Three Guys, Twelve Songs

So, the Jazzy instrumental music that have been opening the shows are things I've been putting together from loops using a program called Reason (www.propellerheads.se). I literally spend no more than 15 minutes on each tune (it probably shows.)

I'm curious what y'all think of them. Like them? Don't? Suggestions for alternatives?

We're making progress, little bits at a time. I haven't had an hour or two to sit down with Jordy and go over the production process, so I'm having to explain CuBase details and design ideas to him in email; not the most real-time process in the world.

The good news is, he's finally gotten a proof-of-concept recording of Skype, his iPod, and his local mic into CuBase. Now, all we need to do is go over the post production. :)

Please stay tuned, and thanks for your patience.

Oh! I've been asked this, so I thought I'd post it here. The song playing in the background of the Paternity Leave episode is a "demo" of a song I'm writing for my daughter called "Baby Girl." Still working on the lyrics and arrangement, but that gives you an idea of what the music will be.

As always, be good humans.

Hey folks. We've decided that we're going to do fewer guest DJ spots and stick more to just the three of us when possible, even if it means missing a week or two here or there.

Pike has been really busy of late (I'll let him talk about it). So we didn't have a show last week. We're hoping to be able to make a show this week. Expected theme: "Music of Personal Significence 2: The Wonder Years"

(I don't know where "The Wonder Years" part came from; I'm pulling that from my ass.)

Small change of subject: I've just gotten started listening to more podcast lately. I mostly started with NPR and other mainstream-broadcast-turned-podcast shows, but have recently picked up a couple podcast-only shows that I'm really liking so far:

TWiT, This Week in Tech: http://www.twit.tv/
Inside Home Recording: http://www.insidehomerecording.com/

I'm interested in people's comments on good, (preferably) free shows on tech or audio or music or whatever you think I might like. Either comment here, or send an email to theguys@3guys12songs.com if you have, or know of, a show you think I'd like.

Jordy: You said you thought the drums on the Natalie Embruglia(sp?) song were amateurish and done with a shitty drum machine. Well, you're kinda right. But, that shitty drum machine was a Roland 808. So, she kinda gets a little bit of slack on it. :)

You know what, this may be narcissistic, but I'm a huge fan of our shows. I was listening to Guilty Pleasures yesterday while commuting to and from work, and DAMN if that's not a good show.

As we discussed on the show, Net Radio is going to die on May 15th, unless some action is taken. Two wonderful congress critters (they could be yours!) introduced HR 2060, a bill that undoes the new rates being charged to Internet Radio stations.

This bill is incredibly important. SaveNetRadio.org has much more info than I'll be able to summarize here, but this bill not only repeals previous fee hikes, it puts into law caps on rates, either $0.33 per hour per listener, _OR_ 7.5% of the revenue, to be chosen by the music provider (read: us). This is fantastic news for people like us who make _NO_ money at this: 7.5% of $0 is still $0. It does have a provision that caps minimum charges at $500/year, so that's what we could have to pay.

One important thing to note here: this applies to Net Radio; historically, podcasts have been treated differently than net radio, places like Digitally Imported (insert obligatory shout-out here). So, this probably doesn't apply to us directly, but it sets a presedence, and is a step in the right direction.

So, anyway, if you like this show, and the 17 thousand other podcasts out there, please contact your congress critter and encourage them to consider HR 2060.

Mad Propz, yo, to Miles of Geek Speak at KUSP for bringing this bill to my attention. Thanks, guys. You have a greak show. Keep up the good work.

Just read Ari's Blog from Digitally Imported. He's got a much larger reader/listenership than we do, and he's put the call out to his listeners about HR 2060. Way to go Ari. Keep up the fantastic work.

I also noticed a link in the comments to his post saying that the May 15th date has been pushed out to July 15, which is good news. This means it is more likely we can convince Congress to pass HR 2060 and not shutdown people like DI and us.

-Mark

Let me start by saying that Pandora rules!

