music diary

either by conscience or just because i love the song and WANT to find an original version, i NEED to buy these...

(single) Evanescence - Hello (Gabriel and Dresden vs Trifactor remix) -- if ANYONE can find an original (CDR or silver NOT from the MP3, i'll pay up to $30 for it!!!)

(single) DJ Tocadisco - Nobody (Likes the Records That I Play)

Евгения Власова - Живая река (Evgeniya Vlasova - Zhivaja Reka) -- i have her first album thanks to a kind webstore owner in .UA. i'd love to have this new album/single or even better yet, a DVD of her hawt music videos :)

Sleepthief - The Dawnseeker again ... i gave my copy to Nightwish in hopes SOMEONE in the group might enjoy it as much as i did

I Awake - The Core (added 10/8/08) .. been listening to the hell out of this one as sleep music...

(single) Deadmau5 - Faxing Berlin (Chris Lake Edit) (added 10/8/08)

hrm ... mind's gone blank...

why am i doing this?

i love music. i hate the RIAA.

the RIAA is relies on laws created *TO ENCOURAGE* the creation of music that were created in a time where you had to go out to a store to buy a record, tape, CD. and when you DON'T follow the archaic law, you don't get slapped, punched or even beat up, you get a royal raping by the RIAA.

they sue everyone from children to the elderly, and even the dead with their shotgun approach with lawsuits to stop the downloading of music when something MUST be done either to encourage it and


links:
decent descriptions of how RIAA fails at living in the current age [1 2 3]

so i was going thru my CDRs and DVDRs to see what i can chuck .. and i found this CD compilation i had created called "90s poo" .. and here's the track listing:

1. Sir Mix A Lot - Baby Got Back
2. Right Said Fred - I'm Too Sexy
3. Fine Young Cannibals - You Drive Me Crazy( Read more... )

well, the sleezy show True Blood has me hooked on this country (gasp!) song, "Bad Things." it SOOOOOO needs to come out on Beatport (yeah right) or Magnatune, both purveyors of tracks available in lossless audio files (WAV/FLAC). i wish i could find the nastier opening credits of the show, but i guess HBO has it under a keen eye to keep it off the internets...

in other news, i'm finally breaking down and buying digital downloads (because they're available in, as i said before, lossless form). the price is a bit prohibative--$2.50--for reasons of .. er .. i dunno. but i really love almost ALL of the tracks i bought...

so without further adieu, and in no particular order (*sampled for free beforehand):

*CD: Above and Beyond Anjunabeats Volume One
CD: Above and Beyond Anjunabeats100 (incl DVD "From Goa to Rio"), signed
*CD: Above and Beyond Anjunabeats One Hundred
*DVD-Audio: Nightwish - Dark Passion Play (woohoo, it as well as Beck's Guero are now ripable! ..and Nero's AAC encoder can convert it at 24bit 5.1!!!)
*CD: Kirsty Hawkshaw - Ice Palace (OMG her label is insane (in a good way!)!!!)
*DigitalDownload: C*Quence - Endorphine (Original Mix, Hydroid's Breaking the Law Remix, Arizona Remix)
*DigitalDownload: Deadmau5 - Not Exactly (Original Mix)
*DigitalDownload: Sydney Blu - Give It Up For Me (Original Mix and Deadmau5 Remix)
*DigitalDownload: Melleefresh ft Deadmau5 - Hey Baby (Original Mix), After Hours (Original Mix)

(think i like Deadmau5??? ;)

on Kirsty Hawkshaw's label, Magnatune: NOT ONLY do they let you do digital download in MP3, OGG, MP4 (AAC), WAV, FLAC, if you buy a physical copy (which you can choose an amount between $5 and $18 that you pay, of which the artist gets 50% (compare to RIAA-label artists getting 5-25 cents (if lucky))), you can LEGALLY give 3 friends a copy in one of the afforementioned formats. how fucking cool is that?!

