The following takes place between 8:45pm and 8:47pm.

What could possibly be called an epic battle occurred this Thursday evening. The two fierce and agile competitors battled for new grounds after a key piece of territory was introduced in the form of a cardboard box containing one wedding present.

Luckily this brave journalist was there on the scene to capture the key events:

Lt. Lucy guards her post from potential intruders.

A CHALLENGER APPEARS!

Perhaps it was just a diversion...

Suspicion sets in as Lt. Lucy turns to the journalist for intel on the enemy location.

Perhaps a quick glance to locate the enemy won't hurt...

The enemy strikes and engages in close combat!

Lt. Lucy is forced to retreat from the bunker!

Scout Ricky has claimed his territory... for now.

PocketGuitar has been re-released for all and updated on the App Store as of August 26th. In the thick mass of iPhone and iPod Touch music applications, it’s tough to find anything worth while for the money that suits my fun pants as a musician. Previously, it was circulated as a hack app, where a jailbroken iPhone/iPod Touch could download it for free.

99¢ isn’t bad. Here’s why.

I’ve tried aDrummer (Drum Hero - free), Thereminator (overpriced at $3, but potentially useful if you can’t afford a theremin to record), Drum Kit ($2 and lags a bit in response time), Pocket Piano (new and pretty cool), which have fun 15sec “huhuhuhuh” and “heheheheh”moments but still leave you $1-$3 short going “awwwww”. For $1, PocketGuitar challenges the best of guitar players to wrap your fingers around your device of choice like a fretboard and strum/pluck your favorite chords with your finger near the home button, or set your iPhone/iPod Touch on a table to touch the strings and play it like a lap steel. I managed to hit 4 strings with my fingers, and with a fret/string width adjustment option, Comic Book Guy’s fingers could probably hit all 4 strings.

The amazing part of this fun music app is the string branded versatility nestled within $1. There are a few instruments to choose from including Acoustic-Electric Guitar, Electric Guitar, Classical Guitar, Muted Guitar, Electric Bass, and my personal favorite the Ukulele. All have semi-realistic voices and string sounds.

Another great feature is the sound effects. You can stack up to 2 effects, including a combination of Distortion (Gain and Level controls), Delay (Time, Feedback, and Level controls), and/or Chorus (Level, Delay, Depth, and Speed).

I found the Acceleromter effect pretty cool and a nice touch as it introduces a whammy bar into your plucking. Controls include Raise Pitch, Lower Pitch, and a Sensitivity option which can get really crazy. Alternative Tuning setting provides a generous control to any Come As You Are lover who wants to upstage an air guitar enthusiast at a party.

The one draw-back to this app is, which may hopefully be enhanced in the future, there isn’t a setting option to softly strum the strings outputting various velocity voices. I hope the developer, Shinya Kasatani, implements this in the future along with different effect choices (like a flanger, different distortions, etc) to keep it interesting and updated. As a guitar player, I enjoyed it for what it’s worth. It’s cute, has a decent sound and operation, and can come in fairly handy when I’m bored at work and have a song idea in my head.

After my first attempt of an honest music review, I managed to get my hands on Knowle West Boy today before tomorrow’s release date to check out the new sound from Tricky. If anyone knows me, you know I’m a giant Massive Attack fan and have had thousands of track plays logged on iLike and Last.fm, so I was hoping for the best on this first listen. Tricky ran with Massive for a few years in the early 90s after their brief run known as The Wild Bunch, contributing to Blue Lines and one of my personal favorite albums, Protection. Since the mid 90s he’s been on his own, breaking out with his solo debut Maxinquaye in 95 and collaborating with an array of lesser-known talented vocalists.

On first listen through, its overall sound is a bit lacking and the attitude appears to be a bit trite, reserving any integrity I hoped it would deliver. Puppy Toy kicks off the record with a more groovy Puscifer REV 22:20 styled track, offering what would appear to be a taste of Bristol’s, Knowle West (and no, that’s not Bristol Palin’s future baby’s name; however, to be fair, I’m putting $20 on it).

This record didn’t hit me as hard (sonically) as I would’ve liked, similar to a bland dinner plate that looks like it would taste off the hook immediately but ultimately leaves you going “aww man” after you take one bite. Extremely diverse in styles, I would’ve liked to have heard more fast tracks like Tricky’s newest single, Council Estate. While Council Estate walked through the door, smelling like it had been sleeping with Outkast, it contained less polish and more gritty realism, which I liked, but at a total track time of 2:41 left me feeling unsated and wanting to be excused from the table.

I decided to stick around and see what else was on the menu.

The next track down the list that grabbed me was Coalition. While it reminded me of Lo Fi Allstars’ Battleflag, it never really hit hard like I was hoping it would. I really hope someone will remix it. The lyrics and lines on this track are probably the best and most upfront strikes on the record, sampling, “The revolution will be televised in Iran, And the Holy Koran, You can go on to the internet, log in to your local war. You can read your paper. Receive a mental scar. Gets your happy meal in your happy car”. Again, I had the feeling like it was just missing the bullseye.. or target.. or donkey ass.

