alien protocol

"This team we’re playing is yesterday. Look at that band – silly-ass outfits with skirts on..."

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 17:10:00 -0700

“This team we’re playing is yesterday. Look at that band – silly-ass outfits with skirts on guys who play those stupid tubas. It’s a team of the sixties trying to hold onto the past. Knock their ass off and take pride in it. You can’t be awed by that sorry group – hairy legs, little skirts, and those tubas. See their ridiculous alums out there. They all want to think they’re from Hollywood. Look how they’re dressed. Fifty-year-old women with miniskirts.”

- Bill Walsh to his Stanford football team before they took they field against USC in 1992. Stanford won, 23-9.

Classic!

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 11:08:19 -0700

Classic!

A Review Of The New Metallica Record That Metallica Doesn't Want You To Read

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 12:19:00 -0700

OK, let me come clean here. I, Alien Protocol, own and bought every Metallica record up to the Black album. It’s not something that I am ashamed of, in spite of the d-baggery this rock outfit has been known for over the last 10 years.

I recently read that these fine gents hosted a record release party for fans, bloggers, and journalists in London. No non-disclosure contracts were passed around, no references were made regarding the need to keep this new record under wraps. But when some of these journalists and bloggers went back home and posted (mostly positive) previews of this highly anticipated record, Metallica sicked a third party on all of them, demanding that they take down every single word written about the new album. That’s right. They went and put the kibosh on anyone populating teh internets with loads of goodwill and free viral hype.

WTF?

So, as a former Metallica fan, I feel it is my duty to spread the word about this new record. Since I wasn’t invited to this ill-conceived listening party, I will rely on the words of Bob Mulhouse, blogger from uber-cool website The Quietus. You see, The Quietus was one of those sites that was told to remove their (mostly positive) review of the yet-to-be-named record. What a shame.

It is currently June 10th, 12:20PM PST… I will officially start waiting for my note of thanks from Metallica, most likely to be delivered in the form of a cease-and-desist letter. I will keep you all posted.

Now, without further adieu… here’s the review:

METALLICA: New Album Preview
by Bob Mulhouse

Being a fan of the Danish-Californian heavy metal quartet Metallica is hard work. They’re the quintessential band of two halves, pulling in millions of fans from 1983 to 1995 with five mostly excellent albums, which ranged in approach from youthful violence to radio-friendly hummability. In 1996, however, Metallica released the first of a shockingly poor string of alternative-rock, covers and live records, finishing up with 2003’s terrible St. Anger, the most disappointing metal CD ever released. Staying loyal to them after this many years isn’t easy, frankly.

So what, you might be thinking– all bands have their creative peaks and troughs, surely? Well, you’re not getting it. Metallica aren’t just a metal act: they are the Led Zeppelin of their generation, a band which your kids will revere 30 years from now to the same degree as we do the Beatles and the Stones today. To love them is to really love them. Their work ethic (which other band spends three years on the road at stadium level?) and their damnable songwriting ability (leading to songs of visceral power which you can still sing in the bath) has made them bigger, heavier and more essentially here than anyone else. That’s why we still pay attention to them after more than a decade of recorded dross. That’s why even their drummer Lars Ulrich’s petulant sparring with Napster in 2001 and the painful-to-watch Some Kind Of Monster documentary (made during their group-therapy sessions) don’t outweigh the hope we all felt when it was announced in 2007 that none other than Rick Rubin would be helming their new studio album, the first in five years.

Rick Rubin, as any fule kno, is responsible for launching the careers of many a fine band (including Slayer, Metallica’s sometime contemporaries), but– more relevantly in this case– has also revived the fortunes of creatively ossified artists whose moment in the sun has passed, such as Johnny Cash and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Could The Beastie Beard breathe life into Metallica? God, we hoped so, simultaneously aware that Ulrich et al have raised and dashed our hopes before.

It was with some trepidation, therefore, that I attended the playback of Metallica’s new album at the HQ of Universal, their UK record company, on 3 June. We were permitted to hear six of the 10 tracks which will ultimately appear on the album– which, a rep from the Q-Prime management company informed us, is referred to colloquially by Metallica as ‘Nine epics and one song’. The sense of occasion was reinforced by the presence of almost the entire editorial teams of the UK’s two biggest metal magazines, glaring at each other over the tea urn. [What? Metal Hammer and Terrorizer? -Antiquiet.]

