See all of these AND MORE on the Weasel Report Photos page, or on my Flickr page!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FF78B82C63427F7

here]]]>

See all of these AND MORE on the Weasel Report Photos page, or on my Flickr page!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FF78B82C63427F7

See ALL EIGHT videos on the Video Reports page, or on my YouTube page!

(For the next week, we will be taking donations for a new video camera, probably a Flip! Please use the yellow donate button on the left hand side of your screen! We really appreciate all of your donations, and will use the camera to bring you new and interesting content to the website!)

These Hopeful Machines By: BT Genre: Electronica Release Date: February 2, 2010

In his first album in four years, and one of the first major EDM (Electronic Dance Music) album releases of 2010; Composer, Producer and Artist BT returns with the two-disc album called These Hopeful Machines. The album can be found in major [... Read more here]]]>

These Hopeful Machines
By: BT
Genre: Electronica
Release Date: February 2, 2010

In his first album in four years, and one of the first major EDM (Electronic Dance Music) album releases of 2010; Composer, Producer and Artist BT returns with the two-disc album called These Hopeful Machines. The album can be found in major retailers that carry EDM albums in a two-disc set, or can be found downloadable online as such, or as a two hour long mixes, in order to preserve a flowing, non-stop style.

Contrary to many electronic albums, BT continues to show his musical prowess, with his mixing of an everyday music sound feel and electronic beats. While the songs are definitely of the electronic variety, each one uses a unique emotion to create an excellent sound. One could easily expect each song to sound similar, as most artists tend to use a very familiar beat in many of their songs, but These Hopeful Machines surprises, with every song having a different tempo, and sounding much different than the one before. Not to mention the amazing vocal abilities that were used in each of the songs, it makes for an excellent mix that makes you want to keep listening.

The first half hour is a great example of what to look forward to. “Suddenly” starts you off with a good classic electronic rock feel. Following that is “The Emergency”, which preserves the electronic feel but goes with a lighter song. Finally, “Every Other Way”, vocalized by Jes Brieden and released in a singles album late last year, is one of the most beautiful songs of the new year, with a light, loving tone, yet still keeping with the electronica undertones that BT is famous for. One could say that BT is a electronic, symphonic genius with this new work, and even non-electronica music fans can get in to this listening experience.

Usually an album is worth a listen or two, and contains songs that are extremely well know to the EDM community already, due to the various podcasts and mix/mashup compilation albums that are released these days, but BT succeeds in bringing brand new songs to the table, and making them so wonderful that they will stick with you for time to come. Just listening through, there feels to be an extremely high attention to the small details of each song, and the resulting songs are worth every second of your time. If you are a fan of EDM, or dare I say, if you are a fan of good music, and enjoy songs that are a little off the beaten path, with unique vocal and instrumental tones joining in, then These Hopeful Machines is an album that should be checked out.

These Hopeful Machines CD on Amazon.com
These Hopeful Machines (Amazon MP3 Exclusive Version) on Amazon.com
These Hopeful Machines (Continuous Mixes) on iTunes

Continue reading to learn more about our new February feature, EDM.

To most people in the [... Read more here]]]> Peace Love Unity Respect

mu⋅sic [myoo-zik] –noun 1. an art of sound in time that expresses ideas and emotions in significant forms through the elements of rhythm, melody, harmony, and color. [source]

Continue reading to learn more about our new February feature, EDM.

To most people in the world, music is essential. Music helps people share their emotions using a creative means. Music is a universal language that is spoken around the world, which everyone can understand. Music comes in many different shapes and sizes, most often called genres. And one genre which is typically overlooked in the United States is EDM, or Electronic Dance Music, a genre which is highly popular in the European and Asian regions, and has recently been growing in the western hemisphere. EDM isn’t something that you can hear on a daily basis in a public setting, as very few of their songs make it to public radio, which is why it is typically found in nightclubs, or in another unique form which is highly overlooked; raves.

