Vitriolic Humor

OK, I missed the 1960s by a couple years, can anyone explain to me what Manfred Mann is singing about in "The Mighty Quinn"? Double negatives aside, what does this mean: "You'll not see nothing like the Mighty Quinn." Apparently he's an Eskimo and the pigeons like him. Is this just another completely abstract 60s song, or is there some meaning to these lyrics?

The name Quinn is of Celtic/Gaelic origin. I've seen a couple of definitions for it: "wise" or "fifth-born."

On a side note, someone sent me a comment by e-mail that "The Mighty Quinn" is actually a Bob Dylan song. You learn something new (well, I do...) every day. It has also been covered by (of course) Manfred Mann, (as previously mentioned) The Grateful Dead, Phish, 1910 Fruitgum Company, The String Cheese Incident, The Ventures and The Hollies. I've screened most of these versions and they are mostly quite similar to the Manfred Mann version that probably the most well-known. The differences are mostly in tempo with one notable difference: The Hollies do a decidedly bluegrass version of The Mighty Quinn that is worth checking out once..

Tags: dylan quinn mighty pigeon eskimo manfred lyrics mann grateful dead manfred mann

Posted by speedeep at 7:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (19)

Syd Barrett (founder of Pink Floyd) died peacefully on Friday, July 7 at his home in Cambridgeshire at the age 60. His creativity was reigned only by his madness. A great creative spirit has moved on. Shine on you crazy diamond...

Links:
Wikipedia article on Syd Barrett
BoingBoing nod to Syd
NME
CNN
ABC

Tags: sid uk syd barrett music rock rick wright architectural mp3 history syd cambridgeshire the floyd roger waters floyd psychedelica brit pink david gilmour nick mason entertainment abdabs dave gilmour england psychedelic founder british death art progressive barrett memorium richard wright pink floyd flying atmospheric

Posted by speedeep at 2:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Looks like Amazon owes me $9,999,999,971.01 (that's a negative total.) I'm still wondering who bought me a $10 (big-B) Billion dollar gift certificate. By the time they credit this amount into my account, their profits this quarter will be significantly impacted, so I figured I put this notice out. :-) I'm not sure I can handle a refund that large on the card I'm using, maybe I should use the American Express...

(Yes, this is a real screenshot taken at 11:50am on Tuesday, November 15, 2005.)

Do you suppose this reveals the upper dollar limit Amazon designed their e-commerce software to handle? I can't imagine the programming error that would cause a problem like this. I hope this doesn't foul up their systems or my accounts... Click...

If you'd like to try your luck, or just want to pre-order a copy of Rush's (the band, not the man) new DVD (release date is next Tuesday, November 22, 2005) please use the links below.

Tags: neilpeart rockandroll progressive alexlifeson rush canadian progrock error geddylee amazon

Posted by speedeep at 1:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

[My first post using Movable Type 3.2]

For many years, various sites on the Internet have offered the promise of analyzing or sampling our musical tastes and intelligently giving us back a playlist of similar music (or at least music you might like...) Along the way we've seen a number of sites come and go with various degrees of success:

• last.fm
• musicstrands
• MIT Media Labs' HOMR (Helpful On-line Music Recommendations)/Ringo (now defunct)
• Firefly (which developed from Ringo)
• upto11.net

I recently came across Pandora.com, a creation of the Music Genome Project, and was quite pleased with what I experienced. First, this is a pay site ($36/year or $4/month) with a free 10-hour trial period. Pandora starts by allowing you to specify and artist or song, then it returns a "station" that plays music related to your choice. It has a clean, intuitive Flash interface that shows your stations (you can create 10 with the demo, 100 with a subscription.) and displays the last 3 songs played (along with the artist's name and a thumbnail of the album cover.)

You can only pause or skip tracks (no rewinding or replaying on demand) because of the way Pandora structured its licensing arrangements. You are clearly paying a small fee to listen to music intelligently correlated to your tastes, not buying it. If you do find a track you like, you can purchase it through easy links back to Amazon or iTunes. You can also provide feedback (thumbs up/down) on whether or not you liked a parituclar track. The music is streamed to you in an unspecified format at 128kbps. There is no advertising on the site, and they don't censor the music; unlike MTV, they play the music as the artist wrote and performed it. <sarcasm>What a neat idea.</sarcasm>

I enjoyed exploring Pandora's musicscape and found several new artist through its suggestions. For the most part, I found the recommendations very relevant. I tried a variety of artists and the only confusing results were for a channel based on Sublime, where Pandora picked up on the guitar-and-vocal ballads by Sublime instead of the punkier, ska- and reggae-influenced side of Sublime. An accurate match, but not the attribues I was looking for when I typed in Sublime. "Pink Floyd" turned up some psychedelic/prog rock stuff I hadn't heard before. "Mark Knopfler" came back with some interesting folksy balladeers I hadn't heard of before. I ran through a variety of artists including Aimee Mann, Neko Case, The Police, Rush, Goldfinger, Johnny Cash, Kate Bush, Colin Hay, and Primus and got good results for all. The coverage (they claim 10,000 artists and 300,000 songs) seems quite complete and the recommendations are truly similar music, not stuff pushed from the top-40 or top-100 lists.

Pandora accepts submissions from artists as well as suggestions from listeners as well. Check out Pandora.com for the 10-hour demo and see how you like the service. I am not affiliated with Pandora in any way, just a subscriber.

[ Update (February 2, 2006) :
There is a great comparison of Pandora and Last.Fm including an analysis of their algorithms and effectiveness.

