and replaced it with this monstrosity:

It’s hard to believe that they are (supposedly) the same song. The first is emotional, fun, bouncy, full of life. There’s expressiveness in the kid’s voice. The second sounds like I was sleep deprived and drunk and needed to turn in a song by the next day.. Sure, the first lacks “cool” (as if that’s what’s needed to make something kids like), while the second tries so hard to be cool, which only means that in 3 short years it will be worse than uncool. It will be like latter-era Elvis. FAIL

</rant>

Anyway, do watch the movie. Disney deserves credit for putting the effort (if sometimes misplaced) in bringing Miyazaki’s movies to the monolingual masses in America. I recommend watching it subtitled if you can read fast enough. If you’re watching it with kids then, yeah, you’ll probably want to dub it. Better yet, teach your kids Japanese! You know how kids have this annoying tendency to do things over and over again? Well, if your kid insists on watching this repeatedly, let them, but force them to watch it in Japanese with no subtitles subsequent times. That’ll teach ‘em.. Japanese, that is.

(read below for what I think of the movie, some spoilers contained)
As for the movie itself, there’s not much I can say without revealing the plot or saying what’s been said a gillion times. It’s not Miyazaki’s best movie, but it’s quite good. I knew I was going to like the movie when the very first scene contained Trilobites! That, and countless other Cambrian organisms.. Also, in a sea of Miyazaki “forest” movies, we find an ocean movie. Loosely based on Andersen’s The Little Mermaid, there are no mermaids, but the human-faced fish offspring of a mad sea-scientist and some sort of sea elemental or sea Goddess. Oh, but the girl does still have red hair (but so do all her sisters).

One theme that’s strong in the movie is something you see quite a bit in a lot of his recent movies – morph. Characters oscillate at different speeds in different directions at different times towards different forms. It is almost as if suggesting you don’t have an essential nature, but you are the sum product of events that occurred to you, and decisions you made. The sisters, too, morph at one stage into giant fish, and in turn to great tsunami waves and also for a brief second into beautiful girls alongside their mother. Indeed, her sisters are more like a mass than a collection of individuals – very Japanese.

The other theme is something reminiscent of My Neighbor Totoro – the seeming ability of most of the characters to not by shocked by the strange universe Miyazaki made for us. I know this isn’t just a Japanese thing, since even my wife thinks it odd that none of the characters (except the grumpy old lady who correctly portented the human-faced fish bringing tsunami) finds the fish’s appearance odd. His mother only thinks she’s cute. Even the appearance of the girl, revealing herself to having been the boy’s former pet fish didn’t even close to get the reaction I would expect in the real world – I would come running to the hills! But then again, in a world full of spirits, people get used to spirits. You say you believe in X, but would freak out completely if you ever met X. Miyazaki’s atheism and his coming from a culture that’s borderline animistic (and, formerly, much more than borderline) meet together in his art and it’s lovely.

Too bad it was a festival and there were two bands I had to see, the aforementioned TG and The Cure! I got some good moments in, but between the concert-jumping I managed to miss both Genesis kissing the tattoo of his dead x-wife and “lovesong”. What’s the opposite of a hybrid… a lobrid? Yeah, a festival is a lobrid, because though in theory, the different areas are for different kinds of people, in practice coming primarily for two different headlining acts is an eventuality. Though the sounds of those two bands I came to see are quiiiite different, there is considerably overlap in their fan bases (people who dress in black.. people who like songs dripping with emotion – yes TG’s songs do!) Oh well. Maybe I can be crazy and try to see TG tonight, though I probably will not have time, what with speaking in foreign tongues to future in-laws and all…

There isn’t so much to say about The Cure. They’re performance was perfect. Robert Smith is so dramatic and his voice is impressive (I didn’t use to be a fan of his voice, even though I still liked the Cure, go figure). They started out with the first track from their new album. Robert Smith should lose weight in a way that doesn’t involve going back to his old ways. If he jogged regularly like Jagger does, then their performance would go beyond legendary to.. ugh, whatever is beyond legendary. Yes.

So, in conclusion, I might go to Coachella again. It’s a good experience, but I’m just more of a concert guy. One stage, preferrably where the fans of the main band and of earlier bands are mostly the same people. Yeah, that’s good. Nothing has topped the Current 93 concert in San Fran’ for me yet…

If you wanna hand these out, download the full-rez tiff here, print it out, cut it and spread the word ’till all the kingdom’s on earth accept the gospel of Thomas is awesome.

Here is an interesting article on Nature. It’s a study that show a correlation between genetics and singing patterns in African tribes. This reminds me of how me and my dad would joke that we’re good at drumming because of our Afro roots (there are unverified, yet plausible family legends of Sub-Saharan African ancestry on the English side of the family).

