Ok everyone, I’ve decided to stop mirroring The Musical Blogarhythm, it messes around with Google’s cataloguing.

So from now on it’s just available at the source blog – http://fridaymp3.blogspot.com and at some point over the next month or two I’ll be moving it to its own server and.. I’ll be using WordPress for the back end!

Yay!

The problem with my self-enforced educational regime is that I’m sitting quietly, watching things go by, the scale of which would usually have me blogging relentlessly. So I’m allowing myself an evening’s reprieve.

There’s much to discuss, from Google Chrome to iTunes 8 (Genius Edition?) or Peter Jones fattening the suckling pig on Dragon’s Den and the surprise of listening to MC Hammer on the Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders podcast and being, seriously, seriously impressed.

In the background Mazzy Star are drifting around my head through my little KRK RP5s now mounted sturdily on opposites sides of the acoustic foam behind my desk – Into Dust has never sounded so wonderful.

I’m a little miffed that Google didn’t get the Mac and Linux versions of Chrome out at the same time as the Windows release but it’s understandable from the business perspective. There’s no confusion over who they are targeting, what market they want.

Isn’t it funny that we complained so much when Internet Explorer 4 came out and was so heavily integrated with Windows 98 that we couldn’t look in any direction without seeing the Microsoft colours? – yet, ten years from the birth of Google and now that Chrome has been released no one (that I’ve noticed) has commented on the clear parallels with Google Apps (particularly Google Docs, Gears and Desktop) and that momentous event all those years ago.

All that Google have done is flipped the paradigm on its head and their colours are nearly the same – and of course the broadband network access that the active desktop really needed is now in place. If you haven’t considered how and where things are moving, think about how many folk out there now have a Netbook – a PC for which local storage is a secondary concern? .. I’m on my second… it’s moving to the cloud at a rate of knots and I hope you’re ready for the next step in the revolution. First impressions of Chrome are good, really really good. Down to the simplest things – such as ditching the “File, Edit.. ” menu bar.. so obvious and very good.

My reason for mentioning Dragon’s Den is the investment that Peter Jones made in the band Hamfatter and the flak that Hamfatter have since been getting in the music press for their approach to getting the band on the move, making that big step. It appalls me, the red mist descends and I want to set fire to the jaded music journalists, who are bored and scrabbling around in the stinking wastelands following Emo, for giving grief to a bunch of guys who have had a great idea, gone with it and it’s only bloody worked. Perhaps it’s just their own frustration, knowing that it can never be done again? – at least not on Dragon’s Den anyway.

Thing is, it’s not even an original idea in the music business anyway. Hamfatter may not know (despite having a strong Irish connection) that an Irish band did a very similar thing several years back, their name escapes me (not a good sign) and perhaps Liam or Kev P will know it. They sold off shares in the business of their band to a group of investors (mostly friends and family) against future earnings. It’ll come to me, I’ll update the post..they had a girl singer and I think sold a tune for use on an American TV show..

Anyway, I for one wish Hamfatter the best of luck. Their music ain’t bad at all by the way. Have a listen to “Sziget (We get wrecked)”, it’s a great tune.

I should also shout out to Alex by the way – it’s a stunning coincidence that him searching for left handed guitars ended up with us getting in touch after all these years on the very day that Hamfatter appeared on the den. Just excellent.

With Hamfatter’s entrepreneurial success, I’m brought to the Standford ETL podcast and “Music Artists go Entrepreneurial” (what a terrible choice of name) – this was a panel based discussion presented by Tony Perkins and featuring some Hip Hop royalty including Quincy Jones III and MC Hammer. The discussion basically shifts around the impact of the Internet on the music business, obviously with an emphasis on Hip Hop and the panel members talking about how they have adapted to the changing music markets, the shift from distributed hard media to digital soft media and the wealth of new opportunities that are out there such as MC Hammer’s DanceJam. It’s an uplifting and inspiring 60 minutes – and in places, very funny – there’s some good banter going on. I highly recommend it.

Last but not least in this high speed blog that I’m not going to bother editing is iTunes 8 (press release).. I’ve just downloaded it having watched Steve giving his keynote speech and liking what I’ve seen.

Central to the new release is Genius – basically an auto-playlisting function which uses your library, your ratings and song selections and others’ libraries, ratings and choices to determine what should go into each auto-generated list. The seed for each list being based on a song selection. I can say straight off that Genius appears to work very well – admittedly I chose a tune that I suspected it would work well *from* – but I was still impressed with the results. A 25 song list where just about everything was acceptable – although following a track by My Chemical Romance with The Fray was a bit weird, maybe even disturbing.

