Longing for the day ...

Well done, cricketers!!

Excellent result, boys! Shame about the end of the game, but umpires do that sort of thing sometimes ...

I felt very sorry for the Sri Lankans having to endure that agony twice. It must have been awful to know you were beaten, concede and then have to go back out and face the brutal ending as well. They should have just let the game end gracefully ...

But the Australians played supremely well and deserved their unbeaten run. It would have been a bitter pill had they lost the last game having not even been challenged during the rest of the tournament ... but sometimes that happens in sport ...

Now, in four years' time will they be able to get up again??

Come on Aussie, Come on! Come On!

Let's go, boys! One game to the World Cup.

We've played some awesome cricket so far and really dominated the tournament ... don't drop the bundle now. We want another trophy and three in a row ...

Go hard, boys!!!

Well done, Broncos

Good to see the second win for the season last night - pity it spoiled Joey Johns's night. Andrew Johns is an absolute champion and it would have been nice for him to go out in better style, but I'd rather it wasn't against the Broncos (Manly, perhaps?? :-)

However, the Broncos didn't look too good in getting there. Too many silly, unforced errors and penalties. It's a testament to their strength of character and sheer talent that they were able to get across the line despite the error rate. Let's hope they take some confidence from the result and build on it next Friday night.

Good to see Darius Boyd back in the top grade and getting some positive outcomes. And I was very impressed with his centre, Emmett. Big unit who didn't do anything wrong and had some nice touches. Also the reserve forward, whose name I've forgotten, was impressive on debut.

Live vs virtual music ...

Here's a great expression attributed to Warner Music Group's Lyor Cohen in Forbes magazine. He's talking about the A&R process adopted by the major labels and how online connectivity can be faked by bands wanting a deal.

As much as technology transforms the world, as powerful as all these peer-to-peer or social networks are becoming, the most important network is still composed of real, live people dealing with one another face-to-face. Showing up in person still matters. It's true in friendship. It's true in business. It's true in music.

Spot on! Or as Bon Jovi put it: "... the last chance of a lifetime to come and see, hear, feel the real thing."

Well said, Bernard!

I was reading an interview with Powderfinger from last weekend's Australian about their new album, Lost and Running, this morning, and there's this quote in it from Bernard Fanning (he was talking about writing his solo album, Tea and Symphony):

Isn't that why people become songwriters? Because they are socially inept? Emotionally retarded?

Absolutely spot on, Bernie! Couldn't agree more. In fact, I'd extend it to all forms of art. In keeping with my earlier quote about art and language, I think this is probably the case because of the limitations of linguistic expression ... there are some things that words simply can't say, no matter how much a person might want to.

But, then, it's the people who are less willing to use verbal communication who are more likely to artistic expression ...

Can't wait to hear what kind of expressions Powderfinger's Lost and Running contains!

This space left blank ...

For the victims of the Virginia Tech shooting and their families, friends and community.

Thanks, Joey!!

Just got the news that Andrew Johns has retired. The game and all its fans are gonna miss him. Even though he was a Blue, he was one of those players who you loved to watch whether he was on your team or not. I was always happier when Joey was in the Australian team. The Kangaroos were always stronger with him there.

Good luck Joey. I'll be happy that you're not lining up the the State of Origin this year but I'll miss you for the rest of the year.

Best wishes for whatever follows your playing career.

Best wishes for the season

Whether Easter is a holy occasion or just an excuse for a holiday to you, I wish you and those you love all the best for the season.

May this time meet your expectations and fulfill your needs with love, peace and light.

Songwriting emotions

Found this one via a Blogging Muses post that quoted Ananova.com. It's from Bono and about songwriting:

"Feelings are stronger than ideas or words in a song. You can have 1000 ideas, but unless you capture an emotion, it's an essay."

Such an important realisation and one that I am guilty of ignoring too often.

Conversations with Lefsetz

Had a recent exchange with Bob Lefsetz about the phenomenon I noticed in iTunes. Now that I've had a few days to think about it, I thought I'd blog on the subject ...

