Rush was interviewed last night on The Colbert Report, in their first appearance on American television in 30 years. It was mostly a fluff interview, but it was fun, and I’m kind of relieved that he didn’t goad them into a political discussion. The performance of “Tom Sawyer” was decent, though Geddy’s voice was a little shaky, but they’ve never really been a telegenic band, and I think they know that. Watching Colbert play with all sorts of Rush trivia, the likes of which could only resonate with prog-rock nerds, was actually quite a treat.

About a week or so ago I put the finishing touches on my custom-built Strat, and I figured I’d share some pics. I wanted the guitar to look angelic (my wife’s pet name for me was the inspiration), and I think I pulled it off rather nicely:

The body and neck come from Warmoth. They did an incredible job with the custom white pearl paint job.

As for specs… the body is a single piece of solid Alder, and the neck is quartersawn maple. The neck has a straight 10-inch fretboard radius with Warmoth’s “’59 roundback” profile and a clear satin finish.

The hardware is a mish-mash of parts; the bridge is a Wilkinson modern 5+1 tremolo (which means 5 of the 6 pivot-screw holes are elongated to reduce friction), but I have replaced the block with a custom-made steel block from Callaham Guitars; the old block’s string holes were drilled too deep, and the ball end of each string sat right up against the baseplate — the new block has vintage string depth. The tremolo arm is also a Callaham replacement. Tuners are cam-style lockers made by Gotoh, though I might replace them with thumbscrew Schallers. Knobs are from Q-Parts.

The electronics are a little more complicated than on a regular Strat. First of all, the middle switch position selects all three pickups instead of just the middle one, but the volume knob has a push/pull switch that, when pulled up, changes this back to just the middle pickup. Also, the first tone knob works for all positions except the bridge-only position, where the second tone knob takes over. The second tone knob also has a dedicated capacitor as well as a resistor, which allows me to turn the knob down all the way without completely cutting out the highs.

The upshot of this is that I can leave the first tone knob rolled all the way up, and the second tone knob all the way down, and I can get pretty close to a humbucker sound at the bridge without sacrificing the traditional clean Strat sounds from the other positions.

The pickups are made by Kinman (AVn-62 neck, AVn-62 middle, AVn-59b bridge), and are noiseless stacked single coils — essentially humbuckers with single coil tone.

Kate and I had a blast at the Rush concert last night. This was my sixth time to see them and — aside from the 1996 show, which was not only my first Rush concert but my first major concert ever — it was the most memorable. A big part of it was that we had seats in the 8th row, not quite floor level but still within 100 feet of the stage.

The Frank Erwin Center is a good venue. The seating is nice, and it’s not too large. And I had no complaints about the sound. I’d say it’s one of the better concert venues I’ve been to.

The performance was spectacular. For the first time that I’ve seen live, Alex nailed the solo to “Dreamline” — usually the high notes are a bit of a stretch. He also pulled out his ES-355 for a few songs, as well as the entire encore, and that pretty much made my night. Neil did a bang-up job as always. His drum solo has gotten even better, ending with One O’Clock Jump by Buddy Rich. He’s also back to using matched grip, which I think suits his style better than the traditional grip. Geddy’s bass tone was the most obviously improved. He seems to have moved away from the tight, crisp sound that he was using the past few years and moved into a deeper, more natural sound.

And the show was a marathon. Like last time, they played 9 of the 13 songs from the new album, but they still had plenty of older material. The entire show, including intermission, was nearly four hours. About the only song I wanted to hear, but didn’t, was “Animate.” Considering that I still got “Limelight,” “Dreamline,” “Free Will,” “Red Barchetta,” and “Subdivisions,” I’m not going to complain.

But having 8th row seats… that’s probably what really made my night. That’s what made it a whole new experience. For nearly four hours, I felt like I did when I was 19, seeing them for the very first time.

Music Thing author Tom Whitwell has an excellent article in Word Magazine explaining how the homogeneity of today’s music has to do with the way it is recorded.

There has been a lot of talk about how the Washington Post story I linked the other day took the RIAA’s legal arguments about ripping CDs out of context. I noted at the time that the case was not about ripping CDs to mp3 format, but rather about file-sharing, and I can only imagine how people were concluding otherwise (read: it’s the internet).

But apparently the RIAA brief crucially pairs the act of converting CDs to mp3 format with the act of placing those mp3 files in a folder to be shared by Kazaa. The Washington Post story isn’t entirely inaccurate — the RIAA is still arguing that mp3s copied to your own computer from legally-purchased CDs are “unauthorized copies,” but the argument is qualified by the intention of the user to share those files with others over the internet.

What does this mean to you? Not much, considering that only three months ago Sony BMG’s head of litigation testified in court that, in her opinion, copying CDs to mp3 format was “a nice way of saying ’steals just one copy.’”

So no, I don’t believe this is all just a big misunderstanding.

In case you haven’t heard, the RIAA is now officially arguing in a court of law that ripping CDs to MP3 is illegal. This is a nightmare. For the record labels, I mean.

Do you listen to CDs? I don’t. I’ve got an iPod. CDs are bulky and inconvenient. The iPod fits in my pocket, and it holds all my music. I still buy CDs, though, because the music has to get on my iPod somehow. I could buy digital music directly from iTunes and Amazon, but I like having a physical, lossless backup. I could pirate music, but that presents ethical and legal issues. So I buy CDs.

