the (almost) daily blog
Saturday, November 17, 2007
I Believe in Consonants: My Life Without an iPod
Rather than work on my second interview with Nyles Lannon (which will be one of the best interviews to date), I decided to do something I had not done in quite a while: attempt to write an actual article.
I Believe in Consonants: My Life Without an iPod
Today, as I was looking through a six month-old issue of Paste magazine, I thought about how I never read music magazines anymore. Fifteen years ago, my dream would have been to write for one. But now, they just seem dated and constantly behind the curve - even the best ones. That's the reality of living in this digital age where your status may be dictated by which version of the iPod, or iPhone, you own.
Shocking admission number one: I do not own an iPod or an iPhone.
Shocking admission number two: I still buy compact discs.
Last weekend, on a trip to Target, my wife and I were discussing how we weren't, "iPod people." While it may be the greatest musical breakthrough since the Walkman, it seems like a waste of time and money. At least it does to me.
Believe me, I know how asinine that statement sounds. Millions upon millions of people have them. Apple reinvented itself with it. It makes taking your favorite music where ever you go as easy as carrying your wallet.
But still, the idea of spending $300 on an iPod?
It's not like I am anti-digital music. Far from it. I started downloading MP3s at college in 1997. What do you do when you have access to a T3? You use it. And when you can download 40 different remixes of The Cure's, "A Forest"? You do. When your college wipes your account and there is no way save your MP3s? You cry. When you get a real job and a dial-up internet connection and to try download MP3s? You stop.
Since I started DeadJournalist.com in March 2006, I've used it as a tool to realize my want to start a music magazine. But the music magazine is a music web site, and while I do have my fair share of readers, it doesn't exactly have the readership of Rolling Stone in 1973. But I evolved with technology just as I evolved with music.
So if I could channel my creative outlet to a technological form, what can't I take my music there?
Maybe it started when the iPod came out - just in time for Christmas 2001. It had been a rough year and I was starting over with a new company and a new career. I wanted one, but frankly, I couldn't afford an iPod. When you are living on Taco Bell and generic lasagna, investing in a MP3 player isn't the like the wisest of choices.
As the years went on, my pay increased and the iPod got bigger and better. I had bought a laptop, gotten high-speed internet, began downloading MP3s like it was 1997 all over again and even started deejaying using MP3s. One could have drawn a logical conclusion I had added an iPod to my list of depreciating assets. But I hadn't.
I could never shake the feeling that if I moved all my music to MP3 and sold my CDs, as several of my friends had done, I would somehow manage to loose my iPod and in turn, loose all of my music. But that could never happen, right? Plus, my music would be backed-up on a laptop, so what could go wrong? Sure, it sounds great in theory, but for some reason, I could never buy in to it.
So I kept doling out $10 or $15 a pop for compact discs, save when Tower Records and Blockbuster Music (or whatever it had changed its name to) had going out of business sales allowing me to spend $100 on 30 CDs. Before I knew it, a couple hundred CDs because a couple thousand CDS. It was CDs, CDs everywhere. CDs had become my tribbles.
With all the clutter, I began to think it might be time to change. I could go modern and get clean by ditching my CDs by uploading them to my laptop. I could then sell my CDs and get enough money to buy an iPod and still have a couple grand in my pocket. All I would need would be a month of weekends to uploaded music and I could be a walking television commercial for the iPod!
Shockingly enough, I kept putting it off, because it not only seemed like one helluva daunting task, but I really didn't want to commit a month of my life to music conversion. So, like many other "sounds good in theory" projects, I never got around to it.
Then September 2006 happened.
It was a Thursday night (the week after I took a Friday night off from deejaying and got a spur-of-the-moment interview with TV on the Radio). Sometime around 2AM a sharp, shrieking, metal-on-metal noise woke me and my future wife. Cue the nightmare.
It was my laptop. It was dying a long, painful death. With its death went gigabyte after gigabyte of MP3s that I had uploaded or downloaded. Despite a noble and partially successful attempt to reclaim the lost data from my sputtering hard drive by a friend in IT, much of the core collection had been lost or damage.
I was determined to recover. I bought an external hard drive and backed up my music. A catastrophe of this magnitude would not happen to me again. Famous last words. Two months later, my external drive shorted out causing me to loose my backed-up digital music collection. While I had backed-up the back-up on my new laptop, any remaining thoughts of converting my music collection to digital only gone with the wind.
So that brings us to the moral of the story. I enjoy digital music, I really do. I like the remixes, the new artists and the rare tracks that are hard, if not impossible, to find on hard copy.
