iProng Radio #65

Counting Crows lead singer Adam Duritz joins iProng’s Bill Palmer as a special guest on iProng Radio. Adam talks about the motivations behind the brand new Counting Crows album Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings (available today), his take on the current state of the music industry, and why he’s giving away everything from free songs from the new album to video footage from the studio recordings. Counting Crows are also the cover story for the March 26th issue of iProng Magazine.

- Listen to iProng Radio #65 right now in your browser

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- Download the March 26th issue of iProng Magazine with Counting Crows on the cover, for free: March 26th issue

Punk Rock and Social Media

I saw the documentary Punk’s Not Dead at the Three Rivers Film Festival this week and it got me thinking about why punk is the model we social media creators should be following.

Major Similarities Between Punk and Social Media

Punk was a medium created by the disenfranchised youth who sought to rebel against the corruption and groupthought inherent in “the system.”

Punk had a low barrier of entry — most “musicians” had zero training or experience (or, often, talent), but their passion and presence is what made them noteworthy. The punk scene relied on word-of-mouth, grassroots marketing and DIY production values.

Punks regularly refer to themselves as a family, bonded by a philosophy and shared experiences. Punk, like social media, is primarily the playground of white men.

Major Differences Between Punk and Social Media

Social media requires more expensive equipment to create than punk rock does. Social media relies upon digital distribution. Social media can reach anyone, anywhere, at any time — if they have a computer. Social media is looking down the barrel of the “money vs. passion” argument much earlier, and much more publicly, than punk ever did.

About the Film

Punk’s Not Dead is an insider’s look at how and why punk has survived for 30 years. Director Susan Dynner grew up in DC during the birth of the punk scene and has been involved with it ever since. The interviews she conducted for the film mirror the kind of “passionate desperation” found in today’s social media movement, and offer a LOT of correlations for our potential success.

Among them:

• Henry Rollins makes several great points about the hand-to-mouth lifestyle led by even the “top” bands. Everyone looked up to Black Flag as the epitome of punk success, but in reality, they were sleeping on fans’ couches and floors and living out of their tour bus — which, he insists, could never stop moving.

“We were like sharks,” Rollins says. “If we stopped moving, we wouldn’t eat.”

• Ian MacKaye built the Dischord label from the ground up, based primarily on the reality that the mainstream recording industry saw no value (or marketability) in the punk scene. But instead of scheming to find ways to make the MSM notice them, the punks said “fuck it” and created their own labels to sustain their momentum.

(Dynner was on-hand at the 3RFF showing and, during the post-film Q&A, told stories about hanging out at Dischord in the early years, where she – and everyone else on-hand – taught themselves how to hand-package the records and ship them out, one by one.)

• To the people *in* the punk scene, the musicians were both larger-than-life and completely accessible. Casual fans could wander backstage and have a beer with Bad Religion or Sham 69 almost by accident. That kind of “peer” mentality involved the fans of the music in ways that MSM could never hope to achieve.

• Throughout the whole punk lifeline, the scene has consistently resembled a “family” or artists who distrust MSM intervention or any attempts to control or repackage their original intentions.

On the other hand, the nature of speaking truth to power, as punks often did, was seen as the most *mainstream* concept in the world — far more so than the antiseptic POV of the MSM.

• The seminal punk bands were (and still are) happy to play a room of 5 fans or 50. Numbers weren’t the driving force; the need to be heard, and to meet new people who shared their POV, was.
• Again, from Rollins: “We were (metaphorically) standing outside, screaming [pantomimes a loud voice], but to the record labels, it was like [pantomimes tiny, muted voice].”

Until, of course, the “cool kids” noticed, and suddenly punk mutated into something marketable… but *ONLY* after the punk pioneers carved out their own (relative) success.
• To this day, bands like Subhuman, The Addicts and The U. K. Subs tour incessantly, sleeping in fans’ houses and selling their own merch from tables and vans — 30 years after they first took the stage.

Despite the fact that bands who have come along well after the forefathers started the scene are now enjoying exponential success, while the legends who lit the fire in the first place are still living hand-to-mouth, they carry on because they still derive so much pleasure from the endeavor that they couldn’t imagine not doing it.

All of Which Makes Me Wonder…

Will social media have this kind of longevity?

Why are some of us so eager to model our work after MSM — or to garner their attention in the first place — rather than refining our specific brand or shade of originality?

Are modern media creators so passionate to have their voices heard that they’re willing to push through all obstacles, sleep on floors and “tour” endlessly, just to ensure they’re heard by the audience that’s seeking them out? What think you?

story by Justin Kownacki of Something to Be Desired

iTunes Store launch at Starbucks

It’s about time Seattle got an Apple-related thing before anyone else (aside from New York). That’s right, the Apple-Starbucks alliance has officially begun, going live on a Tuesday morning at Starbucks stores all over the two cities mentioned above. Since I live in Seattle, I was able to test it out on an iPod touch at a local Starbucks location.

The iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store only works for iPhones and iPods that have been upgraded to software version 1.1.1 or higher – if you’ve unlocked your iPhone, you won’t be able to access this without upgrading. Once in the iTunes Music Store, though, the Starbucks part hooked in seamlessly. When connected to the “tmobile” wireless network, the four icons on the bottom of the music store screen will slide to the right to make room for a Starbucks logo. Tapping on this gives access to the Starbucks screen, which includes the currently playing song in addition to recently played songs and a few other lists of music that Starbucks thinks you might want to buy.

The Starbucks section functions just like the rest of the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store, linking in song titles, artists, and albums. The download speed was decent, as the free song of the day (Jokerman, by Bob Dylan) downloaded in about a minute. The free song process was rather cumbersome, as the display advertising free songs was paradoxically missing any free song cards. I ended up having to ask the barista for one, which turned out to be behind the counter. 

However, I noticed something interesting while the song was downloading – even though the Internet is blocked by T-Mobile/Starbucks’ pay wall, you can still access apple.com and starbucks.com. This means that even if you don’t have iTunes installed on your laptop, you could still download it, install it, and buy the song that’s playing, all without leaving your seat. In fact, if you wanted you could go on Apple’s website and buy a Mac or iPod on the spot.

The main complaint I have is that there’s no (visible, at least) way to redeem a free song card directly to an iPhone or iPod touch. You’d think it would be possible, given that either one has a keyboard available, but I ended up having to download the song on my PowerBook.

Aside from the problems with free songs, however, the Starbucks portion of the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store works as advertised. Although it isn’t likely to contribute much money to either Apple or Starbucks, it will serve to increase awareness of iTunes and the iPod to all of the many, many people who buy coffee there every day. If enough of them buy songs, we can only hope that this program will be expanded – although if it ever gets to the point where I can download the muzak playing in the clothing department, it will have gone too far.

on-site report by Eric Nguyen

Bricked: how I killed my iPhone

Hi, I’m Rishabh “Shooby” Kumar and I am quite possibly the dumbest self-described “iPhone hacker/modder/jailbreaker” on the Internet.  Seriously, by the end of this column, you will be thinking to yourself, “And he used to be Leo Laporte’s intern?”

A few months ago during Podcamp SoCal when I should have been at school, the iPhone Dev Team chatroom was ablaze with talk about the just-released iPhone 1.1.1 firmware update.  Will it brick jailbroken iPhones?  Will it brick unlocked iPhones?  Are there any other changes besides the stupid iTunes WiFi Store?  What will happen to our precious third-party apps?  Who would be the first iPhone modder to install said 1.1.1 update?

I decided to take the plunge and install. My mind began to race at PodCamp.  How was I going to contact anyone at home while more than four hundred the update on my jailbroken and unlocked iPhone.  Hoping for the best, I waited for the update to complete.  A few moments later, the iPhone began to reboot and it all looked well, but suddenly the message, “The SIM card is invalid” appeared.  My iPhone had been bricked.

miles away?  The iPhone Dev Team promised a solution two weeks away.  Therefore, the only solution at the moment was to get a new iPhone.  I wasn’t thinking rationally.  I could have gotten some el cheapo AT&T phone to throw my SIM card into in the meantime.  However, in the presence of so many iPhones at Podcast Expo, one feels obliged to own one.  Giving up my iPhone for two weeks would have been hell.  Jeez, I need to be in one of the new iPhone commercials.

That night Bill Palmer drove me to the Rancho Cucamonga Apple Store to see if I could get the iPhone replaced.  Someone at corporate had apparently gotten word of all the bricked iPhones, as some people earlier in the day had been able to replace their units.  Unfortunately for me, I got the short end of the stick.  All the Apple stores had begun posting large, ominous-looking signs with the block text saying that unlocked iPhones are out of warranty.  I was screwed.

What was so strange to me was that the Apple employees treated me with such hostility regarding the unlocked iPhone.  It was as if they were dealing with the spawn of Satan.  It was highly surprising, mainly because the Apple Store usually has a welcoming and friendly atmosphere.  Rather, the AT&T Store employees were much kinder to me, and actually tried to help me out in my predicament.  They did not care nearly as much that it was unlocked.

I received mixed reactions to my “bricked” iPhone at the Podcast Expo.  About half of the people who saw it were highly intrigued, and I was even interviewed about it on Adam Christianson’s MacCast.  This group of people felt pity.  However, the other half of the people treated me like I was an idiot for updating the unlocked device.  I can’t say I wasn’t.  Regardless, there was a fund set up for me so that I could purchase a new iPhone.

In the end, a nice person on the internet Western Unioned me the necessary funds to purchase a new iPhone.  I bought it at the AT&T Store because I didn’t want to be berated harshly or given malicious glances at the Apple Store.  Nevertheless, I did learn my lesson here.  Never be the guinea pig for an open-source community if you don’t have the resources or the time.

story by Shooby Kumar

PodCamp EDU on-site report

Podcamp EDU, hosted by Vivian Vasquez & Andy Bilodeau was held on Saturday, November 10th, 2007 at American University in Washington, DC. In contrast to the larger Podcamps in Boston, New York or Philadelphia, Podcamp EDU was a one day, one room, one track workshop with a single focus on education.

The speakers at Podcamp EDU were impressive and well informed, including Andy Carvin from NPR and PBS Learning.now, Stephanie Stockman from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center; Vivian Vasquez, from American University and the Critical Literacy in Practice Podcast, Joel Mark Witt from Maryland Zoo.TV, Tammy Munson from the PodTalkDivas, Nick Guzman & Rebeca Logan, talking about Spanish language and social network podcasting, and even Gretchen Vogelzang from Mommycast.

