Twenty-two days ago I packed everything I own into my car and hit the road with only two rules: head west. And have no expectations.

I’ve been living out of hotels ever since.

Don’t bother asking. Giving you an answer would require having one. But after a few years of splitting my time between the entertainment capital of Los Angeles and my native Florida in a never-quite-so-tightly-controlled yet still fairly clockwork fashion, generally spending the entertainment seasons in LA so I could best cover them and then spending the off-seasons working from the east coast just because I could, this time around there’s no rhyme or reason to any of it. Wrong time of year to be out here in LA, from an industry standpoint? Check. Traveling alone during the holiday season? Check. Relying on nonsense like hotel wifi and coffee shops to get my work done during one of our busiest editorial stretches of the year? Check.

The inspiration for this craziness is purely my own. But when it comes to making sense of it, the only thing I can point to is something that Keane’s Tim Rice-Oxley once told me when I asked him why, after two successful albums, he and his band ripped up the blueprint and went in a seemingly randomly different direction for their third: “If it feels wrong, then let’s do it.”

Not that I’ve been pursuing things quite that dramatically. I’m not out playing in traffic, or buying a Zune, even though those would both certainly feel wrong. But when it comes to expectations, or what I’m theoretically supposed to be doing, no dice. I spent three days in New Orleans and never left Bourbon Street. Spent my last day in Austin sitting in a sports bar watching a Dolphins game. Spent the night in Tucson but didn’t look around the town because I didn’t feel like it. Stayed in a town in west Texas that might have had eight people living in it. None of these things are to be found in any tourism manual, I’m sure. And I don’t care. Even after I arrived in California, I spent the first week staying in the various outskirts of Los Angeles County, nowhere near the action. Now I’m finally here in Hollywood, on Thanksgiving week, when there’s nothing going on in the industry at all.

Good. I don’t care.

Actually, I do. I care a lot. I’m not sure this publication has ever been a more vital time in its six year history. And that’s why I’m out here, on the road, not plotting out tomorrow until I wake up, not even sure how long I’m going to remain at this particular dot on the map. Don’t ask me to explain it, but this is what makes sense right now. And if anything, I suspect my editorial contributions have actually benefited from it. I conducted two different cover story interviews, two hours apart, from that hotel room in New Orleans. Sometimes the schedule just works out like that. Back in the day that would have had me spun around, worrying, trying to rearrange things to not let the schedule play out like that. But this just felt fun.

While there are some nicely done hybrid products available, there aren’t a whole lot of pure armband options on the market for use with the iPhone or iPod touch – and for a simple enough reason: how many users really want to go jogging with a device that bulky strapped to their upper arm anyway? In fact a number of iPhone and iPod touch users also keep a nano or shuffle around specifically for exercise purposes. And so the lack of demand for such an armband leads to a lack of options, which generally means far too few good options. Which is why those iPhone and iPod touch users who really do want to wear their device on their arm may view XtremeMac’s forthcoming Sportwrap as more of a relief than anything; it’s not particularly flashy and isn’t perfect, but it gets the job done well.



Neoprene is generally the most comfortable material when it comes to armbands, so it came as no surprise that the Sportwrap felt plenty comfy on my arm once I adjusted the strap to the appropriate size. And the almost-clear material over the screen is easy enough to use the touchscreen through it. I say “almost clear” though because for some reason the chosen material is a bit grainy when you look through it. Not so much a big deal, as it’s not like you’re going to be doing heavy websurfing or reading the fine print of an email while you’re jogging and your device is mounted to your arm, but the blurry screen cover did cost the Sportwrap what otherwise would have been a four and a half star rating. Of course star ratings are comparative, and so the argument for the Sportwrap is helped by the lack of competition in general.



The single biggest issue when wearing an iPhone or iPod touch on your arm remains the fact that the auto-rotation can’t be turned off during music playback, causing the device to go into and out of Cover Flow mode every time you move your arm – but that ongoing fiasco is entirely Apple’s fault. The only real thing that armband fans are likely to fault XtremeMac for is the fact that the Sportwrap isn’t yet shipping.

Learn more about the Sportwrap at XtremeMac.com.


Ever wanted to watch dolphins play in the ocean all day? “Dolphin Experience” takes you into that world, right in the palms of your hands. The best part is, you don’t even have to get wet!

Explore the virtual world of dolphins in the morning, midday, at sunset, and at midnight in three beautiful locations — a shallow lagoon, aquarium, and deep in the ocean. The scenes for each location changes accordingly for each time of the day.

There are a few ways you can interact with the dolphins. You can go snorkeling and be in the ocean with them. You can also play with them using beach balls or hoops, as well as make them jump on the boat and feed them. You can also request that they dance on the waters or do flips. You can also dangle a fish in the air and feed them that way.

What I really like about this app is the calm sounds of the dolphins playing while you interact with them. The detailed graphics are astounding and makes me feel like I’m right in the ocean with them.

Although the app is beautifully made, I still think there is some room for improvement.

- When trying to feed the dolphin, the fish dangles in the air, which looks very odd. Also, the dolphins never go for this type of feeding anyways.

-There are 3 locations * 4 times of the day = 12 different scenes. I think having additional environments would keep the game interesting.

-After playing a few rounds, it gets old too quickly. It would help if there was a better gameplay experience. Some ideas would be having some kind of point system to unlock items or features in the app.

The great news is, new features such as Voice & Name Recognition commands, unlockable environments, new interactive animals, and tricks will be added in future builds, so watch out for these!

Overall, it’s a lovely app for dolphin lovers. The sounds and graphics are quite enjoyable, especially when you just want to relax. I’m looking forward to the additional upgrades in the next versions.

Dolphin Experience is available for $1.99 in the App Store.

review by Bill Palmer

The good news is that there are now enough bottom snap-on batteries on the market for iPhone and iPod that you have your choice of vendors. The bad news is that some of these options just don’t measure up when it comes to capacity vs price. That such an example comes from a vendor like Macally is a surprise, as the company’s products, while rarely splashy, are typically priced aggressively enough to rank pretty high on the value scale.