But I miss the rest of the experience. The album art; the joy of holding a tangible product in my hand while walking out of one of the dwindling CD shops; or the joy of coming home and seeing a package I ordered from online and ripping into it to see the latest additions to my collection.
And most importantly, I like knowing that if and when my laptop or external hard drive decides to die again, that I have to worry about far few songs being lost because I still have the original CDs or records or tapes cluttering up the place.
While I still want to have that room or basement that guys in their early twenties dream about - a room full of old music posters, old systems, old furniture and thousands of old records and CDs from bands that only a handful of people remember - maybe at some point down the line maybe I'll have a kid that will go rummaging through my CDs looking for a band that he or she has actually heard of from 30 years ago.
Regardless, I'll be able play a song and close my eyes and be at that place and time when I heard it for the first time. Who knows, maybe I'll be listening to that song on an iPod and not on the portable CD player I got from my parents for my high school graduation almost 15 years ago. Stranger things have happened. I did reference tribbles, and I never in a million years thought I'd ever make a Star Trek reference.
ipod, chuck norton, editorial, deadjournalist.com
I Believe in Consonants: My Life Without an iPod
Today, as I was looking through a six month-old issue of Paste magazine, I thought about how I never read music magazines anymore. Fifteen years ago, my dream would have been to write for one. But now, they just seem dated and constantly behind the curve - even the best ones. That's the reality of living in this digital age where your status may be dictated by which version of the iPod, or iPhone, you own.
Shocking admission number one: I do not own an iPod or an iPhone.
Shocking admission number two: I still buy compact discs.
Last weekend, on a trip to Target, my wife and I were discussing how we weren't, "iPod people." While it may be the greatest musical breakthrough since the Walkman, it seems like a waste of time and money. At least it does to me.
Believe me, I know how asinine that statement sounds. Millions upon millions of people have them. Apple reinvented itself with it. It makes taking your favorite music where ever you go as easy as carrying your wallet.
But still, the idea of spending $300 on an iPod?
It's not like I am anti-digital music. Far from it. I started downloading MP3s at college in 1997. What do you do when you have access to a T3? You use it. And when you can download 40 different remixes of The Cure's, "A Forest"? You do. When your college wipes your account and there is no way save your MP3s? You cry. When you get a real job and a dial-up internet connection and to try download MP3s? You stop.
Since I started DeadJournalist.com in March 2006, I've used it as a tool to realize my want to start a music magazine. But the music magazine is a music web site, and while I do have my fair share of readers, it doesn't exactly have the readership of Rolling Stone in 1973. But I evolved with technology just as I evolved with music.
So if I could channel my creative outlet to a technological form, what can't I take my music there?
Maybe it started when the iPod came out - just in time for Christmas 2001. It had been a rough year and I was starting over with a new company and a new career. I wanted one, but frankly, I couldn't afford an iPod. When you are living on Taco Bell and generic lasagna, investing in a MP3 player isn't the like the wisest of choices.
As the years went on, my pay increased and the iPod got bigger and better. I had bought a laptop, gotten high-speed internet, began downloading MP3s like it was 1997 all over again and even started deejaying using MP3s. One could have drawn a logical conclusion I had added an iPod to my list of depreciating assets. But I hadn't.
I could never shake the feeling that if I moved all my music to MP3 and sold my CDs, as several of my friends had done, I would somehow manage to loose my iPod and in turn, loose all of my music. But that could never happen, right? Plus, my music would be backed-up on a laptop, so what could go wrong? Sure, it sounds great in theory, but for some reason, I could never buy in to it.
So I kept doling out $10 or $15 a pop for compact discs, save when Tower Records and Blockbuster Music (or whatever it had changed its name to) had going out of business sales allowing me to spend $100 on 30 CDs. Before I knew it, a couple hundred CDs because a couple thousand CDS. It was CDs, CDs everywhere. CDs had become my tribbles.
With all the clutter, I began to think it might be time to change. I could go modern and get clean by ditching my CDs by uploading them to my laptop. I could then sell my CDs and get enough money to buy an iPod and still have a couple grand in my pocket. All I would need would be a month of weekends to uploaded music and I could be a walking television commercial for the iPod!
Shockingly enough, I kept putting it off, because it not only seemed like one helluva daunting task, but I really didn't want to commit a month of my life to music conversion. So, like many other "sounds good in theory" projects, I never got around to it.
Then September 2006 happened.
It was a Thursday night (the week after I took a Friday night off from deejaying and got a spur-of-the-moment interview with TV on the Radio). Sometime around 2AM a sharp, shrieking, metal-on-metal noise woke me and my future wife. Cue the nightmare.
