Andy Gapin

Alright, so it’s been a little while since I’ve blogged. Oops. It’s probably going to be slow for the next month as well while final wedding stuff is coming together. Sorry about that, but I haven’t abandoned this thing, I promise!

Last weekend, I took a trip down to Baltimore for Insubordination Fest. This was my third time at the fest and it was probably the most fun year I’ve attended. There were no venue issues like last year. In fact, the venue, The Ottobar, couldn’t have been better for the weekend. I couldn’t come up with a complaint if I tried.

One of the highlights of the weekend was actually a joke band that was put together solely for the sake of the fest. And amazingly, the songs that were recorded a few days before the fest are actually better than most real bands’ stuff. Their set was a ton of fun.

But, that being said, the hands down best set of the weekend was from The Copyrights. So damn good. If you’re not already listening to this band, you should be.

I got myself into a little trouble with continuous mode on my camera though. I came home with almost 1400 photos from less 36 hours. Insane. I narrowed down to about 200 to edit and I narrowed down further to about 70 to post.

Enjoy.

Alright, so 90s indie-rock band Archers of Loaf is currently in the middle of a reunion tour. These things can really be hit or miss, but I figured that I’d give it a try since I’ve never seen them before. I’m not going to do a full review of the show, but for a bunch of guys in their 40s (?), they had an insane amount of energy. They really brought the show. They played everything I wanted to hear and played it well. They were tight and awesome. I was genuinely surprised and impressed. The only thing I could have done without would have been the two encores. Seriously, society as a whole needs to come together to abolish the concept of planned encores.

I’ve never been to the Music Hall of Williamsburg before, but it was very nice. We got there early and snagged a couple seats in the balcony and stayed there all night. It was a great spot to watch from, but combined with the ultra-low lighting, it was not a great spot to take photos from.

Here’s what I got.

I want to do a full review of Google Music Beta, but I’m not there yet. I just got my invite the other day and kicked off the upload a little more than 36 hours ago. About 4500 songs have been uploaded so far.

The upload process is kind of annoying if you have a lot of music. I installed the music manager program on the Windows virtual machine I already keep running on my Linux server (I need the VM for Audiogalaxy [which apparently relaunched last year as a site that streams your music from your computer to any device. It's solid] and AirVideo). Once installed and pointed to my music, the application started scanning through to see what I have. The music manager found about 66,000 songs and immediately started uploading. The uploads seem to go fairly quick and songs immediately appear in Google Music for your listening pleasure. The problem is that the music manager made no indication of the 20,000 song limit at this point, it just started uploading.

After a while (and after the application crashed and I restarted it), the music manager eventually said that all my songs would not be uploaded because there were too many. That wouldn’t really be a problem considering that Google is very upfront about the 20,000 song limit. The problem is that you don’t get any control over what doesn’t get uploaded. It seems as though the folders are being chosen somewhat at random.

So what it seems like happens is that Google will upload 20k songs and then stop. In Google Music, you can delete stuff, so I would presume I could do that and then it would upload more. But this means I’m uploading stuff I don’t want and working against my Comcast data cap for music that I don’t really want in the cloud (if it means I can’t have other things; I would put it all there if I could).

The music manager does let you add multiple folders to upload and watch, so I could just go through and pick out the artists/albums I want and add them, but that would be an ungodly tedious affair and annoying to do. To be honest, the way Google should handle this is to have the music manager application first upload a list of songs available to be uploaded and let me choose what to upload. If I have less than 20,000 songs, I could just tell it to upload everything in one click, but if I have more, I would be presented with my entire library and I could choose what I wanted. And the I would be able to change this at any time (on the fly). If I decide that I don’t want a certain album and do want something else, I could go in, uncheck that album and check the other one. Then the manager would upload the new album and the old one would be deleted (from Google Music). This could all be done from the browser without me needing to choose specific folders on my computer.

