I tried so hard not to let myself feel that way, but I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t have times in my career where I really felt discouraged, you know? Because I’ve always known and I will always know that music it what I want to do in my life. But music in your life and music as your career, and varying degrees of success in music as a career and the music business itself, those things are very separate from each other. And so for me, I have a really strong drive and desire to be extremely successful in the music industry. I want to make hit records that sell millions of copies, I want to tour the world and headline stadiums, I want to play to the masses of people. And man that was a real, that kind of took my legs out from under me because there was a lot of anticipation for my first record at that time. It was executive produced by the Matrix, who at the time had hits with, they produced the whole Avril Lavigne album, they were just all over the place. And so it was really just like it came out of left field. I was like, what? The record’s not coming out, it’s never coming out, I was like, what?

But now I’ve got a record out. It took me awhile, but it’s the record that I want to make now. I wouldn’t want to release that record now, and I wouldn’t have wanted to release this record then. But in a sense it’s really good because I mean I’ve got a lot more songs to choose from. I was able to do some songs that were supposed to be on that first record, some songs that I’ve written since then, some songs that I wrote way before then. And now I’ve got a real wealth of material to choose from, and I’ve got albums and albums and albums worth of stuff.

On Second Thought…

The iTunes sales charts have become a great tool for getting immediate feedback on how well a new album is selling. Updated multiple times per day, these charts are handy enough and (with the recent propulsion of iTunes over music retailers) representative enough that these I often consult them before even bothering with the long-standard Billboard charts. But the iTunes charts have a flaw which, as artists increasingly shift their focus toward the various options presented by digital releases, is becoming more glaring by the month.

One need look no further than Keane, the band gracing the cover of this issue, for an example. At one point last Tuesday, on the day it was released, Keane’s new album Perfect Symmetry was in both the number five and number eight position on the U.S. iTunes charts – at the same time. The “deluxe” version of the album, which costs three dollars more and includes about an hour of bonus audio and video material, was at number five. The regular version of the album without the bonus material was at number eight.



Really? How are we supposed to know, then, how such an album is actually performing in comparison to albums that aren’t release in this split format? If the sales numbers of the deluxe and regular versions of Perfect Symmetry were combined, as they should be, would that place the album at number four overall? Number three? No way of knowing. I love it when bands do this, as it gives buyers at various levels of fanhood a choice when it comes to how strongly they want to get their hands on bonus material and how much they want to spend. In fact, even though Keane’s label had given me an advance copy in preparation for our interview, I ended up buying the deluxe version anyway, just for the bonus content. And I don’t want to see bands get punished chart-wise for making the decision to give fans a choice between pricing levels.



On that same day the new album from the amazing Ray LaMontagne debuted at number one in iTunes; would he have lost out on that title if he’d also released a deluxe version of his record? But the really odd part about how iTunes is classifying the new Keane album is not that the two versions of the album are being treated as separate albums – they’re actually being treated as separate genres. The deluxe version of Perfect Symmetry was at number one on the iTunes alternative chart, while the standard version was at number on on the iTunes world music chart. Uh, world music? Come on Apple, get it together on this stuff, will you?



Much as I hate to use this week’s entire column to beat up on Apple, I’ve got to admit that the recent introduction of Apple’s new laptops caught me more than a little off guard (and I’ll explain in a minute how that relates to the iPhone). Sure, we all knew that new laptops were coming, and let me say this: for those of you who’ve fallen in love with Apple thanks to your iPhone and have been waiting for the right time to ditch your PC laptop in favor of a MacBook, now is a good time to consider doing just that. These new models are strongly equipped and worth their respective price tags. But that having been said, the new MacBook lineup starts at $1299? Now, at this time, when the word “depression” is being thrown around and we’re all hoping it just ends up being a severe recession instead? Apple is raising laptop prices by twenty percent now of all times? Does Steve Jobs not watch CNBC?



I know, I know, some of you are looking at the bottom end of the MacBook line and seeing a $999 model and wondering what I’m talking about. But that’s actually the previous MacBook model. Yeah it’s $100 cheaper than it was previously, and yeah it’s worth its price tag as well. But who dreamed up this plan to launch new MacBooks with increased prices at a time when people aren’t wanting to part with their money for any reason at all?


It’s probably fair to assume that Apple put plans for the new MacBook line in motion long before our economy exploded a few weeks ago, and then added the discontinued low-end MacBook back into the equation as a last-minute compromise. But if that’s the case, how is it that Apple had the foresight to significantly lower the iPhone’s price this past summer, but didn’t have the foresight back then to see that they were going to need to do the same for their laptop line? After all, the economy has pretty much sucked all year. Is there enough of a disconnect between Apple’s laptop team and their iPhone team that one hand saw what was coming and the other didn’t? Or did Apple’s decision to drastically lower the price of the iPhone have less to do with the declining state of the economy than I (and others) originally assumed?



Like I said, don’t let the bizarre pricing structure keep you from buying a MacBook (or MacBook Pro) if you’re in the market for one, as each model currently on the market is well worth its price. It’s just the overall pricing matrix that has me scratching my head.



Alright, let me see if I can end on a cheerier note. It’s been reported that the iPhone is now the second-most popular cellphone on the market. That’s not to say that the iPhone is the number two smartphone. No, it’s the number two cellphone period. The iPhone is currently outselling every other cellphone in the country except the RAZR.



This revelation is nothing short of astonishing. Didn’t Steve Jobs say that his original goal was for Apple to achieve one percent of the cellphone market by the end of 2008? Here’s Apple trying to break into a completely new market for the company, and a market that’s already well-established (as opposed to the MP3 player market, which was nothing more than a niche prior to the iPod), and Apple is already at number two.



Then again, Apple isn’t really trying to get people to give up their cellphone, now is it? No, the idea here is to get satisfied iPod users to upgrade to the latest iPod, which happens to also be a cellphone. Of course that means they’re going to give up their existing cellphone in the process, but I’m not sure consumers are even looking at it that way. Which would confirm my long-standing theory that prior to the iPhone, everyone hated their cellphone whether they wanted to admit it or not. And as soon as a cellphone finally came on the scene that’s actually lovable, just as lovable as their iPod always was, any sense of loyalty they might have had to their existing cellphone make or model went right out the window.



Except perhaps those dedicated Blackberry users. But come to think of it, the new Blackberry comes with a virtual keyboard – just like the iPhone.

Craig Wilson in the Podsafe Cafe

Craig Wilson is energy. Craig Wilson is romance. Craig Wilson is wit. Mostly, Craig Wilson is a friend, a lover, a son, a brother whose life is singing with more passion than most PA systems can handle, not in volume but in intensity.


He has toured the country playing his “stories” – his songs have that story-telling quality of country music, although his melodies are just as easy to remember and hum all day as a good pop tune (try “Stay” it won’t get out of your head!). During his many travels, he has shared the stage with artists like Cindy Lauper, Tyler Hilton and Toby Lightman.



While originally from a little town in Michigan, he now calls New York City home, although he could easily pass for a Nashville or Los Angeles resident, as he seems to be comfortable anywhere. Craig is the guy everyone wants to be friends with; he can play in front of a thousand people or ten and still give you chills; he is currently recording a new album and my friends it will be worth checking out!


What stage is your album at? (meaning, when can we get it?)

Well, the album is kind of an ongoing thing. I write A LOT so new stuff keeps coming up. I have probably 20-30 songs recorded in some form that could end up on the album. Right now it’s about finding the material that fits together the best and finding the perfect arrangements of it all. We are definitely close to having that. When you spend the amount of time, and energy that everybody working on this album has, you want to do the songs justice and make sure it reaches people the right way. It may take a little longer but I believe in having an album that makes you really think and feel throughout, not just one or two catchy singles which seems to be more and more the case in the digital download days. I remember back when I was a kid and discovering artists for the first time, I heard Bruce Springsteen’s “Born To Run” album and I had to listen to the entire thing because it carried a message. I think that part of the power of an album is to hold a common theme that leaves you changed in some way after you’ve heard it. That is not to say that there is no room on my album for the fun and catchy, pop songs! They are certainly in there!

Who did you team up with for the recording of this album and what made you choose them?

