Despite the awful name, AudioGalaxy is just about exactly what I’ve been looking for. It’s a free and simple way to access your entire music library when away from home. You do this by downloading a small helper application that connects your iTunes library XML file (or any other shared folders you choose) to the AudioGalaxy.com web site. The initial scan can take a while depending on the size of your library (I think mine took about 16 hours, but I’m not sure about that) but once it’s completed, your tunes are accessible on the go.

The Browser Interface

When at work, I primarily use the web browser interface to browse music, add songs/albums to a playlist and listen to my music. The user interface is pretty bare-bones, but it does what it needs to do. There are a few quirks, like I have artists such as “01″, which I don’t actually have in my library. But it allows me to listen to Tom Waits when I didn’t think to put any on my iPhone, so I have no complaints.

The iPhone App

In addition to the service being free, their companion iPhone app is free as well. The app is reasonably similar to the native iPod app on the iPhone, but same as the web interface — you have to add your music to a playlist before you can listen to it. It sounds like it might be downsampling the music a bit to keep things streaming smoothly over 3G — but that’s acceptable to me, since a day of 320k streaming would likely kill my data plan.

Parenting Update

Totally enjoying being a parent more the second time around. But I suspect that I’m going to need to read a parenting blog, or get a parenting podcast or something soon because going on instinct is only getting me so far. Anyone know a foolproof method to potty train a kid over the duration of a week?

We Moved

While my city friends thought I sold out and moved to the suburbs years ago (when we moved to Oak Park), now we really have. I dreaded this day for years, fearing that it would mean that I wouldn’t go to concerts any longer. Turns out it’s not that big a deal, I’m seeing just as many shows as I did in Oak Park. I guess when a person will fly to Australia or Amsterdam for a concert, a 40-minute drive to Chicago isn’t that substantial a drive.

I’m Going to Sell My CDs

Just typing those words horrifies me, but honestly — I haven’t listened to a CD in a CD player in over a year. Everything is on the computer, backed up to a hard drive and then I’m going to start backing that up to the cloud. I figure I might as well sell the CDs while they’re worth a (very) little something, before they’re worth nothing at all. I’m keeping the Eno CDs though — I’ve scoured the Earth for those.

Concerts

I’ve seen Veronica Falls, The Horrors, Wye Oak, Paul McCartney, Peter Gabriel, Death Cab for Cutie, The Cults, Best Coast, Lykke Li, Coldplay, OK GO, The Kills, The Vaccines, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr., Vivian Girls and a few others. Hoping to see The Cure in L.A. soon (fingers crossed!), Fitz and the Tantrums and Still Corners.

iPad 2

I got an iPad 2 (thanks Gerard Design!) and it’s true — it’s twice as badass as the first iPad. It’s faster, wicked thin and the video camera makes Facetime chat as easy as on the iPhone. I like the Smart Cover too (in orange of course), but every now and then I have a heck of a time getting it to act properly as a stand. But then again, I have a hard time with Transformers too.

iPhone 4S

The 4S is certainly quicker, the camera really is much better and Siri is pretty interesting — though other voice apps are actually a bit more helpful (like Dragon Go!). For example, I asked Dragon Go! who was playing at the Empty Bottle in Chicago tonight and it gave me a list of upcoming acts. Siri just said it didn’t understand the question, offered to search Google for me, and then game me some lip when I told it that it “sucked”. But being able to read and send text messages by voice is great and iOS 5 is a terrific upgrade.

For the first post of the year, I thought I’d mention that Faith and I had June, our second child, over the holidays. We thought she’d be coming a bit closer to new year’s eve, but June had other plans, and she arrived closer to Christmas. Since you’re probably thinking it, yes — her name is June and she was born in December. There’s nothing particularly significant about that, but people seem compelled to comment on it anyway. Faith and I were talking about, and we really don’t think “month” when we think “June”. I guess that’s the difference between us and the rest of the world.

Second Time’s a Charm

Here’s something significant though — I’m way less freaked out with a newborn this time around. With Cooper, I just didn’t know what to do with him. I didn’t grow up around other children, so the whole idea of changing diapers and making baby talk just didn’t connect with me. I think I spent the first two weeks of Cooper’s life mostly running errands, because that was something I could do to contribute and it was something I knew how to do. But June is a different story. I talk to her all the time, we listen to music together and we make faces at one another.

