What if there was a system by which file-sharing entities agreed to block new releases for a certain period of time? Say 2 weeks, or a month. The record companies could provide them with track listings for new releases, and the file-sharing people could install a filter that would block files with those names from being traded for however long. Then, a simple adjustment to the filter and everyone can get to them. It would create a system whereby people would be encouraged to buy if they wanted to get the music right away, or just wait if they weren't that interested.

They could even set it up to account for singles - i.e., if the first single drops and no one's impressed, and the album gets taken off the filter, but the second single skyrockets, they could put the album back under the filter for a bit.

Sure, there would be ways around this - and maybe the file-sharing guys wouldn't cooperate - but I think if the RIAA approached them in a spirit of compromise, they probably would. It's time to lay the legal threats aside and try to come up with something that will genuinely work to promote the best interests of everyone. Especially - especially! - the consumer.

Which Horrible Affliction are you?
A Rum and Monkey disease.

Paul Shirley's Road Ramblings

Funny stuff.

Status: nothing at all done. Wait, I take that back - 2 challenges beaten on Timesplitters 2. 1 gold, 1 silver. Pretty sad, really.

Outlook: grim.

I finally feel better after a couple of days with a bug. Now it's time to play catch up.

Happy Easter, everybody!

Well, that's it. I'm super disappointed in the new Copeland record. It doesn't even come close to the greatness of their debut. I bought the record for a number of reasons, but it all boils down to the following:

1. Beneath Medicine Tree featured some incredible songwriting
   
2. Current drummer: Jon Bucklew (formerly of Denison Marrs)

That's it. I wanted to hear some good songs backed up by some big heavy beats. What I got instead was a pastiche of whiny camp with a few moments of brilliance. "Pin Your Wings Down" is a great pop tune. That's about it. Track 9 ("You Love to Sing") earns a dishonorable mention for opening up with the worst drum fill in the history of rock - one bar of straight 16th notes played very slow with absolutely no feeling. It's extra disappointing because I know Jon is capable of so much more - I went back and listened to his work with DM and it's just incredible. His playing on this record doesn't even compare.

The other letdown is the songwriting. Maybe my standards are too high, but I expected more. Beneath Medicine Tree was a great concept record, and the lyrics and melodies held it together. In Motion lacks cohesiveness, as the lyrics wander all around several general topics without ever diving into specifics. That's not entirely true; the lyrics themselves are not so much of a problem as the way the songs are constructed and produced. "Kite" features (are you ready for this?) an accordion; indie rock fans might rejoice at the possibilities, but the only purpose it serves here is to turn the track into a weak imitation of a Billy Joel ballad.

I'm probably being overly harsh, as I usually am when I first listen to something. But as I recall, I wasn't this way when I heard Beneath Medicine Tree for the first time, or World Renown for Romance, or even Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers. So I don't know what to think, but if I change my mind, I'll let you know.

Very funny:

You scored as Anarchism. <'Imunimaginative's Deviantart Page'> Anarchism 83% Socialist 67% Democrat 58% Green 42% Communism 33% Republican 25% Nazi 0% Fascism 0% What Political Party Do Your Beliefs Put You In? created with QuizFarm.com

Any quiz that attempts to classify one's political beliefs should not start out with the question, "Do you believe in the use of propaganda?" Also, questions like, "Are you more conservative than most?" are just stupid. Really. You might as well just have one question - "What do you consider yourself politically?" - and then spit the answer right back as the result.

"Do you support public education?"
"Is the Aryan race a master race?"

Come on!

Then again, maybe I really am an anarchist. That would explain my secret fascination with riots.

I can't believe it ... they got rid of Drew. I guess things weren't going so well with his show. I have to admit it wasn't as good when Doc left. Those two were a hilarious team. We still say "Mr Pibb" in his honor.

