Vega4 at Exit/In City Hall March 28

Remember Vega4's uplifting "Life is Beautiful" from Grey's Anatomy earlier this season? The London-based band is making a Nashville appearance on March 28 at Exit/In City Hall, opening for Augustana. Check them out.

'The Riches' - Best Vehicle for Eddie Izzard

I've loved comedian/actor Eddie Izzard for a long time. Rent "Dress to Kill" and you'll understand. "The Riches" -- FX, Mondays 9:00 p.m. central -- may be the one vehicle that pushes Izzard over the (good) edge. Like "The Sopranos," the characters aren't who they seem (but we want them to succeed). And like "Six Feet Under," the gallows humor keeps you coming back for more. It's a "stick it to the man" show.

Nice touch that executive producer Izzard created his younger son character as a transvestite.

The Shins add Nashville Live Date

The Shins have just announced a Nashville live date: Friday, March 9 at 8:00 P.M. at the Ryman Auditorium.

Tickets go on sale Friday, February 16 at 10 A.M. ($34.50 and $27.50). Thanks to iConcertCal I found out about this through my iTunes.

Skype thinks Spanish is my first language

Skype just sent me an email with the subject line "Skype: Descarga la nueva versión con funciones agregadas." Even though I took almost five years of Spanish in school, I couldn't totally sprechen the lingity. I got the "hola" part...

Someone at Skype needs to tweak the data warehouse.

See concert calendar based on your iTunes library

I love this new iTunes plug-in called iConcertCal. Download the freeware (Windows and Mac) and based on the artists in your iTunes library, the tool displays a localized concert calendar. Click the artist's name and your browser opens to the appropriate club or ticketing site. Change the city and state in the upper left hand corner for shows in other locations.

Future versions promise listings for outside the United States and radius searches for larger geographic areas.

First Snow of the Season

MP3 Tag Fixing with MusicIP Mixer

I'm a stickler about my digital music tags (the meta data about a song). I've been known to meticulously scour my collection and manually fix bad identifying information. Slow and annoying!

Enter MusicIP Mixer, which promises to fix improperly-tagged files based on their Music DNS database of over 26 million songs. A quick analysis of my collection tells me that about 21% of my collection needs some sort of data tweaking. After a few minutes of churning through my songs (7 seconds per thousand tracks if you'd like to benchmark), I now have (more) pristine data, and to me that means more accurate cataloging, storage, and mixing. During the process, though, I received a couple of errors telling me that the application AACTagReader.exe (installed with the Mixer) had unexpectedly quit. Not sure what that's all about (need to look into that one). I figured out that two problems were causing the tag fixing to halt: read-only files and any file names that were very very long. After repairing all of the bad files, re-running tag fixing worked beautifully for the most part.

Some--not all--files with quote marks (such as '12" remix') in the ID3 track name were an issue as well. Although the tag fixer told me it had repaired these files, re-running tag fixing continued to find the same problem files. I may have to fix these files manually.

The paid version of the Mixer (only $20) takes the fixing one step further and will normalize artist names for you, so all those "Eliot Smith" and "Elliot Smith" tracks become "Elliott Smith."


Disclosure: I've been paid by MusicIP for a freelance project unrelated to the Mixer.

Her Short-Term Memory Reverie

My wife is forgetful. Yes, I have my own faults but this is my blog.

Yesterday she called me from home and asked if somehow I had taken her car keys. I checked...nope. We hadn't had time to get a spare key made for her newish car (a life saver in past situations such as these) so I had to leave work to bring her my key. Earlier in the morning she had taken Harry to school so the keys existed then. (?!)

When I got home I took about five minutes to look in the usual places: purse, clothes pockets, bathroom counters, all horizontal surfaces, dog bowls, laundry basket, teacups. Nothing.

The boys got home from school and started a search party. They looked in the semi-unusual places: the vehicle itself, trash, dog food bag, guinea pig cage, refrigerator. Nothing.

I was determined to find those keys last night: searched in the bed covers, under the car seats (amazing amount of electronics under today's butts), all vertical surfaces, the washer/dryer, unused Kroger bags, wrapped Christmas presents, plants, birds, rocks, things. Nothing.

Because I watch too much television, I was then convinced that an organized crime ring had been casing our house and had taken the keys with the intent to return later and steal both our cars and loot our house. Never mind they could have stolen the car when they first took the keys, but these are smart criminals. You never know what they're up to. One step ahead of us.

I battened down the hatches, turned on every conceivable alarm and light fixture, Harry placed a Gilligan-esque bucket trap over the door, we went to bed, and I woke up about every hour to check on our cars.

This morning I went to the garage fridge to fetch some milk for my coffee. Marci's car keys were nicely chilled in the fridge door where you usually put your beer. Seems when she was ready to leave the house yesterday, she stopped by the garage fridge to grab a water and by the time she reached the car three seconds later, had misplaced her keys.

Have any good stories of misplaced items?

