R.I.P. $4 Thrift Store Philips 212 Turntable

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to celebrate the passing on to audio gear heaven of a dear friend, the Philips 212 turntable I paid $4.04 for at the thrift store at least three, possibly five, years ago. I really can't remember.

See, I wasn't looking for another turntable at the time. And the only reason I picked this one up was I had a friend enamored with this particular model at the time. He'd just got burnt on one on eBay, so I thought I'd give him this one. However, he'd already changed his attention to some other make, and I was stuck with the Philips.

Even though it was homely as all hell, with it's chipped and scratched dust cover and missing top part of the head shell, I figured I'd throw a cartridge on there and see what happened.



Well, I actually liked this turntable a lot. It was very easy to use with a great suspension chassis design that held rock sold even in the less than optimal place I was using it (on top of a dresser. And I could open and close drawers while playing records and not have it jump. Nice.)

Eventually I put a better stylus on it, moving up the Grado line. I always appreciated the irony of using a stylus that cost about 30 times more than the turntable, but I actually felt the results were pretty good. I used this deck for tons of needle drops and never had a complaint.



One day, while I was out of town, my upstairs neighbor's bathroom flooded, sending a cascade of water into my room and all over the little Philips. Never had a problem, though the turntable gained a little water damage in the process. I'm pretty sure I've dropped this thing once or twice and still no problems.

Then, not to long ago, it's like the wiring just cut loose. At first, I was missing one channel, then both. Seemed like a short somewhere, but now it's just dead. I almost feel like I should put some effort into finding out what's going on, as this deck is such a survivor, but I just can't justify it.

So, anyway, it's the end of the line for the little Philips 212. $4.04 well spent. If you're looking for a good old school deck for not much scratch (these go for cheap on eBay), I'd highly recommend checking one out.

It's been a while...

hope this will make up for it.

More thoughts on the World's Greatest Music Collection auction.

Well, there were some bidders, but *shock* the winner has vanished into thin air. Who didn't see that one coming?

As a certified record nerd, I've been thinking about this auction and I think I have it figured out. See, there's a lot about it that just didn't make sense to me (as I noted last post.) But there's even more, like why didn't they use a real auction house instead of eBay? And, considering they've mentioned it's inventoried, why wouldn't you put an inventory list up, or at least the most valuable stuff, to entice a buyer? The actual listing was pretty poor and the Q & A with the selling agent really didn't give much more insight.

Then it hit me, they didn't expect to sell this on eBay. I mean, if they did, cool. But, I think this turned out exactly like they planned.

Why? Well, you can't buy the kind of publicity this auction got. A lot more people are aware this guy is cashing out than would be if this was just done at Christie's or announced in the record collecting press.

The three million starting price was a joke and they knew it. I'm sure they would have taken it had it been seriously offered, but I don't think they expected to get any real action at that opening bid. But, they did get the word out and now the world knows this guy is looking to sell.

I'm still highly skeptical of the estimated $50 million value. How many $10K Rolling Stone albums (currently available on eBay, buy it now for $4000, BTW) does it take to offset the hundreds of "Here Comes the Hotstepper" I'm sure are in this bounty? And I think that right there is a lot of the reason the guy is having a hard time finding anyone to pony up for this collection. It isn't worth nearly as much as he thinks.

On that note, if my theory is correct, they might have hurt themselves with the auction. We already know the collection isn't really worth $50 million as no one is willing to pay that for it. Same for $25 million, which, IIRC was what he was shopping it around for prior to eBay. Now we can safely say it isn't worth $3 million either as no one was willing to pay that for it.

I guess the big question is, what is this collection really worth? The truth is, no one really can say until it sells.

The other side of this is that a collection this large is going to be a constant money drain. He has this in a warehouse I'm guessing he owns. How many people in the country own enough space to house something like this? And managing this beast would be a full time job on it's own. No private collector has those resources, to say nothing of the fact that it's way to broad a collection for anyone not obsessed with owning a copy of every record pressed to keep together (which is one of Paul Mawhinney goals in selling this thing.) Unless you're Bill Gates, you'd have to sell parts of this thing full time just for upkeep on the parts you want.

Regardless, I think this was a neat way for them to get publicity. As to what happens now, I think one of two things will occur. First off, I'm really skeptical anyone is going to come through and buy the whole thing. I could see a group of people wanting to get into selling, but even then, I have a hunch this would be a poor investment and if Mawhinney really wants to keep this together, I don't see this happening.

So, that's the question. How serious is Paul Mawhinney about not breaking up his collection? Assuming he's serious, he'll end up donating it somewhere, if he can find someone who has the resources to deal with a collection of this size. (And really, what museum would this collection fit into anyway? That's the part I can't figure out.) If it's the money he's after, he's going to have to begin the long process of selling it off piecemeal.

