Mark Cuban's Crack and Back Approach to DRM

Mark Cuban posts today about the DRM Evolution, that may lead hardware producers to keep changing the playback devices to match the evolving DRM requirements. Down the road, content you legally own may not play back on hardware you legally own because of incompatibilities with the then current DRM protocols.

The record label cartel’s answer, of course, would be to go buy another copy of the same song you have already bought on LP, 8-track, cassette, CD and MP3.

Mark’s answer is to crack stuff you own and keep a DRM-free back up copy.

It’s hard for a guy from Houston to give too much love to a dude from Dallas, but damn I love that guy.

I’ve said many times that I have not and will not buy music that is infested with DRM. If I accidentally did, I would absolutely crack it and and make a back-up copy.

My Favorite Records:Goose Creek Symphony – Established 1970

This is the another installment in my series of favorite records.

One of my favorite country rock bands of the early 70’s was Goose Creek Symphony. Although named for a place in Kentucky, the band was actually formed in Phoenix and played a San Francisco-influenced country rock sound.

Any of their first three records could have made my list, but I’m going to pick their first one.

Among the many great songs on Established 1970 are Charlie’s Tune, the first Goose Creek song I ever heard and still one of my favorites, a fantastic version of Satisfied Mind, Confusion, the excellent and Band-like Raid on Bush Creek and Talk About Goose Creek.

All of these songs are fantastic. Their next two records, Words of Earnest and Welcome to Goose Creek, are also excellent.

In the trivia department, the fiddle player’s wife was the maid of honor at my sister’s wedding in College Grove, Tennessee in 1976. Small world.

Goose Creek and The Amazing Rhythm Aces, along with Area Code 615 and its offspring, Barefoot Jerry, were among my favorite bands of the early 70’s- and they still are today.

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top 50 albums, record reviews

RanchoCast – March 10, 2006 Edition

I did a new podcast tonight.

The theme is the Young Bromberg Show. I played some great songs by Jesse Colin Young, the Youngbloods, David Bromberg, the Pixies, Dave Gleason and others.

I also talked about Google’s office application initiative, why all nerd camps are not created equal and my new Sprint mobile phone.

57 minutes of country rock, classic rock, tech and blues.

My Favorite Records:Gerald Collier – I Had to Laugh Like Hell

This is the another installment in my series of favorite records.

There’s nothing I like better than well written, dark and brooding songs. No one does this better than Gerald Collier. The former frontman of the Best Kissers in the World (a fine band in its own right) has four released and a couple of unreleased records that are uniformly excellent. By excellent, I mean dark and brooding. With great writing, playing and singing.

But the best and most brooding of them all is his first one, 1996’s is I Had to Laugh Like Hell.

There are 12 songs on this fine record, from the downward spiral of Boozin’ Time and the biting I Ain’t the One You Hate. This is good stuff to listen to in an empty house, with all the lights turned off, the windows open and a bottle of whiskey in your hand.

I know Gerald a little, via email. He lives in Austin now, and normally you can get more of his music, including an excellent unreleased record and a great live one, via his website. He told me last week that his web site is down, at least temporarily. I hope Gerald gets another record deal and I hope his website comes back online, because he’s one talented dude.

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top 50 albums, record reviews

RanchoCast – March 4, 2006 Edition

I did a new podcast yesterday afternoon, while Raina and the girls were at the ballet and before Luke woke up from his nap and went nuts.

Lots of good, hard to find songs, including songs by Country Joe McDonald, Daniel Moore, Ray Riddle, Hasil Adkins, Mason Proffit and more. I end the show with a great blues jam by Wet Willie.

Also there’s a little more talking than normal, as I talked about the gatekeeper business, Steve Rubel’s social media tour, lessons from Bubble 1.0 and why Web 2.0 is less than it may appear.

Almost 58 minutes of country rock, tech and blues.

Jukebox, Annotated

You know the drill. Open up your jukebox of choice, point the shuffle feature to your entire library of songs and list, without exception, the first 10 or so songs that play. I like to add a little commentary about some of the artists, songs, albums, etc.

First Days of Fall – Tim O’Brien (When No One’s Around) (1)
Just this Morning – The Silos (Cuba) (2)
Seminole Jail – Rusty Wier (Rusty Wier) (3)
You Win Again – Grateful Dead (Europe ’72) (4)
Broken Hearted People – Guy Clark (Texas Cookin’) (5)
I Love You So Much It Hurts – John Prine (Lost Dogs & Mixed Blessings) (6)
China Grove – The Doobie Brothers (The Captain and Me) (7)
Midnight and Lonesome – Buddy Miller (Midnight and Lonesome) (8)
Pet Sounds – Beach Boys (Pet Sounds) (9)
Jemima James – Phill Lee (You Should Have Known Me Then) (10)

(1) One of the best songs on Tim’s best record. Great singing and great playing.

