R.E.M. Reckoning

To buy, or not to buy… that is the question.

But I have more questions.

Why is there a deluxe edition of Reckoning?  Couldn’t they have just released the previously unreleased tracks as a live album (after all, Live at the Olympia is coming out soon.)

I guess it is remastered, but I already have 2 copies of Reckoning.  I have the original CD which I purchased in the early/mid 90’s and then I have the IRS years vintage version, which I picked up somewhere at a really good price.

I’m thinking of buying the mp3 album for the following reasons:

1. It is significantly cheaper

2. I am thinking of cleaning up and organizing my iPod so I actually want to listen to music with my iPod.  It will be a massive project, but satisfying in the end.

3. My cat has destroyed several of my CDs by peeing all over them.  She killed all of my STP CDs, which made me really sad.  She barely missed R.E.M. and that is the only reason she still lives! (She still has like 7 or 8 lives or something anyway).

4. I (essentially) already have two copies of the album in CD form.

Universal AR Online

I am VERY disappointed.

I’ve been trying to access their website to submit an EPK for the entire week, and first, the website they sent me said it was no longer active.  This site: http://universalaronline.com/Umusic

So, then, via Twitter, I was directed to another site: http://universalmusicgroup.info/

This site appears to work.  However, it does not work when I try to log in.  In addition, the retrieve password function is entirely worthless.  I have monitored my email like a hawk and nothing has arrived to tell me my actual password.

Via Twitter, as well as email, they have not responded to my repeated requests for access, despite the fact that my username/password is no longer active.  The email address on the site, service@umusic.biz does not work. Pretty unprofessional…

Mail Delivery Subsystem

This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification Delivery to t…

Aug 25 (2 days ago)

Mail Delivery SubsystemLoading…

Aug 25 (2 days ago)

This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification

Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:

service@umusic.biz

Technical details of permanent failure:
Google tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the recipient domain. We recommend contacting the other email provider for further information about the cause of this error. The error that the other server returned was: 550 550 relaying denied for <service@umusic.biz> (state 14).

Well, at least I have a pretty sweet EPK now!

life and how to live it

So… I have been busy.

First, (or: most recently) I’ve updated my twitter page with a customized background: http://twitter.com/nancynishihira

It’s not perfect, but it is something fun until I feel like modifying it to fit different size monitors!

Also, I’ve been working on the idea of an EPK, or Electronic Press Kit… and I don’t really know exactly where to start.

I’ve got the picture (also see the top left hand corner of my newly designed twitter page)…

And I’ve tried to update my many web pages… finally got the cover to my CD up on last.fm…

Which can be viewed here: http://www.last.fm/music/Nancy+Nishihira

Also, I think I’ve finally (?) been able to get control of the account.

However, I still have to design an album cover for a tiny 3 song EP I’m going to stream on last.fm. (Perhaps I will sell it on CDBaby once the site is situated).

The album is called “Long Lost” and so far, I have the first track, “Infatuation, My Obsession” up to stream.  I converted it from tape (cassette tape!) to mp3.

There are two other tracks, which I still need to convert and add…  These are very old tracks, professionally recorded, which I just “rediscovered”.  I haven’t heard them for quite sometime.  I eventually hope to convert my entire tape collection to mp3.

Still seems like it will be awhile before I can get music onto Pandora; it seems that something on Amazon has to do something and for that to work CDBaby has to have stuff and a barcode and whatever else.

I am actually very excited about making music and art right now.

I have a really cool art idea but I am keeping it quiet now because I don’t want anyone to take my idea until I am done with it!

Listening to so much music has been very inspiring.  Right now, I love Vienna Teng (Hope on Fire is my current favorite).  She has an amazing voice.   I also love the song Grow Grow Grow by PJ Harvey.  AMAZING.

I’d love to get on youtube and record some songs too… I don’t think it’s time yet though.  I’m a little rusty and don’t really have the time to sit down and record stuff, although I also have some fun video ideas.

And as for Tanaka Style…

I am compiling a list of songs to record.  It is likely that the Tanaka Style (or 「田中スタイル」) stuff will be recorded before my solo stuff will.  There is a lot less pressure and more fun!

My next step, after I lay the groundwork… is to play some open mic.

No Music, No Life

The title of my post was an ad campaign by a music company that I have forgotten (was it Tower Records?)  However, Jiro (from GLAY) was in the commercials.

So, music.

I have some interesting leads at the moment that I am going to follow.

However!

I am currently trying to get my stuff situated on Pandora, Amazon and CDBaby, although not necessarily in that order.

It is a hassle getting music onto Pandora, there is some kind of strange process where you have to have your CD on Amazon.com (which it is), but it won’t let me link it, and also there is no “official” album art on Amazon (possibly due to some type of problem when it was imported from CDBaby.  If, indeed, it was imported from CDBaby.

I have seen some big time album cover mistakes via Pandora that made me want to insure this would not be a problem.

Since CDBaby has been revamped… I have been waiting for the features to become accessible.  I think it is finally happening.  I’ve been waiting.

