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I saw guitarist John Williams in concert a couple of years back, almost 2 years to the day actually (blog post from the last gig). This time round, John Williams was just as impressive, leaving me watching him play stuff I knew my ears couldn’t be hearing! A stunning guitarist, and always in complete control - never out of time, rhythm or mis-placing fingers.

This time round, he was accompanied by John Etheridge, an accomplished guitarist in his own right, mainly leaning towards jazz from some of his style. At the start of the second half, Etheridge did two solo tracks, followed by Williams with 3 solos. Here, you could tell just how incredible the two were, as individuals. Unfortunately, put together, I felt it just didn’t work. Too often, Etheridge would wander off seemingly improvising, and regularly coming across as out of time and even in a completely different key. Felt like just noise at times with the two guitars clashing - Etheridge’s steel-strung cut-away dreadnought just didn’t have the right tone to accompany Williams on the classical acoustic.

But, overal a nice evening, with the Gala Durham proving a really nice venue for this kind of thing - been there a few times now, and it’s quite cosy + intimate arena works well. I wouldn’t rush out and buy tickets to see these guys on their current tour, but if you’re already booked up, sure you’ll enjoy it

I picked up on this a few weeks ago, but since it’s getting closer to the date and I got e-mailed about it within the last couple of days, thought I’d post it up.

The Free Software Foundation, who I’ve been a supporter of for quite a while now, have been pushing for protests against DRM including clauses within the GPL v3 which has been causing plenty of debates for months now. But, they’ve picked my birthday (hint hint!) as a major focus point for protesting against DRM. Check out their announcement on “Day Against DRM” to find out more, including how to sign their petition and anything you can do help out.

No wise comments about how I own a MacBook and an iPod - you’ll find no iTunes-purchased music on the iPod as I abhor it, it’s all podsafe music on there or music I’ve imported from my own CD’s. I support the FSF on this one, especially since it’s clear the kind of problems DRM causes when you look at what will happen when Microsoft’s Zune played gets released - that doesn’t look it will even play it’s own Windows Media encrypted formats!

So I got bored, and was checking out some of the live udpates about today’s Apple ‘Showtime’ event This isn’t an overview of the presentation - the iTV (okay, an early name, but seriously Apple can come up with a better name!) looks good, I’ll leave that to others to go over, I was more interested in iTunes 7 since iTunes is something I have open pretty much constantly! Can’t wait for John Legend’s new album either - ‘Get Lifted’ is wicked!

Some cool new features for me include grabbing covert art from the iTunes store, something severly lacking in the past. It’s been easy to get around with something like Clutter, though that’s often a little slow, and pulls the data from Amazon rather than iTunes itself. You can choose localisations with Clutter, and I’m guessing with iTunes 7 it’s going to be accessing whichever local iTunes store you run through by default. Amarok, which I used heavily on Ubuntu, has provided a feature to grab cover art directly (again, from Amazon) for a while, so is nice to see it now built into iTunes 7.

One very cool thing is browsing through your collection by album art, much the same way as with CoverFlow (which ironically I recall has just released a new version). I run QuickSilver so usually use type away at whatever album I want to play and it just does it, but when you’re not quite sure what mood you’re in, CoverFlow has been nice to flip through until you find something that, literally, catches you eye! With it being built into iTunes, it’s much smoother and feels complete, and I found CoverFlow sometimes wouldn’t actually load the album in iTunes, or the cover art didn’t scale up right if it was low-res image to start with. With all cover art available from the iTunes store itself, this shouldn’t be a problem.

The new layout is nice, but again, without a huge amount of videos in there it doesn’t make much difference to me. Not sure whether in the same way you have different genres for your music you’ll have different genres of your movies, etc. - I suppose it depends on how Apple deliver them. Grouping the devices section looks nice, and the whole sidebar just looks more polished - it was quite rigid + formal almost in previous versions.

Cool to see a decent selection of movies though. Reported to be 75 films in the store now, with more coming each week. $14.99 for a new release, though most older releases looked to be priced at $9.99, seems a bit too much for me - seeing what the UK prices would be might allow me draw a comparison between buying a physical DVD from the store or clicking a button to buy via iTunes. Would like to see what kind of quality these are too - mentions of the encoded video going up to 640×480 resolution was mentioned, though I don’t know if this means existing music videos and TV shows or what. Near-DVD quality isn’t 640×480 in my experience, and the idea of downloading a movie in 30 minutes on a 5Mb connection is fine, but I don’t know many folks with a 5Mb internet line! I’ll have to wait and see what happens when this goes international or I get my visa to the US!