Now, this guy has been a dealer for a long time and I think he knows what's up. While many people in the media were portraying this as the bargain of the century, I really think he'd take a bigger bath selling out one at a time than all at once. (See the Rolling Stones auction above.)

It'll be interesting to see what happens now, that's for sure. Having just taken a pittance for selling a huge load of records at a chain reseller, I guess there's some solace in knowing there's at least one guy doing even worse than I am.

EDIT: I'd like to add this link to a 2003 Pittsburgh Business Journal article about the two previous failed sales of this collection. I'd encourage you to read it and make up your own mind, but I think it's just making me a bit more convinced I'm on to something here.

EDIT #2: After reading a bit more about this guy and going over the part in the above link about the Library of Congress' offer in 2003 that he told them to go shove (and I'm assuming it was more than the eBay thing,) I'm starting to doubt my theory after all. The picture I'm seeing is a dealer guy who knows the "book value" of what he has and wants nothing less. The funny part is, most of the current articles highlight a few records that really aren't that impressive (17 first editions of Elvis' Christmas album! Whoopie!) so I'm beginning to really doubt the value of this collection. Historical value, sure. Financial value, maybe not.

At the Corner of Preservation and Profit.

While I've been taking a bit of a bath on the records and CDs I've been getting rid of, at least I'm not Paul Mawhinney, owner of the self proclaimed World's Greatest Music Collection. (I'm assuming the definition of "great" would have to equal 20th century American music. But I digress.)

Paul's collection consists of an estimated 6 million unique titles. It's value is claimed (according to whom?) to be $50mil. It's in a climate controlled warehouse. It's amazing! It's colossal! It's for sale!!! ...again.

After offering this bounty for sale twice with no one able to cough up the asking amount, off to eBay it goes. Less than 24 hours left (as of now) and no one has touched the $3mil starting bid. I'd be shocked if anyone did.

Now, here's the problem: if you read the info, they are only interested in selling to someone who will keep the collection intact. It's been offered to museums and I get the impression that's where they'd like it to go. And that's really where it should go.

However, no museum has that kind of cash, not to mention the logistical nightmare or transporting and storing this massive collection. $3mil is a lot of scratch, even if this is the bargain of the century (is it?)

And I'm not so sure a big old record collection would exactly be worth building a museum around, although if they really want to keep this collection preserved this way, I think that's their only choice. Either that or they are going to have to donate it and as I music fan, I'd love to see this end up in the Library of Congress.

The big thing I have to wonder is why? Why does this collection exist? They estimate on the site it'd take someone fifty some odd years, listening 24 hours a day, to hear it all. This sounds like a "life's work" project. Mawhinney was a dealer, owned a few indie labels and some publishing. Sounds like kind of an "American Graffiti" era fan. I have huge respect for all of that. There's obviously passion (or obsession) here, but passion doesn't pay the bills, as Mawhinney is discovering.

If he really intended this to be some archive of recorded music, why didn't he look into setting up a museum himself or find a worth donor to give it to? I don't begrudge the man wanting to leave something for his children, but intending to do so on the back of a record collection is a very poor financial decision, especially in this market.

If I can play armchair quarterback for a minute, I think this collection is going to be broken up and sold off, which in itself is going to be a massive undertaking. I just don't see any other way this guy is going to get anywhere near what this collection is estimated to be worth.

It's going to be interesting to see what happens next. Maybe someone will come in with a last minute bid and take it all. I find that unlikely though. I think, at the end of the day, the finances are going to override the historical value and that will be that.

And I can't imagine what is going through this guy's head right now. To have find that what has essentially been one's passion for decades isn't worth a fraction to anyone other than themselves has got to be crushing.

Anyway, I wish him the best of luck. Like I said, I honestly don't begrudge the man wanting to get some return on his investment. It's not my collection, but I know what I'd like to see happen with it. It will be interesting to see which path Mawhinney chooses.

New Vinyl Has Me a Bit Perplexed

After all the writing I've done recently about ditching my CDs and not wanting to put cash into a stereo upgrade I've been lusting after for years that I didn't think I'd use, I've done a partial about face. I'm still ditching a ton of CDs (and LPs too, for that matter,) but I decided to finally sink some money into upgrading my stereo. This is due in part to the fact that all my thrifted gear from the 70s is finally giving up the ghost, but I digress...

Anyway, I'm focusing mainly on records, as that's what I still enjoy listening to and it's what I'm keeping the most of. That said, I'm not new to this. I've owned a record cleaner for a few years. I know how to set up a turntable and properly care for the vinyl disc.

What I'm discovering is just how lousy modern record pressings are. Now, I'm someone who can deal with noisy vinyl. A lot of what I own has come from the thrifts and is in much less than fantastic condition. I can listen past pops and clicks, especially on a platter I've spent less than a dollar on. But when I plunk down $15+ for a new album and rip off the shrink wrap (and all the stickers bragging about the weight of the pressing,) that sucker better sound like a new record. Saddly, that's rarely the case.

