50 quid bloke

Well, I’m off for a couple of weeks. If you need to reach me, I can be contacted on my i-Pod.

All my music has arrived. Much of it is as expected - and the Loretta Lynn is surprisingly good. But let me genuinely recommend Lucky Jim’s Our Troubles End Tonight: a nice slice of non-twee acousticness, discovered by chance after a review in Word. Find out more here

Matthew Pearl author of The Dante Club, has been in touch to thank me for my ‘kind words’ about his book. This, as I explained to him, is probably the finest piece of marketing I’ve ever witnessed by an author (well, I assume it really was him) as I now feel indebted not only to buy every book he writes from now on, but also to gush furiously about it.
It almost (but not quite) makes me feel slightly less pissed off about the fact that he’s 10 years younger than me.

Anyway, I asked him for suggestions on what I should read when I went on holiday. His recommendations? Zoe Heller’s Notes on a Scandal (already packed), and David Liss’ Conspiracy of Paper (now bought via Amazon marketplace).
Full holiday reading list to follow.
And now, he’s got nothing to do with this Dante Club.

My friend Mark called last night in a frenzy. He was very, very excited.
The reason? He had just tried out Napster (which launched here yesterday) and couldn’t believe how utterly brilliant it was.
Why so excited? Well, among Mark’s many peculiarities (and there is neither the time nor the space to describe the others), is the fact that he owns only a handful of CDs, if that. And in his words: “For only £9.95 a month, I can have thousands…”.
In true competitive form, he’s looking forward to leap-frogging friends who have spend years and fortunes building their CD collections up with a simple subscription to Napster.
Anyway, I tried Napster, and, frankly, apart from the whole WMA/ iPod square peg/ round hole problem, it’s quite brilliant. (although my testing tends to go: “Has it got John Martyn?” and if the answer’s yes it’s brilliant, if the answer’s “No” then it’s rubbish). Then again, from what I can see, so is iTunes, and so, is Rhapsody (just that they’re not over here yet). They are all, incidentally, much easier to use than KaZaA: just not quite as free.
Meanwhile, the whole subscription vs ownership (or some combination thereof) issue is going to be fascinating.
It’s one thing for a sad old bloke like me who feels he has to keep buying CDs in the same way that a shark has to keep moving. For others, like Mark, the subscription thing could well be a dream come true.
Next of course we want portable Wi-Fi receivers and a ubiquitous wi-fi network so we can pick up our subscribed audio stream wherever we are. All the music that ever existed, wherever and whenever you want it. Is it sad to get excited about this?
Oh - and the other twist in this is DAB radio: which brings you free streams of pretty much every type of music you could ever think of (and have you seen Pure’s The Bug - which allows you to digitally record DAB radio as if it were a VCR? I need never miss another Archer’s Omnibus John Peel show again).

Number 1: The ISkin Evo cover for your iPod. Beautifully designed. Very neat. Much better than that bulky, useless black cover that Apple make. Works with iTrip and your firewire/ power connection. Buy from the ever wonderful Everythingipod.

If you didn’t catch him on Later - suggest you take a look at some of the video here from a session he did in Spin magazine’s offices. Sort of Cat Stevens meets John Ottoway. I think. [via the catbirdseat]

…that the only reason I like am addicted to The O.C is because it features a lot of scantily clad teenage girls.
I protested and said: “No, it’s because it’s really smart..and well scripted, and, and, and…”. Which, I have to admit has all the plausability of the old “I get Playboy for the articles” brigade. But it’s true. Honest. Really. I promise.
Anyway, I can’t believe I’ve now gone and bought the soundtrack (well, a collection of songs from it - which is very good).
I know. I’m too old. I’ll give it up when the West Wing and Sopranos are back. Promise.

This months’ bought up a whole load of releases I can’t quite make my mind up about. Nothing I absolutely have to have, but plenty I’d quite like. Ideally, I’d try them all….but even in my more wreckless moments, I feel I have to show a little restraint.
Anyway, following a click and buy frenzy over the weekend, I’m currently waiting for the following to arrive
- The Pixies: Wave of Mutilation: Strictly to earn brownie points from Suzanne who’s a huge fan
- Wyclef Jean: The Preacher’s Son Not new, smart or clever, but I saw him on a late night Trevor Nelson TV show, and thought he was OK
- Rufus Wainwright: Want One: Again not new, and to be honest, I prefer his dad…but he was pretty impressive on Later…on Friday night.
- Lucky Jim: Our Troubles End Tonight: Brighton based duo - got a good review in Word.
- Magnetic Fields: I Don’t quite have the energy for 69 love songs. Word and the Guardian liked it. Uncut didn’t. I trusted Word and the Guardian.
- Loretta Lynn: Van Lear Rose: Uncut’s album of the month. Someone at work liked it. Might get me into country and western. which is now allowed as I dip towards middle age.
- Various: UK Sue label story: Some old R&B, which I pretended to like when I was trying to be a mod. Yet again, I blame Word, who put it in their chart.
More importantly, here’s what I didn’t buy…
- The Who: Then and Now…basically, I’ve got them all, and once they’re all jumbled up on an iPod, they’ll just be duplicates. Better just set it up as a playlist and burn it.
- Keane: Hopes and Fears - I reckon this is one of those albums you’ll pick up by osmosis as it’s going to be played everywhere.
- Devendra Banhart: Rejoicing in the hands of the holy Empress - as much as I sort of like him, it’s all just a little too mad to love (and did you see him dancing on Later…?)
- Graham Coxon: Happiness in Magazines - just not convinced.

Now, I love my dance mixes. And I love having my music digital. Unfortunately, the two don’t mix: once you rip a mix CD it ends up as different tracks, which, when played back always have a couple of seconds between them. Especially infuriating when you’re listening to something with loads of tracks all mashed up. What I want is the mix, the whole mix, and nothing but the mix.
Yes, there are certain players and burners that you can ask to remove the gaps on playback, but I want it to be perfect with every player on every device.
The answer: just turn the whole thing into one MP3. Obvious, yes, but how? I’ve no desire to start stitching them all back together.
Well, after an hour or so’s scouring, let me introduce you to Easy CD-DA Extractor, a very neat and powerful ripping tool.
Under the Edit menu it has a ‘combine tracks’ function which turns the whole CD into one track you can port anywhere. Just what I’ve been looking for. I am happy.

If you fancy spending a while clicking around a few MP3 blogs, downloading a few tunes, and wondering where this takes the whole “copyright theft vs fantastic free global promotional shop window” debate, you could do much worse than start with this report from the Berkman Center. You’ll find one link, very quickly leads to another.