Vanessa Carlton interview: Rabbits on the Run, Carousel, and the art of waking up
July 31, 2011 by Bill Palmer · Leave a Comment
by Bill Palmer
“A Thousand Miles” is nothing compared to the distance Vanessa Carlton had to travel in order to breathe life into Rabbits on the Run, her first record since 2007. The journey encompassed a trip to England, a venture into life as an indie artist, and a voyage of awakening through her own mind.
Four years is not that long between albums. But you did go and disappear for awhile before this record.
Yeah I practically fell off the face of the earth, and was happy to. I was in my own world. I was really going through a lot of transitioning of my life, personally, professionally. I’ll stay vague about it, but I really had to in my own way lose a lot. I don’t want to use the cliche “rock bottom” because it wasn’t rock bottom, but I was very confused at a lot of decisions I had made, I think. In a way, what’s worse than getting your heart broken is breaking your own heart. I really feel like I had to recover from that, and I feel like I had to make some big changes.
Were you working on Rabbits On The Run at the time, or did you have to isolate yourself from music as well?
I think music isolated itself from me (laughs). It was like “Nope, you are not ready to touch me again.” Actually that’s not true. I was writing a lot of instrumental pieces. But I did not see a record at all. I didn’t know if I was ever going to do another record. The blueprint of another record wasn’t clear to me. I had nothing to say. And then slowly things got better. I started to figure it out and piece it together. Once I wrote London, which was the first song, the record unfolded itself to me and I was like “This is the record.” If I’m gonna do this, I want this to be the record I’ve always wanted to make, and I think the only way to do that was really cut ties with a label and do it myself. And that’s what I did. It set me off on some path that I had never been on before, and I just feel so awake now.
You made this record in the English countryside, which is quite a contrast with the fact that you’re a New Yorker.
Things about this record unfolded in an organic, almost mystical way. The way things tied together, I still can’t believe it. Box, England is absolutely the place that I was meant to make this record. Did I know that? No. Was it pre-planned? No. Things just unfolded in the most natural, wonderful way. I’ve never had that happen in a project I’ve worked on before, and I think you can feel it in the work, maybe. It was just pure arts and crafts for everybody involved.
I ran into Steve Osborne, who I’d been searching for, at a bonfire party at my friend’s house in Hungerford, England. He was like “Oh, I’m actually working at Real World studios, come by and visit, let’s hang out, let’s meet.” I go there and I’m like, this is where the hobbits are. I’ve been searching for this place all my life. I can’t even believe this is happening. I’d been looking for a children’s choir. Coincidentally, the cousins I was staying with in London, their daughter was part of a choir that I ended up working with for the record. Once you’re just awake and open to it, the blueprint just kind of writes itself.
Carousel includes the line “rabbits on the run” in reference to the book Watership Down. Did you already have that phrase in mind when you wrote the lyrics to the rest of the song?
That’s a good question because that’s the thing, I dreamt it. I don’t know if you’ve ever had songs that you write in your dreams, and they sound amazing in your dream because dreams are just motion. Then you wake up and they’re usually kind of shit. They’re embarrassingly bad. Carousel, I woke up at 3:30 with it in my head, had ascending lines, the kind of hopeful glory of that song, and simplicity of it. I went to the piano, recorded it, and then I went back to my bed by 3:45 and wrote with my thumbs on my BlackBerry all these ideas. I did spend a lot of time fleshing through it the next day, but the majority of that song was written then.
It’s one of those really organic threads that have happened with this project where it was like yeah, reading Watership Down and then I don’t know, it just came out. “Rabbits on the run” is pretty obvious, if you’ve read the book. I would say it is a direct reference to the story of Watership Down, and it is also very purposefully rabbits, like as a collective, all of us as a collection of human beings. It’s not my solitary story. It’s about the collective of us. So that was important to me.
The whole time the lyrics are “All you’ll hear is the music, beauty stands before you,” like you’re telling this message to some friend of yours. And then at the end you turn it back around on yourself, first person. “All I hear is the music, beauty stands before me.” I’ve been wondering if this was a song that you had written as a message to yourself.
I had to feel that message for myself in an authentic way in order for me to write that song, and that was one of the first times that I’ve felt that thought in years. So I would say that song is doing double duty. Every time I sing it, it makes me happy.
With the song I Don’t Want To Be A Bride, there’s a curiosity as to whether that was just a sentiment you felt in the moment you were writing it, or do you really feel like you never want to get married and that’s not going to change?
It’s something even bigger than that, and I think it’s about not canceling out love with liberation. It’s not about open relationships, which I support that as well. It’s more about I have yet to hear that message being sung to me by anyone. Maybe I’m the minority, but I feel like I’m in the most curious kind of libertine chapter, one of the most wonderful chapters of my life. Usually this is when the pressure comes in from society as a woman to lock it down, and I just don’t think it’s fair. I also, with that said, believe wholly in a great love. I really do. I feel like both should be able to exist. So right now that defines how I feel, and I think hopefully there’s others out there that know what I’m talking about.
The end of this record devolves into this ethereal kind of thing. What was going on in there with those soundscapes?
