A pair of interesting posts by Nick Halstead:

• What Motivates Programmers
• What De-Motivates Programmers

She’s Geeky will be an (un)conference in Mountain View, CA on October 22-23. Tickets are $175.

It is designed to provide women who self-identify as geeky and who are engaged in various technology-focused disciplines with a gathering space in which they can exchange skills and discuss ideas and form community across and within disciplines.

What’s an “(un)conference”? There will not be an organized agenda, instead the attendees will decide on the content. There is a Wiki page with proposed topics.

New and Notable This Week

• Calvin Harris: I Created Disco
  I’m a fan of LCD Soundsystem, Datarock and HBO’s “The Flight of the Conchords”. How could I not love this too? I think this music would fall under the label “electroclash”. To me, it sounds like David Bowie, Talking Heads, and Kraftwerk all mashed together.
• Hot Hot Heat: Happiness LTD.
  This is what bubblegum indie-rock sounds like. It’s not very filling, but if you like The Killers, Franz Ferdinand and The Bravery it might tide you over until the next meal.
• Black Lips: Good Bad Not Evil
  Delightfully-out-of-tune garage and surf punk. They remind me of The Creation, The Sonics and The Pretty Things. I know those names are nowhere near the mainstream, so if you don’t already know that you like garage it’s probably not for you.
• Rogue Wave: Asleep at Heaven’s Gate
  A good alt rock band that reminds you of dozens of other alt rock bands. That’s both a reason to like them and a reason to skip them.
• Shout Out Louds: Our Ill Wills
  The Cure meets The Killers. That forumla is wearing out.
• 50 Cent: Curtis
  Not groundbreaking but there is some good stuff here. I like the guest appearances: they show good taste and they add much needed contrast to his gravelly voice (and keep everything from sounding like “In da Club”). I probably couldn’t code to it though—it commands too much of my attention.
• Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals: Lifeline
  Soul, blues, gospel, country and even folk influences show up on Ben Harper’s latest.
• Various Artists: Across the Universe
  Terrible Beatles covers. Even the songs with Bono are bad.

I already raved about the newest Spoon album. They are one of my favorite bands and it’s one of the best albums of the year.

Now you have to check out this video for “Don’t You Evah” which features the Keepon robot. The song was already catchy, but the video will put it in your head for weeks! The video was a collaboration between Spoon (several members even make cameos) and Keepon to promote WIRED NextFest which is next weekend, Sept. 14-16, in Los Angeles. Spoon will be playing a kick-off concert on Monday, September 10 to benefit Creative Commons and the Keepon robot is scheduled to join them. (I would have thought he’s too big of a rock star by now… I’m glad to see he’s still humble.)

I love it when creatives and geeks work together. Left brain meets right brain—the way it should be.

On a sad note, opera lovers worldwide will miss Luciano Pavarotti. I’m an opera fan but I never got to see the great Pavarotti. iTunes: “Luciano Pavarotti - The Best”

New and Notable This Week

• Manu Chao: La Radiolina
  Manu Chao is immensely popular in Europe and Latin America, sings in seven languages, and writes rock/folk/world music with a leftist/political/protest angle that incorporate at least as many musical styles. His music has always been fractured and his new album features 21 songs, many of them under 2 minutes, but he moves between styles, languages and genres so deftly that you won’t notice the shift. He has appeared at numerous festivals and opened for bands like Rage Against the Machine, yet his U.S. success has been minimal. To me, this album feels like an attempt to be more mainstream and ends up being good but not as satifsying as his other albums. The earliest tracks are best, especially “Tristeza Maleza”.
• Björk: Family Tree
  An interesting approach to a greatest hits album. Björk selected her favorite songs and packaged them together with art and commentary so that it stands on its own as more than just a greatest hits. iTunes says that a fan selected greatest hits should have come out on the same day but I can’t find it.
• Just Jack: Overtones
  U.K. rap that’s not bad, but not great either. His technique and style is not quite as original as The Streets, but his use of funk and soul elements that remind me of early Thicke or Jamiroquai makes up for it.

I’ll be on vacation for the next week, and not blogging, but I wanted to leave you with this week’s notable music releases.

I don’t normally mention singles or live albums, but this time I can’t help myself. Rick Springfield has a new single out, “Who Killed Rock N’ Roll (Live)“. (Yes, that Rick Springfield.) I think it’s funny for a half-dozen reasons. First, it’s a live track before there’s even been a studio track. Second, you gotta figure this crowd wasn’t exactly arena-sized—can he even draw a crowd? Third, the songs asks “who killed rock and roll?” which presumes that rock and roll is in fact dead and also that the guy who gave us “Jesse’s Girl” and “Love Somebody” is somehow a supreme example of that lost art and heir to Led Zeppelin.

