S.V. Nate - Communicating Perspective » music http://www.nathanjohns.net A point of view from the Silicon Valley Fri, 06 Feb 2009 18:26:01 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 en hourly 1 My Morning Jacket http://www.nathanjohns.net/2008/09/23/my-morning-jacket-2/ http://www.nathanjohns.net/2008/09/23/my-morning-jacket-2/#comments Wed, 24 Sep 2008 04:51:00 +0000 admin http://www.nathanjohns.net/?p=90 Went to see My Morning Jacket in concert at the Greek in Berkeley last Friday evening. I have to say it may have been the best concert I’ve ever been to.


There weren’t any opening bands, just MMJ. They came out around 8 and finished around 11, so we got nearly three hours of live music. I’d heard that they were really good live, and have somewhat of a large and dedicated following for concerts. I was blown away with how good they sounded. I think these knuckleheads enjoyed it too:

]]> http://www.nathanjohns.net/2008/09/23/my-morning-jacket-2/feed/ 0 My round-up of cool audio services on the web http://www.nathanjohns.net/2008/02/14/my-round-up-of-cool-audio-services-on-the-web/ http://www.nathanjohns.net/2008/02/14/my-round-up-of-cool-audio-services-on-the-web/#comments Fri, 15 Feb 2008 06:41:00 +0000 admin http://www.nathanjohns.net/?p=71
Two of my favorite things are music and technology, so naturally when I come across a product or website which combines the two in a new and useful way, I’m interested. There have been quite a few good sites recently; here’s a quick summary of the ones I like.

1. Pandora

You go to http://www.pandora.com and enter a band or song that you like. Pandora uses the Music Genome Project to figure out similar artists and streams those songs for you to listen to. You then train Pandora by giving those songs a thumbs-up or thumbs-down. After a while, it’s pretty amazing how well it gets at recommending music you like. It all works through a web browser, no downloads necessary. Here’s my profile page.

2. Last.fm

Last.fm has lots of great features; if you enable the scrobbler, it will track what you listen to on itunes and windows media player, and import that into your profile online. Then, it shows your friends what you’ve been listening too. And they just recently opened up on-demand streaming of any song up to 3 times a day. I like last.fm, even if I feel a bit overwhelmed by the site. There are so many things to click on and so many links, but that’s ok. It makes me feel like I still have lots to discover on the site, so it keeps me interested. If you choose not to download the last.fm client, you can still use the browser to stream songs.

3. Seeqpod

Seeqpod.com is basically a music file search engine. You search for songs or artists, and it returns locations on the web, and lets you stream that file through the browser. It’s great; I’m constantly using it to get a quick listen of a song or artist, especially when I’m with friends and we’re talking music.

4. Amie Street

At Amie Street, you can purchase songs based on how popular they are. The newer a song, the cheaper it is. As it gains popularity and purchases, it climbs in price. A pretty cool idea, it’s starting to gain some following and getting more artists.

5. Songbird

Songbird is a web browser which has been modified to play music, and make it much easier to locate and download music files on web pages. When it finds mp3s on a web page, for example, it will provide download links in a special section below the browser. Songbird is a great idea, something I’ll be using more and more. It’s also open source.

Feel free to mention one of your favorite music services in the comments.

]]> http://www.nathanjohns.net/2008/02/14/my-round-up-of-cool-audio-services-on-the-web/feed/ 1 Will the Record Industry ever be the same? http://www.nathanjohns.net/2007/10/11/will-the-record-industry-ever-be-the-same/ http://www.nathanjohns.net/2007/10/11/will-the-record-industry-ever-be-the-same/#comments Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:56:00 +0000 admin http://www.nathanjohns.net/?p=59 It’s been an interesting week in the world of high-profile musicians and record labels. In case you haven’t heard, a handful of artists have decided to dump their record label and go it alone. Radiohead was the first, deciding to release their latest album sans third party record label, and offered a digital download directly from their website. The coolest part? You decide how much you want to pay. I paid four pounds(about eight dollars) for mine. I normally wouldn’t voluntarily pay this much for an mp3 download, especially for a relatively low-quality bitrate(160 Kbps), no album art, etc., but I’ve gotta give props to Thom and the crew for taking such a leap.

Other artists have begun to follow suit, including:

  • Nine Inch Nails
  • Jamiroquai
  • Oasis
  • Madonna

These artists have yet to report how they plan on distributing their music. I’m definitely anxious to see what unfolds. The only bad thing about the route that Radiohead took is that it will likely overshadow the actual quality of the album, albeit a trivial point considering.

I’ve come to loathe music with DRM – that’s Digital Rights Management; follow the link for more info about what it is, and why it seriously sucks. In short, it’s basically a way to prevent digital media – music in this case – from being copied without the distributor’s consent. It makes it a real pain in the ass for people who simply want to easily transfer music they already own to other devices like mp3 players or other computers in the house. There seems to be more and more action around DRM lately, such as the new Amazon DRM-free mp3 downloads store. I still think 1$ for a song(iTunes) is too much, but if it were DRM-free, I may re-consider.

I’m anxious to see what unfolds ff big artists continue this trend of dropping their record labels. Will Radiohead divulge sales numbers? If they’re successful, would it be simply because they were the first? If this continues, will there be a simple, cheap and scalable platform for future artists who wish to distribute digital music?

]]> http://www.nathanjohns.net/2007/10/11/will-the-record-industry-ever-be-the-same/feed/ 0 Save Internet Radio! http://www.nathanjohns.net/2007/04/27/save-internet-radio/ http://www.nathanjohns.net/2007/04/27/save-internet-radio/#comments Sat, 28 Apr 2007 06:55:00 +0000 admin http://www.nathanjohns.net/?p=24 More specifically, save Pandora!

I was turned on to Pandora about a year ago. I love most things about it; simple interface, suggestions for new music it thinks I might like, the profile layout, etc. Because of Pandora, I’ve learned about dozens of new artists I probably never would have known about. That’s impressive.

Recently, royalty rates for webcasters(e.g. Pandora) were hiked way up, to the point where most of them will go bankrupt. This hike goes into effect on May 15th and is retroactive to January 1st, 2006. To help prevent this from happening, go here.

Want to see my Pandora profile? Check it out here.

]]> http://www.nathanjohns.net/2007/04/27/save-internet-radio/feed/ 0 My Morning Jacket http://www.nathanjohns.net/2007/04/27/my-morning-jacket/ http://www.nathanjohns.net/2007/04/27/my-morning-jacket/#comments Sat, 28 Apr 2007 06:03:00 +0000 admin http://www.nathanjohns.net/?p=23 One of my latest favorite bands is My Morning Jacket. Out of their discography, “Z” is by far my favorite. They have quite a following, especially for their live performances. I’ve been trying to find out when they plan on releasing their next album, but I can’t seem to find anything. I’ve looked on their official website, on wikipedia, and even on myspace, but still no luck.

Few bands have that effect on me, where I listen to them and just can’t get enough. Over the last several months, I’ve been in a “find new music” mode, so I hadn’t listened to them in a while; then, I busted out the “Z” album and it was great. I immediately started searching for information on the next album which leads me to where we are now.

They’re playing at Lollapalooza in Chicago, August 3-5. Vacation?

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