I scored this CD around 1998 when i was starting to purge my record collection.  I traded a Mercyful Fate Melissa 12″ picture disc for it to some dude in Canada.  In 1999 I went to Richmond, VA to see Nevermore and did an interview with Warrell Dane.  I asked him about this ep and he stated that about 1000 were made and only about 500 actually got released to record stores and radio stations as a promo.  The others were destroyed when CBS dropped Sanctuary from their label.  He did say, however, that he still had the master reels from this recording and wanted to put the whole show out officially.  Obviously 11 years later I don’t this it’s going to happen.  What a pity.  This is a great recording although I wish White Rabbit would have been left out.

Tracks:

1. “Future Tense” – Studio Version
2. “Long Since Dark” – Live
3. “Battle Angels” – Live
4. “One More Murder” – Live
5. “White Rabbit” – Live
6. “Taste Revenge” – Live

Download it here.

Bill Gates has said that prognosticators often overestimate the amount of technological change that will happen in a year, but underestimate the changes that will take place over a decade. With the Zeroes coming to an end this week, and Steve Guttenberg’s recent column questioning the viability of recorded music in 2020 as inspiration, here’s my pick of 10 trends in music and technology that will shape the next decade.

Songs instead of albums
Musicians will always find ways to record their music–it’s a fundamental drive, like painting for a painter or writing for a writer. But I agree with Guttenberg that fewer musicians will release suites of songs organized around a common theme or sound. As much as I love my long-playing records, they arose out of economics rather than art–they were a convenient way for companies to bundle multiple songs (particularly songs that might not have sold as singles) in an affordable package. With digital files already taking the place of physical recordings, there’s almost no economic reason for the album to persist. By 2020, the concept of the album will be an anachronism with a few vocal adherents–like vinyl records are today–but most music will be released and consumed as songs.

Streams instead of downloads
Where did we get the idea that digital music has to be downloaded? It started with the CD and file-trading networks–content owners wouldn’t sell us music in a form that could be consumed on our computers, so we ripped our own and swapped the files through Napster and its brethren. But now, every time a new song or album comes out, or we rediscover an old act, we have to rip or download the recordings, then transfer them to whichever device(s) we want to play them on. There’s got to be an easier way!

If you had access to every song ever recorded, on any device, from any location with an Internet connection, wouldn’t you rather pay for that service than buy a new CD or two every month? People say they want to own music, but when it’s just a digital file, what do they want to own–a collection of ones and zeroes sitting on a segment of their hard drive? Why bother?

I think the real problem is that today’s streaming services don’t give you every song ever recorded and don’t work on every device, and broadband data access–particularly wireless–is not ubiquitous. Those flaws stem from business problems (licensing, DRM, format incompatibility, and insufficient broadband infrastructure) rather than technology problems. And the business problems are gradually being resolved–look at the introduction of Rhapsody and Spotify for iPhone, and Apple’s acquisition of streaming music service (and music locker) Lala. By 2020, most professionally recorded music will be consumed as on-demand streams and people won’t pay by the track.

In the cloud rather than on hard drives
Some songs will never be available on demand–think of tracks from friends or obscure independent acts, or live covers (where licensing can be incredibly complicated, involving multiple performers and songwriters). But as users become accustomed to listening to more professionally recorded music on demand, they’ll expect their personal collections to be available in the cloud as well. After all, who wants to spend time backing up a 120GB music collection on an external drive, or choosing particular recordings to eliminate in order to clear space on a cell phone?

This is where Apple’s Lala acquisition really makes sense–imagine if iTunes served not only as an on-demand music service but also as a locker for songs you’d previously downloaded, ripped, or obtained elsewhere. Suddenly, the 16GB of storage on an entry-level iPhone would seem generous instead of paltry.

Fidelity rather than file size
Once our music lives in the cloud, we’ll no longer have to worry about running out of space on our local drives or devices. Microsoft’s SkyDrive already offers 25GB of online storage for free, and I could easily see that increasing one-hundred-fold by 2020. That’s right: free terabytes of storage. It’ll take a little bit longer, but eventually bandwidth–even wireless bandwidth–will increase to the point where streaming lossless digital files makes sense. Listeners will rediscover what they’ve been missing–detail in the midrange, and tons of information at the low and high ends of the spectrum–and the era of the MP3 will be looked back (and down) upon as the dark ages of audio quality.

Extras become standard
Again, with concerns over storage gradually disappearing, what’s to prevent artists from packaging their music with artwork, lyric sheets, video outtakes, and even interactive applications? Today’s artist-specific iPhone apps will become standard. Casual fans will stream a couple songs for free. Hardcore fans will pay to download the entire app and pore over it obsessively.

Production rather than consumption
Digital technology has already democratized the recording process–what used to take tens of thousands of dollars and a professional studio can now be accomplished with a laptop and a free program like Garage Band or Audacity. The results usually don’t sound as good, but the experimentation process is fun, and sometimes a gem emerges. Digital technology and the Internet have also made promotion and distribution far easier than they were a decade ago. By 2020, music fans will spend almost as much time creating and sharing recordings with their friends as they do listening to professionally recorded music. Don’t believe me? Think of this: 10 years ago, writers were a comparatively rare breed. Now, everybody’s got a blog, or at least a Facebook page. In another 10 years, everybody will be a musician–or at least a recording artist.

