Wake up The Caution is coming (mp3)
'The Caution', another Now Zero track, is on disc two of the 1992 Volition Records compilation 'High'. Credits: "Written by Lawler/Steel/Mcphee. Produced and mixed by Scot Art and Stewart Lawler. Edited by Robert Racic for dB Productions." Vocals by Simm Steel. Now Zero was an attempt at electro pop; we performed this material around Sydney venues 1990-1993.
TO DOWNLOAD: As usual, click the "attachment" link on this entry if you are viewing the HTML web page - or use a podcasting client RSS feed of the blog to get automated downloads of any new music placed on this website. See www.ipodder.org for more info about podcasting and podcasting clients.
I can feel it falling (mp3)
This track, 'Falling' by Now Zero, an old band of mine dating from 1990 to 1995, is from the Volition Records compilation, 'High', released 1992. Credits: "Written Lawler/Steel/Mcphee. Produced and Mixed by Scot Art. Thanks to Paul Bolger Jason Gee and Chris Basset." Recorded and mixed on a Tascam 688 8-track home studio cassette multitracker. Vocals by Simm Steel. This was one of the first tracks we ever wrote in the studio at the Palmer Street squat. Midi sequencing on an MC500 and analogue sequencing with an MC202.
TO DOWNLOAD: As usual, click the "attachment" link on this entry if you are viewing the HTML web page - or use a podcasting client RSS feed of the blog to get automated downloads of any new music placed on this website. See www.ipodder.org for more info about podcasting and podcasting clients.
iPod Shuffle fashions
The iPod Shuffle is only the first blip of much larger phenonema still coming to us. Apple's foothold here is much less secure than in the hard drive player market.
With a shuffle-triggered price war looming in the memory player market it is pretty simple to ask yourself who has the lower overhead. The real expense of the machine is probably the design effort and tooling to make the object. The computer hardware is only a moderate part of the cost. While a jog or gym player with music on it you don't really need a screen, but if you scale to 5GB and you do. I think the solid state player market is harder for Apple as they are not market establishers in that field. The smaller-cheaper player market has already got players and shakers that have a better opportunity to compete as they don't have to play catch up. There's some expensive and nice iRivers that will probably halve in cost the next six months. The only way for Apple to compete with them is to use their design experience and move the item into becoming a fashion necklace, a piece of jewelry or a branded clothing accessory. And then their competitors change.
The next level is fashionable aftermarket accessories. Expect more bling - probably Armani and Adidas are Apple's competitors. Apple will enter the fashion market - a market it already knows how to operate in. Just what I've said about it in the first place. But Rio will come cheap for Adidas.
Expect movement in Tom Ford's spring collection this season. Carting your entire collection around is entirely another thing. Apple will rule supreme for a little while longer. Karl Lagerfeld already has sets of porters carrying his exuberance of ipods around in his latest pod luggage collection. Lines of coolies to load them into the boot of his mercedes. Airlines are demanding excess baggage. It's just FRIGHTFUL!?, darling. Imagine.