It was a prayer to my brother. I wrote it for my brother. He lost someone very close to him. A sliver of it is a little bit to myself and the collective. We wanted it very much to devolve into something cosmically celestial. It’s the end of the record but it’s never the end.
Learn more at VanessaCarlton.com • iTunes • Twitter • Facebook
earbud review: BodyGuardz Earjax Moxy
July 31, 2011 by Bill Palmer · Leave a Comment
Can a company which specializes in thin clear film products pull off an about-face with a line in-ear earbuds for devices like the iPhone? Interestingly enough, the answer is yes, as indicated by the company’s Earjax Moxy, a $69 earbud product which attempts to split the difference between the “good” earbuds you can get for fifty dollars and the “excellent” earbuds you can get for a hundred bucks.
Before you even put the Moxy on, you’ll immediately notice the design flourishes in turquoise or brown, which makes the product stand out aesthetically. As an audio product, the Moxy delivers in that it does in fact offer better audio than you’d get from any competing $49 earbuds. So the extra twenty bucks is worth it. The catch is that for another ten bucks more you can find competing earbuds which sound slightly better and offer three-button controls (for iPhone-iPad-iPod volume) as opposed to the single button and mic offered by the Moxy.
But for those who don’t care about the volume buttons, or who appreciate earbuds which aesthetically stand out, the Earjax Moxy is recommendable and is enough to affirm BodyGuards can indeed more than more for your iPhone than merely cover it in film.
Rating: four stars out of five • Price: $69 • BodyGuardz.com
Locked and loaded in Texas: inside Sheila Swift’s next album
July 31, 2011 by Bill Palmer · Leave a Comment
by Bill Palmer
Sheila Swift is supposed to be on vacation but instead she’s holed up in a borrowed Galveston condo along with her bandmates, her twin baby daughters, and an oversized dog – and despite the antics of an old guitar which just doesn’t want to stay in tune today, the creative juices are flowing. She’s belting out partially finished tunes from her upcoming album and, lamenting the lack of drums in the building, her producer/drummer, Ryan Snipes, is providing makeshift percussion on the bottom a sand bucket which belongs to one of the little girls. The kids are cooperating; the dog is a little too excited to be there. And the songs just beg for studio time so they can find their way to formation.
One of the tunes entitled “Let Go” is already a fleshed out number. It’s jokingly about Sheila’s mother, who briefly disappeared over the holidays, but seriously about moving forward after disappointments and other people’s attempts to control you and leave you hanging on to anger. Sheila’s already performed it publicly at locales ranging from SXSW in Austin to the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles. The latter is a long way from home for the Houston native, whose new material also includes a partially finished ditty called “The Texas Song” which, despite being about exactly what you think it’s about, is sweet enough that it shouldn’t scare off folks who live on the east and west coasts. And although she’s got the kind of sweet-yet-full voice which could have made her a country singer if she’d wanted to be, these tunes are pure rock music with just enough of a pop sheen to give them a chance at mainstream radio. But before getting too far ahead of herself there are other things to attend to, like getting through lunch with a couple of two year olds in tow.
For being twins and both being named after famous musicians named Bob, Sheila’s two girls couldn’t look or act any more differently. Dylan spends lunch trying to maintain a princess pose, while Marley quickly manages to cover her face with ketchup while verbally chastising someone else at the table who keeps touching her mother’s iPhone. Sheila says she fully realized that she’s a mother last year when one of them was sick and vomiting all over her, and she was more concerned about comforting the child than anything else. But she’s been a musician for far longer than she’s been a mother. The reason that old guitar of hers isn’t cooperating is because she’s had it since she was thirteen. She’s been at it ever since, and is finally on the verge of things paying off. The Shape of Things, an indie album she released a few years ago, offers her only publicly available musical work to date. And while the pop-oriented songs on it were a mere warm-up act, they offer a preview of the kind of talent that’s forthcoming.
When songs sound enticing while being accompanied by out of tune guitars and sand bucket percussion along with stretches of ad libbed lyrics, it’s usually a good sign that the finished album versions are ultimately going to be winners. For now, those in Texas can catch a preview of the new material at her local gigs around Houston & Austin. In the mean time, the rest of the world will simply have to wait for Sheila Swift to take it over.
SheilaSwift.com • iTunes • Twitter • Facebook
iPad 2 case review: iFrogz Summit
July 31, 2011 by Beatweek · Leave a Comment
If there’s one thing you can consistently count on from iFrogz, it’s products which find a way to stand out from the crowd. Case in point: the company’s Summit case for iPad 2 is a fairly conservative design. It employs a hardshell snap-in backing along with a simple-hinge full face leathery front flap. But by simply offering the plastic component in a choice of four bright colors (along with a conservative all-black fifth model), the Summit suddenly makes iPad 2 portfolio cases exciting to look at. And as a bonus, it’s quite functional as well.
The leathery material wraps around the back but comes partly loose to form a stand which can be used at any of three different viewing angles. Interestingly, all three angles are tall enough that they’re aimed at allowing you to view your iPad’s screen rather than creating a low-angle stand for typing on it. All four of the iPad 2 corners are protected by hardshell, which is a major bonus as so many other portfolio-style iPad cases get this wrong by protecting the sides but not the corners.
