the pod bay door

:: What’s next in writing tools for weblogs? Dave Winer wants your opinion. I’m wondering if something like Textpattern is where things are headed. Then there is the corporate blog movement; anyone heard of SilkBlogs?

:: When I drive, I play word games with licence plates on vehicles in front of me. When it’s a plate with three letters, I try to form words using the letters in the order they appear from L-R. For example, my plate’s letters are WZN, which could be wheezing or waltzing. My previous licence plate was STR, which could be straight, stretch, mustard, magistrate, saturate, etc. Today I saw a plate with CRD, and could though of chord, card, cradle, etc. I also though of The Communards, an 80s UK band. Later while driving, I was switching radio stations (all of the pop music stations in Edmonton suck bobos), and the first song I heard was “Smalltown Boy”, by the Bronski Beat, which later became…The Communards.

Coincidence? Psychic phenomenon? Rift in the space-time continuum?

:: Grey Tuesday happened yesterday. An LA DJ, Danger Mouse, “created” a remix of Jay-Z’s The Black Album and The Beatles’ White Album, and released it on the Internet, calling it The Grey Album. (Jay-Z had released an a cappela version of The Black Album to encourage sampling.)

EMI, claiming copyright of The White Album, is attempting to stop the album’s distribution, having previously sent Mouse a cease and desist order, re: online distribution of the record. The Grey Tuesday web site notes that “Danger Mouse’s album is one of the most “respectful” and undeniably positive examples of sampling; it honors both the Beatles and Jay-Z.” Jason Kottke suggests that “musical sampling without prior consent of the copyright holder should be legally allowed because it does our society more good than harm.” Hundreds of web sites turned grey on Tuesday in protest.

I can’t buy this argument. I’ve been a musician for 37+ years, and don’t see anything creative or inventive in the “sampling” of another artist’s original work by adding new lyrics or rhythm, then claiming credit (or co-credit) for it as an original work. That opinion notwithstanding, how does not informing a copyright holder that her or his music has been taken by another “artist” and morphed into something else, do harm to society? WTF?

So why am I against this, while not against downloading? Because I believe these are two different issues. If the music industry can get its act together (right, and the sun will go nova this weekend, too) to create a fee-for-service downloading service, I’d be happy to pay to download music, if the fee structure was within reason, and the quality of the product could be guaranteed beforehand. So far, the industry hasn’t responded. And P2P downloading is legal in Canada. With “sampling”, an artist takes an original work, changes it, and we are expected to view this as a new, creative and unique product.

DJ Danger Mouse “honors” The Beatles with this effort? The album cover shows Jay-Z in the centre, with The Beatles standing behind him, as if to suggest collaboration. Still other versions have him sharing space with The Beatles on the Revolver and Yellow Submarine covers. Sacrilege.

Many artists allow sampling of their music, but the process begins with permission to use copyright material, and then negotiations for compensation with the copyright holder(s). Many other artists, The Beatles included, do not allow sampling.

Then again, this is just my opinion, I could be wrong.

:: The Village Voice has released its 30th (or 31st) Annual Pazz & Jop Critics’ Poll. Details: “This poll combines ballots from 732 critics, who divided 100 points among 10 2003 albums. Maximum per album: 30. Minimum: 5. Points determined placement, with total mentions (indicated in parenthesis) used for tie breaking.”

I don’t recognize many of the artists on these lists, and certainly don’t know most of the Top 50 singles or albums. Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz featuring Ying Yang Twins? Kelis? Lumidee? Chingy? And what’s with Jay-Z (or Jay-Zed, as we say in Canada): Beyonce featuring Jay-Z, Panjabi MC featuring Jay-Z, Pharrell featuring Jay-Z? OK, I do recognize Warren Zevon, Coldplay, Johnny Cash, The Strokes, Radiohead… Hey…YA!

What am I listening to these days? The Jethro Tull Christmas Album, and it’s damn good.

:: I went to Maria Dunn’s concert on Saturday night. She performed two sets of original tunes, with support from Shannon Johnson and Dawn Anderson. In 1992-93, I was a member of The Invisible Jug Band, with Maria, Dawn, and Duke Bronfman. I had a blast performing with them at that time.

In the intervening 10-11 years, Maria has developed into a brilliant writer of historical ballads and songs. She is becoming, if she isn’t already, one of Canada’s best storytellers in song. Maria researches the history of places like Edmonton, where she (and I) live, Alberta, Ontario, and other parts of Canada. She finds stories about fascinating individuals who may have struggled for a cause, and then writes a deeply moving and very original songs about them. She is a national treasure, and I’m proud to be able to say I once performed on stage alongside her.

Maria has released two albums to date: From Where I Stand appeared in 1998, and her second album, For A Song, received a 2002 Juno Award Nomination in the Roots/Traditional Solo category. Both are recommended. Maria is in the studio now, finishing her much-anticipated third album.

:: Spam to end by 2006?

:: Nathan Sawaya makes life size Lego objects, such as Han Solo in Carbonite, the Death Star, a rabbit ambulance, a head, a dachsund, and more.

:: Wired offers 101 Ways To Save The Internet. Among my favorites:

1 Unleash vigilante justice on spammers: One activist has proposed filters that launch distributed denial-of-service attacks back at spammers. Great. Just make sure we have the right addresses first.
2 Slash song prices charge 29 cents per download. You”ll make it up in volume.
3 Quit already, Jack Valenti
9 Hands off Internet phone calls: Just because the creaky old phone system was regulated to death doesn’t mean VoIP should suffer the same fate.
10 Free the handsets: We should be able to buy any cell phone and match it with any service plan.
24 Release Episode III on the Net: It’s going straight to video anyway.
30 Scramble archived addresses: Online archives of mailing lists are a treasure trove for spammers. Give members the option to have their addresses scrambled in posts.

Read more »

:: Did you see School of Rock? I was pleased to learn that there is a real such movement, called Little Kids Rock. It was started in 1996 by David Wish, an elementary school teacher who at the time, was frustrated with the lack of funding for music education in his school.

:: Some of you may be familiar with This Modern World, by Tom Tomorrow, aka Dan Perkins. Mr Tom Tomorrow was interviewed in a recent issue of Time Out New York.

:: For dinner this evening, I had the first of four delicious Nova Scotia lobsters, flown in from Halifax yesterday. The lobsters were in the luggage of a friend I picked up at the airport, the second year in a row she has returned from her Christmas trip with this delicacy that is my favorite food. *sigh* Thank you, K!

:: Fans of Steve Earle will be interested in this new documentary, Steve Earle: Just an American Boy. Earle stirred up much controversy when his 2002 album, Jerusalem, featured a song called John Walker’s Blues, about the American Taliban fighter. A double-CD functioning as a companion piece to the movie has also been released. Time Out New York reviewed the movie favorably. I really like Jerusalem, and hope the film makes its way to Edmonton in 2004.

:: Despite the recent ruling that P2P file swapping of music is legal in Canada, the Canadian Recording Industry Association is preparing its own round of lawsuits to be filed against individual Canada-based file swappers.