The attendees were active participants, asking questions and contributing. Many of the attendees were educators in both k-12 and university environments, looking to see how they could integrate podcasting, video and multimedia into their classroom, both as project-based work for students and to help extend lessons beyond the written page. While educators often run into problems because school districts restrict access to common social networking sites like flickr, or blip.tv, ways to work around these restrictions were discussed.

Joel Mark Witt, from Maryland Zoo TV, did a fantastic presentation, starting out with a moving video from a professor at the University of Kansas, highlighting how university students already spend a huge amount of their time online every day using social networking tools. Joel then showed how they were using video podcasts to highlight interesting facts about animals at the zoo, and highlighting all the interactive web applications now available, centrally listed at http://www.go2web20.net/. (Be Careful- you may spend all day looking for the perfect tool at this site!)

Stephanie Stockman, from NASA’s Goddard Flight Center did a great presentation featuring all the podcasts NASA puts out as part of the education arm of each mission. NASA also has the responsibility for the earth-orbit and earth monitoring satellites, giving all of us information about how climate change is truly affecting our planet. It’s hard not to be impressed by a woman who is both passionate about education and is also a Rocket Scientist! Her handouts about astrobiology and CDs containing truly spectacular photos were simply awesome!

Vivian Vasquez, a professor at American University, and her husband, Andy Bilodeau, from the American Chemical Society, put together an event that met and surpassed all goals. They have recently started a new podcast together called 100% Kids, talking about how kids can change the world, one step at a time. (www.bazmakaz.com/100kids)

Vivian and Andy put together Podcamp EDU to help educators and those interested in education to spend some time exploring what new media tools and new technologies might afford the classroom experience. “Capitalizing on new media technologies in the classroom calls for a shift in perspective, a shift in thinking about the possible literacies that could be produced as a result of using these tools for teaching and learning”, said Vivian. She continued, “rather than thinking about ways of technologizing the curriculum, educators need to think about what new media technologies can afford the learning experience”.

“Podcamp is meant to educate- this one focuses on education, and it seemed a natural extension of what other Podcamps have done, ” added Andy. Podcamp EDU brought education to the fore, and taught all of us in attendance about how passionate teachers are about this medium. In closing, Vivian notes, “the children of today will be the ones to push the boundaries of new media use in the future so it made it made perfect sense for us to plan a podcamp that focuses specifically on education, teaching, and learning”.

on-site report by Whitney Hoffman, host of the LD Podcast

PodCamp Boston on-site report

“Okay. You got Superman, Batman, Bunnies, and Sharks. Those are the four archetypes.”

It was day one of Podcamp Boston 2 and Neil Gorman, of the Comicology Podcast, was drawing his “Theory of Human Suffering” onto a conference T-Shirt with a Sharpie. Clarence (aka DYKC, aka “Do You Know Clarence”) and I were standing over Neil, laughing as he held court over a confused yet enthralled group of New Media geeks. Neil had shared with me earlier in the day that he was going through a difficult break-up. He was hurting deeply.

“Batman and Sharks never work out. Batman over-thinks everything. Batman bleeds. Sharks are spontaneous and dangerous,” he said, “But everyone wants what they don’t have.”

@timcoyne – neil gorman is going through a break up. Hug him.

I had bonded with Neil and DYKC early in the day and they had invited me to lunch.  I’d turned them down, thinking I had to meet as many people as possible, that I shouldn’t spend so much time with just two people. I had to network. Spread my brand. Two and a half weeks after the unconference, at a Speed Dating event, I realized what a mistake I’d made.

@timcoyne – heading to Speed Dating event for “Women Who Love Guys With Shaved Heads” – sponsored by Head Blade. Not kidding. Desperate times/measures

I parked my Yamaha Zuma scooter and headed into Club Nirvana on Wilshire. I signed in, and as I pressed my “Tim #39” name tag onto my chest, a girl approached me. I immediately recognized her. Her name was Lisa. I had met her a few weeks earlier at another Speed Date. She had a given me a “Yes.” I had given her a “No.”  Awkward.

“Oh my god,” she said, “I was hoping you were here because I just knocked over a scooter with my car. I’m so relieved its yours. It’s ironic. Isn’t it?”

@timcoyne – Dude. A chick knocked over my scooter with her car. 

I was in shock as I stood before this girl who was giggling and laughing about knocking over my scooter. I didn’t think it was funny or ironic. The Zuma is my friend, my wing man, and my wheels. At that first event, “Tim #27” had given “Lisa #3” a “No” and now “Lisa #9” was taking revenge on “Tim #39.” 

I excused myself and ran outside to check on the status of the Zuma.

When I turned the corner and saw the Zuma lying on its side, my heart dropped. The “Lisa #9” Prius loomed over her like a Middle School bully. I lifted the Zuma to her wheels and tried to give her a start. No luck.

@timcoyne – My fucking scooter wont start. 

I was trapped. Whether I liked it or not, I had to spend the next 90 minutes with a bunch of desperate bald dudes and a gang of chicks who, for some reason, liked bald dudes. Worse, I’d have to spend five of those minutes with “Lisa #9.”

@timcoyne – Chick thinks its funny and i have to spend five minutes with her. 

Back inside I gave “Lisa #9” the news.

“Does this happen often?” she asked. “Do a lot of people knock over your scooter?”

She was looking for forgiveness, but I was in no mood.

“No.” I said. ”A lot of people do not knock over my scooter.”
 
I headed to the bar and after downing a nine dollar Head Blade Mojito, the drink special of the night, I twittered for some support.

@timcoyne  – Moral support. 13103847392

A few minutes later, I got a call.  It was DYKC.

“Don’t worry man. She’ll start. Just make sure you don’t flood her. She’ll start. Don’t worry.”

DYKC talked me off the ledge. Everything would be cool, he assured me. And when I hung up a few minutes later, I headed with a little more calm  into the labyrinth of love hungry speed daters.

I had worked my way through half the girls and finally found myself sitting across from “Lisa #9.” We both laughed uncomfortably as the host blew the whistle. We had five minutes together.

“Listen,” I told her. “I get it. It’s kind of funny that a 35-year-old dude drives a scooter. But that’s how I get around and I don’t think you really understand the gravity of the situation. This isn’t a romantic comedy. It’s my life.”

“I really am sorry Tim,” Lisa apologized. “I was just so surprised that you gave me a “No” last time, and I just thought it was, well, poetic and coincidental that I knocked over your scooter. I truly am sorry and I really hope it starts. I really do.”

The host blew the whistle again, and “Lisa #9” and I hugged.

“I’m sorry too,” I said as we parted ways.

@timcoyne -  Speed date over. About to try to start the scooter.   

As I optimistically strapped on my helmet, my phone buzzed. It was Neil. He didn’t even know about the Speed Dating nightmare. He was calling for another reason. 

“Hey man. Wanted to tell you that I just listened to one of your episodes and it really made my shitty day a hell of a lot better. It really did.”

He’d just done the same for my day, so we talked for a few more minutes. We talked about love, life, and the  break-up he’s still struggling with. I hung up the phone, took a deep breath, and tried to start the Zuma.

She started.

Driving home I thought about the lunch invitation from Neil and DYKC I’d turned down. Before lunch they’d recommended a comic books series called “The Nightly News,”  and when they returned from lunch that day they stopped me in the hallway and handed me a bag. In the bag was the Collected Edition of “The Nightly News.”

Monetization, branding, optimization, all this stuff is important but for me, Podcamp Boston 2 turned out to be about making a connection with two guys in the hallways. In my haste to make more connections, I turned down a chance to forge a deeper one with Neil and DYKC. Neil’s “Theory on Human Suffering” had warned me that everyone wants what they don’t have. Turned out true for me that day, but as I drove, I decided it wouldn’t happen again. 

When I got home that night, I logged on to my on-line Speed Dating account.  “Lisa #9” got a “Yes” from “Tim #39.” This “Batman” wants to make it work with a “Shark.”   

on-site report by Tim Coyne of the Hollywood Podcast

PodCamp AZ on-site report

“This one time at Podcamp…” is what was silk screened on the shirt I bought at PodcampAZ. Podcamp Arizona was held at the University of Advancing Technology in Tempe Arizona on November 3rd 2007. Michelle and Brent Spore wrote the first pbwiki page on March 16th of 2007 stating they wanted to put on this event and were looking for help to get the ball rolling. From the looks of the event as an outsider the ball indeed rolled and grew into something they should be very proud of.

The friends I was staying with were volunteers for the event so we arrived early to the UAT campus. Jokingly we were told the internet access in the facility would be fine until 3pm when the college kids would be finally waking up from the late nights. I was helping out in the upstairs “Voice of the Podcamp” room where my friends Dan and CJ Feierabend would be recording and streaming live on Ustream.

People began to arrive a bit early for the event and Chris Brogan was on the big screen in the theater room preparing for his keynote speech. He was unable to attend the event but would be presenting live via the internet. The 100+ people in the room during the speech were told by Mr. Brogan that they shouldn’t be shy and should try to meet as many people as they could. This conference was created for them and discussion was encouraged during the presentations. After the keynote, people were released to the session of their choice.

The day was broken into five parts with the first hour including such topics as: Social Networking, The ROI of social media, Audio Podcasting Basics, Podcasting for Profit and Show in a Box. I attended the Social Networking session which had the subhead reading “Being a social puddle jumper” hosted by Clintus McGintus. Clint is a self proclaimed social puddle jumper, going from one event to another, not limiting himself to any one particular group of people. He talked about the various online technologies he uses to share the audio / video content that he produces.

The second round of sessions in hour two included these topics: From Commenters to Contributors – Building Rabid Fans, Destination Media, The idea that is the Web 2.0, Developing Ideas and content for a weekly show, Podcasting and Education, and Determining the right length for our podcast. I went to the latter and learned quite a bit from CJ “The Mighty Mommy” and Aaron Bates, both of which have an hour plus show as well as a 10 minute or less podcast.

At lunch they had BBQ food and live performances from Jack Mangan and Jody Gnant. After the lunch the third session began with these topics: Ask a Kent with Kent Nichols, Improving your online video with Israel Hyman, Beyond Podcasting with Michael R Mennenga, Marketing in 3D Worlds with Lon Safko and Steven Groves, Why it is Necessary to build and maintain an online brand with Susan F. Heywood, and Building a Podcast from the ground up with Nicole and Marc Spagnuolo. I attended the latter where they talked about the various techniques and technologies used to record, present and deliver their podcast The Wood Whisperer.

The final set of sessions: Video Blogging sharing moments with the world with Clintus McGintus, Powerpoint, blog, screencasting with Kathy Jacobs, Real Estate and social media with Steven Groves and Greg Swann, Why community matters in the new media world with Jack Mangan, and PodFading with Ken Crockett. I attended the PodFading session where Ken spoke about how to not podfade and how to recover from podfading.

