Ed Batista

Hank Mobley: Soul Station

Hank Mobley was an outstanding but under-appreciated tenor saxman.  I knew him as a sideman with Art Blakey, Lee Morgan, and Miles, but had never heard any of his sessions as a bandleader.  Then I got Soul Station for Amy this Christmas.  Damn, this is an amazing album.  As the only horn in the (relatively rare) quartet, Mobley shines, but he does so in an understated way--no superfluous flash, just solid brilliance.

Mobley reminds me a little of Dexter Gordon here, but while Gordon found a way to keep going after jazz receded from popular consciousness, Mobley seems to have faded away, recording just two albums in the '70s.  He apparently died in obscurity in '86, and he deserves better--check out his catalog.

(Speaking of which, I just came across the Jazz Discography Project, an incredible resource lovingly maintained by Nobuaki Togashi, Kohji 'Shaolin' Matsubayashi, Masayuki Hatta.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.)

tags: jazz hank mobley soul station jazz discography

I'm Telling You for the Last Time

Having said some nice things about Last.fm lately, I've been disappointed to find their system down at least twice in the past few days--as I write this, it's been down all evening.  Given that all they do is keep track of the songs I play on iTunes, I'm a lot more disappointed than you'd expect.  I'm pretty pissed, actually.  What gives?

There's an interesting dynamic at work here.  When we begin to capture our attention data, like my iTunes playlist, we unlock its potential value.  Not monetary value--I'm not getting a dime from Last--but the inherent value in seeing for ourselves and showing others what we're paying attention to.  And the great thing about an attention service like Last is that value is created while we're busy going about our ordinary activities, like listening to music.  But when the service goes down, and we realize that our attention data is no longer being captured, we feel the absence of the value that's no longer being created.  Even though the actual experience is unchanged--I'm listening to Dirty Three right now--the meta-experience is gone.

And when it's a dynamic stream of attention data that can change dramatically in a short period of time--like the music I listen to--then uptime becomes very important, because you never know when a unique burst of attention data is going to come down the pipe.  I spent a recent evening listening to a lot of old Naked Raygun.  The next morning I realized that Last had been down the previous night, and I was annoyed because data that I assumed was being captured was gone; a meta-experience that I thought I was having didn't actually occur.

Two lessons here: First, if you're an attention service like Last, get your act together.  Once users begin to think of your service as something more than a science project (to quote Steve Gillmor), they're going to have a very low tolerance for downtime.

And second, if you're a user who really values your attention, you're probably going to want to roll your own attention service at some point.  In an RSS world, Last isn't doing anything that I shouldn't be able to do for myself, and sooner or later some geek is going to show non-techies like me how to turn my iTunes playlist into a feed that I control, without relying on a third party.

tags: Last.fm attention attentiontrust

Airport Express on Windows XP

I received an Airport Express as an early Christmas present from my Mom today.  (Thanks, Mom!)  According to Apple, even benighted Windows users such as myself can use this handy device to play iTunes through a home stereo, as a wireless access point, or as a print server.  All I wanted was to wirelessly connect my iTunes library to my home stereo, and that's certainly possible--I'm listening to Clifford Brown and Max Roach as I write this--but easy?  Well, not so much.  Assuming you can get the Airport Express connected to your stereo on your own, here's what you have to do to be able to play iTunes via your wireless network:

First, I'll admit that I made things harder on myself by my refusal to "upgrade" to XP Service Pack 2.  I tend to think that "SP" stands for "Satan's Playground," and I'm sticking with SP 1, thanks very much.  However, that means that I had to jump through some additional hoops to get the Airport Express to work.  If SP 2 works for you, I suspect you'll have an easier time of it.

Second, to allow my Win XP SP 1 machine to even see the Airport Express, I had to open Port 5353.  If I'm mucking about with "ports" I'm in far over my head, but it was too late to quit.  Thank the Lord for some UK outfit called iFelix--just follow their instructions.  (Note that iFelix has an extensive Airport configuration FAQ.  Good stuff, better than Apple's.)

Third, now that you can see the Airport Express, use the surprisingly crappy Airport Admin Utility (which comes on the install CD) to enable AirTunes on the device.  (Given that this function is a centerpiece of their Airport Express marketing materials, one might think that Apple would enable this function from the get-go...but one would be wrong.)  After opening the Utility, select your device, click "Configure," go to the "Music" tab, and check "Enable AirTunes on this base station" AND "Enable AirTunes over Ethernet".  Click Update and OK out.

Fourth, open iTunes and go to Edit > Preferences > Advanced, and select "Look for remote speakers connected with AirTunes".  Close and re-open iTunes, and you should see a new menu box in the lower right corner of the screen that will allow you to toggle between your computer's speakers and your Airport Express.

