Don's Corner becomes a blog!

Don's Corner is now a blog! (And the RSS/Atom Feed is here.) It used to be that he would pick out great music, review it, and then spend hours toiling over the HTML to get it just right. Now, he spends hours toiling over the Blogger settings. But one big advantage is that he can post information about a single release, rather than having to wait until he has "enough" to publish his corner.

For now, you can only access the new stuff on his blog, but I'll be importing all of his old reviews as time goes on so you'll be able to check out the older Don's Corners via the blog as well.

We've got a label and we're going to plug it (not even enough of a pun to require an apology to Fuzzbox)

NPR is featuring the Smoke & Mirrors track "Saraswati, the Wise" on the latest installment of All Songs Considered: Open Mic. Thank you NPR!

Mozilla Search Plugin

I made an EAR/Rational Music search plugin for Mozilla. It will eventually be submitted to them and available on their page, but if you want to be a beta tester for it, you can can install it by clicking here (thanks to an anonymous poster for letting me know how to do this with Javascript).

Please let me know what you think!

(If you're a Mac user, you might try Mozilla if you haven't already. I'm not ready to switch to Mozilla from Safari, but I must say Mozilla is quite nice. Given that the Mozilla search standard is based on Apple's Sherlock, I think it's probably reasonable to expect Apple to add configurable search engines to Safari.)

Earth Day

On Earth Day, I thought I'd post a little about our environmental philosophy. It was something I had intended to some day put on our website, but never got around to it. We've been around since 1992, and at that time I was a DJ at KCSB. At KCSB I would see tons of padded envelopes thrown out and figured I might as well use them to ship CDs for my business. In addition, I'd get the cardboard LP mailers that were headed for the recycle bin. In 1993, I moved to Colorado and hooked up with KGNU, and I've been cleaning them out of envelopes and mailers ever since.

In addition, I'm always on the lookout for boxes I can use for shipping. Of course I keep any boxes that were sent to me, but often they are too big to use for anything but wholesale orders. My local supermarket is the mother lode for cardboard boxes. My kids do the shopping with me and always get excited when they see someone stocking the shelves because they know we'll get some boxes "for daddy's business."

If you've bought anything from us, you've no doubt noticed that we print invoices on the back of used paper, anything from journal articles to my kids' scribbles. (Some folks have told us they get a kick out of reading the backs of the invoices.) I'm downright fanatical about not printing on a virgin piece of paper, even if it's recycled. Of course, there are times when I'm writing a letter and for those I will use blank (but recycled) paper.

I'm proud to say that with all the CDs/LPs/books/shirts/etc. we've shipped in 12+ years we've never used a new envelope (we did once have several boxes of new padded envelopes that were given to us by someone who had no use for them), almost never used a new box (I just remember that when we sold 85 copies of Damon Albarn's "Democrazy", we used flattened Priority Mail boxes that we got from the post office).

Happy Earth Day!

Shipping calculator now considers item formats!

It's been a long time in coming, but I finally modified the shipping calculator to pay attention to item formats when calculating the shipping cost. The biggest issue has always been a single LP/12", which was previously considered no different from a single CD. My regular customers know that we can't ship an LP for $1.50, but of course the shipping calculator said we could, and after a new customer rightfully complained that he was charged more than what had been calculated for him during checkout, I was moved to fix it once and for all.

I haven't tested all combinations, and I'm sure I'll be modifying it as time goes on, but at least it gets the single LP right!

We now offer label-based email notifications!

For a while we've had label subscriptions, whereby each new release on that label was automatically ordered for you. This was handy for FAX and other "collectible" labels, but it was woefully inadequate for those of you who wanted simply to be notified every time we added something new to the catalog from a given label. I received many an email from customers, understandably surprised because an item had been automatically ordered for them.

Well I'm happy to announce that we now have notifications as well as subscriptions. When you get search results or detailed information about a release, you'll see "Notify Me" next to the label name. If you click this link (and have created an account with us and are logged in), a notification will be set up so that any time we add an item to the catalog from that label, you'll receive an email message. If what you really wanted was a subscription, you need only go to the user interface (there is a link above the search box) and make this change. In the user interface you will see a list of all your subscriptions and notifications, if you have any. Next to each one are two links, "Del" and "Set to". These links allow you to delete a notification/subscription, or to convert a notification into a subscription (and vice versa).

In the future we plan to have a "saved searches" type of notification so that you will, for example, be able to choose to be notified when any new Bill Laswell releases are added to the catalog, or any new DVDs, or any releases whose description contains "ethereal", and so on.

Above all, gather no moss

On August 20th, I received an email from one of my sales reps asking me "Is it crazy there, or what?" I had no idea what she was talking about, so I emailed her back and she told me that Fluxblog had posted a Poto & Cabengo MP3 and linked to our site, and was wondering if we were getting lots of sales as a result.

Then, on August 24th, I return from lunch to see that I've received the following email:

Hi - My name is [name omitted], and I'm a journalist in NYC. I'm writing about MP3 blogs for Rolling Stone magazine, and was hoping to speak with someone at EAR/Rational.

I spoke to [name omitted], who told me that Fluxblog had written about a Poto & Cabengo record, posted the mp3, and linked to your site for those who wanted to buy. I was hoping someone at EAR/Rational might clue me in as to how this affected sales, if at all, and if you have seen other links from the blog realm affect sales in the past.

I'm at [phone number omitted], or, if you're up for a chat, just drop me an email with your number.

I'm working on a very tight deadline, and hope to hear from you.

In 12 years of running EAR/Rational Music, I can't say I ever thought about Rolling Stone magazine, and I surely never imagined I'd be interviewed by them. I used to read Spin long ago, and these days I might glance at The Wire, Grooves, e|i, or The Sound Projector, but Rolling Stone is as "off my radar" as Esquire.