Well there are a lot of people that have worked on this record. As I’ve said, I’ve really taken time on this one to explore a lot of options and that includes producers, musicians, studios, and engineers. Mainly, I have worked with Robert L. Smith of Defy Recordings at the helm to engineer everything. Robert has worked with the likes of Aerosmith, Bon Jovi, Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder to name just a few. I was also lucky enough to co-write one track (Sacrifice) with the wonderfully talented writer Jo Davidson. She has had cuts with numerous artists and she stepped in to also produce a few tracks on the album. I had the pleasure of working with Bart Migal (CBS Records) as a producer on a few tracks as well.

The songs definitely walk the line between rock and a bit of folk/country so I was blessed to have Lisa Cochran (Faith Hill, Carrie Underwood, Tim McGraw, Garth Brooks) from Nashville sing on some tracks with me. I also worked with David Patterson (Shawn Mullins, Indigo Girls) and Peter Calo (Carly Simon, Willie Nelson) on guitars. I rounded out the band with Dan Vonnegut on drums and my long time friend and touring bassist Nick Aliberti.

Having lived in NYC for a few years now, what do you feel has been your biggest accomplishment as an artist-singer-songwriter there?

I can say, without a doubt, that my biggest accomplishment as an artist in NYC has been continuing to be an artist living in NYC! Coming from a small town in Michigan it was quite a change to live in the “center of the universe.” Choosing to be an artist anywhere in the world has always been a challenge, and it continues to be today right here in America as well. The funding in schools for the arts has been depleting for years, and even many, many professional musicians that make their money solely off of music can’t afford health care. Artists have always been the heart and soul of the world. In times of crisis, we turn to artists to express our feelings. Whether it was the 60′s folk revolution, the 70′s punk revolution, or today’s rise in popularity of the “indie” musician through the advent of the Internet, art is a reflection of who we are. My biggest accomplishment as an artist has been to keep making art.

Have you always been a musician and a songwriter?

I started playing music professionally almost as soon as I started playing music period. I was in high school when I took up the guitar and singing and got a job playing a bar in Detroit right away. I wasn’t very good but I showed up every Wednesday night to play! I remember that gig being the first time I really understood what performing was. I got boo’d at my first show there, and that is a lot to handle at a young age but I really wanted to win those blue-collar guys over so I went home and re-thought my show. I remember watching t.v. with my brother and seeing James Taylor do a version of “Steamroller” and that is really when it hit me, he was having so much fun and was totally IN the moment! If I could figure out how to play and have as much fun in front of people as I did when I was alone or just thinking about doing it, they would feel it to.

So the next week I went back and I actually did my own version of “Steamroller” and I stopped thinking about anything but playing the hell out of that song, in that moment. The amazing thing was, everyone else stopped thinking about everything but that song and that moment also. From then on I had a packed house every week. Eventually they started requesting my own songs by name. That is how it started.

What do you do when you are not working on your own music?

When I am not working on my own music I am usually working on someone else’s. I am a freelance producer, and song writing coach in NY. I also occasionally play guitar for a few various artists like Michelle Citrin and Amanda Droste. I also enjoy traveling around this great country of ours. Of course I still love getting back home once in a while to Michigan. One of my favorite places in the world is the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I love photography and there is no better place for it than in Northern Michigan. It is very remote so it’s not for everybody, but that’s just the way I like it.

I have heard that you recently won some awards… can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Yes. I won two Billboard songwriting awards for my songs “Stay” and “Hopelessly, Helplessly”. I had entered the contest months before and kind of forgot about it to be honest. It was a nice surprise to receive the awards.

Are you “living your life the way you dreamed it would be” (this is Craig’s mantra)? Even if the answer is “yes”, what else would you like on top of what you have?

Ha! That’s so funny that that quote has become my mantra. It is from a very old song that I wrote and I put it at the beginning of my bio on my myspace page and it seems to have stuck!

I really am living my life the way I dreamed it could be, and more so. I never really thought that I could be a professional musician, making my own music, and that I would make a living that way. I am so incredibly grateful for all the things I’ve done, people I have met, and places I have been in my life so far. I really do sometimes think I am living a fairy tale.

As for what I would like on top of what I already have, I would like to continue being happy. Do I want more money? Sure, we all do. Do I want more freedom, more time? Of course! I have specific goals and dreams just like everyone else but I think it’s dangerous to get too attached to those things. When we focus on one thing so hard, sometimes we miss out on something else that might have been better. A friend and wonderful mentor of mine John Battaglia just recently wrote a book entitled “The Rockstar In You”. The book applies to anyone trying to live his (or her) life to the fullest. He says something really profound in it, which has stuck with me…

“…When you are in an aircraft, it is constantly going off course. It is always veering off track and having to make adjustments to land at its destination. ”

If we are never afraid to take flight, and we are always open to those adjustments, I think we eventually land at our destination.

What is next? Any trips or shows planned?

I am planning a trip down to Nashville to do some recording, and writing. The best songwriters in the world live in Music City, so this past year I have been going down there meeting some great folks and some really talented people. I am excited to get back. The energy in that town is just really inspiring, not to mention it’s a beautiful part of the country.

Um… No Thanks.

This week, I’ve decided to write about a common situation that has come up many times in my life and I see it very often with people I work with as well.  Turning down opportunities that could be career changing. As a musician, sometimes events, meetings or sessions come your way that seem like a waste of time either because you’re not being paid enough money, or really, you’re just better than that.   

If I turned down everything that didn’t pay enough or passed up opportunities I thought were below me, I would definitely not have had the success I have had so far.   You obviously need to use your best judgement and not just take every little thing that comes along, however, you might be missing opportunities by being too proud.  I have seen countless people pass up gigs, sessions, meetings, etc. that could have potentially taken them way further than they are now.



People often ask me how I get all of my film and tv placements or how I get these commercials or meetings with ad agencies.  Well, the answer is that I explore all opportunities and look at the big picture, not just the immediate. Sometimes these meetings, sessions, or gigs I play don’t turn into anything. But sometimes they do.  And it’s hard to know which could be beneficial and which might just be a waste of time.



Let me give you a few personal examples. About nine months ago, I almost cancelled a gig.  I had been in the studio all day, I was exhausted, and I just didn’t feel like playing. I thought “I don’t need this gig. I’m not being paid, and really, I’m better than that.”  The only reason I followed through with this performance was because I had already committed to it and I don’t like breaking my word- I think it’s something my grandfather instilled in me.



So, I went to the venue, played a few songs, and was about to leave when a guy came up to me and asked me if I would send him some music.  I sent it out a few weeks later (the procrastinator that I am) and a couple weeks after that, I got a call from someone at his company, asking if they could use my song and music video in the ads for Private Practice.  That’s example one.


Another example is when I sang the National Jello commercial. One night a producer friend of mine called me and asked if I would sing “on spec” a little jingle for him. “On spec” basically means there is no guarantee we will get the commercial.  He was going to throw me a little money, but it wasn’t even close to what I am normally paid.  So, I went to his studio at 9am the next morning and sang this song. About a month later, he called me telling me that Jello picked up the commercial we did for their National campaign… and it was a SAG commercial which basically meant a lot of money.  Yay!  I could have passed up that awesome opportunity… and then I would be kicking myself for being so stupid.

Those are two examples of many. I don’t take every job or meeting that comes along and not all the things that I do accept are worthwhile.  But I don’t only choose paid gigs.  I don’t only meet with major music industry people.  And I don’t only work with high profile writers or producers.  So, while I think being choosy is important, don’t shoot yourself in the foot either (I hate cliches but this one kind of applies).  If something doesn’t pay much or doesn’t even pay anything at all,  seems like a waste of time, or your too tired to do it and you pass it up, that might be the dumbest thing you do.  

Well, it’s been fun, so until next week… go crazy, have fun, and eat a lot of chocolate to prepare yourself for Halloween!!  Oh, and put November 15th at Hotel Cafe in your calendar.  Woohoo!!  My band and I are playing and we want you to come rock out with us!

FUN FACT: Check out Disney’s new Tinkerbell movie. Kari has a song on the soundtrack… you can check it out on itunes too!

VersAudio Vers 2X for iPod

With hundreds of iPod speaker systems on the market these days it’s increasingly more of a challenge to stand out in the crowd. With its Vers 2X, Sprout Creation has attempted to do just that by going in the unusual direction of building its systems out of wood. The idea here is not just to make a unique-looking system but a unique audio experience as well, with wood offering up a noticeably different sound than the plastic and metal found on most competing systems.



