The Bass Geek

The new IMN podcast is up – download it or listen at the site or on WFYI HD2, Thursdays at 4pm.

Also, there’s a Playboy Psychonauts gig at the Upper Room in Broad Ripple this very evening, starting around 10pm or so. It will be exceptionally cold, I understand. For that, we are providing new material and access to fine coffee drinks in exchange for currency. That last transaction will be handled by bartender extraordinaire Jeff Sample. We’ll handle the musical transactions. Enjoy and stay warm.

Also, we have to work on scheduling gigs around Steelers games. Feh.

Between Apple buying LaLa and MOG making their $5-a-month debut last week, streaming music enjoyed a brighter spotlight in recent news reports. The question of whether iTunes will stream purchased music (kinda like Netflix over computers and Xboxes) is intriguing, except that you still have to be near a network connection to use it (and 3G doesn’t necessarily count – still not ubiquitous enough and drains the batteries something fierce). Ultimately, though, I like the idea of the concept if it adheres to some basic tenets:

1. Sound quality – streaming from high-quality audio files is the only way to go. Sure, if the network slows down and causes problems, it doesn’t matter. But take every precaution on the service side to make it reliable and usable for all.
2. Amazing and complete selecton – this means all tracks from available albums; if you bother to get one, get them all.
3. Metadata – more than artist, track, and album; give me the liner notes. You’re on the Internet, after all.

I want to see how the LaLa acquisition works for iTunes, but I get the feeling it’s still some time away from being truly realized. Enough time to make some good decisions and get it done the right way, hopefully.

It’s First Friday, which means that the entire area will be covered with art lovers and lovers of art lovers who may love art, but love their lovers more.

And there’s music, too.

Radio Radio has The Blakes, Red Light Driver, Welcome to Ashley, and Heavy Hometown tonight (for those that love the British-sounding pop music). Those who love that music will want to return Sunday for a free early show (6:30pm) featuring Terry Sylvester of the Hollies.

Big Car Gallery has Andy D, Twin Monster and Motif tonight as part of the Tre Reising opening. This will be a spectacle, trust me. Basilica performs downstairs in the old Dolphin Paper store, too.

The Vollrath has We Are Hex, Pravada, and Grandchildren tonight. Tomorrow is Exorcism, which I have learned is a dance party. No casting out of spirits here, folks, unless someone vomits their drinks in the back parking lot.

David Wilcox will be appearing tomorrow at the Wheeler Art Center as part of Indy’s Acoustic Cafe series. Good venue for this type of music – enjoy.

And finally, there’s live music at Maria’s Pizza and Deano’s Vino tonight. Happy First Friday!

EDIT: Totally forgot about the bluegrass being played by D. Mark and Jules at the Calvin Fletcher Coffee Company tonight. Please forgive me.

The new IMN podcast is up – download it or listen at the site or on WFYI HD2, Thursdays at 4pm.

This is the first podcast of the year to feature Christmas music, and I take great pleasure in pointing out that we waited until after Thanksgiving to do so. I’m looking at you, change-your-format-as-a-cheap-gimmick-and-playing-that-stupid-Jingle-Bell-Dogs-song radio stations. Thank you, and good day.

MOG‘s $5-for-everything music service went live today, and I managed to score a free month to see what I think about it. So far, they’ve done some things right:

• Decent selection from the majors, which will please a lot of folks
• Uncomplicated interface – easy to use
• Slider on the radio feature that you can use to give you tracks from a single artist or include other artists in varying degrees
• You can pause tracks
• You’re not limited in plays of songs, and you can save playlists
• Works with Chrome – I was expecting problems there

However, it still has some downsides:

• Occasional drops or stoppages
• Only certain tracks on some albums – if you’re paying for the service and negotiating the rights, get everything, please
• Do NOT put Limp Bizkit in my Living Colour radio stream. EVER. EVER. EVER.

I’ve only had a few hours with this, so some of these things might shake out later. But that last point must be addressed now. Posthaste.