Posted Saturday, October 28, 2006.
Now, don't get me wrong here....I think "Living With War" is a great album. But I mean WTF!!! Neil is remastering, adding videos and repackaging it when it has been out less than a year. Something gives me a feeling this isn't Neil's idea. It is probably the record company that is just after more $$$. Ch-Ching - and just in time for the holidays. I know I won't be buying this one. (See the article below for more of the same type of record company ripoffs.)
NEIL YOUNG TO RELEASE NEW VERSIONS OF 'LIVING WITH WAR' ALBUM
Neil Young will release two new versions of his recent album Living With War in the coming weeks. He's remastered the original tapes he recorded live last spring with bassist Rick Rosas and drummer Chad Cromwell, and will put them out as Living With War-Raw starting November 7th on iTunes, along with videos for the songs "After The Garden," "Families," "Lookin' For A Leader," and "America the Beautiful."
Young will follow that up with a CD/DVD combo on December 19th that will have the trio recordings and videos for every song on the album, with footage from the war in Iraq, from demonstrations here in the U.S., and from the Al Gore documentary An Inconvenient Truth.
As always, comments are welcome. e-mail the webmaster.
Posted Saturday, October 28, 2006.
I guess they never considered just lowering the price of a CD to sell more? No, that would be too logical. Let's keep the price up there and make people buy it multiple times by repackaging the CD three and four times with additional bonus tracks.
EMI Music CEO says the CD is 'dead'
Last Update: 8:38 AM ET Oct 27, 2006
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- EMI Music Chairman and Chief Executive Alain Levy Friday told an audience at the London Business School that the CD is dead, saying music companies will no longer be able to sell CDs without offering "value-added" material.
"The CD as it is right now is dead," Levy said, adding that 60% of consumers put CDs into home computers in order to transfer material to digital music players.
But there remains a place for physical media, Levy said.
"You're not going to offer your mother-in-law iTunes downloads for Christmas," he said. "But we have to be much more innovative in the way we sell physical content."
Record companies will need to make CDs more attractive to the consumer, he said.
"By the beginning of next year, none of our content will come without any additional material," Levy said.
CD sales accounted for more than 70% of total music sales in the first half of 2006, while digital music sales were around 11% of the total, according to music industry trade body the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.
CD sales were worth $6.45 billion and digital sales $945 million, the IFPI said.
Levy said EMI is continuing to hold talks with Google Inc. (GOOG) on an advertising-revenue sharing partnership with the community video Web site YouTube, which the Internet search giant acquired in October for $1.6 billion in stock.
EMI's rivals, Warner Music Group Corp. (WMG), Sony BMG - a joint venture between Sony Corp. (SNE) and Bertelsmann AG - and Universal Media have all signed content deals with YouTube.
"The terms they were offering weren't acceptable," Levy said, adding that EMI continues to be concerned about copyright issues.
As always, comments are welcome. e-mail the webmaster.
Posted Tuesday, October 24, 2006.
Well, that time of year is almost here again. No, not the holidays....the annual tour of the US by the Trans Siberian Orchestra.
If you have not experienced a show by them, I highly recommend that you do so. Last year, I saw them for the first time at an almost sold out show by them and it was fantastic. You couldn't ask for better quality sound and the light show was fantastic. In 2004 the first year they played here, they drew about 3500 people in an arena that holds over 15,000. In 2005, those numbers went up a bit....the place had 15,000 people in attendance and was just short of a sellout. I guess word got around. Needless to say, I already have my tickets for this year's show since they are selling fast.
Some interesting facts about TSO: TSO only tours in the US between November 1st and December 31st of each year. You'll notice from their tour schedule that on many dates they are playing in two different cities. How do they do this? Actually, there are two different groups - TSO East which tours cities east of the Mississippi River and TSO West which tours west of the Mississippi River. Regardless of the group you see, the setlist is the same.
As I said, check them out. You won't be disappointed.
As always, comments are welcome. e-mail the webmaster.
Posted Saturday, October 14, 2006.
In addition to letting you know about new releases and music that you should check out, I think it is also my duty to steer you away from releases that are "dogs". I won't do this very often so you can rest assured that when I do, you should avoid it at all costs.
One such release came to me the other day. It is a new Eric Clapton release titled "After Midnight: Live". It is available as a double CD and a DVD. I have not seen the DVD, but I have definitely heard the CD and I don't want to hear it again. I consider myself a fan of Eric Clapton and his recordings, so I was excited about this release. Initially, this appears to be an interesting release. It was recorded in 1988 at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, California and features many of Eric's classic songs. Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits is a guest performer at this show. They even play a Dire Straits song "Money for Nothing".
So what is so bad about the CD? The sound. There is little to no stereo separation. In fact, I even question if it is a stereo recording. I suspect this is a two track recording from the soundboard and a very poor one at that. This definitely is not from a multi-track recording. It actually sounds like a bootleg soundboard recording. In fact, I personally have a bootleg soundboard recording from this same tour that sounds ten times better than this disc. I would be surprised if Eric Clapton approved this release. If he did, he needs to pull it from the marketplace immediately. What more can I say? You have been warned - avoid this one at all costs.