more CDs i've remembered
*CD: Dream Theater - Octavarium (finally!)
CD: Dream Theater's latest CD .. WHICH SUCKS .. which is insult to injury because i didn't sample it ahead of time...
*CD: Starkillers - Discotecha
*DigitalDownload: Sleepthief - Send Me an Angel

edit: this .. uh .. intro to something called "True Blood" made it on to some site called youtube... dunno nuthin' about it! ;)

i'd be buying more music, but cheap Blu-Ray movies have been sucking up my money (except for Ratatouille and the UK release of The Island, for which i paid full price)

i have no effing idea what i've bought since my last post. well, maybe i do... here's what comes to mind

CD: *Nightwish - Dark Passion Play 2CD Finnish Digipak
CD: *Nightwish - Dark Passion Play (a copy for a friend ;)
CD: *Probspot - Organic Lifeforms copy 2
CD: *Koan - Two Moon Butterfly (a russian duo shipped all the way from .il)

(the following was thru a record-club-like place with a pretty mediocre selection. it also makes me cry, as it supports the RIAA)
CD: The Producers soundtrack
CD: *Tatu - Moving and Dangerous
CD: *Gorillaz - Demon Days
CD: *Gorillaz (self titled)
CD: Garbage - Absolute Garbage (i'm a b-sides/remixes whore. if there's ONE i don't have, i'll buy it *cry*)

*sampled for free before purchase

IT'S RIAA BOYCOTT MONTH!

still throwing too much money at M:TG. also saw two DJs (dave seaman and some other dj) i discovered thru unauthorized downloads of their mixsets... also been buying a few Blu-Ray movies (X3, The Descent, Kung Fu Hustle, Underworld: Evolution ("so clear and sharp you can see Kate's blemishes!"), The Fifth Element)... so been out of my music-buying budget for a while... i DID manage to find a buy:

MP3 (€1.22!): C-Quence - Endorphin
Gotten for Free?: yes, from a friend!

Vinyl: C-Quence - Endorphin (yes i love this track! still looking for CD of it...T_T)

CD: Pan American - 360 Bypass
Gotten for Free?: yes, also from a different friend.

BRD rented so far: Training Day, Click, Lady in the Water, Crank, Bulletproof Monk, The Departed.. i looooove HD ^_^ .. as a side note, Zatoichi is EFFING WOW!

after spending waaaay too much money on M:TG stuff, in a night of drunken internet shopping i bought the first of the following CDs. and also bought the second one at a price i was comfortable paying since i think it was release day (tuesdays, right?)

CD: Sleepthief - The Dawnseeker ... words can scarcely describe how ... mindblowing this CD is... the best "soundbyteish" description i can put out is "female vocal trance without the beat" (if you understand the lingo). it's wistful, it's hopeful, it's yearning .. and sounds amazing ~_~ ..i run out of words to, well, label it. maybe check out some reviews and interviews about it... as i removed it from my "to buy" list, gleaned these comparisons: "it's surreal and haunting, kind of like DJ Tatana ft Jael - Always on My Mind, Kirsty Hawkshaw's Just Be, Aurora UK, etc... so good"
previewed for free? Yes

CD: Evanescence - The Open Door
previewed for free? Yes

been feeding the economy lately... beer and other things-alcohol from the quaint sikh-run liquor store (and very very expensive Dance Dance Revolution dance pads. or rather one)...

also been trying to get people to see that movie o' awesomeness, The Descent (non-spoiler'd trailer is here).

as for other movies, been watching a ton... (blockbuster online win++) and buying a handful (throttling myself to only the ones that are so i'd buy them in SDTV as well as HDTV via BRD or HD-DVD). i've taken my dad's idea to heart. you know how you buy a movie when it comes out (and it's the cheapest)? you know how you tear off the cellophane then never watch it (for another several months or years)? i bought a few movies i thought i might like:

*star trek: first contact
*x-men collection (x 1.5, x2, both 2 disc editions)
*mothman prophecies (mwahahahahah i luv them scurry movies)
*strange days
*glass house
*pitch black
*the island (2 copies, one is the wal-mart exclusive with an extra dvd)
*snatch

well, what you do is to buy it, but not open it. if after a few weeks you don't want it (buyers' remorse, as economics classes call it) or have deemed it not desirable, return it. you can at LEAST get a store credit...

