From: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org (shindell-list-digest) To: shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Subject: shindell-list-digest V2 #303 Reply-To: shindell-list@smoe.org Sender: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk shindell-list-digest Monday, October 23 2000 Volume 02 : Number 303 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [RS] Re: shindell-list-digest V2 #302 [Tom926@aol.com] [RS] Kathryn in Concert ["Dave McKay" ] [RS] Correction ["Dave McKay" ] Re: [RS] Site Unseen ["Neil Pearson" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2000 05:54:21 EDT From: Tom926@aol.com Subject: [RS] Re: shindell-list-digest V2 #302 Just one more note on Kathryn Williams. She was nominated this year for England's Mercury Prize for "Little Black Numbers," though she lost to another singer/songwriter: Badly Drawn Boy for "The Hour of the Wilderbeest." Can't say I have heard either of them, though the Mercury Prize has a better rep than most awards for you know actual quality rather than the usual "well this pushed so many units so we might as well give it some award and pretend it's really good" (aka The Grammys). Looking over US Releases for 2000, Richard's SP is still one of the best of the year along with the following (isn't it fun to play record critic?): Janis Ian's "god and the fbi"; Dar's "the green world" (with reservations); Marianne Faithfull's "Vagabond Ways"; Patti Smith's "Gung Ho"; Emmylou Harris' "Red Dirt Girl"; Sinead O'Connor's "Faith and Courage"; and Aimee Mann's "Bachelor No. 2." Been a very good year for the women, wouldn't you say? About the only other cd by a guy I have liked so far this year is Teddy Thompson's eponymous debut (not as good as Dad, but then how many musicians can match Richard Thompson?) and XTC's "Wasp Star." And the rerelease of "The Best of Broadside 1962-1988" is cause for celebration. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2000 13:11:26 +0100 From: "Dave McKay" Subject: [RS] Kathryn in Concert Seeing as there's been a bit of talk about Kathryn Williams here, I'll post a review of her concert last night. The (two) opening acts were eminently forgettable, and, given that the hall had a 10pm curfew, ditching one or both to give Kathryn a set longer than 65 minutes would have been a Good Idea. The last song by the first opening act (Turin Brakes) was called Future Boy, and was about babies and time travel. I think. After the singer managed to rhyme "junkies" and "monkeys", Kay and I were too busy stifling paroxysms of inappropriate laughter to concentrate too much on the rest of the lyrics! That's the first time we've been in that situation since, oh, earlier that afternoon, when we watched the last 30 minutes of Hollow Man in complete hysterics at the succession of cliches which defined the denouement. Anyway, things improved all around when Kathryn hit the stage with her four piece band (drums, double bass, second acoustic guitar played by Uncle Fester, and ... yeah ... cello). She featured tunes from both her CDs (don't ask me which ... I'm not familiar enough with her recordings ... We Dug A Hole, Soul To Feet, Flicker were definitely there though), and punctuated her songs with self-deprecating wit and charm. Her band worked well together, and the cellist, Laura Reid, was a particular hit, fleshing out the textures of the songs with excellent integrated accompaniment. So often a cello is used just for effect, but here it was featured heavily and successfully. Everyone on stage was obviously having a lot of fun, and the infectiousness was obvious in the way that the applause brought them back for a well-deserved encore despite the venue's attempt to raise the house lights and get us all out! I'll certainly be going to see her again, hopefully in a full-length set next time. Dave. "So Future Boy where are you from My time machine crashed over yonder Syphilis is a bitch But contracting HIV is much worse Why are you pushing info into me? I have no need for it I'm from the stars" ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2000 13:41:36 +0100 From: "Dave McKay" Subject: [RS] Correction Tom wrote: > Just one more note on Kathryn Williams. She was nominated this > year for England's Mercury Prize for "Little Black Numbers," That would be *Britain's* Mercury Prize. Not England's. Dave. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2000 17:48:37 +0100 From: "Neil Pearson" Subject: Re: [RS] Site Unseen > > Neil: > > If you really want to showcase your artists, use MP3s instead of Real Audio, or > put both up there. The Rel Audio tracks all sound like they are underwater. > The music sounds intriguing, but I wouldn't buy the CD based on those tracks. > > - -karl Karl The MP3 / real audio thing is a compromise (neither is ideal) - I've thought long and hard about which format to use and decided on real audio for the following reasons : Real Audio samples are small, compact and can be streamed, the downloads only last as long as the duration of the sample (or until the user stops it manually). Downloading and playing an MP3 requires more of a commitment from the user, which I think doesn't suit 'impulse' listening. Most visitors to our site move from page to page, listening to real audio samples as they go - the immediacy of RA suits this model, whereas MP3s would fragment the whole experience. We keep our song samples to around one minute, but we do have a number of full MP3 tracks on the site - including a track from the new Diane Zeigler disc, RS, Carter & Grammer, John Wesley Harding etc etc., the format is excellent for giving away full tracks, but the real audio samples are intended as a guide to a couple of tracks from the album - not the last word in audio reproduction. The MP3s live at http://www.fishrecords.co.uk/sampler.html (the Zeigler track is excellent) Notwithstanding the fact that MP3 is also a compromised standard in audio terms, most people have their computer running through smaller speakers (or small speakers with a subwoofer) - neither is ideal for listening to music. CDs burned from MP3s are horrible to listen to in pure audio terms - I burned a (personal) CD of the Dar Williams Starman track from a couple of years ago and the compression on the track is terrible - sibilant and 'splashy', it sounds awful on decent equipment but great on my office CD player and in the car (although that was a Liquid Audio track, the compression is very similar to MP3.) All that said, I agree that RA is fairly poor and your comments have made me think (although we have just started using RealProducer 8, which has much better sound quality). We currently sample our RA files for 28.8 downloads, which doesn't offer the greatest audio reproduction, but does give listeners an idea as to the style of the music. I will seriously think about producing for 56k downloads which increases the audio quality to not far off MP3 standard. The downside being that users require a reasonably fast connection..... thanks and best wishes Neil NP - Kate Jacobs - No Question (MP3!) - I have a selection of my favourite tracks I made into MP3s that sit on my hard drive and listen to from time to time. - ------------------------------------- neil@fishrecords.co.uk www.fishrecords.co.uk Suppliers of singer/songwriter, folk and acoustic music Shrewsbury, England. tel - 01743 231546 fax - 01743 354354 - ------------------------------------- ------------------------------ End of shindell-list-digest V2 #303 ***********************************