Creamy Radio

1,000 Recordings To Hear Before You Die

NPR has a great review of a new book from author Tom Moon, 1,000 Recordings To Hear Before You Die. While I haven't read the book yet I plan to tackle all 800+ pages of it sometime soon. But as with any list like this there are always debateble selections. I'm not sure if I would have included ZZ Top...

Cell Phone Txtn Costs More Than Gold Or Oil

Something I've been telling people for years is finally becoming (at least somewhat) more public. A blogger has broken down the true cost of SMS costs per message, and it's not pretty. SMS rates have risen 100% in the past two years, keeping pace with oil, and are not even comparible to other data rates.

The results: Getting an SMS message delivered is, bit for bit (or letter for letter) is 200 times more expensive than having a message hand delivered to anyone in the United States via the Postal Service. What's more: through a standard ISP account SMS is bit for bit about 61 million times more expensive. To download a single MP3 through it would cost you about $6,000. I'd like to see the cost to do this over standard minute rates...

Which only further confirms something I've been telling people for years: Stop texting and simply buy more minutes, it's cheaper and if enough people do it will roll back prices on a service that costs carriers basically nothing to deliver other than overpaid market research dipsticks whose only job is to figure out how much you can be gouged.

Only In Local Politics

Long time follower of this story, first time writer. The Arizona State Senate has now approved a bill (already passed by the House) to provide $750 million to build a music oriented theme park called "Decades" between Phoenix and Tucson in the small town of Eloy, Arizona. The bill will head to Gov. Nepolitano, whom I can only beg to veto.

Now you would think I'd be all for anything music oriented here in Arizona, but this crack-pot idea has all the makings of an epic boondoggle. Firstly, while I'll concede a "build and they will come" philosophy, I've been to Eloy and all points between Phoenix and Tucson and I don't see this becoming the next Disneyworld (which notably was also built in the middle of nowhere). Secondly, the concepts listed on their site don't seem to be of the scale and planning stages to even consider giving these people public money, let alone 3/4 of a billion.

The sketches of the park are nothing more than that: sketches. Literally, go look. Take notice of the generic rides available anywhere already included such as the "Meatloaf Bat Outta Hell Swing Ride" or "Welcome to the Jungle Safari Boat Log Ride" or my personal favorite, the "Hotel California Log Ride." Nothing states the "demise of the dream" that The Eagles sang about on that album quite like two flumes in one park just because the names fit. Wait, don't order yet: there's also a "Point of No Return Waterflume Ride" in the 70s area. And tack onto that the "ELO Discovery" water-looking ride and three water-log-safari-flumeish rides in one decade of the park. The Last Resort indeed.

Read on for much more hilarity from these clowns...

Washington Post Wieghs In On XM/Sirius Merger

Columnist Marc Fisher for the Washington Post has now offered his two cents regarding the upcoming XM/Sirius Satellite Radio merger, and it's not so good. Like USNews and World Report did last week, Fisher specifically mentions the coming universal availability of Internet radio as a competitor that will make the massive Satellite infrastructure they both have built "obsolete almost overnight."

Fisher also goes on to argue that with them competing more and more against other media giants we're seeing their programming becoming more and more broadly appealing. When they first started both promised to have unique programming not found anywhere else such as "programs in many languages, with half a dozen genres of classical music, pop sounds from every corner of the planet, live radio dramas, high-end scientific and academic debate, and all manner of other esoteric and minority fare." Not so claims Fisher and he goes on to conclude that the merger should have never happened, making it better for the long term to force each company to become "lean and hunger" rather than merge and be fat and happy as the landscape changes. Well said.

Rolling Blackouts Hitting Creamy Radio?

With the first few days of 110+ degree temps hitting Phoenix a curious thing is happening at the Creamy Radio Foothills Studio: blackouts. And not from the booze as usual. There have been three minor blackouts in the last three days. One on Sunday and two on Tuesday. Neither of which lasted for much more than five minutes, but each was enough to sap our battery capacity and knock Creamy Radio off the air for a bit. We're working on that, by the way...

After calling our electric company, SRP, I was informed they have no idea about this and will need to "get back to me." This four legged friend is sniffing conspiracy. Are minor rolling blackouts being used to keep up with demand? Are they going to get worse? If you live here in Phoenix and are seeing some minor blackouts from SRP or even APS let me know, just so I can unscientifically know if there's something happening we're not being told about. It may be a sign of worse things to come... Or it could just be that here in the Arizona OC everyone has two or three too many air conditioning units.

