On the magical land of Facebook, Guan and I kickstarted a group promoting the trading of digital mixtapes.

I figured I’d share the first one (which we collaborated on), just because I can.

The mixtape is called “Getting up to speed” and basically it’s a collection of tunes that might brighten your day and get you in the mood. It’s bookended by two slightly more reflective tracks just to ensure that you can ease in and out of such an explosive burst of optimism and quirkiness.

Hopefully it will contain some new music that you’ve not heard before. It turned out to be somewhat eclectic.

Tracklist (download it here)

1. Blur - Sweet Song
   Think Tank (4:00)
2. Neil Finn – Rest of the Day Off
   One Nil (3:49)
3. Common – Be (Intro)
   Be (Deluxe Edition) (2:24)
4. Oh No – Smile A Lil Bit Feat. Posdnuos
   Exodus Into Unheard Rhythms (3:20)
5. Yo La Tengo – Mr. Tough
   I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass (4:05)
6. Black Moth Super Rainbow – Rollerdisco
   Dandelion Gum (2:34)
7. Bob Dylan – Neighborhood Bully
   Infidels (4:37)
8. Cornelius – Another View Point
   Point (5:35)
9. Apparat – Fractales (Pt. I)
   Walls (3:34)
10. Matthew Dear – Deserter
    Asa Breed (3:55)
11. Nitin Sawhney – Nadia
    Beyond Skin (5:05)
12. Caribou – Desiree
    Andorra (4:12)
13. DJ Shadow – You Can’t Go Home Again
    Live! In Tune and on Time (6:35)
14. The Dismemberment Plan – Superpowers
    Change (4:47)
15. Bruce Cockburn – I’m Gonna Fly Some Day
    In the Falling Dark (4:03)
16. Dixie Dregs – Assembly Line
    Industry Standard (4:27)
17. James Holden - Lump
    The Idiots Are Winning (6:10)
18. Squarepusher – Vic Acid
    Hard Normal Daddy (3:07)
19. A Place to Bury Strangers – I Know I’ll See You
    A Place to Bury Strangers (4:06)
20. Gotye – Just Can’t Get Enough
    Depeche Mode Cover (2:50)

Thanks to the substantial clout of the notorious cinematic blogging mogul Syms Covington, I scored myself access to the first screening of U2 3D in Australia, which is expected for release here in around April. I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from the 3D aspect, but I think I was anticipating little more than an interesting gimmick.

In a nutshell: U2 3D is a live concert film shot over the course of a few shows on the Latin American leg of the Vertigo ’06 tour. The shots have all been composited (quite convincingly) over a soundtrack that I’m assuming is also pulled from a few different sources. I didn’t have too many moments where I noticed a discrepancy between visuals and soundtrack, so they must have spent a lot of time editing the footage.

The band’s performances are solid, much better than the lacklustre show presented in Live in Chicago from their ’05 tour. Unfortunately the (obviously trimmed down) set also reads like a somewhat HTDAAB-and-greatest-hits line-up, and the culling of songs from the set definitely upsets the flow. I was a little upset they dropped Zoo Station from the running order…

For me, I’d say this is possibly the best audio soundtrack that has yet accompanied an official U2 concert release owing to the fact that a less-is-more approach has been applied to the mix, resulting in something that sounds more like what you’d really hear if you were at the show. There a few notable exceptions where the audio is mixed specific to certain shots (e.g. a fly by overhead Larry’s drum kit suddenly has the toms mixed up to BOOM levels, just while the shot is in view. not necessary!)

As for the 3D component? Without wanting to sound like a raving convert: holy cow. This is really awesome stuff.

The concert comes alive. Not in a fairy-dust-and-rainbows kind of way, but in a real, immersive way; if anything, you see more of the bits that directors try to gloss over in 2D concert films. There are occasional moments where the 3D feels a bit artificial (especially when Adam’s swooping his bass around the camera), but overall I’d be so bold as to suggest that this is the best way to view a live concert recording.

Two things that I really noticed in contrast to past concert films are space and detail. Space because, well duh, you’re looking at it in 3D. Detail because past artistic tools such as depth of field and the use of tighter shots with faster cuts aren’t really an option. As a result, you get time to see what’s happening all over the stage in a single shot, including the mundane bits like microphones and techs and cables. The crowd shots are out of this world, from any angle. And the artistic embellishments that get edited in or added (I don’t want to say more for risk of spoiling it) for the most part are pretty nice too.

Generally speaking, the footage is pristine. The shots are beautifully framed, and the editing is nice and relaxed – exactly what a concert film should be (I’m looking at you, MTV!) There’s obviously been a lot of attention to detail made, and it’s the kind of thing I’d love to be able to watch on a nice HDTV again and again, though that is probably unlikely to ever happen - it looks like this won’t be seeing any other form of release.

If you go see this, my only recommendation is that this movie strikes me as the sort of film that’s much better to be watched at an IMAX cinema. We saw it on a standard-sized screen, which did feel a little bit odd and probably not as immersive as it could have been. Apart from that, check it out – even if you’re not a fan of the band!

