I’ve long thought that the current music ownership and distribution has rapidly become dated and unnecessary and that the first company to put forth a workable business model based on fair use and easy digital availablity would stand to make a killing and also nail shut the coffins of the monolithic dinosaurs of the record industry. I think that day may be getting closer. Robert Cringely has an idea that I’m sure is entirely insane, but may well be one of the best to date. Sure it’s got problems. I don’t quite buy the numbers, and while I’d like to think its legal, it’s questionable enough that with the kind of money the RIAA spends on lobbying I wouldn’t be surprised if any loophole that allowed this is quickly closed. Our legislative branch seems fond of enacting legislation to protect existing business models in the face of needed change. Aside from those issues though, I’m not sure that this would necessarily be beneficial for artists as it stands, but perhaps a variant of it might be.

Meanwhile, a quick scan through a good number of titles in my record collection using the RIAA Radar confirms the expected: the RIAA is largely irrelevant in my day to day music listening. So why are they still here?

So apparently, while I wasn’t looking Emusic got really, well… good. Last time I checked, it was a decent service it seemed, one of the only monthly fee music download services that let you have the songs in pure, unadulterated, DRM free, all-natural mp3 format. Unfortunately, the selection was pretty limited, at least for artists that I was interested in. Then today, in the middle of reading some articles about the pending RIAA civil lawsuits and mediocre new download services, I came across something about Emusic and went to give it another look. This time around, I thought they had a really good selection of stuff I was interested in. I guess I’ll give their trial a go and see if it’s worth keeping around. The only problem is I’m not sure I can get used to the idea of really owning an album after downloading it, even if the artists are compensated as they are in this case. I just don’t know how I feel about not having the actual physical album, cover art, liner notes and all.

Update: 3 hours later and I’ve rolled right through my 50 trial songs and gone into about 18 albums downloaded with about 14 more on my list to get later. I keep looking through their catalog and finding more and more stuff I’d been wanting to get for a long time and even lots of new stuff that I’ve heard about recently. There doesn’t seem to be any end in sight, which brings up my only other concern… how well are the artists being compensated for this. As great as >18 albums for $14.99 is it just leaves me a little unsure how that breaks down into reasonable compensation for all involved. So yeah, I’ll probably end up buying the albums that I really dig, both to have something tangible in my collection and to be sure to support the artist.

Last night I went out to see 28 Days Later, Danny Boyle’s take on the zombie apocalypse film. Let me just say that I’m a huge fan of the zombie apocalype genre. Give me a shotgun and a shambling army of the undead and that’s pretty much all it takes to make me happy. I’d have to say that I haven’t enjoyed a zombie film this much since Dawn of the Dead. And yes, I know the “zombies” aren’t zombies in the technical sense but that’s neither here nor there. Its like Trainspotting, but with zombies instead of heroin addicts! Wait, that’s a lie. Still, the quality directing and interesting camera work set the film apart from the usual B-movie zombie standards. To break it down, the pluses are: zombie-like hoards ravaging a dark, gritty, abandoned London, sprinting(!) zombies, insane amounts of carnage, Godspeed You Black Emperor!-inspired score (which apparently, actually includes a track by them as well). On the down side: complete and total lack of shotguns.

Time for another post about music but this time about something a little happier: cover songs. It doesn’t get much better than coming across a well executed cover song, regardless of whether or not you even really cared for the original version of the song that much. As an aside, I’d like to point out that file-sharing systems are often the best place to find these covers many of which you’d just about be out of luck finding through more legitimate methods. In order for a cover to be truly great, it should both retain the best qualities given to it by the original artist while incorporating a feel entirely unique to the artist doing the cover. Nothing’s worse than a cover than tries to follow the original perfectly. Actually, I take that back. It seems that every pop-punk band in existance has some “ironic” cover of a cheesy 70’s or 80’s song that all follow the exact same formula. I’ll admit that some of them manage to be amusing, but for the most part I think they’re completely unnecessary. For reference, here are my top 5 10 (I just couldn’t stop) favorite cover songs (in no particular order):

