Electric Sky » General

Bye, bye amazon.com

Mark — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 03:45:36 +0000

In response to Amazon’s decision (something they’ve called a “glitch” in their swift and misguided damage control campaign) to remove books about gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transsexual lifestyles from their ranking system (both adult and children’s literature), I have joined a growing number of people who have removed all of the links to books and other merchandise sold by amazon.com from their sites.

You will no longer find links to amazon.com on this site. I encourage you to make your online purchases from an online retailer of your choice. For books, I recommend both Powell’s Books and Chapters.

Commentary on the Remembrance Day episode

Mark — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 04:26:49 +0000

I’ve published commentary on the Remembrance Day episode on my blog site, markblevis.com. In the commentrary I talk being fearless in gathering ’streeters’, scraping ceremonial coverage from the radio, getting permission to use music by Bryan Adams and The Duhks, and making audio elements fit together tightly like an elaborate puzzle.

Relevant links:

The Remembrance Day episode

Commentary on episodes

Mark — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 16:06:34 +0000

During the month of August, I will be recording commentary on a small selection of my own podcast productions that are near and dear to me for any of many reasons. These recordings will be published on my blog site, markblevis.com. The first of my Producer’s Commentary series was published earlier this week.

If you have a particular Electric Sky episode you’d like hear my commentary on (e.g. guest and question selection, recording process, editing decisions, production techniques, etc…), send an email (electricskypodcast@gmail.com) or call the Electric Sky Podcast listener hotline (+1.206.350.6487) and tell me which one you’d like to hear.

Stay tuned – Electric Sky will be back

Mark — Sun, 04 May 2008 21:02:48 +0000

In order to make time available for some personal projects, I have decided to put Electric Sky on hiatus. The site (including a recent wave of new shows) and RSS feed will remain online and fully functional.

Stay tuned. Electric Sky will be back!

Episode delay

Mark — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 00:44:30 +0000

This week’s episode of Electric Sky is heavy on the editing and production side. As a result, I will be publishing this week’s episode in the evening of Monday, March 26.

Thank you for your patience.

Electric Sky is returning from holidays

Mark — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 23:33:08 +0000

A two-week break has turned into a one month break. Electric Sky will be returning from holidays this weekend.

Thanks for your patience!

Server and feed problems

Mark — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 00:48:25 +0000

I had some pretty severe server problems yesterday – Friday, December 8 – which resulted in all sorts of problems, most of which were resolved around 5amET today. As a result, most of my sites were down, and my feeds went crazy for a while.

My apologies for the inconvenience!

Mark

Electric Sky goes to Afganistan

Mark — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 20:12:21 +0000

Thanks to Jill Pyle for alerting me to this…

Canada AM ran a piece this morning about the ‘Red Fridays’ organizers having created some scrapbooks to document rallies they organized and inspired, and media coverage they attracted. The scrapbooks have been sent to Canadian troops in Afganistan.

During the segment, CTV split the screen to show the interview with Red Friday co-organizer Lisa Miller in one window, and pages of the scrapbook in the other. It was hard to miss my yellow jacket when they showed a photograph of me interviewing Lisa and co-organizer Karen Boire for an episode of Portrait.

Best wishes to all of our troops for a safe return, and thank you to all of Canada’s veterans!

ES2 is moving

Mark — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 16:35:27 +0000

Some time ago, I figured out how to use the category-casting feature of the PodPress plugin.Â It was the perfect motivator for me to create a second, category-based feed for Electric Sky.Â I called that feed ES2 and used it as a way to share outtakes and behind the scenes talk about Electric Sky.Â Things worked well for a while.Â Then, I upgraded to PodPress v6.7 and met with significant problems in the category-casting feature.Â So, I downgraded back to v6.6 and ran into different problems.

After three months, there is no immediate indication that the category casting feature is under repair.Â So, I am moving ES2 to www.markblevis.com and making it part of a relaxed and similarly irregular Podcast at that site.

