Hummingbird Mentality

Happy birthday to the Thin White Duke, Aladin Sane, Ziggy StarDust, the Laughing Gnome, the pioneer of psychedelic folk, glam, new romanticism, stadium rock, drum and base.

Happy birthday to the explorer and exploiter of subjectivity, derangement, fascism, drama and androgyny, listed as an influence by countless musicians like Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Joy Division, Kate Bush, REM, Marylin Manson, and Radio Head, and the rockiest rocker of the all.

Happy birthday Ireland’s greatest resident artist. Happy birthday David Bowie.

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The folk at Axehole have responded to my post (responding to their post) about eMusic, DRM and the like.

Gareth Stack posts a well reasoned counter-argument to this post at his blog, Hummingbird Mentality. It’s an interesting read, though we’re not convinced.

One note - he takes issue with my characterization of eMusic’s service as a subscription, saying you get to keep the songs. I think he may have misunderstood my point - that you’re not buying songs with eMusic, you’re buying a subscription.

Check out the rest of their post for more detail.

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I try to stay in touch with the quirky world of American indie music via the excellent Brooklyn Vegan blog, normally it’s dishes of Alt Country, New American Weird, Post Punk and other musical gumbo are served just the way I like them. However, a recent post has left a bad taste in my mouth.

Brooklyn Vegan links to an article on Axehole (another music blog) entitled “Why Bloggers Don’t Run Record Companies“. The article is itself a response to the excitement surrounding the announcement that eMusic (a DRM free digital music store) have reached 100 million songs sold; and suggests that this figure is irrelevant next to the awe and majesty of music sales through the iTunes music store.

I feel it’s important to tackle many of the points made in this article, because they represent the same misconceptions that are held around online music by the mainstream media. Before I begin, I’d like to point out that I have no affiliation with eMusic.

Axehole’s main points (and my rebuttals) are as follows..

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This is the most amazing example of throat singing I have ever heard.

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I don’t buy the argument the the iPod - iTunes packages own the digital market due to the wonderful convenience of the iTunes store. Yes iTunes is one of the major reasons for the iPod’s success. The same is not necessarily true of the iTunes store, at least not in Europe, where the store didn’t even open for a full year after the US version, long after iPod units began flying off the shelves in 2002.

Frankly, I don’t know anyone who buys music from the iTunes store, even now - perhaps because it’s far less common for Irish students to have credit cards, than their American contemporaries. Using the iTunes store has never made sense from a behavioral economics perspective; as purchasing a CD through Amazon or Cd Wow is just as easy, cheaper, and provides access to the original media to rip, mix, burn as much as desired. More importantly for students, CD’s (and Mp3’s) are much easier to share and borrow. 200 million songs sold in two years might seem like a lot, but it’s still a drop in the ocean next to the tracks purchased on CD and traded on file sharing networks.

The iTunes software is on the other hand, ubiquitously used to rip and burn CD’s, manage Mp3 / M4a collections, and most importantly to sync iPods. It’s this - the convenience and usability of the iTunes - iPod combination, that has given Apple such a lead. Hell, the store is a loss leader. Would this integration be so difficult to mimic?

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Interesting! It appears Microsoft’s new Zune player is nothing more than a repackaged Toshiba Gigabeat. This from Wikipedia, by way of Gadgetell.

[Toshiba] “1089″ and The Zune

Microsoft’s Zune is a branded version of the new “1089″ model of the Gigabeat. Due to a very tight release schedule, Microsoft worked with Toshiba to modify the Gigabeat firmware, outer-casing and user interface…The Zune is identical to Toshiba’s 1089 model’s specifications… After the initial launch, Microsoft will take-over production and manufacturing of the Zune from Toshiba.

Hilarious. Despite reading about the Zune’s many glaring limitations [1][2][3][4], I’d managed to miss this. Microsoft didn’t even make the damn thing! This explains so much. Why Zune doesn’t integrate with Windows Media Player, doesn’t work with Windows Vista, and why it’s apparently so well designed (the crippling un-features are afterthoughts). Hardy har har, Microsoft can’t even build it’s own Mp3 player!

It does make you wonder why the hardware companies who produce these wonder machines don’t just go their own way and get them into the market. It’s an open secret that Apple didn’t design the original iPod, but instead adapted the design from a prospective product from a tiny company called Portal Player.

Another interesting line from the Wiki..

The Gigabeat line was chosen because of its tight integration with Windows Media Player and its support for the PlayForSure DRM standard.

Makes you wonder why the finished device doesn’t support PlaysForSure.

As promised, here’s our version, direct from Dublin Ireland, ‘Cheated Hearts, Uncutted’!

Direct download: Large Xvid, Small Xvid

Some friends and I recorded a video entry for the ‘Cheated Hearts’ contest run by NY punk band the ‘Yeah Yeah Yeahs’. The contest aimed to put together a host of fan made videos, much in the style of Feeder’s classic ‘Just a Day‘. Well the final cut is out, and should be blanketing MTV right now, and (while the result is not quite as original or exciting as Feeders original) we made the cut. In the coming weeks I’ll chop together a full length version of our entry, and throw it up on Youtube. But for the moment you’ll have to be content with the official video! Check it out above.

Hint: The subtitle to our two seconds of fame is ‘Dublin Ireland’.

Credits: Fiona Doyle, Ronan O’Broin, Daniel O’Donovan, Gareth Stack.

If you’re a fan of Bright Eyes, Travis Morrison or any of this generation of quirky painfully honest eccentric singer songwriters; you should run, not walk, to the nearest record store and buy a Daniel Johnston cd.

Johnston, a fascinating character, much beloved of luminaries from Kurt Cobain to Sonic Youth, is the subject of a documentary film ‘The Devil and Daniel Johnston‘ (which Google tells me was screened at the IFI last October), that tracks his tragic decline into institutionalisation, and recovery as an artist.

Johnston is highly prolific with over 30 albums, I’d recommend 2004’s ‘Discovered Covered: The Late, Great Daniel Johnston’ as a starting point. The record combines a best of with a variety of cover/collaborations with musicians from Eels, Death Cab, Mercury Rev, The Flaming Lips, Bright Eyes and TV On The Radio. Go on, you know you want it!

Ps: You can hear what Daniel actually sounds like here.