As always, comments are welcome. e-mail the webmaster.
Posted Tuesday, October 03, 2006.
Ahhh....yeah.....a "new" Beatles album. Something tells me they are screwing with history here and the results won't be good. Just my opinion.
LONDON (Reuters) - A "new" album of Beatles music mixed by their legendary producer George Martin and described as a new "way of reliving the whole Beatles musical lifespan," will be released in November.
EMI Music and Apple Corps Ltd. said on Tuesday that Martin and his son Giles began work on the album, called "Love," after getting permission from Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and Yoko Ono Lennon and Olivia Harrison representing John Lennon and George Harrison.
The music has already been used as the soundtrack to the theatrical Cirque du Soleil show called "Love."
"This music was designed for the Love show in Las Vegas but in doing so we've created a new Beatles album," George Martin said in a statement.
"The Beatles always looked for other ways of expressing themselves and this is another step forward for them.
"What people will be hearing on the album is a new experience, a way of re-living the whole Beatles musical lifespan in a very condensed period."
The Martins worked from the original master tapes from the Abbey Road studios to produce a medley of Beatles music by remixing favorite songs, such as Harrison's "Within You Without You" being played to the drum-track of "Tomorrow Never Knows."
EMI Music, part of EMI Group Plc, and Apple Corps Ltd., the English company that administers The Beatles' interests, said the album would be released worldwide in November. Additional information such as the track listing will be released later.
As always, comments are welcome. e-mail the webmaster.
Posted Sunday, October 01, 2006.
Well, this explains part of the problem with today's music. Below the first article is another article which goes into more detail with examples from several Rush CDs. It takes a bit of patience to read these articles since they go into quite a bit of detail. But, it is worth the time.
As always, comments are welcome. e-mail the webmaster.
Posted Thursday, September 21, 2006.
This sounds like it could be interesting.........
JEFFERSON STARSHIP TO BEGIN RECORDING NEW ALBUM IN AMSTERDAM THIS FALL
Jefferson Starship has announced plans to begin recording a new album this fall in Europe. The band will set up and record live from November 14th through the 17th in
Amsterdam, and according to an official post on the band's message board, the material will be "of a protest/social conscience nature." The group is inviting fans to attend
the sessions, at a cost of $100 per day, and people who go every day will get a producer's credit on the album. Jefferson Starship will cap off their time in Amsterdam by
performing at The Cannabis Cup at the Melkweg club on November 19th.
For more information on attending the recording sessions, send a note to miscon@earthlink.net with "I Want The Trip" in the subject line.
The Jefferson Starship lineup for the Amsterdam trip hasn't been announced. Founder and guitarist Paul Kantner is almost certainly on board, but the singer Marty Balin
hasn't been confirmed, and drummer Prairie Prince will be on tour with the New Cars.
Jefferson Starship is next scheduled to land on September 30th in Novato, California.
Personally, I am glad to see that Bob has another hit album. His previous albums in the 90s were less successful. I have listened to his new album a couple of times now.
At this point, I am going to withhold my comments. I am hoping a few more listens will help the music "grow on me".
BOB SEGER HAS TOP FIVE DEBUT WITH NEW ALBUM
It looks like there were plenty of people who were glad that Bob Seger finally released a new album last week. Face The Promise, which is his first all-new record since 1995's It's A Mystery, debuted on the Billboard album chart this week at Number Four, with sales of more than 150,000 copies. It was also the Number Five album on the Top Internet sales chart in its first week out.
Seger told us that he's pleased with how Face The Promise turned out, and he wants everyone to enjoy it: "Oh, I feel really proud of it. I think it's a real good, rockin' record, and I like it. You know, I hope everybody else gets to hear it."
Seger has been rehearsing with the Silver Bullet Band, and he's targeted an early November start for a tour, though he told LAUNCH he was waiting for clearance from his doctors before going out. More details should be announced soon.
As always, comments are welcome. e-mail the webmaster.
Posted Friday, September 08, 2006.
Flying Who - you say? Well, that is what I would have said prior to the end of last June. I have to give my wife - Kathy - credit for this one. As she likes to say to me "Have I ever steered you wrong?" (I always have to pause and think for a moment.)
Allow me to explain...This past summer, we took a family vacation to San Francisco. The second week we were there, on Wednesday afternoon, my wife says "There is a free concert in Union Square at five this evening with The Flying Other Brothers and special guest G.E. Smith (from Saturday Night Live). Pam (my daughter) and I are going. Do you want to go with us?" Well, the name G.E. Smith was vaguely familiar to me, but I had never heard of the Flying Other Brothers. Long story short, we went to the show and, damn, if this group wasn't great. They played for over two and half hours, virtually non-stop.