Pete's number one country song

My pal Pete Stringfellow recently released his latest single 'Santa Rosa' exclusively* to KFGY in the S.F. Bay area. Dude has a knack for knowing what sounds good, what feels good, and what people want to hear. As a result he's scored the number one most requested country song in Bay radio.

I don't listen to commercial radio much anymore, but dig: at a conference earlier this year, Billboard editor Tamara Coniff said she was amazed because country music appears to be the last genre that (in her words) "lives and dies" by what's heard on the radio.

Pete's doing it right.


* The track is no longer exclusive to KFGY

"What's a vector?" is the new "Where did I come from?"

My kids are harnessing technology in amazing ways. This week I've discovered I have a future email spoofer and future game developer in my house.

First my seventh grader. He is in a heap of trouble at school for figuring out another kid's password and sending an email to the entire class as the other kid. Bad.

On to my fourth grader. For months Harry's been hinting at wanting to learn Flash because most of the games he plays online are built in Flash. I've been telling him it's a really complicated program and maybe he should start with something easier. Harry ended up putting Flash on his Christmas wish list; my wife asked me "what is Flash?" I told Harry he didn't need to ask for the software for Christmas. I have Flash on my laptop and immediately he started working through some online tutorials and quickly built his first simple animations.

A couple of nights later he was rummaging through the craft closet/recording booth and found a Flash 8 tutorial I had borrowed from work. He said "Dad, why didn't you tell me you had this?" as if I'd been holding back a great record collection or had been hiding a motorcycle in the basement. After flipping through the book he asked me "what's the difference between a vector and a bitmap?" Great moments in parenthood.

Last night he showed me his first shape tween. Proud papa I am.

My beloved Food City Foodland is now Apple Market?

The face of West End is changing once again. My beloved Food City Foodland has morphed into an Apple Market? Wha' happened, FC FL? You were one of the only places who would cash my girlfriend's checks during college (yes kids, this was before widespread, nationally linked ATMs).

Food City Foodland was the Grocery Store that Time Forgot. A couple years ago after a dinner at Ted's across the street, I ran in and grabbed something vital that couldn't wait for Kroger in the morning. As I left the parking lot I said to my kids in the low, gravelly Homer voice, "that place is freaky." Did I personally scare you into changing into the modern Apple Market? I didn't mean it like that. Honest.

(Note, thanks to Brittney for setting me straight on the former name.)

Two Decades Ago...Our First Date

Twenty years ago tonight was my first date with the woman who would become my wife. Funny thing is, I didn't know it was going to be a date.

Marci and I had met a couple months earlier on a double first date, but she was paired with the other guy. As the four of us continued to spend time together, Marci and I developed a nice friendship. Marci's short-lived relationship with John (my friend and "the other guy") fell apart, and it became clear that my relationship with Betsy was nothing more than infatuation that couldn't fuel a real coupleship.

I asked Marci to go to dinner at the World's End and see a play at Vanderbilt University Theatre because Betsy was going to be out of town. As it turned out, our friendship morphed into something more later that night.

Marci and I were married four years later, and we've had our major ups and downs over the years. On this day, twenty years later, I'm really thankful for where I am even though sometimes I don't act like it. Marci, I honor you today.

Great Moments in Parenthood, Vol. 1

For months I've been quietly playing the Illinois record by Sufjan Stevens. I've wanted my sons to really like it but haven't pushed it. I tivo'd Sufjan on Austin City Limits last weekend and played the show a couple of times and since then noticed both Will and Harry humming the tunes, especially "Casimir Pulaski Day." Well last night Will was practicing guitar and he went online to find the chords for the song! I listened to him play while I softly sang in the other room.

What's that disease I can't remember the name of?

Several years ago my wife had a scary skiing accident in New Hampshire where she bonked her head pretty badly. To this day she suffers from memory loss and still doesn't remember much of the rest of that "vacation."

Yesterday she was in an elevator and stuck out her hand to the man next to her and said, "I'm sorry, I recognize you as one of my doctors but don't remember your name."

To that, the man said, "I'm Dr. Soandso, your neurologist who's been treating you for your memory loss since your ski accident."

RØDE Podcaster Mic Kicks Serious Butt

I'm working on a project that requires some high quality voice over and the headset mic that Jon gave me (okay I stole it) just wasn't going to cut it. I couldn't spend a ton of money on new gear, so Pete turned me onto the new RØDE Podcaster USB Microphone. I picked it up on my way home from work (US $200), hooked it up to my laptop via supplied USB cable (thankfully it doesn't require USB 2.0), plugged headphones into the built-in jack on the mic, and in seconds I heard what I had been missing: high quality voice recording directly into my laptop without expensive hardware. I was blown away.

Uber giddy me because:

- No software you have to install from a CD (Windows XP hooked me up)
- Built-in headphone jack means you can "hear" what the mic "hears"
- No other special hardware required such as a mixing board
- Kick ass audio quality
- I can now play the Larry King Home Game in style
- The damn thing looks like a device I'd buy my wife from Good Vibrations on Valentine's Day

So tonight I went into my soundproof chamber (junk closet) and laid down some great VO (samples to come). Keep in mind you're going to need a mic stand and probably a pop stopper (think panty hose stretched over a coat hanger on the "We Are the World" video) if you want to do this thing right.

