Tech -- Culture -- Humour
According to a source close to the big man, legendary saxophonist with the E Street Band and many other projects, has died at the age of 69.
He had suffered a stroke in recent weeks and was reported as recovering.
Performing on the 2011 American Idol with Lady Gaga:
A 1980s appearance on the Letterman show:
1980s solo hit in conjunction with Jackson Browne:
Bruce Springsteen introduces Clemons on London Leg of a recent tour:
The E-Street Band in full flight in Barcelona:
We’d love to hear about your own favourite memories, so start sharing. Also, check out the brilliant tribute over at Backstreets.
If like me you’ve attended the odd arena rock show (in my case AC/DC, U2, Robbie Williams and Bruce Springsteen to name four). Next time you go, don’t assume those walls of speakers are for real.
Of course in a lot of cases they are real, although speaker technology has improved so much that you don’t need as many speakers to pump out more than adequate volume. What will bands use as a backdrop if they don’t have the wall of speakers?
All top ten lists are arbitrary, but here’s another one anyway. Mashups are a very creative process, especially so when they result in a quality outcome. Below are ten of what I think are the best mashups to be found on Youtube. Please add your own favourites in the comments, otherwise enjoy:
1. Royals (Lorde) Vs Roar (Katy Perry)
A tour to in Vienna is traipsing through a graveyard when he starts to hear music. No one is around, so he starts searching for the source. He finally locates the origin and finds it is coming from a grave with a headstone that reads: Ludwig van Beethoven, 1770-1827.
Then he realises that the music is the Ninth Symphony and it is being played backward! Puzzled, he leaves the graveyard and persuades a friend to return with him.
By the time they arrive back at the grave, the music has changed. This time it is the Seventh Symphony, but like the previous piece, it is being played backward. Curious, the men agree to consult a music scholar. When they return with the expert, the Fifth Symphony is playing, again backward. The expert notices that the symphonies are being played in the reverse order in which they were composed, the 9th, then the 7th, then the 5th.
By the next day the word has spread and a throng has gathered around the grave. They are all listening to the Second Symphony being played backward.
Just then the graveyard’s caretaker ambles up to the group. Someone in the crowd asks him if he has an explanation for the music. “Don’t you get it?” the caretaker says incredulously. “He’s decomposing!
It’s very unlikely you’re unaware of the iPad, and chances are you’re also aware the iPad 2 was announced today. For most people it’s likely an incremental upgrade for the popular tablet. The thinner, faster iPad with an optional white colour scheme sure looks nice and it’ll no doubt be more fun to use with the dual-core chip. For most people however, it doesn’t go much beyond that. One exception that stands out for me in a big way are musicians. I don’t just mean electronic musician geeks like me. I mean guitarists, drummers, bass players and pretty much anything else you can think of. Why?- because GarageBand is now a serious option on the iPad. There’s been no shortage of music recording apps for the iPad, but having the well known music-sketchpad on there is a big plus. The faster processor is another important part of the equation from a music creation viewpoint.
Aside from GarageBand, the reason I’m convinced the latest iPad iteration is going to make a splash is the level of adoption of the platform by other hardware manufacturers. Using my own passion of synths and keyboards as an example, there are already a bunch of options around for using an iPad as the display / sound source / editing interface for a range of keyboard gear. It makes a hell of a lot of sense – with the growing adoption of tablets, why would you create your own proprietary LED / LCD screen in a synth? Install an iPad dock and allow people to take it from there. The more innovative manufacturers are already looking at ways to allow importation of sounds for a synth from the iPad and there are already controller keyboards (that don’t contain any sounds themselves) that allow the use of the iPad as the sound source rather than a PC or Mac.
My only concern on this falls around the docking connector itself. Apple are renowned for changing connectors and if I’ve spent thousands on a workstation synth that relies on an iPad as its interface, then I may have a large problem a couple of years down the track. Sure there may be adapter options but workarounds like that can be frustrating at best. It’s a risk with most technology so it’s hard to complain too hard on that front.
For the guitarist / bass player / drummer, the prevalence of amp modelling software and soft synths / drum machines, combined with either GarageBand or third-party sound recording apps, is providing a real option for both home and performing musicians. Although the iPad’s sound input options are pretty limited, there are plenty of audio interfaces around designed to help out and things are only going to get better in that regard.