Even though I'm part of a music podcast, I'm not known for being current on music; the irony is not lost on me. I've been actively trying to change this. But, listening to music as I do makes this difficult. The over-the-air stations in my area are either a) ClearChannel and therefore run by the labels so we get over saturated with only a few bands, or b) local stations which have a wide range of stuff, but they kinda go all over the bloody spectrum, even to things that I don't like. And, they all have comercials, which I hate.

Enter Pandora. I've programmed it for a few bands/albums/songs that I really like and it picks songs that it thinks I might like based on what I've told it. The big advantage over a radio station is that I can provide immediate feedback if I don't like something, and it will use that information to pick or not pick future songs. I've only been listening for about 4 hours and it's already played fewer and fewer songs I don't like, and practically _NONE_ of it is stuff I've heard before.

Seriously. This rules. And, it's free if you don't mind some comercials. I hate them, so I happily sunk the $36/year to get the service sans comercials.

I suspect that over time, I'll be buying CDs from some of these artists and I'll finally be able to keep up with Jordy and Owen on "stuff we haven't played before." Read: No more Tool'sjissm. :-)

-Mark

I was looking for updates on HR 2060 and found this link to OpenCongress.org that shows the current status of presumably any bill, though I've only looked for HR 2060.

At the risk of boring you all with details and updates, I'll try to stay up to date and post here what's going on. Thanks for your support, everyone. Please do call your congress person; it really does make a difference. I've heard reports from people on Ari from di.fm's blog that some congress people have received over 2000 calls already. I heard on net@nite's interview with Tim Westergren of Pandora.com that when SaveNetRadio.org started their campagn, they obliterated the fax infrastructure on capitol hill with more faxes than they could handle.

This is serious. I can't urge you enough to call, write or otherwise communicate with your congress person and tell them you want them to support HR 2060.

Holy shit! They're impeaching Dick Head^W Cheney!! Am I just that totally removed from popular news that I didn't hear about this, or have they burried this?

HR.2060 now has a sibling in the Senate: S.1353. This is good news.

Now, you can contact your House Rep and Senators and please ask them to support HR.2060 and S.1353.

To summarize for those who don't know (and don't feel like reading my blog posts below or googling for it), these bills both un-do the egregious royalty rates that are going to be charged of net radio stations on July 15, retroactive to January 1, 2006. Yes, that's right. 1.5 years of back royalties that are anywhere from 3x to 21x (depending on who you ask) what they were before, and in most case, are many times the anual revenue of the station. This will effectively put net radio out of business, unless HR.2060 and S.1353 are passed.

One of my all time favorite radio shows Car Talk has, for a long time, been a pay-for podcast, but no more. You can now listen to Car Talk as a free podcast! Not just the Call of the Week anymore. This makes me happy. :)

We didn't get to a show this week. Scheduling just didn't work out. But, we're on deck for a show this coming week. Current theme idea: Collaborations. Should be a hoot _AND_ a nanny. You could call it a hoot'n'nanny...

What a friggin' joke. SoundExchange (the company that collects the royalties being discussed in HR2060 and S1353) claims "Recording Artists Outraged at Money Grab by Corporate Webcasters" saying Clear Channel, Yahoo!, AOL and Microsoft (everyone's favorite bad guy) will all save "100 million or more!" by this deal.

Wait a second here. You mean, companies save money when they're not subjected to price gouging by the recording industry? Stop the presses! Christ, we have to tell people about this!

The one critical element they fail to mention is that the new proposed rates are _MANY_TIMES_ what satellite and terrestrial radio stations pay for the same rights. Where's the logic in that? "Money grab" indeed.

These guys really are slimiest of the slime when it comes to lawyers. How do these people look at themselves in the mirror every morning without committing harikari? I can see it now: "I... I am sub-human. I represent all that is evil and immoral in the world. *splut* Ouch."

The Beasties Boys video for "Alive" I talk about every time I play the song can be found here. Thanks to Andrew for pointing it out to me.

Also, I think I have a theory on the shows getting cut-off. I think our host is terminating the transfers, and iTunes et.al don't retry the download. If your download gets cut off, delete and re-download the show. Hopefully it'll finish the next time.

I'll see about getting a different host.