But most of all… and you have to listen to it yourself to appreciate it fully… In just the 30 second sample clip on iTunes, Springfield’s bland rock nostalgia features both a (badly) sampled police siren and a break to a few notes from The Who’s “Baba O’Reilly”. (Can you even picture Rick Springfield smashing a guitar Pete Townshend style?) And the lyrics include gems such as “50 million kids knocking on the door, everybody’s horny but nobody can score.” I shudder to imagine what the rest of the track holds.

I’m going to have to dub this piece of kitsch the “Rubberneck Song of the Week”—you know it’s a wreck but you have to slow down and look anyway.

I know there are many who will disagree with me. The iTunes user reviews are slobbering all over it. They add extra kitsch value if for any reason you haven’t gotten your fill yet. Rick, if you are their pied piper then please lead these children far, far away…

New and Notable This Week

• The New Pornographers: Challengers
  Another solid album by a great band. Not that different from their last album but I’m not complaining.
• Josh Ritter: The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter
  I hadn’t heard Josh Ritter before. I like it. Enough that I bought it on the way out the door for vacation. Singer/songwriter type stuff, but there’s something that keeps it from being like every other singer/songwriter out there. I can’t put it into words yet but I’m sure I’ll have more of an opinion after a few listens.
• Rilo Kiley: Under the Blacklight
  I like Rilo Kiley. I would recommend their previous two albums. But this one is a wrong turn. A few tracks might still be worthwhile, especially if you are a fan.
• The Waterboys: Book of Lightning
• Architecture in Helsinki: Places Like This

New and Notable This Week

• Junior Senior: Hey Hey My My Yo Yo
  The hit “Move Your Feet” from Junior Senior’s previous album, D-D-Don’t Don’t Stop the Beat, was great because it was impossible to listen to it and not want to dance and be in a good mood. Party music is what they do best. Europop, funky electronic dance music and psychedelic disco grooves that remind you of an updated The B-52s, Pet Shop Boys, Devo and The Sugarcubes. (”Take My Time” features Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson from The B-52’s.) If you love Scissor Sisters, LCD Soundsystem, Datarock or HBO’s “Flight of the Concords”, then I highly recommend it.
• Eisley: Combinations
  An eclectic set of songs with spooky vocals like Radiohead and sweet harmonies reminiscent of Belly and Sixpence None the Richer. Also reminds me of Travis. (And they have geek cred—their name comes from the town of Mos Eisley in Star Wars.)
• Matt Nathanson: Some Mad Hope
  Nathanson’s a singer-songwriter in the David Gray, Damien Rice, Ari Hest mold. It’s a little sugary for my taste but if it isn’t for yours then this could be good music to code by.
• Linda Thompson: Versatile Heart
  Folk in the style of Joni Mitchell and Joan Baez with overtones of country.
• Blaqk Audio: CexCells
  A side project by two members of the punk rock band AFI. Only it’s not punk, it’s a throw back to dark electronica/synth pop like Joy Division, Depeche Mode, New Order and 808 State. My criticism is that it may be too authentic and that they don’t take the sound anywhere new. But if you’ve been jonesing for the 80’s…
• Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds: Live At Radio City
  A must for Dave Matthews fans, skippable for everyone else.
• Paul Van Dyk: In Between
  Two hours of dance/trance music by the 20-year veteran German DJ for $9.99. There was a time when that would have seemed like a great offer to me.

New to iTunes

• John Lennon: Working Class Hero - The Definitive Lennon
  The whole John Lennon catalog was added to iTunes. (Another small step towards offering The Beatles catalog…) This is a 2-CD/38-song greatest hits collection from his solo career. It’s also from EMI so it’s iTunes Plus (no DRM and better sound quality for $.30/song extra).

Maker Faire, the two-day family-friendly event celebrating crafts and engineering sponsored by Make Magazine, is coming to The Travis County Fairgrounds in Austin, Texas on October 20-21, 2007. Adult tickets are $20/day and there are discounts for students and anyone under 21 years old.

If you want to know what it’s like, you can review pictures and video coverage of the May event in the Bay area.

New and Notable This Week

• Public Enemy: How You Sell Soul to a Soulless People Who Sold Their Soul?
  It’s been nineteen years since It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back was released. Now Public Enemy is back with an album bearing an even longer title. And while it’s hard to ever live up to that first legendary album, this album actually comes amazingly close in quality, even if not in influence. It’s amusing to see them show back up on the scene and show everyone else how it’s supposed to be done. Their musical style hasn’t changed much but the 21st Century studio production values give their sound everything it needs in the way of an update. In my opinion, “Harder Than You Think” and “Black is Back” are the stand-out tracks.
• Grace Potter & the Nocturnals: This Is Somewhere
  Bluesy, folksy, country, soul, rock. If that sounds all over the place: think Bonnie Raitt, think Nora Jones, think Edie Brickell, think Lucinda Williams, think Patti Smith, think Joan Osborne.
• Carla Bruni: No Promises
  The second album by the Italian/French model/singer has a few nice songs, but overall it’s not as good as her first effort. Her first was all in French; this one’s in English and has been out in the UK since January. Still I think she easily takes the trophy for most beautiful singer of the year…
• The Budos Band: The Budos Band II
  Afro-beat with a heavy dose of funk—merging Fela Kuti and The Meters.
• 1990s: Cookies
  I don’t think it’s nearly as good or catchy as Kings of Leon, The Fratellis, OK Go or Louis XIV, but if you like that up-tempo, fun-pop sound you might like it.

