That is how we should be feeling about the FCC’s proposal last month to develop a new “third way” to regulate broadband Internet Service Providers—such as the ones offered by Comcast for its high-speed Internet customers.

This comes on the heels of the ruling of a three-judge Federal panel last April that tossed an earlier FCC decision to regulate the way Comcast manages its network. The case centered on Comcast’s throttling of BitTorrent traffic—a system used for transmission of exceptionally large file sizes—and the FCC’s attempt to enforce “Net Neutrality” standards on the cable giant.

The fight boils down to this: the guys who own the pipes want to be able to manage them as they see fit in a manner that best supports their customers and shareholders. In the opposite corner are the guys who create the content that travels over the pipes, who want to make sure that each piece of content gets fair and equitable treatment by the guys who own the pipes.

In response to the setback with the ruling last April, the FCC proposed a more detailed set of parameters for regulating broadband Internet Service Providers like Comcast—the biggest provider of High-Speed Internet access in Colorado. Called the “Third Way” (in reference to Titles of regulation under the Telecommunications Act: Title I regulates broadcast services, Title II regulates telephone services), this proposal seeks to create regulation in a “limited but meaningful manner.”

“While we are disappointed with the inclination not to lean in favor of Title I regulation,” said Sena Fitzmaurice, vice president of government communications for Comcast, “we are prepared to work constructively with the Commission to determine whether there is a ‘third way’ approach that allows the Commission to take limited but effective measures to preserve an open Internet and implement critical features of the National Broadband Plan, but does not cast the kind of regulatory cloud that would chill investment and innovation by ISPs.”

It’s actually a fair argument—if it’s not lucrative to engineer and develop better Internet delivery mechanisms, companies will lose interest in doing do. It’s a fair argument, that is, if the profit margins weren’t so insanely high on the products offered… so much so that content providers—like Google (see last month’s Duly Noted for more on that)—are looking into doing it themselves.

Traditionally, the free market likes the least amount of regulation possible. I get that. I also see how unchecked corporate greed bought us the economic collapse of the last 5 years, so I’m behind the FCC on this one, as long as they are truly committed to limit the regulation to the least amount necessary. Truth be told, Comcast should have seen this coming the minute they started playing traffic cop on their networks, and should have acted on their own to prevent this by releasing some sort of a pledge to customers supporting equitable network management practices, and then committing to it.

But that ship has sailed, and now Comcast is going to deal with the FCC, and some sort of regulatory oversight, in its wake.

Mile High Music Festival: In just three years, the Mile High Music Festival has cemented itself as the single greatest annual music event in Colorado—which is no small feat, especially considering you have to go to Commerce City to see it. This year’s lineup is the best yet: Weezer, Ozomatli and Cypress Hill are just a few of the dozens of names playing on five stages over two days at the fields at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park. Performers Include: Dave Matthews, the original lineup of The Samples. When: Aug. 14–15. Info: milehighmusicfestival.com

Westword Music Showcase: There aren’t many local music festivals in the country better managed than the Westword Music Showcase. Starting with weeks of voting; then tabulation and announcement of performers, then a day-long marathon of music on 14 different stages on or around Broadway and 11th in Denver, the showcase is truly a display of the most-enjoyed bands in the Centennial State. Performers Include: Ghostland Observatory, Single File, Oh My Stars. When: June 19. Info: microapp.westword.com/musicshowcase

Denver Post Underground Music Showcase: If the Westword Showcase is the best of Colorado, the Denver Post UMS takes it up a notch, featuring the best indie acts in the Rocky Mountain West. Now in its 10th year, the event is drawing comparisons to South By SouthWest in its younger days (before everything got too big for its britches). It’s four days long and has now grown to more than 300 acts in the South Broadway neighborhood in Denver. Performers Include: The Knew, Taun Taun, Paper Bird. When: July 22–25. Info: theums.com

And now, Google’s looking at dethroning Big Cable, by providing direct-to-the-home fiber, blowing away the broadband competitors in the Internet Service Provider sector.

Google is looking to partner with a small-ish community to test its ulta-awesome-super-powered high-speed network, and accepted nominations through last month. Longmont, Boulder and Erie are three towns that have pushed for the nomination.
Longmont’s efforts stood out, with a comprehensive explanation of why the town should be nominated, keying in on things like: An already-existing fiber backbone, a municipally-owned electric utility, pre-built easements ready for wiring, citywide WiFi.

