schiing has been suffering a bit after I started writing for Popdose, so I thought I’d try something new. I’ve installed a couple of Firefox plugins that enables me to post links - text, images and videos directly from my browser - in addition to writing regular posts. I hope that it will increase my productivity a bit, but I’m not really sure how it will turn out. I don’t have a plan as such, I’m just experimenting, but I hope it’s perfect for microblogging - linking to an interesting site or expressing some random thoughts. We’ll see how it turns out.

I may post a couple of posts that are more or less meaningless just to set up my new blogging tools. Hey, maybe my blog will turn into a long line of meaningless posts now. Like Facebook. Maybe it already is, come to think of it. Anyway, thanks for reading.

From Times Online:

EMI, the troubled music group, is close to appointing a little-known Italian executive from the consumer goods industry to run its recorded music division.

Guy Hands, chairman at EMI, is in the process of poaching Elio Leoni Sceti from Reckitt Benckiser, the consumer products giant behind brands such as Cillit Bang, Veet hair remover and Finish dishwasher tablets.

Cillit Bang and Veet hair remover - how appropriate. They just fired 1500 employees this spring, and by the look of it they plan to continue with their spring cleaning well into the summer and beyond.

My guess is that Hands is planning to get rid of the entire recorded music division. The money is in the publishing division of EMI and they’re losing big time on their recorded music investments at the time.

Steve Lukather on his website a couple of days ago: “The fact is yes I have left Toto. There is no more Toto. I told the guys before the last leg of our tour.”

I used to be a big Toto fan, so I’m kinda sad to see them go, but I totally understand him. David Paich was out of the band, the Porcaro brothers were out - it wasn’t really Toto anymore anyway, even though Bobby Kimball was back on vocals. It must be a great relief for mr. Lukather to finally call it quits.

Toto lost me around 1991-92, after the release of “Kingdom of Desire.” Jeff Porcaro died, that was a major blow, of course. And after Joseph Williams had to leave the band in the late 1980s, followed by the disastrous Jean-Michel Byron experiment, they were left with Steve Lukather as their lead singer - and, although a decent ballad singer, his voice isn’t very strong. And I absolutely hated “Kingdom of Desire.” They never really recovered after that. Not for me, anyway.

My favorite Toto period was probably the Joseph Williams “era”, “Fahrenheit” (1986) and “The Seventh One” (1988). I loved those albums when I was a teenager.

By the way, I enjoyed Lukather’s honesty in his recent announcement: “I really cant go out and play Hold the Line with a straight face anymore. I was 19 when we cut the record. I am 50 now.”

The fans apparently didn’t like it very much (he had to retract the statement after a couple of days) but seriously, who can blame him? I’m pretty sure he’s not the only musician who feels that way about his old stuff. I mean, artists should be allowed to grow sick of their own material. Even if their fans still love it. Even if it has turned them into wealthy men. Especially after 30 years. I guess the problem is that most of the Toto fans really loved those early albums. So the band wasn’t really in tune with their fans anymore - another good reason to split up, I guess.

Besides, what separates Steve Lukather’s recent solo album, “Ever Changing Times” (2008) from anything Toto did the last 15 years. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. So, nothing lost then, really? I don’t think so, not at this stage. But so long, Toto, and thanks for all the fish.

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…that We Are Scientists are the new Rubinoos until I just played the last track on their new album!

The bass, the vocalists singing the melody parallelly in two octaves, the guitar fills, the rich background vocals - it’s pretty similar. Not similar as in "Girlfriend" vs. "Boyfriend" mind you, but the Rubinoos-style is definitely recognizable.

The track in question, "That’s What Counts", is softer than anything else We Are Scientists have ever recorded, at least to my knowledge, and that’s probably why the Rubinoos suddenly came to mind. But once I made the connection, I see quite a lot of similarities between the sound of the two bands.

The tracks are available for streaming here: "That’s What Counts" by We Are Scientists and "The Magic’s Back" by The Rubinoos. And, I may add, I do like the new We Are Scientists album. It’s more diverse than the first, but it still has plenty of punch. It’s called "Brain Thrust Mastery" and was released in March 2008 on Virgin.

