music
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Paths
We’re in the phone book! We’re real now! MyTerms now has a YouTube channel. The one item there, so far, is a short and remarkably good NotebookLM summary of my hour-long talk, The Case for MyTerms, at Indiana University. Also, Gemini failed. I still don’t know who she was. I think we could have powered two… Continue reading
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Discoveries
Overheard "This TV isn't just HD. It's ADHD." "What does the AD stand for?" "Advanced Digital, I think." How about Water Stain? I still hate Liquid Glass. As a design language it mumbles. I'm especially turned off by semi-transparent type that makes stuff such as the time on my phone semi-readable. Let's give it a better… Continue reading
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Linklings
Hiss After AM Cuts, Tesla Dropping FM Radio From Entry Level Models. I want one Companion Intelligence looks very close to what I've been calling for here. What's the opposite? Darius Van Arman has a lot to say about market concentration. (For reasons I can't grok, the long headline is uncopyable.) Continue reading
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Possible facts
Which is the most fun? Click on every busClick here to continue the surveyAccept the use of cookiesCreate accountReset passwordAre you still here? And is that why your famous School of Journalism got turned into the Media Department? NiemanLab: “Biased,” “boring,” “chaotic,” and “bad”: A majority of teens hold negative views of news media, report… Continue reading
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Thursday
And having any readers is better than having none. So far (2:30 pm), this blog post has had three visitors. (Update at 11pm: eleven visitors.) And I’m not even sure those visitors have read any of this. Meanwhile, Online Sports Betting is For Losers is now up to 3,252 visits, second all-time behind Death is… Continue reading
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Wednesday
Advertising corrupts and digital advertising corrupts absolutely. When my wife bought her new iPhone 16, the salesperson showed off Apple Intelligence by demonstrating how it would help her shop by pointing the camera at something… or whatever, I don’t remember. What I do remember was that the salesperson, and presumably Apple, assumed that most of… Continue reading
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Monday
Just some facts. No interpretations. This blog post got nine reads by the end of the day. This photo got about the same. The photo above has had 22,122 views, 421 faves, and 21 comments. And lots more views every day. It may also be the best photo I’ve ever taken from the window of… Continue reading
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Media Matters
Missing Mike. My favorite songwriter and performer is Mike Cross. He was headed to a career in law as an undergrad at UNC-Chapel Hill when a music bug bit him, he learned to play fiddle and guitar, and then to perform in local bars and clubs. I couldn’t count how many times I went to… Continue reading
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Musical Moments
I need to learn French. This is lovely. Who is this girl? Here's one clue. Another. Look for more. Never heard of her before today. Hello, I still love you. The Doors are 60 this year. Or would have been. Good and legendary as they were, I think they are woefully underrated. Manzarek, Densmore, and Krieger… Continue reading
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Musictown
The final round of the 10th Indiana International Guitar Competition just happened, here, as well as in the natural world. We saw it in the latter. Amazing performances. Bloomington is a fabulous small city anyway, but the Jacobs School of Music—and the whole music scene here—puts Bloomington over the top for us. In addition to… Continue reading
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Ripples
The song “Ripple,” by the Grateful Dead, never fails to move me. Here’s a live performance by the Dead, in 1980, on YouTube. My favorite version, however, is this one by KPIG’s Fine Swine Orchestra, recorded by Santa Cruz musicians sheltering in place during the pandemic. That’s a screen grab, above. I am pretty sure… Continue reading
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The New News Business
Eigth in the News Commons series. Back when I was on the board of my regional Red Cross chapter (this one), I learned four lessons about fund raising: People are glad to pay value for value. People are most willing to pay when they perceive and appreciate the value they get from a product or… Continue reading
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An exercise in perspective
I wrote this today for a list that’s mostly populated by folks in overlapping music, broadcasting, legal, tech, and other businesses who share a common interest in what’s happening to the arts and artists they care about in a world now turning almost completely digital.—Doc Here is a question I hope can get us out… Continue reading
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Loving Leonard
I was as deeply affected by learning Leonard Cohen died as I was by the election results. Maybe more. I can’t name an artist whose songs mean more to me than his. Not Dylan, not (I’m thinking…) anybody. (Here’s how he lifted me one time when I was sick a few years ago.) Through the… Continue reading
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Watch Jesus this weekend
Every year about this time I lament the absence of a good copy of Franco Zefferelli‘s Jesus of Nazareth, which aired as a mini-series on low-def TV in 1977, though it was surely filmed in at least 35mm stock. But this year, to my amazement, there is an HD version on YouTube. It seems to… Continue reading
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What she does
Over the holidays I asked my nineteen-year-old son, a music maven, to name a tune he liked that I probably hadn’t heard. He quickly brought up “What You Don’t Do,” by Lianne La Havas. Blew me away. Still does. Can’t get enough of it. It’s not just her soulful voice and delivery, but the arrangement.… Continue reading
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We can all make TV. Now what?
Look where Meerkat and Periscope point. I mean, historically. They vector toward a future where anybody anywhere can send live video out to the glowing rectangles of the world. If you’ve looked at the output of either, several things become clear about their inevitable evolutionary path: Mobile phone/data systems will get their gears stripped, in both… Continue reading
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Local jazz radio coming to Kansas City
So I just learned that a Kansas City Jazz station is headed toward existence. If you love any of these musicians, this should be very good news. The story begins, By this time next year, Kansas City-style jazz might be bebopping out of a new radio station near you. The Mutual Musicians Foundation in the 18th and… Continue reading
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Rediscovering Junkie John, Tim Dawe, and Penrod after 40 years
I used to have an open reel tape of a song I recorded off some New York FM station in 1970 or so. I didn’t know the artist or the title. It was half-talked, half-sung, about a loser in Greenwich Village, “Junkie John,” coming down in a fleabag hotel. And it was very haunting, which… Continue reading
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The holy grail of radio
[4:45pm EDST 2 October 2013 — Late breaking news: RadioINK reports that Darryl Parks’ blog post — the first item below — has been pull ed off the 700wlw site. — Doc] In A SERIOUS Message To The Broadcast Industry About Revitalizing AM Radio, Darryl Parks of 700WLW made waves (e.g. here, here, here) by… Continue reading