Indeed, Longmont’s commitment to 21st Century technology should turn at least a few heads at Google HQ; the mid-sized town is considered one of the best places to live on many polls, is still relatively affordable, and has one of the most awesome community-based magazines in the universe offering local news and entertainment coverage.

By the time you read this, Google’s deadlines for accepting nominations will have passed. But I’m hoping someone at Google might read this column and be swayed as well. Why? What does screaming-fast Internet connectivity mean for Longmont?

Aside from being able to watch all the awesome Internet-only webisodes of The Office that much quicker, this project would position Longmont at the forefront of another revolution in application development.

Google’s open source approach creates a field of competition that encourages explosive growth. Longmont could well be a new beacon in the next-gen of Internet programming, bringing the best and brightest innovators to our cafés and block parties…which would be good for everyone.

Meanwhile, imagine the opportunities this could create in arenas like education or the medical and health industries. The sky’s literally the limit, and a project like this is what turns great cities into utopian ones. And who among us doesn’t want to live in a utopia? The answer’s simple enough. If you want to bring Longmont into the future, if you want to bring access to knowledge and innovation to our professionals and children alike, if you want to bring next year’s ideas into today’s implementation…

Bring Google.

Seriously, Valentine’s Day is little more than a nauseating display of polyester teddy bears and chalky heart candy, but it does provide an excuse to break out a list of the greatest torch songs in history. You could probably find these at Bart’s CD Cellar, but since they’ve been shuttered (rest in peace, West End landmark), you’ll have to do your due diligence online to find this collection, a perfect CD mix for your candlelight dinner:

10) “I’m Yours,” Jason Mraz: Sure, this song was everywhere for the last two years. There’s a reason. Lilting melody and a freakin’ ukulele. Nothing says I love you more than saying it with a ukulele.

9) “Always On My Mind,” Willie Nelson: There are a few good versions of this song, but Willie Nelson provides just the right amount of broken-down country warble to make it really mean something.

“I Can’t Help Falling in Love With You,” Elvis Presley: “Wise men say/only fools rush in/but I can’t help falling in love with you.” The elegance of this song lay in the coupling of a simple classical melody and honest lyrics. Which is why it remains on this list 46 years after its release.

7) “Let’s Get it On,” Marvin Gaye: Marvin preaches with such conviction that even the most chaste virgins find their resolve crumbling under the refrains of this one.

6) “Let’s Stay Together,” Al Green: One of the best things about Pulp Fiction was that it re-introduced the world to this song, a perfect collaboration of Southern gospel, Philly soul and lush production. Just the kinds of things love should be made of.

5) “These Arms of Mine,” Otis Redding: This unabashed plea for affection was one of the main reasons Otis’ solo career took off. Plus, it’s a waltz, which is like, the official tempo of old-timey love songs.

4) “Alison,” Elvis Costello: This song speaks to every guy who lost the girl to some jerk who totally mistreated her. Granted, there’s a touch of an insane, if-I-can’t-have-you-nobody-can-have-you bloodlust in it, but hey, all love is a little crazy, right?

3) “At Last,” Etta James: It’s the theme for every woman who believes a little too much in fairy tales—that someday, finally, the prince would come, the skies would be blue and her heart wrapped in clover. I’m not sure why clover, but it sounds pretty.

2) “Can I Stay,” Ray LaMontagne: Ray LaMontagne is a latter day Nick Drake with better chops and a gravellier voice. This song’s sweet yearning captures aching loneliness as it’s being chased away by the heart-swelling moments of burgeoning love, without a hint of guile or cheese.

1) “God Only Knows,” The Beach Boys: The entire Pet Sounds album is still arguably the greatest ever recorded, and this song is an excellent example why. The lyrics are elegantly poignant. And then, there’s this perfectly pitched vocal harmony, layered on a beautiful melody that resolves into a round of pulsing, heart-breaking sweetness. It’s enough to make a grown man cry.

Yes, I know, it’s not exactly a revelation to you. It’s old news, and you’re probably sick of hearing all about it, especially from some self-serving so-called journalist
who’s whining about losing a paycheck. Big deal, you think. The truth is, the industry has no one to blame but itself (and Craigslist, at least somewhat): it got fat and lazy and couldn’t protect itself when the lean, wild and woolly Internet came bearing down on it.

