Posts Tagged ‘ Rhapsody ’

AFI / Green Day Concert

I am not going to embellish the truth and say that I am a tight or close friend with Hunter, the bassist for AFI for the last 13 years. I will say that he and my brother were good friends and were in a punk rock band in high school, Little Seizures (I think that’s correct).

I have been following Hunter on Twitter for a while now and noticed a tweet of his referencing Boston in August. I contacted him, he replied, and after a few more DMs I had two complementary tickets to see AFI and Green Day.

I then invited my friend, Nick, who was flying back to Boston from California that day. He agreed to come and after picking him and his family up at the airport, we left for the concert. That is in large part why we were a bit late to the show. We showed up about half way through AFI’s set and then spent the majority of the remaining set in queue for tickets, security, and being ping-ponged about by ushers telling us where are seats were located. It turned out that we had tickets to the pit. You will notice from the photo of the ticket (see below) that both “GAPIT” and “Section GA8 Seat 19″ were listed, hence the confusion.

AFI sounded great. In truth I preferred their sound to Green Day’s. It was more balanced, whereas Green Day’s kick drum was over powering.

The sound aside, the show was awesome. I tried to ignore the vulgarity and over the top religious mocking and I did so successfully. Green Day has been together for 22 years and it only shows in good ways.

I really enjoyed the show, but I more thoroughly enjoyed conversating with Hunter, who is a very friendly and gentle soul. We discussed AFI’s songwriting process, and other professional developments that I may not be at liberty to divulge. I am sure it is nothing that anyone who cares would already know. So talking with Hunter and also his friend, now our mutual friend, Jenni was by far the best part of the show.

So, thank you, Hunter, and I will keep my eye out for AFI in the coming years. I hope for great things for you.

All photos taken with iPhone 3G using Camera+ app.

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2010
08/17
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Album Review: Joe Pug – Messenger

The other day I heard Joe Pug on WUMB and was intrigued. The song was Speak Plainly, Diana.

First let me step back and say, Yes, I was listening to the radio!

Since my wife and I choose to subscribe to Rhapsody I am able to listen to Joe’s album without having to pay any extra for it. I gave it two good listen throughs and here are my takeaways.

The title song is perhaps the best on the album. It’s upbeat and has an intersting melody and phrasing similar to Patty Griffin and The Crash Test Dummies.
After the title song the next six songs are barely worth listening to. The second song, How Good You Are is the best of those six.
The last three tracks on the album are worth listening to for sure. Disguised as Someone Else has an interesting story reveal at the end. I wasn’t sure why he would want to be someone else until the very end.
Bury Me Far (From My Uniform) is held up by its melody and structure but also has an interesting and compelling enough story.
The final track, which is the same as I heard on WUMB, is really only worth listening to because it is upbeat. The story isn’t super compelling.

Conclusion: Overall, a good effort by a young Joe Pug. I would suggest writing more uptempo songs. I realize this isn’t easy for many folk singers, me included, however, the two uptempo tracks on this album really hold it together and make it worth listening to.

See Joe Pug at Great Scott in Alston, MA on Thursday March, 4th at 8:30pm.
http://www.joepugmusic.com/

2010
03/03
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the war of sound (copy)

A few weeks ago my friend Brook sent me a link about the war between sound quality and compression.

I thought this was really interesting and I shared with a few people. This morning I signed into Rhapsody and there was a rave review about a new(ish) R&B singer, Rihanna. I decided to give her a try. It sounds like her album is produced by Jay-Z, because he is on the first track and also some of the drum tracks and production sound like Jay-Z’s other projects.

Anyway, to get to the point, I was listening and found that the sound, not the song, was very boring and uneventful. I then thought of the following video which Brook sent me. The short of it is that with compression all articulation and dynamic is covered over or removed from a track. I am listening to her album right now and it is putting my to sleep because there is no definition and no dynamic change.

