Yup, that’s right. I’ll be spending the next two weeks moving and getting ready for school, so I’m off the air until the start of the fall schedule. Her Jazz moves to Fridays at 7PM, after the Top Ten Show (which I’m hosting again).

Tonight I’ll be previewing forthcoming releases by Love Is All, Doug Gillard and more.

A couple of quick thoughts on the demise of Pandora and Muxtape… One’s a streaming suggestion service, the other’s a streaming personal mixtapes generated by user-uploaded tracks. Whether you agree with copyright laws, the impending royalty increases or not, the red flags were raised from the get-go. Apologies if this sounds jaded, but how could anyone be surprised by either?

Both services were curtailed so close together, so I’m stuck here thinking about other programs/services that allow people to discover music, and what choice actually means in the online world. Pandora promises discovery, but simply placates. You might walk away from the service with a song or artist that’s new to you, but it’s been channeled by whatever parameters a company musicologist may have assigned. So it’s “choice” based on the amount of times you’ve clicked thumbs up or thumbs down.

Muxtape attempts to mirror the intimacy of mixtape making. The workload is placed on the listener, and in the age of on demand everything [1], I’ve been pretty surprised by how the service has been embraced by folks. While the user might have more freedom in choosing whatever tape they want to listen to, the austere graphic interface of the site makes these tapes indistinguishable from one another, so the user is basing their choices off very little contextual information — so is a less informed choice actually a choice to begin with?

Maybe losing these services is a good thing, in a strange way, because it might provoke developers to design programs where the concept of choice is more fleshed out, and the final decision might actually rest in with the user. Didn’t Devo tell us we had a freedom of choice, or something like that?

[1] That’s a funny phrase, “on demand”, as if to suggest that we are entitled to all of this stuff.

Leaving the office. July 24, 2008.

Technology is occasionally astounding. We are living in the age of Moore’s Law, indeed, and then some. It took me a year, one Hasselblad, lots of money and patience to do my Untitled Stills from New Jersey series. With one iPhone I can nearly replicate the same look and feel I was attempting to achieve.

After Motherwell. July 21, 2008.

It’s my birthday. A number that Counts. I strive to keep this blog free of personal business, which probably explains why I write less and less here. The problem isn’t that I don’t have much to say about music, technology, and so forth — otherwise I wouldn’t be a graduate student in this field — the problem is moreso that I wanted to steer clear of the ensuing drama. Let’s face it: you can’t have an opinion in this city without someone turning into a giant baby. And while I have been truly busy with work and school, a bunch of dumb motherfuckers have bullied me into writing less here. Such is the folly of a networked, globalized society — only some can dominate.

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» I am still reeling from two incredible interviews I taped with No Age and the Breeders this past week, to be featured on an upcoming epsiode of Pop Recon. Both bands couldn’t have been better people to simply talk with. And if I told my teenage self that I’d get to sit in a huddle with the Breeders, she would flip. (OMG, I remember staying up to watch this!) I think I’m taping something with Broken Social Scene and/or the Duchess & the Duke this week too. So busy! The most recent Pop Recon is online for your listening pleasure, BTW.

» Attended the Independents Day Conference hosted by the Philly chapter of the Recording Academy, and as mentioned before, spoke on a panel about radio. I felt like a fish out of water because unlike most places, I get to play whatever I want when I want. I can only hope that I offered up some useful advice. Places like WPRB, WXPN, WFMU and the like remind us that radio isn’t “dead”; most of what happens at radio stations is that a lot of (well, nearly all) energies are misdirected. I have many more things to say about this, but perhaps I’ll talk about ‘em another time.

I can’t lie: I was troubled by the digital panel. Was it about blogging, PR in the Age of the Internet or digital distribution? Wait, it was all three. The moderator did quite good job at trying to straddle all three and made some really good links, but IMHO all three topics deserve their own respective panels. Anyway, gotta mention at how wowed I was by everything Stephanie Renee had to say. Amazing on top of amazing.

