vintage

Remember how I posted about Muxtape biting the dust due to RIAA interference? Well, ladies and gentlemen, we have a successor (who copies much of Mux’s coding, and completely acknowledges that fact). The rebellion continues. Please direct yourselves to this lovely little link:

Opentape.fm

This blog is in no way affiliated with Muxtape or Opentape and absolutely thinks the RIAA is doing a great job cracking down on dirty pirates. You should never share your music with anyone and mixtapes are a horrible idea. Etc. You know.

Also, I would like to draw your attention to a comment left by Charles on this post, in which I commented that Pony Da Look was bringing me more hits than any other search term on the internet. That’s a pretty big deal (and the hits are still rolling in!). I guess if I keep making posts like this …

Well, anyway, Charles here wrote me a review of the band’s record called Shattered Dimensions and I post it here for your viewing pleasure. It’s hilarious.

Here is a review for your blog of what Pony Da Look’s “Shattered Dimensions” sounds like:

You walk into a pub lit by torchlight and candles, and decorated with electronics from a surplus store. Somebody is slamming rhythmically on a jukebox, causing it to skip back and forth through distorted segments of some of Martin Gore’s earlier compositions for Depeche Mode. While this insistent sound fills the air, a bar-room brawl erupts between Loreena McKennitt and X-Ray Spex, who chant taunts at each other from either side of the room, as the tables are cleared aside and the other patrons stamp their bony feet as they begin the first of the many frenzied dances…

Bravo, Charles.

Real Life Update™ - I have moved into a cute little house in Toronto’s east end and am actually posting this on wireless I am stealing from an innocent neighbour. Please send this lovely person, whoever they may be, some happy thoughts on my behalf. Tomorrow is Squeeze! Updates to follow, of course.

A few things I have been thinking about lately:

• Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” is an awesome song. It’s #217 on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time - a list which is, of course, biased toward American and British acts, left out various influential artists, and includes nothing before 1940, but still! - and it is truly excellent. Not only does Dolly deliver marvelously, but the very structure of the song lends itself to a sound of desperation. Oh my lordy, I have listened to it seven times today.
   

• I didn’t manage to catch on to hip hop well enough in 2007, but Aesop Rock’s None Shall Pass and Buck 65’s Situation are both absolutely amazing (and would have been on my top 10 list, had I been smart enough to hear them when they were released). The former features tunes with the likes of John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats, and even has a song called “Bring Back Pluto” that begins And then there were eight, just like that. Um, awesome. Situation features Spanish guitar and quotes of the Clapping Song and Allen Ginsberg, as well as some seriously great singles like the percussion-filled “Dang”.
   

• The Futureheads‘ album This Is Not The World is awesome. I said I would review it and dropped the ball, so here it is in a few words: it is better than News & Tributes and almost as good as The Futureheads. The first single, “The Beginning of the Twist”, is classic catchy, spastic Futureheads fare; the production on everything is a little cleaner than their S/T, but thankfully not as slick as the unfortunate News work. I like it more and more every week. Well done, Sunderlanders. Now bring back Field Music!
   

• I am seeing Squeeze in 17 days. Not that I am particularly excited or anything.

Goodies:
Aesop Rock, None Shall Pass
The Futureheads, The Beginning of the Twist
Buck 65, The Outskirts

In case you haven’t been following, here’s the first post about this.

The Matchstick Zune program is wrapping up shortly and so I am going to toss a few more comments in here while I can. I might actually have to make a switch to the Zune because my Zen has started acting a little funny lately, and I have to remove the battery just to get it to turn off - not a good sign. So I guess we’ll see what happens there.

I just want to reiterate how annoying the software is. I am still not a fan of it at all. I really dislike having to go find the screen to monitor a folder with media in it AND THEN go back and see them being added to the collection, AFTER which I can drag them into the player to sync up. Too many steps. The Zen just has a menu; you explore your computer yourself, select what you want, and in it goes. Really fast and easy and user-friendly. This monitoring business is a pain in the butt at best, and if I wasn’t computer-savvy to begin with I would have a whole lot of trouble with it. Thumbs down.

Also this is not so much a comment about the Zune itself, but all the extra stuff they sell for it (that was sent to me as part of the package), like the extra headphones or the AC adapter, has way too much packaging. I don’t need an eight-inch by four-inch box for a pair of earbuds.

I am really enjoying the videos though, and am starting to experiment with playlists. The player itself has been great and I haven’t had any problems with it so far, so props for that. It’s been fun; I will probably continue to use this (especially if my little red Zen dies - that would be a sad day indeed).

