The RPM Challenge is underway!

Unnatural DisastersThis year I am participating in the RPM Challenge to record an album during the month of February. I already have 6 tracks in some state of completion for my album entitled Unnatural Disasters. You can keep up with my progress and listen to the tracks on the album page.

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.

So long, Santana; the dream was already gone

Kirby Puckett rookie cardThere was a time in my life (I happened to be 13) when I was a huge baseball fan. I had the giant baseball card collection to prove it. I even chewed the nasty gum a few times.

My enthusiasm was richly rewarded in 1987 when my hometown Minnesota Twins won their first World Series. Life was good.

But eventually I moved on. My brief, albeit intense, interest in baseball (and pro sports in general) faded in high school, and although I still enjoy going to a game once in a while, it’s just too expensive and too corporate, and I’m too cynical, to sustain that kind of passionate enthusiasm. So when it was announced that Johann Santana was traded to the Mets, I barely even raised an eyebrow.

It wasn’t until I read Nick Coleman’s column on the matter that it really hit me what this means, especially in the context of the Twins’ controversial new stadium:

[W]hen you’re a kid, your town’s team manipulates your immature emotions in order to get you to tug on daddy’s sleeve and beg him to buy a pair of $50 tickets and a souvenir jersey so Dad can go to his grave knowing that his boy will remember him through misty eyes and support the next billion-dollar stadium proposal when the stadium opening in 2010 needs to be replaced a few years later.

He’s right. And he goes on to show just how trivial a slice of the pie, given the ludicrous sums of money floating around in the world of professional sports, Santana’s salary really is. It’s the stars like Santana and Torii Hunter that make a team like the Twins worth going to see. Which is where the money comes from in the first place.