Throughout the day they gave out blue tickets for various things you could do such as attending a session, public act of social networking, asking questions or answer someone else’s question in a session. These tickets were used for the raffle they had during the closing keynote session. Prizes were given out during this raffle including books, CDs, headphones, software, gift cards and t-shirts. 

Overall this PodCamp was a big success and the folks that were involved in its creation should be very proud of themselves. The attendees were giving exactly what they were promised, an exceptional event with great people and great atmosphere at an awesome location.

on-site report by Jason Tucker of TuckerTakes

iYule.tv

During the holidays last year on GeekBrief.TV, we often had a fireplace video playing on the monitor by my desk. People asked me to make it available, but we didn’t own the video and we didn’t feel comfortable releasing it.

In late October 2007, we were having a conversation with Geoff Smith about a Christmas album project. We were also learning more about Paul Colligan’s feed management application called Premium Cast. Paul suggested we produce an original iYule Log video for iPods, iPhones, zunes and other portable players, and have it scored by the ever-so-brilliant, Geoff Smith.

Geoff hopped on board right away. Paul helped us get set up on Premium Cast so we could sell the video. My mom’s husband shot the video. Neal produced the sound and visual effects, and I did the Web site.

This is something we’ve worked on nights and weekends for almost a month and we hope it’s something that will warm your heart and bring smiles to the faces of friends you share it with.

If you’re giving someone an iPod that plays video this year, load it up with the iYule Log.

If you’re taking that special someone in your life out for a nice holiday dinner, load iYule Log on your iPod and put it on the table for a touch of whimsical romance.

Proceeds will be split by the producers and a percentage will go to three of our favorite charities. Geoff chose the Songs of Love Foundation, a charity that provides personalized songs for chronically and terminally ill children and young adults. Paul has chosen LitLiberation, the largest online literacy experiment in history. Neal and I have chosen Heifer International, a non-profit that helps families in poverty by giving them valuable live animals to provide eggs, milk and farming help.

The video we’ve produced is a cozy multi-sensory experience that pulls me into the romantic essence of a fireplace, every time I turn it on to watch.

story by Cali Lewis, host of GeekBrief.tv

Goodbye iPod…hello iPhone

It lasted three weeks. My willpower, that is. Three weeks was all it took after the iPhone launched before my willpower broke down, and I found a convincing argument that would work on my wife, and I purchased an eight gigabyte iPhone.

Now, this was not my first “i” product from Apple. As a publisher of a Macintosh publication since 1995, I own pretty much every major product Apple has created over the last two decades. So while I sat in the Moscone Center watching Steve Jobs demonstrate the iPhone in person last January during the Macworld Expo, I decided that I would skip this product. Or at least wait until my cell phone company at the time carried it.

Three weeks. I am surprised that I lasted that long. I have a fifth generation iPod. (with video!) It is my workhorse, the device that goes with me every time I get into the car. It holds (barely) all my music. Whatever my mood, my iPod would have the music to match. Feeling reminiscent? Crank up my 80’s playlist. Angry? Time for some Metallica. Adventurous? Plenty of tunes for that!

So I did not need the iPhone. It did not fit into my digital portable music lifestyle. It only holds eight gigabytes! How would I ever decide which songs to put on it? I would have to break my contract with Alltel, and claim I actually wanted the plan that gave me two hundred minutes a month less for the same price. And the iPhone, curses, would cost me $599!

No way was I buying one.
For three weeks.

Now, over two months later, a strange thing has happened. It took me completely by surprise, and I did not see it coming. I did not even notice when it did happen, or why it happened. My iPhone became my iPod.
There sat my lonely 60GB iPod, resting on the iPod Dock connected to the Mac, waiting for me to pluck him out and jam out. Waiting to venture out, to connect with my Harman Kardon Drive + Play in my car, and feel me a constant stream of Podcasts and Playlists. There it sat, for two and a half weeks, before I finally noticed.

My iPod was now a phone. The iPhone.

I had decided to put only my four star-plus rated music on the iPhone. (five gigabytes worth). I picked the best podcasts, and then only those I had not yet listened to. No videos, unless it was a video podcast (only two.) And that’s all. And, honestly, I found out that was all I really needed most of the time.

Rather than carry around a cell phone and an iPod, the iPhone took the place of both. It was always with me, being my cell phone, and it worked after a fashion with the Drive + Play. There was really no reason for the iPod to be with me, short of a long car drive.
My poor iPod. He still works great and keeps a long battery charge (better than the iPhone.) He holds much more music. He can even play videos. But, alas, he has become redundant. Second string. The backup quarterback. But it’s still nice to know he is there, just in case.

In the meantime, life with the iPhone is all roses and baby kisses. She is seductive (yes, the iPod is a boy, the iPhone a girl. No idea why, just worked out that way.) She is easy (to use!) She promises that I will never miss a phone call due to the music being too loud. She attracts attention. And she holds everything I need most of the time.

My iPhone has become my iPod, and I really don’t see going back. Just don’t tell my iPod!

story by Tim Robertson, Publisher of MyMac.com

Apple, please bring podcasts to iTunes Mobile

Dear Apple, Inc.:

I love my new iPod Touch. I love that it has Wi-Fi and can do all sorts of neat things, and I even appreciate the ability to impulse buy music from the iTunes Wi-Fi Store. I have one request: please add podcasting support to the iTunes Wi-Fi Store, as you’ve done in the main iTunes Store. As you know, podcasts are a great way to extend the power and usefulness of an iPod, and a great way to upsell buyers to larger hard drives, particularly video podcasts.

I’d love to go into the iTunes Wi-Fi Store, use the same natural interface to search for podcasts on the topics I like, play them wirelessly right then and there like a radio, and subscribe to them with one touch, then sync back to my iTunes on my MacBook Pro when I get home. Please add robust podcast support to the iTunes Wi-Fi Store! Click here to sign.

Best regards,
Christopher Penn
Producer, the Financial Aid Podcast
Co-Founder, PodCamp

story by Christopher S. Penn

Natalie Gelman goes underground

I started performing on the subway when I was seventeen. It actually grew out of performing one time on 42nd Street because I was walking around with my guitar and one of the booths where you take pictures told me and my friend that if I performed they would take our picture for free. I ended up performing one of my songs and a crowd gathered and after the song they were trying to hand me money and asking who I was and wanting to sign up for my email list. The guys at the booth thought it was great exposure for them as well and invited me back to perform next to their booth the following day. This went on for a week or so, but ended because of police asking me to move because of the crowds that formed to listen to me perform on the street. Even at that point I had experienced some pretty intense and crazy people.

One day there was a man who looked homeless dancing to my songs and apparently reaching down his pants, and many people told me to watch out for him. He came up to my guitar case, picked up a penny off the ground, put it on the very edge of the guitar case, balancing it before pushing it into the case. I just kept performing and he went on his way. Twenty minutes later, he was back! People again said to be careful, but we were all surprised when he came up to me handing me a $50 bill.

I professed that I would not and could not accept it, but he and the crowd insisted that I take it. I’ve kept it all these years in a frame with one of the pennies from my case that night and the frame reads “Remember What You’re Worth”. That’s the sort of story that shows the unpredictability of street performing. Since I have been going down to the subway more regularly this past month in an effort to reach out to more fans, I have noticed that I have no specific fan base. My fan base is literally everyone, young, old, male, female, rich or poor. I have also had some great people introduce themselves, most recently Peter Yarrow from Peter, Paul, and Mary. I also exceeded my goal of selling 100 CD’s before the end of the month. One man was kind enough to buy 13 CD’s one night making my total that night 20 within 45 minutes.

So when did this all get started? I was probably singing right after conception. But for a long time I was imitating the singers I heard in Disney movies at dinner, making my family watch me dance around too. My mom had me enrolled in piano, violin and dance lessons at five but I had to beg for voice lessons till I was nine. I did sing prior to that in my school’s church choir and had my first solo in church at five or six.
I was so excited about it but I went to the choir director crying the day of the performance out of fear and he spent an hour (maybe it just felt like an hour) convincing me that I was ready.


One summer in Junior High School I was in a choir group in NY called Borough Wide, There was a choir from each Borough in New York City and at the time I was living in Staten Island so that’s the group I joined. In the songs we performed there was a solo and we had auditions to see who would sing the solo at Carnegie Hall. I ended up singing that time with two other girls on the same vocal part, probably because the teacher wanted to cover in case any of us got scared.

The second time I sang there as a soloist was kind of the same set up but a much bigger solo on my part. Five NYC choirs were selected out of submissions to perform Chichester Psalms by Leonard Bernstein together at Carnegie Hall. There are a few solos in the piece and I was lucky to be offered one of the larger solos. My name was in the program as a soloist and of course I saved about fifteen programs.

I first picked up a guitar my senior year of high school. I actually had lessons before I had a guitar. My first guitar was given to me by my best friend, a nylon stringed classical guitar. As soon as I learned some of the basic chords I was writing my own music and I performed it for the first time at a makeshift American Idol competition at my college where I suffered from incredible stage fright, completely butchering my songs in front of hundreds of people. Still one of them, Allan Douglas, approached me who heard my decent rendition of my own music during the sound check and he became one of my closest friends and songwriting partners.

story by Natalie Gelman

iPod and iTunes holiday gifts

Ah, the season is upon us, that wonderful time of year when the shopping-challenged adults give up and buy gift cards.

Unfortunately, the ubiquitous gift card hardly elicits the “you’re the coolest (insert relation here) in the world!” award, called the Gimme. And let’s face it, winning the coveted Gimme is what gift-giving is all about. Otherwise we’d shove a Happy Meal toy down their throats and be done with it.

Searching for that perfect present for today’s young digitalite is like being Paula Abdul at a Mensa meeting: abundance of good intentions, but a lack of solid info. Giving one of the Big Three (iPod, iPhone, and iTunes) will make you a shoo-in for the win, but the Apple Store’s own “Gift Guide” offers only detailed sales info and no suggestions as to which technology or accessories are appropriate for which age group.

Kids love music. The use of hardware and software surrounding music will become seamless earlier in the lives of today’s kids. In a statement adopted way back in 1996, The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) said that the right software enhances the learning process. “Used appropriately, technology can enhance children’s cognitive and social abilities … software engages children in creative play, mastery learning, problem solving, and conversation. The children control the pacing and the action. They can repeat a process or activity as often as they like and experiment with variations.” On their current website, the NAEYC lists CD and DVD players as good gifts for children as young as three. I think an iPod can easily replace those technologies as a suggestion.