Is the iPad the Messiah? Not at all. Are there alternatives? Absolutely and you should check them out. Does it have limitations? Damn straight it does – the size of its flash memory, lack of USB and the incredibly restrictive file sharing options outside of iTunes are three big ones. All that said, as an evolutionary development musicians should be sitting up an taking a lot of notice. The novelty value of bands like Atomic Tom has pretty much expired. In its place is a growing acceptance of the tablet computer as an intrinsic part of the modern musician armoury. I play in an 80s/90s cover band and I’m already planning on integrating an iPad into my rig – I somehow think I’m not alone in that.
This is a guest post from Surreal Numbers on how the Openlife grid has played host to numerous musical events. It’s one of many examples of how OpenSim and related grids are continuing to grow in popularity and maturity.
Thanks to Shai Khalifa for the heads-up on the project initially, and for a historical take on Openlife you can also view our original 2008 profile of the Openlife grid here.
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I’d like to thank Lowell Cremorne and The Metaverse Journal for taking an interest in the Virtually Live Events Project and publishing this article.
Purpose and Initiation
User-created virtual reality is the most flexible and powerful tool for sharing information and imagination. Upon entering a space made with 3D modelling primitives and scripts, a visitor can take a journey far richer than that offered by other sharing technologies including blogs, photographs, and audio-video streams. At the same time, community development using virtual reality can have a significantly different life-cycle as compared to the use of other social media.
Social development and technical capabilities are closely entwined in virtual worlds. For example, without a functioning script engine, reliable login servers, and robust sim physics, it is not reasonable to plan and host events. By late-2009, The Openlife Grid had reached levels of stability, scalability, and security appropriate for hosting events reliably. The Virtually Live Events Project (VLE) was started on 05 September 2009 with a solicitation for an “International Live Music Events Developer” committed to consistency, innovation, excellence, and sustainability. Goals were set for number of monthly events, expected audience size, an international distribution of performers representing all continents, and integration with the grid’s business community. The quantity and quality of the responses were overwhelming. They were invariably professional and, most strikingly, reflected a strong spirit of generosity.
The solicitation was focused on finding a single person capable of initiating and maintaining the project so I had not anticipated that the majority of feedback suggested that I form a project team and manage it. As I came to learn, a team was easily justified by the extensive list of tasks that needed to be addressed. But I was reluctant to manage. I’m a mathematical scientist, not a musician, and I felt unqualified to understand music event hosting much less how to build a sustainable arts program.
Eventually, I recognized two things. First, I have a strong interest in hearing music from everywhere. My father had been a Grammy-nominated recording engineer for RCA Records and worked with outstanding musicians and singers from around the world. In addition, I’m a product of the South Bronx, which has a rich fusion of multinational music that simply will not allow one’s body and mind to sit still. Second, professionally, I have a lot of experience planning and hosting conferences as well as managing international research project teams. It seems to be an odd combination of characteristics on which to base the decision to manage but now, a year and a half into VLE, they seem even more applicable.
Challenges and Team
The challenges for the project are to:
1. host music events consistently;
2. innovate to keep performances and venues fresh;
3. work towards a standard of excellence; and
4. sustain and grow the project into the future.
To meet these challenges the team, which has evolved over eighteen months, was initially Debbie Trilling, Adec Alexandria, Shai Khalifa, Digital Dreambuilder (Digi), Pantaiputih Korobase (Pants), and me. At present, it includes Shai, Digi, Cheops Forlife, and me as well as a consulting group with Caro Axelbrad, Grimley Graves, and Pants.
Debbie Trilling and Adec Alexandria (both UK) helped establish a strong footing for the project as well as provided me with the best possible mentoring for managing it. Debbie’s artistic work is well-known in Second Life. She sets a very high standard for quality and was always quick to point out what would not work, what would work, and why. Adec has experience hosting events, is a keen photographer with a great design sense, and an excellent builder who can quickly bring prim form to the vision in his mind’s eye. Debbie and Adec eventually resigned because of other personal and professional obligations but their influences still underpin Virtually Live Events.
