Shannon O’Neill

Hello to Flawless Imperfection, the young Canadian electronica artist whose work I stumbled upon while watching The Lab with Leo. I liked what I heard and tried to send you a message via MySpace, but that website is so fucking useless that I gave up after 20 mins of frustration.

Hopefully the magic of Google will lead you or someone you know to this blog post and you’ll get in touch. I’d love to hear more of yr music!

One of the better Web2.0 sites is now pwned by the RIAA.

BBC reports:

Music site Last.fm bought by CBS

Social music site Last.fm has been bought by US media giant CBS Corporation for $280m (£140m), the largest-ever UK Web 2.0 acquisition.

The online network was founded in the UK five years ago and it now has more than 15 million active users.

It allows users to connect with other listeners with similar music tastes, to custom-build their own radio stations and to watch music video-clips.

Last.fm founding member Martin Stiksel said it was an “exciting opportunity”.

As part of the deal, Last.fm’s managing team will remain in place and the site will maintain its own separate identity.

Mr Stiksel said: “This move will really support us to get every track ever recorded and every music video ever made onto Last.fm.

“With a strong partner like CBS, this is now within our reach.”

Dot.com boom

CBS Corporation has business interests in TV, web and radio.

CBS radio is the largest radio group in the United States, with 179 stations in the top 50 markets covering news, rock, country and urban music.

The firm’s president and CEO Leslie Moonves said: “Last.fm is one of the fastest growing online communities out there.”

He said Last.fm’s strength in building communities around music and syndicating content was “central to CBS”.

He added: “Their demographics also play perfectly to CBS’s goal to attract younger viewers and listeners across our businesses.”

Hmmm.

CBS is not the first major player to purchase up-and-coming websites for millions or even billions of dollars, prompting what some have called the second dot.com boom.

In 2005 Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp snapped up social networking site MySpace for $580m (£290m). And last year, search engine Google paid $1.65bn (£883m) for video site YouTube.

Mr Stiksel said Last.fm would retain an independent identity.

He said CBS was buying “great technology and a very vibrant, active community”.

“They want to move from a content company to an audience company giving the audiences control and learning from this and that’s why Last.fm was their choice,” he added.

Mr Stiksel said he did not think that users would feel disappointed that a mainstream media firm had bought the site.

Cognitive dissonance?

“When we said revolution we mean that - we put the users in charge. CBS gets this.

“They understand that consuming media is changing, the patterns are changing.”

Online network

As part of the acquisition, the Last.fm management team, including founders Felix Miller, Martin Stiksel and Richard Jones, will continue to independently run the online network

Mr Stiksel said the deal proved that Web 2.0 companies did not have to be in the United States to succeed.

“Being in London has helped us; it’s the best place to do things with music full stop. It’s the place that leads the world.”

London is not the centre of the universe.

The three founders will now be among the most successful - and potentially wealthy - Web 2.0 pioneers in the world.

Getting rich from the volunteer labour of users: that’s Web2.0.

Mr Stiksel said: “The success of the site is the most important thing. With a strong partner we can add the features we always dreamed about.”
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/technology/6701863.stm

Published: 2007/05/30 10:55:20 GMT

© BBC MMVII

Very tempted to pull all of my stuff from Last.fm and close my account. I’ll be keeping a close eye on how this ‘partnership’ develops.

“Pray for rain.”

Yep, that’ll fix it!

After hearing about them everywhere in recent months I finally checked out the music of Death Cab for Cutie and The Postal Service, two projects of American indie singer/songwriter Ben Gibbard.

Both bands have similar songs, with a tendency for bittersweet lyrics and melodies, but whereas Death Cab is an indie rock band that has been active since the mid 90s, Postal is a more recent collaboration with electronic music producer Jimmy Tamborello aka Dntel.

I listened to nearly all of their recordings. They’re very enjoyable and catchy (especially the recent albums) albeit somewhat innocuous. And I watched their videos, including the Death Cab tour film Drive Well, Sleep Carefully which like most rockumentaries isn’t very good, but worth a look if you like the music.

Then a funny thing happened. For the next few days my mind started creating Gibbard-style tunes. There were several of them, a few of which I imagined being good enough to record. I soon forgot most of them but managed to record one using software. The results were disappointing, which reminded me that pop music is as much about the sound as the song, and I’m not setup for making pop sounds at the moment (although I’m well sorted for experimental music!).

One of the keys to Gibbard’s music is his voice, which really is the perfect American indiepop nerdboy voice, with a pure, vibratoless tone. (Although his singing is much less convincing live (on the videos I’ve seen) which is OK when he’s among fans, but really not very good on TV show appearances.)