I’ll try picking a track from my own “The Void Which Binds EP” (shameless) tomorrow to see how it fares.. right now it’s time for bed.. hah, big content sigh – it’s good to write, I can’t wait to get my postgrad modules finished so that I can get my evenings and weekends back for music and writing. So much time and so little to do. Strike that. Reverse it.

chilly.

I was lucky enough last night to be feeling a bit “wakey” so when I switched off my Mac at 11.30 I went back into the living room instead of making the left turn to the bedroom, despite that fact that I knew my missus was going to wake me up when she got up at 5am to take her horse to the RDS.

I flicked on the tv and was grateful to find the Culture Show starting on BBC 2, I assume it was a repeat at that stage – there was certainly a lot more swearing in the post-watershed screening.

It was a bumper episode with a great piece on Metallica and the amazing Vasari Corridor of self-portraits in Florence but what really blew me away was Goldfrapp’s opening performance of their track “Eat Yourself”. Obviously I’m biased given my love of finger picked guitar – so the use of the harp for the hook is right up my street; the orchestration of the whole tune is perfect – fantastic vocals and really really mature and restrained use of instruments.

Goldfrapp Eat Yourself on the Culture Show from Mike Owen on Vimeo
.

Can anyone else hear the Glen Campbell version of Wichita Lineman in the sound they’ve used on the bass guitar?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qoymGCDYzU

Here’s something completely unrelated but rather lovely; Bobbie Gentry – Ode To Billy Joe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZt5Q-u4crc

Another mini-post anyway, I’m off work to study today and I slept in ’til 10am (did you stay up late?.. ahem) so I should get down to it.

It’s been a very busy couple of weeks and despite a downloads folder full of tunes ready to be explored from Mike, Simon and Kev (P), it has also be a musically blinkered couple of weeks.

I’ve been listening to Death Cab for Cutie pretty much on repeat. The albums of choice being Plans, Narrow Stairs and Transatlanticism.

The reason is down to being overwhelmed by life. Deadlines for my first two submissions for my two current modules of my MSc.; trying to get the recording of The Credits new demo sorted so that we can get ourselves out there gigging; my other half preparing for competition down at the AIRC festival in Stradbally last weekend and let’s not even think about how busy work is or the fact that any time I’m sitting down trying to study, ideas for the novel keep interrupting me and the need to play guitar and write songs gets more intense than ever!

The upshot is that I’m knackered, sunburnt, hayfever ridden, scared of everything, song weary and desperate for some raw relaxation. Wheel in Death Cab for Cutie please.

These guys write some of the most chilled, melancholic pop I’ve ever heard. Plans is a simply beautiful album; Soul Meets Body is bouncing and hopeful when the hard-panned “ba ba ba ba ba ba” (left) and acoustic guitar (right) kick in while Summer Skin is downbeat and mournful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0hTJF7xqV0

I listened to What Sarah Said on the bus tonight as it trundled along Clonkeen Road in Deansgrange and was thankfully taken far far away from the smelly fucker sitting in front of me with his rapidly escaping and body odour infused selfosphere to an introspective, story driven tunescape – that this song then goes straight into another equally as strong (Brothers on a hotel bed) was further welcome relief in the lashing rain in the walk home from the bus stop.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1SZvhCNIY0

I’m not going to go into any detail on Transatlanticism or Narrow Stairs – suffice to say they both pick up the progression nicely. You can really feel this band grow over time – the music matures and gets a little more edgy and more consumable simultaneously. All I’ll say is that The New Year is a fantastic tune to open an album with – ridiculously huge stereo spread on the guitars and for a split second it feels like it’s going to be Doves – Lost Souls. “I Will Possess your Heart” shows that maturity I was talking about, musicians comfortable with each other.

Lastly, what the hell does the little guitar lick in Transatlanticism itself remind me of?? – it’s straight out of another track.. can’t remember what the hell it is though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a84TmrJpBCw

If you aren’t familiar with Death Cab for Cutie, I highly recommend checking these guys out. The slightly mournful tunes have a surprising way of raising spirits. Even if you are in Santa Carla, I urge you to listen to these guys on a grey, rainy day in Dublin (Ireland, that is).

