Why we should thank, and hate, Pirates

Mar 22, 2010 by Dan Taylor    2 Comments    Posted under: Music, News, Technology

The Crime

Matthew Chow, a member of the infamous “Rabid Neurosis”, or RNS as they were better known, has been found ‘not guilty’ by a jury of his peers. Chow was on trial for the charge of ‘conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement’. In other words…Digital Piracy Yarrrrrr!

According to the federal indictment, authorities claimed that RNS was the world’s largest music piracy ring. Between [at least]1999 and 2007, Chow and co-conspirators illegally uploaded thousands of copyright-protected music files, which were provided by music industry insiders. In 1996, RNS released their first file, Metallica’s Ride the Lightning (Yes, this WAS one of the bugs up Lars Ulrich’s ass), and finished their 11 year run with Fall Out Boy’s Infinity on High. The group’s most notable claim-to-piracy-fame was the early leak of Eminem’s Encore album.

Federal authorities charged Chow with one count of conspiracy to commit copyright infringement, which carries a maximum prison sentence of five years, and a $250,000 fine. Moreover, Chow could have been ordered to pay restitution to the RIAA, the only named victim in the crime.

“I am relieved by the jury’s verdict and I am grateful to my attorney for his hard work,” says Chow. Houston attorney Terry W. Yates, who represented Matthew Chow comments, “We encountered some extremely complex factual and legal issues in this case. The jury was very attentive during the trial. Their verdict was just.”

In total, six members of RNS were charged with offenses. Patrick L. Saunders was charged on Aug. 14th, 2009, and plead guilty. James A. Dockery was charged on Sept. 8th, 2009. Adil R. Cassim, Bennie Glover, Matthew D. Chow, and Edward L. Mohan were all charged on Sept. 9th, 2009. Only Chow and Cassim were found not guilty. The remaining four pled guilty to copyright infringement charges, three of which turned state’s evidence and testified for the government in the Houston trial.

Lessons learned

Sooooo…what can we learn from this? There’s a number of things (both right and wrong) going on in this mess. I often wonder Karlheinz Brandenburg had any idea how his work might effect the lives, carriers, criminal records, of thousands and thousands of individuals. My thoughts on piracy are this: Find me a computer in this world that doesn’t have at least one pirated line of code on it, and I’ll find you a box to ship it in, because it’s gotta be factory fresh.

I’m not saying that I support music or software piracy, but rather – accept that they are here, and rapidly becoming, if not already, ingrained in our daily lives. I think we all know by now that Musicians aren’t making any money from record sales. The upside to this new economy is that Musicians are making money the old fashioned way, by going out on the road, playing shows, and earning it.  In fact, there are a number of bands that have already embraced this philosophy, and have given away their music (think Coldplay, Radiohead, NIN), and let’s not forget about The Grateful Dead and Phish, who for years, have allowed legal taping and trading of their live performances.

Likewise, the video game industry has been (and will perhaps always be) fraught with disc pirates. The solution? One small company in Korea decided to start giving games away, and charging one small piece at a time. The result? Microtransactions and social gaming as we know them today.

The positive way to look at the entire RIAA and copyright laws, etc. is that yes, it’s going to happen. However, that doesn’t mean that innovation and competition can not drive a better mousetrap. In a way, we all owe pirates a debt of gratitude. In another way, I blame them for the $75 ticket price, and $0.99 for a digital sword.

Pirates. Yarrrrrrr!

Phish Halloween ’09- all but confirmed for Coachella

Jul 21, 2009 by Dan Taylor    9 Comments    Posted under: Music

Save the Date looks to be solved.  Apparently one Palm Desert, California hotel might have let the cat out of the bag as to where Phish’s halloween festival is going to be taking place this year.

And a bit more:

Up until now, the folks over at Phish.com have been playing a game with all of us, cleverly removing a state (or 5) at a time from a map of the U.S. until the final location was revealed.  There’s but much speculation over on the twitter airwaves, but to his credit, it looks like Grill_Meister eagle eyed this hotel deal in Palm Desert, California at the Hampton Inn and Suites.  Speculation has been circulating for a while that the band would land in Coachella for the late October holiday, but when California was removed from the map a few weeks ago, hopes were dashed.  Apparently, this was just a measure to throw fans off track.

