Sunday, July 6, 2003

QTVR of weird flotsam in Scotland Online gallery with QTVRs of strange sea-litter: Hundreds of tons of litter are washed up on the shores of the Outer Hebrides, Scotland, each year - mostly plastic waste from marine industries. The Gulf Stream crosses the North Atlantic Ocean depositing flotsam from all around the globe on the 160 miles of Hebridean shore, mostly beautiful, and otherwise unspoilt, sandy beaches. www.flotsam.org features a gallery of VR images of marine litter. You are encouraged to help identify flotsam sources, get involved in local beach clean-ups and campaign for responsible disposal of waste by marine industries. [BoingBoing] 5:06:22 PM    comment []; Higher Octave calls and wants us to report the direct sales of The Santa Fe Sessions at our concerts so they can report them to Billboard Magazine. They say that I will need to make the numbers official if I want to sign another recording contract sometime in the future. They don't get it - I am never signing another recording deal. If this doesn't work and I sell at least 20,000-50,000 CDs from our web site and at concerts I will retire. That's all there is to it. There is no turning back... 4:36:33 PM    comment []; Hubble Catches Cosmic Fireworks Roland Piquepaille writes "On this Fourth of July, it's usual -- at least in the U.S. -- to watch fireworks. But I want to invite you to see very special ones, ... [Slashdot] 4:35:26 PM    comment []; 6 July: Santa Fe The truck is on its way to California to drop off the P.A. and lighting gear at Delicate. The two buses are running through New Mexico...3 hours to Santa Fe...we start organizing and packing up stuff on our bus...the Capresso C-1000 machine we brought onto the band bus did well on this trip and reliably made tasty espresso - what a great design...I am happy with the sound of the band and with the whole tour. I thought everyone played well and I enjoyed the sound-space that was available to me since there was no second guitar. For the fall I will look into getting a Pioneer CD turntable for Canton. I think the suggestion of one person that it would be great to hear Canton do some scratching was a good one. I have a lot of great horn parts from the Santa Fe Sessions album that I can burn a CD with - should be excellent scratching material. Canton is looking forward to it and I am looking forward to learning some basic technic from Canton... I also have been playing quite a bit of cajon at home and maybe I'll bring that for a rhythm jam somewhere in the set. Then I would like to get the morse code device I built in 1982 fixed up to take on the next part of the tour. I will put a bunch of sounds on my iPod, which I can then morse into the music....so many ideas, so little time. I am looking forward to starting on the next album as soon as my ears are well again (let's be bold and assume they will be fine in a week)...I am hearing something that is more traditional, with a Solea por Buleria and a new Buleria and yet at the same time it will be more modern than Opium...I will record the Tangos that is the third song we play in our show and another I have already written...I also have a couple of Rumbas ready for recording. And of course I will have to finalyze the nouveaumatic package so we can have CDs for sale in September. Then there is the web site. Secure ordering by August 1st! Then maybe we should add a world-wide travel recommendations page for restaurants, cafes, hotels etc., maybe we should turn the guestbook into a forum, add a......................... 4:35:14 PM    comment []; QTVR panorama: Chapel of Jean Cocteau QTVR evangelist Hans Nyberg describes this full-screen panorama by photographer Antonio Moya. "Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) is one of the most famous French artists from the last century. If he had lived today he would probably been called a multimedia artist. This brilliant artist was a poet, novelist, he wrote plays, articles, ballet, opera. He also made thousands of drawings, paintings, modelled clay, was a sculptor, and designed costumes. Most of us know him for the famous 1946 movie Beauty and the Beast (La Belle et la Bete). By many considered one of the best 10 movies ever made. He decorated many Chapelles in France and the Chapel Notre-Dame-de-Jerusalem also called Chapelle Cocteau was the last. He never got it finished and it was his friend and spiritual son, Edouard Dermi who finished his work. The floor is by the ceramist Roger Pelissier. It is located in the South of France at the village of Frejus." [BoingBoing] 4:34:08 PM    comment []; 5 July: Las Vegas, Nevada Last show of this first leg of the tour. Yesterday I went to Caesar's Forum for a late lunch and a look around. I think they have hidden loudspeakers blaring water fountain and crowd noises, because even though it was busy I can't believe that much noise was created by the crowd. It was unbelievably loud. As always, Las Vegas makes me want to run and hide. In 24 hours I will be home, where it is very, very quiet... Something happened to my ears in the last 24 hours. All low-end is distorted and during soundcheck Jon's bass sounded like it was going through a fuzz box. Low-end was in fact so painful that I had our monitor engineer shelf the bottom, i.e. remove a lot of the low-end for my headphone mix. My brother Stefan, who came out to see us in Vegas, thinks the glands in my neck are swollen and that is messing with my hearing. I am wondering whether it was the awful din at Caesar's Forum yesterday afternoon. This might be one of those grin and bear it performances...on the other hand it is how well we can perform under adverse conditions that measures our spirit.. 