Some of this is due to the nature of Rhapsody, but when I put on Vocal Sampling right after this Rihanna girl, the clarity is like stepping into the spotlight from the shadows. It makes the Rihanna album sound like it was recorded in Mono. Ahhhh, the joys of stereo recording, where have you gone in recent years?

This makes me think of some of the early stereo albums, by the Beatles or Cream or the like, the drums would be almost completely in one channel and the guitar all the way in the other. This was the record industry stretching its new found stereo wings. Now there is a counter-movement back towards the mono. I don’t think this is the record companies’ intent, but in the attempt to be more and more radio and instant gratification friendly the sound of many new mainstream records are so undynamic as to put my ear receptors into a state of uncaring numbness.

We need to come up with a name for the ruling record companies like Big Oil is for the large oil companies that run our government and economy. Maybe, Big Audio. Big…….. I don’t know. It needs to be something that oozes anti-establishment.

Ok enough blabber…. here is the video.

2009
07/12
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MOAEC in the middle

This past weekend I participated in a technology case competition hosted by MOAEC at Boston University.
It was an interesting experience for me. It was basically a 36 hour competition where the case was given at 8:00am on Saturday and the first round of presentations were at 8:00am on Sunday. My team made it to the finals and therefore presented again at 2:00pm and the final results were given at 4:30pm on Sunday. My team placed third, but that is not what I intend to write about this post. I intend to write a short opinion on MOAEC as a software offering.

MOAEC stands for media organizer and entertainment center. While that makes logical sense to call the software that, it may have been a better marketing move to come with with a more catchy product name. Moving on….

The software offers several cool features, the most impressive of which is the quick generation of dynamic playlists in as few as two clicks. Founder and CEO, Brian Looney, was a Disc Jockey in his former life and he saw a niche for an easy to use media management software. This prompted him to create MOAEC. It looks very similar to the inventory management software my step-dad produces but MOAEC is meant for music.

MOAEC also offers Voice Command control and the ability to reformat to any size screen. These two features have allowed MOAEC to be installed in cars, mostly of celebrities like Ty Law and Marriah Carrie, for mobile entertainment.
That’s all well and good but what about the everyday consumer? The consumer that is not a former or current DJ and is not a celeb who can afford to have a custom dashboard computer installed into their 2002 honda civic. That’s what this case competition was all about and just like in the competition I am going to start off with my conclusion…..It won’t sell. The everyday consumer is not going to see value in this product. That is unless MOAEC offers something substantially better and more convenient than other music players do (iTunes, winamp…..), at a price that is affordable and creates a low barrier to entry.

MOAEC currently allows the user to access their home library on the go, if the user has what MOAEC is calling Master Mo. This has some value to it. The voice commands are cool but not essential. And besides there are other softwares that do both of these things relatively well already.
What my team suggested, at my urging, is that MOAEC partner with Rhapsody in order to bring access to Rhapsody to the mobile community. This would do several things:
1)Allow MOAEC to tap into Rhapsody’s existing subscription paying user base.
2)Dramatically enhance the MOAEC user’s experience by offering a huge library.
3)Drive up Rhapsody subscriptions due to convenience and added MOAEC functionality.

If MOAEC were to charge $5 a month for their software as a service MOAEC also stands to gain tremendous profits. I bet MOAEC could even charge $10-$20 for the mobile application if they gave the PC version away for free.

Now to get to the point of the title of the post. MOAEC is stuck in the middle of two worlds, the everyday consumer who uses iTunes or the equivalent and the professional DJ who uses whatever professionals use. If MOAEC wishes to enter the consumer market, they will need to do something similar to what I have suggested and also update their image. Consumers want stuff that is fun and trendy, not muted and boring.
My team also suggested a facebook app and other such guerrilla marketing techniques.

I wish MOAEC all the luck in the world because it will not be easy to penetrate the iTunes market. I intend to check in on them in a year or so to see how they are doing and if they have taken any of the ideas from the competition to heart.

2009
02/06
CATEGORY
business
technology
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