If practicality is your key decision point, I think I’d have to recommend a similar competing case from Kensington instead, for the simple reason that it’s about half as thick as the iFrogz Summit and offers basically the same thing. But if you don’t mind the extra thickness, and if you want your iPad 2 case to have some flair thanks to neon blue, green, or pink exposing itself in such a way that’ll make your portfolio case the topic of conversation no matter where you take it, the Summit is indeed a plenty recommendable product.
Rating: four stars out of five • Price: $59 • iFrogz.com
La la: Smurfs movie slammed, goes #1 w/Neil Patrick Harris, Katy Perry
July 31, 2011 by Beatweek · 2 Comments
Updated to include more detail regarding critical Smurfs reviews
La la la la la la, the Smurfs Movie is tied for #1 at the box office despite the vast majority of professional reviews being negative, most of which have ranged from the “so bad it’s kind of watchable” to “so bad it’s terrible” kind of critical disdain. So what saved the movie? Two things: one is the real-world presence Neil Patrick Harris. That’s right, the former child actor one seemingly destined to be forever known as Doogie Howser has quietly transformed himself into one of our better actors in his adulthood. The other is the virtual presence of Katy Perry, the voice of Smurfette, who breathes an appropriate amount of ladyness into the lone female Smurf. And that’s a good thing, because the male Smurfs in the movie are just plain annoying.
But if there’s something which works about this movie, it’s probably that viewers can hang in there vicariously through NPH as he finds the Smurf characters to be as annoying as the audience does. It’s a tough day when characters which in their original incarnations were such caricatures that they had stereotypical names more obvious than that of the Seven Dwarfs, and yet these characters have somehow managed to dissolve further into caricature (past the threshold of no return) in their movie incarnations. Oh well. But Neil and Katy to the rescue, because other than that, there’s not much here. Then again, the Smurfs movie benefits from the same scenario as the Transformers movies: parents who want to see the movie just to revisit characters from their own childhood, and kids who are eager to see any kid-oriented movie their parents are willing to take them to. And even after parents and kids alike figured out that the first Transformers movie wasn’t very good, they went back and saw two ever-worsening sequels. Perhaps that’s why the Smurfs movie sequels are already en route; this kind of nostalgia-based double whammy doesn’t need to be good in order to be seen.
Then again,there’s the fact that the primary competition at the box office is called Cowboys and Aliens. That’s the kind of name the studios assign to a movie that’s so bad they know it’s going to bomb and so they give it a ridiculous hail-mary of a name (see Sucker Punch) in the hopes of luring in some folks based on the tacky name alone. An odd move for this particular movie, seeing as how it stars quality actors like Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig, who are usually box office money just by showing up. And on top of that, Cowboys and Aliens has a much higher critical approval rating than its blue-themed rival. Just imagine if they’d instead called it Cowboys and Smurfs.
iPad 2 case review: Kensington Protective Cover & Stand
July 31, 2011 by Beatweek · 2 Comments
Just as the iPad 2 has users wondering how Apple managed to pack in all the same goodness as the original while making it significantly less bulky, Kensington’s new iPad 2 case rather descriptively called the Protective Cover & Stand will leave users wondering the same. It’s a one piece hinge case with a hardshell backpiece covered in a woven pattern, along with a front piece which bends back around to form a low-angle stand for typing and velvet padding on the inside. And improbably, it does all that while adding almost no bulk to the iPad 2.
It’s the simplicity of the product, then, which makes it work. No complex hinge system, as it simply folds open. No bulky manner of keeping the iPad 2 in place, as it simply snaps into the hardshell corners. And speaking of which, this case gets something right which far too many other cases of its kind get wrong: it actually covers and protects the iPad’s four corners, which is where impact is likely to happen first when you drop it.
If there’s one thing not to like in the coverage department, it’s that two-thirds of the iPad’s bottom edge is exposed thanks to one large combined cutout for the docking port and the speaker, rather than a pair of cutouts which would have covered more surface area. And by design, the stand only works with the iPad in landscape (wide) mode, not in portrait position, so you’ll need to be a fan of typing on the iPad’s wider keyboard. But these are quibbles. This case is a winner because it does so much with so little material and, in the spirit of the iPad 2, keeps things thin and light while fully functional.
Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5 • Price: $39 • Kensington.com
iPad 2 case review: Maclove Messager for iPad 2, iPad 1, MacBook Air
July 31, 2011 by Beatweek · Leave a Comment
Steve Jobs once tried to demonstrate just how thin the MacBook Air laptop is that he introduced it by pulling it out of a simple manila envelope which he’d been keeping it hidden in. Maclove has decided to apply this concept to a real product, and not just for MacBook Air but also for the iPad and iPad 2. Known as the Messager, it’s a genuine leather “case” which, other than being made of leather, has the exact same look and function as that of Steve’s infamous manila envelope.
Although initially seeming to be a joke, the Messager case actually works pretty well. It’s clearly intended to be the storage and carrying case you remove the iPad from before use, as opposed to one which folds open or otherwise gives you screen access, and only a certain kind of user is looking for that. But as this type of case goes, the Messager is certainly moor interesting than most of its other pouch-type contemporaries.
