From: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org (ecto-digest) To: ecto-digest@smoe.org Subject: ecto-digest V10 #140 Reply-To: ecto@smoe.org Sender: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk ecto-digest Wednesday, May 19 2004 Volume 10 : Number 140 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: Musicplasma [Ethan Straffin ] absinthe makes the tart grow fonder [anna maria "stjärnell" ] Re: Musicplasma [gordodo@optonline.net] Re: Musicplasma [Scott Andrew LePera ] Re: Musicplasma [burka@jeffrey.net] Hmmm [Yngve Hauge ] RE: Kerri Simpson! ["Michael Pearce" ] Re: absinthe makes the tart grow fonder [Alberto Carrasco ] Vas, "Feast of Silence." [Craig Gidney ] Re: SUSAN McKEOWN on WNYC tonight [fingerpuppets ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 17 May 2004 23:08:15 -0700 From: Ethan Straffin Subject: Re: Musicplasma Thanks, Sherilyn! Very interesting indeed. Of course, one *does* have to wonder a bit about an algorithm that puts Happy one degree of separation from Madonna and finds 25 other artists related to her, none of whose first name happens to be Kate. (It then compounds the indignity by putting Kate herself one step removed from the late-eighties hair-metal band Krokus. Say WHAT?!!!) But still... ;) I've been playing with it for a while, feeding it both major artists and obscure ones to see what it does with them. It looks as though it's got a fairly impressive database, and like you, I wonder which source(s) it comes from. Popularity is clearly based primarily if not exclusively on sales figures, and very recent ones at that, which strikes me as an avoidable oversimplification. (Much as I love and miss Warren Zevon, there's simply no other explanation for his sphere being as big as the Beatles' and twice as big as Dylan's.) The linking by genre/style seems a bit more intelligent than simply matching sales by customer would get one, though. AllMusic, maybe? There's evidently a limit to the size of map one can generate, and apparently no ability to prune off branches that don't interest one, or to do a "breadth-first" rather than "depth-first" search. These considerations combine to make it somewhat difficult to move from the more popular to the more obscure. For instance, searching on Lloyd Cole -- one of my favorite artists, but one whose influence isn't considered large enough for his sphere to extend even outside his label - -- will bring up a decent map, but there doesn't seem to be any way to search on any of the artists on that map and arrive back at Lloyd. In other words, if you want to know about less popular but more closely-related artists rather than more popular but more distantly-related artists, there's no way to specify this, and you may not succeed. At any rate, there's clearly a lot of potential here. (I'll probably send a slightly-reedited version of these comments to the site's creators, just in case any of my suggestions strikes a chord with them.) Ethan On Monday, May 17, 2004, at 05:31 PM, Sherlyn Koo wrote: > Hey folks, > > I just visited Music Plasma (http://www.musicplasma.com) for the > first time - it's a Flash-powered music search engine which draws > "road maps" of connections between music artists. It looks very cool. > > Does anybody know where it gets its data from? > > -sherlyn > -- > Sherlyn Koo - sherlyn@pixelopolis.com - Sydney, Australia ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 May 2004 01:15:34 -0700 (PDT) From: anna maria "stjärnell" Subject: absinthe makes the tart grow fonder hi all.. saw a swedish show which was a long absinthe commercial..well it was presented as a documentary but the descirption made me want to try the drink. among the interviewed was an ex-psychiatrist and hip hop producer..and the lovely miss jill tracy. made me jump. hope some swedes will be turned on to her by this. ruslana the warrior princess won the eurovison. whoa. anna maria np-allison crowe-secrets __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! - Internet access at a great low price. http://promo.yahoo.com/sbc/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 May 2004 10:53:38 +0200 (CEST) From: Mikael Czerski Subject: Re: Musicplasma Hmmm, I would too like to know where they got the data from - and the discographies is far from accurate. Look at Fleetwood Mac for example. The release dates on the albums (the few they list) are based on the newest release year and not the original release year which is quite a bit misleading methinks. - -- Yngve ****************************************** * One alien has come, unalien to one ***** ****************************************** ***** Blessed be!!! ********************** ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 May 2004 10:41:33 -0400 From: gordodo@optonline.net Subject: Re: Musicplasma I am guessing it is just a big marketing ploy to put the amazon wish list into visual form...how else do you explain linking portishead to john mayer (who incidentaly held me up from checking into my last flight because of his large skaeboard toting entourage) Of course, you could just look at my cd collection as I tend to group the related artists together in my own fubar system...at least I can find what I am looking for (usually). Of course it makes it exceptionally difficult for anyone else to either a) find anything among the 2700 odd discs or b) put anything away :) wheeeeeee jason np electrelane - the lights out - ----- Original Message ----- From: Mikael Czerski Date: Tuesday, May 18, 2004 4:53 am Subject: Re: Musicplasma > Hmmm, > I would too like to know where they got the data from - and the > discographies is far from accurate. Look at Fleetwood Mac for > example. The > release dates on the albums (the few they list) are based on the > newestrelease year and not the original release year which is > quite a bit > misleading methinks. > > -- Yngve > > > ****************************************** > * One alien has come, unalien to one ***** > ****************************************** > ***** Blessed be!!! ********************** ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 May 2004 09:03:06 -0700 From: Scott Andrew LePera Subject: Re: Musicplasma Sherlyn Koo wrote: > Does anybody know where it gets its data from? Most likely it's looking at related artists and "people who bought X also bought..." data from Amazon.com. Dunno how it's figuring out the "sphere of