A discovery of digital music

I never had any use for digital music or inclination to use it. Call me old fashioned, but I like those CDs with their quality sound, their nice sleeves, and their informative sleevenotes. Until I received my iPod for xmas, that is. Not that I suddenly discovered I disliked CDs or anything (I think I'll be the last ever customer of a good many second hand CD shops - hopefully years from now - as I make it a point to find and visit them everywhere I go...), but of course owning a digital music player makes you relaise how convenient it is, especially when you travel as much as I do.

So last week I did my first playlist and decided to share it on iTunes. You know, the web 2.0 thing to do. I was even going to tell you about it! So I import it on iTunes and what message comes back: iTunes features none of the tunes on this iMix, therefore it cannot be imported. Now that's rich. I will admit that my playlists contain some obscure stuff, but come on, no King Crimson, no Gil Scott-Heron, no G Love, no Dr. John, no Blues Traveler. No way!

After a while, I thought about this and realised that the issue wasn't that they didn't have these tracks, it was that I hadn't purchased them from the iTunes store. How web 1.0 is that? It also reminded me why I profoundly dislike the iTunes store (besides poor sound quality and absurd DRM). Won't be buying from them...

Today, I was importing some really obscure harmonica stuff a friend from the US burned on CD for me some years back. No we're talking really obscure here. Let's make a test: those of you who know of George Armaos, put your hands up... Hrm. Just as I thought, and bonus points for the smartass at the back. Anyway, I import the few tracks I had of this guy, no titles no nothing, of course, and then I wanted to get at least a photo of the guy (I hate having blank covers on the iPod's cover flow. Yes, I am anal.)

So I Google Gearge Armaos hoping that a fellow geek would have put up a photo of this greek harmonica and oud player up. To my surprise, I find a record cover on Rhapsody's website. Now Rhapsody is a subscription based music service (also DRM riddled, a no-no for me), and known to have a huge library, so I think "wait a minute, if Rhapsody has it, maybe Amazon has it". And sure enough, there it is, George Armaos - Greek Fever. Wow.

But the trip doesn't end there: I go to buy the album from Amazon, it's an $8.99 download, they offer a download manager that will get the music straight into iTunes, what more can you ask for? That they have international distribution for their mp3 store. Unfortunately, they don't. Damn. But I notice at the bottom that Smithsonian Folkways is the rights owner. Wait a minute, I've already purchased some obscure harmonica music from these guys, Eddie Manson's Suite from the Little Fugitive. I go to their website and bingo, Greek Fever is there and available for download. It's slightly more expensive ($9.99 plus a $0.25 tax) but allows you to download FLAC format as well as mp3 (FLAC is a lossless compression, when you uncompress it you get WAVs which is the regular CD format) and is also DRM free.

So there you are. In one day I discovered that iTunes had a poor catalog (I checked afterwards, they don't have George Armaos' Greek Fever), that Amazon's Catalog was impressive but not available to me, and that Smithsonian Folkways is selling the kind of obscure stuff I need. Welcome to the world of digital music.

So, what's this album by the way? It's an album of oriental sounding instrumentals by Greek chromatic harmonica and oud player George Armaos, and honestly, it's stunning. The most fluid eastern scale lines you can imagine, with a lot of improvisation and imagination. Well worth checking out. Some of the songs sound Greek in rhythm (but it's miles above anything I've heard in Greek restaurants), some more middle-eastern. But remember, this was 15 years before Howard Levy or Roland van Straaten were doing it!

So, assuming you live in the US, I can only recommend that you get hold of this superb stuff that you cannot miss if you like chromatic virtuosity, world music or any combination thereof. get it from Amazon, it's easier and cheaper. If you do not live in the US, ou can also get it, from Smithsonian Global Sound. How's that for choice?

This whole episode gave me matter for reflexion on the value and convenience of digital music. The simple fact that copyright laws prevent Amazon from selling me music because I'm not in the US shows how much these laws need to be rehauled. And if the digitisation of music allows all these long forgotten masterpieces to become available again, then I will become a regular customer, and sleeve notes be damned (although I do hope they find a way to integrate those digitally as well...)

Comments

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George is retired living in Atlanta, Georgia with his wife, Elaine. He still plays the occasional set and is dazzling to watch. I think he has a website but I am not sure of that. I know him from him visiting various Greek restaurants in the area and shooting the breeze with his buddies. His car has a harmonica license plate on the front. How cool is that!