A Vertical Record Player
From the team that brought us the Gramovox comes the Floating Record Vertical Turntable. A true thing of beauty. Go back it on Kickstarter.
PermalinkMusic
Jekyll & Hyde - Jimmy Needham
Loving this album right now. The whole Finley family was dancing around last night to this. Yes, even Lottie.
PermalinkGoodbye B.B. King
I don’t often start my Fridays off with the blues, but when I do it’s with B.B. King. He’ll be missed, but his music will live on. Had this song streaming this morning in my living room.
PermalinkSpotify May Be Dropping Free Tier
Looks like Spotify could be soon dropping their free tier for a three-month trial.
The three-month ‘proposal,’ advanced most principally by major labels Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment, would allow current, free-access, ad-supported (or ‘freemium’) subscribers to continue their plans for 6 months, while new users would be limited to three months only.
As I wrote earlier this year on my family blog:
The average artist makes less than a cent per stream on Spotify. Demon Hunter has seen a lot of my money, but artists that I’ve only played once or twice has seen next to nothing. I’ve gotten more value than I’ve given to them. When you buy an album in iTunes, the artist sees between 10 and 50% of the money. You’d have to stream a song some 30 times to pay the artist as much as the purchase in iTunes would pay them.
I had gotten more value than I had given. As an artist and developer, that stings. Every once in a while I think of turning back. Cheap access to music (I was a Premium, $9.99/month subscriber) is enticing, but I gotta say that owning music is way better. I’m glad I switched to iTunes. I seldom used Spotify as a radio, but instead for listening to entire albums. I use iTunes the same. iTunes Radio is nice from time to time for discovery, but I own a lot of music and buy a new album every month or so now.
PermalinkNeed Some Cash This Morning
PermalinkHope in the Ballads
In our regular office jesting of camaraderie, my love for heavy music has been poked quite a few times. In response to my coworker saying that the lyrics could never be heard in metal music, I reminded him of the ballads present in most metal albums.
I’m here again
A thousand miles away from you
A broken mess, just scattered pieces of who I am
I tried so hard
Thought I could do this on my own
I’ve lost so much along the way
Working on a review for the latest Red album, I am once again reminded of how much I love their ballads. I got their first album back in 2006. With my girlfriend— now wife— with me, I popped the CD into my car’s player. With the screaming and distortion coming hard, we both looked perplexed when Pieces came halfway through the album. This is still one of my favorite songs.
I’ll never be the same
I’m caught inside the memories
The promises, our yesterdays
When I belonged to you
I just can’t walk away
’Cause after loving you
I can never be the same
Before proposing to Nikki after a Red concert in 2009, Never Be the Same was playing non-stop on my iPod. This album is still one of my favorites overall.
Slowly fading away, you’re lost and so afraid
Where is the hope in a world so cold?
Looking for a distant light, someone who can save a life
Living in fear that no one will hear your cry
I worked for a church, what I considered my dream job, between the end of 2009 and the start of 2011. As I have mentioned before, that didn’t end too well. Until We Have Faces came out less than a month after I lost my job— along with half the staff— and a little more than a month before I got married. Not Alone and The Best Is Yet to Come helped me get up and out of my broken will.
Sometimes I need to scream out my terror, my rage, my fear. But sometimes I need something to hold onto. Hope in Christ echoes through the words of Red’s ballads. These songs have gotten me through a lot. So I thought I’d share them with you. You can listen to them on Spotify or buy their albums on iTunes and Amazon.
PermalinkAn AirPlay Record Player
For Christmas my wife got me a record player. It was on my list. I had been wanting to get away from Spotify for a few months and after doing the math, found it to be a better financial choice to leave Spotify and start buying my music again. With an iTunes library of nearly 2000 songs, I didn’t exactly have to start fresh.
As a Mac guy, I have my Apple TV, iPhones, iPads, and Mac all speaking the same language of AirPlay. I can quickly toss a video up to my television or stream music from my phone. Going analog is delightful, I’ll be honest. Many nights this year we have played Settlers of Catan while having some vinyl spinning. The speakers on my player are good. Not great, but good. Hooked to the television is a set of JBL speakers that I’ve had for some time. They’re better than nothing. So last night I decided to look into a way to make my record player wireless.
Following a lead from GeekDad, I took an audio cable (male-to-male) and plugged my record player into my Mac Mini. Using free software from Rogue Amoeba called LineIn, I can take that line-in audio coming from the player and send it to the Mini’s speakers or to any audio output, including AirPlay devices.