The study used an arbitrary set of ways to measure singing patters, such as presence of yodeling, pitch, etc and looks at correlations with geography and with genetics. The strongest relationship was with genetics. Of course, this doesn’t rule out the possibility that culture passed down generations can be more powerful than influence from neighboring tribes especially given that people move around a lot, so it would only add up to noise.

Now, if a child adopted from another tribe had difficulty with his or her host family’s singing style (unlikely, though it was a good gag in The Jerk), this might give credence to the notion that “Music is in our genes” and even to the absurd racialist notion that culture is burnt onto the EEPROM, not installed on the hard drive. That being said, it’s not too far-fetched to think that people who’s ancestors were in tribes that placed greater importance on music in ritual would, on average, have more innate musical talents. The musical sense in general is universal and that would mean that we’ve been doing this stuff as long as, or even before, we were human.

Unfortunately, since it’s been long enough, you need a subscription to Nature to read the article now, but it was free when I read it.

Band-collab.net Online Music Collaboration Released with WebDAW™

Wrightwood, CA – - 12/8/2007 – - Osaka Red, LLC officially makes band-collab.net, a web-based platform for collaboration between musicians, available to the public. Band-collab.net promises to revolutionize the way musicians work on music, delivering on great as-yet undelivered promises of the internet.

Band-collab.net began as a simple web-based app created by Thomas Webb for his band to work on and comment on each other’s lyrics in a private part of his band’s website. He then expanded on this simple idea to create something much more comprehensive – web-based digital audio workstation, web-based virtual filesystem, ascii-tab generator, private forum and file sharing – everything needed for musicians to work on music remotely. To this, band-collab.net also adds other useful features for bands, such as band pages with streaming music as well as musician’s classifieds.

“I had something that let my band continue to be creative, even during the work week, even if a member or two moves away”, says Thomas, “I wanted to share this neat tool with the world. If there’s one thing the internet hasn’t revolutionized as much as it should have, it’s creativity – and this is the missing piece”. Indeed, the web has done many great things for left-brain creativity – a quick web search for “online project management” shows a wide array of useful and ingenious pieces of software – but musicians are given very few simple tools to enhance the creative process itself. That is, until now.

Band-collab.net now also includes a web-based digital audio workstation, WebDAW™™™™™, for working on song ideas over long distance. This simple flash-based applet allows users to upload recordings of their part to a virtual project. Each track can be moved forward or backward in time, attenuated or panned to achieve the right mix. This is a much quicker and more compatible alternative to heaving hefty multi-track files from different software programs. However, where the advanced features of a desktop DAW are needed, band-collab.net does gladly facilitate the needed file transfers, and uploaded files are conveniently kept in the musicians’ workspace.

Band-collab.net also allows quick creation of the web’s most popular way of exchanging guitar tablature, so-called “ASCII tabs”, using a built-in ascii-tab generator. This is in line with band-collab.net’s philosophy of enhancing the way musicians already work rather than adding new barriers. This generator is built right in to the forums and can also be used to create and save tabs in the band’s space.

Asked what makes band-collab.net different from other sites out there designed for open musical innovation, Thomas replied, “Band-collab.net is based on the way real bands create music. Sites designed for open collaboration have their niche, but one of the great lessons of the internet is that social norms don’t suddenly change when technology is applied. We give tools that can enhance the creative flow the musicians already perfected on their own.”

About Us

Osaka Red, LLC is making a name for themselves in the pro audio and scientific/medical markets. Bringing user-friendliness and open standards to places where such is the least expected and surprising the industry with innovations that are useful and user-friendly, yet astonishingly simple. Osaka Red both creates software to sell or offer as a free web service and creates custom software for very happy clients.

On the web front, Osaka Red, LLC hopes to make the internet a more useful and friendly place than they found it by creating web-based technologies of value, rather than on monetizing capacity alone. The internet has great potential to realize our wildest dreams and Osaka Red, LLC is committed to do what they can to bring it to its potential.

Media Contact:
Thomas J. Webb
760-912-1856
tjwebb@osakared.com

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ポリシックスは最高だった！先の木曜日、コンサート見に行った。歌う人は元気がいっぱい。キーボードする女の子はロボットみたいで可愛い。みんなすごく上手だよ。また見に行きたい！！！

It was kinda funny. The first day before the concert, I approached some darkly clad people afore the concert hall and asked them if they were there to see Current 93. It was visibly pissed I didn’t know who they were Om. Hah!

The first night was awesome. David Tibet shaked like he was possessed for the long introductory part of “Judas as Black Moth.” It added a sort of beat to the violins and pianos. He has such a stage presense and I was right there in the front both nights. Well, my descriptions always manage to make the awesome sound tedious so I’ll stop.