January 25, 2006
Posted by Patrick at 06:45 PM * 23 comments
As promised: now available for sale, Whisperado’s debut CD, the six-song EP Some Other Place.
Whisperado is two-thirds bloggers, two-thirds Jewish, two-thirds computer professionals, two-thirds left-wingers, two-thirds car owners, and two-thirds Brooklynites. Also, three New York guys with day jobs who (in the words of our press kit) “write and play songs about the American essentials: bowling, capitalism, and demanding women.” Our sound has been variously described as “rootsy,” “acceptable,” and “loud.” A couple of sample songs can be downloaded via Alison Scott’s page full of free music she likes.
Some Other Place, recorded this summer in a series of learning experiences, features four original songs by Jon Sobel, one by me, and a Mark Knopfler cover. It will be available on CD Baby and the iTunes Music Store, and (for the discounted price of $5) at our gigs. You can buy it immediately for $8, shipping inclusive, here.
Congratulations. :) You don't seem to be showing up on CDBaby yet; is that something still in-progress?
The songs apparently aren't quite ready for download at Alison's site yet.
May I suggest you pester CDBaby to eventualy get it up on eMusic, so people can buy it without the stupid iTunes music store cripling the files?
It'll be available on Mperia.com at some point, which means it will be DRM-free. (I know, 'cause I'm the co-founder of Mperia).
Not sure when, as CDBaby sends us stuff on their own schedule. But soon.
Dunno what the problem with Alison's links is. They worked as of a few days ago.
As for the politics of CDBaby, iTunes, eMusic, etc., allow me to restate my basic position, which is that one of the things I most like about being in Whisperado is that I take No Significant Management Role. That said, I like eMusic a lot. Indeed, if you go here and click on "Downloads" you can see just how much I like eMusic. But I like having a "Here I am, where do I plug in?" role in Whisperado even more.
(As for iTunes, I personally buy stuff from them all the time, and will continue to do so as long as their DRM is so transparently beatable. All you need to to is burn your iTunes Music Store files to a CD, then re-import the CD as mp3s. Cost: one blank CD. I do this all the time. Your mileage may vary.)
Whisperado is two-thirds bloggers, two-thirds Jewish, two-thirds computer professionals, two-thirds left-wingers, two-thirds car owners, and two-thirds Brooklynites.
The one on the right is on the left, and the guy in the rear is a Methodist?
I was worried those links would fail; they had a whiff of 'one session only' about them; but then I tried them on different computers and they were ok so I linked them. They've obviously now expired. Here's what you need to do.
Go to Whisperado's electronic press kit. Click on 'audio'. There are three tracks for download -- described as 'standard' rather than 'stream'. To download obviously you have to rightclick and save.
Oh, and the point about DRM is that it's digital rights. When you burn your mp3 to CD and then reimport it, that's a lossy transfer. Nobody is terribly worried about lossy copying; it's the making of perfect copies that gives people the willies.
"Nobody is terribly worried about lossy copying"
I don't actually think that's true. The fact is, the mp3s you get by burning DRMed Apple files to a CD and reimporting them are often higher-quality than un-DRMed mp3s available through other channels. I think the RIAA is perfectly capable of having hissy fits over copies that aren't audiophilically perfect.
As for the sample songs, I've cut through the confusion by hosting them myself and changing the link on the front-page post. When Alison updates her own page to link to my hosted versions, I'll revert the front-page link to go through her page, because anyone who likes our stuff is liable to like a bunch of her other recommendations.
There's another way to avoid iTunes DRM, if so inclined: if you use a Mac [I can't speak for Windows], make damned sure you never upgrade from iTunes 5.0.1 to iTunes 6. If you've got a new machine but have never used the iTunes music store or created an Apple ID you can downgrade safely from iTunes 6 to 5.0.1; and if you stick to 5.0.1 you're still on the old, easier to crack, DRM: but once you access the store with iTunes 6 it beefs up the DRM encryption massively.
JHymn (clue: google on it) can then strip the DRM tags from the files you've purchased (using iTunes 5.0.1 or earlier).
(Sermon: I know this not because I'm into pirating music, but because I change computer and/or MP3 player compulsively on a several-monthly basis, and I don't want to end up losing access to music I've paid for. And while Patrick is undoubtedly right about the "burn to CD, then reimport" workaround, I don't see why I should accept even that much lossage for something I've paid for. As Cory put it so succinctly, DRM punishes honest customers, and while I'm pretty honest, I'm not stupid enough to repeatedly punch myself in the face on behalf of the RIAA.)
Brilliant thread title! (I love truth in advertizing). Oh, and congratulations, too.
I am opposed to paying for lossy music files in the first place. One of my favorite places to buy music downloads is Magnatune because, in addition to selling a lot of excellent early/baroque music, they offer uncompressed downloads. I want to buy what the musicians and producers came out of the studio intending for me to hear.
Whisperado's tracks, will, however, be available for download at iTunes and elsewhere. We're not dumb...
Hey! You might want to consider posting some demo
tracks up at mixposure
I have been doing it for a while, and it is a great place to
get reviews and exposure (and maybe generate some more
sales).
--thaedeus (of Divergent Future)
Question for Patrick: are there going to be any CDs on sale at Boskone? (I'd rather hand 100% of the cover price to the musicians than 90% of it to the iTunes music store.)
Yes, I'll certainly have some at Boskone.
Do you sing about demanding women or about women who are demanding? Not being American myself, I'd be interested to know which of these qualifies as an American essential.
I'll check out the downloads when I'm not at my work connection. Good luck with the sales!
Reimporting mp3s from a CD you burned shouldn't have any loss as long as the bit rate you reimport them at is the same as the bit rate they started out as.
Charlie (and whoever else may be interested): iTunes is not as evil as you think. Of the $0.99 you would spend for a Whisperado track, the band would receive $0.65 (assuming distribution is facilitated through CD Baby - other distribution arrangements may vary). The iTunes Music Store is not a big profit center for Apple. It is a way to sell lots and lots of iPods.
candle: we sing about women who are demanding. But now that you bring it up, I feel I really must try to write a song that is a demand for women.
I feel I really must try to write a song that is a demand for women.
I believe Oscar Hammerstein II beat you to it (with the line "What ain't we got/Ya know damn well") but I'll swipe a metric from him anyway:
Guy tucked in corners remembering faces
Songs about lipstick in hard-to-reach places
Stiff-upper-lippishmen cooing for ducks
All of them saying that solitude sucks
Gable and Lombard off cutting some capers
Cary and Rosalind peddling their papers
Bogie and Baby igniting a spark
That's how we learned what you do in the dark
Audible breathing that fogs up your glasses
(Don't mind the Parker who groused about passes)
Sacking the temples and bending the frames
These are the clichés we have about dames
When the night falls
And there's silence
After those goodbyes
I think how I feel when a girl's by my side
And then it intensifies.
Jon Sobel wrote:
"candle: we sing about women who are demanding. But now that you bring it up, I feel I really must try to write a song that is a demand for women."
Hmmm. Could the next movie-into-Broadway-production possibly be...
MARS NEEDS WOMEN: THE MUSICAL
It may have been done already:
Not that that's a reason to stop.
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