CSNY

Red Magnetic Moon

Happy New Year!

Crazy Bike

Hot and bored? Check this out

Free Peoples :: It Is What It Is

I got into this CD a year or so ago when it first came out and it keeps coming around to treat me right. Definately a great flow of songs and solid musicianship.

Check out Wild Wild West.

[Update] Phish :: Live In Brooklyn

Phish :: Live In Brooklyn

I had written a little blurb about this the other day after just listening on Rhapsody but this past week we went out to see the actual movie and I've gotta say...WoW.

You forget sometimes how good the band is, and while the memories of the Coventry meltdown seem to linger, there exists very strongly moments of glory too many to count and this show is a great example.

They can stretch out to that "space" and dominate, take over the evening, they're untouchable.

While I have personal reservations as to the validity of announcing your own depature as what seems as only a mechanism to add more intensity to an already crazed situation, it's clear that the band's passion and timing shine through in this 'farewell' tour opener to the point of celebration and positive union.

I think for many fans who were shocked / dissapointed / confused / left-wanting-more / complete or had just moved on after '98, sitting back on your couch and watching this show (or dancing in your living room) could prove to be a gentle sturring reminder of truly how good the band can be when they want to.

Damn, now I want them to get back together...

p.s. The Divided Sky encore at Greatwoods on 8/11/04 is pretty awesome
http://www.livephish.com/show.asp?show=344

Territory

Marketing Trust Wars

I just got a call (on my cellphone) from a company calling in regards to my credit card, starting the call by telling me not to worry, it's in good standing, and then proceeded to offer me $40 in free gas and $600 in free grocery coupons.

They then tried to confirm my address and I had to ask again where they were calling from. They told me the name of the company they were calling from which didn't sound familiar, then they explained that they do marketing promotions on behalf of ... other companies I didn't recognize.

Then the big question hit me: What's the catch?

Sure, it might be exciting to get some free stuff, but what do I have to give up in return? What huge database with my name and number will now be spread around to marketers everywhere with a big red tag on it that says "SUCKER" so they can market more free stuff to me and sell me things.

The bigger reality is that I didn't give permission for these people to call me in the first place, so there's no established trust. Maybe if it was my actual credit card company that was calling me to thank me for being such a good customer (how did this company know?) i would have responded differently.

This all point to a deterioration of trust in our world, especially around marketing of products.

Permission, Relevancy, Targeting, Expectation - these aren't just buzzwords designed to sell books, they're actually real things that work and make sense and lend themselves to the core of how companies should act so that they can not only become financially successful but actually provide a valuable trusted service....

You have new Picture Mail!

The Everyone Orchestra

Multi Media

It starts with text: Information, resource, reference.

Then the written word. Expression and expressive. Interpretations and Interpreted and read in the voice of the reader. a preview and review. mis-interpreted or emphasized differently. Back and forth, around and around, words get passed on and along and reread and rewritten...Explaining and re-emphasizing.

Photos: worth at least a thousand words. everyone sees something differently. every moment creates a new opportunity to capture the next moment. visualized and magnified. art and proof of the experience.

Audio: a recording of the moment. the audible experience. jolting the memory in context and reliving the experience from ear to ear. a slice of time blended and mixed and mastered for our oratory digestion.

Video: the fluid visual with audio complements - a full two dimensional recreation of one angle of perspective brought back frame by frame for our re-enjoyment

what's next?

nothing replaces the live experience...

Spread Live Music

For the last several months, I've been working on a new feature for JamBase which allows anyone to publish a MyJamBase Public Profile. This will create a JamBase page of your own that displays a little bit of information about you, a list of upcoming shows in your personal calendar (viewable by friends only) along with your favorite bands and upcoming shows for those bands. It also lists any friends with Profiles along with a Photo Gallery.

Yeah, it's kinda like some of those other social media/networking/lifestyle sites except I like to say that your MyJamBase Friends are people you actually know and go to shows with in the real world as well as the whole purpose of this is to get people to actual leave their computers and hang out in real life. Crazy concept, I know.

After much testing, playing and testing again I recently "soft launched" this new set of features. For those with My JamBase accounts there is now a "My Public Profile" link in the top header which will lead you through a basic set-up process, photo upload and then to your newly created public profile.

The idea here is to create a trusted source for live music recommendations. Any fan can recommend music simply by customizing their own page. It should hopefully evolve to turn people onto new kinds of music in a whole new way.

With no promotion and very little site wide integration, over 500 people have set up their profiles. It's still in the larva stages of development and there isn't any way (yet) to "search" or "browse" for other fans in your area but you can hopefully see where this can and will go.

Mine is at www.jambase.com/profiles/andy

Create your own: http://www.jambase.com/myjambase/editprofile.asp

Customize, Connect, Discover...Live Music

Go Trey!

Timing is Everything

Decade, Years, Months, Weeks, Days, Hours, Minutes, Seconds, etc...

The more things change, the more they stay the same...and change.

Timing is, indeed, everything. Whether you're running to catch the bus, merging onto the highway, headed out to the show or walking to work...when you arrive seems to be a dominating factor of our day.

The journey, of course, is the prize (kvhw), and along the way the flow and time of how long something takes to accomplish also affects the quality of the experience.

Why am I pontificating on time at such a moment as this?
throughout the last several weeks of my blog-less adventure, "Timing Is Everything" has continued to pop into my head as it surrounds travel, friends, family, fun and everything in between.

So who knows if NOW is the right time to re-spark this online spark or not. What syndicated effects will take place from these actions are yet to be known.

We are stuck in a loop of watching our own movie, trying desperately to get ahead and "make time" for ourselves while we give up our day to the flow of persistent navigation.

"Timing is everything, that much I know.
Sometimes I'm fast(er) and sometimes I'm slow
Some days vacation but some days I'm told
I've come to to the end of the line
But when I can't be what's expected of me
I look at the clock and say this can't be
Watching it pass without reason or rhyme
I feel I'm suspended in time"
Phish: Vultures

"Up the rigging take in sail mind the skipper we'll not fail
He'll bring out wine all we'll all be fine just hear the order watch the sail
The moment ends"
-Phish, The Moma Dance