It’s got soft padding inside and a magnet which holds it shut, and when closed looks enough like a simple manila envelope that it might even fend off would-be thieves who will have no idea there’s an iPad hiding inside unless they pick it up. If there’s one criticism, it’s that the envelope theme is taken perhaps one step too far with a wrap-around string just like you’d find on a real manila envelope. It’s arguably not needed in light of the magnet, and is there more so for completing the motif than for practical reasons. You don’t have to tie it, but then it’ll remain dangling about a foot long. Some users may end up cutting it off with scissors just to avoid the hassle.
But for a product which is based on a Steve Jobs joke during one of his keynotes, the Messager turns out to be surprisingly practical and quite a lot of fun. It’s not cheap at fifty bucks, but then products made of leather never are.
Rating: four stars out of five • Price: $49 • MacloveWorld.com
User asks how a to insert CD into iPad 2, targets dock connector port
July 31, 2011 by Bill Palmer · Leave a Comment
by Bill Palmer
If the iPad is to replace the PC as the primary computing device of the future, it’ll have to adopt the most clueless among technology users as well. Move over, the guy who thinks the CD-ROM tray on his minitower is a coffee holder. Make room for the guy who thinks the dock connector port on the bottom of his iPad 2 is a CD-ROM drive, and took his frustration to the Apple.com support forums when he couldn’t make it fit. “I’m trying to put a cd into the iPad 2 to play a track but the slot underneath the screen won’t allow me. What can I do?” asks one unfortunate user, who may also have depth perception issues as he tries to insert a five inch wide disk into a one inch wide slot.
Those in Apple’s iPad 2 forums who saw the unintentionally humorous ranged from helpful to deadpan. There’s the one reply, which Apple labeled as the “correct answer” which goes along the lines of “Have you synched your iPad with iTunes after adding your CDs content to the iTunes library? When you do this you have to select which songs you want copied to your iPad. Note that to play songs on the iPad you use the iPod App not iTunes. That is where your songs will show up.”
And then there’s the guy who has to win an award for something, as his reply was simply “Keep trying.” That in turn prompted the original poster to go back and try again, only to report that “I’ve been trying for the past few hours” and “it won’t fit!!”
Was this post real, or meant as a joke in the first place? That’s not immediately clear, although Apple has yet to delete the thread, which means Apple’s moderators must believe there’s at least some possibility that it’s a genuinely clueless question. Interestingly, it comes at a time when Apple has decided that the end of the optical drive era is close, having removed any semblance of CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drives from its MacBook Air and now the Mac Mini. Music is more popularly sold in digital format like iTunes than on CDs, movies are increasingly streamed or downloaded from places like Netflix as opposed to DVDs, and many software programs are now too big to fit on any kind of optical disc. Apple’s new MacOS X Lion operating system was released as a download through the Mac App Store as opposed to on DVD-ROM like previous OS X releases. The company has received fairly little backlash for the move, which stands in stark contract to the firestorm it set off in 1998 when it decided that the first iMac would come without a floppy drive. Then again, Apple has yet to remove optical drives from its more popular MacBook Pro and 2011-era iMac computers, a progression which will play out eventually.
But in the mean time, the Apple support forums post (if it’s real) merely goes to show that no matter how much technology evolves, or how much Apple and other companies attempt to make their products understandable for the entire mainstream spectrum, there are always going to be those users who go out of their way to misunderstand things. Or, as one helpful respondent summed it up, “How about getting a pair of scissors and cut the CD in half?” Until Apple removes it, here’s the original support forums thread in question.
Overmatched John Boehner can’t escape Barack Obama’s west wing script
July 31, 2011 by Beatweek · Leave a Comment
by Torv Ponder
The government borders on shutdown after the new Speaker of the House tries to notch his belt by playing chicken with the President, who won’t stand for it. Was this script first penned by Barack Obama and John Boehner in 2011? Nope, it’s the script of a fifth season episode of Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing in which the overmatched Speaker Haffley ultimately gets his proverbial hat handed to him by an edgy President Barlet who’s no longer willing to be pushed around. Actually, Sorkin was gone by that time but the episode was one of the highlights of an uneven West Wing season, mostly because cat and mouse antics of Congress finally prompted Bartlet to re-locate his backbone. And that hour of fiction contains some valuable lessons which apply to the current situation with Obama and Boehner, particularly in terms of how it’s going to play out.
In the fictional show, the democrat President goes to Capitol Hill to meet with the republicans in the name of resolving the budget crisis. After they refuse to meet with him, public opinion shifts his way and he ultimately pummels the Speaker into submission on a subsequent meeting in the Oval Office. Things won’t quite play out in that fashion in real life, if for no other reason than the fact that in the show it was Josh Lyman’s idea to go to the Hill, and while the Lyman character was based on the real life Rahm Emanuel, he’s no longer a part of the Obama administration. Instead the real life 2011 debt ceiling crisis can be expected to play out not quite so neatly, but with the same results. Why?