I like it overall, and may well play around with the new movies available through the iTunes store. I don’t think it’s gimicky, it’s moving in the right direction. The movie industry obviously realises there’s big potential here, though the size of movies might be a stumbling block. Many broadband connections in the UK are becoming bandwidth-limited - 30 minutes on a 5Mb connection means a big file, and those on a 2/3Gb monthly will struggle. Some will argue they’re not going to use iTunes movies, but if Joe Public buys his broadband connection for “browsing the net, e-mailing people and checking out music and wants to gives this movie thing a whirl”, they’re not going to be impressed. Games should fun though!

But, not having to rely on 3rd party apps or plugins to provide some pretty cool content and functionality within iTunes from a cosmetic point of view is very nice. The whole movie thing hasn’t impressed me that much as it was expected, and I can’t tap into that from the UK yet! But, although iTunes 7 was mentioned on various sites before the presentation, I was expecting some of the it’s new features. I haven’t experienced any problems, and wouldn’t expect any, with upgrading, and think it’s worth the upgrade!

Considering it took the best part of two days when installing all the car audio equipment, it took about half an hour to pull it all out! With all the gear up for sale on eBay (go check the auctions out if you haven’t already!), figured I may as well remove it all with the auctions ending tomorrow and it being dry today for playing with cables + electrics. Once again, managed to avoid blowing either myself or the car up!

Looks a mess, but is all tidied up now (so space to sleep again tonight…). There’s also an old JVC head unit which I had way back in the Fiesta which ran for about a year up for grabs, at a paltry £10 at the moment. Sad to see it all go, as regardless of whatever some may say about the Sony X-plod gear, it does sound awesome for the price if it’s setup right. The Ford head unit just sounds so hollow now, even though the JBL components are still installed in the front - the Sony F7500 made such a difference with the extra power output, plus the amp + sub might have had something to do with it…

Mind, after re-installing the original Ford head unit I found the radio code was incorrect. Not too impressed at having to fork out 15 of my English pounds for the correct code, but, least it’s working now. No CD player though Not that I use the car much now though so can’t grumble too much - unless the eBay auctions don’t pick up much in the next 24 hours of course!

Decided to take out the frustration of conflicting info from Insure&Go and flog some more gear on eBay. First two people were having none of making a claim for cancellation of the Japan trip as technically I wasn’t declared unfit to travel or advised not to go by any of the medical practioners at either the hospital or my local surgery. Finally, someone saw sense (and after being quote their own terms + conditions which didn’t state a medical certficate declaring unsuitability to travel was not a requirement and thus they were, well, making shit up), and the claim forms have been sent out looks good for recouping the money.

But, another round of eBay auctions, mainly music stuff again, but this time car audio equipment (okay, and a PS2!):

• Sony CDX F7500 head unit, MP3 + CD changer out, remote
• Sony CDX 848X 10-disc CD changer
• Sony XM-280GTX 2/1 Channel Amplifier
• JVC KD-S731R CD head unit - 4×45W
• Sony PS2, 2 controllers, 8 games, memory card, network

Plenty of folk will testify as to how awesome all the Sony car audio equipment sounded! Some awesome bits of equipment in there, and going for next to nothing, so get yourself some bids in

With all my music gear now despatched or collected after the eBay auctions, all I’m left with is my acoustic guitar. Last night, managed to drop it onto the bridge of my foot rather than placing it back on the guitar stand I think I might have said “ow, bugger, that hurt” or words to that effect…

Seems like it’s just bruised rather than broken any bones in the foot, or really would have been fun with heading to Japan in just over a week. The acoustic is fine too

Will give it a couple of days of rest, as really can’t be bothered to sit in a hospital for 3/4 hours waiting to get it x-rayed only for them to tell me just to rest it. With so many little bones in your foot, I was a bit worried, but I can just about walk around on it and bend my toes, aside from the swelling, so fingers crossed it’s nothing too bad.