So far, so good.  I can use the iTunes interface, I can fit more music on the laptop, and no more trudging across the room--one small step for man, one giant leap for couch potatoes.

UPDATE: In the comments Mark McDonald links to what looks to be very handy step-by-step documentation for setting up an Airport Express on Windows XP.  Thanks, Mark!

 

tags: airport express itunes ifelix

 

Last.fm: Attention Data in Action

Last.fm is one of my favorite "attention data" use cases.  After installing their plugin, your iTunes playlist metadata is shared with Last, which creates a set of charts that depict your listening habits, a list of recommended listens and reads, and a musical "neighborhood" filled with people who share your tastes.

One of the uses for attention data that I often discuss when describing AttentionTrust is getting connected with people who share your tastes via a system that can parse your mutually shared data, and that's precisely what your Last.fm neighborhood does.

Here are the 20 musical artists I've listened to most frequently as of Dec. 20th.  (It's actually the top 21, just so I could include a reference to Haywood.)

And here are the top 20 overall artists for my closest Last.fm neighbor:

We share four artists in our top 20 (Jets to Brazil, Mission of Burma, Pavement and Paul Westerberg), and I know you'd find a lot more if you explored our charts further.  So who's the guy with such good taste?  My brother.

I mentioned Last to him over the summer, and he installed the plugin.  I forgot he was using it until a few weeks ago, when I was checking out my Last neighborhood and saw him hanging out among my musical compadres.  I didn't need Last to tell me that my brother and I like the same music, but I was surprised that our tastes were so similar.  Attention data: bringing families together since 2005.

tags: attention attentiontrust last.fm

The LeeVees

Thanks to All Songs Considered's 2005 Holiday Show, I'm obsessed with the LeeVees' "Applesauce Vs. Sour Cream":

Applesauce versus sour cream
Applesauce or sour cream
It’s the choice you’re gonna have to make
Which to put on your potato cakes

Applesauce versus sour cream
Applesauce or sour cream, now
It’s the choice you’re gonna have to make
Tell your mom to fry not bake, now

Life has many decisions
It moves in all directions
This is just one huge, enormous, big decision
You have to make
You have to make it

(Alright, listen up)
One has fruit
And one has milk
If you’re lactose-intolerant, then take a pill, now
It’s the choice you’re gonna have to make
The grease is startin’ to coagulate

Your lawyer called, said everything’s fine
Potato contracts have been signed, yeah
I think your heart just skipped a beat
You can’t wait for your greasy treat, now

Life has many decisions
It moves in all directions
This is just one huge, enormous, big decision
(You have to make)
You have to make it
(You must decide)

Da da da dum
Da da da dum
Da da da dum dum da da dum

Da da da dum
Da da da dum
Da da da dum

You have to make
You have to make it
Jews have to make

Listen up at All Songs Considered (RealPlayer required--ugh) or just buy it at iTunes.  Best pop-punk Hanukkah song I've heard in many a year.

tags: leevees hanukkah chanukkah latkes

Rilo Kiley

I heard a snippet of a song from Rilo Kiley's The Execution of All Things a few months ago and it really grabbed me.  I must have put it on my wishlist, because lo and behold it recently turned up in a stack of birthday presents from my baby.  And it kicks ass.

Musically eclectic, lyrically intense, they're a hard band to pin down.  (Yes, "they."  No idea what the name means, but the woman with the beautiful, hard-edged voice is Jenny Lewis, not Rilo.)  Sometimes they remind me a bit of Stephen Malkmus' post-Pavement output, sometimes they're much more folk-y and jangly.  But just when you take them a little lightly, they hit you upside the head.  From the title cut:

Oh god come quickly, for the execution of all things.  Let's start with the bears and the air and then mountains, rivers and streams.  Then we'll murder what matters to you and move on to your neighbors and kids.  Crush all hopes of happiness and disease 'cause of what you did.

Phew.

rilo kiley

A Lab Rat In My Own Experiment

I recently summarized Seth Goldstein's epic series of essays on  the tantalizing prospects of applications and business models powered by user-generated metadata.  Well, just a few days earlier I also posted elsewhere, about Audioscrobbler, which is...wait for it...an (actual) application and (potential) business model powered by user-generated metadata.  Took me a few days to make the connection, but I finally got there.

In their own words, Audioscrobbler...

...builds a profile of your musical taste using a plugin for your media player (Winamp, iTunes, XMMS etc..). Plugins send the name of every song you play to the Audioscrobbler server, which updates your musical profile with the new song. Every person with a plugin has their own page on this site which shows their listening statistics. The system automatically matches you to people with a similar music taste, and generates personalised recommendations.

I kept iTunes running on shuffle for a week to build up a profile and see what happens.  Here's a look at my Top Artists at 1,011 songs.  So let's apply Goldstein's aaaaanalytical framework to Audioscrobbler:

Where Have You Been All My Life?