PLUR is a mantra that is typically associated with the rave culture. Peace, a harmonious relationship of individuals or societies; Love, feelings of goodwill and caring towards each other; Unity, the idea that we as humans are all united in the world; Respect, positive regards for yourself and those around you. While the rave scene is typically looked down upon, what people see and what actually happens are two very different ideas. The people that you meet at raves aren’t necessarily misfits, but they are people who wish to express themselves in their own way, without being judged by the stereotypes that society makes for us. EDM is a music genre that opens the mind, and allows people to celebrate the life they have in their own, unique way.

For the month of February, the Weasel Report will be featuring articles highlighting Electronic Dance Music, the ideals of PLUR, the behind the scenes of raves, and much more. We’ve even decided to change our color scheme up a bit for our banners for this month, as a tribute to the popular midwestern production company which produces raves, Psychedelic Panda Productions. If you enjoy EDM, or have stories from raves that you wish to share, and enjoy writing, please consider joining our staff. You can e-mail us at contributor [at] weaselreport.com for more information on becoming a writer for us. We’d also love to see your pictures, videos, and much more, so please feel free to contribute to articles that you enjoy with a comment or two. Thank you for reading, and we’ll see you later this month for much more.

Welcome to YouTube Tuesday, a weekly spotlight of a few interesting YouTube videos to watch!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSffsb5ztRo

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ianA_u5wHmc

See all of these AND MORE on the Weasel Report Photos page, or on my Flickr page!

The [... Read more here]]]>

See all of these AND MORE on the Weasel Report Photos page, or on my Flickr page!

The videos, however, are what do the real justice of the event.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=78C766172E6437A3

See all of these videos on the Video Reports page, or on my YouTube page!

See all of these AND MORE on the Weasel Report Photos page, or on my Flickr page!

The [... Read more here]]]>

See all of these AND MORE on the Weasel Report Photos page, or on my Flickr page!

The videos, however, are what do the real justice of the event.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3608D8344004820

See all of these videos on the Video Reports page, or on my YouTube page!

I’m not sure how many of you have a YouTube account, or have been paying attention to anything that’s been going on over there, but a chain reaction has started that, frankly, I’m finding to be extremely disturbing, and greatly unnerving. First off, let me start with what we know.

For years, the issue [... Read more here]]]>

I’m not sure how many of you have a YouTube account, or have been paying attention to anything that’s been going on over there, but a chain reaction has started that, frankly, I’m finding to be extremely disturbing, and greatly unnerving. First off, let me start with what we know.

For years, the issue of copyright infringement has been a huge issue in the land of the Internet. That would pertain to anything, from written works such as what you’re reading right now, to works of art, videos, and music. If you’re in any kind of school right now, you’ll know first-hand about the issues of copyright, except in most cases, this is limited to papers and works of writing. Students have to cite their sources in Modern Language Association (MLA), American Psychological Association (APA), or whatever other acronym citation type, for their paper, or they are subject to getting a zero on their paper, or worse, being dropped from the class. While I agree that copyright infringement is a serious thing to be considerate about, and that the citation methods needed are a bit over the top, I fear that there is another copyright issue that is coming into play now that, frankly, I find absolutely ridiculous.

In 1998, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was brought into effect, extending the reach of copyright to the Internet as well. And when it comes to the issue of music, and music streaming on the Internet, this has become outrageous. Recently, one of my videos that I uploaded to YouTube from the Race For The Cure in 2008 (video link), had it’s sound muted from playing due to the fact that it had the song Live Like You Were Dying by Tim McGraw playing in it’s background, stating that the song is owned by Warner Music Group (WMG), and that I do not have the proper permission to use the song. When reading further, YouTube shows reasons that are not valid in being able to use this music, and why. I found a few that stand out in a massive way.

• I own the CD / DVD or bought the song online.

Buying a song, CD, DVD, or other piece of media doesn’t give you authorization to post that content on YouTube. The content owner still has the right to choose where it is distributed.