But not so much with its new PowerLink8, whose most distinctive quality is that its back and sides are shiny acrylic white, which may appeal to users of white iPhones. But aside from that, the PowerLink8 sports a surprisingly high $39 price tag, which puts it in direct competition with an identically priced competing battery from Kensington, yet the PowerLink8 doesn’t last as long (750mAh capacity vs. 100mAh capacity). Even the Kensington product will only give your iPhone about a 50% boost, and the PowerLink8 offers even less, barely boosting your battery life by a third. And if you can stomach buying a no-name generic competitor, such batteries with 1000mAh or more can be found around the web for $15.



My recommendation when it comes to boosting your iPhone’s battery life hasn’t changed: if you can afford to, skip the snap-ons and get yourself an $80 form-fitting battery case or a $100 battery cradle, as such products can be used at all times while these bottom snap-on batteries are too awkward and unstable to keep plugged into your iPhone while in your pocket. Then again, having an inexpensive snap-on battery around can’t hurt, especially if you’ve got more than one iPhone/iPod model in the house and want to be able to mix and match. But it’s tough to recommend a snap-on battery that competes both with identically priced higher-capacity name brand products and with significantly cheaper no-name options that also have higher capacities. So this one’s probably only for users of white iPhones.

Learn more about the PowerLink8 at Macally.com.

review by Christine Chan


As far as iPhone music rhythm games goes, Tapulous knows how to do it right, and has done so since the very first Tap Tap Revenge game. Now on its third iteration, Tapulous has raised the bar for music games on the iPhone.

If you’ve played any of the first two Tap Tap Revenge games, or any of the band specific ones, then you are familiar with the gameplay. Simply tap to the beat of the song – keep a streak going and you’ll end up with a high multiplier, and you’ll be able to activate “Revenge” mode which doubles your multiplier and therefore, your score. This formula has made the game what it is since the first version, and it has worked very well.

Tap Tap Revenge 3 keeps the gorgeous visuals and graphics that Tapulous has had since the original. For the most part, the game has a pre-skin that you’ll see in most songs when playing, but there are some songs that will have their own theme, which add more uniqueness to the game. However, some themes, like Coldplay, actually have so much gorgeous visuals that it may overload the device, causing it to lag at some parts. So if that’s the case, don’t expect perfect scores every time – there will most likely be at least one beat missed with such stunning visuals taking over the screen.

You can play through songs sorted out by Kids, Easy, Medium, Hard, or Extreme difficulties. Quick play will let you play a 90-second segment of a random song, which gives you a sample of the track and a pick-up-put-down experience. There is also 2-player mode, which lets you share the device between two people and play on both ends of the screen. Playing songs will earn your character experience for levels and coins to buy avatar items.

The real fun comes in playing online, where you can play in a room with several other people and battle to come out on top in rankings. While tapping along to the song’s beat, you can earn weapons that can be used to your advantage as they do their part to mess up opponents. If you are in one of the top rankings, more coins and experience will be gained for your character.

You can chat with other people while waiting for games to begin, and add them as friends (amongst other friends that you already knew play the game), and even send messages to them in the game. There is even a separate chat room option if you just want to chat with people. The multiplayer experience is rich in this game.

With the coins you gather after all of your hard work, you can buy items for your avatar in the Tap Tap Store with them. I guess if decking out your pixelated you is important, then you’ll have a field day with this. But the Tap Tap Store does not just contain little pixelated for your little pixelated avatar, there are also song packs to purchase.

Since Tap Tap Revenge 3 came out before Apple decided to let free apps have in-app purchases, TTR 3 is a mere .99 out of your wallet. But you may find your money going toward more TTR 3 in the form of song-bundles and mini-albums. The Tap Tap Store will have a slew of songs from popular bands, and it’s pretty much guaranteed that anyone that gets this game will buy at least one or two song bundles with their favorite band’s songs.

Now, what happens if you have to restore your device and lost all the data in the game? Don’t worry, since it’s going to be linked to a Tapulous account, you’ll keep all your character items and levels, experience, and coins. You can also restore purchased tracks as well, so no need to have to buy them all over again.

Tapulous knows what they’re doing in the iPhone music game industry. Perhaps in an update they can allow users to import songs from the band-specific games like one is able to in Tap Tap Revenge 2.6. But even without that, if Tap Tap Revenge 3 is the only TTR game one person has, it’s still great on its own.

Tap Tap Revenge is available for 99 cents in the App Store.

review by Christine Chan


At this point in time it’s hard to not have heard of the recent music rhythm game craze that started with Guitar Hero, and has spread to cover an entire band with Rock Band, where you and your friends can all rock out on plastic peripherals. The trend has spread to even handheld versions of the game on the PSP and and other mobile phones, but now the iPhone/iPod Touch is the latest to get a portable version of the original rockin’ console game. Unfortunately, it does not give the same experience that we’ve grown to love.

The graphics are pretty amazing looking, from the splash screen to menus to playing the songs. It has the standard Rock Band look and feel to it. Though the visuals of the band and club are limited since it is just the iPhone/iPod Touch. However, this is about as close as the console versions as this iPhone port will get in the visualization department. You don’t get to customize your own band, or even a single musician in the band.



You can play lead guitar, bass, drums, or vocals. However, there is nothing really that differentiates any of these instruments. They are ALL just tapping on the screen. Yes, even singing. You tap along to the pitch of the vocals, but the percussion beats are still there. Despite there being a microphone on the iPhone and newer iPod Touches, there is no singing involved (take that as a blessing or a curse).



What made Rock Band for consoles great is that it gives you the feeling of really being in a rock band with plastic instruments. Last I checked, tapping on a screen does NOT give me that same feeling of a fake drum set or guitar.

There are 20 songs that come with the game, with a couple of unlockables in the music store, a set of two will cost you .99 each, along with some free downloads. New content is constantly being added to the music store. The set list may or may not be to your liking, and your purchase may be solely based on these songs. For your reference, the complete setlist (not including downloadable content) will be included at the end of this review. Personally, I did not like many of the songs included in the game, so mileage will differ in this area.