Now, I know how records are made. I know it's as much an art as a science and I know if you want perfectly quiet, you might as well snag the CD. What I'm talking about is this Amy Winehouse LP I have that first time on the turntable has some terrible surface noise during the first couple of songs on both sides. Or the new Dungen album with what sounds to my ears like the distortion from an LP being repeatedly played with a mis-tracking tonearm.

Those are just two instances off the top of my head. I can say for certainty it's not my table as it plays other records just fine. I was still buying new vinyl on into the 90s and even then it sounded fine. I guess I just don't understand what the deal is. Maybe it's too many people jumping into the vinyl bandwagon assuming people either aren't going to play the things or that they have no idea new records aren't supposed to snap crackle and pop.

Speaking of suspect vinyl pressing, I believe I've written before about all these reissues showing up in shops of a seemingly suspicious origin. What I mean is, there are legit reissue labels like Sundazed, Simply Vinyl, 4 Men with Beards, etc. Then there are these other LPs that don't have any information about their origin. They look like photocopies of the originals. Some are colored vinyl, some claim 180g wax. They retail for about $9-$15 and they have a lot of stuff that isn't even out on CD.

Well, I believed the name of the company was Scorpio and I've had that confirmed. What I didn't know was that they have a website (vinyl.com) and are apparently on the up and up. I find it a little weird that they claim to be legit when they have some real "who the heck owns that" type obscurities, but that's what they claim.

What I can tell you about them is, their discs are mastered from DATs or CDs and are really hit or miss as far as it goes. Sound quality can vary from really great to pretty dull and unimpressive. The biggest problem they have is a high rate of warped records. It's happened to me, and even the next batch of that title was warped as well.

Still, I have a bunch of their stuff, as sometimes it's the only way to find it without paying collector's prices. However, I think they are aiming mostly at the hip-hop DJ market, which is pretty smart. Why ruin your original JB vinyl, when you can get a Scorpio for $9?

Anyway, fun stuff and if you're into the fetishism of vinyl (not *that* kind, you perv) you can pick up that stuff with confidence. If you're looking for the "magic" of vinyl, you might want to pass though.

Welcome to my personal hell...

Whitney Houston has so much to answer for.

Et tu, U2?

U2 manager Paul McGuiness thinks the technology industry is to blame for the record industry's woes. He things they should do more to filter and spy on users. He thinks Dell and Apple should be be paying money to the music companies for (alleged) lost revenue*.

I could go on for days about the number of faulty pretenses this bozo is basing his screed on, but why bother? If you're reading this, chances are, you could do. What I will say is this: people like U2 and Paul McGuiness could eliminate a large chunk of illegal tomorrow if they really wanted to. But it would involve rich rock stars (and the parasites feeding on them) finally saying "we're rich enough."

U2 made news with the first digital download "boxset", The Complete U2. Though they opened the vaults and collected some tracks, there wasn't anything really that new there. They threw together a digital booklet. No physical product was made. Expenses to put this thing together were pretty low, I'm guessing.

The set cost $150, for which you got 398 unique DRM encrusted 128kbp AAC files. Some might look at that as a great deal, at about 38 cents a track, but I'm saying, if you really want to kill illegal downloading, you can do better.

$150? How about $30? I can go out and buy The Complete Spiderman, all the issues from '63-2006 for less than $50. And those weren't in a digital format to begin with. I'm going to guess it was a lot more complicated to transfer hundreds of comics to the digital domain than essentially ripping stuff already digital to AAC.

Don't like $30 for the whole shooting match? Well, how about this: let's drop the album prices. $10 for a download of The Joshua Tree? How about $5? $3? $2? Make it so ridiculously low that one would be stupid not to purchase it legally.

And let's take an album like The Joshua Tree. At this point in it's life, it's pure profit, if we're getting in the download world. The recording expenses have long since been recouped, there's no physical product and the cost of delivery is very small.

Anyone want to tell me why back catalog albums from megastars have to sell for close to the cost of a physical CD? OK, I know, I know. It's because they are pretty much pure profit at this point. I can't say I blame a person for wanting to get fat checks rolling in for doing nothing.

But the system isn't working like that anymore. Rather than finding creative new ways to work within it, these dinosaurs are making fools of themselves whining about technology and suing their fans.

It's funny. I am a musician and a huge music fan, but everyday someone opens their mouth and makes me a little less sympathetic to the plight of the folks at the top.


*Sidenote: anyone else choke on the irony that this guy comes out railing against Apple when Bono was (and still is, to an extent) the poster boy for the friggin' iPod? Come on, there was a U2 signature model iPod fer gawdsakes!

Care for a Me-LT?

New Yacht Rock.

