Energy 92.7 was sold a little while back, and as of this past weekend, they are officially no more. I considered them to in many ways be the soundtrack of San Francisco, and I would often tune in over the internet.
I often wished radio stations in Calgary would be more like them. Now I can’t even point to them as an example.
This makes me unhappy.
The groups I play games with almost always listen to music while we play board and card games, and I’ve come to associate certain songs, artists and albums with certain games. The association for me is very strong- when I hear the song I almost instantly think about the game.
A few examples from past and present:
These three stand out as being the strongest. The Aphex Twin album is practically the Arkham Horror soundtrack as far as I’m concerned.
When I bought my iPod Nano, I was replacing a 5G iPod Video. The size and heft difference is quite noticeable. And quite ridiculous when paired with my headphones.
As an aside, why is it there are so few iPod Nano cases that have belt clips? I’ve only found one case worthy of consideration, and it’s more money than I want to spend. Doesn’t anyone else want a belt clip for their Nano?
When I first started listening to Energy 92.7 online, they had an MP3 stream. They switched to being Windows Media only, which meant I could no longer play it in iTunes (and hence, couldn’t stream it to my Airport Express). So, I haven’t listened to it much lately. Now, they offer a choice of both MP3 and Windows Media formats for the stream, so I can once again listen to it in iTunes.
[Direct link to the Energy 92.7 MP3 stream]
According to last.fm, I’ve listened to 20,000 songs since March 15, 2006. And that’s just the stuff that actually got tracked to last.fm, so in reality, I’ve listened to more than that. That’s a lot more than I would have expected in just under a year.
So what’s hot on my iPod these days? Well, if recent history is any indication, it’s Tom Novy‘s dance track Take It. Though I still maintain that Madonna rocks out to Faster Kill Pussycat on her iPod. Unless Miss Thing decides to settle the matter once and for all, I guess we’ll never know for sure.
Part of why I got a last.fm account to begin with was to see the stats on what I actually listen to. Some of the numbers don’t surprise me, but there are a couple that do. Apparently I really like the Chrono Cross soundtrack, because 光田康典 (Yasunori Mitsuda) is my top artist according to last.fm. I listen to that stuff quite frequently at work, which I guess accounts for the fact that it’s what I’m listening to more than 5% of the time.
And considering I was waffling on even buying the damn album in the first place, I would say it turned out to be money well spent.
My last pair of headphones died a rather sad death at work the other day. Mind you, I think they cost me all of about $15 brand new at an auction, so I’m not overly heartbroken about the event.
One of the problems of my work environment is that it can be extremely noisy at times and I tend to get distracted a little too easily, which is a large problem when I’m trying to achieve flow, one of the requirements of my job.
My solution to date has been to wear headphones that block out enough outside noise and to listen to music that I’m very familiar with (which means I can easily ignore it after about 5 minutes). The predictability of the noise allows me to achieve the kind of focus I need on the work I’m doing.
So, no headphones is not an option for me at work. I tried wearing earbuds for a few days, but I’ve yet to find a pair that are comfortable enough (and that isolate enough) for my liking. I’m also not willing to shell out the big bucks for Shure phones like these ones, and open-back phones would be a bit of a no-no at work as well, so I started researching closed-back circumaural headphones. I figured it was time to at least invest a little bit of money in some higher-quality ones than the el-cheapo-bass-lacking Distortion Master 75000s I had been using (I won’t name any names). Several likely candidates came up in my search: Sennheiser 201s, 212 Pros, 270s, and 280 Pros. Some quick trolling of the internet dropped the 201s and 270s off the list, and some more digging turned up the Sennheiser 215s as another option.
Armed with a general idea of what to expect from the different models and my iPod (I can see all the audiophiles out there wincing – rest assured you’ll wince at least once more before this article is done), I headed off to my friendly local DJ equipment store (Axe Music).
I tried the 280s out first, while the staff opened up a few boxes so I could try the other models. I liked what I heard. A lot. Very clean, even response, especially through the midrange. Enough bass to get a nice massage when I cranked up the Chemical Brothers, Crystal Method, and Groove Armada, but not distractingly so. Brought out subtleties (and yes, the compression artifacts, since these were on the iPod) in classical music. Very comfortable fit, and I could easily imagine wearing them for hours. And best of all, I might as well have been standing in the middle of a large deserted forest for all the noise that leaked in from the store around me.
