Putting The I in Migas

The House that Brings a Smile

It's easy to dismiss the infinite number of music blogs out there as an echo chamber of wanna be insiders that only will praise a band until you've heard them.  But to do so means missing out on some great original writing  and endless insights into music both familiar and the unknown.

One site that gives reason to believe is When You Awake.  The owner, Jody Orsborn, is equal part curator of the past -posting epic clips from around the web and putting together a terrific series of mix tapes- and trustworthy gateway to the present - with honest reviews of emerging artists and thorough coverage of the LA music scene. 

Over the past few months she's turned me onto my favorite new band, Hacienda, as well as my new favorite dead artist, Jim Ford. (check out both below, and be ready to wonder how you've never heard of Jim Ford before, I have been asking myself that for two months and still haven't come up with a reason) 

Here's a quick smattering of some other stuff that has made my day: Linda Rondstat covering Tumbling Dice,  a mixtape of Kris Kristofferson covers (BTW: if anyone has ever looked more beautiful than Rita Coolidge in that video, I haven't seen them) and a 2009 interview with the ever bizarre Van Morrison.

This week Jody has a great guest mixtape from the Pete Osberg, curator of Wolfgang's Vault, who until Nick Meriwether got hired, might have had the best job going.

Listen:
Hacienda Who's Heart Are You Breaking" (buy)
Hacienda Apples
Jim Ford  Sounds of Our Time (buy)
Jim Ford  Workin My Way to L.A

 

Kicking Television

With the roommate moving out and the economy crumbling to the sea I took it upon myself to make an economical adult decision and cancel my cable service.  A tech savy friend of mine explain to me how with appletv, an external harddrive and boxee I could access everything I wanted to watch on demand. The new rig would cost me about 300 dollars and with my cable bill right at $100 a month the math meant that I'd have saved 500 dollars by the time I needed to get back on the grid for college football. 

Boxee was the wildcard and essential to success.  AppleTv is a wonderful device, but without adding software you're just giving iTunes prime real estate on your tv set. And Guatama aside, Steve jobs gets paid.  The rub in this is that ATV is a small box designed to be a closed system, so in order to download Boxee you need to remotely enter ATV through another computer. Boxee is linux based so if you run windows you'll need to download Putty just to simulate the shell secure connection of a linux operating system.  If I've lost you in there you're not alone, I have no idea what any of this means, but I'm starting to think with a two hours and access to a message board I could clone a sheep.  With that unsupported confidenced I copy and pasted away on my trusty dell. The next thing I knew my tv was taking me inside the matrix, and then boom, nothing and appletv rebooted. Dancing.  With boxee in place I could run torrents to view big love on demand, watch hulu in high def and run all the music on my harddrive through my stereo*.  My living room was now the future.

By the second day it became obvious that my logic hadn't been this flawed since the time I tried to argue a $200 speeding ticket by explaining to a cop that the school zone signs were blocked by all of the yellow buses.  Even though I'm sure I'll get over having missed Conan's final episode, the Oscars and a State of the Union, I vastly underestimated the value of live television.

Sadly, its the company i miss and not the programming.  Breakfast and Matt Lauer for fifteen minutes is a good start to a world of opportunities, without the moving pictures you're just a 31 year old in polar bear boxers and black socks with a bowl of dry cornflakes and some lactose issues.  The mindless relaxation that comes with finding a Road Rules marathon on a sunday afternoon evaporates by the time you fire up the apple tv and download something to watch.  And the serendiptous feeling of joy when you happen to join Shawshank with forty minutes left is not replaced by infinite, commercial free movies at your finger tips.

Not all is lost though.  If nothing else it's a nice talking point for friends and family.  This past weekend I spent twenty minutes explaining to my father how the hole thing worked.  He couldn't follow but was thoroughly impressed with my ingenuity and wanted to see it in action.  Immediately he asked if he could watch fox news: ever the proud son, I scrolled through the options and selected view all podcasts.  After thoroughly searching that list I returned to the main menu.  From here I used the tiny remote control scroll wheel to type fox news in the search bar.  The tv screen showed that it was buffering, and buffering and the presto, Dad was watching Katie Couric interview Captain Sully in grainy pixilated high definition.

Lest I forget about  the cost savings and ability to access the internet on your tv. For example,  yesterday, after returning from a long day at the office I prepared to watch last Friday's episode of the brilliant friday night lights.  I went to the Hulu option and was greeted by a message saying that in order to maintain the opportunity to make deals in the future, Boxee was observing Hulu's wishes to remove the program from their services.  This was a setback.  Hulu has the most free, quality content online.  However, I could easily watch something that wasn't owned by NBCUniversal or Fox.  So I went to the download site and picked up the entire first season of "Life on Mars", a subpar drama with Christofer Maltasante.  In twenty minutes I was watching my first episode and it had only cost me thirty nine dollars.  Patience is a virtue and I was rewarded for my virtuous efforts two episodes in when I realized that I didn't like "Life on Mars" and I should cross it off my list of a possible Big Love substitute. 

When I cancelled my services from Time Warner the operator was eager to intice me to stay by presenting me with sweet sounding.  She read directly from a script and offered me reduced rates and other spoils.    These 20th century tactics might work on the rest of their backbone-free luddite customers, but I declined. I understand computers, have access to the internet and am blessed with the skill set to overcome the short comings inherent in new technologies.  I am sure she could sense my superiority through the phone (I only wish I had conducted the call on a VOip network) when she posed the question "What are you going to do for TV".  My sarcastic and demeaning "I'll find away to make it through" had a simple yet obvious subtext, "I'm going to spend way more money each month watching crap I could care less about.  Technology, friends, will save us all.

Well my name is a number, a piece of plastic film

People who write blogs are quick to offer disclaimers.  I understand their desire to maintain journalistic integrity, I do, but come on buddy, I'm not concerned that your internship at talk magazine is going to cloud your analysis on Tina Brown's latest venture.  I'm on the internet, I've got the worlds information at my finger tips and you're sniff testing the milk and your boxer-briefs so I think its safe to say we're both are on the level.  

With that I offer you this post. Sans disclaimer.  Yes, I work at a large PC company.  But I am far from drinking the bug juice and am not sure I will be gainfully employed tomorrow.  I do use the very same company's PC at home and harness about a half a percent of my systems power.  Like you, I have a $1200 smut delivery system that has been slowed down fantastically by iTunes and is missing the v key.  

But still, the PC vs Mac Battle brings up an interesting point on democracy.  In one corner you have the Mac.  An orgasm in stainless steel.  So sleek.  So well designed.  So user friendly.  The interface is amazing and synching music with photos from my trip to Phuket is a breeze with their pre installed software. 

And in the other corner we have, a box.  Little thought put on design.  The GUI is a rip - off and who knows what all this shit means.  I get blue screens of death and windows that don't open and not once have I sat at my computer and felt like Tom Cruise in Minority Report. 

But at the end of the day, Apple is Big Brother. Cupertino houses a dictatorship.  Steve Jobs and his disciples are locked in a room, telling you want you want, defining your generation.   He knows that when you walk into a non chain coffee shop wearing an vintage t-shirt and sporting a not ironic because it is ironic moustache you want your laptop to say something about you.  He knows you want the little muffin with the eyebrow ring to think "man, he's gotta powerbook, he must be against genocide in darfur,i bet he'd want to crash the WTO convention with me."

Now the PC is nothing.  It's regular tabula rasa.  Thomas Jefferson would have used a PC.  Those who don't want to be told what they like, those that want to create, those that want to see how high the bar can be raised when not held down by the limitations set by the man, well they turn to old Bill G.  Bill gave them a platform to do whatever on earth their minds could dream.  So fuck the man. Fuck the MAC.  Free thinking has never been about slick UI.  That high class muffin you seek isn't concerned about the computer you use, she interested in your ideas, your soul and what kind of car you drive. 

A perfect example is this Disc Jockey, Girl Talk. Are you familiar? I don't know much about him, but I hear the kids buzzing that he can flip a funky beat like the shit was in a blender.

Disclaimer: I realize I'm being a bitch here.  I just keep seeing those iPhones commercials and getting fired up.  The restuarant app, the shazam feature. It's like a direct line to God.  I'd get one but i'd lose it in no time, I work for a competitor and I signed away my life to verizon.  Add to that it being teen week on jeopardy and this whiny, jealous rage starts to make sense.