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Blip.fm - The pretenders conundrum

I have been using Blip.fm for a couple of weeks now and I have taken to it like a duck to water. I have to confess that I never really understod the reason behind twitter. I used it as a kind of track my mental state. As the below mash up of hitler shows - TWITTER has established its own culture and in jokes.

Using twitter service for approximately 1 year now I totally get the point but I don't know what I am achieving by twittering anymore. I have lost my twittering way. I find that Blip gives me a reason to stick a dumb thought out thereby attaching it to a piece of music. I really like the fact that I can integrate blip.fm into my twitter feed. ahhh. Now everyone can see my love for immortal technique in the afternoon.

The best thing for me is not only do I get to see my brothers listening habits I can also give him props. This might sound like a simple tool, but it is so effective in this instance. This leads to the question do I have musical taste if I choose my music via other people who have nice taste?....Hmmm. The pretenders conundrum - I mean is taste inherent or is it something you can learn.

Batman vs the dark knight trailer nice edit

As one of the most successful movies of 2008, possibly all time, the dark knight should be considered quite original and compelling. Funny thing is I have managed to find this really interesting comparison of the 1989 Batman trailer with the dark knight. The similarity is amazing and well edited from the original trailer.

Flow and the feeling of being in the moment -

You know that moment when you sit in a chair and read a book for a while, the light changes and  the wind whips the trees against the window of your room. You however stay transfixed by the object in front of you. Flow is an interesting concept - apparently it is the space in which action and awareness merge and is a sign of the mind being ultra focussed.

I have been thinking about this concept over the last couple of days and it seems like an interesting space to inhabit. Flow theory was first introduced by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, he describes it as like playing jazz. You can ceck out his book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

"being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the utmost."

Looking at that quote I can begin to see times that I may be in flow. The most interesting flow for me is playing music. It just clicks and the world falls away - I know we are entering flow because John the bassist will generally turn the lights off and we just play - that is a nice feeling, being lost in sound. But I personally don't think flow exists just for the producers.

A lot of the characteristics of flow
- Concentrating and focus
- A loss of the feeling of self consciousness
- Distorted sense of time
- action awareness merging

Flow for me appears to have two sides - On one we have the producers, the creators and the doers and on the other we have the consumers, absorbers and the fascinated. Still thinking

In a way time is relative to the level of engagement and engagement is relative to the level of interestingness. Does concentration speed up or slow down our experience of time? I know this is probably all cod. I had it kicking around in my head and just wanted to write it down.

I guess we are speeding it up to slow it down - I guess we can just get into this flow....jazz!

A little musical project: EJECT EJECT EJECT tracks

I have been making some electro stuff for a while now and have never shown it to anyone, well, my Brother and he seemed to like it. I thought I should put something up on this blog. Here are two kind of tracks from my side project "Eject Eject Eject" - The first track is "34576" and the second track is "Poetry for the dead" (it has a vocal on it but I am not quite ready to put that up yet...Need more confidence.) -  I made these in Reason. Of which I am a big fan. Hope you like it - I do - Comments welcome. : )

"34576"

"Poetry for the dead"

The rank deluxe single art work

As you probably know I am in a band called The rank deluxe and we are signed to Fat-cat records. Anyway we have an album out soon and have so far put out one single. Here is the artwork for the first and second singles. The pictures were shot by the legendary Nic Shonfeld. I really like the way the images look...hope you like them too.
                                     

                                     

 

 

The sounds of nature

I was sitting at my computer and got the need for some birdsong, not enough of it these days. One things for sure it definitely takes me away from where ever I am. Well if you fancy getting away from it all for a bit then click here for some tunes....my favourite is the The Living Outback: Pied Butcherbird - really nice and chilled.

Media-defender hacking teenager...interesting story

Click here if you want learn about the company getting hacked by a teenager during his summer...

The flaming lips with all your power what would you do?

If you could blow up the world with the flick of a switch
Would you do it?
If you could make everyobody poor just so you could be rich
Would you do it?
If you could watch everybody work while you just lay on your back
Would you do it?
If you could take all the love without giving any back
Would you do it?
And so we cannot know ourselves or what we'd really do...

With all your power
With all your power
With all your power
What would you do?

The world of music in your hands...no excuses...

Now all we need is a record deal - Oh, well perhaps Apple could hook us up....In the words of Art Brut "We started a band"......Rock on! here are a couple of songs from two ibands.....Maybe got a way to go yet....but soon enough....soon enough!

Jay-Z, U2 and the live experience

When music makes money, it really makes money....Jay-Z, Gangster inspired business mogul has managed to secure a ten year deal with Live nation for $150 million. Now some would see this as quite excessive. I personally think that this is a very shrewd piece of business by the live nation crew. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to work out that an album sell for approx £9 on a good day and a ticket to a live show...well it has a value only the buyer can determine(just check out Ebay). The logic is simple - In a digital, networked economy people place a very low value on anything that can be copied. Albums can be downloaded for free and those numbers that do sell are seeing their album sales decline. The live side of the music business is a different story. As previously discussed "Reality is the new experience" and the live experience is one in which the band can sell an awful lot of merchandise and offer the fan a completely unique experience, not just musically but outside of mediocrity. So it seems the technology that spawned MTV and enabled bands to Virtually tour continuously anywhere at any time and sell millions of records has performed a 360 and now reduces the value of an album to zero. This Zero value for the actual product has led bands to now seek revenue from actually toruing and  playing shows. You can't copy the experience of a live show, hence its perceived value is higher. Being in a band myself, this non-stop touring lifestyle can seem intimidating and exciting. I gather from some of the recent articles about EMI, that they are looking to start tpuring their acts intensively. I am still intrigues to see what this will bring..Will the music get better? Will bands last longer? Will we see touring festivals? This deal, along with the U2 $100 million, will make the musicians rich and if technology doesn't change rapidly.....could make the companies wealthier...Only time will tell and one thing is for sure if it doesn't work out....Jay-Z will have the cash to sue.  Enjoy the Jay-Z classic.