The Bass Geek

My friend Jim Roach forwarded to me the next-generation mix tape, complete with USB connection. Kind of a cool idea, unless it’s actually inserted into a real cassette drive. Then, no matter what you’ve put on the tape, it sounds like Throbbing Gristle.

C|NET brings news of the magnetic guitar cable, featuring a snap-away design similar to the MacBook power cord. It’s an interesting design that most certainly would have prevented the recurring jack trauma an old bass of mine suffered from cord strain (that, to be fair, was the fault of the jack mounted on a plastic cover and not wood or metal). It’s not gonna help much when you keep stepping on your cord, though.

New IMN podcast is up - download it here or listen at the site.

I don’t actually own a Wii, so I can’t comment on the pan-gender, age-neutral fun to be had from playing this system. Still, the announcement of Wii Music (which incorporates the ability to control up to 60 instruments or conduct an orchestra) seems like a bonus for the musically inclined gamer. And it fits the system rep well - Guitar Hero and Rock Band allow the unleashing of your vulgar, profane inner rocker, while Wii Music encourages exploration and safe fun in a group setting. No word on whether it approaches the thrill-a-minute spectacle that was 3rd-grade recorder lessons.

The Onion does a great job summarizing the masterful piece of cinematic craftsmanship that is Road House in this recent article. Still no mention of the late Jeff Healey as Greek Oracle, though, which disappoints me. Perhaps that is my own dissertation to write.

To link the two subjects together, I propose a Double Deuce level for Guitar Hero. Imagine the chicken-wire-encased, bloozy fun to be had!

So Last.fm is paying royalties to unsigned bands that aren’t affiliated with major labels or (it would appear) organizations like ASCAP or BMI. On the surface, it only makes sense - ASCAP and BMI have traditionally relied on journals or random sampling from those that played the music, and digital programming makes it a lot easier to see what exactly gets played. This makes more sense for smaller artists whose individual plays might be ignored in favor of the artists who received far more spins. It doesn’t look like last.fm would make anybody rich off of these limited spins, but it’s something.

Hypebot makes the move look a lot more pragmatic and mercenary than it might on the surface, and there’s a kernel of truth to that, too. Merely offering something is more enticing to individual artists who haven’t been getting anything up to this point, so it might seem like a good idea to take whatever the payment is. Plus, the artist can sign up themselves, without dealing with management or lawyers or the like.

It’s worth noting here that just because you can doesn’t mean you should, though. The temptation to get something could lead to selling yourself short, and it’s not a bad idea to check with the experts to make sure what the best move is for you. Opinions on the actual rate seem to vary, so make sure you’re comfortable with the rate (listed on the Last.fm site as 10-30% of their net revenue for your play on that service - not exactly a hard number) before you sign up.

In any case, transparency is key to these agreements. Artists need to know up front what they’re making and get a fair and accurate accounting of their royalties. It’s a lack of that information that helped set up the broken system musicians are faced with today.

With the retail passing of Windows XP on June 30th, it looks like my first title (Windows XP Digital Music For Dummies) is pretty much obsolete as well. With XP continuing beyond what was supposed to be its end date following the debut of Vista (and all that it has wrought), it had a longer life than I expected, and material from it keeps popping up in other Dummies titles. The only reason I thought about it today was the appearance of a French translation of some of my material in my hands.

What I’d really like to see is some of the material end up on Wendy’s tables, like the old newspaper ads they used to use.

Now that Rhapsody is offering 256Kbps MP3 downloads for prices comparable to iTunes without the DRM, most of what I’m reading is “Why would anybody buy from iTunes?” And to be fair, aside from a nicely streamlined purchase process into my iPod and possible exclusivity on some material, I can definitely see their side of the argument. I’m getting just as much from eMusic these days as iTunes (if not more) at a better price than iTunes or Rhapsody. I’m not running into the DRM limitations that so many seem to be railing against, but this is likely to change now that I’m going to be streaming material to the new XBox 360.

Thus, it sounds like it’s a good time for iTunes to throw open the vaults - I’d prefer to get tracks in AAC format due to the improved codec (bump it higher, though, please), and DRM (although, again, I’ve never hit the wall on this once) needs to go away. Wonder how long it’ll take?