Auf Wiedersehen Fjordian

As a thank you for my time at Fjord, I’ve put together a collection of my special “moves” that have been the secret to my success.

A shout out to ze frank for the inspiration.

Dance with the Devil

Fuck Timbaland. He totally made a deal with the devil. There is absolutely no rational explanation for why I like his beats so much except by some unholy intervention. I like it even when married with Fall Out Boy.

My New Favourite Video

Fujiya & Miyagi – Ankle Injuries

Dice, beats, awesomeness. Nothing to complain about here.

Indie Rock Time

Last night I was treated to an audio assault courtesy of Do Make Say Think. DMST is a collective like Broken Social Scene (including some Scene members) with cello, violin, 2 drum kits, horns, trombones, saxophones, 2 guitars and 1 really kick ass bassist.

Here’s The Landlord is Dead off my favourite of their albums Goodbye Enemy Airship The Landlord is Dead. The really odd thing about this song is that you want to rock out to it, but it’s not in a regular time. At the show I was thinking 14/8 time, but someone else heard 15/8 time. Anyone else with an opinion? It’s definitely not in 4/4 rock time. It’s in indie rock time.

(I crack myself up)

UPDATE:  Kyle had the best quote today.  I played him a little bit of Do Make and he responded “So, what did you do at this show?” Tee hee!  Clearly Kyle has 2 visions of what happens at a show:  dancing to the music; moshing to music.  Or maybe that’s what he imagines ME doing at a show.

The Post That Could Have Gotten Me Fired: Digital Music Summit III at CMW (post 3)

The keynote speech of the Digital Music Summit was given by Warner Music International’s new chairman, Patrick Vien. He’s new to the music industry, having previously worked in film distribution (I think). Here’s some quick notes from his speech.

• Canada has the highest rate of illegal downloads
• Canada’s laws make copyright hard to enforce
• 80% of people have internet
• 3rd of those (?) have an mp3 player
• Ringtones are a $13.7 billion industry worldwide
• Only a quarter of people with a cellphone actually buy things with it (like ringtones)
• Of those with an mp3 playing phone, only 8.5% actually use it to play mp3s
• In order to download a full track on your phone, it typically takes 20 key strokes

Fascinating facts, I know. He used them to set up his main arguments which were: mobile is the future, the current market penetration is small so there is growth potential and we have to make buying easier for the consumer to encourage this growth. Very reasonable given the facts presented and the current landscape (where labels make the majority of their money on digital sales of products like ringtones).

Here’s the flaw, and it’s something that someone new to the industry wouldn’t necessarily know. It’s not that hard to get free music on your cellphone. In fact, it’s getting easier and easier. People pay now because it is hard and the frustration just isn’t worth their time or they don’t have the technical knowledge. But that was true of IRC and P2P for a while, too. Eventually people got wise, got off dial up and it just got easier. I can’t see why this wouldn’t happen for phones too, especially as they get smarter.

In fact, I could give you step by step instructions right now to tell you how to get a free ringtone. However, since I actually don’t want to get fired, I’m not gonna. But I could, and if you really wanted one for free, it wouldn’t be that hard to find out how.

Bullshit Detector: Digital Music Summit III at CMW (post 2)

The summit was a couple of days ago, but I’m just going through my notes now, and I’m noticing some interesting phrases that I wrote down.

Terry McBride, the maverick behind Nettwerk, had a lot of things to say. He has this way of talking that sets off my bullshit alarms, and possibly the same alarms went off for all the lawyers sitting at my table. They exchanged many a covert glance in response to phrases like “My artists get the most transparent deal out there” and “I don’t think litigation belongs in human society.” Incredibly bold statements in that room.

One phrase I did like was when he described the current generation of music consumers as the “Pull Generation.” According to him, ever since the CD when we could control exactly what was played just be clicking a button, music became about what I want right now, rather than what is available next. Thus, in his view, music on demand – and not necessarily just the top 40 – is the natural reaction to this state. He described the current status quo in the music industry as still using the “push model.”

