Muxtape 2.0

I made another one http://davduf2.muxtape.com/

In other news, I'm leaving Desjardins Venture Capital next week to join the JLA Ventures team as an associate. More on this - and an overhaul of this blog, including, hopefully, actual blogging - very soon.

Also, in the last few days I have lost my spot as the #1 Tungle Space creator and intend to win it back. That is, unless I follow Rick's advice and get a Mac laptop and then have to wait for Tungle's complete Mac and Google integration. But, right now sitting here, I'm having Voodoo Envy envy.

Geostationary Banana Over Texas

Yes indeed. I'll let you guys read this one by yourselves. Montreal creativity (and government spending, apparently) at its best.

In other (somehow related) news, I loved this post on the "Creating Passionate Users" blog, about passion for employer vs. passion for work. I can certainly relate. It's something I've observed in the organizations I've worked for and the companies I work with, and I feel that professionals from my generation definitely more often fall in the latter category.

"The company should behave just like a good user interface -- support people in doing what they're trying to do, and stay the hell out of their way. Applying the employer-as-UI model, the best company is one in which the employees are so engaged in their work that the company fades into the background."

Amen.

Going further down my list of starred items in my Google Reader, Andrew Parker, after attending the Brave New Web conference in Boston, concludes with

"Overall, the conference was entertaining, but no more informative than a day of posts on the blogosphere. The information exchange going on everyday on the blogosphere is the cutting-edge of thought leadership today. That being said, I dig conferences for the value of getting out from behind a computer and meeting people. There’s no substitute for face-to-face conversation."

I have to agree and I feel that becoming a heavy RSS user and reading a long list of tech, finance and VC blogs every day is making me better at what I do. But what Andrew says about conferences is also how I've been feeling about books lately. Every time I finish reading a business or non-fiction book I have this overwhelming sensation that the few new and good ideas it contained, the actual value added of the book, could have been written in a few blog posts and taken me 20 min. to read instead of a week. Shortening attention span, I guess.

Finally, a song for your Friday morning, taken from the amazing upcoming album Dividing Opinions by Giardini Di Miro, an indie/post-rock band from Italy. They have 4 or 5 older albums under their belt, all wonderful.
Giardini Di Miro - Spectral Woman

The electricity in your house wants to sing

Fortune editor David Kirkpatrick believes that subscription services, like Rhapsody, rather than iTunes-type online stores, are the way of tomorrow, fueled by ubiquitous broadband and the proliferation of mobile devices. That made me pause and look at my own music set-up.

Home:

I have, on my PC, close to 200 GB of high bitrate mp3s. Most of them I encoded myself from my collection of CDs, some I've acquired through iTunes-type online stores (and un-DRM'ed) and, yes, there's a bunch I acquired by encoding some of my friends' CDs and sometimes filesharing with them.

That PC is in the small office I have in our apartment. My modified XBox, running the awesome open-source software XBMC, is in the living room, connected to my HDTV screen, to my sound system, and to my home wi-fi network... this makes my set-up the Poor Man's Sonos (also mentioned by Kirkpatrick).

With XBMC I can stream all my mp3s, build playlists and use visualizers on my TV screen. I can also stream Shoutcast stations (including my own server, which resides on an antique laptop). I can also watch my digital pics, DIVX movies, youtube clips and do many, many more things, (including playing XBox games...). Setting up and customizing XBMC takes a bit of skill, or, in my case, trial, error and a lot of tutorials, but the possibilities are plentiful.

We have a similar set-up in the bedroom, where I use another old work laptop, connected to the wi-fi network and to a set of speakers, and running VLC.

Mobile:

I've never owned an iPod (but Christy has one). I have a pre-iPod, old and bulky RCA Lyra Jukebox residing in the car and a trustworthy Archos Gmini400 for running, working out, or just walking around (I usually walk to work).

But, the new exciting addition to the family (merci papa !) is the Archos 604wifi. The thing has a full color 4.3" touchscreen, plays mp3s and other audio formats, videos and pictures. It has a wi-fi card which allows me to connect to a hotspot or to my home network, browse the web with its Opera browser, but also stream all the tunes and flicks I have on my network, whether I'm in bed, in the bathroom or on the balcony. Current firmware doesn't allow it but I can easily see the day where a device like this one would allow me to connect to any hotspot and stream music from my home server, or from a subscription service. Maybe I'll write a more detailed review of the 604wifi soon.

