Blog: Pampelmoose

The Hilton Tuscon El Conquistador resort. Life is tough. Larry Crane of Portland's Jackpot Studios' fame and Craig Schumacher persuaded me to come down to Tucson, Arizona for this year's Tape Op conference. One shouldn't really need to be persuaded to come to a lovely city like Tuscon, it's just that I can't abide temperatures [...]

In light of the news that Paul McCartney is releasing his new CD (yawn) on Starbuck's Hear Music label, our friend Doonsbury has weighed in on the subject. Thanks for this to Ned. The public meanwhile seems to be a little underwhelmed.

Thanks to Josh Spear for this one - a new look at T-shirt design and how to message yourself, your product, your band. "Capitalizing on the fact that text messaging is rapidly rising in popularity and has proven itself as an effective tool for feedback (i.e., voting on shows such as American Idol) and audience participation, [...]

The Beastie Boys played a very cool set Saturday night on the Wookie Stage. Drum kits, guitars, stand up bass, the works and not a sampler in sight. Here's a video clip of the guys waiting to go on.

Click image to play So I have to get a little, irritable thing off my chest. There we were, bands and musicians, sharing an amphitheatre with at least 20,000 people per day for 2 days, and not until Manu Chao hit the stage did I hear anyone speak out about the current incumbents at the White [...]

Photo:© Heidi Kirkpatrick:EMI/Capitol Records building Los Angeles EMI agreed to a £3.2 billion take over by a private equity firm. Seems someone has faith in music sales.... Related Posts:Broken Music System, EMI to sell DRM-free MP3s.

Although I missed some cool bands at Sasquatch this year, [due to all kinds of hassles getting my credentials], I was real happy to catch The Black Angels. Operating in one of the more interesting branches of psychedelia, they evoke the sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators. That band was led by the enigmatic Roky [...]

• The Black Angels - Black Grease

Click image to watch the ad Your iPod never did this.

Now here's a geek driven service that I believe we will all find useful....read on - "The services offered by Pinger allow users to record brief voice messages and distribute them via a cell phone much like you would a text message. Users can "ping" hands-free by dictating a message, thus allowing them to message [...]

Photos by Renee McMahon This year's fest was a little muted compared to last year when Beck and The Flaming Lips headlined. Day 1 was strong though especially with the Beastie Boys on the second stage, all pimped out in suits like the Blues Brothers. I have some footage of that to come. Meanwhile mainstage action [...]

Friday was spent guiding the mobile Moosehome from one end of the Columbia Gorge outside Portland, backtracking the river and corner-cutting toward Quincy, WA, roughly one third of the way along it's length to the site of The Gorge Amphitheatre, probably the best place to see a show in North America. It's not like I've [...]