Your music in the clouds

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Have you heard about the Amazon Cloud Drive?

This is a new service provided by Amazon that they hope will make them some extra income, as well as spur additional sales in their MP3 Download Store.

Why do you want one? The main reason might be that no one buys physical CDs anymore. I mean, do you? Well, if you are anything like me, you have a few devices and computers that you play your digital music on. Maybe you only have one place where your music library is, and it’s probably safe at home. Except it’s not safe. It might even be little anxious thoughts that nag you about the fact that you aren’t backing up all this precious music. All the CDs you ripped to MP3, all the albums you have bought on iTunes; they are all at risk. Not to mention all your photos and documents…did you just have a full on panic attack?

Amazon Cloud Drive starts off as free, but will be limited with only 5GB of space. This might be adequate for some, but if you are even here reading this, it might be likely you are a music fan and probably have a library bigger than 5GB. Plus, you might want to move all those bazillion megapixel images you have taking up space on your drive to the Amazon Cloud, which means you will need more space. The pricing plans go all the way up to a terabyte of space (1TB) and all the many sizes in between, but the price doesn’t go down the bigger you go. It’s a dollar a GB. 1TB is $1000 a year. That’s a hefty price for most of us. I’m a music nerd, and my music library is over 180GB. so I would probably be looking to spend $200 a year to cover my entire library. I’d have to leave any other files types (photos/movies/documents) on my machine, or come up with $500 for the next plan up (500GB).

I am pretty committed to Dropbox. I’ve paid for the 50gig upgrade ($100), and have convinced many friends and peers to at least sign up for a free 2GB account. I suggest you sign up as well. Dropbox is the same idea as this Amazon Cloud Drive, with a few exceptions. Dropbox stores your files on their server, but also has a client that will keep folders on any of your computers in sync. Move a file into your dropbox at home and it will be synced and ready to use when you get to work. You can get to your files with any browser if you find yourself on a machine that isn’t yours. There are also apps for Android and iPhones that will allow you access to your files on the go. But trying to keep an iTunes library synced this way is problematic because of the machine specfic XML files that iTunes uses to read your library contents. What this really means is that you can only have iTunes open on one computer at a time. There are ways around this, but I find it’s not worth the work. I use dropbox to move albums and documents back and forth between computers and to share with friends. Also, it’s important to mention that when you refer your friends to Dropbox, you get an additional 250MB per referral added to your account for free. I’ve earned an extra 5GB this way!

I use Audiogalaxy to have access to my library from anywhere, and that’s free. But unless you have a backup plan on that library, all those files are at risk, since you are never really uploading anything to Audiogalaxy. It’s just allowing you to stream music from your machine at home, for example, to your PC at work or even to your smart phone. It’s a great service, especially for the price, but I’ve been feeling like updates for new features and bug fixes are slow to come.

Should you get an Amazon Cloud Drive? I’d sign up for the free account. 5GB of cloud storage is tough to beat, and I’m sure you will use it. Paying for it will entail checking the size of what you want to securely store in the cloud and then deciding if the price is something that matches your budget and needs.

There are some other perks though that might sway you. For example, if you purchase your digital music from Amazon, you can store those files to your cloud, and it won’t count against your total. That means that you are only paying for the storage of music that you haven’t purchased from Amazon. If you continued buying music from Amazon you could grow your library without having to come out of pocket for more space. They are also running a promo right now that will give you a free upgrade to the 20GB account if you buy one full album from Amazon. This freebie is only good for a year, and is only available to US customers.

There are some risks and downside with Amazon Cloud Drive. For one, it’s still unsure how the music labels will react to this. Amazon doesn’t have agreements with any labels as of now, because it believes there’s no reason to — since the Cloud Drive is just holding onto what’s already yours. The labels might not see it the same way. MP3tunes ran into this problem and is facing a pending lawsuit from from labels and publishers under the umbrella of the major label EMI. Also the Amazon Cloud Drive has an android app, it doesn’t have one for the iPhone. An iPhone may happen, but Apple has many reasons to not allow this into the app store. Plus, it’s very likely that Apple will be releasing a service like this in the near future, and you may not want to upload all your music to Amazon just to have to reupload it to Apple’s service.

