Would you like to be wooed like that?

Seems like yesterday I held my panasonic boom box (with double cassette decks) up to my parents old stereo speakers to record Destroyer by the Kinks onto cassette.

In the 80s, trips to NYC always meant a stop at Tower Records.  One of my favorite finds was a Duke Ellington/Teresa Brewer collection I found for $2.99 in the bargain bin.  Over the years, The Boomtown Rats, Sparks, Debussy, and Rachmaninoff became part of my music collection because of Tower Records.

Now, it’s all about Pandora.

I’d say my favorite discovery of the year is Kid Koala.  Somehow, Pandora came up with his stuff after I added ‘Grandmaster Flash’ as an artist I liked to my station.

Pandora is like the bargain bin, except it’s better.  More music to discover – and I can share it with friends via Facebook and Twitter.  I control some of what gets played – but through the musical genome project, Pandora takes me in many different directions.

I’m not sure how long it would have taken me to get into Pandora if I had kept hosting music on public radio.  It’s human nature (at least it’s my nature) to protect and defend what one knows.  I still believe that a well-crafted thoughtful playlist designed with listeners in mind, hosted by a live person is a good thing.

But I do love Pandora…and Kid Koala:

iPhone pics

Amazes me the pics an iPhone can take…
Listening to All Things Considered tonight (on my iPhone while walking the dog), I heard Melissa Block interview cinematographer Roger Deakins.  I can’t remember where I heard this…but somewhere in the piece he said something about how life just passes by, and how photographs help us see it.  You can hear the complete story here, btw.

Cleaning up my iPhone tonight made me think of that interview.

On our way...

Leaves on Quarrier Street Sidewalk

Spring Heights Shag Rug

4th of July Miles Dog

Reading the paper…

Don’t know if you have seen this week’s NY Times article on the decline of U.S. newspaper circulation. It outlines some grim-looking numbers:

- newspaper circulation is down 10% from last year

- Only 44 million papers are being sold daily, the lowest number since the 1940s.

There were some interesting, not-so-glum highlights as well. Notably, the Wall Street Journal is bucking the trend – with overall circulation up 0.6%, according to the Times piece.  WSJ is one of a handful of papers charging for digital subscriptions, which now number around 400,000.  Most papers do not charge for their online content, and perhaps they should.  One thing is pretty clear:  the current model is not working.

You can’t have year after year of shrinking advertising income and maintain a quality newsroom with enough reporters to cover stories well.  I hear from colleagues about how hard it’s getting, and the truth is, our papers here in Charleston are thinner in terms of content, just as they are everywhere.

People are still reading the paper though – according to the NYT piece, newspapers have had 72 million unique online visitors per month this year, up from 60 million in 2007.  That shift in media use is redefining how communications and journalism are done.

And it looks like the trend will continue.

In 2018, the first all-digital generation will enter the workforce.  These folks don’t have the same loyalty to print media as previous generations.  They’ve always had X-Box and iPod.  They will have grown up with Social Media and reading content on devices (computers, smart phones, etc.) rather than on paper.

I hear the arguments about how this new world is hurting community, about how we’ll all just become isolated, anti-social people with red eyes from staring at screens all day.  I really hear it.  The smell of a new book, the feel of paper between your fingers, crinkling as you read, is an experience a computer can’t replace.

But if you think social media is not a community activity, consider last year’s Presidential Election (regardless of your politics).  The candidate who won is in office today because his team mobilized a young, tech-savvy, social-media-using community/generation in numbers not seen in the modern political era.

A song worth knowing

I Am Kloot is a band I can’t get out of my head.  This song is stripped-down, eerie -full of longing.

Gorgeous.

3 Songs

3 songs I heard on Pandora this morning and what came into my head:

I Will Follow – U2
I’ve always loved the energy and garage-band aesthetic in this song, the second single released by the band from their debut album ‘Boy’.  Using the upper register of the xylophone adds a brittleness to the sound – one of the early uses of that instrument in a guitar-rock driven instrumentation.  That was ahead of it’s time, I think.  Other groups had used keyboard percussion before, but it really stands out on this track.

Start Me Up – Rolling Stones
Taking my paper route money while my family lived in Stamford, CT and going to Caldor to buy music.  I could walk from my house down to the mall and retail district of Stamford.  I think I paid $8.99 for Tattoo You, which has to be one of the best album covers from the 80s.

Under Pressure – Queen with David Bowie
I see the band room at Westhill High School (also in Stamford) in every detail when I hear this tune.  Our jazz band was pretty good (we actually won awards at the Berklee College of Music in the early 80’s) and would try anything.  Several of us would hang in the bandrooom (I cut algebra) to work out songs we’d been hearing.   I’m not saying we were great or anything – just that this song made an impression.  Listening to it this morning, I thought the lyrics are pretty fresh for the times we are in:

Insanity laughs under pressure we’re cracking
Can’t we give ourselves one more chance
Why can’t we give love that one more chance
Why can’t we give love give love give love give love
give love give love give love give love give love
‘Cause love’s such an old fashioned word
And love dares you to care for
The people on the edge of the night
And love dares you to change our way of
Caring about ourselves

China Girl and walking Miles

So, Iggy Pop and David Bowie were in Berlin together, “trying to be good”.  Apparently, (according to Bowie), they had been bad.  One morning, they had coffee together and Iggy told David about a punk party he’d gone to the night before.

