YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2008 World Series - Game 5 (part 2) - 9th Inning - Section 142 from ryan cummins on Vimeo.
Phillies win the World Series - Celebration on Broad Street from BCR on Vimeo.
Gettin by with Dylan
It’s been a long time between my last post so I feel I need to vent a little so stick with me, I plan to cover a lot in this post.
The title is “Gettin by with Dylan” because just this week I got my hands on the latest Bootleg Series, “Tell Tale Signs”, and haven’t been able to put it down since. It’s helped me get through a crazy week and a crazy past month that’s involved my home town heros, Philadelphia Phillies, making it to the World Series and some career moves and discoveries that have my brain rattling.
Listen to “Tell Tale Signs” while you read through my thoughts:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95047293
First, I need to get a couple things off my chest. As you may or may not know, I’m originally from Philadelphia so the past few weeks of playoffs have put a strain on my schedule. Games can go till midnight during the work week and that’s brutal for me since I like my sleep. But it’s been 15 years since the Phillies were last in the World Series (I was thirteen at the time) and it’s been twenty eight years since they’ve one the whole shabang ( I was 6 months old). So yeah, it’s kind of a big deal and part of me wishes I was back in Philly during this monumental period.
My thoughts about the first two games have their ups and downs. My ups are that Cole Hamels is the man. Definitely the best pitcher in the series. Ryan Howard finally got his bat talking during the last game and I also felt Brett Meyers kept his cool and pitched a great game. Unfortunately, the rest of the team decided not to show up. during Brett’s outing. Especially Jason Werth. Brett also got screwed over by the home plate ump when he clearly signaled a strike out then immediately called for a second opinion from the 1st base coach. Highly suspect. Brett was able to keep the Rays to only four runs, which should be enough for the powerful Phillie offense to surpass. At least, that’s what you would think. Between the two games, the so-called powerful offense left 25 men on base!! That has to be corrected or else there’s no chance for the fighten Phils to last the series.
Last night was a tough one for me as I was at a wedding downtown at the Langhorn Hotel near Post Office Square. There was a piano bar that had a TV but most of the patrons were not interested in the game. In fact, they all stared at me when I opened up the doors to the reception where music came blaring in. Everyone gave me the stink eye. So I had to find another way in order to prevent the flood of noise coming in. So it was back and forth just like the end of the game. It was also rain delayed so it didn’t end till 2 in the morning but in the end they pulled it out thanks to Old Man Moyer and go up 2-1 in the series. Go PHILLIES!!!!!!
The career aspect of my life has also been hit with ups and downs. As you may know, I work in the financial world and sell a marketing system to banks. That’s right, I’m trying to sell a product to the folks who everyone is pointing fingers at for causing the current economic crisis. But you know what, there are 3,000+ banks throughout the country and the majority of these institutions didn’t have anything to do with the subprime and adjustable rate mortgage market that is causing several institutions to go under. The only real problem facing many of these institutions is the overall perception their customers have of the industry and their personal bank. If they can calm the fears of these customers and make it clear that they’re well capitalized, then nothing should be holding them back from looking forward and preparing to keep the bank growing. And one important part of growth is partnering with companies like ours who specialize in building unique systems that would normally cost a bank thousands of dollars to build on their own and several more thousand dollars to maintain. Our focus is helping banks to rethink how they market their services by providing an Education-based marketing system that helps cross sell their services to both existing and new customers.
Bankers are notorious for being behind the curve when it comes to new and innovative marketing techniques. One technique that I’ve been aware of but have recently been learning more about is the concept of Inbound Marketing. As a blogger, I’m familiar with how SEO (Search Engine Optimization) works and the theory behind using Key Words and Meta Tags to boost your websites Google rating so that when people search for “Music Blog” I come up some where in the Search. Of course, this general term probably has me way back in the pack considering the thousands of music bloggers that put more time into their blog then I. You have to be posting at least once if not twice a day for the entire week in order to get the kind of traffic that has your site at the top of a Google search.
But there’s a lot more to the whole Inbound Markeitng concept then just SEO. For example, one of the more important techniques is getting exposure through writing interesting articles on your blog and having other sites that have very high Google ratings with high traffic link to your site because of an interesting article that relates to their audience. Typically, sites with high ratings have thousands of visitors every day so literally over night you could go from little to now exposure to being the hottest thing since slice bread. For example, when VH1’s Best Weeek Ever blog linked to me, I saw almost 100 times more visitors in a single day on my site then I normally do. As a blogger, this just helps boost your ego but if you’re a company, this helps you grow your businesses and the other important part about Inbound Marketing is making sure that once you’ve gained that exposure, your admirers are given simple “calls to action” where they can download White Papers, request demonstrations of your service or have easy access to more education about your company as well as your product.
Thankfully for our company, back in March our president came across the book “The New Rules of Marketing and PR” by David Meerman Scott. Because of this book, our President has opened himself up to trying some of these new techniques. In fact, I’m currently in the process of building a company blog that will be focused on how these new concepts work in the banking industry. The one main ingredient in all of this is having good, quality content that keeps people coming back to you for answers. If you don’t have this, then all the techniques fall apart.
Phew, that felt good.
You don’t come here for Inbound Marketing or Phillies talk, you come for music!
A few weeks ago the first single off of Columbia Records latest Bob Dylan Bootleg Series album was available for free download over at Amazon MP3. If you didn’t get to download this in time, don’t worry, you can do so right here:
If you’re unfamiliar with the Bootleg Series, here is the lowdown. It began back in 1991 and it’s focus is releasing songs that have up until now never saw the light of day on an official release. If you follow Dylan you know that when he records an album there are usually dozens and dozens of songs that don’t make the cut. Usually the songs are different versions of songs that do make the album but have a completely different sound such as a waltz versus a tango or in the key of E versus key of Bb and so on. Now, thanks to this great series, we get a glimpse into these hidden gems.