If you are still liking Amazon Cloud Drive I suggest you pick up the new Mountain Goats album All Eternals Deck. It’s only $5 and will get you that free 20GB upgrade, which is a killer deal, all things considered.

Click to play The Mountain Goats – Beautiful Gas Mask

Who’s the fool?

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My two loves are music and technology. In my day job, I write software. I’ve been writing code for over 13 years professionally. Before that, I would write little scripts on a TI-99/4A for fun. My first application was a program that would take your questions and answer you with a yes/no/maybe answer. Like a virtual Magic 8-Ball. This was needed because I didn’t have many friends, and talking to my computer allowed me some basic interaction skills. Honestly, I think even now I’d prefer my social interactions to be behind a computer keyboard!

I’ve often thought of starting a tech blog. Something along the lines of a Mashable or a Mental Compost perhaps. I may, one day, expand our inALLcaps brand to review books, movies, and gadgets. Until then, it’s exclusively music.

I am going to blend the lines a bit today and mention two cool technologies that tie into music. Well, it ties in once you understand the context.

A friend of ours came into town from Seattle (or just outside Seattle… /wink) for a bit of vacation time. They ended up staying at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino. The story goes that in their room were two large framed photos on the wall. One was a montage of photos of the band Fall Out Boy. The highlight was a picture of Pete Wentz peeing.

The other picture was of a beautiful blond frontwoman, in a tight red dress. Here is the picture he took with his phone.

He showed me this picture while we were drinking at the Griffin downtown. I really wanted to know who this blonde bombshell was, as did he, but I had no clue.

The next day he posted the same picture up on his facebook wall. I was again intrigued, and thought about how I could figure out who this hottie was. I remembered an article I read somewhere about reverse image searching. It’s popular in the retail sector. Someone with an app like Amazon Pricecheck could snap a photo of a product for example, and the app would try to determine what product in Amazon’s inventory matched your photo. I’ve used the app and found it to be very hit-and-miss. This proves that the technology is out there, so I jumped on google and stumbled on to TinEye.

TinEye is essentially a reverse image search engine. You can submit an image to TinEye to find out where it came from, if modified versions of the image exist, or to find higher resolution versions.

I found this bit of marketing from their website:

TinEye is the first image search engine on the web to use image identification technology rather than keywords, metadata or watermarks. It is free to use for non-commercial searching.

TinEye regularly crawls the web for new images, and we also accept contributions of complete online image collections. To date, TinEye has indexed 1,953,157,319 images from the web to help you find what you’re looking for.

This looks EXACTLY like what I need to ID this image. I upload my friend’s photo, and within a second get returned some results. With another click I verify that this is Vinila Von Bismark from the rockabilly band Vinila Von Bismark & ​​The Lucky Dice.  I’m also able to get access to a higher resolution image of the singer.

Vinila Von Bismark performing at the Hard Rock

Vinila Von Bismark appears to be from Madrid and also seems to be a popular DJ. I don’t sound confident because I could find barely anything on google about Vinila that wasn’t in Spanish. If I trust Google Translate, another great technology, then it appears that she is actually a he! The more google results I found and translated, the more I think it is not a language translation error.

Awkwaaaaaard!

Click to play Vinila Von Bismark & The Lucky Dados – Bad Boys


I’M A MAN from Gustavo Lopez Mañas on Vimeo.

Home!

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Note: Click here if you would like to donate to help me with my fundraising minimum for the Run to Home Base. Below is more on it.

Okay, so this will be an unconventional post by me. On Saturday night, I signed up for a short 9K road race. Why 9K? Well, baseball season is upon us. Anyone that knows me knows what a baseball nerd I am. I mean, I will get the most random trivia questions right with regard to baseball. For example, I could tell you the home run leaders by decade going back to the 1920’s. Sad, but true.

Well, being that I’m in Boston, it’s now time for the Red Sox season to start, and one of the best parts of the Red Sox organization is their fundraising effort – the Red Sox Foundation. They help many organizations, including the Jimmy Fund, which helps kids – and adults – in their fight against cancer. Last year, I took part in an awesome event – the Red Sox Foundation’s Fantasy Day, and look forward to doing so again this year.

