This is a little old but worth posting.

In a bit of 20th Century music news, FirstSounds.org has figured out a way to play back some of the world's earliest sound recordings. The folks over at Tonehammer, a purveyor of fine samples, made free reproductions available:

Invented in the 1850s by French inventor Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville, these "Phonautograms" actually predate Thomas Edisons earliest recordings by nearly two decades.

They were made by projecting sound into a cylindrical horn attached to a stylus, which in transferred the vibration into lines over the surface of soot-blackened rolls of paper. These captures were purely optical.

No device existed which could translate the recorded acoustic information back into sound, until the First Sounds organization acquired the artifacts, with the help of the French Academy of Sciences. They worked with scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and other experts to devise a method of scanning and deciphering the images.

I used some Tonehammer products on my soon-to-be-released "Reflection" album. Good stuff!

The Rational Rationing of Health Care

Everything in the physical world is rationed.

There's a finite amount of stuff. As an economist, I always believed a big part of the value of economics was studying ways to divide up a finite amount of stuff against greater demand.

This is called "rationing."

Health care is no exception to this. There aren't enough doctors, drugs, or MRI machines to go around for everyone to get as much as they want all the time. (This could be changed if society wanted to do so, but that is a different discussion).

So American society "rations" it. Currently, that rationing system says that if you're wealthy, you can have all the care you choose to buy. If you're extremely poor, you might be able to get an emergency room to help you...and if you can't cover the bill, the American taxpayer will pay. If you're in the middle, should anything remotely serious happen, you're going to get clobbered unless your employer offers insurance, and even then, you're only covered up to what they choose to provide.

As for the "choice" everyone supposedly has or wants, all those American workers covered by employer-provided plans generally don't get much choice, unless you think "this or nothing" is a good choice; or if a choice between "affordable but crappy insurance" and "you could theoretically have what you want, but in practice you can't pay for it" is a choice.

"Rationing" is a term thrown around to scare people. It conjures up images of nasty military food and extreme scarcity in times of war. See past the term and get to what's really being discussed - do you think the finite amount of healthcare should be simply up for sale to the highest bidder, and that cash should be the only criterion for distribution?

As a society, I think we can have an intellectually honest debate about whether health care is a basic human right or not (we can choose to be like some Third World countries and literally let people die in the streets) but that's a lot more personal, intense, and harder to fight against than "rationing".

Another point brought up frequently is that centralized systems like those of the UK or Canada, "the basics" (broken arms, shots, infections) are well-covered, but things like cancer or fanicer treatments are harder to get treatment for.

Guess what? You're probably only ever going to need "the basics". It's akin to owning terrible day-to-day clothes but 3 bitchen tuxedos. I think it's better to focus on covering most of what you need most of the time.

Framers of the debate are playing on people's emotions, their fears of serious diseases, and their lack of statistical understanding. It's shameful.

Most of the people in the debate are reacting from fear and emotion, rather than thinking about what they really need and what's best for everyone. That's nothing new, but I remain disappointed in the general public's ability to see past such blatant attempts at distortion and manipulation.

Over the last few years, I've interacted more closely with the insurance-medical complex. It's hardly been ideal, but I've managed to get the care I've needed, as have most people I know.

Insurance works on a simple principle: spread risk out over a large population. I suppose viewed through Tea-colored glasses it sounds "Socialist".

Perhaps this ultimately mirrors the larger sub rosa conversation going on in American society today: Would you prefer that you personally had the small opportunity to be very, very rich while everyone else is poor, or would you prefer we tried to lift everyone's quality of life a little bit?

The recent lottery hype provides all the answer one needs, sadly.

MOG for Mobile Phones

Today MOG launched its Android and iPhone mobile apps. So far, the reviews have been good.

This is the culmination of months of hard work by the MOG team...and also yours truly. I learned a lot and believe this app is superior in several ways to some of my previous efforts. Not perfect yet, but we'll be working on these for a while.

These apps are also the latest step in the music services my friends and I have been envisioning for over a decade: (nearly) Every song in the world is available for your immediate listening. Or download to the phone for playback later without a connection. High quality sound, too.

I've been working in digital media for so long I sometimes forget to appreciate the paradise we've created.

So if you have an iPhone or Android phone, go get MOG! 3 day free trial, or just go ahead and sign up.

41

Good coffee. A quick omelette. "The Pearl" on the stereo. Through windows jeweled with dew and fog I see the sun pulling itself up. 41 today.