» I definitely noticed that many of the questions asked up by the audience in the stuff I attended were of the “How do I do x?” nature. Though panels and breakout groups are designed to address these kinds of situations, is there anything else to help disseminate basic information, and to make sure that people aren’t rewriting the wheel each time around?

» I was bummed that I missed out on the legal and more business/financial panels — they’re always incredibly useful. Also, it’s nice to get out of the clusterfucky world of new/old/mass media. (Maybe that’s why I found Bruce Pavitt’s portion of the Sub Pop PF piece was so satisfying?)

Due to that ol’ chestnut, “Apple bricked my iPhone while I was trying to update the firmware to 2.0,” I can’t make any phone calls.

Until this is corrected, the ONLY way you can reach me is via email or feel free to leave a comment on this blog.

» In other news, I interviewed No Age for WPRB yesterday. They are super nice dudes.

PWRFL Power at the Popped! Music Festival.

Do you ever have moments where you feel like you’re living someone else’s life? Ever since I got this new job that’s basically all I ever feel.

Case in point: last night I had to photograph Pearl Jam & Ted Leo at Madison Square Garden for Stereogum. No, that’s not the weird part (but, yeah, it is a total OppositeLand moment). Anyway, press photographers have to enter at a different entrance, and they are led through the concrete maze/bunker that is MSG. You ride up the same giant freight elevator they use for elephants in the circus, and they lead you through to the stage area, right past the VIP green rooms and all. You kind of feel like a rock star until someone hisses to another, “That’s the paparazzi,” and when you walk out the crowd boos you because you’re not the band. Did Robert Capa ever have to put up with this?

Last week I taped two interviews for Pop Recon — one with patternismovement that will air on Friday, another with Love Is All for a future episode. PIM were probably one of the best interviews I’ve taped. Dudes were funny, talkative and smart. More bands should follow their lead.

Those that know me well know I don’t like to dine out, but I recently went to the new Eric Ripert restaurant, 10 Arts. (I grew up in a restaurant, so the thought of having to pay someone to cook my food seems totally preposterous.) But if I’m going to dine, I will do it right — and 10 Arts is definitely a good way to go. The combination of local and upscale stuff was just right. I was amazed at the grand size of the portion; I typically don’t expect it at these kinds of places. I felt full after the wild boar prosciutto appetizer, and by the time my main course was done, I couldn’t do dessert at all. (I tried a bit of my friend’s, and the mini beignets were delish.) Moreover, and more importantly, the service was top-notch. We were seated promptly at our reservation time and our servers were totally attentive. If I have that sort of cash to drop again (hello early birthday present!), I’d totally do it again.

Alright, that’s it for this episode of Watch the Names Drop! I’ve been your host, Maria T.

I had a blast with this show. It flew by way too fast! I am happy to report that The Black Angels stopped fetishizing Vietnam in an embarrassing manner and are writing some pretty great space-rock-meets-Nuggets tunes.

06-19-2008 | WPRB 103.3 FM | 1800-2000
———————————–
chuck wilder - the clown - eccentric soul: the tragar & note labels - N
vivian girls - wild eyes - 7″ - N
spinanes - fame & fortune - sunday ep
robyn - bum like you - robyn - N
fink - blueberry pancakes - distance and time - N
gogogoairheart - hypnotized - 90 day men / gogogoairheart split ep
dos - heartbeat - numero do ep
holy rollers - in the here - cringer / holy rollers split 7″
the nervebreakers - my girlfriend is a rock - we want everything!
———————————–
ESG - dance - come away with…
solex - randy costanza - pick up
sons & daughters - johnny cash - love the cup
the black angels - deer-ree-shee - directions to see a ghost - N
helium - love $$$ - pirate prude
———————————–
tickley feather - fancy walking - tickley feather - N
crystal stilts - crippled croon - crystal stilts
spoon - believing is art - girls can tell
the lines - nerve pylon - memory span - N
durutti column - sketch for summer - valuable passages
blonde redhead - spring & summer by fall - 23 - R
les savy fav - bloom on demand - go forth - R
———————————–
the 3Ds - beautiful things - 7″
long blondes - the couples - couples - N R
kitty wells - your wild life’s gonna get you down - golden favorites
the white animals - seasons change - 7″
the replacements - kiss me on the bus - tim
avengers - american in me - the american in me
mingering mike - gotta get back to the real thing - super gold greatest hits - N

