Music

Music is a big part of me: Over the years, I’ve sung in choirs, played the violin (never terribly well) and can plunk tunes out on most other instruments, DJ’d alternative/goth/industrial/ebm/electronica clubs, and collected a whole lot of music.

Alice's Restaurant, by Arlo Guthrie

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This song is called Alice’s Restaurant, and it’s about Alice, and the restaurant, but Alice’s Restaurant is not the name of the restaurant, that’s just the name of the song, and that’s why I called the song Alice’s Restaurant.

You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant,
You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant,
Walk right in it’s around the back,
Just a half a mile from the railroad track,
You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant.

Now it all started two Thanksgivings ago, was on two years ago on Thanksgiving, when my friend and I went up to visit Alice at the restaurant, but Alice doesn’t live in the restaurant, she lives in the church nearby the restaurant in the bell-tower, with her husband Ray and Fasha the dog. And livin’ in the bell tower like that, they got a lot of room downstairs where the pews used to be in. Havin’ all that room, seein’ as how they took out all the pews, they decided that they didn’t have to take out their garbage for a long time.

We got up there, we found all the garbage in there, and we decided it’d be a friendly gesture for us to take the garbage down to the city dump. So we took the half a ton of garbage, put it in the back of a red VW microbus, took shovels and rakes and implements of destruction and headed on toward the city dump.

Well we got there and there was a big sign and a chain across across the dump saying, “Closed on Thanksgiving.” And we had never heard of a dump closed on Thanksgiving before, and with tears in our eyes we drove off into the sunset looking for another place to put the garbage.

We didn’t find one.

Until we came to a side road, and off the side of the side road there was another fifteen foot cliff and at the bottom of the cliff was another pile of garbage. And we decided that one big pile was better than two little piles, and rather than bring that one up we decided to throw ours down.

That’s what we did, and drove back to the church, had a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn’t be beat, went to sleep and didn’t get up until the next morning, when we got a phone call from officer Obie.

He said, “Kid, we found your name on an envelope at the bottom of a half a ton of garbage, and just wanted to know if you had any information about it.”

And I said, “Yes, sir, Officer Obie, I cannot tell a lie — I put that envelope under that garbage.”

After speaking to Obie for about fourty-five minutes on the telephone we finally arrived at the truth of the matter and said that we had to go down and pick up the garbage, and also had to go down and speak to him at the police officer’s station. So we got in the red VW microbus with the shovels and rakes and implements of destruction and headed on toward the police officer’s station.

Now friends, there was only one or two things that Obie coulda done at the police station, and the first was he could have given us a medal for being so brave and honest on the telephone, which wasn’t very likely, and we didn’t expect it, and the other thing was, that he could have bawled us out and told us never to be see driving garbage around the vicinity again, which is what we expected. But when we got to the police officer’s station there was a third possibility that we hadn’t even counted upon, and we was both immediately arrested.

Handcuffed.

And I said “Obie, I don’t think I can pick up the garbage with these handcuffs on.”

He said, “Shut up, kid. Get in the back of the patrol car.” And that’s what we did, sat in the back of the patrol car and drove to the quote Scene Of The Crime unquote.

I want tell you about the town of Stockbridge, Massachusets, where this happened here, they got three stop signs, two police officers, and one police car, but when we got to the Scene Of The Crime there was five police officers and three police cars, being the biggest crime of the last fifty years, and everybody wanted to get in the newspaper story about it. And they was using up all kinds of cop equipment that they had hanging around the police officer’s station. They was taking plaster tire tracks, foot prints, dog smelling prints, and they took twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us. Took pictures of the approach, the getaway, the northwest corner, the southwest corner, and that’s not to mention the aerial photography.

After the ordeal, we went back to the jail. Obie said he was going to put us in the cell. Said, “Kid, I’m going to put you in the cell, I want your wallet and your belt.”

And I said, “Obie, I can understand you wanting my wallet so I don’t have any money to spend in the cell, but what do you want my belt for?”

And he said, “Kid, we don’t want any hangings.”

I said, “Obie, did you think I was going to hang myself for littering?”