I am ready to fly home
- Larry Norman, 1947-2008

It kind of kicked me in the guts to hear that Larry Norman passed away today. I’m even more shocked, but touched, that I heard about it via Pitchfork. Not many of you will know his name or who he was, but there’s no doubt that he influenced more people than many people would suspect. Pitchfork lists some of those people. I remember hearing he had a bible study with Bob Dylan. Apparently Frank Black dug his stuff. I know Kevin Max cites him as a prominent influence.

Larry was a Christian musician and writer who had a notable prominence back in the early 70s through to mid 80s. He was a prolific songwriter, a champion for many fledgling Christian artists of his day and one of the strongest voices against mediocrity in Christian music, the kind of voice that sadly doesn’t get heard much today (as a result, much of Christian music today pretty much sucks).

He was unashamed of speaking his mind about expression and development through and in music, and firmly believed that these things were gifts from God. He sought to glorify God in everything he did, and he didn’t think rocking out was incompatible with this, despite much disagreement from the world at the time.

Larry wrote a lot of great tunes, had a killer sense of humour and was never shy of expressing his opinion through his music or what he said. For me, Larry Norman was a significant part of my musical diet while growing. His records are still in my collection, and many of them still sound fresh to my ears. This stuff definitely had an influence on me. He wrote a lot of liner notes which I found throughout the albums of various artists he’d worked with, and I’d say his words definitely had a big impact on me too.

One of his best albums (IMHO) was entitled Only Visiting This Planet. The title pretty much communicates what he felt about life – that it was merely a stepping stone as part of something bigger.

He’s done visiting, and he’s headed back home.

R.I.P Larry

some say he was the son of god a man above all men
but he came to be a servant and to set us free from sin
and that’s who i believe he was ’cause that’s who i believe
and i think we should get ready ’cause it’s time for us to leave
- The Outlaw, 1972 (listen)

I finally caved into legitimate music downloads today.

Sure, it’s something I’ve done before. I had a (very brief) go at iTunes when it first came out. I’d tried eMusic numerous times. I’ve bought tunes from Bleep. And, of course, I’ve bought stuff from musos that are having a go at distributing music themselves online.

Today was different though: I actually made a conscious decision to keep an eMusic account. I did so reluctantly, but it’s become clear that I simply can’t sustain the kind of volume of hard-copy music purchases that I had been making. Not that I’ll be stopping buying CDs and records altogether - far from it. I’ll explain why in a moment…

Some people ask me why I bother with bought downloads at all. I torrent stuff fairly regularly to sample new music, but I try to limit the amount of music that I illegally download and definitely avoid adding it to my permanent collection. I realise that in many cases the artist is unlikely to see much of what I’ve spent on a download (although whatever they get counts!) - but even more importantly I feel that if I don’t need to pay anything for the music I have, then the value of it is lessened. I like having an incentive to properly absorb an artist’s work, and the fact that I’ve spent money on a recording certainly makes me want to make sure that I’ve given it time and appreciated it. It also means that I’m not spoilt with a ridiculously huge library that I can take for granted.

Anyway, there I was somewhat reluctantly looking at my new eMusic account, but looking forward to hearing the music I now had access to. As 100 songs began their journey to my hard drive, something still wasn’t feeling right: I just couldn’t make myself feel like I was getting a good deal.

It doesn’t take a genius to talk about how digital music is devoid of artwork, liner notes, a colour scheme, a physical presence on your shelf and, obviously, some degree of sound quality (as negligible as this may be for some). Obvious as this might be, it’s definitely true.

Then a thought kind of drove home what I was feeling about buying digital music: if my experience with music is going to be limited to these rather blank and personality-less MP3 files (and their associated players), what will my kids’ experience of music be like as they grow up?

Background: when I was becoming aware of the world around me as a baby, my parents’ record collection and stereo fascinated me. When I was 5 years old my Dad was teaching me how to make mixtapes from vinyl. For many of my early years, I’d spend hours poring over the artwork for the albums they owned. I’d sit in the middle of the lounge room as the records played, looking at the liner notes. Even before I could read, I had a definite context for the recordings and what they were about. I knew what I liked. This was pretty formative in creating my fascination with music today.

Consider in contrast: what are our kids going to associate with music? A line in an iPod? An 100×100 graphic in iTunes? Some kind of lame animated HDTV interface attached to a media centre device? A kid just beginning to become aware of music can’t read any of these devices – an artist name isn’t going to be much use to them!

Really, I can’t help but wonder if music will be something quite different for the next generation, compared to what it was for us - their first few years are an extremely influential period of development, and I think this kind of difference in interaction with music will have its effects.

Taking it past the context of children, the same things that I experienced when I was a young are still true today. I like having a context for the music I listen to. I like it being an “object” – to have a tangible link with something that somebody created, to be listened to by people like me.

Writing all this, I can’t help but wonder if I’m just a fogey in the making. Obviously music is a small part of what life is about, but nonetheless I’m looking forward to sharing it with my kids when I have them, and it would be a shame if the allure is tainted by an over-simplification of the means by which it’s delivered.

It’s become pretty clear in my mind that I’ll be using digital music downloads purely as a means to curb the cost hit that I get with the volume of music I buy. I’ll still buy the real gems I enjoy on a hard-copy medium just to appreciate the full package, and I’ll definitely still enjoy spending a Saturday afternoon thumbing through the CD racks and the vinyl bins.

Who knows, maybe one day I’ll get to take my kids with me.