As far as playing music goes, I haven’t done much yet. I have an iPhone, so there’s no app to use for it, but it seems that Google Music does work in mobile Safari on both my iPhone and iPad which is neat. I won’t get to take advantage of the caching, but I can still control the music using the controls in the multitasking tray thing.

I’ll post more about it later.

Besides making terrible music, Jon Bon Jovi is also into saying just blatantly stupid things. Apparently, he blames Steve Jobs for the downfall of the music industry. His words:

Kids today have missed the whole experience of putting the headphones on, turning it up to 10, holding the jacket, closing their eyes and getting lost in an album; and the beauty of taking your allowance money and making a decision based on the jacket, not knowing what the record sounded like, and looking at a couple of still pictures and imagining it..

God, it was a magical, magical time…I hate to sound like an old man now, but I am, and you mark my words, in a generation from now people are going to say: ‘What happened?’ Steve Jobs is personally responsible for killing the music business.

Really, Jon? Really? I’m not here to glorify Steve Jobs, but let’s take a moment here and look at this. Steve Jobs did not invent digital music. Steve Jobs did not invent illegal file sharing and the pirating of music. Steve Jobs did not make shitty music.

What Steve did do was help put together a device for listening to music and a music store that gave the music industry a fighting chance against illegal downloading of music. The iTunes Store was the first online music store that caught on and part of the reason that it did catch on was because of the success of the iPod. Without iTunes making it, other online music stores would have almost definitely failed when competing against FREE.

When given the choice between paying for something or getting it free, most kids are going to go with free. Steve never gave the music away.

The problems with the music industry are many, but I think one of the biggest is the fact that their products suck. The mainstream music industry doesn’t put out records worth buying. They haven’t in a long time. Independent artists still get the concept of putting together albums, but the mainstream industry that complains to no end that they can’t sell records fails to understand that, with few exceptions, they aren’t producing anything worth buying.

Then, you have the fact that the music industry which very clearly is just pissed off about the fact that they lost their chance to profit from digital music by fighting against it for years. Instead of trying to embrace their fans, they treat(ed) like criminals. Had they not sued the pants off of their own customers and instead tried to get onboard with digital music right away, you’d be looking at a different story.

Pirating music and illegal downloading is definitely not good for the big name record labels, but it, nor Mr. Jobs, iPods, or iTunes, are the reason for the music industry being a mess. Shitty music and a big ol’ finger-to-the-fans is.

And let’s be real, the music business will never die, Jon, just YOUR music business. Music will always exist and people will always love it and enjoy it. Things may never be the same, but while music as a whole is still transforming a bit because of the internet and things haven’t really solidified yet, it will not go away. There will always be people that love making music and make great music purely for that reason.

If Jon Bon Jovi was really the idealist that he claims to be, he wouldn’t still be selling his music via the iTunes Store while making comments against its visionary.

Besides, when was the last time Bon Jovi was even a relevant artist anyway?

Last Friday, I took a ride up to Brooklyn for the first night of the Don Giovanni Records showcase at Death By Audio. The lineup was The Steinways, The Measure [SA], Black Wine, Full of Fancy, and Big Eyes and except for the disaster that was The Steinways’ set, the show was awesome.

I was able to photograph three of the bands, but of course the lighting was awful and I didn’t bring my flash. I had to bump the ISO all the way up to 3200 to get non-blurry shots, but they turned out to be pretty damn noisy. But since I knew this would be the case going in, I didn’t worry about it too much and just had fun with it.

I ended up having to convert most of the photos to black and white to deal with the different colored lights, but I did decide to keep the color for a few to see what I could salvage.

Honestly, I kind of enjoyed some of the results.

It’s a Christmas miracle! I got my top 10 albums of the year list done! I kept forgetting about this and putting it off so much that I didn’t think I’d have it done by Christmas, but I buckled down and made it happen.

In years past, I’ve done bigger lists and/or had honorable mentions and all that jazz. Mostly this was fueled by hosting The Playlist, but without having a radio show to host a top albums of the year countdown on now, I had less drive to make a list that I could fill an hour (or two) with.

