$3 Free Cats

I had a chance to sit down with GarageBand this morning and create an arrangement for my original song, "$3 Free Cats".  As the song says, I saw this sign out in front of a vet's office near my house for several weeks and it always made me laugh that they were charging $3 for "free cats".  I created the song first in Band in a Box and then exported the song as MIDI to GarageBand.  In GarageBand, I saved only the drums and organ. I recorded my own bass, guitar, vocals, and backup vocals. This is about as close as my skills will allow me to get to the song I heard in my head. I hope you enjoy and share with a friend!

Here's the YouTube link

Beatles in the Modern Era

In honor of John Lennon's upcoming 70th birthday on October 9th, I thought: what would Beatles songs be like if they were social media using teenagers today? Consider the following:

Let You Down
By Lennon & McCartney (updated for social media)

I've got something to say that might cause you pain
If I catch you texting with that boy again
I think I'll let you down and leave you flat
(gonna let you down and leave you flat)
I guess I'll tell you all this
just as soon as Twitter's back

Well it's the second time I caught you sexting with him
Do I have to tell you one more time I think it's a sin
I think I'll let you down and leave you flat
(gonna let you down and leave you flat)
And I'll tell you all this
Just as soon as Twitter's back

Everybody's green
Cause I'm your favorite Facebook bud
But if they'd seen
You facetiming that way
They'd laugh in my face (LOL LOL)

Oh please watch my Youtube if you wanna stay mine
I've used up my texts I'm going out of my mind
I think I'll let you down and leave you flat
(gonna let you down and leave you flat)
But I can't tell you all this
I have to wait till Twitter's back.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

"Lady Madonna" created on iPad with iSequence

Lady Madonna by Taxman45

AmazonMP3.com

In case you've not tried this particular combination of Amazon and MP3, amazonmp3.com is the most direct link to the MP3 download section of Amazon. Com. Last night, I installed the Amazon downloader on my BlackBook and purchased the entire Spoon "Ga Ga Ga..." album. Good stuff! It showed up instantly in my iTunes with cover art. I dragged the songs into my iPhone playlist and synced to the phone with no worries. On my way to meet the family for dinner at a nearby restaurant, I listened to the album in my car. It sounded great (compared to other MP3's and iTunes songs on my iPhone -- I'm not making an audiophile statement here).

My favorite feature is still that Amazon offers a downloader app but doesn't chain you to it. I can still buy songs using Opera from my HTC Advantage without the downloader. That feature is great news for Linux users too.

One thing I can't figure out is how to make the track preview work when I visit the store from my HTC Advantage. I can download and save a file with a ".m3u" extension to my device. I realize that an M3U file is a text file that contains a URL to an MP3 file on a server for streaming audio. WMP on the device won't even see the M3U file. TCPMP tries to load it but says I've got a bad URL. If anybody can help me with streaming the preview I'd be really excited.

In the Changer: The Subdudes, "Street Symphony"

I just can't say enough good stuff about The Subdudes and their new album "Street Symphony." Check 'em out!

Can't find 8 ways to listen to Sirius on the Web...

As I right this post, I'm listening to Steve Earle sing "Satellite Radio" on Sirius 18, the Spectrum. This is my new favorite satellite radio station. I've had satellite radio on my mind this morning and so has Kevin Tofel at JK On the Run (Link). Kevin posts several ways to listen to your XM Radio subscription on the web. I recently switched from XM to Sirius because of changes in the Tax Man auto fleet. Sirius provides an online player that works with Mac OSX, but the player (at least in OSX) doesn't offer features that I used to enjoy on XM. First, it doesn't show what's playing. Boo! It also is a bit kludgy to switch to a new station. I can't find any dashboard widgets or 3rd party players that work on the Mac for Sirius. There's lots of Google links to one called SiriusMac, but the download links appear to be inactive. So, that's about it for now on the Sirius front for the Mac. I'll update if I find anything else. Am I missing something? Please leave a comment if you have any ideas... Thx

Artists Try Making us Listen to Albums

Today, the Wall Street Journal has an article about older artists performing entire albums worth of material in track order at their concerts. Cheap Trick even went so far as to reproduce Robin Zander's exact comments between songs that was captured on the "At Budokan" album, a Cheap Trick classic. Part of the idea is to counter the iPod effect of purchasing individual tracks and shuffle playing them.

I love music, as you can probably tell from the few posts on this blog, and I don't get out to see my favorite artists live as much as I would like. Most recently, I went to see The Fray in concert in Dallas. While I enjoyed the concert, it was probably the first time in a long time that I went to a concert by a band who only had one album's worth of recognized material. My comment at the time, which is relevant here, is that what I enjoyed about a concert was seeing a talented artist take risks, play different material, cover other people's songs -- in other words, give me something I can't get by just listening to their album. Since the Beatles won't be reuniting to play "Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band" and I abhor the BeeGees, I don't see that there's an album that I want to see recreated on stage.

Reading further about the AC/DC deal with Verizon, it appears that they will only be offering entire albums, not individual tracks. They too seem "hung up" on preserving the 12-14 track album format.

To all this I say, "get over it!". Music, at its best, is all about experimentation, defying conventions, breaking the rules, and covering new ground. Forcing us to remain captive to the album format, which was a contrived creation to get us to buy albums in most cases to begin with, is counter to what good music is all about. If you want us to listen to extended passages that's one thing, but forcing me to buy or listen to the filler that you (or your producer) came up with in the studio so you could produce an entire CD, is what we as listeners are rejecting. It's time to come up with the next big thing, not rest on the past. My 2 cents. YMMV.



Link to Article

Yep! Looks like the Zep is flying...

I knew I saw this somewhere. Gizmodo reports that at least some of the Led Zepplin catalogue is coming to iTunes on November 12. Yay!

Link to Article

First, "Instant Karma" and now this...

The Wall Street Journal reports that the piano used by John Lennon to compose the classic "Imagine" has been popping up in historic sites of violence or tragedy as part of a "John Lennon Piano Peace Tour". The tour is sponsored by the piano's owners, George Michael ("you gotta have faith..") and his long-time partner Kenny Goss. I guess it's a bad sign if it shows up in your yard. :) [photo from Goss-Michael gallery]

Link to Article

Composing Music: The Modern Way

This morning as I dashed into Starbucks for my "grande bold, no room", I spied a Mac user with my Mac of choice: the BlackBook. I couldn't resist commenting how much I enjoyed that particular Mac and I noticed music notation on the screen. Being an amateur hack musician, I was very curious about what he was doing on his Mac. Turns out he's a composer and he was working on a new score. He demonstrated an open source notation program called Lilypond that interprets a text file to create a complex music score. Apparently, Trevor was involved in programming as well as music composition. Not only did I enjoy the impromptu demo of the software, I thoroughly enjoyed getting a glimpse of how modern composers are embracing technology to further their craft. It was cool to see Trevor every bit as excited about computers and iPhones as me but for totally different reasons. Check out the Lilypad project if this sounds like your sort of thing.

Old Music Comes to New Medium

The Wall Street Journal reports that AC/DC is finally making its 17-album catalog available in a digital music format but is signing with Verizon rather than digital music juggernaut (I always wanted to use that word) iTunes. The bulk of the catalog won't be available for direct download to phones over the air, says the WSJ, but must be first downloaded to a computer. Each album costs $11.99 to download. Clearly, the record labels are trying to use what influence they still have while they still can. I think I read that Led Zepplin is coming to iTunes. Bring on The Beatles!!!!