Rock Band for iPhone features three game modes – World Tour (career), Quick Play, and Multiplayer. World Tour allows you to build your reputation as a rock star, starting out with easy songs and working your way to much more challenging songs. Quick Play lets you choose any song to play without any specific order. So if you just have the itch to play that one song, you can with this mode.

Multiplayer is a bit of a letdown, because it can only be done with up to four devices with Bluetooth. There is no online play, like the console counterpart. But this Bluetooth multiplayer is great – if you know up to three others that have an iPhone/iPod Touch AND also have dished out the money for this game. If not, then this mode is next-to-useless. You can connect to Facebook to form your band together with Facebook Connect, but I haven’t had much luck with that.

There’s a choice in the menu to view your “Claims to Fame”, which is neat, as it lets you view your progression in World Tour, any achievements you’ve unlocked throughout play, and statistics. Statistics is the neatest of these three Claims to Fame, as you can see what your favorite instrument is, obsession level, completion, fans, average difficulty, achievements, longest note streaks, and highest score.

Overall, if you must scuttle for every Rock Band title there is, I guess you won’t regret this game. However, if you like Rock Band for the sole purpose of having a great hang out with friends rocking out to great music on fake instruments, then I don’t think this game will suit your needs. I fit in the latter. It seems that EA is milking the franchise for all it’s worth, and the end result is a product that is nothing more than another tapping music game that doesn’t even add anything special.

Rock Band is available for $6.99 in the App Store.

review by Bill Palmer

Dear readers, I’ll make you a deal: so long as you don’t ask me to assign an actual star rating this here pair of gloves, I’ll be happy to tell you all about how you can use your iPhone or iPod touch in cold weather while keeping your hands warm.



While those (like me) who live in perennially warm-ish climates rarely if ever face such a scenario, the fact is that the touch-screens on the iPhone and iPod touch can’t be properly operated if your fingertips aren’t bare. And if you live in a place that gets cold enough that you need gloves just to get through the day, using the world’s most straightforward smartphone suddenly becomes very complicated.



A company named Dots thinks it has the solution: instead of removing your gloves every time you need to change playlists or make a phone call, simply affix conductive pads to the tips of the thumb, index, and middle fingers so you can operate the touchscreen while wearing the gloves. And it works. Mostly.



I tend to use the vertical tip of my index finger, so it took some adjustment to the fact that the dots are located on the fingertips (where your fingerprints are). But once I got used to that, tapping the screen was easy. One-finger scrolling took a little more effort but was definitely do-able. Not so much with two-finger pinching, which I never got any good at, no matter which combination of fingers I tried. But those are just my results, and I’m not the most dextrous to begin with. Your mileage may vary.



As I said up front, no star rating because I wouldn’t know how to compare the Dots to normal gloves, as I’ve never before owned a pair of gloves in my life. But they feel comfortable enough, and for what it’s worth, I never once dropped my iPhone during testing. Available in $25, $20, and $15 models (pictured left to right above).

Learn more about the Dots at DotsGloves.com.

interview by Bill Palmer

If there is in fact a traditional path to music stardom, OneRepublic certainly hasn’t followed it. After years in obscurity and working to gradually build a sizable online fanbase, the band’s first big hit “Apologize” was actually a remix version found on a Timbaland album – and the songs that lead singer Ryan Tedder co-writes for other artists routinely end up competing with his own band’s songs on the charts. But as unusual as OneRepublic’s path to stardom has been, today’s release of their new album Waking Up finds the band squarely at the center of mainstream attention, with singles from the album occupying the top two spots on the iTunes rock chart today just as they were even before the album’s release. In the midst of whirlwind promotion, Ryan shared with me how things are finally coming into focus.

”I guess I didn’t know what to expect,” he says of the chart domination of the new songs. “It makes you feel better about the time that you spent making it.” Still, the fact that iTunes (and in its own way, FM radio) has placed OneRepublic into any particular genre runs against the band’s stated desire of to be the first ‘genreless’ band – a goal brought into particular focus with the making of Waking Up.



“”The goal, when this album comes out the door, was to create our own sound, that within the first five or ten seconds of a OneRepublic song they know it’s OneRepublic. “We struggled with that. We’ve had some big hits but we didn’t have a huge thumbprint, you know what I mean? We didn’t leave an indelible mark in terms of sonic identity.”


But the mere ability to steer things at all this time around stands in contrast to the improbable path that came before, which included getting dropped from a major label a few years back (on the same day that the label dumped Katy Perry and The Jonas Brothers), and falling back on MySpace promotion because “that was our only avenue for us at that point” before eventually finding their way back onto another major label – only to find out that the world was going to hear a remixed version of Apologize before they ever had a chance to hear the original.



“You can’t have your first single be a stinking remix,” Ryan laughs “We were so mad when they remixed it. Obviously it worked, but to this day I still wish that the original version had been the single to come out. I mean who knows what would have happened, but I still think it would have been a hit. So we spent the next the next year and a half explaining to the world that we weren’t Timbaland’s boy band. And I love Timbaland, I have a great relationship with him. But when you’re a band and you break with a song like Apologize, the way that that song sounded, it spooked everybody. People didn’t know what we were.”



While some songs on Waking Up take tongue in cheek stabs at the band’s new found celebrity status, the ballad “Secrets” is aimed squarely at the pressure of topping previous songwriting successes, opening with the confession “my life gets kind of boring” before pleading with the audience for new ideas.



”The whole idea is the person, the artist quote-unquote, saying I don’t really trust my own flow, I don’t trust my own delivery in writing, so tell me what you want to hear. This song is basically asking the audience, what do you want me to do? It’s kind of an interesting song. The song slips back and forth between insecurity and total confidence, insecurity, total confidence, which is to me the life of the artist.”