Next was the 212s. A little too bassy for my taste, and they sounded muddy in the midrange to me. They were comfortable enough, but ear squishage seemed likely after extended wearing, which was a minus for me.
The 215s fared about the same as the 212s. I found them more comfortable to wear, although the round shape of the earpieces wasn’t quite as nice as the tighter-fitting oval shape of the 280s. The 215s didn’t “whump” like the 212s did, but they’re still targeted at DJ usage (emphasizing the bass and high tones somewhat), and they still had a slightly muddy midrange and a bit of splatter at the higher frequencies.
Neither model was bad, especially for their intended applications, but these are headphones I need to wear for hours on end at work, listening to a wide range of music from classical to booty-shaking dance to ambient electronic to J-pop, so I didn’t want to buy a pair that I wouldn’t be able to use for my range of music or wear all day.
For my needs, it was clear that the 280s were the best choice of the lot, although they were the most pricey. The slight underemphasis at the lower frequencies is quite nice for a lot of my music collection, and I can always tweak the EQ a bit when I need to. They don’t distort noticeably even when I crank them up (and trust me, I have), and they have excellent isolation. It’s easy to see why they review so well for closed-back headphones, and I can understand how they would be great for studio monitoring work. If there’s one fault, it’s that they’re a little too unforgiving, and reproduce the sound a little too faithfully.
And yes, I do intend to use them with my iPod at work (cue audiophile wincing). So sue me.
I can finally claim to be winning the battle of the metadata.
Now that I have an iPod, I’ve been spending a not-insignificant amount of time working with the metadata for my iTunes library. I’ve fixed bad metadata (incorrect track names or artists, mostly) on about 100 tracks, and I’ve managed to rate over 80% of the music in my library. This opens the door for a number of smart playlist tricks that will make my iPod listening more rewarding, and I hope to get some funky smart playlists set up over the weekend. Given the amount that I use my iPod, I’m sure this effort will pay off very quickly.
It’s a little surprising just how quick I was able to rate this many songs. My best estimate is that I’ve spent about 9 hours rating the 2,400 some odd tracks that I’ve gotten to so far. Definitely quicker than I would have thought.
I’ve also spent a bit of time organizing my podcast audiobooks so I can play them back start to finish. I’ve got a growing list of audiobooks I’ve obtained via services like podiobooks.com that I have to manage in addition to my usual music collection.
I also have to mention that I didn’t accomplish all of this completely unassisted. In this process, I’ve made judicious use of several applescripts I obtained from Doug’s AppleScripts for iTunes, which has proven to be an indispensible resource. If you run iTunes on a Mac, you’ll no doubt find at least a few gems in Doug’s collection of AppleScripts.
And now it’s time to get back to enjoying my music.
I’ve lived in or near Calgary for most of my life, and I have to say that the radio in this city is rather pitiful. You would think a city as large as Calgary would have at least a few decent radio stations, but that’s not really the case.
So what’s on the airwaves here? The majority of the stations fall into the following slots:
There’s a notable lack of anything else. There’s no decent Jazz station. There’s no dance / electronic / underground station. There’s no alternative station.
I still remember when the JACK FM station launched in Calgary. For a while it was the most popular FM station in the city. Take that as a measure of how bad things were – a station which essentially is a hundred or so CDs on shuffle was the most popular one for a while. How pathetic is that? I’m embarrassed to admit that the JACK format originated here in Canada (Vancouver, actually).
As bad as things are, there are a few bright points in our radio constellation:
What all these stations have in common is a bit of a variety of formats (especially CJSW, the University of Calgary station), and a lack of corporate overseers. The CBC stations are funded by the federal government. CKUA used to be funded by the provincial government though it is now run as a non-profit and funded primarily by listener donations. CJSW is almost all-volunteer run and again funded mostly by donations.
Definitely commercial radio has let us down in Calgary – the best stations we have are all non-commercial entities. Sadly, things don’t seem to be improving much.
