Dan Fogelberg lost a 3-year battle with prostate cancer yesterday. Most people who know of Dan’s music know the more popular mid-career (and sometimes a bit schmaltzy) material – “Leader of the Band”, “Same Old Lang Syne”, etc.

My first exposure to Dan’s music was in high school, when a friend of my sister gave me a ride home from some school event and the title track from the “Nether Lands” album was playing on her car stereo. Something about the melody and arrangement I found transcending, and not long after I bought the album. I quickly became a fan of his earlier material – the albums “Home Free” up through “The Innocent Age” (the album that contains most of his major hits). But I mostly gravitated toward the lesser-known songs.

In fact, I credit Dan with helping me learn how to play the guitar. A year or two after I moved to Lincoln, I bought my first guitar (an Alvarez I still play today) and a couple of Mel Bay songbooks. The simple folk songs in the Mel Bay books were not all that fun to play, and I wanted to learn some actual songs I knew. So I picked up “Dan Fogelberg Complete Songs – Volume 1″, and started in. It was learning those songs – especially songs from the “Souvenirs” and “Captured Angel” albums – that helped me learn strumming and chord changes. If I work my memory hard enough, I can still play a few of those songs. So I’m going to dig out some Fogelberg tunes this week and listen with an appreciation for the enjoyment they gave me all those years ago, and for motivation to pick up the guitar and learn at least a few chords. In that respect, schmaltzy though it may be to say,

“…he gave to me a gift I know
I never can repay”.

Thanks Dan.

Tess Wiley – Super Fast Rock n Roll Played Slow

My multi-year project of converting my CD collection to MP3 has come to a conclusion. Apart from the odd assorted CDs that are currently residing elsewhere in my house apart from the CD shelves, they have all been converted and backed up.

As they were converted, I also took the opportunity to make sure they were entered into CATraxx, a music collection database I’ve been using for a few years. I’d been waiting for the creator of CATraxx to implement a good HTML export feature, and he finally did with version 7 of the program which came out a few weeks ago. So the timing couldn’t be better, given my conversion project completion.

The updated CD collection pages can be found here.

Whew!

Now it’s on to converting the Mars Hill Tapes to MP3…

A couple of years ago I started the on-again, off-again project of converting my entire CD collection to high-quality MP3 format. When I began the project I had a couple of main objectives in mind:

1) Portaility – to have my entire CD collection on one hard drive, for use in my truck, on extended trips, at parties (with a jukebox-type interface), etc.

2) Archiving/safe keeping – to have at least one drive stored at a location away from my house, so that in the event of a fire, tornado, etc., I’d still have a copy of my collection, which I consider to be among the most vaulable objects in my house. Granted, the music would be in a lossy audio format which isn’t as high quality as the original CDs, but at least I wouldn’t lose it entirely (which is significant since many of the CDs in my collection are no longer in print).

When I first started the process I began by converting the artists who I knew I wanted in MP3 format right away (Vigilantes of Love, Over the Rhine, etc.). After a few months I shifted to the more methodical approach of working through my collection alphabetically.

As I’ve been doing the conversions, I’ve also been scanning the CD covers and inserts. At first I was scanning every page of the CD booklet, plus the back insert, plus the CD itself. After a few months I realized that the scanning was consuming far too much time and effort, and that I’d likely lose interest in the whole project soon because progress was too slow. So I shifted to scanning just the two outer-facing pages of the booklet, and the back insert, and the CD. Now I’m scanning just the front cover of the booklet and the back insert (which can be done in a single pass of the scanner).

And the end is begining to come into sight. I’m just finishing up the letter “O”, and I’ll start on “P” next week. If I can keep finding the time and motivation, I might actually finish by Thanksgiving. I anticipate about 160-170GB of files when all is said and done. Then late this year or early next year I’ll probably invest in a dual-layer DVD burner and make DVD backups for additional safe keeping.

With the price of huge (300-400GB) hard drives coming down, and high density (35GB) DVDs on the horizon, I’m also considering re-ripping all the CDs to FLAC format, which is a lossless compression that retains the original CD audio quality but results in much larger files than MP3. The FLAC files would then serve as my archive, and the MP3 would be used primarly for portability. But that project can wait a while.

