uglyredhonda

I wasn't home, so I set my computer to capture the Edge's stream. Naturally, the Edge's streaming server went down about fifteen minutes after Matt came on. He sounded good - loose and conversational.

The merged subject is wrong. The Hour is on Monday, The Strombo Show is on Sunday.

http://www.edge.ca/station/strombo_show.cfm Maybe this station list is right: 99.3 Fox Vancouver @ 2-5pm Power 97 Winnipeg @ 4-7pm 102.1 the Edge Toronto @ 5-8pm FM96 London @ 5-8pm Y108 Hamilton @ 5-8pm The Edge streams it, as I'm sure others do.

Yeah, I saw that he said, "Those drums aren't a loop." But I'm trying to figure out what he meant by that, as it absolutely didn't sound like live percussion. I initially took what he said to mean that it wasn't a pre-programmed Garageband loop - that he was triggering the samples as an instrument. Basically, the percussion on the "Black Helicopter" demo sounded more like real percussion to me (even though it was obvious it was Garageband) than the teaser. Which isn't to say that it sounded crappy on the teaser - it just sounded more like an artistic choice, like what you might hear in ambient music. It just didn't sound like something being physically struck - it sounded synthesized. Naturally, being able to hear it again would help answer the question, but that's why we're in this in the first place. ;) The problem is that you can probably count on one hand the number of people around here who could capture a streaming Myspace track to share it as an MP3. And nearly all of those people would have been at work or at school during the two hours that the track was online - and if any of them heard the track (and actually considered grabbing it), they more than likely assumed they'd be able to deal with it later. I mean, I'm not even sure I made it through the entire clip - I just figured I'd give it a more serious listen when I got home.

It was okay. Definitely the definition of a "teaser". Slow-ish piano/keyboard piece with drum samples. Reminded me slightly of "Dusk". Some guitar (mostly acoustic) pieces at times. No vocals. I thought it sounded kind of ambient (eg, Massive Attack). Struck me as more of a concept/idea than as a fully-formed song. (I believe it was in the range of forty-five seconds to a minute long.) Not something I'd listen to repeatedly, but really makes me curious to hear what the finished product will sound like. It couldn't have been on his Myspace more than a couple of hours - I'd be shocked if anybody captured it.

MapleMusic has both: http://www.maplemusic.com/artists/dal/disc.asp

I was able to get their three MTV Live performances as MP3s. (There was actually a third that wasn't uploaded to YouTube.) For those who might want them: [hide_me] http://www.megaupload.com/?d=C1GN64GC [/hide_me]

Pretty sure Matt was joking. Dala scored an appearance on a pilot episode of a CBC TV version of Vinyl Cafe, which taped the night of November 13th (the last night of the tour) in Barrie. Even if they'd stayed a few more shows, they still wouldn't have been able to finish the tour.

One Massey vid: Plus a few photos: Massey Hall BTW - the video is just okay - I was in the upper balcony. It's mostly unobstructed, but there's not much detail. Some of the pictures are a little better (I like this one). 3 vids and a few photos from Saint Catharines are in the Saint Catharines thread.

3 vids: (my favorite of the bunch) Plus a few photos: Saint Catharines 1 Massey vid and a few photos are in the Massey thread.

Honestly, I had this problem at both SC and Massey. It seemed like it happened more often when Matt was just winging it - when he had something specific in mind to talk about, it wasn't such a big deal. Plus, he kept himself (intentionally or not) open to audience comment, and sometimes the random comments from the crowd would interrupt his train of thought (or overpower what he was saying).

He didn't necessarily say it was better - he just said that it was better in a technical sense - meaning that he felt his actual performance (hitting the notes, etc) was stronger in SC. Having attended both shows, I'd give the bare edge to Massey, but they were just entirely different shows. SC had such an amazing intimacy that was completely absent (obviously) in Massey. But Massey felt like you were watching something happen, and was an amazing shared experience, despite the few flaws in the first half. Plus, "Fated" at Massey trumped everything at SC. Having said that, I would still absolutely love a recording of SC (and wish I had decent equipment to have done it myself), but I think it's unlikely, particularly given the size of the audience. I didn't record all of SC, but I did capture three songs on my digital camera. I still need to pull them off of my camera and convert them, but I hoping to upload them tomorrow night.