Another thing — we’re significantly less overwhelmed this time around. With Cooper, we couldn’t seem to get through a meal without reheating it three times and we pretty much gave up on watching a full TV program or movie. The first year was pretty much a sustained fire drill and I remember being a zombie most of the time, from a total lack of sleep. But not this time around. June goes to bed around 11pm and she sleeps through until 6am. The only troublesome bit has been that she’s been sick lately and that’s made her a bit more irritable. Not terribly, but just a bit.

Patience is a Virtue (in Demand)

However, while June is pretty smooth sailing — Cooper is a bit of another story. He’s an awesome kid and we have a riot together, but he’s also nearly three, which means he’s developing a bit of sassy attitude. I’m gonna say that comes from his mother. Our interactions lately have confirmed that I have exactly as much patience as I thought I did, which is a bit of a point of concern. But I better find the patience quick for two kids, because I think Cooper is long past the point where we could return him for a refund at the hospital, and I think June is getting close too. I need to check her receipt.

Geez, I’ve really slacked off the blogging this year — but I’m trying to get back in the swing of things. Of all the things I’ve done this year though, I really need to make a note of going to the Brighton Festival to see another three sets of Brian Eno’s “Pure Scenius” performances. If you’ve read this blog before, you might know that last year I went to Australia for a few days to catch the Pure Scenius performances at the Sydney Opera House. That was my first time seeing Brian Eno live, and it crossed a big to-do off my “things to do before I die” list. But one thing I thought I may have been hasty about with Australia was going for two days. I spent 26 hours in the sky and less than 48 on the ground.

Brighton Trip vs. Sydney Trip

In Brighton, I chose to actually stick around for a few days. Since there were a number of installations around town and a handful of other concerts I wanted to see — it was a good opportunity to do a bit more than catch a show and jump back on a plane (my usual approach).

For the Brighton Pure Scenius concerts, I also got a little brave and recorded about an hour of video from my iPhone 3GS. It’s a shame I didn’t have the iPhone 4 at the time, as I could have recorded HD video — but it’s a lot more video than was ever posted on YouTube for the Sydney shows. Here’s one of the videos I’ve posted to YouTube below.

Brighton Performances vs. Sydney Performances

As for the quality of the performances, I thought the Brighton sets were a bit better than the Sydney equivalents. The performances felt a bit tighter and there was less aimless wandering, looking for a solid piece of material — they were more driven. I was pleasantly surprised to see that some of my favorite elements of the Syndey performances were repeated in Brighton — such as the “two pianos” piece and the one proper song they performed “Pink Moon”.

All in all, three Eno performances was a great way to kick off my week in Brighton. In my next posts, I’ll talk a bit about the installations at the Brighton Festival, The Books performance, my 18-hour trip to Amsterdam and Philip Glass’ “Music in 12 Parts”.

Project Heaven

The nice thing about a project like this is that there’s just no time for the types of things that can get in the way in a normal project. There’s no time for politics, no time for endless deliberation. I often use the phrase “it’s a marathon, not a race” but in these projects – it’s a race.

The difference in making these projects the best or worst experiences of your professional life is entirely who you’re working with, who you’re working for and the tone you set for the work together. I’ve had projects where everyone on both the agency side and the client side checked their egos at the beginning of the project and dove in to do the work as a single collaborative team. The agency/client division all but disappeared and everything was shared – both the failures and the successes. There’s laughter and there’s stress, and no one is in it alone. And at the end of every day, everyone can feel good about the time that was put in on the project.

Project Hell

The other type of project is where there’s no shared ownership, no sense of a collective team. People aren’t collaborating, they’re “put on the hook” for things – and are more often than not, they’re set up to fail. Every day is met with dread. Every day it’s own small failure.

Not a day goes by that I don’t feel lucky to work with the folks that I work with today – meaning both my fellow designers, writers and developers as well as the clients we get to help. It’s been a long time since I’ve had anything but that first type of project and I hope I never have to to back to an environment where the second kind is the norm.

But then again, there are a few acts I have no interest in seeing at all, for example: Jay-Z, Muse, Faith No More, Spoon, Pavement, etc.

But for the most part, the lineup looks pretty solid with bands I’ve seen before, enjoy and would like to see again. These include: Vampire Weekend, Grizzly Bear, Echo & the Bunnymen, Ra Ra Riot, The Raveonettes, Tokyo Police Club, Beach House, Yo La Tengo and King Khan.

This is where the difficult decision kicks in. At this point in my life, I’ve seen a ridiculous number of bands and attended more music festivals than is practical. I’ve been to Lollapalooza, Pitchfork and Coachella more times than I care to count. The more festivals and bands I see, the more difficult it is for something to really stand out from the crowd.