4:32:05 PM    comment []; Chili Peppers, Metallica reject iTunes Music Store I like to hear about these kinds of reactions to new ways of selling music. It's all gonna change. It's all gonna change. I admire those who don't want to go with this new scheme. Rock bands the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Metallica are refusing to make their music available as individual downloads on Apple's iTunes Music Store, according to Reuters... [MacMinute] [iceplant radio] What's to admire? Metallica is not exactly cutting edge and the Peppers are a mainstream pop band. Both are used to having a big single and the accompanying video sell the whole album. Not having read the article, my guess would be that they claim that their albums have to be seen as a whole, in their entirety and cannot be sold as individual songs...Hm, that's is probably true when you are used to putting a lot of filler on your album...I believe a song needs to be able to stand on its own and not just as part of a whole album....then again I haven't even read the article yet and I am already going off.... A few minutes later: I just read the article and it is indeed as I suspected. I am not impressed with their stance against iTunes. IMHO many people bought their albums because the single was in heavy rotation on MTV, and not because the album was great. I think these over-marketed bands rightfully fear that people would only download the single and skip the rest...How many people bought the Peppers' album for the single Under the Bridge? Remember they were fine with radio playing the single instead of the album, and with MTV playing only one video at a time. I find their stance very fake. Don't think for a minute they are really standing up for the album format...Interesting also that both bands are managed by the same company...Hey, these are no rebels and what you admire is just another slick business move... 4:30:13 PM    comment []; Driving + thinking - a risky combination Spanish researchers show that complex or heated conversations whilst driving significantly impair a driver's ability. [BBC | TECH] Would that be more dangerous than a phone conversation in the car or less? 4:29:32 PM    comment []; 3 July: Reno, Nevada Last night's show in Park City was sooooo much fun after the difficult sound at the Big Easy the night before. Since it was our first headlining show in Park City the audience was on the small side, but welcoming and vocal...We all had a ball and music happened...See, you can make music every night, but music doesn't always happen. I wake up in Reno as our busses are pulling into the RV parking lot of the Nugget. There actually seem to be lots of people that drive their RVs to Reno to go gambling and they stay in their RVs at night... 4:25:40 PM    comment []; Fuel cell motorcycle Yamaha has created the world's first fuel cell designed specifically to be used in a motorcycle, though there's no word on how long it'll be until a fuel cell motorcycle actually makes it to market. Read... [Gizmodo] Oh, yes, I do so want a Fuel Cell Vespa!!! Wouldn't that be cool. 4:24:47 PM    comment []; 2 July: Park City, Utah Yesterday's midnight spud gun fight, after the show was over and the truck was loaded, was pretty good. Spud gunning is right up there with whiffle ball for relieving tension!! By the time it was over our clothes were covered with juicy spud balls. The PAC in Park City is actually the theater of the local high-school! I can only imagine how cool it would be to learn about theater in high-school. Have you been backstage at a theater, where the roof is about 85 feet above you because they need room up there for curtains and stage set pieces that will be flown down to the stage? Where the set pieces are balanced with weights, so one person can raise or lower them easily? It is exciting and you should try to get a tour of your local theater. I remember taking a tour through Europe's second largest broadcaster, the WDR radio and TV station in Cologne (second only to the BBC) in the mid seventies. It was amazing...absolutely silent rooms in which the only sound you would perceive was the high pitch of your nervous system and the low pitch of the blood streaming through your body...recording studios for radio plays...a theater for live recordings...I think I took the tour about 4 or 5 times, because I found it so fascinating. The WDR hosted amazing concerts on Saturdays, which were free to students and I saw classical Indian music there as well as various Jazz and Rock bands. One week we saw The Scorpions at the beginning of their career. I remember thinking that the Scorpions were absolutely horrific and that I had to leave, even though the concert was free... 4:24:33 PM    comment []; Samsung bans cameraphones What goes around comes around: Worried about corporate espionage, Samsung, one the biggest makers of cameraphones, is banning cameraphones from all its factories. So they're basically banning phones from the same factories where they're built. Read... [Gizmodo] This is hilarious! 