Obie said he was making sure, and friends Obie was, cause he took out the toilet seat so I couldn’t hit myself over the head and drown, and he took out the toilet paper so I couldn’t bend the bars roll out — roll the toilet paper out the window, slide down the roll and have an escape. Obie was making sure, and it was about four or five hours later that Alice (remember Alice? It’s a song about Alice), Alice came by and with a few nasty words to Obie on the side, bailed us out of jail, and we went back to the church, had another Thanksgiving dinner that couldn’t be beat, and didn’t get up until the next morning, when we all had to go to court.

We walked in, sat down, Obie came in with the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, and sat down. Man came in said, “All rise.” We all stood up, and Obie stood up with the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures, and the judge walked in sat down with a seeing eye dog, and he sat down, we sat down.

Obie looked at the seeing eye dog.

And then at the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, and looked at the seeing eye dog.

And then at twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one and began to cry, ’cause Obie came to the realization that it was a typical case of American blind justice, and there wasn’t nothing he could do about it, and the judge wasn’t going to look at the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us.

And we was fined $50 and had to pick up the garbage in the snow, but thats not what I came to tell you about.

Came to talk about the draft.

They got a building down New York City, it’s called Whitehall Street, where you walk in, you get injected, inspected, detected, infected, neglected and selected. I went down to get my physical examination one day, and I walked in, I sat down, got good and drunk the night before, so I looked and felt my best when I went in that morning. ‘Cause I wanted to look like the all-American kid from New York City, man I wanted, I wanted to feel like the all-, I wanted to be the all American kid from New York, and I walked in, sat down, I was hung down, brung down, hung up, and all kinds o’ mean nasty ugly things. And I walked in and sat down and they gave me a piece of paper, said, “Kid, see the psychiatrist, room 604.”

And I went up there, I said, “Shrink, I wanna kill. I mean, I wanna, I wanna kill. Kill. I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill! Kill! Kill! KILL!” And I started jumpin’ up and down yelling, “Kill! Kill!” and he started jumpin up and down with me and we was both jumping up and down yelling, “KILL! KILL!” And the sergeant came over, pinned a medal on me, sent me down the hall, said, “You’re our boy.”

Didn’t feel too good about it.

Proceeded on down the hall gettin’ more injections, inspections, detections, neglections and all kinds of stuff that they was doin’ to me at the thing there, and I was there for two hours, three hours, four hours, I was there for a long time going through all kinds of mean nasty ugly things and I was just having a tough time there, and they was inspecting, injecting every single part of me, and they was leaving no part untouched. Proceeded through, and when I finally came to the see the last man, I walked in, walked in sat down after a whole big thing there, and I walked up and said, “What do you want?”

He said, “Kid, we only got one question. Have you ever been arrested?”

And I proceeded to tell him the story of the Alice’s Restaurant Massacree, with full orchestration and five part harmony and stuff like that and all the phenome— and he stopped me right there and said, “Kid, did you ever go to court?”

And I proceeded to tell him the story of the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and the paragraph on the back of each one, and he stopped me right there and said, “Kid, I want you to go over and sit down on that bench that says Group W. Now, kid!!”

And I, I walked over to the, to the bench there, and there is, Group W’s where they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the army after committing your special crime, and there was all kinds of mean nasty ugly looking people on the bench there. Mother rapers. Father stabbers. Father rapers! Father rapers sitting right there on the bench next to me! And they was mean and nasty and ugly and horrible crime-type guys sitting there on the bench. And the meanest, ugliest, nastiest one, the meanest father raper of them all, was coming over to me and he was mean ‘n’ ugly ‘n’ nasty ‘n’ horrible and all kind of things and he sat down next to me and said, “Kid, whad’ya get?”

I said, “I didn’t get nothing, I had to pay $50 and pick up the garbage.”

He said, “What were you arrested for, kid?”

And I said, “Littering.”

And they all moved away from me on the bench there, and the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean nasty things, till I said, “And creating a nuisance,” and they all came back, shook my hand, and we had a great time on the bench, talkin about crime, mother stabbing, father raping, all kinds of groovy things that we was talking about on the bench. And everything was fine, we was smoking cigarettes and all kinds of things, until the Sergeant came over.

