Today Apple has an event introducing their new iPod lineup. Included in the iPod lineup is the Apple TV device which as many people are reporting is due for an update today. While this will be a media based device, it could also function as an iPad for your TV. Especially if the rumors are correct that it will run the iOS that the iPhone and iPad share. So it might be possible that the Apple TV could be an HTML5 delivery device. The iLife software is due for an update, so instead of iDVD being updated, there could be an HTML5 creation app. It’s less than 2 hours from now, so we’ll see soon enough. I would like Apple to support this open standard, and make it easy for the average person to create content for these devices. I’d love to see a mix of Netflix, network television, and user-generated content playable on these devices. A guy can dream right?

Flickr photo by justinsomnia

It’s about time I blogged this, so why not go with New Year’s Day, 2009. This post could also be titled, “What to do while waiting for a Blur Reunion”. I had every intention of posting this in June after seeing Monkey: Journey to the West at the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, S.C. Busy weeks followed and summer came and went. At the end of August an album was released of the music from Monkey, and it was a surprise hit in the U.K. Should have blogged it then. Next, the trials and tribulations of buying a new house and now here we are at the beginning of a new year. So it’s time to tell you about this wonderful experience called Monkey.

I went with my wife and son and the first few minutes things are loud and everything is coming right at you – and we were in the front row! My then 5 year-old son wasn’t sure what he had gotten himself into. Things settled down a bit after the initial excitement. The story is fairly easy to follow, even though the dialog is in Mandarin. There were subtitles for the show, but for us to see them we were almost literally looking straight up into the air. The show was so compelling that it truly wasn’t worth the pain of craning my neck.

A fine synopsis of the show can be found at Wikipedia, but it’s a classic Chinese folk tale that has been told numerous times. In England, in the late 70’s, Monkey was a TV show that Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett loved to watch. Kind of the equivalent of the Kung Fu series here in the states, Monkey Magic memories are what gave Albarn and Hewlett the impetus to work on the opera. Albarn is the musician behind the real-life band Blur, the animated band Gorillaz, and the superb one-off work entitled The Good, the Bad, and the Queen. Hewlett is the animator of the afore mentioned Gorillaz as well as the cultish Tank Girl comic.

As Manchester International Festival (where Monkey debuted in 2007) director Alex Poots points out, the original meaning of the word opera means “works”, meaning different art forms coming together. This is like no other opera you have seen. The unique nature of this show is what has earned it rave reviews. Aside from the one stateside run, the show has mostly played in the U.K. A film version of the production has not to this point been confirmed, but if it ever materializes, I couldn’t more highly recommend that you see it. Certainly, if you have a chance to see the live opera, do not hesitate to get tickets.

In addition to the trailer from the show above, I recommend you take in Damon and Jamie’s Excellent Adventure available after creating an account at Blurcast.tv or you can watch the aggregated YouTube videos located in an experimental site with a working title of YouTube Documentaries. Happy New Year!

This is just extra special news for me personally. I’ve known about the possibility of this reunion for a few weeks now, but seeing others in my Twitter network tweet about it makes it very much more real. Blur, one of my recently discovered favorite bands, are getting back together and doing at least one summer ‘09 concert. I’ve especially been on a Damon Albarn kick for the last year and a half, having seen his Monkey: Journey to the West opera in Charleston S.C. this past June (more on that in a future post). This is some damn fine news!

Have I ever told you how fortunate I am (we are) to have a colleague like Gardner Campbell here at Mary Washington? There are many examples of sparks that have fired from my head after listening to a Gardner talk, or speech, or riff, or even watching him in a jam session. However, the one I witnessed tonight will be, I think, THE most memorable. People attending the Great Lives Lecture Series sponsored by the Department of History and American Studies witnessed a happening on April 8, 2008. At least I did. You would never expect Gardner to give an ordinary talk at a Great Lives event, as his lecture on Elvis in 2005 indicates. This was a unique example of “I went to a lecture and a concert broke out!”

He came with his “A” game tonight, as the “Gardner Campbell Dancers” (my name for them) started things off with a short Beatles Medley. Bill Crawley then introduced Gardner with the pride that we all feel in having him on this campus. Gardner, of course, took the stage and immediately showed us his self-effacing humor. He then began his talk. No, that’s such a meek word. He began his sermon, and I mean that in the most agnostic, and yet old tyme gospel hour way. He mocked the Apocalypse by imagining how the world would end, “Beatles Style.” Would it be “Here Comes the Sun”? The brief horn part before the chorus in “Penny Lane”? How about the ending piano chord from “A Day In the Life”? Or, just “THE chord” from the opening of “A Hard Days Night”? Where did that chord come from anyway?

