Let people download

Something that has piqued my interest lately is how labels are reacting to the fact that people are downloading music rather than buying CDs. Some labels are reacting to this. One of my favourites, Distinctive records (the label for "Way out West", "Hybrid", "General Midi", among others) has embraced music downloads and I've downloaded several albums from there (if only they'd tag the damn mp3s properly). Thankfully, I can play those mp3s on any device as there is no DRM (Digital Rights Management) on the files. iTunes is now offering DRM-free music from EMI, so as an aside I'm glad about that too.

At the Winter Music Conference recently there was a big discussion at how music has gone from buying albums to downloading singles. Labels need to embrace this concept, or die. The kids of these days (it seems like I'm 50 years old writing this) buying music don't really know the concept of buying a whole album from an artist. People only want to buy the songs they want to listen to. More importantly, they want to buy it and listen to it now. The internet and iTunes in particular have made that an expectation.

Some labels have not embraced this whizz-bang concept of digitally downloading music. So when I heard that a label was dying because of "illegal downloads" I was curious. Here is a quote from the filter27 website, where I first saw this posted:

According to Herwig, illegal downloads of Dependent albums outnumber legal purchase by a factor of three or even five to one. "Money was always tight," he says, "and in the future it's only going to get tighter, because even if we were to continue to produce quality CDs, the rate with which they will be purchased legally will continue to decline. Each album released would represent an ever-increasing financial risk."

Herwig also points out that an unnamed Russian warez site recently distributed over 5000 downloads of one of Dependent's releases in just one week while the label only sold about 1000 copies of the same release in physical discs.

"A popular claim often seen on Internet maintains that the P2P culture weakens the majors and bolsters the independent labels. This is, we can assure you, 100% bullshit. Even if there are listeners who download first and buy later, they are clearly in the dwindling minority," says Herwig.

My biggest question was: did they offer digital downloads of their artists' music from their website? I looked around and was not surprised when the downloads I found were samples for albums that were available on CD only. Hey, no surprise there! People obviously want their albums but are not prepared to buy, wait for delivery, only to probably rip them to mp3 anyway when they arrived. The only get-it-now method for receiving the music was to download a torrent of the album. This hurt the label AND the artists.

'Dependent' records get no sympathy from me. They were holding on to an old way of doing business in the music industry. They didn't realise that or were too stubborn to change, and thus are getting all they deserve from their lack of foresight.

Muse in concert

I am in a pretty damn good mood right now, having just come back from my first Muse concert. How can I say they were fucking awesome without swearing? Even from as far back as I was sitting I could see Matt Bellamy strutting around on stage and working that guitar like nothing else. It was awe-inspiring. "Supermassive black hole", "Knights of Cydonia", "Hysteria", "Stockholm Syndrome" were just some of the songs they played and I was lapping up every damn second of it.

The only bad thing was that they were a support act. Muse should not be the support act for anyone and I have, at length, complained about this to people. I guess I should be glad they're even travelling this far south into Florida, but I cannot stop thinking about what could have been. In this case they were supporting My Chemical Romance. Whilst I know a couple of the MCR songs I am not what you would call a super-massive fan. This was just proven to me tonight when after the adrenalin rush of Muse, I sat through the glam-rock of MCR relatively unswayed. The seats were comfortable at least. Some people weren't tricked by the comfortable seats though as they left the building after Muse finished their act.

A couple of times during the MCR performance I was suddenly awoken by massive firecrackers going off. I had to give them kudos to them for that though: their stage presentation was fairly good, with lots of fire and explosions and pretty glitter to keep the kids interested and me awake. It was sort of like "Disney on Ice" meets KISS.

Eh, I wish MCR's music had the same impact on me as it did to all the teenagers at the concert. They were all going crazy and that's when it dawned on me. MCR isn't aiming to be that great musically (and I really don't think they are), they're fulfilling a certain niche that emo-teenagers are craving: simple, emphatic, easily digestible music that doesn't do anything new but is packaged nicely. I think the best way of putting this would be to say:

My Chemical Romance: "The Wiggles" for teenagers.

What's going on?

Things have been especially busy lately. I've been hanging out with my girlfriend Adriana a lot. Yes Mum, I've met the family, and they're absolutely hilarious! So things are good there.