Much like the music industry. “Woe is us!” claim the major labels. “The Interwebthingie is stealing all of our money!”

Or not. Tim Quirk doesn’t think so. In fact, it’s quite the opposite, at least as far as his band is concerned. Quirk played for Too Much Joy, a mid-range popular band in the ’90s that was signed by Warner Bros. Quirk also works for Rhapsody, an online music provider, so he has a uniquely unobstructed view into the record label’s ivory tower.

To summarize: Quirk received a 10-page statement detailing the band’s recent earnings from digital distribution of their Warner Bros. releases (the physical albums are not being pressed anymore). That statement revealed they had earned $62 and change.

The band never “recouped.” That’s label-speak meaning Warner Bros. never recovered what they spent on the band from the band’s share of the retail price of their albums. It’s an important, if obfuscated detail, because Warner Bros. made plenty off of their own share of each album sold. So any royalties earned go right back into the label’s coffers. So Too Much Joy wouldn’t get the $62. But they’ve also earned $12,000 on downloads of tracks from albums on their own labels.

Quirk dug a little deeper and discovered a host of other potential inaccuracies and unexplained discrepancies, leading him to the conclusion that Warner Bros. simply couldn’t be bothered with accurately tracking digital sales of music from un-recouped bands.

“The sad thing is I don’t even think Warner is deliberately trying to screw TMJ and the hundreds of other also-rans and almost-weres they’ve signed over the years,” Quirk said in a blog post on toomuchjoy.com. “The reality is more boring, but also more depressing. Like I said, they don’t actually owe us any money. But that’s what’s so weird about this, to me: They have the ability to tell the truth, and doing so won’t cost them anything.”

Simply put: Warner Bros. is, at best, struggling with a significant glitch in their tracking mechanisms; at worst, leaving money on the table they should be collecting.

Either way, it’s hard to feel empathy for a big business that’s complaining about people sneaking in through the back door and stealing their money when they’re throwing it out the living room window with a shovel.

Or, as Quirk puts it: “…it is also possible that labels are evil and avaricious AND dumb and lazy, at the same time.”

Thanks in advance.

1) Sony PS 3: Sure, the Wii’s cute and the Xbox 3 rocks. But the Playstation’s controllers are still the best, and it’s also a Blu-ray player, which means I can watch Megan Fox running around in cut-offs for a couple hours in better definition than if I was hanging out with her in real life. And I don’t have to actually talk to her. $299 (target.com)

2) Tauntaun Sleeping Bag: Remember that scene in Empire Strikes Back where Han Solo finds Luke half frozen to death on the ice planet of Hoth? Remember when he used Luke’s lightsaber to slice open his Tauntaun steed and stuff Luke in the steaming pile of innards to keep Luke alive? This sleeping bag captures all of it, except without the smell. $99 (thinkgeek.com)

3) Flip Ultra HD: Shooting that award-winning documentary about the annoying habits of my co-workers would be so much easier if I had this sleek, little high-def digital camcorder. Especially for when we all have to eat birthday cake together and pretend to like whoever it is who’s having a birthday that month, since I can eat the cake with one hand and hold the Flip in the other. Plus, it always freaks everyone out when I eat cake with my hand. $199 (store.theflip.com)

4) Ion IPTUSB Turntable: I still have plenty of vinyl, and I have my old Sony turntable that works just fine for listening to it all, thank you very much. But I’d love to be able to store a lot of that music digitally too, and this adorable, little machine does it via USB while looking totally awesome at the same time. $99 (ionaudio.com)
5) Doctor Who Tardis 4 Port USB Hub: Last month, I talked about how awesome USB connections are, enabling things like Flash Rods (flashrods.com). Well, while those are certainly cool, this fully functional Tardis USB hub does everything a good hub does, and many of the things the Tardis does—except for time travel…for now…$29.99 (thinkgeek.com)

6) Garmin Approach G5 Golf GPS Navigator: iPhones have pretty much rendered GPS units useless; however, it’s usually bad to bring the phone onto a golf course. The Garmin Golf Navigator is a slick, rugged little device that will tell you exactly how far you are from the pin at any point on pretty much any golf course in the world. Which will make you even more of a laughingstock at the 19th hole when the guys discover how little positive impact this expensive toy has had on your abysmal game. $382 (ecost.com)

Flash drives.

