it. was. phenomenal.

We had decided to participate in Mutemath’s budding VIP experience (Free t-shirts, albums, first-in-line passes, etc…), and one of the perks allowed me to acquire a photographer’s pass to the show. The VIP tickets also let us into the venue 30 minutes before doors opened. As a result, we got awesome spots up front.

Now back to the phenomenal part; Mutemath puts on an incredible performance. It’s a team of very talented musicians, sound and lighting engineers, stage hands, and event coordinators working together to put on a show that’s nothing short of cinematic. As a musician, I can attest to the practically perfect performance (yea alliteration); the few errors that did occur were seamless and handled with creativity.

Below are some of my favorite photographs from the show. If you want to see the full set, check them out on Flickr.

Maudlin

Good Luck and Godspeed

http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/03/the-sizzling-sound-of-music.html

Berger then said that he tests his incoming students each year in a similar way. He has them listen to a variety of recordings which use different formats from MP3 to ones of much higher quality. He described the results with some disappointment and frustration, as a music lover might, that each year the preference for music in MP3 format rises. In other words, students prefer the quality of that kind of sound over the sound of music of much higher quality. He said that they seemed to prefer “sizzle sounds” that MP3s bring to music. It is a sound they are familiar with.

That “sizzling” has always driven me nuts in the lower quality stuff.

I remember wondering what audiophiles were up to, buying extremely expensive home audio systems to play old vinyl records. They put turntables in sand-filled enclosures with elaborate cabling schemes. I wondered what they heard in that music that I didn’t. Someone explained to me that audiophiles liked the sound artifacts of vinyl records — the crackles of that format. It was familiar and comfortable to them, and maybe those affects became a fetish. Is it now becoming the same with iPod lovers?

I can’t totally subscribe to this hypothesis. Because vinyl records are analog, they play a continuous audio wave that includes a bit of warm fuzz and crackle. Whereas digital audio is a mashup of samples from the audio wave; the sizzle and hiss created from the gaps between the samples. You may get a little noise with vinyl, but at least cymbals will sound like they do in real life.

(via: Daring Fireball)

LoPez’s self-titled EP has been released on Amazon MP3 and iTunes!

The new EP is available for just under $5. You can use the link below to get to the stores.

Buy it from Amazon MP3
Buy it from iTunes

Here are the piks… If you want to see more pictures from this show or hear their music, than check out their MySpace page.

In the process of moving my pictures from my laptop to my new external, and also moving pictures from my backup external to my new one, I discovered some pictures that I had taken a while ago in need of ‘dusting’. So here they be.

I sat down in the left front row with my tripod, camera, and wide angle lens…all set to get some great shots. The house lights dim, and a women comes on stage to start the evening. She makes the usual comments about no smoking, no food or drink…etc, and then says “photography is not allowed,” and then pauses…and does a stage look right at me…in front of 200 people.

Well, being singled out in front of 200 people isn’t my favorite thing ever, so said in a stage whisper back to her, “I am here from University Communications,” thinking perhaps she will realize that someone in her department requested my presence.
“I didn’t know about this before hand,” she said. This is getting slightly more awkward… “I’m doing publicity shots for the University,” I said. “Well, I’ll talk to you in a minute,” she replied.

Okay, so does that mean I can take photos? Well she didn’t come talk to me in a minute, so I took several shots at opportune moments. Photography in a setting like this requires some delicacy. First of all it’s dark and flashes are always frowned upon because they are extremely distracting and irritating, so I needed a tripod so I could take pictures at slower shutter speeds. Second it’s in a theater that has incredibly good acoustics, so any shutter noise is very apparent, thus only allowing me to take pictures when there is music and/or spoken word… and even then I have to pick my moments. This means i have to be very selective of when I take a shot. I took 5 pictures before the intermission, and all of them turned out well.

At the intermission, the aforementioned person came and talked to me. She was very brusque and straightforward, but explained why the did not want photographs taken etc… I think it mainly boiled down to copyright issues with choreography and not having the performers permission before hand. Despite the fact that those were not very compelling reasons to stop taking pictures (copyrights on choreographing really only apply to video, and there is not really any law to stop me from taking candid pictures), I decided to oblige them and quit taking photographs. No reason to irritate people just for some work photos.

Anyway, here are my 5 shots from the evening. (I guess i took 6 including the picture of the announcer… maybe that’s why she didn’t like me )

This one is my favorite.

So if you can think of a better name for this daily/weekly posting…just holla.

Without any further dissertation, I present to you: Wicked Url [said "earl"]

• The editor for this magazine should be fired…
  oops…
  http://englishrussia.com…
  (courtesy of: Dethroner.com)
• 30 Strangest Deaths
  Sometimes you just gotta wonder why the human race has made it this far…
  http://www.neatorama.com…
  (courtesy of: popurls.com)
• Free Software Foundation to Jobs: Be First to Drop DRM
  This is kind of an interesting issue. Jobs wrote an open letter, a little while back, that detailed his feelings on the matter of DRM (Digital Rights Management). Apparently the Free Software Foundation wrote a reply.
  Article – http://www.ecommercetimes.com…
  Steve Jobs’ open letter – http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/
  (courtesy of: popurls.com & Apple.com)
• This is some sweet art…
  http://fraudwasteabuse.wordpress.com…
  (courtesy of: AmandaCongdon.com)