• I gave credit in the description. Isn’t that enough?

No. Giving credit does not give you authorization to upload the content.

• I’m not selling my video or trying to make money.

Whether or not you benefit financially from using the content doesn’t matter. Unless you have permission from the owner, it’s not yours to use.

Let’s look past the laws for a second, and just think about this, because in a realistic point of view, there’s just something wrong with this. First of all, you’ve legally paid for the music, yes, and, I can understand how that isn’t a good enough reason yet. Looking further though, I am not claiming this song as my own in any way, this song is owned by their respective owner, and credit is given in the description. In the case of my video, I specifically put the following into it’s description literally ten months ago, when the audio was still working perfectly fine.

Music: Live Like You Were Dying by Tim McGraw (© CURB RECORDS)

By saying this, I’ve officially let anyone viewing the video, including the owner of the music themselves, that it is their property, and I am only using it to serve as, in this case, background music for a video that fits with this song perfectly, which brings me to the final point. Again, I understand the point of copyright laws, and that it IS their property, they created it, so they should receive money for the use of it outside of their control. But really, in 90% of these videos, especially in ones that you find on YouTube, they are solely there for the purpose of aiding make the video more whole. You are not using it to make a profit, or even any money at all. Branching off from this, I did some research into broadcasting music as well, because I’ve always been extremely interested in the streaming of music, as in a radio. This topic almost becomes very convoluted, and I happen to disagree with much of it, but, I won’t get ahead of myself. There are two main issues when it comes to streaming music through the Internet. First, in many cases, you need a license to be able to do so, and secondly, you need to pay royalties for each song that you play to that music label. On top of this, you must also comply to the DMCA, which when it comes to broadcasting, it downright stupid. The following are a few of the items involved in the DMCA for all online US broadcasters.

• In any three-hour period, you should not intentionally program more than three songs (and not more than two songs in a row) from the same recording; you should not intentionally program more than four songs (and not more than three songs in a row) from the same recording artist or anthology/box set.

• Rebroadcasts of programs can be performed at scheduled times three times in a two-week period (for programs of less than one hour) and four times (for programs of an hour or more).

• Do not publish advance program guides or use other means to pre-announce when particular sound recordings will be played. However, a webcaster may name one or two artists to illustrate the type of music on a particular channel; and, DJ “teaser” announcement using artists’ names are permitted, but only those that do not specify the time a song will be played.

These requirements leave me speechless. I honestly couldn’t even begin to see the justification in these in any way. I shouldn’t say that, because, I can understand how they wouldn’t want a DJ to play the same song multiple times, due to the fact that it would rack up some serious unstable royalty fees towards a certain label, but that still doesn’t explain anything about these. In addition to that, in 2007, the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) increased rates for webcasters 300 to 1200 percent. Following this, many popular streaming music services, including AOL Radio, Yahoo! Radio and Pandora, have suffered greatly. Later in 2007, this rate was obviously fought by webcasters across the country, who formed a coalition called Savenetradio.org, and the Internet Radio Equality Act was brought into place. This forced a flat fee instead of a fee based on how many songs the station played. The fee came to either 0.33 cents ($0.0033) per hour of transmission, or 7.5 percent of the revenues brought in by the transmissions for that year. Following up on that information, here are some example rates before and after the rate change, using an example of fifteen songs for one hundred listeners each hour.

Copyright Royalty Board rates
2009: $23652 ($.0018/song * 15 songs/hour * 24 hours/day * 365 days/year * 100 average listeners/hour)

Internet Radio Equality Act rates
$2890.80 ($.0033/hour * 24 hours/day * 365 days/year * 100 average listeners/hour)

As you can see, it’s a massive change in the rates, and one that will save many streaming radio stations to come. For a small broadcaster, this would come to approximately $240.90 per month. Unfortunately, reading up on all of this hasn’t explained to me if this is the full fees that a broadcaster would be paying, or if there are still some hidden fees not included in these that must be paid as well. Either way, it can be a lot for a non-profit webmaster. Stopping and taking a look at the big picture though, I have many arguments towards the handling of internet radio broadcasting.