Last year, with the aid of family and friends, I had a wonderful, massive birthday party. I was working at Rhapsody. Had just written a song called "Oh Shit, I'm 40!" (which I will record and post here soon). Much has happened since then.

Not long after that party, my employment situation changed rather dramatically. I managed to start a digital media consulting business before ending up with a new job that has made me far happier than my previous gig. And this in an economy where many talented people cannot find anything. And my phone is still ringing!

I had a computer near-death experience, but managed to retrieve all my data (thank you, TechCollective!) and still finish one of the better records I've made: "Reflection", which will be fully released as soon as Sound and Fury finish putting the book together.

In May, I saw my cousin Claire get married. It was great to see how much she'd grown and changed over the years. Hard to believe this was the same woman who had appeared as a nearly-silent teenager who wouldn't look you in the eye. It was also nice to see the extended family and friends together, many of whom I hadn't seen in decades.

On Monday, July 12 my great-aunt Caroline "Linie" Lushbough died. She was 88 years old. She was more of a grandmother to me than her sister ever chose to be. A wonderful, remarkable woman. True pioneer stock, she had a pilot's license and flew planes, cooked delicious food, and always, always had a great attitude about everything. I was fortunate enough to see her this past May.

On Wednesday, July 14, I saw Neil Young in concert. Neil is 64 years old and still performing a wide range of music. Inspiring. Perhaps I don't have to "retire" from live performance just yet (I'm currently playing in 2 bands, one of which has a show tomorrow).

Life isn't perfect, but that's OK. I'm working on things that need attention and getting better at ignoring the rest. I am incredibly fortunate, and grateful for the life I have. Sometimes it feels like every day merits a celebration. Today is as good a day as any.

Thank you all for checking in here, and for being a part of my life!

Who's To Blame For The BP Disaster?

I've posted about oil before, and I've posted a few times about other energy sources. I feel compelled to write about the BP disaster.

It's been over a month since the Deepwater Horizon sank, and oil has been pouring into the Gulf of Mexico non-stop ever since. BP's latest effort ("Top Kill") has failed. It is gradually dawning on people that BP may not be able to stop the leak any time soon.

This will be the largest environmental catastrophe in American history. As much as I hate to prognosticate, I expect in a few weeks the phrase "America's Chernobyl" will make its way into the public dialog. And it should. But in the long term, this is worse than Chernobyl.

While Chernobyl was awful, affecting hundreds of thousands of people, it was dealt with quickly. Chernobyl resulted in a relatively small number of direct human deaths, and a minimal effect on the surrounding ecosystem. Now, 24 years later, nearly all of the area is habitable. Wildlife appears to be making a strong comeback, even with the radiation and inevitable genetic damage.

If BP were to stop the oil right now, the world is still facing the real possibility of the extinction of much of the sea life in the area, and the potential collapse of the ecosystem in the Gulf in both short and long term. Each day that passes increases those odds.

There is a very real possibility the well simply cannot be stopped with the technology we have today. With Chernobyl, relatively simple techniques (dropping tons of concrete) worked, and worked quickly.

There are about 3800 offshore drilling platforms in the Gulf of Mexico alone. The real surprise for the BP spill isn't that it happened - the real surprises are that it took this long to happen, and that the industry remains able to drill in places where there was not a robust plan for dealing with a "black swan" event or total failure scenario.

If you had been told "hey, there's a chance that offshore drilling will absolutely obliterate the Gulf of Mexico", would it still have been OK?

But that's not the real issue here. Right now, everyone is focused on one question: Who's to blame? So far, I've heard:

• BP
  
• Halliburton
• Transocean
• Big oil
• The Bush Administration featuring Dick Cheney
• The Obama Administration

But this is all distraction and misdirection. Here's who's really at fault:

Us. Me. You.

We ignored the wake-up call of the '70s oil shocks and spent the last 40 years pretending everything was OK
We continued to drive gas-guzzling cars after the oil shocks of the '70s, culminating in the plague of SUVs and The Hummer
We care more about how fast our car gets to 60 than how far it goes on a gallon of gas
We care more about cupholders and DVD players in our cars than emissions
We wanted a ridiculously big, heavy car because it made us feel safer, despite it actually being less safe for everyone else, and occasionally, us.
We knew we'd run out of oil, paper, and fresh water in our lifetimes and we decided somebody else would figure it out
We complain about windmills blocking our view
We fight nuclear power
We are OK with lopping the tops off of mountains and wrecking our landscape for coal, as long as it doesn't happen in our town
We complain every time the price of gas goes up a nickel, despite the fact that we only spend $2400 per year on gas, and the real cost of gas has fallen steadily over the last few years
We couldn't be bothered to bring bags to the grocery store and embraced the plastic grocery bag with open arms
We bought bottled water, buying industry panic and hype while both paying for tap water and infrastructure and not caring about groundwater quality
We leave the lights on
We expect everything to be wrapped and packed in plastic

Most damningly, we feel entitled to a particular way of life: A rich one, where we get to say what changes and what doesn't, when and how. That's delusional. Our way of life is always changing, like it or not.