New Glasses

Oh wee ohhh I look just like Buddy Holly...



Second pair:



They're like 3D without the red/blue lenses. From the side:



And finally, the glasses that have more personality than I do.



We have nicknamed these the poop glasses.



Thanks to our friend Jenny at SEE Optical in Skokie, IL for the hook up.

Music vs. Fidelity = Emotion?

Audiophiles often claim their expensive stereo rigs bring them closer to the music and allow them to be more emotionally involved with the performances. I had an experience like that myself this afternoon. It was a performance I hadn't heard before or a piece I really wasn't familiar with. Honestly, it moved me quite deeply, which was a totally unexpected thing. The ferociousness of the playing, the depth of emotion in the playing...what was coming from the speakers caught me by surprise and pulled me in.

Now, here's the punch line: aurally what I was listening to was a nightmare. The track was "Ogunde" from John Coltrane's Olatunji Concert album. The concert, which was a full on free jazz blow out, took place in an auditorium and was recorded by an amateur in what amounts to an authorized bootleg. The balance is way off. The recording is a maelstrom of tenor sax and cymbal*. To add insult to injury, I was listening to a transcoded mp3 (from 128kbp WMA) which was being streamed to an iPod dock** across the room.

Yet, "Ogunde" completely stopped me in my tracks. And it, specifically Pharoah Sanders, scared the hell out of me. I was totally engrossed, despite the sonic scum.

Now, one could say even recorded and reproduced well, this album would be a wash of noise. I won't argue that 'Trane from this period is the very definition of difficult listening. In fact, it'd been so long since I've dug into this period (I've been heavy on the Fearless Leader box set from '57-'58 as of late) I'd really forgotten how out he got post '65.

However, the poor sound quality all the way down the line didn't take away the music's ability to hit me on an emotional level. Nor does the poor sound of early Louis Armstrong prevent me from enjoying those records either. And I still remember the first time I "got" Sgt. Pepper, it was on a cheap Walkman with crappy headphones.

High fidelity is fun and it can enhance your enjoyment of music, but it will never replace the intrinsic qualities of the music itself. The feeling, the spark, the emotion is either there or it isn't. While a high end stereo set up and a properly recorded source can make you feel like you're in the room with the musicians, it won't put that intangible "thing" into music that didn't have it before.

When I read reviews of high end gear, I have to feel sorry for people who seem to need $20k of speaker cable to get the same emotional impact from their music I can through a crappy pair of earbuds and an iPod. Granted, if I have a choice, I'd take better sound quality. In the end, the music is going to win out for me no matter what kind of audio roadblocks it's up against.



* and a duet for Jimmy Garrison's bass and car horn at the beginning of "My Favorite Things." Seems the taper was sitting close to an open window.

** Technically a PSP dock with an aux in. And to be fair, the amp in this critter is the (seriously, no joke) audiophile approved Sonic Impact T-Amp, but we're still talking about two 3" drivers about two feet apart for the loudspeaker section of this set up.

I was in the paper...

In this article in the weekend section about ditching CDs for mp3s. It's nothing that readers of my scribbles here won't be shocked to read, but as always Dave Lindquist does a good job and it's a pretty nifty piece.

There were a couple of things I didn't get to touch on with him that I want to throw out here. One of which being the legality of ripping and then disposing of the discs. As I understand the law (IANAL) it's illegal. So yeah, I'm probably admitting and advocating illegal activity in the pages of the Star*. Whoo-hoo.

The thing is, right now, I think the RIAA and other interested parties are more interested in file sharing than some chuckle head like me who is ripping and getting pennies on the dollar for his CD collection. Yeah there's scuttlebut that the majors who have given Amazon DRM free mp3s are leaning on them about their used CD sales, but honestly, I think the desire of these folks to break Apple's deathlock on the on-line music sales is stronger than their desire to squelch used CD sales...at least at the moment. (If Amazon's mp3 sales really take off, expect this to change.)

The other thing I mentioned to Dave is I do miss liner notes. Just this morning, I've been thumbing through the excellent booklet from John Coltrane's Fearless Leader set (I'm contemplating buying the next set in this series.) If I'd downloaded those tracks from eMusic or just ripped the discs, I wouldn't have that to go back to. In fact, I recently bought an Art Tatum box set I had downloaded from eMusic for this reason. Granted, more times than not, all you get is lyrics and credits, both of which can be found on line. But I buy a lot of jazz reissues and do enjoy the pictures and information you get with most of those.

Also, the timing of this article is really interesting for me as I've been contemplating finally throwing some money into the stereo I've always wanted. But, then I look at it and ask myself why? The fact of the matter is, I so rarely have time to really sit down and listen to music. What's the point of dropping several grand into a system that is just going to collect dust most of the time?

So, what do you, fair reader, think?

