Mike Rundle's Weblog

Fall Music List

I've always thought that you can tell absolutely everything about a person from the music they listen to. Music is a large part of my life, so here's what I've been listening to recently with iTunes links that go straight to the music if you wanna hear a little sample. Psychoanalytical feedback is always appreciated ;)

Dry Your Eyes Mate by The Streets.
My good friend Megan recently turned me on to this one-man, Brit-pop, raw and underground "group" and I really haven't turned back. One guy, talking over pseudo-techno beats with purpose and reality, and he's seriously amazing.

So Com Voce by Thievery Corporation.
I was browsing around the iTunes Music Store the other day and noticed a lot of people interested in Thievery stuff. New-age galactic trance meets upbeat vocals and Latin American percussion.

Everything in its Right Place by Radiohead.
That link doesn't actually go to that song because Apple hasn't gotten permission yet to sell Radiohead music on iTMS, but instead goes to Christopher O'Riley playing that song on piano :) I've gotten back into this band after shelving them for a few years, and I'm glad they're back on my playlist.

The District Sleeps Alone by The Postal Service.
I discovered this group over the summer thanks to a tip from Keith and really love every song on their album. I think it's also fitting to like this song considering I lived in DC this summer, so it holds a little more meaning than it normally would.

Bouncing Around the Room by Phish.
This is my all-time favorite Phish song.

Password by Paul Oakenfold.
This one has no link because the song is from the Swordfish soundtrack.

We Phonograph All Injuries by Local Fields.
Local Fields is the experimental DJ group from Ben Recht, PhD candidate at the MIT Media Lab. He works on diagramming complex systems using harmonic blah blah blah blah blah, go download his stuff cause it's free and awesome.

Broken Glass by The Crystal Method.
Crystal Meth really knows how to boost the bass in all their songs, and their album "Legion of Boom" is no exception. Go cop it.

Out of Control by The Chemical Brothers.
This song was released 5 years ago, but it still rocks.

The Luckiest by Ben Folds.
My favorite BF5 song, the live version. Most of my away messages on AIM come from his lyrics on this track, so listen carefully.

And that about wraps it up!

New iPod + New Design

After I get out of work, I'm usually off gallivanting around and don't check NetNewsWire to see the latest news of the afternoon and evening. I fired it up on Saturday night, however, to see everybody and their brother (Note: Paul is not Kottke's brother) writing about the new iPods coming to town this week. After the initial wave of enthusiasm crashed to shore, I read some more about them on MacRumors (if you're a Mac fan you have to read MacRumors, no question) to find out that they were going to be released Monday (today).

I visited Apple's website an hour ago, and impulsively threw down my credit card and bought a 20GB one on the spot.

Since I'm a student, I qualified for a nice discount to bring the price from $299 down to $269, which offset the tax and FedEx super-fast-overnight-shipping. I have just over 2GB of music on my computer, so I'm by no means a hardcore music downloader, but ya know what? What kind of Apple fanatic am I without the ubiquitous white icon sitting in my hand?

I probably won't use it for the normal stuff — on my commute to work, while walking around, etc. What I'm planning on doing is connecting it to the Pioneer head unit I have in my car via RCA cables, so I can switch to the "Aux" mode on my deck, and have the iPod play through that. Friends of mine say they love the Griffin iTrip which lets you play your iPod tunes over FM to your stereo, but I'm pretty concerned with the quality loss. I hate listening to the radio, and I don't want my songs (most of which are 192Kbps or higher) to sound like an FM station.

Umm, this site looks different

Sometime on Saturday it hit me that the black and red combination was burning a hole directly through my retinas and into my frontal lobe. I have no idea how I could stand it for so long, but it's gone, and it's not coming back.

My buddy Mike hooked me up with a hot woodgrain texture late last night, so I decided to weave it into some kind of a new design. The only thing that won't be changing on this current design is the top logo/header... everything else will be changing. Let me repeat, I understand that most of this site is ugly as sin right now, but yours truly is on top of the situation and workin' his magic.

Times are a changin'. Stay tuned!

Adam Chojnacki

My roommate Adam Chojnacki is a very smart guy with a lot of potential. Valedictorian of his high school, international honor societies, high (-er than mine) GPA, common sense, chock full of wit.

After being in the IT program here for two years with a 4.0 GPA, he switched to our College of Business because it offered him a challenge. Now, he needs a co-op (read: advanced internship) position this summer in some type of a business situation. If you need experience, read his résumé (PDF my design) and you'll find out that he's got the goods.

Anyway, if you think you'd be interested in hiring him for the summer (anywhere in the country is fine), email me at mike AT phark DOT net and I'll set you guys up — or just leave a comment.

BTW: That picture was taken by Adam's friend for an upcoming guitar/life/style weblog brought to you by yours truly :)

Also: I updated my About Me page because I felt like adding my picture to the site. Too many sites out there are impersonal, and I don't want this to be one of those.

