From: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org (loud-fans-digest) To: loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Subject: loud-fans-digest V6 #191 Reply-To: loud-fans@smoe.org Sender: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk loud-fans-digest Wednesday, October 4 2006 Volume 06 : Number 191 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [loud-fans] music database help ["Paul King" ] Re: [loud-fans] music database help [Jenny Grover ] Re: [loud-fans] New Releases [Michael Zwirn ] Re: [loud-fans] New Releases [Bill Silvers ] Re: [loud-fans] New Releases ["Roger Winston" ] Re: [loud-fans] New Releases [Aaron Mandel ] Re: [loud-fans] New Releases [Roger Winston ] Re: [loud-fans] New Releases [Bill Silvers ] Re: [loud-fans] music database help [2fs ] Re: [loud-fans] New Releases [2fs ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2006 05:46:35 -0400 From: "Paul King" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] music database help On 2 Oct 2006 at 22:55, Jenny Grover wrote: < ... > > In other words, what I want is > something that looks similar to the iTunes library, but that does not > actually store the music on my computer. All I want is the text > descriptions. I would like to find something like this in which I can > retrieve the data from the CD itself or an online database look-up so > that I don't have to hand type all the entries. It needs to run on a > Linux system. > > Jen > I can't remember what iTunes does, but here is at least something. In case no software exists, there is likely a web solution, consider: Sounds like you need to do some Perl programming, write a Perl script to query, say, the AMG database of artists/CDs in your collection, parse the web pages, and build a flat ASCII CSV (Comma-separated volume) database for your use. Then, you can use a database program such as (gee ... what runs in Linux?) ... OpenOffice Base and read it in as a source file. I haven't used OpenOffice Base before, but I would imagine they have a "Reports" facility similar to MS Access to sort your database by whatever key you like and produce something presentable for you. I did the same thing to my cassette collection years ago. I read it into Microsoft Access, sorted by artist, and generated a 200-or-so page "report" listing all tracks in my cassette collection alphabetically by artist. While I would have liked to have had goodies like chart info, labels, and anecdotes, I restricted the projecet to artist/title/Album/cassette#/Side/track# and not much else (that took plenty long to do by itself). So, it appears that you are asking two things: reading a DB into a program and generate presentable listings of your collection. That's relatively easy. The difficult part sounds like generating the database in the first place in a way that a script does most of the work. You want to read track info from a CD? Sounds like a separate scripting effort. I am not sure how successfully that can be done on some CDs. They are not all equally rich in information. I would say that at some point you are still going to enter some of the track listings by hand. If no scripting/program solution already exists for data gathering, and you are not inclined to program, then you are stuck with entering info by hand, and cutting and pasting from web pages. Yeah, it's tedious; but it is rewarding. Once you got it set up, you can more than likely use OpenOffice Base to read it in, then save it as a native OO Base file. One little trick I noticed. If you use a CSV format -- if you don't already know, that is where your data fields are separated by commas -- then you need to have a way to handle commas in titles and so on so that it doesn't confuse your databse program. I changed mine into just a space. Inelegant, but it worked. Good luck, Jen Paul King ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2006 10:26:26 -0400 From: Jenny Grover Subject: Re: [loud-fans] music database help Paul King wrote: >In case no software exists, there is likely a web solution, consider: > >Sounds like you need to do some Perl programming > Who, moi? Maybe my husband could, but he wasn't thinking along those lines last night. I'll ask him about it, though. >Then, you can use a database program such as (gee ... what runs in Linux?) ... >OpenOffice Base and read it in as a source file. > > We did try some things in Open Office last night. >I haven't used OpenOffice Base before, but I would imagine they have a >"Reports" facility similar to MS Access to sort your database by whatever key >you like and produce something presentable for you. > > I