July 18, 2008
April 07, 2008
Ode to Eddie
We got to see one of my rock n' roll heroes on Saturday night. Eddie Vedder played a (mostly) solo and (mostly) acoustic show at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium as part of his brief, current west coast tour. He packed the sold-out house with probably about 2,500 people and had them all captivated for well over two hours.
He played a mix of classic Pearl Jam tunes, songs from his Into the Wild soundtrack, a few other covers, and even a song about Santa Cruz that he apparently wrote after pulling into town. It was fun, but I don't think the song has quite the staying power as "Do you know the way to San Jose," "New York, New York," etc.
Anyway, the show was awesome, and who knew that Eddie really had enough guitar chops to blaze through two hours of music? Believe it - he rips and can do it all from fast punk-inspired stuff (fast power chords on "Lubens" with an acoustic guitar) to more intricate work on the Wild songs like "Guaranteed."
He kept the show personal, telling a few stories and opening up to the crowd. The punk/rock show feel was still in effect though, as some in the crowd shouted and fired back "Who cares!?" All the more fun. Even he laughed about it, as well as laughing after flubbing the opening lyrics to one of the songs.
Later, he had the crowd up on its feet, especially when he played a rousing "Hard Sun" (arguably the best song on the Wild album) as the final encore alongside opening act Liam Finn. Totally inspiring stuff.
Here's the Mercury News' official review. Nice to be validated.
February 26, 2008
My Way-Too-Late Oscars Post
I was thinking about music today, as I often do, and it occurred to me how awesome the Best Song selection was at this year's Oscars.
In case you missed it, three (three!) kid-friendly songs from "Enchanted" were nominated, as was an inspiring hip-hop/gospel song from "August Rush." Then there was this, "Falling Slowly" from the film "Once." It's a nice small song, from a small movie, and it beat the odds and those big guys. I have a toddler so I don't see lots of movies these days, but I like it when underdog songwriters win big awards for their work.
I'm still bitter that Eddie Vedder wasn't nominated for his work on "Into the Wild" (he was nominated for a Grammy but lost). His soundtrack is one of my favorite albums of the year. Anyway, "Falling Slowly" is a good song in the same way that Coldplay's songs are good, and the people who sing it seem like genuinely nice people. If Eddie Vedder couldn't win it, then I'm glad they did.
October 07, 2007
Amazon Doesn't Beat iTunes... Yet
I've been trying to find a reason to use the new music download service offered by Amazon.com, and this weekend I finally had an excuse. I wanted to download a handful of random dub reggae tracks from a new album, then remix and mash them up on my Mac for a friend using Garage Band. You can't do this using AAC encoded tracks when they're bought from iTunes.
So when Amazon's service was announced last week, I thought it sounded interesting yet somewhat odd. You have to download and install a special client (Mac and PC versions are supported), and then you can surf the site, pick the songs you want, and get DRM-free MP3s that work on just about any devices and music players, including iPods and iTunes.
Sounds great, until you use it. I have both mainstream and eclectic tastes in music, so I was pleasantly surprised to find the somewhat obscure tracks I was looking for amongst its 2 million song catalogue. On the other hand, I couldn't find some more common mainstream reggae I wanted. ITunes had both.
But the problem with Amazon's new service wasn't the availability of various songs, it was in the purchase flow itself. Even if I had wanted to download an entire album, there wasn't a single button to click that would initiate the purchase. I would have had to select "Buy Track" on each and every song. What's worse, is that I couldn't find a way to select multiple tracks to buy in one click, either. Instead, Amazon seems to force users to select single tracks and purchase them individually, going through the full credit card validation routine with each song you want to buy.
In short, you have to click through multiple screens in order to buy a single track. If you want more than one track, this gets really annoying. I wanted a few tracks of an album, and so I found myself going back to iTunes for convenience, and easily getting the songs I wanted. Maybe I missed something, but the Amazon service was a pain in the ass.
Also, I'm not sure why I needed to install and use the download application that Amazon forces you to use. If the tracks are MP3s, why can't you just click on the song link from the website and save-as?
To Amazon's credit, the service is the most robust download mechanism online that I've seen for MP3s. The service is advertised as in beta. I hope it improves, because I'm only tied to iTunes because it's my music management service. I have no real ties to the music store itself. If Amazon can make it easier to simply buy the tracks you want, then I wonder why it won't gain broad appeal. On the other hand, if Amazon can offer 2 million songs as MP3s, why can't iTunes. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before Apple ups the ante.
September 25, 2007
Brubeck at Monterey Jazz, For Free!
NPR has posted the entire concert of Dave Brubeck headlining the recent Monterey Jazz Festival -- the 50th anniversary of the event. I didn't go, but it's great to hear. The recording quality is top-notch, the band is incredible and the alto sax player is amazing.
Link to the pop-up audio player is at the top of this page.