Saturday, April 22, 2006

The cold snap has finally come to Sydney. No more daily swims to clear my head and get it ready for work. Outside is just drizzle. Perfect lyric writing weather I suppose.

To think that Easter weekend was so sunny and warm - perfect conditions for the Great Escape Festival. The Newington Armory was converted from an old munitions site into a thriving and colourful collection of stalls, 160 local and international live acts, murals and installations.

Set by the Parramatta River, it was great to hear artists like Jackie Orzasky and King Tide belt it out in the open air and next to the water. The event was so huge, I quickly wore myself out doing laps around the many stages, trying to catch all the acts that are being touted around the music press and radio as the 'next big thing.'

I missed most of the headliners, including Silverchair's live resurgence. The closest I came to the new buff Daniel Johns was checking out the gallery on Triple J's website. Hmmm. According to some observers, including Triple J's own Zan Rowe, I didn't miss much. Supposedly he was drunk and lacked some of the youthful charm we've been accustomed to in the past.

I enjoyed Donna Hewitt and Julian Knowle's set as part of the Clatterbox Sessions. Donna sang with the eMic, which processes vocal sounds by sensing gestures made during the performance. What a cool device. I want one.

When it came time to leave, the little French pug decided it would have a dead battery. I cursed and called the NRMA, car laden with equipment, very exhausted and hoping to collapse in front of a DVD soon. The festival organisers and security staff were wonderful in helping us rendezvous with the patrol car in the middle of a huge festival site. Three hours, many ping pong games, and $155 later, the temperamental Deprogram vehicle finally got us home!


Last week we checked out sci-fi writer, techno activist, plus co-editor of the site, boingboing.net, Cory Doctorow on his visit to Australia. He spoke about a question that often fascinates sci-fi novelists - will machine's take control in the future? Using Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology as an example, Cory spoke about how it was taking over our freedom to enjoy music in a variety of ways and sharing it with our friends. He illustrated the incredible lengths major record & software companies have gone to enforce copyright. Some of the anecdotes were downright frightening - like root kits and spyware being introduced to people's computers - just for playing a commercial CD! Paying for the right to have your machine taken over by a record company? Strange but true.

I just don't get how they think this approach will be sustainable. Recently I tried to play a Dandy Warhols CD on my Linux machine and not only did it make the player crash - it made the CD drive disappear until I rebooted. Crazy stuff. I hate rebooting just to be able to use my CD drive. What is on those copy controlled CDs? Who knows, but I don't want a bar of it.

posted by deprogram @ 10:35 PM