I am left absolutely speechless.

This is mindblowing. No idea how this is even possible, but then the miracle of flight still amazes me.

There’s more by Matt at our Burst HQ recording studio site.

I previously posted at Burst Labs about Seth Godin and the music business, but this new video of him speaking at Columbia Records is an absolute Must Watch for anybody in the biz (see vid below, or @ google).

EDIT 2/27 – apparently the video is unavailable until further notice via Seth’s site.

EDIT 3/3 – full transcript posted at Seth’s blog as a PDF

Seth says “the music business is in trouble” because all of the factors that made the industry the Perfect Business are completely changed, all of the old rules don’t apply – but more people are listening to music than ever before.

If you are an independent artist looking to build your career – your brand – he offers so many great ideas here it boggles the mind.

One thing the majors do have on us independents is the size of their bankroll. By virtue of their sheer size, they can create a new paradigm for sharing, or a new way of ‘identifying with your tribe,’ to use some Godin-speak. However, it definitely takes large ships a lot longer to change course, and the majors are the epitome of large ships. Independent artists who can direct their (relative) tugboats around the treacherous ocean that is the music business in 2008 will certainly be rewarded handsomely, and their fans should be stoked, as well.

Just back from seeing U2 3D, the new concert movie from National Geographic and 3eality Digital featuring my favorite band and some pretty breathtaking 3-dimensional visual technology.

Aside from wishing the theater audio system would have been cranked up another 10 or 12 db, I suppose I enjoyed the movie, though it was certainly not soul-shaking or emotionally engaging in a way that replicates the live concert experience.

I went with my brother and a friend of his, and we found ourselves surrounded by people ready for a movie. Popcorn. Soda. 3D glasses. And nary a peep of excitement… no clapping, no screaming, no singing along.

I wouldn’t have thought to expect that behavior, but I took a moment to think about it as the credits rolled and realized it made perfect sense… we were, after all, seeing a movie.

A concert movie, but just a movie.

Being separated from each other by the thick sides of the plastic glasses we were forced to wear (to perceive the effect of visual depth… though the picture without glasses was, oddly, not unwatchable) meant having to turn your head to see anything other than the picture. Maybe the hoped-for effect is more pronounced in the IMAX version – I saw it in a Dolby Digital cinema with a regular movie screen.

Without the benefit of standing through the entire show and singing along, smelling the air, feeling the sound system thundering the earth beneath us… it just felt more like a display of technology than an impactful concert. A really cool display of technology, but a display nonetheless.

The shots above the drumkit were most impressive – all of the different surfaces and depths available at a set of drums really made the 3D effect pop off the screen.

My favorite use of the movie’s 3D effects probably had the least to do with the band :

The first song of the encore features gobs and gobs of 3D text effects, layered over and behind the concert visuals. Having computer generated effects blended with live footage really made the front layers come to the fore, and navigating with the camera lens along a path through these graphics was nothing short of extraordinary. It seems to me this is the real applicable future of this particular 3D technology, and I can only imagine what a director such as Michel Gondry would be able to pull off given these new tools to work with.

If you love U2 and love technology, you’ll probably like U2 3D.

I do, and I did.

Yup yup… the new site design is here! Thanks to Cory Duncan for the fast WordPress implementation and for deciphering this particular amateur designer’s Photoshop files.

So expect some oddities around these parts for the next few days… not exactly sure how much time this will take, as we’re in the middle of some pretty major updates at Burst right now, too. If you run across a broken link or goofy image, feel free to drop me a line. Much appreciated!

My lovely lady Kate’s skin care business, Halcyon Mode, is about to launch in Chicago, and plans are coming together for a new space in Milwaukee’s Third Ward. It’s an exciting time, to be sure. So we set about rethinking and redesigning her website this past weekend, with an eye on making sure that people searching for things like “Milwaukee Skin Care” or “Dr. Hauschka Chicago” will find Halcyon Mode as one of the first options (Flash, her previous site/brochure technology, just ain’t friendly with search engines… but Belle did such a great job with it that we’re making it Halcyon Mode’s online brochure).

So here’s her new Wordpress-based install (I’m a big, big fan), with a design most definitely in progress. It’ll take some time, but as sure as I am that she’ll be wildly successful at aesthetics services, skin care, facial treatments, and all the other organic and health related things she’s interested in, I’m just as confident her new website (and business locations) will bring her much happiness, wealth, and peace.

If you’re near Milwaukee, check out her list of skin care services. You won’t be disappointed, promise!

Not a bad week so far :

• Production music that we did at The Burst Collective was featured in a nice long scene in FOX’s hit new show Terminator : The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

• A track from the Velocity Music Library (a catalog of production music we created for FirstCom Music) was the opening scene’s background on American Idol last night (their second show of season 7).

• And my old buddies at Spectrasonics continue to inspire and amaze with their new software instrument, Omnisphere, unveiled today at Winter NAMM. More at BurstHQ.com.

The Largo movie is coming.

Having been there twice now, I can personally attest to the spiritual magic in that venue every Friday night… and really wish my co-conspirators at Burst would have been able to attend with me.

If you’re in LA and love music, you owe it to yourself to get there while Mr. Brion is holding court.

Thanks, Matt.

The business of music and music production in 2008, with quotes from two who inspire me greatly : Seth Godin and Marshall Altman.

Congrats to Burst Labs musical peers Extreme Music for being featured at one of my favorite design-related websites, Sleevage, for their Directors Cuts series of production music.

This level of quality and appreciation for the details is exactly why I hired my friends Thom Wolfe and Greg Sylvester (formerly of Kerosene Halo, now of VSA – Chicago) to design the branding for my very first collection of production music, the Gravity Music Library. The duo went on to win a Grammy for Packaging (Madonna’s Ray Of Light) and I’ve been huge fans of their work for more than a decade now.

It’s a good day when the even the packaging in our niche little industry is competing with the marketing departments at major labels.

I dropped a comment over there :

… to date, we haven’t had the pleasure of producing kick ass physical packages the likes of which Extreme consistently releases… though we’re hoping that changes very soon.

Kudos to you, Ash and Sleevage, for recognizing that the production music library world does, on occasion, get it right – both in the music and the packaging.

Can’t wait. Can’t wait.

Been having fun designing a new site over the holiday break, and I’m super stoked to get it coded up and launched.

I’m planning on offering it, along with our Burst blog themes (Collective and HQ), as free Wordpress templates. Lots to do there in terms of making it a genuine, legit, comprehensive theme package, but I’m optimistic.

Here’s some preview jpgs…