The Italian parliament passed a new copyright law in both houses that would allow citizens to share noncommercial and degraded music over the internet freely.
That’s going to hurt – but some say it happened totally unknowingly – we’ll see what happens.
On this day…
Can we fast-forward to November 8th please?
Hell freezes over: the Rolling Stones will reportedly quit touring for good after playing London’s O2 Arena this Sunday after 45 years in the music business.
The veteran rockers are believed to have declared that their current A Bigger Bang Tour will be their last because frontman Sir Mick Jagger, 64, and guitarist Keith Richards, 63, will be too old to do another.
I find that quote irresistibly funny for some reason.
I’m going to take a little break from this blog. No worries though: regular posting should resume in the not so distant future. In the meantime have a look at our future prime-minister Yves Leterme, as he sings what he thinks is the Belgian national anthem. Ouch…
While I mull over the rather baffling results of yesterday’s Belgian elections, may I direct you toward Crush All Boxes: a Zappa-centric blog well worth keeping an eye on.
Music recordings these days are becoming entirely TOO LOUD. Peter Mew, senior mastering engineer at Abbey Road studios:
“Record companies are competing in an arms race to make their album sound the ‘loudest’. The quieter parts are becoming louder and the loudest parts are just becoming a buzz.” Mr Mew, who joined Abbey Road in 1965 and mastered David Bowie’s classic 1970s albums, warned that modern albums now induced nausea.
Via Esoteric Trivia
… John Lennon and Yoko Ono joined Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention on stage at the Fillmore East where they performed three songs – “Well (Baby Please Don’t Go)”, “Scumbag”, and “Au”. Yoko arranged for the event to be filmed and audio of the songs were later released on John Lennon’s album, “Some Time in New York City“. Just in case the Sgt. Pepper album’s 40th anniversary hype has been getting on your nerves, here’s a clip of the rather infamous “Scumbag“. More, as ever, on YouTube.
Redheads, and how they suffer. Photographer Charlotte Rushton has been chronicling the UK’s redheads for a book, Ginger Snaps. Of the 300 she snapped, only two have been spared bullying because of their hair:
“I was on the Tube, pregnant, and I was really humiliated by this drunk yob. He was shouting ‘do the cuffs and the collars match?’ He got right up into my face. You don’t do that to other people.” She believes the phenomenon is long-standing and uniquely British in its most virulent form.
Doesn’t he look like one happy space cadet?
“It was amazing,” Prof Hawking said after the flight. “The zero-G part was wonderful and the higher-G part was no problem. I could have gone on and on. Space, here I come!” he said.
With Apple and EMI announcing “higher quality” (256 kbps) DRM-free music on the iTunes store at a slightly higher price, one might wonder whether the difference between the two can be heard at all.
Are iTunes’ Premium Downloads Worth It?
Probably not. Studies have found that as long as you’re using high-quality encoding software, music compressed to a bitrate of 128 kbps or more is “transparent”—in other words, most listeners can’t distinguish it from CD quality.
I have a pretty good idea what your response to that will be… :)
Snow ranging in colour from light yellow to orange and carrying a distinctive “musty” odour was observed yesterday in five districts of Omsk province, which lies in western Siberia and borders Kazakhstan.
Ain’t no Huskie wee-wee either, methinks…
Michael Moore to Bush: send even MORE troops (and you go too)!
Another few thousand is simply not enough to find those weapons of mass destruction! Er, I mean… bringing those responsible for 9/11 to justice! Um, scratch that. Try this — BRING DEMOCRACY TO THE MIDDLE EAST! YES!!!
A great idea — oh, and this might help too!