Peter Gabriel & Technology

Peter Gabriel, one of my all-time favourite musicians, continues to be at the forefront of technology usage -- particularly when it comes to technology for music and human rights:

On the human rights side:

  • In 1992 he co-founded WITNESS, "an international human rights organization that uses video and online technologies to open the eyes of the world to human rights violations"
  • In 1999 he started TheElders.org, which is a "new gathering of world leaders who [have] come together to guide and support our 'global village'".

So it's no surprise that he is involved in recent areas of music technology as well:

Both sound really interesting and I'll write more about them once I've played around with them a little more.

[More PG: Wikipedia, Last.fm, Real World Records, WOMAD]

'Last Night' by Moby...9 Days to Go!

We're still nine days away from the release of Moby's latest album, Last Night. Says Moby:

"last night" is basically a love letter to dance music in new york city. what i love about the new york approach to dance music is the eclecticism and the open minded-ness on the part of the musicians, the dj's, and the people in the bars and clubs. in making 'last night' i essentially tried to take a long 8 hour night out in new york city and condense it into a 65 minute long album.

To keep us busy till then, here's some fun Moby related stuff that you can do:

Enjoy :)

Three Years On...

One of the best ways I have of remembering my mother is through music. When we were little she used to sing us to sleep and it's mostly thanks to her that we're a very musical family (we start to sing at the drop of a hat, for example). Since it's been three years since she died I thought it would be nice to post a few videos of the songs that she really liked or that we used to sing a lot.

She was a big fan of Edith Piaf, for example, and her favourite Piaf song was 'Non, je ne regrette rien':

Her other favourite songs included Dean Martin's 'Under the Bridges of Paris', Harry Belafonte's 'Jamaica Farewell', and Frank Sinatra's 'Three Coins in a Fountain'. I'm sure there were others she liked, but these are the ones she knew the lyrics of and sang most often.

Here's Harry Belafonte singing 'Jamaica Farewell':

Bed Time Songs

A lot of the songs she sang us to sleep with were folk songs like 'Lavender Blue', 'Red River Valley', 'Danny Boy', and 'Tom Dooley'.

Here's a video of The Kingston Trio singing 'Tom Dooley':

And, since this is too good an opportunity to pass up, here's the Muppets version of 'Danny Boy':

I remember Ami having a good laugh over this when we first saw it :)

I believe she was more familiar with the Elvis version of this song, though, so here's the tribute video made for his 29th death anniversary that features it:

Travelling Songs

There were also a number of songs that we always sang in the car, particularly on long journeys. One of those was The Three Stooges song 'Swinging the Alphabet':

Other songs included 'The Animal Fair', 'Why Shouldn't My Goose', 'Row, Row, Row Your Boat', and 'Ten Green Bottles'. There were, of course, many more.

It's still hard to believe that she's gone...and I'm glad we have all this music to help keep her memory alive.

Jonathan Coulton!

I'd heard a couple of Jonathan Coulton songs before but, thanks to this episode of TWiT, I went and explored more of his music...and I love it!

If you're a geek and you love good music with fun lyrics, be sure to check him out. I mean, who couldn't love these lyrics:

Heya Tom, it’s Bob from the office down the hall
Good to see you buddy, how’ve you been?
Thing have been OK for me except that I’m a zombie now
I really wish you’d let us in
I think I speak for all of us when I say I understand
Why you folks might hesitate to submit to our demand
But here’s an FYI: you’re all gonna die screaming

All we want to do is eat your brains
We’re not unreasonable, I mean, no one’s gonna eat your eyes
All we want to do is eat your brains
We’re at an impasse here, maybe we should compromise:
If you open up the doors
We’ll all come inside and eat your brains

[From Re: Your Brains]

:)

The Police - Live in Concert!

So yesterday (Australia Day 2008), Nadia and I watched The Police live in concert at the Melbourne Cricket Grounds (MCG).