Actual music posts to follow.

Edit: WHOA! My sad face turned into an emoticon. I had no idea those were supported on WordPress. That is pretty awesome.

I’ve been following my blog stats quite religiously lately, and they have consistently been telling me this bewildering piece of information:

My top search engine hit is for pony da look.

That’s right. People searching for this band are finding my site; I believe I’ve only mentioned them once, in a short paragraph about how I wasn’t too sad about missing their set. However, 17 people have come here in their search for them. What a head-scratcher! Well … welcome.

Some of my other top hits (these ones are five hits and below; this gap is even more perplexing) are calexico, matchstick zune (that would be this post), and sam roberts love at the end of the world. These ones make a lot more sense.

Well, here I go tagging this entry with Pony Da Look too, just to see if it boosts my hit count even more. Maybe I should actually review their record … but that would only make all the fans go away again.

More folk festival reviews coming up!

Stampede is over! I’m back now. Hopefully everything will be back on track here before too long - I apologise for my extended absences.

I’ve been meaning to do a post on this for a while: I recently filled out a survey geared towards Canadian music bloggers, and ended up getting picked to try out the Microsoft Zune, which just got launched in Canada about a month ago. I’ve had my Creative Zen MicroPhoto for quite some time (it has since been discontinued to make way for newer and flashier things, I expect) and figured it would take quite a lot to make me want to switch over.

Here’s what I’m thinkin’ so far.

The Good:

The Zune is really friggin’ tiny. Normally I would hate this, but it is a pretty cool, sleek-looking device, and makes my Zen look pretty elephantine in comparison. It is also touch-sensitive, but you can turn that on or off - kind of a nice choice, even though I can’t see myself ever not wanting the touch capability.

Zune also has an incredibly sharp and colour-rich display, which is a big bonus, particularly because it comes with video capabilities. The video thing is also a big plus for me - I didn’t think it would be, since I never really cared one or way or the other if I could watch videos on my personal device, but it’s nice to have it. I tried it out with the only video I could make work, Sloan’s “Flying High Again,” and it looks exceptionally good. The videos actually play on the screen lengthwise, so you turn the player sideways to view them. The volume control flips too - good on them for remembering to work that out.

I haven’t noticed anything wrong with sound quality, and the player itself seems pretty intuitive. The menus look nice and streamlined, and I like that the display stays visible even when you lock the player so you don’t have to keep unlocking to see it (a definite advantage over the Zen).

The Bad:

The paint or finish or whatever it is on the front of the Zune, this grey-black textured stuff, scratches off incredibly easily. My player already looks old and battered, and that’s just from sitting around in my bag for the last week or two. Wear and tear I’m okay with, but there’s an unreasonable amount of it considering I just got it a couple of weeks ago. The screen seems much sturdier, though, and the matte silver finish on the back is strong as well.

Also, the software! What a pain in the rear end. I am starting to get used to it, but I wish it wasn’t so … confusing. The thing I liked quite a lot about the Creative software is it’s all folder-based and you can just select things you want to transfer. Bada bing. Unfortunately, with the Zune software you have to select folders you want to monitor for photos, videos, music or podcasts; then you go back into the main screen and wait for the software to recognize that there are media files in those folders, and then you drag and drop it onto the little Zune icon so that it transfers. Very inefficient and very annoying. I want easy transfers - probably not an unreasonable request, I think. Once you get the hang of it it is a little less irritating, but the Zen has a huge edge here.

Oh boy, and the earphone jack is in the bottom of the player. I am so used to it being in the top that this drives me crazy every time I try to plug them in. Not really a bad feature or anything, but I didn’t realise I was this set in my ways! I am still trying to get used to this!

All in all the Zune is a pretty good music player so far. I really like the video capability, actually - I didn’t think I would, but I really do. I wish it was bigger than 8GB, but that’s mostly because I want to have way more stuff on there than is probably practical anyway. It’s nice and small and sleek looking (watch out for the paint scratches, though), the sound quality is good, the display is great, and it’s pretty easy to figure out. At this point I’d say I am really liking it, although I’m still up in the air about which one I would ultimately choose. The Zen doesn’t have video, but it has a lot of other stuff going for it, and it is a pretty solid player (dropped it, gotten it wet, etc and it still works).

I will update some more about this later! If any of you have a Zune or a Zen and want to comment about it please do - and if you’re part of the Matchstick Zune program, like my buddy Matt over at i (heart) music, definitely drop me a line!

I will be back to tell tales of Yep Roc and Stampede sometime. Hope you all have a marvelous weekend.