DAVE HAYNES

nice, can someone do this at Music Hack Day please ;)

This is one of my favorite Debussy pieces. And this animation is rather beautiful and compelling.

"1) everything that’s already in the world when you’re born is just normal;

2) anything that gets invented between then and before you turn thirty is incredibly exciting and creative and with any luck you can make a career out of it;

3) anything that gets invented after you’re thirty is against the natural order of things and the beginning of the end of civilisation as we know it until it’s been around for about ten years when it gradually turns out to be alright really."

Russell Davies quotes Douglas Adams in a nice post over on his blog about Clay Shirky's 'Cognitive Surplus'. I turned 30 in May and still feeling a bit depressed about it. But I'm hoping that I've still got at least another 10 years of point no. 2 above :)

photo taken at the SoundCloud meetup in Berlin from our office rooftop. More photos here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jameswelch/sets/72157624490157151/

part instrument, part game, part verbal diarrhoea!

someone really needs to remake this! Awesome.

love that the guy featured in this video is wearing a Music Hack Day Boston t-shirt.

(Mental note: make sure we have MHD London t-shirts!).

One other side note from the day which I think sums up Berlin (and SoundCloud for that matter) quite nicely.  On my way to the venue at 8am on Saturday morning, I was walking along Holzmarktstr. by the river and was invited into a fairly nuts looking party.  It didn’t look like it had just started or that it was going to stop any time soon.  I presume that I had been invited in due to my SoundCloud t-shirt (which I’m learning is quite a powerful commodity in this town).  Sadly, I had to decline and explain to them that, contrary to rumours, we’re not a party company.

Love this quote from my colleague Thom in our Berlin office. Reminding me that I need to get out there pretty soon!

One of my favourite tracks as a teenager... reminds me of endless summers and camping trips with my mates. This remake is hilarious, admittedly takes the shine off it a little bit :)

No comment :)

"Chromaroma is a game that shows you your movements and location as you swipe your Oyster Card in and out of the Tube. It connects communities of people who cross paths and routes on a regular basis, and encourages people to make new journeys and use public transport in a different way by exploring new areas and potentially using different modes of public transport."

Does anyone know the name of the track playing in the screencast by the way?

I probably sound like a bit of a stuck record at this point but I think it's hard to understate just how much of a killer music device the iPad is. My hat goes off to Smule for really leading the way. They totally get it.

I can't wait until 2015 when this music revolution is in full swing and my son is playing with all these apps. I wonder if he'll still learn to play piano in the classical way I did?

So excited about music creation possibilities on the iPad.

Polaroid strikes back. Seem to have been around for a whhile, but I just stumbled across this on Amazon. Not bad for £20, anyone tried one?

If I was in a band (which I'm not, unfrotunately) I'd take one of these to all my gigs along with a Flip camera then take lots of photos with fans at the merch table and stick them to any CD's they purchase.

"Audio blogging sites Gorilla vs. Bear and Weekly Tape Deck have launched a record label, Forest Family Records. The label will product limited runs of 7", 10" and 12" vinyl as well as cassettes."

CD's are dead, long live digital! But there's no doubt in my mind that physical formats will still play an important (but different) role in music. Especially when a whole generation of kids, who never really even knew what cassettes and vinyl were, decide to acquire some of that 'post-digital' cool factor.

For the record, I said it on the panel I was on at SXSW a few weeks ago, but I'm still waiting for the first cassette only exclusive by a major artist.

I just stumbled across this really great keynote from Clay Shirky a couple of years ago (via Seth Godin). He's talking about the Cognitive Surplus, or put more simply, the amazing things you can do when you stop spending your spare time simply watching TV or consuming media. Definitely recommended viewing.

I've posted before about my good friend Henrik Berggren, he's a guy who definitely knows what he wants to do with his Cognitive Surplus. He loves coding and creating beautiful apps like Citysounds.fm. Question is, how do us your surplus?

There's another poignant part at the end of this talk. It's interesting to think about how we have a whole generation that will grow up just assuming that media isn't a one way street. For them it's as much about producing and sharing as it is about consuming. And I think that will have an important impact on the music business in the future too, as production and participation in music starts to become much more important for a mass-market that was previously content on just consuming it.

Wow, what an amazing machine. It even has a touch screen. Blah!