Gerard Cosloy’s 12XU label out of Austin will reissue Tommy Keene’s hard-to-find 1982 debut LP “Strange Alliance” next month, on both clear and black 150 gram vinyl. The limited edition reissue, shipping May 28th, was remastered by Jason Ward at Chicago Mastering Service, and will include two songs not on the original Avenue LP, “Nothing Is Gray” and “Stuck On A Ship.”
The release follows 12XU’s Record Store Day reissue of Tommy’s “Back To Zero Now” b/w “Mr. Roland” 7″ single (12XU 050-1)
Apple now offers optional two-step verification for Apple ID, the key to an Apple account, which controls iOS devices, iCloud, iTunes and Apple Support. Google already has two-step verification, and this feature goes a long way toward making online accounts stronger in the current “threat landscape,” as security experts say. With the new Apple feature turned on, both a password and a four-digit verification code sent to an iOS device will be required to allow sign-in. All cloud storage services should follow suit. Read more:
Apple iCloud, Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft SkyDrive
Now that Outlook.com is open to the public, Microsoft SkyDrive is too, and it comes with 7GB of free storage. I’m already using Apple iCloud (5GB), Dropbox (3.6GB) and Google Drive (5GB), and with the addition of SkyDrive, that makes over 20GB of cloud storage that is available to individual users free of charge… I am loving this.
SkyDrive has really beautiful web app versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote, and the overall interface is extremely nice. If this is what Office 365 looks like, I may have to give that a try too.
Google Drive still has more web applications (formerly Google Docs) and also has, importantly, optional two-factor authentication. I’ve been using the Google Authenticator mobile app for multi-factor authentication with LastPass, and you can easily add Google Drive and other platforms right in the same app.
iCloud already handles a lot of the storage needs for iOS devices natively, including iTunes music; and Dropbox is still the easiest and most intuitve for basic file storage, syncing and sharing.
ScoreCleaner Notes is a new iOS app that can record singing or playing and transcribe musical notation on the fly. It works with melody only (no harmony), and is a scaled-down version of the full-featured desktop program, ScoreCleaner. The app version can interpret pitch, time signature, rhythm & meter, and tempo directly from the audio input. I haven’t stepped into the studio yet to double-check whether or not Sibelius has any extensions for doing this, but I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen this before. I gave it a quick try, singing a major scale, and it easily got the pitch, notation and even tempo right. The app does require an internet connection, since the recording analysis is done in the cloud, similar to other apps such as Dragon Dictation. The list of features is impressive, and if you also have the full desktop version, the ScoreCleaner Cloud will keep the iOS app and the full version in sync.
CD Baby just lowered its commission on MP3 sales from 25% to 9%, making it the lowest of any of the digital retailers, including Bandcamp, which powers the store on this site. And the new rate also applies to sales that come through any of their direct-to-fan sales modules, like the MusicStore for Facebook. CD Baby has probably the most complete set of artist tools of any of the independent music distribution services, and they just keep getting better and better, even since founder Derek Sivers left in 2008. It’s hard not to like this company…
I just noticed that you can rent some of the Pro Tools® plug-ins at the Avid Store, instead of purchasing them. Impact and SoundReplacer caught my eye (neither of which I own), each available to rent for either 7 days ($19) or 31 days ($49)… that’s not too bad.
I just finished Shawn Colvin’s new memoir “Diamond in the Rough” (thanks, Santa) and thoroughly enjoyed it. I had always been intrigued by her as an artist; I’d been a casual fan, and had two records (“Steady On” and “A Few Small Repairs”), but never quite understood her songwriting role on those records, which seemed largely co-written and produced by John Leventhal. Indeed, much of the book is about her long journey to find her own identity as an artist and songwriter, and even chronicles the making of each of her albums and how the songs were written… compelling stuff for fellow musicians. I think it’s a well-written book, too, at least insofar as her voice and personality certainly come through; and it’s astonishingly frank as well… a good read.
Birchmere 3/30/12I saw her live for the first time last March at the Birchmere, and glad I did—Mary Chapin Carpenter made a surprise appearance, and they played the rest of the show together, their first time together on stage in many years, apparently… a great night.