Let me tell you a bit about the group. Besides G.E. Smith as a guest guitarist for this show, Pete Sears (formerly of Jefferson Starship) was on keyboards. He was featured on a track called "Stella Blue" - a truly great song. The group also consists of: Roger McNamee, Ann McNamee, Bill Bennett, Barry Sless, Bert Keely, TBone Tony Bove, and Jimmy Sanchez. It is a bit difficult to describe the Flying Other Brothers music. There is a definite influence of The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Starship, Quicksilver Messenger Service, among other West Coast bands. Stand out tracks that they played in concert include: "Tell Me It's Okay", "Nick of Time", "Blip in the Life", and "Johnny B." They also played a rather satirical and humorous song called "Dubya" which is a hidden track on the "52 Week High" CD. I'm sure you can figure out the subject based on the song title.
During the show, my wife went to their merchandise table and came back with a free poster and bought a t-shirt. Again, I figured she was on to something. So, I asked her if they had any CDs for sale at the table. She said "yes" and so I naturally had to go buy one. The one I picked up at the show was "52 Week High" which features the track "Tell Me It's Okay". When we returned from San Francisco, I found I was listening to this CD constantly for a couple of weeks. During this time, I also decided to check out their website to see if they had any other CDs available. I ended up purchasing "San Fransisco Sounds" which contains the tracks "Nick of Time" and "Blip in the Life" among others. This is another good CD by them.
I have also managed to find several live soundboard recordings of the group. Now pay attention here.....if you want to check out several studio tracks by the group and some live
tracks, follow the links below:
Studio and Live Tracks
Live Tracks
Have a listen and let me know what you think. As always, comments are welcome. e-mail the webmaster.
Posted Sunday, August 27, 2006.
Tonight, I just heard this track on Beaker Street. It immediately grabbed my attention and I strongly suggest that you at least continue reading for the lyrics. Then, follow the links below to download a couple of different versions of the song.
The track is called "We Can't Make It Here Anymore" by James McMurtry.
After hearing the song, I went to my PC to find out more about the artist. I was surprised to find out that the CD that contains the song "Childish Things" was actually released in 2005. I know.....those of you who have heard of James or the song are saying "Where the hell have you been?" Anyway, here are the lyrics and the links for free downloads of the song.
You really need to listen to this song!!!
"We Can't Make It Here"
by James McMurtry
There's a Vietnam Vet with a cardboard sign
Sitting there by the
left turn line
Flag on his wheelchair flapping in the breeze
One leg
missing and both hands free
No one's paying much mind to him
The
V.A. budget's just stretched so thin
And now there's more coming back
from the Mideast war
We can't make it here anymore
That big ol' building was the textile mill that fed our kids and it
paid our bills
But they turned us out and they closed the doors
We
can't make it here anymore
See those pallets piled up on the loading dock
They're just gonna
sit there 'til they rot
'Cause there's nothing to ship, nothing to
pack
Just busted concrete and rusted tracks
Empty storefronts around
the square
There's a needle in the gutter and glass everywhere
You
don't come down here unless you're looking to score
We can't make it
here anymore
The bar's still open but man it's slow
The tip jar's light and the
register's low
The bartender don't have much to say
The regular
crowd gets thinner each day
Some have maxed out all their credit
cards
Some are working two jobs and living in cars
Minimum wage
won't pay for a roof, won't pay for a drink
If you gotta have proof
just try it yourself Mr. CEO
See how far $5.15 an hour will go
Take
a part time job at one your stores
Bet you can't make it here
anymore
There's a high school girl with a bourgeois dream
Just like the
pictures in the magazine
She found on the floor of the laundromat
A
woman with kids can forget all that
If she comes up pregnant what'll
she do
Forget the career, forget about school
Can she live on faith?
Live on hope?
High on Jesus or hooked on dope
When it's way too late
to just say no
You can't make it here anymore
Now I'm stocking shirts in the Wal-Mart store
Just like the ones we
made before
'Cept this one came from Singapore
I guess we can't make
it here anymore
Should I hate a people for the shade of their skin
Or the shape of
their eyes or the shape I'm in
Should I hate 'em for having our jobs
today
No I hate the men sent the jobs away
I can see them all now,
they haunt my dreams
All lily white and squeaky clean
They've never
known want, they'll never know need
Their shit don't stink and their
kids won't bleed
Their kids won't bleed in their damn little war
And
we can't make it here anymore
Will work for food will die for oil
Will kill for power and to us
the spoils
The billionaires get to pay less tax
The working poor get
to fall through the cracks
So let 'em eat jellybeans let 'em eat
cake
Let 'em eat shit, whatever it takes
They can join the Air
Force, or join the Corps
If they can't make it here anymore
So that's how it is, that's what we got
If the president wants to
admit it or not
You can read it in the paper, read it on the
wall
Hear it on the wind if you're listening at all
Get out of that
limo, look us in the eye
Call us on the cell phone tell us all why
In Dayton Ohio or Portland Maine
Or a cotton gin out on the great
high plains
That's done closed down along with the school
And the
hospital and the swimming pool
Dust devils dance in the noonday
heat
There's rats in the alley and trash in the street
Gang graffiti
on a boxcar door
We can't make it here
anymore
As always, comments are welcome. e-mail the webmaster.
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