Our new mission. To have fun with old ads, and look at America in years past.

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Friday, October 21, 2005

NNNJ --- Monkey Straddle

Oh! Good stuff. I feel like Chuck Barris on the Gong Show. This disc (clap)- This disc is something special. If you're in the mood for a good solid groove, this is a great disc to groove to. It somehow got placed in the international section at the station, but it's actually electronica. I've not heard much of this genre, and realize that even within it, sounds and music can vary greatly. This is the slow groovy end of it. Most of the tunes are slow to mid tempo, and the later tunes have a slightly more techno feel to 'em. The early tunes are just good slow groove. Fiji Geesus is a personal favorite, partially because I have developed a fondness for the asian sound. There was a lot of thought and creativity that went into this release, and it shows in the strangely named tunes. For example track nine is listed as nnnj and the track is a smiley face.
Track ten is titled "1205<-->180a".
Many bands I hear have a pretty singular and unique sound, so it's hard to pigeonhole 'em by saying I'd RIYL so and so, but in this case, I can say that if you like Art of Noise in the later years and Lemon Jelly, you'll probably like these guys as well. Dub trance, with a lot of trance.

Easy A.

Thursday, October 20, 2005

Applied Communications--- Uhh Sort Of

This would SORT OF be good if this kid did more than piece together random instruments and sounds while yelling into a microphone.

In short, this piece of crap is a reminder that ANYONE can put out a CD. Quite honestly, I couldn't listen to the whole thing to give it a review, so I'll pass along a few impressions...

I'm somehow reminded of the person who is not as important as he thinks he is. The person that isn't as good as they think they are. That's who this kid is. He thinks he's talented, when in reality he's just another shmuck with too much time and nowhere to direct his energies. Noise, noise, noise, that's about all this thing amounts to. Maybe if he listened to some Negativland he might find a more creative way to take that cacophony of sounds and make them into something slightly more pleasant.

Need I bother to grade? F-

MP3 players..

This is a subject I have wanted to touch on for some time. Supposedly the Ipod has revolutionized digital music. Maybe in some way it has. It's cool. It's stylish. It's also an example of style over substance.
Let's face it. Apple has garnered HUGE attention with this thing, and rightly so. In a time when MP3 players are nothing more than a little box with a chip in them, Apple trots out the Ipod to much fanfare making everyone else in the industry stand up and take notice. I don't know what the current capacity is, but I've heard recent ads for 2 and 3 gigabyte models for Ovation, who have the coolest commercials. It is probably not widely known that the original Ipod had a built in battery that had a very limited life. To get it replaced you had to (I think) send the unit back, and it cost a small fortune. Fast forward ahead. Many companies trot into the field or improve their existing product. For some time I had a nice little RCA that held a few hours worth of music. After a year or two it started to crap out on me, so I decided it was time to upgrade. My personal choice was a Creative Zen Nomad with 30GB of musical storage goodness.
No, it doesn't have the Ipods flair or style. What it does have is the ability to handle WMV and mp3 files and the ability to work with most players, including real audio and windows media player. You can also transport files directly to and from it. I've probably had it over a year now, and I've not had a single problem. I almost went with a Dell, but decided on this instead. I'm not entirely sure why, but I'm glad. It's got a nice case and an easily replaceable battery to accompany the lovely blue glowing screen. All in all, I'm thrilled.
So for anyone who is considering a player in the future, shop carefully and look at what sorts of files you will use. If you see yourself buying a lot of music from Itunes, you may want to consider the Ipod as is handles the native AAC format. Everyone else has to burn the tracks to CD and then import them again. Not bad for the occasional file, but not something I'd want to do for hours on end.

Coming soon----Applied Communications "Uhh Sort Of" review