* In the print version, one of the program directors for WTTS was interviewed and straight up said she had two iPods full of music ripped from the station library. My jaw kind of dropped at that one. Considering how touchy everyone is about leaks that originat from promos given to media and radio, I don't think I'd be admitting to ripping my station's library. At least not if it was a paying gig like hers.

Review: Just For The Hell Of It/Blast Off Girls

Since the videogame thing went to crap today (see previous post,) I decided to actually watch one of the seemingly endless DVDs I've been acquiring. Imagine that, DVDs, they're not just for collecting anymore.

Anyway, here's a Herschell Gordon Lewis double feature from Something Weird/Image and it's a Drive-In disc to boot! Whoo hoo! Yeah, I got all the dirve-in intermission stuff when I bought all those "It's Intermission Time!" discs (and yes, I watched them all) but it's really cool seeing them stuck in between the movies in a nifty dirve-in package.

First up is Just For The Hell Of It. There's a story in there somewhere, but I'll be damned if I could find it. Something to do with a gang of hoodlums who like to drive around throwing buckets of water in people's faces and a bronzed all-American good boy who only seems to really get involved when they mess with his girl (and a bunch of kids playing baseball.)

Inbetween, there's tons of footage of the gang ineptly breaking up Salvation Army furniture and a small sailboat that was years past seaworthiness. And they stick a baby in a trashcan, very carefully. Such polite hoodlums. Ray Sager, Nancy Noble and the dikey blond from She-Devils On Wheels all appear.

Just For The Hell Of It raises some questions. Was HGL paying tribute to Wells with his one camera, one shot, one take scenes of destruction, or was he just being cheap? And why didn't someone tell him to wipe the lens off? It looks like Jackson Pollack painted it by the end of the film.

Moving on, The Blast Off Girls is pretty much a sleazier remake of Wild Guitar. Despite the title, it's about five guys (real life band The Faded Blue) taken in by a slick manager who exploits the boys and keeps them beholden. While Arch Hall solved his problems by beating up Ray Dennis Steckler, our boys fake drunk to blow a TV gig and resort to brute force to get the contract back. Again, Ray Sager appears.

Blast Off Girls is most famous for a jaw dropping cameo from Col. Harlan Sanders. Y'see, HGL loved fried chicken and always managed to work a hustle to get some free chicken on the set. In this case, he put Sanders in the movie, with prominent product placement, and catering for the day was taken care of. In this day and age, what image conscious corporation would allow the figurehead of the company to appear in a skangey B-movie like this? Simply awesome, stuff here.

Of the two, Blast Off Girls is actually fairly enjoyable. Though the Faded Blue are a bit too convincing in their ineptness and all in all the movie is much more threadbare than Wild Guitar, it's still quite fun. If you dig the AIP teen movies, but can tolerate something flimsier, you'll dig this one.

Just For The Hell Of It was enjoyable in a different way. All of HGL's other movies I've seen, you can look past the cheapness and enjoy them for what they are. For me, I never could look past the shoddiness of Hell and found it a bit like watching an Ed Wood film. I can tell what Lewis was going for (aside from turning a quick buck) but what he ended up with was pretty padded and pointless. Unless you're in the mood to laugh at, not with, or an HGL completest, you can pass on this one.

On the video front, Hell, doesn't look that bad and Blast Off is one step from being too rough for Image to have considered releasing it. It's entirely watchable, but it gets a bad around the reel changes.

As mentioned, the extras include the drive-in stuff. There's also a bunch of HGL trailers, and a great art gallery with some spiel from the projection booth from back in day. This audio is absolutely killer stuff, don't miss it.

All in all, this isn't a bad double feature. If you are a HGL fan, you're going to dig this a lot more but I wouldn't recommend this as your introduction to his work.

Obnoxious Day.

Man, I'm really starting to understand why people choose emulation over the real things when it comes to video games.

Longtime readers may recall that a few years ago I built a Supergun so I could play arcade games on the TV at home. Since moving, I hadn't had a chance to set anything up, but having a day off from work, today seemed like a good day to make it happen.

I get everything downstairs to my game room and set up. I plug in my Ibara board, and the sound crackles and goes out. At first I'm thinking I'd just blown the amp on a $300+ board. Great. So I plug in another one, same thing. No way I could have blown two boards.

Long story short, I'm under the hood now, pulling wires, switching speakers, doing everything I can think of. Nothing. No sound.

For some reason, I decide to try yet another board. Not only do I get no sound, the video is completely jacked. Switch back to one of the other boards and the video is fine. Well, just great.

In the end, I spent about two hours messing around. I never did play anything and discovered that something is wrong with my Supergun that I couldn't figure out and that I have a Taito F3 motherboard that is putting out bad video for a reason I can't determine. Everything was working perfectly last time and now everything is messed up.

Plus my Neo Geo is MIA. I know it's here somewhere, but since the move, I haven't the foggiest idea where.