4:23:57 PM    comment []; 1 July: Boise, Idaho I wake up to discover a lot of pistols and ammunition lying on the table in the front lounge of the bus. Each pistol is neatly inscribed with a name - with magic marker...Lots o' spud guns and potatoes. We are in Idaho and Tomcat has bought spud guns for all. Great food at a little place called Kulture Klatsch across the alley from The Big Easy, which is where we will perform tonight. Take the Mocha Shake for example, a perfect ice cold serving of your sugar, your caffeine and your fat food groups. The Kulture Klatsch (or maybe just the Klatsch?) is our choice for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Hm, let's look at that name: Kulture Klatsch. While the word Culture is English and Kultur is German, Kulture is an obvious hybrid. Klatsch - that's an interesting choice. This word is also German and means talk, more exactly gossip. There is that famous German word combination: Kaffeeklatsch which means getting together over coffee and gossiping. Maybe the name Kulture Klatsch is meant to suggest a social gathering of people discussing culture. Or maybe the name is a word play on Culture Clash which sounds similar. Or maybe they spent less time on choosing their name than I just spent analyzing their choice... The sound at the big easy is horrible. The club doesn't want us to bring in our own soundsystem because they don't want to tear theirs down....but theirs is total crap. EV boxes meant to through far in a shed or outside are hanging in a club. The slapback is bad and it's hard to hear the beat. What makes the show fun however is the audience, which is really into the music. We remember that from the time we played here in 2001 as well. Great audience, bad sound. Tomorrow: the tour schedule on our web site says Salt Lake City, but the show is really in Park City, which is near SLC. We performed at a Jazz Festival in Park City in 2000. Beautiful country. 4:23:36 PM    comment []; Gibson solicits typos from readers William Gibson is soliciting typos from the hardcover edition of Pattern Recognition so that he can see that they're fixed in the paperback. Great author, great book, great blog, great idea to let readers contribute typos... 4:22:42 PM    comment []; Ink More Expensive Than Champagne laing writes "According to this story, ink for home printers is now seven times more expensive than vintage champagne. Ink in a typical replacement cartridge ... [Slashdot] Sad, that. Think of all the vintage champagne we could be drinking! 4:22:20 PM    comment []; Alien Solar System Much Like Ours British scientists detect a star that has a giant planet in an orbit much like Jupiter's. What's the big deal? The Jupiter-like planet could be a key ingredient for allowing other planets in the system to harbor advanced life. By Erik Baard. [Wired News] 4:21:42 PM    comment []; 30 June: Spokane I have only been to Spokane once before. In 1991 we came here to pick up my second Eric Sahlin guitar. That year Davo, Jon and I were the band and my brother Stefan was manager and soundmixer. We had a van and the four of us shared the driving duties. And what a cool van it was: white, extra tall, four swiveling captain chairs, CB radio customized to hold our flight cases with the instruments in the back, and one bunk for sleeping, ....) I must have been sleeping in the back of the van when we rolled through the city because I don't remember Spokane at all. For some reason I pictured a very small town because Eric lives outside the city... Fast forward to the present. When I step off the bus in the morning I notice a few great old buildings with amazing gargoyles at the top. I call my agent and vent about Vancouver. Jon rents a Segway in he park and tells us it was really cool. We go back to the park, but the rental guy decides to close up early and wouldn't even let me ride for a few minutes. Then a kid yells "You dropped your pocket" behind me. I don't understand him at first and say "excuse me?", which makes the gaggle of teenagers bust out laughing...I must have looked pretty stupefied, because Jon explains to me why it is funny and I reply, but what if he means pocket-calculator or pocket-knife and since he mumbles you think you just didn't hear the whole phrase? Double culture divide - age and continent...Eric Sahlin says hi after the show. I tell him I used his 1995 guitar all over The Santa Fe Sessions, in fact I didn't even EQ it at all! I am relieved that he doesn't ask me about the guitar I played tonight... 