Get Off Of My Cloud

To cloud or not to cloud?  With the recent announcement of Apple's iCloud service coming in the fall, there are now three major cloud based music services either planned or already operational:

Amazon Cloud Player - Amazon was the first to roll out their cloud. If you sign up for the service, all of your MP3 purchases are automatically added to the cloud drive.  You are given 5 GB of free storage at sign up.  If you buy an MP3 album from Amazon at any price, you are given 20 GB of storage.  Sounds great, huh?  Not so fast.  That 20 GB expires in a year, which means they will bill you $20.00 to keep that 20 GB of "free" storage.  The good news is that any music you purchase from Amazon doesn't count against your storage cap, only music that you upload.  You can play your music from up to eight devices, including any web connected computer or Android mobile device.  What's that?  You have an iPhone?  Sorry, Charlie!  You still have to download the music to your hard drive and sync it the old fashioned way.  You can upload other types of documents as well, including photos and video, but as far as I can tell, you can't edit the documents in the cloud, the way you can with Google Docs  The storage plans cost $20.00/yr for 20 GB, $50/00 for 50 GB and so on up to $1000.00/yr for 1000 GB of storage.

Google Music Beta - I don't have much information yet, since, as the name suggests, it is still in the beta stage.  I do know that when I signed up, my cloud drive was pre-loaded with around 200 free songs, some good ones too, ranging in style from Cab Calloway to Modest Mouse to Alice Cooper (probably because I checked a fairly wide range of music style preferences when I signed up.)  No info on storage capacity or pricing yet, but I am told I can upload up to 20,000 songs for free at this time.  I expect to see a pricing structure similar to Amazon once it is fully unveiled.  Once again, I can only play the music on a PC or an Android device (up to eight devices), no iPhone functionality.  It is music only, no documents, but Google already has Google Docs for documents and Picasa for photos, which work great.

iCloud - Apple's cloud service won't be rolled out until the fall, so all I know is what Steve Jobs tells me.  We do know that you will only be able to play your iCloud music on IOS devices, (computers with iTunes installed, iPhones, etc), which is good for me, maybe not so much for non Apple users.  The one thing that is intriguing is iTunes Match.  For $25 per year, iTunes will scan your library and replace your non-iTunes purchased music with high quality (256 kbps) versions, regardless of how it was acquired, no laborious uploading.   If it can't match the music, you can still upload it manually.  There will be other types of storage available (documents, photos), but only accessible using Apple approved apps.

Being an Apple user, I will probably lean toward iCloud, but my big question about cloud based music is:  what happens when the cloud fails?  If I am basically streaming my music collection, what happens when I am in the bus tunnel, or out in some area where the phone or wi-fi service is spotty or non-existent?

Also, who owns the music that is stored in the cloud?  Yes, it is my music that I purchased, but it is Apple's, (or Amazon's or Google's) server that is is stored on.  Then, there are those pesky privacy issues.

I don't think that cloud based music will ever completely replace the files on your hard drive, the cd's on your shelf or the vinyl in your basement, but they will be a nice alternative for listening on the go.

What's Your Name?

Have you ever see the name of a band and wondered to yourself, "Where did they come up with that?"  (That is a rhetorical question, of course you have!)  I am not content with wondering, I must research it and find out the answer.  I have gathered a few of the more interesting ones here.  This is the first of what will hopefully this will become a regular feature.

Buddy Holly and the Crickets - There is a myth that Holly's backing band was named because the sound of a cricket in the studio could be heard one one of their first recordings, but this is not true.  The actual story isn't quite as romantic.  Holly's first record company, Decca, declined to release That'll Be The Day because his first two singles flopped.  Holly then went to producer Norman Petty and re-recorded the song.  Petty wanted to shop the new version to record companies, but Holly was contractually prohibited from re-recording any of the songs from his Decca sessions for 5 years.   Petty came up with the idea of releasing it under a group name instead of Buddy Holly.  Holly's band mates came up with The Crickets by flipping through a book of insect names.  Later, the Beatles would name themselves as an homage to The Crickets, since Buddy Holly was one of their heroes.  They changed the spelling from Beetles to Beatles as a play on words.

King Crimson - From the fanzine Elephant Talk, "The band's original lyricist, Peter Sinfield, created it as a synonym for Beelzebub, which is derived from the Arabic phrase "B'il Sabab", meaning "the man with an aim." (Another, more common etymology of "Beelzebub" is that it is Hebrew for "Lord of the Flies.")  Beelzebub is often seen as a red (crimson) figure and he is King of the underworld

Herman's Hermits - Lead singer Peter Noone was said to have resembled the character Sherman from The Bullwinkle Show (Mr. Peabody and his boy, Sherman!), but Noone misheard it as "Herman", thus they became Herman and the Hermits, and later, Herman's Hermits.