• The broadcaster paid for the music they are broadcasting, so the record labels already have been paid once to begin with.
• Anyone can make a burned mix CD and, technically, that is legal, so what is the difference with letting your friends hear music over the Internet.
• Technically, you are doing nothing but streaming the music, so you are not sharing the music for download in any way at all.
• By playing an artists music, you are, in the end, doing nothing but promoting them, and listeners will be more swayed to purchasing the song themselves if they like it, but without hearing it in the first place, they’ll never even consider to purchase it at all.
• Many small broadcasters, 100-150 listeners, are completely non-profit, they aren’t making money off of playing someone’s music.

Obviously, my realistic points fall on deaf ears, as, chances are, they wouldn’t fly in a court of law, but, let’s be honest, as a human being, can you not see the point in all of this, in a most obvious way? My fears go a little deeper than just broadcasters though. Moving back to the original thought of music in general, I wonder when this will hit the school-wide level. With copyright infringement becoming such a major issue, I wonder when it is that no one will be allowed to use any works that aren’t theirs period, no matter the circumstance. Basically, standing back and looking at the full issue here, copyrights have become out of control, as humans are greedy, and looking for nothing but money in their lives. I refuse to give in to such rash ideas that our government has provided for us, and will always keep a realistic eye to things like these, because really, there becomes a point where having a heart, mind, soul and common sense just seems to disappear in our world.

Before I begin, I would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and all of those other holidays which all seem to happen to fall in to this time of the year, including my 21st birthday, for those of you who were unaware. Yes, check that About Weasel page if you [... Read more here]]]>

Before I begin, I would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and all of those other holidays which all seem to happen to fall in to this time of the year, including my 21st birthday, for those of you who were unaware. Yes, check that About Weasel page if you are curious to finally see the first picture of me on my Blog, and with my first drink no less. It’s a month of firsts, let me tell you. Oh, and 2009 will be a year of firsts as well. I’m starting work on a secret project, which you’ll be able to find information about on the Project Source page I’ve just created. And don’t forget to check out my Video Games page, which, I promise, I’ll get around to fully updating soon enough. But, without further ado, let’s get to the real meat and potatoes of this entry. Mmmm… meat and potatoes… I’m hungry, damn.

Music and rhythm games come in all shapes and sizes these days. Obviously, some of the most popular are games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band, or one of my personal favorites, Dance Dance Revolution. They can also be karaoke, SingStar and Lips being examples of those, or even more different, Elite Beat Agents and Wii Music. But a handful of more unique, non-mainstream rhythm games have been put out on the PC, the most notable now being Audiosurf. I’ve always personally been a fan of Audiosurf, and it’s available on Steam for $4.99 until the end of their sale, so I’d recommend it.

Audiosurf

Audiosurf created something new and different that captured people quickly. The premise of Audiosurf is that it takes your music, any song that you have in an MP3 format, and scans it for it’s beat and tone. Then, it creates a highway based on the pitch the music takes, and you, playing as the vehicle on this highway, are made to run over colored blocks to create combinations, depending on which mode you play in. There are many different modes, which range from the simple mode of picking up the color blocks and avoiding gray ones, to harder modes which force you to match up at least three of each color to acquire points from it. This game can be played with your keyboard, but is the most fun when played with your mouse. This game had me hooked from the beginning, because, as stated earlier, it can be used with any song you could possibly happen to have in your entire library.