4:21:17 PM    comment []; 29 June: Vancouver Nice theater, good sound (a little too much slap-back from the backwall - why do they still build halls for voice projection when they are mostly used for amplified performances?) great audience...ours was the only show for the Jazz Festival without an opening act in this theater and we had the biggest crowd! So far so good...but security was less than satisfactory as my Canon S50 was stolen from my dressing room - with 256mb of fresh live photos shot by one of my crew during the show...I will not come back to Vancouver for this promoter unless he pays for a new camera. If he cannot provide adequate security he must pay. Ron left his dressing room with the lights off and his door closed and found the door ajar and the lights on when he returned. That is not acceptable. He also overheard one security guard letting in a friend of a friend - w/o a pass. I don't mind having to be careful when the backstage is a dump - but when a place has the air of a PAC I tend to feel more relaxed of course... 4:20:07 PM    comment []; RIP shopping malls CNN reports that shopping malls are failing, in favor of urban shopping districts and big-box stores. Good riddance. The Winter Park Mall in Winter Park, Fla., was a classic case of a dying mall. The 400,000-square-foot mall was located in the heart of the city's downtown. But with all of its stores facing in and a huge parking lot surrounding it like a moat, it was completely isolated from the rest of the town. As the nearby downtown shopping district thrived, the mall failed. [BoingBoing] Good riddance, yes, I agree with you. Next, if we could only mix commercial and residential use in cities! Inner cities become safer when people live there, too. Ever walk through shopping streets in Rome at night? Some of the windows above the stores are open and you hear conversations, a TV set, some music...not the sense of danger you feel in empty downtown L.A. at night... 4:19:31 PM    comment []; The uses of cameraphones Article in the Guardian about the unexpected ways in which cameraphones are taking off with the public:What has become clear is that the phones are being used in a different way than intended. Instead of people sending pictures between phones, those who have bought a MMS-compatible phone are more likely to email images to themselves or share them using small networks like Bluetooth or infrared. "It seems to be less person-to-person messaging. We are seeing quite a few examples of people taking photographs and uploading them to the web," explains Mike Short, chair of the Mobile Data Association, an industry consortium that issues figures for text messaging and the mobile internet... People are beginning to find practical uses for the new phones. Women are using their phones to take images of taxi drivers. Receivers of faulty goods are snapping the damage and sending the images to the company. People hiring... [Gizmodo] 4:19:15 PM    comment []; 28 June: Vancouver Today is a day off because Seattle was cancelled. A day off in Vancouver is always welcome! We have a late late lunch at Subeez Cafe on Homer street. Nice mix of western and asian cuisines. We visit this restaurant almost every time we come to Vancouver, since the mid-nineties. Wonderfully high ceilings (30 feet?), huge candle wax drippings on the floor (about 3-4 feet tall) , a semi Brazil (the movie) vibe with interesting art on the wall. Always an interesting choice of music and always a little too loud for my taste. I am torn between enjoying this music I don't get to hear anywhere else and finding that the music is too loud and reverberates too much throughout the enormous room. At that point I can always order one of their excellent drinks... I had a conversation about art with someone recently. I mentioned that I love visiting art museums and have a membership for the MoMA even though I rarely get to visit, but that I am also very aware of the fact that the art in a museum is about 4 times removed from what's really happening. If you want to see what's hot you have to trudge to the bad neighborhoods, to the meat districts, the warehouses and the loft scene. Once removed is the small gallery, then comes the twice removed power gallery, where prices have suddenly not just doubled but increased tenfold. Next is the international gallery (prices have at least tripled again) and only then might the art be included in a museum. Some people are great at picking art on the first level, where it is still affordable. I remember reading a report on a couple in New York, I believe he was a postal worker and she was a teacher. They collected an amazing amount of sixties art, because when they met Rauschenberg and his contemporaries the artists were struggling and broke and sold their works for the odd fifty or hundred bucks so they could get food or make the rent. If I remember correctly the couple's collection was valued at 20 million dollars... 4:18:44 PM    comment [];

© Copyright 2003 Ottmar Liebert. Last update: 8/25/03; 11:57:05 AM.