Had some paper in his hand, held it up and said, “Kids, this piece of paper’s got 47 words 37 sentences 58 words we wanna know details of the crime time of the crime and any other kind of thing you gotta say pertaining to and about the crime I want to know arresting officer’s name and any other kind of thing you gotta say,” and talked for forty-five minutes and nobody understood a word that he said, but we had fun filling out the forms and playing with the pencils on the bench there, and I filled out the massacre with the four part harmony, and wrote it down there, just like it was, and everything was fine and I put down the pencil, and I turned over the piece of paper, and there…

There on the other side…

In the middle of the other side, away from everything else on the other side, in parentheses, capital letters, quotated, read the following words:

(“KID, HAVE YOU REHABILITATED YOURSELF?”)

I went over to the sargent, and said, “Sergeant, you got a lot a damn gall to ask me if I’ve rehabilitated myself, I mean, I mean, I mean that just, I’m sittin’ here on the bench, I mean I’m sittin here on the Group W bench — ’cause you want to know if I’m moral enough join the army, burn women, kids, houses and villages after bein’ a litterbug.”

He looked at me and said, “Kid, we don’t like your kind, and we’re gonna send you fingerprints off to Washington.”

And friends, somewhere in Washington enshrined in some little folder, is a study in black and white of my fingerprints. And the only reason I’m singing you this song now is cause you may know somebody in a similar situation, or you may be in a similar situation, and if your in a situation like that there’s only one thing you can do and that’s walk into the shrink wherever you are, just walk in say, “Shrink, you can get anything you want, at Alice’s restaurant.” And walk out.

You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he’s really sick and they won’t take him.

And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they’re both faggots and they won’t take either of them.

And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in, singin a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and walking out? They may think it’s an organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and walking out. And friends they may thinks it’s a movement!

And that’s what it is , the Alice’s Restaurant Anti-Massacre Movement, and all you got to do to join is sing it the next time it comes around on the guitar.

With feeling.

So we’ll wait for it to come around on the guitar, here, and sing it when it does.

Here it comes.

You can get anything you want, at Alice’s Restaurant,
You can get anything you want, at Alice’s Restaurant,
Walk right in it’s around the back,
Just a half a mile from the railroad track,
You can get anything you want, at Alice’s Restaurant.

That was horrible. If you want to end war and stuff you got to sing loud. I’ve been singing this song now for twenty five minutes. I could sing it for another twenty five minutes. I’m not proud…or tired…so we’ll wait till it comes around again, and this time with four part harmony and feeling.

We’re just waitin’ for it to come around is what we’re doing.

All right now.

You can get anything you want, at Alice’s Restaurant (excepting Alice),
You can get anything you want, at Alice’s Restaurant,
Walk right in it’s around the back,
Just a half a mile from the railroad track,
You can get anything you want, at Alice’s Restaurant.

Da da da da da da da dum,
at Alice’s Restaurant!

iTMS = IotY

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Apple’s iTunes Music Store has been named “Invention of the Year” by Time Magazine!

Other inventions this year may have more altruistic intentions (like Dean Kamen’s water purifier) or be more visible on street corners (like those ubiquitous camera cell phones). But for finally finding a middle ground between the foot-dragging record labels and the free-for-all digital pirates and for creating a bandwagon onto which its competitors immediately jumped, Apple’s iTunes Music Store is Time’s Coolest Invention of 2003.

Lizette&: This Is

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Lizette&, an excellent band from Sweden whom I’ve mentioned in the past, has finally finished their debut album! The release party is scheduled for December 2nd. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to attend — a small matter of me being in Seattle, and the party being in Stockholm, Sweden — but I’ve been looking forward to this album for a while, and will be snagging a copy as soon as it’s available to be ordered.

They’re an alternative/industrial band that I discovered a few years back via the Internet, somewhere along the lines of the Kidney Thieves (who opened for KMFDM on their last tour). Well worth checking out, I’d say, and you can get a few samples of their sound from their MP3.com page.