I recently helped organise a "baby shower" (I use the quotes since it had guys there too, and showers as such are normally a female-only affair) for my friends Jessie and Omar, and I took pictures at another shower party for friends Maha and Matt.

Maha and Matt's shower photos
Jessie and Omar's shower photos

Wedding in South Beach

On the weekend I attended a double first: a Cuban wedding, and a wedding in South Beach. It was an incredibly short church service, but that just meant more time to party afterwards. Which they did. A lot of. I've never seen so much dancing (and good dancing at that) at a wedding. Congrats go out to Milly and Val!

Some pictures are included below, click here for the set slideshow.

Tornado in South Florida

Apparently there was a developing tornado spotted in South Florida this afternoon, specifically forming over Tamarac, where I happen to live! It didn't touch down, and not much damage was caused, apparently, but I'm curious to see what damage was done on the drive home tonight.

UPDATE: Absolutely no damage whatsoever. Yay!

I have to add, and this is the craziness in me becoming more apparent, but as soon as I heard there was a tornado forming I wanted to go home, grab my camera and take some pictures. I didn't do that... perhaps next time.

UPDATE #2: It did touch down! From this site:

National Weather Service Meteorologist Dan Dixon said a tornado touched down near Tamarac and was on the ground for 2.75 miles.

Dixon said the tornado had 80 to 85 mph winds and was about 50 to 100 yards wide.

Tiesto who?

Heard a funny story at a work luncheon yesterday. I'm going to paraphrase this one, I can't remember all the details due to me laughing so much while the story was being told.

One of my friends who lives down in South Beach was invited to dinner by a friend. "We're going to have dinner with Tiesto!" For anyone who listens to dance music, that would be quite a dinner to attend. Except, she hadn't really heard of him. Anyway, they're out at dinner, she asked him questions like:

"What do you do?"
"I'm a DJ."

"Where are you from?"
"Amsterdam."

I think the funniest was when they were approaching the line for a club:

"This is a cool club, except it's really hard to get into. We might have to wait a while".
"Oh, I don't think we have to worry about that :)"

MySpace

I gave into this phenomenon, which is an exercise in usability frustration, a long time ago. If you got sucked in like I did, let me know at http://www.myspace.com/daecks.

Update on birthday madness

Here are some pictures from the Thursday night. Looking at the first picture we have Eddie, Andrea, Jon and PK! I'm pouting/pursing my lips in some of the pictures (as are the other guys) because Andrea's ex never smiled in any of his photos, and always did that with his mouth. We are always paying her out about that. I'm particularly impressed with my effort in the second photo.






The pictures were all taken at a hispanic club called 'Spice' in downtown Hollywood (the Florida Hollywood, not the California one). We apparently went there again Friday night, but Friday was a bit of a big one for me. I can't remember anything of what happened after the first hour, and I was out for 10 hours that night. At one stage I was supposedly dancing with one of the awesome bar chicks at Spice, but I can't remember that at all. I'd give anything to get that memory back!

Happy birthday to me!

Shameless plug, yes.

I am tired. Really tired. Last night I got back to my friend's house and crashed on the couch at . . . 4:30am. So I guess I really got back this morning. My project group this morning was serving up breakfast, so I had to be at work at 7:30am. That hurt a lot, especially now that I'm 28! OMFG my bones are giving up on me, I'll need a walking frame soon and where the hell did I put my falsies???

P.S. I'm talking crap above. Although I am running on a couple of hours of sleep I have never felt better. Bring this older age business ON!

Viva Las (ow my head hurts)

So for the past few days I've found myself in Las Vegas, catching up with a friend who is in the US on a work assignment with some of his colleagues. This place is a LOT of fun. "I don't gamble", but I have been playing a few blackjack tables here and there and doing okay. Last night though at the Hard Rock casino my mind finally gave up on me and I could not even add together 7 and 4. No, I lie. I could add that together fine, it's just that 5 seconds later I forgot what the total was. After realising that wasn't helping me (I forgot I came to that conclusion several times) I decided to have an early night (4 am) and reboot my mind. Looking forward to doing it all over again tonight!

So I wanted to make a pavlova. . .

and then I found that my flatmate does not even have half the necessary baking gear for such a task (and it *is* only pavlova). 'tis a sad, sad day for Pavlova Kristian.

