Today is the Day Against DRM, the official day assigned to oppose Digital Rights Managment. DRM is a technology designed to stop you from reading, listening, and watching books, articles, magazines, newspapers, DVDs, movies, videos, TV, radio, and music. A few corporate groups are strong-arming your government into trying to change the law so that DRM is required in all media, and to make it a crime punishable with jail-time to avoid DRM.

DRM provides you with no value. It doesn’t help you read the newspaper online; it makes it harder to read. It doesn’t make it easier or more enjoyable to watch a movie; it makes it harder or in some cases impossible to watch a movie that you have PAID for. It doesn’t help you listen to music you have purchased; in fact it may require you to pay over-and-over again to keep listening to a single song that you have purchased.

DRM doens’t help artists either. It makes it harder for them to get their work out to an receptive audience. It makes it more expensive for them to publish their work.

Lobby groups for companies that buy the licensing rights for books, music, and movies from the artists that create content are fighting hard to make DRM part of your life. Maybe you want to fight back? Maybe you don’t? Here are a few things you can do either way:

• Don’t use iTunes, don’t buy an iPod, and don’t buy form the iTunes store. The files you get from iTunes can be “turned off” by Apple anytime they want. If they want to make a few extra bucks off you next year, they just have to change the system so that your files won’t play anymore unless you pay for an “upgrade.” There are plenty of places that sell plain-old MP3s.
• Check out MusicIP Mixer from musicip.com. Not only will it play regular old MP3s, but it will play Ogg Vorbis file. Ogg Vorbis files give you better quality for the same size file, AND the format isn’t owned by any company… you will always be able to play your Ogg music… forever and ever.

For more information visit Ten Things for OCT3

I did not expect to like Garbage. I had it on a list of CDs to borrow from my local public library ever since I heard two catchy songs in video games on the Sony PS2. I was reminded of Garbage’s existence again while taking a class in Learning Principles and Advertising this term. Garbage was used in a paper (Hung, 2001) on the affect of music and conditioning in teaser ads. The professor for the course describes the music as “brit pop.” I decided to check out the CDs from the library.

The lyrics below are an excerpt from Parade. The tune itself is very pop-ish; very upbeat and catchy. The lyrics are distopian but clearly not pessimistic. I’m hooked…

get it right get it right get it right now
let’s burn
the factory
that makes all
the wannabes
let’s burst all
the bubbles
that brainwash
the masses

My favorite playlist trick is to put a little high-energy Garbage mixed in with Jack of Jill and then finish with Jimmy Eat World’s Authority Song.

I discovered the music of Emiliana Torrini by accident. I was looking for places to go when a friend was in town and looked at what bands were playing at local clubs. Somehow, that led me to find a description of Emiliana Torrini. The description I found contained one of those totally useless descriptions that just throw out the names of three or four pop artists. She was compared to Bjork and Kate Bush. Everyone compares female singers to Bjork and Kate Bush when they cannot figure out how to describe them. But hey… somehow they got my attention. I said to myself, “Nobody really sounds like Bjork.” On a whim, I checked to see if my local public library had any discs by Torrini and, in fact, they did!

Despite the dubious path that lead me to her music, I don’t regret listening to the disc. Torrini does in fact sound a bit like Bjork and it is no wonder as they are both Icelandic.

The title of the album I listened to, “Love in the Time of Science” was interesting. The opening track was short but incredible. A+ for first impressions. The rest of the album is good and some tracks are better than good. Her music is smooth and interesting. Some of the instrumentals remind me of The Flaming Lips (just a bit, as on the opening of the track “Baby Blue”). There are a lot of influences that come out in this album. Some tracks reminded me of something that could be a theme to a Bond tune (just a bit). Some reminded me of the band Red Delicious.

This music is definitely interesting and just the right mix of “different enough” and “similar enough.” The titles of the tracks really made an impression on me too:

1. Sea People
2. To Be Free
3. Wednesday’s Child
4. Baby Blue
5. Dead Things
6. Unemployed in Summertime
7. Easy
8. Fingertips
9. Telepathy
10. Tuna Fish
11. Summerbreeze

I know a few consultants besides myself who aspire to be Unemployed in Summertime. And sandwiching Dead Things between that track and Baby Blue was intriguing…. perhaps more so in title than in the actuality of the music.

I’ll leave you with a quote from the lyrics: “Sad things have to happen… sometimes.” (followed by the sound of a telephone/computer like noise)

Recently I have read a much-cited paper by NYU professor Thomas Nagel titled What is it Like to Be a Bat? I was reading it on the advise of the professor supervising my undergraduate independent research project on connectionism and embodiment. The paper is interesting but also interesting is what I found when I searched the web for the title.

There exists a band called What is It Like to be a Bat? that does some really wild techno-punk music. The band leader is also a professor. The website has a lot of very confusing descriptions of what the band is and has done (high-art pop??). Still it really is an interesting concept.

What can I say: In my private Idaho there are professors forming strange bands named after the strange papers of other professors.

Way back when I heard a great song while listening to late night radio. Maybe it was Brave New Waves or Late Night with David Wisdom on CBC or maybe it was some long forgotten show on CJSR. I loved that song and hunted down the artist and album. That took effort “way back when” because there was an Internet but no World Wide Web. It was 1992 or 1993. The song was 2000 Light Years Away, the band was Green Day, and the album was Kerplunk! I had never heard of Green Day and I have no idea if anyone else had when Kerplunk! was released. Everyone knows them now.

Kerplunk! remained a favorite of mine for years. I played it continuously while programming and it was finally pushed out of rotation by The Lemonheads CD titled Lick. I let a friend of mine borrow Kerplunk for a while. A while turned out to be forever. He had the CD in his car under the passenger seat. Many times he came over to my place but each time forgot to bring in the CD. I always said, “No problem, I’ll get it from you next time.” Eventually my buddy sold his car with Kerplunk still under the passenger seat.

My buddy recently visited with his wife and Kids. It’s about 10 years since I lent him the disc. He grins and hands me a CD and says, “I finally got it! I found a copy of your Green Day disc!” It was Dookie, Green Days first big commercial success. We were both disappointed, but truth be told I could not remember the title “Kerplunk!” I only remembered the first track “2000 Light Years Away.”

So, now it is just a month after my friend tried to replace Kerplunk and I still couldn’t remember that it was actually called Ker plunk. I was in a record store with my wife. I’m not sure because I rarely ever go to record stores… they never have anything I want. I happen to spot something familiar in the “two for one” bin! I recognize the winking cartoon girl with revolver and the smiling-flower t-shirt. It was Kerplunk!

So I am not happily singing along to 2000 Light Years Away, Android, and Dominated Love Slave. Even after a 10 year absence, Kerplunk is my favorite Green Day disc. It has lots of energy, interesting lyrics, and an authentic sound (no over-production).