure prior to Yoshimi. If someone had handed me some of the lyrics, and asked who I thought had written them, I would have guessed Mighty Tom.

"Race For The Prize"

Two scientists are racing
For the good of all mankind
Both of them side by side
So Determined
Locked in heated battle
For the cure that is their prize
But it's so dangerous
But they're determined

Theirs is to win
If it kills them
They're just humans
With wives and children

"The Spiderbite Song"

When you got that spiderbite on your hand
I thought we would have to break up the band
To lose your arm would surely upset your brain
The poison then could reach your heart from a vein

Wonderfully absurd. I have a feeling there will be more of The Flaming Lips in my future.

More Minnesota Connections

2005-12-12T06:27:00.000-08:00

Welcome to The Annex. My first post here is a tie-in to Volume 3. Check out a couple of live (in studio at The Current) performances from The Hopefuls and The Owls. They both are at the bottom of the page.