February 16, 2006

Discover new bands

Recommendation systems are all the rage these days. Last.fm has been particularly successful, and, at least in theory, lots of people use it to discover new bands they didn't know they'd like. Frankly, I've never really had much joy with it, perhaps because I'm not willing to splash out on a CD by a band some website thinks I might like. So what to do instead? Simple. Go to gigs, listen to the support acts, and observe what bands are mentioned on the t-shirts of other people around you.

Three bands I quite like, I would never have discovered except through this method, I'm sure -- the Wildhearts, the Yo-Yos and the Editors.

I don't have good alternatives to the Amazon or LOVEFiLM recommendations yet though. Suggestions welcome! :)

Posted by James at 16:08 | Comments (2) | TrackBack
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December 12, 2005

Token Phluid gig photo

Last night, I travelled 170 miles (round trip) to see a little-known band called the Yo-Yos, who it turned out had broken up some time last week. Bugger. In the end the bassist/vocalist, Danny McCormack, did a short version of their set with a little help from support bands Phluid and Any Given Day, and ended up staggering on stage to join headliners Antiproduct, who surprised me by not sucking as much as they looked like they would.

But none of this is the point, and this is where it gets slightly more complicated.

See, among the people I went to the gig with, was a guy who used to be in Phluid, generally known to their fans (apparently they have some!) as "Robbie G". A friend of ours had written "where is Robbie G?" on her t-shirt to show to the band during their set, ideally shortly before they realised he was in the crowd. And I (drunkenly) told her I'd try get a photo of the t-shirt to be a reasonably high result on a google search for the band's name...

So, check out the token Phluid gig photo, and if anyone fancies linking to it under the name "Phluid", I wouldn't be offended ;)

Posted by James at 12:43 | Comments (0) | TrackBack
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July 27, 2005

Tracks that might offend

Last Monday, I concocted a plan, together with Some Guy I Met In The Pub, that would make us both incredibly rich. However we're both far too lazy to implement it, so I'm going to go ahead and tell you all in the hope that someone else gets rich off it instead. Just remember you saw it here first, OK?

Modern pub jukeboxes, it seems, offer the capability to download tracks from a vast selection (2 million according to Leisure Link's sales bumf), downloaded over now-ubiquitous broadband. This is something of a step up from a classic pub jukebox which might offer 50 or 100 albums, totalling maybe a couple of thousand tracks at best. Of course, not all 2 million tracks are stored on the machine at once, but those which are stored on the machine can be played for half the price of those needing to be downloaded, and those which are downloaded frequently tend to "evict" the less frequently played tracks from the disc. So far, so good, although clc points out the risk this system creates, that someone might choose tracks that might offend the delicate ears of other pub-goers.

But why stop there? Why make people pissed up on a night out stagger up to the jukebox and try remember the name of the song they suddenly really fancy hearing? OK, for some people that's the whole fun of jukeboxes, but wouldn't it be cool if you could identify some tracks in advance, before you go out, and have the machine recognise you and play them? So, my scheme is to issue RFID tags of some kind to people containing a unique ID, along with login credentials for a website. Then you just top up your account on the site with credit, and let it know the tracks you want to hear; perhaps it could hook into an audioscrobbler/last.fm type system, and "learn" your musical preferences, although there would need to be a facility to override your choices for a given night, and pick tunes to suit particular occasions. Then when you get to the pub or bar, you just walk up to the machine, wave your ID token at some sensor, and away it goes, taking credit from your account for every track from your selection it plays (up to some limit you can set, perhaps.)

And why stop there? How about if the RFID tags operated over a slightly longer range, so the machine would know who participating in the scheme was in the pub at any given moment. When not playing paid-for tracks, most of these machines play a "random" selection of tracks, so why not base this selection on the preferences of those present, weighted fairly between everyone with an ID token? Given the machines are also capable of communicating over the Internet, it would be possible to set up a "no repeats" system, too, whereby every person who buys into the scheme is guaranteed (or as close as possible) to not hear the same track twice in, say, any 3 hour period — and here's the clever part — even if they move between several different venues.

OK, so in the cold light of sobriety it doesn't seem quite as groundbreaking or at all likely to succeed, but it seemed a really good idea at the time.

(An aside we didn't think of at the time: perhaps the scheme could let users specify songs they truly hate, and endeavour to avoid playing said tracks in the presence of those users...)

Posted by James at 02:47 | Comments (3) | TrackBack
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June 16, 2005

Stealing your music

Via Kottke.org (a website I find at once interesting to read but impossible to navigate), here's one man's open letter to the music industry, explaining why after years of staunchly defending them, he has given in and started to steal music.

But I have also now started stealing your music. I haven't stolen much, but I'm sure you will agree that the moral issue is not merely one of quantity. I have been one of the last independent apologists for a moral kernel, elusive now to perhaps the point of imagination, in your corrupt and desperate retreat, but now even I have given up. I still buy, but now I also steal. You have forfeited your right to my loyalty. And maybe you're too lost and beaten to care, and even more likely it's too late to matter, but for a few minutes I'm going to pretend that neither of those things are so. I'm going to pretend that you're still capable of awareness and reason, and in a spirit of truth that you long ago stopped deserving, while I've still taken little enough to list, I'm going to tell you exactly what I have stolen from you, and why.
-- Glenn McDonald

I lack his vast music budget, but otherwise almost totally agree.

Posted by James at 18:18 | Comments (2) | TrackBack
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June 06, 2005

Is Bob Geldof dead?

A couple of weeks ago, some scruffy Irish rock star (no, not Bono) announced a series of concerts to coincide with the G8 Summit in Gleneagles, with the intention of increasing his profile on the lucrative after-dinner speaking circuit.

What's interesting about this is that, 2 weeks before the announcement, in a Times article of May 9th, Geldof said such an event would take place only over his dead body.

Mr Geldof said: “To try and artificially reproduce Live Aid would almost be a disaster. I wouldn’t do it and I can’t see a point to it. We already have high awareness of the issue in Britain. Live Aid II happens over my dead f****** body — nor can they use the name Live Aid, because it is a copyrighted brand.”

The record industry and broadcasters are pushing for a 20th anniversary Live Aid concert, which would achieve massive international exposure, but Mr Geldof will not be bullied into participating. He said: “They want Geldof to ring bands up and say, ‘Will you do it?’ Is that going to achieve anything? I didn’t do Live Aid so I could sit there and watch Queen. People don’t want to revisit Bob’ s greatest hits, either.”

So, my question to you is this: does this prove that Bob Geldof has been dead for some time, and his media presence/image is being sustained only by the latest in special effects technology? We should be told.

Update: Bob Geldof is, of course, not dead at all. He's just completely insane.

Posted by James at 14:55 | Comments (0) | TrackBack
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