Slideshow Blue walk

I did this supposedly "arty" slide show about summer. If you feel like it click in the flickr link and then keep clicking the white arrow to the right.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10680734@N02/sets/72157602148312632/show/

PS ok, it's not good. Somehow, for some reason, you gain perspective when you "exhibit" what you've done. Then you can see more easily how others perceive it and you yourself can look at it with better judgement.

Web pals

Now for a post that has nothing to do with music, which is what I should talk about here, but well. I've already said before that my computer was recently infected with a virus for clicking in the "next button blog" you can see in every blogger blog. That's the terrible part (spending so much time trying to defeat it, getting increasingly upset as it only made my computer more and more incompetent). The good part, that's the reason for this post: in one of my searches for the cure (I wasn't going to give in that easy) I came across the "Spywareinfo forum" in google. As it happens with these things I was quite suspicious of anything containing the word "virus" in it that wasn't universally famous, but I browsed around their forum and I decided to write to them. Basically what these people do is to guide you step by step to get rid of the virus, for free (you can support the site with donations, or clicking on their ads, but I bet unfortunately most people don't) simply because they are fed up with the damn malwares and spywatchers of this world. I didn't want to buy an antivirus at that moment because, among other things, some of the pop ups I was getting all the time were advertising some of them, which made me particularly upset (can they be that shameless). My helper was a "forum deity" (which must mean mine was a particularly bitchy virus), Nasdaq, to whom I am very grateful. Communication went back and forth daily during a whole week and finally this morning my computer was set free again (or so I think). So I'm really glad that there's people out there who do things just to help. So thanks a lot Nasdaq, and if any reader has a virus one of these days, you know where to go.

Dido, new album

Well, alas it seems that 2007 is being a highly inspirational year, and one more artist is planning to release her third album early 2008: Dido. Her website also announced on the 6th that she is currently in America recording it. No clues as to the studio.
And Alanis Morissette seems to be cooking something too, though that may be expected later on probably.
PS UPDATE AUG'08: Album out in early November, and you can now download a free track in her website, click here

Next blog button - do not use

In my navigation bar (top) there's a button that says"next blog", supposedly it takes you to a random blog in blogger. I'm trying to remove it but until I find out how pls don't use it. I used it the other day and it took me to a strange blog with no navigation bar and lots of pop ups that infected my computer with all sorts of spyware, malware...So until Google does something about these "bloggers" they should eliminate this button themselves. I have reported it but I haven't heard from them.
It's a nasty world out there
P.S. 12 Oct 07: OK, here's 3 reasons I've found out about not to remove the button:
1. Blogger will automatically categorize my blog as of "adult content" (I don't exactly know what that implies though)
2. It seems to violate the contract with blogger (not very clear though), so it can close down the blog whenever it wishes.
3. Googlebot isn't particularly keen on "alterations" to the standard so it might not crawl the site as smoothly.

However, if anybody's interested Digital Inspiration's website explains how to do it.

Sheet music

What's wrong with the sheet music side of the business?, why do you pay $0.99 to download a song but you have to pay $3.99 to download its sheet music, and then most of the times you sit down to play it and it's so pooor, a far cry from the actual notes and chords. That if you're lucky an it IS released. I wonder. Because there's some gorgeous stuff that is impossible to get -unless you've a winner ear and lots of time, in which case you can look for a comfy chair and sit down to give it a try-, like Ryuichi Sakamoto's "The sheltering sky" main theme, it's unbelievable it's not been released.

Some people are trying to counterattack this through the internet. There was a site, for instance, that offered to try to write down the sheet music of any particular song you liked, "homemade" style ("don't drop the piano"). It seemed to be very successful, had raving comments but last time I tried to visit it it had been closed down, so it's a touchy subject that for some reason is not getting any better.
There's a lot of people out there more than interested in buying sheet music, and it could be another important source of income, but somehow it's a shambles. As I said, it comes out late and sabotaged, if that. A pity.
By the way, some people come to my blog looking for Unfaithful's score sheet music by Kackzmarek. Last time I checked (a few months ago) the whole score had not been released, only one song, and it looks like that's going to be it since it's been some time now. Only the main theme had, it can be purchased through internet (musicroom.com,etc, it costs like $3.99 or so) or in paper in certain stores. I ended up buying Hal Leonards's "Movie music", which costs about double but also has 19 more songs like The English patient's "Convento di Sant' Ana", both of them sound pretty good, they are the real thing, and are relatively easy to play (though there is at least one missing note in the Unfaithful one, after the DC al coda, a do -I believe it's a C in English).

Coldplay's new studio album

*** Update April 29: you can now download their new song "Violet hill" for free at their website (for a week only). More news on it too regarding two free gigs...
**Update March 23: Album's confirmed release date is 16th June, title: Viva la vida, see here ( Viva la vida being the Spanish for hurrah for life, sort of).
*Update April 10th: I'm told there's at least one track including strings with many pizzicatos and so on. No one knows if it will make it to the album but...

A quick note on what will be Coldplay's 4Th studio album, following X&Y. After the Magic Shop recording studio's last newsletter "Coldplay, joined by Producer Markus Dravs & Engineer Jason Lader, spent the first half of July with us working on their upcoming album; Brian Thorn assisted." It's not the first time that Chris Martin visits this studio. I visited the Magic Shop in May, if you want to see some of those pics/comments go to this other post in my blog.
Date of release is not known for this one either, rumours pointing to early 2008, see this Coldplay blog for a little more (like the rumor that Amazon.com set a release date tomorrow!, we'll find out about that one soon enough). The new work will be "very original and very different from what they’ve done before"- Bryan Eno (one of the producers) dixit. -Mmm, where did I hear that before?-
Yep, Keane. I don't find comparisons between them and Coldplay relevant on a musical level up to this point, but regarding personal backgrounds there seems to be many a common element. It seems both bands will have their new releases out about the same time, that's a feast for critics who will find an easy and worn subject to talk about again. Boring.
PS 4th September: no sight of the new album in Amazon, as expected-

**Update 15th Jan** Chris Martin is in the cover of this month's Q magazine, and Coldplay's new release is also mentioned in the editor's letter. Click here to view it. Since this post has had quite a bit of traffic I figured I'd update.

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