I’m sure you will run into the typical naysayer. In the case against iPods, curmudgeons will produce their own high decibels complaining about the destruction of hearing. To tone them down, know the facts. As with all things in life, iPod use is all about moderation. Limit any age child’s or adult’s direct listening to less than an hour a day at lower than an eighty percent decibel level.

Melinda DeMoss, Au.D., CCPA, an audiologist at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, says that hearing loss can definitely occur with too loud or extended usage of an iPod. Whether the listener uses “kid-safe” earbuds or traditional headphones, or even if they are listening at the quietest levels “doesn’t matter,” DeMoss says. “It’s the length of time spent listening.” She mentions that hearing loss will occur if anyone, adult or child, spends 90 minutes listening at 80% volume level. The key is daily rest. DeMoss advises logging on to informative and kid-geared websites like DangerousDecibels.org and the National Hearing Association’s site (hearingconservation.org) with your children to tune them in to being responsible with their hearing.

But when is a child old enough for that responsibility? When can a child handle delicate technology? What’s the right age to let them download their own music? Below I’ve summarized each developmental stage and given iPod/iPhone/iTunes suggestions to help you in choosing the right ‘wow’ gift of the season.

Born to be Wild
birth to 4 years of age
$20-$50 iTunes Gift Certificate

I know I said to avoid the dreaded “GC,” but an iTunes Gift Certificate is a different monster indeed. Godzilla-like children of this age can’t treat an iPod or any technology with care, but they love kiddie music and videos. An iTunes GC, easily printed out at home, will definitely win points with pooped out parents who are plotting to strangle last year’s TickleMeElmo. Add a written list of highly recommended downloads of children’s music and videos available on the iTunes website, and you’ll be guaranteed to score the Gimme. The iTunes GC also makes a great baby shower gift.

Older children of this group can choose their own songs and perhaps click their way through the iTunes site with adult help. Technology is seamless for kids, so a 4-year-old is definitely able to learn the concepts involved in using the iTunes site (purchasing, downloading, transferring to the iPod, etc.). In terms of interaction with software, the NAEYC’s website site had this to say: “… programs that are interactive … [where the children] can control the software’s pace and path, … [give children] opportunities to explore a variety of concepts on several levels.” I think this safely applies to use of an iPod. But because of the smallness of the screen and lack of voice-guided or screen-guided instruction, I would limit independent use of any mp3 player to the ages of 6 and up.

Reminder: Do not give babies or toddlers earbuds; they will eat them like the omnivorous little beasts that they are. 3-4 year olds can wear them but most kids this age aren’t accustomed to the feeling of earbuds, and the standard Apple issue are too big to fit in or stay in small ears comfortably. Purchase some accessories that adapt the earbuds, found at most electronics stores.

Respect
5 to 7 years of age
iPod nano

An iPod nano would be a great gift for the right kid of this age. This is where you have to know a bit about the child. Ask yourself if he or she demonstrates some basic reasoning and rule-respecting skills. At this stage of life, developmental psychologists say children are moving away from their myopic preschool mindsets and beginning to live in a “fair/not fair” world with rules, rewards and punishments. The child should be able to understand that a nano is more delicate than an average toy, and that regulations surround its usage.

Do not buy an iPod shuffle for this group. The screen is necessary to learn the basics of iPod navigation, and children may become frustrated that they can’t find and play their favorite song 3581 times in a row. At the very least, the screen encourages reading! Kids of this age will dance and sing like James Brown on RedBull when listening to their music, so special earbuds or headphones may need to be purchased. Adults should still monitor volume and length of exposure. Establish written rules together and post them above the iPod’s dock.

(I can’t get no) Satisfaction
7 to 10 years of age
nano, shuffle, accessories

Minimum requirements for this class are listed in the 5 to 7 range. You are now in Tricky Gift-Giving Seminar 201. This set of savvy 7-10 year olds are the liberal arts consumers of kids: they know a little about a lot of toys but a lot about none of them. They aren’t happy with just one of something. They also are moving away from wanting to blend in to trying to express their own personalities.

If a child of this age is familiar with the basics of iPod navigation, an iPod shuffle may be a cute stocking-stuffer. 7-10 year-olds are into every and all things funny, especially underpants and 70’s fashion. Score them some retro-style headphones or some faux monkey fur accessories to go with the iPod they probably already own. Do not try to introduce this group to what you think is “Cool Music.” That’s certain death.

Wish You Were Here
10-15 years of age
nano, classic, CDs

One would think some maturation has been achieved by now. Unfortunately, this group behaves more like the BORN TO BE WILD group than the LIFE IN THE FAST LANE group below. Increasing schoolwork, athletic expectations, puberty and social pressures send this group into a haze. Most days they forget who they are, where they are, and what they are supposed to be doing. It isn’t their fault. Psychologists liken this phase of growth to the first two years of life: the many rapid physical and mental changes happening to this group are as life-altering as those of a newborn reaching toddlerhood. The 12-14hr/day sleep requirements of a 2-year-old probably won’t gibe with your tweener or teen’s life, but a hefty amounts of downtime are necessary for healthy growth. What better use of an iPod? Throw in some “meditation for kids” CDs and you’ll be doing the entire world an invaluable service.

Life in the Fast Lane
15 years to college age
any iPod or iPhone

This group has owned an iPod for years. They have the all retro headphones and monkey fur they need. It’s time to wow them with the next generation of iPod: The Touch. It will make them the coolest kid in the back of sophomore biology for a solid week. Reminder: Beware of the wireless iTunes store. Again, it will take a decision on your part to decide if the child in this case handles responsibility well or if their mindless daily downloads will put their parents into hock.

Any teen would kick their Sidekick to the curb for an iPhone, but I think this purchase should be reserved for the 18–to-College age set. You want to teach this group to pay their own bills and navigate the world on their own, so the set-up and maintenance of an iPhone account should be solely their responsibility. Also, the iPhone is even more of a distraction while driving than a regular cell phone, so young adults of this age should have demonstrated a certain level of maturity before receiving this gift.

Another gift suggestion for this group is the Shuffle: I mention the simple Shuffle for one reason: athletics. The Shuffle clips easily onto clothing and has grown a cult-like fan base with runners and other similarly active types. These budding college superstars won’t remember how they got through cross-country practice without it.

•••

So shop onward! Forgo the dreary and the dull and blow ‘em away like speakers at a KISS concert. Follow the guidelines and use your instincts; you’ll be sure to be basking in the golden glow of that hard-earned Gimme until next December.

story by Christine Cavalier

Silverchair interview

“Imagine if tonight, I hung myself. Now how amazing would that be for your story?”

Daniel Johns asked me that question a few minutes into our interview, and for a split second I thought I might have a problem. Did the lead singer of Silverchair, who when he made his rockstar debut at age fifteen looked and sounded hauntingly like a young Kurt Cobain, really just suggest that he was going to kill himself?

“I was just joking. I’m not going to do it tonight.”

And then I realized he was just having a little fun with me. In fact all three band members were. “That was brilliant,” drummer Ben Gillies complimented Daniel on his wit, as our interview dissolved into laughter. It wouldn’t be the only time. When the hotel waiter came by, Daniel put my portable voice recorder up against his mouth and asked for a double espresso as if he were placing an order into a McDonald’s drive thru speaker. He then gave the recorder to Ben, who promptly ordered a quarter pounder meal deal from the confused waiter.

Who were these comedians and what did they do with Silverchair, the trio of angsty Australian teenagers whose smash debut “Tomorrow” saw the most airplay of any song in the United States in 1995? And where was the anxiety in Daniel Johns, who eight years ago was so anorexic he weighed barely a hundred pounds, and who five years ago was suffering from such a severe case of arthritis that he was confined to a wheelchair? During the time I spent with the three founding members of Silverchair on the Sunset Strip earlier this month, must as I might try, I couldn’t find any trace of angst.

Nor will you find any real angst on Young Modern, the new Silverchair album which if you’ve been asleep for the past decade will stun you with its moments of downright cheeriness. The now-standard lyrical references to Daniel’s health issues are still there. But while 1999’s Neon Ballroom was one long painful admission that Daniel was fighting anorexia and that he wasn’t winning, the reference to the arthritis in the first thirty seconds of Young Modern comes almost in a “been there, done that, let’s move on” throwaway kind of manner before he boasts that “the band is back together.”

Silverchair never did officially break up, but the five years between Young Modern and its predecessor Diorama saw all three band members dive into various side projects. Most notable was The Dissociatives, a 2004 pairing of Daniel with fellow Australian musician Paul Mac, who just happened to be sunbathing down at the other end of the pool during our interview. It turns out Paul is now Silverchair’s keyboardist. So is Paul’s addition creating any friction within the band? Hardly.

“I don’t think we’d be able to replace him,” bassist Chris Joannou said of Paul’s contributions to Young Modern and the current tour, with Daniel comparing Paul’s role in Silverchair to Billy Preston’s role in the Beatles. When I pointed out that Paul’s unofficial status meant that he got to sunbathe in solitude while the three of them had to put up with me, Daniel suggested that they might start having three Swedish male models handle interviews in their place. But then we were getting silly again. Come on guys, where’s the angst?

Not that Young Modern doesn’t have its share of earnest moments. The first single “Straight Lines” appears to find Daniel determined to walk the straight and narrow. The line “lately I’m a desperate believer” implies that he’s found a specific reason for it, but he insists that the line is meant to be vague: “It’s not ‘I’m a believer in God’ or ‘I’m a believer in Xanax’ or anything like that.”

“You could just tell instantly that it was a single,” Ben says of the song that not only debuted at number one in their native Australia but also landed the band back on the U.S. singles charts for the first time this decade, reaching number twelve on Billboard’s Modern Rock charts. In fact “Straight Lines” has received enough attention that Silverchair commissioned their friends from a band called The Presets to create a remix of the song which will be released exclusively through iTunes on December 1st and is currently featured on Silverchair’s official website.

But the earnestness of “Straight Lines” belies the downright jocularity the three band members displayed during our time together, now in their late twenties but often acting as if they were fifteen. When I asked them to describe what Young Modern Station (the title of the album’s first track) would look like if it were a real place, their answers were predictably zany. “Cocaine, prostitutes, Beck’s [beer], fires, Motorhead would be playing, and it would look like hell…I don’t think it would be a place that you’d want to stay for very long,” said Daniel, with Chris adding that “there’d be lots of heat.”

Before the interview I was given brief run-downs about their various personalities from an outside source, and I asked the band how accurate they felt those descriptions were: Ben the silly one, Chris the shy one. Chris expressed frustration at always being tagged as shy, leading the other two guys to mockingly comfort him they way you might console a child. Chris pretended to perk up appropriately. “With confidence-boosting moments like that, how can I be shy?”

