How unfreakingbelievably stupid is this?

Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/28/AR2007122800693.html

As this Washington Post article explains, the RIAA are now starting to claim that the mere act of copying a CD song to MP3 format on your computer is an act of piracy.
I don't know whether to laugh or cry when I read nonsense like this. It is time that a major court slapped this kind of assertion back in the face of the RIAA along with the legal equivalent of "nice try, now try a real argument". The recording industry really are getting into this "sue your customers" mindset aren't they? Every article like this is another black eye for a broken business model. They also seem to be working on the approach that they will pursue this kind of litigation until they get smacked around the head by the courts and told that it is not valid. In short, they are engaging in abuse of power.
UPDATE - This posting on an EFF blog helps to clarify some of the debate that arose as to whether the Washington Post article mis-stated the RIAA's courtroom testimony. The verdict of the blog posting is yes and no...the RIAA did not explicitly state that copying files is illegal, but their collective statements strongly suggest that they would like it to be illegal. This takes us back to the analogy raised some time ago of the bookseller who sells you a book but tells you that you cannot read it in your car. The whole idea that digital artifacts can be physically tethered is absurd. I refuse to pay for music downloads partly because of DRM "tethers" (the poor sound quality is the other reason).

01.2.2008 • Music Industry • PermalinkPermalink

Current Listening - Christmas 2007

CDs
1. Joe Zawinul, Arto Tuncboyacin, Fareed Haque - Live in Stockholm 1995
In the last 12 years of his life, in addition to touring with the Zawinul Syndicate, Josef Zawinul played one-off concerts in smaller group settings. He played concerts as a duo with percussionist Trilok Gurtu (and also guested on Gurtu's album "Crazy Saints"), and also played this concert with percussionist Arto Tuncboyacin (who was a member of the Syndicate for a time) and guitarist Fareed Haque. The concert was broadcast on Swedish radio and has become available thanks to the Dime treasure trove. The tunes in the concert were basically sketches by Zawinul on his array of keyboards, with guitar grooves by Haque and percussion and voice punctuation from Tuncboyacin. The highlight for me is a lengthy tune that functions as an extended sketch based on "Scarlet Woman", with Zawinul occasionally quoting the first and second parts of the theme while creating other elaborations on the keyboards. This may not be as tight and focussed as the Syndicate or Weather Report, but it is extremely interesting, showing Zawinul's endless ability to invent and elaborate on themes. It also showcases his ability to create great bass parts out of nothing - he plays a number of inventive and interesting bass patterns in many of the tunes, which results in what was a briefly-rehearsed trio sounding like a full band.

2. Allan Holdsworth - Allan Paqua Quartet - Live in Berlin 2007
In the Summer of 2007, Holdsworth and Pasqua teamed up to tour Europe. They brought along Holdsworth's long-time drum collaborator Chad Wackerman, but also managed to bring along Jimmy Haslip of Yellowjackets as the bass player. This excellently recorded radio concert showcases a fluid yet tight band, with Haslip sounding like he has been playing with them for years, playing great bass lines to integrate seamlessly with Wackerman. The highlight is "Fred", with a long, multi-sound multi-part solo from Pasqua which leaves Holdsworth struggling to match in his solo. Pasqua's keyboard voices in this band are like a cross between retro-funk and guitars in a number of tunes - at a number of points he sounds more like a guitar player than a keyboards player.

3. Jaco Pastorius Word of Mouth
This CD was Jaco's second solo effort, and it caused a number of problems, the main one being that it was horrendously over budget when finally completed. This is perhaps not surprising given the number of players on the tunes, and the fact that they were all top players who were probably not playing for beer money. Jaco's relationship with his record company waqs badly frayed by the making of the CD, not helped by his beginning to suffer from worse symptoms of what would later be recognized as bipolar disorder.
This CD includes the original big band arrangement of "Three Views Of A Secret"; Jaco presented the tune for consideration inside Weather Report, and it first appeared, in a very stripped-down form, on "Night Passage" in 1980. This is followed by "Liberty City", with a tremendous "up" theme, including solos from "Toots" Thielemans on harmonica and Othello Molineaux on steel drums - the first time I can remember steel drums being used on what is basically a big band recording.

4. Philip Catherine Babel
"Babel" was recorded in Paris in 1980 with a top-notch studio band led by Jean-Claude Petit (who today spends most of his time writing film scores). Petit also wrote most of the arrangements, and Catherine has apparently not been complimentary about the album in interviews, feeling that is over-arranged and over-produced. In addition to the base band of Petit on keyboards, Andre Ceccarelli on drums and percussion and Jannick Top on bass, Petit also employed a string quartet for additional embellishments. The final result is a lushly-arranged but still melodically compelling collection of tunes. There are a lot of keyboard parts on the album (perhaps the source of Catherine's frustration), but to my ear they do integrate well into the compositions. Catherine's lyrical, expressive guitar themes and solos still take center stage.

