Monthly Archives: June 2005
Madeleine Peyroux with Ron Sexsmith, June 28th 2005
Madeleine Peyroux with Ron Sexsmith @ the Orpheum Theatre, Tuesday June 28, 2005
I was really looking forward to this show. I have been listening to Peyroux’s 2004 release “Careless Love” for the last little while, and I enjoy its relaxed chilled vibe. I was a bit apprehensive about just how mellow the show was going to be, and my worst fears were realized. I’m not sure if it was just because I was tired, but during her entire show I had the distinct feeling of falling asleep in a Starbucks. I was not alone. There was a large gentleman directly behind me who loudly sawed logs through out the show. Which is a shame, since I really enjoy her voice, song arrangements, and guitar playing. I think most of the problems stem from the fact that Peyroux seemed nervous and uncomfortable on the stage. Her voice had difficulty hitting certain pitches and can only be described as erratic. Her guitar playing seemed hesitant. Maybe she felt overwhelmed by the size of the venue, or maybe it was an off night, but this performance did not live up to my expectations. I still like the CD though.
Ron Sexsmith was a very different story! He is a comfortable, seasoned performer who engaged effortlessly with the audience. His performance was flawless. Almost too flawless! A good friend of mine likened this seeming paradox to the time he went and watched a gyspy circus perform. The circus performers were so bad, that when the time came for the tight rope walking, my friend was literally on the edge of his seat. At any moment, these rusty amateurs could plummet to their death! The Ron Sexsmith show was the exact opposite scenario; they made it look too easy! I can hardly fault someone for a perfect performance, but maybe they could have taken a few more musical chances. This aside, the Ron Sexsmith show was quite enjoyable.
Bonobo with guests The Hermit, June 27th 2005
Bonobo with guests The Hermit, June 27th 2005 @ Commodore Ballroom
Bonobo played a fantastic show. This is beautiful cinematic music played with technical and thoughtful precision. The songs were tightly arranged and it was incredible how a theme started by the keyboards would be picked up and expanded by an acoustic guitar. The melodic development was almost classical in nature.
The beats and grooves were incredible as well. While many bands in this genre rely heavily on recorded samples and drum patterns, Bonobo’s set was very ‘live’ sounding, and this is a great thing. There was certainly no ‘play along to the DJ’ vibe that often occurs, but at the same time, the drums sounded crisp, strong, and in your face (right where they should be). The band also looked like they were having a great time on stage, probably in response to the packed dance floor of the commodore. One of my favorite shows so far!
Local openers The Hermit had a unique and interesting ‘organic groove’ sound going on. The rhythm section was quite tight, and I really enjoyed the singing of Paula Toledo. I’ve seen C.R. Avery perform many times, in almost as many situations, but to my ears, his truly jaw dropping beat boxing and harmonica work sounded out of place in this context. I also think the performance was slightly marred by a lack of rehearsal time for the group. Some of the arrangements sounded pretty loose.
Bugge Wesseltoft, June 26th 2005
Bugge Wesseltoft, June 26th 2005 @ Commodore Ballroom
Just caught the tail end of Bugge Wesseltoft’s set. It sounded like the pretty typical blend of housey beats and jazz improv that graces the stages of many modern day Jazz festivals. What set this apart (although not too far) from the masses was the level of musicality and improvisational prowess. My only criticism is that the samples and the pre recorded beats drowned out the live instrumentation, particularly that of the rhythm section. The drummer, who obviously is skilled, was practically inaudible. Minor gripes aside, very enjoyable though.
Vancouver Jazz Festival Underway
I’m blessed to have a artist pass this year, and to actually be in town long enough to see some great shows. There’s a lot of tough calls, but I think this is what my week will look like.
Tonight (Monday, June 27th) I’m going to check out Bonobo at the commodore for some cool electro-groove fun.
Tuesday June 28th - I’m going to attempt to get in to the Orpheum to see Ron Sexsmith open for Madeleine Peyroux. A tough call though, with Bill Frisell at The Center.