Jason Webley Deathday 2003

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Last night was Jason Webley‘s Deathday concert. Incredible, beautiful, fun, funny, and moving — everything I’ve come to expect from Webley’s shows.

The show was held at the Town Hall, which is just kitty-corner across the street from my apartment building. Just a little after 6pm, Prairie glanced out my kitchen window and noticed that something was glowing outside of Town Hall. Curious, I opened the window and poked my head out. The glow was easy to identify as a Jack O’ Lantern. What I hadn’t expected to see (though perhaps I should have) was the line that was already starting to form. Hoping to get good seats for the show, we decided that we’d go join the line, bundled up, and headed downstairs and across the street.

We found a spot in line right at the corner, and spent the next hour or so watching people play, identifying costumes, and chatting with the people in front of us — a cute girl with red dreadlocks and her boyfriend. We never did catch their names (even after mentioning at one point that we didn’t know each other), but they made for a fun way to pass the time as we waited, talking about everything from lemmings being thrown over cliffs to whether or not I liked artichokes (I don’t).

Eventually we made it inside, stood in line for a while longer waiting for the doors to the auditorium to open, and finally getting in and finding seats. We ended up getting great seats — the auditorium has a staircase in the center of the hall leading down and out, and we were just one row back behind the stairs, with a perfect view of the stage. Town Hall was perfect for the show, too. Huge (around 900 seats), and I’d guess the audience was between 700 and 800 people, primarily “alternative”/punk/goth kids in their late teens and early twenties, but a sizeable number of adults, also. One of the things I’ve always liked about Jason Webley is how well he attracts a wide range of fans, and that’s always obvious at shows such as these.

Not long after we all filed in, the musicians took the stage, and the show began…

The empty stage

The lights went down, and the auditorium went silent. A door opened on the side of the stage, and Jason entered — in puppet form. As a gorgeously done Jason Webley puppet, controlled by two puppeteers wearing all black, he walked to the front of the stage, guitar case in hand. He sat down, pulled out the guitar, and played the first song (recorded…as good as the puppet was, its fingers weren’t quite that dextrous).

Once the song was done, he walked back offstage, and the black clad assistants came back onstage. There had been a large box covered by a sheet at center stage, and they proceeded to remove the sheet to reveal a large trunk. They unlocked the trunk, opened the lid — and helped Jason (the real flesh-and-blood Jason this time) out of the box, clad only in loose yellow pants. As he came to life, he was given his trenchcoat and hat, and finally, his accordion, and the main part of the show began.

Emerging from the box

The show was incredible. The accompanying musicians were expanded this year to include a string quartet of two cello and two violin, in addition to the brass band, drums, and Jason switching among accordion, guitar, and piano (and occasional shovel). The addition of the fuller, more orchestral background was wonderful, filling out his songs and allowing for some beautiful background music for some of the more performance-art sets of the show.

Because Town Hall presented a more formal setting for the show than some other venues, like last year’s Deathday show at the Paradox, after the first few songs Jason took a moment to break the ice and loosen things up again by leading us all in a rousing sing-along of “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean,” with everyone either standing up or sitting down again at every word that started with a “B”. This was fun, and got a good deal of giggles going through the audience, but apparently that wasn’t enough for Jason, as he decided to teach us another dance — the Gnomie.

Now, the Gnomie is quite easy to do. Inspired by those little lawn gnomes seen in the front yards of homes, all you have to do is get a sheepish grin on your face, pull your shirt over the back of your head, and then wiggle your arms (now pulled up a bit by the shirt) as you bounce around a bit. Have you ever seen a crowd of 700-some people doing the Gnomie? We almost didn’t, as there’s always some people a bit too shy to do something quite this silly. But Jason implored us to get everyone involved. After all, one doesn’t get too many chances to do the Gnomie, and so he asked us all to turn to anyone we could see who wasn’t joining in, look deep into their eyes, and sing to them, “If you don’t Gnomie by now….” The general mood loosened up a lot after that!