First of all I have to say I'm surprised, honoured and delighted that a guys of Lefsetz's stature and workload repllied to me at all - not once but three times. Chris Anderson has yet to respond to anything I have sent him. And I think what Bob says is very true - if you accept the thinking in which he resides.

See, Bob's an old-industry warrior. He still thinks in terms of large volumes being the only kind of good and small, efficient operations being worthless. He parades himself as a new-age guru and extorts people to do things that will work for them in this new era - but he still expemplifies thinking from an old era, where the only thing that's worth consideration is complete domination. What's worse, his own assessments of songs, with which I mostly agree, tell a different story from his advice.

Essentially, the exchange went like this:
I pointed out the problem with iTunes' cacheing systems making it hard for small acts to be found. I asked both he and Chris Anderson what they thought abut the effect of this one the Long Tail. Bob replied:

"You know I've had that problem. Should have brought it up with Derek
sooner...
I think this does impact the Long Tail... Then again, so many at the
end of the long tail are only selling ones and twos."

I argued back that this was a larger problem, since it affected many independents who are mid-range - more than ones and twos but probably not in the thousands, which is Bun Ber E's experience. This cacheing effectively obliterates those new and/or more niche entires from the inventory, which is exactly the virtue of Long Tail markets. Bob replied:

"You're assuming the iTunes Store counts, it doesn't..."

(BTW - this is the complete reply from Bob. I've not edited them at all.)

I once again replied, arguing that the problem is bigger than iTunes. If CDBaby does the same thing, and presumably Google does too, then this makes the process of entering the makretplace much more difficult unless you have capital for up-front promotion. This requirement plays very significantly into the hands of the larger operators with the capital to break through. Worse, it gives the database owners the ability to manipulate the market in favour of those who can afford to pay for a priority cacheing. This creates an artificial scarcity, which is anathema to the Long Tail. Bob replied:

"Purchased tracks are nothing compared to stolen.
So, your point is not wholly relevant.
Good luck with your thesis."

Given his final comment I declined further response, but it got me thinking. Why would a guy like Bob dismiss this obvious problem? The obvious response was to find out whether he'd ever seen any of Bun' Ber E's music in the "stolen tracks" places. I bet he hasn't. Last time I looked, there was none in Morpheus or Grokster, though that was a while ago. So stolen music is irrelevant to artists like us, but the revenue from iTunes is quite beneficial.

Then it dawned on me: Bob doesn't care about the imprtance of these services to independent artists because he doesn't give a damn about independent artists. He's still trying to think of ways that the mass-market players can use the Internet to overcome all barriers to near-monopoly - including independents competing in the marketplace. To Bob and his ilk, having a cess-pool of struggling talent is an advantage, in that it provides a large source of acts from which they can cherry-pick and offer a hand up, thereby entrenching their industrial hegemony. Long live the King!

I am significantly saddened by this but not altogether surprised. This guy still thinks like a hegemon, albeit he is comparatively enlightened in his approach to the new environment - favouring the kind of business approaches that will work for larger and/or better funded acts.

And yet the quest for a sustainable approach to independent survival goes on, and that's my job.

Sony wakes up!?

Good to see one of the major record companies has finally found a good use for the web. Shame it's not one that works to the advantage of everybody else ...

But it makes perfect sense to them and doesn't hurt anyone in the independent scene. Basically, they're getting better data for their A&R efforts. They set up a pet blog system, and artists can go to the trouble of putting themselves before the eyes of the companies. The artists do all the work except for the public-feedback bit, which is done by the blogosphere. They can even try a bit of development with artists they're interested in.

They get a great assessment of the artist's work and attitude, and can use the music blogosphere to point out which ones have genuine traction rather than flash-in-the pan appeal ... they can take their time to see how sustainable the artists' work ethic is ... up to a point.

Brilliant! Except that it still puts the load on the artists and their supporters to do the legwork and offers nothing to them in return ... still, it's a perfect application of the web's benefits.