5. Golden Earring Moontan
This 1973 album has largely been forgotten, except for the opening track - the quintessential driving song "Radar Love", which these days has an entire website devoted to it. However, Radar Love is merely the first of five long-form compositions that make up the album. I loved Golden Earring's focus at the time on long-form tunes, and eventually lost interest when they migrated back to shorter (and to my ear, less interesting) song forms in the late 1970's. The album came in lavish packaging, including the painting of the Vanilla Queen (the subject of the last tune on side one of the album). Side two of the album is the best side, opening with the environmental song "Big Tree, Blue Sea", which had already been recorded on a previous Golden Earring album. It is unusual for bands to re-record one of their tunes in the studio, but the result here is infinitely better than the 1970 original; it makes that original sound like a scratchy demo. The second tune. "Are You Recieving Me?", is notable for it's gradual build from the middle based on two bass notes from Rinus Gerritsen, with perfect kit drum entrance and change-ups from Cesar Zuiderwjik.
A lot of music writers and listeners seemed to be puzzled by Golden Earring at the time. I read that they were derivative of The Who (total rubbish; Zuidewjik's groove drumming was about as far removed as you could go from Keith Moon), and other sundry put-downs littered the music press. It seemed that nobody knew what to make of a Dutch rock band writing articulate English lyrics and recording tunes that were 10 minutes in length. However, my CD copy of this album still sounds great over 30 years after it was recorded.

Single Tunes
6. Golden Earring Grand Finale of "Violins"
Following the success of "Radar Love" and the album "Moontan", Golden Earring spent over a year touring the world. They then released "Switch", an album of shorter tunes, during which time they adopted keyboards player Robert Jan Stips as a full band member. Stips had become essential to play the keyboard embellishments in a live setting that had formed a significant part of the sound on "Moontan".
After yet more touring, the band worked on the next album, "To The Hilt". This marked a return to longer-form compositions, including "Nomad", "Latin Lightning" and "Violins". Stips was a gifted arranger of string parts (he had created a swirling string arrangement for the song "Kill me (Ce Soir)" on "Switch", and for Violins, he was given the task of arranging strings for the play-out section of the tune, based around the strummed chord sequence Emaj, Emaj7, Emin11 and Emaj6. The final result is a collection of interlocking, swooping and diving string parts dancing around the chord sequence, which is anchored by a monster drum groove.
I listened to this well before ELO became well-known, and after this, ELO's string sound came across as stilted and cliched. This is far, far better. Accept no imitations!

7. Eric Clapton Can't Find My Way Home
This tune (recorded by Blind Faith before that band split after making one album) appears here on a pre-FM copy of the BBC concert "Play With Fire" from 1991, again from the Dime treasure trove. By his own admission, the high key meant that Eric Clapton could not sing this (it was originally sung by Steve Winwood), so this version is sung by bass player Nathan East, with Clapton providing acoustic guitar solos over a more modern keyboard setting.

12.28.2007 • Music I'm Currently Listening To • PermalinkPermalink

September Listening

Stephane Grappelli Group Live at Great American Music Hall 1978
This was the same group that I saw that year in Ramsgate (5 miles from my home town), with Diz Disley as the musical director. This FM source (brought to you by the good folks at Dime) shows all of the jaw-dropping virtuosity and exuberance that Grappelli always showed in his violin soloing. Additionally, he sits down at the venue piano about two thirds of the way through the concert and demonstrates that he had the same rhapsodic style when playing piano. Towards the end of the concert the group is joined by David Grisman on mandolin, which kicks the soloing up another notch as Grisman shows his virtuosity. I sent this concert to a lady friend along with a CD by her favorite bands, and she promptly spent a week listening to this concert...that's how good it is.

Joe Zawinul Dialects
After dissolving Weather Report in 1985, Zawinul recorded the tunes for his first solo LP in 13 years, which was named "Dialects". The cover art shows a world art montage, signalling the direction that Zawinul would soon consolidate with the Zawinul Syndicate. After recording "Dialects", he even played a short solo tour in the Fall of 1985, performing with rhythm machines and his usual bank of keyboards.
However, after announcing the end of Weather Report, Zawinul and Wayne Shorter were informed by CBS that they still owed them an album; hence the rapid appearance of the desultory "This is This", several of the tunes on which were originally intended for "Dialects". Zawinul also had to fulfill a tour commitment for Weather Report, which he did by the expedient of assembling a band and calling it Weather Update (it could hardly be called Weather Report since Wayne Shorter had gone off to a solo career). As a result, the release of "Dialects" went almost un-noticed in many quarters.
Dialects opens with "The Harvest", yet another one of Zawinul's incredibly catchy melodic hooks, and closes with "Peace", a slow ballad containing soaring synth solo lines. In between the CD is full of rhythmically dense tunes, many of them as catchy as any of the Weather Report tunes that Zawinul wrote.
"Peace" must have been a special song to Zawinul, since it was one of the tunes played at his funeral last month in Vienna.