don't know anything about MS Access, but I don't like the "reports" approach. I really want something I can read and sort at a glance, and also know that it's not missing anything along the way. We ran into a lot of problems in some of the programs we tried with certain ones just not reading titles properly (for instance, some wouldn't read apostrophes, others would read a key word, but if you put in the whole title, it would say it couldn't find it) and therefore leaving info out of the reports. >So, it appears that you are asking two things: reading a DB into a program and >generate presentable listings of your collection. That's relatively easy. The >difficult part sounds like generating the database in the first place in a way >that a script does most of the work. You want to read track info from a CD? >Sounds like a separate scripting effort. I am not sure how successfully that >can be done on some CDs. They are not all equally rich in information. I would >say that at some point you are still going to enter some of the track listings >by hand. > > I don't mind entering a few things by hand,and if worse comes to worse, I will enter them all by hand, because it's more important for me to have the right presentation and functionality in the database than settle for something I'm not happy with just to get out of typing. But it would certainly be nice to do both. >One little trick I noticed. If you use a CSV format -- if you don't already >know, that is where your data fields are separated by commas -- then you need >to have a way to handle commas in titles and so on so that it doesn't confuse >your databse program. > We looked at a CSV format program last night and it didn't look like it was going to work out for me. Jen ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2006 10:59:41 -0400 From: "outbound-only email address" Subject: [loud-fans] music database help There's no native Linux version of Collectorz.com's "Music Collector" product, but you can run it under VMware if you have a windows license available, instructions here: http://www.collectorz.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?p=36345 When I decided to license for it, it I thought it was best-in-class of any of the affordable (i.e., not for professional library use) solutions. It does allow you specify artists at a track level. You might need some XML hacker help to convert a "various artists" listing to it's component track listings depending on the data source you use for the lookup. If you're using freeDB and someone didn't type the individual performers on a per-track basis then you could be out of luck for avoding keyboard entry. Their companion product "MP3 Collector" is pretty smart about building database keys from filename and ID3 (1 and 2) data too. hth - -- d. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2006 14:33:16 -0400 From: Jenny Grover Subject: Re: [loud-fans] music database help outbound-only email address wrote: >There's no native Linux version of Collectorz.com's "Music Collector" >product, but you can run it under VMware if you have a windows license >available, instructions here: >http://www.collectorz.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?p=36345 > > I don't know about the license part. I am running a couple of very old Windows programs (CoolEdit 96 and Paint Shop Pro) under some sort of virtual machine that emulates Windows 98, but I'm really trying to get away from that sort of thing. Sucks that it won't work with Wine. Anyway, thanks for the suggestions. I'll have hubby take a look at it. Jen ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2006 20:33:59 +0100 From: "Angela Bennett & Ian Runeckles" Subject: RE: [loud-fans] Wuxtry, wuxtry! OK, I'll play: Diary of a Rock n Roll Star - Ian Hunter The Big Wheel - Bruce Thomas The Rolling Stone Rock n Roll Reader (from about 1975-ish) Dear Boy - Keith Moon's biography, can't remember who wrote it but it's fab anything by Barney Hoskins From The Velvets to the Voidoids - Clinton Heylin Long Time Gone - David Crosby No One Here Gets Out Alive - Danny Sugarman White Bicycles - Joe Boyd Follow The Music (Elektra story) And a collection of writing by Charles Shaar Murray that I can't put my hands on at the moment... I'm reading Please Kill Me at the moment and it's terrific. Lipstick Traces I thought was a terrible book. Ian - -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.407 / Virus Database: 268.12.12/461 - Release Date: 02/10/2006 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2006 16:36:15 -0600 From: "Roger Winston" Subject: [loud-fans] New Releases Lots of new stuff on eMusic the last few days. Anyone listen to the new Pernice Brothers yet? Opinions? Also new Robyn Hitchcock (under "and the Venus 3"), Outrageous Cherry, Thunderbirds Are Now!, etc. Anything else I should download? Latre. --Rog - -- FlasshePoint, yet another blog among millions: http://www.flasshe.