This was an odd year for me, I barely spent any time listening to music. Even though I still hosted the radio show up until September, I felt less connected to the music than I used to. I think this is a temporary thing, but I really found myself never listening to music at home and listening much, much less at work. I’m putting the blame on trying to do too much and having too much going on. It used to be that the biggest thing in my life was the radio station. Most of what I did was connected to that so I was surrounded by music. Before that, I ran a venue. Before that, I did little besides going to shows. So up until recently, most of my time and hobbies were music  related. That’s changed a lot this year, I spend more time doing non-music related things now. It’s changed a lot for me, but I think things will even out sooner or later. I hope at least.

Because of all that, I think I missed out on a lot of music this year and even stuff that I did check out, didn’t get the time that it deserved. Making a list this year was hard, but I’m pretty happy with it.

So here it is, the albums I was most into for 2010…

Blake Schwartzenbach’s new band, forgetters, has a new song posted and it’s pretty solid. This is a lot better than the forgettable forgetters EP from a few months ago, it sounds much more like Jawbreaker too. Nice.

The second to last The Playlist ever went well last night, definitely a decent show all around. I’m not a big Screaming Females fan myself, but I felt like they were a good way to start off the show. The Thermals double dose wasn’t planned, but the three songs in between all went by much quicker than I thought they would so I needed an extra song. I’m actually listening to the record right now and liking it a bit, but not quite as much as their other stuff. “I Don’t Believe You” is a great song though.

I’m trying to get a second hour for my show next week. I feel like I’ll need two hours to properly end it. It’s hard to believe that after nine years, I won’t be doing a steady show anymore. The Playlist itself has been going for seven years which makes it one of the longest running shows ever on 90.3 The Core. I always wanted to pass it on to someone else to host after me, but I guess that’s not really going to happen. Anyway, I’m going to need to set aside some time this weekend to think about what I want to play next week. I decided that I’m not going to do a show of all new music to end a show that was dedicated to nothing but new music. Hah! Instead, I think I’m going to a highlights show of all my favorite stuff I’ve played over the years. It will be a completely pre-planned show which is entirely atypical of my normal style of doing the show. The only pre-planned shows I do are the best albums of the year countdowns at the end of each year.

• Screaming Females – Nothing At All – Castle Talk
• Best Coast – When I’m With You – Crazy For You
• The Cinnamon Band – I’m Asking You – All Dressed
• A Great Big Pile Of Leaves – Race Car Driving – Have You Seen My Prefrontal Cortex?
• Lost In The Trees – A Room Where Your Paintings Hang – All Alone In An Empty House
• Jenny And Johnny – Scissor Runner – I’m Having Fun Now [EP]
• Samantha Crain – Up On The Table – You (Understood)
• Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band – Hurrah – Where The Messengers Meet
• Upstairs Downstairs – Pessimist – Inland And Out
• The Thermals – I Don’t Believe You – Personal Life
• Woven Bones – Hey Kid – I’ve Gotta Get [Single]
• Hayley Taylor – What’s Going On – One Foot In Front Of The Other
• Mike And Ruthy – Covered – Million To One
• The Thermals – Your Love Is So Strong – Personal Life
• Jesca Hoop – Tulip – Hunting My Dress
• Frontier Ruckus – Ringbearer – Deadmalls And Nightfalls

90.3 The Core

It’s a position I never thought that I’d find myself it, but with The Playlist coming to an end after next week’s show, I’ve realized that I don’t know how to keep up with new music on my own anymore. It’s actually kind of interesting when I think about it.