Right from the off, it’s a relief to hear that the utterly awful production of St. Anger is no more. Ulrich has replaced the old dustbin lid from that album with an actual snare drum, and the sound is fresh, clean and resonant (even though the songs are still only rough mixes at this stage). The first song, like the rest of the ‘epics’, is between six and eight minutes long and begins with a bass intro from low-ender extraordinaire Robert Trujillo. Moving rapidly from riff to riff, the song bursts with energy and ideas: singer and rhythm guitarist James Hetfield barks “Luck runs out!” repeatedly and throws in some twisty, semi-progressive riffs which could have been lifted directly from, their last truly good album, 1988’s …And Justice For All. Guitarist Kirk Hammett, who was banned from soloing on St. Anguish for no adequately explored reason, is on fire, whipping out the melodic, rapid-fire shreds for which he is famous over an extended solo section – almost as if he’s making up for lost time. This is Metallica’s best song in ages, perhaps since the 1980s.

The next cut has a working title of Flamingo and is going to be the first single. Now, Metallica’s lead singles have been breathtakingly crap since 1995, so it was a relief to hear that Flamingo (as it almost definitely will not be called) is a modernised take on their amazing 1988 song One, all balladry at its front end before a speeded-up metalstorm at the back. Hetfield delivers a clean-picked intro which reminded me of the Beach Boys (I know… but I only got to hear it once, all right?) before the body of the song, which is basically like The Unforgiven from 1991’s Black Album. If you’re familiar with the chord progression behind the solo in Am I Evil?, the ancient Diamond Head song which Metallica made their own, you’ll be able to picture the under-solo riffage in this song– all simple, effective major-interval jumps.

However, let us not forget that this is modern Metallica– and the next two songs are much less fun. The first, which may be called We Die Hard judging by the frequency with which Hetfield barks the phrase, starts boringly but accelerates halfway through and enters slightly proggy territory, all stop-start riff stabs and a clever time signature. The next song is very …And Justice, a lengthy, unhurried workout which revolves around the line “Bow down / Sell your soul to me / I will set you free”, itself a 1988 line if I ever heard one. Apart from dexterous soloing from Hammett, it’s not great.

So far, we’ve had two good songs and two dull ones– not a bad track record for new ’Tallica, believe me. However, track five is tedious, a combination of the aimless riffery of St. Anger and the pointless rock chorusing of Load, the album which almost finished Metallica in 1996. “Crying, weeping, shedding strife!” sings Hetfield in that slick Enter Sandman manner, over an unthreatening clean midsection which would (and no doubt will) suit VH1 down to the ground.

At this point the Q-Prime geezer asks us if we want to hear more, and fortunately we say yes– because the final song (and indeed, it is ‘The Song’, the little guy among the nine epics) is great, a genuine slice of thrash metal that starts fast and stays that way. Like a slower, less precise Battery (the opening track of 1986’s flawless Master Of Puppets album), the song nips in and out, not outstaying its welcome and proving that on some level, Metallica still have the necessary vitriol to impress their older fans. OK, it reminded me a bit of Dyer’s Eve, the last song on Justice, which had a kind of “I suppose we’d better do a fast one for the fans” feel about it– but in 2008, Hetfield and Ulrich delivering any form of thrash metal is not to be sneered at.

We file out of the listening room, not saying much. This album could be good, or it could be mediocre– too much depends on the other four songs to make a call at this point. I try not to agonise about it, but this matters, damn it. It really does.

I said it wasn’t easy being a Metallica fan in 2008, didn’t I?

"The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak."

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 13:35:20 -0700

“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.”

- Words of design wisdom from abstract expressionist painter Hans Hofmann (he was a web designer way before his time)

Imagine

Sat, 31 May 2008 15:00:00 -0700

Saw this down by the tracks in Berkeley, on the back wall of the sake factory.

"Guess we've still got a ways to go before people figure shit out"

Sat, 31 May 2008 00:22:00 -0700

syntheticpubes:

Just had a band recommended to me by a friend. Went to Hype Machine to check them out, but no luck—all tracks unplayable. Found some on YouTube, but I can’t let the whole page of search results play consecutively like on HM. Guess that means I’m going to have to find and pirate their whole goddamn discography and not feel bad about it because they backed me into this corner.

