Those were the days. I should revive that game.

At any rate, a lot of geeks like myself are heading down to Austin next month for SXSW Interactive, possibly the Mecca of all web conferences. In the spirit of the event being in Austin (you never have to go far for great Texas blues with absolutely no cover charge) and in true social networking fashion, I asked people on Twitter today to name a single song that would be their theme song for SXSW. They could only choose one song. I’ve compiled this into a playlist for you.

1. Simple Man – Lynryd Skynrd
2. I Turn My Camera On – Spoon
3. Parent’s Just Don’t Understand – Fresh Prince
4. Party Up – DMX
5. Guitars and Video Games – Sunny Day Real Estate
6. I Feel it All – Feist
7. You Won’t See Me – The Beatles

As a bonus, here are some tracks I would add:

1. Video Killed the Radio Star – Amber Pacific/Punk Goes 80s
2. Fake Tales of San Francisco – Arctic Monkeys
3. Lights and Sounds – Yellowcard
4. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road – Elton John
5. In God’s Country – U2
6. Every Night’s Another Story – The Early November

What are your theme songs for SXSW? :-)

What makes this unique is that anyone with a webcam can participate in an ongoing video chat – and of course those who do not have a webcam or do not choose to use it can still listen in on other participants.

Last night, Eric Rice was hosting his own channel (we like the term channel over “chat”) doing Second Life and Google Earth stuff when something interesting happened and myself, and a bunch of other folks hijacked his channel and started jamming with guitars. I’m sure it’s not a first, but it felt like a first. Video and audio lag can kill good music.

At any rate, instead of hijacking Eric’s channel again, I’ve set up my own channel where we’ll occasionally do this kind of stuff. I’m planning on getting online tonight. HEre’s the video embed, however to get the full participation of those involved, you’ll want to visit the actual Yahoo! Live channel.

Apparently, everyone loves the Canon in D patterns. ;-)

Unfortunately, the news tonight is not good. Marc has passed on from this earth leaving many of us on this earth grieving. Marc was a husband to one, a father to two, a friend and hero to many. He was a beautiful man, always looking to help anyone else he could in any way he could. Anyone who knew him would vouch for this.

On Twitter, his last message was to me – encouraging me, in a way that Marc seemed to always emulate. It does not matter why he was encouraging me. It was just his way. I will miss him.

Oliver noted Marc’s love of music on his blog. I can attest to this, and Marc and I shared a lot of discussion about a mutually favorite band – Dave Matthews Band. So while Oliver left a Grateful Dead song, I leave a Dave Matthews song:

Where Are You Going?
Where are you going, with your long face pulling down?
Don’t hide away, like an ocean
That you can’t see but you can smell
And the sound of waves crash down

I am no superman.
I have no reasons for you
I am no hero, Aww that’s for sure
But I do know one thing:
Is where you are is where I belong.
I do know, where you go, is where I wanna be.

Where are you going? Where do you go?
Are you lookin’ for answers to questions under the stars?
Well if along the way you are growin weary, you can rest with me
Until a brighter day, you’re ok.

I am no superman.
I have no answers for you.
I am no hero, aww that’s for sure.
But I do know one thing:
Where you are is where I belong.
I do know, where you go, is where I wanna be

Where are you going? Where do you go?
Where do you go? Where are you goin? Where do you go?

I am no superman.
I have no answers for you
I am no hero, awww thats for sure.
But I do know one thing:
is where you are is where I belong
I do know, where you go, is where I wanna be.

Where are you goin’? Where do you go?

Tell me where are you going?
Where? Let’s go.

Update:
If there is any doubt the impact that Marc has had on so many, I show you this screenshot of Techmeme where his death is the top thing being blogged about, commented on and discussed in the technology blogsphere. This does not even come close to reflecting the sentiments being expressed elsewhere. I have cried all night. I’ll continue to mourn longer.

The process for this has been pretty intensive since there’s several parts of a new blog launch that the tech team is responsible for. We setup the domain, deploy our standard build of WordPress, have our designer create logos, setup the standard b5 theme, make sure everything is in FeedBurner properly, make sure channel blogrolls are functioning as they should, etc.

There’s a lot to do and I’ve personally been going crazy getting this thing out the door. For most of the past 10 days, I haven’t gotten to bed before 3am.

But the music channel is now here and doing awesome. These bloggers rock, plain and simple, and I’m loving the content – specifically loving Jam Band News and The Good Musician.

This is the first major expansion that we’ve made into a new vertical since the Business Channel was launched last year. Pretty intense. Thanks for the traffic!

The story was originally floated by Drudge and apparently the Wall Street Journal is backing the rumor up – though the WSJ has the walled garden policy in effect, so I can’t confirm.

The really odd part about this is that the rest of the music industry seems to catch the vibe and finally coming around. EMI has released their entire music catalog as DRMless music in the iTunes Store and my thought was that was going to be the trend of the future. I still do, but I fear mob mentality from the other music companies.

Apparently, Universal seems to be on board with the DRMless music and has some history in the area of offering music for free.

This story is still developing.

However, it’s not a joke and the move represents the single greatest moment in new media-old media relations in some time. Major music conglomerates led by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and film companies under the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) have stonewalled against basic freedom of product consumption for years – and has been well documented.

In fact, as recently as February when Steve Jobs made a bold call for the RIAA to approve DRM-less music, the companies balked. Still, days after Steve Jobs’ keynote cracks began to appear in the RIAA armor and EMI finally decided to call Jobs’ bluff. Steve Fisher tells me that he thinks the record labels assumed that Jobs was politically posturing.

However, there is no posturing now and the deal is sealed. In May, consumers will be able to pay 30 cents more ($1.29) to purchase DRM-less music encoded at 256kbps as opposed to the standard 99 cent purchases with DRM and encoded at 128kbps.

If you have been blowing smoke about this thing simply looking to pick fights with the record labels, then stop. However, if this is something that is truly important to you – the right to purchase music and use it on whichever mobile device, computer, MP3 player or burned CD you want without limitations placed on usage – then when this becomes available in May, you should follow my lead and purchase plenty of DRM-less music.

This is not just a spending spree. This is a call to action as the other record labels will be watching the results of this action closely. If they see a surge in sales, guess what? It won’t just be the EMI catalog that is DRM-less. Less than 15% of all music on the internet is legal.

If the issue is freedom of choice, prove it with your wallet. If the issue is that you’re cheap, stop arguing that it’s a freedom of choice issue. For real, get real.

Today, the Washington Post would like you to believe that there was a flat out No from the music industry as stated by the headline, “Job’s Music Proposal Rebuff.” The Post does a fine job in spin here, especially since the chairman of the RIAA was quoted as saying:

“We don’t think that a wholesale abandonment of DRM is necessary,” said Mitch Bainwol, chairman and chief executive of the RIAA. “I think you’ll see some experimentation, but that’s a lot different from a policy saying ‘forget it.’ “

Da da da dum. In fact, the RIAA is recognizing the obvious and unarguable failure of DRM, but recognize that the principle of DRM is generally good – protect copyright holders, protect the industry, etc. The implementation sucks.

Tangent: I guess that’s always the struggle – principle vs. implementation. I wonder how often we can find that principle in other parts of life?

Hey, there’s room to compromise here, /methinks. I interpret this as an olive branch from the music industry to Apple, Microsoft and all the other music store-style companies out there. Come to the table. We may not agree right now, but let’s work something out that makes us all happy. I think Jobs should take that invite.

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