From the award-winning documentary, Playing For Change: Peace Through Music, comes the first of many songs around the world being released independently. Featured is a cover of the Ben E. King classic by musicians around the world adding their part to the song as it traveled the globe. This and other songs such as One Love will be released as digital downloads soon; followed by the film soundtrack and DVD early next year.
Before leaving to spend Thanksgiving with her brothers and cousins in Dallas, Barb arranged for the nice folks at TajTunes to deliver a little singing Thanksgiving message.
We were listening to some new tunes on Roger’s iPod as we drove back to Jeff City from Columbia. Like most new cars, his has an input jack for the iPod (or whatever). So it was easy for me to pull out my nano [insert joke here], plug in and play one of my tunes.
As we listened, it occurred to me this simple act couldn’t happen in a pre-iPod world, at least not easily. Yeah, I guess I could have had a pocket-full of cassettes or CD’s, but Roger and I had thousands of songs between us and we thought nothing of switching from his iPod to mine.
My old pal RP was an avid collector of 45 rpm records. He had big cardboard boxes jammed with “singles.” The best we could do back then was stack 20 or so on a fat little spindle that would drop the next 45 down to the turntable. Shuffle? Sure, like a deck of cards.
I seem to recall RP telling me he had copied all of his 45’s to CD. Don’t know if he’s made the final leap to an iPod.
It’s hard to imagine what’s next but even hard to imagine there won’t be a “next.”
I was immediately taken with the warm-up music at Gnomedex 8.0. I was unfamiliar with it but Jamie recognized it as Hotel Costes.
It’s sort of a funky jazz with a French feel. If I understood Jamie correctly, the music was originally mixed for the hotel on the French Riviera in Paris. This is what you’d hear in the lobby, I guess. You can sample it at last.fm.
Jamie is what my mom was talking about when she said I should start hanging out with a better class of people.
Coffee Zone proprietor Tasir Yanis has an amazing mix of songs on his iPod. That’s what we listen to here at the Zone. Maybe it’s just the ambience of a coffee shop but the former radio program director in me often thinks Taisir’s mix would make a great radio format. Except for all the commercials you’d have to jam in between the songs.
Or we could just download this little app for our iPhones. If I understand this correctly, it enables you to tap into your entire music collection on your home PC via your iPhone – and the music collections of your friends, too – and stream all of the above to your phone, wherever you go. [YouTube demo]
I found this on Mark Ramsey’s Hear 2.0 who describes it as being able to “create our own radio stations from our own content and share them with friends who are mobile.”
So I could listen to Coffee Zone Radio wherever I am? Or Planet Nelson Radio? Or Scott Brandon’s Friday Funk?
Okay, the iPhone is starting to look more and more like something I’m going to have to have. But I really want the thing to stream video, too. I’m getting close.
I can’t recall posting on the purchase of Anheuser-Busch by Belgian beverage giant, InBev. I’m a Bud fan but have been drinking Beck’s (made by InBev) for a year or two. New owners always tell you nothing is gonna change but it’s not true and nobody believes them anyway. But The Game is truly global now and we have to get used to it. Just as the rest of the world has had to deal with our military and economic superiority. Both of which are facing serious challenges. As Bob Dylan said, “How does it feeeel?”
I mark this moment with this musical tribute. One of my favorites.
“Terrestrial radio is in bigger trouble than ever, I am convinced. I just finished driving down a highway in rural (state), listening to streaming music on the free Pandora Radio app for my upgraded version 2.0 iPhone. This was via edge, not 3G. Pandora plays randomized songs. But when an all-you-can-eat music service (maybe Apple’s, someday) has this same kind of app, it’s game over for music radio. I’ll be able to listen to any song I want while driving, and won’t even have to load it on my iPod before leaving.
If you are unfamiliar with Pandora, it works like this: I enter the name of a song or artist. Pandora creates a “station” that plays music like the example I submitted. I “like” or “dislike” each song and Pandora keeps tweaking my play-list accordingly. I can have as many stations as I choose. Just music. No annoying DJ’s. No commercials.
If I’m the program director of an “only the hits” radio station, should I be concerned about this technology? I can’t please all the people, all the time. But all of the people can please themselves, all of the time. What is my Plan B?
It’s always fun to showcase talent from “down home.” Neal E. Boyd is from Sikeston which is just up the road (from Kennett, MO) in Sikeston, where he’s an insurance salesman.
He’s also a competitor on America’s Got Talent, the show I’ve (never watched) but always thought of as the poor man’s American Idol. Neal sings opera. And from our Small World File, Neal attended choir camp at Arkansas State University under the direction of my old friend Viretta and he sang at the Christmas Eve service of the Presbyterian Church in Kennett a couple of years back. A gig made famous by frequent appearances by Sheryl Crow.