I’ve used the Vers 2X as my primary speaker system for the past few weeks, and found some aspects of the product to be about what I was expecting while other aspects came as a surprise. I first tested out a wood-based system last year in the form of Speck’s Retro, so I more or less knew that the audio from the Vers 2X would sound more organic, some would say more natural, less digital if you will, than the typical iPod system. But what surprised me was that while the Retro was a fairly large unit, the Vers 2X is significantly more compact. In fact, while the images I’d seen of the unit had me expecting something roughly the size of Apple’s iPod Hi-Fi system, it turns out the Vers 2X isn’t much bigger than a loaf of bread.



That doesn’t stop the unit from putting out a powerful sound, though. It also comes with a remote which sports more features than the typical iPod system (though not necessarily every feature you’d want – I’ll get to that later). In what I hope will become an ongoing tradition for future iProng reviews, I asked Sprout Creation’s David Lauturi some questions to get a better understanding of why the Vers 2X was designed the way it was and how the product is crafted, as well as the decision-making process for the feature set…

Why did you go the unusual route of building an iPod speaker system out of wood?

Have you ever seen a plastic violin? Musical instruments have been made of wood for centuries and it’s the preferred material of most high-end speaker manufacturers; wood is simply the ideal sound enclosure material. The 9 mm thick wood in Vers provides a rigid, acoustically neutral cabinet …and it’s gorgeous, too. With the sea of plastic iPod systems out there, we felt the world was more then ready for sound quality.

Aside from the great sound qualities and the natural beauty wood brings to Vers, though, the entire product has been environmentally considered from end to end – we selected wood from local plantation sources, chose the most power efficient components available, even the packaging material is 100% post-consumer stock. Sustainable design as central to our mission.

How do you go about creating each individual unit?

There’s a good reason no one has made a wood iPod sound system yet – working with wood in mass production is a real challenge; it took quite a few prototypes to perfect our unique enclosure design. A plastic part, by contrast, can be popped out in less then a minute, without much effort and at a fraction of the cost. Like a guitar or a violin, each Vers cabinet takes over a week to produce by hand. The side benefit is that the hand-craftsmanship, in combination with the natural grain of the wood, assures that each system is unique.
 

What led you to make the feature choices you did, such as including the ability to navigate the iPod’s menus via the remote, but not including adjustable bass and treble?

In our past experience, there’s always pressure to add ‘just one more button’ to a remote, but our goal was simplicity – it takes a lot of focus include only what was absolutely needed. We wanted the user to be in full control and be able to drive their iPod from a distance – the menu navigation features are a big plus here – but an iPod itself has 22 discrete EQ settings; additional treble & bass controls weren’t necessary.

What other iPod or iPhone related products do you have in the pipeline beyond the Vers 2X?

Our ‘fans’ have actually told us loud and clear what they want from us next: a compact radio/alarm system that can live in any room in the house. We listened – the Vers 1.5R radio/alarm clock will be available on our site at the end of October on versaudio.com in the same four wood finishes as the Vers 2X: Cherry, Bamboo, Natural Walnut and Dark Walnut. It’s compact, but it puts out a lot of sound for its size.

•••••

When it comes to the review process, my take on the Vers 2X is fairly straightforward: it sounds great for its size, and sounds noticeably more “natural” than similarly sized competing systems thanks to its wooden design. On the other hand, $180 is a lot of money for this level of sound quality; I’ve tested some competing systems that cost $150 and even $130 which, take away the “naturalness” and it could be argued that they sound just as good or even better – and while it’s true that you can adjust the EQ via the iPod itself, it’s quite rare to see an iPod speaker system in this price range that doesn’t have bass and treble controls on the remote.



I love the fact that the included remote control can be used to navigate up and down the iPod’s hierarchal menus. This means that as long as you’re close enough to read the iPod’s screen (which is more realistic with an iPod touch than with an iPod nano), you can find your way directly to any song, album, or any other piece of content on your iPod without having to go over and actually adjust the iPod itself. On the other hand, the remote is on the large side. Sure, it has fourteen buttons, but I’ve used competing remotes that have even more buttons and aren’t half as bulky.



In all, I think you’ve got to be attracted to the wood, either in terms of aesthetics or sound quality (or both), in order to make this a worthwhile buy. That having been said, if you do like the wood aspect of the Vers 2X, I think you’ll end up being happy with it.

Final rating: four stars out of five

Weezer interview

The publicist puts us on the phone with Patrick Wilson, but just a few seconds into the interview it’s clear that the audio quality of the phone call isn’t going to be the greatest. “How about if we just use Skype?” he asks, and after we exchange usernames and connect the Skype call we’re good to go. You wouldn’t expect someone as famous as Weezer’s founding drummer to be handing out his Skype username to a journalist, but Weezer hasn’t been doing much lately according to formula. Their new album is self-titled, which wouldn’t be out of the ordinary if not for the fact that it’s their third self-titled album (fans are now resorting to referring to the albums by background color). The album cover photo of the band is so goofy-looking that when it was first unveiled, some wondered if it was a prank. And every member of the band sings on this album, which is supposed to be a no-no for a band with an established lead singer.


But Skype is far from Pat Wilson’s only connection to the digital age. He’s been posting to Twitter (yes that’s really him), he’s a podcast listener (and occasional participant), and he’s an iPhone user who has his own opinions about how Apple has been handling the iPhone’s third-party application platform. He also talks of his irrational hatred of Miss Piggy. During the course of our interview, Pat tells us about how Weezer approached making the Red Album, his life as an iPhone user, and more…

Bill Palmer: If you look at Weezer’s history, your styles have changed over the years. But this one, to me at least, seems like the biggest departure from one album to the next. Were you trying to go in a different direction?

Patrick Wilson: Actually, this album was a complete change of operation from the way we work. The last album was, although it was successful, it was really, it was a chore, like getting it all, it just wasn’t that much fun to make. Not that it was a bummer or anything, but it kind of opened our eyes to like, well, hold on here, what’s going on? Why can’t we just try and blow our minds and have a lot of fun? And that’s just what we did.

We got in what we call the war room and we had all this butcher paper. And we just put all the songs up on the paper, and we just started throwing out ideas of what each song, what we’d like to hear in each song. And there was also a master list of just like random ideas, like “I’d like to hear a mellotron” or “I’d like to hear this” or “I wanna do this.” And each time we came to a song, we treated it as its own world and we tried to incorporate some of these goals into each song. So in that sense I think this record is a radical departure.

Michael Johnston: With Pork and Beans you went with a really interesting style for the video, it was sort of like a giant party with everyone from the internet, a bunch of internet memes. Who came up with the idea for that, and what was the meaning behind it?

Patrick: It was done by Matt Cullen of Motion Theory, he just came up with it. He was like look at all these people on YouTube, you know, it’s an important part of popular culture that’s in everyone’s brain. Let’s see if we can get all of these people together. And the real genius of that video, and he explained it to us when we were done shooting it, he’s like look, I think this song is perfect for this video because all these people have a lot of notoriety for doing things that are unconventional, or perhaps they have notoriety for doing something embarrassing. And for those people it was kind of like an opportunity for them to be like yeah, a made a giant mistake, but you know what, I’m cool with it and whatever.

Like for instance that guy, I always forget his name, but he was the Afro Ninja, like that guy is insanely talented. He’s a stuntman, he does all this crazy stuff all the time, and he screws up one time and then he’s famous for being the guy who whacks himself with the nunchucks or whatever. And I thought it was awesome that he could, all these people were totally cool enough to be in the video. They didn’t take themselves that seriously. And I thought it was great to give them an opportunity to kind of just, you know, in essence tell everyone F-you.

Bill: At what point did you start saying okay, different band members are gonna write songs, different band members are gonna sing? Was that something you had up on your clipboard to start with?

Patrick: We had endless conversations about what everyone’s goals were for the record. And it turns out everybody was like “well I’d like to have a song that I’d write and sing.” And so that just go thrown into the soup of goals that we wanted to achieve. I think we got most of them.