i've already returned Strange Days after borrowing it from my workplace's DVD library. trendy, flashy piece of eyecandy crap (heh, i'll never look at Tom Sizemore the same way after his recent privacy breech) for 1999... i also returned Snatch as i bought (and watched) the special edition after the one i first bought from wal-mart on a midnight cooking ingredients run. (er did that make sense? (1) midnight food run: bought 1-disc edition. never opened (2) did an exchange of the full-frame version of Spy Game for 2-disc Snatch SE which was sitting beside SG at Best Buy. opened and watched it with a friend (3) returned the original unopened 1-disc (3.1) giftcard!)

so anywho. it'll be interesting to see how BRD (which i'm rooting a little bit for) does... (go go DVD Jon!) while i was ready and rearing to get a PS3 on launch day, the less-than-stellar webreview of Fifth Element and diametrically oozing Home Theater 'zine is going to have me scrutinizing current releases (and upcoming release lists).

and one last interesting item: while i gave a sly nod to the HD-DVD and BRD discs at wal-mart at a decently affordable $25-35 on a recent trip (to, once again, wal-mart), i later talked to my friend who lives in Virginia who says some releases at wal-marts there are as low as $20. yeah. i'll shut my mouth before anything bloggily-whiny or negative can come out, and let you all frown ;D

anywho, keep our economy alive and keep buying shit! (unless it's on an RIAA label ;)

p.s.2: Core Duo 2 is out. sexytime! a HIGHLY competitive part is finally out and that can only be good :D ...just when i FINALLY get a processor that can encode XviD in a stomachable amount of time, AVC just had to come out (welcome back, 2fps encode speeds :-p *sigh*) (linky 1 | linky 2)

after grabbing Firefly (2nd copy) for $20, i decided to get shipping for free with one of two albums i wanted. the Tatu and Jem.

so
CD: Jem (Finally Woken) it was...
Previewed for Free? yep.

radio, what? someone sent me the song "24" and i've been hooked ever since. just about killed the person to give me the rest of the album. LOVED the album. wouldn't give it 5/5. more like a 4/5, but still, it's getting heavy rotation at home and in the car. maybe time will melow my current lust for the awesomeness of the pop-y album into a 5/5. a lot of reviewers on Amazon likened her to Dido (as i did, in addition to Frau Frau), but where i only like a few tracks on Dido's album, i love all but one or two tracks on the Jem CD. it's playful; it's melancholic. it's everything in between. minus some of Poe's bitterness... i think. but i'm too drunk to really write a review >_>


ps. i've been sucked out of Real Life by a damn addictive game called World of Warcraft. it's ALL blizzards fault. *sobs* also made me buy a $300 GeForce 7800GT even tho i was only wanting go buy a 7600GT (~$200). but ... i'm quite happy with the purchase. the 7600GT was a bit disappointing. just a linear increase of performance compared to the 6800GS/GT, rather than the impressive increase of performance the 7800GT even is (even considering the 7800GTX)...

well, i traumatized some good friends with The Ring. i'd really like to show at least one of them this gem:

DVD: The Descent (R2 PAL)
"previewed" for free? yes.

after getting suggested this intense movie by a friend and watching it, i've been hooked ever since. not much i can say (or want to say) for fear of giving the slightest morsel of the movie away, other than that it's the 2nd scariest movie i've ever seen, and probably most intense movie i've actually liked (cake goes to the very (most) unsettling Event Horizon). Hope it does well here. i'll be one to see it in theaters. hope i don't freak out anyone else i go with ;) as the british say, BRILLIANT!

just saw this in someone's sig. i've just changed it from movies to music ^_^

The unauthorized downloading of music denies thousands of dishonest, lazy executives of their crack smoking livelihood, and is the only way to bring an artistically bankrupt monopoly under control. Downloading music without authorization violates laws distorted beyond their original intent, is not tangible theft, and is impossible to stop. You can't catch everyone. The only way to win is to stop waging war on your own customers and accept the fact that we are in control, not you. You brought this on yourselves.