We should all take a good look in the mirror. Make some changes right now. Find out what you can do. And prepare for a less pleasant way of life in the future.

Music and Business: What The Internet Really Means

5. What The Internet Really Means (for musicians)
Back to the original graphic that started this series of posts: It seems to show the best way for musicians to make a living is for them to sell CDs directly to fans.

Really? All this upheaval, all these changes in the music business, and the best thing people can come up with is a strategy from 1990 (but as Suck.com would say..."on the WEB!")?

Does anyone really believe that artists should concentrate on selling CDs directly to fans?

First, the CD is dead. At the recent NARM conference, what's left of the irrelevant music retailing business was agitating for $10 CD prices. So the folks selling CDs want the price to go down, which means less money for music.

Guys, you're about 10 years too late. Tower is gone. Wal-Mart is very close to yanking all music from its stores. Best Buy is practically there already. The biggest music retailer now is iTunes, and in case you haven't heard, they don't sell CDs.

Second, there's the part about you selling direct to your fans. Once you've unwisely transmuted several grand into heavy plastic physical goods, you now have to distribute them. Hey, how many record stores (run by the aforementioned irrelevant music retailers) are in your town and immediate area?

Oh, but you're going to sell direct to your fans, right? OK. How many shows are you playing this month? For how many people? How many CDs are you going to move? How many did you move at your last gig? What about your friends' bands? How are they doing?

Mmm. You have a website? Well, you're on the right track. Now at least people can buy your CD whenever they want, instead of whenever you happen to be near them with a CD in hand. But you're either going to have to cut in CDBaby or you're going to handle fulfillment and credit card charges yourself. And your fans will have to wait several days for your CD to arrive. It sure would be better if you could just provide downloads.

And if you are providing downloads, why not have someone else host them, so they're always available? Why not make sure they're sold in the #1 store? That would be (right now) iTunes.

So you're back to selling downloads on the Internet. Because that's how you make your music available in the most convenient way to the most people. And from there, it becomes obvious that you should have your music available on Pandora, Rhapsody, MOG, and all the other services.

Why? Because if people can't hear your music where they want and in the way they want, they won't hear your music at all. And you'll get zero dollars for it.

In this respect, the internet is great for musicians, because it allows you to cheaply distribute your music worldwide, 24/7. Yeah, you make less money per transaction. Big deal. The other folks in the chain are providing value. Personally, I'd rather have 100 people pay me $1 for my album than 1 person pay me $200 for it. But then, I'm not a "professional" these days.

In terms of live music, I'd note that when I fronted a cover band, I made thousands of dollars and could have easily made a living earning close to $100k per year...if I had wanted to sing "Hungry Like The Wolf" in shiny silver pants night after night. It was fun and it paid the bills, but it was not deeply satisfying. It was also a hard life full time - lots of alcohol, travel, bad food, and other work hazards.

The internet made it easy for the cover band to get booked - people could check out videos, MP3s, and photos. We didn't have to doll up expensive physical promo packs. And people from all over the world could check out the band, resulting in a wider range of bookings.

Making my own music, while extremely satisfying, has barely made me enough money to buy a dinner or break even on the CDs. Factor in the gear, time, etc. and I'm way in the red. But I get to make exactly the music I want, on the terms I want, when I want. And with the internet, everyone can hear it.

Ultimately demand for music is lower than musicians would like. Despite the supposedly bleak financial picture for the business, there are more people making music and releasing albums than ever before.

That freedom, that creativity, that power - it's a good thing, right?

If you're interested in making music, the internet is great for you...and great for everyone else. You'll have to try hard to be heard over everyone else's music. But all in all, the internet giveth more than it taketh away.

If you're interested in selling music, the internet is essential for you...but you're in a terrible, highly competitive business. My advice to you: lower your expectations and/or get into a new line of work.

