I briefly related my harrowing adventure, out into the ice, wind, sleet, and cold, to purchase new guitar strings for my lovely rosewood guitar. The strings I got are the same kind I’ve been using since I discovered them, recommended to me years ago in a music shop in Port Townsend, I think, back in 1997 or so. I don’t know if they’re really the best strings out there, but they do keep a nice tone for a long time, which is essential for a musician as lazy as myself, and one therefore prone to not changing strings for significant lengths of time.
I bought two sets of strings, polyweb lights and polyweb mediums, and put the lights on first. My fingers are out of practice, so I thought maybe lighter strings would do a little less damage for now. They sound great, of course, as new strings should. Bright and clear. Once they’ve worn in a bit, I imagine I’ll like how they sound even more. I usually do.
Now, if only they made me a better guitar player. Here’s a little sample of a tune I’ve been working on. My favorite at the moment.
It was raining when I went to class this morning. Muggy and nearly warm and I began to sweat halfway through my not-even-fifteen minute daily commute. For kicks I checked the weather on my laptop in class, and saw that there were two weather warnings. Weird, I thought, it seems so temperate. The weather people were right, though. All that rain flash froze as the temperature fell to -10C, and the windy picked up to steady gusts of 90kmph (nearly 60mph).
The result? I practically had to ice skate over to the Archambault to at last get new guitar strings, and everyone’s trash bins are merrily ice skating around as well, usually right into the middle of the street. Thank goodness they’d already been emptied, I suppose, or it would be trash-a-go-go.
Now I’ve got new guitar strings, cold cheeks, two new blues guitar books, cold fingers, and a sweet 10-disc set of old blues songs. Oh, and a cold tookus. Whatever that is. Once I thaw out, maybe I’ll even give ‘em a shot.
I went to the nearest Archambault to see if they had guitar strings, but they didn’t and instead directed me to their other Archambault which was a good twenty-minute walk away. I’ll swing over there eventually, maybe tomorrow, ’cause the strings on my guitar now are seriously dead. They sound like crap.
I did take the opportunity to browse, though, and spent a lot of time in front of various listening stands checking out artists I’d never heard of before. I keep meaning to get a subscription to Spin. One of the artists I enjoyed (and consequently am listening to right now), was Kate Nash, an up-and-comer from the British pop market. She’s got a nice voice with a brit accent, which is all well and good, but I’m more attracted to the lyrics themselves, which are story-telly and dryly humorous, and to the complicated beats that go on behind the songs. One of the more amusing songs begins (and often refrains):
Why you being a dickhead for?
Stop being a dickhead.
Why you being a dickhead for?
You’re just fuckin’ up situations.
I find this endlessly amusing.
If you know who Nellie McKay is, and you like her, you’d probably like Kate Nash. She’s got a little Lisa Loeb in her too, and maybe some Feist. All in all it’s not the best album I’ve ever heard, but I certainly do like a few of the songs on it, and recommend it to anyone looking for a new, poppy female music artist with some funky beats behind her.
On June 26th, internet radio observed a day of silence in a play to make listeners aware of the threat of increased royalty fees. Unfortunately, whether or not people became more aware hasn’t made a difference yet, because as of this Sunday, online radio stations (Pandora, Rhapsody, Live365 et al) will be forced to pay royalties that are not only much higher than what radio stations on the airwaves pay, but will also have to pay back royalties for every song played in 2006.
The result? Many online radio stations are being forced to shut down. Especially the small, independent ones.
What can we do about it? I’m not sure, sadly. For now, I hope people will pay attention to this issue, and see what develops. SoundExchange, who represents the artists and labels, claims that everyone involved in making/producing the music is just trying to get paid what is due to them. A long, personal history of hating the music industry (because I love the music), makes me incredibly skeptical.
Happily (for me), Pandora says that it will stay on(line) the air. For now.
If you’ve ever talked to me about music, chances are that I’ve mentioned Pandora, my all-time favorite web radio application … ever. Pandora starts with a suggestion; say you like you some No Doubt, or maybe you heard Little Brown Jug for the first time, and you’re itchin’ to find something else to make your toes go all nimbly-jimbly and dance around. Pandora’s got that, they’ll take your suggestion, and they’ll roll with it, and you’ll like some of what you play, and you won’t like other choices, but as you go along you can tell them what you think, and in this fashion your station becomes more and more refined, more and more perceptive, perhaps even, ultimately, sympathetic to your search for a certain feel of music.
Today, however, no toes are tapping. Today there exists only silence in the hallowed halls of pandora.com. Today we observe a day of silence, and hope that it really, truly, only lasts a day.
On June 26th, internet radio observed a day of silence in a play to make listeners aware of the threat of increased royalty fees. Unfortunately, whether or not people became more aware hasn’t made a difference yet, because as of this Sunday, online radio stations (Pandora, Rhapsody, Live365 et al) will be forced to pay royalties that are not only much higher than what radio stations on the airwaves pay, but will also have to pay back royalties for every song played in 2006.