Daniel decided to take his description, “the most serious one but he knows how to have a good time,” and put his own spin on it: “I think that means I’m manic depressive.” He then went on to invent his own descriptions for each of the three band members, coming up with “wildly reclusive, eccentric, manic depressive” for Chris, Ben, and himself, respectively.

Did he mean it when he labeled himself manic depressive? With Daniel it seems you never can quite tell whether he’s being serious or not. Perhaps he’s not even sure himself. I asked him about his habit of asking concert audiences to scream two times, then eight times, then six times, and so on, and he gave me a rather detailed description of how the various numbers added up to secret codes he couldn’t reveal, spelling out moods of joy and sadness.

“You’re making that up, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, a little.”

I’m still not sure whether he was or not.

“I’ve had forty birthdays this year,” Chris said in reference to the fact that Daniel keeps asking the crowd at each concert to sing “Happy Birthday” to Chris whether it happens to be his birthday or not. When exactly was his birthday? “It was a couple of weeks ago, but I’ve had numerous ones before that.” And Daniel himself warned me not to bother quoting anything he says while onstage, as it’s all just “buying time so I can catch my breath.”

Was that just Daniel’s way of not having to explain the “we felt like U2 for awhile and we didn’t like it” line that he dropped on the audience during the band’s performance in Anaheim the week before, or does he just honestly not remember what he’s saying when he’s up there? He certainly didn’t dodge the tougher questions, including the obligatory inquiry into how he views his health problems now that that they’re in the rear view mirror: was there a point where you didn’t think you’d make it?

“There was a moment when I didn’t think we’d be doing anything else because I couldn’t play guitar, or I couldn’t even walk,” Daniel said of the arthritis which kept him from touring after 2002’s Diorama. I mean I expected to get better but I didn’t know I’d get a lot better over time. Yeah I’m surprised I’m sitting here but I’m glad. It’s better than being on a lounge and eating soup the for ninetieth day in a row.”

Then came perhaps the tougher question, directed toward his bandmates who’d referred to him as a “brother” earlier in the conversation, the question they’d have to answer while sitting next to him: was there a time when either of them didn’t think Daniel was going to make it?

“I always thought he’d get better,” Chris offered. “The hardest thing was watching him go through the pain, like coming in some days he could play maybe two chords and that was about it, and that was too much.”

Ben’s take was similar. “You’ve just kind of got to sit back and just hope that they do whatever they need to do to come out of it. And you’re kind of thinking about the band as well, thinking aw geez, will we ever do that again?”

Although they both had side projects of their own during Silverchair’s five year hiatus, it seemed that Ben and Chris didn’t really want to consider the possibility of never being able to make music with Daniel again. These three guys have, after all, been doing this together since they were twelve years old. I was almost sorry I’d asked. All three of them were plenty forthcoming when it came to discussing it, but it’s just not where their heads are at these days. I was dredging up something it seems they’d already made peace with.

But it seems we couldn’t go too long without getting silly again. This being the publication for iPod and iPhone users, there comes a time in every iProng interview where I make up an excuse to pull my iPhone out of my pocket in order to get a reaction. With Silverchair being from Australia, where the iPhone has yet to become officially available, I thought I might be able to wow them or at least elicit some degree of fascination.

No luck. Seeing as how they recorded Young Modern in Los Angeles and were currently on their second U.S. tour in the second half of 2007 alone, the iPhone was already old hat. “I just had to talk him out of getting one the other day,” Daniel said of Ben, who summed up his iPhone fascination with “brilliant. YouTube!”

Daniel’s take on Apple’s new product lines sounded like something you might hear from a Wall Street analyst. “They have a really obvious pattern. Whatever they release, it takes at least three generations before it’s good. I think they just released it now to sucker everyone into getting one…I’m sure it’s fine in America, but in Australia?” You’ll hear more than one Apple aficionado speak in the exact same terms, particularly when faced with the prospect of using an iPhone in a country where you’d have to hack it in order to get it to work. But because it’s coming from Daniel, you wonder if he was offering serious commentary on Apple or just finding a subtle way to tease me by calling me a sucker for buying the first generation model.

Chris was more interested in the iPod touch, which I didn’t have with me, but he knew all about its wireless internet access and sixteen gigabyte capacity. I did manage to impress the band with Cover Flow on the iPhone, as there’s something about an artist seeing their own album covers fly past one after another on-screen that invariably elicits a reaction, but it makes me think that perhaps Apple might want to hurry up and launch the iPhone in places like Australia before it becomes yesterday’s news.

When I fired up the 1998 hit song “Torn” from Natalie Imbruglia and handed my iPhone to Daniel, he took one look at his wife’s face on the album artwork and declared that “she’s hot” in the same way that any other guy might. I did get him to reveal he’d written a song for Natalie’s second album, saying that “to sit down and write a pop song can be really enjoyable.”

And perhaps that explains why “Straight Lines” sounds more like a pop song than a grunge song, and why the most terse moment on the entire Young Modern album involves some thieving birds. So what of those early Silverchair fans who fell in love with “Tomorrow” and are now finding their way back to the band and expecting the Nirvana influences to still be there? A few songs from the first two albums are still in the concert repertoire, but “Tomorrow” hasn’t been played live in years.

“There’s a very small element of people that come to a Silverchair show to experience the sentimentality or to re-live the first time they had sex or something, or they want to hear what we were doing at that moment of their lives, but I don’t think it would have been a very wise decision to continue down the road we were going down ten years ago,” Daniel explains, with Ben referring to the “limited shelf life” of the grunge sound.

Sure enough, here in 2007, grunge is long gone and yet Silverchair is still very much still with us. Could these guys really have had the foresight all the way back when they were teenagers to know that their sound would have to evolve in order to stay relevant? As Daniel summed it up, “It’s not really that conscious or anything…we’re having more fun now than we did in the early days. So that seems to have been a correct decision.”

The day after our interview I saw Silverchair in concert once again. Ben, the “eccentric” one, was wearing swimming goggles on his forehead while playing the drums. Daniel led the crowd scream in an even more elaborate pattern of screams than the week before (was that because I’d asked about it?) and this time I couldn’t help but jot down it down. The numerical sequence was 1-1-2-1-2-3-7-3-1-2-1-1-2-3-3-4 for anyone who wants to take a crack at deciphering it.

When Silverchair left the stage for an encore break, the crowd predictably erupted into a chant to bring them back. Was it along the lines of “Play ‘Tomorrow’” or “Bring back the old stuff?” Nope, the crowd was singing the opening notes of “If You Keep Losing Sleep.” the latest single from the new album.

You know what? Maybe these guys are onto something.

interview by Bill Palmer
research assistant: Jenn Kish

Ten applications I want on my iPhone

So I was reminiscing about the iPhone and how much fun it was when I cracked it to add third party applications. This was before the dreaded Apple Brick program was instituted, and I lived a fearless life of joy with my iPhone.

I was happy that I had fun new things to do with the iPhone, not because I didn’t already love the device, but because it felt free and adventurous to throw on applications just to see what they did.

Then the hammer of doom came down and while I wasn’t bricked because I hadn’t actually unlocked my phone, it put a hitch in my giddyup to think that could happen to me. Now I live a life of fear, waiting until Apple gives me permission to roam free, as long as that freedom is within the fence Apple will build around the applications I’m allowed to use.

While I await permission to add enjoyment to my iPhone experience, I started thinking about what applications I would put on my iPhone if I could, and which ones would be the most likely to irritate Apple! I came up with a list of ten…

1. iChat instant messaging

Apple has teamed up with AT&T and if the rumors are correct, Apple actually gets a piece of the monthly fee action. If that’s true, then Apple, and certainly AT&T, are probably going to bend over backwards to keep us from getting a chat client because that would break in on their text messaging revenue.

It drives me nuts that they look at it this way though – text messaging to phones is completely different than chat with screen names from computers and cell phones. It’s just different, and I’m supposed to “think different” aren’t I? The folks over at twenty08.com have come up with MobileChat to solve this very problem for us – why can’t we have it now?

2. Voice Over IP (VOIP)

What could be worse to AT&T and Apple than mobile chat? How about Skype on your cell phone? True voice over IP on your handheld that circumvented the draconian cell phone plans we have – doesn’t that sound positively dreamy? I don’t know about you, but in the last three weeks I’ve spent a total of about two and a half hours on the phone to both Verizon for my kids phones and AT&T for my phone – just trying to understand my stinkin’ phone bills!

“Oh I’m sorry ma’am, those mobile to mobile, peak minutes plus roaming charged because you were not standing at an address with an 8 in it.” Sheesh. Makes me think that lady with the claw hammer was on the right track!


Today, without hacking your iPhone, you can make Skype calls with your iPhone. I tried out IM+Skype from Shape Services at s4iphone.com which is a simple web interface that allows you to call your Skype contacts or real phone numbers using your cell phones. There’s a cost to this – but at least you can understand the fees! You pay $25 to buy IM+, a one time fee. For free you can use IM+ to call people on their computers on Skype.

If you want to call phones with IM+, you need Skype Out, which is a grand total of $30/year for unlimited calls in the US and Canada (that’s per year, not per month). Here’s how it works. You log in with your Skype login, you “dial” the number you want to call, and in a few seconds, your phone rings. That’s a little weird, but the only downside is that people you call see this random phone number come up on their phone and may not pick up. Once you train your friends to expect mutant phone numbers from you though, you’ll be able to use your iPhone with literally unlimited minutes! How cool is that?

3. Removal application

I would pay good money (even as much as $10US) for a 3rd party application that would take applications off the iPhone! To have so much screen real estate taken off just to put up a stock button irritates me. I don’t mind looking up stocks once in a while, but how many people need/want that at the tip of their fingers (when it takes three taps to make a phone call!) I’d replace a whole row of stuff and put say, my phone favorites button on the home screen.

I’d put Podcasts from the iPod on my home screen. I’d take that stupid calculator off the front, and replace it with a better one. Heck, YouTube hardly works at all over EDGE, I’d rip that off too. I’m probably never going to buy iTunes off my iPhone, so off that button goes too! I’m really getting into this idea – Weather, you’re outta here!

4. Access to data files

Here’s a problem – you’ve got a Word file from some joker you need to read, but you already downloaded it to your laptop and deleted the email. Wouldn’t it be cool if you could sync your iPhone, drag in documents you want to be able to look at later and then be able to access them directly?