Regardless of whether you're making or selling music, as a vocation it is a tough one. Despite the difficultly, people have been and will continue to be professional musicians. The internet is now a key part of any job requiring networking and communication.

The original graphic and article show just one axis or dimension: what you have to do to get a certain amount of money. It positions all of these actions as equivalents, which is a substantial elision. Selling CDs directly to fans is extremely difficult. That's why you get to keep more money: it's hard to make the market and convince someone to buy your CD. It's much easier to convince them to play your song a few times on a music service like MOG or Rhapsody.

The internet and music technologies have provided a new universe of tools for creators and listening experiences for users. It's the world we live in now. Rather than continuing to decry how little money musicians get (something that is probably as old as music itself), I think we should focus on how to get more people listening to all of us.

All 5 Parts Now Available:
1. The Problem Nobody's Talking About
2. Too Much Music?
3. Now It's Everywhere
4. The Audience Isn't Listening
5. What The Internet Really Means

Music and Business: The Audience Isn't Listening

4. The Audience Isn't Listening
Many record business executives point to the original, illegal Napster as the beginning of the end. And they blame Napster for mortally wounding the music business. But Napster didn't host files. It just allowed people to share them. It was the listeners and fans who did all the "illegal downloading".

Since the glory days of the music business (let's call it the late 1980s) the world has changed. The business stopped selling singles (or charged much more than they ever had) and focused on albums. The major labels changed how they develop artists (they stopped). They changed their definition of a "hit" or successful record. They focused on selling 2 million albums in a single year over selling many millions over a career.

Music fans grew up. The entertainment dollars they and their kids have can go to music...but they can also go to Internet subscriptions, World of Warcraft, XBox, mobile phones and data plans, iPhone apps, computers, Netflix, DVDs, and fancy coffee. The music business has responded...largely by offering the same product, but "remastered", with a "bonus disc" at a higher price. In other words, "please just go buy it again".

Digital music services came along. The traditional industry responded with piracy concerns and has only reluctantly allowed legitimate services to operate, dragging their feet the entire time.

Simultaneously, the record industry has sent mixed signals about piracy. Some users who upload are sued, some aren't. Some services which offer content illegally are shut down, others are allowed to "convert" to legitimate services...provided the labels get cash, an ownership stake, and a seat on the board. Some blogs which host mp3s get taken down, some don't. It's no wonder listeners are confused.

Music is a niche product. And there's a glut of it.

Listeners are overwhelmed. There's so much music out there, the value for listeners is practically zero, and their ability to wade through it all to find things they're interested in is minimal. In the aggregate, "music" has value to them. But any one piece of it? Probably not so much.

The average annual per capita expenditure on music in the USA is about $35 and it is declining. Most people don't care about music. They just don't. They won't pay. They'll steal or listen for free, and they don't much care to what. There's a ton of free music easily accessible.

Music has a strange, asymmetrical value proposition. One listener might be willing to pay $5 to hear the new Radiohead song. Another user might have to BE paid $5 to listen to it. Perception of value of individual music changes over time.

The labels have been somewhat unfairly charged with assuming that all music fans were pirates. But perhaps on one level, the labels were right: Maybe the problem is the audience. It's not listening and it's not buying.

It's not hard to see why - "so much music, so little time"...and so little worth paying for. That's not to say there isn't great music out there. There is. But it's extremely difficult for any individual user to find. CDs and physical media are dying out, but the digital services have largely been handicapped with Draconian restrictions and aren't able to produce an experience so much more compelling that everyone has to get on board.

To put it in context, the business community gets extremely excited about things like Facebook and Twitter. Regardless of what one may think of these services, they've been allowed to create something compelling enough to attract millions of users within a few years of launching...while the latest and greatest music services struggle.

Sure, it's possible that everyone (except Apple) really has gotten it all wrong. But there are millions of people downloading illegally and listening to music without paying for it. That's not Apple's fault. Or Rhapsody's.

Maybe it's the record business' fault. But it is also the fault of the people doing the illegal downloading.

Up Next: Part 5 - What The Internet Really Means/Conclusion
1. The Problem Nobody's Talking About
2. Too Much Music?
3. Now It's Everywhere
4. The Audience Isn't Listening
5. What The Internet Really Means

Music and Business: Now It's Everywhere

(Previously: Part 1 and Part 2)

3. Now It's Everywhere
The 21st century and increasing maturity of the Internet made it trivially easy to distribute all these albums. For fees ranging from zero to modest, one can make an album available worldwide, 24/7 in a wide variety of formats at any desired price point.