Guess we’ve still got a ways to go before people figure shit out.

I run into these kinds of headaches just about every day in my quest to bring great music to the masses.

Probably the most disheartening thing is finding artists who put up 30 second “clips” of their songs. Oh, what a great idea! Because (of course) 30 seconds of some song is going to make me fall under a band’s trance and go out and purchase the rest of their music. I might even by a t-shirt because those 30 gilded seconds of music listening really shook my foundation, and now I’m in the mood to really make a statement on your behalf.

Yeah. Riiiiiight.

So artists… if you’re listening… give us fans at least ONE FULL SONG in the MP3 FORMAT for us to DOWNLOAD FOR FREE. That way we can listen to your music when we’re not tethered to our computer (iPods anyone?). And maybe we’ll even share your music with persons who might really and truly fall under your trance.

And trust me, if we like what we hear, some of us will go to great lengths and and do just about whatever you want in order to hear and experience more.

Another One Bites The Dust

Wed, 28 May 2008 18:53:19 -0700

My condolences to Subverse. I’ve heard this is the second iPod he’s killed in a span of 15 months.

"For me, possessing things is not that interesting. Living in a grand environment to show myself and..."

Sat, 24 May 2008 13:19:01 -0700

“For me, possessing things is not that interesting. Living in a grand environment to show myself and others that I have wealth has zero appeal. Whatever I own is temporary, since we’re only here for a short period of time. It’s what we do and produce, it’s our actions, that will last forever. That’s real value.”

- Words of wisdom from multi-billionaire and Central park speedwalker Nicolas Berggruen

"God hated reality but realized it was still the only place to get a good steak."

Sat, 24 May 2008 13:03:00 -0700

“God hated reality but realized it was still the only place to get a good steak.”

- Woody Allen

He Took a Polaroid Every Day, Until the Day He Died

Thu, 22 May 2008 06:49:00 -0700

It started out:

Yesterday I came across a slightly mysterious website — a collection of Polaroids, one per day, from March 31, 1979 through October 25, 1997. There’s no author listed, no contact info, and no other indication as to where these came from. So, naturally, I started looking through the photos. I was stunned by what I found.

And continued into perhaps the most moving moment I’ve had all week.

Click here to see it.

And click here if you want to know more about this story.

Flatiron Building, 1903

Thu, 22 May 2008 06:42:00 -0700

One of my favorite buildings, taken from a great collection of old black & white photos of NYC.

"Obama made low-key campaign stops this weekend, hitting a street festival in Keizer and stopping for..."

Mon, 19 May 2008 17:27:00 -0700

“Obama made low-key campaign stops this weekend, hitting a street festival in Keizer and stopping for ice cream in Eugene.”

- CNN on Obama’s (apparently) low-key gathering of 75,000 people in Portland, OR

What the hell is the point of Facebook?

Mon, 19 May 2008 13:06:00 -0700

Damn, Eric Filipkowski really seemed to nail it in his piece titled, “What the hell is the point of Facebook?”

I go online to avoid physical contact with people. So what does this 4 billion dollar ass bucket do? It takes that away from me. Now any douchebag on my friend list can poke me anytime they want. They can even do much, much worse than that, it seems.

Which leads me to the real reason I hate this goddam piece of shit: Vampires. Vampires, Werewolves, “Which Star Trek Character Are You?” quizzes. All that shit. I guess these are what they mean by “apps” and “pokes”. But again, not totally sure.

If you have ever sent me any of these things, I hate you. If you have spent $1 of real money to send me a virtual gift, you should hate yourself.

Perhaps I should not be piling on here. I guess a $15 billion valuation is good for everyone in this space… right? But I guess I also fear the consequences as well.

Virtual gifts and a not-very-sustainable advertising platform don’t really add up to much, IMHO. But you can’t scoff at all the people who have signed up. That counts for something. I agree with friends of mine who muse wisely that Facebook is the new face of daytime TV, both for women trapped at home or those in the working world (with the internet, they can now timeshift their diet of daytime TV-like activity). I have heard some of my friends say that they never signed up for Facebook, their girlfriends did it for them.

I’ll be keeping a lookout for the Proctor & Gamble ads right alongside that f-ing annoying Superpoke stat counter and Zombies BS that I just can’t seem to figure out.

"Half of all new college graduates now believe that self-employment is more secure than a full-time..."