So, the eBay auctions ended. Didn’t fetch quite as much as I was hoping for on the Ibanez bass guitar and the Marshall amp, but kinda balances out as the Yamaha Pacifica electric went a lot higher than expected, and the Shuttle media center PC just about did alright. Wasn’t expecting great things from eBay anyways. Will probably have more stuff going up when I get back from Japan though, including all the audio equipment out of my car

But, the fun started arranging collection with ParcelForce. Done it dozens of times before through work (all but a distant memory now…), but not as a home user for a few years. First up, you can’t be running anything other than Windows for the site to function. Bit of a bugger with a MacBook or Kubuntu desktop computer being all I have on offer (and quite happily, I must add!), so had to troop off and knick my dad’s computer. You plod through filling in all your details, pretty standard stuff, then it comes to payment.

Now, I’m not a huge fan of WorldPay for payment handling, as they just re-direct all over the place and you never really know what on Earth’s happening. Get annoyed by companies that don’t make at least some effort to integrate payment processing. Makes me nervours, especially on a computer I don’t mantain. Rant aside, I put in my payment details, and Internet Exploder does one of it’s little bottom burps, SP2 blocks pop-ups, so Verified by Visa fails. Click the button to allow pop-ups for this transaction and wheeeeeeeee!!!! back to the start we go asking you how many parcels you would like to send…

Not impressed.

All sorted (I hope), and pretty sure the right parcels will go to the correct buyer! On the plus side, I found 2Gb Crucial DDR RAM for the MacBook shipping for £130 and figured I’d treat myself. As much as the MacBook is impressive, it really doesn’t like multi-tasking with a few Firefox tabs open on only 512Mb RAM, and especially so if you’re running GarageBand or iPhoto (pretty much shut all other apps before processing audio in Garageband!). I’m hoping to play with (read steal) dad’s JVC Mini-DV camcorder whilst in Japan and use iMovieHD and iDVD to create my own movies when I get back, so guessed more RAM can’t help, and hopefully should make all the stuff with the Unsigned Rock Podcast much quicker + easier too

Yup, only a few more hours to get your bids in for a right awesome collection of music equipment. Still pained to part with it all, but the Marshall amp + Shuttle media center are running good prices.

• Ibanez GSR200 4-string bass, walnut finish + hard case
• Yamaha Pacifica 112 electric guitar, hard case + extras
• Marshall MG250DFX 100W guitar amplifier
• Shuttle SN45G media PC, AMD 2500, 512Mb, 160Gb SATA HDD, GeForce4 + TV-out, DigiTV card

Hope the electric + bass guitars pick up soon or I’ll be pretty sad

Having played Ambershift’s track ‘Chinatown’ back on the Unsigned Rock Podcast #27, the guys invited me through to their gig at Bar Pure, Sunderland last night. Was a really good gig, and a decent turn out for a mid-week gig too. The sound gear Bar Pure was running was pretty crap - I’m convinced either they were running the mic cables across a mains power strip or their power amp was about to blow! But, the guys sounded spot-on and went down really well.

I also got a wicked interview with Ambershift recorded before the gig, albeit in very bizarre circumstances of the bar’s kitchen, as well as couple of live tracks from their set last night. Dave + Kieron also dropped me a copy of an exclusive track - ‘15 Stone and 6′. This hasn’t been heard outside of their live stuff recently, and likely to be on their new album (release party Friday 25th August at The Cluny, Newcastle - I blagged free tickets last night!).

Check out the Unsigned Rock Podcast #29 to listen to the interview, live tracks, and exclusive new track!

Trying to stay optimistic in believing that at some point (before Christmas…) my US visa will get sorted, and the fact that I’ve got bugger all money left after being out of work for 6 weeks and travelling quite a bit, most of my music equipment is now up for grabs on eBay. Local ad magazines hadn’t brought in buyers as everyone is looking to pay bottom dollar, so I’m forced to put them up on eBay (meaning I’ll get bugger all for ‘em, and you, the lucky buyers, get a right steal!).

Items for sale are:

• Ibanez GSR200 4-string bass, walnut finish + hard case
• Yamaha Pacifica 112 electric guitar, hard case + extras
• Marshall MG250DFX 100W guitar amplifier
• Shuttle SN45G media PC, AMD 2500, 512Mb, 160Gb SATA HDD, GeForce4 + TV-out, DigiTV card

You have no idea how much it pains me to see the Yamaha Pacifica + Marshall amp on eBay, especially at such ridiculous starting prices If you know anyone after new equipment, point them in the right way, eh?

And for the record, if the US immigration department mess things up anymore and the visa doesn’t go through, blood will be spilled if these get sold and I’m stuck here!