Having co-written songs for everyone from Kelly Clarkson to Jordin Sparks to Beyonce, it’s inevitable that Ryan’s external songwriting efforts are going to end up competing with OneRepublic’s own songs, a phenomenon perfectly crystalized by the fact that two years after the radio airplay record set by “Apologize” was broken by the Leona Lewis song “Bleeding Love” (which was co-written by Ryan), Leona’s new album coincidentally comes out today – featuring two more songs co-written by Ryan and an appearance by all of OneRepublic – leaving the band literally competing with itself in the new release category today. “I hate to say it,” Ryan says of the peculiarity of the situation, “but if you’re gonna fight anybody, any other song, I’d rather it be one of mine than something else.”



Having recently turned thirty has put certain things into perspective: “I won’t tolerate passive aggressiveness anymore. I’ve turned thirty and I’ve had some measure of success, and I feel that I know who I am, so when I interact with people I don’t beat around the bush anymore. Say what you mean, mean what you say. It’s great to know what page you’re on with everybody, in your camp, in your family, friends, and not have things left unsaid. Priority wise, too. I’m thirty, hauling my ass all over the world in a tourbus, I’m barely sleeping and doing this crazy stuff, and it doesn’t feel the same as when you’re twenty-one. So when you’re thirty, I’m a little bit more results-oriented.”



That sentiment also applies to which of his songwriting efforts actually see the light of day. “At this stage in the game I’m very cautious over what gets out that has my name attached to it. What I do now is I can tell when I’m about halfway through a song whether it’s going to be great or not. And if it’s not, I’ll never finish it. I have tons of half-finished songs. Life’s too short to put out anything that’s not great.”

Waking Up is available now in iTunes. Learn more about OneRepublic at OneRepublic.net.

iProng Magazine #54: OneRepublic interview and more

iProng Magazine’s 54th issue features a cover story interview with OneRepublic lead singer Ryan Tedder, hands-on with Rock Band and TTR3 for iPhone, interviews with Dream Theater and Jordan Pier, plus app reviews of reMail, Hello Kitty, Dolphin Experience, and iPhone and iPod accessory reviews.

Tap here to read this issue

iProng Magazine #54: OneRepublic, Rock Band vs TTR3, Dream Theater, Jordan Pier, Hello Kitty and more!

PodCamp AZ onsite report

New in iProng Magazine: an on-site report from the PodCamp AZ new media unconference in Tempe Arizona, which took place this past weekend…

report by Bill Palmer

Who knew how much fun the desert could be? I’ve been to new media conferences all across the country (including PodCamps in four different States), but while PodCamp Arizona had been circled on my calendar each of the past two years, it wasn’t until this past weekend that the stars finally aligned and allowed me to make my way out to Tempe for what turned out to be one of the stronger PodCamp offerings I’ve attended.



For those uninitiated, PodCamp is a series of “unconferences” founded on the BarCamp premise of sessions being led by attendees themselves as opposed to professional speakers, strong encouragement to go ahead and politely bail on any session isn’t doing anything for you in the hopes of finding a more suitable one down the hall, and the general assumption that the most vital conversations are likely to be the unscripted ones in the hallways between sessions anyway.



Because each PodCamp is organized by local leaders with just a handful of overriding guidelines, each one ends up being of a different structure than the next. The Arizona team structured things more formally than in some other cities, with the majority of time slots filled-in in advance by attendees who provided advance notice that they wanted to speak. But still, the thirty minutes of downtime between each block of sessions made it clear that those “hallway conversations” were intended to be as much a part of the Tempe 2009 experience as they were at the original PodCamp Boston back in 2006.



While the “Pod” in the name of the event gives hint of its strong connection to podcasting and podcasters, the sheer number of sessions devoted to topics that had nothing to do with podcasting was striking. No fewer than five sessions were dedicated to WordPress, seemingly a sign of both blogging being alive and well in the age of social networking, and the number of podcasters who’ve decided that their show should have a landing page on the web of some kind.



The sessions that I attended ranged from tips on how to promote yourself differently on Twitter vs. Facebook, to how to barter your way into compensation for your podcast, to how to promote yourself through comment marketing, to how to not promote yourself. I guess here in 2009, self-publishing still necessarily means self-promotion. The majority of sessions I attended involved some kind of PowerPoint or Keynote slide slow, which left it feeling a bit less unconference-y than some I’ve been to in the past. But then again, the most interesting session I attended was one in which a guy in the front row kept jumping in, then a guy in the back row started asking the guy in the front row questions, and a guy sitting on the floor kept providing comic relief, all while the presenter took it all in stride.



So what did I learn from this rather-organized-yet-still-sufficiently-spontaneous event? Suffice it to say that the things I took away with me were overwhelmingly ideas that popped into my head over the weekend that were only tangentially related to the advice and ideas that were being kicked around by others. But that’s the main reason I still attend these kinds of events – they get me thinking that no amount of staring at my own walls, or even kicking around ideas with my own team and my own advisers would.

*****

Learn more about the PodCamp AZ at PodCampAZ.org.

*****

Dream Theater interview

iProng Magazine talks with Dream Theater keyboardist Jordan Rudess about his band’s new album Black Clouds & Silver Linings and more…

interview by Jim Dalrymple

With its newest album “Black Clouds & Silver Linings” Dream Theater shows why they are still the best in the Progressive music genre.

Just off a long tour, Keyboardist Jordan Rudess took some time to speak with us about the band and the music of Dream Theater.

Tell me a bit about your new album, it sounds great.

Thank you. The Dream Theater albums are always fun to put together. This was done in New York City over the course of a bunch of months. One of the interesting things is that I got to play the iPod touch on a track. I walked in one day showing off some new technology and Mike [Portnoy], the drummer and one of the producers said, “we have to use that.” Instead of doing the normal keyboard lead, I used a program called Bebot and the iPod touch.

Using technology isn’t new for you, you’re used to incorporating technology in your music.

Yeah, I am. I take advantage of the fact that we’re going to be in the studio and I use that time to get all of my technology together. If there are new instruments or technology I want to check out, I try to get everything in the studio. That includes my computer with all of my software on it and things like the iPod touch.

I have such a strong interest in technology that I’m always reaching out and discovering and enjoying new ways to make music and trying to make use of some of these new cool tools out there.

Is that what keeps your stuff fresh?

