The portion of my childhood from 1968 – 1975 was spent in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.(For those of you outside of Canada, that is in the middle of the Canadian Prairies), and one memory of I have is of a local Saskatoon band called Humphrey and the Dumptrucks, an amazing folk-country group. I got to hear them live once, at an outdoor festival, and I remember the concert being a lot of fun. At the time, they did develop a profile, even at a national level in Canada.

I was thinking about this band the other day for some reason, and I thought it might be nice to try to find their music; in particular a record titled Six Days of Paper Ladies. I wasn’t holding out much hope, but I thought I had better check out iTunes. Nope.

Then I did a Google search, and all I could find were a few LP resellers, who could sell me a copy of the original long playing record. I decided to go ahead and order the album, and I hope it arrives soon; I can then digitize it, and put the original carefully away.

What is sad is that the publisher of the record, Boot Records, is long out of business, and so this record is in a state of limbo; both out of print, yet not in public domain. I can’t legally make copies to share with people, or use a cut on my podcast. I wouldn’t know where to begin to track down the current rights holder to ask for permission. Except for those who own a copy of the record, the average listening audience is cut off from this music, music that is worth listening to for its own sake, as well as for its historical significance to Saskatchewan.  The music has effectively passed from living memory, and this is a tragedy; the greater tragedy is that this situation is not unique. How much music is now out of reach in this manner?

With the technology at our disposal today, there is absolutely no reason for this to happen, except record companies that see existing music as competition to the “product” they are trying to force down our throats today.

Music hidden is music lost, and I mourn its passing.

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Tags: Music, Copyright, Humphreyand the Dumptrucks

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Imagine if one company owned email on the Internet (meaning that if you wanted to send/receive email, you had to use this company’s services.) Imagine the company’s service crashing, or terms of service changing, etc. What can you do?

Twitter has had another outage today, and some are suggesting that they need to be bought by an outfit like Yahoo, to get a better architecture. People have also complained about restrictions on services such as MySpace and Facebook. These are all walled gardens, or perhaps a better metaphor is the Shopping Mall.  You get the illusion of public space, but the reality is you are on private property, subject to the whim and fortunes of the owners.

I long for the day (and Open Social is a welcome step in this direction) when these services are like email, and not under the exclusive control of single companies. Right now we are playing on their field, and we are not the ones in control.

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Tags: Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Web2.0

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Episode 3 of On the Log : 26 Jan/08 — Early Music | On the Log

A bit later in the day than normal, but I am three for three in releasing episodes of On the Log on time

The first interview of the podcast is in this episode, and no blues 78’s (but I promise, they will come back at some point)

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Tags: Onthe Log, Podcast

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Keeping up with the self-imposed schedule of one new podcast a day can be a bit of a challenge sometimes this week, but I am doing my best, and I have two more shows to report on.

One is a video cast called Is it Raining?. It is a rather funny video short with very good production values for the media, and it certainly gave me a laugh or two.

My real love is for audio podcasts however, and I have found another keeper, called The Weird Show, with a host who calls himself “Encaffinated.” He has the kind of fun, engaging delivery that makes him easy to listen to, and the material (weird stories from the news) is of interest as well. This is definitely another one for the subscription file!

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Tags: IsIt Raining, The Weird Show, podcamptoronto2008

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Well, the streak of good luck came to an end today, and I listened to a podcast that I really didn’t care for, and I don’t think I will mention its name; I am not sure any purpose would be served, but it did get me thinking on the way home today, after I stopped listening to the podcast.

Is the podcast community, at least the close-knit one in Canada that I feel privileged to be part of, ready for podcast reviews, especially non-flattering ones? I am reminded of the Open source community, especially in the area of Linux. If someone writes something unflattering about a particular Linux distro, or some application, often you will see the criticism itself criticized, for not being “part of the team” and not focusing  their wrath on the common enemy  (typically Microsoft and Apple). There is a sense in the Open Source community of being the rebel outsiders, and there is a great sense of solidarity.