On the other hand, he's back already! And on O-Rock, too! Yay! I can't find a live feed anywhere. According to the website, he doesn't do talk anymore, and he's on in the afternoon - opposite Jim Philips on 104.1, who gave Drew his first big break. I'm sure it's not as melodramatic as it sounds. Somebody down there listen and let me know how it is.

(Warning: Ugly Page Alert)

Sorry about that, folks. The audio clip is Real audio, but I'm too lazy to find one in a non-suck format.

The funniest part is when Al Michaels jumps on the line to explain everything.

And when you're done with that, here's another example of pranking. With video!

(Disclaimer: Sharkblog! does not think Howard Stern is entertaining or even mildly funny, but anything that riles up the media is ok by us. Us ... me. The royal "us"!)

First of all, that's a lie. I'm not listening to the new Copeland record yet, but only because I forgot it came out today. Er, yesterday. Whatever. It's really good, and there's some clips you can listen to on their website. I would say the new stuff sounds more ... 80's: slicker and almost "Hall and Oates"-ish. Probably not the best way to describe it. Good stuff, anyway.

I don't know how I did it, but I did. One piece for symphonic band under my belt. The college band read it today and I had to conduct. It was not pretty. They were very nice about everything. Rachel (the other grad comp student) wrote a piece that was supposed to be the band rehearsing a march. It turned out good even though she refused to conduct it.

After that fiasco - which I spent most of last night preparing for - I was so burned; I went home and zoned out. I may not be consistently busy, but when I put myself to a task, things get done. Gears get kicked into.

I'm trying to practice an economy of words in my writing (song and otherwise). Although I'm not the biggest Hemingway fan, I admire his methods. HST was also a big fan of weeding out extraneous words. So here I am, trying to cut down on the stupid adjectives I like to use. Mostly the exaggerations: "really", "just", "anyway", etc. I remember John Lennon said some things about "throwaway words" in songwriting and that "just" was one of them.

Where am I going with this? I'll tell you: I'm going to get some Thai on Thursday. It will be delicious.

Zombie Master You are 80% likely to survive and 95% knowledgeable Hail to the king, baby.

My test tracked 2 variables: survivability and knowledge. Here's how you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 56% on Survivability You scored higher than 99% on Knowledge

Link: The True Zombie Survival Test written by Shadowslayer on Ok Cupid

Spongebob vs. Dr Dobson, round 2

This is great. I mean sad. It's just a ridiculous thing to make an issue out of. On both sides. For shame, America! For shame.

In other news, CAKE is playing in Nashville next month. I'm looking forward to it, except for some reason tickets aren't for sale yet, and the show is at Vanderbilt. All that jail time I avoided at the Skynyrd concert? I'm sure it'll come back to haunt me here.

Here we go ... I spent way too much money over spring break. It didn't seem like that much at the time, but I guess if you count the plane ticket it was quite a bit. I had a good time, so I don't really care. Too late to worry about it now.

Madness is all around me. So much to do - more than I ever thought possible with only one "real" class this term. When I have too many things to do, sometimes I get stuck trying to decide what to do first. The ultimate result is nothing gets done. I've become a master at working under a deadline - specifically, the day before the deadline. I've also become a master at sight-reading for gigs. When they give me the music so far in advance I feel obligated to look it over, but I never have the time. It always works out. Everything I've ever done on viola has been sight-reading, so I may as well go with what works.

Oh, here's a Damien Rice song. I forgot I had this. He's been featured on NPR endlessly, which surprises me since his music is hardly "sanitized" enough for public radio.

Caleb brought me a sandwich. The bacon was chewy, but hey, free lunch. It came with stale Oreos (mmm) and some regular chips (ick) and an apple with a curious brown streak on it.

I have now received a warning from the other room not to eat the apple. It tasted gross anyway.

Nerdly time-waster of the day:
Can a light saber cut through adamantium?

I am back. This week was long; how long, you ask? About 5 cities, 4 states, and 9 days long. Many lessons were learned and many strange things done. I listened to a lot of the Killers. I did not play darts, but I came within 25 feet of a dartboard.