From then on it was a history of the Beatles driven by pure energy. The years 1962- 1970 passed by at a frenetic pace. I think Gardner took a breath in there somewhere. When it was all over, and it was over waaaayyy too soon, he took questions. He answered them like an excited kid who had all this information bottled up inside. It was apparent that each answer could go on as long as the original talk, but he exercised great restraint. I had no doubt going in that I would learn something new. The birth of the “drop T” Beatles logo was my little nugget. The audience that was in attendance seemed to be quite knowledgeable as well, but they were there as much to re-affirm their vows to this great band, more than 40 years on. After the final question was asked, “Are the Beatles still relevant?”, Gardner and crew gave us our answer. Gardner’s trippy, psychedelic shirt was donned for a rendition of “Hey Jude”, and soon the auditorium was filled to the gold UMW crest on the ceiling with choruses of “Na, na na na na na na, na na na na, Hey Jude!” Still relevant? I would say amen, and Amen!

UPDATE: The video of Gardo’s talk is finally up! The “Hey Jude” song is cut off because of what I believe would be a “sync licensing” issue.

Thanks to an intrepid UMW Blogger, it was brought to my attention that one of my favorite bands is releasing their new album as a download on October 10. How much will it cost. Well, you name the price. "No really, it’s up to you."

I never really care about how much a record sells by a band. It has no correlation to whether the music is any good or not. However, this will be pure profit going to the band, and it’s up to the listener what that profit is. It’s time to find out whether this free-love, hippy, Internet stuff is really worth anything. I don’t know the details about whether there is any DRM on the digital tracks, but knowing Radiohead, I’m guessing not. So how will that affect piracy? Well, since you CAN type in "0.00" Why would you pirate this?

The remix as promotion. I came across a great example of this via the ccMixter website, which is a Creative Commons project site that allows you to use, re-use, and remix vocals, instrumental music, and other sound samples into new compositions. All this with the benefit of a Creative Commons license. It’s an interesting site to explore, with a wide range of musical flavors.

So who is Calendar Girl? Well, let me first tell you the story of the discovery. At the ccMixter site I followed the “editors picks” link to a song called “May (apeskinny mix).” For some reason, before I played the song, I noticed a section on the page labeled “Uses samples from:” and clicked on “May“. It was an acappella vocal with a light jazzy feel. So here is the vocal of “May”, and this inspires this version, the “apeskinny mix”. Other versions with widely varying styles are available, or you’re certainly free to create your own version. You are free to mix it up, as long as you give attribution to calendargirl and you keep it non-commercial, as the Creative Commons license states.

Calendar Girl can be found at her Calendar Songs website, where her goal is to write a song a month (she started in October of 2006), and have people write music for the vocal, and then create an album of twelve songs. Certainly a cool idea, and enabled only by the power of Creative Commons. If you care to further delve into the personality of Calendar Girl, she has a “disco alter-ego” that is part of Freeform Five (though I only counted four). She also has a YouTube presence.

May (apeskinny mix) is a hauntingly groovy song. What makes this composition process even cooler is the ability to comment with the artists. Imagine it. Social music creation.

Hey, I’m thinking of starting a band. So you live in London and you live in Hong Kong? No problem!

(a.k.a. Kid Zeppelin)

I’ve been heavy into Led Zep lately, so when I found this video it was blogs away! Enjoy, and I dare you to keep your lower jaw from dropping. Linktribution to Respectful Insolence.

This snuck up on me, just like June itself, but it’s the 40th anniversary of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. I could give you my take on it, but this article does a fine job of describing the greatest album of all time (start the argument in the comments). I’d like to able to say what it felt like the day it was released, but at the time I was not quite three, and likely had more important issues to deal with. But, I know my brother, who is nine years older listened to it, over, and Over, and OVER. It was his obsession. It was unique in so many ways that it was a different experience every time you listened to it. Albums previous to this were just a collection of songs by an artist or a group. Sgt. Pepper changed the meaning of an album, and it’s refreshing to think about it 40 years later in this era of $.99 music downloads. So some time this month, attempt to sit down and listen to all the songs all at once. Preferably listen to the LP at 33 1/3 rpm on a Hi-Fi.