Category Archives: music

I love music, so this could be a new song, band or song that’s stuck in my head!

Amazon MP3 store – 89 cent songs!

Posted on September 26, 2007 | 1 comment

So Amazon opened the Amazon MP3 store which has been getting some good reviews and (most importantly) it semi-integrates by pushing your purchases into your iTunes which is great for automatic syncing with your iPod. They’ve had tracks for download for ages, but this is their big jump into the market (you do need their downloader for this).

I actually spotting it yesterday when searching for some music but I didn’t realize the format change of my search results indicated a whole new service. I did notice that the tracks were only 89 cents though!

Keep in might for 89 cents they are a dime less than the iTunes music store for regular tracks but since there is no encryption (DRM) and it’s encoded at a higher quality (even than Apple I believe) these are 40 cents less than Apple’s $1.29 a song. That’s about 1/3 less if you’ve been getting the DRM-free higher quality songs (and that’s what I’ve been getting lately). And they are MP3s, so they play on just about anything (but higher quality does mean larger songs). Buying whole albums will generally discount the price. Continue reading →

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Tagged A Fine Frenzy, amazon, Apple, iPod, iTunes, iTunes music store, money, mp3, music, music store, portable, web sites

Vote for Courtney Robb !

Posted on August 4, 2007 | Leave a comment

So I only ask y’all for a favor about once a year (maybe twice). This one is to take a listen to the wonderful Courtney Robb sing and then vote for her. (Thank you!)

Listen here – http://www.myspace.com/courtneyr
And vote here – http://www.myspace.com/local_long_distance VOTING IS OVER
You do not need a MySpace account to vote.

Actually, it’s just the second step that’s the favor. The first step is if only you want to make an informed decision, but I’m telling you she’s great! It’s the first voting poll on the left, it’s about one screen/page down (just below “the fold”) and I had a little problem hitting the “vote” button with “Safari” so you might need to try Firefox.

Courtneyrobb Courtney was on their radio show and having people return to be on a “listener’s choice” show and if she gets enough votes, she gets to come back.

She writes her own stuff and has a sound kinda like Anna Nalick, Jewel, Avril Lavigne, Aimee Mann and all that kind of acoustic/earthy music that I love.

And once you decide you like her, go see a show if you’re in the Detroit area (all around the Detroit, Royal Oak, Mt. Clemens, Allen Park, Redford area), she’s great!

* Full disclosure – She’s my niece, but that’s not why I’m helping to get get votes, it’s because she’s excellent is why I’m encouraging you to vote.

Update – VOTING IS CLOSED and Courtney was way ahead the last few times I looked so if you listened and voted, Thanks!!

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Tagged acoustic, Anna Nalick, Courtney Anne Robb, Courtney Robb, Detroit, Guitar, local music, Michigan, music, Vote

The Police

Posted on July 17, 2007 | 1 comment

I saw The Police in concert tonight at the Palace in Auburn Hills. They were excellent!!!! You’d never know these guys hadn’t toured in years, any other reunion (or county fair concert) I’ve ever seen you could tell everyone was out of practice, but not these guys.

I had a great seat, I wasn’t real close but I was a few rows off the main floor, I had a way better seat than the people who were 15 feet from me on the main floor that (I think) paid a lot more. They had an incredible stage setup, huge video displays and great camera angles.

Here’s the run down on the guys:

Sting – Awesome singer. He probably looks less old than the rest of the gang. (I don’t think he did any of his own songs, but his son’s band did open).

Stewart Copland – Excellent on the instruments, probably better than the other guys. Not sure what he’s done lately on his own (remember when he did the theme for The Equalizer TV series?).

Andy Summers – Looked a little ragged (sorry Andy). I’ve seen him in concert (he opened for Tangerine Dream), I thought he was a lot more mellow.

I took a few photos, but I don’t know how to get them off the (stupid) Verizon RAZR v3 phone I have from work (my Treo is in the shop). I can’t seem to bluetooth them or e-mail them to a regular e-mail account, anyone?

And what was up with the really old guitar of Sting? It looked in pretty sad shape, there must be a story (and someone must know it).

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Posted in reviews

Tagged Andy Summers, Auburn Hills, concert, Detroit, Guitar, music, Police, Stewart Copland, Sting, The Palace, The Police

Silent Violet CD Release Party

Posted on February 17, 2007 | Leave a comment

I’m heading on over to the Magic Bag in Ferndale (Michigan) to see Silent Violet tonight. It’s a CD release party and Ben Cyllus and Daniel Zott are also playing this evening too (I don’t think I’ve ever heard them before).

So I figure I’ll see a few new bands and buy a new CD and get it autographed!

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Tagged local, Michigan, music, Silent Violet

iLike Music (especially FREE music)

Posted on February 4, 2007 | Leave a comment

So I keep forgetting to mentioned that I found iLike, it’s kind of a music social networking site.

The big difference is it recommends music to you and allows you to download it for free. It appears to work best with iTunes, if you download the iLike sidebar it’ll upload lists of what you listen to most and make recommendations in the sidebar where it’ll let you preview music and download it directly to iTunes. Now the free songs are mostly artists that you haven’t heard of, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t any good, I’m really enjoying some of my new found music. It seems like most (all?) of the new music comes from GarageBand.com

My iLike page is at http://ilike.com/user/garylapointe

They just keep adding new features that they’re pretty god a keeping you up-to-date on the iLike Blog. And they’ve got a widget for your web page (which I’m hoping is showing up on your screen as you read this) and it’ll even let you play my recently played songs as you read this post! Continue reading →

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Tagged Apple, Christmas, iLike, iPod, iTunes, money, music, network, web sites

Pandora Music

Posted on May 25, 2006 | Leave a comment

The other day Dawn mentioned Pandora Music so I checked it out. You tell it a few things you like (and it seems the fewer the better, just try one or two) and it does some calculations with the Music Genome Project and creates your own radio station and it streams the station to you. It then shows you cover art with links to Amazon and iTunes and you can then give songs a thumbs up or down and it fine tunes it. what are you waiting for? Go try it out!

Things to know:

Two thumbs down for an artist and you never hear them again (a little harsh IMHO).

You can only skip a few songs per hour before it won’t let you any more.

It’s free for now (and has been for a while) but they will eventually start charging or add advertisements.

It’s not just genre it really seems to be a bit of a song by song comparison, it’s been pull individual songs off of some soundtracks and I’m liking them (a little bit too much bubble-gum though).

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Tagged iTunes, music, Pandora, web sites

Free Itunes Album

Posted on February 13, 2005 | Leave a comment

Here’s another free 16 song album from the Apple Music Store. You must have iTunes installed (the link should launch iTunes and show the free album I know some computers aren’t doing this but if you have iTunes it should, I’ve seen it work on Windows and Mac). A few good songs on it, I had purchased the Toby Lightman on it already.

Here’s the other 13 song album that I posted last month (again).

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Tagged Apple, iTunes, money, music, Toby Lightman