40-50% off now :)

DVD: Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex vol 3
Previewed for free? Yes. Thank AonE and Laughing Man Fansubs :)

DVD: Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex vol 6 SE (box+tee)
Previewed for free? Yes. Laughing Man Fansubs... just no DTS. there were artifacts and a fuzzier picture, tho

DVD: Forever Faithless - The Greatest Hits
Previewed for free? sorta. i've seen a few of the mvids but not all...

DVD: Pitch Black Director's Cut
Previewed for free? not really... saw it at a friend's

DVD-A: Beck - Guero Deluxe Edition
Previewed for free? hell yeah...and i was the only one in the office that loved it ;)
Etc: oooo, just realized it is CD AND DVD-Audio. SCORE!

CD: Nami Tamaki - Greeting
Previewed for free? Yep. I'm a sucker for girlie pop :D

other: Need For Speed: Most Wanted: Black Edition
Previewed for free? demo, followed by full version (thanks, RELOADED :)

just got:
CD: Dream Evil - Book of Heavy Metal (CD+DVD)
Blah Blah...
-i'd forgotten about this one! awesome jams but the singer sucks, as is par for Metal. freakin' ROCKS nonetheless
-downloaded the MP3 first? yep

CD: Thievery Corporation - The Mirror Conspiracy
Comments...
-so nice and chill.
-grabbed this one, lossless, off usenet. i also bought it for my cuz a year or so back...

CD: Tiesto ft Kirsty Hawkshaw - Just Be
<3
-first dance track in a long time that, for me, pierces to the soul like (Chicane) Saltwater, (DJ Sammy et al) Heaven, (4 Strings) Take Me Away did long long ago...
-downloaded first? music video actually.
-people who bought this also bought... yes i need to buy Kirsty Hawkshaw's album

iTunes: G.O.L. - Angelica in Delerium

bought this after hearing it on the local college station, krcc. thank GOODNESS for non-commercial radio.

still looking for
-Carmen Rizzo - Amborella [THE LOST ART OF THE IDLE MOMENT] on p2p or iTMS (to sample to see if album or single (if availible) is worth buying...)

DVD: Azumanga Daioh Vol 1 + box ($9.99 from RightStuf!)

Why I Bought it:
-downloaded fansub (bless triad). totally addicted. it's my current fave anime (2nd is Yakitate!! Japan, GTO and GiTS TV (which i'm currently watching) are battling for 3rd X).

Still Need:
Vol 2, 3, 6 and maybe some Yotsuba!to ^_~

DVD: Serenity!

Why?
need the question be asked? best tv series i've seen yet (albeit too short lived)

i drooled over it at work all day. they were serving food in the lunch room and it was blocking the tv, so i couldn't watch the extras before i got home ;)

and while on the topic of beautiful people,

CD: Narcotic Thrust - I Like It US CDM

Why?
Sex Sells Syndrome (or at least Beautiful Women), i'm guessing. i can't figure out if i would have liked this song had i not seen the video. this has also the conundrum surround a few other groups i really dig (and ended up buying the CD)including the likes of Sita (Happy music vid [happy fansite]), Evgenia Vlasova (Veter Nadezhdi), Garbage (Only Happy When It Rains -- growl :), Nightwish (Bless the Child)... most of these i saw either a screenshot of the video or the video itself, loved it for whatever reason, and, grabbed more of their music, and in most cases, ended up buying the CD/DVD.

anywho, this music vid is about as naughty as one can get without any nudity. oh man X)

in my recent memory, i've bought:
-Nightwish - Once DVD-Audio (because i liked the original album, which i bought based on MP3s i grabbed before the album came out)


Adam Freeland - Smells Like Teen Spirit (whitelabel vinyl)

...

to be fleshed out more.. ;)