Do the Gnomie

This year, love, the heart, and flight were the running themes of the show, and the thematic elements of the performance were nicely woven between the more upbeat, sillier moments. Three stories were told during the course of the show: The Boy With Wings on His Heart, The Boy With A Ball of String for a Heart, and The Boy With A Balloon For A Heart. Each story was about our relationships with love — for each other, for home, for what we see in this world. I’m really hoping that someone who was taping the performance was able to catch these stories on tape, they were wonderfully written and performed.

During the last half of the show, red balloons were occasionally tossed into the crowd. Small heart-shaped balloons, larger round balloons, and a couple really large round balloons (easily two feet in diameter). These would fly around the audience, bouncing from one person to the next. They’d disappear for the quieter songs, then as the energy ramped up again, they’d reemerge from underneath seats or more would be brought out, and the air would soon fill with red balloons again.

Big red balloons

For each of Jason’s stories, he used a small doll (the child’s doll with a soft body and plastic head, arms, and legs) to illustrate the story as he told it. For The Boy With A Balloon for a Heart, the story told of a boy who’s heart would expand each time he saw something he liked, each time he saw something that made him sad — anything that made him love. This doll had had its body replaced with stocking fabric around a balloon, and each time the boy’s heart grew, Jason blew the balloon up a bit. Eventually, as the story ended, he had a (truth to tell) somewhat disturbing looking swollen baby doll, which he handed to the audience. Seeing as how we were already batting large red balloons around…well, the baby just got added into the mix. I’m not entirely sure if that was Jason’s intent or not, but for the rest of the evening, you’d see three or four balloons fly in front of your face, followed by a balloon baby careening through the audience.

Eventually, after a good collection of old Webley standards and some new songs (perhaps there’s a new album in the works?), a mass audience tickle fight, and everyone “getting wasted” for the Drinking Song by pointing at the roof, looking at their fingers, and spinning in circles twenty times or so, the show started to wind down.

Jason took off his coat and hat, and one of the assistance appeared in the audience with a doll version of Jason hanging from a pole with wings strapped to his arms, flying around the room, and eventually onto the stage. After a few flights around the stage, the doll Jason descended into Jason’s arms. Gently cradling the doll in his arms, Jason stood there, the auditorium dead silent — when the crack of snapping wood filled the hall, and the wings, shattered, fell to the ground. Anguish washing over his face, Jason gently reached into the doll and removed its heart.

Removing Jason's heart

Two white-clad pallbearers came on stage, bearing a small coffin between them. Setting it down on the stage and removing its lid, they reached up and coaxed the doll from Jason’s arms, laying it to rest within the coffin. One then turned and took the heart from Jason, placing it back in the body of the doll. They then stood back up and slowly left the stage, bearing the doll away and out of the auditorium down the central staircase, leaving Jason collapsed in grief on the stage. The two black-clad assistants then came back, gently picked Jason up, put him back into the trunk, closed and locked it, and covered it with the sheet again. The band played gently as we all got up and quietly left the auditorium, filed outside, and gathered in the rain outside of Town Hall, waiting to see what would happen next.

Eventually, someone caught wind of the next part of the night’s activities (for Jason’s big shows are never entirely done just because we’re no longer watching him onstage), and everyone started walking a block down the street to the closest entrance to Freeway Park. As we all entered the park we passed people with large bunches of balloons, handing everyone a single balloon. We got ours and continued on into the park, following the paths until we got to one of the large plaza areas next to the Convention Center. Here, the two pallbearers were standing next to a small stone cairn, still bearing the coffin with Jason’s (doll) body in it.

We gathered in a circle around them, each of us holding the balloon we had been given, talking quietly, reliving the show we had just seen, talking about prior Deathdays, and waiting to see what would happen next.

Waiting with our balloons

Eventually, people came back through the crowd, gathering all the balloons together again. We each tied our balloon onto one of the bunches, then all the bunches were gathered together in the center of the circle. Not long after that, the balloons started to rise, with Jason (in doll form) tied to the bottom of the bunch, to let him fly away into the night. Unfortunately, here the night hit a slight snag, to the amusement of the gathered fans. As there was a light rain that evening, the balloons were becoming slightly weighted down with water, and couldn’t get enough lift to fly away!