Michael: You did a song, Automatic, you performed the lead vocals on that. A lot of the songs on the album kind of felt a little nostalgic and rooted in the past, and Automatic seemed to be dealing more with the present.

Patrick: I had had those chords just kind of floating around for awhile, and I had made a song out of it that I was dissatisfied with. So I revisited it, and I don’t know. You know, writing songs is kind like a mystical, weird thing that happens to some people. You get done with it and you’re like well, where’d that come from? I don’t really know. For me it’s mostly about being a father twice now and just having a family and being responsible trying to capture the heaviness of, I mean it sounds so silly, the heaviness of being in a family. I’m not twenty years old and running around the world being crazy anymore. I’m thirty-nine, and I’m just trying to rock and have a family. So that’s kind of what it’s all about.

Michael: How did you end up being a guest on MacBreak Weekly?

Patrick: I called them. I was like dude, I want to be on MacBreak Weekly.

Michael: So you’re a fan of the podcast?

Patrick: I do like the podcast. I subscribe to a bunch, I’ll probably subscribe to yours now, and you know, there’s only so many hours in the day so I can’t, like, check everything out that’s suggested to me. But I really think when you hear something like a podcast that’s not backed by a giant mandate to be super successful, you get more honesty I think out of it. And I really love the conversational style of what I hear in podcasts. It just seems real to me. It seems like people talking, and I think that peels back a layer of sort of artificial, I don’t even know what to call it, but like when I’m watching cable news or something I can just tell there’s someone in that guy’s ear going blah blah blah, talk about this, wah wah wah. And it just seems lame to me. So more and more I’m just getting what I choose to be interested in from the internet like that.

Bill: I’m curious because from everything I know about Weezer you seem like a really down to earth bunch of guys to start with, but you’re still a founding member of an extremely popular band. And there are sort of walls, like to set up this interview we’ve got to get your publicist to sign off, somebody patches a call. And there are good reasons for all that stuff, but then you’re doing stuff like calling up Leo and saying “I want to be on your show,” you’re posting stuff unfiltered on Twitter. You’re still on a major label. Does that drive the industry crazy when guys like you go and do that kind of stuff on your own?

Patrick: No, the exact opposite happens. They go “thanks for doing my job.” And that’s what you hear these days is people just, like big labels, they want ideas because they’re looking at the world changing and they’re like, what? How are we gonna maintain? So like I said, it’s just gravy for them. Now if I go do something that I regret they’re gonna be bummed, but whatever. I mean at this point we make our own decisions, and it’s kind of like I view the label as working for me as much as possible.

Bill: How long have you been an Apple guy?

Patrick: Not long, actually. In fact right now I’m looking at a Mac, we’re doing this on my MacBook Pro, but on my wall I have Samplitude running on a PC, so I haven’t completely switched over. I’d say about a year ago I got the MacBook.

Bill: Were you one of those that you were on Windows and then you bought an iPod and then you started warming up to Apple that way?

Patrick: I just got bored. I built a million PCs, and it just looked like there was this sort of family of products that in theory are very friendly to each other. And I said well I’ll just go for it. I’ve got a Time Machine, AppleTV, MacBook, iPod, iPhone, you know. And I’d say overall I’m fairly happy. It’s not really as happy a family as you’re sort of led to believe. But I think going forward, especially the iPhone, I mean the iPhone, I know people call it the Jesus phone and all that, but it really is a pretty amazing thing to be able to manipulate stuff like that, with the touch and all that. I think it’s fantastic.

Michael: When did you get the iPhone, and now with the new software update that’s come out with all these applications and everything, how do you feel about the iPhone in how it’s sort of changing the idea of what can be done with a really tiny personal mobile device?

Patrick: I think Apple’s strength is it knows how to make things easy. To me, everything about the iPhone is easy and really productive. And I hope that over time this just becomes normal, like you can pretty much do everything you want with your phone. I got real excited, I just updated to 2.0 and I saw that there was some streaming radio, like a free app. So I put it in there and I’m listening to talk radio from Philadelphia over GPRS. It’s like, that’s what I’m talking about. If we can get that going on a mass scale, then you’re really gonna start to see things change. Cause you know, not everyone’s into hacking, you know, getting things to work on their PC, ripping DRM and all that. But everyone’s got a cell phone. So I think that’s gonna be the real tipping point for a lot of this one to one sort of business.

Bill: Is that Pandora you’re talking about, or one of the others?

Patrick: Let me see, I’ll pull my phone out right now, I’ll look at it. It was AOL Radio.

Bill: Are you still on the original iPhone? You haven’t bought the 3G yet?

Patrick: No. I actually had this jailbroken on 1.1.4, and I was stoked because there was a lot of cool applications and I was using it like a hard drive and all this. But I kind of like the more legit style of the new software.

Michael: Yeah, and a lot of the applications that were done under jailbreak are actually coming to the App Store, as long as they follow Apple’s guidelines.

Patrick: See that’s the kind of thing that kind of pisses me off though, honestly. The best thing about PCs is the openness. I just can’t stand it when someone sells me a piece of technology and they say “oh but you can’t do that, oh but you can’t do this.” It’s like shut up, you sold me a piece of hardware, you should let me do what I want to do with it.

Bill: It’s funny how the whole thing’s playing out. It’s like Apple is racing against this hacking community to try to see who can get there first.

Patrick: They should do the exact opposite. They should make it as open as possible. You should be able to bluetooth music to each other. What’s gonna happen when Steve Jobs is gone? You know, that’s the question. They have a window now where he’s, like, Jesus, and everyone loves Apple and their products. But I think they should be a lot more open than they are.

Michael: The decisions that they’re making right now are kind of legitimized by the fact that Steve Jobs is still there?

Patrick: Yeah, I mean it just seems like he rules with an iron fist. I don’t know that much about him, but it seems like he’s kind of like the guy who’s like yes, no, yes, no, making the shots.



Bill: You’re kind of on both sides of it. You’re a consumer buying Apple’s products, and then you’re also selling your music and making your livelihood through iTunes. From your experience in selling albums through iTunes in the past five six years, do you feel like, are they open enough? Are you satisfied with the way that they deal with you as a band?



Patrick: Yeah, I mean obviously I was sort of speaking as a consumer, or just like a guy who’s into technology a little bit. But you know, I had this kid email me from Amsterdam. And he said “Hello Pat, I went to the record store to buy the Red Album, and they wanted 20 Euros for it, which turns out to be about 1.8 Euros per song. Now Weezer’s awesome, but they’re not that awesome.” And he goes “So I downloaded the record, and I just thought you should know that your music is too expensive, and I was happy to pay but it was too much.”



So of course my first reaction as a business guy is like, I’m gonna pound this kid in the face. But then I realized, you know what? I’m stoked that that kid is interested enough in me to want to download my music. And so I sent him back, I was like hey, I really hope you enjoy the music. Can you tell me where you tried to buy it? And he wrote me back and said yeah it was here and here, at these places. And then I got, my manager gave me the bright idea to write him back and say “well, you could always just send me the 10 Euros that you were willing to pay.” And of course he was like, he didn’t email me back.



I’ll tell you this about downloading music. I’ve downloaded tons of music, and you know what? I don’t listen to any of it. The only music that I listen to is music that I went out and was excited about buying. I don’t know why that is, I think there’s like a circular relationship between fans of music and bands. And if you just go pull off a bunch of stuff off an FTP or something, honestly, I just don’t care. Maybe it’s just me, but I talk to a lot of people who feel the same way.



Bill: We threw it out to readers, and someone wanted to know what it was like to work with the Muppets when you did the video a few years ago.



Patrick: Well of course the Muppets are iconic, not only are the iconic,they’re actually icons. I grew up on watching the Muppets, so it was kind of a surreal experience to have Miss Piggy in my face. And especially because I hated Miss Piggy as a kid, like I had this irrational hatred of her of her. It’s like I’ve gotta go sit on the couch and have it worked out.

•••••

Weezer has just released its latest single “Troublemaker” from the Red Album and is currently on tour in the United States.

iPhone external batteries

Comparative review by Bill Palmer

We all love our iPhones. But the more features Apple keeps adding to the device, and the more software applications we keep installing, many of us find ourselves chewing through battery life like there’s no tomorrow. Fear not, however, as external iPhone batteries have arrived from various third party accessory makers. Here at iProng headquarters we’ve recently spent hands-on quality time with three such products: the Mophie JuicePack, the FastMac iV, and the Kensington Mini Battery Pack. Each of the three turned out to have its own strengths and weaknesses along with varying features and price points, so rather than try to rank them comparatively, we thought we’d tell you what we learned about each of them and allow you to decide on your own.