Sandra McCracken – Best Laid Plans

Tremolo – Love Is the Greatest Revenge

Beki Hemingway & Jonathan Rundman – Tennesota

Patty Griffin – A Kiss In Time

Kasey Chambers – Wayward Angel

I ended up attending 1-1/2 days of Conerstone a week ago. I had just started to get a little caught up on sleep since being home from the Sr. High mission trip for a few days, and then Cornerstone put me another 10 hours or so in the hole (in addition to the 8-10 hour deficit I was already carrying). But I did see some good shows, and the weather was pretty good in terms of temperature, and I saw a few friends who I normally only see at Cornerstone.

Mindy Smith – One Moment More

A really enjoyable album that was just released a month or two ago…

Her voice strikes me as a cross between Shawn Colvin and Jennifer Knapp, with an occasional hint of Harriet Wheeler (from The Sundays).

I love music. Lots of artists, styles – I really love music.

I like musical artists. Having known a few, and conversed with even more, I appreciate their gifts, perspectives, and (in many cases) sacrifices that help make their music possible and available.

I don’t much care for record labels, at least the major labels. I’ve heard too many horror stories about artists getting screwed and the labels taking nearly all the profits from CD sales.

And I pretty much hate the RIAA, the legal/lobbying arm of the recording industry.

The MP3 file format has been popular since the mid 90s, and file sharing has been an issue for nearly as long. The writing has been on the wall for a long time now that a good percentage of consumers are satisfied to NOT have a hard CD copy of the music they like. The recording industry has had at least 3 years to come up with a solution to target those consumers. But rather than work together to come up with a compelling legal alternative to Kazaa and other file sharing networks, they’ve gone into a panic-based defense mode and tried to stop downloading – now taking it so far as to sue individuals for file sharing.

Yes, Apple now has their service for Mac users. And there have been a few (mostly lame) services for Windows users. But the general absence of an attractive legal option for downloading has resulted in a situation where Kazaa and other file sharing networks are the ONLY downloading option people – especially younger people – have known, so of course they’ve gotten used to the idea that music is “free”, and that it should be free. The recording industry is bemoaning this perception that music should be free, yet they themselves are primarily responsible for that perception by failing to come up with a comparable paid alternative.

So, recording industry, even though I more or less revile you, I’m going to hand you the solution to this issue:

1. No matter what steps you take, file sharing is going to happen. Get over it. Deal with it. Move on.

2. Cooperate with each other, NOW. Today. Not a single existing paid service today can hold a candle to Kazaa and the other file sharing networks in terms of variety and selection. You’re all too busy trying to protect your assets while you’ve squandered millions of dollars in potential revenues. If your boneheaded lawyers can’t accomplish this within a week, fire them and hire somebody who can. It doesn’t have to be that difficult.

3. Put your entire catalogs online. Not just a hit song here and there. I’m guessing that $10,000-$20,000 worth of hard drives would store everything that’s been released on CD to date.

4. Agree on a consistent pricing structure: a choice of 99 cents per song or $8 for all the songs on a CD. EPs $3-$5. Double CDs $12.

5. Stick with MP3 or some other common format. Offer a couple of different bitrate/quality choices for each song – maybe one at 128 kb/s and one at 256-320 kb/s. The pricing should be the same for either. In fact, let the customer download both if they want – one for a portable device and one for playback on a home stereo. Offer a non-compressed version of the CD on disc for $10.

6. Forget DRM (digital rights management). See Point #1 above. If you restrict what people can do with the music by using stupid media formats or control what portable devices the songs will play on, customers will avoid you like the plague.

7. Offer value-added services for those who pay for their downloads – for example, access to a web site for the artist. Here are some ideas for content:

a. A blog maintained by the artist
b. Regular updates/pics about the current tour, recording sessions, etc.
c. Streaming (non-downloadable) music containing early/alternate mixes, spoken messages from the artist, etc.
d. A discussion forum that the artist participates in

Limiting user logins to 3 times/day will discourage users from sharing their login info with the masses.

These suggestions are coming from a person who has around 1500 CDs in his collection, so I’ve put more than my share of dollars in recording industry coffers. And I’ve downloaded a few songs, too. I’m willing to pay for them once the industry creates a simple, convenient way to do so.

So, recording industry – stop whining and get busy!