So while it was fun while it lasted, it looks like we can all thank the folks over at Hampton Inn & Suites for this tasty heads up.  Thanks folks!

HD Video: Phish Bug>Tweezer Reprise

Jul 14, 2009 by Dan Taylor    2 Comments    Posted under: Music, Video

Have a view of this outstanding 3 camera HD footage from Phish’s inaugural reunion show at the Hampton Colosseum March 8, 2009. Hopefully this won’t get pulled, as it’s honestly the best Phish footage I’ve ever seen, DVD releases included. Thanks a million earthscapeben!

Time Turns Elastic – Acoustic Version

Jun 25, 2009 by Dan Taylor    28 Comments    Posted under: Music, Video

I’ll admit, I’m not the biggest fan of the first single released off Phish’s upcoming album, Joy.  At least I wasn’t until I heard this gorgious acoustic version Trey’s people posted over at Vimeo 20 days ago.

Time Turns Elastic – Acoustic Barn Demo from Trey Anastasio on Vimeo.

This is, in a word, beautiful.  It gives me a new found respect for this work, and makes me want to listen again and again, not just to the words, but perhaps on an even geekier note, what tuning is he using?  Sounds like DADGAD, but I could be way off.

I’m not sure what is is about the amplified version that bugs me, but there’s something.  Maybe it seems almost a bit ‘overdone’?  Perhaps there’s just a bit too much going on.  I’m not 100% sure.  I’ve listened to both the upcoming studio version as well as the 4 other appearances the song made on the recent early summer tour, and I have to say, this acoustic version beats them all.  Hands down.

If you’re so inclined, as a point of comparison, here’s the studio version:

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Phish – my 20-year love affair with four guys from Vermont

May 30, 2009 by Dan Taylor    4 Comments    Posted under: Music

It recently occurred to me that 2009 marks the 20th anniversary of my love affair with four guys from Vermont otherwise known as Phish.  I’d like to cover two topics in one piece here: how I was introduced to the band, and my experiences with them, and a primer on what to listen for when listening to Phish.

The Introduction:

I can remember it almost like it was yesterday, my next-door neighbor, Bob talking my mother into letting me head up to Burlington with him and his friend Casey to go to a concert.  Needless to say, Bob failed to mention that this concert was going to take place in a tiny little bar that went (and still goes by to this day) by the name of Nectar’s.  Now I’m not entirely certain if Bob didn’t know someone at the door, bribed someone to get me in, or if things were just a bit looser in Burlington in those days, but I do remember being the youngest person there.  The way Phish had been explained to me was as a Grateful Dead cover band.  I’d started toying with the dead at around age 12, with Bob giving me a couple of great tapes (back in the days of tapers trading tapes by mail), one from Buffalo, the other from the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco.  I guess Bob and Casey thought it was time for their young protégé to experience something close to the Dead live and in person, specifically by these up and comers hailing from Vermont.  I can’t even tell you what originals they played that night, but that was the first time I’d heard “Fire on the Mountain” performed live, as well as Jimi Hendrix’s seminal classic “Fire”.  I can remember that these four guys didn’t look particularly ‘star-like’, nor could they really sing all that well, but man o’ man, when it came time for the solos or pure instrumentals, these guys were truly dialed in.

The Past:

Some 20 years later I still listen to Cactus (Gordon – Bass), Leo (McConnell – Keyboards), Henrietta (Fishman – Percussion) and Wilson (Anastasio – Guitar) on a regular basis.  I normally set iTunes to shuffle while I’m working, and given my massive collection of their live works, it’s guaranteed that I’ll hear at least a song or four of theirs per day.  These guys have been with me through some of the most major parts of my life, Chalk Dust Torture highlighting my high school graduation day, Down With Disease summing up most of my college experience, and so on.  Halloween 1994 will always be remembered as one of the greatest nights of my life, when Phish played their annual Halloween show in my home town, and my friend Carl and I managed to get a giant spider that we’d brought with us up on stage after the first set, with Jon Fishman placing it on top of his bass drum for the rest of the entire show, and yes…that was the classic White Album show.