I think it’s one of the things. We’re a progressive band and one of the things that keeps us progressive is that we try new things. There are many ways to be progressive — you could try something unusual with the music or different kinds of instruments. You can push the envelope in various ways.

Dream Theater is still in the Rock category, but there are things that we can do to add elements of freshness to what’s going on. Things like adding an iPod touch in the studio and live.

A lot of players say that if they can’t play it live, they don’t want it on the record. Your stuff can get complicated at times – how do you balance that?

That’s a very big concern of mine. In the studio, I don’t like to be limited by what I can physically do. One of the things about Dream Theater is that there are a lot of other musicians in the band filling up sonic space as well, so the good part for me — and what allows me to do what I do in the studio, live — is that by the time we lay down the keyboards it’s not like I’m going to lay down that many different parts.

On this new album there are some parts that are very orchestral. In the studio I did lay down many instruments, but even as I was doing it I knew that it would be possible to make an arrangement where I could do some advanced layering on my keyboard where I could get the job done, have it sound good and play it live.

Dream Theater doesn’t run any tracks. That’s one thing that’s different about our group – we really do play everything live. The only thing that we will run is talking samples and things like that.

Not only can you guys play complicated music live, you look like you’re having a lot of fun on stage when you do it.

I think that’s what makes Dream Theater. The fact that we can do a combination of really rocking, strong energy and play complicated music at the same time. That’s one of the things that first struck me about this group — it was Progressive Rock, but it had an element of Metal and virtuosity. I thought, wow, this is great, these guys can really play.

A lot of bands have one person that the public looks to, but with Dream Theater it seems everyone has their favorite talent in the band. That does make it more difficult?

It’s interesting in the sense that it seems to bring more people in. Some people are fans of the songs — they may really like the ballads that are very vocal, but some people go nuts when we start playing an instrumental. 

We get so many different types of fans. Some people really like the metal, but not so much the prog and visa versa. We come into this with the awareness that it can be about each guy and there are different focuses going on with respect to what the audience is looking at. 

There doesn’t seem to any outward tug of war between you guys.

No, everyone is pretty cool. This is what we do.

When you sit down to write an album, is it in your mind at all that you’ve influenced so many bands and musicians? 

There is definitely a sense of responsibility. I don’t think you can really avoid that. We try to be very true to ourselves and our music. That’s the main thing — that keeps us grounded to make the music. Quite honestly if you get caught up in all kinds of weird thoughts then the process could stop.

We get lost in the music when we go into the studio to create an album.

What’s the writing process like?

John [Petrucci] and I really feed off one another. Mike is almost like a film director — we throw these ideas around and Mike comes up with something and all of a sudden we have this whirlwind of ideas. Sometimes when a Dream Theater album is written and we start tracking, I’m like “Oh my God guys, that was nuts.”

Dream Theater has its sound, but you’ve managed to change things over the years. That can’t be easy.

For the last two albums, we went in with an open slate. We didn’t have anything that we were concerned with other than just making good music. That worked well for us. Before that we went in with some pretty strong ideas – at least conceptually.

Part of it is a natural evolution and part of it is an awareness of what’s going on around us in music. We’re not blind to the new music going on. If there is something we like, we might throw that into the mix because we’re about combining different styles anyway.


•••••

Black Clouds & Silver Linings is available now in iTunes. Learn more about Dream Theater at DreamTheater.net.

•••••

Filed Under: Interviews, Musician interviews
Tagged: Dream Theater, iPhone, iPod touch, Jim Dalrymple, Jordan Rudess, prog, review, rock

Review: RadTech ACpower

November 16, 2009 by iProng · Comments 

New in iProng Magazine: a hands-on review of the ACpower dual USB wall charger for iPod and iPhone from RadTech, priced at $14.95…

review by Bill Palmer

Most USB chargers for iPhone and iPod are too generic to even write about, particularly when you consider that the iPhone comes with a wall charger of its own. But even among the most simplistic of accessory categories, every once in awhile a product comes along that sufficiently stands out that it merits individual coverage. For USB car chargers, that was the case with the new micro-chargers from various vendors that more or less disappear into your car’s charging port. And while such magic doesn’t quite exist when it comes to USB wall chargers, RadTech’s ACpower has a few things going for it that motivated me to park the wall charger that came with my iPhone and adopt this one instead.



First, the obvious: it can charge more than one USB device. Whether that’s multiple iPhones and/or iPods, or an iPhone and an external battery, or any other USB-based product, you can charge them both without needing to travel with two chargers or finding two available power outlets. But what sealed it for me is that while the wall charger bundled with the iPhone 3G and 3GS is pretty tiny, the prongs don’t fold up like they did on the charger that came with the original iPhone. As a result, I had been (until this product came along) traveling with my original iPhone’s charging brick instead of the newer one, as I wasn’t about to throw a charger with unprotected prongs into my suitcase where they could get bent up. Now I’ve parked it too, as the ACpower offers the same fold-up functionality but with two USB ports.



But in truth, I wouldn’t be writing about this product if not for its price tag: fifteen bucks. Even for a generic-looking charger that doesn’t do anything innovative or different, the price makes this too strong of an offering not to tell you about – even if I am left feeling overwhelmingly nerdy for having written three paragraphs about a plain old charging brick.

*****

Learn more about the ACpower at RadTech.us.

*****

Filed Under: Reviews, iPod, iPhone and iTunes
Tagged: ACpower, charger, dual USB, iPhone, iPod, RadTech, review

App review: reMail

November 12, 2009 by iProng · Comments 

New in iProng Magazine: a hands-on review of reMail, the email search utility for iPhone and iPod touch, available for $4.99 in the App Store…

review by Christine Chan


For those of us with iPhones (and iPod Touches), it’s more than likely that we constantly use our emails on the devices. This is a given. Email has become one of our most important communication tools, especially on mobile devices. But when we have tons of email, what if we need to search for something specific? Yes, we did get Spotlight Search in iPhone OS 3.0, but it’s not enough. And this is where reMail comes in.

What’s reMail? It’s an app that does one thing only, but it does it extremely well – it’s an email searching tool.