However, this time around, I signed up to take part in their 9K “Run To Home Base” to help their Home Base Program. The program helps returning soldiers with their battles with traumatic brain injuries and PTSD. Many know that I am staunchly anti-war. However, I feel that if we’re going to send these kids – and many are kids when they go to fight – to war, that we should also take care of them when they return, which simply isn’t happening. This is a great cause that I think any of us can support, regardless of how you feel about war and our role in it. So since it’s the “Home Base Program”, why not choose a song entitled “Home”, eh?

To donate, please click here.

Click to Play LCD Soundsystem – Home

Ante Up!

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See my niggaz don’t dance we just pull up our pants and, do the Roc-away.
Now lean back, lean back, lean back.

Girl Talk, aka Greg Gillis, just wrapped up 48 live shows where he would get on stage, play, mix, splice, and drop samples at a frenetic pace, sweat his ass off, and inspire the masses to dance their asses off.

If you still don’t know what Girl Talk is, I am not talking about a DJ who matches up the end of one track with the beginning of another.  I am not talking about a DJ who makes the crowd scream with the drop of “Livin on a Prayer” in the middle of “I Gotta Feeling.”

Greg Gillis applies just as much micro-management and analytic skills that he once applied to his trained field in biomedical engineering, to the intricate weaving and grafting of upwards of 35 samples in one track.  Mookie explained just how many samples are used when he reviewed the latest Girl Talk album, All Day, back in November.

You may have noticed two weeks ago when I shat upon the Strokes show that we saw at Las Vegas’ Cosmopolitan. We didn’t know what to expect when getting ready to see Girl Talk at the same hotel. Different venue, but who knew if the same standards for sound and management applied out at the Boulevard Pool as apparently did inside at the Chelsea ballroom? And were we to be standing around the pool? Near the pool? Las Vegas, and this blog, is not stranger to an outdoor pool concert. The space for the Boulevard Pool, at least in the pictures released up to that point, seemed a little more confined.

Oh hell.

Oh shazam.

The Boulevard Pool is the New Standard in wet entertainment in Las Vegas. “Dayclub” is the word to describe the trend that has been developing in Las Vegas over the last few years as cabana culture has tried to find exactly the formula for attracting the bikini and board short-clad folk who are seemingly gainfully employed but able to spare a weekday for a pool party. I can’t even begin to explain all of the amenities amenable to partying that they’ve arranged at this Stripside pool, but check it out. It is a Stripside pool.

Drained for concerts.

All 11 inches of it.

If you want to swim, go to the hotel’s other pools.  The Boulevard is designed for the social scene.  Foosball, ping pong, cookouts, makeouts, and live music.

I would definitely recommend going to another show.  Robyn, Mumford & Sons, Nas & Damian Marley, Cake, and The Flaming Lips are on the calendar for the next couple of months.

Back to Girl Talk.

Our other concern: The crowd.  Who were we going to be trying to get our groove on with at this show?  Never to worry.  Girl Talk’s fans are awesome people.  Dancing, throwing hands in air, wearing crazy 80’s getups or wearing noueveau-grunge hipster wear, it’s all good.

The sound was good.

The energy was good.

And do not fret.  Girl Talk is only taking a month off.  He’s got plenty of festivals and appearance scheduled from late April on through the summer. So hit a show.  Hit a few shows in a row.  There’s nothing wrong with that.

But no gangster lean.

You need to dance, y’all, dance.

Click to Enjoy Girl Talk – That’s Right

the L word(s)

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Click to play Lea Lu – Intro (So Jazzy I Could Cry)

I heard that song and I fell in love. It’s jazzy yet fun, and the lyrics are witty in a geeky musician kind of way. The voice that rises above it all is Lea Lu, a Swiss singer/songwriter who I happened across in my journeys around the wonderful mess we call The Web. No, not Lykke Li, not Lucy Liu, and not even everyone’s favorite Teletubbie, Laa-Laa. It’s Lea Lu.

Lu’s new album, Colours will be available April 5th so I wanted to give you a chance to get to know her before that happens. Her songs are folky, always centering around an acoustic guitar, but she sneaks in some very heavy Brazilian Jazz influences. Think “The Girl From Ipanema” with a more pop-based twist and a bit sillier sense of humor. Here’s a fun little song called “Tucataca Song.”

Click to play Lea Lu – Tucataca Song

See? It’s fun stuff.