The Experience:

So when I was recently asked to pick two phish songs to demonstrate the band as a whole, you can imagine what a challenge this was.  I’ll fully admit, I cannot do it.  To me, Phish is not just about the music, but it was/is the entire experience.  The packing it up in the car on Friday afternoon after class, and truckin’ all night to make it to the next gig, the meeting up with other road mates in the ‘lot and catching up, meeting new friends, making new experiences, etc.  If you weren’t lucky enough to have a ticket – sometimes that didn’t really matter, as the parking lot experience could be an entire experience unto itself.  And then there was that amazing individual that had your ‘miracle’.  Stemming from the Grateful Dead song “I need a miracle”, a miracle came from that person that had purchased an extra ticket to give to someone who didn’t have one at the show.  I’ve been miracled about 12-15 times, and when I had some extra cash, or had pre-ordered tickets, I’d do my best to miracle a brother or sister in need of a good show.  Inside the venue, once the lights went down, for the next 2+ hours, you can be sure of only one thing: anything goes.  I’ve been witness to watching the band arrive onstage via a giant hotdog that flew over the crowd.  I’ve watched Jon Fishman dressed as baby new year, about 30 feet off the stage on a fly in, tossing glitter and confetti on the crowd.  And let me just say, in my humble opinion, Phish has some of the best sound and lighting setups of any live touring band I’ve ever seen.

The Music:

So if I choose to solely look at this challenge from just an aural point of view, 2 songs still remains an impossible feat.  Instead, I’ve decided to break it down into 5 parts: Fast, Medium, and Slow and Live and Studio.  The choices in tempos should be self evident, but the decision to give live and studio examples is something that’s very near and dear to me.  I really feel like there are two very distinct ways of listening to Phish: what the record company wants the band to record in order to sell albums, and what the band wants to play in order to bring the audience along for the ride.

Fast – Chalk Dust Torture

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As mentioned above, this song has a particularly strong place in my heart, simply for the lyric, “Can’t I live while I’m young?”  Chalk Dust is a prime example of what Phish does like no other band: take a relatively simple chord progression and twist it into something truly remarkable.  The studio version, featured on 1992’s “A Picture of Nectar” (and yes, the Nectar does refer to Nectar’s bar) clocks in a 4:32, and features a relatively slow ‘fast’ tempo, with only a minor guitar solo.  To me, it also sounds like the Elektra records producers put some type of effect, or even slowed the tape down on Trey’s vocals, making him sound like he’s singing in slow motion.  Again, remember, this was my first introduction to this song and I really dug it.

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Now let’s fast forward a few years to 1994’s live (and summer tour ending) version played on July 16th, at the Sugarbush Summerstage, in the band’s home state of Vermont.  The tempo differences between the studio version and live version are instantly apparent, and to me, this one just ‘drives’ a whole lot better.  It doesn’t sound as though the increased tempo is giving the band any problems at all, and as a matter of fact, both Trey’s solo, and mike funky bass line sound even better at this more appropriate tempo.  You’ll also note that this version now clocks in at 9:28, a marked difference from the studio version.  While 1994 is 10 full years into Phish’ career together, Trey’s guitar solo, particularly around the 4:24 mark indicate a technique that he’ll be developing over the next few years, using a boomerang unit to set up loops and accompany himself.  But again, that’s still a few years down the road.  This version also features something about the band that I’ve always liked, they don’t try to hide or mask their involvement with each other.  If you listen closely here, you can hear Trey giving direction to the band, and calling out changes; “Hup…yeah” and “one more round” are often things he’d say very close to the microphones, almost letting us the listeners in on what’s going on between the players on stage.