It was a party on the anniversary of the completion of the Berlin Wall.  The punks built a scaled replica of the wall, and on the stroke of midnight, they tore it apart with their fists and teeth (the replica was also edible).  After telling this story, Bowie launched in a gorgeous jazz-ballad rendition of China Girl, one of his hits from the 80s (co-written by Iggy Pop).  He intoduced the song with a few words about how the song was like that punk party – they were both stories about exploitation and rebellion.

This is the kind of story I expect to hear on Fresh Air or World Cafe, shows I would have to turn to public radio for.  Things I would find through exploration.   But this story came to me on one of my Pandora radio stations.  Based on programming choices I made and Pandora used to calculate what I might like.

It’s a case in point of the difference between the old way of accessing news, and how media distribution is evolving.  Based on my preferences, that story found me.   Made me think of the Socialnomics video circulating via YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook:

“We no longer search for news, the news finds us.”

I would love to hear Terry Gross interview Bowie and follow up on the story, but, in the mean time I learned something I didn’t know before, and it found me.

All this while walking the dog.

Because of Twitter

One of three things that caught my attention on my Twitter feed this morning:

A BBC story on how smart phones are poised to take advantage of the public’s “insatiable appetite” for social media.  This piqued my interest because yesterday at the AT&T store right here in Charleston, an iPhone could be had for $49.  That’s the price of a goPhone.  These hand-held computers that also make phone calls are changing our media habits.  A good example from my own experience is the decline of my own ‘traditional media’ usage.  In my case, this specifically means radio and newspapers.  I used to read the Gazette every morning without fail.  Now, I’ve read almost all the stories on my iPhone before the paper hits our front porch.

It’s the same with radio.  I used to listen obsessively – of course, this is what good Program Directors do.  A good PD listens as much as they can.  I still listen to pub rad – always will.  But these days, I’m just as likely to listen to Pandora or to my favorite NPR newsmags on my iPhone.  In fact, to watch the videos in the BBC story referenced above, I reached up and turned the radio off.

My social media habits changed radically when I became more like pub rad’s target demo – I’m an educated, curious, civic-minded person who has access to all kinds of media.  Radio and newspapers are just a few of my options.  What will make me tune in specifically to a local station, or read my local paper?  Great content covering my community. That’s the thing Pandora can’t do (though it does expose me to glorious new music).

One  of the things I’ve heard people say when talking about Twitter is:  “I don’t need to hear the mundane facts of someone’s life.”  Usually they throw in something about not wanting to know people’s bathroom habits.

My response to them:  “Have you tried it?”

Using Twitter enhances my depth of connection to the world.  Where would I have heard or seen the BBC story about smartphones?  It gave me a wider context on my experience in the AT&T store yesterday, broadened my understanding of an issue in society.  The evolving use of new media is one of  the hinge issues of our time.  It’s not perfect, but that’s the nature of evolution.

And revolution.

So much for…

No more deals with myself.

No more worrying about how often I’ve blogged, or what I write about.  No length requirements or obsessing over writing it ‘just right’ before I hit publish.

Just start.

Writing well is hard…

I’ve kind of made a pact with myself:  I’m going to write regularly.  A little bit, every day…I’m just gonna start.

Writing well is hard.  The more I get into writing and editing regularly, the more I see this fact.  The only way to get better is consistent practice at it – that’s it.

Writing for radio is different than writing for print, but one thing remains common, no matter what media format you are working with:

Write conversationally, for Pete’s sake!

A great habit I developed in public radio is to always, always, always read out loud what you write.  Ask yourself this question:  “Would I have actually said it that way in conversation?”.  And, perhaps more importantly, “Would anyone I’m talking to get what I was trying to say if I wrote/said it this way?”

Important stuff.

Other goals for this year:

Take a class/workshop on writing.

Get a coach, or at least someone I feel comfortable who can push me along toward getting better.

And. that’s my post for tonight….

Go see Ben Sollee: Reason 2

Continuing last night’s thread on Ben Sollee and why you should check his music out…

Great musicians do a lot with not much.  How many singer-songwriters have you ever heard of accompany themselves with the cello?

Keep thinking on that, and let me know if you can think of any besides Ben Sollee (They have to be good, too, btw).

I actually got to see Ben perform a year or so ago in Richmond, KY.  It was one of those concerts where it was just Ben and his cello.  That takes a lot of guts and confidence as a musician.  Your voice and your hands are it.  The cello doesn’t have the reverb of other instruments.  It’s rich, warm, and resonant, yes – but you are putting yourself out there, big time.

Then, this skinny white kid started to sing…and man, it was like Amos Lee and Sam Cooke were somehow up there with him.

Ben’s cover of A Change is Gonna Come is all his, but the smoky coolness in his voice is a definite tip of the hat to Cooke.

Just a cello and a voice…and that’s all Ben needs.