Just think of the possibilities – Apple made this beautiful platform that actually displays nasty old Microsoft application files in a very readable form, and yet we can’t just put those files on the iPhone and see them. iPhoneDrive from ecamm.com gets you part way there – if your iPhone is set up for disk mode, you can drag files onto it. But you can’t actually open them on the iPhone, it’s just a fancy thumb drive. Let’s get an application that leverages everything the iPhone can display today.

5. Voice Notes

So here’s a perfect device to record notes for yourself – it’s got a recording capability built in – why doesn’t apple let us record our own voices? It could work just like visual voicemail. Imagine a nice list of notes you left for yourself, one while you’re at work and remember that thing you need at the grocery store, one for when you you’re at home and you remember that critical action item you forgot for work, the possibilities are endless.

You could even email the recordings to yourself so you know to listen to them. This capability is there, and yet Apple won’t let us have it. You can get voicenotes for your Palm device. You can get voicenotes for your Windows mobile phone. You can even get voicenotes for the Blackberry for crying out loud, why not the iPhone?

6. Flickr for photos

This next iPhone application I want but Apple won’t let me have defies explanation. Here’s the setup: I’m in New England when the leaves are turning for my first time. I’m driving past gorgeous explosions of color – reds and oranges and one tree that’s 100% yellow! Coming from California, this is an amazing sight. Ok, what’s this got to do with the iPhone? I handed my iPhone to a co-worker and asked him to take a picture of me with the colorful leaves to show my family.

Wouldn’t it have been cool if I had a Flickr uploader right there on my iPhone? but nooooooo….Steve doesn’t want me to be able to share the pictures with my friends. he wants me to email them out like some kind of 1990’s luddite! What’s that all about? I said it defies explanation at the beginning because Steve and AT&T have given me unlimited data for $20 per month – why would they care if I emailed or uploaded my pics? Oh well, when I get back to a “real” connection I’ll dutifully upload them to a social networking site! sigh.

7. Terminal

You know how Steve likes control, right? Imagine a world where true ubergeeks could actually open a Terminal and get into the guts of the operating system? He lets us do it on OS X, why not mini-OS X on the iPhone? There are of course third party apps that give you Terminal access…what is Steve hiding in there he doesn’t want us to see?

8. MineSweeper

I would be remiss if I didn’t include at least one game in this list of applications Apple doesn’t want us to have. Perhaps Steve is seriously concerned about the productivity level of the world at large – perhaps he sees all the gaming platforms as undermining the technical strength of our youth. Perhaps he believes they should be walking outside enjoying the late fall leaves (as long as they don’t try to upload pictures of said leaves).

In any case, he has shut the door for now on all games on the iPhone. Play games on your iPod, that’s fine! Waste your time playing Texas Hold’em. Who cares, you would be listening to music anyway, it’s not like you would be being highly productive checking important things like weather and stocks on your iPhone instead, right? Well, clearly one of the top productivity reducers in the nation is MineSweeper, and I want that back on my iPhone.

9. Summerboard

Since Apple doesn’t want us to have all these wonderful applications, and they clearly want to control the home page, there’s one application they definitely don’t want us to have, and it’s called Summerboard. Let me back up a bit – Apple calls the home page Springboard – meaning it’s a springboard to get into all of your applications. They have locked this home screen down to the few things they want, but in our fantasy land here, we’ve added a whole pile of new apps and they don’t all fit on the home screen, what do we do? Enter Summerboard which allows you to happily scroll through your apps on the home screen. It would be even cooler if you could reorder the icons too, wonder who will come up with that?

10. Sketches

As I worked through this list of top 10 applications Apple doesn’t want us to put on our iPhones, one application is clearly the front runner for this, and so I left it for last. Clearly the top application Apple doesn’t want us to have is Sketches, the application that turns your iPhone into an Etch-A-Sketch! I think Steve Jobs asked for an Etch-a-Sketch for his birthday when he was 6 and he never got it, and he vowed to himself that he would never ever let anyone else have one on their phone…if he were to ever own a multi-billion dollar company that made smart phones.

Well, Sketches from sketchesapp.com lets you draw on your iPhone with your fingers, change colors, draw on pictures you take, and then you can turn it upside down and shake it and the drawings disappear! I know, it’s not exactly an Etch-a-Sketch in how you draw on it, but still, it’s so dorky fun to flip it over and shake it! It’s the main reason I hacked my iPhone the first time.

We have to wait until February for Apple to give the software development kit to developers – and then they’ll be allowed to create applications for us. Personally, I can’t wait!

story by Allison Sheridan

Writers Strike and New Media

I’m a member of the Writers Guild of America. I’ve written series television and movies for more than twenty years. I started with “thirtysomething” and this year I’ve been writing for “Saving Grace” starring Holly Hunter. I’ve also got a podcast, Handwritten Theatre and maintain, somewhat haphazardly, a couple of blogs. Between the work I do for television, which is subject to all sorts of restrictions and “input,” and the personal writing I do for the Internet, where I don’t have to take notes from anybody, I have the best of both worlds. Or at least I did up until 12:01am November 1st of this year. That’s when my union called a strike.

Every twenty years, with an eerie clockwork regularity dating back to the 1930s, there’s a major technological shift in the way studio produced movies, and later television, get to the audience. First it was sound, then it was television, followed by home video and cable, and now the Internet. Every time one of these shifts has occurred, the studios have tried to use the arrival of “New Media” to tell the creators of what the studios sell (the writers, actors and directors) that all bets are off; that this New Media is so radically different from anything else that the rules simply can’t apply. So, every twenty years the creative Guilds representing writers, actors and directors, have to drag the studios, kicking and screaming, to the bargaining table to work out a contract that proves that the screen may change from movie palace to
living room to laptop, but the goods are still the goods. And if somebody pays the studios for those goods, the creative people behind the work are entitled to compensation. That’s how it’s worked for close to seventy years. It works for movies, it works for television, it works for cable, it works for home video, and it works for the Internet.

Writers are suckers for irony. Some of the best irony I’ve seen in a long time is playing itself out right now between The Writers Guild of America (WGA) and The Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). The struggle is over the Internet, and the best place to get your information about that struggle is on the Internet…on the parts of the Internet the producers would love to control, but can’t…not yet, at any rate. And the writers, who are supposed to be so damn greedy, are providing that information free for the downloading. Sweet irony.

Since most of the conventional media including television stations and newspapers are fully owned by the same corporations that own the studios, they tend to be less than, shall we say, “fair and balanced” about covering the current Writers Guild strike. The media they don’t control outright, they control with advertising money. The studios spend millions of dollars every year on advertising in Variety, The Hollywood Reporter and The LA Times so those periodicals make sure there’s nothing in their coverage that might jeopardize that revenue.

But that kind of bullying simply doesn’t play on the Internet. Right now, you can go to unitedhollywood.blogspot.com and get facts and figures about what this conflict is all about. Okay, it’s coming from the writers’ side of things. But check it out. Look at the “Why We Fight” video that spells out exactly what the WGA wants, and the “Voices of Uncertainty” video that features clips of network and studio executives talking about how much money they’re making and hope to make on the Internet. Then compare that to what you get from mainstream news sources…assuming you still even bother to get your news from mainstream sources.

The writers are using the Internet to bypass the studios that desperately want to control the Internet. And if you don’t think the parent corporations of these studios want to control your access to the Internet, take a look at who’s lining up to dismantle Net Neutrality.

I like the idea of somebody going to iTunes and downloading an episode of “Saving Grace” I wrote and putting it on their iPod where it sits next to the episodes of “Handwritten Theatre” they’ve downloaded. I like that somebody cared enough to want my writing in their hip pocket. The podcast is free, but if somebody is paying for a writer’s work on iTunes or anywhere else, the writer is entitled to a fair share. That’s how things are supposed to work. And every twenty years we have to remind the studios of that important little fact.

story by Joseph Dougherty, writer for Saving Grace

Tim Bourquin interview

Podcast and New Media Expo is now simply New Media Expo. Why the change?

Over the last few years, podcasting has become just one way content creators distribute their audio and video. The Expo will continue to focus on RSS as a way to deliver content, but we also want to include other distribution channels such as live streaming, on-demand websites, portable devices, and even more traditional methods like TV and radio (via TiVo and other services). Podcasting will always be a big part of what we do, but don’t want to limit ourselves to just that method.

New Media covers all of these areas and so it just makes sense to simplify the name.

After three years in Ontario you’re moving things to Las Vegas next year. How is this going to change the nature of the Expo?

Ontario, California (outside Los Angeles) has been a great place to grow the event. Attendees have had little choice but to network with other content creators because there was little else to do in the area. However, we didn’t want the show to become something that was considered “off the beaten path” and a fringe event in an out-of-the-way location. In order to do our part to help the industry mature, we felt it important to take the Expo to the next level in a true trade show city. East coast audio and video creators will have a much easier time finding flights and almost everyone will be able to fly for less. Also, the hotel room rate at the Las Vegas Hilton next to the convention center will be just $115 – only a few dollars more than what we had in Ontario.

Aside from the logistics being easier for attendees, the location has already helped us attract larger companies to support the event. It will also help us attract new attendees that have not yet been to the show because of the difficulty in getting there. We will be doing many things, such as planning networking events in the evenings, that will help us keep the “community” feel to the event.

What other new features do you have on tap for next year’s Expo?

The Expo next year will go even further into the details and intricacies of creating great content. It’s no longer about just “getting something out there” so that others can see it or hear it. The landscape is getting much more crowded these days and to get the attention of the audience they want, content creators will have to grab and keep their audience’s attention quickly. This means better production quality and creating compelling “stories” – even if the content is non-fiction. As more companies start to create products for the independent content producer, you’ll a lot more interesting stuff on the exhibit hall floor as well.

You and your brother Emile have been podcasting yourselves for years. What can listeners glean from listening to Podcast Brothers?

The Podcast Brothers started out as a way for us to market the Expo to the attendees we wanted. But we knew no one would tune in for a weekly commercial about a convention. So we talk in the first few minutes about what’s coming up at the Expo, but then we dive right into suggestions about how our audience can create better content, grow their audience, and monetize it in creative ways. We show people how to turn their content into a business based on what we’ve tried with our own content sites which generate revenue for the company each month.

So what’s up next for you?

In 2008 we’ll once again be helping to coordinate a Podcasting TechZone at the Consumer Electronics Show in January in Las Vegas. It’s a fantastic way for us to help companies who are related to the podcasting community to reach the 150,000 attendees. We’re also developing several one-day conferences around the country where we basically do a New Media Expo Lite and show individuals and companies how they can quickly create content and grow their audience online.

interview by Bill Palmer

Phase: iPod game review

What if I told you that the people who were responsible for the mega-popular Guitar Hero games had just developed a game for the iPod? And what if, when you asked which songs you could play in the game, I responded that you could play with any song in your iTunes library? Well, that’s Phase in a nutshell, and the best part is, just like every other iPod game, it only costs five dollars.