Medium – You Enjoy Myself

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You Enjoy Myself, or YEM as it’s sometimes known, is one of Phish’s most musically intricate pieces.  Starting off in Bb major, this piece weaves it’s way through various both key and metric changes.  Coming from their first professional studio recording, and third official album, You Enjoy Myself features just 4 comprehensible words, “Boy”, “Man”, “God”, and “Shit”.  The ‘other’ lyrics in the song were a subject of debate for many years, until it was finally revealed in a Guitar World issue that the actual lyrics were “Wash Uffizi, drive me to Firenze.”  YEM currently holds the record of the most frequently played song by the band, being performed at 39% of their 1,183 shows (not including the most recent Hampton Shows, and this evenings Spring Tour opener in Boston, MA).  Keyboardist Page McConnell admitted to Ted Koppel on an installment of Nightline that You Enjoy Myself is his favorite Phish song.  As with Chalk Dust Torture, the studio version is markedly slower that most, if not all live versions.  Note that even in the studio recording, Trey misses a few notes here and there, but in true Phish style, no apologies are made, as if these missed notes are actually meant to be part of the style.

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Given the vast amounts of versions of this song I have, it truly was a challenge to nail down a live example.  I chose the Madison Square Garden New Years Eve 1995 show (yes, I was there), as it’s a prime example of how the band is able to expand a 9:50 album version into a massive 25:37 live version.  YEM also features a staple of Phish’s performances, employing both guitarist and lead singer Trey Anastasio and Bassist Mike Gordon jumping on trampolines in sync together.  While this was not the first version of YEM that I’d ever heard live, at around the 2-minute mark, you can only imagine what the lighting director Chris Kuroda was doing with this spacey, nirvana-esque sequence.  Now try to picture that in Madison Square Garden on New Years Eve.  Right.  Truly mind-boggling.  At around 4:12, we receive the first introduction to the metric changes that happen throughout the song.  I only wish my skills were strong enough to figure these out, but I believe there’s a 4/4 to 6/8 to 5/4 to 6/8 something something happening there (any theory geeks want to help me out here?).  Either way, not something you see any other band do every day, and live on stage in front of some 20,000+ people.

Slow – Wading in the Velvet Sea

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Wading in the Velvet Sea comes from 1998’s “Story of the Ghost” album, and is traditionally performed live at or about the same tempo as the album version.  To me, this also signifies an earmark of the band’s development and maturity.  In other words, while the record company wants short songs that can sell records, by this point they’ve been able to slim down live versions, and capture most, if not all of the essential parts and fit them into a 4:29 release.  On the studio version, you’ll hear part of Trey’s technique that I mentioned earlier, the looping covering the beginning of the song, a carry over from the previous track, “Roggae”.  Featuring a simple, beautiful and even hunting piano intro, this is one of Phish’s truly gorgeous, melodic, and moving songs.  The meaning can be left open to interpretation, but to me, it’s all about loss. Wading in the Velvet Sea also holds the distinction of getting Page McConnell so choked up at the band’s fair well show in 2004 (Coventry), that Trey had to step in and mention just how emotional this show was for all of them.  Again, by 1998, the band had really gotten to the point of nailing studio versions down so there’s not really much to say here.

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Now the reason that I chose to highlight Wading in the Velvet Sea as a great ‘slow’ Phish tune centers around this live version.  Recorded September 4th 1999 show in Boise, Idaho (sadly, I was not there, but Elisa was, and she tells me that yes…it really was that good).  To me, Trey’s guitar solo on this version is simply gorgeous.  Melodic, lyrical, sustained, complex, and simple at the same time; its all there.  While Page and Mike carry on with the repetition of “I’ve been Wading in the Velvet Sea” Trey starts noodeling a simple melody that comes to fruition when the lyrics drop out.  Just listen to those beautiful sustained notes around the 3:45 mark.  Mike on Bass and Jon on drums are perfectly locked in sync here, with Page doing a simple accompaniment.  To me…this is one of the finest examples of the band’s unity.

And there we have it.  Please keep in mind that these three songs should not be taken as ‘THE’ definitive Phish works, but rather, a short sampling of the range that this quartet have produced over the years, a beginners primer, if you will.

Welcome Home:

I was certainly sad to see the curtain fall in 2004, but overjoyed at the fact that they’ve had enough time off from each other, and have decided to give the grueling road tour circuit another go.  If not for their enjoyment, but for the thousands upon thousands of phans who call our boys from Vermont the only ones for us.  Mike, Page, Trey, and Jon, Good luck and Godspeed.  We’ve been listening, and waiting.  Welcome home.