A simple setup that cost me nothing since I had an audio cable sitting around. Now I can play my vinyl through my JBL speakers wirelessly.
PermalinkHouse of Heroes — The End Is Not the End Vinyl
Maybe you’ll see me on the evening news
Maybe you’ll see me with a bag over my head
If that’s the case, then I’ve met my doom
If that’s the case, then my comrades are dead
And I don’t hate my enemy
I hate the cloud he’s brought over my land
There’s no virtue in killing a man
Neither is there virtue in being afraid to standBut I saw the black coats forming lines
They hit our beaches running
We’re on our knees but not to prayYou’re the only reason I stayed
In this coward’s melee
I’d rather die than live without mercy and love
Sing while the city decays
We’d rather go up in flames
Lest we betray thy names of dignity and love
Last month I pre-ordered the vinyl of one of my favorite albums, The End Is Not the End from House of Heroes. This album has consistently been in my playlist for nearly seven years. It is kind of crazy to think it’s been that long and it still ranks as one of my favorites. Last year they crowdfunded another album and one of the stretch goals was to do a vinyl runoff this album. Kind of a brainless choice for me.
This album contains a lot of songs set in World War II and the Cold War era, including Code Name: Raven, By Your Side, Journey Into Space, and Baby’s a Red.
Sitting here this morning, I cannot help but think of my Christian brothers that were just beheaded in Libya by ISIS. “I don’t hate my enemy, I hate the cloud he’s brought over my land. There’s no virtue in killing a man, neither is there virtue in being afraid to stand.” These men stood by their faith until they could kneel before His eternal throne. So many in the American leadership and media are afraid to stand for those that died in the Paris shooting last month or the Denmark shooting this month. Too afraid to stand for the freedom of speech. Heck, while Jesus was on trial, Peter denied any association with Christ.
Sometimes our wish to appease those that hate us— so as to not be hated, or to just survive— prevents us from standing for something good and true. When the nation of the crescent comes for our heads, will you stand for something or take knee before them to keep your head?
Song Ratings
★★★★☆ If
★★☆☆☆ Lose Control
★★★☆☆ Leave You Now
★★★★☆ Dangerous
★★★★☆ In the Valley of the Dying Sun
★★★★★ Code Name: Raven
★★★★★ By Your Side
★★★★★ Journey Into Space, Pt. 1
★★★☆☆ Sooner or Later
★★★★★ Baby’s a Red
★★★☆☆ Drown
★★★☆☆ Faces
★★★★★ Voices
★★★★☆ Field of Daggers
★★★★☆ The Young and the Brutal
★★★★☆ New Moon
★★★★★ Ghost
★★★★☆ If (Acoustic)
★★☆☆☆ Serial Sleepers (Acoustic)
Jimmy Needham — Vice & Virtue EP
Gosh darn, I love Jimmy’s lyrics and even more his spoken word music. The Gospel.
PermalinkRed — of Beauty and Rage
If you haven’t heard of Red before, they are a great band to check out. Great rock with amazing strings. Great lyrics. Since getting my record player for Christmas, I’ve been really getting back into music. Most of my recent favorites have been Americana— one of the last refuges of sex-free, violence-free, and clean-language music— but I still pull out some Demon Hunter and Red a few times a week. It’s good axe-to-the-grindstone music for me.
Well, Red has a new album coming out on February 24th called of Beauty and Rage and did something cool last night with a new service called Show.co. For one hour, they streamed the whole album for free through Show.co. Great, simple interface and a great way to advertise an upcoming release. Get you hooked.
The biggest complaint about their last album, Release the Panic, was the lack of orchestrated strings, leaning more to just rock. To fix that, Red released a mini-album called Release the Panic: Recalibrated last year with more strings. I, personally, love Release the Panic in itself, but also love the old strings. With of Beauty and Rage, the strings are back. Descent and Ascent are pure string gold, and weaved throughout the album are powerful string compositions harking back to their first album, End of Silence.
Red holds a special place in my heart. On February 12th, 2009 my girlfriend and I went to their concert at the Subterranean in Chicago and afterwards, as we walked back to my car, I got down on one knee and proposed. Two years later we got married, an anniversary we’ll be celebrating next month. We’ve seen them twice now in concert, the night we got engaged and a couple years ago at Winter Jam, and are trying to figure out how to see them on tour this year. I’ll likely do a full album review in a few weeks when it comes out.
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