Phase is the newest game from Harmonix, the studio responsible for the Guitar Hero games as well as the new game Rock Band. In fact, upon hearing that Harmonix was behind Phase, the initial description of the game from a number of sites was that it was “Guitar Hero for your iPod”. That’s not entirely accurate; the gameplay is more of a spiritual successor to Frequency and Amplitude, Harmonix’s first games for the PlayStation 2.

Essentially, beats in the forms of circles flow along a track from the top of the screen to the bottom in time with the music, and you press the previous track, center, or next track buttons to catch the beats as they cross the bottom of the screen. Occasionally, a trail of dots will appear, and you’ll sweep your finger across the click wheel to catch the dots. Miss a beat, and the volume will drop a bit. (It’s not as satisfying as the twang of a missed note in Guitar Hero or a track cutting out abruptly in Amplitude, but it works well enough.) Miss too many, and you’ll lose hearts, which represent your life points in the game. Once you run out of hearts, the game ends.

It sounds very simple, and it is, but there’s something strangely addictive to playing along with the music, as any Guitar Hero aficionado can attest. The controls are built from the ground up specifically for the iPod, and they make Phase incredibly easy to pick up and play. At first, you’re just bopping along on easy mode, catching a beat here and a beat there, and before you know it, you’re playing on hard mode, looking for a greater challenge. The game provides both a Quick Spin mode, which consists of a single song, and a Marathon mode, which presents five songs in succession, each requiring greater accuracy to complete. Each of these modes can be played on easy, medium, and hard modes out of the box, and completing a marathon on hard mode unlocks expert mode, which should provide an adequate challenge for any seasoned player of rhythm games.

Of course, the main draw of Phase is that you can use almost any song in your library as a stage in the game, so the set list is nearly endless. (The only restrictions on songs that you cannot use are extremely reasonable: The songs must be between 30 seconds and 30 minutes long, and audiobooks and podcasts are not allowed. Other than that, any song is fair game.) To this end, when you download Phase, iTunes creates a new playlist called Phase Music in iTunes. To add a song to Phase, simply add it to this playlist, and iTunes generates the beat patterns for you right away. The next time that you sync, the new song will be available to play. The great thing about this system is that your computer, not your iPod, does the heavy lifting of creating the stages, so there is no waiting for a stage to build when you only have five or ten minutes to play.

The system to import your music into Phase isn’t perfect, however; I spent my first evening with the game in a state of growing frustration because, despite the fact that I’d added a number of songs to my Phase playlist, the game insisted that I had no songs available to play. After repeated attempts and a trip to the game’s official forums, I discovered that I had two problems. First, I hadn’t explicitly told iTunes to sync the Phase playlist to the iPod. Apparently, just adding the songs to the playlist isn’t enough; the playlist has to actually exist on the iPod (though there are some workarounds for those who manually manage the music on their iPod). Second, the songs have to be added directly from the library; I had added songs from another playlist, and that caused Phase to not recognize the songs I’d added. Once I’d figured out these little quirks, however, adding songs to Phase was quick and easy.

The beat patterns that Phase comes up with for the songs, while perhaps not as intricately planned out as they are in something like Guitar Hero, tend to work very well. I never felt like I was just pushing buttons randomly; the beats always seemed to fit with the music that was playing. A mellow song by Morphine plays very differently than a high-octane techno tune from BT, as one would expect. The best part, of course, is getting to play those offbeat songs from your library that would never show up in an official set list. For me, being able to play some of the independent, podsafe music that makes up most of my listening lately was a joy. Playing through Jonathan Coulton’s “Code Monkey,” Matthew Ebel’s “Trees.” and Jim’s Big Ego’s “Stress” was just an absolute blast, and that alone was worth the price of admission.

For anyone who’s played any music game in the past, whether it be Frequency, Amplitude, Guitar Hero, Dance Dance Revolution, or any other similar title, Phase is a must-buy. The replay value is outstanding at any price; unlike other music games which have a set number of songs, or even other iPod games that have a limited number of levels, the number of stages you can play in Phase is only limited by the size of your library. Given that Phase only costs five dollars, it’s an absolute steal, and it’s arguably the best game currently available for the iPod. Even if you’ve never picked up a Guitar Hero controller, gotten on a dance pad to play Dance Dance Revolution, or even picked up a video game controller, do yourself a favor and give Phase a try. It could well be the best five dollars you’ll spend for a long time.

review by Steve Loopipe

Matthew Ebel interview

There are few artists that I’ve gotten to know as well as Matthew Ebel. I’m happy to say that I consider myself a friend as well as a fan of his.

We first crossed paths when I found his music on the Podsafe Music Network. I instantly liked it and wanted to play it on my podcast Accident Hash. When I went to his site I noticed that there was no way to order the music and I encouraged him to put up a pre-order page for his CD “Beer and Coffee” that he hoped to have done in a few months. He laughed at me, but did it anyways and I got the last laugh when people began pre-ordering the album after hearing me play a couple of tracks.

Since then we’ve crossed paths many times around the country and in Second Life and have gotten to know each other very well. My kids dance around the house to his tunes and recognize the big green bird in Second Life when they see him.

Matthew and I recently sat down so I could ask him a few questions about his musical career.

What is your first musical memory?

My first musical memory is a toss-up between singing John Denver and Beach Boys tunes in the back of an old-ass blue Ford van, or squeezing the limbs on a certain stuffed panda that made musical sounds I had as a kid. Can’t tell you which one would be a first there.

Was music a big part of your growing up? Was there music always playing in the Ebel household?

My parents were a strange combination of ex-Navy and hippie. Even though they met in the service, they listened to the Mamas and the Papas; Peter, Paul, and Mary; Bob Dylan, The Beach Boys, etc. A lot of that. We had something of a constant stream of music coming from either the 8-track in the van, the record player at home, dad’s guitar, or mom and dad’s voices.

Military? So were there plans for young Matthew to sail the seven seas?

Oh heck no. My parents were smart enough not to try and live through Erich and I. Besides, I get motion sick on big waves.
Erich is a brother I’m assuming? How many siblings?

Just him. He’s the older one, the good one.

At what point in your life did you know that music was your passion and your future?

Well I’ve been taking piano lessons since I was five, but I didn’t really consider it a career choice until 7th or 8th grade. I was kinda torn between computer programming and music, but a couple things happened in the same week to really influence me…

First of all, a video game I was making crashed. Horribly crashed. Total data corruption, no backup, weeks worth of effort totally fucked.

Then my choir teacher, Shawn Wright, brought something called a Dr. Synth into the classroom to show it to us. It was basically just a Roland Sound Canvas with a better interface, but this was the first time I’d ever heard the word MIDI. He started playing the piano… on his guitar. He had a MIDI hookup on his guitar and started playing trumpets, drums, and everything on his guitar right there in the classroom.

And you were hooked?

Well the real kicker was that I had a digital piano at home and he let me borrow this thing. Can you imagine handing a junior high student some $500 piece of gear just to try out?

So here I have a geek’s choice… facing a screen full of frustration for the rest of my life, lucky to get so much as a mention in some splash screen someday…or playing with toys onstage in front of fans who’ll fight over a T-Shirt I throw into the crowd.

Wasn’t much of a choice.

So in High School you were the cool rocker guy with all the girls coming to see you play?

HA! Not even. I was too self-conscious, I still am. I was an attention-getter and a total nerd. I’ve mellowed out considerably since then, but I was pretty much a nerd with few real friends until I got out of college.

Plus, I started out in Christian music. That doesn’t exactly lend itself well to “all the girls coming to see you play.”

So tell me about those days. You gained a certain level of success in the Christian Music scene didn’t you?

I got some local support in the Christian music scene, but not exactly a whole lot of success. My songwriting was definitely raw, green, and in many cases very trite. Of course, I started when I was 19, but still I don’t think it was really very good.

Everyone knew I was passionate about it, but I don’t think I was really good enough for real support to kick in.

While there are certainly some strong themes in some of your music still, what made you shift towards more of a Pop focus?

I’d call it piano pop or piano rock. Honestly, the shift came from the content and the industry more than anything else. As much as I love the Lord, as a Christian Musician you have to write every album about the same thing for the rest of your career. At least, if you want to sell albums in that industry. It’d be like an actor playing the same character for the rest of his life, even if he’s cast on other shows.

Also, to para-quote Derek Webb, “Christian musicians are expected to look like Christ, not like people who need Him.”

Nobody can maintain a spotless public image, not even politicians. Shit, Amy Grant got a divorce (oh the horror) and the industry bailed on her.

It’s not that the fans or even the labels are overly fundamentalist, it’s the support structure. The Christian bookstores and radio stations that move the CD’s are run by very conservative, right-wing interests. So if your product and your image doesn’t fit their formula, you aren’t in their retail stores or on their airwaves.

So take us through the Beer & Coffee recording and such. You certainly were not in the public eye like you are today. What were those days like and how did it come to be?

Well Beer & Coffee came after about three or four years of trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my career. Some of it was written while I was still in Spokane, Washington doing church shows.

I spent a year with the Peter Moon Band in Nashville cutting my teeth on some good live rock shows. Peter’s an excellent performer, but sadly he lacked the vision and management to really expand beyond the bar scene. It’s a shame, too, he can work a crowd like Wayne Newton.

So during all this I’m playing around with portable recorders and my keyboard outside the confines of my day job and regular cover gigs. Then Apple comes out with something called “GarageBand”.

First thing I did was record “I Know You’re There” with Garage Band and a little Griffin iMic, and then I just started recording more and more stuff. I had no idea I was going to record a real album, I thought I was making a demo to hand to a band and pay for a real studio.

My buddy Andrew Dickson stepped up, though, and offered to record some drums for me. We had no studio, though. He had an electronic kit that we could get his performances recorded onto a SmartMedia card and I could just take his drum unit home and replay the performances one drum at a time.

So one piece at a time just sort of came together as I was messing around in GarageBand.

I knew I was leaving the Peter Moon Band soon when it started to disintegrate, so I took some songs I’d been working on since 2001 and strung them together. A lot of these were tunes I’d played live, even in churches. I liked the sound I was getting out of my keyboards and GarageBand, and I knew my friend Mark Sutton would lay down some excellent guitar for me as well, so I went for the whole album package right there in my dining room.

How long was Beer & Coffee out before you discovered podcasting?

