A Day, A Week, Hemant, A Year

This past Friday we went out and bought Rockband for the Xbox 360. We were lucky to find a copy of this game since it has been flying off of the store shelves since it was released. For those of you who don’t know what this is, it’s pretty much Guitar Hero on steroids. Instead of just getting to play the guitar or bass, you get to also play the drums and sing. If you think that sounds crazy, well you’re right – it’s a gong show.

We found that the guitar playing was pretty similar to what you would find in the Guitar Hero series. The drums proved to be quite difficult, but I was able to consistently play them on the ‘medium’ setting by the end of the evening. ‘Hard’ proved to be nearly impossible.

It took a little while for anyone to take take on the lead vocals, but after a few beer the courage levels increased. My rendition of ‘Run to the Hills’ by Iron Maiden proved to be ridiculous. Gordo managed to please the crowd while hamming up his performances of ‘Say it Ain’t So’ by Weezer, ‘Blitzkrieg Bop’ by The Ramones, and ‘Ballroom Bliz’ by The Sweets.

I also managed to take a number of videos during the evening which proved to be solid gold. After some prying, I think I have managed to get Gordo’s permission to post his performance of ‘Blitzkrieg Bop’, as well as one illustrating ‘how serious we took our performances’. The only catch is that I will have to post my performance of ‘Run to the Hills’. I’ll try and get these up as soon as possible. As for the other videos, I believe his verison of ‘Ballroom Blitz’ is off-limits. See me in person to get a look at these. In the meantime you can check out the rest of the pictures from the evening. Rock on!

• Thumbnails on Flickr
• Slideshow on Flickr
• Thumbnails on Picasa
• Slideshow on Picasa

It was about two and a half years ago that I started to dabble in photography. I had always had an interest in it, but just never had the equipment, or took the time to learn about it. It was at this time that I took the plunge and spent some money on equipment and workshops, learning the details of the art from trained professionals. I can’t stress how much I learned from working closely with those in the industry. It let me learn things about my hobby that I would never have learned from books, or the internet.

One of my projects in an Intermediate Portrait Photography class required the students to spend some time with a subject to take shots of them in various poses. One of my friends was in a local Guelph band and it turned out they were looking for someone to take photos for them. It worked out great for both of us. Free photos for them, and great practice for me.

I took in a number of their shows, letting me fire off a lot of shots. I managed to get some decent ones out of the many I took. I found it difficult get really good shots at the shows since lighting was an issue. It wasn’t until the band and I arranged a session at a local studio that I finally got some pretty strong shots. After firing off around 500 photos, there was a number that I was really pleased with. I burned the photos for the band on a DVD and handed them over. It was up to the band to use them as they wished. I figured they would end up on their website and on their upcoming CD. Cool!

I don’t know about anyone else, but every once in a while I Google myself – that is I do Google search on ‘Hemant Naidu’ just to see what pops up. I Googled myself this afternoon and saw the usual – my name at the University of Saskatchewan Alumni page, a few websites I used to run, and a whole bunch of information on other guys named ‘Hemant Naidu’. But today I noticed one extra – Not There benefit CD Against Wal-Mart’. After clicking on the link I saw that the CD was done as a protest against the building of a Wal-Mart in Guelph, Ontario (it’s a long story, and I’m not going to get into it here) – and I was on the credits for the CD, under ‘Artist Photos’.

Since I still do hold the city of Guelph close to my heart, and do support the effort of the CD, I decided to purchase one online for a cool 25 bucks. Plus, I think it will be pretty cool to see my photos, and name on its insert! I’m not sure what photos they used, so the suspense of its arrival is killing me. I personally think this is pretty cool, even though it was only a benefit CD put on by local Guelph artists. But hey, I can’t expect to be on the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine yet!

You can check out the website for this benefit CD here.

Anyone who knows me is aware that music plays a big part in my life. I love listening to it no matter what I’m doing – it’s safe to say that the only time I’m not listening to music is when I’m watching TV. My music tastes have changed a lot in the last few years, seeing me stray away from one specific genre to a more eclectic mix. As I get older, I have also grown out of my music snobbery that had plagued me in my days as a student.

I thought I would document my favourite albums (in no particular ofer) from 2005 – more-or-less, the soundtrack to my life for the passed year. Hopefully some of you take the time to give them a listen.

1) Coheed & Cambria – “Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV, Volume 1 : From Fear through the Eyes of Madness” : Despite the insanely tedious album name, this CD really grew on my during my 90 minute commute to Saskatoon during my first month of work. This is the 3rd in a series of concept albums based on science fiction graphic novels by one of the band members. For more on the band visit http://www.coheedandcambria.com and http://www.cobaltandcalcium.com.

