music, macs and mets ... mostly.
You are currently browsing the monthly archive for January 2007.
A recent podcast of the first in a series of four NAC Celebrity Speakers sessions has, as anticipated, blown away the download record for single episode of any NAC podcast. The show features arts journalist Laurie Brown in conversation with actor/writer/producer/director Paul Gross (Due South, Men with Brooms, Slings and Arrows).
I suppose there will always be a bigger audience for a good looking Mountie, than there will be for a show on tuning in fifths.
February 6, 2007, 19:00
Admission: Free
Ottawa Public Library Auditorium
120 Metcalfe St., Ottawa
Moderated by Pippa Lawson, Executive Director, Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) at the University of Ottawa
Panelists:
Mark tagged me in his post Tag! I’m it! which, in turn, is a response to CC Chapmans’ post If My Life Was a Movie, What Would the Soundtrack Be? (read his post for game instructions).
As Mark says, “The idea is to put your media player on shuffle and record the name of each song that comes up in sequence against a specific list of scenes in your life — also in sequence”.
Full disclosure: I used the shuffle feature in iTunes instead of a portable media player because my iPod is in vacation prep mode and is uncharacteristically laden with reggae at the moment. Also, I skipped any orchestral or obscure jazz tracks that came up.
Here’s what I came up with by pressing “shuffle”:
Opening credits
The Empty Page - Sonic Youth
First day of school
I’ll Be Your Mirror - Velvet Underground
Falling in love
Deluge - Dave Douglas
Prom/Grad
Whatever happened to? - Buzzcocks
Mental breakdown
What’s Going On? - Marvin Gaye
Flashbacks
Always Tomorrow - Bob Mould
Getting back together
Her Love Rubbed Off - The Cramps
Wedding scene
Less - Ben Harper
Final battle
Time Will Tell - Bob Marley & The Wailers
Death scene
Don’t Ask For The Water - Ryan Adams
Funeral scene
Blister In The Sun - Violent Femmes
End credits
Modal Mood - Dexter Gordon
Finale
Flying - Faces
My turn, my turn! I’m tagging Chris Lawson, Chris Dearlove, Evan Thornton, Jason Westerlund, and Hugh McGuire
If ever I wanted to figure out how to get YouTube videos onto my iPod, it would be for this clip: The Wood Spider
Recently, Mark Blevis was lamenting the decline of our local CBC Radio One offerings here in Ottawa which prompted me to comment thusly (sorry for quoting myself):
“It really seems that CBC programming is being polarized. There’s still smart, interesting stuff like the O’Reilly show, Quirks and Quarks, Dispatches, and of course Ideas, and then there are shows which are being deliberately dumbed-down; the morning and afternoon drive shows, and by my reckoning, one of the worst national programmes on CBC radio: Definitely Not the Opera. Since Nora Young and Co.’s departure it’s like fingernails on a chalkboard. I mean how many times can you start an interview with, “So, hey, like, I’m talking to …”.
Anyway, all that to say, if like me, you miss Nora Young and Cathi Bond as they were on DNTO, check out their podcast, The Sniffer [RSS].
“Because the Future Smells Funny.”
And now, back to the music. Here’s a list of great music podcasts I try and check out at every opportunity. In no particular order:
APM: Sound Opinions [RSS]
The Interface [RSS]
Rhino Records’ “Rhinocast” [RSS]
Coverville [RSS]
CBC Radio 3 [RSS]
NPR: All Songs Considered [RSS]
In Over Your Head [RSS]
Digital Detroit Radio [RSS]
Sub Pop [RSS]
Morning Becomes Eclectic [RSS]
Speaking of filling up your iPod, Open Culture, a great web resource in itself, has started keeping a directory of “hundreds of free, smart podcasts for your iPod” that they are calling The Podcast Portal.
Listed are scores of podcasts on arts & culture, audio books, languages, even full semesters of university lectures from the likes of Berkeley, Stanford and Harvard. Each podcast is listed with its RSS, iTunes, and website links.
Sadly, there just aren’t enough hours in the day.
‘Member those ugly, over-priced tour t-shirts we used to buy at arena rock shows? They were usually black with white sleeves and silkscreened with the band’s logo and most recent album art. We’d wear them to school the day after a show like a badge of honour.
Well in that very same spirit, I had to don my Apple button-down shirt this morning in acknowledgment of Steve Jobs’ monumental, industry-disrupting announcement yesterday.
iPhone: 3 - Zune: 0
While looking for rights free public domain music files to use in the NACOcast, I stumbled across a page that corrals all the music files on Wikipedia into a single list. Very nice. All the big guns are there; from Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven through to Debussy and Janáček.
The files themselves are in OGG format. Many free players handle the OGG format and there many converters avaialble for porting the files to other formats. There’s even a QuickTime plugin that allows you to play OGG files directly in iTunes.
The Wikipedia list is a great way to fill up your MP3 player — for when you’re done with Frantic City
I can’t remember the last time I bought a CD in a record store (do they still call them that?), other than maybe as a gift. Just before Christmas I was killing some time in the local HMV. Mostly I was noticing how little music is actually in a music store these days. As a lark, I checked the “T” bin for Teenage Head.
Now, I’ve been looking for a copy of their album Frantic City for years — It’s one of those hugely evocative aural romps down memory lane — to absolutely no avail; not in stores, not mail order, not online, not even from any of the dodgier sources.
I had long misplaced my vinyl copy. (I’m convinced somewhere in this city, in some friend’s basement, there’s a stash of my LPs we’ve all forgotten about.)
Long story short, there it was, at the HMV … in the mall. Go figure.
I don’t think our car stereo has ever been cranked as loud.
Anyway, if you’re the friend with the forlorn stack of vinyl in your garage, could you check it for L’Etranger’s deput EP? Thanks.