Also, reMail is quick and easy. And supports multiple accounts with the latest update. Previously, it was only one account, but now you can add as many as you’d like, and it will search through all mail in all the accounts simultaneously.

Before you can start searching, you will need to add accounts and download all the email messages in them. Depending on how much you have, this can be quick or take a while. Wi-Fi is recommended. If you need to exit the app for any reason while it’s downloading, it will simply pick up where you last left off when you launch it again. The downloading of messages actually stores them locally on the device, so they will be accessible without an Internet connection.

The reMail Status icon (which resembles the iPhone’s Home button) will show you the total messages on the server and the messages on your device, along with Estimated Time Remaining for when you are downloading new messages. Each message takes very little space. If you’re worried about how much space your email will take, you can see how much is being used and how much is remaining on your device.

Why should you use this over the native Spotlight Search for email? Well, have you noticed that the Spotlight Search only searches the subject line of your emails? Meaning that if there’s something you’re looking for that is contained in the body of the message, the Spotlight won’t find it. reMail searches through ENTIRE messages, meaning you won’t miss anything if what you’re searching for is hidden away at some part of the email body.

There is also an Autocompletion feature when you are typing in your search term. As you start typing, contacts and email addresses that have matching letters will begin to pop up – if any of them are what you’re looking for, just tap it.

If the autocomplete feature doesn’t help you, that’s ok. Just keep typing your term and then hit Search, and all emails with any mention of that term in any field of the email will be fetched for you.

The app will also save your searches, so if you have something you need to constantly search for, just search for it once and you can do it again later without needing to type it out again. A great time saver, and helps when it’s one of those times you need to search for something specific but then you forget – you won’t if it’s already in front of you.

All fetched emails are pulled from the servers, and you can keep loading more results.

The latest update also added some new features. You can get little badges for your level of usage, and view all email messages for designated email accounts or every single message, all at once. This is like a streamlined ‘everything-in-one-inbox’ system, but you can also have it separated if you choose.

Overall, reMail is a very good tool to search through massive inboxes (or just a better solution than Spotlight Search). If you’re an email junkie, this is definitely worth a look. It’s everything that Apple should have included with Mail.app and Spotlight Search, but didn’t.

*****

reMail is available for $4.99 in the App Store.

*****

Filed Under: Reviews, iPod, iPhone and iTunes
Tagged: app, App Store, Christine Chan, email, iPhone, iPod touch, reMail, review, search, utilities

J.C. Hutchins interview

November 10, 2009 by iProng · Comments 

iProng Magazine talks with podiobook author and novelist J.C. Hutchins about his new hardcover 7th Son: Descent and more in the cover story interview for our November 10th issue.

interview by Christine Cavalier

Podcast novels, transmedia, and when good fans go bad. An interview with J.C. Hutchins…

Don’t know J.C. Hutchins yet? You will; he’s everywhere these days. J.C. is the creator of the technothriller 7th Son, a podcast novel trilogy. Last month, major print-publishing house St. Martin’s Press released the first book of the trilogy, 7th Son:Descent. J.C. is also the author of a new interactive supernatural thriller co-designed by Jordan Weisman called Personal Effects: Dark Art, released by St. Martin’s in June. Along with writing and enthusiastically promoting his books, J.C. podcasts his “UltraCreatives Interview Series” where he interviews the various artist types he finds in his travels. His website, jchutchins.net, is a veritable smorgasbord of podcasts, new fiction and rabid fan participation. Recently iProng magazine sat down with J.C., a funny, self-described “blabbermouth,” to talk about 7th Son, fans, and the new multi-platform storytelling.

Welcome, J.C. Thanks for coming.



Thanks for having me. I’m like a superfan! I’m doing everything I can not to do the Snoopy dance while I’m on the phone with you.

Great! So your novel, 7th Son, is now in print, starting with the first book of the trilogy, 7th Son: Descent. But 7th Son started out as a podcast novel. Did you get a reaction right away to your podcast of the 7th Son trilogy?

A little bit. It came in trickles. I remember posting the first episode via LibSyn. You post the episode and then you watch the LibSyn statistics. And there was 1 download and that was from me, and then [another] and that was my girlfriend, and then a third download was from —

Your mom?


No! The third download was someone else!

A stranger!


A stranger! And I’m like ‘Bless you, man in Kansas.’ I can recount it with such clarity because it was such a vivid memory. It was like, ‘O.M.G., this is really in the wild!’ And I received some feedback probably within the first week but it was a dribble. But by the 5th or 6th week, when the audience had grown to hundreds instead of dozens… it was revelatory. It was life-changing.

Is it a serious commitment to do a serial novel podcast?


Yeah, it is. And I’m not disrespecting any other form of podcasting when I say [that]. (clears throat). For instance, you may be doing an interview podcast, you may be permitted some flexibility in your release schedule… in the audio quality. For instance, if it is a bad Skype connection in your interview or a bad phone connection, well, there is only so much you can do to fix that audio, and what you do is, you say in the beginning of the episode ‘I’m really sorry guys, but —’ … But you are permitted some flexibility in quality and in release schedule and a you know, a great other many things.

But not with the novel [7th Son]? 


Right. Particularly when you’re releasing a thriller. Where, if you are a thriller writer, you are morally obligated to put cliff-hangers in you work, at the end of nearly every chapter.

So that could cause a problem if you’re a little late on the delivery of an episode.


I tell you! And I was consistent in my release of Books 1 and 2. Book 3, because I was actually writing another novel during that time, my release schedule slipped. I missed a week. (pause) Like, once.

What happened?


(Pause) It was as if the gates of hell had opened! (laughs) … The choir of angelic fans who had been singing hymns about me for years turned into demons and just raked me over the coals! And deservedly.

(Laughing) It’s like the end of Indiana Jones with the angel of the covenant, she’s so pretty and –


(Laughing) “Marion! Just keep your eyes shut!”

Don’t look!