This is a profound change, making it dramatically easier to get heard. Prior to the Internet, you, the artist (or label) had to physically truck those CDs to stores and then directly manage collecting the revenues from these distributed locations. You either cut a distributor in on your "profit" to manage this for you and just focused on trying to get stores to order product - or you managed it yourself, which frequently meant spending hours on the phone trying to get record stores to pay you $7.50 for the 3 CDs they may or may not have sold.

In short, it was terrible. Managing distribution beyond the trunk of your car was huge time sink for the up-and-coming musician.

Today, there are many options for distributing your music. You can still do the good ol' car trunk and sell CDs or vinyl or cassette or whatever paleolithic format you want to push directly to your fans. You can still lug stuff to your local record store and see if they'll take a few on consignment. You can sell music in a variety of formats and packages off your website directly to your fans (Nine Inch Nails, Radiohead). You can partner up with companies like CDBaby or Tunecore who will handle getting your digital music into as many of the digital music services as you want.

There are a ton of legitimate, semi-legitimate, and totally illegitimate new ways for people to discover, find, or hear your music, too. There are fancy customized radio stations that will mix you in with other things. Or you can run your own internet radio station. You can give away a promo single or snippet totally free...or exchange it for an e-mail address. There are tons of MP3 blogs, aggregators, and sites all aimed at promoting music in specific genres to specific demographics. If you like music, it's hard not to be overwhelmed by stuff you actually want, not to mention the junk.

More importantly, it is now incredibly easy for people to buy music - there's no more "sold out", "out of print", or "where can I get it?". If you hear something you like, purchase is as close as an Internet connection. Buy it on your phone right now. Download it to your computer right now. Order the CD right now. The music is there.

Easy to make, easy to distribute, easy to purchase. That's good, right?

At this point, the veteran professional musicians usually come charging in and talk about how crappy all this new music is. They'll say it's poorly recorded, badly written, and lacks the wonderful packaging and "vibe" that good ol' vinyl records had. They'll talk about how no website feels as good as walking into a good record store (not that any are left anymore).

All they have to do is start with "...in MY day..." or throw in a "get off my lawn!" to complete the picture. People have been saying "this new music isn't as good as the old music" as long as there has been music.

The old guard are upset about the increased competition, to be sure, but I think they're really upset about something else...

Next: Part 4 - The Audience Isn't Listening
1. The Problem Nobody's Talking About
2. Too Much Music?
3. Now It's Everywhere
4. The Audience Isn't Listening
5. What The Internet Really Means

Music and Business: Too Much Music

2. Too Much Music
The last 20 years produced remarkable changes in the way music is created and distributed.

The 1990s effectively democratized music production. In 1989 making a record or CD almost certainly meant paying thousands of dollars to go to a recording studio for a few hours and hoping you ended up with something good.

By 1999 however you could make a record at home on your computer. In some cases the quality of the recording wasn't quite as good (limited by your gear and expertise), but you could spend a lot more time on it. From the ADAT to PC-based recording, by now (2010), anyone can make a "record".

Even iPhones can make records via apps ranging from simple instruments (the ocarina) to 4-track recorders. (I am awaiting the inevitable gimmick indie record made "entirely on the iPhone").

Not surprisingly, people are making lots of records: About 300,000 per year with the number steadily climbing. The product of the major labels (EMI, Sony, Universal, and Warner) represent about 10-15% of that number, but the bulk of that represents repackaging of their back catalog, not new artists.

Keep in mind this is a cumulative thing - every new album isn't just competing for ear space with the new albums from that year - it's competing with everything ever recorded - Radiohead's "OK Computer" and Nirvana's "Nevermind" and Run-DMC's "King of Rock" and Led Zeppelin IV and The Beatles and Hank Williams and Enrico Caruso. Every year, every minute it gets harder to be heard over the din.

In economic terms, the supply of music is vastly increasing - a result of dramatic drops in the costs of creation and distribution combined with many more creators. It is not unrealistic to assume that demand would fall as a result. And when demand falls, prices fall. Creators get paid less, as does everyone else in the value chain, because listeners are willing to pay less.

But that's still not the whole story.
Next: Part 3: Now It's Everywhere

1. The Problem Nobody's Talking About
2. Too Much Music?
3. Now It's Everywhere
4. The Audience Isn't Listening
5. What The Internet Really Means

Music and Business: The problem nobody's talking about

The "Information is Beautiful" graphic to the right is the latest buzz around the music community regarding the state of the business. It is attracting attention because it looks neat and is controversial.

