Author: tunequest

Pearl Jam: I Got a Feeling [Beatles cover]

Back before all this digital music and internet mumbo jumbo, finding a live recording of a band’s performance was a tricky proposition. There were basically two ways to go about it. One, if you someone who was in a bootlegging circle, you could ask to trade a copy of their recording for a copy of one you had. These were the days before CD burners, so any copy you received was on lesser-quality cassette tape. Or two, you could stumble upon one in the racks at used music stores, finding a quasi-legal, imported recording.

Sometime in 1993, I happened upon a CD, imported from Italy, called I Got a Feeling, via that second method. It’s a high-quality recording of Pearl Jam, live at the legendary (and recently closed) CBGBs in New York City, November 8, 1991 (about 2 months after the release of Ten).

It was a surprise gig that ran about 40 minutes and was attended mostly by fan club members. That explains why the audience on the recording seems to know all the words, despite the fact that Ten wouldn’t enter the Billboard 200 (at #155) for another 2 months.

For comparisons sake, Nirvana’s Nevermind was already at #17 on the chart the week this was recorded.

Still, the show itself is an illustrative overview of that early period of the band’s history. The best part however is the final song of the set: a fantastic cover of The Beatles’ I’ve Got A Feeling with some nice ad-libbing from Eddie.

Download: I Got A Feeling (iTunes m4a file)

Enjoy.

Pinwheel Herman: My foot in the door of the postrock scene

At pretty much the first listen, a live version of this song got me hooked on Mouse on Mars, the German team with the heart of gold that expands minds while keeping the beat. In the summer of 2000, this song was the catalyst away from my college-era exploration of club and trance style electronic music, leading me toward the so-called postrock and “intelligent dance music” of the late 90s. From there it was an all downhill run into musical hipsterdom.

Without further ado, tunequest presents Pinwheel Herman, from the incomprehensibly-titled album Niun Niggung. Go nuts.

[audio:061113PinwheelHerman.mp3]

Japan’s Greatest Natural Resource

point by cornelius

Cornelius is more than a man, more than a musician. He is an idea, the result of thousands of years of simian evolution combined with Japanese tech brilliance and flair. Fortunately for the world, he uses his powers for good, spreading grooves and good cheer from the Land of the Rising Sun to all points on this earth.

If there’s any doubt that Cornelius is Japan’s greatest natural resource, here’s the proof. The song is Smoke. The man is Cornelius. The album is Point.

[audio:061112Smoke.mp3]

Cornelius - Point - Smoke

Explore more Cornelius.

Download the song Point of View. It’s glitch-funk artistry at its finest.

Beck – Lloyd Price Express

where it's at single

Beck’s song Where It’s At took the world by storm in 1996, forever banishing the idea that he was a one hit wonder and showing that he was an innovative and exciting musician. Several singles of the song were released during the year, each featuring a different set of remixes (for a total of seven), including an infamously lame version by Oasis’ Noel Gallagher.

That’s OK though, the Make Out City version more than makes up for it, full of horns and bombast. But here we’re going to get a little funky: the John King remix of Where It’s At, entitled Lloyd Price Express:

[audio:061110LloydPriceExpress.mp3]

Cosmic Wonder: Songs like this are why I can’t decide about Puffy (amiyumi)

PuffySpike.png

Puffy Amiyumi is a very mixed bag musically. Despite the girls’ massive popularity in Japan (and moderate success in the States), I often find myself highly conflicted about their music. I can’t decide whether it’s superficial pop or subtle Japanese brilliance. Some of it is downright annoying and I occasionally consider purging it from the library.

But damn, these girls like to toy with my emotions, and put together something wonderful. With flashes of inspiration like this, I can’t help but give them another chance.

[audio:061107CosmicWonder.mp3]

The song is COSMIC Wonder from the album Spike.

Migrate Your iTunes Library from Windows to Mac (and keep your ratings, play counts and date added)

Note: This article was written with iTunes 7 in mind. However, the principle holds for moving comparable versions (ie iTunes 6 Win to iTunes 6 mac) or for moving upstream (iTunes 6 to iTunes 7). Also, the procedure should work for moving your iTunes library from one computer to another, Mac-to-Mac, PC-to-PC, or any combination of the two. You can even use this method to clone an iTunes library from one computer to many others.

windows iTunes migration
Apple’s market share has been growing dramatically. Many observers attribute that growth to the introduction of the Intel-based Macintosh as well as the so-called “halo effect” of the iTunes-iPod phenomenon. If you’re one of those users who have made the switch from Windows to Mac OS X because of said halo then you probably have already established an iTunes Library (with valuable hours spent creating playlists, rating songs and increasing play counts).

It would be a shame to lose all that hard work and data when switching platforms. Fortunately, it is a rather simple* procedure to move all your music to your new Mac while preserving all that precious, gooey metadata. Some guides say to export your existing library to XML and re-import it one the new machine. But that’s a bit complicated and it doesn’t really work. Since both the Mac and Windows versions of iTunes use the same file format for the library file, all you need to do is copy the library files from one computer to the other, while making sure iTunes doesn’t forget where the songs are located.

Continue reading →