Mac OS X Tip

After migrating over to my new iMac, I realized that my external media drives were spinning down after a period of time and would go to sleep.  This was bugging me because it would cause a delay in the system when I tried to access music or photos.  I could not get this to change, no matter what I tried in the system preferences under power settings.  I know this was one of those set it and forget it type of things because I didn’t have this problem on the old G5.  After doing some digging I found the answer and I thought I’d share it in case someone else is having the problem.  The power settings for external drives can be manipulated via the terminal with the command “pmset” AKA: “Power Management Settings”.   Open up the terminal (found in Applications  -> Utilities) and type the following command and a numeric value in minutes to represent the sleep time.

sudo pmset -a disksleep VALUE

You will be asked for your password and then the settings will be in effect.  Since I did not want my discs to go to sleep at all, I chose to do a value of zero which told the system to never put the discs to sleep.  Since this is a desktop I’m not worried about saving battery life.  I ran the following command:

sudo pmset -a disksleep 0 

Problem solved!

Posted: September 4th, 2010 under Geeks - No Comments.

Boom Chick

I have recently been exposed to what I think is the finest 20 minutes of  music to be recorded in some time.  The album is called “Show Pony” and the band is called Boom Chick.  This duo out of Brooklyn New York has only been together just two short years but they music they make is loud, passionate and takes great inspiration from the early days of Rock n Roll and Electric Blues.  The band consists of Frank Hoier on Guitar and Moselle Spiller on drums.  They have managed to fuse the passion and angst of Punk Rock, The rockabilly riffs of early Rock n Roll, Surf Music and the Legacy of the Blues and made it into a sound all their own.

If you were asked to label this band into a single category it would be difficult; Punk Rock Blues?  Dirty Blues? Garage Rock? Electric Rock n Roll?  In the end, it really doesn’t matter what kind of music label you try to apply to the band, this is simply damn good music that is meant to be enjoyed.  ”Show Pony” opens up with The Ghost Of Bo Diddley, a blistering musical tribute to one of the major influences of this band mixed together with some great blues inspired lyrical imagery. The second song is  my personal favorite track called Cryin Rooster, an electric slide blues piece that instantly makes you sit up and take notice. Another great track is ”Nail Gun” – a Link Wray style riff that grabs you by the arm and forces you to catch up to it:

The rest of the album does not let you up for air and continues at a blistering pace to the very end.  The closing track of the album “When I Don’t Love My Rock N Roll” definitely does not finish the album on a whisper, it’s a rocking blues track that makes you want to dance and it even throws in a brief homage to John Lee Hooker.

The whole release is only 20 minutes long but that is more than enough time to realize how talented this band is.  I cannot wait to hear what they come up with next.  Boom Chick is currently on tour across the united states through the end of September.  ”Show Pony” is due to be released this Winter. Do yourself a favor, catch one of their shows and buy this CD when it comes out.

Posted: September 2nd, 2010 under Music - No Comments.

Cough, Cough, Cough

Pretty dusty around here.  Hope to change that shortly.  Stay tuned.

Posted: August 25th, 2010 under Misc - No Comments.

Emily Wells

Last spring, somebody posted a link to this video on a message board I am on:

 

Go now and buy her music, it is one of the most unique and amazing musical experiences I have had in many many years.  We saw her perform this piece live.  She mixes her stuff in real time on stage and it’s a really cool experience to behold. 

 

A nice little interview with her recently:

Posted: December 27th, 2009 under Music - No Comments.

I still exist, honest

barren

I have not had the best work-life balance of late.  It is one of the reasons that my musings on music have been few. New musical adventures have been sparse but they still exist.  I need to write about Emily Wells both on CD and in concert, the Decemberists show at the Edgefield, Explosions In The Sky, The Boxmasters, My Brightest Diamond, John Doe & The Sadies and my impressions of the latest Wilco album.  More soon, I hope.

Posted: August 23rd, 2009 under Misc, Music - No Comments.

My Obsessive Collecting Gene

While organizing my MP3 collection today I discovered a rather disturbing fact: I now have 38 live Wilco shows that I’ve collected over the years.  This adds up to 9.82 gigabytes of music, 950 songs and over 3 days of continuous live Wilco and does not take into account the large collection of Jeff Tweedy solo shows I have.   The only other live music in my collection that beats that currently is my Grateful Dead bootleg collection.  Besides owning Dick’s Pick’s 1-35, I own a ton of other releases that add up to 20 gigs of music, over 1500 songs and over 8 days of continuous live Grateful Dead.  My current count of my music collection is over 37,000 songs, over 260 gigabytes of music and I could play music for 24 hours a day for 113 straight days and never hear the same mp3 twice…

Posted: June 14th, 2009 under Music - No Comments.

Roll on down the road

A few months back I went to see J.J. Cale with my friend Mark.  At the time, I only knew of him as the “guy who clapton covered” and not much else.  While waiting for the show to start we were watching what first seemed to be stage hands tuning the gear.  Soon we realized that it was the band itself and a short while later JJ Cale came out and fiddled with his gear to.  Without so much as an announcment or even the house lights dimming, the band kicked into song and the night got under way.  I really enjoyed the show even though I only knew one or two tracks.  I found myself grooving along with the rest of the crowd.  Since then I’ve picked up a lot of his back catalog and his latest release ”Roll On“.

While I was driving to southern Oregon to go camping two weeks back I played Roll On a couple of times.  Like a lot of Cale’s music, I unconsciously find my self grooving along with it.  This latest effort has a couple of weaker efforts on it but all in all it’s a strong album that I find myself putting in rotation more and more.  ”Down To Memphis” is probably my favorite stand out along with “Cherry Street”, “Who Knew” and “Roll On”.  Cale is often criticized for sounding the same with each release, I don’t necessarily think that is a bad thing in his case because of his musical talent the changes are a lot more subtle.  With a band like say “The Cars”, after a while all their songs sounded like the same stale New Wave beat a few albums into their career, I don’t feel that way with Cale but of course I’m still very new to his sound so I may change my opinion in the future.

Posted: June 14th, 2009 under Music - No Comments.

Wilco (The Stream)

New Wilco album streamed off their website until it is released. Go check it out: http://beta.wilcoworld.net/records/thealbum/

Posted: May 18th, 2009 under Music - No Comments.

Wilco Album Due In June

Track List & Album Art have been posted.  A few of the new tracks performed live below.

Wilco (The Album)

Wilco (The Album)

Wilco (the song)
Deeper Down
One Wing
Bull Black Nova
You And I
You Never Know
Country Disappeared
Solitaire
I’ll Fight
Sonny Feeling
Everlasting Everything

“Wilco (The Song)” performed live at a political event:

“One Wing” performed live at Lollapalooza last year:

And finally just a little slice of “I’ll Fight” from a crappy cell phone video at the Bridge benefit:


Posted: May 9th, 2009 under Music - No Comments.

New Wilco Track

A cover of Woody Guthrie’s Jolly Banker is up on their site for a donation download.

Jolly Banker

Posted: May 9th, 2009 under Music - No Comments.

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