First things first: in our real-world tests, all three products achieved roughly the battery life they claimed. In other words, plug a fully-charged iPhone into any of these packs and you can expect your battery life to be more than doubled. So with that first and most important litmus test out of the way, the devil is in the details.

We’ll start with the Mophie product (far left in the photos above) as we’ve been able to spend the most time with it, a prototype of the device having arrived here back in December of last year (although it didn’t begin shipping til much, much later). The Juice Pack is essentially a cradle which surrounds the iPhones, bottom and most of its back and sides. The cradle adds a fair amount of bulk to the iPhone and also prevents you from using a protective case, although you can certainly still use protective film on your iPhone’s front face. I found that I could still fit the cradled iPhone into my front pocket, although I do tend to wear my jeans loose, so your mileage may vary on that front. The rubbery surface of the Juice Pack is reminiscent of the black rubber running on the bottom of the original iPhone’s rear surface, and I found that it made for a firm grip, perhaps more so than with a bare iPhone (particularly the two rubber bumpers running down the product’s sides). In fact the Juice Pack almost feels like a carrying case (one attendee at New Media Expo asked me what brand of “case” it was), although in that sense I do wish it covered the iPhone’s top corners, which tend to be the point of impact with the ground during a drop, instead of its bottom corners. As it is, the iPhone sticks up a bit above the top of the Juice Pack.



A button on the back will activate up to four indicator lights to let you know how much battery life the Juice Pack has remaining. The beauty here with all three of these products is that they use up their own battery life first before allowing the iPhone to dip into any of its own power, even using their own juice to charge the iPhone back up if to full if necessary. This means that if you start the day with the battery pack attached and you eventually use it up, you can just remove it and stash it for the rest of the day since at that point you’ll be using your iPhone’s own battery anyway.



The FastMac iV (center photo above) appears, upon first glance, to be a similar product to the Juice Pack. But the iV has a few unique tricks up its sleeve. The first is that it has a flash mechanism for the iPhone’s camera. While I’ve found that most users consider its slow shutter speed to be the iPhone camera’s biggest weakness and not the lack of a flash, this does add an unexpected degree of bonus functionality to your iPhone. As does the USB port on the iV which allows you to use it to charge another USB device (such as an iPod), which could come in handy for users who are still carrying both an iPhone and an iPod. The trade-off for this additional functionality? In a nutshell, the iV is bulkier than the Juice Pack. I can still fit the iV-clad iPhone into my pants pocket, but again, my pockets may be larger than yours.



Both devices charge via the same dock connector mechanism as the iPhone itself, meaning that you can either connect it to your computer via USB or connect it to a wall socket using the iPhone’s power brick. And you can charge both your iPhone and the battery pack simultaneously by placing the iPhone into the battery pack and then plugging the battery pack into the power source.



One interesting aspect of the iV is that its bottom slims down enough to fit into the Apple dock that came with the original iPhone. This means that you don’t have to lay the iV down on a flat surface in order to charge it, as you have to with the Juice Pack.



While the iV ($79) and the Juice Pack ($99) have their differences, one thing they have in common is that due to their form-fitting design, neither product works with the new iPhone 3G. However, both companies have told me that they’re on track to ship a 3G-compatible version in late October.



For those users who can’t wait that long, the Kensington product works with any iPhone model (as long with any modern iPod) thanks to its generic design which allows it to simply snap onto the bottom dock connector port. The result looks something an FM transmitter affixed to the bottom of an iPod (see the far right photo above).



I found that the resulting product combination was too tall too fit comfortably even in my big pockets, and I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of leaving the Kensington connected to the iPhone while in my pocket anyway, thanks to the fact that it merely snaps on and doesn’t really grip the iPhone in the same way that the Juice Pack and iV both do. But nonetheless, using the Kensington product felt plenty comfortable and sturdy while holding the iPhone in my hand, and if you’re having a day where you’re chewing through battery life, the odds are good that it’s because the iPhone is spending more time in your hand than in your pocket anyway. The Kensington comes with its own retractable USB cable which, like the other two products, allows you to connect it to a computer or the iPhone’s charging brick.



In addition to its wider compatibility and the fact that it doesn’t add any front-to-back bulk to the iPhone, the Kensington product also comes with a $49 price tag which makes it half as expensive as the Juice Pack. But it lacks basic features like the ability to see how much juice is left without first connecting it up (the three indicator lights are only functional when it’s plugged into the iPhone).



The Verdict



When it comes down to it, none of these three products is perfect. But the Juice Pack and the iV add more front to back bulk than you’d hope for, and cost nearly half as much as the low-end iPhone model itself. The Kensington is significantly cheaper and works with the iPhone 3G right now, but it isn’t as physically stable as the other two when you toss it into your pocket or bag. The FastMac is twenty dollars cheaper than the Mophie and has the camera flash and the extra USB port and the docking functionality, but the Mophie has a more svelte design that leaves me tempted to reach for it when I know I’m not going to need the FastMac’s extra features.



In the end, which of the three products is right for you is going to depend on how you use and carry your iPhone, which features you’re looking for, and your overall budget. I hope this won’t come off as a contrived attempt as diplomacy, but I believe that based on their price, performance and functionality, each of the three products deserves four stars out of five, thus earning iProng Magazine’s “Recommended” badge. Just keep in mind that each of these products has achieved their four stars for different reasons, and before buying I would strongly urge you to consider how the details of each product match up with your needs.



The bottom line, of course, is that while Apple continues to be unwilling or unable to pack enough battery life into the iPhone to satisfy power users (and didn’t do a thing to help that cause when it launched the iPhone 3G), these third-party products make it possible for us to go all day, pushing our iPhone as hard as we want, without having to fret over every electron of battery life that trickles out the door as the day goes on.



And most importantly, the availability of these products means that never again will I find myself at the end of a long day, stuck at a train station in a rough neighborhood in the middle of the night, with a dead iPhone battery and thus the inability to call myself a cab. Buy me a drink sometime and I’ll tell you the whole story. Maybe. In any case, thanks to the Kensington Mini Battery Pack, the FastMac iV, and the Mophie Juice Pack, my iPhone can now last as far into the night as I need it to.

Insomnia Radio podcast

How did Insomnia Radio first get off the ground?


Jason Evangelho founded the music network in October of 2004 after first purchasing an iPod the month previous in September. While googling for ways to transfer music from another computer to the device, he saw mention of the podcast, “Daily Source Code”. Roughly three days later, he learned to hand code the XML feed, bought a five dollar mic, and recorded episode one hosted at Charter’s web space, released to an audience of around ten listeners.


The show was initially called Hardcore Insomnia Radio, based on Jason’s AIM username, but was changed around episode eight or nine, so as not to put people off and give the wrong impression on content. While “face melters” were common fare, the music styles varied.


Insomnia Radio was initially founded on Jason’s desire to highlight and share music that simply wasn’t being heard, typically by unsigned and independent musicians. His discovery of Garageband in that timeframe spurned his perception in this arena into high gear, where he discovered there was a different -and better- world of independent music out there.


What led to your involvement with podcasting and the SoCal version of Insomnia Radio?


I initially started listening to podcasts on a light basis during my commutes, while terrestrial radio in Los Angeles was my other mainstay on the long drives into work. After Entravision fired one of the best FM DJ’s that had ever been placed into this market, I gave up the antenna for good in protest and dove headfirst into the podcasting sphere, putting my multimedia degree to work. 


Insomnia Radio, I felt, had one of the best mixtures of music, not bowing into any trends or hipster pretense, and honestly highlighting a diverse array of music, mostly rock-centric. I quickly became engrained in the community surrounding the network of podcasts, slowly subscribing to several of the domestic and international regional markets that had come onboard over the timeframe since Jason founded the network. When the opportunity presented itself, I quickly jumped at the chance to volunteer on the regional San Diego feed, where SD resident and host Michael Catanzaro coined the term ‘The SoCal Sessions’. These would be smaller shows appearing every other week to compliment his own.