Can Apple manipulate the digital music market?

I just sent this e-mail to Chris Anderson, Bob Lefsetz and the [Musicthoughts] e-mail list:

Hi Chris and Bob.

Thought you might be interested in this phenomenon, as observed via the [MusicThoughts] e-mail list. Its members are mostly independent artists whose music is available through CDBaby.com.

Yesterday, Don Shetterly (http://www.donshetterly.com) asked:

Sun Apr 1, 2007 4:19 pm (PST)
Is anyone else having problems searching on iTunes? If I search for a
well known artist like Tom Petty, it comes up with no problem. But if
I search under my name or a couple of others from the CDbaby world, I
get a network connection time out error?
This is only happening to me on the search function in itunes. Direct
Link gets me to my music without a problem.
Just curious if this is happening to others or it is just me?

My own experience, upon trying this, was that a search for my band (by name) timed out twice before producing a result. That's never happened before - and I used to check my status every month or so. However, a search for "ABBA" produced immediate results. CDBaby's Derek Sivers explained this as a phenomenon of database administration (cacheing) thus:

It takes a long time to ask the database "show me everything in your millions of rows of info that has the words 'Crunchy Frogs' in it"
So once someone has searched for that, the database systems *cache* (remember) the search results.
Next time someone searches for 'Crunchy Frogs', instead of asking the database all over again, it just displayed the cached results.
We do this on cdbaby.com, too.
So, when you go search for your name, you're probably the first person who has done that in a long time. If Apple's databases are overloaded that moment, it may take a long time to return the search results.
But if you search for 'Madonna', you get an instant result, because plenty of people have searched for Madonna that day. It's displaying the cache.

Further, this applies not only to band titles but also to song titles, as Rick (www.RickPaul.info) pointed out:

I also tried searching for "The Lord's Prayer", which did match pretty much immediately. However, it didn't list my version in there. This makes me wonder if they are somehow segmenting their database indexes into some sort of preferred/high availability subset and "all the rest". (When my version of "The Lord's Prayer" first went live in iTunes, it came up in the top 4 hits, alongside Aretha Franklin and Charlotte Church -- I think the 4th listing was also indie/DIY, or at least someone I'd never heard of.)

So we have a natural limitation to the Long Tail (via iTunes at least, but probably via others, too, eventually) in the size of the cache. This, it seems to me, can only benefit the hitsters to the detriment of the niches in that if a result does not come up, people are likely to presume that no result exists rather than try again. Or, as Rick found out, customers will simply not find the full range of versions available in the service.

But further, it opens up the possibility that Apple (and others) could sell market access by giving preferential cacheing treatment to paying customers ... further benefiting the majors to the detriment of the independents ...

Your thoughts?? Is this the first crack in the rise of the independents that the majors can exploit?? What are the implcations for the Long Tail??

Cheers,
Huge
Musician, Australia
huge@huge.id.au
http://www.huge.id.au/

King Konker ...

We watched the Peter Jackson remake of King Kong on Saturday night. Or rather, I watched the start and then gave up and went to bed ...

What a shocker! To start with, Jack Black was the worst casting in history. I like Jack, but everything he does just screams "comedy" and it seemed that every time he tried to be serious and in-character, he'd just pull one slight facial exaggeration that made it seem like a joke.

Then there was the side-line story of the big black first mate in little Jimmy, which was entirely redundant and also got the point of ridiculousness when the first mate started scream ing "Jiimmyyyeeee" whenever that one of his large crew got into trouble ... the dinosuars persuing the humans when there was an abundance of fresh meat that was not running away ... ???

Then there's the characiture island natives, all black and evil - straight out of the bad old days of 19th-century white imperialism. Not to mention Kong's inexplicable fascnation with the beautiful white woman when he'd eaten every other thing that smelled like that ...

It was all just too silly for words. I have no idea what the IMDB reviewer is talking about. Must have been watching a different movie ... but then, the commenters are divided, too.