Work:

I have transferred a few GBs of music to my work laptop, but recently started using Vibe Streamer, which allows me to stream all the music I have on my PC at home, from work. I also used Vibe Streamer to DJ at the New Year's Eve party we held at my friend Cyril's loft. Really cool, although not everyone was pleased by my disdain for 80's hits. Streampad has a similar feature, but I couldn't get it to work on my system. I also tune in to my Shoutcast station (and others) from work.

So basically with Vibe Streamer I can now access my own music collection anywhere there's broadband internet. In theory, I could also give that access to anyone I want, giving them a free subscription to my music collection. And they could do the same, creating our own private Rhapsody...

I also finally started spying on myself and installed Last.fm last week, on my computers and enabled it on XBMC. I need to spend more time with it but it seems very exciting. Pandora, the Hype Machine and the various music blogs are other music sources I've enjoyed in the past months.

So, I haven't really used CDs (and their evil jewel cases) in the last 2 years, except to encode, right after I buy them. I realise that, for digital music, I'm very much the early adopter and that today's tools and products aren't for the average consumer. But these tools are getting more and more user-friendly and affordable. And the average consumer is getting more and more tech savvy.

I think Kirkpatrick is probably right and that subscription services are the future. I don't need to carry around CDs and even today I don't always need to have the actual mp3 files with me. But I definitely believe that a lot of those subscription services will be open and user/community generated and will, once again, evade being controlled by the music industry. I can easily see a future where I will stream all the music I need from my own server or from my Last.fm friends/neighbours' radios, not necessarily Rhapsody... It'll also be interesting to see what kind of free subscription access the piracy groups, darknets and other filesharing communities will make available...

In the meantime, according to I Am Robot And Pround - The Electricity in your House Want to Sing. If you ask me, that's damn good news.

2006 quickie music retrospective- Part 2

OK, I know everyone is sick of these by now. But, it's Sunday night, tomorrow is back-to-work and seriousness for Dav, I want that streampad widget you see on the right side-bar to be well populated and it's my blog so I do whatever I want.
There.

Barzin - Let's Go Driving the opening track from My Life in Rooms
A great album of slow-paced, dreamy songs from this Toronto artist.

Kimya Dawson - Underground from Remember That I Love You
Kimya came back this year with another nice collection of lo-fi melodies and witty lyrics. Pretty good.

Beirut - Mount Wroclai (Idle Days) from Gulag Okestar
Probably my favorite album this year. Deservedly the darlings of the indie blogosphere. Check out the review of their Pop Montreal concert, written by my sweetie.

Calexico - All Systems Red from Garden Ruin
I miss their usually more mariachi infused sound, but this a very solid rock album.

EPO-555 - Maid in China from Mafia
Let me win back some of my indie cred by pimping this (more obscure) band from Denmark. Flaming Lips fans should like this.

The Appleseed Cast - Mountain Halo from Peregrine
More great inventive shoegazey indie rock from these ex-emoers.

Tokyo Police Club - Nature of the Experiment from their debut EP A Lesson in Crime
Very promising debut by these Toronto kids. If you like the Strokes, Franz Ferdinand, etc.

The Hot Springs - The Fog and The Horn from the Québec Émergent comp
I don't think The Hot Springs have an album out yet, but they're hyped as the next big thing out of Montreal. This girl here might be the next indie rock superstar.

Ratatat - Wildcat from Classics
This duo fuses synthetic beats with guitar riffs (and panther roars) for a very unique sound.

Booka Shade - Darko from Movements
One of the few electro albums i truly enjoyed in 2006.


Ellen Allien & Apparat - Do Not Break from Orchestra of Bubbles
More German electro-goodness resulting from this collaboration. They held a contest to pick the video for one of their songs. Beautiful results.

Mouse on Mars - Chartnok from Varcharz
Warning - this one isn't for everyone... a delicious brainf*ck. MoM are the grandaddies of German IDM. Their recent set at Salla Rossa are the 2nd time I actually busted a move in 2006. 1st time was the Sharon Jones' 50th Birthday Part in NYC.

