Have you voted for Rory yet? I have. Numerous times. You should, too.
T(I)NC to release a live jazz album
Are you as puzzled over reading that as I am? A politically-outspoken rock band fusing its material with the sounds of jazz? Have faith because I think that if anyone can pull it off, The (International) Noise Conspiracy are the ones to do it.
Alternative Tentacles has announced the release of Live at Oslo Jazz Festival, a special live recording featuring The (International) Noise Conspiracy in collaboration with noted jazz musicians Jonas Kullhammar and Sven-Erik Dahlberg.
The album was previously available only through Swedish jazz imprint Moserobie and includes tracks from Survival Sickness and A New Morning Changing Weather. The label describes the tracks as ” retaining the T(I)NC-ness of the original material” but with more dreamy arrangements. […]
The record is due out March 13, 2007. The band released their last studio record, Armed Love in North America in 2005. [punknews.org]
It’s not that I think this is a bad idea at all. I am all for artists taking a chance to explore what else they can do musically, but this is insane. And I mean that in the completely good sense of the word. I’ve seen T(I)NC twice now, and the thought of setting their music to a complete jazz arrangement is enthralling.
Anyone who is familiar with their music wouldn’t be overly surprised. Sure, the whole band has punk and hardcore roots from the Swedish scene, but every album has had hints of a jazz influence. From the rhythms on the drums to the full out saxophone solo in the middle of a track, I can’t say that this is too far off the radar. Now I just want to get my hands on it. More so, this is a tour I wouldn’t mind seeing for myself, but I’m not sure North America would be up for it.
The Crazy Canucks #12 – Not too wild about the Wild
It’s like Alanah said in one of her posts. More than anything, doing The Crazy Canucks is just fun. Check out the latest episode if you’d like to join in.
This episode caught some of us off guard, but anytime you throw a bunch of Canucks fans together, it’s not hard to talk hockey for a half hour. The whole gang was here, but our connection to Dave cut out towards the end. That didn’t stop the podcast, you can count on that.
Record as of this episode: 17-16-1 (5th in the Northwest Division)
We cover the last three games, but we only played two teams during that stretch; Calgary and Minnesota. Luongo takes center stage for some discussion, we pick out the rag of the week(only because it seems that whoever we pick on tends to start doing better), and wonder what the heck is going on with the officiating during some of the games. Dave also gives a first hand report on venturing out for a Vancouver Giants (WHL) game, J.J. gives us a Vote for Rory update(listen to an interview with Rory on the website under “Rory Speaks!”), and Alanah is live with her new blog, canucksandbeyond.com.
This is our last episode before the Christmas holiday, so all the best wishes to our listeners, subscribers, and readers. (Look for another episode before the end of year)
Fake fire on demand
Oh for the love of god, make it stop. The thing that kills me is that it costs $1.99 for a 24 hour purchase. There are three flavors; music only, sounds of fire with music, or just the sound of fire. Classy.
Art 2.0
This CNN article is particularly interesting to me because my sister is someone who is trying really hard to promote and sell her art in addition to her day job and being a single mom of two kids.
LONDON, England (Reuters) — Collector Charles Saatchi has launched a Web site for art students and a handful have already sold works online as the Internet begins to change the way the art world works.
With prices for contemporary art soaring, collectors say they have less time to travel to galleries and shows to see new works for themselves, while aspiring painters and sculptors find it hard to get noticed amid the pressure to find the next hot young stars.
For many, the Internet is the answer, offering low-cost access for thousands of painters, sculptors and buyers and, at the same time, providing a Myspace-style social networking site for artists the world over.[cnn]
My sister is a ways out from attaining extreme success with her endeavors on the web, but presence is important for sure. Beth took a hiatus from the world of art for a short time. In the last few years, my sister has gone to a variety of shows in the midwest. Painting is her true knack, but she can also do graphic design and wood carving. I can almost swear that some of her pottery projects from college are still floating around, but it has been a long while since I’ve see her do much in that realm.