It was my laptop. It was dying a long, painful death. With its death went gigabyte after gigabyte of MP3s that I had uploaded or downloaded. Despite a noble and partially successful attempt to reclaim the lost data from my sputtering hard drive by a friend in IT, much of the core collection had been lost or damage.
I was determined to recover. I bought an external hard drive and backed up my music. A catastrophe of this magnitude would not happen to me again. Famous last words. Two months later, my external drive shorted out causing me to loose my backed-up digital music collection. While I had backed-up the back-up on my new laptop, any remaining thoughts of converting my music collection to digital only gone with the wind.
So that brings us to the moral of the story. I enjoy digital music, I really do. I like the remixes, the new artists and the rare tracks that are hard, if not impossible, to find on hard copy.
But I miss the rest of the experience. The album art; the joy of holding a tangible product in my hand while walking out of one of the dwindling CD shops; or the joy of coming home and seeing a package I ordered from online and ripping into it to see the latest additions to my collection.
And most importantly, I like knowing that if and when my laptop or external hard drive decides to die again, that I have to worry about far few songs being lost because I still have the original CDs or records or tapes cluttering up the place.
While I still want to have that room or basement that guys in their early twenties dream about - a room full of old music posters, old systems, old furniture and thousands of old records and CDs from bands that only a handful of people remember - maybe at some point down the line maybe I'll have a kid that will go rummaging through my CDs looking for a band that he or she has actually heard of from 30 years ago.
Regardless, I'll be able play a song and close my eyes and be at that place and time when I heard it for the first time. Who knows, maybe I'll be listening to that song on an iPod and not on the portable CD player I got from my parents for my high school graduation almost 15 years ago. Stranger things have happened. I did reference tribbles, and I never in a million years thought I'd ever make a Star Trek reference.
ipod, chuck norton, editorial, deadjournalist.com
Labels: chuck norton, deadjournalist.com, editorial, ipod
Sunday, November 11, 2007
New Interview: A Sunny Day in Glasgow
Check out this new interview with A Sunny Day in Glasgow (with MP3): HERE
Labels: a sunny day in glasgow, deadjournalist.com, interviews
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
New Interview: Young Galaxy
Check out our new, exclusive interview with Young Galaxy!
DeadJournalist.com Exclusive Interview with Young Galaxy
DeadJournalist.com Exclusive Interview with Young Galaxy
Labels: deadjournalist.com, interviews, young galaxy
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
since no one is reading this anyway ... what i've been listening to
i really don't think anyone is reading this, since i'm pretty much on hiatus, but if you actually decided to read this ...
here's what i've been listening to:
mew (not the new one, if it is officially out yet, but the one before it) - which is amazing;
office - i haven't been able to listen to it loud, which would help;
new pony club - see above
feist - another solid piece from miss ipod nano; and
battles - i know people love this album. i'm just not one of them.
anyway, so that's that.
here's what i've been listening to:
mew (not the new one, if it is officially out yet, but the one before it) - which is amazing;
office - i haven't been able to listen to it loud, which would help;
new pony club - see above
feist - another solid piece from miss ipod nano; and
battles - i know people love this album. i'm just not one of them.
anyway, so that's that.
Labels: battles, deadjournalist.com, feist, mew, new pony club, office
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
New Nyles Lannon LP
Nyles Lannon is a fav of us here at DeadJournalist.com, and a few weeks ago he was kind enough to get us an advance of his sophomore solo project, Pressure.
We tend to think Lannon is an overlooked talent whose latest work is worth checking out. For more on Lannon, read our interview with him from last year at DeadJournalist.com.
We tend to think Lannon is an overlooked talent whose latest work is worth checking out. For more on Lannon, read our interview with him from last year at DeadJournalist.com.
Labels: deadjournalist.com, nyles lannon
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Video of the Day: Geggy Tah
Yes, you remember this song. Geggy Tah, "Whoever You Are"
Labels: deadjournalist.com, geggy tah, video of the day
Monday, September 03, 2007
Saturday, Sept. 1, 2007. Atlanta. The Rentals.
What the crowd lacked in size (150+ish?), it made up for in passion for The Rentals - and Matt Sharp and company didn't disappoint by giving as max show. The band was energetic, fun and smooth as you'd hope an experienced band would be. It was truly one the of best shows I've seen, with Sharp being every bit the frontman one would expect.
The band's line-up (which included Shon Sullivan of Goldenboy filling in on guitar) was teaming with chemistry on stage. Matt Sharp, Rachel Haden, Sara Radle, Ben Pringle, Dan Joeright and Lauren Chipman exuded both enthusiasm and musicianship.