To paraphrase from the post-Sorkin script, John Boehner was elected by 600,000 people from Ohio, and regardless of whether the two ultimately sit down in the Oval Office to settle this or elsewhere, it doesn’t change the fact wherever Obama sits during those negotiations, he can get away with reminding Boehner that “the person on this side of the desk is the President.”
Boehner is in over his head, urged by his own party to play whatever games necessary in order to sabotage the functioning of the government itself in the name of making Obama look inept heading into re-election or at least in the hope of derailing Obama’s overall agenda. Neither side is looking particularly polished as the games drag on. But as in the television script, the public will eventually conclude that this is an instance of a member of Congress attempting to hijack the United States government and steal the President’s powers for his own. In other words, like him or not, Obama is running the country and Boehner is a gnat buzzing around in the hopes of gumming up the works. Obama’s legacy doesn’t hang entirely on this budget crisis, but Boehner’s likely does. And as soon as the weight of that sinks in for the Speaker, he’ll probably be inclined to blink just long enough to start worrying about being remembered by history as a villain, during which time Obama will have the opportunity to pounce. The real question for Obama is whether he’ll jump down Boehner’s neck once that opportunity presents itself. Here’s more on the Obama’s budget battle.
Shoot: Plaxico Burress with Braylon gives Jets talented volatile corps
July 31, 2011 by Beatweek · Leave a Comment
Plaxico Burress is now reporting to the other side of New Meadowlands stadium. Say this for Rex Ryan and Mike Tannenbaum: there’s apparently no headcase the New York Jets head coach and GM don’t think they can tame, at least when it comes to wide receivers. First they acquired Santonio Holmes after the Steelers grew tired of his headlines. Then they picked up Braylon Edwards after a nightclub confrontation caused the Browns to want to rid themselves of him. And now they’ve signed former New York Giants receiver Plaxico Burress, which on paper appears to be the riskiest move of all because Plax is more or less fresh out of prison.
Not that such a move didn’t work out okay for the Philadelphia Eagles with Michael Vick. While half the equation is a matter of rehabilitation, the other half is conditioning. Vick has stayed out of trouble, and turns out to have been in plenty good physical shape. The Jets are betting Burress is in the right headspace, and must have liked what they saw in the conditioning department when they worked him out this week. But this is a player who had a history of off the field troubles even before accidentally shooting himself in the leg in public. And now he’s a part of a receiving corps which, to varying degrees, is like placing a recovering alcoholic around a bunch of bartenders. Edwards was busted for DUI not long after he arrived in New York, but Rex and the gang appear to have since reined him in. How much rope will Plaxico have to work with?
This is a guy that the Giants didn’t want back even though they could have had him for nothing. And the Steelers grew tired of him before that. Then again, the Steelers didn’t want Holmes either, and that’s worked out just fine. Nor did the Browns want Braylon. Whatever the larger than life Rex Ryan has up his sleeve in terms of getting receivers with larger-than-life troubles to hunker down and behave and produce, he’ll need to push it into overdrive now that the Jets receiving corps is, at least on paper, among the most “troubled” in the league. It’s also among the most talented, again, on paper. Unless of course the Jets really do ditch Braylon, as some rumors have suggested, and Plax is merely his replacement. As with all things, we shall see.
B-minus: Obama 2012 approval defined by more than budget, debt ceiling
July 30, 2011 by Beatweek · Leave a Comment
by Torv Ponder
Even as the budget and debt ceiling negotiations have Americans frustrated at the governmental process no matter where they fall within the political or ideological spectrum, it’s a good time to step back and recall that a Presidency, including the first term of President Barack Obama, is defined by more than a single mere standoff. As voters attempt to decide whether Obama is worthy of reelection in 2012, a number of factors naturally come into play. In the big picture, Obama deserves a B-minus thus far. But that grade is a composite of various areas in which his performance has run the gamut from fantastic to befuddling.
Economy: The matter of the day sees Obama having saved the United States from what should have by all rights been a depression thanks to the failures of his predecessor. But at the same time, Obama hasn’t been able to jumpstart the economy; rather he’s managed to keep it afloat if stagnant. His entire time as President has seen Republicans playing the role of pure villain, attempting to block anything Obama puts forth. That makes him something of a hero simply for continuing to fight. But then again, isn’t the hero supposed to be able to defeat the villains? Grade: B-minus for preventing the Bush Depression from having ever happened.
World relations: Obama managed to get a mixed victory out of Bush’s botched Iraq war, but the jury is still out in Afghanistan. He made a point of finding Osama Bin Laden and, once his location was found, took him out rather than wasting the world’s time with a grandstanding trial. He was prescient enough to remain quiet during revolutions in spots like Egypt where any attempt at over-involvement on America’s part could have motivated the more radical elements within those nations to steer things awry. He’s gotten just about everything right on this front, often by simply keeping his mouth shut at the right times (something too many Presidents don’t understand). Grade: A-minus.