Tags: social networking networks research experimental music rating recommend recommendation firefly ringo mit media lab musicstrands last.fm automatic automata automation autonomous algorithms personal personalized community sharing shareable

Posted by speedeep at 11:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The mix strings along short interview snippets through a huge variety of tape loops, sounds, and samples we've all been listening to in our pop music for the last 50 years or so. I'm trying not to make it sound too pedantic. It's high-paced ride with all kinds of tunes and clips that you've heard in various songs mixed with insightful interview clips and quite entertaining. Even if you don't like these genres in general, I encourage you to check this out if only to gain a little more insight into the history of the samples behind the tracks you listen to every day.

In-jokes and references abound, keep an open ear for Madonna's "What the fuck do you think you're doing" overlaid with her "Ray of Light" and (Whitney) "Houston we have a [drinking] problem" samples towards the end. If you are ready for an audio roller coaster ride, start downloading...
Direct Download or BitTorrent Link (both are 70MB+ mp3 files)
(thanks, BoingBoing!)

Tags: sample - remix - remixed - remixing - djfood - bastard - pop - glitch - mashup - mashedup - mash-up - sampling - sampled - dj - disc - jockey - tape - loop - music - history - art - artist - copyright - bootleg - cut-up - creative - energy - amalgam - bittorrent - mp3 - audio - illegal - culture - deluxe - meta - magic - downloading - download

Posted by speedeep at 7:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I went to download a new copy of Quicktime from Apple today and noticed they bundled iTunes in the install. The installer clearly asked me where I wanted iTunes installed, so I chose the default:

c:\Program Files\iTunes\

c:\Program Files\iPod\

Apple:

I know the name of the game is getting your software onto my computer, but this is just scummy. What's next, are you going to tack on a copy of OS/X next time I upgrade my Quicktime? What else was installed when all I wanted to install was Quicktime?

I download and install Quicktime because I want Quicktime, not iTunes, not iPod software, nothing else. Even with full disclosure in the agreement, your bundling of software in this way is obnoxious at best and will turn off Windows/Apple fence-sitters in the worst case. We're all intelligent out here, why not let us download the individual software packages we want by ourselves?

[Edit: July 26, 2005]
I now also notice that Apple created two now processes that come up at startup. I've got an iPodService.exe running (I don't own and probably won't own an iPod, ever...) and an iTunesHelper.exe (remember, I didn't want iTunes in the first place.) Off to go clean up my registry and directories.
[/Edit]

[Edit: July 27, 2005]
I also had to remove approximately 50 different entries in my Windows Registry, by hand, in order to disable the services and file associations.
[/Edit]

Thanks, Apple, for making Quicktime more work than necessary. I hear that VLC plays Quicktime videos just fine, and so does QuickTime Alternative. Both of those choices quickly install only what I want and provide most of the same functions. Is this what the Apple Marketing types had in mind when they brainstormed the idea to bundle Quicktime and iTunes?

Putting a link to iTunes download on the Qucktime download page is cool. Bundling the software together (and not providing an iTunes/iPod uninstaller) is not.

To finish things off, my InstallShield for my QuickTime install has locked up part-way through and won't finish. There are no (visible) dialogs waiting for a response.

Be good net citizens, Apple, and do the right thing. Or is this your idea of "different thinking"?

Tags: apple - quicktime - itunes - ipod - software - karma - badkarma - windows - installshield - nightmare - registry

Posted by speedeep at 3:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

By swamysk. Used w/permission.

MTV managed to show most of the performance with no commercials and no MTV VJs interrupting with interviews of frat boys sharing their thoughts on Africa. ("Will I get laid if I say that I care on live TV?") Correction: Then they cut off the end of the end of "Comfortably Numb" so Ahmet could tell us to "stick around." Is nothing sacred MTV? I don't need to be told to stay put or see commercials for AIDS/sexual assault/Big Dave's Fireworks/Kotex/Vonage, dammit I want to see the performance! This is Pink Floyd! Maybe if they had done this as a fundraiser they could have done more uninterrupted live coverage. AOL's live Internet feed was much better than MTV/VH1's ad-littered coverage.

MTV bleeped the heck out of their broadcast. Thanks, MTV, for at least not editing out "bullshit" on Money. ABC's replay of selected parts of the concert was heavily censored, including obscuring the "bullshit" in Money. One of these days I'll blog on my thoughts about censorship and otherwise modifying an artist's work. AOL's feed was uncensored.

The camera flashes were popping, so I how to see some good photos on Flickr (Search 1, Search 2, Search 3) maybe an audience audio or video recording via BitTorrent (Search 1, Search 2, Search 3, Search 4)? They just released the DVD of the first Live Aid, how long until the Live8 DVD is released?

Setlist:
Breathe
Money
Wish You Were Here
Comfortably Numb
(kinda surprised Roger didn't get "Each Small Candle" or one of his other two new songs in there...)

David Gilmour did all the vocal duties for the first two songs, Roger Waters did WYWH with Dave doing the scat lyrics. Roger and Dave split duties on Comfortably Numb. Roger spoke very little, but dedicated Wish You Were Here to Syd Barrett. Nice touch.

A great performance, couple of new backing artists. Good sax solo on Money, don't know the performer's name.

Good London camera work by whoever is filming this for broadcast including a fade to a zoomed-in view of the Battersea Powerstation's silhouette on the London skyline. A nice fade away to the London Eye. Great coverage of the band, closeups of the performance. Couple of really nicely composed shots of Dave and Roger.

There was an ad for Pink Floyd: Echoes about an hour after their performance. You could order it from them or just buy it on Amazon.

First time they've been back on stage together since 1987. 24 years later. Wow!

Tags: live8 - pinkfloyd - davidgilmour - rogerwaters - bobgeldof - bobgeldof

Posted by speedeep at 5:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)