I just read Brett’s recent RIAA related rant, and since the RIAA’s planned wave of legislation is something I’ve been thinking about a bit recently I figured I might as well have a rant of my own. I am an avid supporter of music as well, and I more than likely also buy more albums than the average person. However, I do fairly often download mp3’s from an album before I buy it. Unless I’m already familiar with the artist, or I’ve heard good things about an album from people whose opinions I value, there’s a good chance I’m going to download tracks from an album before I buy it. In fact, I’m currently in the process of buying all the albums for the mp3’s I downloaded during my college days. The irony, to me, is that I probably never would have bought these albums if I hadn’t stolen them first. That’s right, I said stolen. I’m well aware of the current legal situation, and while I may not completely agree with the law as it stands I do agree with Brett when he says that the RIAA has every right to protect their property. It’s unfortunate, but I realize that for every individual like me there are no doubt tens of others who have no intention of ever compensating anyone for the music they download. I think that prosecuting individuals may not be the smartest business move, but since I’d be pretty pleased if the RIAA collapsed under it’s own bloated weight and disappeared, I say let them go for it. It’s certainly within their rights. This is just another move to attempt to preserve their current business model in the face of impending change. For all the time and money they spend to fight every form of file-sharing, I would think that they could have used those resources to come up with a workable model involving digital distribution. It’s a shame, and its a shame that their efforts have in part lead to legislation like the DMCA which threatens technology and innovation for individuals in order to protect these organizations interests.

Now there’s something you don’t see every day. So I’m driving home from work today and as I come around a curve in the highway, I see a mass of wreckage on the side of the road. It doesn’t look like any accident I’ve ever seen, and as I get closer I see that it looks like lots of smashed wooden boxes. I look back at the road and SWEET MERCIFUL CRAP, I’M DRIVING THROUGH A SWARM OF KILLER BEES! A fraction of a second later I remember that I’m in a car, and yes, the windows are indeed all up and I feel more than a little silly for the brief panic. No bees are gonna get in here, not in MY airtight fortress. And as it turns out the bees weren’t killer bees at all, but how was I to know that? Apparently the truck carrying the bees had wrecked this past weekend, but there were still more bees left out there than I’d ever like to see in one place again.

Congratulations Jolayne! This past weekend I made a trip back to Columbus so that I could attend my girlfriend’s graduation ceremony. I almost didn’t make it as a delayed flight caused me to miss my connection in Chicago and resulted in an overnight stay at the always lovely airport Hilton Days Inn. My early am flight got into Columbus at 9:05 and graduation began at 9:30 but I managed to make it. Hard as it may be to believe, this was my first time ever being in the stadium, even after spending almost 5 years at OSU. Christopher Reeve was the commencement speaker, and did an excellent job. The rest of the weekend was great too, and I was glad to get a chance to see people back there.

The excitement didn’t stop after I got back though, since Monday night the Dismemberment Plan brought the rock to the Granada theater in Lawrence. Apparently, on their “farewell tour” they’ve been doing all requests at shows rather than having a setlist. The show ended up being over an hour and a half of every single Plan song I had been hoping to hear. It was amazing. They were able to play every song requested from any of their albums, only turning down one. (“One Too Many Blows to the Head”, due to not having a trombone with them.) All the D-Plan trademarks were included, like the audience-on-stage-dance-a-thon during “Ice of Boston”, closing with “Ok, Joke’s Over”, and Travis deftly slipping bits of other artists songs into the middle of some of theirs. Hard to imagine why a band who’s still clearly at the peak of their live playing ability would want to disband, but I’m just glad I got to catch this show. It was easily the best show of theirs that I’ve been to. After getting back from Lawrence at 3am I was pretty much dead all day at work yesterday, but it was completely worth it.

Ladies and gentlemen, I now present to you the best news in the history of this universe or any other, including any universes that have yet to be formed, even artificial universes created accidentally or intentionally in the coming years as our scientific knowledge races ahead of our sense of responsibility. (What, too much?) Adult Swim is coming to DVD! Even though this makes my carefully (some might say obsessively) compiled VCD collection pointless, I’m still thrilled.

It’s just been non-stop rock and roll around here. Tonight it was Ester Drang and Starflyer 59 at El Torreon, south of downtown. In spite of a less than stellar sound set-up, the show was pretty good. I picked up an Ester Drang cd and a Starflyer t-shirt. It’s a black shirt. Because, you know, I was just so dangerously close to running out of black t-shirts. Good thing I’ve got a C++ developer’s class/workshop on memory leaks tomorrow at 7 am. Sacrifices must be made for the rock I suppose, so I guess I can give up some sleep. I thought my days of getting up early for class were well behind me now though…

Last night I made my first trip over to Lawrence, KS to catch Pretty Girls Make Graves playing at the Bottleneck. The band was minus one guitar player who had to leave the tour since he had a baby due, but they still were just as impressive as I’d been hoping. From the sound of what I heard their next album should be quality stuff too, so I’m looking forward to that. The Bottleneck is a pretty cool venue, but it, along with the rest of Lawrence, just seem a little strange to me. I guess it’s because I’ve only been used to an urban campus at OSU that it seems odd to see something that looks like High Street with all its bars, bookstores, and record shops outside of the context of a large city. Much cleaner too.