For the last seven years, I’ve hosted a radio show dedicated entirely to new music, so you’d think that I’d know all about digging up new music. Unfortunately for me, that’s not true at all. Being at a college radio station gives such amazing access to new music that you really don’t even have to try at all, it’s just there for you. Seven years ago, I took over the position of Head Music Director at 90.3 The Core and it was awesome. Even though I had been a DJ there for two years already, I had no idea just how much music the station received on a weekly basis. We’re talking 60-100 new albums a week. That’s a lot. Even with ten other people working under me in the department, I still had to be reviewing at least 30-35 of those albums each week myself just for the department to be able to keep up. I had no choice, all this new music was shoved in my face. I would complain every once in a while about not having the time to listen to the music I wanted to anymore, but in hindsight, that was probably one of the best problems anyone could ever have.

After a while, I had gotten so used to this that I didn’t look for new music on my own anymore. I would find out about a few bands here and there from friends or the indie music message board that I spent way too much time on, but I never had to actively look for new music. When I stepped down from the position as Head Music Director after two years–I wasn’t a student anymore and didn’t think it’d be right to keep the position–I still had access to all of the music. Since then, I’ve shown up a few hours early to every show just hang out and check out new music. Again, no effort. And one of the best things about this was that I had access to the full albums for free.

That’s all over now.

In the couple years before all of that, most of the music I found out about was from friends, going to shows, and from running a small venue for a while. None of this really took any effort either, there was still a ton of music just being pushed in my direction.

The last time I had to actually put effort into finding out about new music was before people did this via the Internet. It was the late 90s when most people still didn’t go online regularly. I would actually have to go to the CD store and take a risk buying something I knew only by name. I would check out the bands listed in the thank you section of the liner notes for albums. I would check out bands that I saw on show flyers for shows I didn’t even go to. I would actually ask people what they were listening to and go through the CDs they had in their backpacks. This was real work! Even once Napster hit the scene, you still needed to have an idea of what you were trying to listen to.

Over the course of the last ten years, everything changed. People don’t need to do that kind of work anymore. The Internet took over and made it super easy to find out about tons of new music and download it for free to at least check it out (totally not suggesting that people shouldn’t make sure the artists get some money in their pockets). I missed out on a lot of that. I don’t even know what sites to read and where to download music anymore. I really don’t. I didn’t need it, so I didn’t pay attention to much of it. Now I need it and I don’t know where to go.

Even though I’m a pretty big tech geek that spends a lot of time keeping up with technology, I feel like some clueless old dude who was just told he needs to use online banking for everything now, but has never actually used a computer before. What the hell do I do?!?

What are the credible sites to read for finding new music? Where do people download stuff these days? Beyond subscribing to the RSS feeds for Punknews and Absolute Punk and looking at what people are listening to on Last.fm, I’ve got nothing. I don’t have time to read any new sites or message boards. I don’t know how the hell I’m going to do this when I actually have to work for it and it’s not just all right there for me.

I guess I knew this day would come at some point, but that doesn’t make this any easier.

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh!

Jimmy Eat World is streaming the first single from their upcoming album, Invented, on their site right now. It’s called “My Best Theory” and it serves as proof that not even Mark Trombino can bring these guys back from the land of mediocrity that they’ve fallen into in the last ten years.

This band seems to get an endless number of chances from old fans that have been around pre-Bleed American. With each release since Bleed American, I hear the same thing about how the previous album wasn’t that great but this new one coming out is going to be so much better and serve as a “return to form” for the band. There’s always some good enough sounding reason behind this too. I always buy into it, but it never pans out. This time around, Mark Trombino was supposed to be their savior. I was willing to give it chance, what he’s done with them before was strong, there’s no denying that. But the truth is, despite what they graced us with in the second half of the ’90s, this band is just mediocre. Many of us “indie” kids still have a very soft spot in our hearts for Jimmy Eat World, but I think it’s time to give up hope. Let’s just walk away with Static Prevails and Clarity and be happy that we got those two incredible records from them. With two-thirds of their albums just being alright and their new single giving little hope for their seventh album, I think it’s time, guys. I’m sorry to be the one to say it.

To quote Gaslight Anthem, “those days are gone and you should just let them go.”