I picked up a 1 GB iPod Shuffle almost on a whim this weekend.  Lord knows I love my 20 GB model to death, but it's a little too heavy for a shirt pocket or for exercising, it's expensive enough that I worry about dropping it or losing it, and the battery life isn't really that great.  (Yes, I know I'm spoiled.  Don't blame me--blame Steve Jobs and his army of engineering nerds toiling under the watchful eyes of their designer overlords.)  Enter the Shuffle.

I had no idea I'd love it as much as I do.  Light as a feather, drop-proof (all Flash memory--no moving parts), not exactly cheap--but a good sight cheaper than the 20 GB, and 12 long hours of battery life = digital music nirvana.  Then factor in 1) the absence of any chargers or other crap to lug around (it charges when it's plugged into a USB drive on an iTunes equipped computer), and 2) the 330+ songs I was able to cram onto mine, and I am truly in love.  It's pathetic.

My only mod has been to etch cross-hatchings in the on-off switch to make it easier to slide.  It's a little too slick as is and required too much pressure to toggle.  Otherwise, the damn thing is perfect.

UPDATE: iPodLounge has a great Shuffle tutorial.  Best tip: "When listening to a playlist in shuffle mode, press Play three times quickly to re-randomize the play order."

ipod ipod shuffle

Haywood Redux

The mystery is solved.  Haywood's very own Ted Pauly has dropped in to explain why his late, much-lamented band mentioned my obscure hometown, Mechanicsburg, PA, in their memorial site's "thank you" section:

We played one wonderful poorly (nearly un-) attended show at some giant empty hall-ish space (teen dance club) in Mechanicsburg in the late-early-nineties. I think the show was put together by the guys who ran proteen records. When we put together our thank you list, we tried to remember every good thing that ever happened to us, which included that jaunt to M'burg.

(Don't ask me how he found this even-more-obscure corner of the web.  I'm running into so many interesting people through my blogs these days that I only occasionally stop to wonder at the interconnectedness of it all.)

The only thing better than a solved mystery would be...two new Haywood songs.  Download "A Pair of Tragic Kites" and get "Mermaid" on Music for Robots, Volume One, a limited-edition CD from the site of the same name.  And that's just the tip of the iceberg, according to Ted:

We recently got back together to record some stuff, some of which is actually good(!)  In spite of the whole anti-climactic un-break-up-to-break-up style, we're going to try to release it all somehow some time.  That'll definitely be it until I tour under the name when I hit fifty, lining up some lifeless session players to replace the rest of the band.

Ted, I'm sure your old bandmates will understand.  Perhaps they could strike out on their own, a la Creedence Clearwater Revisited, and we'll have dueling Haywoods criss-crossing the country in 2025.  Life could be worse.

Many thanks to Ted for stopping by this humble online outpost, and to everyone who had a hand in bringing Haywood to life.  Until they see fit to release the rest of their recent output, show off your good taste: buy the MFR compilation or their back-catalog classics, We Are Amateurs, You And I and Men Called Him Mister.

haywood

Audioscrobbler

In their own words, Audioscrobbler...

...builds a profile of your musical taste using a plugin for your media player (Winamp, iTunes, XMMS etc..). Plugins send the name of every song you play to the Audioscrobbler server, which updates your musical profile with the new song. Every person with a plugin has their own page on this site which shows their listening statistics. The system automatically matches you to people with a similar music taste, and generates personalised recommendations.

I just started using it, so my profile's pretty skimpy at the moment--but I'm just going to let iTunes shuffle my 2,226 song "Alt, Punk, Pop & Rock" playlist for a few days on end and see what happens.  Check out my Audioscrobbler page to watch my profile evolve.  Once I get over 100 songs in my profile, Audioscrobble promises to find users with similar tastes and put them in my "neighborhood," so I can look over their profiles

Also cool--and requiring no registration--is their Explore Music feature.  Type in the name of a band to see a list of associated bands (determined by the frequency with which Audioscrobbler users listen to both.)  For example, here are the top 25 bands on today's list for Interpol (based on results from 60,107 people):

Audioscrobbler doesn't make this explicit, but I'm interpreting the chart as saying that 100% of the people who listen to Wilco and the White Stripes also listen to Wilco, 74% of the people who listen to the Fiery Furnaces also listen to Interpol, etc.  In contrast to this data, when I go to Interpol's page on Amazon right now, the list of "similar artists" is:

• The Cure
• Franz Ferdinand
• The Postal Service
• Air
• Death Cab for Cutie

None of which are in the Audioscrobbler list above, or even in the complete list of 100 bands Audioscrobbler associates with Interpol. Hmmm.  We'll see if anything useful or interesting comes out of this, but it's sure seems kewl.