Lu also has some very introspective tracks on the album. She’s often understated and haunting, in a way that coincidentally reminds me of Lisa Loeb. That’s not a bad thing in any way.

Click to play Lea Lu – Gone

All in all Colours is a solid album. It’s a good listen and is just the kind of thing to put on in the background while you’re hanging out with friends discussing the diversification of your stock portfolios, or whatever it is kids discuss when they’re hanging out these days.

I wish I could tell you more about the artist herself but my German is nicht so gut these days, and that’s pretty much what you get when you visit her official site and most sites about her. That’s alright, her music speaks volumes and I will be on the lookout for her in the future. And now I’ll frame this post just like her album, between her intro and outro tracks.

Click to play Lea Lu – Outro

Back!

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So this is just a short post to share what I experienced in my time away. I visited Egypt, and the two highlights for me were the trips to the White Desert and Mt. Sinai. Watching the sun set in the desert and sleeping under the stars is no less than amazing. As for Mt. Sinai, that was a workout and a half. My Bedouin guide and I were the first to reach the top, actually! The four plus mile hike, with a close to half-mile change in altitude made it one hell of an experience. I could have cheated and ridden a camel, but what’s the point? Seeing the sun come up from over 7,000 feet above sea level at a place so revered by so many was worth the chilly weather and strain on my muscles.

That said, what I saw overseas made me also understand how destructive we are. Not to the planet. The planet will survive long after we’re gone. It’s the destructive nature that will wipe out our ability to stay here which is bothersome. Think of the movie “Wall-E”. The amount of trash everywhere was incredibly sad. Regardless of our level of thought and ability to change, there will always be a species here that undergoes this fight to survive. It’s how I feel about our own fight which is what I worry about. It magnified to me our problems here in the US. We wantonly create pollution and ills that we – with all of our technical know-how – can work to eradicate. Using that rare trait of conscious thought to help each other by taking care of our surroundings.

I don’t want to be a total downer, though. I purposely recorded some video and took plenty of pictures because I honestly felt the need to share with others what I saw. Almost make them feel like they were also there. Here are two videos I made with songs I felt fit the mood. The songs are then posted below.

Click to Play Mogwai – Auto Rock

Click to Play Animal Collective – Daily Routine

I need a devil to warm up my heart

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It sounded familiar to me, but I just couldn’t place it. The Little One and I had been watching a little TV, when the trailer came on during a commercial break. Right before the two minute mark is what I’m talking about.

I knew that song. Couldn’t place the artist. I put T.L.O. on the case. She can get the answer to any question. She’s my own private Google, that girl. Except way hotter than Google. She puts the boobs in G(*)(*)gle. Um… What was my point again?

Ah yes!

She says, barely perceptible, “I don’t agree.”

“Who are you disagreeing with?” I respond.

“I-Duh Ma-reeee-ah” she says loudly, enunciating every syllable.

I know it’s a mistake, but the word spills past my lips. “What?”

She lets out a sad sigh and looks me in the eye. “That’s who sings that song. Ida Maria.”

“Oh!” I respond excitedly, “I wonder if I have that album already.”

I grab my iPhone and open the Remote app to scan the artists in my music library. I come up with no hits in my library. I quickly switch to Evernote to add an entry to my shopping list of CDs.

Ida Maria

The next morning, after previewing two albums from the band, I buy Ida Maria’s (actually pronounced E-dah) entire discography. Don’t worry… it was only two albums! The first album, Fortress ‘Round My Heart was released in 2008. The second album, Katla, was released early November, 2010.

Below is the full track used in the trailer. It’s called “Oh My God” and is from Ida Maria’s first album Fortress.

Click to play Ida Maria – Oh My God

I’m sure I first heard this song on Hypem.com’s Popular list years ago around the time it came out. Not sure why I didn’t pull the trigger on this album then, but I’m glad it’s in my collection now.

Fortress ‘Round My Heart is a bluesy pop/rock album that has some moments of fun friskiness. Songs like “Louie” and “I Like You So Much Better When You’re Naked” are as fun and filling as a grape pixie stix. Mostly though, this album has a very somber message. Imagine a heart symbolized as a piece of paper. Imagine that piece of paper being ripped in two. Then take these torn pages of love, and add Whiskey and Rock N’ Roll. That’s what you get for the remainder of the album in songs like “Forgive Me” and “Drive Away My Heart”.

