I can't emphasize enough what an amazing sound they had at their last performance in the acoustic perfection of the Sheldon Concert Hall. Here's your chance to make up for missing the last one.

And hey, maybe they'll even be able to slip 'Face of the Earth' into the setlist this time. (wink, wink)

Here are the details:

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 9TH

The Sheldon Concert Hall – Notes From Home Concert Series
3648 Washington Blvd. (right behind the Fox Theatre)
314-533-9900

Sheldon Website

Show Time: 7:30 – 9:30pm
Cover charge: $6.00 at the door only!

I figure they'll never be remembered for anything other than Mmm Bop, but damn them kids is pretty talented.

via brand new

1. It's the graph the music industry doesn't want you to see. It shows how artist revenues have actually increased in the era of file sharing while the revenue going to the industry has decreased. So, if you're business model is purely one of content distribution it's perhaps time to exit.

2. The fastest growing area of revenue is that of live shows. As the post points out, "at some point next year revenues from gigs payable to artists will for the first time overtake revenues accrued by labels from sales of recorded music".

Stairway to Heaven: The Quarter-Note Version

Composer Thomas Dimuzio has taken this classic rock tune, reversed it, cut it up into quarter-notes and then reassembled it in forward order to retain the melody. Dimuzio claims that the resulting file contains exactly 666 regions. Anyone want to verify this?

What do you think about health care? Would you take the public option?

Have you ever heard me play guitar? I'm really fucking good. You know what I'm bad at? Answering questions about public health care. This is not in my wheelhouse. Do you have any questions about music? I almost got a mad need to lighten up. You need to lighten up, because the questions you asked me were all troublemaking questions.

The Grateful Dead Archive has taken another step in its long strange trip, from the UC Santa Cruz library to its own Web site, The Virtual Terrapin Station.

One of the most popular bands in rock 'n' roll history will have its legacy including photos, show tickets, toys, posters and recordings preserved online thanks to a federal grant. The Grateful Dead Archive, housed at the McHenry Library, has been awarded $615,175 by the Institute of Museum and Library Services to photograph and scan collection images and upload them. The public will be able to access the online collection and offer fans the opportunity to contribute to the collection by digitally submitting photos.

Christine Bunting, head of special collections and archives at McHenry, said the school will use the grant over 2½ years to archive what she said is the world's largest public collection of Dead memorabilia.

"The ultimate goal of making the archive digital is that everyone will have a Grateful Dead experience," Bunting said.

In an interview with Gibson about their new Jimi Hendrix-inspired guitar, Jimi's sister Janie noted that there is still a decade's worth of unreleased music and video to come from the legendary guitar player.

Janie Hendrix, the president and CEO of Experience Hendrix and Authentic Hendrix, said she wants to release new material every 12 to 18 months for the next ten years.

"We probably have another decade of music, including video. Every 12 to 18 months we'll continue to have new releases and Dagger [Experience Hendrix's label for live recordings] official bootlegs," she told Gibson.

"Jimi was a workaholic. After Electric Lady studios was built he was able to record constantly for as many hours as he wanted to. It's almost as if he knew he had only four years to accomplish everything that he did. We have an amazing amount of original masters, including a lot of material that hasn't been previously released."

R.I.P. Les, you were one of a kind.

Here's what is probably his last interview. Some choice quotes.

And here is some classic footage of Les with wife Mary Ford. (h/t Auset)

Mississippi Nights is going to reopen. We are in the process of the plans and finishing up financing. it is going to be very exciting. It will even serve food but retain the rock club feel. it will have a balcony and huge bars. Cant tell you much more but hoping to open fall of 2010. But banks are sooo slow.

The surviving (and formerly feuding) members of the Grateful Dead had a secret impromptu meeting Monday evening with the man they credit with reuniting them: President Obama.

The president welcomed all the members of The Dead, who are performing tonight at the Verizon Center in Washington, to the Oval Office just before dinner last night. They didn't talk music as much as they did history - history about the Oval Office, and the president's desk.

Apparently the band was quite taken with how tidy the president keeps his desk. And how down-to-earth he seemed, according a source who was there.

"The president was so gracious. Really, really nice and so welcoming. It hit you: you're in the Oval Office, but it was so normal," the source told us.

The entourage included the four surviving members of the Grateful Dead - Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann - plus keyboardist Jeff Chimenti (from Weir's Ratdog) and Warren Haynes, who is joining the Dead on their 2009 spring tour as lead vocalist and guitarist. Some of them had their wives in tow.

As if chatting with the president in the Oval Office weren't cool enough, something remarkable happened on their way out. Just outside the Oval Office, Phil and his wife, Jill Lesh, spotted a vase full of Scarlet Begonias sitting on a table.

Have a look...

I finished importing the last CD from my collection into iTunes last night. It was Sun Ra - Cosmic Tones For Mental Therapy/Art Forms Of Dimensions Tomorrow, for those keeping score. That seems like an appropriate omega to finish up with.

When I was done, I had iTunes update my "Genius" results. I hadn't really appreciated the Genius feature in the latest versions of iTunes until I got my library imported. Here's how it works: The Genius feature analyzes your music collection, compares it to music from other listeners collections (anonymously) and then can generate a playlist based any a song you choose.

So, if I pick something like Rolling Stones - Gimme Shelter, the Genius comes up with a playlist that features The Who, Hendrix, Clapton, Bob Dylan, Pink Floyd, Cream, Jefferson Airplane, Led Zeppelin, and of course other Stones tunes from my library. In other words it effortlessly makes me a "classic rock" playlist based on that first song I chose. Choosing a different song gets me a completely different mix.