Death Cab for Cutie - Ben Gibbard, second from left

I still don’t have the confidence to record my singing with any conviction (I’ll occasionally sing a part as a way of sketching it before replacing it with another sound). I really believe I could, but need to get over the fear - of my music snob friends laughing at me as much as of just not being very good. Maybe some lessons would help me get over that hurdle. Likewise with guitar.

Not that I want to emulate Gibbard’s music - that was just an exercise, as I wanted to do something with those tunes that were popping into my head. If I actually developed any of them I’m sure they’d mutate into something quite different. But the experience did reinforce my ongoing urge to do some sort of vocal/song project. I’m just not sure of the best way to approach it. I guess the easiest way would be to start as a solo electronic project, that way I wouldn’t have to show it to anyone until I was happy with it. But it would be nice to have collaborators…

The thing is that although I love a lot of indie music I’m not into the indie scene at all. The Broken Social Scene gig that I went to recently was great musically, but I found the majority of the audience incredibly annoying. I’m much more at home in my experimental music ghetto.

But I’ve been listening to so much indie lately (I blame Last.fm) that it’s beginning to affect me. The other day I found myself wearing a short sleeve t shirt over a long sleeve t shirt! And I even dug out my old Chuck Taylors which I hadn’t worn since the 80s, but the rubber had turned to chalk. I went online and discovered to my delight that Converse now make them in black monochrome! I almost bought them until I discovered that they charge about 50 bucks for postage, and they won’t deliver to P.O. boxes (what’s up with that?).

What’s happening to me?? I hope I’m not becoming a grup! Nah, it’s probably just a phase I’m going through…

Bettered by the borrower - copyrights and music composition

Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project

Famous Cannabis Users

Google Idol

THE MARRIAGE OF CADMUS AND HARMONY FOR CHILDS

The Mercury Theatre on the Air

Nyet

sCrAmBlEd?HaCkZ! (awesome software!)

SONY admits that CD/44.1PCM is inferior

Stagg Chili Recipes

Video Downloader

xTal - free mp3 DJ VSTi plugin

Zaatar Mix

is the in thing this week, apparently.

I won’t be joining unless I eventually succumb to peer pressure. I don’t want people to know about every piece of music I listen to! What happened to privacy?

And I already have too much music to listen to without needing yet another source of ‘recommendations’.

Just woke up, made a cup of tea and switched on the tv news, as is my morning routine.

First story about violence at Bondi saw NSW Opposition (Liberal) Leader Peter Debnam complaining yet again about “Middle Eastern thugs”, clearly and cynically inciting racial hatred.

Next story was Donald Rumsfeld boasting of the success of American psyops in Iraq ie the deliberate corruption of the Iraqi media to serve US propaganda.

Now, I don’t identify as left wing (although on the political compass, I’m supposedly an extreme left-libertarian) but I sure as hell will never sympathise with the right while these disgusting people are its representatives.

Another pic from the Sydney Big Day Out by Mr Walker. Fucking frightening. I’m glad I didn’t go to the BDO this year. I’ll be glad if I never go again.

Just received a strange email:

The following is from an unnamed Sydney musician…

I compiled some of my fave quotes from the bio page:

“Sydney-based musician and sound artist working with
whatever comes to hand” aren’t we all?
“He has made his own unique mark on the art-world
while never pandering to its politics” he was always a
wanker but now he actually belives his own crap, why
can’t he die instead of Derek Bailey?
“… he creates an ambiguous and beguiling sound world
” …poor deluded cunt
“… the most intellegent human being to ever play a
turntable ” they couldn’t spell intelligent right
“the most important musician in Sydney” - poor Matt,
the Dim Jenley curse….
“Media artist who works across music, radio,
Internet, film/video and installation” he’s a nice
bloke, well meaning, this sounds like an arts grant application

The last bit refers to me. Looks like I got off lightly!

(Yeah my bio is bland, but I hate writing bios (that one has been recycled (too) many times). Anyone want to write one for me?)

Scene politics, eh? ;)

this year has had a cumulative *weight*, culminating in recent events in sydney (and the blogosphere, etc.) which all but silenced me.

i almost deleted this blog a few days ago, feeling that i have nothing to say, especially when everyone else seems to be saying so much. listening is what i do best, but the relentless cacophony can be overwhelming. in such circumstances it is normal for me to retreat into my own private space.

but today feels relatively peaceful. the sun is shining and there is a cool breeze. i’ll be spending the evening with dear friends with whom i always have great conversation. perhaps my voice is returning…