Oh my fucking god. While I am quite a bit on the air these days, it’s one thing to do your shifts but a completely different thing to do yours and those of the folks who never showed up to the station. Even in writing that last sentence, I feel a twinge of the insanity from last week.

I know, this is such a first world problem! “Waaah, I got to spend ~20 hours on one of the best independent stations around!” But see, when you are doing show after show after show after show after show, your ability to put together interesting playlists goes right out the window. Then you’re just reduced to playing Bo Diddley surf albums, and that can’t be good for anyone.

Whining aside, all this airtime caused me to strain my vocal cords. Last Friday, as I was wrapping up the Top Ten show, I felt a pulling in my throat. This wasn’t the scratchy pain brought on by colds or allergies, this was something else. It hurt in a bad way. There was only one thing I could do: put on the record that had been barely within my reach all week (Chatham’s Die Donnergotter) and get the heck outta Dodge.

I wound up “convalescing” at Sandy Hook, which is probably the best beach ever, and within minutes of my door. It was ridiculously hot but at Sandy Hook, it was difficult to tell with the perfect sea breeze. Screw “the shore,” all those corny notions of “boardwalks” and whatnot — this place makes you forget you’re in New Jersey. Because no self-respecting staycationer would actually want to be reminded of where they are, nahmean?
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As land telephone lines become obsolete, the task of conducting a phone interview (”phoners,” as they say in The Biz) takes on its own difficulties — especially with a mobile phone. I devised this little workaround to so I could tape interviews with my iPhone for Pop Recon.

DISCLAIMER: Recording telephone conversations without consent is considered illegal, and you should brush up on what the law has to say about it. I am providing this information for journalists, not for psychopaths. On the flipside, if you think you have been the victim of wiretapping and/or eavesdropping, know your rights.

What You’ll Need:

1 iPhone (LOL)
1 Recording unit [1]
1 headphone adapter w/ mic function [2]
1 headphone splitter [3]
1 set of headphones
1 1/8″ male-to-male cable [4]

NOTES:
[1] I have a Marantz deck, but anything that allows you to record from a line-in will do. In this photograph, I hooked up an iMic so that I could tape directly to my computer. If you are recording to a computer, make sure you have recording software like Audacity (boo) or Garageband (hiss).
[2] Mine is a Phillips brand one that I got for 15$ at Target.
[3] The headphones I own came with a splitter.
[4] As you can see in the photograph, I put two 1/8″ RCA male and female cables together.

Directions

Hook up everything together like this:

Recording unit
|
Stereo/Mono cable
|
Headphone Y-Splitter –> Headphones
|
iPhone headphone adapter
|
iPhone

The following image should be useful:

You’re good to go! In my first version of this, I had the splitter come before the microphone attachment, and lost my side of the interview completely. So it’s important to send the mic attachment first before splitting the audio.

Anyway, though I found that the person on the other end sounded great on the recording, I didn’t. I guess that’s the small price one has to pay for portability, but I need to tape things that are broadcast-ready, so I devised this workaround:

In this version, everything to tape the interview is the same, except that I additionally tape my end of the conversation on a separate machine. All I need to do is match them up in post-production (not to mention all the usual editing, EQing, etc.).

If you have any suggestions or comments — heck, if you have an easier way of doing it — let me know.