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2006 19:01:35 -0400 From: Michael Zwirn Subject: Re: [loud-fans] New Releases On Oct 3, 2006, at 6:36 PM, Roger Winston wrote: > Lots of new stuff on eMusic the last few days. > Anyone listen to the new Pernice Brothers yet? I have it and the mail-order-only disc of demos that came with it. It is growing on me - especially "PCH One" and "Cruelty to Animals," along with the doug-and-Amy appropriate "Somerville." Michael ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2006 18:08:53 -0500 (GMT-05:00) From: Bill Silvers Subject: Re: [loud-fans] New Releases I haven't been able to embrace The Hold Steady due to my problems with their singer's croaky patter as lead vocals, but their new record BOYS AND GIRLS IN AMERICA (reportedly their most accessible yet), is newly available there too. http://www.emusic.com/album/10962/10962800.html http://www.metacritic.com/music/artists/holdsteady/boysandgirlsinamerica b.s. - -----Original Message----- >From: Roger Winston >Sent: Oct 3, 2006 5:36 PM >To: loud-fans@smoe.org >Subject: [loud-fans] New Releases > >Lots of new stuff on eMusic the last few days. >Anyone listen to the new Pernice Brothers yet? >Opinions? Also new Robyn Hitchcock (under "and the >Venus 3"), Outrageous Cherry, Thunderbirds Are Now!, etc. > >Anything else I should download? > >Latre. --Rog > >-- FlasshePoint, yet another blog among millions: >http://www.flasshe.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2006 17:39:00 -0600 From: "Roger Winston" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] New Releases Bill Silvers on 10/3/2006 5:08:53 PM wrote: > I haven't been able to embrace The Hold Steady due > to my problems with their singer's croaky patter as > lead vocals, but their new record BOYS AND GIRLS IN > AMERICA (reportedly their most accessible yet), is > newly available there too. > > http://www.emusic.com/album/10962/10962800.html I have the exact same problem with the HS, which is why I didn't mention their new one. It's one of those bands I'm supposed to like, but I just can't get past the "vocals". (Although, strangely, I don't mind the Blue Aeroplanes.) Latre. --Rog - -- FlasshePoint, yet another blog among millions: http://www.flasshe.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2006 20:04:25 -0400 (EDT) From: Aaron Mandel Subject: Re: [loud-fans] New Releases On Tue, 3 Oct 2006, Bill Silvers wrote: > I haven't been able to embrace The Hold Steady due to my problems with > their singer's croaky patter as lead vocals, but their new record BOYS > AND GIRLS IN AMERICA (reportedly their most accessible yet), is newly > available there too. It is their most accessible (Craig Finn sings more and talks less), and it's great. Before, I was unsure whether I thought they were inconsistent, or just doing something that I wasn't always interested in. Now it seems like they just didn't pull all the pieces together at once before. Wow, eMusic has a much higher fraction of the stuff I'm looking at than it did the last time I checked in. Like... the new Xiu Xiu (excellent), "Schmotime" by The Absentee (a whole album is a little much, but "We Should Never Have Children" and "Something To Band" were good), the Tokyo Police Club EP (lots of fun, if you like all those bands that sound like other bands), the new Blow album (beep beep!) and the Format's "Dog Problems" (which has the great song "Time Bomb"). They also have the Blow's "Poor Aim: Love Songs" EP, which is the thing that turned me from a casual Blow fan into an ardent one. As far as I know, it's completely out-of-print in the physical world. Yay for mp3s. a ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2006 19:11:07 -0600 From: Roger Winston Subject: Re: [loud-fans] New Releases At Tuesday 10/3/2006 06:04 PM, Aaron Mandel wrote: >the new Xiu Xiu (excellent), "Schmotime" by The Absentee (a whole album is >a little much, but "We Should Never Have Children" and "Something To Band" >were good), the Tokyo Police Club EP (lots of fun, if you like all those >bands that sound like other bands), the new Blow album (beep beep!) and >the Format's "Dog Problems" (which has the great song "Time Bomb"). Time Bomb is an indeed a catchy song. The whole album's not too bad. Thanks for the suggestions... I'll have to check them out. I really don't cotton to Xiu Xiu though. Latre. --Rog - -- FlasshePoint, yet another blog among millions: http://www.flasshe.