Shai Khalifa (Australia) has a degree in arts management, was a professional musician, and has extensive experience managing virtual music events. She has been invaluable for vetting, contacting, and booking performers. Her role is especially challenging since she is literally the artist’s first contact with VLE and she has the professionalism to address whatever questions, comments, or observations arise. In addition, her experiences have provided sound insight into how the performance program should be structured and how it will evolve.
Digital Dreambuilder (Native of Ireland living in Finland) is innovative, a skilled builder and scripter, and an amateur musician with experience planning and hosting virtual events. He’s also professionally involved with virtual education and training, which has implications for the future of VLE. He has a well-grounded sense of setting goals, the capabilities for meeting them, insights for avoiding pitfalls, and the creativity for crafting fallback plans in the case of disaster. He’s built and animated almost all of the exceptionally detailed musical instruments used by performers on Virtually Live.
Pantaiputih Korobase (Germany) was an early member of the project team selected for his insightful nature, exceptionally big heart, people skills, and diamond in the rough building skills (nowadays, he’s well-cut and polished). His role has been recast as a consultant in order to accommodate his personal wishes.
Cheops Forlife (France) was added to the team after Debbie and Adec left. She is unfailingly cheerful, positive, and creative. Once new performers are booked, she brings them inworld and prepares their avatars for the performances. This is no small task since there are psychological, sociological, and technical factors involved. However, she is exceptionally well-suited to the effort given her training in psychology and professional background managing non-profit programs.
Caro Axelbrad (Spain) and Grimley Graves (US) serve as consultants to VLE. Caro custom builds skins, shapes, hair, and clothing for the performers when needed. Both she and Grims have been longtime supporters of the project and, along with Pants, share their creative ideas for helping VLE grow and evolve over time.
I help the team meet the project challenges. I especially enjoy designing and building our default and themed venues.
Although not a member of the project team or consulting group, Logger Sewell deserves recognition for donating the stream used by Virtually Live. His action was an early example of the generosity the project enjoys.
Performances and Venues
VLE performances and venues have been well-documented on the project blog as well as Twitter where performers are announced and event photos are posted. Over the last eighteen months, VLE has held themed events (seasonal parties, wear your green dots, pool, beach, and valentine’s aftermath, among others) and rebuilt the project region, Virtually Live, many times to accommodate the themes as well as new concepts for the entire venue.
Performers have responded enthusiastically. It is really important to the VLE team that the performers have the best possible experience whenever they visit Openlife and this is reflected in their feedback both to the team and the event guests. Time and again, performers have commented on how much they enjoyed the entire process of coming inworld and performing. While musicians and singers had previously crossed from one grid to another to perform, the VLE project broke new ground by establishing an innovative mentoring model to make their transition to Openlife simple and fun. One broad reaching effect of the VLE model is that it has provided a methodology that performers use to explore the potential of other virtual worlds, which increases their reach and audience base.
The performers, moreover, invariably notice both the unusual artistic venues on Virtually Live and the chatty appreciative crowds that attend. The Virtually Live region is devoted exclusively to the arts and the builds are among the most distinctive and beautiful performance venues in any virtual world. In turn, performers all want to come back and have spread the word to other performers throughout the metaverse, who have either already performed on Virtually Live or will be booked in the future.
The most important thing the team wanted for the audience was simply a relaxing fun time that everyone could count on happening regularly. Again, the response has been overwhelmingly posiitive and the best part of this has been the social development. Friending occurs frequently during each event and connections are made or strengthened. New residents of the grid are treated to a warm and helpful greeting in an enjoyable atmosphere, which reinforces the reputation of the community.
In addition to the many blog photos from events, Caro and Pants have each made videos of some VLE performances; a few links are:
Openlife 3rd Birthday and Halloween Party by Caro
Idella Quandry “Fields of Gold” by Caro
The Future
Recent updates to Openlife’s infrastructure have brought further improvements in scalability and features, which, in turn, can be used to enhance and expand the social environment of the grid. For example, for several events, VLE has made use of scene-flip, a unique to Openlife feature that, with the touch of a button, flips the entire region to an alternate scene. Having a full-sized blank region with 45,000 prims to use for a themed event has led to some beautiful scenes that required a lot of people to build. The Openlife 3rd Birthday and Halloween Party video illustrates the use of flip-scene. While the default venue remained secure in Slot 1 of Virtually Live, an entirely different scene was built for the party in Slot 2, including themed terraform and builds.
