INQ is a website that features the releases of 28 (I counted) different netlabels. The site looks nice and doesn’t have the ‘crawler’ or ‘machine’ feel to it that a lot of “community” sites have. Each label featured on INQ has their own subpage, with a brief description of what they do and a 1 hour mix of their material. It seems that each label is required to submit a mix to be listed on INQ.

These mixes are a great way to get a general feel for what each label is doing and I’ve enjoyed listening through them and exploring. There are so many netlabels out there and there are probably even more that are not on a list. It’s a bit overwhelming.

I am less interested in the “news” aspect of the collective because it mirrors content being published elsewhere. The mixes, however, are a nice touch and they are a nice alternative to going to 28 different websites.

Myplaylist is a service that compiles a playlist of available music and pictures on the internet. You type in a name of a band and then you can chose from one or more already created playlists of songs and images. A playlist will be automatically created for you on the spot if you are searching for something new. While you are listening to music, you can watch a slideshow of flickr images based on the search. I like the use of flickr images playing to music.

Myplaylist has a fairly basic function and that’s great. Beyond this function there is a little more fun to be had. I’ve discovered a lot of random awesome remixes by well known artists, stuff I didn’t know existed. The results of my search have been unexpected which has been a pleasant surprise.

Fun experiments

For those that like mashups: you can open up multiple myplaylist ’sessions’.

For those that are interested in the tagging phenomena: type in a random phrase or number and a playlist will be generated. I was just listening to a playlist of ‘untitled’ songs and it was pretty cool.

All done over at The Goodman. It’s been a long six months and you could say I got my money’s worth. I worked on Shining City, Talking Pictures, The Trip to Bountiful, The Ballad of Emmett Till, Gas for Less, and Ain’t Misbehavin’. Six months ago I had zero theater experience. I didn’t know what a ‘cue’ was and I didn’t know that I didn’t know what a cue was. Thanks to Dave, Nick, Lilly, and Steph for showing me the ropes.

I took a lot of pictures and decided to include some of what I think to be the best.

Technical rehearsal for Ain’t Misbehavin’. Notice the purple stage. During tech there’s a lot of downtime for both cast and crew so it’s good to have something to work on. If I had to title this picture it would be “Laptop Parallax.” (June 2008)

Real world fire drill. This was during tech of The Trip To Bountiful. What’s not in this picture is of importance: hundreds of employees shivering on the sidewalk. (Feb 2008)

During tech of Ain’t Misbehavin’. I like this picture because everyone is doing something. This is during a rare period when the house lights are up, a good time for a picture. (June 2008)

thanks to http://www.getlofi.com/

The following is a quote from ccmixer, a community music remixing site featuring remixes and samples licensed under Creative Commons licenses. This snippet works as a fine English translation of the type of contest rules (legal contracts) that typically accompany legal remixes of material under copywrite.

Most sampling or mash-up contests on the Internet stipulate that you will never own the samples you use in the contest and that after the contest is run you forgo your rights even to the new song you created.

After the contest has been judged, all entries that are not commercially published are essentially useless because rights to the song are given up upon entry and access to files. Typically in these contests there is one winner who has the chance to get the remix published alongside the original track, whether that be on vinyl or on iTunes. Every other contest entry, whether that be 5 or 5,000, belongs to whoever is issuing the competition and are never released.

In using material featured at remixing sites like ccmixer, the products of the material can be used in many other ways, provided that it is for noncommercial purposes. You could, for example, create a remix and enter it into a contest, and then feature the remix on your website or play it on your internet radio station.

So there are alternatives. Remix culture does not have to be a stark white wall. One downside to the creative commons direction, however, has to do with why remixes are desirable in the first place. It’s nice to be able to identify a remix on first listen and to know what is being remixed. This would be an unlikely occurrence with CC material because it doesn’t have the same sort of airplay that other music does. The stuff people know about and would be able to identify is protected by 10,000 armies.

image: ©2006 morguefile.com