Digitizing Vinyl

•November 15, 2009 • 2 Comments

Digitizing vinyl, old records if you will, is a real-time exercise and hence labour of love, so why bother I hear you ask?

I do it because I have a lot of old records that are not available on CD or for download, so it’s my way of preserving them. Plus I now get to load em’ onto my trusty iPod or use elsewhere.

So you get a sense of what I’m talking about, here’s a song I digitized today. It’s a version of a song Nina Simone made famous, “My baby just cares for me.”

Anyone want to take a stab at who this is? 2 stalwarts in their fields…and that’s a hint.

Posted in music, personal
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Eye Candy from MIT

•November 10, 2009 • 2 Comments

How does the internet see you?

I stumbled over this fascinating installation, Personas, that was recently on display at the MIT Museum by the Sociable Media Group from the MIT Media Lab. It uses sophisticated natural language processing and the Internet to create a data portrait of one’s aggregated online identity. In short, Personas shows you how the Internet sees you.

Enter your name, and Personas scours the web for information and attempts to characterize the person – to fit them to a predetermined set of categories that an algorithmic process created from a massive corpus of data. The computational process is visualized with each stage of the analysis, finally resulting in the presentation of a seemingly authoritative personal profile.

It demonstrates that the computer is our indispensable, but far from infallible assistant. Personas showcases the computer’s uncanny insights and its inadvertent errors, such as the mis-characterizations caused by the inability to separate data from multiple owners of the same name.

The project owners state “It is meant for the viewer to reflect on our current and future world, where digital histories are as important if not more important than oral histories, and computational methods of condensing our digital traces are opaque and socially ignorant.”

Try Personas for yourself and see how you are being portrayed.

Personas was created by Aaron Zinman, with help from Alex Dragulescu, Yannick Assogba and Judith Donath.

Posted in art, technology, wired world
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1st Radio Show – Nov 9, 2009

•November 9, 2009 • 4 Comments

Finally made my debut and had my inaugural radio show today on KOOP radio.

The show is called “From the Other Side of the Mirror” and will be broadcast every Monday at 3pm. You can find KOOP radio at 91.7 Fm in the Austin area, or stream it online at www.koop.org

The idea behind the show is pretty simple. Each week the show will focus on a song, producer, label, musician(s), venue, etc. that has a major influence on music, their fingerprints are everywhere, but are forgotten or under most people’s radar. I will help listeners connect the musical dots. Like a documentary for your ears if you will. I will tell their story and showcase the various music they have created or been involved with.

Here’s my debut show, early warts an’ all.

Subject was the inimitable Brian Eno. Set list is below;

  1. Virginia Plain – Roxy Music
  2. Do the Stand – Roxy Music
  3. Third Uncle – Eno
  4. Sky Saw – Eno
  5. Kings Lead Hat – Eno
  6. Boy’s Keep Swinging – David Bowie
  7. M386 – Eno

Link to all archived shows

Posted in documentary, music, non-profit, personal, radio
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My New Radio Show Begins Monday, Nov 9 @ 3pm on KOOP

•November 7, 2009 • 4 Comments

Very happy to announce that my new radio show will start in the new winter season on KOOP community radio.

The show is called “From the Other Side of the Mirror” and will be broadcast every Monday at 3pm. You can find KOOP radio at 91.7 Fm in the Austin area, or stream it online at www.koop.org

The idea behind the show is pretty simple. Each week the show will focus on a song, producer, label, musician(s), venue, etc. that has a major influence on music, their fingerprints are everywhere, but are forgotten or under most people’s radar. I will help listeners connect the musical dots. Like a documentary for your ears if you will. I will tell their story and showcase the various music they have created or been involved with.

The first show will showcase one Brian Eno, a man who’s fingerprints are all over some of the most imaginative music in the past 35 years. I hope you will join me.

But wait…there’s more. I’ll also be broadcasting the 1st Sunday of every month between 4 – 5.30pm hosting a show called Up on the Download.

Hope you can tune in one way or the other, and thanks to everyone for your encouragement and support. I know who you are….

koop

Posted in music, non-profit, personal, radio
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The Duke Ellington Orchestra at Salle Pleyel on November 20, 1958

•November 4, 2009 • Leave a Comment

The French INA (Institut National de l’Audiovisuel) has opened its jazz vaults, which includes about one hundred hours of video and audio archives, and from there enjoy a snippet of the duke ellington Orchestra at Salle Pleyel from november 20, 1958.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Posted in Uncategorized
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The Tenuous Canadian Connection – Part 4

•October 30, 2009 • Leave a Comment

After some down time, I was honored to be invited back  to continue  The Tenuous Canadian Connection with the fabulous and laconic Doug G on his show, This Great White North.