Civil rights: Oops. The TSA is still in operation, still hassling harmless travelers for the sake of security theater in a propaganda game which everyone involved has nothing to do with actual security. Obama should have dismantled the propaganda agency from day one. He’s also failed to make amends for Bush’s other crimes against the Constitution such as wiretapping. And then there’s been his too-tepid support of equal rights for gays, although to his credit his weak support for the issue has been the strongest of any President to date. His health care reform can also be categorized as a civil rights issue, which may be his only real saving grace in this area. But unlike Bush’s tricky economic disasters and complex botched wars, the civil rights travesties enacted by Bush could have largely been fixed by Obama with the wave of an executive order wand. He’s failed to do so in most vital civil rights areas, which proves if nothing else that he’s barely a liberal, if he’s one at all. Grade: D-plus, and this is the area in which it would have been the easiest for him to get it right.
Leadership: The Wall Street Journal recently called Barack Obama a “loser” which is an odd term to apply to someone who won the Presidency in 2008, won the health care reform battle, won the Iraq war, won against Bin Laden, will probably win the 2011 budget battle against and overmatched John Boehner, and is likely to win re-election in 2012 against the lunatic likes of Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, or Mitt Romney – that is, if liberal voters are willing to hold their nose and vote a second time for Obama, who has turned out to be barely a liberal at best.
Lady Gaga Returns to Jimmy Kimmel Live in Support of Her New Album ‘Born This Way’
July 29, 2011 by Dana Feldman · Leave a Comment
by Dana Feldman
Lady Gaga returned to ABC’s ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’ on Thursday, July 28th for the first time since making her late night network television debut on the show back in October of 2008. It’s an understatement to say that a lot has happened to the five-time Grammy-winning pop singer-songwriter in the years since.
In support of her new album ‘Born This Way’ she preceded her live performance on Kimmel’s Outdoor Festival Stage in Hollywood, CA, with a chat with her old friend, Kimmel, about how her life has been since her first appearance not too many moons ago.
The enthralling live performance that followed can best be described as an epic block party of massive proportions. Kimmel shut down the entire city block behind his studio in order to accommodate Gaga’s legion of loyal fans, some of whom waited for over twenty hours to see a glimpse of her. They showed up en masse and were already wrapped around the block by 4PM. An estimated two thousand people were able to attend the free concert.
Included in the line-up was Gaga’s late-night television debut of her newest hit single You and I. In true Gaga style, as well as in pure adoration of her fans, whom she lovingly refers to as her ‘little monsters,’ she performed six songs even though she was only scheduled to perform three. In addition to You and I, she performed The Edge of Glory (which features the late and legendary Clarence Clemons on Sax), Judas (single 2), Born This Way and Hair.
Gaga has joined quite an elite club of musical artists who have managed to shut down the surrounding streets of Hollywood in anticipation of their performances on Kimmel. Other members of this musical royalty include the likes of Coldplay, Jay Z and Depeche Mode.
Learn more: LadyGaga.com • JimmyKimmelLive.com
Reggie Bush, Kyle Orton to Miami as Dolphins regime down in flames
July 27, 2011 by admin · 7 Comments
by Bill Palmer
After passing up on star quarterback Matt Ryan and taking a since-busted Chad Henne instead, the Dolphins regime ignored the need for a first round quarterback in this year’s draft because rookie quarterbacks don’t always develop in their first year and this regime only has one year to prove itself. So instead Ireland and Sparano are looking to give away future draft picks for journeyman QB Kyle Orton, along with giving him a fat new contract against the salary cap. In other words, whoever is running the Dolphins in 2012 will still have to pay Orton whether they keep him or not, along with the lost draft picks.
And then there’s the Reggie Bush move, as first reported by Jay Glazer of Fox Sports News. The Dolphins already have Ronnie Brown and Ricky Williams, one of the better (if aging) running back tandems in the league. But they’re both free agents, and so instead of re-signing one or both of them, the Fins are giving away future draft picks to obtain Bush despite the fact that he’s got a history of injuries more troublesome than that of Brown. Nevermind that “Ronnie and Ricky” are arguably the only thing that’s right about the Dolphins offense, and that whoever carries the ball in Miami will be stuck behind a broken offensive line which Ireland has been steadily making worse over the past couple seasons with his constant roster flux. And of course whoever takes over after Ireland is dismissed will also have to deal with Reggie’s contract.
You can’t blame the current Dolphins regime for shredding the franchise’s future in a desperate attempt to save their own jobs which won’t work; you’d do the same in their position. But the Dolphins owner, by allowing these pre-fired employees to continue running things for another year, has likely set his franchise back another five years in the process.
review: Ultimate Ears 500vi earbuds for iPhone, iPad and iPod
July 27, 2011 by Bill Palmer · Leave a Comment
by Bill Palmer
Once upon a time, finding iPhone-compatible earbuds with three buttons and a microphone meant spending more than a hundred dollars. But with the 500vi, Ultimate Ears brings those features to the $79 mark in an attempt to economize the premium earbud concept just a bit. The result is an interesting middle ground. The 500vi earbuds offer a stylish yet understated look, with the reflective chrome of the buds giving way to an otherwise all-black motif including cables which are as flat as rubber bands.