The band played through the three new tracks on their new EP, while playing a number of songs from their first two LPs. But, as one would expect, the best response was for songs from the 1995 debut, Return of The Rentals.
The band stayed true to the original versions of "Please Let That Be You", "Friends of P.", "These Days" and "Waiting" (which was the final song of their encore) but performed a slightly revised version of "Move On" as well as the version of "Sweetness And Tenderness" that is on their current EP.
At the end of the show (which ended as it began with the playing of a Nat King Cole song), it was announced that another Rentals album is in process and another tour is being planned for '08. Fantastic. More Moog, more trombone, more female harmony, more Matt Sharp and more Rentals.
The band's line-up (which included Shon Sullivan of Goldenboy filling in on guitar) was teaming with chemistry on stage. Matt Sharp, Rachel Haden, Sara Radle, Ben Pringle, Dan Joeright and Lauren Chipman exuded both enthusiasm and musicianship.
The band played through the three new tracks on their new EP, while playing a number of songs from their first two LPs. But, as one would expect, the best response was for songs from the 1995 debut, Return of The Rentals.
The band stayed true to the original versions of "Please Let That Be You", "Friends of P.", "These Days" and "Waiting" (which was the final song of their encore) but performed a slightly revised version of "Move On" as well as the version of "Sweetness And Tenderness" that is on their current EP.
At the end of the show (which ended as it began with the playing of a Nat King Cole song), it was announced that another Rentals album is in process and another tour is being planned for '08. Fantastic. More Moog, more trombone, more female harmony, more Matt Sharp and more Rentals.
Labels: atlanta, Ben Pringle, concert review, Dan Joeright, deadjournalist.com, Goldenboy, Lauren Chipman, Matt Sharp, Rachel Haden, Sara Radle, Shon Sullivan, the rentals
Friday, August 31, 2007
Midlake Tour Schedule, new EP and Atlanta show
We here at DeadJournalist.com are huge fans of Midlake (whose song "Roscoe" is #1 in our most played iTunes folder). The band will be making it's way to Atlanta next Tuesday at the Earl. Go show support to a band who deserves your support.
The band will also be releasing a digital-only EP on Sept. 4 with an accoustic version of "Roscoe" and three other songs. The EP, "Oak and Julian will be available at iTunes.
Track Listing:
1. Roscoe (Acoustic Version)
2. It Covers The Hillside (Acoustic Version)
3. Marion
4. Mornings Will Be Kind
Midlake Tour Schedule:
Tue - Sep 04 @ The Earl, Atlanta, GA
Wed - Sep 05 @ CatŐs Cradle, Carrboro, NC
Thu - Sep 06 @ Black Cat, Washington, DC
Fri - Sep 07 @ Theatre of Living Arts, Philadelphia, PA
Sat - Sep 08 @ Webster Hall, New York, NY
Sun - Sep 09 @ Paradise Rock Club, Boston, MA
Tue - Sep 11 @ Grog Shop, Cleveland, OH
Wed - Sep 12 @ Metro, Chicago, IL
Sun - Sep 16 @ Austin City Limits, Austin, TX
Thu - Sep 20 @ Numbers, Houston, TX
Mon - Sep 24 @ Rhythm Room, Phoenix, AZ
Tue - Sep 25 @ Henry Fonda Theatre, Los Angeles, CA
Wed - Sep 26 @ Belly Up Tavern, Solana Beach / San Diego, CA
Thu - Sep 27 @ Great American Music Hall, San Francisco, CA
Sat - Sep 29 @ Doug Fir, Portland, OR
Sun - Sep 30 @ Crocodile Cafe, Seattle, WA
Tue - Oct 02 @ Bluebird Theatre, Denver, CO
Wed - Oct 03 @ Jackpot, Lawrence, KS
The band will also be releasing a digital-only EP on Sept. 4 with an accoustic version of "Roscoe" and three other songs. The EP, "Oak and Julian will be available at iTunes.
