Has anyone had anything published successfully within this time frame? I've been with them for years and over the last year things have really taken a turn for the worse. Yes, I have written support after the first week. No reply.
Sometimes they just disappear. Here are some tools to help you archive your favorites. Most of these are open source:
If actual preservation or archiving is the goal rather than simply offline listening, I recommend gPodder, PinePods, PodFetch, and gopodder. They are well suited to keeping local copies of podcast files rather than treating downloads merely as temporary offline cache.
From the archives of the basement...
I recently purchased a Roland SPD-SX Pro on Reverb.com from Sam Ash Music Direct. It was listed in MINT condition. I figured for just a little over $1200, that was fine with me. Much to my surprise, when it arrived, it was actually brand new. After I bought it, the listing was still up and made me concerned that they didn't actually process my order. I wrote them a message and they replied that they actually had a few units. There is at least one still available for the same price I paid. Odds are, it's probably actually brand new like mine was, but for whatever reason, they might not be able to list it as brand new. Just thought I would share this good news that someone else might be able to take advantage of.
Even though the SPD-SX Pro was released in 2022, it's still a great piece of gear. While it would be great if it had more memory or the ability to add more, it does more than I need anyway.
After all these decades, I have to get this off my chest. Before anyone starts throwing sticks (or kicks) at me, I'm talking about his drum sound, not his drumming. It's always been a disappointment to hear one of my favorite drummers of all time saddled with drum tones I just don't like.
Alex Van Halen was obviously a phenomenal drummer. Great feel, incredible swing, instantly recognizable playing, creative parts, serious power, and an enormous influence on rock drumming.
But I've never understood the reverence for his actual recorded drum tones.
To my ears, there are a lot of poor tonal choices throughout the Van Halen catalog. The snare doesn't appeal to me at all. I'm not crazy about the kick and tom sounds or their lack of clarity. The cymbals and ambience can be abrasive or strange, and taken as a whole, I frequently find the production of the kit far less pleasing than the playing itself.
And yes, I know some of those sounds are part of what makes Van Halen sound like Van Halen. "Distinctive" and "good" aren't necessarily the same thing, though. Subjective or not, I'll die on this hill.
I've heard plenty of people cite Alex's drum sound as one of the great rock drum sounds, and I've always been the guy thinking, Really? That sound?
Again, I love the playing. I grew up with the band and spent plenty of time learning some of those songs. I'm questioning what happened between the drum throne and the control room.
Ted Templeman, I'm looking at you.
The guitars sound great. The vocals are fine. The bass is fine. So what happened to the drums? Did they sound like that in the room? Was it the tuning, especially the snare? The mics? EQ? Compression? Reverb? Or was that simply the sound everyone involved was deliberately going for?
Am I completely alone on this one?
And for the AVH drum-sound defenders: which song or album would you point to as the best example of his drums actually sounding great?
8mm Home Movies from the 1950s–1970s
A collection of vintage 8mm films featuring:
Film Restoration and Transfer
The footage has been uploaded without stabilization.
The films were converted by CinePost using a wet-gate transfer. Light noise reduction was applied with AviSynth, although the amount of restoration possible was limited by the constant movement in the original footage.
Usage and Licensing
These films are free to use with attribution under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0).
Please credit: Videowave
Timestamps
0:00 — 1964 New York World’s Fair, Queens
0:40 — Quebec
3:04 — Montreal Expo ’67
6:26 — Peekskill Dude Ranch, New York
8:10 — San Francisco
9:15 — San Bernardino and Rialto
9:42 — Lake Arrowhead region
10:25 — Washington, D.C.
11:40 — Atlantic City, 1957
13:00 — Atlantic City, 1963
14:04 — Disneyland
Great. Thanks for the unsolicited, massive reduction in service, being throttled to a standstill after a single prompt, and for suggesting workarounds that are so counter-intuitive I would be better served ramming my head into a wall.
TL;DR: Walnut Hills High School administration excluded the marching band directors from facilities scheduling, gave all the field time to athletics, and told the 120-student band they can practice on a gravel parking lot with light poles.
If you haven't seen the news on this, the Walnut Hills High School Marching Blue & Gold is on the verge of having their competitive season completely canceled, and the Color Guard cut entirely, because of an absurd administrative decision.
Despite the band directors submitting their regular field request back in March (the same schedule they’ve used for decades), the school’s Athletic Director held a scheduling meeting and completely excluded the band staff.
Here is how the administration decided to divide up the field access:
Football: 4 days per week
Soccer: 4 days per week
Field Hockey: 4 days per week
Marching Band (120 kids): 1 day per week (Fridays for 1.5 hours)
You literally cannot design, learn, and safely rehearse a competitive field show with one hour of field time a week. When the band directors pointed out that this effectively kills the program, the administration offered these "solutions":
Use the parking lots: They seriously suggested a gravel lot. It has no yard lines, no hash marks, and is full of light poles and obstacles. You can't teach coordinate-based drill on gravel, let alone do it safely.
6:30 AM practices: Because I'm sure the dense residential neighborhood surrounding the high school would absolutely love a 120-piece band and full drumline blasting at 6:30 in the morning.
Go off-campus: Renting box trucks to transport massive instruments (like marimbas) and bussing 120 kids to an off-site location multiple times a week is a logistical and financial nightmare for a program that doesn't have the budget for it.
The WHHS band is an award-winning program (the only competitive marching band in CPS) that provides immense value and college scholarship opportunities to these kids. To gut their program behind closed doors to give sports teams a 4th day on the field is a massive failure by the administration.
How to help: If you think this is ridiculous, please take 2 minutes to send a quick email. The administration is banking on this blowing over. Community pressure is the only thing that will get them to give the band a fair schedule.
Superintendent Shauna Murphy: murphys@cpsboe.k12.oh.us
Principal John Chambers: chambjo@cpsboe.k12.oh.us
Vice-Principal Chaney: chaneym@cpsboe.k12.oh.us
Athletic Director Shay Steele: steeles@cpsboe.k12.oh.us
District Athletics Manager Josh Hardin: hardinj@cps-k12.org
Ripped from the 80s subreddit. Here's a commercial from around that time promoting an appearance in Cananda. https://youtu.be/7qqBw8jVXAE?si=D1lGDzBUj_orv2gK