The Police at MCG - Tickets

Nadia's already written one blog post about it -- and I suspect she's going to write one or two more -- so go there for most of the concert information. I'm just here to upload a few photographs. Oh, and for completeness' sake, to document the complete set list:

  1. Message in a Bottle
  2. Synchronicity II
  3. Walking On The Moon
  4. Voices Inside My Head
  5. When The World Is Running Down
  6. Don't Stand So Close To Me
  7. Driven To Tears
  8. Hole In My Life
  9. Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic
  10. Wrapped Around Your Finger
  11. De Do Do Do De Da Da Da
  12. Invisible Sun
  13. Walking In Your Footsteps
  14. Can't Stand Losing You
  15. Roxanne
  16. King Of Pain
  17. Encore 1: So Lonely
  18. Every Breath You Take
  19. Encore 2: Next To You

Coming back to the photographs, here's a photo of one the opening acts, Fiction Plane, performing (not that you can see the band clearly, but still). This is a couple of hours before The Police started their set, by the way, which is why it's still light out. I took a photo of Fergie's performance as well, but that came out all blurry.

The Police at MCG - Fiction Plane

Impressive stage, isn't it? And it's not even lit up yet! Here's what it looked like from the side. Note the threatening rain clouds.

The Police at MCG - Stage

The Met Office had predicted thunderstorms for that evening but fortunately, other than it being a humid night, there wasn't any rain in that part of the city.

Finally, here's a photo taken during the first song (Message in a Bottle).

The Police at MCG - Message in a Bottle

I didn't take too many photographs after that, and the few that I did take aren't all that good. That's okay, though: I was there to watch and enjoy the show, not document it!

All in all, it was a fabulous concert. And, once it's up, I'll post a link to the concert review that The Age will inevitable publish.

Wolfgang's Vault, Police Tour

Next Saturday Nadia and I will watch The Police live in concert at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG). While looking for news, information, set lists, and videos of the current tour I found two interesting things:

Tracking Tours

First, the place to go to for the low down on The Police's 2007-2008 tour is this blog. It contains set lists, reviews, and videos and is, basically, the perfect way for us to get all psyched-up for the upcoming concert.

While I was there, by the way, I discovered that other bands' tours have been documented in a similar fashion. And after going through those sites, I now really want to go to a Bruce Springsteen concert as well.

Wolfgang's Vault

Second I discovered...well, a gold mine of live music in the form of Wolfgang's Vault, the largest online collection of historical concert recordings (and musician interviews). Ranging from concerts performed between 1960 and the late 1980s (so far), the Vault lets you stream thousands of hours of audio for free over the Internet (though you need to register with the site first) and the number of artists up there is immense. I've just spent the last couple of hours listening to Bruce Springsteen, U2, The Police, Peter Gabriel, and Tracy Chapman to name just a few. This site is awesome! :)

FYI: Bill Graham (originally, Wolfgang Grajonca, hence the nickname which then became the site's name) was a music promoter who virtually invented the modern concert business in the 1960s [1]. Graham died in 1991 and, in 2003, an entrepreneur by the name of Bill Sagan bought Graham's entire archive of music and memorabilia for over $5m. He's since starting putting all of the audio bits online (legally, of course) where anyone can access it. You can read more about it on Wikipedia.

If there's only one website you visit this week -- and assuming you're a big music fan -- make sure it's this one.

All Corduroy Songs Now Online

From 2003 to 2004 I was in an English rock music band called Corduroy. We were pretty successful -- as successful as an unsigned, underground, English music playing rock band based in Islamabad, Pakistan can be -- and we even released an album, called 'The Morning After'.

For reasons that I've explained on this page, I still maintain the website that I made for the band. Recently, though, I've uploaded our entire album to MediaFire. The production quality isn't the greatest, but the songs are good.

Why Music Production Keeps Getting Crappier

While I'm not a music producer, back in 2004 I helped produce my former band's first full-length album. Since we were doing everything ourselves (recording, producing, mastering, etc.) we basically had to teach ourselves all there was to know about small-scale music production. And, believe me, there's a lot to know.

Two of the issues that came up back then were those of overall song loudness (how loud we wanted to make our music) and of compression (which would make even the soft parts of a song loud but would compromise on musical texture and nuance). This is a big issue in music these days, with Rolling Stone magazine calling it 'The Death of High Fidelity'. I wanted to write about this back in August when Scott Rosenberg wrote his 'The Unbearable Loudness of Recording' blog post but I never got around to it. Now, thanks to the excellent Rolling Stone article, I don't have to write about it at all! So, if you're interested in music and the technical reasons for why modern music sounds so crappy, the article makes a good -- but long -- read.