2) Alexisonfire – “Watchout” : Even though this album was actually released in the summer of 2004, I’m including in my list since I didn’t pay any attention to it until 2005. For those of you who have never heard of ‘screamo’ music, that’s what this is. It is basically a mix of ‘emo’ rock and screaming. I know it sounds strange, but you’d be surprised how it can grow on you. The first time I heard a song by Alexisonfire I was thinking, “Who the heck would listen to something like this?” I kept getting little tastes of them and soon found myself compelled to buy the album. The mix of soft vocals, death metal vocals, and emo riffs is an unlikely, but great sound. For more on this band from St. Catherines, Ontario visit http://www.theonlybandever.com.

3) K’naan – “The Dusty Foot Philosopher” : This hip-hop album isn’t your run-of-the-mill hip-hop album. K’naan is a Somalian refuge who now lives in Toronto. His lyrics tell the story of his life experiences in the African nation against a fusion of African beats and hip-hop grooves. K’naan actually has something to say like his hip-hop pioneers, taking us away from the ‘gangsta’ garbage that has recently plagued mainstream rap. For more on K’naan, visit http://www.thedustyfoot.com.

4) The Mars Volta – “Frances the Mute” – If you want to put labels on a band, The Mars Volta would be considered ‘prog rock’ (progressive rock). Their music is often considered experimental, pushing the bounds of what some may even call music. This is not the type of album that you’re gonna love the first time you listen to it, but the more you do, the more it grows on you. For more information on this band from L.A., visit http://www.themarsvolta.com.

5) Esthero – “Wikked Little Grrrls” – Seven years passed between her debut album “Breath From Another” which you could intrepret as this album was going to be completely amazing, or it was so bad that it took that long to work out the bugs. This Toronto girl was definitely feeling the pressure over the last seven years after turning the heads of so many industry big-whigs. I personally can say that I was pleased with the album, even though I probably prefer her rookie effort in “Breath From Another”. “Wikked Little Grrrls” is all over the place, ranging from smooth jazz to hip-hop. I really thing there is something for everyone on this one. For more on Esthero visit http://www.nearlycivilized.com.

I used to download music. Most of this occurred during university when funds were limited, and acquiring music illegally was really the only way to stay current. My downloads weren’t excessive like other people I knew, but it was enough that I didn’t need a music budget. Once I finished my run as a student and started my career, music downloading eventually ended for me. I could now afford to buy music and was happy to pay the artists for their work. I was happy, the artists were happy, and the record companies were happy – everything was perfect.

So there I was, happily buying and listening to my compact discs. Then, as it constantly does, technology got smaller, faster and cheaper. Huge capacity hard drives were becoming dirt cheap and portable music devices could now hold entire music collections. The music digital revolution was underway and I found myself in the middle of it.

People were now transferring their music CDs to their computers which would act as their hub for listening to tunes. CDs were becoming irrelevant. Over the last year I started ‘ripping’ all of my music CDs to my computer. It was a relief to finish my collection that is in excess of four hundred discs. Now after I purchase a new CD, the first thing I do is pop it into my computer and transfer its contents. Once done, the disc usually ends up in a box in my basement. Now the new songs are available on my home stereo through my wireless network, or are ready to hit the road on my Dell DJ.

Then it happened. I bought the new Delirium disc, ‘Chimera’, threw it into my computer – and nothing. The music played fine, but transferring the songs to my computer was a no-go. After a bit of kicking and cursing I took a look at the CD case and noticed a special logo – ‘copy protected’. WTF?

At that moment I vowed to check for this logo before buying a CD. Sounds like a good plan, but I can tell you that I have forgotten to do this almost everytime. I went a while before falling into this trap again. This time it was ‘Honeycomb’ by Frank Black (frontman for the Pixies). This time it really pissed me off since I had recently purchased my Dell DJ and did the majority of my music listening through this device. I owned this disc for about two weeks before I actually listened to it. I’m sure I could have found a hack to get the music onto my computer, but I shouldn’t have to. I bought this disc legally, and was unable to listen to it the way I wanted to.

So what did I do? I downloaded the CD illegally of the internet (actually I don’t know if it is considered illegal if I own the disc). I just wonder what will happen the next time I go to buy a CD, and do notice the ‘copy protected’ logo? Am I going to buy it? Or am I just going to say, screw it, and download it? Even though I may not have agreed with the ways record labels were handling the music revolution, I was willing to follow the rules until they figured everything out. But if their solution to piracy is punish the customers who are willing to pay for the music, I don’t think I want to be part of that solution.

For further reading, check out this article Copy-protection Turning Fans Off.