But if ripping CDs is illegal… then what incentive do I have to buy CDs? If the RIAA is going to sue me for copying my CDs to my iPod, then why don’t I just pirate everything?

To put it bluntly, if ripping CDs is illegal, then that means CDs are now completely worthless to anyone who owns an iPod. And I hear that there are an awful lot of people out there who own iPods. In one fell swoop, the RIAA has managed to devalue the CD almost completely, and make piracy attractive to even the most honest customers. It is not an exaggeration to call this move an unprecedented disaster for the music industry.

But consumers don’t have to worry, because ripping CDs isn’t illegal. It was ruled legal in 1999 by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Recording Industry Association of America v. Diamond Multimedia Systems Inc. The act of copying CDs to a computer or digital device for non-commercial private use, also known as “space-shifting,” was specifically cited to be part of the fair use privilege of the U.S. Copyright Act, and therefore legal.

In case you didn’t catch that, I’ll rephrase: The RIAA has already tried to argue that ripping CDs was illegal, but it didn’t hold up in court.

So why are they trying again? Well, in reality, this is a strong-arm tactic used by the RIAA to put a little fear into the defendant in this particular case. The real case is about file-sharing, not ripping. They’re trying to trump things up. Throwing shit against the wall to see what sticks, as it were.

But you could not ask for a worse message to send your customers: “Dear potential CD buyers, CDs are now worthless. You will have to find some other way to fill your iPods.” If the industry thinks CD sales are in decline now then wait and see what happens when the few honest customers they have left are driven to piracy by heavy-handed legal tactics like these.

What really needs to happen — and I know it’s a pipe dream — is for just one of the major record labels to drop out of the RIAA entirely. Stop paying them money. Sure, they won the first jury trial, but for all their legal bluster, music piracy is still going up year-over-year. They are wrecking your business. So why continue to pay them to do it?

If you want to know what kind of options are available to musicians when it comes to selling recorded music, this Wired article by David Byrne (formerly of the Talking Heads) is an excellent primer. It may also be of value to consumers who are interested in knowing where their money goes.

I picked up the new Coheed and Cambria album today, and it is fantastic. I first discovered them when Good Apollo I’m Burning Star IV, Volume 1: From Fear Through The Eyes Of Madness (yes, that’s the real title) came out, and I loved it. Awesome hard prog rock nerdery. I eventually looked into their first two albums; The Second Stage Turbine Blade was miserable — decent lyrics, but boring songwriting and just plain sloppy musicianship. In Keeping Secrets Of Silent Earth: 3 was a vast improvement in performance, but the songwriting was still nothing spectacular. Good Apollo showed a real improvement in the band, and now No World For Tomorrow is even better.

Nick Raskulinecz is on hand as producer this time around. You will recall him as the producer of the latest Rush album as well; this guy is really impressing me. Although Coheed and Cambria have toned down the rhythmic complexity here, they’re really rocking out more than before.

There are hints of record label stupidity on this album, though. First of all, the album is technically Good Apollo I’m Burning Star IV, Volume 2, but that prefix isn’t listed anywhere on the album cover. I’m curious as to why. Cutting it down to No World For Tomorrow is certainly less of a mouthful, but it is a real deviation from the naming convention of the previous albums. It’s possible this was the band’s decision, but I doubt it.

Another deviation is the fact that the album doesn’t begin with the string section intro that introduced the previous albums. Why not? I know the band was looking to remove some of the prog rock elements, so maybe this was, again, their decision… but my instincts tell me the record label thought they weren’t mainstream enough.

On top of that, there’s a liner note that although Chris Pennie is the official drummer in the band, all drums were performed by Taylor Hawkins, of the Foo Fighters. Dig deeper and you find that their original drummer, Josh Eppard, left some time last year, and was replaced by Pennie, but Pennie was not allowed to record on the album due to “contractual obligations.” I can only imagine the record label bullshit that must have caused this.

Speaking of which, all of the liner notes are online, and the CD comes in a little cardboard sleeve. I’m not unhappy with this, but it’s odd, and it makes the disc look like a lesser product compared to other discs on the store shelf. Is somebody cutting costs here? There’s a deluxe version with an extra DVD and booklet, but I didn’t see the point.

And to top it off, the leading single is the worst song on the album. Who made that decision? It’s not a bad song, per se, but every other track on the album is better than “The Running Free.” “Gravemakers & Gunslingers” would have been a much better choice; it’s just as energetic (if not moreso) and has some truly bitchin’ guitar riffs. People have already been making custom Guitar Hero charts for it.

The result of all these mistakes? Apparently the album isn’t selling well. Which is a shame, because as I said, it’s as good as their last album, if not better.

P.S. - I checked online a little while ago to see if they were coming to Texas any time soon, and it turns out they were playing here in Austin tonight. I couldn’t figure out what time, though, so I rushed down to the venue, and sure enough, they were finishing their last song right when I got there. Oh, well.

XKCD has a point.

The Rocket Summer’s first two albums did nothing for me — in fact, I absolutely hated the single “Brat Pack” from their last album. But what I’ve heard on Pandora Radio of the new album suggests that it is a huge improvement. The sound is bigger and fuller, which is really necessary to truly support his vocals. This particular song is like a rocked-up Billy Joel tune. It’s been so long since I’ve heard a good saxophone solo.