(2) An OK song on a very good record.

(3) Fine song off of a very hard to find record.

(4) A great song off of the Grateful Dead record that I listen to more than any other.

(5) Good song off one of my favorite Guy Clark records.

(6) Not one of my favorite songs off the record containing my favorite John Prine song, Lake Marie.

(7) Simply one of the main songs on the soundtrack to my youth. As good as it gets.

(8) A great song by one of the best real country singers working today.

(9) The instrumental title track to one of my all-time favorite records. This record is a must-own.

(10) I’ve raved about Phil Lee here many times. This is not one of my favorites, but it’s pretty good and it’s on a great record.

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My Favorite Records:Emmylou Harris – At the Ryman

This is the another installment in my series of favorite records.

I’ve loved Emmylou Harris since the first time I heard her 1977 masterpiece Luxury Liner. And there are any number of her records that are worthy of my Top 50 list. But there’s one of them that’s just a notch above the rest.

That record is her 1992 live album, is At the Ryman.

I remember going to the Ryman to see the Grand Ole Opry when I was a kid, and I sure wish I’d been at the Ryman when Emmylou made this live tour de force. She joined up with the Nash Ramblers, one of the best backing bands in the history of recorded sound, led by Sam Bush and Roy Huskey Jr., and simply made one of the best live records ever. One of the best. Ever

From the opening chords of Steve Earle’s Guitar Town until the last chord of Smoke Along the Track, there’s not a song on this record that I’d rate less than a 9.5 on a 10 scale. The two best songs are covers of Bill Monroe’s Walls of Time and Get Up John (I can’t listen to a second of either one without feeling that beautiful tug of spiritual emotion). I expect Sam Bush’s fingers were in shreds at the end of Walls of Time. What a beautiful song.

This is a great album.

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top 50 albums, record reviews

Soundbite or Corporate Policy

That’s the only question that needs to be asked to Yahoo following the statement by Yahoo Music chief Dave Goldberg that record labels should sell music without copy protection.

Everyone knows that the DRM-infestation that has ruined online music and put the screws to consumers to buy multiple copies of the same thing is horse manure (to put it mildly).

But until one big company who has both skin in the game and enough mindshare to kick-start a movement calls foul and stops pushing this crap on consumers, this is just a soundbite. There’s no need to “prompt industry-wide discussion.” It’s being discussed now, but since the record label cartel has all the bargaining power, we’re not getting anywhere.

The prospect of getting booted off of Yahoo’s music service would create enough bargaining power to at least bring the record labels to the negotiating table.

Yahoo, tell the record label cartel no. Make your music store DRM-free. Don’t toss out some unwanted, non-binding advice.

Take a stand. Make it happen.

Pandora and Last.fm Move Over

Here comes Vault Radio.

If someone decided to create a radio station that would capture and keep my attention to the exclusion of most other musical endeavors, they could not do a better job that this.

Here’s the skinny from the Vault Radio page:

Bill Graham and his concert promotion company, Bill Graham Presents, produced more than 35,000 concerts all over the world. His first venue, the legendary Fillmore Auditorium, was home to many of rock’s greatest performers – Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, The Doors, The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye, Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Prince – and the list goes on and on.

Graham taped thousands of live performances and stored the tapes in the basement of the BGP headquarters.

These tapes and the concerts they captured lay dormant until the Bill Graham archive was acquired by Wolfgang’s Vault (Bill Graham’s given first name was Wolfgang) in 2003.

Vault Radio is now playing selected tracks from these concerts in an FM-quality, 128K digital radio stream. Songs will be added to and removed from the radio show on a regular basis. We will be broadcasting unaltered live performance music from many of the greatest bands of the last 40 years. The music you hear on Vault Radio has not been sweetened or polished. You’ll be listening to what the band played that night – nothing more, nothing less.

Cheers!

Cheers indeed.

My Favorite Records:Elvis Costello – Almost Blue

This is the another installment in my series of favorite records.

The first half of the eighties was a fantastic time for me musically. I was living in Nashville, listening to a ton of good music, writing a little with some other songwriters and generally having a good time. Among the best music I heard while I was living there was early Webb Wilder, Raging Fire, John Scott Sherrill, very early REM and one of the best country records I have ever heard. By Elvis Costello

That record is his 1981 record Almost Blue. It’s a fantastic record of awesome covers of great country songs, including Tonight the Bottle Let Me Down, Good Year for the Roses and I’m Your Toy. Be sure to get the 2 disk re-release, which has another disk of bonus songs, including my favorite song on the record, Psycho.

People who haven’t heard Elvis do country probably either can’t believe it or assume he did it as satire. Wrong on both counts, as this is one of the best, straight-up country records ever made.

1977’s My Aim is True turned me onto Elvis, but this record made me a huge fan