Software companies that enable users to share files illegally can now be held liable. This has created an opportunity for legal peer to peer networks — “legal” meaning that copyright holders get paid. Gideon D’Arcangelo reports.
Original Broadcast
“Pass the CD” is a portrait of a New York City CD Club, called the Bobcats. The idea behind CD Clubs is simple: 12 people get together, each gets a month. When it’s your month, make a mix CD, burn 11 copies and mail them out. We learn about the personalities of the Bobcat CD Club through their musical tastes. Then we are there when the club members meet each other for the first time. At the end of the show, the host, Bill Radke, issued this invitation to listeners:
“To join Gideon D’Arcangelo’s CD club, send an email to mycdclub at yahoo dot com. The first eleven to respond are in the club.”
Hundreds of listeners responded. I decided to launch two clubs, the Penguins and the Owls. That accomodated 22 listeners. To everyone else, I wrote back and asked if they would like to put in touch with 11 other listeners so they could form their own clubs. Yes, was the overwhelming response.
At the time of this submission, I know of at least 9 CD clubs launched by this program that are still going strong. The self-organizing clubs have given themselves names like the Gecko’s, MIXMOO, 24 Ears and my favorite, Gideon’s 13. Many have set up blogs to track their progress and playlists:
LOCATION: Union Square, New York City
In this episode, we encounter a 19 year old fashionista tuned into C.E.X. (pronounced “sex”) and Bobbie Gentry’s “Chickasaw County Child” on the mix CD he dubs “Flux;” an 80 year old former jazz trombonist and musician’s union cardholder tuned to the US Airforce Big Band – aka, “The Airmen of Note;” and a girl from the Bronx tuned to a popular R&B song by Nick Cannon, sung from the perspective of a baby in the womb,
Original Broadcast
This essay suggests a way of understanding emerging behaviors of mobile music listeners by positing two hypotheses: 1) that geolocation is weakening as a factor in determining personal identity and 2) that musical taste as a general rule is becoming more eclectic. These two tendencies set up the potential to better activate the role of mobile music listeners and the opportunity for designers to facilitate this active role.
Presented at the 2nd International Mobile Music Workshop, held at the 2005 “New Interfaces for Musical Expression” Conference at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC.
With so much more music becoming available on-line each year, how can music fans sort through it all and discover the music they want? One answer may lie in the personal playlist, that simple compilation that digital music enthusiasts use to keep track of their favorite tunes. From New York, Gideon D’Arcangelo reports.
Original Broadcast
The Creative Remix, with host Benjamen Walker, is an hour-long “lawyer free” examination of the art, culture, and history of the remix. The hour kicks off with a musical analysis of DJ Dangermouse’s infamous remix of the Beatles and Jay-Z. Then we go back in time to check out the ancient Roman art of the poetry mash-up, or the Cento. Then we rewind to the 18th century to check out the birth of copyright and how it effected writers like Alexander Pope; and the early 20th century when the visual artist Marcel Duchamp used the remix to reinvent everything. We also take a field trip to the Mass MOCA museum of modern art to check out the exhibit “Yankee Remix.” Walker brings along a few grad students and a pair of curmudgeonly New England antique collectors to investigate different attitudes towards remixing. In the second part of the program Benjamen Walker speaks with unique remix artists, including Gideon D’Arcangelo the walkman buster.
TOE Broadcast
LOCATION: UNION SQUARE, NEW YORK CITY
In this special all-iPod episode of “Walkman Busting,” we listen in with:
1) RENE, a Cuban immigrant who loves Cher because she always changes, hates Cuban music “because it always stays the same.”
2) LIZ, a radical student listening to underground hiphop artist and political activist Saul Williams.
3) TAMSIN, who tunes us into her “Treadhop” (her own term) playlists, specially devised for hip hop dancing on the treadmill.
4) JEFF, who turns us on to four different jazz versions of “Bei Mir Bist Du Schön”
Original Broadcast
This essay outlines a framework for understanding new musical compositions and performances that utilize pre-existing sound recordings. In attempting to articulate why musicians are increasingly using recorded music in their creative work, the author calls for and shows examples of new tools and performance interfaces that aid in the dynamic appropriation of pre-recorded music.
Published in the proceedings of the 2004 “New Interfaces for Musical Expression” Conference, Shizuoka University of Art and Culture, Hamamatsu, Japan.
LOCATION: Union Square, New York City
These busts include a teenager and his skateboard crew who are in shock and awe that the interviewer has not heard of “Sublime;” a man who lets us listen with him as he “faces” a CD that he hasn’t been able to listen to for five years; and a third with a 9th grader who stands up for better women role models in hip-hop.
Original Broadcast
LOCATION: Union Square, New York City
These busts include some goth-rave kids still out on the town from the night before, clad in party gear. Morgana interprets the tough and bleak lyrics of R&B singer Jo, while the ever-upbeat “Seven” regales us with some underground music that hasn’t “surfaced” yet. Fifty feet away from this scene, a jazz musician born in the same month and city as altoist Stan Getz pays tribute to his household god.