They’ll be touring the UK in July – no Ireland on the schedule I notice. That’s a real shame.

I’ve had my Asus Eee PC900 for over a week now, it’s currently perched on my lap and I’m tapping away in Google docs rather than Blogger (for a change). A very mixed set of first impressions – dampened slightly by my own bad eyesight which was always going to be a gamble when considering a “laptop” with an 8.9″ screen.

The size of this machine really comes as a surprise, even after seeing the various videos on YouTube – it’s friggin tiny!!! .. unlike most of the competitors though, the keyboard is big enough to touch type on once you get used to the scaled down positions. Asus have obviously cut many corners in getting the price as low as it is for a machine with the capabilities of the PC900 (no point in going into detail on those, just check the Asus website). As a result there are already noted hardware flaws being discussed and analysed among the user community – these included serious RAM upgrade issues with inconsistency between behaviour of individual machines and various memory modules. The power jack on mine feels very fragile and you have to get it at just the right angle for the system to register that it’s charging.

On the music front, it’s got a re-badged version of Amarok as the main player, which is great – but its handling of podcasts leaves much to be desired. I loaded up the XML feed for Featureplan.com’s Product Management View webinar archive and Amarok couldn’t distinguish the image downloads from the audio leaving me with zillions of links to sift through in order to get at the precious MP3s hiding away. Very frustrating, I don’t know yet if this issue is common to all versions of Amarok or just the mod’d version on the Eee PC900.

Freemind, I got up and running in no time at all and it’s going to be as useful as ever, PDFs all look great at full screen, including rotated and read like a book. One minor grievance, again for someone with bad eyesight is that the “Read Out Loud” function is not available in Adobe Reader, again I don’t know if this is an Asus Eee specific thing (perhaps due to the limited hardware) or common to the Linux release – perhaps a passing expert can help me with these techie questions?

An additional slight concern is the level of the audio output which seems quite low even at full volume, I’ve ordered a new set of noise excluding headphones, so we’ll so how I get on listening to a spoken podcast on a noisy bus in rush hour with those. The current volume level from my clip on Philips headphones can’t cope with a bunch of noisy schoolkids nearby!

My next challenge is testing multitrack recording – this would be utterly fantastic, if I could pop the Eee in my bag and bring it to rehearsal sessions – hopefully jacking a couple of output busses from the mixing desk into a wee external USB audio controller like the Alesis IO|2. I’m out of my depth though, my use of Linux to date has been working knowledge; enough for any enterprise Java software developer, a bit of Vi here and there, Tomcat, Apache and permissions twiddling etc. so figuring out how to get the necessaries to install one of the available multitrackers for Linux and get it working is scary ground.

Lastly I should mention that video playback seems pretty good – I haven’t watched a full movie yet, but I’ve loaded up an 800mb DivX AVI and both sound and picture seemed perfectly satisfactory – I see easing of long flights ahead! As a curiosity, below is a video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1U7WB_Bd52s) that I recorded on the built in webcam, the mic is pretty crap, the resolution is 320x and there are clear synchronisation issues – it does record at 640x but unfortunately it freaks out and fails- big shame.

I’d stress the little issues like these just can’t take away from what Asus have achieved with this machine – a truly mobile and fantastically high spec micro laptop at a sensationally low price; SDD storage, Wifi, Ethernet, 3 USB 2.0 ports, VGA out and SDHC. As a sidekick to my Macbook Pro; whether reading PDFs on the bus, watching ETL video podcasts in the evening or mindmapping my study notes in Freemind; this little machine is simply excellent.

Perhaps a Firewire 800 port on the next version and better behaved multi-touch for the touch pad. Sorting out of the intentionally crippled RAM and underclocked CPU would be great but shedding heat is always a problem on the smaller machines so again, we can’t take too much away from Asus. So what’s next?

• Well I’ve got a 16GB SDHC card on the way to act as my main file storage so that I can keep the little 20GB SSD drive as empty as possible. I also need to get a decent case for it.
• The little neoprene case that comes with it is great and nicely padded but not sufficient as the sole protection.
• An external USB audio controller – I actually have a Tascam US-428 but it’s huge and defeats the purpose.. well and I’ve already long term lent it to Darren for tracking his songs ready for the band. Obviously I’ll only do this if I can sort out the multitrack software conundrum

I’ll come back to this blog entry later as I get more used to this funky, tactile and quirky little machine and we’ll see how the new headphones go..