Virtually Live Events, notably, has been a valuable source of performance and stability data for Sakai Openlife, 3DX Openlife founder and owner. These data have been helpful for identifying technical problems and solutions that lead to grid improvements enjoyed by all residents.
While the emphasis to date has been on music, VLE intends to increase its scope to include theatre, art exhibitions, and arts education venues. Virtually Live Events wants to thank all performers and guests for their support over the last eighteen months and looks forward to where technical capabilities and social development take the project in the future.
I’m an unadulterated, biased fan of The Cars. So imagine my excitement over the past six months as snippets of information have emerged confirming the reformation of The Cars (sans Benjamin Orr, who died in 2000). A full album of new material is being released in May, with the first single being Blue Tip, which you can see in its entirety here:
They’re also using Facebook as their primary announcement platform, with some marked success based on the amount of traffic their page seems to be getting
Mark Knopfler and Elton John
The little faggot with the earring and the make-up
Yeah, buddy, that’s his own hair
That little faggot’s got his own jet airplane
That little faggot, he’s a millionaire
The complaint (the first one known since the song’s 1984 release) was lodged by a CHOZ-FM listener:
A song was aired, “Money For Nothing†by Dire Straits, and included the word “faggot†a total of three times. I am aware of other versions of the song, in which the word was replaced with another, and yet OZ FM chose to play and not censor this particular version that I am complaining about.
I find this extremely offensive as a member of the LGBT community and feel that there is absolutely no valid reason for such discriminatory marks to be played on-air.
The response from the station was pretty detailed and included an outright apology whilst maintaining the right to play the song:
We understand the concerns you have raised regarding this particular selection and do apologize for any undue stress caused to you as a listener by the lyrical content of this selection, but based on the above reasoning, we have operated with the understanding that in this specific case, no editing of the material is warranted.
The listener, unhappy with the radio station’s response, wrote to the CBSC (you can read it all here):
In the letter, [OZ FM’s Senior Vice President] lists a number of reasons in an attempt to justify his stations airing the uncensored version of the song. One of the reasons given was the awards and acclaim that the original version of the song has received. These include 1986 Grammy for Record of the Year and 1986 American Music Award for Record of the Year. This is comparable to the achievements of Kanye West’s 2005 song “Gold Digger†which received 9 Grammy nominations, including Record of the Year, and is certified triple platinum. This song contains another discriminatory slur, not directed towards sexual orientation, but towards race. When played on OZ FM, this slur is censored despite the song’s achievements. I fail to see a difference between the two situations.
The CBSC then undertook a formal process and decided the song can’t be played on air in its unedited form. There’s some fascinating reading in the decision on the origins and usage of the words fag and faggot, then a final adjudication:
Still, the Panel concludes that, like other racially driven words in the English language, “faggot†is one that, even if entirely or marginally acceptable in earlier days, is no longer so. The Panel finds that it has fallen into the category of unacceptable designations on the basis of race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, gender, sexual orientation, marital status or physical or mental disability. In addition to the terms already so categorized by previous CBSC Panels, there are undoubtedly other racial epithets (not yet the subject of CBSC Panel decisions) that would likely fall into the category of words that are inherently problematic. In any event, the Atlantic Regional Panel concludes that the use of the word “faggot†in the song “Money for Nothing†was unacceptable for broadcast and that, by broadcasting an unedited version of the song, CHOZ-FM breached Clause 2 of the CAB Code of Ethics, and Clauses 2, 7 and 9 of the Equitable Portrayal Code. The Panel notes parenthetically that the song would not otherwise fall afoul of any of the foregoing broadcast standards if suitably edited.
And that is that. I can understand the concern over the use of the word in a song produced in 2011. But in a song coming up to thirty years old that contains a lyric I believe Mark Knopfler at least partially overheard and that Elton John is happy to sing? There’s been a recent announcement of the publication of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn without the word nigger. Far be it for me to argue that Dire Straits were the Mark Twain of the rock world (although they were at least a Bronte sister in calibre to me), but the issue is similar: where do you draw the line?
I’d love your thoughts on this. Not just on whether you think the decision is right or wrong, but how do you see this working in the future? Is it possible to develop standards that protect older works whilst ensuring offence is minimised?
[via Digital Journal]
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