The audio is about what you’d hope for: while it doesn’t measure up to what you’d typically get from $99 or $119 earbuds, it is noticeably better than what you’d get from the best $49 earbuds. Thus Ultimate Ears achieves with the 500vi what most other can’t seem to pull off: a $79 earbud product which justifies its own price tag. The bass levels are slightly higher than what you might expect, but it’s subtle enough so as to be mainstream-recommendable. And it’s high quality bass, which again can be hard to find for this price. The overall audio is just a tad dry in comparison to what you’d get if you’d spent more money, but the 500vi puts the top $50-ish earbuds to shame. And that makes it a strong value proposition for those users who can’t quite afford products in the $100 range but want premium earbuds with three-button functionality. The included hardshell carrying case is a nice touch.
Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5 • Price: $79 • UltimateEars.com
U2 marks Amy Winehouse death with “Moment” tribute amid funeral
July 26, 2011 by Beatweek · Leave a Comment
Winehouse has also seen tributes from too many musicians to list, many of them coming via Twitter. Various singers have expressed shock or sadness at the loss, with others sharing their regrets over having never gotten to meet her or collaborate with her. Her death at age 27 comes as her third album is supposedly finished and awaiting release, which would likely take over the sales charts. As it stands, Winehouse’s previous albums Back To Black and Frank have been riding high on the iTunes charts, peaking at number one and number three overall respectively. Here’s more on the death of Amy Winehouse.
Automatic: iOS 5 download delivers itself to iPad 2, iPhone 4 for free
July 26, 2011 by Beatweek · Leave a Comment
by Johnny Major
Those iPhone 4 and iPad 2 users wondering how to get their hands on iOS 5 can rest easy: it’s a free automatic download. While those who line up for the upcoming new iPhone will find the new iOS 5 touchscreen operating system preinstalled, those opting to stick with an older iPhone like the 4 or the 3GS will receive it nearly as easily. The same goes for iPad 2 and iPad 1 users, along with recent iPod touch generations. The same way in which updates like the recent iOS 4.3.4 minor update are delivered is the same way in which you’ll get iOS 5: connect your iDevive to your computer, and iTunes will tell you that the iOS 5 update is ready for you. That notification can take several days so if you don’t want to wait, just manually click the “update” button once your hear that iOS 5 has gone live. The installation will take awhile but will take care of itself…
Two keys to iOS 5 happiness:
- After installing, run the “check for app updates” in iTunes. Some of your third party apps will have updated versions specifically designed to take advantage of iOS 5 features.
- Be realistic about your device. The iPhone 3GS is an older, slower device which will run iOS 5 but won’t be able to fully deliver on all of its features and will instead offer a scaled back iOS 5 experience. If you really want iOS 5 in all its glory, it may be time to get the new iPhone after all. Here’s more on the iPhone 5.
Spotify: Amy Winehouse dead, but her entire album catalog lives in app
July 25, 2011 by Beatweek · Leave a Comment
Forty-eight hours after she was found dead in her apartment, the late Amy Winehouse is still dominating the charts of the dominant iTunes music store. But she’s also emerged in an emergent new online music outlet, as Spotify has arrived in the United States just in time to allow those who never got around to checking out Amy’s music until now to listen to a free sampling of it. Both her 2006 album Black to Black and her 2003 record Frank, along with B-sides from both records and a handful of other one-off songs. Unlike iTunes, where you pay for a song and then permanently own a downloaded digital copy of it, Spotify is a free ad-supported music streaming service. Previously available only overseas, it recently launched in the U.S. via invite-only beta and has an iPhone and iPad app along with the desktop Mac and PC apps.
So what does this have to do with Winehouse? This is the first time in which a famous artist has passed since Spotify launched. The effect on the iTunes charts of Amy’s death is no surprise; similar chart spikes have been seen upon the passing of artists from Ray Charles to Michael Jackson. But this it the first time the public (or at least those who’ve been invited into Spotify thus far) have had the chance to sample her entire catalog for free via the service. The untimely passing of any popular artist often spurs others to suddenly wonder what they’d been missing out on, and become curious to check out their catalog.
Interestingly enough, while Rehab was easily Amy’s most commercially successful song, Spotify tells a different story thus far: Valerie and the title track from Back to Black both top it in terms of popularity.
Game over: iPhone 5 release date sees third to half of public in line
July 25, 2011 by Beatweek · Leave a Comment
A third to a half of the entire U.S. population says they’ll buy an iPhone 5 once its release date arrives, a move which screams “game over” in the ongoing iPhone-Android wars if the stats turn out to be true. Statistics are like cosmetics in that you can always ones which make your argument appear to look better than it really does, but a pair of independently conducted studies reveal that either a little more than a third or a little more than a half of Americans surveyed plan to make the iPhone 5 theirs. If words equal actions in this case, it’ll represent a significant shift in the current marketshare ratio between the iPhone/iOS and Android platforms, the latter of which has been growing faster even as the former retains the lead. So how is the iPhone 5, which hasn’t even been revealed yet and only exists in terms of being “whatever new iPhone Apple brings out to replace the iPhone 4″ already gobbling up so many customers? It’s arguably the same mindshare the iPhone has had all along, and the iPhone 5 just now finally represents the point at which mindshare becomes marketshare.
