Music – Stilgherrian

15 September 2012

Talking Optus TV Now on Balls Radio

Last week the High Court of Australia denied Optus leave to appeal the Optus TV Now decision, which means their “video recorder in the cloud” service isn’t legal — and that was the topic for my spot on Phil Dobbie’s Balls Radio this week.

The conversation bounced off the analysis I’d written the day before for Technology Spectator, TV Now’s cloud complications.

As usual, the conversation wandered to other matters as well, such as the early broadcast radio industry selling receivers that could only receive one station.

Here’s the audio of my segment. If you’d like more, Mr Dobbie has posted the full episode.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 16:54 — 6.5MB)

You can hear us talk live every Tuesday night from 7pm AEST on Sydney’s FM 99.3 Northside Radio.

I’m fairly sure that copyright remains with Mr Dobbie rather than being transferred to Northside Radio, but I’ll figure that out later.

26 January 2012

Talking SOPA on Adelaide radio 1395 FIVEaa

This is being posted a bit late. It’s a conversation about the US Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Wikipedia blackout originally broadcast on 18 January. So it’s been overtaken by more recent events.
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The presenters, as usual, are Keith Conlon and John Kenneally at 1395 FIVEaa, two chaps I used to work with back at ABC 891 Adelaide some… um, some years ago.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (5.4MB)

26 October 201129 October 2011

Talking iPod and iTunes on 1395 FIVEaa Adelaide

This week is the 10th birthday of Apple’s iPod and the sixth anniversary of the launch of Apple’s iTunes store in Australia. Yesterday morning I spoke about those things with Keith Conlon and John Kenneally on Adelaide radio 1395 FIVEaa.

I’ve also included the talkback caller they had just before speaking to me, since I refer to his comments.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (4.6MB)

01 July 2011

Talking Myspace on ABC 774 Melbourne

In 2005 Rupert Murdoch bought MySpace, as the orthography went, for USD 580 million. Yesterday he sold the operation, now branded Myspace or even just My_____, depending where you look, for a mere USD 35 million. Not exactly a profit.

The buyer was Specific Media, an advertising targeting company. One of the investors is musician and actor Justin Timberlake, although the size of his stake has not been revealed.

There’s now plenty of speculation about whether Myspace will build on its recent music focus, and how it’ll shape up against the monster that is Facebook and the new contender, Google+.

Yesterday I chatted about all this stuff with Lindy Burns on ABC 774 Melbourne. This time she got my name right.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 8:33 — 3.8MB)

The audio is Â©2011 Australian Broadcasting Corporation, but it hasn’t been posted on their website so here it is. In return, I reckon you might choose to listen to Lindy Burns’ drive program next week.

27 January 2011

Club Escape Perfect Lists, updated

Back in 1990 and 1991, the Adelaide-based Triple J radio program Club Escape did episodes at the end of the year called “Perfect List”, featuring its choice of the best dance music released for the year. I’ve just updated my copies of those lists with links to the tunes.

For your listening and nostalgic pleasure, here are the Perfect Lists for 1990 and 1991.

Those old blog posts explain the story, but the short version is that I was one of the program’s presenters in 1990. It was a great time.

Two things come to mind as I look back at these lists…

First, I’m amazed at how few of the links I’d originally set up still worked. Linkrot is a problem for every website manager, but it’s not made easier when people delete their account or when the music distribution companies insist that you have to link to their version and all the others get deleted. I don ‘t know why they think this helps.

And second, well, I’m really hit by the feeling that time has moved on. Those programs were two decades ago. And yet some people want to wallow in their past. I listened to a few of the songs as I repaired the links, but I felt no urge to spend a lot of time “reminiscing”.

Perhaps I’m unusual in that I prefer to live in the present. Or even the future.

26 January 201126 January 2011

Aussie Good News for Australia Day

I haven’t had the inspiration to write something new for Australia Day this year, so I’ll just bring you this glorious video that ’Pong mentioned.

If the embedded video isn’t visible, watch it directly on YouTube.

For me previous Australia Day posts, try Happy Aussie-Ox Day from 2009, my photographic post Great Australian Dreaming 1, sing our new national anthem and my essay Are you proud of your culture? That last one has an excellent photo.