Alias & Tarsier - Dr. C from their coast-to-coast collaborative effort BrooklandOaklyn
Reminds me of the good days of trip-hop.

Zuchini Drive - Sombre City from Being Kurtwood
Electro-hip-hop by a Belgian and a Sweden. Markus Acher (of the fantastic German band The Notwist) appears on this track, perhaps the most European one ever recorded.

Fat Jon & Styrofoam - Runnin' Circle from The Same Channel
Again, a great electro-hip-hop collaboration. US-Belgium. Go globalization.

Keny Arkana - Mère des enfants perdus from Entre ciment et belle étoile
Alright, I don't know much about hip-hop. Clipse, The Game, Nas, all great albums, but the one hip-hop record that really kicked my ass this year is the debut by a young, angry, immigrée Marseillaise. Very angry.

Asobi Seksu - New Years from Citrus
Let's end with a few louder picks. Asobi Seksu in a NYC shoegaze band fronted by a tiny Japanese girl. Great live show.

The Thermals - A Pillar of Salt from The Body, The Blood, The Machine
Very dynamic and gritty post-punk from Portland, OR.

Priestess - Talk to Her from Hello Master
Heavy arena rock band from Montreal. Long hair, old-fashioned riffs. I wish I could play in a garage band.

Mogwai - Travel Is Dangerous from Mr. Beast
These Glasgow post-rockers are long-time favorites of mine and this album didn't disappoint. Loud but melodic.

Triple Burner - Bride of Bad Attitude from their self-titled debut
Allow me to finish with this local act that I've particularly enjoyed seeing live a few times in the last 2 or 3 years. Triple Burner are Harris Newman (wonderful guitarist) and Bruce Cawdron (percussions). Hypnotic.

Alright, that's enough. I'm going to bed. Happy New Music Year everyone !

2006 quickie music retrospective- Part 1

Jolie Holland - Mexican Blue from her album Springtime Can Kill You
Let's start slow with this low-key jazz tune with a sexy southern twang. Lovely album.

Sodastream - Twin Lakes from Reservations
My favorite Aussie band. Guitar and stand-up bass duo.

Patrick Watson - Daydreamer from Close to Paradise
Patrick lives two corners from our place and, true story, last summer he saved the life of a dog we were dog-sitting. And then put out his superb sophomore album. Super-Hero stuff.


Sunset Rubdown - Shut Up from their album Shut Up I Am Dreaming
Also from Montreal, side-project of Spencer Krug, of Wolf Parade fame.

Malajube - La monogamie from the excellent Trompe l'oeil
We're still in Montreal, this time in French, and Malajube are the best thing that has happened to québécois rock in forever. Cool vids, too.

Land of Talk - Speak to Me Bones from their debut EP Applause, Cheer, Boo, Hiss
More Montreal indie rock goodness... man, I love this city.


More to come...

Stuff I enjoyed in 2006 (and my 1st music post)

Yup. I think my next few posts are going to be about things I liked in the past year; music, books, blogs, movies, gadgets, videogames, etc.

Music - I'm not going to do a top10 of 2006 (check here for a long list of those) but i'm going to mention artists and albums that I think were overlooked, or that I think really set themselves apart.

The first one I'd like to mention is "Technology Won't Save Us" by the band Sophia. Sophia really is Robin Proper-Sheppard, an american expat living in London and an artist I've enjoyed since the shoegazey-loud days of The God Machine. The first 2 Sophia albums were dark, sparse, beautifully depressive folk recordings, but his sound has evolved into a more straight forward indie-rock. Very melodic, very intense, maybe a wee bit over-produced.

Here's a song from the album : Lost (She Believed in Angels)

This is my first time posting music on a blog... hope it works...

Web 2.0 and what it means for early-stage VC investing

A blog i enjoy reading is Fred Wilson's A VC. He's a partner at Union Square Ventures, a NYC based early-stage VC firm. He's been blogging for a long time and his blog is overflowing with widgets and add-ons and tidbits, many of those from companies he's invested in (as I understand it). He also blogs a lot about music, and his indie rock tastes seem to intersect mine on many occasions. I haven't seen that often in the local VC community...

But his posts about VC are what keeps me coming back. This one, on what the Web 2.0 should mean for VCs, is well worth the read, especially for investment teams like ours, who are going back to early-stage investing after a few years of absence.