These numbers are not a representation of how what percentage of current iPhone users plan to upgrade, or how many current users of other smartphones plan to switch. This is out of the entire population, which is notable in that as many people still have yet to buy their first smartphone as already have. One third to one half of the population buying an iPhone 5 would suddenly dwarf the current marketshare of Android, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone 7 combined. It would give the iPhone 5 the kind of overwhelmingly dominating marketshare which Apple’s other iProducts like the iPad, iPod, and iTunes Store already enjoy. And therein lies the explanation as to what’s really going on here: the iPhone should have had majority marketshare all along, and has been primarily held back by certain key issues which will be resolved by the time of the iPhone 5 / iOS 5 era.
`First and foremost is the iPhone 5 arriving on Verizon and AT&T on the same release date. The Verizon iPhone 4 was a low-key, late-arriving bandaid a few months ago designed to keep Verizon customers from defecting to AT&T to get the iPhone; the move was all about saving Verizon from losing marketshare which was why Verizon handled the introduction and the bulk of the marketing. But now it’s Apple’s turn to benefit from the Verizon-Apple partnership, as the iPhone 5 arrives in position to scoop up all those loyal Verizon customers who bought a Droid last year because it was all Verizon offered, have since realized it’s not a suitable iPhone alternative, and are now back to wanting the iPhone they’ve wanted all along. The iPhone 5 is the first “new” iPhone to hit Verizon, and represents the jumping off point at which weary Droid users see themselves finally joining the pack. Verizon also hopes that the Verizon iPhone 5 will be the point at which T-Mobile and Sprint customers who’ve grown tired of waiting for the iPhone to come to them, or who’ve soured on their carriers’ in-house Android phones, decide to jump to Verizon for the iPhone 5.
There’s still no official word as to whether Apple will make that last part moot by bringing the iPhone 5 to Sprint and T-Mobile, although the expansion to Verizon made it clear that Apple no longer views carrier exclusivity as a good thing. Regardless, however, the iPhone 5 will have one thing which the iPhone 4 didn’t: a clean slate at launch. Even before the iPhone 4 was introduced, the public had already seen a prototype out of context with no chance for Apple to explain what it was all about. And within days of launch, Apple-hating geeks had conspired to concoct an “iPhone 4 antenna issue” which didn’t really exist and was instead merely an exploit of the minor pressure points which all cellphones have. Nonetheless, an unsuspecting public was tricked into believing the iPhone 4 had an “antenna problem” and many of them opted to skip it out of fear, despite the fact that everyone who owns an iPhone 4 knows there is no antenna issue and never was. Regardless, the result is that a significant chunk of the population who would have made the iPhone 4 their first iPhone instead decided to wait for the one which came after, which means that the iPhone 5 has another segment of those who will buy sight unseen beyond just those who’ve been holding out for carrier reasons.
Are there other reasons why the iPhone 5 is already so popular even before it officially exists? Sure. Yet another study from last year showed that the Android platform had a planned twenty-eight percent retention rate, with the other seventy-two percent planning to get something different for their next phone. As such, the overall consumer dissatisfaction with Android has the iPhone benefiting once again, as it’s the other mainstream smartphone platform. And with the iPhone 5 seeing release date within a month or two, it’ll be the specific beneficiary. This is all, of course, before Apple even introduces the new iPhone. If its features, specs, and design are appealing, those planned buyer numbers could climb even higher. Apple has been handed a golden opportunity with the iPhone 5, and must simply not blow it. Here’s more on the iPhone 5.
Premature: Amy Winehouse dead, no guarantee alcohol – drugs were cause
July 24, 2011 by Bill Palmer · Leave a Comment
by Bill Palmer
Even with the reports that she had purchased drugs as recently as the day before, that’s still no guarantee that they killed her or that she even got around to taking them. Something else could have struck her down. People at age 27 don’t usually die without a good reason, but there are other possible explanations. After all, look at the freakish oddball circumstances which nearly killed me – and the reasonable yet completely false circumstances made by people who were simply going on the evidence they had in front of them at the time. Let’s wait for the coroner’s report before we write Amy Winehouse’s obituary storyline as being that she died from a drug or alcohol overdose. If the world values her musical contributions and mourns her death as much it claims to, giving her the benefit of the doubt in the mean time, no matter how remote the odds, seems only fair. Here’s more on the death of Amy Winehouse.
Split: Captain America gets dollars as Harry Potter 7.2 retains critics
July 24, 2011 by Beatweek · Leave a Comment
Still, the news that Captain America debuted at number one is notable. Most people can’t name a single cast member (hint: “Agent Smith” actor Hugo Weaving from The Matrix is the most recognizable name in the villain role), even as Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and company are now household names as a result of having starred in seven previous successful Harry Potter movies. On the other hand, high profiles movies generally do better at the box office in their opening weekend than in their second one, making it not quite a fair comparison. And fans of the Harry Potter franchise will be quick to point out that very few movie franchises make it as far as their eighth movie (seventh sequel) and still manage to debut at number one amidst uniform critical praise, as HP 7.2 did last week.
Now we find out whether Captain America can retain its current number one status for another weekend, or whether word of mouth regarding the quality of Harry Potter 7.2 will usher it back into the top spot – or whether some other new release movie will top them both. Have you seen either or both movies so far? If so, let us know what you thought or which was your favorite in the comments section below.