Mon, 19 May 2008 10:58:07 -0700

“Half of all new college graduates now believe that self-employment is more secure than a full-time job.”

- The Next American Frontier - WSJ.com (via zachklein) (via fred-wilson)

Mmmmmm… I can’t wait for this show to happen.The...

Sun, 18 May 2008 22:15:00 -0700

Mmmmmm… I can’t wait for this show to happen.

The last Fishbone / Uptones show was off the charts good. This one should blow the roof off of the Down Low.

The Sun Sets On AT & T Park

Fri, 16 May 2008 14:16:00 -0700

Aren’t I stoked that my low-end phone from Sprint has a camera that comes equipped with the much sought after “Monet” lens filter…? I swear, I didn’t even have to tell it to do this. It just did it.

I can’t tell if it is cool or if it sucks… but I guess that’s what I call ART!

Truth In Website Logos

Tue, 13 May 2008 21:28:02 -0700

Props to the gang at Collegehumor for this one.

San Francisco In Ruins, May 28, 1906

Tue, 13 May 2008 09:27:00 -0700

I got a few compliments regarding the San Francisco in 1851 photo I posted earlier, so I thought I would share one of my other favorites in case you haven’t seen it before.

Click for a bigger image.

This is an aerial photo shot from about 2000 feet above the San Francisco Bay in May of 1906, just over a month after the great earthquake of 1906. Click on the photo above to get a high resolution version of the image, and you’ll be amazed at the detail.

It’s really cool to see a rather under-developed Russian Hill and Telegraph Hill, and spotting the rows of large sail-powered ships docked on the wharf always trips me out. You can also see the temporary military barracks set up along the Embarcadero, just to the north of the Ferry Building.

Fake Robert Johnson Gets His Own Widget

Mon, 12 May 2008 17:04:00 -0700

I’ve been a fan of Fake Robert Johnson ever since I was alerted to his presence on Blogger. He really drops knowledge when it comes to assessing the current peculiarities of the internet music world.

Check him out, sporting his own custom MP3 Jackpot widget for his tune “Love In Vain”:

As one of the guys that lobbied/counseled Creative Commons...

Tue, 06 May 2008 06:45:00 -0700

As one of the guys that lobbied/counseled Creative Commons during the creation of the Music Sharing License (which is a more musician-centric version of the Attribution-Noncommercial Share Alike License, save for the derivative works provisions), I can say that the intention of its use was to legalize reality for all musicians who accepted it. It had nothing to do with a “free as in beer” mentality. You can bet that Mr. Reznor will exploit all available options for his copyrights, and haul in princely sums for all his efforts.

But the notion that musicians require “mainstream media” to break virally isn’t really the right way to look at the problem. First off – and most important – musicians require a growing catalog of outstanding product that has legs and can be performed in an entertaining manner in a live environment before they even have a chance of breaking virally. There are plenty of bands giving away music on the internet that have a good song or two, but very few who meet the above criteria.

After that… viral growth requires a mix of well-coordinated activities amongst key actors in markets where activity has been observed. And these key actors can be mainstream or not. Period. There are plenty of acts that have become successful with less-than-mainstream exposure.

Plus, it’s 2008. How come no one is calling the internet “mainstream” yet? Shall I be the first…?

jakoblodwick:

catbird:

fascinated:

Nine Inch Nails released a new record today. It is free (as in beer and speech) and is licensed under a Creative Commons license, according to the liner notes.

Trent is answering all those questions we’ve had for years with his actions. What if artists released their work directly and retained their rights? What if their releases were free and remixable? Would it matter? We will find out shortly, thank you Trent.

I still think the more important question is: “What if an artist that hasn’t already built a career on the label system released their work directly, gave it away for free, retained their rights, etc. Would it matter?”

The answer, sadly, to that one is “no, it doesn’t matter.” Myriad small unheard-of bands are out there posting their albums for free every day, but there’s still no good way for them to get heard.

For all the chatter about how new technology/Music 2.0/viral marketing etc. has the power to “break” new artists, there are precious few examples of this actually occurring.

This is true, there are precious few examples. Kind of sad — yet I’m optimistic, because I cannot believe that art relies on mainstream media.

I am working on this problem. If nothing else, I will give you a valiant attempt in the coming months as I begin releasing great music from (mostly) unknown artists.