After several sessions, my training wheels came off, so to speak. At this point a public poll was launched, a ribbon was virtually cut, an off-tune trumpet blared, and I was luckily given my own feed to showcase artists across the Southern California region.


What kind of experience can listeners expect from an episode of Insomnia Radio SoCal?


SoCal is basically a volunteer driven show bringing you some of what I feel is relevant at the moment from the local Southern California indie musician. We also include some material from the distant and not-so-distant past based off what is available legally to play. It was never really an interest of mine to host a variety show and define myself as an online personality with a typical FM radio announcer shtick, so I like to let the music speak for itself with minimal to moderate narration focused on the artist. The one thing I have been using though since the days of the mixtape though, are a lot of samples in order to create a pervasive theme.
I now also host the main show along with Stuart Morrison, and bring a daily feed of new music to the table, as our founder Jason left earlier this year to start up a rapidly expanding video gaming network.


How do you choose which specific songs and bands make their way onto your show?


I have to admit that most of the songs and band choices are of a personal preference, leaning toward a harder rock mixture traditionally played by Jason and others on the network in the past. I do mix in and occasionally have specialty shows in which I throw in hybrid forms of rock with hints of hip-hop, funk, jazz, folk, celtic, electronic, blues and more. Some are thematic compiled as well (e.g. all female singers, etc). I also like to help out the singer-songwriter and struggling local musician, occasionally placing some songs in the mix that might not be completely polished, but showing definite promise. 


As we don’t have a format like traditional radio, the shows come out less frequently and more time is actually put into the production. Unfortunately this also limits the amount of artists that we can fit into a given showcase but we do try our best to fit most submissions in wherever able.


As a music-podcaster, what kinds of copyright issues do you face and how do work around that?


Like most podcasters we use IODA Promonet and the Podsafe Music Network to get around any copyright issues for a segment of what we play. We also try to avoid the nebulous reach of the RIAA, and use riaaradar.com to skirt labels and artists under their jurisdiction. As far as the exact issues being faced: When a podcast is created you are potentially invoking several of copyright’s exclusive rights which you can find a detailed explanation of here.


For some time we had artists electronically sign what was almost a contract of sorts, but half of the time I found the legalese would dissuade artists from submitting their tracks. Usually a good percentage of artists we play these days have submitted to us through our site, and have also used drop, io, or YouSendIt to follow up with music files. It is somewhat of a paper tiger legally to solely get e-mailed permission, so we try to rely heavily on the podsafe musicians wherever possible and also the short website music submission process at insomniaradio.net. 


If you are up to discovering some great new indie music, please come check out our little homegrown operation at insomniaradio.net, and don’t forget to Kill Your FM!

Interview with Anberlin

I arrive at the Starbucks on the Sunset Strip to find Anberlin lead singer Stephen Christian already sitting outside, sipping his coffee. I’m not running late, but I’m just barely on time, and I’ve broken my own cardinal rule for dealing with rock stars: don’t keep them waiting.

But Stephen doesn’t seem bothered in the slightest, and in fact the first words out of his mouth are “I’ve got to tell you, I’m a big fan of iProng.” That’s gratifying to hear from someone whose band’s latest album New Surrender has just debuted in the top ten in iTunes. Then again, it’s far from the first time a musician has started off an interview with me in that manner, presumably hoping for a better write-up. But during the course of the hour I spent with Stephen, it became clear to me that he’s the genuine type who wouldn’t say something like that unless he meant it – and he’s enough of an iPhone aficionado that I’m not surprised he turned out to be one of our readers…



Anberlin has had a slow and steady buildup of popularity, where each album penetrates a little more than the previous one. Has that given you advantages?


Absolutely, on several different levels. First off, I think on a personality, like a character level, we’re not stuck-up of cocky. None of the five of us have ever ignored a fan, or F-you, because there was not that instant success. There wasn’t that overnight one-hit wonder and then suddenly we have huge hits. It’s been like, dude, our first shows were played in front of twenty, sixteen, forty people, and then we’d get fifty and be all stoked – dude, there was fifty people at the show tonight! And so it was never to the point where, even we got like top twenty on the Billboard on our last record, none of us were like “yeah, we deserve it.”

The other thing is I don’t feel like we have fair-weather fans. You know, like a football team, the Bucs won the Super Bowl when we lived there. And everybody was suddenly Bucs fans, but then two years later they don’t care about the Bucs. But with ours, we don’t have instant fans. We have fans that we’ve met, we know their names, we’ve shaken their hands, autographs, we hung out of the show, we went out to dinner. See what I’m saying? We’ve developed friends along the way. And those are the friends that are gonna be there from our first record to our twentieth record.

You’re on a major label now. Were you trying to make that happen, were you shopping yourselves around?

No, we never, we didn’t sit down and write a goal sheet, like Universal Republic, that’s gonna be the biggest label and that’s who we want to go after. I think again, it was just kind of slow and steady taking it a day at a time and going you know, what’s the next level for us? Where can we go next? Where do we go from here? I have no clue. And I think that Universal Republic, we needed a small, like we’re very family oriented. We want close-knit friends, we want like, we want to interact with the people. We don’t want it to be a business relationship, like call me only in emergencies kind of thing. We want it like a family.

And there’s some great, great people there at Universal Republic. And coming from Tooth and Nail, that was a very family oriented. My A&R and my marketing guy are like two of my best friends right now, you know? I just talked to both of them this morning. Even still, we’re not even on the label anymore, but we still communicate and talk all the time. And so we needed that kind of camaraderie and that kind of friendship. Because you can’t buy passion, you know what I’m saying? At major labels, they want the instant success, they want the huge numbers and all that stuff, but they don’t really care about bands, you know? That’s the consensus of what people think when they think of major labels, big money but no passion. And Universal was absolutely passionate about us, you know, from like day one. Even before Cities came out, they wanted to buy Cities from Tooth and Nail, like please let us have you.

Our biggest fear was that they would neglect technology. We thought like for sure, they were gonna go on and throw a lot of money at radio and TRL and MTV, but they were gonna neglect grass roots. Anberlin is an online band. If you found Anberlin, like sixty percent of people who found Anberlin found us online. And so I was so worried that we would move to a major and they would neglect all those people. Most people sell about twelve to sixteen percent online sales, that’s generally through iTunes and other things like that. But Anberlin sells like twenty-five to thirty percent of all our sales online.

It’s because people, that’s how they find us. We have YouTube channels and MySpace and PureVolume, and we’re invested in tons of different websites. So if they find us there, that’s generally where they buy us, you know?

You’re working with for the first time a big-name producer. What did he bring to the table for you?

Hard work. Professionalism. I felt like the biggest thing is he crafts songs. He can hear a song and go you know what, I see the big picture. You know, it’s like he can almost hear a song and see a vision for a song, like what it should be, and what it’s going to be. And so I feel like he would listen to music and create, or force us, drive us, to making sure that a song is the best it can possibly be. And I would work with Neal Avron for every album out if he would let us.

I’ve got to ask you about the album title, New Surrender. It sounds like you should be celebrating right now, not surrendering.

Yeah that’s true, I see that. But I think this record, as opposed to all the others, I feel like the other records were very introverted, but I feel like this is the first record that’s very extroverted. And so a lot of the topics are very heavy topics, as far as change and as far as just over-arching themes. And so for me, an over-arching theme was a song about homelessness and how we need to fight poverty. Another one was about, you know, you’re going down in a plane crash and you have seconds before you’re gonna die, what thoughts are going through your head? What would you wish you would have changed in your life? And so New Surrender, as far as an over-arching theme is, like, I believe in every person’s life there’s something that’s holding us back from what we could have been, or what we should be.

You wrote part of the album in New Orleans?

I had a Brian Wilson moment, you know, I had a moment where it was either start drugs or run away or just completely turn invisible. I had no idea what I was gonna do, but I was panicking. Like I had the Brian Wilson beard, I’m swaying back and forth, because our whole lives as a musician has led up to this moment. You know, it’s our first major label debut, it has to be the biggest record we’ve ever done, you see what I’m saying? There’s all these pressures, you know the label came to me and said we need thirty songs, you need to have finished thirty songs by the time you step into the studio. So I had one month to finish, you know, like twenty songs. And I am just paralyzed, like oh my God, what if I can’t do it, and then that struck in. And then the band members calling hey, are you done yet? How many songs are you doing? Management’s calling, you know? And reading, not reviews, but articles on us like “this has to be their biggest record, if they don’t they’re done-for, this is their last record.”