Wednesday June 29th - Going to check out the opening set of Lonnie Smith Trio with local saxman Cory Weeds. Go Cory! Later I am going to head over the commodore for the Herbaliser. I had the pleasure of opening up for the Herbaliser a few years ago, and the set should not be missed!
Thursday June 30th - Back again to the commodore for Oliver Mtukudzi. I don’t know too much about him, but I can’t let that festival pass sit idle! I’ll try and swing by for a listen of the Jon Bently quintet at the late show at IronWorks.
Friday July 1st - Since I’m playing at Granville island today, that’s where you should be too!
Saturday July 2nd - Daniel Lanios at the Center should be great.
Sunday July 3rd - Rez Abbasi’s Snake Charmer at Performance works.
EVDB API released!
The new API to EVDB went live about 45 minutes ago. With Upcoming.org and EVDB it’s nice to see the area of calendars and events start to gain some momentum.
Linux on your iPod
Phillip Torrone just gave a cool Gnomedex tutorial on how to install Linux on an iPod. You can get more info at the Podzilla wiki. PT mentioned a few compelling reasons to void your iPod warranty:
- Record audio at higher bit rates then the standard iPod OS
- Play back video on your iPod
- Ogg support
- Asteroids!
Now this is a Foosball table
Do you have gobs of cash burning a hole in your wallet? Do you tip the cute starbucks girl with a crisp hundred dollar bill? Have you already bought your porche? Then this is your foosball table!
Hachamovitch @ Gnomedex
The feisty IE product unit manager Dean Hachamovitch gave us the low down on the latest Longhorn build, IE 7, and how RSS will save the world. Dean talked about some of the limitations of feeds, and how extending RSS to handle lists can solve these issues in certain problem domains. The biggest news came when Microsoft announced that it is releasing its list based extensions to RSS2.0 under a creative commons license. To make it uber official Larry Lessig appeared via video to congratulate Microsoft on embracing the CC license . Microsoft and Creative Commons? Next thing we know there will be peace in the middle east and cats and dogs will be living together. Though I’m not clear if Microsoft’s extensions to RSS will compete or complement OPML.
Dean also talked about a couple of other points:
Longhorn will have a ‘common feed list’, a user level data store of feeds. This makes a lot of sense, and my only concern here is that the data is open and easily accessible. I also like the way Dean downplays the specific activity of Podcasting, instead treating it as the general activity of exchanging ‘feeds of content’.
Savage Beast - Music Genome Project
Huge props to Lee LeFever for having a big ‘ol BBQ this evening. Some neat ideas floating around. I was chatting with Tom Conrad from Savage Beast about their cool service. They hire 40 professional musicians to listen to songs and then grade each song according to a list of 400 attributes. The thing I like about hiring an army of experts (as opposed to the current en vogue method of collaborative community filtering) is that the
‘rich-get-richer’ effect that often accompanies these services is side stepped. The thing is that Savage Beasts’ whole process ignores popularity, focusing solely on the musical fundamentals. Ideally, I think this type of approach to ‘manually’ creating a taxonomy of music should be combined with the ‘what’s popular’ view. The goal of this algorithm would be to try and mitigate the effects of positive feedback loops, while still reflecting some sense of what’s popular.
But really, I just want to take a look at the Savage Beast database. The thought of a group of experts marking up the recorded history of popular music is just pretty cool. Recommendations are good starting point, but this data could also be used for automated composition or for ‘hit-screening’ an artist’s new single (Will this single be a hit?) or one million other ideas I haven’t thought of. Savage Beast, I want an open API to your data!
Also, I have to admit that in another universe, my lazy-sleep-to-noon musician alter ego would love the dream job of simply listening music all day.
Pre Gnomedex Activities
So all of us from Bryght met up with the fine folks at Robot Co-op. It was a great lunch, which ended in a high stakes game of credit card Russian roulette (loser pays all). After the dust settled, score ‘1’ for Bryght, 0 for Robot Co-op.
We also got a guided tour of 43places, the new Robot Co-op web app. It looks pretty slick, and seems like a nice step forward building on the success of 43things. I really dig the interfaces. These things are fun to use!