Transcripts available

Mark — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 16:30:22 +0000

I am gradually rolling out transcripts of all of my Electric Sky Podcasts. I am launching this new feature today with the release of the transcript for my interview with Stewart Copeland.
I will add transcripts to the existing show notes for each episode. Once the transcript is added, you can access the transcripts by clicking on the “Read on…” link in the show notes.

As always, comments are suggestions are welcome.

***update September 20: I have added transcripts for my interviews with Miles Copeland and Lee Edward Fodi.

The rebuilding begins

Mark — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 15:39:02 +0000

Thank you to everyone for your kind words, good wishes, and offers of help. My family and I have been touched by the generosity and concern.

I have begun replacing what was stolen and hope to be back in production in a week or so. I have also started to identify some of the recordings that are now gone forever. This includes some personal data and recordings, and interviews with Stomp (they performed with some Tic Tac containers), Kayaking for Cancer and four episodes of Just One More Book.

I’ll be back, soon.

Immortalized

Mark — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 13:22:32 +0000

Pete Moss, narrator of the Uninformed Biography segment on AndyCast, has featured the uninformed story of my life on the latest AndyCast, Episode #32.Â How did he find out about the martial arts???

Listener feedback

Mark — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 19:05:51 +0000

I have added a listener feedback line.Â You can leave a voice mail message of five minutes or less at 206-350-6487.Â Alternatively, you can use the contact form to send text feedback.

I am always happy to receive comments and suggestions.Â I try to respond to every comment I receive.

iTunes problems resolved… almost

Mark — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 03:05:23 +0000

My iTunes problems are nearly resolved.Â Actually, the root of the problem was a misconfiguration on this site which confused iTunes.Â Unfortunately, iTunes takes a long time to get unconfused.Â Anyway, things should be back to normal in the next day or so.

Thanks for your patience!

Help with iTunes

Mark — Sun, 30 Jul 2006 23:10:43 +0000

I need help! This Podcast (Electric Sky) and another that I produce (Just One More Book) are no longer being updated in iTunes. According to Feedburner, the errors reported in my RSS file won’t affect iTunes because it ignores the tags in question. I haven’t received any fresh insight from the PodPress forum. iTunes hasn’t responded to my support request.

Can anyone help??!!!

Happy Canada Day

Mark — Sun, 02 Jul 2006 02:38:15 +0000

One of the nice things about living in downtown Ottawa is being able to watch the Canada Day fireworks from our roof. It’s also amazing to see that some of the fireworks are MANY city blocks wide.

This year, I took some photos. You can see my fireworks pictures in my Flickr account.

Have a happy, healthy and safe holiday weekend!

Julien Smith diggs del.icio.us and MySpace

Mark — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 19:05:33 +0000

Thanks a million to Julien Smith of inoveryourhead.net for helping me understand some of the social networking technologies that I have been trying so hard to avoid, and for fixing up my site to more effectively fit in the Web 2.0 culture.

An Electric Sky Fathers’ Day

Mark — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 00:56:00 +0000

For Fathers’ Day, my two daughters gave me some artwork that proves I’m more than a bit passionate about my hobby.

Episodes 8 and 9 remastered and resampled

Mark — Mon, 12 Jun 2006 04:27:54 +0000

I have remastered original Electric Sky episodes 8 (Soundseeing tour of my appearance on CBC radio) and 9 (Ian Copeland and Quarter Life). The original files were sampled using settings that sacrificed audio quality for file size. The new files are in high quality MP3 format.

Thanks for New Wave music, Leroy!

Mark — Thu, 25 May 2006 19:02:32 +0000

I couldn’t understand why there was sudden interest in my Podcast interview with Ian “Leroy” Copeland, a show I published on June 2, 2005. I was shocked when I learned that Ian passed away on Tuesday, May 23, of cancer (see Sad News by Ian’s brother Miles, and Ian Copeland dead Tuesday at a young 57 years).

Most of the music I listened to while growing up was made accessible by the Copeland Brothers. Thank you, Ian. My music collection exists because of your role in the industry.

Between two wolves

Mark — Tue, 20 Dec 2005 11:00:54 +0000

An old cheroke chief is teaching his grandson about life:

“A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy.