10.11.2007 • Music I'm Currently Listening To • PermalinkPermalink

The bell tools for DRM music protection...

Link: http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/08/21/come-saturday-morning-lowering-the-drawbridge/#comments

This thread at Firedoglake discusses the shaky future of DRM (Digital Rights Management) of downloaded music in the light of recent announcements by several music companies that they will abandon it for downloaded music.
I have never downloaded any music from the iTunes store for this reason (leaving aside the fact that the sound quality is still inferior to CD quality). The use of DRM is an example of the music industry failing to address the real issues that piss off consumers, and instead digging itself into a technological, legal and PR mess.
The best posting on the Firedoglake thread sums it up neatly:

What I find particularly funny about DRM is that the music industry could have learned all about it from the software industry (which I’ve been a part of for about 25 years now).
Back in the day, copy protection of software was rampant. Exactly the same rationales were used, with exactly the same results, as now in the music and movie businesses. Now, however, copy protection is not used in a majority of software products. You know why?

1) Copy protection pisses off legitimate customers, costing you sales.

2) Copy protection does not stop actual thieves (people selling copies).

3) Copy protection stops friends and neighbors from sharing. Yes, sharing is a good thing for software! It’s advertising. Most people who get pirated software end up purchasing it in the long run (usually when a new version is released). Those that don’t “go legit” are the ones who would never have purchased your product in the first place, so they don’t represent lost sales.
When someone buys an illegal copy, though, that is theft of a sale from the content producer.
But really, as others have pointed out, all this piracy kerfluffle is not about lost sales. It’s about attempting to regain/retain a monopoly on the means of distribution. If record labels lost that, then they’re out of business — after all, that’s literally the only “value” they add: access to markets.

08.22.2007 • Music Industry • PermalinkPermalink

This Month's listening - June 2007

1. Pretenders The Singles
The Pretenders emerged from the tail-end of the late 1970's punk boom in London, fronted by American expatriate Chrissie Hynde, who crossed over from journalism to start writing and singing on her own account. The Pretenders hit the music world with a string of memorable and unique 3 minute pop songs, delivered in Hynde's unique nasal, seductive voice. The unique voice was complemented in the original line-up by James Honeyman-Scott, who developed a unique guitar style not dissimilar to that of The Edge from U2, relying heavily on open string sounds. Sadly Honeyman-Scott died at only 27 from accumulated drug abuse, and original bass player Pete Farndon followed him soon after. Hynde shuffled the line-up and continued to crank out great 3 minute pop songs through the 80's and into the 90's - The Pretenders were really a singles band whose albums were always uneven.

2. Proclaimers Best Of
The Proclaimers are one of the unlikeliest of pop successes; twin brothers from Leith in central Scotland. Looking like they had been stamped from the same mould that produced the late Buddy Holly, they write short, tight pop songs with great choruses and hooks, all sung in a very obvious Scottish accent - no faux-American affectations here. Every song a classic.

3. Randy Newman Trouble In Paradise
This album from 1983 finds Newman once again spreading irony and acerbic wit across a variety of subjects. The opening song, "I Love L.A." is Randy Newman at his best, starting with a kiss-off to North-Eastern cities ("let's leave Chicago to the Eskimos") and proceeding to rhapsodize on the many assets of Los Angeles ("Santa Monica Boulevard - We Love It!"). The next song, "Christmas In Cape Town" is a savagely ironic satire of complacent white supremacy in South Africa..."My Life Is Good" satirizes complacent, exploitative, hubris-ridden white suburbia, where families employ cheap Mexican labor, and name-drop furiously (the central character of the song finds himself meeting his "very good friend" Bruce Springsteen, who proceeds to plead "Rand, I'm tired...how would you like to be The Boss for a while?", all set to a pastiche of the E-Street Band sound, complete with a fairly convincing impersonation of Clarence Clemons' sax sound). Every song on the album is a timeless classic, proof that Newman is one of the great modern American songwriting treasures.

07.2.2007 • Music I'm Currently Listening To • PermalinkPermalink