One of these little thumbnail gadgets carries more memory than your entire first generation iMac. And it’s small enough to fit all kinds of places—in a pen, on a key chain, in your watch…

…and in your car.

Not any car, mind you. What about a 1967 Shelby? Or a ’70 Hemi Cuda? A ’69 Chevelle SS? A 2010 Nissan GT-R?

Enter Flash Rods.

Flash Rods is a homegrown startup that seats thumbnail storage devices into the kick-ass matchbox cars you loved as a kid. Remember your dad’s 1964 Lincoln Continental? Now you can carry it around with all your personal medical records on it. That ’55 Nomad your Grandpa loved so much? It’s got your entire collection of surf rock mp3s on there.

Just in time for stocking stuffer season; Flash Rods not only appeal to the 12-year-old collector in all of us, but they’re completely utilitarian and totally invented by happenstance.

Denverite Dave Hersch, president and founder of Flash Rods (flashrods.com) stumbled onto the idea, thanks to his young son.

“One day I was working on my laptop while my son was playing with his toy cars,” Hersch says. “When I put my flash drive on the table next to his cars, he looked at me and said, ‘Daddy, what’s that dumb stick that you carry around with you?’ I explained what it was and what it was for. Then he said, ‘You should make it look cool like a car.’ It was the birth of Flash Rods.”

Hersch made a call over to Thomas Ackermann, his friend who also happens to be a professional photographer (hence the great images all over the website)—and the engineering mind behind the device.

“I have known Tom for years,” Hersch says. “And we’re both into cars and motorcycles. He was the perfect person to take charge of the manufacturing side of Flash Rods. Tom thinks in a different way than most of us. He can look at something and imagine what it will look like after it is modified and calculate what it will take to do it.”

Hersch is pretty sure he’s got a gold nugget idea in these little memory-stick-cum-hot-rods. With the economy showing signs of recovery, Hersch and Ackermann are poised to turn Flash Rods into a household name—and hopefully this holiday season will get them pole position on the track.

An honest-to-God, brick-and-mortar music store.

It’s a lot like going into a museum, except the whole thing’s the gift shop. In fact, this particular music store even sold records.

For my younger readers: a record “is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed modulated spiral groove usually starting near the periphery and ending near the center of the disc.” (Thanks, Wikipedia!)

Records were played on a record player; a needle would be positioned over the groove in the disc and would transmit vibration from that groove back through a pre-amp, into an amplifier and through the speakers. I have one of these ancient machines, and I even listen to records on it. My collection is not huge—mostly jazz and classical—but the sound is still better than anything you’d get on an mp3; and arguably better than on a CD (the whole “digital vs. analog” argument is fodder for another column).

I haven’t been into a music store in ages. But after breakfast with a small group of friends next door, we decided to pop in. Twist And Shout (2508 E. Colfax Ave., Denver) is more than just a record store, though. It’s a musical hub. It’s an indie enclave. It’s a local music champion. It’s all of the things a music store should be—a reason to leave the house and go perusing through bins of plastic-cased CDs until you find the one your buddy Zeke was telling you about, then you bring it over to the listening station where a 20-something with piercings in her face and a T-shirt with a logo you’ve never seen before sniffs her approval as she pulls out the CD and pops it into a player so you can listen to it before you bring it up to the counter where another 20-something with a Zeppelin shirt sniffs his disapproval before ringing it up.

Twist and Shout seems leveraged well enough across enough different products (clothing, plastic anime toys, movies, dolls of the characters from The Big Lebowski; you can even buy digital downloads at their website, twistandshout.com) that they may actually survive the lingering death of the music store that’s been playing out for the last decade. They certainly have carved out a niche for themselves over the years with their strong support for local music and surprisingly well-educated staff.
As we begin the march into the holiday season, when so many of us are looking forward to shopping with our mouse and credit cards; gleefully avoiding the crush of the throngs of unwashed masses as they descend upon the outlet malls and department stores like winter locusts, it’s important for us to stop for a moment. Turn off the computer, put on a coat, and head to a store like Twist and Shout…or Albums on the Hill (1128 13th St.., Boulder); or Bart’s CD Cellar (1015 Pearl St.., Boulder); or Angelo’s CDs (3919 East 120th Ave., Thornton). Ask a clerk what (s)he recommends that no one’s ever heard of before. Smell the vinyl in the used records section. Marvel at the poster on the wall from the Ministry show you totally went to in 1994.

