Artist: Testament & Jake E. Lee
Track: Seek And Destroy (Rhapsody Link)
As I huge fan of Testament, I tend to think that I've heard of every song they played, but obviously not this one, which I discovered today! There are 3 reasons for me to like this song:
1) It's by Testament!
2) It's from the early days of Metallica, which did not suck (yet)
3) Jake E. Lee played guitar on this. He was Ozzy Osbourne's former guitarist. Typical 80's guitar hero style!
Artist: Ratt, Gilby Clarke and L.A. Guns
Track: Sweet Child O' Mine (Rhapsody Link)
This is another interesting track, with former members of Guns N' Roses covering GNR's most famous song.
Friday, October 13, 2006
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Opinion: Can I find music I like on radio anymore?
Inspired by the story about WBEZ dropping jazz, I'm curious if I could still find music I like on air anymore. Turns out it is not that bad here in SF Bay Area.
On FM 90.5 KSJS, down in San Jose, there is a metal show "The Splatter Platter", from Tuesdays 10am-2pm. Check out its playlist. Very heavy stuff.
And FM 91.5 KKUP plays some blues and jazz. (Interesting story: a friend's friend played on this station during the blues marathon and that's how I knew about the station. The other day I was looking for it again but forgot the frequency and accidentally tuned into the above metal show on 90.5!)
And finally, in search of the great and probably non-existent jazz podcast that's supposed to displace jazz radio all over the country, I found Redjazz. The interesting thing is that it is broadcasted over the air on AM 1550 KYCY, the so-called "Open Source Radio."
As good as it is, there's no way it could replace the 24/7 jazz offerred by the local radio station KCSM. Here is the deal: if you could find me a daily podcast with 2 solid hours of jazz and classical music, I'll stop argue with you that jazz and classical are hogging public radio and should be taken off air.
On FM 90.5 KSJS, down in San Jose, there is a metal show "The Splatter Platter", from Tuesdays 10am-2pm. Check out its playlist. Very heavy stuff.
And FM 91.5 KKUP plays some blues and jazz. (Interesting story: a friend's friend played on this station during the blues marathon and that's how I knew about the station. The other day I was looking for it again but forgot the frequency and accidentally tuned into the above metal show on 90.5!)
And finally, in search of the great and probably non-existent jazz podcast that's supposed to displace jazz radio all over the country, I found Redjazz. The interesting thing is that it is broadcasted over the air on AM 1550 KYCY, the so-called "Open Source Radio."
As good as it is, there's no way it could replace the 24/7 jazz offerred by the local radio station KCSM. Here is the deal: if you could find me a daily podcast with 2 solid hours of jazz and classical music, I'll stop argue with you that jazz and classical are hogging public radio and should be taken off air.
Service: Jazz Radio on WBEZ
From this article:
"A Station Research Group multiyear study from 1999 through 2004 showed that of public radio's primary formats, jazz stations had the lowest average loyalty and lowest average time spent listening. The same study showed that the most dramatic audience growth came from all-news stations."
So, Chicago's radio station WBEZ replacing jazz programming by news seems like a very logical choice. It's sad news to jazz lover like myself though.
The same article also mentioned that iPod's popularity is another contributing factor to this decision, i.e., people'd rather listen to jazz on their own iPod than to radio. I'm not too sure about this one though. I recall there's something hugely popular before iPod and it's called Walkman.
[Update: apparently a lot of people care and discussed this topic]
"A Station Research Group multiyear study from 1999 through 2004 showed that of public radio's primary formats, jazz stations had the lowest average loyalty and lowest average time spent listening. The same study showed that the most dramatic audience growth came from all-news stations."
So, Chicago's radio station WBEZ replacing jazz programming by news seems like a very logical choice. It's sad news to jazz lover like myself though.
The same article also mentioned that iPod's popularity is another contributing factor to this decision, i.e., people'd rather listen to jazz on their own iPod than to radio. I'm not too sure about this one though. I recall there's something hugely popular before iPod and it's called Walkman.
[Update: apparently a lot of people care and discussed this topic]
Podcast: The Roadhouse
The name of this podcast is probably inspired by the song "Roadhouse Blues" and it is indeed a podcast about blues music. I recommend it because it strikes a good balance between well-known and lesser-known artists.
Here are links to its website and its podcast feed in case you want to use it with a Podcast client.
Here are links to its website and its podcast feed in case you want to use it with a Podcast client.
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Service: XM Liquid Metal is BACK!
This is kinda old news. XM has put Liquid Metal back on air last month after about a year of hiatus (it was available online only during that period.) Hurray! I guess XM heard too many metal fans bitched about it. Power to the people! (well, power to metal fans actually)
What does it mean to me since I wasn't a subscriber of XM? I am a Directv customer and Directv switched their music provider from Music Choice to XM last year. Music Choice has fairly decent metal programming. When I heard that Music Choice's Metal channel would be replaced by XM's Squizz channel. I thought WTF 'coz Squizz is more of an alt. rock station and that's when I realized Liquid Metal was canned.
Now I'm one happy Liquid Metal listener rocking to "Are You Dead Yet?" by Children of Bodom!
