EvolvingWorld » Music

Crosby Stills Nash (&Young) Setlists

tomh — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 11:15:01 +0000

Hi folks,

I just posted a new version of the CSN(&Y) setlists. A big thanks to Dennis for his information on concerts in Washington.

Did you know that these guys will have performed 1489 concerts by the end of this year? I’ve got setlists for 799 of them.

Please send me any corrections or additions! I’d love to fill in the gaps.

My Heroes Are Getting Old

tomh — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 04:02:04 +0000

I’ve been enjoying listening to Phil Lesh’s 70th birthday party. It’s an amazing show – over four hours of 24bit delight. But it got me thinking – Phil is actually 70! And still able to play such a monster show. He sure doesn’t seem 70, not like my own parents were at 70. I suppose the music keeps him young – Karl Boehm and Otto Klemperer kept it up till a very advanced age. Yet the reality is, he is 70. And it makes me realize that being able to share this music is a precious gift - and it won’t keep happening forever. I remember when my wife bugged me about going to so me Grateful Dead concerts and I said I knew it wouldn’t last, and it certainly didn’t. Though it was sad how Jerry faded out. In that sense it’s wonderful to see Phil and Bobby having more fun than ever in Furthur. Bobby in particular seems to have woken up of late. Along similar lines Steven Stills seems to have found new enthusiasm and voice, at least listening to his latest show in Anaheim. So the music goes on. But as the saying goes, carpe diem…

Popcorn Hour C200

tomh — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 05:35:43 +0000

My stereo/home theater has really been transformed by the Popcorn Hour C-200. I had an A-110 earlier, but this is really even cooler. The C200 looks like a dvd player, and indeed it plays CDs, DVDs and BluRay disks. But it’s real purpose in life is to stream media from the network. I listen to my music though it, view my photos, and watch home movies, all without inserting a disk or tape, and even better, without having to go look for same. I’ve got it connected via a dedicated 801n link to my Synology DS509 NAS. On the Synology I’ve got 5TB of disk space in Raid 6. The disks are organized into a single volume, with three folder structures for music, photos and video. Since the Synology is just a Linux box on the inside, I run llink on it. llink provides a convenient user interface for browsing the collection and streams the results to the C200. The C200 itself can grab stuff from the network, either by a network share, or through llink, or from its internal hard disk or a connected USB device. If it takes too long to download stuff, I just copy it over via a USB device. It’s also linux based, so I can install my own applications on it and manage it remotely. This gives a huge amount of flexibility. It’s also cleaning up my setup, because it can replace a whole bunch of devices.

The main challenge with the C200 is that in keeping with its flexibility its software is very complex, and the team developing it has their challenges. When I got the device it barely worked, but with every successive software release it’s gotten better. So every two months you get a new software release, and you watch the device get some more capability. As one joker put it, he’s hoping the software will be finished before the hardware is obsolete. Yet in spite of considerable rough edges it’s so cool simply being able to browse my concert collection, and pick out what I want to listen to without having to go up and dig through my closet full of disks.

The only problem now is I keep having to watch my 250GB monthly limit with Comcast as I rebuild my music collection on the hard disks. I bet soon I’ll need to get an expansion cabinet for the Synology to add more disk space. A foot note there – when building a NAS like this, it’s highly recommended to get the RAID class disk drives – they will work better and longer.

The other useful and ever entertaining thing about the C-200 is the very lively discussion forum where users exchange ideas and whine about bugs. The forum is pretty crucial for learning how to get the most out of the device. Definitely a superior toy!

New CSN Setlist pages

tomh — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 00:17:00 +0000

With Crosby Stills and Nash on tour, it’s high time to update my list of every concert and setlist CSN has played, over at http://hempelpai.com/Music/csnylists. In spite of the internet it’s actually harder to update this list today than ten years ago; sadly I think CSN has lost relevance to the hard core concert junkies who tape shows and collect set lists. Only in Europe are people still really crazy about them. Here they play placid set of greatest hits to placid middle aged people anxious to cheer teach your children for the nth time. Which is kind of sad- they’re great musicians, who can still perform awesome shows, but somehow without Neil to goad them, they tend to play it safe. I’m frustrated actually, I’ve seen them so often, and I love their music so much, but in the last decade all the really killer shows I’ve heard from them have either been with Neil or on their European jaunts.

This year they’re doing covers which is fine, but it would be cool if they did more of their own material, especially the lesser known stuff. Anyhow, once again they really nailed it Europe and our friends there have posted some great recordings. So go over to dimeadozen and check them out!