Top of -year- to you.

{ 08/01/2010 @ 15:21 } · { Music, Music Albums }
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No really, Top of the year to you.

I suppose after reading through a bunch of list of top albums I would do my own. so yea. here it is.

Marcy Playground – Leaving Wonderland… in a fit of rage
Name sound a bit familiar? Probably because you’ve heard their song ‘Sex and Candy.’ Despite only having one hit song, this band is far from being a One Hit Wonder. Anyways, this album came as a total surprise to me. In fact, I found out about the album, after I saw a poster for their show at the Horseshoe. I flipped out. I mean, I never really knew they had more than two albums. Then I checked out this album, and loved it. The interesting thing here though, you can feel the pain. You can hear how Wozniak has gone through some stuff. If I recall Woz, said that the original plan was to release this as a solo album, but as it was coming together it sounded and felt more like a Marcy record. It was pretty awesome to see them live. But as for this album, I loved it. I will keep listening to this album for a long time to come. Favourites on this album would be definitely be ‘Memphis’ or ‘Down the Drain.’
Eyedea and Abilities – By The Throat
I heard alot of little stories about how awesomely awesome this duo was. And finally their album was availble for pre-order off of Fifth Element Online. I pre-ordered. I was not disappointed. The problem here, I can’t really explain what kind of music this actually is. I guess it would fall under trip-hop, but who knows. Favourite songs: ‘Burn Fetish’ and ‘Time Flies When You Have A Gun.’
Brite Lite Brite – Universe Universe
This electro-pop duo hailing from Boston, has such catchy simply songs that I haven’t been able to stop listening to them. When the album opened up with “I Just Want U 2 Myself“, I have to stop and replay it. Even, doubled checked to make sure it was the right album. My friend gave this to me and said to listen to it, but didn’t tell what to expect. If he tried to describe it, I probably wouldn’t have listened to it the way I did. The overly simple lyrics caught me so off-guard because of the story behind it comes through so clearly. With another album on the way this year, I will definitely keep them on my “to watch out for” list. Another top song on the album: “Stormy Weather”
Fredrik – Na Na Ni
Ok, true the album came out in 2008. But really I don’t care, plus it only made it’s way overseas in 2009, so I found the album last year. Screw off. Either way, someone said the music reminded them of a hippie with a sun dress twirling on their tippy toes. Pretty much describes the music. I still love it none the less. Songs to watch for ‘Angora Sleepwalking’ and ‘Alina’s Place.’
Biffy Clyro – Only Revolution
While the origin of their name remains in mystery since they keep coming up with random stories, the band is not. You can hear the influences coming through each of their songs while creating their own sound. Melodic drums and varying music make this album so fun. ‘God & Satan’ as well as ‘Born on a Horse’ are my favourite songs on here.
Basement Jaxx – Scars
This is album is no ‘Rooty’, no. It’s better, way better. Seriously. Don’t expect to find songs like ‘Where’s Your Head At?’ on this album. The album is named after an experience where Felix Buxton got mugged for his bike, which he said left him scarred emotionally. I would say the album shows experience and more understanding of how to compile an album. Flowing from song to song and style to style. ‘Raindrops’ and ‘She’s No Good’
Dub FX – Everythinks A Ripple
Now’s pretty hard to peg his music into any single genre. All of his songs are made on the spot using his own voice and a loop box and an effects pedal. His album is no different, but know that if you were to see him live the music would change completely.  I still get blown away when watching the video by dowdenboy of ‘Step On My Trip.’ ‘Flow’ is also a wicked awesome song off the album. But I find his live stuff better because it’s less controlled, this album almost makes his songs “too good,” as opposed to the raw sound otherwise.
Collective Soul – Collective Soul
Otherwise known as the rabbit album, since it’s the cover of the album is a picture of, well, a rabbit. Collective Soul is a really solid band and you can hear it on this album. Their sound hasn’t change, but not in a bad way like Nickelback. Either way, can’t really say much more other than ‘Welcome All Again’ is awesome.
Crystal Method – Divided by Night
Still putting out solid electronic music for 17 years now, and still pushing the Big Beat genre to the edges. I thought for sure when I listened to this album it would finally be the end of it for me… I was wrong. Immediately drawn in with the title track “Divided by Night” and later pulled back in again with “Drown in the Now.” Then AGAIN with “Sine Language.” Love this album through and through.
Meh, anyways cheers. Next up, Best Singles which will be entirely different names and styles then up there.