The sad part is, all the while my computer was sitting right next to me. I could have just hopped on it, fired up MAME and played all afternoon. Maybe next time I shoudl do just that.

The Vistas, again

Here's the current incarnation of the Vistalite kit. It's huge. This whole thing is quite a change from the smaller Gretsch drums I was playing. First off, you have the size issue. Bigger drums mean a less compact set up. Then there's more drums to tune and I'm going with lower tunings.

Still, it's fun. I'm going to tackle the cymbal set up next as I don't like the way the right hand ride is hanging up by itself. I think I'm also going to mothball that 22" Zildijan A and go back to my old 20" Paiste 602 for my ride. I think the 22" has a hairline crack somewhere and it's driving me nuts. Plus, I just want a different sound.

Weird coincidence that the same time I change up my kit from what I've been playing for about 10 years, everything with the band changes as well. Change is good, I guess.


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Now playing: Hiromi - Brain
via FoxyTunes

Someone gets it.

Or more ranting about Doug Morris, CEO of Universal.

This cNet article makes a bunch of points a little better than I did. Read it here.

In short, while Matt Rosoff won't call Morris a liar for claiming the industry was caught with their pants down on the downloading front and didn't know where to go, I will. As Rosoff points out, UMG had an early (failed) strategy and threw their lot in with Sony's Pressplay. When that didn't work out, they tried to sue the pants off everyone.

How fast they forget.



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Now playing: Lionel Hampton - The Lamplighter
via FoxyTunes

Apparently Abraham Simpson is running UMG.

Hat tip to reader Sean Coon for pointing me in the direction of the Doug Morris Wired interview. Though it just hit today, I feel like I'm about the last person on the fact of the earth to comment on it. Regardless, here's the link and, if you haven't already read it, I highly encourage you to check it out.

Yesterday after I hit post, I was kind of wondering how those excerpts would play out in context. I guess I was just having a hard time wrapping my mind around how anyone running the biggest (I think) of the big four could be so clueless and lacking basic curiosity about technology directly impacting his industry.

Yet the excerpts were a good indicator of the interview. Morris comes off as a cranky old fart who can't accept the fact that the world keeps moving forward and is rapidly leaving him behind. That's all fine and good when you're sitting at home writing letters to the editor complaining about how you can't get a good nickel candy bar anymore and how they should bring back Matlock, but Morris is the CEO of a major multi-national. This is someone who's job is to be on top of the new, not ignoring or cursing it.

Now I will say this for Morris. At least he is a music guy. He's been in the business since the 60s. But you'd think for someone with that many years under his belt, he'd have noticed how technology is intrinsically tied to the recording industry. He's seen the LP, cassette, 8-track, quadraphonic sound and a few others come and go. You'd think if some schmoo...err...schmo who has never worked in the industry and wasn't even born until 1975 can figure out that each advancement in technology has affected the way people purchase and listen to music, someone with decades of experience might be able to see it too.

Isn't that what they're paying this guy to do?

I'm not a business major, but I always though the CEO was supposed to be the man, the brains of the operation. According to the article Morris seems to think "his job should simply be finding and breaking new acts." I thought that was the responsibility of the A&R folks. You may remember them, these are the folks that UMG laid off in huge numbers over the past ten years.


Artist's rendition of UMG CEO Doug Morris

I know this is the head slappingly obvious thing to say here, but the the problem with the music industry isn't college students illegally downloading music. It's the fact that the industry is run by dinosaurs like Doug Morris. These people don't just "not get it", they have no interest in ever getting it. They don't seem to understand that while they could throw their weight around in the past and were successful in forcing their will on consumers, those days are long since past.

And this is what I think is the central thing here. It's ego, plain and simple. These people are used to being right. They're used to being important. When they talk, people listen.

But the "digital music revolution" changed all that. Consumers didn't have to accept the format, pricing or album structures anymore. Digital files made these things obsolete. And considering the industry killed the single, forced the CD on everyone and continued to bump the prices (and profit margins) upward, there was a budding consumer backlash just waiting for the moment to do an end run around the Doug Morrises of the world.

Because this was something that didn't need them, they tried to ignore it. Because this was something they couldn't control, they tried to legislate it. Because this was something that would fundamentally change the nature of their business, they wanted it to be gone. So now you have a situation where the industry is trying to play catch up, but I think it's already far too late.

And Morris, you think Steve Jobs is the enemy? Sorry man, Jobs should be your best friend as he's about the only person doing anything right at the moment. You could have had your own Steve Jobs, Mr. Morris. Tech guys were literally everywhere in the mid-90s. Lest we forget, Napster was cooked up in a dorm room. If you couldn't figure out what was real and what was bullshit, shouldn't you have found someone who could? Don't you have people under you who you can trust?