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2006 20:49:05 -0500 From: Bill Silvers Subject: Re: [loud-fans] New Releases Roger Winston wrote: >Bill Silvers on 10/3/2006 5:08:53 PM wrote: > > > >>I haven't been able to embrace The Hold Steady due >>to my problems with their singer's croaky patter as >>lead vocals, but their new record BOYS AND GIRLS IN >>AMERICA (reportedly their most accessible yet), is >>newly available there too. >> >>http://www.emusic.com/album/10962/10962800.html >> >> > >I have the exact same problem with the HS, which is >why I didn't mention their new one. It's one of >those bands I'm supposed to like, but I just can't >get past the "vocals". (Although, strangely, I don't >mind the Blue Aeroplanes.) > >Latre. --Rog > >-- FlasshePoint, yet another blog among millions: >http://www.flasshe.com > Ah, well in that case, looking at my recent queue adds, there's the debut EP from The Village Green, whose recently released full-length, FEELING THE FALL is one of my favorite records of this year (think Supergrass-y guitar pop). Oh and the debut record from The Ettes, SHAKE THE DUST- fast, fun girl garage-punk. I suppose that the new Yo La Tengo record's eMusic presence is pretty old news at this point (best record title of the year?). Has anybody heard the new Great Lakes record (also on eMusic)? I queued it after reading good things. b.s. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2006 22:35:03 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: [loud-fans] music database help On 10/3/06, outbound-only email address wrote: > > There's no native Linux version of Collectorz.com's "Music Collector" > product, but you can run it under VMware if you have a windows license > available, instructions here: > http://www.collectorz.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?p=36345 > > When I decided to license for it, it I thought it was best-in-class of any > of the affordable (i.e., not for professional library use) solutions. It > does allow you specify artists at a track level. > > You might need some XML hacker help to convert a "various artists" listing > to it's component track listings depending on the data source you use for > the lookup. If you're using freeDB and someone didn't type the individual > performers on a per-track basis then you could be out of luck for avoding > keyboard entry. > > Their companion product "MP3 Collector" is pretty smart about building > database keys from filename and ID3 (1 and 2) data too. My only reservation about MP3 Collector is that, unlike Music Collector, it does not allow multiple-artist entries for a single song or album. This is useful for ad hoc collaborations: when Dan Fogelberg guested on that Throne of Blood album, I wanted to list the collaborative track under both artists, so that if I were doing a complete list of either artist's catalogs, that track would show up. You can do that in Music C - but MP3 C restricts you to a single artist entry. (Causes problems too, if you want to be technical and credit "Elvis Costello & the Attractions," "Elvis Costello & the Impostors," etc., but also have those albums appear in the "Elvis Costello" section). PS: there is no actual collaboration between Dan Fogelberg and Throne of Blood. I don't even know if there's an actual band called "Throne of Blood." Probably, though, there is. - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2006 22:51:31 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: [loud-fans] New Releases On 10/3/06, Roger Winston wrote: > > Lots of new stuff on eMusic the last few days. > Anyone listen to the new Pernice Brothers yet? > Opinions? Also new Robyn Hitchcock (under "and the > Venus 3"), Outrageous Cherry, Thunderbirds Are Now!, etc. I just received the new PB disc - on one listen, I'd say pretty good. A couple songs became instant earworms. (The demo disc is pretty funny - half the tracks have JP vocalizing la-la da-da syllables. I'm not sure if that implies that he writes the lyrics later and hadn't written them yet, or if he just figured it'd be less distracting to the band to learn the songs w/o the lyrics...which would be an unusual approach, I'd imagine.) I like the new Hitchcock a lot - it is, as you might expect given the personnel, kinda Soft R.E.M. Boys-ish - with a fairly heavy Dylan influence, circa Blonde on Blonde. - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ End of loud-fans-digest V6 #191 *******************************