So, You're Not at Bonnaroo, 2nd Ed.

If there's one thing The Musically Inclined is good at, it's enjoying Bonnaroo from a distance. Last year we brought you a selection of tips for a successful four days as a e-festival goer. This year, we do it again.

+ First up, Vevo is live streaming concerts from several of the main stages, June 10-12. Essentially, if you had a mind to spend the next three days glued to your high speed internet connection from noon to midnight, you could. Godspeed.

Glancing over Vevo's line up, we might suggest the following:

June 10: Best Coast (maybe) 5:00 p.m. CST; Florence and the Machine 6:45 p.m.; My Morning Jacket 8:15 p.m.

June 11: Ray LaMontagne 2:00 p.m.; Mumford & Sons 8:00 p.m.; Arcade Fire 9:30 p.m. (but mostly because eeeveryone looves Arcade Fire.)

June 12: Smith Westerns 12:30 p.m.; Mavis Staples 1:30 p.m.; The Strokes 6:45 p.m.; Widespread Panic 8:45 p.m. (You know, for shiggles.)

+ Next up, here's a sweet "Day 1 in Photos" gallery. Happy to say a former classmate of mine is the photog responsible for these stellar shots. I can only assume this will happen again in the days to come.

+ Spinner is offering a Bonnaroo 2011 sampler, free for download. There are about 30 tracks, which isn't too shabby. Serving suggestion: If you crank up the heating system and point every light and lamp you own at your face, you can pretend you're hearing the tracks live. Great fun! Extra points for realistically replicating the "smells of Bonnaroo."

+ Finally, Nashville's only independent radio station, the great Lightning 100, is taking you "Backstage at Bonnaroo." Check their site for interviews with artists which so far include Freelance Whales, Justin Townes Earle and Kopecky Family Band, to name a few.

Well, that's all I've got. Dig around and see what else you run into. And of course, have happy festival.

iCloud Details Unveiled, Music Beta Invites Go Out

There is so much shaking in the music cloud world right now, I'm not sure where to begin.

For one, we've finally got details on the long-awaited Apple cloud, or iCloud. Certain iCloud details were leaked a few days ago, but we're going to sit here awed anyway. Not really.

Watching live tweets from the announcement at WWDC was interesting because some of the initial reaction to it, especially from folks focusing on the music library angle, was "meh," in the vernacular of the web. iCloud is broader than just music storage. It's digital media storage that also integrates with apps like iCal and Mail in desktop and mobile form. It's also a bit more complex than just that, but here's the way Paste Magazine condensed it:

"Not only will iCloud give you 5GB free for your email, documents and backup (not including storage for your last 30 days of photos, and purchased music, apps and books), but for $24.99/year, it will store the rest of your music catalog."

Cool, but not necessarily groundbreaking. Then came iTunes Match. iTunes Match will check your music library and upgrade it to 256kbps AAC files as if you'd bought it from the iTunes store. Paste Editor Josh Jackson saw some big implications from Match, Tweeting, "Apple essentially just monetized music piracy for the first time. Labels will presumably get a cut of yearly fees."

Meanwhile, the bitch slap award in technology goes to Music Beta by Google for sending out a round of invites in the middle of the Apple announcement. I believe the appropriate term here is "aw, snap." (I'd be really impressed if someone could get a comment from Google on that one. I'm sure it was "pre-scheduled" or something.)

While, according to CNET, "The [iCloud] will be made available with iOS 5 this fall," Music Beta is currently uploading my iTunes library.

Something smart: Music Beta gives you music packs to start off with based on your preferred genres, so while you're waiting to upload your cripplingly-large iTunes collection, you've got something to listen to from the get-go. Also, it's free music, even if it's only streaming. Woo.

As far as interface goes, it looks simple with nice big buttons. Nothing will be as pretty as iTunes, but Apple has got the market cornered on sleek and sexy tech, in my opinion.

How it compares to Amazon's Cloud Player? I guess we'll see. I like the Amazon Cloud Player. Somehow I consider it to be the underdog here, even though Amazon arguably has more of a reason for getting into this race than Google in terms of prior presence in the digital music realm.

What I see as being a disadvantage for Amazon is that both Google and Apple already have greater holds on people's lifestyles. Both can offer the consumer function as well as storage for documents and email etc. People are already running their lives through these systems, whether it's the cult of Mac or the all-knowing, somewhat invasive Google.

Ultimately, I think that Google and Apple will run along side each other. After all, no one said there has to be a winner... although if you want to purchase music, it'll have to be through Amazon, iTunes or where ever else you get your tunes, as record labels have yet to cooperate with Google.

Anyway, stay tuned for further updates as I get to mess around with Music Beta.

Paste Interviews The Avett Brothers

Photo from Paste

Recently, the folks at Paste Magazine caught up with the Avett Brothers at Hangout Festival in Gulf Shores, AL. There's a six-minute interview as well an acoustic version of "Slight Figure of Speech" from 2009's I and Love and You. While the Avett Brothers said they're working on a new LP, they didn't elaborate much, but that's okay. It's probably safe to say this band is zestier on stage than in an interview. Check the link above.

Every Teardrop is a Waterfall : Coldplay

As promised, today Coldplay released "Every Tear is a Waterfall," the first single from their upcoming, yet-to-be-titled album.

The song is about music. It's not that good. The synth sounds messy. The lyrics are cloying. But hey, don't take my word for it. Judge for yourself.

NPR, DCfC, Sasquatch and Other Strange Letters

In honor of the release of Death Cab for Cutie's Codes and Keys, out today, I thought I'd remind you that NPR is posting live recordings from the Sasquatch Music Festival like it's their job. (Wha?)

That said, here's Death Cab for Cutie, live in concert, courtesy of NPR. Enjoy.

Coldplay: Every Lyric is a Teardrop

Looks like after three years, the Coldplay machine has got its wheels turning again. Today, the band posted a video on their website featuring a few lyrics from their upcoming single "Every Tear Drop is a Waterfall," out June 3.

The fulls lyrics to the song can be found on their site, and yes, the song does contain the lines "As we soar walls, every siren is a symphony and every tear's a waterfall / is a waterfall / oh is a waterfall / oh oh oh is a waterfall / every tear is a waterfall / oh oh oh."

They sure do make it hard to defend them sometimes.

Also, colorful, non-threatening graffiti seems to be the theme this time around. No word on a release date or title for the album.

Damn hoodlums.

The Anatomy of a Mashup : Daft Punk

We all like a good mashup, right? Sure. As long as it's not overly long and it's clever. A mysterious (That's a lie. He's an Australian named Cameron Adams.) fellow calling himself The Man in Blue put together a mashup of 23 Daft Punk songs and created a visualizer to show how the songs fit together in the mashup. You can see when a chunk of a song starts and ends, and how loud it gets by watching a series of colorful concentric circles, each representing a song. Intelligent stuff. I present: The Anatomy of a Mashup. Can't even imagine the coding magic behind it.

Speaking of mashups, the wise blog reader will check out Xaphoon Jones's sweet mashup of the Jackson 5's "I Want You Back" and Passion Pit's "Sleepyhead," aptly titled "The Jackson Pit."



The wise blog reader should stay way from mashups of this variety. Not bad, but there's better stuff out there.


Picked up the tip from Gizmodo.