Why XM Just Bought the Farm

Satellite radio is great for the most part. Although they can be as repetitive as terrestrial radio there is a lot more variety in the programming. In the last week however, they have taken my favorite channel off the air and made it Internet only. This would be channel 80, "The Move." It's the deeper and more soulful house channel as compared to the other ones (BPM is more peak hour house and club and The System is just god awful Tiesto until you barf). I realize it may not be the most popular format, but it was a really nice mix of house, even if many of the blogs and forums said it was "too soulful" and missed the more tech-minimal tracks. I know this is really awful, but an African-American friend of mine said this about house music; "Theres another thing white people got their hands on and ruined."

What I know is that satellite only has so much bandwidth so in essence, The Move was taken off the air to make bandwidth available for either the "30 Days of Coldplay" or the "3 Months of Kenny Chesney" shows that debuted, I kid you not. If you look at channel 80, it says "Currently Off The Air" and nothing is in that spot so they didn't put something in its place, just utilized the bandwidth it had somewhere else for one of those 2 fine shows (and I was already bitter at the disappointing new Coldplay album. Pretty soon satellite will be no better then terrestrial now that they have the monopoly, and I was originally all for it. If they take off Opie and Anthony that might be the final straw.

Heres the Kick, Theres the Vocals... Nice to Meet You.

Why recently, has there been an influx of dance records where the vocals/samples/elements are not synced up to the kick or main drums?

It's awesome that you got your copy of Ableton/Logic/Cubase and have a super kick you sampled from some hot new electro track and now your going to take the acapella of "I Kissed A Girl" and make your own remix, but WHY WHY WHY is it so hard to actually sync up the vocals people? Go in there and edit the audio until it even feeeeellls right. It's like people take a sample or a vocal, start it on the one, and close their eyes and drive down a road hoping not to run into anything. Chances are theres going to be some timing differences so get in there and adjust words, lines, syllables, beats until that shits locked down. Thats what ReCycle and all those beat splicing and dicing programs are for.

If you're going to sample a loop from an old record, truncate it and do some audio surgery on it until it syncs up, don't just loop the loop and throw a beat under it, because after you pile on the 20 tracks of gratuitous elements the whole thing sounds like the music equivalent of a drunk driver.

And enough with the "I Kissed A Girl" remixes, I think 20 is enough. We get it, she kissed a girl, she liked it. Wheres the "I Kissed A Girl" and "Girls Kiss Girls" mash up?

Journey's Discovery of Arnel Pineda

Boy sings (amazingly)in cover band on YouTube. Leader of Journey sees him on YouTube. Said boy singer is now lead singer of Journey. Dreams do come true. I'm sure his old band (The Zoo) is P I S S E D. Check them out on YouTube.

FCC APPROVES XM - SIRIUS MERGER

The companies have agreed to:

· Place price caps on programming and offer a la carte programming so that subscribers could pick programs they want and not have to subscribe to all channels or certain packages. Officials with XM and Sirius said they would offer radios configured for a la carte programming within three months of the merger.

· Open their technology standards to any radio-device manufacturer, paving the way for consumers to buy radio transmitters from retail stores. Currently, subscribers must buy directly from XM and Sirius, or through car manufacturers that have installed the devices in new cars.

· Provide interoperable radios. Current subscribers have radios that deliver programming from either XM or Sirius. Within one year of the merger, these listeners will receive radios that could access programming from both providers.

· Each set aside 4 percent of their radio spectrums, or 12 channels, for noncommercial services such as educational and public safety programming. They would lease another 12 channels for programming run by minorities and women, groups that are underrepresented in entertainment broadcasting.

If the merger is approved, it would be a major reversal of FCC rules. The agency distributed licenses to XM and Sirius in 1997 on the condition the two satellite companies never merge.

After a lengthy review, the Justice Department approved the merger in March, saying a monopoly satellite radio provider would not harm consumers because there are other alternatives for consumers.

The merger also is expected to allow the company to begin servicing Puerto Rico, where neither currently operates.

Cheese and a Cracker

Late last year I got asked to participate in a photo shoot for a local eye wear company with a long history of really cool adds so it was very cool to be a part of this...

Strobotic Recordings Shirts

Firehouse Lounge 5-31-2008

Off the chain. End of story. Thanks to everyone for coming out and making it such a blast.