Facebook Connect goes live

Dec 5, 2008 by Dan Taylor    3 Comments    Posted under: News, Social Media, Technology

Stand back and get ready social web users, Facebook has officially opened the single sign-on technology floodgates.  Facebook’s ‘not-so-under-the-wraps’ Connect feature is now live, and can be implemented by any site via the company’s web developer platform.

Facebook says that 100+ sites have added the technology during the pre-launch testing phase, and/or plan on implementing the tech in the coming weeks.  You may have heard of just a few of them: Digg, Gawker, Vimeo, CNET, and several major universities.

Facebook’s 125 million (gave or take a few…but who’s counting?) users can now participate on any one of these sites by signing in with their Facebook ID.  This Facebook login will then in turn re-broadcast their actions on this site to their friends within Facebook.  Facebook ensures that users will have privacy controls so that only approved info gets the re-broadcast (‘cause I’d hate for my comments on imalumberjackandidontcare.com to be rebroadcast).

Connect will also assist in matching up your Facebook friends on this external site.  I.e. you may not have known that Kaveh Rastegar is also a member of Vimeo, and enjoys indie filmmakers.  Connect will ensure that the two of you also have the options to be friends on Vimeo.  Likewise, if Kaveh posts a comment on a video, and logs in via Connect, his comments will then show up in his news feed for all his friends to see and comment on as well.

However.  Having these open standards does carry a bit of a price tag.  The social data that is collected by using these interacts gets fed back into Facebook.  By utilizing the Connect technology, the site owner agrees to share any data it gathers about users who use Connect with Facebook – and Facebook alone.  Hmmm.  Facebook has found itself in this tub of hot water before (think Beacon Advertising System), is this just another attempt at skirting the issue by having third-party sites collect the data?  Hopefully, I’m way off here.

This technology is nothing new, as OpenID and Open Stack are currently in existence, but have been a bit late to the party, held up by a not-so-hot user experience and security.  OpenID and Open Stack are a set of open source technologies being developed by Google, Yahoo!, MySpace, Plaxo, and other social sites that would allow the end user a larger system of portable data.  Truth be told, I’m a big fan of Facebook, and could easily see them getting this one just right.

And apparently, I’m not the only one.  In a recent press release, Facebook states that,

“two out of three new registrations at participating sites were generated through Facebook Connect during the testing phase.”

66%!  Wow!  And the sticky sweet Facebook goodness doesn’t stop at the registration page.

“users who logged in using Facebook Connect were 50 percent more likely to participate socially on a website than non-Facebook Connect users once logged in.”

Dang!  Those are some mighty big numbers.  While the jury is still out on whether Connect can deliver all that it promises, it’s looking mighty good thus far.  Let’s keep an eye on this one.

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Audio section added

Jun 19, 2008 by Dan Taylor    2 Comments    Posted under: Music

Prompted by a new friend from New York, I decided to split out my DJ recordings and make them a seperate page, accessible via the top nav bar. Right now, the two classics, Mostly Naked and Fabrik are sitting in there waiting for your listening pleasure, with some one ones to arrive shortly…

As always, if you’re interested in speaking with my about music, Djing, or just about anything else….hit me up on the contact page!

Richie Hawtin at Pyramide, Vösendorf, Austria

May 19, 2008 by Dan Taylor    3 Comments    Posted under: Music

The short version: This party sucked. It was ruined by bad people, a bad vibe, a production company that clearly has no idea how to run timings, and a bad location. FU Pyramide, FU Hypnotic, but I still love you Richie.

I don’t even really know how to talk about this party. Maybe the best place to start is in the beginning.

When I was in university in Rochester, NY, I spent many weekends making the ritual drive around the lake, and heading up to Toronto to hear some world class DJ’s and experience some excellent clubs. Amongst some of these best DJ’s, one of the best parties I’ve ever been to had Richie Hawtin as the headliner. I’m dating myself here, but this was sometime around 1997-98. Richie had already achieved a star status, but was still playing for a 400-500 person crowd. Big, but not too big, small enough, but not too small, just all in all, incredible music, good people, a good vibe, and an all around awesome party.