And I’m freaking out, you know, just panicking. And so I called my manager and was like, I need to leave. I don’t care what you do. I don’t care if you check me into an insane asylum. You know, whatever you want to do, I’ve got to get out of here. And New Orleans is my favorite town. It’s very dark and ominous and mysterious and almost, I don’t know, it feels like the polarizations of good and evil. And musically, Frenchman Street has some of the best jazz you’ll ever hear. It’s just very grass roots, they have a lot of gypsy jazz. And so I felt like, even in the wake of Katrina and watching people rebuild their lives, I felt like there was a lot of inspiration that could happen in New Orleans. So I just ran away. I got a plane ticket, I found this little bed and breakfast, I made some friends with the owners, and stayed there for a couple weeks. And in there it started over. I got to reboot. I got to start again with a fresh slate, listen to the songs in a whole new light, and out of that came about fifteen songs, which we narrowed down to about eight ideas for songs on the record were formed in New Orleans.



Your iPhone has been sitting here for half an hour, so I’ve got to ask you about it.



All the guys in the band except for one have iPhones. We’re addicted for several different reasons. I feel like if you’re a touring musician, you have to have an iPhone, and for several reasons. First is the iCal. You can sync up your computer with the iCal, and it’ll tell me what times interviews are and where I need to be, and stuff like that. So that saves my manager tons of headaches. Also you can download Recorder, and what I’ll do in it is I’ll sing into it. If I come up with an idea for a song, I’ll just sing right into it. And so that helps because the next album I’ll just sing it and I’ll write the lyric and I’ll show it to the other guys. We’ve done several songs like that where I’ll have sung into my memo, and then I’ll show the rest of the guys in the band, and they’re like okay, we can write a song about that.



Obviously, Thesaurus. As a writer I like to use Thesaurus a lot, try to figure out if there’s any other way of saying it. Stocks, so I can see my Apple stock, of course. 



So you’re in there grabbing all the apps from iTunes.



Yeah. Another one, a huge one for touring bands, is maps, like Google Maps, obviously. But my favorite one right now is Vicinity. $2.99. I don’t know if there’s one better, but this is my favorite one that I’ve seen. So what you do is you’re on tour, you’re waking up, and you just click on “where am I?” Because I have no idea on tour where the heck I’m at. On Warped Tour I was like where the heck am I? So I click on “where am I?” and then “nearby places” but the best one is cafes, cause I’m a huge fan of Starbucks. And so I click on Vicinity, and it’ll tell you where it is, how far away it is, and then if you decide you want to go there, you and click on “map it” and it’ll tell you where you are and how to get there. And so I love that on tour because I obviously don’t know my way around Baltimore, Maryland.



And so that’s why the iPhone is invaluable for a touring musician, for sure. And Notes, the notepad is awesome because see here’s lyric lines: “you’re simply impossible, where do you get off, every little bit hurts, you’ve got the better part of me, you’re the better part of me.” Every time I come up with one line in my head, I’m just like, notepad!


So you’re writing songs on your iPhone.



I’m writing songs. “Not everything is my fault, you make me clench my teeth.” Maybe this’ll never end up in songs, but maybe I’m missing that line, or I need to get inspired so I’ll go back to my notepad and be like “what did I write?”

Extra Points podcast

In a nutshell, for those who’ve heard of fantasy football but aren’t acquainted with the details, how does it work?

Basically, you assemble a team of NFL players at different positions, and you score points based on how those players perform each week. So, for example, if you have LaDanian Tomlinson, and he runs in for a touchdown, you get six points. Each week you put your team against another player’s team and whoever’s team’s players scores more points wins.

So what led you to start a podcast about fantasy football?

I’d been listening to podcasts for a few months (I started listening back in February of ’05), and I knew that I wanted to do a podcast of my own, but I wasn’t sure what I could talk about for 30 minutes a week. Meanwhile, whenever Scott and I got together, we’d end up spending an inordinate amount of time discussing our fantasy teams, the NFL in general, the draft, free agency, etc. So it was a natural fit to take those conversations, record them, and release them as a podcast.

What can fantasy football participants gain by listening to Extra Points each week?

We discuss the important news and injuries from the previous week, and give our takes on the fantasy impact of those news items, including what other players’ potential value goes up or down as a result. We also spend the second half of the show answering questions from our listeners, and that’s really my favorite part of the show, because it gives us a chance to talk about individual players who may not have made any news but still may pose some difficult decisions for our listeners (both the ones asking the questions and other listeners who may be in similar situations).



What gets set in motion in fantasy circles when something shocking happens like Tom Brady’s season-ending injury in week one?

Well, there’s typically a lot of scrambling that happens, because Brady’s such a high draft pick that one player in every league is more or less betting their entire fantasy season on him. So those players are sent looking for replacement quarterbacks. Plus, everyone else on the Patriots takes a hit, because Randy Moss or Wes Welker aren’t going to be as productive at wide receiver with a backup quarterback throwing the ball to them, and even the running backs are going to be affected because the passing game isn’t as much of a threat, so the opposing defenses can key on the run more. Really, when you have a player like Brady, he makes the entire team better, and when you lose him, the whole team suffers.

Sorry to make you re-live that last one, as you’re a well-known Patriots fan. What do you think your team’s prospects are this year without Brady? Do you think he’ll be back in top form next year?

This year, the Patriots could still make the playoffs because the rest of the AFC East is a mixed bag, and the Patriots’ schedule is pretty easy for the most part. If they do make it to the playoffs, though, unless Matt Cassel figures things out between now and then and the defense gets a lot better, they’re not going to go very far. Then again, the last time that the Pats’ backup quarterback had to take over early in the season, we won the Super Bowl, so it wouldn’t be completely impossible.

As for next year, Brady may take a couple of weeks to get back into the swing of things, but he should be fine by mid-season. Good quarterbacks like Donovan McNabb and Carson Palmer have torn ACLs a lot later in the season than Brady did and came back the following season without missing a beat. Brady’s got eleven months to rehab, and I’m sure he’ll make the most of it.

What can you tell us about your other show, Wicked Good Podcast?

The Wicked Good Podcast grew out of an interview that I did with my wife Maureen for Extra Points after our first full season on being a fantasy football widow. We enjoyed doing that episode so much that we decided to turn it into a regular couplecast. We talk about our misadventures throughout New England, the video games we’re playing, and whatever else strikes our fancy. We also play a song from an independent artist from New England each week. You never know quite what you’re going to get on any given episode, but it’s always a lot of fun!

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Interview with Kina Grannis

October 14, 2008 by Beatweek · Leave a Comment 

Ask around and you might fall under the impression that there are two singers named Kina Grannis. There’s the Kina who wrote Gotta Digg, the delightfully geeky ode to the Digg.com website, late last year. And then there’s the Kina who was propelled into the mainstream when she performed Message From Your Heart in the Doritos commercial during January’s Super Bowl. But in actuality those two personas are one and the same, and I recently sat down with the one and only Kina Grannis at a coffee shop before one of her gigs to chat about her unique career path, her upcoming new persona as a major label artist, what she likes most about her iPhone, and why she posts to Twitter…



Were you going around singing when you were three years old?

Pretty much. Ever since I was really really little, I was just singing all the time. Like one of my favorite games when I was little would be to just have one of my sisters pick a title, and I would impromptu create that song. So I was just looking for an excuse to sing constantly. And my sisters and I, when we were cleaning the dishes, we were all singing in three part harmony. So it was kind of all of us, just like singing all the time. It was just part of life.

When did you first start banging on an instrument?

First one was probably piano, just cause we had one in the house. So my first songs were just instrumental things on piano. In about fourth grade I picked up violin. I did that throughout high school. And then it wasn’t til mid high school that I decided it might be a fun thing to try out guitar.

When did you first start performing for people?