Fortunately, there’s another way to get radio nowadays – the internet. What I find really interesting is that the station I listen to the most online is actually a regular old radio station in San Francisco. Energy 92.7 is an unusual station, to say the least. They play dance music. And lots of it. While they are a for-profit operation, they aren’t owned by any of the radio megacorporations, and you can tell if you listen to their programming. Some of the things they air would probably make ClearChannel executives squirm more than a little bit. But I love it.
I guess the best indicator of this is how much Energy 92.7 has influenced my music purchases. During the last 6 months, the vast majority of the music I’ve purchased was things I heard first on Energy 92.7. Some of it eventually makes it to Calgary’s Top 40 format stations, but I guarantee a track like Tom Novy‘s Take It will never be aired on the radio in Calgary. And it would be rather unusual to hear Paul Oakenfold, Gabriel and Dresden, or heck, even some of the dance remixes of Madonna‘s recent singles on the radio here.
And for a real trip, how many other radio stations actually play Mash-ups on the air? I can’t think of any in Canada.
There’s a bit of hope yet for Calgary, though. Recently a new adult comtemporary / jazz station launched here, though it’s not really to my taste. Also, we’ll have to see what CFEX turns out like in January. Hopefully they don’t degenerate into another CJAY – one is more than enough.
So until one of Calgary’s radio overlords clues in, I’ll stick mostly to San Francisco’s finest and my iPod, venturing out to CKUA and CJSW from time to time.
I’ve just spent enough time googling for pre-made iTunes statistics programs to discover that there really aren’t any. Yes, there are a few out there, but none of them do what I’m looking for.
I already use last.fm to track how many times I play my tracks (since it tracks correctly whether I’m streaming my music or playing it from the host computer), but I’d like to see things like a graph of track distribution per genre, how many songs contain foreign language vocals, and so on.
I use (and abuse) my metadata for iTunes extensively, and all of it is sitting there in a giant XML file waiting to be data mined. I wonder how many (or how few) XPath queries I have to write to get this information? It can’t be all that difficult. Maybe there’s an app here…
I came home from work today to discover a few presents in my mailbox from Amazon.
First up, is Paul Oakenfold‘s A Lively Mind. Even though it’s been panned in the reviews, I think it’s a solid disc. It’s got a lot of rock influence, and is less edgy than his previous stuff, so it’s probably a little more accessible to the pop/dance crowd. In that sense, it’s a little reminiscent of some of BT‘s work (Movement in Still Life in particular), and also reminds me in some ways of The Crystal Method‘s Tweekend, though not as heavy. Maybe this is why it got panned – it doesn’t sound quite as fresh at first blush, but if you dig a little deeper, it’s fresher than you might expect. Mash-ups are heading more mainstream, and the rock/techno thing is pretty hot right now, so this CD seems to be following that trend rather well.
Now I’m just waiting for someone to do the obvious mash-up – the one which could only be titled “Faster Kill Pussycat Dolls”.
The only real criticism I have is that the disc doesn’t flow as well as it could, partly because there’s several different styles on the CD. If you view it as a collection of singles, though, it shines.
Second is Gabriel & Dresden‘s self-titled effort, which sticks a little more to one musical style. This disc flows well as a continuous mix, though some of the tracks are a little undifferentiated from the others. Overall it’s another fairly solid disc. The vocals are pretty well done and add to the overall vocal-trancey feel that continues across the whole set. Parts of the disc remind me of Tiësto‘s mixes or Way Out West (from Intensify). These tracks also might be a little more DJ-friendly than Okie’s tracks, for those DJs who tend towards a straightforward trance/house/breaks format.
And you’ve probably already heard a couple of the songs on the CDs – Okie’s Faster Kill Pussycat is all over the dance airwaves these days, and so is G&D’s Tracking Treasure Down. Bottom line is you can dance your ass off to either of these CDs and have a great time doing it, and that’s what it’s really all about.
Jeremiah Wittevrongel lives in Calgary, Canada. Though he works as a software developer and loves what he does, this blog isn't about that. It's about the rest of his life, which tends to revolve around board gaming and cooking.
As seen on last.fm
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