In recent months I have been particularly disappointed with Bruce Springsteen's 'Radio Nowhere' which is an excellent song that is seriously compromised by it being too loud and too in-your-face. What's worse is that it's too loud and too in-your-face throughout the duration of the song. Compare that to something like Linkin Park's 'What I've Done' which is also loud -- it is, after all, a hard rock record -- but has so much more light and shade (i.e. musical variation) in it.

Linkin Park

I've always liked Linkin Park. The band's music is melodic, has a great beat, and pulls off both hardness and softness really well. The rap rock style works nicely and all of its music exceptionally well produced.

The first two singles off the band's new album, 'Minutes to Midnight', though, are particularly good. 'What I've Done' was good in it's own right but it got so much cooler when it was featured as the closing track for 'Transformers' (2007) and I really like the slightly-harder-than-U2 sound they've chosen for 'Shadow of the Day'. I guess it pays to have Rick Rubin as your producer, doesn't it? :)

I'll now have to give the whole album a listen. I'm sure it won't disappoint.

2 Good Articles: Cover Songs, Will Smith

I read two fun articles (via Digg) today.

The first is a list from the Onion's A.V. Club called 'Let It Die: 23 Songs That Should Never Be Covered Again'. Excellent article. Very spot on.

The second is The Deadbolt's interview with Will Smith which is, among other things, about his upcoming movie, 'I Am Legend'. I'm really looking forward to watching that movie and will write about it as soon as I do. Smith is one of my favourite actors and is also one of my favourite people-I've-never-met. I like him particularly because, despite all his success, he's still an honest to goodness, real down to Earth guy.

Moby Gratis

As usual, Moby kicks ass. He has released 44 of his instrumental tracks for use by independent, non-profit, and student film makers. These tracks, available for download from mobygratis.com, are free for non-commercial use and, should you want to use them for a commercial film, there's an "easy licence" that lets you do that as well. [Via TriggerStreet]

Oh, and in case you don't already know, his blog (which I've been reading for many, many years now) kicks ass too.

Muslim Punk Rock?! Awesome!

Rolling Stone ran an interesting article a few days ago called Allah, Amps and Anarchy. It's about the first-even Muslim punk-rock tour in America and it makes a really interesting read. Here's a snippet:
There are more than a million Muslims living in the U.S., and the youngest generation is still struggling to find its place in America. "Shit changed for all of us Muslim people after 9/11," says Khan. "The best way for me to deal with it was music." The Kominas are one of the more established groups, having toured and released records. Their songs mix punk speed and attitude with Middle Eastern sounds. Their lyrics, often confrontational, are also deeply personal. In "Par Desi," Usmani, who spent part of his childhood in Pakistan, describes getting beaten up by punk skinheads in America: "In Lahore it's raining water/In Boston it rains boots."

Band From TV

Since I have finally started posting about music, here's something else you might want to check out: Band From TV.

This is a bunch of successful TV stars -- like Hugh Laurie from 'House' (on keyboards) and Greg Grunberg from 'Heroes' (on drums) -- who are also amateur musicians. They play mostly cover songs at live venues (though they have an album coming out later this year) and they do it all for charity. They're quite good too.

Bruce Springsteen & Marion Call

I haven't been online much these last few days (and probably won't be till the weekend either) so I'm just popping in to post two interesting things.

First, Bruce Springsteen's new album 'Magic' is going on sale soon (2nd October in the US). In the lead up to that, his first single, 'Radio Nowhere', is available for download for free by Sony BMG. It's quite an awesome song and you can get it from this site: http://www.radionowheredownload.com.

Second, thanks to a posting by The Bad Astronomer, I too am being enchanted by the music of Marian Call. Her music is really good and it's funny just how much I relate to the lyrics of 'I'm Not Sexy'. If you get a chance, take a listen.

Near-Term Goals for This Here Blog

There is a lot that I want to blog about.

