Category Archives: Music

The beat (and harmony, and occasionally melody) goes on…

Unnatural Disasters cover (revised)We’re approaching the halfway point in this year’s RPM Challenge, to record an album during the month of February, and things are progressing pretty well for me. The challenge is to record at least 10 songs or 35 minutes of material in 29 days. So far I’m up to 35:30 on 8 of my 9 intended tracks. That time will probably get reduced a bit as I master the tracks and remove some of the dead space at the ends of them, but I should still be well above 35 minutes, probably around 40.

As I’ve mentioned previously, my album is entitled Unnatural Disasters, and you can read more about it (and even hear the full in-progress tracks in streaming audio) on my album page. You can also find out more about my project on the RPM site.

Did Jordin Sparks lip-sync at the Super Bowl?

It’s my sneaking suspicion that Jordin Sparks’s performance of the national anthem at the Super Bowl was less-than-live. But mostly I’m just curious to see what will happen if I’m one of the first people to blog about it.

Of course, it’s already been about two minutes since she finished, so I’m sure hundreds of others beat me to it.

Don’t buy my music on iTunes! (Yet)

I’m on iTunes…I was delighted — no, overjoyed — when I checked the iTunes Store today and discovered that my EP is available. But my enthusiasm was quickly tempered when I noticed that, curiously, all 3 songs appeared to have a running time of 45 seconds.

Curious, considering that the tracks are 4:36, 1:38 and 2:36, respectively.

…at least partially.

I decided to spend the $2.97 to see what a customer would actually receive, and sure enough, each track cut off right at the 45-second mark. So I contacted TuneCore tech support, with a fairly mild (for me) email explaining the situation and requesting assistance. I received a response a few hours later informing me that the files they had on their server were corrupted. I will be emailing this rep new versions of the files shortly, and hopefully within a few days the correct full versions of the songs will be available. Maybe I should try the same approach to get them to replace Magma’s truncated K.A. 3!

Looking for obscure Finnish prog rock? Look no further!

Tolonen!Their selection is still fairly slim, but I think Anthology Recordings is really onto something. They specialize in digital download reissues of long-out-of-print music from a variety of unique genres. As we’re drowning in today’s media, it’s easy to forget just how much creative work is out there collecting dust. I’m glad to see someone finding a way to bring some of it out of the attic and into the popular consciousness again. Whether we want it or not.