Jason floated gently above our heads, but wasn’t able to get much lift beyond that, and our cheers of encouragement as he floated above us quickly turned into laughs as he drifted first into one of the park lamps, then into one tree, and then into another. Each time, someone would extricate Jason from his predicament, knock some of the water off of the balloons they could reach, let him go again, we’d all cheer — and then watch him find another tree. After the third time, someone pulled the bunch of balloons down and those of us closest to the bunch, laughing and cheering, jumped up into the balloons, doing what we could to knock as much rain off as possible.

One last launch. Cheers and cries of encouragement. “Go, Jason!” “Fly away!” And fly away he did, finally rising above us, floating away over downtown Seattle, to wherever Jason goes during these long winter months.

And so Jason Webley has died. Until next spring and his rebirth…we’ll all miss you.

“Goodbye forever, once again…”

Goodbye forever, once again...

Update: More Webley links…

Metadata is a good thing

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Phil and I got into a conversation this morning (which he’s already mentioned) about the iTunes Music Store and the metadata (ID3 tags such as Artist, Year, Track #, Composer, etc. that are included with each song in iTunes) that they provide.

While I’ve played with it a bit, I don’t see myself becoming a big user of the iTunes Music Store for one very simple reason — their metadata doesn’t meet my standards. Specifically, the “Year” field is often wrong (for instance, Meat Loaf‘s ‘Bat Out of Hell’ is tagged as 2003, when it was re-released, rather than 1977, when it was originally released), and for the majority of the tracks on the store, the “Composer” field is empty — the Classical genre is the only time the Composer field seems to be used consistently.

Now, I fully recognize that for 95% (at least) of the population, this isn’t going to be a major thing at all. As long as the Artist, Album, and Track Name are there and correct, we should be happy, right? Well, sure, for most people. I’m just in that 5% who are picky (ahem…anal) about this (and it’s certainly not limited to my music, as I tend to be quite meticulous about keeping my books and movies alphabetized, and sometimes broken down by genre).

Part of why I like having all that information available is just the amount of different searches that can be done when it’s all in and entered correctly — and when you’re dealing with a music library that is upwards of 80Gb, emcompassing over 10,000 different tracks from around 1,200 CDs, that can be important!

To use one of the examples I gave Phil, Al Jourgensen has been active in a ton of different industrial groups over the years, including Ministry, the Revolting Cocks, Lard, and many, many others. As long as I have the Composer field entered correctly, then I can do a quick search through my library for “Jourgensen” and instantly I’ve got a list of every track in my collection that he’s worked on.

Another example: Bob Dylan has written an incredible amount of music, much of which has been covered by many different artists over the years. Suppose I felt like listening to all the covers of Bob Dylan tracks I had in my collection. Without good metadata, it’s not happening — but with the metadata, I can set up a smart playlist using the terms “Arist does not include Dylan, Composer includes Dylan”, and I’ve got a list of Dylan songs performed by anyone but the man himself.

As far as the Year field goes, I like to keep smart playlists for each decade — I touched on this briefly earlier this month — or just be able to sort a listing of songs chronologically. Having the correct year in the metadata is necessary for this, and years that are off can be pretty jarring (for instance, listening to a modern music playlist and suddenly having 25-year old rock could be a little odd).

So that’s why I have some of the habits I do (well, ignoring the deep-seated childhood psychological trauma), and why I’m not likely to use the iTMS for much more than occasionally grabbing a track to replace a scratched section of one of my CDs. I may use it for expanding my classical collection — I just bought a great collection of Bach‘s Brandenburg Concertos last week — but that’s probably going to be the extent of it for now.

What to do to fix that (and send more of my money Apple’s way)? Well, Phil and I batted this one about for a couple minutes. I’ve looked into this a bit in the past, and it seems that Apple doesn’t really have a lot of control over what metadata is and isn’t present for the songs in their store. If I’m remembering correctly, all encoding and tagging is done by the studios themselves, then provided to Apple for inclusion in the iTMS. So sniping at Apple isn’t likely to do much good, and it would likely be a bit beyond my ken to start harassing each of the various studios to pay attention to these little details (especially when, as I stated before, most people couldn’t give a flying fig about things like this).

