I'm Rob Blatt. For the most part I wrote about my dogs, music and technology. I swear quite a bit, so this blog isn't for people who can't handle that. I encourage you to subscribe to the RSS feed. All the random images to the right are courtesy of my amazing wife.
Go visit www.nin.com. Why? Because Trent Reznor and gang have already released their follow up to the well received “Ghosts” with “The Slip”. And it’s absolutely free.
(thank you for your continued and loyal support over the years - this one’s on me) -nin.com
If you read my post about Kevin Kelly’s 1,000 fans appropriately titled 1,000 fans, you’d have an idea that I think the world of Trent Reznor since he broke up with his record label.
With a tour coming up, now Nine Inch Nails have captured our attention with “Ghosts” and have peaked interest right before the tour with “The Slip”.
I suggest the mp3 version for most, but for those of you who have a fancy stereo, there’s a torrent file for a 24 bit 96kHz .WAV version too.
For seventeen of the last twenty six years I’ve been trained as a drummer/percussionist. Despite telling people that I’m a bassist or guitarist first lately, I’m still a drummer at heart. Ask Amber, she’s always dealing with my tapping of rhythms.
The drummer in me has made a little breakthrough lately, My new favorite drummer of all time is Jason Finn of the Presidents of the United States of America. This has been solidified with the release of the Presidents’ latest record. (Check out my short and awkwardly worded review of the record here: These Are the Good Times People)
The progression of drummers that have been my “favorite” has a progression over the years that has been similar to my style of playing.
Peter Criss of Kiss
Tre Cool of Green Day
Mike Portnoy of Dream Theatre
Dave Grohl of Nirvana and early Foo Fighters
Jason Finn of the Presidents of the United States of America
When I was growing up, Kiss was my favorite band, so picking a favorite drummer was pretty easy. Looking back, I was never a fan of his style or playing. I liked that he was the drummer of my favorite band and that was about it. He was always a little too jazzy with the songs and his influence lead to the dynasty, the Kissco record and Unmasked which was just piss poor for a Kiss record.
Tre Cool was fast, loud and everything that I wanted to be as a drummer when I was 15. I still think he’s an outstanding drummer and super appropriate for Green Day. Tre Cool really began my love for what I call melodic drummers. I really fell in love with riffs on the drums listening to his playing. Dookie was full of these gems and the later records were also full of them. Also, his tasteful use of a double kick pedal (the kick is the bass drum, a double kick pedal uses both feet to hit kick drums) was what first influenced me to try it out myself.
Once I was playing fast and loud, I started listening to Dream Theatre and the technical prowess of Mike Portnoy really blew my mind. Odd time signatures and constantly changing rhythms drew me into the Dream Theatre records. I learned one or two of them from start to finish. I really learned to independently use all four limbs while playing Dream Theatre songs, and while it was cool to be playing music that technical I grew tired of counting to seven and five all the time. Dream Theatre released their best album in 2001 and the following releases were full of musical masturbation. Realizing how much I hated the records that followed opened my eyes to how masturbatory their catalog is and how unneeded that style of playing can be. I lost my love for playing the drums during this time and it seriously turned me off to this style of playing.
I seriously lost my love of drummer for a long period of time. I dropped out of the drum program in college switching to bass guitar and I also got booted from the band I helped form in my freshman year of school. I performed as solo acoustic guitar act for a while, then played bass in a metal band and finally landed as the front man and rhythm guitar in a band of friends.
I went through most of my audio engineering program in college being someone who didn’t favor any specific instrument. It seems natural looking back that I gravitated to someone who did the same. I fell in love with Dave Grohl’s playing in Nirvana and specifically “The Colour and the Shape” Foo Fighters record. Grohl’s playing was very riff oriented and “The Colour and the Shape” is one of the finest albums ever written and recorded in my opinion.
Grohl held the title until recently when I did some serious listening to the Presidents’ catalog. I’m not quite sure what Finn’s training or background are, but they must be different than mine. Many of his fundamental playing is so much different than mine that I can’t fathom some of the movements and beats that he is playing is some songs. An example is “Kitty” from the first Presidents records, specifically the bells. Even while attempting to tap the correct sequence, I get it backwards. I can’t think of a recorded song where he is overplaying, nor underplaying.