When the service first appeared it was a little wonky and playlists it returned were a little hit-or-miss. But as they have been able to build a deeper database of similar tastes and styles, it has gotten better and better to the point that I can pick a song that reflects the vibe I want to hear and the Genius will give me a couple hours of music in that vein. Too cool.

iTunes also has a Genius "sidebar" you can display that will make suggestions of music you don't yet have based on what you are listening to. If you have a song or two from a particular album, it will suggest the ones you are missing. It will also suggest things you might like that are similar in flavor to the current track. It's magic, I tells ya. Magic. (And a great way to sell you music you didn't know was out there.)

I usually leave the sidebar off because I've got plenty on my plate to begin with.

If you are running a fairly modern version of iTunes, you should check it out. It's great for creating a really brilliant party mix on the fly.

My only complaint about the entire process has been that sometimes iTunes fetches the wrong cover art for a particular album (or can't find it at all). I know there's an app out there for finding cover art and swapping it out with the incorrect one. I'll have to check that out because I didn't much enjoy seeing a giant purple Jesus statue substituted for the Lilith Fair cover. But overall, it's been simply amazing.

Take out your gloves and smell them. For the first time in 16 years, Spinal Tap are recording new material.

The legendary fake band will celebrate the 25th anniversary of the This Is Spinal Tap mockumentary by releasing a new album, their first since 1992's Break Like The Wind. "It'll be for download as well as on conventional media later this year," Harry Shearer (aka bassist Derek Smalls) confirmed to BBC 5 Live.

The process is simple enough. You can set iTunes to "Import and Eject". This means I can just go about my business and feed a new disc into the drive whenever the old one gets spat out.

Most, but not all titles are recognized in the Gracenote CD Database that iTunes uses to tag files. Now to be fair, 9 times out of 10 the unrecognized ones are live or bootleg recordings that have never been submitted to Gracenote. That being said, I was pleasantly surprised to see how many live recordings actually WERE recognized and tagged. Dead, Zappa, Widespread, etc. Thank you tapers!!

...hang on...another disc just ejected...gotta put in a new one...Charlie Parker "Bebop & Bird"...

Okay where was I? Oh yeah, tagging. I'll have a job ahead of me putting track info on all the myriad live recordings I have. That stands to be the only pain in the process.

Import speed varies widely from disc to disc. Some import at the physical limit of the cd drive (52x) while others crawl along at a very pokey 5x or 6x. I do have error correction turned on so it's probably making extra passes to make sure the data is perfect. You can really tell which ones were mastered properly.

Almost every disc still plays. Of the two that don't play so far, one is a CD-R with an actual hole in the surface, so no recovering data from that one. The other is a store bought set of Monty Python's "Final Rip-Off" which lived up to it's name when the little ancient foam inserts in the jewel box dissolved and ate ugly pits into the surface of the CD. Bummer. I'll have to find that one online somewhere.

The obvious and immediate impact of this project is that my shuffle just got infinitely better! I'm rediscovering so many wonderful treasures. One thing is for sure, I've got a damn lot of Grateful Dead. The long term consequences are something else entirely. I'm excited to have all of the music of my whole lifespan available to me at the touch of a finger.

At the same time, I must lament the end of album artwork. You know... those huge album-sized hunks of freaky art that we used to have. I'm talking Led Zeppelin III and Sgt. Peppers. Marley's Catch a Fire, Cheech and Chong's Big Bamboo.

For years now, I've put up with small CD booklets with their artwork less than half the size of an LP cover. Feh!

But now? Now I'm forced to look at a piddly little JPEG that wouldn't even look good on a cassette tape. (Hey, remember those?)

So, it's not all wine and roses. There are definitely some trade-offs. But I love getting all my music off of discs and onto a drive. Now if somebody would just please send me PDFs of every booklet, I'd be set!

One last thought... I'm struck by how good the full CD-quality audio sounds. MP3 really sounds like crap until you get to extremely high bit rates, and even then there's something missing. MP4/AAC is better, but still not quite there. I just love the full sound I'm getting. (Yeah, I know analog is even better, but what are ya gonna do?)

Odetta, the singer whose deep voice wove together the strongest songs of American folk music and the civil rights movement, died on Tuesday at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan. She was 77.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Mitch Mitchell, drummer for the legendary Jimi Hendrix Experience of the 1960s and the group's last surviving member, was found dead in his hotel room early Wednesday. He was 61.

Mitchell was a powerful force on "Are You Experienced?" the 1967 debut album of the Hendrix band. He had an explosive drumming style that can be heard in hard-charging songs such as "Fire" and "Manic Depression."

The Englishman had been drumming for the Experience Hendrix Tour, which performed Friday in Portland. It was the last stop on the West Coast part of the tour.

Hendrix died in 1970. Noel Redding, bass player for the trio, died in 2003.

An employee at Portland's Benson Hotel called police after discovering Mitchell's body. Erin Patrick, a deputy medical examiner, said Mitchell apparently died of natural causes. An autopsy was planned.

Bob Merlis, a spokesman for the tour, said Mitchell had stayed in Portland for a four-day vacation and planned to leave Wednesday.

"It was a devastating surprise," Merlis said. "Nobody drummed like he did."

End of an era. Most of the trio's contemporaries are dead or defunct. Pete Townsend is a deaf old man with a bad wrist. Clapton is still a good player, but so bloated with success that he doesn't create anything new anymore. Jeff Beck is still sharp, but works on cars more than guitars these days. Ron Wood is a rich old drunk and teen skirt chaser. Jimmy Page suffers from arthritis and a big ego.

Nobody plays even the ripping blues riffs anymore, let alone the soaring psychedelic sounds.

Rest in Peace, Mitch. Hope he's sitting-in in a drum-off between Buddy Rich and Keith Moon right now.