The best case scenario, I think, is one that Phil mentioned: if Apple treated the iTMS library’s metadata in a similar fashion to the Gracenote CDDB (this is the service that iTunes connects to in order to automatically discover album information when you put a CD into your computer). With the CDDB, all information in the database can be updated by the users — if you put a CD into your computer and notice that some of the information is incorrect, you can make the edits and then re-submit the updated information back to the CDDB, essentially creating a self-updating and self-correcting public service.

If Apple could implement something like this for the iTMS, I’d be thrilled. Logistically, it’s a bit of a quandry, though, as it would likely need to include some sort of moderation to prevent someone submitting information for an album with every track titled “tHIz ALBum SuXX0Rzz!!!!!” or something equally intelligent. That extra added overhead creates more work for Apple, and as the iTMS is currently running in the red, Apple probably isn’t going to be anxiously looking for ways to put more money in for a feature that only 5% or less of its users are going to care about.

My suggestion, then, would be to create something akin to an “iTMS Pro” service. For, oh, \$5 a month (billed directly to the credit card already registered with the iTMS), an “iTMS Pro” subscriber could edit and submit information on tracks in the iTMS library, correcting information that might have been entered badly the first time (I’ve already noticed the occasional dropped space or inconsistent naming conventions), or adding information that wasn’t included, such as the Composer field. The information would still probably need to go through some sort of moderation process at Apple, but limiting the editing ability to people who were willing to pay the slight extra bit of money would weed out casual pranksters, and provide a few extra dollars to Apple to pay for that moderation process.

Is this going to happen? Oh, I seriously doubt it. But if it did, I’d be sure to sign up.

I like my metadata.

iTunes and iTMS for Windows

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Well, the rumors were true — and then some! Here’s some quick highlights of today’s Apple Event:

Hell Froze Over

  • The iPod is the number one .mp3 player on the market, with a 31% market share.
  • Two new accessories (for 3rd generation iPods with the Dock Connector) have been introduced:
    • The Belkin iPod Voice Recorder, which allows you to record voice memos on-the-go and then sync them to your Mac or PC when you’re back home.
    • The Belkin Media Reader, which allows you to move photos off of a camera storage card (Compact Flash, [Type 1 and 2], Smart Media, Secure Digital [SD], Memory Stick, or Multi Media Card [MMC]) and onto the iPod for later import into iPhoto. Never have to worry about running out of space on your camera again!
  • The iTunes Music Store has been upgraded:
    • There will be over 400,000 tracks available by the end of the month.
    • Over 200 independent labels have joined with the iTMS for distribution.
    • Integration with Audible now allows for to be purchased directly through the iTMS interface.
    • Gift Certificates can now be purchased for family or friends through the iTMS. Choose how much you want to give, send it off, and the recipient gets an e-mail. One click, and they’re in the iTMS with credit in their account.
    • Parents can now set up Allowances for children — \$10 (or whatever amount is chosen) per month in downloads charged to the parent’s credit card. Essentially an automatically-renewing gift certificate.
    • Celebrity Playlists — recommendations of songs from popular artists.
  • iTunes for Windows is now available.
    • Runs on Windows 2000 and Windows XP.
    • Complete feature parity with iTunes for the Mac.
    • Rendevouz music sharing over local area networks works between Macs and PCs.
    • iTMS access is built in to iTunes for Windows, just as it is on iTunes for the Mac.
    • Each track purchased from the iTMS is authorized for play on up to three computers — this can be a mix-and-match of Windows PCs and Macs.
  • Two big promotional partnerships were announced:
    • America Online: AOL’s music store now integrates directly with iTunes.
    • Pepsi: 100 million songs will be given away through redemption codes under the cap of select Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, or Sierra Mist bottles. 300 million bottles will be printed, with a one in three chance of winning a free download.

    : http://www.apple.com/itunes/store/books/ “Apple – iTunes – Audiobooks”
    And those are all the key points. Pretty damn impressive! I’ll be playing with iTunes on Windows as soon as I get to work today…

(Much thanks to MacRumors live coverage of the event!)