For this album, a majority of the unrealesed material comes from “Oh, Mercy” and “Time Out of Mind”, both produced by Daniel Lanois. The latter album was hailed by critics as a turning point in Dylan’s late career. He won three Grammys for “Time Out of Mind”. On this album it’s been said that Daniel and Dylan were modeling the sound around 1950’s era recordings that Dylan often cited as big influences on his career. The sound on these albums have a natural feel to the depth of each performer meaning you can tell the singer is out front, the bass and guitarist are off to the side and behind and father back is the drummer. Instead of making this sound with modern day technology, they just set up the instruments in this fashion and positioned the recording mics in a way that created this 50’s vibe.
There’s a ton of music on “Tell Tale Sigs”, a doube disc (three disc if you get the deluxe), that there’s no way I can go through all of them to describe the feelings I get from each listen. So I’ll just pick one song that’s currently my favorite. It’s a track that was originally off of “Time Out of Mind”. On “Tell Tale Signs” we hear an alternate version of “Can’t Wait”. My suspicion is that this version comes from Dylan and his bands initial demoing of the tunes for this album back in 1997. It was rare for Dylan to demo like this but it had been so long since he wrote original material that he was probably itching to hear how everything sounded. At the beginning of this version you hear Dylan say, “If we do it in…how about Bb”.
Now, I’ve not heard the original “Can’t Wait”, but this version is such a slow, hard rocking groove that it gives me goose bumps when the guitar hits those high notes in the little riffs sprinkled throughout Dylan’s proses. The tension and grit sticks to this song like a thick bowl of oatmeal sticks to ones ribs. You can’t ooze anymore “cool” into this song.
“I’ve been living on lame excuses”, says Dylan. “My hands are cold. The end of time is just begun. I’m getting old. Anything can happen now to anyone. I walk all across the floor till I was out my shoes. Think you lost it all there’s always more to loose. I was so clear. She can keep my head on straight. And I don’t know how much longer I can wait.”
This is Dylan at his knees. This is Dylan confessing his love and pleading for it to return. He drinks”forbidden juices” and lives “on lame excuses” and can’t wait any longer for his fate to arrive.
Tracklisting - Disc 1:
- Mississippi (Unreleased, Time Out of Mind)
- Most of the Time (Alternate version, Oh Mercy)
- Dignity(Piano demo, Oh Mercy)
- Someday Baby (Alternate version, Modern Times)
- Red River Shore (Unreleased, Time Out of Mind)
- Tell Ol’ Bill (Alternate version, North Country Soundtrack)
- Born in Time (Unreleased, Oh Mercy)
- Can’t Wait (Alternate version, Time Out Of Mind)
- Everything is Broken (Alternate version, Oh Mercy)
- Dreamin’ of You (Unreleased, Time Out Of Mind)
- Huck’s Tune (From Lucky You soundtrack)
- March\n’ to the City (Unreleased, Time Out Of Mind)
- High Water (For Charley Patton) (Live, Niagara, 2003)
Disc 2:
- Mississippi (Unreleased version #2, Time Out Of Mind)
- 32-20 Blues (Unreleased, World Gone Wrong)
- Series of Dreams (Unreleased, Oh Mercy)
- God Knows (Unreleased, Oh Mercy)
- Can’t Escape From You (Unreleased, December 2005)
- Dignity (Unreleased, Oh Mercy)
- Ring Them Bells (Live at the Supper Club, 1993)
- Cocaine Blues (Live, Vienna, Virginia, 1997)
- Ain’t Talkin’ (Alternate version, Modern Times)
- The Girl On The Greenbriar Shore (Live, 1992)
- Lonesome Day Blues (Live, Sunrise, Florida, 2002)
- Miss the Mississippi (Unreleased, 1992)
- The Lonesome River (With Ralph Stanley, from Clinch Mountain Country)
- ‘Cross The Green Mountain (From Gods And Generals Soundtrack)
Buy Tell Tale Signs: the Bootleg Series Vol. 8
Win tickets to see Delta Spirit and Dr. Dog at Middle East Downstairs
This Friday night at the Middle East Downstairs, Dr. Dog and Delta Spirit grace us with their presence. For those Dr. fans, Delta Spirit has a similar 60’s, Beatlesque filled with Americana that Dr. Dog is superior at. In fact, P-fork found their Beatle similarities to be their downfall. But one thing I know for sure, this kind of music is happy happy smiles the whole night through.
The Dog played a free show back in the beginning of the summer in Harvard Square and while the John Harvards that gracefully accommodated the last minute switch to an indoors show was packed in like sardines, the experience was still something to be grateful for. In fact, I was more impressed with Dr. Dog live then on their most recent studio work, “Fate”, but both are equally worthy of your time.
Delta Spirit bring their west coast spirit to the tour, hailing from southern California. They were recently included in Filter’s Ragged Volume #5 which you can download for free here: http://www.raggedmag.com/
So, to win a pair of tickets to Friday’s show, a copy of Delta Spirits “Ode to Sunshine” CD and a copy of Ragged Magazine (physical copy), answer the following question either in the comments or by emailing Kip[AT]hip2besquare[DOT]net.
Question: Besides Dr. Dog, what other two top indie bands have Delta Spirit opened up for? Hint: the answer can be found in the Ragged article.
Download Delta Spirit tracks from their Daytrotter session back in May of 2007: http://www.daytrotter.com/daytrotterSessions/741/free-songs-delta-spirit