Jay-Z Explanatory

Jay-Z, one of the most brilliant and heralded rappers of our time, often raps in riddles and interwoven phrases that are difficult to decipher unless you have the appropriate background knowledge. This post will help you understand the meaning and metaphors inherent in some of his lyrics, namely the first few lines from Public Service Announcement off the Black (or Grey) album.

Here are the lyrics:

[1] Allow me to re-introduce myself, my name is HOV
[2] H to the O-V. I used to move snowflakes by the O.Z.,
[3] I guess even back then you could call me
[4] C-E-O of the R-O-C, HOV

Now read it again, this time make sure HOV rhymes with "grove"., and you spell-out the letters with dashes or dots in between them. That's right, go ahead and do it.

First, you can see on the first line that Jay-Z refers to himself as HOV. He's not talking about being a high-occupancy vehicle, but rather HOV being the latter part of Jay-Hova, his self-given nickname. Jay-Hova is a play off of "Jehovah" which is a "modern mispronunciation of the Hebrew name" of God. So by combining his rap name and an ancient name for The Mighty One, he is, essentially, calling himself the God of the rap game and its culture.

In the second line, Jigga alludes to his past life as a drug dealer by making reference to selling "snowflakes" by the ounce — snowflakes being a seldom heard euphemism for cocaine powder.

The final selected lyric is the most interesting and metaphoric. He says that you can think of him as the CEO (Chief Executive Officer) of the R-O-C. Now R-O-C can have multiple meanings — roc, or "rock", is slang for crack rock; Jayhova used to sell crack before he founded Roc-a-fella records. By being the self-employed drug dealer that he was, you could consider him the CEO of his business, namely, selling the rock.

Speaking of Roc-a-fella records, that brings us right to the alternate meaning that Jay-Z was trying to code in his lyrics. Roc-a-fella records (Jay-Z's recording label) is what he put together with his rapper friends in the mid-90s, so he is the CEO of that company as well.

I hope this gives you a little more insight into rap lyrics. Next time you hear them on the radio, don't just dismiss it as mindless jabber — it truly is a form of art.

Grey Tuesday a Success!

Even though I took the album link down at around 2:30pm eastern on Tuesday (it was up for 14 hours), my server pumped out almost 2 GB of data for that small time span!

That means that at least some people were able to download it from my site, and that makes me feel like the cause was worthwhile. If you still haven't heard it yet (and are on a broadband connection) there are still a ton of sites out there that are hosting it. Can't find one? If you're on Mac OS X, I suggest downloading Acquistion, a Cocoa Gnutella client, and searching there. If you're on Windows, I've heard good things about Bitorrent and Direct Connect. Either way — and even if you're not a big Jay-Z and/or Beatles fan — I suggest still downloading the album and giving it a listen, it's an interesting experience if anything.

Update: Redesign time is going by fast and furious, and even though it took me until the wee hours of the morning (5:15am to be specific), I've got the logo and header graphic completely designed. Now for some CSS... :)

GREY TUESDAY & ALBUM

February 24, 2004 — a day that will forever live in internet infamy.

An underground MC named DJ Dangermouse has taken the lyrics from Jay-Z's Black Album, and mashed them up with the rhymes and back beat of the Beatles' White Album. What emerged as a masterpiece of creative skill is now the subject of music industry persecution. The record label EMI has told Dangermouse that his album can no longer be shared, hosted, downloaded, or traded in any sort of public forum.

This type of creative stifling will not be tolerated by the internet community.

In fact, I have signed up at GREY TUESDAY to be a mirror for the album. That's right, you can download the entire DJ Dangermouse Grey Album, completely free from my servers, for the span of 24 hours on Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2004 (or until I get a cease and desist letter, whichever comes first).

The Grey Album (ZIP, 65MB)

Update: I received a Cease and Desist letter from EMI's attorney, so I have voluntarily taken down the link to download the album. If you still want to listen to it, it still available on many peer-to-peer file sharing networks, as well as on other sites. Keep fighting the good fight.

If you feel as though this is a worthy cause to support, I invite you to mirror the album on your site as well, or, post a link to to show your support.

Music For '04

I'm pretty sure that I never write about music on my blog, but for anyone who's interested, here's a little sampling of my current musical fancies:

• "White Flag" by Dido
• "Sorry 2004" by Ruben Studdard
• "A Rush of Blood to the Head" by Coldplay
• "The Way You Move" by Outkast
• "Mock Song" by Phish
• "Warehouse" by Dave Matthews Band
• "Bully" by Eminem
• "You and I" by Jason Mraz
• "I'll Teach You How To Stunt" by G-Unit f/50 Cent

How about you guys?

Metallica Wronged Again

In case you haven't heard, there has been a lot of talk recently about the latest Metallica fan-screwing endevour:

Metallica sues Canadian band over E to F chord progression

It seems odd that only just recently this was proved to be a hoax. I guess people hate Metallica enough to think that any kind of stupid lawsuit bearing their name is real ;)