Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

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What I’ve Been Doing for the Past 14 Hours

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A great, simple, javascript chess page that works in Firefox. Allows you to play either side w/three opponent settings. Also, fantastic chess resource Chessville. Taking up chess is one of the summer hobbies i currently have under consideration (as if i need more ways to spend my time).

Chess tends to make me think of X-Men, maybe because Magneto has a board in his plastic cell in the movies. Any mention of X-Men merits a link to the best X-Men site on the face of the internet, UncannyXmen.net. Note that they have issue summaries of the vast majority of a wide-range of X-Men-related comics, and an accompanying character archive for when you encounter someone unfamiliar. Great for detering me from filling in the ten years of X-Men that i’ve missed buying, and also for reading on lunchbreak.

In other superhero news, my co-worker just called to say he won’t be able to see Superman with me today. If you’ve already seen it, or if know the big plot-twist already, you may appreciate Larry Niven’s classic essay Man of Steel, Women of Kleenex.

2001 Tastes Rebutted, or Thom Wins Out In the End

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I have finally broken down and accepted that i really do – in regretable faux-hipster fashion – love Radiohead.

I’m not really sure how it happened. I definitely hated them actively in 2000, and was rather bored with them in 2001. I think the love was the combination of buying OK Computer and The Bends, and then really liking a lot of Hail to the Thief, and then finally being amazed by what they can do in concert. Bonnaroo only served to prove the point.

I feel like such a punk for liking them so much now, but it can’t be helped. I’ve got b-sides and everything. Much to the chagrin of Peter2001, I have to concede that some music is better if you give it a chance to sink in.

As a note, At Ease is the most terrific Radiohead site you could ever want, especially due to a fantastically comprehensive discography, songlist, and tour tracking.

(I’m thinking of incorporating a Radiohead song or two into my repetoire (though, their lyrics are so freaking hard to remember). “There There” is a favorite of mine, but i’d almost prefer to adapt something a little more obscure, but not quite John Mayer “Kid A” (which, incidentally, i can’t find anywhere, but i did find the highly useful The Hype Machine, an audio/MP3 blog aggregator)

Your suggestions welcomed. I have half the official sheet music, and the other half will arrive sooner than later.)

Stab Her Back!

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Think of my what you will, but hearing the Dresden Dolls cover the Marice Sendak poem about me in surround sound in my own living room got me all choked up.

However, it does not compare to the surreal synergy when they launched into a note-perfect “White Rabbit” exactly a week ago at Bonnaroo.

Yet, even that couldn’t hold a candle to the awesome power of their sophomore effort Yes, Virginia…” In case you don’t believe me, behold the terribly destructive catchiness of “Backstabber.” Beware, it may fundamentally alter the course of your musical existence. If that tickles your fancy, perhaps also sample “My Alcoholic Friends“? But, don’t go reachin’ for that “repeat” button unless you first reach for your wallet to purchase the tracks for your very own.

I humbly submit that the Dresden Dolls seem to have finally found their way onto my critical radar.

Once you get past a certain strangeness inherent to parts of Amanda Palmer’s vocal delivery there’s really nothing not to like, especially if you appreciate good drumming, because Brian Viglione is spectacular. I know that this band of the polarizing hipster band ilk, but you have to give a touch of benefit of doubt to any act savvy enough to be regularly labeled “Brechtian punk cabaret.”

In Search of a Magic Music Bullet

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I love music so much that i’m starting to think i need to hire a part-time “music-loving assistant” to help me love music as much as i love music.

My CD intake has become truly ludicrous over the course of the last month; since my latest acquisitions post i’ve purchased another 20+ discs, hardly any of which are bad. Yet, i hardly listen to 200 songs in my own collection a week – i average about 700 a month with iPod, and without (as i am, currently) i hover around 300. That means i’m not even listening to all of my new purchases once through iTunes.

My music loving issue is a symptom of something Coolfer was discussing earlier this week – namely, that the scarcest resource artists are vying for is not listeners’ dollars, but listener’s time. Because, an album that’s bought (out of loyalty, or advertising, or whatever) but not heard is like a tree falling in an empty forest: it might make a sound, but no one will know.

What Coolfer only begins to touch upon in their writeup is the world of music filtering tools that help the time-pressed listener discern what’s good, not only in their own collections, but in the vast realm of songs they haven’t heard.

To this point i’ve taken the recommendations of sites like Amazon or RateYourMusic with a grain of salt, often more suspicious than curious of an artist they correlate to my tastes. Plus, they’re only correlated on an album-by-album basis, when i truly operate on the song level.