But like many "infographics", it is showing incomplete information and only a piece of the picture. The reality is complex and nuanced.

It's based on this article, titled "The Paradise That Should Have Been".

1. It Must Be The Internet
The thrust of the article and graphic seem to be "wow, these digital music services really don't pay the artists enough - they should probably pay them more."

But between the time this article and chart were created and when they were published, Last.FM announced they were stopping all streaming. Why?

Because Last.FM can't make a profitable business out of streaming music - the royalties they pay are too high.

They're not the only ones. The entire last round of new entrants into the digital music business all flamed out last year - iMeem went out of business, iLike sold to MySpace for pennies, and Lala was purchased for a low price by Apple after announcing they could not make their business model viable.

The veterans have not fared much better. Rhapsody has had 10 years of barely scraping by and is now trying to be a start-up again. Nobody's seen Napster in months.

The only company that seems to be making money is Apple, and as I've previously discussed, Apple doesn't care about music - they created the iTunes Music Store (inevitably about to become the iTunes Media Store or something similar) purely as a defense against piracy accusations. Thanks to the industry and other factors, it has now become a powerful tool for perpetuating their near-monopoly on music consumption.

I will certainly admit some bias here, as I am in the digital music business myself, but I can't agree the problem here is the businesses aren't paying enough for content.

Based on what I've seen about consumer behavior from research and experience, it's also hard to believe these services can simply raise prices to pay more and pass the cost on to users. People already feel these music services are too expensive.

When the average annual per-capita spend on music in the United States is ~$35, even a $5 per month subscription seems pricey.

The problem isn't the Internet. The Internet has been a great boon for both musicians and the music business.

So what is the problem?

Next on Post-Cocious: "Too Much Music?"

[Note: I'm trying something new - rather than one really long post, I'm going to break this into sections and post it over the next few days.]

1. The Problem Nobody's Talking About
2. Too Much Music?
3. Now It's Everywhere
4. The Audience Isn't Listening
5. What The Internet Really Means

Coal is still bad

I am saddened by news of the recent coal mining disasters in China and in West Virginia.

Here is a link to my previous post about coal versus nuclear power, written in April 2006.

RPM 2010: Victory! [Updated]

I am pleased to tell you I have successfully completed the 2010 RPM Challenge.

Despite losing nearly 10 days to a hard drive failure (and nearly losing incredibly valuable data), despite having several weekend days lost to home renovation, and despite my usual creative and musical challenges, I have completed a 9-track, 35-minute album.

It's called "Reflection".

This weekend I created 3 tracks from scratch and finished all the mixes, mastering, and CD assembly. Two of the tracks are instrumental/interludes. I've considered these "cop-outs" in the past, but desperate times...

Due to the grueling schedule and other conflicts, the album has no cover art and no book. Yet. I am hoping to produce something over the next month. Neither of those things are required for successful RPM completion, so they can be done later.

This is a strange record. Stark and minimal. All of the sounds are acoustic or physical in origin - there are no synthesizers or electric guitars, drum machines, or drum kits. The closest thing to that is electric piano.

There wasn't really a concept this time, just an idea for a sound - "Bryan Ferry in Blade Runner". There are more ideas woven in as well, including the desire to make this record more mysterious than previous releases. It's not all moans and dirge - there's at least one track that's practically danceable.

My friends previewed some of the tracks and said "this is not what I expected you to do". That may be a polite way of saying "this is terrible", but I would rather have a surprised reaction than no reaction at all.

I hope you enjoy it. I can't say making it has been as pleasant as my last few albums, but it feels great to say "I finished".

Some sample tracks:
Another New Me
Write Protect Failure

Update: Full ZIP file of complete album now available.

RPM 2010 Status Update

RPM 2010 ends 11:59 pm tomorrow night. As of right now, I have 5 songs nearly done:

• Another New Me - Needs mix tweaks, maybe vocal fixes
• Something Like Love - Minor mix tweaks
• Blue The Light - Minor mix tweaks
• The Broken Rain - Needs vocal take
• Write Protect Failure - Minor mix tweaks

Total running time of the above tracks is about 23-24 minutes. So I need either 5 short bits or 12 minutes of music generated in the next 36 hours or so. It's not impossible, but it will be challenging. Renovation work on the house went late last night and will continue today, making it difficult to be musical.

Having lost about a week to my drive crash, I feel somewhat less bad about possibly not finishing. Not giving up yet, though.