Life in the Bus Lane

The BPI are seemingly doing their best to kill off the record industry in the UK. As previously mentioned they are taking CD-Wow to court for selling CDs from abroad cheaper than you can buy them here. They are also targetting Play, and are investigating Amazon (US). The last one strikes me as even more bizzarre, as they are investigating a US company, not the UK arm which only sells UK CDs, in effect they want to stop us buying CDs from anywhere but a UK shop.

Maybe they should spend their time working out why it costs around £12 to buy a CD on the high street here, yet the same CD can be bought from abroad and shipped halfway around the world for around £8.

If they succeed in cutting off the supply of cheap CDs, they will only kill off their own market. Personally I refuse to pay the inflated prices we get charged over here, and will just stop buying CDs at all and resort to downloading them from the internet. The end result is that the record companies will then get no money whatsoever from my.

I already refuse to buy copy-protected CD’s, something which the Belgians seem to have right idea about.

The much rumoured iPod Mini has finally been announced. Rumours had been flying around that it would hold 2GB of music, and cost $99. If that had been the case I’d have bought one straight away.

In reality it will hold 4GB of music (good), but cost $249 (bad). Compare that with the announcement that the base iPod will increase from 10GB to 15GB and remain at the same $299 price, and I think Apple have killed most of the market for the iPod Mini even before it’s released.

The only people who will buy one now are the fashion conscious muppets with money to waste who want something to match their latest handbag.

New CD and DVD for The Pixies

I’ll believe it when I see it though, it’s been rumoured to be “near release” for several years now.

As of the end of November, Joey Ramone Place now exists in New York at the corner of Bowery and Second Street.

Still in Bristol, still learning things. Three more days to go.

It’s that time of year again when the cat spends most of his time hiding under a chair due to the noise of the fireworks. At least there haven’t been too many locally, they didn’t really start until Saturday and will hopefully be finished after tonight.

Nice to see that Jimmy Cauty (formely of The KLF) is causing controversy again with his new artwork. Some people get offended way too easily.

So Apple finally released iTunes for Windows last week, and there was much rejoicing. In my case this was shortlived and soon replaced by much cursing and swearing.

I installed iTunes, marvelled at the inconsisteny of it’s user interface, then let it lose on my 40Gb or so of mp3 files. Somewhere along the way I must have ticked the box and turned on the option which said “please fuck up all my mp3s for me and don’t tell me you are doing it” as I soon found 1000-odd files mysteriously renamed and refiled in a directory called “unknown artist\unknown album”. I knew exactly what they were until iTunes fucked around with them. Not impressed at all. Especially as it seemingly renamed them as well, making it virtually impossible to put them back in the correct place.

That meant spending several days resurrecting directories, re-ripping albums, retagging files, and generally cursing Apple more and more.

The moral of this story is never trust Apple to release software that works properly, and if you do want to run iTunes for Windows, be very very careful in the settings, and make damn sure all your mp3’s have correct and complete ID3 tags.

This looks like it could be a fun evening. Shame it’s so far away.

The forks are on their way to Windwave, the only downside is that they will probably be away for 10 days or so.

Popped down to the LBS to pick up a few bits for the Craftworks, ended up with a FSA Pig DH Pro headset, a new chain and some gear cable outer. Got home and found my new XTR mech sat waiting for me, along with a copy of the new Half Man Half Biscuit EP Saucy Haulage Ballads, “On Finding The Studio Banjo” is a work of pure genius.

I think I’ll spend the afternoon in the sun swapping bits around on bikes.

For the first time in ages, I’m relieving some of my youth and listening to some old(ish) records on vinyl. Currently spinning on the turntable is Feel The Darkness by Poison Idea. I’ve not heard this for a good 5 years or so.

I have a suspicion that the neighbours may unwillingly become acquainted with 80’s/90’s hardcore over the next few weeks. There is plenty of Dead Kennedys/Minor Threat/Fugazi/Poison Idea/Bad Brains/D.R.I./Circle Jerks/etc to go around.

What a bunch of arse eh?

A new 5.25″ optical disc arrived yesterday, I can’t call it a CD because it isn’t a CD, it doesn’t comply with the Philips Red Book standard for CD’s.

The disc in question is a Cactus Data Shield protected copy of Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells 2003, no mention was made when ordering of the fact that it wasn’t a CD that would be supplied. I opened the packaging and saw the dreaded copy protected sticker on the front. This just made me more determined to copy it.

A couple of hours later I’d finished my dinner and had a perfectly good working copy on CD-R. I’m very tempted to return this disc pointing out that they supplied a deliberately corrupted disc, however as it’s for my dad for fathers day, I’ll just keep the copy and let him have the original.

After all the faffing, it actually sounds quite good. It’s only a stereo CD so it’s not easy to compare with the multi-channel SACD copy I have, but it sounds very good, and has the bonus of John Cleese on it. I’ll probably wait and get the planned multi-channel DVD-A release of this new version before buying a copy for myself. Especially as I point-blank refuse to have deliberately corrupted discs in my personal collection.