Plans and Documentaries

{ 09/12/2009 @ 21:22 } · { Documentaries, Music }
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Alright, so I have decided to change my mind set for this blog. As opposed to focusing solely on music and everything oriented around SXSW, I will put forward to many things I find interesting and wish to share my thoughts and other stuff of interest. I mean seriously who doesn’t like to read?! So to start off with, a couple of documentaries that are kind of closely related to one another. At least in my mind. They all deal with music in one way or another. That’s the connection.

Krautrock

In a time where classical music and Schlager music reigned, some felt the music of their time did not correctly demonstrate the state of the country. Spawning a genre, that abstracted itself from everything, since the musicians wanted their own sound. Wanting to new make music while not replicating the explosions of genres from the states and the Britland. Then came the synthesizer… But enough discussing of the actual documentary. Many, many interviews with many of the Krautrock Pioneers. Can, Neu!, Tangerine Dream, Faust, hell, even Iggy Pop! It’s nuts.

That being said, if you want to check out any of the bands from the Krautrock genre, German Oak, would definitely be up there. Despite the fact only 11 of the original 213 pressings were actually sold during it’s time. Recently, it was re-issued, if you can, grab a copy. I guarantee you will not be disappointed.

Before the Music Dies

I came across this in my first year lecture at University of Toronto, (Roll Over, Beethoven: Music, Media and the Marketplace – Seriously take it if you have the chance to). It may be a bit dated now, but nonetheless brilliant documentary.  But to be honest I have not watched this documentary, so the details are a bit fuzzy. It does go into Clear Channel, and that I find to be the most interesting segment, by far. Seriously, a company that owns over 900 radio stations and has a net income of nearly one billion dollars. Let me say that again, Net Income of One Billion Dollars. And people wonder why the radio often sucks. If I recall it also goes into autotuning as well as songwriters versus singers.

GOOD COPY BAD COPY

Now this is a documentary, that I just rewatched. Why you ask? because I enjoy the topics it approaches. And with the band of Canadians artists that are suing some of the major labels for not paying them royalties. No small amount either, a reported six billion dollars. But seriously, since this documentary was released a couple years ago, the main thing they talk about with Pirate Bay was the raid. Other things approached in this documentary, is the Gorbuska Market in Russia, musician Girl Talk throws his two cents in, hell it even talks about the largest film produced country in the world. No not India, Nigeria. That’s right. You may not know it but there exists a Nollywood, in a country without copyright laws. Nuts, eh? Describes what Creative Commons is for those unaware that there exists something other then just straight out Copyright law. But, the best thing the documentary touches on? Danger Mouse‘s infamous The Grey Album. A mash-up of The Beatles’ White Album, and Jay-Z’s Black Album. An album you should definitely check out. But hey, cheers for now.

Yikes, been a while.

{ 07/12/2009 @ 18:03 } · { Attended Concerts, Music, SXSW }
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Not that that doesn’t mean I haven’t been writing. Been quite busy doing other things at the moment. I was taking part in NaNoWriMo, which is a “contest” in which you challenge yourself to write a 50000 word novel over the course of November. I got to about thirty thousand by week four. So yes, I failed. But that doesn’t mean I am not editing the novel down to size, and what not. I had a nice little coding contract that I got screwed over on and lost a friend over. Yes, those two are not mutually exclusive. Still working away on my little game, but may take a break and explore actual small games before hand, whilst trying out a bunch of tools. Since after I started my game, two very large and well known engine have been made available for free, with very lenient licensing agreements. Unity and UDK, both very powerful and built to put an ease on developers. Of course the other options of Ogre3d and XNA still remain. … continue reading this entry.

6 Bands, 5 T-Shirts

{ 18/11/2009 @ 17:40 } · { Merch, Music, SXSW }
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Alright so I’m lagging behind. Still working on my Second panels post, but it’s taking a while because I am doing it in a bigger chunk this time around. But since then, two other things and come spinning down the pipeline. T-shirts and the first of the confirmed bands.

First off the shirts.

So for the T-shirt of the festival they decided to make a contest, with 658 possible choices. Five have been filtered out to be the very short list of t-shirts. Those five are here. The 658 are here. All I really have to say is what the hell. Out of those five there is one that is decent… There were way better ones that should have really been re-considered. But whatever, Not truly complaining because, come on, it is still I shirt that said I went there.