There are more than just that, though, that you can find on the internet. Take for example a game that is nothing but a Flash demo still so far, yet very advanced to begin with. The game is called Auditorium, and it’s made by a company called Cipher Prime. Even by checking out their Website and their Blog, it’s easy to see that they know a thing or two about creativity. Auditorium features a completely original orchestrated soundtrack, and it is what drives the game. The idea of the game is extremely simple. The “Flow” is a stream of white lines that come from a starting point. The objective is to change the direction of those lines using “Controls”, which range from simple directions, to the most advanced control in the demo being the “Attract” control, which makes the flow wrap around in circles around it. The destination for this flow is “Containers”, which are bars, like you would find in a recording studio. When all of the varied containers in the level are filled up to the top, you are taken to the next level. There is a lot to explain about this game, but I would recommend just heading over and trying it out yourself. The demo only contains three stages, some of which can be difficult and annoying, but with time, each one can be figured out.

Auditorium

The market for rhythm games is vast, but more unique ideas, such as the one used in Auditorium, are needed to keep it as alive as it is right now. The constant rehashes of Guitar Hero games will eventually lead to over saturation, and the amount of sales they will get will eventually fall. For my personal self, I’ve ceased buying any of the Guitar Hero games due to the fact that it is continuously being milked for all that it’s worth. There comes a point where I feel disgusted that they’ve made so many of the same thing, that I’m just torn away from wanting it anymore. Many people could come back and say that the Final Fantasy series has done the same thing, but I would like to point out that every Final Fantasy game is a unique storyline, with unique features and elements built in to them, and even if some of the mechanics are similar, the story is always many, many hours different than the others. Ideas like this, and quite possibly flOw as well, will shape the direction that music-related games will go in the future.

Also, semi-related, in the aspect of music, check out the band that did the soundtrack for the video game Mirror’s Edge, Solar Fields. They have an area where you can listen to music directly on their website, and if you love instrumental music as much as I do, you will definitely enjoy many of their tracks that they’ve created over the time.

Symphony by Sarah Brightman

Producer: Frank Peterson Label: Manhattan Records Genre: Operatic Pop / Opera Classical Release Date: January 29, 2008

While not something that I would usually listen to, I decided to pick up the latest album by Sarah Brightman entitled “Symphony”. This album is just that, featuring a very high multitude of people singing with [... Read more here]]]>

Symphony by Sarah Brightman

Producer: Frank Peterson
Label: Manhattan Records
Genre: Operatic Pop / Opera Classical
Release Date: January 29, 2008

While not something that I would usually listen to, I decided to pick up the latest album by Sarah Brightman entitled “Symphony”. This album is just that, featuring a very high multitude of people singing with her. It also features many famous orchestras, including the London Symphony Orchestra. Many of the tracks from this album have been used on many special occasions, including the 2007 Championships in Osaka, Japan; or as the theme song for the Pokemon film “The Rise of Darkrai”.

On the U.S. Billboard Top 200 Albums, Symphony reached up to the 13th position at best, while topping the Classical charts without hesitation.

Listening to the first few songs may be a bit decieving, as they are a bit more upbeat and epic than the rest of the album. Being a operatic-type album, most of the songs that you will find on this including a lot of singing, or large amounts of instrumental sections. None the less, Sarah Brightman has a very good voice, so if you’re looking for a good album which contains a lot of singing, this is the one for you.

Album art for the album "Symphony".

Bringing in a fun fact, and a reference to video games, the album art, including the clothing that Sarah Brightman is wearing, as well as the background that she is in front of, were inspired from Daniel Dociu, concept artist for the popular CORPG Guild Wars. Based off of my knowledge of Guild Wars, I would say that the art represents buildings from the Kurzick side of Factions, the second game in the Guild Wars series.

Again though, if you listen to the song on the website and think that that might be what all of the songs on this album are going to be, you are going to be disappointed. Sarah Brightman sings more of the slow songs than anything else, so if you have a soft-spot for that, you will enjoy this album. Overall though, I did enjoy this album greatly, and was happy for my purchase, and hope that you will be too if you decide to buy it. It can be found in most retailers, as well as online retailers such as iTunes.

Weasel’s Score: 76%