Track Listing:
1. Roscoe (Acoustic Version)
2. It Covers The Hillside (Acoustic Version)
3. Marion
4. Mornings Will Be Kind
Midlake Tour Schedule:
Tue - Sep 04 @ The Earl, Atlanta, GA
Wed - Sep 05 @ CatŐs Cradle, Carrboro, NC
Thu - Sep 06 @ Black Cat, Washington, DC
Fri - Sep 07 @ Theatre of Living Arts, Philadelphia, PA
Sat - Sep 08 @ Webster Hall, New York, NY
Sun - Sep 09 @ Paradise Rock Club, Boston, MA
Tue - Sep 11 @ Grog Shop, Cleveland, OH
Wed - Sep 12 @ Metro, Chicago, IL
Sun - Sep 16 @ Austin City Limits, Austin, TX
Thu - Sep 20 @ Numbers, Houston, TX
Mon - Sep 24 @ Rhythm Room, Phoenix, AZ
Tue - Sep 25 @ Henry Fonda Theatre, Los Angeles, CA
Wed - Sep 26 @ Belly Up Tavern, Solana Beach / San Diego, CA
Thu - Sep 27 @ Great American Music Hall, San Francisco, CA
Sat - Sep 29 @ Doug Fir, Portland, OR
Sun - Sep 30 @ Crocodile Cafe, Seattle, WA
Tue - Oct 02 @ Bluebird Theatre, Denver, CO
Wed - Oct 03 @ Jackpot, Lawrence, KS
Labels: atlanta, deadjournalist.com, midlake, worlds fair
Thursday, August 30, 2007
My Summer Girl
Please let that be you
Saturday night, Sept. 1, 2007. Atlanta. The Rentals. A driving force for 12 years. Bables unite!
Labels: atlanta, deadjournalist.com, the rentals
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
sorta, kinda on hiatus
if you read this site regularly, or if you are reading this for the first time, you've probably noticed that there haven't been any new interviews up in almost a month. i believe there's a saying, something along the lines of, "music is for the youth". while that isn't completely true - there is some merit to the concept.
a good friend of mine, who is my age, asked me yesterday what i had been listening to lately. my reply? nothing, there's simply been no time. even when there has been time, there hasn't been the drive to dive into a new cd and listen to it for hours. for the past eight months, i've been hoping that it would change. despite some blips here and there, it hasn't.
DeadJournalist.com was my next-generation way of staying in the music. i did not intend to let it languish as a time capsule; and especially not since readership was at it's zenith. reality is reality, and the reality is i'm not sure how much time i'll have to devote myself to the site in the upcoming months.
there are two three interviews that i only need to post, and six band made commitments to do interviews. i hope to complete these, at the least.
in the meantime, thank you for reading the site. i hope you've enjoyed the interviews. and hopefully, the laws of physics will get the site back in motion soon.
a good friend of mine, who is my age, asked me yesterday what i had been listening to lately. my reply? nothing, there's simply been no time. even when there has been time, there hasn't been the drive to dive into a new cd and listen to it for hours. for the past eight months, i've been hoping that it would change. despite some blips here and there, it hasn't.
DeadJournalist.com was my next-generation way of staying in the music. i did not intend to let it languish as a time capsule; and especially not since readership was at it's zenith. reality is reality, and the reality is i'm not sure how much time i'll have to devote myself to the site in the upcoming months.
there are two three interviews that i only need to post, and six band made commitments to do interviews. i hope to complete these, at the least.
in the meantime, thank you for reading the site. i hope you've enjoyed the interviews. and hopefully, the laws of physics will get the site back in motion soon.
Labels: deadjournalist.com, hiatus, interviews
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
The Raveonettes Interview
Very exciting - just got back the interview from Sune of the Raveonettes, so be looking for it in the next day or so!
Labels: deadjournalist.com, interviews, the raveonettes
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Happy Birthday To Us (a day early)
March 16, 2006, DeadJournalist.com launched as a single-paged Web site. The site was an idea that I had been tossing around for several years, but it took another year of not going to SXSW to launch the site. Within a month, I had posted the site's first interview with The High Violets.
Now, almost one year later, the site has gone through three design updates, added several sections and most importantly, conducted 42 artist interviews thus far. And tomorrow, DeadJournalist.com will celebrate with its 43rd interview Jena Malone, the award-winning actress who had begun a music career.
Over the past year, we've added several contributing writers from throughout the US. I'd like that thank everyone for their contributions.
While year one has exceeded my expectations (I'm proud of what we've accomplished) I want the next year to be even better. But for now, happy birthday to us. And thanks for reading.
Chuck
Now, almost one year later, the site has gone through three design updates, added several sections and most importantly, conducted 42 artist interviews thus far. And tomorrow, DeadJournalist.com will celebrate with its 43rd interview Jena Malone, the award-winning actress who had begun a music career.
Over the past year, we've added several contributing writers from throughout the US. I'd like that thank everyone for their contributions.
While year one has exceeded my expectations (I'm proud of what we've accomplished) I want the next year to be even better. But for now, happy birthday to us. And thanks for reading.
Chuck
Labels: deadjournalist.com, jena malone
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