Remember those old tabletop jukebox controllers that allowed you to select tunes without leaving your swell milkshake? [Like the one pictured above?]
McDonald’s has decided to dust of that old idea for the modern age. Engadget reports that the omnipresent burger purveyor has started rolling out, to select franchises, a system of flat panel video monitors that will present content to those in the restaurant during the burger intake. Called MVenue, this content system will be controlled by folks sending text messages to it via mobile phones or via wifi.
This looks like a bad scene out of Back to the Future II, where Marty McFly is transported into a dizzying tech-filled future.
Those folks were onto something in the 1950s. Kids wanted the content. At the time, it was pop hits on 45rpm records. The media moguls’ tabletop jukebox controller facilitated that. MVenue looks to be the logical progression of this. While it is an interesting conduit, as was the controller for the jukebox, its future depends on CONTENT.
It was the second evening of the Minnesota Sur Seine Festival 2006.
We were treated to two acts; first was the trio of Dominique Pifarely, from Paris, and Craig Taborn and Dave King of the Twin Cities.
This gathering yielded much in the way of knotty improvisations. Taborn’s piano stylings point to a varied approach; not just jazz, not just modern improvisation, not just classical. How refreshing to hear a pianist with wide open ears willing to take a lead or follow the group without a cliché in sight.
Taborn and Pifarely
Pifarely’s violin, played through three pedals and a 30-watt Peavy amp, showed the same thoughtfulness. Eschewing a hard, sawing aesthetic for more refined approach, Pifarely played quick figures and phrases, matching wits with Taborn. King is a fine player, playing in unconventional ways, even incorporating a toy megaphone at one point.
Drummer Mark Sanders had a different approach – his playing in the grouping of German reed giant Peter Brötzmann and bassist Anthony Cox from the Twin Cities was marvelous. Unorthodox at times, most certainly, his playing in this context seemed to exhibit a total willingness to let the music come first. An impeccably tasteful player, Sanders. His kit accoutrements added much to the discourse. A smallish drum and cymbal next to his rack tom were used often to great effect. His collection of bells and other percussion were employed in bold manners that offered logical ideas and soul.
Bassist Anthony Cox was a man of economic expression on this evening, favoring delicious drone textures rather than busy figures. He spent the evening playing a well-mic’ed acoustic bass for a room-filling sound, especially when playing arco.
Brötzmann would lay out at times to switch between instruments or to change reeds. He changed reeds on the clarinet and tenor at least once. As when I saw him last year, part of the way through the performance he stepped to side, produced a shockingly large folding pocketknife, and proceeded to whittle the reed to his specifications. How he gets that through customs I’ll never know.
The first portion was performed with intensity right out of the gate, with Brötzmann on tarogato. After the show, he told me that he bought the instrument in a Hungarian pawn shop many years ago. It was crafted in 1830 or 1840.
Improvisations followed on clarinet and tenor. In discussing the other instruments, he had equally interesting stories – his tenor is a King brand, which he now prefers over the Selmer Mark VI he played for 30 years. It has a silver neck which Brötzmann had “reinforced” to “stabilize” it. When one plays with the ferocity of this reed-whittling man, reinforcing the instrument comes as no surprise. He purchased his clarinet for $100 in a Buffalo, NY pawn shop. His favorite technician took the tarnished item and examined it, only to discover that it was crafted out of solid silver.
After the show, I spoke with Brötzmann about his upcoming endeavors. He is working with John Corbett on a compendium of his graphic designs that will cover the 40 years after the “Inexplicable Flyswatter” book of a few years ago. We look forward to that, for sure.
[photo of Enrico Caruso, opera’s first recording superstar]
The Metropolitan Opera has just inked a deal with several providers to facilitate the distribution of their operatic ones and zeros.
There will be live RealAudio streams on the Met’s website, 1500 historic radio broadcasts available via Rhapsody, live broadcasts over satellite radio, and simulcast of performances in movie theaters. Future plans will address the opportunities via DVD, CD, downloads, and “opera ring-tones”.
