Music to stream and download:
The benefits are over, but our friends have a long way to go recovering from the fire at Columbia House. A bunch of bands who played the benefits (including me as Reverse Polish Notation, and my band Ginger Ibex) donated tracks for a digital album – pay what you like, all money goes to the Columbia House folks:
A couple months ago I wrote about using a standing desk. In that article I mentioned a Kickstarter project for a portable standing desk. I did contribute to that project, it was funded, and today I received my Ninja Standing Desk.
I made a quick an unboxing and initial test video:
I haven’t had a chance to work on it yet, but here are some initial impressions:
– Assembly was quite easy (once I refreshed my memory with their video. They have not yet printed up instruction sheets – I had an early-bird delivery).
– The shock-corded aluminum tubes that support the shelves and let them fold in half for packing work well, though it took a bit of wrangling to pull them apart once assembled (which is not a bad thing when you plan to put a computer or monitor on them).
– The long straps onto which you fasten the shelves are all “loop” velcro on one side. I would have liked it if they had a bit of “hook” velcro on one end in such a way as to keep the strap coiled when in the bag (they were tacked with a pin for delivery).
– The door hooks worked well. It also comes with drywall hooks.
– It is packed in a carry bag that has enough room for some other items like an iPad or a small keyboard.
I don’t know when I’ll next take a trip for using this, but I’m happy to have it. Once they fulfill their Kickstarter rewards I’m sure this will be a big hit – visit their website for more info and ordering.
And if you like the music in the video, that’s one of my pieces…
The web was abuzz yesterday after a New York Times Arts blogger published this article about how for her current tour Amanda Palmer is soliciting volunteer local string, sax and brass players to perform with her in each city’s show.
Other bloggers piled on bemoaning that musicians should be paid. Facebook threads got acrimonious. People who don’t understand what it actually takes to pull off a tour and album release (never mind Kickstarter rewards fulfillment to nearly 25,000 people) with NO corporate support complained that she was being a cheap “millionaire.” My personal favorite snipe was the person who claimed she “owns an expensive condo in the South End” – they had obviously never been inside the Cloud Club, which is two 4-story narrow brownstones cobbled together out of found objects by owner and outsider artist Lee Barron. He lets upcoming artists live there for free – AP was one of those (and the last time I was in that part of the house she still seems to have rooms there).
The controversy appears to be fueled by people who view AP in the same way they view Lady Gaga – a top-tier famous musician with lots of fans touring a massive show. They may have heard of AP when she was in the Dresden Dolls, they know she tweets a lot (as does Gaga, but AP’s tweeting is several orders of magnitude more), but basically she is seen by non-fans as another greedy (some adding “untalented” since her music is not to their taste) superstar trying to take advantage of fans desperate to have any contact with her.
Add to this that she is recruiting volunteers from instrumental groups most often associated with the Classical genre. Members of this group are more accustomed to getting paid a decent wage for any professional activity – though it’s becoming a different economic world for them recently (several orchestras have locked out their players after failed contract negotiations). Aside from top-tier record company-sponsored bands, Rock musicians hardly ever draw a salary and consider themselves lucky to earn gas money most nights from a club/bar gig.
Some items that drew my attention this week:
If you are a bicycle commuter you may have wished for a way to charge your mobile devices on the go like your hydrocarbon-burning peers – now you can, with the Ecoxgear Ecoxpower Pedal Powered Headlight + GPS/Mobile Device Charger:
Besides being an awesome musician with his band The Army of Broken Toys, Walter Sickert is a perhaps even more amazing artist. Check out this time-lapse video demonstrating some of the things he does to create one of his art pieces:
My friends Michael J. Epstein and Sophia Cacciola’s Kickstarter project has (as of today) 12 days to make another $5,700 to their minimum goal. You should donate at least a dollar even if you don’t care for horror movies for no other reason than they are making sure to personally thank every single donor at any level, plus communicate constantly about how it’s going and what they are learning about Kickstarter in the process:
Somewhere in the Boston subway system this weekend look for me busking with geek guitarist extraordinaire Matthew Lister. We’ll be covering tunes like this: