Entertainment

From Amadeus: Well, there it is. (Emperor Joseph II, portrayed by Jeffrey Jones)

From State and Main: So, that happened. and Everybody needs a hobby. (Bob Berringer, portrayed by Alec Baldwin)

That’s it for now.

Well, I wouldn’t go that far, but that was the show’s tag in the first season. Research has shown that viewers of “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” are more likely to be knowledgable about current events than people who get their news from other sources, including “legitimate” news programs. (Thanks for the link, Barb.)

It’s no secret that I can’t get enough of The West Wing (except for those episodes in the first season with that annyoing girl). I haven’t been able to get one episode out of my mind. It was the one where CJ’s new boyfriend in the secret service gets shot in a convenience store in New York. I haven’t been able to get the music in the following scene out of my head. I looked it up and discovered that the music was the song Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen, performed by Jeff Buckley. So I downloaded three versions of the song (by Leonard Cohen who has an awful singing voice, by Jeff Buckley whose version is more guitar-oriented, and by Rufus Wainwright whose version appeared on the Soundtrack to Shrek and is probably my favorite of the three) and learned to play it on the piano. It’s a beautiful tune.

Roger Waters Online reports that Roger Waters performed with Pink Floyd for the first time since the last Wall concert in 1981 on Friday. For those unfamiliar with the group’s history, this is huge. Unfortunately, the occasion they got together for was Pink Floyd’s manager’s funeral. They played Fat Old Sun (a great jam song, pre-Dark Side of the Moon) and Great Gig in the Sky (from Dark Side). Wow. I’d love to hear a recording…

Someone, please introduce me to some music I can get excited about. I want to hear someone or some group that I immediately want to go out and see. This feeling of musical mediocrity has been settling in over the last year. Today I was asked if I want to see a Dar Williams concert. I responded saying that her music just doesn’t excite me anymore. She replied with, “I don’t think you get excited about any music anymore.” That’s definitely not true, but I could defintely use a little stimulation. Really, Damien Rice is the only performer who has come close lately, but even he isn’t doing anything that hasn’t been done before.

I think we’re heading for a renaissance in music. That usually happens after periods of insipid popular music. For example, punk and new wave (Talking Heads, Sex Pistols, even They Might Be Giants) were reactions to disco. Pink Floyd was originally part of the London underground scene, taking rhythm and blues to new psychedelic heights (and later becoming a psychedelic jam band, later becoming a social activist psychedelic jam band, and then a cheesy pop social activist psychedelic jam band) as a reaction to the early Beatles and their imitators who played rhythm and blues pretty straight and boring.

Something has to change in the music scene, and it’s not going to come from the Britney Spears/Christina Aguilera/Beyoncee Knowles types or the Dave Matthews/Jason Mraz/John Mayer (they’re all the same person, I’m sure of it) types. It’s going to be a reaction to all of that.

But when? I’m tired of waiting. I need something new, good, now.

What bothers me the most (well, not really) about not getting a car anytime soon is that I won’t get to install this CD/MP3 player. I was looking forward to that.

If you are astute, you noticed that I promised I would write my next post about music. And this is exactly what I’m going to do.

I was casually reading Mena’s Not a Dollar Short earlier today, well, about five minutes ago. She mentioned a song was written for her by Shannon Campbell. I followed Mena’s links, as one is wont to do on this World Wide Web. The song was awesome. Not only that, but the rest of her music is also great! Her originals are intelligent and wonderful, and she covers great artsists like Phish, Dar Williams, Barenaked Ladies, Bob Marley and Paul Simon. What great musical influences. Do yourself a favor, and check this woman out. Oh, she also has a weblog.

Someone get this girl a recording contract (that doesn’t stifle her creativity and individualism)!

Friends, I must reveal a secret. I check Sharingthegroove.org every day. I’ve discovered the SHN audio format, which is spectrally identical to 44kHz, 16bit WAV files. That is, there is no audio compression or hinting, and yet the files are smaller. I’ve discovered people who post entire live concerts for other people to download using a peer-to-peer program called Bit Torrent.

My collection of Pink Floyd “RoIOs” (Recordings of Illegitimate Origin, ie. bootlegs) has increased two-fold (I already had a lot), and now I have added to my collection concerts of other performers, such as Norah Jones. If you like R.E.M., Dave Matthews Band, Phish, Grateful Dead, Genesis, and so many others, this is the best way to get your concert audio. Many of them are soundboard recordings, so the quality is very good.

You’ll need Bit Torrent to download the concerts. To listen, you can get a plug-in for WinAmp or a plug-in for your CD-writer software if you just want to burn them directly onto compact discs. Here are the tools: mkw will convert audio between WAV, MP3 and SHN; ShnAmp is a plug-in for WinAmp 2 or 3; Plug-in for Nero. There might be plug-ins for other CD writers to write SHNs directly, but if not, you can convert them to WAV files first using mkw.

Also, you may notice I redesigned. Of course this will stir up controversy as usual, mostly complaints, but some people might be happy to see the orange no longer present. Leave your comments here if you so desire. Or don’t.

This weekend I had the opportunity to see A Might Wind live in concert in Philadelphia. First of all, if you’re not familiar with the movie of the same name, it’s Christopher Guest’s latest installment of strange improv comedy “mockumentary” movies, this time dealing with a folk music reunion. In any case, the concert was great. It featured the three folk bands from the movie as well as the other characters making some hilarious cameos in character, including Bob Balaban and Jennifer Coolidge.

The only frustrating thing about the night were the directions. They were completely off (for example they said head southwest on I-76 when we were supposed to go east), and there has to be at least five better ways to get there.

Finally, one record company is getting it. Universal is lowering its suggested retail price for CDs to $12.98. The change is said to be in order to better compete with online downloads. They’re going to have to do better than $12.98. When CDs first came out and became mainstream, that’s basically what the retail price was.

With all the technological advancements and the proliferation of compact discs, the retail price should be $7.50 to $8.00 in my opinion. Maybe at that price, people will start buying them again.