Pointillism[wiki] is the style Beth specializes in. That might seem to be a painful process to some, but she has a real talent for it. Her inspiration comes from a variety of places. The collection has probably doubled, maybe tripled, in the last few years, and a print of her “Sunset Flower” sits on the wall in the living room of our apartment. The recent expansion of her original works has seen some incredible progression in the use of color and technique. “Player” has to be one of my favorites. At least when I first saw it, it really impressed me. I love the bold use of colors, and she has gone on to expand that concept in other paintings she has done since then.
Being an artist that offers themselves on the web is not as easy as it might seem, and I think my sister can speak to that quite clearly. Presence is the simple part. Gaining attention is the next big step, but actually achieving success is the golden ticket. Seeing the digital image won’t get people interested in buying as much as seeing the original up close will.
It’s comparable to when I saw Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”[wiki] for the first time. The reproduction that you’ve seen a thousand times before is like an over played song. It gets old, stale, and you don’t think twice the next time you hear it. However, with art, when you see the original painting, you get it. I had to be pulled away from that Van Gogh it because I couldn’t quit staring at it.
If you enjoy the samples of that you see in this post, then please visit my sister’s website, elizabethbollwitt.com.
Maybe I had a little part in it
I caught this story on PunkNews.org, and the main thing that I find incredible is the second city on the tour date list. Iowa City! And if you listen to the interview that RadioZoom did with Jim Ward, lead singer of Sparta, in November[rz118], you might recall that I lobbied for the band to consider swinging through Iowa City if they were ever in the area.
Toss this one up to the power of new media? Maybe. It would be really interesting if Jim had any part in putting IC on the list. It’s a U.S. tour only, so check out their site for details on any changes or additions.
Take that, Ames!
(Cross posted from RadioZoom)
Pluggd is fixing the meta issue with podcasting
Wired published an article about Pluggd, a company that is developing new technology to search the internet, and we’re not just talking about text anymore.
Pluggd has found a way to index podcasts, talk shows and other spoken-word content. The company’s service then allows users to search the audio files for specific words.
You can try Pluggd’s word-searching demo yourself right now. Enter your search term and you’ll see mentions of your word highlighted in various colors — heatmap-style — on a timeline of the show. The redder “hot spot” areas represent denser clusters of your search term, and clicking on one will cause the player to jump straight to the discussion about your desired topic.
Rather than just reading a transcript of a conversation, you can search for a term and hear it spoken in context by the original speaker in seconds. The ramifications for podcasting and more traditional spoken-audio formats are significant, and that’s just for starters. [wired]
If they get this right, the podcasting medium stands to take a huge boost. Take a look at the demo. It gives a nice preview of the service that they are working on. I’m still picking my jaw up off the floor a little bit.
Additionally, Digg did a design overhaul to their site plus some other goodies. They’ve added support for podcasting. That basically means that the same way that you can Digg a news story or blog post, you can Digg a single episode to share with others. I’m not too sure how it works from the podcasters end, but please feel free to Digg any of the RadioZoom or The Crazy Canucks episodes. 🙂
RadioZoom Episode #122 – Six Song Donut Spectacular: December 2006
Putting my best foot forward, here is this months six song.
This is getting out a little later than normal, but I’m blaming the holidays on that one. However, the theme for this installment is in regards to a blog post that I made regarding music at Vancouver Canucks games. It’s gathered some attention from people who are actual hockey DJ’s from various parts of the sport. I’m putting my money where my mouth is and explored the Podsafe Music Network this morning to quickly find some potential new blood for venues around North America.
52:39 minutes
radiozoom.net
Braving the winter takes on new meaning
We’ve been busy with getting everything set for the holidays. That pretty much means shopping. I’ve been taking care of a few various projects in between, but we ventured out to Stanley Park today with Rebecca’s dad. I went running yesterday, and the park was in pretty bad shape.