But the bands. Nugh. Only six have been released. I can tell I am going to have ALOT of trouble choosing what bands to go and see. I want to see bands I haven’t seen before but also ones I have seen before that have awesome shows. I also want to cross and cover different genres. So far on the list, bands I have seen and want to check out again. The Temper Trap, were awesome when I caught their show at the Horseshoe when really I was only there to catch Cut Throat Britva. Then of course JAPANDROIDS. Always fun. But for the other four left. I really want to check out The Hong Kong Blood Opera. I can’t really explain their music, punk I guess would be closest but this band from Mexico should be awesome live. Sounds like they would be awesome live. And I friend of my from the UK says that I should definitely check out CHEW LiPS. This should be pretty awesome week since I am already going nuts. Definitely hoping to see some more Canadian bands down there, but I will definitely take anything I can get. Because I know it will be five days of good music no matter what.

Panels Part One, #-B

{ 12/11/2009 @ 19:43 } · { Interactive, SXSW }
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Alright so, they added a whole of new panels as I was writing the first post of the possible panels I will attend. I looked at the new list, and scrolled. There are now close to 200 panels. Going through them one by one will be chaos, and even more so trying to post all the ones I am interested in on the same post. Chaos I tell you. First off, while not a panel I can definitely say that I will be trying as hard as possible to get into the Keynote by Daniel Ek, CEO and Co-founder of Spotify. Most of you don’t know what Spotify is and with pretty good reason since it is not available in Canada as of yet, well unless you plan on paying £9.99 a month, which is pretty good for what it offers, but not really my style. Of course the other option is to proxy login then you get 14 days of roaming but seriously? </effort> But really, an awesome service though not really the greatest for most of the music I listen to. Also, it is very apparent that there is going to be ALOT of panels where Twitter will come up alot. Seriously the first three all mention twitter in their descriptions. Also speaking of Twitter, I will definitely be having updates via @rxzr. Keep in mind, I am skimming the already short panel descriptions and could totally have misunderstood a panel.

ActivityStrea.ms: Is It Getting Streamy In Here?

This, I believe, will be a interesting panel because I am really torn between this idea. Having multiple sites all update with the same thing at the same time. Sure there are plenty of plug-ins, add-ons and webapps that already do exactly this, but this is coming from a similar approach as OpenID. Cross-website updates using, from what I assume, a cross-website log-in, meaning you log in with your OpenID, and if you update your status on one site, all of your sites will be updated.

AI 2010: Wall-e Or Rise Of The Machines?

This is absolutely one of the panels I will be attending. I am honestly scared shitless of the idea, let alone the implementation, of artificial intelligence. Whether or not people know, there is plenty of AI already implemented around the internet. Sure they are no terminators, but there are around. Examples including, content recommendation engines, and E.A.T.R. Then of course there is ever approaching winner of the Turing Test/Loebner Prize. In 2008, one of the chatterbots, succeeding in fooling 3 of the 12 judges. This combined with something like the Boston Dynamics robots, yikes. While their BIGDOG is neat, their PETMAN. Creepy. Though as long as Asimov’s laws are implemented and can not be worked around then I suppose it would be fine. Doesn’t stop me from getting nightmares.

ANYONE Can Create a Video Game!

Need I really explain why I am interested in this one? I’m in computer science and currently working on a game. Though it should be interesting nonetheless, since alot the things proposed are things I already have an idea about, such as “How do you bring in new creators and players to the community and keep them engaged?” Since I currently anticipate every blog post from the overly awesome guys at Wolfire Games, (yes, that was a totally unsolicited advertisement for those guys, but they totally deserve it), it seems like a good idea worth copying.

ARGs and Women: Moving Beyond the Hot Brunette

Even though I am young and that Metroid is actually old than I am, doesn’t change the fact that it still blew the norm away when upon beating the game, Samus removes her suit. That would be about the moment when you realize the protagonist you had been controlling for the excessive amount of hours was actually a female. Sadly though, bikini clad. Still to this day, it seems that every female lead needs to be attractive and wearing little to no clothing. Though the reason why I am interested in this panel falls mostly to the one question, “Why do gender roles in games matter, anyway?” Because this is true, why do they matter? I find it odd that game are more and more allowing the user to choose what gender to be, though leaving the choices to be male or female. This is something I have been thinking about profusely for my game. I mean I don’t want to force the user to be any gender, but for the story the protagonist would need some form of a gender. I think my plan to not reveal the gender what so ever. Anyways, not really important right now.

The Art & Science of Seductive Interactions

This would definitely be an interesting panel to attend, but really can’t formulate an idea based on it. So more or less just writing it here so I maybe come back and write more on it.

Artists, Labels Embrace Virtual Worlds

Music 2.0. I term I despise more than Web 2.0. It is weird to see how slow the majors are adapting the online database. There is a reason why songs are so expensive and terrible quality on iTunes. Nobody else why doing anything similar at the time. And therefore Apple was able to choose pricing, quality and even DRM. Would you trust a grocery store to determine the health and safety regulations? Maybe that’s a little extremely but that is how I feel. Of course now, they offer only DRM-free songs though still in a slightly lower quality than I would want at 256kbits. Sigh.