Remember what it was like when buying an album was the most exciting thing you did all weekend.

A story I love: Legend has it that he was in a horrible car wreck in the late ’40s and his right arm was shattered. Doctors were going to have to set it in an immobile position for the rest of his life, so Paul had them set it at a right angle so he could still play the
guitar. Iconic.

It’s fitting that his death was so close to the anniversary of Elvis Presley’s (Aug. 16, 1977). Though we could argue about who invented rock and roll (really, it was the combined efforts of Elvis, Little Richard, Fats Domino, Alan Freed, Louis Jordan, Chuck Berry and a few other folks—like anything truly awesome, it needed to be invented by committee), one truth is universal: without the electric guitar, none of it makes any difference.

Can you imagine Jimi smashing an acoustic and lighting it on fire? “Purple Haze” is a forgettable folk tune without distortion. Page and Plant? Eddie Van Halen? Stevie Ray Vaughn? Santana? Prince? Do you remember when Dylan plugged in? It turned an entire genre on its ear—folkies had no idea what to do (other than smoke some more pot and complain). All thanks to Les Paul.

Sometimes, an invention comes along that changes the course of human history in such a profound way that mankind loses sense of what life was before it. Antibiotics. The printing press. The internal combustion engine. The telegraph. The transistor.

The electric guitar is on that list. Not so much because of what the guitar could do, but because of what people did with it. The electric guitar gave voice to so many artists that mattered in so many ways to the cultural evolution of human history in a way unseen since the Renaissance. It is as important to the last century as canvas and paintbrush was then.

Paul lived longer than most good rock icons should, but unlike so many that do, his relevance has never been questioned. Instead, he got to do something so few great inventors have been able to do: watch how humanity embraced his invention and was bettered for it; which had to elicit a sense of satisfaction I can only dream about.

With the act of stringing a log of wood and wiring it to an amplifier, Paul launched a revolution that marches forward, decades after it was set aflame. He will be missed.

That was also not long before the end of my fascination with MJ. Don’t get me wrong: everything pre-Thriller was great. The Jackson 5 stuff is more than epic.

But after Thriller, MJ became larger than the music. There was the Pepsi fire. The early plastic surgeries. The skin changes. The chimp. Debbie Rowe. Neverland. Bad. Dangerous. HIStory. Liz Taylor. Alfonso Ribiero. Corey Feldman. The Beatles catalog. The outfits. Lupus. Lisa Marie. The Elephant Man. Blanket.

…And then the allegations.

All of it was big. Bigger than royalty. Bigger than the ridiculous statues they plopped all over Europe to promote HIStory. And it was all way bigger than the music. The music waned. It petered out, alternating between heavy-handed racially-charged rhetoric and lackluster pop blandulum.

The spectacle betrayed the sound.

MJ wasn’t just a circus. He wasn’t just a freak. He became a religion of insanity. You can’t write this story. It’s too fantastical. No one would buy it for a moment. Yet here it happened, slowly unfolding right in front of us over the course of decades.

MJ captured a moment with Thriller. It was a concoction of perfect pop layered on top of serious soul. And it was exactly what the American music fan—indeed, any music lover in the world—needed when it literally blew the doors off of the music industry with a thunderclap even The Eagles couldn’t match. It all happened at once, and like a tremendous explosion, the vacuum behind it sucked the air out of everything.

MJ couldn’t ever catch it again. No one could. It was Jordan burying 63 against the Celtics in ’86. It was Elway’s second Ring. It was Elvis’ ’68 Comeback Special.

These are the moments that stand so much higher than the culmination of those that lead up to them that they eclipse everything else. MJ sought that high he achieved in Thriller for every moment thereafter.

And for every moment thereafter, he fell short. And sank deeper into a miasma of freakishness and garish pageantry.

MJ’s talent was undeniable. His mark, unforgettable. He’s indelibly imprinted on the nation’s psyche in much the same way his father-in-law is. But the greatest tragedy isn’t his passing…

It’s that his legacy, ultimately, will be so little about the music.