To that end, lately i’ve become enamored with Yahoo’s LaunchPlayer customized station(at work only, as it doesn’t function in Firefox). In the player you can rate any level of music in a 5-point system – from the macro of Genres through Artists and Albums to the micro of Songs. Users rate via listening or, if you’re me, mass rating-drives to sync up to iTunes ratings (aside: why the fuck can’t i upload my ratings as CSV? Surely i can’t be the only person who worries about keeping ratings meticulously synced across multiple services?), and the customized stations spits out increasingly well-chosen songs (though it doesn’t plays only what you’ve rated, so rating every song by a certain artist improves its predictive abilities to find songs like those, but doesn’t mean you’ll hear more of those songs).

Even with about 2.5k ratings i’m obviously still in a calibration stage, as the player feels me out in various genres. It’s amusing how my current ratings (only synced through C in iTunes) are already yielding some of my favorite results from the rest of my music collection. However, it’s amazing how high the quality of recommendations become when the player gets on a streak; this week i was treated to a 5-song block of things completely new to me and completely excellent. Also, the player has a knack for reminding me of tracks i own but haven’t heard for years. If only i didn’t have to labor for hours on end to sync up its ratings to mine…

What i have a burning need to know is, why does this AWESOMELY PERFECT functionality need to be separated by my music collection by a brick wall of incompatibility and ratings mechanisms? The closest thing i can find as an iTunes plugin is LastFM (previously (or still?) AudioScrobbler), but the site is spotty in its tracking, can’t track my iPod usage, and doesn’t take into account my ratings (booooo). Since it can’t distinguish between a 5-Star Ani DiFranco track and a 1-Star Dave Matthews Band track, the service’s recommendations are nearly useless to me (i.e. I still manage to listen to a lot of things i don’t love, and it’s skewing my results mercilessly).

My great white hope was the iTunes Music Store “Just For You” beta feature – recommendations native to my music player! Except, they SUCK. iTMS doesn’t take your ratings (or any of your library) into account, just your purchases, and the only two distinctions it allows you to make are “Already Own It” or “Don’t Like It.” What about, “I bought it and it SUCKED!” or “Not my favorite album by that artist”? I need degrees, damnit.

I’m not sure of what my recourse is, short of a paying an assistant to make me daily playlists that combine old favorites with hitherto unearthed deep cuts and brand new singles. It seems to me like the majority of iPod users use iTunes, and a good deal of other music fans like it to, so i’m sure i’m not the only person hitting a wall in this regard.

What i’d love to know is: what’s in the pipeline? A Yahoo-like service that let’s music-head mass-upload their ratings and/or combines randomly streamed tracks with nuggets from your own library? Last.FM that also sucks in ratings and playcounts to become a better predictor (which can totally be done, as my NowPlaying sidebar is getting that same data live from iTunes as we speak). Or, an iTunes integrated monster that queues up iTMS songs as correlated to your Top 200 most played and/or highest rated?

Whatever the magic bullet is, i hope to get hit soon. Otherwise, the only thing standing between me and just listening to Immaculate Collection on repeat for days are iTunes’ Smart Playlists that mine my least-heard-but-highest-rated tracks.

The Dots, They’ve Been Connected

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I’ve known Leigh Marble, or at least known of Leigh Marble, as long as i’ve played guitar.

Literally. The night i came home with that crappy Ashland i headed directly to Leigh’s AniTab’s, which still exists at the same url to this day, almost nine years later. The first song i played on my first guitar was “Dilate.”

Two years later and i was a pro at figuring out my own arrangements of Ani DiFranco songs, and a contributor (and argumentative corrector) of Leigh’s tabs. At the time he was splitting a 7″ record with Erin McKeown.

Five years ago this week I saw and heard Erin McKeown for the first time in 2001, on a split bill with Peter Mulvey, and it was from that perspective that i first connected the dots between my favorite inspiration (Peter) and my first (Ani), through Leigh.

Leigh’s self-recorded his first full-length CD, Peep in 2003. He gives an elucidating account of the recording process, as well as samples of his songs. Each one i’ve heard is a fresh idea laid over an innovative arrangement, none betraying his Ani affiliation than “Bucket Seat” does mine. I’m buying a copy; you ought to buy one too. (Also, Erin has a free four-song session up at the spectacularly neat Daytrotter, and an album of standards on the way.)

I think the connection is that we’re all doing it ourselves. And, nine years later, i just submitted the 101st tab to AniTabs.