Finn’s playing is also filled with those drum riffs that I love. I can pick out songs just from their drum parts, which is an achievement that most drummers can’t do. The parts are melodic, which is difficult if you’re not trying to stand out. Melodic drum parts are those parts that you find yourself singing without the rest of the song and those fills that you want to air drum as big and grandiose as possible.
His playing really shines with the new record. Finn’s playing multiple styles and feels. A good rummer is supposed to be able to do this (I really can’t). Some songs have that pop influenced straight ahead feel (Mixed Up S.O.B.) others on the record are traditional bluegrass (Truckstop Butterfly), heavy swing (Flame is Love), and funk (Deleter). The rest are appropriate pop-rock feels that might be some of Finn’s best playing on any Presidents record to date.
Alternatively, Augusto testified that “a common way to dispose of them” is to give unsold promotional CD away, or he may throw them away. Both are unauthorized distributions.
That’s a real quote from a federal court filing from the Universal Music Group. I’m sure that you’ve seen CDs before either in used CD stores or maybe you’ve been given one by a record label. verbatim, the label on these CDs says “This CD is the property of the record company and is licensed for the intended recipient for personal use only. Acceptance of this CD shall constitute an agreement to comply with the terms of the license. Resale or transfer of possession is not allowed and may be punishable under federal and state laws.” Emphasis on the douchery is mine.
Can you imagine the balls on UMG to think that they can actually enforce this idea? And can you imagine how much of our money (this is a FEDERAL case after all) is being used to figure out if this block of mumbo jumbo is actually enforceable? By this rule, every single CD that was sent to me while I was the music director of WPOB in Plainview, NY or the Arts & Entertainment Editor of the UMass Lowell Connector and every CD sent to my in my current job has to be in my possession until the original record label asks for it back. Could you imagine what the offices of Rolling Stone or Spin magazine would look like if they legally had to keep every CD that was sent to them for review?
Not too long ago I spoke to Ariel Hyatt of Ariel Publicity about the music industry in general and she gave me some pretty astounding numbers in regards to promo CDs. In her career, she estimates that over time she estimates that she’s sent out about 700,000 promotional CDs and has only gotten two back. Two out of seven hundred thousand! That’s 0.000003%!
The case is about someone who resells promo CDs on eBay and in the meatspace.
I hope that it becomes obvious to the judge in this case that the statements made by UMG are complete horseshit. No one in their right mind can actually look me in the eye and tell me that the granted license on a CD that is sent to me as promotional material is so binding that I can’t even trash the disc if I wanted to, no matter what is on the cover. This is bullshit in the highest regard.
Griffin’s idea is to collect a fee from internet service providers — something like $5 per user per month — and put it into a pool that would be used to compensate songwriters, performers, publishers and music labels. A collecting agency would divvy up the money according to artists’ popularity on P2P sites, just as ASCAP and BMI pay songwriters for broadcasts and live performances of their work.
At first, I was against the idea of paying what amounts to a “music tax”, because I don’t think that it should be my responsibility to help a business that is slowly killing itself. I really don’t want to give extra money to a business that uses every dirty tactic they can in order to make a dollar. To see how deep their heads are up their asses, read Don Reisinger’s interview with Cara Duckworth, the spokesperson for the RIAA titled The RIAA speaks–and it gets worse. But now my opinion has changed.
Why the change in heart over this $5 tax on my cable bill? Because the moment that it goes into place, I see this as a removal of the line between iTunes and The Pirate Bay. Once I’m paying monthly for pirated music on the internet, it’s okay for me to download whatever I want online because according to Jim Griffin who is a “Digital Strategist” (quotes are my emphasis, not his) this is “monetizing the anarchy.” So if the monetization begins, let the anarchy rule.
With all of my heart I am against making the provider of a utility (my cable company) responsible for the use of that utility. Here are a few unfair analogies that I came up with:
Blaming the water company if person A drowns person B in the bathtub using their water
Blaming the electric company for person A being electrocuted when sticking a fork in a light socket
But if they flip the switch on this, you can be damn sure that my music collection will expand to no end.