The Doors - Jim Morrison was a fan of the William Blake poem which included the line, "if the doors of perception are cleansed, everything would appear to man as it truly is, infinite."  Aldous Huxley also referred to part of that line for the title of his book on drug experimentation, The Doors Of Perception.

The Doobie Brothers -  'Nuff said.

God Shuffled His Feet

My sister-in-law recently gave me a couple of good post suggestions.  This is the first and I will post the other one later.

In the age of the ipod, many of us have become "shufflers".  I prefer just to put it on shuffle because I enjoy the uncertainly of not knowing what song will pop up next ("Wow!  I forgot I even had that".)  I guess it goes back to my love of radio, only this station is programmed just with songs I like.  What a concept.

Having said that, there are some albums that MUST be listened to all the way through, in order.  Here are the top five that I think should be played with shuffle turned off:

1. The Wall - Pink Floyd

Actually most, if not all, of Floyd's albums should be played sans shuffle.  I believe the individual tracks of this album depend on each other thematically more so than Dark Side Of The Moon.

2. Tommy - The Who

I was tempted to put this at number 1, but the strength of Pinball Wizard as a single pushed it down to the 2 position.

3. What's Going On - Marvin Gaye

Marvin Gaye ushered in a new era of socially conscious soul music with this album. This was also one of the first great full length albums in what had mostly been a singles oriented genre.

4. Abbey Road - The Beatles

OK, this one makes the list solely because of the medley on side 2 (Yes, kids. "Records" used to have "sides").  When I imported my physical CD into iTunes, it broke that medley up into individual tracks. Nope.  It must be listened to as a whole.

5. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road - Elton John

Even though not technically a concept album, each song tells a small story (as emphasized by the illustrations on the original album sleeve) and I think the individual stories add up to a great whole.  As a side note, we once saw Elton in concert and he opened the show with Funeral For a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding.  Definitely one of the best openings I've seen.

I should note that this just MY list, it is limited to albums that I own and know.  It is by no means definitive.  Please feel free to list your favorites in the comments.  Also, I am very open to ideas and suggestions for posts.  Is there anything you always wanted to know?  Let me know, I'll be happy to do the research for you!

Start Me Up

Hello, and welcome to my blog.

Yes, yes, I know, I'm late to the blogosphere party.  But then again, that seems to be a theme for me.  I didn't purchase my first CD until the late nineties, I only started using a cell phone because my company gave me one (even though, now my iPhone is permanently attached to my right arm), and now, at a certain age, I may be attempting to re-invent myself professionally.

So, here I am. I've been told that in my first post, I should reveal three things:

1. What the blog is about.
2, What I hope to accomplish with it.
3. My qualifications for writing it and what I bring to it.

Here are the answers:

1. I don't know yet.
2. I have no clue.
3. Huh?

OK, seriously, I don't have any grand designs for this little blog.  I have a fairly deep well of rock and roll trivia in my head.   I happen to enjoy snooping out little behind the scenes tidbits about artists, songs and albums, generally from yesteryear, and I thought that this blog may be a way to share it with a few people who may accidentally stumble upon it.

Even though I like most genres of music, my own tastes are decidedly retro.  From the 60's, I like British Invasion, garage, soul and jangly guitars.  I like almost anything from the 70's, which is when I actually started paying attention to music.  I am not worried about losing my hipster credentials, since I never had any to begin with.  I grew up with AM Top 40 in the early 70's, so one of my pursuits of late has been reconnecting with some of the more less commercial stuff from the late 60's and early 70's that I didn't know about the first time around.  I missed the 80's, I think I fell asleep.  From today, I like The New Pornographers, She And Him, Wilco and Neko Case, among others.  To my surprise, I've found myself listening to a lot of alternative country lately, like Justin Townes Earle and the Old 97's.  I don't care much for today's pop music.  This will probably be that last time the words Lady Ga-Ga appear together on these pages (although Styx's "Lady" and Queen's "Radio Ga-Ga" may be a different story.)

I may post reviews from time to time, but if you are looking for serious music criticism, you've come to the wrong place.  Often, I can't even explain why I like a particular song, it just evokes an emotion in me.  Even though this is intended as a music blog, I reserve the right to post on other topics if I am moved to do so, although I wouldn't count on it too often.

In short, I thought I would just play it by ear and see where this thing goes. 

I would like to leave you with this little gem from the 70's:  A vintage Radio Shack commercial for an 8-track tape player.  When I installed an 8-track in my '67 Mustang in high school, I thought I was "all that" and then some.  The thing I remember most about 8-tracks is that they had 4 programs with 2 or 3 songs per program, so the music companies would often have to split longer songs up between programs.  I bought Heart's Dreamboat Annie on 8-track and the song "Crazy On You" was split in two. I'll never forget the first time I heard that song without the "CLICK WRRRR" of the tape changing programs in the middle!  Enjoy.  And Welcome.