Adam is going to write a book, and I am going to publish it. Mark my words: it will be a book.

-The Hon. Indigenous J. Peoples

Ah, sunny Florida. 55 and raining when my plane touched down. It's as if I never left Nashville...

What did I do today?

It started with me finding, to my dismay, that the UPS guy had once again decided not to leave my package at the door the way he has done every single other time I've had something delivered to me. The kicker is it's a frickin' $2 box of pens. (Hey, it was a good deal online - I can't find these pens anywhere!) When I worked for a certain PDA company that will remain unnamed, UPS would consistently leave $500 PDA's lying around on people's doorsteps.

I just want my pens, man. Pilot Precise Deluxe Bold (key word being bold, as most stores carry these in the highly inferior "fine point"). Black - but I got some blue ones this time, too. That might result in some interesting songwriting sessions. I really get a kick out of writing with those pens in a regular old spiral notebook. It's a tactile thing; I'm a very tactile person. (Or I guess you could just say "weird" or "not somebody I'd want to be stuck talking to at a party", but what's the fun in that?)

Enough about pens. I spent a couple hours trying to install my old hard drive on Caleb's computer, which became a lot more complicated than I thought possible. In the end, of course, it was incredibly simple. I have made a mental note to bypass all the stupid stuff next time.

I went and got a haircut - I dare say it was the finest I've received in Nashville. You know how you can tell within the first 30 seconds whether it's going to be a good haircut or not? You can try to have them touch it up however you want, but you know right away what you're getting into. This was a great haircut.

We went to Kim's house for a while to chill with her and Alan. It was an absolute riot. We were going to play all these games, but we played one round of Cranium Super Extra Turbo Edition (it's the one that has M. Bison AND Cammy) and then we just ended up talking and eating brownies and talking and talking until somebody said, "Hey, it's 2 am" and talking and talking until somebody said, "Get out of my house!" which I think was Caleb saying that to Sherry's rug for who knows what reason.

So we left, and here I am. I have my clothes set out, and I don't think I need much else for 5 days in Melbourne. One thing's for sure - I didn't get anything done over the past two days that I wanted to. No composition, no practicing. So I'll have to scramble to put something together for my comp. lesson when I get back, and my fine compatriots at the Belmont Symphony will have to deal with my sight-reading for an extra day or two, until I can scratch out some truly horrendous bowings that will undoubtedly be criticized and corrected. Except for maybe the corrected part.

Anyway, peace out to everyone. This is B^$ (B to the power of the dollar) signing off until next week.

???

Pimp My Burger

I really can't say much about this except it was a bad idea to begin with. However, the soundtrack is mighty bumpin'. (The number at the top changes tracks.)

There's a full show you can watch. I don't recommend it even though it has German subtitles. I only suffered through it because I'm bored out of my skull right now.

My Weekend.

by Brandon de la Cruz

I went to Memphis this weekend. It was so fun. They call Memphis the "city of angels" because that's what it means in Spanish. We droved over there in my car and ate a lot of food. Sometimes Caleb was the navigator. We found a lot of places but we didn't get to found his old house. Where he used to live.

That was my weekend!! Wait, we also had an itinernary:

Day 1

1. Pack stuff up and get ready to go.
   
2. Wait for Rachel to get done with stuff so I could go meet her for coffee and almost end up not going to Memphis at all.
   
3. Roll out.
   
4. Call Dan for an impromptu rendition of "Ignition (remix)". (By the way, Dan, these types of things wouldn't happen if you would answer your phone.)
   
5. In a furious and hungry haze, we decide to seek out a seafood restaurant after not eating anything all day.
   
6. 2 oysters and several beers later, we check in to our hotel.