USNews And World Report Says Merged XM/Sirius Doomed

And names Internet Radio as one of the biggest reasons. The article lists five reasons why the recently approved merger of XM and Sirius Satellite Radio is doomed to fail. Among them, iPods, HD Radio via FM, Internet Radio and continued Internet access proliferation. A good deal of the aricle even mentions how the coming data access services such as WiMax and new cellular phones will allow Internet Radio specifically to reach into markets it's never been before. Go go Creamy Feeds!!!

List of Why Anyone Would Ever Want to Go to Phoenix:

Peter Pierfederici Writes:

- Renaissance Festival’s greasy leg-o’mystery meat
- State Fair redneck watching
- South Phoenix Swap meet “hey, wasn’t that mine” scavenger hunt
- The West Side (Kevlar vest required)
- Trolling for Mormon babes in Mesa!
- Rabid dog hunting on the Res
- Twice-monthly Gun Shows
- Canal swimming
- Retiree “how high can you pull your tube socks contest” at Paradise Valley Mall
- First-Friday art walk and body piercing extravaganza
- Local live music scene yawn festival
- Sherriff Joe aka Yosemite Sam
- Weekend stay at the TC luxury resort (also known as Tent City)
- Quarterly Scottsdale saline balloon fights and Botox syringe dart tournament
- Annual Chandler SUV gas guzzle run
- Buckeye’s Easter corpse-in-the-desert hunt
- Avondale Old-a-thon
- Seniors day at the Sun City Village Inn (i.e. every day until Golden Girls comes on)

Peter has to to stop for now as he's thinking of moving…

Bo Diddley Dead at 79

Blues and rock legend Bo Diddley died today at the age of 79. The musician, born Ellas Otha Bates, was an influential songwriter and guitarist, known for his innovate style and distinctive trademark square guitar. Inspired to play the guitar after seeing fellow blues legend John Lee Hooker, Diddley cut his own path with songs like �I�m a Man� and �Bo Diddley.� Diddley continued to perform well into 2007, until sidelined by a heart attack and stroke. He died from heart failure.

Explosion and Fire Rock Creamy Radio Data Center

After almost 48 hours of downtime we're back up and running. On Saturday night about 5:00PM CDT the data center that houses many of our servers suffered a electrical short which lead to an explosion and fire, cutting off power for us and about 9000 other servers. Our hosting company has worked feverishly to bring power back up and we're now back online without any damage to our servers or operations. Please note things might be running a little slow at first as they are still dealing with some of their networking a the Data Center. We're hoping everything will be 100% in a day or so. Goes to show that no matter how well you plan things can still go wrong.

Thanks for your patience and welcome back,
-The Creamy Staff

Rolling Stone lists their 100 Greatest Guitar Songs

Sometimes, I imagine a brave new world of media in which shows, articles, profiles and investigations are all replaced by Top 10 Lists. Rather than a cohesive analysis of a given topic, why not simply break it down into a largely subjective hierarchy for easy consumption?

Imagine how much easier history class would have been if they simply handed you a Top 100 Most Important People Ever list – each entry with a handy photo (or sketch, for those old wicked old important people) and a bite-size blurb about them. You then spend your entire class in a flamewar about how Aristotle beating out Julius Caesar to be in the Top 20 is complete and utter bullshit.

Learning!

In the last decade or so, we can't seem to get enough of these lists. Music, TV, Movies, Politics, Wealth, Culture – we parse any aspect of our lives into questionably quantifiable lists. One wonders if a time will come when, having rated everything with a semi-valid purpose, we are forced to scrape the bottom of the barrel with the likes of "Top 100 Movies Involving Fart Gags."

I'm snarky about it, clearly, and yet I still read them. Perhaps it's the human need for order in a confusing and chaotic world. Maybe it's our primal instinct to break everything down into a pecking order so we know what to revere and what to piss on. Or, maybe, I just like fodder for my own articles.

To wit: Rolling Stone has released their 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time. By "all time", of course, they mean "since 1954," which marks the list's earliest entries. The usual guitar heroes are well represented – Hendrix, Van Halen, Clapton, Page, Stevie Ray Vaughn – as well as atypical and current choices, like The Mars Volta's "Drunkship of Lanterns" and Sublime's "What I Got." The list is topped by Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode" – a deserving honor for a song that embodies the heart of the Guitar Song, and which laid the foundation for axe-slingers in the decades since.

As usual with these lists, it raises more contention than it settles. Should innovative, complex guitar work rank higher than simpler riffs that have an inescapable catchiness? Does a blistering solo add more to a given song than a little killer lick? Is there an easier way to get the blogosphere in a tizzy than by listing Jack White high on a list?

While I finish my Top 100 Top 100 Lists, why not check out the 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time and let us know what you think.