Accept no substitutes

Day: December 19, 2005

Future of Music (looking back the past 5 years)

Just off the phone after a longish talk with David Menconi of the News and Observer about tech and the changes in music in the past 5 or so years. A preview of the early 21st century.

My takes – iPods, podcasting, GarageBand, mySpace, blogs, low power FM and high availability of cultural materials in digital form for remix were not really here 5 years ago. This means that music is more of a conversation between listeners and producers in a direct way than any time since the period before piano rolls.

A band produces their music using ProTools or GarageBand. They keep up with their fans on mySpace. They distribute their rough cuts via podcasts. Their listeners hear the music on their pods whilst jogging, on the bus or in my class! They share with their peers via their blogs (or aim). They walk into the low power FM station that will take the risks in tastes that old Am
stations used to take. The music gets remixed to a dance track adding clips for a presidential press conference, say, into yet a new product that circles back thru the fans to the band.

Specific examples were given. Will see what David does with my overlong ramble.

Elvis and Nixon – the unpublished pictures.

Who’s on drugs in these pictures? Best seen as a fast slide show. (Thanks Jason for restoring these).

UPDATE: David Menconi, expert on all popular culture, points me to “Elvis Meets Nixon” of which IMDB says:

A “mockumentary” about Elvis’s real-life trip to the White House to become a federal marshal under the DEA, but meets the President instead. Along the way, the film exposes Elvis’s humor, drug problem, and even him pulling a gun out at a doughnut shop.

UPDATE: The National Archives have a great exhibit online now including photos of Elvis’ letter etc.

Wish UNC were Here

Today’s NYTimes carries an announcement that 4 tech companies — IBM, Cisco, HP and Intel — have joined with 7 universities — Texas, Illinois, Stanford, Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon, Rensselaer, and Georgia Tech — to agree to make software developed in collaborative projects freely available.
The article, and others based on the same press release, is short on details, but promises that there will be more posted later this week at the IBM Scholars site and at the Kaufman Foundation site now.

Listening to Sister Rosetta Tharpe 4 disk collection called “The Original Soul Sister.”

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