Anyway, I call the guy back and we talked for maybe 10 minutes. I assumed he was writing from the angle that MP3 blogs are bad, because they allow lots of people to download songs for free, but it wasn't clear. As a label owner, I told him I'd love the exposure of having my releases in MP3 blogs, and he then asked me about my label and Smoke & Mirrors, and he seemed genuinely interested.

While I'm sure many people would kill to have their business mentioned in Rolling Stone, the thought of EAR/Rational being mentioned on their pages wasn't all that exciting. Let's face it, EAR/Rational does not cater to the average Rolling Stone reader, safe to say. If they did come to our site, they'd be unlikely to find anything they were looking for.

BUT, the thought of my label being mentioned in Rolling Stone really had my head spinning. Smoke & Mirrors would certainly appeal to many of their readers and this might be a way to get some real publicity with no effort. However, I had resigned myself to the fact that if I were mentioned at all, it would be something like:

One Internet retailer told us that links from MP3 blogs didn't really seem to affect his business.

The article came out several weeks later, and we weren't in there at all, not even anonymously. Oh well...

Nostalgia comes full circle

(Caution: This post is long and potentially boring to anyone who is not me.)

Music has always been an important part of my life. I owe a great deal to my 6th grade music teacher (sadly, whose name I have forgotten) who encouraged each of us to bring our LPs (no CDs back then!) and play them for the class. Cary Groman brought Led Zeppelin's "Zoso" LP (Led Zeppelin IV) and after hearing "Black Dog," I was stunned. Someone else brought Emerson, Lake & Palmer's "Trilogy" and we listened to their electronic version of "Hoedown", the Aaron Copland classic that our teacher had already played for us. I was flabbergasted. I had to have more! Thus began an odyssey which is still going on to this day.

I really cut my teeth on music during the 80's. "80's Music" is seen by some as an oxymoron, but it was a magical period for me. The B-52's, The Go-Go's, The Smiths, OMD, New Order, Flock of Seagulls, Duran Duran, Flesh for Lulu, Scritti Politti, Echo & the Bunnymen, Thomas Dolby, The (English) Beat, Kraftwerk, Heaven 17, The Cure, Prefab Sprout, Killing Joke, Gang of Four, XTC, Modern English, Jesus & Mary Chain, Cabaret Voltaire, Bauhaus, Love & Rockets, Skinny Puppy and countless others shaped my college experiences, and indeed, my life.

In 1987, I started grad school and took a course in Electronic Music Composition. At that time I was heavily into industrial music--Skinny Puppy, Einstürzende Neubauten, Test Dept., SPK, and the like. In those days we made real tape loops, with the tape threaded around mic stands, chairs, etc., and MIDI was just becoming popular. I stuck with the composition series for an entire year--even though I was working towards an M.S. in Computer Science--and ended up programming in CMusic, spending hours trying to emulate the sounds of bagpipes, as well as make up new sounds. In addition to being able to work some highly-talented individuals such as JoAnn Kuchera-Morin, Ralph Russell, and Ashkelon Sain, that class exposed me to the music of Edgard Varése, Pierre Henry, Pierre Schaeffer, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Morton Subotnick, and Mario Davidovsky, to name a few.

By 1990 I was a DJ on KCSB, first with an industrial show called "Club Angst!" and then soon settled in with a primarily Brit pop show called "In One Ear and Out the Other." My co-DJ Elisa and I were transfixed by British music, and pledged our allegiance to labels such as 4AD, Creation, Fontana, Hut, and One Little Indian. Shoegazer music was our savior, and My Bloody Valentine, Cocteau Twins, Ride, Moose, Throwing Muses, Jesus & Mary Chain, Chapterhouse, Verve, Lush, Ultra Vivid Scene, Blind Mr. Jones, and Pale Saints were the apostles. Also revered were Catherine Wheel, Kitchens of Distinction, Kingmaker, Swervedriver, The House of Love, The Wolfgang Press, and the like. British Pop could do no wrong, it seemed.

And now we come to the "full circle" part. I can remember buying The House of Love's self-titled CD on Creation and later their "A Spy in the House of Love" CD on Fontana (and of course in those days it was a big deal for me to get the Fontana version which actually had no title, as opposed to the domestic version which had "A Spy in the House of Love" on the spine). The two CDs that came after that didn't do much for me, and I pretty much forgot about them. About a week ago, I couldn't get "Love II" out of my head. So I grabbed their self-titled CD, listened to it in the car, and re-discovered all over again how great they were (and also realized that Love II isn't even on that CD). I decided to do some web research and lo and behold, The House of Love is back together and has a new album out! It's called "Days Run Away" and it's fantastic. (Hear 4 tracks from it here.) It's a big nostalgia trip for me to listen to because it picks up where the first CD left off now that Chadwick and Bickers have patched up their differences (for those who don't know, Guy Chadwick, the lead singer, booted Terry Bickers, the guitarist, while the band was on tour in 1989, and Bickers went on to form the band Levitation, which was actually quite good). I'd still argue that the self-titled CD on Creation is their best, but I'm eager to hear what they come up with next!

Off and running

I've never exactly been an "early adopter." EAR/Rational Music has been around since 1992, but didn't have a website until 1997, and the site didn't have a search engine until 2000, and we didn't accept credit cards until 2003 (although we did start accepting PayPal in 2002).

I'd often thought about creating an "Old Fart's Corner" to discuss "old" music and complement the excellent "Don's Corner" that appears on our site, but never got around to it. Perhaps it's better that I waited, as now I can just do it as a blog.

Say, maybe we should have Don do his corner as a blog...