wonk v3.0

Do adjust your mindset ( The Age / Alan Kohler )

In this article Alan Kohler takes a look at some of the challenges facing the free to air TV stations in Australia. Audiences are in decline, costs are on the rise, and there are increasing challenges from other forms of entertainment. What does this mean for the industry, and what impact will technology like IPTV have?

This needs no further comment:

At any rate, it’s a bit of a rip-off ( The Guardian / Adam Webb )

This article is a good look at the bitrate encoding of various paid music download services and what sort of difference in quality you can expect. Personally I have not purchased any 128k encoded files, such as those from iTunes, and I have no intention to in the future. I’d probably buy 320k encoded files, but I wouldn’t pay more than the 128k version. Ideally I’d prefer to get the audio uncompressed and do my own compression on it. It’s probably a very small minority of users who would want to do that..

Freeman Bringing Films to Net ( Wired News / Katie Dean )

From the article: “Oscar-winning actor Morgan Freeman is teaming up with Intel to launch an online movie-download site that aims to pull users away from illegal downloads of first-run films.

“We’re going to bypass what the music industry had to come up with, and that’s to get ahead of the whole piracy thing,” Freeman told reporters at Sun Valley after making his presentation, which was closed to the press.”

Apparently Morgan Freeman has been busy setting up ClickStar, a company which aims to make new release movies available for download while they are still showing at the cinema. He wants to make it easier to buy a download of the movie than to pirate one. I think the determining factor on whether this will work or not is how much the movie will cost relative to the quality of the video.

Google Readies Platform for Video Distribution (Slashdot)

Well this is an interesting development. Google with host video content for producers and look after the payment system if they choose to display it on a pay-per-view basis. I wonder if they’ll accept home movies or only professionally produced content?

Now that I have recovered from the Big Day Out I would like to post a quick review of the bands I saw. It follows the same order as the bands played in, for obvious reasons.

1) Frenzal Rhomb. I saw the last half of the set from these guys which contained some old favorites. The most entertaining part of the set was when The Doctor tried to jump off one of the amps and ended up flat on his face.

After Frenzal finished I went for a bit of a wander around to see what else was happening. There were some great sounds coming from Ennino Styles in the Boiler Room and Macromaniacs in the Hot House, but I just had a quick listen before heading back to the main stage.

2) The Donnas. They sounded fantastic and had a good mix of new songs and older favorites. The group of people in the mosh pit who kept chanting “take it off” between songs was quite amusing, and were thoroughly entertained when their request was granted. If you are not familiar with the work of The Donnas you might want to check their discography before jumping to the wrong conclusion.

3) Eskimo Joe. I was sitting in the grandstand and having a rest while listening to these guys. I only heard the first half of the set before going for a wander around again.

While wandering I heard some RJD2, Concorde Dawn and Money Mark.

4) The Spazzys. These girls put on a rocking set playing all the crowd favorites. I must buy their album.

5) Scribe with P Money. I don’t normally take notice of hip hop acts, but Scribe seems a little different to most. With him it seems to be all about the music instead of the gangsta talk to most hip hop artists are full of. He opened his set with Not Many which got the whole Boiler Room jumping. It was certainly the most energetic I’ve seen a crowd in there for one of the daytime acts.

After Scribe I went wandering again and caught some John Butler Trio, Spiderbait, Infusion, the Crusty Demons and Infusion. All of whom were thoroughly entertaining.

6) Slipknot. I saw a song and a half from these guys, which confirmed my suspicion that their music is not for me.

I went wandering again and saw Butterfingers and a little bit of The Streets. While The Streets were on song guys managed to climb on the roof of a small building next to the crowd area. This is obviously quite dangerous, and after a crowd death at the Sydney Big Day Out a few years back all the bands get briefed on crowd safety and actively discourage members of the crowd from doing anything dangerous. One of the funniest things I saw that day was Mike Skinner in his whiney pommey voice trying to get the guys to come down off the roof. “Come on guys, get down off the roof. Its really dangerous.”

7) System of a Down. I returned again to the grandstand to watch these guys, who put on a good set. I didn’t know many of the songs, but I could see the crowd down on the arena really getting into it.

Powderfinger. I only saw a song and a half from these guys before bailing out to see..

9) Regurgitator. These guys were great, playing many of their hits along with some new songs from Mish Mash! It was sad to discover last year (before the Bubble) that Quan is losing interest in making music. I wonder if the Bubble experience has changed anything for him.

10) Beastie Boys. This was an interesting show because they seemed to have two themes going at once. There was the good ‘ol 3 MCs and 1 DJ who sounded great, but they also kept toggling into some weird band mode which I didn’t get. My favorite song from them for the night was Intergalatic which they did from in the security area between the mosh pit and the stage.

11) CAUAC. Not a band, but a Tesla Coil. It was sweeet.

12) The Chemical Brothers. There is nothing quite like hearing the big frequency sweep at the start of Under the Influence on a big sound rig like the one in the Boiler Room. These guys were awesome and it was quite disappointing that I had to leave before the end of their set to catch a tram before they finished up for the night. Melbourne public transport sucks.

All up it was a great day out. Hopefully they can find a venue for next year.

Musician sows seeds for others (The Age / Patrick Donovan)

From the article: “Some rock stars spend their fortunes on mansions, private jets and high-grade cocaine. But ARIA’s “best male artist” of 2004, John Butler, has decided to give something back, offering $50,000 in grants to indigenous artists, refugees and social activists.“

John Butler has putting out great music for a while now, and he’s always quick to speak up on issues that matter to him. It’s fantastic that he has been able to release his music independently to prevent a major label from eating up all his profits, and then put that extra money back into the community. Kudos to you John.

Photo from The Age

Sales leak takes shine off CD gongs. (The Age / Neil McMahon)

From the article: “Australian Idol winner Casey Donovan’s victory parade was marred when it had barely begun. Her debut single, Listen With Your Heart, was given double platinum status when it had sold fewer than a third of the CDs represented by the award.

The leaked first-week sales figures brought to light a little-known fact about the charts: while rankings reflect actual sales, the gold and platinum gongs accompanying them do not. The latter are based on the number of CDs shipped to stores, meaning a singer or band could theoretically be hailed as a multi-platinum artist without selling a copy.”

There is a lot of this sort of dodgy shenanigans that goes on inside the recording industry. If I were somehow able to take advantage of record company accounting methods I would be able to earn a days wages simply by thinking about going to work. Now that’s an interesting idea…

Will Smith’s Secret Geek Life. (Wired News)

It’s an interesting read, including the little known fact that Will turned down the role of ‘Neo’ in The Matrix.

When the oil sticks . . . (The Age)

No news on when the film will be screened to the public in the USA or Australia.