Since I have this shiny new HD camera, I figured I should probably grab a few minutes of footage, since the band is actually quite good. You can watch 11 minutes of the concert below (click the here to go to the Vimeo page and watch it in full glory). The sound is kinda crappy, especially at the beginning. I must also apologize for the random movements, I was shooting handheld from the middle of the crowd, with the camera above my head. Any idea how tiring that is?

They are returning to Macon for another concert on First Friday October (October 3rd), so if you are around you should definately try to attend (I don’t have any further details at the moment). By the way, you may have previously heard them as “Blackbird” but they’ve undergone a name change in recent weeks.

Without further ado:

You can find them on MySpace.

Update: The Post Show Review

I arrived at the show just in time for the last few minutes of the first set (I was previously occupied installing Christmas decorations for my fraternity house). The music of IFP is definitely not for the faint of heart or the casually disinterested – one must relax, listen, and feel the music to properly enjoy it. As my friend Nick mentioned later in the evening, “It’s six excellent musicians having a musical hay-day!” And he’s right – each member of the band is an excellent musician, and you give each of them some musical framework to experiment with, then send them out to play. The result? A field of musical color and emotion, surging and ebbing around you. Best enjoyed live or loud (preferably a combination of the two). The perfect blend to drink to… or relax… and forget about the troubles of the day, because nothing matters as you float away on a fantastic ride.

So next time they’re playing near you, grab a friend and a beer and go enjoy!

Incudes CD with same track listing as digital download (see above). Also includes a DVD ROM (not a movie) that contains every track from Year Zero in multitrack format for you to do with what you please. Mac or PC.

We’ve included:
Pre-formatted for Apple GarageBand
Pre-formatted for Ableton Live (Mac or PC)
Demo version of Ableton Live (Mac or PC)
Generic WAVE files at 16 bit 44K that can be loaded into any audio editor

Soon you will be able to share your custom remixes online, and listen to others, at remix.nin.com.

I love that bands are embracing their fans in such fantastic ways (see also the new Radiohead CD, In Rainbows). Sure, the music industry is light years behind on almost everything, but that doesn’t mean that the bands are as well. Bravo to those who stand up.

It’s also worthy to note that this is not the first time that NIN has done something like this (they have released multi-track masters to the public for a couple several songs), but I’m pretty sure this is the first time anything of this magnitude has been done perhaps not, see previous link…

Let the creation begin! And thank you NIN!

Compared to David’s most recent works, the music production on the Newtons album sounds feeble and undeveloped. However, the Newtons represented an important first step and a significant experimental milestone. I believe that if Dave had his current knowledge and skill when he recorded the Newtons album, the CD would have be absolutely amazing.

Enough about the Newtons – David’s most recent work, Good Morning Coffee (a song written around the lyrics of the great John Comeaux) represents a new pinnacle in the evolution of David the producer. Better yet, the same song was recorded in two radically different styles, giving David even more room to flex his developing acoustic muscles.

The sound quality on these two pieces is amazing (especially when you consider that David does all his work with an iMac, a little cool hardware, and no real studio). I believe that the sound on these two recordings rivals that of many “professionally mastered” recordings. I was even more astounded when David showed me some new little tricks that he has learned and the subtle but profound effect they have on the recordings.

Anyway, without further ado, here is Good Morning Coffee – the country and the blues version! (read Dave’s comments on the country and blues versions)

Country:
[See post to listen to audio]

Blues:
[See post to listen to audio]

Enjoy, and keep an ear out for some great new music from David – there’s some awesome new stuff on the horizon!

Yes, you read that right. Not a misspelling. Despite the rather retarded name, it just so happens to be catchy. I can envision dancin’ to this one up in da’ club pretty soon.

Listen to it here or download it.

[See post to listen to audio]

Sorry to disappoint but the Newtons aren’t playing live anytime soon (not that I know of anyway). Fortunately I do happen to have this great set of live recordings (previously mentioned here) just waisting away on the server… so I figured I might as well share! This is the entire live concert (edited down to tracks) and presented for the first time ever!

I’m sure this will only interest a few, but give it a shot. If you like it, you’d love the (much better) EP, which was actually recording using “normal” methods and has a much better sound quality. However, the Live album is the only place to find some of their great covers. Enjoy!

PS, I’m sure those of you with sharp eyes will notice that the pictures and recordings are not from the same concert. However, they’re the only ones I had available.

The Newtons are:

Andy Carter – Bass
David Comeaux – Vocals/Guitar
Alex Daugherty – Vocals/Guitar
David Milligan – Keyboard
Stephen Spalding – Percussion

Play it below, or download the tracks here.

In a recent conversation, it was brought to my attention that Apple has now become the third largest retailer of music, right behind Wal-Mart and Best Buy. This revelation displays the evolution of the distribution of music (and the whole cultural shift to the information age, but I’m not really here to talk about that). I have a few qualms with becoming a member of the music downloading mob and let me tell you why. Call me old-fashioned, but I like to have a physical copy of said purchased music. I mean, how many times have you or your friends hard-drive crashed and life as we know it ceased to exist they lost a bunch of fairly valuable files (I don’t particularly prefer to use the words “lost everything” because that’s just not the case, computer files aren’t “everything”). OK, so you tell me I can just back up all the files on my computer and then I won’t have anything to worry about, but how many of you back up all of your files? It’s a pain, your library is too big to conveniently store on a CD, your wireless network won’t let you store a back up file on someone else’s machine, you’d rather be watching videos on YouTube, whatever the reason, it just doesn’t happen. Sure, Bill (Gates) and Steve (Jobs) have some fancy softwares to help you recover your lost files but I’m talking about massive hardware failure. In any case, I like to have that CD so I can still enjoy the music for which I paid.

This discussion is intended to open several cans of worms, and I am prepared to deal with it. For example, CDs have a bit of a problem with lifetime as well, I have several that seem to be falling apart, or have a acquired a lethal scratch. You can’t scratch an mp3. Also, my car already has a CD player in it and I have a stereo. The culture I grew up in just happened to proliferate devices to understand these shiny, flat donuts. Yes, you can BUY devices to play your mp3 player through most any means, but those cost food money. And what about album art, lyrics, and goofy credits? Are those to be lost in the transition? Well, I have may ways, and I will continue purchasing CDs for the time being, sorry. Perhaps you can persuade me otherwise.

What do you think? Do you buy music files? Do you think CDs are obsolete? What do you do to secure your files?