This weeks Tenuous Canadian Connection had a regal theme.  Let me know what you think!

Previous Tenuous Canadian Connections can be heard here;

July 31 Show

July 24 Show

July 17 Show

Posted in music, non-profit, pop culture, radio
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Frank Zappa Plays a Bicycle on the Steve Allen Show, 1963

•October 17, 2009 • Leave a Comment

Frank Zappa was always an original. Here he is playing a bicycle on The Steve Allen Show from 1963.

How about it Justin Timberlake?

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Here’s Part 2 & 3 follows.

Vodpod videos no longer available.
Vodpod videos no longer available.

Posted in humor, music, pop culture
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Record Fair Haul

•October 14, 2009 • 2 Comments

This recent Austin record fair did not disappoint.

I only made it there for 1 day, but joined by Rene “the rock” Carlin and Armando “let’s make a deal ” Rayo, we perused and scoured the racks of albums until our fingers bled….well almost.

I spent $47, procured 17 albums and 1, 12″ single, that I used to own, but alas, like so many others, been lost along the way. Here is what $47 buys you in the currency of vinyl.

The Johnny Cash Children’s Album

cash

Griff & Lock – Eddie Lockjaw Davis & Johnny Griffin Quintet

g&l

Battle Royal, the Duke meets the Count – Duke Ellington and Count Basie (no cover, have to take pix)

Sing Along with Basie – Joe Williams, Dave Lambert, Jon Hendriks, Annie Ross plus the Basie Band

basie et al

Crisco presents Loretta Lynn’s Country Classics – Loretta Lynn

Crisco

I Ain’t no Bad Girl – Memphis Minnie

mm

Blues Before Sunrise – Ray Charles & Solomon Burke

Ray-Charles-Blues-Before-Sunr-305893

For the Good times and I Won’t Mention it Again – Ray Price  (no pix, have to take it myself)

The Divine Sarah Vaughan Sings with Margie Anderson – Sarah Vaughan

o_sarah

The King of Zydeco – Clifton Chenier

cc

Oscar Peterson & Nelson Riddle

o&n

The Greatest!!  – Count Basie plays, Joe Williams sings standards

j&c

Stay Loose – Jimmy Smith Sings Again

js

Rock This Joint – Big Joe Williams ( no pix, will have to take it)

Ooops! – The Swinging Sounds of Bill Doggett and his Combo ( no pix, will have to take it)

Liberation – Bunny Wailer

bw

Johnny Cash & Jerry Lee Lewis sing Hank Williams

johnny_cash_jerry_lee_lewis-johnny_cash_and_jerry_lee_lewis_sing_hank_williams_a

and the 12″ single….Afrika Bambaataa & James Brown – Unity

ab

Posted in music, personal
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A Rival to the Airstream?

•October 8, 2009 • Leave a Comment

Hands up who last used a caravan?

Thought so. Came across this new concept from a German company.

In the camper market there is a move towards new design and personalized, tailor-made solutions. Travelers want a caravan that is made just for them.

One solution now available is offered by the “Mehrzeller” – a multicellular caravan. A buyer uses an online tool, and creates their unique design. The caravans are produced using the principles of “mass customization”: this allows both the individual wishes of the customer to be accommodated while producing the caravan with mass production methods.

mz_2mz_4

Sounds interesting. Maybe the Airstream finally has a rival?

Posted in design
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Pilot Radio Show

•September 28, 2009 • Leave a Comment

For those of you following the plot, I’ve been apprenticing at the local community radio station here in Austin, KOOP, with the goal of getting my own show.

Competition is tough, there are a lot of talented programmers out there, with great ideas for their shows. I was able to get into the studio today (with the very cool John Erler of Master Pancake Theater), and broadcast live a short, 30 minute version of my show, “From the Other Side of the Mirror”. The concept behind the show is explained at the beginning.

So please beg my indulgence, here is it, captured from the live stream. Let me know what you think, if you’d listen to something like this.

Thanks to everyone for your support. I know who you are.

Posted in music, personal, radio
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