But all of that is in the past. What matters is what’s happening this year, what I can experience next. And Coachella is easily my favorite music festival, hands down. It’s not even a close race.

That said, if I’m going to make a big to-do about seeing a festival this year – will it be Coachella or the Brighton Festival in the UK? Coachella is a great event, but Eno is curating the Brighton Festival, which is sure to include some interesting events. In particular, a performance of Eno’s album “Apollo”.

Decisions, decisions.

Preorder David Byrne’s “Here Lies Love”.

Cooper is awesome.

Gotta be honest here — there are many days where I doubt I have the patience to be a parent. Being a parent of a infant/toddler is a bit like having a rude house guest that can’t speak — and who isn’t moving out. That said, Cooper is a pretty easy going guy. His language skills are picking up a bit, he recognizes a handful of letters and numbers and at this point, he knows how to use the iPhone better than my wife.

Work was good.

Things were good at work, even with the whole global economy collapse. Despite layoffs at many of the larger creative agencies in the area, we didn’t lose any staff due to the scaled back budgets at many of our clients. If anything, web work picked up a bit as budgets shifted from offline to online.

Music, music, music.

What would a year be without music? This year I flew to Australia to see Brian Eno perform live, which was one of those things I had high on my bucket list. I also saw Broadcast, Depeche Mode, The Breeders, Metric, Nine Inch Nails (twice!), Echo and the Bunnymen (in the studio!), Arctic Monkeys and more.

Lolla’s another matter, especially this year. Friday was cool and rainy and the next two days were hot and hotter. But enough about the weather. Let’s get into the music.

Best Set: Depeche Mode

I might be biased on this, but who cares. I love Depeche Mode and always have. I’ve seen them many times and it just never gets old. The set was heavy on the new stuff, but the new stuff is pretty solid and they played enough of the songs from my teen years to make me happy. They played “Policy of Truth”, “Never Let Me Down Again”, “Enjoy the Silence” and of course, “Personal Jesus”. My only complaint is they didn’t play longer than they did.

Best Set Runner Up: Lykke Li

Lykke Li put on an amazing set of songs from her debut album, Youth Stories. Interesting songs, cool instrumentation and vocals that remind me a bit of Kate Bush. The high point is that this delicate singer launched into a bass-heavy gangster rap cover mid-set that was both amazing and awesome. I’ll definitely see her again.

Worst Set: Lou Reed

I feel terrible writing this, because I have a lot of respect for Lou Reed. But the set was nearly unbearable for me. He doesn’t really sing these songs as much as he speaks them, which is his style I suppose, but it just wasn’t working for me. Add the obnoxious sax solos that reminded me of what I imagine to be a Billy Joel concert, the 10 minutes of Metal Machine Music and the fact his set went 15 minutes over – and it was all just unforgivable.

Worst Set Runner Up: Animal Collective

I had a feeling I knew what I was getting into, but I try and be open-minded about these kinds of things and a team player about picking the sets we see as a group. That said, there were no songs here – just droning, repetitive jam-sessions. And I typically like repetitive droning music, after all I love Brian Eno and Philip Glass.

Best Stage: Citi

Forget the big stages, they’re in the heat of the sun and there’s too many freaking people at them to get a decent view. The city stage has a variety of shaded areas nearby and it’s close to food and drinks. Plus, most of the sets at the Citi stage don’t suck. I saw Amazing Baby, Ida Maria, Lykke Li and Passion Pit at this stage.

Worst Stage: BMI

I want to like this stage, I really do. It’s in a fantastic location and if they had a single band I wanted to see it would have been great. Actually, they did have one band (Blind Pilot) who sounded pretty good on CD, but they were taking a while to get their set rolling and I was headed to the Arctic Monkeys (who rocked out). Seriously, BMI – get some hot acts at your stage and I’ll camp out there, but until then you’re dead to me.

Friday

Rain showers early then thundershowers for the afternoon. High 77F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 60%.

Friday Night

Variably cloudy with scattered thunderstorms. Low around 70F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 60%.

Saturday

Scattered thunderstorms and windy in the morning, then skies turning partly cloudy late. Hot and humid. High 92F. Winds SSW at 20 to 30 mph. Chance of rain 40%.

Saturday Night

Partly cloudy. Low 76F. Winds SSW at 15 to 25 mph.

Sunday

Times of sun and clouds. Highs in the low 90s and lows in the mid 70s.