Binary Bonsai

It is remarkably rare to see your latest iTMS purchase accompanied by a digital booklet in the shape of a PDF file. Remarkable because whereas a physical booklet requires the use of large color-corrected printers, ink, distribution outlets, delivery vehicles (and men), loss in profits and much more, digital booklets require only ‘print to PDF’, and you’re done. Considering that, I do wonder why all my albums don’t come with booklets.

When they do however, it makes for a nice addition to the otherwise pretty non-tangible purchase that is digitally distributed music. In fact, in the degradation from LP to CD to digital audio, the only thing truly missed by the too-busy-with-life-or-too-sane-to-be-anal-audiophiles portion of the population is the art of proper packaging.

Yes, you can still go out and buy your Amon Tobin on LP with beautiful luxurious cover art the size of your head or order up the latest ultra-deluxe limited edition from Nine Inch Nails and get fantastically well-crafted paraphernalia you’ll look at maybe once a decade. In fact, when you take into account the work some b®ands put into creating their packaging, buying digitally is really a damn shame (never mind piracy).

Well played Lars. Well played.

Now for the bait ‘n’ switch in which we turn our the attention to how iTunes deals with those accompanying PDF files in a most annoying manner.

It lists them in the same file-listing as all the music tracks, which makes sense, after all where else would it list it? But what happens when you’re in coverflow view and you double-click an album-cover to play said album and PDF is listed at the top of the album’s files?

The album doesn’t actually play, as you might expect. It simply opens the PDF file! And adding insult to injury, the PDF file opens in your PDF-reader-of-choice — which in my unfortunate case, is Adobe Acrobat — taking you away from iTunes and probably launching you into the teeth-grindingly long process of telling Adobe Updater ‘please, with all due respect; fuck off’. This will probably take up to several minutes, depending on your system and the PDF being opened with what app, before you can return to iTunes and actually play the album you wanted to listen to in the first place.

Listen. No. Alright? Just no. Bad designer.

This is a perfect example of the system performing an ‘expected action’, which in the user’s mind is most likely absolutely unexpected. After all, when would you expect double-clicking an album cover to open a PDF file? And even worse, this is the only action you can perform in iTunes which will actually transport you away from iTunes!

Unfortunately there was a power failure at this show and the PA went down … the computers recording the shows were fried and did not get back up and running until the second half of the show. We’re really sorry that the full show is not available, but please download the songs that are on us. #

Great, the majority of the Danish Århus concert, for free :D

Metallica has a site on which you can buy copies of their live shows! That is wicked! More bands should do this, so that people can get a small ‘souvenir’ from the shows they went to see. Optimally, the shows should be free for people who have valid tickets.

Also, there’s a whole bunch of shows available for free download.

Well done.

we’re experiencing a few technical difficulties that are going to keep our audio engineer out of the studio this weekend and therefore cause a delay in making more shows available to you.

Losing the PA system 2 songs into the concert… Yeah, I think he’ll be pretty busy :D

I’m on my way out the door, but I need to show you this first. I wish I had some video from where we were standing, so you could see the band just enjoying the 50.000 people singing the guitar solo back to them.

We’ve got our feet planted firmly and decisively in Jutlandish ground (the part of Denmark that is often mistaken for the northern-most German garrison, but which is in fact mostly farmland and incidentally our respective birthplaces), for a week of vacation.

Yesterday’s Metallica concert was wicked! Armed with A-tickets — which basically translated into us being able to choose exactly where we wanted to stand — we were about 50 meters from the stage, just behind a safety barrier (so that even Rikke, who doesn’t quite tower the crowd, could see unimpaired), roughly center stage.

Not bad. In fact, not bad at all. No; it was good.

I’ll spare you the review, and just say that despite the PA-outage 10 minutes into the two-hour-plus concert — which of course rules the headlines; suck — it was magnificient. And what an awe-inspiring sight, when we turned around and had over 50.000 people flooding into the horizon.

Afterwards, an 8km trek into town, since the busses were quite incapable of handling the pressure.

Not good. In fact, not good at all. No… Well, you know.

Luckily nothing nearly as dramatic as Jarre’s Aero concert back in 2002 (short entry on that here), except for the horrible churning sensation of disappointment in my gut, when the gates gave way and spilled the 50.000 people into the streets towards Århus centre, and I slowly realized that the forward divisions had ceased up all greasy-food-outlets, and I would have to hit the sack without getting my post-metal-concert greasebomb chowdown.

Dread!

But, we can now both strike one more band from the ‘must see before we get too old, have kids, a car and stop caring about music, life and the universe in general’-list (yeah yeah, you have kids and you still like music, I know; I know!). Actually, it’s been a good few years, with Massive Attack, Nine Inch Nails, Depeche Mode and now Metallica (alright, also Seal; so sue me!) notched in our metaphorical ‘belts’.

Now, we’re at Rikke’s mom’s.

I’ve packed some comics (DMZ #2, 100 Bullets #1, Fables #1 and Y: The Last Man #1. Iincidentally, all Vertigo), some science fiction and a bunch of movies. All of which should hopefully weight up against the lack of high-speed internet, wifi and our home in general.

Now, if only the weather would look up, I could put my camera to some proper use as well and get some sunburn on that purdy lil’ head of mine.

PS: Yes, I’ve got both horribly blurred low-resolution mobile photos and videos, but without no wifi, I can’t get my trusty ol’ Powerbook online. And without ol’ Freya on teh intarwebs; no joy.