If you’re reading this a few weeks from now the tracks are probably gone. Sorry.

Update:

The archive.org servers appear to be a little unsteady, so I’m sending the links to my last.fm page instead.

- - -

I just had a wonderful experience. Yesterday I was aimlessly surfing on the internet, kind of restless and feeling very unproductive.

Then I came over this project entitled Album-A-Day (applied crap art). It’s been running for years, and to create an "Album-A-Day", you must record a piece of music following these rules (quote):

Robert Scoble is the kid up the street with all the answers. You know, the kid with ALL the Commodore 64 games, a gigantic Lego model railroad in the basement and whose father apparently owns a flying Citroen CX? I’m pretty sure that’s him.

Well, this kid is all grown-up now, and he’s on the web. And, as in childhood, once you learn to filter the bullshit from the actual content the guy is a real treasure.

He’s a pioneer blogger, a tech guru, a social media evangelist - and quite possibly the #1 human link aggregator on the web. He introduced me to Facebook, Twitter, Google Reader, Friend Feed and probably a dozen other more or less meaningful services on the web at an early stage in their development - heck, I even think it was Scoble who introduced me to the concept of RSS feeds.

I’m not a tech guy, but thanks to Robert Scoble I have practically turned into the prototype early adopter on the web (yeah, right.)

He’s extremely extrovert on the web, he’s opinionated as hell and he shoots from the hip. His writing is temperamental and personal, he’s potentially ill-tempered but usually enthusiastic, even ecstatic over some new development.

It’s easy for a non-tech guy like me to enjoy his rants and share his enthusiasm for what is, let’s face it, some seriously geeky stuff.

He makes friends easily - it’s one of his main concerns regarding Facebook: The 5,000 friend limit, which he exceeded months ago (I hear you! I’m rapidly approaching that limit myself - getting close to 40 now!) He has a huge following, one of the original "A-bloggers" - me plugging him is, like, Caveman Eremite in the Desert plugging the New York Times. It seems as if he’s making enemies just as easily as he’s making friends, though.

But he’s a very entertaining guy, he’s working his ass off bringing us the latest from Silicon Valley or wherever all these tech startups pop up. And nobody hits that j-button more than Scoble. Yeah, I know. You probably don’t have a clue as to what I’m talking about.

Be that as it may, if you want to know when the next Facebook arrives or maybe just add a little tech, controversy and flavor to your rss feed, Scoble’s your guy.

I should write him a song - that would definitely get my stats up.

The New York Times has a wonderful blog called "Measure for Measure" where Andrew Bird, Darrell Brown, Rosanne Cash and Suzanne Vega share their thoughts on songwriting and tell some great stories about some of their songs.

I highly recommend this Rosanne Cash post, where she writes about "truth" vs. "facts" in songwriting and how she, Elvis Costello and Kris Kristofferson decided to get together to write a song earlier this year.

Great, great stuff.

Dear God. Here I am, sitting unsuspectingly in my garden enjoying the evening sun when all of a sudden I’m hearing "Animal" booming from a massive soundstage somewhere downtown in this sleepy, little village on the west coast of Norway.

I’m rushing in to grab my computer and find out what the hell is going on. And you’ll never guess who’s coming to town - my town - for a Classic Rock Festival this week: Def Leppard. Manfred Mann’s Earth Band. Thin Lizzy. Roger Hodgson. Slade. Mott the Hoope and Rod Stewart!

Robert! Rod is here! Why didn’t he tell me he was coming? Why didn’t he warn me? I need to go dig up my old toy trains right away.

Anyway, after rubbing my eyes (and ears) and double-checking the calendar (ok, it is still 2008, I’m not going crazy) I really don’t know what to do next. Should I lock up the door, close the windows and stay inside for the next couple of days or pull out my old pub rock outfit from the basement and head on down and join the party?

Hooo-ooooo! [cl-ick]