Instead, we get to watch UMG and anyone else wanting to topple the Apple juggernaut throw their lot in with Total Music or whatever ridiculousness they will throw at the wall next. Sure, the subscription based music rental thing was tired before and failed, but, gosh darn it, this time the technologically ignorant Doug Morris is behind it, so I just know it's going to be different. (Side note, Memo to Morris: if it doesn't work with an iPod, it's going to fail. Period.)

Really, I don't know what else to say except I hope the shareholders of UMG take a long look at this interview. The captain of your ship doesn't have a map, wouldn't know how to read one even if he could find one and wouldn't know where to look for one, if he cared to, which he doesn't. And he seems to think he should be in the ballroom coordinating the evening's entertainment instead of navigating through all these icebergs.

Good luck and good riddance Mr. Morris.

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Now playing: Amsterdam Funk - Turn
via FoxyTunes

If you want an excellent example of why the major labels are tanking hard...

here's yet another reason why.

I really can't wait to read that whole Wired article. Those excerpts would almost be sad, if they weren't so infuriatingly hilarious.

You mean to tell me you're running a multi-million dollar multi-national company and you are so far out of touch with the outside world that you didn't even know where to start looking for someone who could explain current technology to you?!? Give me a break! If these are the people running the show, I say good riddance once and for all to the recording industry as it existed.

I like this line: "There's no one in the record industry that's a technologist." Horseshit! Who do you think invented the long playing microgroove record? The 45? Stereophonic sound? These were all things that came from RCA and CBS, two of the major labels. Granted, RCA was also a consumer electronics firm but ALL the major labels grew out of electronics firms. The entire recording industry developed because people needed records to play on their Victrolas and what have you and it only made sense for the hardware people to make the software.

Now, in this day only one of the big four is still directly tied to an electronics company. But it wasn't so long ago when the majors were divided in to two camps giving a (weak) push behind SACD and DVD-Audio. What was that? Hmm...technology! Granted, no one really seemed to know what to do with it, but Sony and WMG were both big on one format or the other.

The difference between hi-res audio and the on-line MP3 thing is hi-res audio by definition would require people to buy their old recordings again. You can't rip your old CDs at a higher rate and get better sound (or 5.1 mixes.) From the get go, there were clear profits to be made.

With on-line stuff, the profits aren't so clear. And you can rip your current music collection to get it on an iPod. SACD and DVD-Audio were really more of the old way of doing things while the MP3 world would require a paradigm shift. Small wonder that during the time the labels should have been trying to figure out this newfangled iPod thing, they were trying to recreate the CD with those new formats.

Don't get me wrong. I like SACD and DVD-Audio. The stuff sounds great. But, it didn't take a genius to see even then that people were moving away from sitting at home and listening to music in a formal listening room type set up (which would be necessary for a 5.1 mix boasted by the hi-res formats) to MP3 players and that is where you should sink your time and resources.

Could it be any more apparent that the idiots running these companies just thought they could ignore this stuff and it would go away? I mean, how do you run one of the biggest record labels in the world and not at least have some understanding, some curiosity even, about this new technology that is threatening to eat your lunch?

The only sad thing about this is, when the industry collapses, it's going to fall on the backs of the artists. All of these suckers at the top who made the bonehead decisions will get their golden parachutes and will float straight into other companies they can ruin. When it comes to the actual musicians who make the music that these people have bungled selling, who car really say what's going to happen to them.

Still, I don't think the end of it all can come fast enough. Really, people this stupid don't deserve to be head burger flipper at McDonald's, let alone running huge corporations.

Yet another example of how the industry doesn't get it.

Jermaine Dupri on Jay-Z's decision not to sell his new album on iTunes because of their singles based business model:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jermaine-dupri/a-good-album-is-more-than_b_73413.html

Here's the money quote:

"...Back in the day when people were excited about a record coming out we'd put out a single to get the ball going and if we sold a lot of singles that was an indication we'd sell a lot of albums. But we'd cut the single off a few weeks before the album came out to get people to wait and let the excitement build. When I put out Kris Kross we did that. We sold two million singles, then we stopped. Eventually we sold eight million albums!"

And I would say that is an excellent example of the kind of industry crap that has led to the present situation. Honestly, would anyone (aside from Mr. Dupri) argue the Kriss Kross album needed to be heard in it's entirety? Most people probably wanted the single and I'd wager it was probably the only track worth hearing.

People bought the album because they single wasn't available. And guess what? That album clogged used bins for most of the 90s because people didn't really want it. Don't you think that maybe forcing consumers to shell out for a full priced mediocre album when all they wanted was the single might have something to do with the resentment people have towards the industry?

Dupri wants to accuse Steve Jobs of ruining "the artist's canvas" but give me a break. Jobs didn't invent the single. Hell, until the mid-50s the recording industry was nothing but singles. And, until everyone decided to kill them off and force albums on the consumers, the single was still a valid way of purchasing music into the 90s. (In the UK, one could argue it never really died as they still seem to love their singles.)