I’m tired – like really really bloody tired and I’m not sure if it’s being made worse by Spiritualized who are currently across the way on Jools Holland’s Later playing Sweet Talk. It’s a good song but they’ve always been just a little too downbeat for me; I have some friends who rate them very highly but I like a little more red mist with my guitar noise.

It’s been a long week; I’ve been working with the two Kens. One at work, where we’ve been hammering away on various new features for OpSource™ Billing and one in the studio, where it’s been a sweaty struggle getting to grips with our new Roland V-Drums setup. Realising the potential of this new way of recording is going to take some time but I think, hope, that it’s going to yield great results. As it happens it’s the method of recording that The Feeling have used for both of their albums so far. I can only hope that we have some of the songs ready to share soon, Darren is settling in on the bass, getting up to speed on the set. Feverishly writing basslines from pretty much scratch, for some thirty songs isn’t a trivial task. Hats are off dude.

The lethargy arrived just minutes after being utterly energised by an acetic and aggressive performance by Santogold of her current single Les Artistes – what a strong track and with a kickass video n’all. I can’t wait to buy the album.

Also, a simply beautiful rendition of Killing the Blues by Alison Krauss and Robert Plant from their album Raising Sands. It’s an album which hasn’t (thus far) sat well in my collection; despite being a massive Zep and AKUS fan – so I should be the ideal demographic!

Christ this is a pretty good episode of Later, Chris Difford (former band mate of Jools Holland in Squeeze) just sang a brilliant tune called “Battersea Boys”, Emmylou Harris is singing now (stunning as ever) and we’ve also had The Fratellis; an act I’m not quite ready for yet – they’re so hot right now.

That’s it for now – I might go on a geek-fest next week as I’ll be getting my hands on an Asus Eee Pc 900 – first one in Ireland perhaps?

to celebrate the appearance this week of our rarely-seen friend, the Sun, here is a themed mixtape for you. Hopefully I’ve avoided too many of the usual suspects (well, the Sinatra song is a bit obvious, but it was used in that great Simpsons scene).

I’m sure it’ll be chucking down tomorrow, but never mind for today we tan!

CLICK CLICK CLICK –> http://farmertan.muxtape.com

A grey Saturday morning accompanied by passionate music by Shade, a band from Pittsburgh in the US. The tunes remind me a lot of modern UK acts like The Longcut and dark, introspective stuff from Joy Division. Metal Drums also has a lot of Sonic Youth and Breeders about it. I challenge you not to hear Interpol in Wide Eyed.

Good tunes all, that have me moving from MySpace to iTunes in a move of instantly gratified consumerism. Of course the feeling was then scuppered by having to jump through several hoops as iTunes tells me (after searching for the album and clicking “add to cart”, that I can’t buy it from “this store” and I must use the iTunes Ireland store.

A) There’s no way of explicitly selecting a store
B) It doesn’t tell me what “this store” is.

Surely Apple’s developers can do better than this.. you know who I am and where I am from my iTunes login, iTunes machine authorization and IP address – just take my search criteria and throw them down the right pipe, stop wasting my time.

Back on track, the album “Arms Raised On Rooftops” is dowloaded, my Mac humms softly and the CD is promptly burned for listening in the car on the way over to my parents place for some free food. Carpet bagging as my Dad refers to it. It isn’t my fault they buy tasty stuff and then leave it lying around.

Driving is a pleasure these days – I’ve just collected my little plastic car from England where it was having some modifications done and as a confirmed petrol head I’m really enjoying the increased performance that the new engine has brought and the upgrades to the brakes and suspension have improved the handling massively. I can now avoid the bank manager and the nice people from VISA with greater and safer haste. Getting a stereo fitted was a religious choice, extreme car fans will tell me I’m betraying the cause and pragmatists will buy Arms Raised On Rooftops and enjoy listening to it while they drive to the shops.

The drive back on the A roads through Wales was spectacular and fun as always. It’s a part of the world I really love, towns like Llangollen and Betws y Coed – the A5 winds its way through breathtaking mountainscapes, it’s a driver’s dream. There was still plenty of snow on the peaks which is pretty amazing really for the last week in April. The photo was taken on the bank of Llyn Ogwen by the way.

That’s all for now – listen to Arms Raised On Rooftops by Shade, it’s good stuff.

Seeing as Mike mentioned the Ting Tings, I feel obliged to do a little follow up post.

