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Archives for 2007

Staff Recommendations January 7th 2007

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Bryce Jacobson
Its still that time of year where new releases are scarce but thats doesn’t mean its time to sit around and wait.

Music – Check out Anberlin’s new single as well as a new non-album track on iTunes.

Games – If your not playing Gears of War then you are missing out.

Geekness – Apple will be having their annual Macworld conference this week with a Keynote address from Steve Jobs on Tuesday. Will we see an Apple branded cell phone and other gadget goodies? Just check Apple’s website Tuesday afternoon for all the their new goods.

Podcasts – This week is a good week for Podcasts, check out Diggnation, MacBreak MacBreak Weekly and TWiT who will all be at MacWorld covering the event. And check out DL.TV for some great coverage on CES.

Tyler Hayes

I’m going to comment on and critique Bryce’s recommendations, because well, thats what I feel like doing.

Music: I too like Anberlin’s new track but I have a feeling that the rest of the album will be better than “Godspeed” although like I said I do really like it.

Games: Contrary to gears of war, I recommend everyone go out and buy a Nintendo Wii. I recently got one and it’s everything it should be.

we’ll call this Technology not geekness: With CES and Macworld the same week, I think theres bound to be alot of new products announced. However I don’t think we will see the oh so rumored about “iPhone”.

Valida Prentice
Music – Foreign-language pop-rock anyone?Ԛ  Check out Juli’s (German) latest album Ein neuer Tag – from what I’ve heard of it so far, the lead singer sounds a whole lot less like Alannis Morissette than she did on the past album.Ԛ  C’mon their band name is a month and their music is full of time markers – you gotta love ’em, haha! If you want more German goodness, be sure to take a listen to Silbermond.Ԛ  I played a song for my best friend (a rude girl) and her boyfriend (who listens to nearly everything covered on this site – Anberlin, Underoath, etc) and they both loved it.Ԛ  He loved it enough to go see a concert of theirs in Austria (well, he was already in Austria; it wasn’t a special transatlantic trip!)Ԛ  For Spanish lovers, simple old El Sueño de Morfeo is great as well as El Canto del Loco.Ԛ  If you want something more eclectic try Ojos de Brujo.

Games – I just got back from Europe a few days ago and I tried the Wii my first night back.Ԛ  It was pretty nice, so I’ll recommend it as well.

Article #2 – DRM

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DRM is the same thing as the record labels and some content providers saying “I’m Scared”. DRM (the cute way of saying Digital rights management) locks Music, movies, and any other type of content to a specific way of using it. An example of this would be buying a song from itunes but not being able to play the song without an iPod or the itunes media player. Another example would be Microsoft’s Playsforsure. The clever name is not very descriptive though because Playsforsure DRM does not work with every mp3 player (ex. Microsoft’s own Zune).

The internet tubes are filled with anti-DRM propaganda, and so I will spare you all the reasons that DRM is evil because at the end of the day it does that on its own. Rather Iâ┚¬Ã¢”ž¢d like to spend a few minutes going over the opposite, and all the positive things about DRM free content.

The Compact Disc was such a great way to deliver music to a paying customer. I say was because in the age of downloads, the CD appears to be one the way out. However if I were the record companies I would be pushing CD’s now more than ever. CD’s are a way they can still feel safe and people can then do use the content they purchased to listen it in whichever way they prefer. My temporary suggestion to the dilemma that people run into would be “The Ten Dollar CD”. $10 seems to me to be a sweet spot, so why not suck in a little bit of the greed [record labels] and sell every CD for ten bucks?

I know I would seem to be trying to hold on to the past. With 13 billion songs (or whatever the number) sold on itunes, the general public looks to be saying that they want the convenience of buying songs online. It’s funny I use the word convenience because owning a song that you have to go through many illegal steps to get it to play where you want it to is not convenient. The opposite of DRM is freedom right? Well what’s the opposite of downloading a song? I guess the closest thing would be going to the store and buying a CD. As of right now there’s only one or the other. You can’t have freedom in a download. So what is the answer? I guess it’s to buy a CD, or download from the DRM free Emusic.com, or listen to the radio, or give up music. The answer is not Digital Rights Management.

 

Just a few bands and labels you’ll
find on www.Emusic.com

-Vagrant Records
-The Militia Group
-Doghouse Records

-Sufjan Stevens
-Dashboard Confessional
-MxPx
-Copeland

There is also www.downloadpunk.com
which is in the business of non-DRM mp3’s

More Links where you can find more info about DRM and alternatives

Defective By Design: Against DRM, points out the fact that this copy protection is crippled from the start.
http://www.defectivebydesign.org/en/about

Wikipedia: Information about which devices use DRM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Rights_Management#Devices_that_use_DRM

DRM.info: Article giving reasons to care about this
http://www.drm.info/fsfe/why

Pre-Order The Used CD/DVD And Get a Free T-Shirt

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You can pre-order The Used’s new CD/DVD, Berth, in stores 2/6/07 and receive a free t-shirt.

The DVD contains footage from the 2005 Vancouver Headline show, updates on our band’s history since 2003’s Maybe Memories, footage from 2004’s In Love And Death world tour, the making of the new album (due this spring), as well as music videos and “making of the video” features. It also includes a section where we answered specially chosen fan questions.

Win a free limited edition EP from Olympia!

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Sign up for Olympia‘s mailing list between now until January 15th and you’ll automatically be entered to win one of 10 limited edition Olympia EP’s that have been signed by the band. Join their mailing list here. Olympia is the new band from former members of Fairweather (Equal Vision Records) and Brand New Disaster (Tribunal Records). Their debut album, Emergencies will be available in April on Hope Division/Equal Vision Records.

Young Love First Headlining Tour

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Young Love just posted a new song from “Too Young to Fight It” for your listening pleasure and will be posting random tracks through Jan. 30 so check back often for different songs. Dates from their first headlining tour are posted below.

1/27/07 – Living Room – Providence, RI
1/28/07 – Middle East – Cambridge, MA
2/1/07 – Knitting Factory – Hollywood, CA
2/3/07 – Chain Reaction – Anaheim, CA
2/4/07 – Bottom of the Hill – SF, CA
2/6/07 – Studio 7 – Seattle, WA
2/7/06 – Rock and Roll – Portland, OR
2/9/07 – Kilby Court – SLC, UT
2/10/07 – Beauty Bar – Las Vegas, NV
2/11/07 – The Sets – Tempe, AZ
2/13/07 – The Parish – Austin, TX
2/14/07 – Gypsy Tea Room – Dallas, TX
2/15/07 – Walter’s on Washington – Houston, TX
2/17/07 – Orpheum – Tampa, FL
2/18/07 – Back Booth – Orlando, FL
2/19/07 – TBA – Atlanta, GA
2/21/07 – Off Broadway – St. Louis, MO
2/22/07 – The Loft @ Barfly – Minneapolis, MN
2/23/07 – Beat Kitchen – Chicago, IL
2/24/07 – Shelter – Detroit, MI
2/25/07 – B-Side Liquor Lounge – Cleveland, OH
2/27/07 – Trocadero – Upstairs – Philadelphia, PA
2/28/07 – Bowery Ballroom – NYC