Richie played Saturday night at the Pyramide in Vösendorf, a suburb of Vienna. At least, I think he played. I didn’t make it that far. There are so many things that went wrong with this party it’s hard to even list them. This might possibly have been the worst party I’ve ever been too, which is really saying something, as I thought I’d been to some pretty crappy parties before. To be fair, the Pyramide soundsystem was outstanding, but that’s about the only thing that impressed me.

Within about an hour it became all too apparent what I’d just stepped into: a pure commercial event. I don’t blame Richie. He’s truly obtained superstar status. In order for a production company to book Richie, they MUST book a massive venue, as I’m sure Mr. Hawtin took home anywhere between 10 and 15k for playing for 2 hours. Don’t take this as gospel, as I truly have no idea, but I do know that Parov Stelar, who has a fairly decent name commands around 5k to play an evening, Richie’s rate must be financially reflected by his popularity and world known name.

While I am a fan of the music, I’m also a fan of an ‘experience’. I am a DJ, and therefor for me, the music has to be good, but let’s face it, the music is only one of the possible senses that can be addressed in an evening. One of my most impressed memories about the Toronto party scene is/was the attitude…the atmosphere. Call me old school (’cause I am an OG now), but I still believe in PLUR. I know it’s a term that’s been played out, and plenty of party scene folks become jaded and disinterested over time, I still believe in the spirit of the term. There was simply no PLUR present in Vösendorf on Saturday night. It was cold. It was bare, it was commercial, and it had absolutely no vibe whatsoever.

Another big factor for me is attention to details. There are a few clubs/events that really stick out in my mind as having a pure “WOW!” factor. Lighting can make a huge difference in setting overall mood. One that sticks out to me was a club slightly outside of Toronto. In hindsight, there’s nothing incredibly special about this, but it simply set the mood. You walked in the entrance, all walls are painted black with dark carpeting. The tickets are on the right, and the coat room on the left. The entrance way is bathed in a soft red light, and the top of the first staircase is illuminated with one red spotlight. You walked up that staircase into this red light, turned the corner, and walked up another set of stairs blanketed in aqua light. One more turn, and the stairs are washed with blacklights. All the while the volume of the dancefloor above you increases at each turn. Dramatic. Tension building. Until you finally arrive at the main entrance to the dancefloor with it’s massive light show whirling above your head.

Sounds like a great entrance eh? Let’s fast forward to Saturday night. We entered through 2 glass doors, into a lobby brightly lit with fluorescent lights blasted from above. Let me say that again, ALL THE LIGHTS WERE ON. As if we were there for a business convention (which, incidentally, the Pyramide is normally used for).

To top it all off, we didn’t even make it to see Richie perform. We were all simply exhausted. I don’t know if it was Hypnotic (the production company) or Richie’s personal choice, but he didn’t come on until at least 5am. We bagged it and called it a night around 4:30. Richie was floating around the DJ booth, indicating that he was getting ready, but really: 5am? That’s simply ridiculous. Let’s face it, but 5am, the people that are there and are drinking are way to drunk to know what’s going on. The people that are there that are on pills are completely f(*&ed out of their mind, and would think that my dog was the best DJ they’d ever heard. And the people that are there that are relatively (I had 4 beers, i think) sober, and have been there most of the evening are simply exhausted. I have absolutely no problem with staying out until 6 in the morning dancing my ass off, but that means I have to be entertained between 2-4/5 am. To bring the headliner on at 5am is simply ridiculous.

So sadly, while I dropped a decent amount of coinage (25 Euro) on this party out in the middle of nowhere, and was surrounded by cold, party posers, and didn’t even get to hear Richie, I did learn a lot. I learned how NOT to throw a party. I learned HOW to be prepared for a party. I learned NOT to ever expect much from Hypnotic’s parties. I learned that it will take AN ACT OF GOD to get me out to the Pyramide again. And all in all, I learned WHAT a commercial party is, and will NEVER throw one myself. If our parties get beyond an underground feeling (as I still believe a big party CAN still have PLUR present), that’s the day I throw in the towel and start something new.

If you’ve made it this far in the post, thanks for reading. I’m not mad. I’m not sad. It might even been my own damn fault, as I had such high expectations for this world class DJ, and it was just simply ruined by a bad location, a bad crowd, and a bad production company.

Vienna, I’m disappointed. Show me you can do better than this.