It’s about 7.45 in the morning, it’s Sunday – I was woken up at 5am by my other half getting up to go to a show jumping competition and for some reason my back is fucked. That happened yesterday and I don’t know what the hell caused it – I wasn’t even doing anything, just walked from the bedroom to the living room. One second I’m fine – the next I’m in pain and can’t bend over.

So here I am, about to watch the start of the London marathon and with 4Music on in the background. A two song sequence really catching my attention.

First up – Goldfrapp – A&E

Stunning video, really original, with the beautiful Alison in the middle of a forest while around her, patches of leaves and the surrounding foliage come to life and dance to this chilled pop song (which has a distractingly edgy and breaky, arpeggio’d middle section). Every time I hear her voice I fall in love with how she can dip down to lower ranges and still sound perfectly smooth, they’ve really focused on that in this mix.

Immediately following A&E came the Ting Tings – Great DJ
Liam has already mentioned this track in a previous entry and it’s great. I love this tune, it’s simple, nicely produced and very, very catchy. Admittedly, there’s something about the video that irks me and it may just be the more than striking, body language similarity between herself and Debbie Harry – is it an affectation? – I don’t know, I’ve never met her (or Debbie Harry). Since I don’t know, I can only assume innocence and with a track this good and a video that’s otherwise this good, I think guilt could should be forgiven as a nod to the great anyway. I could listen to it all day. I have to echo Liam’s frustration at not being allowed to embed this video directly from YouTube – so I’ve embedded it from MySpace TV; the cynic in me is crying at the exclusivity arrangement that’s clearly in place there, at the cost of the availability of the media to the fans – i.e. those who consume it and ultimately pay ALL the wages.

The Ting Tings -Great DJ
My back is starting to hurt again from sitting here slumped over my Mac, so I’m off. I suspect I’ll be going to the doctor rather than to work tomorrow morning .. and considering I’m meant to be driving across the UK next week, I’m more than a little worried.

Enjoy the Moto GP – go Rossi, it’s time for the come back!!

Argh! This weather would drive you potty! It has me thinking though, I’m
pretty sure that somebody (Most likely Liam) could write a thesis that
reflects how the change in weather somehow manages to reflect the change in
mood of the listener.

In Ireland we have schizophrenic weather. Luckily the musical calendar will
accommodate this. In the last month or so my music collection has been
bolstered by new material from different genres. I attribute this varied mix
to the dramatic changes in weather.

Foals
Does it offend you yeah
Thao and the Get Down Stay Down
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Elbow
Seether
Supergrass
Bright Eyes
Bobby McFerrin
Black Keys
Utah Saints
Portishead

Ok the Bright Eyes album,

Cassadaga

This from about 2 years ago but I’m only getting around to listening to it now so this makes it new to me

With new material from Tindersticks, The Ting Tings and the excellent Sigur Rós there should be a good summer ahead both musically and meteorologically.

Anyway back to my point, Yes there is one. I woke up this morning (late as usual) jammed on my iPod to shuffle my tracks. Jumped on my bike and off I go.

First up was Bright Eyes with a song called “No one would riot for less”. This is a song that I shouldn’t like but for some reason today I do. It’s sunny out but its also bloody freezing cold. I’m running late so I don’t have time to go rooting through my pockets to hit next. It’s a political song, not my usual cup of tea but damn you it’s a grower. As a result I’m going to be giving a bit more time to this album later on.

Track and video can be viewed at the usual location.

“No one would riot for less”

I’ve hit a hill. The sun is in my face. It’s warm and the track has changed. Next up is Does it offend you yeah with a track called “With a Heavy Heart”. I don’t think Stephen Roche pedaled this fast to win the Tour De France.

I would encourage you to introduce this to your gym workout or as a power song while jogging. This song does come with a Warning! If you use this track while practicing Martial Arts you will be wanted for murder! What a tune.

“With a Heavy Heart…”

Downhill all the way to work now. Freewheeling in, Its still sunny. Foals with “Balloons” is on. Its a cracking pop song and this is a band that I can’t wait to see at this summers Electric Picnic. The track takes me right to the front door at work and sets me off in a good mood. Its very
rare I turn up to work in good mood unless I have had my coco pops.

“Balloons”

It’s almost Five. Day is almost over. It looks kinda dreary out. I have cheated already to see what track is up next. Its Portishead, “Machine Gun” Something tells me I’m going to be soaked by the time I make it home.

“Machine Gun”

Article by,
Mike Moloney