I think the last half of the Massey show gave it the edge. It might have been the intangibles, but I was just blown away. Any chance folks could keep these running through the beginning of the week? (Selfish reasons - I'm not getting home until Monday.) I flew up from Atlanta for St Catharines and Massey, and both shows exceeded expectations. Just an amazing couple of nights.

The opening songs were awesome, if maybe a couple of missed chords in there. But I thought the next third of the show was just okay. At the half-way point, I thought to myself that Saint Catharines was better, and was a little bummed that this was the show being recorded. But not long after that, Matt was on. It was like all of the distractions went away, and the focus shifted to the songs. "Fated" was absolutely phenomenal. (I actually wondered at one point if Matt's early goofs were from being aware that the set was "supposed" to be perfect, given that it was being recorded.) I think Matt's set clocked in at two hours, fifteen minutes. Edited to add: I honestly wish that Matt at some point had just told those guys to be quiet - in a nice way, such that the suggestion would have taken. (Seriously, who yells "Give it up for Matt Good!!!" in the middle of a song?)

Clarity came out seven months before Beautiful Midnight.

Not sure if this is what you're looking for, but I've used this for years: http://www.milosoftware.com/cdwave/ It's free. The author requests registration ($15) after a month, but it's not required. (Come to think of it, as often as I've used it, I should probably register.)

There was also the "Black Helicopter" demo from Christmas of 2005 that he streamed on his website.

http://www.hitthewall.com/home.asp Click on Online Store on the left, then "Concert Tickets". The page there says that the show is open to the public. I didn't scrutinize it enough to see if you needed a student ID to buy tickets. (19+ show, btw.)

If you play guitar, you'll quickly understand why the EIA / 23 similarity is just a coincidence. The similar parts between the two songs can be played with one finger. Start with an E minor power chord (two fingers) - middle finger on the second fret of the A string, ring finger on the second fret of the D string. Lift your ring finger, play the two notes back and forth. Next, put your ring finger back down, lift your middle finger, and play the two notes back and forth. Once you've mastered it with two fingers, hit Expert level and play it with one. From there, the songs aren't the same. 23 is in Drop-D, so the next note is the low D string open. EIA goes to G, which you can one-finger via the third fret of the low E string. It's one thing if the part were something super-complicated. But it'd be pretty easy for two guitarists to find that bit the same way - via an E minor power chord.

Which album was that? The one that wasn't released in America, or the one that was released in America (but not until 2001) that Americans didn't buy?

Which it can't be because it would be almost impossible for Jimmy Eat World to have heard Automatic. It wasn't a single in America. Just because songs are similar doesn't mean one is a rip-off of the other.

I'm kinda back and forth about it. On one hand, I think it sucks when the best seats are snapped up by some exclusive pre-sale that people might get locked out of. On the other hand, it sucks having to gamble on the seat you can get in the pre-sale versus the set you might (or might not) get during the actual sale. The best thing would be if they just specified which sections were available during the pre-sale. That way, if the good seats were already gone, you'd know to just wait. (Honestly, I think TM knows they can sell some shitty seats during the pre-sale.) I got a second-row, second-balcony ticket for Massey during the pre-sale. I figured that an unobstructed view was probably better than gambling on an nth-row seat downstairs. BTW - folks should definitely look into the St Catherines show. As of this post, there are still 7th row seats available. (So much for that "sell out fast" prediction.)

Except that people don't use "you may" as idle speculation. Normally, people offering speculation say things like "maybe we'll" or "hopefully, it means". The usage of "you may" implies reason or knowledge behind the speculation, e.g., "You may even see gas prices at $4 before the end of the summer." That's amplified by the fact that your cause and effect didn't match. Matt being friends with Dale doesn't in any way suggest US tour dates. If he's visiting the US as a vacation destination, why would he want to play shows there? He seems perfectly content strumming a guitar at Dale's place.

I've got a component tape deck hooked up to my computer. I'd be happy to convert it, but that means shipping it to the southeastern US.