HUH?

AmsterJamTastic!

We arrived in Amsterdam about 9:30am on Sunday morning. There was a foggy haze over the city which added to the relaxed atmosphere we were already feeling. After a quick check in our Herengracht apartment we found our way around to enjoy the hospitality and local dutch flavors. Everywhere people were wandering the streets to enjoy what turned into a very mild afternoon. It was a beautiful Sunday.

There was a growing convergence amongst heads in town for the festivities. Friends appeared excited to bask in the glory of our music and appreciate the good fortune that came with being overseas for a few days. There was certainly a dream-like quality to the day.

By the time the evening rolled around the vibe was in full gear and we were ready for the show. Inside the Melkweg, a positive family vibe was forming. Keller Williams started things off with his heady blend of loop-laced improvisation. As he invited Jon Gutwillig from the Biscuits to join him, you knew there was a growing magic in the air. The night quickly evolved as Particle took the stage in the larger room across the hall. It didn't take them long to get the freight training running on all cylinders and the dance hall pumping. Alternating between acts was as well a treat unto itself. The venue is set up so you can seamlessly migrate from one performance to the next, which in itself had a nice flow.

The Disco Biscuits took the stage at midnight and captivated the packed crowd through a high-powered overflowing set of classic Bisco. There were definately some large moments of light, bringing me back to many years ago when I first fell in love with the band. The set peaked during Svenghali and the extended Spacebirdmating Call > I-Man > Spacebird. Go Bisco!

Umphrey's McGee went on around 1am and contributed their part to the rocking evening, tearing it up all night long. The set featured a great tribute to Pink Floyd with "Shine on You Crazy Diamond" (synchronistically played around the same the Biscuits were ending their set with "Run Like Hell") and encoring with No More Tears by Ozzy Osborne. Go metal!
Hats off to all the fans and the organizers for making day one an incredibly memorable experience...

The morning awoke to my discovery that you can program you iPod to not only be a clock, but also an alarm clock, and have the alarm play a selected playlist from your library. There is nothing quite like waking up to Jerry Garcia singing "I'll Take a Melody" in Amsterdam. The day was off to a blissful start.

There is something special about the Dutch culture that's tough to put your finger on at first. It isn't blatent or obvious, but it's right there in front of your face and after a day and 1/2 of living in Amsterdam, it hits you solid.

It isn't just about the tolerance to medicinal herbs, but that's certainly could be a cause (or natural side effect). There's the environmental consciousness that they've built into their world, strategically placing factories next to each other where one's output is the other's input. They have bike lanes, a comprehensive tram system, smaller cars and continual space conservation. When you have over a million people living in that small of a city, conservation values become a way of life. They also don't bring you your dinner check until you ask for it, and tipping is optional....

Whatever it was, we were having the time of our lives by the end of the second day, and fully in the synchronistic flow of the city. Good times proceeded the rest of the weekend, culminating in a few epic musical collaborations and overall positive momentum by all the participants. All of the bands appeared to be enjoying themselves immensely, trying their best to raise themseleves up to the next level and go above and beyond they're typical call of duty.

The weekend's highlight may have been 1am on Sunday as I walked back and forth between The Disco Biscuits and Umphrey's McGee, playing simultaneously on two stages only 30 feet across the hall from each other.

Go Amsterdam!

Your Friends' Favorite Bands

If you had a friend in another city and one of your favorite bands was playing tonight, you'd want them to know about it, right?

Well, it's now slightly easier to tell them, as well as find out when your friends' favorite bands are playing in your local area.

Check out: JamBase Friends' Favorite Bands

This will show you a listing of all upcoming events in your area for your friends favorite bands.

To help your friends out, simply search JamBase for your favorite bands and click on the "Add Band To My Favorites" link at the top of the page.

Got it? Enjoy it...and spread it.

Are you getting the whole picture?

I just came across a strange web development problem. One of our clients called to say that they couldn’t see their ad being displayed on the top of our website. We have a semi-standard, 234x60 animated gif rotating zone in the header of every JamBase page. It’s been there for years.

Apparently there is software now that filters out ads based upon their URL and keywords in the filename. Literally, the whole image just goes away.

Since the URL of our ads had the word “/ads/” in the directory listing, Norton Internet Security’s “Ad Blocking” feature saw this and decided that it shouldn’t display it.

It’s really got me thinking – in an attempt to avoid interaction with a potentially harmful advertisement, people are severely limiting their web experience to the point of not really seeing the entire picture, and most of them don’t even know that it’s happening!

They do attempt to give their users instructions on how to allow ads to appear here. And apparently there is a list of about 50 other keywords that they use to filter out ads all across the web, but I couldn’t find that list anywhere to try and understand how to work around it.

The problem with their whitelisting option, is that it’s not built into the browser and doesn’t let you configure it from the web page you’re on and want to see more of – as well as in this case, the image just doesn’t appear, and there’s a big blank space. How am I supposed to know to allow something that I can’t see and am not told about?! At least IE pop-up blocker tells you that it’s blocked something and gives you the options.

What about all the web publishers out there who are getting blocked and make their livelihoods on the web? Is Norton just allowed to do this without really making it clear what’s going on? Isn’t this censorship? And what happens when people find out about this software and just program around it…? And then need to run more ads to make up for the lost revenue they had while trying to fix the problem?...ok, maybe that’s taking it a little too far.

Yahoo is touting the big 10th anniversary Netrospective this week…but honestly, I feel that the web has gotten more difficult to navigate and build around everyday. It's like a freaking minefield. And I think this is a really lame solution to a broader problem - pretty much exactly what they mean by cutting off your nose to spite your face, but I guess it's come to that in this crazy age of internet ad avoidance world…and frankly, I’m not sure I even have a better solution at this point. How sad.