Don’t look at it Marion! So yeah! And there I was, my face melting on the other side of the computer, going, ‘Oh God, what have I done?’ And of course, there were other fans who stepped up and said, “Dude, you know, the guy’s writing another book, and he’s giving this away, and you know, we trust he’ll deliver,” and all this stuff. I remember this one blog post specifically where it was like 50 comments. And there was like a war going on, it was like the Sharks and the Jets. And I’m popping in every once in a while saying ‘Guys! Guys! It’s OK! I’m going to get the episode out in a couple of days!’ …

Explain a little bit about Personal Effects: Dark Art. It’s an interactive novel.


Right. The tagline I’ve always [used is]: ‘It’s not a book, an experience.’ … [I co-wrote it with] a legendary game designer named Jordan Weisman, who in the early 2000’s helped create a new, disruptive form of story-telling called the alternate reality game… it’s puzzle-fueled, community-powered fiction. It’s amazing! … And the most interesting thing about it is that mainstream media companies and studios use it, often these days, to promote their work. The Dark Knight had an alternate reality game. Trent Reznor’s release of Year Zero had an alternate reality game associated with it. The list goes on and on and on and on and there’s a growing subculture of people who love to play these games.

The opportunity to work with someone who is a game designer for a living must have been fun for you.


And not only fun, but challenging, and also very illuminating. Jordan Weisman had kind of pioneered this form of storytelling… I’m really keen to continue to explore what Jordan Weisman calls “transmedia” storytelling. I would love to work with him, and frankly work with other creators too, to blur the lines between fiction and reality. I have since done some of this in my own work. When I was gearing up to release 7th Son: Descent in print, I released the prequel anthology of short stories that take place two weeks before the events seen in Descent. And what I did was, there were specific website addresses mentioned in those short stories, that, if a listener was curious, could visit those websites, and download folk music, written and recorded by the folk musician that was starring in that specific story.

Sounds fun! So, what’s next for J.C. Hutchins?


I have a very aggressive, or very ambitious, kind of promotion … engine in place for 7th Son that will last all the way up until December. And then, after I take a very long nap. … I will begin working on the next big thing. And there are a couple of ‘next big things’ that I’ve got simmering in the background. And I can’t wait to dive in and start telling new stories myself.

And we can’t wait to listen! Where can we find you on the ‘net?


At www.jchutchins.net and on Twitter: @jchutchins. Also, people can find me on Facebook at facebook.com/jchutchins.

J.C., thanks for coming!


Thank you so much for having me. I’m honored and completely stoked to be mentioned in iProng!


•••••

Filed Under: Interviews, Podcaster interviews
Tagged: 7th son, Christine Cavalier, Descent, interview, J.C. Hutchins, JC Hutchins, podcast novel, podiobook

The Academy Is… interview

November 10, 2009 by iProng · Comments 

iProng Magazine talks with The Academy Is… founding member Adam T. Siska about his band’s new EP and more…

interview by Keri Franz

Whether you know him as Adam, Sisky Business, or just Sisky, Adam T. Siska, bass whiz in The Academy Is…, means business. Even though he seems like a wacky character on stage or on TAI TV (the band’s hilarious podcast), he is very down-to-earth and serious about what his band is doing. Since its inception, The Academy Is… has collected fans the world over with three records, two EPs, and bunches of videos. Currently on the Alternative Press Fall Ball 2009 tour, they have become a household, Warped Tour name, and they’re only getting more popular. Adam talked to me about the perks of co-writing, the work on The Academy Is…’ new album, and why bonus tracks just aren’t a good thing.

How did the band form? How did you all meet and get the band started?

Well there are some people that aren’t in the band anymore, but the three of us, Mike, William and I, met in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. I met William in 2001. He played drums in a band with my brother, and he’s 3 years older than me. We kind of bonded, just talked about music and this record label called Asian Man records (which was a underground punk rock record label that was run out of garages). Like I said, we bonded over that and our friendship grew. A couple years later, we met Mike Carden who was from 2 towns over, rival schools. He seemed like he had a similar outlook on music, and we just started writing songs together in basements and playing in basements. Along the way, we met our drummer, Andy, who’s from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and our guitar Michael, who’s from Sydney, Australia.

That seems like a pretty far ways off from Chicago!

Yeah, we kinda turned in into a global thing.

Cool, well it seems to be working well for you all. You guys have great chemistry. As far as the process of making the music though, do you all work together or do you work separately then come together and combine everything?

It really varies from song to song. There will be times where our drummer will come in with everything written and recorded on a demo or the guitar player—any one of us will write a song like that. Or there will be song that the whole band will sit in a room together and collaborate on. Those ones tend to be my favorite ones that the band gets to play together on and “jam” as they say. I’m a bass player, so I get to have my voice heard a little bit more when I write with the band as opposed to bringing in my own song. This way, it keeps us together as a band.

It seems like with the “Fast Times at Barrington High” CD, the bass wasn’t as accentuated as it was on “Santi”. Do you think you were shafted a little bit or was it just how it all kind of came together?

That was a conscious decision. I loved doing the bass thing on “Santi,” but I personally think that sometimes when you busy up a song it can really take away from some of the focus. On “Santi,” the record wasn’t about focus. It was about a certain feeling and experimentation. On the last record, we wanted to buckle down and write more in the pocket. I mean there are still a lot of drum and bass grooves on fast times. I just thought that the dancing around and the hot dogging was a little bit over the top. On “Santi,” it may have impacted the songs in a negative way. I think the vocals showcase a lot more when the bass isn’t dancing around like that. Who knows, the next record may be a little bit more similar to how it was on “Santi,” but we just like to try different things and that was a conscious decision for playing on the record.

So you just experiment but then try to find your niche. And just find out where you feel comfortable.

Yeah, there’s a fine line between self expression and trying to inflate your ego with a bass line that’s a little bit too complicated or busy and some of my favorite bass players were the ones that played simple little parts that were complimentary. You have to find that balance.

Speaking of vocals, sort of, I read somewhere that for the next album, there will be outside writers, besides the guys in the band obviously. Is there any validity to that and what’s your perspective on it?