influence" bit, though. Maybe the higher the sales rank, the bigger the sphere? Just a guess. - -- Scott (new to the list ::waves:: hi!) - -- Scott Andrew LePera Lo-fi DIY acoustic pop http://www.scottandrew.com scott@scottandrew.com My new record "Where I've Been" is now available at CD Baby! http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/walkingbirds3 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 May 2004 12:22:42 -0400 (EDT) From: burka@jeffrey.net Subject: Re: Musicplasma scott sez: > -- Scott (new to the list ::waves:: hi!) Geez. Now I'm trying to figure out if I've ever recommended _Where I've Been_ on ecto, or if I've merely listed it as a n.p. Hmm. Google sez I listed it as a n.p. with a short, positive description in parens back in October. Anyway, hi, Scott. Welcome. I played with musicplasma a bit when the meme first started making the rounds, and was not overly impressed with some of the incredibly bizarre linkages it comes up with. jeff n.p. _The Keep_, Happy Rhodes n.r. _The Confusion_, Neil Stephenson (and not far enough in yet to know if the n.r. is going to turn into a n.s.m.w.t (now slogging my way through) as it did with the first book of the Baroque Cycle) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 May 2004 20:23:22 +0200 (CEST) From: Yngve Hauge Subject: Hmmm Hi again :) Okey, I've not changed name or anything - if someone wondered why Mikael Czerski did come up earlier it was basically because I exchanged resources file with him cause I had some problems with mine. - -- Yngve ****************************************** * One alien has come, unalien to one ***** ****************************************** ***** Blessed be!!! ********************** ------------------------------ Date: 18 May 2004 13:43:22 -0700 From: "Michael Pearce" Subject: RE: Kerri Simpson! At 1:55 AM -0400 4/16/04, Jason Gordon wrote: >Other aussie ecto must haves: >Sophie Moleta I just found out that Sophie M. is coming to Portland to record a new album. She'll be for a month. No word on appearances, though. Michael ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 May 2004 15:22:36 -0700 (PDT) From: Alberto Carrasco Subject: Re: absinthe makes the tart grow fonder Everything you could ever want to know about absinthe: www.sepulchritude.com/chapelperilous/absinthe Cheers! np: Fanttmas - Dellrium Cordla nr: Last Words - The Final Journals of William S. Burroughs - --- anna maria stjdrnell wrote: > hi all.. > saw a swedish show which was a long absinthe > commercial..well it was presented as a documentary > but > the descirption made me want to try the drink. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! - Internet access at a great low price. http://promo.yahoo.com/sbc/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 May 2004 23:49:14 +0100 From: "Adam K." Subject: The Black Rider Just got back from a preview of this, apparently the first English-language theatrical production of this collaboration between Tom Waits, William Burroughs and director Robert Wilson. Marianne Faithful was in it, but my attention was drawn to another name, further down the cast list --- Mary Margaret O'Hara. A straaaaange night, indeed. Mixed feelings about the production itself, a kaleidescopic car-crash of stylised Expressionism, Brothers Grimm, Noh Theatre, Experimental Theatre (NYC in the 70's) and plain old vaudeville, overlong, over-indulgent, appalling and fascinating in equal measure, strikingly beautiful but laced with unendurable passages of pure wank, but all the time wonderfully performed. A great band kept the spirit of Waits to the fore, and everyone sang excellently. I wasn't sure about O'Hara at first, thinking her voice too ethereal to match the material, but she displayed a wonderful sense of fun and comic timing and delivered on the vocal side -- in fact, I'd say she was one of the highlights. And there I was thinking I'd never see her perform. Faithful was a bit of a disappointment -- she'd been billed and hyped in this production, but didn't seem to have much to do, and often as not looked extremely uncomfortable. Towards the end she seemed to be groping for her lines and unsure of what she was doing or what came next (but, hey, it's previews). I think it needs boiling down a bit, and once you take the completely pointless movement pieces it would probably be half the length, but there were some images in there that I don't think I'm ever going to forget, that's for sure. adam k. np - Miss America/Mary Margaret O'Hara nr -- Wolves of Willoughby Chase/Joan Aiken ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 May 2004 19:48:12 -0700 (PDT) From: Craig Gidney Subject: Vas, "Feast of Silence." My Amazon Review of the new cd--Craig Azam Ali has a voice of silver. It's the thread that wavers through this vaporous musical landscape. She can be pure and angelic, or bewitching and earthy. She explores the lower end of her register, flirts with Bulgarian music, sings in otherworldy English and her own invented tongue--flavored with her native Farsi. Greg Ellis is the muscle behind the sound. His drums patterns create almost danceable song structures and sacred atmospheres with his gongs. More traditional rock instrumentation--guitars and bass--float along with flutes and spoken Indian boles. In many ways, the compositions on this "Feast of Silence" are tighter than on previous albums, which were almost-too 'samey'. With "Feast," they come into their own. If "Garden of Souls" was dreamy, this is more hallicinatory and opium-fueled. Exquiste exotica. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! - Internet access at a great low price. http://promo.yahoo.com/sbc/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 May 2004 23:17:08 -0400 From: fingerpuppets Subject: Re: SUSAN McKEOWN on WNYC tonight this show is now archived on wnyc's website: http://wnyc.org/shows/newsounds/episodes/05172004 wheeee! woj >----- Forwarded message from Hibernian Music ----- > >Date: Mon, 17 May 2004 12:41:52 -0400 >To: chanting@earthlink.net >From: Hibernian Music >Subject: SUSAN McKEOWN on WNYC tonight > >Tonight on John Schaefer's 'New Sounds' WNYC 93.9 at 11:00PM - >an interview with Susan and live performance with accompaniment from >Eamon O'Leary on guitar and Dana Lyn on fiddle. >Also available at www.wnyc.org ------------------------------ End of ecto-digest V10 #140 ***************************