Suggestions rather than searches
In a world of on-demand music in the cloud, search will become vitally important. Users will want to be able to find songs not only by title, album, or artist, but also by a few snippets of lyrics, or even by humming or playing part of a melody. (Imagine a combination of the voice search function available on Google Mobile with an advanced version of technology like Shazam, which can identify recorded music from a few snippets.) But search is only part of the question–once everything’s available, how will users decide what to listen to? By 2020, personalized recommendation services, like those provided by Pandora, Slacker, and MOG, will become even more important than search, and will have to be integrated into any on-demand music service that hopes to survive.

Festivals rather than big concerts
Live music is already a long-tail world–with the exception of old, established acts and the very occasional pop sensation, very few bands can fill large arenas or football stadiums. This trend will accelerate as the last bands from the golden age of radio retire, labels take even fewer big promotional risks, and the market continues to fragment under the explosion in recording releases. In 2020, no single act will be able to sell 50,000 tickets at Qwest Field like U2 hopes to do this summer. Instead, the only shows that will pack large arenas will be festivals, where listeners can pick and choose among dozens of acts and classes of entertainment–just like they’ll be doing online.

Spectacle rather than personality
With recording revenue plunging, bands must draw fans to their live shows in order to make a living. The common wisdom today dictates that musicians need a personal connection with their fans. They must blog, tweet, maintain their MySpace and Facebook profiles, and generally act like your next door neighbor who’s always pestering you to see his band. There’s a word for receiving “personal” messages from your favorite 100 bands–it’s called “spam.” Eventually, this cloud of self-promotional noise will dissipate, and will be replaced by old-fashioned word of mouth. Only acts that put on a great show–not just singing and playing songs, but entertaining in the old-fashioned sense of the word, with video and stagecraft and humor and spectacle–will cut through the noise. Bonus points for the first act that somehow integrates an audience-accessible game console into their act.

Retro takes on a new meaning
In 2020, the original iPod will be almost 20 years old. As the music world is overtaken by a nearly infinite selection of high-fidelity music, streamed over super-fast wireless connections to increasingly inexpensive portable devices, hardcore nostalgists will drag out their first-generation iPods and fill them with treble-heavy 120kbps MP3s. Meanwhile, grandpa will still be down in the basement with his collection of LP records and his lava lamp.

By Matt Rosoff

http://news.cnet.com

July 31– All Points West, a music festival that takes place at Liberty State Park in Jersey City, New Jersey, has been compared to the Coachella Music Festival and other indie music festivals. This year’s festival, which took place between July 31-August 1, featured an impressive line-up ranging from Jay-Z to Coldplay.

I was fortunate enough to cover the first day of this year’s festival, and in doing so, I have garnered many photos throughout the day. You can view some of these photos after the jump. This post is photo-intensive, so it may take some time to load for people with slower connections.

Bo Burnham

Ra Ra Riot

Fleet Foxes

The National

Vampire Weekend

Jay-Z

All in all, All Points West was a very interesting day. Although I never listened to the bands and musicians that performed prior to the show, I had a great time. All of these bands were absolutely outstanding live, and I was very impressed.

My two personal favorites of the entire day were Ra Ra Riot and Vampire Weekend. They played equally great sets, and they were extremely fun to photograph.

The day was plagued with the occasional downpour of rain. It wasn’t too bad until just prior to Vampire Weekend’s performance, and lasted throughout their set, as demonstrated by the photos of them. The rain caused many mud pools to form, which led to a messy way to end the night. The rain stopped prior to Jay-Z’s set.

Jay-Z filled in as the headliner after The Beastie Boys had to drop off the line-up due to Adam Yauch’s throat cancer scare. Although he wasn’t originally planned as the headliner, he did a great job with his performance.

I hope you enjoy these photos, and I hope that I will be able to photograph the All Points West festival once more in 2010.

December 11– Taylor Swift closed out Z100’s Jingle Ball with a spectacular 30 minute performance that simply dazzled. Although it was a relatively short set when compared to most other concert sets, it showed off exactly why Ms. Swift has garnered so much attention recently.

Swift’s performance was nothing less than stunning. She was able to command the presence of all who attended the concert– not an easy feat when one considers that the sold-out concert took place at New York’s famed Madison Square Garden.

Her energy and excitement were easily seen as they resonated throughout her entire performance. Songs such as hit singles “Our Song” and “You Belong With Me” hit their mark with fans, yet mellow songs like “Fifteen” and the stellar “You’re Not Sorry”, with a bridge that included a cover of Justin Timberlake’s “What Goes Around”, easily stole the show. Some songs were performed with videos screening behind Swift and her band on a massive screen; these videos included cheerleaders doing a routine during “You Belong With Me” and scenes from the video of “Love Story.” When this screen was not used for video, it showed an up-close view of Swift and her backing band.

This talented songstress was perfectly comfortable on stage, and not once did she seem daunted by the nearly 20,000 member audience. She made just a few slightly audible mistakes while singing and playing a guitar and piano, but many did not seem to notice. Swift also took plenty of time to thank all those who supported her and her career; these opportunities did not seem staged at all, yet appeared to be totally sincere and genuine.

Her last song, “Love Story,” ended with a flurry of lights, fireworks, and streamers, and after all the commotion settled, the show ended, leaving fans literally begging for more. Although they were only teased with a half-hour set, they were still appeased with the chance to see their favorite artist live.

Taylor Swift’s performance proved that she is a formidable artist live, yet I wish her set could have been a extended by a few songs. If ever given the chance to see Ms. Swift live (especially since her Fearless Tour has been extended until June 2010), you should definitely check her out, as you will be very entertained.