Well, the whiz-kids at Apple have finally forced me to soften my position on iTunes with the addition of their latest killer feature – Genius. This gem categorizes all of the music in your iTunes library, allowing you to create a custom playlist with a couple mouse clicks. Simply chose a tune to seed the playlist, and Genius does the rest – instantly creating a playlist of similar music. These lists can be saved, so that means that they can be fine-tuned and combined with other playlists. I’ve been using Genius for days now, and really like the way it works. It finds tunes in my collection I might not ever have listened to and creates playlists that rival my best efforts. VERY cool!

This is probably a good time to mention Pandora – another nice piece of software that does something similar, but from a vast on-line music collection. If you don’t have or don’t want iTunes, I recommend you check out Pandora.

Our friends Grant and Sandy are lucky enough to have one of the world’s greatest musicians in their family. Grant’s cousin Jon has a new CD out, and Grant was kind enough to have one signed and then hand-delivered the disk to us before a fantastic dinner at Downtown Restaurant in Berkeley. I’m listening to the disk now, and it’s great. Thanks, guys!

On a totally unrelated topic, I never thought it made sense to buy a photo printer, given that it takes just a few mouse-clicks and very little money to order real photographic prints on line. Well, all that changed this weekend, when I attached an Epson Stylus 1400 Photo Printer to Kelly’s iMac. This printer produces some of the best-looking prints I have ever seen. the six-color inks deliver a wider gamut than is possible using photographic paper, and 5760×1440 ink droplets per inch means sharper images as well. The very first print I made on Epson Ultra-Premium Luster Paper was perfect! The images this printer produces more closely resemble what I see on the LCD display than I imagined possible. The printer is super quiet, and fast enough. It spits out a gorgeous full bleed 8 x 10 in about two minutes. Epson offers a $75 mail-in rebate through September 8th. Highly recommended!

I’m sorry to say that no guitars went up in flames while we watched, but there were a few memorable moments. The David LaFlamme Band put on a great show early in the day. It was fun to sing every word of Hot Summer Day and White Bird along with the rest of the crowd. Evidently, I’m not the only dude who still loves these tunes – even after (gulp!) almost 40 years. Anyway, the band played with a lot of skill and energy, and of course, it was great to see Robbie play again! It seems I may have inadvertently snapped more than a few pictures of Rob on and off stage. Not sure how that happened… :)

The RaveUps rocked hard and reminded us just how good some of the music of the 60′s is during their scorching Yardbirds tribute, but the most amazing performance came from a Beatles tribute band from Alameda, California called the Sun Kings. Now, when I hear “Beatles tributes band”, I expect them to play tunes like Twist and Shout and I Want to Hold Your Hand. This was not the case with the Sun Kings. No – they skipped the lighter fare and dove straight into the album that changed the world forever – Sgt. Peppers. Backed by the amazing Liddypudlians, they played the whole album – flawlessly. The band could not possibly have found a more perfect audience – some of whom had seen the real Beatles perform at Shea Stadium in 1965. The Sun Kings were the only band to receive a standing-ovation and perform an encore while we were at the Festival.

I was so stunned by the performance that I could barely raise my camera off my lap. I felt tears well up in my eyes. I was probably feeling nostalgic for a beautiful carefree time in my life and the amazing soundtrack that accompanied it. Or maybe it was the Jesus weed.

To get further into the mood, I’ve arranged for you to get Shpongled while you view the rest of the images. May I suggest you put your best ‘phones on and turn it up loud!!

Kelly and I watched Rob play with the David LaFlamme band – formerly It’s a Beautiful Day. Those of you who remember Rob from the days that we lived together on Conkey street would instantly recognize him – especially when he’s on stage clowning around and flashing that trademark grin. Oh – and he still plays his guitar fabulously. Rob is leaving soon for the east coast performing with a Summer of Love 40 Year Reunion Tour where he’ll be playing with the likes of Jefferson Airplane and Big Brother and the Holding Company! Awesome!

Rob, it’s really great to hook up with with you again and to meet your wife Nancy! It’s especially cool to discover that you live just an hour away in Santa Cruz! Let’s fire up that hot tub and barbecue grill when you get home. We’ll bring the wine!

This was another of those impossible-to-photograph events where lighting can only be characterized as “sporadic”. That didn’t keep me from trying though. More photos soon.

So, what did I do with all of this glorious free time? I delved into the world of Internet radio! See, an ex-coworker, (and actual friend) Bill, came by with questions about the technology and the market. Unfortunately, I have learned that I’m totally out of touch with the mainstream. I wasn’t much help describing the audience for Internet Radio. I mean, all I know is that I tune in Radio Paradise pretty much every day. Don’t you? Doesn’t everyone? (I also contribute to RP, and you will too after you listen for a few days.)

Anyway, I’ve always preferred to be the guy “behind-the-scenes”. (I guess that makes me an “E” – an “enabler”. That’s probably why I love System Administration and networking in general.) So, when the idea of running our own Internet radio station came up, I did what I think I do best – I began researching what it would take to actually do this. What software is available? How is bandwidth allocated? How much does it cost? What about the web site? How many listeners can be supported for nothing? Are there Open Source solutions? Will this run on one of my Linux servers? What kind of resources are we talkin’ about, anyway? More importantly, Is there payola in Internet radio, and can we get some?

Which brings me to Bill Tobin. I have known Bill since somewhere around 1989, when I started at Conam Nuclear. I could say a lot about Bill, the nuclear industry and having 6 months a year off, but I’ll save all that for a later post. The one thing I’ll say for sure is that Bill has the best taste in music of anyone I know – and the most eclectic music collection. That’s why his will be the best Internet music station ever. Simple as that.

Stay tuned…

(By the way, I found answers to all most of the questions about Internet radio and some surprises too, which I hope to detail in subsequent posts right here.)

Oh – on a totally unrelated note, we had the garage cleaned this weekend. This is the first time in eleven years that I have seen the garage free of automobiles.