I’ve been thinking of videos lately.  Making music videos for YouTube.  I love the way BNL’s Ed Robertson has created “The Bathroom Sessions”.  If you are a BNL fan and you haven’t seen it, you MUST.  It is pure awesomeness.  Bathrooms are good because they tend to have good acoustics.  I am thinking of recording my next song, “1000 cranes”, in the bathroom, or laundry room.  Perhaps that is a little TMI.  But actually, the shower has the best acoustics – why do you think so many people feel compelled to sing there?

1000 Cranes is also the name of my next album.  “When will I record it?” is the question that an imaginary music reporter would ask me.  “I will record it when I am not working 60+ hours a week,” I would answer.

Also, I need to buy a new microphone cord.

So although I haven’t been doing nearly as much as I would like in terms of music (and art), I am thinking about it pretty much all the time.  Every day.  And that is part of the process in itself.  It is like making tea… maybe the leaves are steeping for too long, but I like a strong, bitter tea with no sugar.

Awesome Graphic Design

Have you ever noticed that news websites tend to employ people who are capable of producing the “awesomest” graphic design?

Maybe I’m just a pretentious art student-type… but I really wonder if the people who are behind the graphics on these websites are deliberately producing the weirdest, worst looking, most horrible juxtapositions of text and image ever created (I prefer not to, but you could look at Fox News on any given day and see an awful example appear before your very eyes.)  Tabloids of course, are infamous for horrible graphic design.

The reason I bring this up, is because I was randomly surfing the web and I came across this:

"Uh...What? There is a cartoon caduceus behind me? It's kind of creeping me out."

I saw this and I thought: SERIOUSLY???????

Someone gets paid to do this??????  Good thing I spent all that time and money getting my degree in art.  Because although I do not benefit financially from having that degree (yet?), I am good at critiquing now.  I haven’t done it in awhile, so I might be kind of rusty.

Let me share a haiku to explain what I see when I look at this image:

Cartoon caduceus

President in mid-sentence

Bad use of half-tone

And is it just me or do you see a touch of lens flare above Obama’s shoulder?

If you look under the snake’s face (on the right side), you can see just the shadow of another snake face…

…

Okay, I need to stop looking at this before my brain explodes!

Pandora, Last.fm and being half-Asian

So, I’ve been listening to a lot of internet radio lately, and the best site that I have found so far is Pandora, as far as a station that will play what you want to hear and that is good at predicting what you like to hear.

I think the only problem that I have noticed is that because they are breaking down songs into parts (i.e., “dynamic female vocal”), a person has to listen and categorize all of these songs, so they are missing a lot of very good songs.  And of course, there are things mislabeled.  When you type in Cocco (as in the Okinawan J-pop artist) you get some band that is really called Coco and is totally unrelated.  

Another huge flaw is that Pandora does not have my favorite J-Rock group, GLAY, aka “The Japanese Beatles”.

They do have a fairly good selection of music from around the world, so I will give them kudos for that.

 

Last.fm is fun because it “scrobbles” your music, and tracks everything that you listen to, so that you can share compatibility with your friends.  I was also able to easily upload my music to Last.fm, where Pandora does not currently have an option for that. 

The issue that I have with Last.fm is that it seems to categorize artists by popularity (major label vs. not) when you want to listen to a specific genre.  And if you listen to a genre station for more than an hour, it will literally start playing the exact same songs over again.  Probably the worst thing is that if you want to listen to Ben Folds, for example, and you type his name in the search box, it will play music that they think sounds like Ben Folds, but will NEVER actually play a Ben Folds song.  Which is really frustrating.

 

But I found out a weird thing the other day.  I guess people started tagging artists… according to how Asian they are!?

So under the “half-asian” tag, I am one of the top artists. (Second row from the top, on the right)

 

straight from last.fm

 

I will say I don’t think that this tag is entirely accurate; I’m sure some of the women (and it is all women on this page for some reason) are entirely Asian.

Strange…

The Long Distance Commute

When I became aware that I might be accepting a job that was over sixty miles away from my house, I tried to research the ways of the road warrior on the internet.  I didn’t really find too much.  There were some stories of people who would commute an hour and a half each way to work (usually by train in a large city like New York), but not too many stories of people who drove an hour (or more) to work each way.  I wanted to know if there were any tips or tricks of handling the traffic and what to expect.

I’ve only been commuting to my new job for two weeks and I am sooooooo done with this drive.  I want to move to a place that is between five or ten minutes from my new job and I wanted that done yesterday.

The drive itself doesn’t bother me too much; although the drive back home seems infinitely longer than the drive to work.  (Honestly, us Metro Detroiters are used to driving anyway).  What bothers me is the two hours that is missing from my day, every day.  The ten hours that is missing from my week, every week.  How do long distance commuters deal with that?!  I want the scoop.

I’ve tried less sleep, going down to about seven hours a night.  The next place I could cut back, I suppose, would be on grooming – wear no make-up?  My hair doesn’t look too bad if I let it air dry instead of blow drying it and it saves me about five to ten minutes.  I started doing that when I was running late one day.