With the latest album, Katla, it’s more of the same. Just much more aggressive in its focus. It’s Fortress with a sniper scope. Katla is a massive volcano in Iceland near the infamous Eyjafjallajokull volcano that clogged Europe airspace with ash for 5 full days. If Katla were to fully unleash its fury, it’s estimated to be 10 times bigger and stronger than Eyjafjallajokull. Just as Katla is 10 times bigger and badder than Fortress.

The track “Devil” blew my mind like a volcano. It’s dark and thick, and might actually allow demons entry into your home. My the end of the track I was in a trance, snapping out of it long enough to hit the repeat button.

Click to play Ida Maria – Devil

Yup. That’s the sonic equivalent of opening a Pandora’s Box contained in a 9:47 song.

I haven’t seen the Galifinakis flick by the way. I really might see it just for the Indie-leaning feel the soundtrack seems to have. Seems like there are a slew of movies that are using Indie-ish artists in their soundtrack. A practice that probably traces back to the movie Little Miss Sunshine and the soundtrack that heavily featured indie folk punk artists DeVotchKa.

for the love of Pete

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Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.
-John Lennon

Sometimes you get busy. Too busy to really focus on what you’re supposed to. Like the awesome blog you write for. Work gets in the way, family gets in the way, general need for sleep seems to get in the way. It happens to everyone, and it happened to me this week.

Rather than post about any of the new albums I took five minutes to preview but couldn’t quite follow through on, let me throw another oldie at you. For some reason I’ve been really been drawn back to the 1994 Peter Gabriel concert DVD Secret World Live lately. It’s a 15-song concert featuring elaborate presentations and some of the best musicians you’ve ever seen. Yeah, I know it’s almost a decade old now but it holds up amazingly. This was Peter Gabriel at his very best, and that rivals pretty much anyone out there.

Here’s the opening song, “Come Talk To Me.” It’s a perfect way to set the mood and draw you into the rest of the concert. It also happens to feature a singer named Paula Cole, who went on to make a name for herself a few years later.

This is what music on the stage should be: art. It’s one of the best concert videos you’ll ever see. It also has an amazingly moving version of “Washing Of The Water,” probably my favorite Peter Gabriel song. If you haven’t had the opportunity to see this DVD I highly recommend you check it out. Maybe it will help you get through the busy times in life, like it’s done for me.

You Get Taken All The Time For A Fool

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Rolling Stone said we would want to slit our wrists if we missed The Strokes. Well, they said something like that. If a band whose shit you like takes a five year hiatus, and then is performing in only one spot on your continent for the foreseeable future, would you not try to go to that show?
And if that show was scheduled in YOUR TOWN in a BRAND NEW SWANK-ASS PLACE… You would buy the tickets. Or tell your boyfriend to buy the tickets, if that’s how you roll.

It appeared at the time that they were taking off for Europe and Asia after playing one show at The Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas. Was it planned that way to build hysteria for Vegas’ newest super-resort?   Here I find out they just played SXSW. Fuck them. Now they are scheduled for Coachella, Bonnaroo, and a bunch of other shit. Great. I hope the entire western hemisphere is happy they crowded into a HOTEL BALLROOM to make my first experience seeing The Strokes live as shitty as humanly possible.

Yes. It sucked.

I think a few years ago I tweeted that “If I ever go on Dancing With the Housewives I want to dance the quickstep to “Last Night” by The Strokes.” I used to love their music that much. The rest of their fans have made me hate them.
And I don’t say that lightly. I do not claim to be the original fan shitting on the nouveau fans. I am like the 25-year-old Emo kid who shows up to a Fall Out Boy concert without realizing that 96% of their fans are screaming teenage girls. Decibel-shattering screaming teenage girls. Oh, my bad. I didn’t know this was your thing. I’m out.

The shattered decibels at this show were due to bad sound mixing, rather than fans. Maybe the fans were screaming. I don’t know. Mostly they looked like they were trying too hard to get into an exclusive club. You had diversity and then some at that show. Girls in ridiculous sequinned craziness. Boys who looked like inner-city drug dealers. Emo boys. Douchebag boys. Jersey Shore wannabes. Punks. Middle-aged music snobs. Everything. But with no crowd unity. I am a tribe runner. I go to a lot of shows. I enjoy my fellow crowd mates. This was awful.