“It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, dishonesty, false pride, superiority self-doubt and ego. The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you; and inside every other person, too.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked , “Which wolf will win?”

The old chief simply replied, “The one you feed.”

Signal Hill, Nova Scotia?

Mark — Mon, 14 Nov 2005 11:12:50 +0000

I’m in Halifax this week, and last night went to The Lower Deck with a colleague to check out an extremely popular band called Signal Hill – originally from Newfoundland (hence the name) it now calls Halifax home.

The performance to a packed house (on a Sunday???) consisted exclusively of covers and was incredibly energetic. Original songs by the band can be found on its CD, Sepia Tones.

Signal Hill is in Ottawa from November 17-19 at Grace O’Malley’s (East).

Best wishes to “The Source”

Mark — Tue, 01 Nov 2005 16:34:42 +0000

The Ottawa Citizen published a great obituary to a man who deserves the tribute. Brian Murphy, a fixture of Ottawa music life, passed away yesterday (October 31).

I used to listen to his radio programs on CHEZ 106 when I was growing up – shows including the infamous “The Source”. I never did accept the corporate reasons for his release from CHEZ.

When I was 16, I mowed his lawn. It would take me about half an hour to get the job done, and another hour or more to lead the conversation to a close. He offered me the choice of money or tapes as compensation. I wisely chose tapes – and I still have them. He made the most incredible mix tapes, introducing me to music and artists I had never heard. He also fed my love of live recordings of The Police.

I last saw Brian a year ago at a celebration of Le Hibou at Irene’s Pub. I was proud that he remembered me. We talked about The Beatles and Little Feat before he was called to the stage to introduce the performers.

Be well, Brian, and have fun with the music legends who you spoke of so well.

Recovering from a defacement

Mark — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 00:44:06 +0000

You may have noticed that this site was out of service today, and it may have some more intermittent interruptions in the coming days as I recover from my first ever website defacement (no personal information was leaked). Thank you all for your patience.

With this in mind, this posting serves as an invitation to Spykids to appear as a guest on Portrait. This is a legitimate invitation to discuss website security, the hacking culture, and to do a post mortem.

Email problems fixed – please resend!

Mark — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 18:24:51 +0000

It appears that I had some email problems today, between 9:00amET and 1:15pmET. If you sent email to me this morning that I have not yet responded to, or that bounced back to you, please resend it.

Thanks, and sorry for the inconvenience!

Robert Farrell Band at Barrymore’s

Mark — Fri, 05 Aug 2005 04:59:05 +0000

Blues/rock guitar player Robert Farrell is performing at Barrymore’s (in Ottawa) with special guest, Livinsin, on Friday, August 5th.

Robert’s music was featured on the first ever Electric Sky Podcast.

Shows coming

Mark — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 11:24:57 +0000

Sorry about the delay in putting out a show. I have been busier than I expected to be, and my week was centered around ZZ Top at the Ottawa Bluesfest. More on that festival when I publish a show next week.

Forums now online

Mark — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 12:00:47 +0000

A new discussion forums area has been launched today. Anonymous posts are welcome. Posters who identify themselves and provide contact information (either by providing their info in their post, or by registering on the site) will be eligible for occassional giveaways.

Quarter Life opening for ZZ Top

Mark — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 20:31:04 +0000

Quarter Life, a band that I featured in Show 09, is one of two bands that will open up for ZZ Top at the Ottawa Blues Fest tomorrow night (July 12).

“Inventing the Internet Age” on CBC

Mark — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 11:00:03 +0000

Around the time that CBC ran its “Greatest Canadian” program, I discovered the CBC’s online archives. It’s a phenominally rich online goldmine in which the CBC has opened up its vaults of audio and video footage of historical events and people from the last six decades, for public consumption.

The library is extensive! It includes hundreds of great categorized reports including the ones on:

The latest addition is a feature called Inventing the Internet Age, which follows the evolution of the Internet from the ArpaNet in 1970 through to MP3s in 1998.

Thank you to Michael Geist for drawing my attention to this latest addition to the CBC online archives.