Day 2

1. Unsolved Breakfast Mysteries. Soon, the mystery is solved, and we are at Perkins.
   
2. Graceland. 'Nuff said.
   
3. The Grand Casino Tunica in Tunica, Mississippi. We really wanted to find a riverboat casino, but there weren't any. So we settled for the next best thing. I was looking forward to the poker tables until I found out they only had $4/$8 and no limit, which is like opening a drugstore that only sells solid gold toothbrushes.
   
4. The other thing that lured us to the casino was the promise of a "grand buffet - over 200 items!" Too bad it was mostly crap. The dessert selection was very high quality.
   
5. At some point during the evening, I hatched a plan to get myself sponsored for the World Series of Poker. It's gonna work like this: a savvy investor-type who is looking to make a great return on their money is going to pay the costs involved with my traveling to and entering the World Series of Poker. In return, I will split my winnings down the middle with said sponsor. There would be a significant return on investment even if I don't win the jackpot. If you guys know anybody that would be interested, have them contact me.
   
6. Planned on going to Beale Street, but when we got back we were drained from the casino. Decided to watch "28 Days Later" when it came on HBO. Turns out, it's a really good movie.

Day 3

1. Up (relatively) early to go track down Al Green's church. It wasn't very big at all. There were maybe 25 visitors and 30-40 members. It was the loudest thing I have ever experienced in my life. I don't remember much else. Everyone was really nice.
   
2. Sun Studios. This was great. The guys who work there are really cool. I'm pretty sure they were all musicians. You can still book time there for the low low cost of $75 an hour. Maybe someday. (Note to self: perhaps I can hatch a scheme to get someone to sponsor me for the World Series of Rock ...)
   
3. Time to go home. The drive is about 3.5 hours. I won't bore you with the details.

fin

Photoshop goodness

I can't get enough of this stuff. Warning: if you are not a video game nerd, you will probably not find this funny.

Finally!

My crusade is over. They have let Belmont students into the facebook.

What is a facebook, you might ask? I don't know. All I know is I sign up for this site and suddenly I can browse through a bunch of profiles belonging to people I may or may not have known in high school. You got me ... I'm just trying to kill time before bed. But, who knows? Maybe it'll be a fun kind of thing.

We're going to Memphis tomorrow. It's gonna be flippin' sweet. (Note: the previous link does not render well in Firefox. This type of thing is starting to annoy me. I know it's the website designer being lazy, and not a fault of Firefox, but I still hate it. Anyway, it pulls up fine in IE.)

And after we get back, I'm flying home for a few days. We're going to hit Universal Mardi-Gras right between the eyes. Unfortunately, the band playing that night is Lynyrd Skynyrd. I predict injuries and/or jail time for myself and my crew.

I had a great recital Tuesday night. The piece seemed to go over well with everyone. I felt a little upstaged by a guy who used tubular bells in his piece. I'll just have to show him by using a cannon next time.

Does it matter that I don't really care about having my work performed? Sure, it's nice, but when I finish something, I put it away and I'm pretty much done with it. It's the same way with the commercial stuff I do - once the record was done, I just let it go and started working on new stuff. I guess I'm going to be a pretty lousy (and poor) composer if nobody ever plays my music. If I could just land something as innocent and all-encompassing as the "Cops" theme song ... can you imagine how much money those Inner Circle punks have made over the years? It plays at least 2-3 times a day here, and that's just one channel in one market.

With all that money, I could buy an island and build a huge studio and just record and record and record. I would have a legacy of being incredibly eccentric, and yet my charming thoughts and observations would be sought after by journalists the world over.

Either that, or I could buy my very own college football team. They'd let me do that, right?

"If this article were any gayer, it would have a White House press pass."

That is the funniest comment I have ever read. If you don't get it, here's the link.

I am so stupid.

I bought a ticket to see Elvis Costello next week.

That is not why I am stupid.

I am stupid because the concert happens here in Nashville about 10 hours after my flight leaves for Orlando.

So ... anyone wanna go see Elvis Costello next Wednesday?