It’s hard to say, I’m personally not a fan of it. I don’t know if there will be outside writers. A lot of our favorite records by some of the most respected musicians out there were co-written. We’re not dogging the idea of co-writes at all. I mean you look at some of the best Bob Dylan songs; a lot of Ryan Adams songs, the Clash…all our favorite bands did a lot of co-writes. So it doesn’t take away from the creative drive of what you’re doing as a band. I mean it’s almost like you’re driving a car and you want to take a look at the view around so you let someone else put their foot on the gas for a little bit. I think it can be a healthy thing for any band. We’re not too deep into writing on the next record, so we don’t really know. We’ll always be writing songs on our own, and when it comes to the co-writes, it’s not like you just come in and the song is just written and we go with that. It’s literally a co-write. We write with someone else in the room who can act like a therapist in helping us complete these songs. As you can see on “Santi,” we have a lot of ideas that are floating around in our heads, like the thing about the bass lines. It’s nice to have someone there to keep you in check and remind you of what the big picture is and what you’re going for on the record. The last thing we want to do is loose the credibility of saying these songs come from the heart. It’s hard to say a song comes from the heart when you didn’t write it. I think the big picture for us is to do whatever we can to make sure that we feel like it’s our song and that we feel like it’s coming from the heart. If it doesn’t, no one will ever hear it because it’s the last thing we’d want to do.

The band is so organic; it’s like a family unit. It’s kind of cool just to know that everyone is in on it. It’s like everything is in the family.

It’s fun to bring in outside people though. It’s like the Beatles working on “Let It Be” with Phil Spector. He turned that record into something totally different. If it wasn’t for Phil Sector, “Let It Be” would be a totally, completely different album. He’s not a member of the Beatles and no one ever remembers that he’s the one that made it that way. Same way with Billy Preston, the piano player on the Beatles records, he was the fifth Beatle. And it doesn’t take away from the credibility of them as songwriters. Everyone knows that they’re the best. You have to do whatever you can do to get your point across on an album and it’s nice to have help from people.

So you said that you haven’t started work on the new album, which is fine because the EP, “Lost in Pacific Time: The AP-EP,” just came out.

You know what, we just don’t want to say that we’re working on the album, I think once we come to a point as a band where if we say we’re working on the album that’s when we start to stress ourselves out. Whereas, if you try to gradually work at it and start writing songs, then you don’t talk about it or think about it too much then I think you get a better result. I’m sorry; you were going to ask a question.

Yes, that’s okay. As far as the EP goes, it seems to me like a mix between “Fast Times at Barrington High” and “Santi”. It’s got a mix of both styles together, but it still seems very cohesive. Was it written and put together on the road this summer?

All the songs were written at different times. There was one song that was written during the “Fast Times” sessions that we never ended up using for that album. Then there’s one song that we wrote spur of the moment over the year. They’re kind of just a collection of songs that we wrote throughout the year that we didn’t really feel like we wanted to carry into the next record because when we start a new record we like to have a clean slate. If you like a song that you wrote a year ago, it’s a good thing to put it out somewhere but I don’t think it’s really good to carry it into the new record. When you’re starting a new record it’s nice to just start over and have new creative ideas and not to just dwell on things that you did a year and a half ago. That being said, we like the songs so we thought they deserve to be heard and we thought that it would not hurt at all to record them ourselves. There’s no recording budget for the EP, we just did it on the tour bus in the back lounge. We put it out for the fans, and I think that our fans will never complain about more music.

It’s like an odds and ends EP then, which is cool because people sometimes are scrambling to find songs that are the exclusive tracks like “Ghost” off of “Santi”. This way they can buy it and it’s not like they have to download illegally or something.

It is cool. I don’t really like that there are exclusive tracks. “Ghost” I really wish was on “Santi.” That was probably my favorite song we wrote for that record. When you’re so close to the project, it’s like we’re making this decision whether something should be on it and you have two minutes to decide. And it’s like ehh I guess it’ll be a b-side. Two years later, you’re looking back and you’re like, “well, damn, I like that one better than all the other ones. It should’ve been the first song.” It’s strange how that works. That’s how records are. You only get that one window of opportunity to decide how you feel about them. From now on, I don’t think there should be any b-sides. We should just put out like fifteen tracks on an album — no b-sides or bonus tracks. Everyone should get them — it only holds back the songs.

The TAI TV podcasts are so diverse. Some of them are just you guys on your daily travels on Warped Tour or whatever, but other ones are like mini movies or TV shows. Who comes up with all of that material and edits everything and gets it out there? Do you think there will be another season of TAI TV in the future?

Well, we had our friend, Jack, out with us. Jack is a high school buddy of mine who has a real knack for the camera and editing. He’s one of the funniest people I’ve ever known. He’s one of my best friends. He came out with us and was filming those. He’d have ideas, and we’d have ideas. Anyone could have an idea, as long as it was something that seemed like it was fun, we’d do it. The thing with TAI TV was that we’d put them up every Sunday, so sometimes Saturday night would come around and you’d be like wait a second we haven’t even thought about this. We’ve just been at bars or writing songs all week. We haven’t thought about what we’re doing tomorrow for the webcast. At that point, it’s like alright guys let’s just make something up. Let’s sit down in the back lounge and make something up. That’s how it would always be. We’d just have some little idea and we’d run with it, just kind of spur of the moment. Some were better at it than others. The point of it was just to get it done and to do something fun. Once a week, we’d basically make a pledge to our fans saying that we were thinking about them. We haven’t been doing TAI TVs for a while now, and I think a lot of the fans that I talk to are kinda bummed about that. But sometimes you have to draw the line and say are we a band or should we be on Saturday Night Live or something. Right now, we just want to be a band and figure out what that means. I’m not saying that TAI TV is dead or not coming back. I think we all just got a little tired of doing it every Sunday. My relationship with Jack probably suffered a lot because of the stress of trying to deliver every week. Now he’s actually out with Cobra Starship doing Cobra Cams. It’s essentially the same thing as TAI TV, but it’s got much funnier people in it because the Cobra Starship guys are actually a comedy troupe. It’s pretty funny.

•••••

Lost In Pacific Time is available now in iTunes. Learn more about The Academy Is… at TheAcademyIs.com.

•••••

Filed Under: Interviews, Musician interviews
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