You know, I could run off to a Walmart and buy all the stuff I need, but I actually feel much better bitching about it on my blog.

Yes, this was really just a post to keep my blog updated.

=~=

Something more interesting, I'm listening to Quantic's latest album "An announcement to answer". It's so freaking cool. Soul, funk, hip-hop, latin beat, electronica, all blended together to form that tasty cake mix you end up eating half of before putting it in the oven. But it gets even better after a couple of listens! (i.e., bake @ 175 degrees Celsius for 35 minutes) . . . yep, baking is definitely on the brain.

Congratulations Kynan and Debbie

Recently my friends back in Australia, Kynan and Debbie, had their first child Cooper, a healthy looking baby boy. Congratulations Kynan and Debbie!

K-9, someday you'll have to teach your son to do this. None of us standing there could believe you did it:

Congratulations Javi and Glenda!

Recently my friends here in Florida, Javi and Glenda, had their first baby. Her name is Veronica. Congratulations Javi and Glenda!

I took photos at their baby party recently, so now you know who I'm writing about.

How to save a wet cell phone

Hah! I cracked up laughing when I saw this website. Firstly because the pictured phone is the same damn one as mine that got a 'little' wet in the clothes wash a while back. Secondly because I failed at step one:

Get it out of the water as soon as possible. The plastic covers on cell phones are fairly tight, but water can enter the phone over time. But this time may be quite short - 20 seconds or less. So grab your phone quickly!

20 seconds is a lot less than 10 or so minutes, right?

Scrubs at work

Oh, this is great. A recent episode of 'Scrubs' had Colin Hay, of 'Men at work' fame, singing 'Overkill'. Outstanding!

Thanksgiving?

I had many good plans for this year's thanksgiving, even backup plans. Over the last few days I've watched each plan get struck down. Now I just don't know what to do at all. I certainly don't want to go somewhere I've already been, I really hate travelling by myself, and I sure as hell don't want to stay in Florida.

(puts thinking cap on)

hmmm . . .

NO BLOODY WAY

"THE United States has slapped a ban on Vegemite, outraging Australian expatriates there"

Link to news story

If I needed an excuse to leave this country, this is it.

I HAVE TWO LARGE JARS OF VEGEMITE, BITCHES!!!! COME AND GET ME!!!!

Some kewl new music

I used to follow a band called Zephyr Timbre, out of Brisvegas. They had some pretty cool tunes. Relaxed, funky, soulful... those are some words I'd use to describe them. Eventually they went their separate ways, much to my dismay.

However.

For a while now I've been following a new group formed by a couple of the ex-members of Zephyr Timbre. The group is called "My Ninja Lover", and a few weeks ago now they released their first EP "Silk and Daggers". It's awesome, and I love it. Go buy their EP from any of the stores (physical and online) listed on their website: http://myninjalover.com/. Preview their music at their myspace page.

Views from a plane

I've created a new set called 'views from a plane' on Flickr as I saw some interesting stuff when I last visited Australia. Here are some of the pictures (more to come). Set link is here.

Bye bye New Zealand

This is a bit of a weird one. Currently I'm sitting on the upper deck (business) of a 747, awaiting takeoff to LAX, leeching the wifi signal from the Auckland international airport terminal.

An explanation.

Just under two weeks ago I got asked if I would like to fly to Australia for a work trip, helping the customer in Melbourne with testing of one of our new products. I had two days to prepare everything, and I spent a pretty hectic week in Melbourne with work related stuff. I was in Adelaide for about a day total and spent a couple of days back in rural SA catching up with family members. My brother and I staged quite a surprise for mum, thank God she's still around, we thought we'd nearly sent her to an early grave there for a while. I'll just say that she wasn't expecting either of us there when she walked into the kitchen.

I caught up with some people back in Oz, but not nearly as many as I wanted, as is always the case (really, I was only in Adelaide for a day). Some people I didn't catch up with I'll be seeing later this year anyway, and you know who you are.

There is only one bad thing about this whole trip: how the hell am I ever going to fly economy ever again after this excellent treatment? :-p

P.S. I must learn to say 'no' more often to 'would you like more wine?'

P.P.S. Also, it's not like I spent a large amount of time in NZ... all of about 2 hours I think.