Last Thursday night, I woke up around 3AM to the sounds of wind. Massive amounts of wind. You could hear various pieces of debris rolling around outside, so I got up to peak out the windows. They are saying that we experienced hurricane force winds in the category two range, but it didn’t take me very long to make sure that everything was okay in the apartment and gather flashlights in the event that we lost power. Rebecca, on the other hand, slept all the way through it.
Luckily, we didn’t lose power in our end of the city. Other folks were not so fortunate, and I got a message from DaveO that tells me that North Vancouver experienced some outages. Word from Surrey said that some folks took a hit as well. Trees are damaged all over downtown through.
About running the park yesterday, it was a mess. I had to tiptoe around a lot of fallen foliage, some much larger in various spots. Heading back in today, I was sure to bring the camera along(see them on Flickr here). It looked like a war zone in some spots.
VANCOUVER/CKNW(AM980) – It looks like a crime scene.
And the trees are the victims.
Crews are asking the public to stay out of a battered Stanley Park.
Yellow caution ribbon is strung across pathways littered with branches and tree-trunks.
A trades foreman with the park board, Gary Gilder, says the wind damaged trees are a real danger.“……and a lot of trees in the bus hung up…..against other trees….that have not quite fallen over so it’s…I would say stay out of the park until the end of the weekend”
The park itself will be closed for the weekend. That includes the seawall, the Vancouver Aquarium and bright nights Christmas attraction.[cknw]
Yeah, I guess you could say that the park was closed, but we got ourselves inside and checked out the damage. However, I wouldn’t recommend it at all. Trails are cut off all over the place, not to mention that the seawall was blocked off at the point where you can take Beaver Creek trail up to Beaver Lake. And what trails you can find access to are bound to be blocked off at some point. You get past one tree to only find another.
When I went running through yesterday, there was no automobile traffic whatsoever. Getting around Brockton Point, I couldn’t even run on the bike path. They’re doing some reno to the lighthouse area, so all Seawall traffic is forced onto the upper route around the backside. Just beyond that, you could see that they worked a path through the fallen trees and branches for authorized vehicles to get into the area, but it was a tight squeeze. I actually passed a variety of people walking on the road in the opposite direction who, like me, didn’t know that the park was officially closed.
It’s really sad to see. I fear that it’s going to be a long time before anyone can safely or completely venture through the entire park. It’s a great place to go running or wandering through. I hope to see things restored as soon as possible. For only living here as short as I have, I’ve really come to love that park. It won’t be the same, but I’ll be anxious to see it back again.
The Skype free ride is about to end
I have been greatly enjoying the free, unlimited calls to regular phones on Skype for nearly the past year. It’s been a wonderful way to call up friends and family back in the states. The quality is pretty good, but on heavy traffic days on the internet, not so much. How are you to argue with it being free?
Enjoy it while it lasts. The free, trial period is coming to a close at the end of this month. I had hoped that Skype would just eat the bandwidth and keep it free, but that stands to not be the case.
Internet phone service provider Skype plans to start charging U.S. and Canadian users US$29.95 per year for unlimited calls to regular phones in both countries, as the end of a free trial offer looms.
Users who sign up before Jan. 31, 2007, will receive a special rate of $14.95 a year and 100 free minutes of international calling, Skype said on Wednesday. Any user wishing to continue using Skype to make calls to regular phones or mobile handsets after the free trial expires Dec. 31, but does not want a yearly plan, can pay for SkypeOut at a rate of 2.1 cents per minute for calls within the U.S. and Canada.
Computer-to-computer calls using Skype software will remain free. [macworld]
Still, that’s not a bad deal to pay that much per year for free calls between the U.S. and Canada. Naturally, there will be some people who will think that this is a load of crap. In my hometown, we used to run a free, local BBS[wiki] (yeah, remember those things from 1995?) and users flipped when they had to pay $25 a year to dial in over their modems. Sometimes you just need a little help with bills, and I could really see paying to use Skype’s service. However, I am a total sucker for free stuff.