Battledecks

’nuff said.

Become Immortal: Understanding the Digital After Life

This is something that is becoming increasing prevalent, and raises a question that should be asked, but maybe not answered. When one dies, what should become of their facebook/twitter/flikr/etc. profiles? Remain preserved until those sites go down, or until the accounts are considered inactive?

Beyond Scifi: Design For Surfaces and Big Screens

On the bleeding edge of new technology is multi-gesture, multi-input, multi-whateveryouwant as long as it is innovative. The Nintendo Wii introduced three dimensional gaming, Microsoft Surface turns a table into a multi-touch computer. But still no Minority Report style computers.

The Birth of Eye-Def Acting

I more or less am interested in attending this panel just to hear the answer of “How close are we already to rendering a “virtual” actor in real-time in perfect, lifelike detail?” Because life-like landscapes can be rendered in less than 4 hours now. The Intel Larrabee which when finalized will be able to do live ray tracing, which would be flooring if they actually succeed. Depending on how well it does, it could mean seeing these Eye-Def Acting in practice by the end of next year.

A Brave New Future for Book Publishing

Ah books. My good friends, how I fear your departure from this world. Discussing how books are the last medium to embrace the digital world. Now I have read some books online and I can’t stand it. I love the feel of paper flipping through my fingers, the ache of my hands as they hold open the pages of the book. If they disappear a part of me will be gone forever. I mean I have drawers full of books. That’s right I have run out of shelf space that I have filled drawers with books.  But if publishers are to change their model, the model to adopt would be Lulu‘s. Of course the description also mentions other companies that I think would be interesting to hear about. It seems The Book Oven creates a community that can help you with your book, as in editors, publishers. At least that what I understood from glancing over the website.

And that’s it. #-B. Out of 25 panels, there are 11 that I am interested in. Plus a keynote I want to attend. See there is a reason why I am approaching these panels in November. Because after the Panels are done being announced there are also Movies and Music that gets announced. Plus on top of those three there is Screen Burn.

Ten Days in Texas?

{ 07/11/2009 @ 22:58 } · { SXSW }
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Alright, hello readers.

I figured since I have been blessed with having received a Platinum Pass for SXSW 2010 I figured the least I could do was share with people how are interested my experienced. Those wondering what it’s all about, or have heard about it. Feel free to read and comment, or even suggest people to see/places to go while I am in Austin.

So why “Ten Days in Texas?” Simple enough, that’s how long SXSW is. Ten days. March 12th to the 21st.

The saga of how this started probably comes from me attending NXNE 2009, and I had a super blast. I saw so many new bands and ones I have been meaning to see for a long time. Actually, going to NXNE has allowed me to get over the slight fear of going to music venues by my lonesome to see one of the greatest things life can offer. Live music.

However, getting back to the SXSW story. On October 20th, I received an e-mail from a E-card website telling my mom has sent me a card. At the time of receiving it though, I was out at the Temper Trap concert so I merely glanced at it on my Blackberry. Finally getting home later on that night, I remembered to check my email again and open the card. It was really only the little poem that my mom wrote, copy and pasted here for people to read.

To my most amazing sons…. From your (not so) Secret Santa…,

Sometimes Santa comes early
To save a buck or two
So when she does, kids must be warned
So then they know what to do…
Soon the Secret Santa’s
secret strategy will appear
So when it does, I hope it works
It won’t be returnable I fear
It’s not about all
It’s all about some
This soon will all make sense
So make it work and if it really sucks
I’ll accept your excitement pretense…
Merry Christmas kids, translation to follow!!! XO

Love,
Mom

Yeah, I really didn’t understand much, expect that my mom had already bought me and my brother a Christmas present and that we would be receiving it soon.

The answer came about a day later when I received a confirmation e-mail from SXSW. I flipped out. Reservedly of course though. I told my friend who half convinced me to attend NXNE in the first place, and told me a lot of the bands to see. He first asked if he could come along, then followed it by you better not sleep. It was then that it hit me, I probably won’t sleep. And that even though SXSW was still accepting entries for movies and music, the preliminary list of interactive panels was alreadyavailable, and that I should probably start planning what to check out.

Also, I realize that my brother will be there, but I honestly don’t know if I will even see him. I plan on attend all ten days, but really have yet to talk with him about his plans. I think that is pretty good for an inaugural post. I mean sure the English isn’t the greatest but it puts up a little background, and I can put the panels I may possibly attend in a separate post.

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