The Bass Geek

At least that’s what the Vinyl CD is doing for me. Maybe I’m just flashing back to the scene in “Austin Powers” where the needle drops on the CD and makes the god-awful noise. Or perhaps it’s “The Simpsons,” where a bird and a rat are tied together as a new “hybrid animal.” I see the kitsch factor here, and it’ll make a stellar promo piece or special fan club item, but otherwise . . .

At least people are experimenting, I suppose. They can’t all be genius moves.

I’ve been playing with the new version of Quicksilver a bit (the site is down at the moment, and it’s only useful to Apple users in any case - have I eliminated everybody yet?). It’s supposed to improve the speed and productivity of your Mac by using keyboard shortcuts and triggers to speed up launching programs and automating tasks. I haven’t gotten fully into it yet, but it seems handy. I’m having a hard time getting used to making it run, though - I don’t like a lot of actions happening automatically at startup, and I’m already geared towards using the native OS functions. Lifehacker seems to have dedicated an entire server towards articles on this program, though, so somebody likes it.

Also, there’s a beta site for the new version of IMN at our testblog site. Let us know how we can improve your local music experience.

Finally, the badass bassline of today is taken from P.O.S.’s “Kidney Thief,” courtesy of a Fugazi sample, I believe. Seek and enjoy.

So I did indeed get the new Radiohead downloads, and they left me . . . pretty much as I expected. Not bad, but I’m still not a Radiohead fan per se (by contrast, Roger and Zapp get yet another spin today). I did shell out some actual cash for another pre-order download today, though. Saul Williams has a new album coming out next week, and the combination of his work and Trent Reznor’s production is a little too intriguing to pass up. The album is available for free, but I upgraded for the $5 mp3 files at a better resolution. I doubt this gets near as much attention (who remember who came through the broken door second?), but it’s another step in a good direction.

Not cheap music, mind you, but artists controlling their own music and setting their own price.

I’m also curious to hear how Reznor’s production works here. I’m fascinated by the technological aspects of his work, but more often than not the songs themselves leave me a little cold. With Saul Williams, he gets a very charismatic vocalist with a larger-than-life delivery, so it’ll be interesting to see how these mesh.

I should also note at this point that as much as I love the new Reason, I’m still just creating ringtones instead of songs. Said ringtones, however, kick much ass.

I was joking about standing in line for Leopard today, but I think I’m going to hold off for a bit before upgrading my machines to the new Mac OS X. Any operating sytem is going to have a few bugs in the initial release, and I think I’ll let somebody else take the hit on finding them. It’s usually a good policy to wait until some updates have been done before going ahead with an install, just to see what goes wrong. Toss in some resource-hungry software like audio recording, and it could get even worse. Sometimes, it’s best to stick with what works until the benefits outweigh the risk.

I’m also waiting for a new hard drive for the laptop. Nothing is wrong per se with this one, but it’s getting a little crowded (about two-thirds full). Considering I’m going to have to Boot Camp my computer soon to help me write a new laptop book for Wiley, there’s a definite need for more space. I also need it to run at 7200 rpm for any music needs, and the 200 GB drives in that range are finally at a decent price.

Finally, the new IMN podcast is up. Enjoy.

The bass guitar has only been around for fifty or so years (pause to remember Leo Fender, please), and it doesn’t look like anybody has hashed out a standard and accepted playing technique for it yet (like the Simandl method for the upright bass). Folks keep tinkering with the body and necks, too - something I’m sure those who work on classical instruments would find abhorrent. Most of the time, though, it’s differences in body shapes or electronics. This thing takes an ergonomic look at the neck, and the results leave me interested, if a bit seasick. The only pain I’ve ever experienced while playing usually came in conjunction with doing a lot of typing at work, and leaving that job seemed to make a lot of difference (both mentally and physically). I did notice that switching to a trackball mouse made a lot of difference, especially on the “clicking” finger. I had that lock up once while playing, and it was a scary experience. Stretching, warming up, and washing your hands briefly in warm water before playing (helps keep the strings clean, too) are great ideas.