[	Tags	|	deathboy, earth loop recall, music	]
[	mood	|	sleepy	]

My recent personal hero is mr_disconnected. He answered my plea by sending me a brand spanky new CD copy of "Compulsion", along with another CD of goodness. I am looking forward to his gig on 30th March in Cheltenham, and even more so to the prospect of a second ELR album.

In related news, I wonder whether I can post a cheque to Line Out Records in order to secure DeathBoy's shiny new "End of an Error" in time for Friday's gig in Leeds or whether I should wait and abuse the merch stall at the gig...

[	Tags	|	earth loop recall, music	]
[	mood	|	hopeful	]

Inspired by a recent post by angryangeltoo... my copy of Earth Loop Recall's "Compulsion" has gone AWOL, either loaned and not returned, or missing in a house move. Could anybody provide me with a copy? Preferably in Vorbis or FLAC, but MP3 would be OK.

[	Tags	|	dresden dolls, music	]
[	mood	|	confused	]
[	music	|	Death in Vegas - "Death Threat"	]

resiak claism that I'm wrong to think that, while shouty-bird-with-piano could make for good music, in the case of the Dresden Dolls it doesn't. They're another of these bands which are inexplicably popular among my friendslist, and for once they don't go bleep. So what am I missing? Vorbis / MP3 demonstrations of their talent welcome, though I already have "Girl Anachronism" and "Sex Changes".

[	Tags	|	creative commons, freethepostcode, music, npemap, openguides, openstreetmap, xykogen	]
[	mood	|	sleepy	]

A few things to pimp: Xykogen's new album is free to download, and very good. When they said it would be available when they went onstage at Whitby, I had assumed they would take the link down after their set finished, but it's still up there.

Many of you will know that I'm involved in the OpenGuides project, a set of community-contributed city guides, as the administrator of The Open Guide to Manchester. I'm a believer in community-contributed, Creative Commons-licensed or otherwise shareable data, particularly geographical data. OpenStreetMap has interested me for a while, as has Free the Postcode, but I've not been able to contribute to either since I don't have a GPS.

New Popular Edition Maps is an interesting site for two reasons. Firstly, it's a web-accessible set of scans of 1940s Ordnance Survey maps which have now fallen into the public domain, so you can have a look at how where you lived looked 60-odd years ago. Secondly, these maps are sufficiently accurate to locate most modern houses, and they're being used to generate a database of public domain-licensed postcode locations - simply find any location for you know the postcode, enter it, and contribute. This publically-available geodata will allow charities, community projects and other organisations (including commercial ones) to provide postcode-oriented services without having to fork out to license the Royal Mail's database. Do get involved in any of these projects - contributing a postcode takes less than a minute, and every one counts!

[	Tags	|	music	]
[	mood	|	impressed	]
[	music	|	Jeans Team - "Keine Melodien"	]

Despite the fact that Flash is the scum of the earth, this is an informative (and surprisingly accurate, even if they do claim that Assemblage 23 is EBM) website where you can happily waste many many many hours: Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music.

Today's musical hero award goes to mr_tom who has directed my attention to a list of covers of Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart". I have empirically determined that the maximum time one can spend listening to such covers is approximately 90 minutes before brainmelt.

babbage, I'm not sure they've labelled the Swans covers correctly, so you may wish to edumacate them.

[	Tags	|	music	]
[	mood	|	impressed	]
[	music	|	DeathBoy feat. Mog Xykogen - "Anuism"	]

Despite my intent to only consume and promote Creative Commons-licensed music this year, I am going to be a big filthy manwhore for the awesome mog_warbeast and deathboy:

Last night I ripped the Violent Femmes "Greatest Hits" album, "Add It Up", to my PC. I wanted greyeyedeve to listen to "Kiss Off", because the Foo Fighters' "All My Life" reminds me thereof (at least in part). I keep forgetting just how good the Violent Femmes are. Before last night I probably would have remembered that I like "Kiss Off", "Add It Up", and a couple of other tracks. However, I ended up barely able to get to sleep because the tracks I'd just listened to were buzzing around my head.

Annoyingly, the CD drive in my PC at work appears to be knackered to the point that ripping CDs causes spontaneous reboots, and my desktop at home is switched off.

Still, this morning it occured to me that you could do a fine mashup with "Add It Up" and Jay-Z's "99 Problems"...

[	Tags	|	creative commons, freedom, music	]
[	mood	|	impressed	]
[	music	|	James Ray - "Hi-Tech Overlord"	]

From the Creative Commons blog:

Creative Commons, Warner Bros. Records, and Machine Shop Recordings, are proud to present the Fort Minor Remix Contest, starting today at ccMixter. Fort Minor -- the hip-hop project led by Linkin Park vocalist/guitarist/keyboardist Mike Shinoda -- is offering the separated audio elements of its hit single "Remember the Name" online under a Creative Commons BY-NC license, so that people all over the world can easily and legally create remixes of the song.

The producer of the winning remix (as chosen by Mike Shinoda) will be awarded a new Technics SL-1200MK5 turntable, courtesy of Warner Bros. Records and Machine Shop Recordings.

Visit ccMixter for more details about the contest.

I don't think I've pimped ccMixter before outside of comments; it's a website where artists can license their tracks and remix kits as part of the Creative Commons and acts as a central repository to track collaboration and sharing between artists. It's great if you want people to remix your work, and great if you want to make a name for yourself as a remixer. There are a lot of "mixversations", artists of mutual respect who remix each other's tracks. If you're into remixing, it's a fun place to be.

While it's not the class break I'd like, a famous artist such as Mike Shinoda, and a label like Warner Bros. not only acknowledging but also participating in the Creative Commons, encouraging both creativity and sharing, is a good step. It certainly challenges the assumption that Creative Commons only applies to small indie bands; while most artists taking advantage of the Commons are comparatively small, there's no reason why this should be the case other than the corporate mentality of the Record Industry™. Every chink in this mentality, every artist large or small who joins in the Creative Commons, whether it's Fort Minor, Beastie Boys, David Byrne or Brad Sucks, will help get us away from the defensive, secretive mentality which leads to stupid prosecutions, dangerous legislation, and sinister technology such as trusted computing and Digital Restrictions Management, and towards a more laissez faire world where people aren't treated as criminals by default.

You never know, maybe if Hollywood gets in on the act they'll get rid of those stupid anti-piracy adverts on DVDs. And if you want to get involved, try listening to a cast of Creative Commons-licensed music such as CC365.