Apple poised for big music push

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More and more, Apple is making a huge push into the music industry — and if the rumor mills are right, this week just may be their biggest foray yet.

Already having made a name for themselves over the past couple years with the one-two punch of the iPod and the iTunes Music Store, recently Apple has been exploring various exclusive promotions, such as live performances by bands at Apple Store locations that are later released exclusively through the iTMS.

Latest case in point: Thursday and Thrice, a pair of new rock acts from Island Records, are hyping an upcoming tour Wednesday (Oct. 15) with Apple in-stores on two coasts.

Thursday will take the stage at the Apple Store SoHo in New York. On the West Coast, Thrice will play at the Apple Store Third Street Promenade, located in Santa Monica, Calif. Each performance will be at 7 p.m. in their respective time zones.

The shows kick off a highly anticipated double bill — presented by Alternative Press magazine and MTV2 — which begins Oct. 17 in Pennsylvania.

The music performed at the events will be available exclusively for purchase at the iTunes Music Store.

Already, Apple Store performances can be found at the iTMS from Less Than Jake (iTMS link) and The Rising (iTMS link). I think this is a fascinating way to co-promote both the bands and Apple’s brand.

While it’s been known that Apple has a major event this Thursday that has a 90% or better chance of featuring the introduction of iTunes (and the iTMS) for Windows, according to both MacRumors and AppleInsider, there may be some nice surprises in store for Mac users, too. Possibilities include iTunes 5 (released for both Windows and Macintosh) featuring more encoding options, .wma support, and the ability to “borrow” tracks and albums from the iTMS before purchasing them; and iPod peripherals, perhaps featuring an add-on to allow recording directly to the iPod (touted as being aimed at students for recording classroom lectures).

Lots of fun toys coming down the pike, from the looks of it…

Meme 2: iTunes

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iTunes FoldersAnother meme that Kottke pointed out — iTunes usage methods.

How you organize your music can be as important to someone as what music they listen to. For me, with a personal CD collection currently somewhere around 1,200 discs, organization becomes extremely important. Luckly, iTunes has everything I need in order to keep track of what I have, find things easily, and discover music I hadn’t heard in a while (and at times, didn’t remember that I even had).

One of the godsends of iTunes is the “smart playlists” feature — I use smart playlists almost exclusively (they’re the purple-colored icons in the screenshot). Essentially, a smart playlist allows you to set certain criteria that determine what songs are in the playlist, which is then automatically updated by iTunes. For instance, I keep three smart playlists synced to my iPod at all times: “new additions”, “random unplayed”, and “random 1gb”.

  • Random 1Gb: the single most important playlist, for me. This randomly grabs one gigabyte’s worth of music that 1) I haven’t listened to in the past 2 months, 2) is rated three stars or above, and 3) isn’t in the “Christmas” genre. Whenever I listen to a song, it removes it from the playlist, and grabs another one. This syncs with my iPod, and as the iPod tracks what I listen to each day, the playlist is automatically updated at night when I get home from work, and in the morning just before I leave. The end result — roughly 20 hours of songs that I know I like, but haven’t heard in a few months.

  • Random Unplayed: this playlist grabs one gigabyte’s worth of music that I’ve never listened to. This comes in handy when I’m importing a lot of music (like now, as I re-import all 1200 CDs to AAC rather than .mp3) — as long as there’s something in this playlist, then I know that there’s songs that I haven’t listened to yet (either just to listen, or to check to ensure that the rip was completed successfully).

  • New Additions: this is, quite simply, any songs that have been added to my library within the last two weeks. Great for being able to explore a new album right after buying it.

Other smart playlists that come in handy: “recently played” (anything I’ve listened to in the past two weeks, handy for tracking down something I know I heard recently), “top 25 played” (a pesudo-best-of list), “top rated” (any songs rated four or five stars), and the various by-year playlists (listening by era can be quite interesting sometimes).

The only two “normal” playlists I have at the moment are one for Poems for Laila (from when I was making CDs for Prairie last weekend), and one for Sony’s excellent Soundtrack for a Century collection. Other than those two, it’s all smart playlists for me.