There are at least four notable groups that you can’t get on iTunes: The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Radiohead and AC/DC.

This week it was announced that Led Zeppelin will be coming to iTunes! It won’t affect me much—I’ve already ripped every song from CD—but I’m happy they will be available to everyone else. Granted, they are only releasing a 24-track greatest hits album called “Mothership” and it won’t be released until November 12, but you gotta figure that the remaining 57 songs will follow soon. (By my quick count there were originally nine albums with 81 songs.)

This week also brought news from AC/DC… They plan to release their entire 18-album catalog exclusively on Verizon’s VCast music service. That’s sucky because you have to be a Verizon customer to buy them. It’s double-sucky that you can only purchase them as full albums, not single songs. It’s triple-sucky that you can’t even buy them from your phone directly; you have to download them from Verizon’s website and then upload them to your phone. The rumor is that AC/DC’s insistance on full-album-only sales is what kept them off of iTunes.

No word on The Beatles or Radiohead yet…

New and Notable This Week

• Jose Gonzalez: Stay in the Shade
  Every bit as wonderful as his previous album but his voice is a little less wispy this time around.
• Guru: Jazzmatazz, Vol. 4
  Guru’s long-awaited fourth installment of old school hip-hop mixed with Jazz. This album continues the trend, ever since the first volume in 1993, of drifting away from jazz/hip-hop and towards jazz/R&B. Personally, I like the older volumes much better.
• Trey Anastasio: The Horseshoe Curve
  The former Phish frontman has put out a solo jazz-funk album. No doubt the performers are all top-notch, but quite honestly it has the appeal of a Phish album without the quirky lyrics.

Free Download

• Tegan and Sara: “Back in Your Head”
  I think you should buy the whole album instead, but maybe this track will help convince you.

New and Notable This Week

• Tegan and Sara: The Con
  I’ve been waiting several years for this one. Despite being identical twins, they are always original. None of the songs rise to the level of “Walking with a Ghost” but they are all great. I can’t decide if it’s their melodies, harmonies or timber of their voices that I find so enticing. If you haven’t heard them, I’d call them a less bombastic version of the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs or TV on the Radio. (iTunes lables it “sugary electro-pop”.) I’m sure it’s an odd reference point that not everyone will relate to but Tegan and Sara remind me of the things I loved about Sinead O’Connor’s first album, The Lion and the Cobra. I think that musical territory has gone largely unexplored since then and I’m glad to see Tegan and Sara mapping it out for us.
• Unkle: War Stories
  A line-up of guest vocalists as you’d expect, but more of a rock depature from Unkle’s previous work. It’s less DJ Shadow/Radiohead and more Queens of the Stone Age. The critics are largely unimpressed, and I see their point that it becomes a bit monotonous in places, but overall I think I’m still on board and recommend it.
• Portugal the Man: Church Mouth
  They draw heavily on 70’s guitar rock but combine it with more modern sensibilities. They remind me of The Raconteurs, Franz Ferdinand and (one of my recent favorites) El Presidente. Thumbs up.
• Garbage: Absolute Garbage (Special Edition)
  A repackaged greatest hits album. The original greatest hits came out 10 years ago and is still $10 on iTunes. This one is $15 and adds 13 remixes from the likes of Crystal Method, Massive Attack, U.N.K.L.E., Rabbit In the Moon, Felix Da Housecat and more. If remixes are your thing then you’ll want it, but if not, since Garbage only had four albums and 48 songs total, you might prefer to splurge and buy them all.
• Silverchair: Young Modern
  Notable because I had written these guys off as Pearl Jam imitators. This album is experimental and sounds completely different (young and modern). Some of the tracks are rather catchy. Too bad they’ll have to drag those old songs around with them…
• Sum 41: Underclass Hero
  One of the few pop-punk bands I like. Certainly they aren’t pushing any musically boundaries, and sure it’s a little watered-down at times, but there’s still something to it.
• John Vanderslice: Emerald City
  Singer-songwriter, in the Elliot Smith style but without as much angst.
• Wir Sind Helden: Soundso
  I don’t speak German, but if I did I’d probably have to buy this catchy bit of German pop.