The last track, School Gates, has amazing lyrics and a great rebel cowboy feel. In 3/4 with a great guitar pluck line, crisp acoustic guitar sound, slide guitar, alternate female vocals, this is possibly the best song that was put together on the record for its length at 3:47. Along with the haunting feel of melodramatic lyrics, it really set the tone for the 12 previous tracks for me as an undeserving feeling of melancholy sadness. 

I expect mixed reviews from consumers and semi-moderate praise from critics. Knowle West Boy hits a nerve that never really wanted to be hit. While the female cameos on the record are beautiful and somewhat moving, it’s not enough to distract me from the subpar song writing, uninventive production, and lack of anything hard-hitting. After one listen, it was enough to make me want to blast some Rage so I could get a dose of drops and slamming choruses I so sorely needed.

As I sauntered into work today (yes, sometimes I do in fact saunter), I sat down in front of my color calibrated monitor and wacom tablet with some coffee ready to create a perfect retouched reality, then proceeded to wonder, who in the hell reads magazines anymore? Why isn’t the CMYK industry moving faster to the RGB internet? Is the print industry dying?

I think about the amount of people who pick up a newsstand copy of the magazines I work on and how many will get a subscription in the mail. I think about the deadlines and stress everyone deals with at the job to push out issues on time to get them to a printer and distributer who will then take 2-4 weeks to produce 80k copies per title. I wonder why we’re working on dated information 2-3 months ahead of time that will be irrelevant when the magazine hits the stand.

Magazines seem lazy to me.

A tangible television.

A 20th century commodity.

An old business model.

Gossip aside, exclusive entertainment and information magazines don’t need to break stories as fast as US Weekly. They have the potential to handle content differently. By the way, what’s up with the redundancy of information on their site vs their magazine? Why must we receive news from one source.. 2 WAYS? In 2007 there was a quiet magazine study done on popular titles and their effect online vs print which revealed US Weekly’s website taking more hits than their print subscribers. Why not resort to only 1 source?

Oh right, advertisers.

Advertisers are keeping this old business model around through a tangible social status. You can’t hang a web page from a hook at the checkout line in Vons. It’s impossible sample a fragrance immediately online. Not yet, at least. And incidentally, you’ll look like a total geek reading news about Hannah Montana on TMZ.com in an internet cafe.

Basically, magazines are tangible market-targeted advertisement novels. You like big boobs? Here’s a list of pill manufacturers that claim they can make your dick bigger and last longer so you can keep your pretend girlfriend satisfied. You like fast cars? Oh, well here’s a thin book with an ad index of part manufacturers to dump your money into so you can get your car to look like the one on pg 12.

It’s an evil business that’s clouded with subliminal advertisements. 

I wonder if in 20 years, a green government will take control and condemn printing plants that continue to remain environmentally crude (unlike Printhaus) and will have to shift their base to the internet; in the coattails of the digital cable transition maybe? Even if the pages are made of recycled paper, the printing process and materials alone that are used to create, produce, and ship a product are extensively rich with toxic chemicals.

It’s in your hands then in the trash an hour later. This needs to change.

I don’t get around to watching too many movies, but I’m starting to think maybe I should Netflix more. After seeing No Country For Old Men this past Sunday, it really inspired me to push music again. Not in a sense where I feel that I can create music and develop it like a movie, but more along the lines of being inspired to create a piece of art.

There’s a lot of movies that are out there to mean something and have a special purpose. I’m not saying movies are created only to slam dance around with life messages and witty lines, but there are those that simply choose to exist as of piece of art. The Coen brothers nailed this film, and I know I may be a bit late on the running for a review of it, but I have to offer some insight that came to me while I was watching this movie.

No Country uses white space like a magazine would. It displays the visual piece, unobscured, and allows the subject to remain simple yet powerful, drawing your attention directly to it and nothing else. It leaves you focusing, silently waiting and wanting more. The capturing of the town and ambiance compared with the slow-moving plot line and camera movements completed the lazy town vibe the book could only describe in words. In this movie, the landscape and locations were the stars of the film, where the actors merely performed in a cameo role, intermingling with the plot. It just goes to show that a camera alone can tell a classic story with minimal dialog.

After reflecting on these thoughts while I watched Chigurh blow away some guy behind a shower curtain in a motel, I started to think about how other filmmakers operate out of traditional Hollywood production lines. Tarantino is a great example. He lets the actors act and lets the takes run out as long as possible, letting the actors and dialog carry the movie. His editing is a little rough around the edges and isn’t as smooth as the Coen brothers, but he defines his style very clear, like how Pete Townshend would play a guitar. His recording process is that which reminds me of how records were made back in the 50s and 60s where it was generally 1 take the whole band had to nail. And if they didn’t get the song on a take, they would redo it over and over again until they nailed it.

Acting and scene location aside, music and movies have a lot of the same capturing and production techniques. There’s multiple recorded takes for each scene or track, you get all you can out of the recording process when you can and as fast as possible on location. When recording is done, you’re locked away in a room 4x longer than your time spent recording. You’re editing, producing, and polishing what you captured, shaping it and getting it as close as possible to the vision you had when you first started the idea.

Movies are more complicated in production than music, basically and obviously due to being visually and audibly governed. Music needs to work that much harder to grab you and appeal to your senses. I respect what filmmakers do and the impact that they can create through more than 2 human senses, but a movie without a soundtrack is easily forgotten.