Only downside was that I couldn't get it to work with Adobe Audition so I ended up downloading the free Audacity which worked like a charm with the Podcaster. The mic is so new that a search on the Internets turned up no posts on compatibility with Audition 1.5. RØDE has a nice, short tutorial on using the mic with Audacity, though. Check it out.

The best part? My kids heard me working on the audio editing and asked "whose voice is that?"

"Why, it's Dad," says Mom.

"That's so cool," says Harry.


Tech notes:
Dell Inspiron 2650 (Macs supported)
Windows XP
Audacity v 1.2.5
Rode Podcaster

MusicIP Selected by Disney to Provide Key Technology for New Media Player Devices

Monrovia, CA (PRWEB) November 1, 2006 -- MusicIP, the world's most comprehensive music search engine, announced that Disney Consumer Products has licensed MusicIP's MyDJ™ embedded technology, which allows users to find the music they want to hear and to create instant playlists with a single button, to power the MixIt! feature on its popular Disney Mix line of portable media players for kids. more...

The Haunted Side of Nouvelle Vague

Okay, I realize the Nouvelle Vague album Bande à Part has been out since July, but I'm just now getting into it. Although Courtney likes their self-titled debut album better, I tend to like the darker qualities of this record.

This record follows the formula of the first, pretty simply: bossa nova/lounge-esque covers of new wave classics. Where the band stuck closer to true bossa nova sound on Nouvelle Vague, this record explores a more haunting sound (dare I say, serious). The opening track, a cover of the Echo and the Bunnymen song 'Killing Moon,' is extraordinary in its retelling [download here].

Listen to the first record when you are in a peppy mood and put Bande à Part on when you're feeling more solemn.

One side note about the first album: I was overjoyed to find a cover of Propaganda's 'Sorry For Laughing' from their great 1985 techno album A Secret Wish. Check that one out, too.

Yet another reason to hate Ticketmaster

Ticketmaster.com has this nifty feature that is supposed to alert me when my favorite artists are coming to town. Problem is it doesn't work. In the several years that I've had TicketAlerts set up for these artists below, I've not received one advance notice email:

Dwight Yoakam
Wolfmother
Weezer
The Black Keys
Josh Rouse
Dave Matthews Band
Bright Eyes
David Sedaris
Coldplay
Radiohead
Toby Keith

And I know that at least six of these artists have played in Nashville in the last year and I have never received an alert email about these events. However, I am hounded by the Ticketmaster spam with subject lines like "Don't miss Kelly Clarkson." Do I look like a Kelly Clarkson fan?

There is no better marketing prospect to a company than one who has declared his interest in a very specific product or service. Use this data to your benefit, Ticketmaster.

Raconteurs to play City Hall, Nashville

The Raconteurs have announced a Nashville show date: Sunday, November 19 they'll be playing City Hall (a great venue renovated from a warehouse) and tickets go on sale Friday, October 20 at 10 A.M. Central. Make it a night in the Gulch neighborhood and have dinner at Sambuca, Ru San's, or my favorite, Watermark.

Large Digital Music Collections Need MusicIP Mixer

If you're like me, you have a large collection of digital music sitting on a big hard drive connected to your home computer. Some days I just don't want to listen to a specific album or artist; I want my own personal radio station based on my musical mood.

I've spent more time with my new MP3 mixer/player, the fabulous and free MusicIP Mixer. I've written how it scans your music collection and based on the sonic qualities of each song, creates cross-references to other songs you have. The MusicIP model is not based on musicology, or a bunch of people sitting somewhere making connections between songs (see Pandora and Soundflavor). Instead it uses a patented method of actually dipping into the sound waves--the true characteristics of the songs--to create the correlations.

One of the coolest features of the power version of the program (costs you only $20) is the ability to create waypoint mixes. Click here for a demo:


Let's say you're creating a party mix that you want to start out slow, increase in tempo a bit during dinner, get rocking after dinner, then slow down to a bossa nova beat for late night, pick four songs that represent each milestone. Create the waypoint mix (under the Power Tools menu) and the software picks the songs in between each milestone. It's like 'tweening for animators--creating several key frames then letting the software calculate the shapes of objects between each frame. I've a little experimentation to do with this feature but my quick tests prove promising.

There are people out there in the world (like my wife) who always want to "hard code" their mixes--painstakingly choosing each song to play during a listening session. I'm not like that. I want predictable surprise. For those hard coders, MusicIP is not for you.

In college I was a DJ at 91 Rock, and I still listen to it more than any other music station. In the past couple of years it's been much easier to be a regular listener since they've added an automated MP3 player when DJs don't show up or during the summer when it's harder to fill all of the time slots. 91 uses a simple randomization method to automate the playback. No more dead air.

What if they were to incorporate a MusicIP Mixer that truly created automated "shows" based on waypoint mixes? Could DJs actually be remote and control the playback on the station?