What does it mean to me since I wasn't a subscriber of XM? I am a Directv customer and Directv switched their music provider from Music Choice to XM last year. Music Choice has fairly decent metal programming. When I heard that Music Choice's Metal channel would be replaced by XM's Squizz channel. I thought WTF 'coz Squizz is more of an alt. rock station and that's when I realized Liquid Metal was canned.
Now I'm one happy Liquid Metal listener rocking to "Are You Dead Yet?" by Children of Bodom!
Thursday, March 09, 2006
Service: My experience with Napster-To-Go, part 2
If we take the To-Go portion out of equation, how does Napster do in general?
Let me start with its weaknesses:
1) Poor selection compared to Rhapsody in the genres I like (jazz, blues, classical, metal) Lots of artists have none or only few songs available. For example, Jimmy Bruno and Jimmy Raney aren't exactly household names but they are well represented on Rhapsody, not on Napster though.
2) Poor user interface: it just ain't user friendly. For example, on some artist's page, the top pane (list of album) is too big and makes the bottom pane (list of song) too small. Users like me are more interested in the bottom pane, which allows me to pick songs to download. Another examples are cryptic radio station names like "Crossroads." You would never know if you're not a blues fan already. Doesn't it discourage users to explore music they are not familiar with?
3) Poor classification/information:
For example, "Top albums" of Blues are Confessions by Usher and #1 by Destiny's Child!
And there is no consistency: following a certain navigation path you may see John Coltrane filed under Blues. Everytime I click on Top Artists under Blues I see a different list. Sometimes the album has a "download album" link next to it but I found that even if it doesn't say so, songs from the album might still be available for download when I click the album to drill down.
Nevertheless, it does have some nice features:
1) its radio feature actually generates playlists instead of streaming. Why is this a good feature? It allows listener to keep a record of what has been played so that (s)he could download all or some of them in a shot later on.
2) In addition to the "radio station" Napster created for every user, you could build custom station based on all songs in your library or your current playlist. This is more flexible than the more common way of setting up custom station based on artists/genre.
3) This is just me being nostalgic: the download window really reminds me of the good old days of the original Napster :P
The verdict? I don't think I'd switch to Napster since it charges the same as Rhapsody (and more than Yahoo) I do hope Napster will improve 'coz more competition in the digital music business could only be a good thing for consumers like myself.
Let me start with its weaknesses:
1) Poor selection compared to Rhapsody in the genres I like (jazz, blues, classical, metal) Lots of artists have none or only few songs available. For example, Jimmy Bruno and Jimmy Raney aren't exactly household names but they are well represented on Rhapsody, not on Napster though.
2) Poor user interface: it just ain't user friendly. For example, on some artist's page, the top pane (list of album) is too big and makes the bottom pane (list of song) too small. Users like me are more interested in the bottom pane, which allows me to pick songs to download. Another examples are cryptic radio station names like "Crossroads." You would never know if you're not a blues fan already. Doesn't it discourage users to explore music they are not familiar with?
3) Poor classification/information:
For example, "Top albums" of Blues are Confessions by Usher and #1 by Destiny's Child!
And there is no consistency: following a certain navigation path you may see John Coltrane filed under Blues. Everytime I click on Top Artists under Blues I see a different list. Sometimes the album has a "download album" link next to it but I found that even if it doesn't say so, songs from the album might still be available for download when I click the album to drill down.
Nevertheless, it does have some nice features:
1) its radio feature actually generates playlists instead of streaming. Why is this a good feature? It allows listener to keep a record of what has been played so that (s)he could download all or some of them in a shot later on.
2) In addition to the "radio station" Napster created for every user, you could build custom station based on all songs in your library or your current playlist. This is more flexible than the more common way of setting up custom station based on artists/genre.
3) This is just me being nostalgic: the download window really reminds me of the good old days of the original Napster :P
The verdict? I don't think I'd switch to Napster since it charges the same as Rhapsody (and more than Yahoo) I do hope Napster will improve 'coz more competition in the digital music business could only be a good thing for consumers like myself.
Sunday, March 05, 2006
Service: My experience with Napster-To-Go, part 1
Almost a year after last time I wrote about Napster-To-Go, I finally get to try it out (free trial of course) with my newly acquired Sandisk Sansa m240, one of the cheapest PlaysForSure Subscription compatible player out there. (Sidenote: I bet a lot of people would be surprised that Sandisk is No.2 in US MP3 player market They did it by building solid and competitively priced products instead of hype. I think there's something to learn from their approach.)
Remember I wrote the service sounded exciting? I still agree with that, but the keyword is the quantifier: "theoretically." Practically speaking, I ran into these problems:
1) sometimes I got errors for no explanation, during downloading of songs to my computer or transferring to the player.
2) songs are transferred to the player very slowly, much slower than copying DRM-less MP3s using Windows Explorer. I bet the overhead for handling the DRM (digital right management, or copy protection in layperson's term) is pretty big.
3) the Napster client cannot tell what is loaded on my player consistently.