I think the expectation of being able to pull music is true, but I disagree that this is the problem with the current music model. Basically, I think that he assumes that most people know what kind of music they want and now that they are “pullers” they’re willing to go out and pull what they want regardless of what everyone is telling them. I think that’s bullshit, and here’s why.

People in the music industry, I think, are active music listeners. They’re discriminating and the music they listen to means more to them than just the sound. I think it’s a mistake to think that the majority of music consumers are like that. Most people want help, hell, most people need help. And while they won’t just buy what people tell them to buy, they’ll buy what they like from the current available landscape – the pushed landscape. That’s the reason MuchMusic is such a good brand. We push a bunch of stuff, then the viewer chooses, and for everyone outside major urban centers, that is exactly what they want.

Terry McBride makes money because he owns the whole process for his artists, not just the music. There’s no magic concept there. He’s just moving out of the part of the industry that’s not making money and moving into the part that is.

Digital Music Summit III at CMW (post 1)

I just got back from the Digital Music Summit at Canadian Music week and you’re going to get my reactions to the event in reverse order of when I heard it.

The last speakers we heard were the interactive folks “pioneering the future” or whatever. There were 3 speakers but only one really had an impact on the crowd, it was probably when he said “Fuck the labels” that the audience’s ears perked up.

He was pitching Songbird which you can test if you’re on a Mac. I have to admit, his pitch was convincing. He had beautiful slides and talked about a piece of software that could bridge the gap between formats and operating systems. He had a cool video showing how someone could search the web, scan a page for mp3s and play them from the software, then drag the files to their library.

Songbird is based on Firefox code and looks like a black version of iTunes. I was pretty excited to test it, but I have to admit that since playing with it I’m a little disappointed. It feels a lot like iTunes and instead of a store, you’ve got the web, where you can just pull from the song files that are all there.

You may be thinking. “Great! That sounds awesome. Cut out the walled garden in a simple interface that anyone can use.” and I was too when I heard it, but here’s the thing. In order to find music, this application uses things like Dogpile Audio. I’m thinking, if I’m going through all the effort of searching for music on the web, why do I have to do it in your app? I can quickly see the sites you recommend me stealing from. Good, bookmarked. Now back to iTunes.

Granted, this is NOT an actual release, more a proof of concept. However, a big theme at the conference was “Give people what they want.” Which turned out to be – generally – it should be easy and it doesn’t have to be free if it’s fast.

Well, I don’t think Songbird solved either of these. It’s not necessarily easier to dig through the net to find music on a different application than I would check my email or post to my blog. Second, while the music is free, they’ve just passed the buck as far as who has the legal issue – without adding value to the user.

Dance Beats ARE the new Power Chords

It’s not just some corny line that a marketing hack added to a band profile.  I have to admit, I haven’t put on a loud, raucous punk album in a while, yet I’ll put Gravity’s Rainbow by the Klaxons on 1-song repeat for almost an hour.

Last year, Bloc Party totally had me hooked with Banquet which I danced to more than Madonna’s Hung Up, and I’m equally addicted to their new album’s Hunting for Witches.

Is it just me?  Am I just not angry anymore?  Sure I like Alexisonfire and Thrice, but I guess I don’t have those same “break free” feelings anymore.  I mean, seriously, could I be any freer?

I guess it’s time to celebrate my independence with some hip-jiggling and hair swinging.

Random

I was thinking today about the role randomness plays in our day to day lives. You can have a plan or strategy in mind. You can have predicted the likelihoods. But still, BAM, something can still catch you off guard.

Normally, it’s just small stuff. Most things we can move past, but the way random stuff can still happen I find sobering. Control is a big deal for me, but it doesn’t matter. I can’t possibly plan for everything.

So, in that spirit, I’m embracing randomness. I’m going to make no plans all weekend and not bother to take charge of anything. Margaret vs. Pauline The dark side of random, I’m just glad I’m not Margaret, I don’t care if I’m not Pauline.

I’m a FanGirl who Loves Anger

So, like, I posted on the MuchMusic.com blog.

http://blog.muchmusic.com/archives/2007/01/fan_girls_love.php 

Yay!