Mssv

The big news today is that Apple has launched its new music service. $.99 for a single track and $10 for an album. However, the folks at MetaFilter are positivery derisory of the entire scheme, even though it has almost no DRM issues (burn to CD effectively as many times as you want). What do [...]

Unlike many people at Cambridge, I don’t really visit the libraries except to pick up the odd paper that I can’t find off the web. I certainly don’t work in libraries; the atmosphere feels intolerably stifling, as if you’re being forced to work by the mere presence of dozens of your peers’ eyes upon you. [...]

“I will camp outside the BBC with a placard, saying ‘Let us do it! At least, let us have a go!’” Orbital, talking about their Doctor Who remix and their deep, unabiding desire to do the music for any future BBC Doctor Who series.

Saw four people busking with xylophones and glockenspiels in Cambridge city centre today - I think it’s been the first time for years that I’ve felt compelled to give a street performer some money. Their performance of Blue Danube was pretty damn impressive.
On another note, I have two long posts that I have in progress [...]

The soundtrack CD of Spirited Away I ordered from Play.com arrived today, and it’s wonderful. While I wouldn’t go so far as saying that I don’t like Disney songs - there are, after all, some great ones - would it really hurt them that much to make a film without a single song? If [...]

A conversation with my girlfriend from yesterday, paraphrased:
Me: “This is the Jools Holland album I bought the other day. I read an interesting review which was generally positive except about the silly piano flourishes that Jools always seems to squeeze into places where they shouldn’t be.”
Her: “Well, maybe people like him for the silly piano [...]

I have a serious aversion to buying music; I’ll readily admit that I get the vast majority of my music from the Internet (without paying, obviously). Over the past few weeks, that’s changed considerably.
Part of the reason is that I’m at home and it takes longer to download high quality mp3s. Also, with the demise [...]

It just occurred to me that there must be an entire generation of kids (they’re probably adults now) who only know Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite, and other classical works, by their use on Lemmings. There don’t seem to be that many games using classical music these days, although I have to admit that I probably wouldn’t [...]

My theme tune for Metafilter (sorry Gilbert and Sullivan!)

While I was working at UC San Diego earlier this summer, I’d often hear some music (country style, usually) wafting over the trees as I was walking home. For about a month, I never really had any idea where it was coming from - I assumed that it was maybe from the bar or the [...]