Furthermore, I'd say being part of the movement that took away singles in favor of flaccid full lengths, probably has more to do with the current situation than Apple. If I recall correctly, most people I knew who were trading music on Napster back in the day before the iPod, were trading radio singles because that's all people wanted and you couldn't just get the singles any other way.

Back to the article, I have to add it's completely appropriate that Dupri would mention Soulja Boi preceding that Kriss Kross quote above. The problem is, Dupri, the executive, doesn't see that he's comparing one hit wonders that people only want a single from. He thinks they should have forced the Soulja Boi album on people like they did with Kriss Kross. Does he really think, in this day and age, 4 million singles would have translated to 4 million albums?

Dupri, you can try to frame this as artists vs. business men, but the reality is you keep tipping your hand and showing this is really business men vs. the consumer. The 90s are over. They aren't coming back. Music fans aren't going to stand for being forced to buy a full priced album when all they need is a track or two and you have two choices. You can either make that happen legally or your customers will turn to other means to get what they want.

Oh and next time you want to make a point, any point, about "artists," you'll make a much better case if you keep names like Kriss Kross and Soulja Boi as far away from your thesis as possible.

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Now playing: Brad Mehldau - Paranoid Android
via FoxyTunes

Vistalites 2.0

Vistalites 2.0
Originally uploaded by CaptainWrong

Here's the latest variation on the red/amber Vistas. The Ludwig mount was nothing but garbage, so I went with DW hardware. Much more expensive, but rock solid. I'm not sure how I feel about the toms being off to the side.

Just got the 18" floor tom today and I'm a bit disappointed with it, as I feel the auction over sold the condition a bit. Such is eBay, I guess.

Considering adding a red 14" tom for purely aesthetic reasons. Yes, this kit is getting ridiculously big.

Thinking Inside the AudioLunchbox

OK, I promised I'd get back around to the mp3 sites, and here we are. I feel a little more confident talking about AudioLunchbox now as I'm into my fourth month with the service, but I have to admit, I don't know how much longer I'm going to stay there.

First off, like eMusic, AudioLunchbox (which I'm going to refer to as ALBX for the rest of this bit) offers DRM free mp3s files at about 192kbp VBR encoding. Once upon a time, I believe ALBX offered Ogg Vorbis files, but they no longer do. ALBX is also a subscription based service and the cost is a little cheaper than eMusic. You can also purchase music ala carte at 99 cents a track for most things, if you wish.

Now, they pricing gets a little weird here. One thing ALBX does that I really like is they don't charge more than 10 credits for an album. So, if you're downloading something like this Stravinsky album I downloaded and it has 23 some odd tracks, it only cost me 10. That's kind of nice.

On the flip side, ALBX has some labels on a variable price scheme whereas Matador releases (to name one) are four times the credits of everyone else! So a Guided By Voices album would run you 40 credits even if there were only a dozen tracks.

Interestingly enough, ALBX still has Epitaph releases (though there haven't been any updates in a while) and they are still at the one credit a song/ten and album rate. I'm kind of surprised by this, considering they just left eMusic over wanting a higher rate. It'll be interesting to see how much longer their catalog stays at ALBX or if they go to the higher rate.

This brings me to the biggest problem I have with ALBX. If you can't find anything to download at eMusic, don't even bother with ALBX as their catalog is even smaller and features even fewer large indies. Like I mentioned, there is Matador (at the higher rate) and Epitaph, but even then, the releases tend to be older and they haven't added anything new in a while.

Unlike eMusic which is constantly adding labels and albums, ALBX's catalog seems to be pretty stagnant. And it's kind of hard to put a finger on who I could recommend this site's selection too as it's kind of all over the map. Plus, most of what I've downloaded from ALBX, I could have gotten at eMusic.

The other problem I have with ALBX is their site is nearly a nightmare to use. The navigation is slow and awkward. Searching for an artist will sometimes reveal albums that might not show up the next time you look. Not to mention, I've had the unfortunate experience of trying to download an album that isn't actually available but hasn't been pruned from the catalog yet.

I will say, ALBX's customer service has been really responsive and quite generous with issuing credits for problems, but I've had to contact ALBX's customer service more times in my three or four months with them than I have eMusic's in my nearly two years using that service. They are good about setting things right, but too many of the issues shouldn't have happened in the first place.

I really don't feel I can recommend ALBX. It seems to be kind of direction less and just hanging on. In the end, that's really the impression I get from the site. It's like a store you go in and just can't understand how they're still keeping the lights on. With a better site and better selection, I'd be quite a fan, but as it stands, I'd suggest if you want to check it out, do a monthly subscription rather than buying an annual package.

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Now playing: The Great Jazz Trio - My Funny Valentine
via FoxyTunes