Actually, it was the other way around.

I was still recording Beer & Coffee when a friend told me about that guy from MTV who did an internet radio show. He convinced me to email Adam Curry in late June and get my stuff out there for podcasting. Then a couple weeks later, iTunes made Podcasting a household word.

The album wouldn’t really come out until November. So I kinda got lucky, thanks to a local geek friend.

Luck plays a large role in most musicians’ lives…..

So I’ve noticed. I’m just hoping that podcasting wasn’t my only break. I feel lucky enough about that, but if that was it then I’m in for a lot of coupon-clipping.

Fast forward to now. You’ve just released a new album that to me sounds almost like a concept album. Is it my imagination?

Well… Goodbye Planet Earth is definitely a conceptual album.

In part because I’m sick and tired of hearing people like Leo Laporte say “the CD is dead,” as though people are only going to buy one song at a time in the future. I’ve heard from numerous sources that the album as a format is dead.

It’s crap. The only reason people think the album is dead is because major label artists stopped making albums years ago.

I’ve said the concept of the CD is dead more than once, but I applaud someone making a true “album” rather than a disc full of singles

Exactly. I get a good strong whiff of that here in the country music capital.

Songwriters write the country songs. Not artists, just people who write tunes for a living. A country singer gets signed to a label. The label hooks them up with a backing band and then pulls a bunch of songs from their publishers to put on the album. On a twelve song album, you might have thirteen different writers. How the hell do you make a single cohesive work out of that?

There are exceptions, of course, but they are exceptions.

We got sidetracked…..back to your album being a more cohesive story/concept

What I’m getting at is this. An album is not a collection of singles. It’s a single, multi-movement work. Like a symphony. People think the album is dead because pop artists and country artists aren’t making albums, they’re putting out single anthologies. I wanted to make an album. Something that was written in one effort.

With only one exception, all of Goodbye Planet Earth was written to be part of the same work. The album’s vision was set first, then the stairs were laid one at a time to get me there.

I’ve always been a sci-fi nerd, anyone who listens to High Orbit knows that. So I guess I wanted to do an outer-space themed album. Goodbye Planet Earth seemed like the perfect opportunity to be a space pirate captain and a rock star at the same time.

Well it’s a fun album. My family certainly is listening to it a lot

Excellent! I’m glad to hear that. Are they listening to it, or are they listening to you listening to it and can’t get you to shut it off?

My kids have iPods…they’ve got the tracks

And I had an 8-track.

I think when most people hear “concept album” they think “weird artsy thing that’s no fun to listen to,” like Kid A. Sadly, I think anything that’s a real bonafide album these days is a novel concept in and of itself. Kind of like American Idiot. Fantastic album, written like a punk rock opera. But all the poor stiffs who just bought Boulevard off of iTunes think they got all they wanted. Goodbye Planet Earth’s concept was to be irreverent and fun, only to be weird and artsy where necessary.

So what is next for Matthew Ebel?

The goal in 2008 is to tour with a band, at least as a three-piece. Of course, to do that I’ll need a booking agent or a whole lot of help from my fans. And I’ll need to find a drummer and a guitarist or keyboardist in Boston that I can jam with.

Nashville has been good to me…but it’s time to move somewhere with a better live music scene. I have plenty of friends in Boston, there are a ton of colleges and clubs, and I miss skiing. Plus, with gas prices skyrocketing, I want to live somewhere with a subway.

What was the hardest song to write on the new album?

Definitely “A Cautionary Tail”. Simply because it’s not a typical verse-chorus-verse kind of song.

Yeah I never thought you’d write something longer than Porter Days and Latte Nights!

Yeah, well, that was a product of just letting go and following the concept. The middle section got longer and longer and I worried a bit about the length… but after a while I realized that this song wasn’t being written for the radio-format types out there. This song was a journey. I’m not used to doing freeform soundscapes, though. I’m used to verse-chorus-verse. So it was difficult for me to really give up on all sense of tempo, key, and even tonality.

•••

If you haven’t ordered the new CD, Goodbye Planet Earth, I highly recommend that you do so. It is very different than his last album as it does tie all together as a solid concept album even if he doesn’t directly call it that. With catchy tracks such as “Everyone Needs a Robot” and the title track you’ll be singing it for days. My personal favorite track is “Downtown” that I’m calling a sequel to his groovy tune “Sally Went Down.”

story by C.C. Chapman

Natalie Coughlin interview

Six is the age at which Olympic gold medalist Natalie Coughlin first began swimming competitively. Six is also the number of iPods she currently owns.

“My first iPod was probably the second generation of the original iPod. I held out for a little bit,” Natalie told me as we sat poolside during a break from a campaign which included promotions for the U.S. Olympic Committee and NBC. Life isn’t always this hectic for her, but the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing are fast approaching and “things are pretty crazy.”

The 2008 games will be halfway around the world from Athens, the site of the 2004 Olympic Games where she cleaned up with two gold medals and five medals in all. “I have not been to China before but I’ve seen pictures of the facility and it looks like a giant glass bubble. It looks really, really beautiful and I can’t wait to see it,” Natalie said of the Olympic facilities being constructed in Beijing. The 2008 games will be halfway around the world from Athens, the site of the 2004 games where she cleaned up with two gold medals and five medals in all.

Natalie has different goals for Beijing. “I feel like I have less pressure this time, just because the way swimming works is you’re validated through the Olympics and you only have that opportunity every four years. Going into the last Olympics I remember having these interviews where the interviewer would say, oh you have world records and American records but you don’t have that gold, and things like that and it puts so much pressure on me to get that Olympic medal and I feel like I’ve done that. And now I can just focus on myself in the next games.”

Traveling the world means that Natalie reaches for her video iPod the most often, downloading shows including The Office and Ugly Betty and watching them when she finds herself in a part of the world where those shows aren’t available.

While the iPod has played a role in her life for the past five years, swimming has been a part of it for much longer. “When I was six years old I dreamt of being in the Olympics but that really meant nothing at that point. I had no idea what the Olympics even were let alone how you would get there. I was thirteen years old when I realized it was a possibility that I could make the olympic team and I didn’t even think of swimming professionally until that actually happened.”

It was during her junior year of college, right around the launch of the original iPod, that Natalie started to think that she’d continue swimming beyond school and do it for a living. But it wasn’t until recently that she was able to begin taking her iPod with her into the water.

“I just partnered with a company called H2O Audio and they are in the process of developing what’s called the iSH2 and that’s my signature line and it’s an underwater housing for the little shuffle,” making Natalie one of an increasing number of athletes involved in the development of iPod-related products. So far she’s used her iPod during a thirty-minute swimming competition in Fiji.

If the professional athlete’s signature sneaker has now given way to the signature iPod accessory, perhaps it only makes sense when placed in the context of the music itself. Training can be lonely for Natalie, so she relies on music to get her through workouts. As she puts it, “it keeps me going.”

When it comes to music, Natalie finds herself listening to every modern genre but country, with current favorites including Paolo Nutuni and Alicia Keys. But not all of her music fits into every aspect of her life as an athlete: “I love Jack Johnson but I’m not going to listen to his stuff on the day of a meet.”

Along with her current iPods, Natalie wants to make another addition to her collection. “I can’t wait to get an iPhone. I’ve played with it in the stores and that’s about it. And I love it. It’s the coolest thing. I can’t wait because the screen is way bigger and then I’m really into photography, so to have all my photos in such rich color and bigger than on my video iPod.”

Natalie was hired by MSNBC to help cover the 2006 Winter Olympics as a sportscaster. She envisions moving to the broadcast booth full-time at some point, but likely not until after competing in the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. Now at age twenty-five, she’s encouraged by the increasing career lifespan in her sport but eventually wants to have a “normal life” and a family.

One thing isn’t likely to change though. With six iPods already, an iPhone on the way, a MacBook in tow, and a penchant for editing photos in Aperture and cranking out web pages in iWeb, Natalie Coughlin sums it up best herself: “I’m pretty obsessed with Apple products.”

story by Bill Palmer

In the studio with Racquel Roberts

When Racquel Roberts asked me to document the making of her debut album, The Secret of Christmas, I was thrilled and honored. I knew her amazing voice from her performances around Los Angeles with the bands Jim’s Fault and Blonde Lemon Jefferson. Having worn out the live recordings from those gigs, I had been secretly waiting for her to put together a proper album. So, when she told me that she was going to begin work on “The Secret of Christmas” I had only one question: a Christmas album?

Racquel Roberts is a self professed “peace-loving” kind of girl. She explained that when she decided to finally create an album, she wanted to sing timeless songs that could be enjoyed year after year. She wanted to record her version of familiar songs that promoted joy, good will toward men, and peace on earth. I couldn’t argue with her big hearted intention, but I confessed that Christmas songs often made me sad. So, I still had reservations.

When I arrived at the first rhythm tracking session, I was greeted by Racquel and her producer, Nick Mancini, who quickly introduced me to a group of very talented jazz musicians: Robert Russell, Otmaro Ruiz, and Dave Wood. From minute one of the recording, I realized this was not a typical holiday album. Racquel and Nick created inspired arrangements of songs you thought you knew. Over the following months, I got to know more of LA’s finest jazz musicians (Carlitos del Puerto, Jimmy Branly, Nolan Shaheed, and John Tegmeyer just to name a few). It was a treat to witness the collaboration between these artists. Each musician contributed their talent and unique style all while allowing Racquel’s upbeat positive personality to shine through every song.

Racquel’s musical influences are diverse. From Ella Fitzgerald to the Jackson Five, Karen Carpenter to Christina Aguilera, despite genre, what flows through Racquel is her love and admiration for truly good music. My favorite song on the album is “I’ll be Home for Christmas”. Re-imagined with a samba beat and accompanied by Mitchell Long on the cavaquinho (a pint size guitar that adds a Brazillian flair), Racquel’s version of this standard challenges anyone to keep their feet still.

“The Secret of Christmas” was produced and is being sold independently by Racquel through her company, Peace Rock, LLC. If the album itself wasn’t testament enough to her big heart, Racquel is dedicating a portion of the proceeds to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society in memory of a friend’s mother who passed away this year — making support of independent artists and a good cause too much to resist.

As I documented the making of this album not only did I learn about music, I learned that when done well, even a Christmas song can get you singing and dancing. No longer do I think that all Christmas is music depressing and overplayed. Racquel succeeded in making the traditional nontraditional. Whether featuring an electric guitar solo, sampling the jazz classic “Caravan” or offering up beautiful R&B vocal stylings, “The Secret of Christmas” delivers a little something for everyone.

story by Julie Daman

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