To summarize, this is the exact opposite of good end-to-end experience like what you get from iPod + iTunes I am not sure if these problems are Napster only or it is universal across all PlaysForSure Subscription services (i.e., Napster, Rhapsody and Yahoo Music Unlimited) since I haven't tried To-Go with others. (In other words, how much could they blame on Microsoft, the vendor of PlaysForSure DRM technology?) In any case, simply copying iTunes' look and feel into Napster most likely cannot make it happen.
In the next part of this series, I'll compare the non-To-Go portion of Napster with Rhapsody.
Remember I wrote the service sounded exciting? I still agree with that, but the keyword is the quantifier: "theoretically." Practically speaking, I ran into these problems:
1) sometimes I got errors for no explanation, during downloading of songs to my computer or transferring to the player.
2) songs are transferred to the player very slowly, much slower than copying DRM-less MP3s using Windows Explorer. I bet the overhead for handling the DRM (digital right management, or copy protection in layperson's term) is pretty big.
3) the Napster client cannot tell what is loaded on my player consistently.
To summarize, this is the exact opposite of good end-to-end experience like what you get from iPod + iTunes I am not sure if these problems are Napster only or it is universal across all PlaysForSure Subscription services (i.e., Napster, Rhapsody and Yahoo Music Unlimited) since I haven't tried To-Go with others. (In other words, how much could they blame on Microsoft, the vendor of PlaysForSure DRM technology?) In any case, simply copying iTunes' look and feel into Napster most likely cannot make it happen.
In the next part of this series, I'll compare the non-To-Go portion of Napster with Rhapsody.
Monday, February 06, 2006
Artist: The Rolling Stones
When I told my dad the Super Bowl performance will be broadcasted with a delay just in case they need to edit out improper scenes, in light of the now infamous wardrobe malfunction fiasco back in 2004, my dad asked what improper thing the Stones could do? I said maybe Mick Jagger might drop his pants.
Well, it turned out the Stones' performance was indeed censored, not for Jagger's pants though. The word "come" in the line "you make a dead man come" from "Start Me Up" and the word "cocks" in their new song "Rough Justice" were silenced. No wonder Jagger's singing sounded so weird to me. I wouldn't believe Jagger would choke for such a high-profile performance especially given the amount of "practice" they got from their extensive touring schedule.
I think this is really lame but that's just another indicator that America is ruled by ultraconservatives. Their mind was stucked in 1967, when the Stones' lyric was censored on the Ed Sullivan shows back then.
Well, it turned out the Stones' performance was indeed censored, not for Jagger's pants though. The word "come" in the line "you make a dead man come" from "Start Me Up" and the word "cocks" in their new song "Rough Justice" were silenced. No wonder Jagger's singing sounded so weird to me. I wouldn't believe Jagger would choke for such a high-profile performance especially given the amount of "practice" they got from their extensive touring schedule.
I think this is really lame but that's just another indicator that America is ruled by ultraconservatives. Their mind was stucked in 1967, when the Stones' lyric was censored on the Ed Sullivan shows back then.
Saturday, February 04, 2006
Podcast: Metal Injection Guerilla Radio
IMO Metal Injection has become a force to be reckoned with in the area of metal media. Its Guerilla Radio is a group of podcasts that gear towards different sub-genre of metal. My favorites are the Entropy League and MSRCast, both of them are mentioned in this blog before and just recently joined force with Metal Injection.
In addition to these 2, Dead Zone is growing on me too. If there's a podcast episode that I wanna listen to over and over again, this one for melodic death metal gotta be it. Prior to this my only exposure to melodic death was pretty much limited to Children of Bodom. The bands on this podcast might not be as famous but are equally awesome. BTW, I think the term melodic death is kind of a misnomer. Death metal as it was played by its forefathers like Death and Obituary sounded quite melodic to me! In any case, the return to more emphasis on good guitar playing (especially solo!) is definitely a direction I'm glad to see.
In addition to these 2, Dead Zone is growing on me too. If there's a podcast episode that I wanna listen to over and over again, this one for melodic death metal gotta be it. Prior to this my only exposure to melodic death was pretty much limited to Children of Bodom. The bands on this podcast might not be as famous but are equally awesome. BTW, I think the term melodic death is kind of a misnomer. Death metal as it was played by its forefathers like Death and Obituary sounded quite melodic to me! In any case, the return to more emphasis on good guitar playing (especially solo!) is definitely a direction I'm glad to see.
Friday, January 20, 2006
Service: Cellphone music download
For those who think it's outrageous to pay $2.5 per track to download music to your cell phone from your carrier, you haven't seen nothing yet!
According to Next Magazine in Hong Kong, a Hong Kong 3G service provider, 3, is providing a music service that allows you to listen to music 10 hours per month for a promotional rate of $2.3 (~HK$18) Sound like a good deal huh? Here's the catch: each song you download costs $1.15 (~HK$9)!
This is what I call greediness with a capital G!
According to Next Magazine in Hong Kong, a Hong Kong 3G service provider, 3, is providing a music service that allows you to listen to music 10 hours per month for a promotional rate of $2.3 (~HK$18) Sound like a good deal huh? Here's the catch: each song you download costs $1.15 (~HK$9)!
This is what I call greediness with a capital G!
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