For example, I have recently watched the following movies:

Read the following interesting articles:

Read or re-read the following awesome books:

  • Frank Herbert's first Dune trilogy: "Dune", "Dune Messiah", and "Children of Dune"

  • JK Rowling's "Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows"


Started listening to some really good netcasts on TWiT, including:

Discovered a couple of really good musicians:

Bought tickets to a couple of great concerts:

  • The Cure: 12 August, 2007 at the Rod Laver Arena

  • The Police: 26 January, 2008 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground


All of which are blog-worthy items. I have also recently started extensively using the moste excellent Google Reader which is something that I really want to blog about.

Finally, aside from everything already listed above, I am now formally declaring the following topics as future postings of mine for this here blog:

  • Facebook (and social networking in general)

  • Living in Australia

  • Why blog?

  • The problem with this blog


All of which I will about write soon. I hope.

Huh?

Why have I just written all of this? Well, all this is thanks to first item on Web Worker Daily's '10 Ways to be Productive with Your Blog' which is: "Post goals". Tthat's step one done with. Let's see how the others go :)

Oh, and I have also recently added a new page to my website called '(Much) More About Me', the title of which is rather self explanatory.

Watching Movies/TV, Listening to Music

Since I've started talking about the different layers that make up a scene in a movie or television show (i.e. by talking about scripts), let me go ahead and tell y'all how I watch movies in the first place. No, not the obvious open-eyes-stare-at-screen type how I watch movies, but more like what my movie-watching philosophy is. Of course, calling it a 'philosophy' gives it a little too much credit, but it sounds much cooler that way so I'm going to stick with it. (Also, when I say just 'movies', I do actually mean both movies and TV. It's just that it's much easier to stick to the one word, which is exactly what I'll do for the remainder of this post.)

Levels & Layers

Simply put, I watch movies at multiple levels and often (usually when I really like a movie) I watch it at least twice. When I say 'multiple levels' I mean that, because I know a little about how movies are made, I can see and appreciate the inputs of various contributors to the overall product. Let me give you an example from the first part of 'The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring'. And from that let's take the scene in which Gandalf and Frodo are riding on Gandalf's cart towards Bag End (i.e. Bilbo's house). The scene seems to be reasonably straightforward but there's a lot going on in there. For example:

  • The two actors are actually sitting five feet away from each other on a specially designed cart that, when viewed from the side, uses perspective to make Frodo look much smaller than Gandalf. As it moves along, the bench they're sitting on adjusts to ensure that there is no break in scene continuity.

  • The actual jump that Frodo makes into Gandal's arms was made by Elijah Wood's stunt double, Kiran Shah.

  • This is an important scene for Gandalf because, first, it's the first time we're seeing him on screen and he has to look believable and, second, because Ian McKellen worked really hard to get Gandal's voice, humour, mischievous nature, concern for Bilbo, and hidden power all just right for this scene.

  • A lot of work went into Gandalf's costume. It comes from drawing by John Howe (created for the cover illustration of the one the book editions) and both he and Alan Lee worked extensively with the producers to get the look and feel of Middle Earth just right.

  • The firework effects were added later and, in the scene, the children are reacting to just audio (if that). One of the children in the scene is actually Peter Jackson's.

  • The location of the scene is a park in New Zealand and all of the construction that was done to make it look like Hobbiton was completely undone after filming was completed.

  • Howard Shore's musical score is currently on the hobbit theme. This theme will be played (sometimes intermingled with other themes) every time there's talk about hobbits and the Shire. Bits of the fellowship theme are thrown in throughout the first half of the movie, but that theme won't be fully developed (i.e. played) till the famous crossing-the-mountain-ridge scene later on in the movie.


Now it's true that I know a lot of this stuff because (a) there is a lot of production information available about the LoTR movies in the DVD extras as well as online, (b) I'm a Peter Jackson fan and so I keep up with his work, and (c) I'm a huge LoTR fan. But that's part of the point: it is because I know about all this stuff and have read about it that I know a lot about what's going behind the scenes. And it's that which helps me watch the movie at multiple levels.

The fun thing is that, even if I don't know a lot about the movie I'm watching, I can still see how it was made. For example, regardless of which movie I'm watching, I will consciously notice continuity mistakes, the score and what it is trying to convey, the lighting, the cinematography, the camera angles, the number of cameras being used, the cuts between takes and scenes, the work being put in by the actors, the effects added on by the visual effects people, the audio being added on by the folio people, and so on. This is in much the same way that an editor would look at a book and see spelling and grammar mistakes, different font faces, writing and editing styles and choices, printing and layout choices, etc. (Aside: Being a web developer and designer, I do the same when viewing web pages.)