Imagine the embarassment of having your mobile phone ring to the tune of Nessun Dorma in the middle of a theatrical viewing of Gianni Schicci.
The police in Minneapolis have taken to blasting, at an alarming volume, operatic arias via the soundsystem to discourage loitering in certain places downtown. Perhaps the Met should look into licensing that as well…
Is that a photo of Lawrence Welk in his convertable with a record player installed under the dash? It sure is!
Why would people want that?
Well, they didn’t, really. Columbia Records and the Chrysler Corporation thought it would be a good idea. They went so far as to create another format [there is nothing new under the sun] in the 16 2/3 rpm record. They were the same size at the regular 7″ 45rpm records that we know.
People weren’t willing to buy records they could only play in the car. It was not convenient. In 1960, when they re-introduced a similar player that played the 45rpm records that everyone had, it still didn’t take off.
Today, USA Today has a color graph-free story about fidelity and media consumption. This use of the term fidelity addresses an inherent heirarchy in media consumption; viewing a movie in a theatre vs. viewing it via DVD vs. viewing it on a mobile phone. The basic premise is that consumers want the most pure experience possible, but they are willing to forego some of that fidelity in the pursuit of convenience.
PVR Wire had an article about this earlier this month, referring to an LA Times survey indicating that many more people are willing to watch video on their home computers, as opposed to the SMALL screen of the mobile phone. The participants cited cost and, of all things, low fidelity.
This line of thought was addressed when we looked at the blue film industry’s reluctance to upgrade to HD DVD and Blu Ray Disc.
The articles above dig further into the reasons of reluctance on the part of the consumer. The automobile record player goes to show that buy-in from car manufacturers does not equate mass market awareness or adoption. There is a happy medium in there somewhere, no pun intended.
Red Herring has a fascinating article about one of the industries that has led technological revolutions as they relate to sea-change format adaptation: the adult film industry. Just like Milton Berle sold TVs, purveyors of blue movies sold home projectors, VCRs and then DVD players. That final era was paralleled by the industry’s growth online. Producers used the advances of each media technology as selling points. Those same selling points were utilized in the mainstream.
The interesting thing is that some of these content companies are saying “no” to the latest technologies of extended resolution video: HD DVD and Blu-Ray Disc. This has to be a blow to the companies proffering said technologies to the public; the very industry that catapulted VCRs and DVD players into popularity and into every living room is turning its back on a new, arguably relavent, advance.
What does this have to do with radio? It is not enough.
Adult film producers are coming to the conclusion that some critics of HD Radio already have: there is not enough benefit from the technology to warrant any or further investment. Without clear benefits in a scattered media landscape, technologies will fizzle quickly. Many folks are quite happy with the resolution of DVD, just as they are happy with the sound quality of compressed audio on their iPods and internet radio stations.
It is the same “better isn’t better enough to matter” argument is sending Sony’s Super Audio CD (SACD) into obscurity. Sure, it is better, but it does not matter enough to the consumer. Having sat down in front of a HiFi system at a boutique stereo shop with a Super Audio CD of Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue, I can clearly remember thinking “This sure is good, but will I buy it? No.” I would rather buy more regular CDs. And I have.
The BBC has just announced plans for digital radios to “clip onto” the current crop of digital music players [iPods, other mp3 players].
This is a most interesting direction. With all of the discussion in the US radio industry about the HD Radio campaign, all of the technical problems, the holdup on FCC approval, and all related questions, I have yet to hear anyone over here say “Let us adapt to one of the most common manners in which people listen to things.” It has always been about completely new sets, mostly of the old-fashioned table-top variety. Nothing wrong with that per se, but it would seem that ushering in what is to be lauded as the biggest thing since FM via the table-top radio appears to be a bit more than behind-the-curve.
And, they are smart to make it something that would piggy-back on the plethora of portable media players already in circulation. Brilliant.
[photo courtesy of Krypto / Flickr]
