Michael Koby

While I was in Austin, TX for CodeCamp 2008, I made a stop by Waterloo Records (6th & Lamar) which is probably my favorite record store.  I randomly browsed for a bit before getting the definitive item I went to the store for.  That item was Vallejo’s latest album, “Thicker Than Water” and it was the only think I managed to walk out the store with.

Now, I’ve been listening to Vallejo since I saw them open for Pushmonkey here in Houston like 8 years ago.  This would be around the time they released the album “Beautiful Life” (which I consider their best effort to date).  I’m proud to announce that with “Thicker Than Water” Vallejo has found their muse again.  No more hard rock sounds with a little latin tinge.  The latin groove is constant through out all of “Thicker Than Water” and I couldn’t be happier.  This album really brings them back to the “Beautiful Life” sound and feel, which is good news for folks like me.  If I had one complaint about the album it is that all the songs are short.  Almost all of them clock in at around 3 minutes on average.  I understand that we live in the age of the radio single, but come one guys, give me a nice little jam that lasts a little longer than a radio single.

Overall the album is good, short, but good.  I’m glad to see the band return to the sound that made them unique.

Below is the video for the first single from the album, “Move On” so enjoy

Back in late 1999-2001 I was in a band that went through several name changes.  The names were Refuge, Diadem 4, Diadem, and finally H.O. Easy.  We wrote probably around 8 songs and some of them even ended up with lyrics (not all of them though).  This song, along with a Beekin song entitled “Traditional Thorn” are probably the only surviving tunes to make it out of H.O. Easy.  So for your viewing pleasure, I give you “Nightmare” (complete with the not-so-complete lyrics).

Trent Reznor (of Nine Inch Nails) has released the stats from the NiggyTardust experiment. For this experiment, 3 versions of the the NiggyTardust album (by Saul Williams) were released in a digital format. One in 192kbps, one in 320kbps, and finally a FLAC (loseless) version. For limited time you were able to download the 192kbps for free and you could pay $5 and get any one of the 3 versions of your choice. A great test to see what kind of money could be made from such distribution.

The end result we will get into in a few minutes, but the outcome of the result has Mr. Reznor stating that there should be an ISP music tax on consumer high speed internet connections. Something that I feel has little benefit to the artist because that would require the labels to push for it and the end result would be similar to the artist’s cut of iTunes sales, which is basically nothing. However, from a consumer standpoint, it would give you the right download all the music you wanted without fear of being sued.

Lets take a look at some of the numbers released via the NIN.com website.

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This week on the Power of Information, Derek, Suzy, and I discuss Apple entering the movie rental business, Sony/BMG dropping DRM, Bill Gate’s new toy (the Microsoft Surface), and Warner Bros. going with Blu-Ray exclusively. Michael also talks about why today’s music might not sound as good as you think. All this and more on this week’s Power of Information.

You can download this week’s episode here (mp3).

You can hear Power of Information Sundays on KCAA 1050AM in Loma Linda, California at 5pm Pacific Time. You can also download Power of Information in podcast form from our website at http://www.powerofinformation.net. The Power of Information is part of the America First Radio Network.

Special thanks to AngelsEye Inc. for donating the bandwidth to Power of Information. AngelsEye Inc. specializes in corporate branding and promotional marketing. Created to help companies of all sizes promote their own business and events. Visit AngelsEye Inc’s website today. Also, thanks to the band Anberlin for supplying music for our program. You can find out more about Anberlin and their music at http://www.myspace.com/Pushmonkey.