The real solution, is moving…

I’m still curious about what people do when they love their jobs but love where they live and have a long, horrible commute.

FoTC and Detroit

Tonight I went to see one of the funniest bands ever, Flight of the Conchords at the Fox Theater in Downtown Detroit.

It was AWESOME.  We had great seats on the main floor (pre-sale… oh yeah.)

If you are not familiar with them, they have a comedy show that is a parody of their lives as struggling rockers from New Zealand who are trying to make it in the US… also, they rock.

The only downside of the show was that cameras were prohibited.  As in, they made the girl behind us who was taking pictures disappear. A guy pointed at her with a flashlight and told her to stop and then the guy came back with another person and they escorted her out.  She never came back. I felt bad for her because I am usually the type of person who sneaks cameras into shows.  But this was not really the type of venue to do that kind of thing…

So, I took some pictures of the outside of the theater with my camera phone… not as cool as pics of the show but oh well.

the fox theater

close up of the fox sign

April 18th is Record Store Day

If you are a person who loves music, it is likely that you have gone to a record store.  It is also likely that some of your favorite record stores no longer exist.  (I can think of at least three.)

I am really excited about celebrating Record Store Day this year!  (And no, Best Buy is not a record store.)

So join me and other music lovers across the country by going into your local record store this Saturday and supporting them.  I am excited about stopping in some of the places I used to frequent as a teenager with a lot of spending money, and although I don’t have that kind of cash to throw around now, I wish I did.

If you are looking for some places to go in Metro Detroit, three locations right off of Gratiot are Record Time, Hot Hits and Melodies and Memories.  Those shops are located in the Roseville/Eastpointe area.  There’s also Rockabilly’s, which is off of Hall Road near downtown Utica.  Royal Oak used to have an awesome record store that also had great posters and rare recordings, but they’ve been gone for years.  I think they may have been shut down for selling bootlegs… but I’m not sure.  Anyway, I haven’t been to Royal Oak in awhile so I don’t know if there are any good stores there.  If anyone knows of any other record stores in the area, let me know!

I have discovered a terrible website

Here is the story of how I discovered the terrible website.

I’ve been trying not to eat so much junk food or eat out at restaurants as much.  So, I decided that a fun project would be recording everything that I eat.  I typically eat lean pockets for lunch at work because they are cheap and I cannot afford to spend an average on ten dollars a day on meals acquired in an expensive shopping mall.  Anyway, I was looking online for the nutrional contents of hot pockets and what do I stumble upon…

The hot pocket dojo.

No, I am SERIOUS.  The official website for Hot Pockets is http://www.hotpocketsdojo.com.

There is a old “Asian” man, dressed in Chinese clothes, with fortune cookies laid out nearby.  There is a disco ball over his head.  He asks you “Why you so stupid?!” in broken English if you click on some parts of the site.  I have provided screenshots for proof (and for your viewing pleasure/displeasure.)

Let's Disco at the Dojo

Here we go again.

As an Asian-American and as a scholar of Japanese studies, the lame amalgamation of these “Orientalist” stereotypes is readily apparent.  Although I think it is humorous in kind of a mildly offensive way.

Dear Hot Pockets,

Did you know that dojo is a Japanese word?  Generally speaking, a dojo is a place where people study martial arts.  How do the fortune cookies and Chinese clothes the crazy old man is wearing make sense in that context? Ya’ll are freaking crazy!

Love,

Nancy

But I digress.  It is easy to see that they are doing some kind of parody of the Karate Kid with the old man being a “master” (who will “answer questions” for you but most likely just tell you that you are ugly – no seriously he says that).

This site also offers online games you can play with the master!/end fake enthusiasm.

I played a game of shells – my Mandarin is not so good, but the “shells” appear to have the traditional (not simplified) Chinese character for food – 飯.

Don't you love the Hanzi/Kanji styled font?

My guess is that they were trying to do a kung fu type of Chinese master and got confused.  This is wrong in so many ways, and unfortunately, I don’t have time to thoroughly examine and critique each inane act of stereotypification that exists on that website.

However, I can’t say that Asians themselves, do not at times, help to perpetuate the stereotype that the vastly different countries and cultures of Asia are interchangable and/or identical.

For example, many of the local Japanese restaurants in the Metro Detroit area are run by Koreans, but a lot of people are under the impression that the restaurants are run by Japanese.  A co-worker of my once told me about this great little sushi place that he swore was Japanese owned, because they had spoken to him in Japanese, but when I walked in the door there was a huge stack of Korean newspapers and ads in the vestibule.  The waitstaff spoke… in Korean.  The music… was in Korean.  They served Korean food alongside Japanese food.  And I don’t think there is anything wrong with people opening Japanese restaurants when they are not Japanese.  I think that they may think that it is in their best interest to pretend to be Japanese to give their restaurant some kind of sense of authenticity to the unsuspecting locals, but really… how is that helping anyone?  If the food is good, it’s good!  You don’t gotta pretend.