Layers in Music

Being a musician, meanwhile, helps me do the same thing when listening to music. For example, I can usually tell what bit was recorded live and what was added on later, what the song structure is all about, what the time signature is, when the key changes are, how the song is arranged spatially, what is being done with the backing vocals (when, who, how many, higher/lower, how spatially arranged, etc.), which instruments are playing in which audio frequency areas, what melodies and counter melodies are being used, what exactly each instrument is contributing to the song (which individual melody they're playing, etc.), and exactly which drum component the drummer is striking at any given time.

The Benefit

All of this, for both movies and songs, does a couple of things for me. First, it helps me get a lot more from the movie I'm watching or the song I'm listening to. I end up appreciating them not just for what they are, but also for how they came to be that way. Second, it makes me doubly dislike badly done songs/movies and makes me really like those that have been well done. That doesn't seem like a big thing but, believe me, it is. Take Shakira's song 'Hips Don't Lie' for example. The song is really good and it's great to dance to but, dammit, its production could have been better. Or take 'Rock the Party' by the Bombay Rockers in which the chorus sound like "frack the part, frack the party" instead of "rock the party, rock the party".

On the other hand, it is thanks to this that I can appreciate just how awesome the band Dire Straits was because its production is just incredible. (Unfortunately, Knopfler's obsession with getting everything exactly right led to a high turnover of band members). You also start to appreciate different individual music producers -- like Steve Lillywhite, Daniel Lanois, Brian Eno, Butch Vig, Mark Knopfler, Rick Rubin, Mike Campbell, and Peter Gabriel, to name some of my favourites -- and what they bring to bands and their sounds. To get an idea of the same thing happening in a different context, ask Nadia how she likes Dan Brown's 'The DaVinci Code' and why she has never been able to get past the first page because the writing is so darned crappy!

To make my life a little happier, by the way, I have had to develop both the ability to separate content from production and the ability to enjoy something even if it's not all that well done. So I can still enjoy listening to 'Hips Don't Lie' and I can still enjoy reading 'The DaVinci Code' (without cringing all that much) and I can still have a great time watching 'Terminator 3' even though there are minor acting issues and storyline inconsistencies.

Let's Watch That Again

Last thing: I mentioned at the start of this posting that I like to watch good movies more than once. One of the advantages of doing this is that I can peel off additional layers with each new viewing. And when a movie is really good, you get something new from it almost every single time you watch it. It is especially useful to watch good comedies more than once because you don't always get all the jokes the first time round (presumably because you're laughing so hard the first time round). Another advantage of multiple viewings is that, at the first viewing, you can leave your technical eye at the door and simply enjoy the story and get caught up in the action and excitement (especially if you're watching it in the cinema). Once you've done that, you can think "that was cool, how did they do that?" and then watch it again.

So that, ladies and gentlemen, is how I watch movies, TV shows, and plays; view websites; read books; and listen to music. Yes, life is rich and life is fun.

New Rule

"At least one posting per week." That's my new rule for this blog. If I don't force myself to start writing regularly at first, I'll never get into the habit. It'll be like starting a new exercise routine.

The problem, of course, is that I actually need something (relatively intelligent) to write about. I don't want to write crap, y'know. I do, on the other hand, want to write about movies and music and stuff like that but I haven't watched a movie (even an old one shown on free-to-air TV) in; well, at least a couple of months. And though I've heard some new songs, there's not much I can write about them. Except maybe that (hmmm) Justin Timberlake appears to be a real musician after all. His music has never been all that bad, but I actually like his new stuff. Strange. Oh, also: I like JoJo's new single 'Too Little, Too Late'� (okay, so it's not all that new, really), Nelly Furtado's latest 'Say It Right', and Missy Higgins' 'Steer' off her new album. Yes, the radio station that wakes me up in the morning mostly plays pop. On the rock side of life, though, RHCP's first three singles off of their new album are quite awesome.


And that's really all I have to say about that. Fortunately, I've made a list of other things that I can write about and do, in fact, want to write about on this blog. Eventually. One at a time.