In the podcasting community, we also tend to see ourselves as rebels and innovators, apart from the mainstream media, and there is certainly a sense of solidarity, so I wonder, would negative reviews been seen as letting the team down?

Now, I have to admit, I haven’t done a whole lot of searching for reviews so I could be completely off base. It’s never stopped me before though

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Tags: Podcasting

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I’ve always liked improv comedy. I count Whose Line Is It Anyway (both the British and American versions) as one of my favourite shows. So it was just a matter of time before I checked out:

the NOTHING show – an improvised conversation based on your Twitter tweets

This podcast takes tweets from the Twitter network, and uses them as the sole dialog for the show; throw in some contextual ambiguity and double-entendres and the results are very funny. I’ll be a regular listener of this show from now on!

The other show I want to mention is blastr.tv, a Mac show put together by some kids as young as 12! These young podcasters should be proud of what they are accomplishing in this show. They are engaging, enthusiastic and don’t sound like what you might expect from some kids that age. I can only hope that other members of the “Digital Native” generation become content creators to this degree!

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Tags: theNothing Show, blastr.tv, Podcasting, podcamptoronto2008

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Yesterday as part of my podcast exploration I listened to Momentary Dementia News, a podcast originating out of Vancouver. This podcast focuses on strange and funny news stories from around the world, and it certainly delivers – every story was interesting and entertaining, and most of the stories were new to me.

An added bonus was the music at the end of the podcast, including an old Genesis track I don’t recall hearing  before, and I consider myself a hard-core Genesis fan!

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Tags: MomentaryDementia News, podcamptoronto, podcamptoronto

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Episode 2 of On the Log Jan 19th 2008 | On the Log

2 weeks, 2 episodes so far for my new podcast On the Log. In the episode I consider the concept of ritual as it relates to technology. Plus music by blues legend Robert Johnson, Arthur Yoria and Lutenist Jacob Heringman.

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Tags: On the Log, Podcasting

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I’m behind on blogging, but not on listening! (Having a public transit commute of over an hour each way to work guarantees that I have the time to listen). I listened to three very different podcasts, but all with the common thread of music tying them together.

All Axis Radio
For the Sake of the Song
penmachine podcast

All Axis Radio is a show with attitude; the humour and presentation definitely have an edge. The music is great though, and I enjoyed hearing artists I hadn’t heard before. For the Sake of the Song is a very different experience: the host Sean McGaughey has an extended interview with a songwriter/musician, and it’s great to hear  a couple of musicians “talk shop.”  And boy, his guest could play — great tunes!

Penmachine, The last podcast I listened to was quite something. Produced by Derek K. Miller, it is a single twelve minute plus podsafe musical composition entitled Striking Silver. Derek is well known in the Canadian podcasting communty as a musician of note, co-host of the Inside Home Recording podcast, and as a cancer victim who has chosen to chronicle his battle with life-threatening cancer in a very public manner. It’s an amazing piece — a great guitar sound and ambiance that reminds me of Pink Floyd’s Shine On You Crazy Diamond. I will have to work this piece into a episode of On the Log!

It’s amazing to see the wealth of great Canadian podcasts out there; it has not been a chore at all to find great new listening on a daily basis. The journey continues!

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Tags: AllAxis Radio, For The Sake of the Song, Sean McGaughey, Penmachine, Derek K. Miller, On the Log, Podcasting

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Podcamp Toronto Podcast #5 – John Meadows interview and New Promo « Podcamp Toronto February 23-24, 2008, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

I had the pleasure of being interviewed this past week for the upcoming Podcamp Toronto 2008 event, to be held on Feb 23/24. I talk about my two existing podcasts, Smoky Times and On the Log, and the two sessions I will be delivering at Podcamp; the first (to be delivered with Sean McGaughey, the DuctapeGuy) on Open Source podcasting tools, and the second will be on voice production; how breathing and posture techniques from singing can help your podcasting voice.

I hope to see you there!!

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Tags: podcampToronto, podcamptoronto2008, Smoky Times, On the Log, Ductapeguy, Open Source

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