It’s kind of bizarre because when I was really little I was very into performing, like any time I had a friend over we would put on a show for my family, or I’d just set up all my stuffed animals on the stairs and sing for them, and then in elementary school I did talent shows. And then all the sudden I decided I was a really shy person, so I just stopped singing or performing for people at all. Until, I mean, I’d started playing guitar and I was starting to write and, like, the first time I played a song for someone it probably took me an hour to sing the first note cause I was so nervous. My first performance was in AP Calculus when they forced me up into the front of the classroom and made me sing a song, which was really scary, but it was fun. My first show was like the day after graduation of high school, in the coffee shop that I worked at.

When you went to college, why did you not major in music? Why did you major in psychology?

I went into college undeclared. I had no idea what I wanted to do, but I knew that music was obviously this central big important thing in my life that I was gonna keep doing. So I took an intro to music industry class, and music theory class, but it just didn’t, like the music theory, I know that music theory is important but I’m kind of the kind of person who just wants to sing and have fun and not think about what I’m doing. And then the music industry class was just kind of intimidating. Everyone was really competitive and wanted to be, like, big time managers someday or rock stars. And the feeling I got from that, it just wasn’t what I wanted to be learning all the time. So I decided I would go the psychology route because it’s about people, which I’m endlessly interested in. It’s applicable to everything, so I went that route.

Has that helped you deal with the industry?

I don’t know how much it’s helped, but it probably does give you some insight just as far as being aware of other people, things like that.

You made your first album in college. Did the college tap you to make it?

Yeah, in the music school they wanted to have a program where they would select one student and they’d produce their original music and have student producers and student musicians on the project. So that was my first real experience, and we were all kind of figuring it out as we went. But it was really a fun opportunity.

Why did you go to Austin after college?

There was actually a guy in Austin who was like a band leader, and he had come across my website. And he had emailed me and he was like I know this sounds crazy but I think you should move to Austin and sing with my band. And I was like, that is crazy. Why would I ever do that? I do my own music, I live in LA, my family’s in California. Like, that’s weird. And then he kept emailing and calling, just being like look, I think Austin will be great for you, even if you don’t end up doing stuff with the band, you’ll be able to do your music here, it’s just a great music scene and we’ll pay you to be in the band. And I was like, eh. And then graduation came along, and the prospect of a real job was not sounding that fun, and I was like you know what? I think I will go to Austin. So it was kind of very random. But it was a great experience. I met so many musicians, and for the first time in my life I was just full-time music, which was really awesome.

So it turned out to be a real thing? You actually fronted this band?

Yeah. There were a few problems, just like they had to find new band members and things didn’t move along as quickly as we could, but then the contest happened and I moved here, and that become a non-issue (laughs).

Seems like that happened really fast. Did you just sit down and decide to write a Digg song one day? Did you have any contact with Kevin Rose and the guys?

No, I never talked to them before. But it was in the beginning stages of the contest, and I was posting a video on YouTube every single day for like two months. And so I was always scrounging for songs. I could just do originals, or I could just do covers, but I was kind of feeling like I wanted to do something more interesting. And I was trying to be innovative too, like how can I let more people know about this so if they want to help me they can? And my sisters and I are all big fans of Digg, and they were home for winter break, and we were just kind of talking about Digg, and we were like you know, what if we wrote a song about Digg? Cause maybe some people would see it and I’d get a few, like extra hundred people might want to vote or something. So we just very jokingly threw together this song, recorded it in one take on my little laptop and put it online, and within a few hours someone had posted it to the site. And then we spent the rest of the night with like, there were probably six of us in one room with our little Mac laptops, updating Digg, being like oh my gosh, it has twenty diggs! Oh my gosh, it’s got a hundred diggs! Oh my gosh, it’s got five thousand diggs!

How did that make you feel?

It was so bizarre, it was crazy. I started getting emails from all my friends who were Diggers, who were like, so I’m addicted to Digg and I just logged on and you’re the first story, what the heck? It was definitely one of the hugest moves in the contest, I think, because from that I made so many international fans, cause Digg is everywhere. And so many people found my music because of that, I am so grateful. But after that I did get in touch with Kevin and them and we had lunch a few times.

How much do you think the Digg popularity helped you with the Doritos contest?

I really think a lot, because I mean I had a huge group of people that really believed in me who were voting and sending it onto their friends, but that can only go so far. And with Digg, it was a concentrated few days of just like thousands and thousands and thousands of people being exposed to this. And so many of my fans when I asked, I have a little thing on my website, like how did you hear of me? A lot of them are from Digg.

Digg is one thing, but how is it that you were all the sudden on the Super Bowl, singing?

That was so weird. I heard about the contest in October from a friend who read about it in an ad blog, and I was like oh, all you needed was an original song and an original video, so I was like why not?, Contests never, you know, I wasn’t expecting anything and I had forgotten about it. And two weeks later I got a call, hello this is Doritos, you’ve made the top ten. And I like wait, what is this for? Seriously, this is like a real contest? And so then we entered into like two months of crazy campaigning and not sleeping. But it was a very exciting time and people were so supportive. And then the week before the Super Bowl, the top three were all sent out to Phoenix for a week for press and stuff. And they put us all in a room for the Super Bowl, like a viewing room, and they said right after the first quarter one of your songs is going to play. So no one knew. And we’re all sitting there, we’d spent a week bonding, and we’re like “if you win I’ll still like you!”

Like American Idol?

Yeah. It was very scary. I kind of wanted to just run away and then have them tell me later. But it was crazy and I had my whole family out there, so we were all crying the rest of the day.

Did you start getting calls from people you hadn’t seen since middle school?

Elementary school! People that I had been trying to find online for years and they never thought to contact me, and suddenly there they are. And I’m like I’ve been looking for you!

When you won, you automatically entered into a record label contract with Interscope. Was that something you thought about ahead of time?

That was actually one of the reasons I almost didn’t do it, because when you made top ten you had to pre-sign that record contact, like an eighty page record deal. That’s not good, cause it’s like an American Idol one. You know, they’re gonna own so much, and you’re not gonna get that much money because it’s from a contest. So I went to an attorney and we’re looking it over, and I was like I can’t do this. I don’t want to be stuck in that situation, like what if we record an album and it never gets released, that would be awful.



But at the end of the day I was like you know what? If I did win and I was on the Super Bowl, that’s probably not the worst position to be in. And it turns out the people at Interscope have been really great. It’s been very slow and we have some things to work out, but they’ve been very accommodating and really nice. It’s just so weird though, cause it still hasn’t dawned on me, like I don’t feel like an Interscope artist. I go to the Interscope page and go to artists and scroll down and my picture is there, next to Gwen Stefani. That’s awkward.



Interscope knows how to sell records. You may be pretty famous before long. Is it going to get weird if you’re still posting on Twitter that you got a new mattress delivered?



At this point, I’ve just kind of continued to get more open with fans, and I think it’s something that people like and it keeps them involved because they feel like they know me and that they can support me better in that way. But at some point I would probably have to tone it down a little. But I mean maybe not. I’m kind of feeling like I don’t mind being open with the random details of my life, like I’m at a coffee shop or my toe hurts or something, but obviously other more personal areas of life where I will just never really go there.



Is there anything you can tell me about the new album that you probably don’t want to tell me?



I mean I have been writing a lot of new stuff recently, and I feel like I’m really starting to fall into a sound that I’m really happy with. So I’m just really really anxious to get recording, because I haven’t recorded an album in three years.



Your iPhone has been sitting on the table for this entire interview. That’s not the new one, is it?

No, it’s the old one.



How come you haven’t upgraded?



Because I’m a little too frugal. I’m like I just got this and it works, so maybe I’ll wait until my next paycheck, which in the music industry is like, maybe never. So we will see. But I definitely want it.



Have you got any favorite apps yet?



There are so many cool ones, I’m not quite sure. But see I’m frugal again, so I don’t go buying random things. But my friends have the slot machine where you can slide out the quarters, all those silly things. This is the best toy in the world. 



You should get some free apps at least.



I have Facebook, I have MySpace, I have Yelp.



Do you have enough time to keep up with all the Facebook and MySpace stuff?



That is the majority of my time right now, is responding to emails, MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, just because I want to make sure that I’m responding to my fans, and you know, sifting for things like interviews and stuff like that. So yeah, I’ll probably have to cut back at some point, cause I can go an entire day answering emails and not be done. So maybe I should play music again sometime.

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