And so we waited with these assholes. And waited. And waited. The ballroom’s box office has no idea what they are doing. You’re supposed to know set times a couple of hours before the show starts. The girl on the phone basically guessed at set times for me. And guessed wrong. The Strokes finally took the stage at 11 PM at a one-opener event with doors at 8 PM. Tell me just how the fuck that happens. Perhaps it’s because the bathrooms are half a block away? Perhaps it’s because they need to make sure you load up on as many twelve dollar drinks as possible?

Until The Chelsea ballroom is actually turned into The Chelsea Theater, SKIP any event held there. I am serious. You see those crystal things hanging?  Yes.  They are BALLROOM CHANDELIERS.  The bodies you see before you are the General Admission patrons, and behind them are risers with chairs.  God.  Awful. We can stand loud music.  We can stand face-meltingly loud music.  We can stand floor shaking.  This was just bad, bad mixing.  Apparently they played 19 songs.  We had to leave after two and a half.  Then as we drove The Strip in front of the hotel, we were treated to perfect sound and a big screen of the show live.  Shit.  Settle for the sidewalk show if your favorite band is insane enough to play here.

The album is OK.  I like the song “Taken For A Fool”.  Everything else sounds just like it was recorded, and practically like that live show felt:  in pieces.  Scattered.  Uncoordinated.

Click to Enjoy The Strokes – Taken For A Fool

Stand the test of time… [3fer edition]

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The amount of music I want to tell you about far exceeds my post allocation for the blog. I’m going to try to post a “three-fer” once a month. Just a quick three bands you should hear and be aware of. Thinking the second Monday of the month works for me. Work for you?

Does It Offend You, Yeah?

Does It Offend You, Yeah?

Everybody thinks the name is some kind of statement but it’s a quote from David Brent in an episode of The Office. “When me and James Rushent first started writing music together we decided to put it up on MySpace. We needed a name to put as our profile name so just put what was the first thing that was said on TV, we switched it on and Ricky Gervais said “My Drinking – Does it offend you, yeah?” so we just went with that. No thought went into it whatsoever.

—synth player Dan Coop, NME.com interview

Dance-Punk has been around since the 1970’s. Isn’t that a trip? It stems from bands being influenced by dance music. Does It Offend You, Yeah? formed in Reading, England in 2006 and  sound like they have been influenced by Haitras and Daft Punk.

Click to play Does It Offend you, Yeah? – The Monkeys Are Coming

Don’t Say We Didn’t Warn You is the upcoming album from the band due out on March 14 in the UK and March 15 in the United States. I’ve listened to it extensively, and it’s something you must pick up.

Beady Eye

Beady Eye

With that new band name, the former Oasis members Liam Gallagher, Andy Bell, Gem Archer, and Chris Sharrock get a spot on the shelf of the record store right next to the Beatles. That’s very crafty no? Would be brilliant if people actually purchased music in a STORE! Noel and Liam still haven’t spoken since the band broke up after a tiff backstage in Paris. The brothers always wanted to best The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. Wouldn’t it be something if Liam could finally do it after shedding the dead weight?

Click to play Beady Eye – Beatles And Stones

Liam and the boys released the album Different Gear, Still Speeding on March 1st. If you are a fan of that Britpop/Rock of Oasis, you might think about picking up this slightly Bluesier album ASAP.

Saigon

Man this cat has flow. I suppose you know you have to bring it on an album you title The Greatest Story Never Told. Brooklyn’s Brian Daniel Carenard, otherwise known as Saigon, definitely brings it. If you are already familiar with Saigon’s work, you will find this album to be more mature. Less glitz and glamour, and more focus on surviving on the neighborhood streets.

This album came out on Just Blaze’s Fort Knox Entertainment label, and the track below is produced by Blaze himself.

Click to play Saigon – Clap featuring Faith Evans (Produced By Just Blaze)

The fact that this album does not have any major label support is really a testament to just how fucked the music industry is right now. It’s a great rap album, and if you like Jay-Z you might find Saigon a nice addition to your collection.