As a longtime fan of the Sonos (see here, here, here and here), I’ve been wondering ever since the launch of the iTunes AppStore when Sonos would release software to turn my iPhone and iPod Touch into a Sonos controller. Well, today was the day, and having just installed the software and played around with a bit, I have to say that Sonos has done an excellent job. I have a feeling the iPhone is going to become my default controller for my Sonos now. One big bonus over the Sonos controller with the iPhone app is the ability to use a virtual keyboard to search for music — on the scroll-wheel-based Sonos controller, text entry is a bit cumbersome. Way to go, guys! Finally, I have to give Sonos props for making it a free app, a very classy touch.

Update: I should point to a nice in-depth blog post over at Zatz Not Funny! for folks looking for more information, and also will embed the youtube video that appeared on that post. One excellent point the readers over there made is than Sonos really needed to do this — since a user armed with a mac, and a couple airport expresses and the Apple Remote Application on their iPhone could get pretty close to the same functionality that Sonos provides.

That being said, I still give Sonos the victory nod by a wide margin — access to internet radio, and the ability to consume services like Last.fm, Rhapsody and Pandora (now FREE on Sonos, BTW) without the use of ANY computer give the Sonos a distinct edge. It is just a more complete and well-integrated solution, IMHO.

And, here’s the youtube demo.

About a decade ago, a colleague of mine introduced me to My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, for which I was forever grateful. Although it was already nearly 20 years old at time I was turned on to it, the album was in many respects ahead of its time, and I mean that in the best possible sense. Now, nearly 30 years later, Byrne and Eno have released a new album, Everything that Happens Will Happen Today , available exclusively from their website, http://everythingthathappens.com.

The talented folks over Topspin (a Foundry Group investment) provided the software back-end that enables Byrne and Eno (and many other great artists) to engage directly with their fans and make their music available for streaming and purchase, in mp3 and audiophile FLAC format, as well as in CD format, as soon as those atoms are assembled in their appropriate configuration. Kudos to Topspin for being associated with such an important and long-awaited album release, and thanks to Byrne and Eno for taking a leap (of faith) into the future on Topspin’s platform. For more background on this release, read Topspin’s blog post announcing the album, and also take a gander at CEO Ian Rogers’s blog as well.

Came across this on Gizmodo and had to share it. I’ve never been much of a gamer, but my Excite co-founders were all into gaming and were fanatic about the Super Mario games, particularly Super Mario Kart. Add to that the fact that I’ve always been intrigued with the Theremin, ever since figuring out it was the instrument responsible for the famous flat-7 interval in the first two notes of the Star Trek theme song, and you have a YouTube video that appealed to me on multiple levels, including the cool free-space hand control scheme that the Theremin employs.

I just looked back on my calendar for the past two weeks and realized that July 2008 has been a good one for me in the live music department. It started on July 7th with a great solo performance by Shawn Colvin at Chautauqua, followed a few days later with a Friday evening show with the Charlie Hunter Trio at the Boulder Theater, then came Steely Dan last Thursday at Red Rocks (my favorite venue of all time) and, finally, the grand finale, The Police at Red Rocks. And all of this within a 30 mile radius. While I’ve seen every one of these musicians play live before, each of these shows was perhaps the best performance I’ve seen from each of them. Score one for the Colorado summer concert season.

I’m a big fan of the site Culturegraph. Basically, readers submit pop-culture influenced gags that take graphic form — usually charts and graphs of some description. I’m also a fan because they’ve accepted a couple of my submissions (one Sting-related and one Michael McDonald related). The one that wasn’t accepted is probably only funny to die-hard Steely Dan fans, but given I’m going to see them at Red Rocks this Thursday, I thought I’d post it here, and offer a link to my flickr set, where you can see all three.

There’s nothing like watching a musician’s face when they are deeply engaged playing their music. When Ian Rogers saw Soul Patch play a few weeks ago, he mentioned that I had a lot of good GuitarFace™ moments, which inspired me to look through the photos from that gig and previous gigs, which indeed confirmed that I give good GuitarFace™. I’ve put a set up on Flickr that include some of my best.

I’ve recently joined the board of an incredibly cool company called Topspin Media, via Foundry Group’s Series B investment in the company. This is an investment literally a decade in the making.

I met Topspin’s co-founder, seed investor and Chairman Peter Gotcher about ten years ago while he was a venture partner at Redpoint, via an introduction from his partner Geoff Yang, who was a board member and Series A investor in Excite, where I was one of the co-founders. As a guitarist and avid music nerd, I practically demanded that Geoff introduce me to Peter, knowing that Peter was the founder of Digidesign, maker of the industry standard digital audio recording platform ProTools. I had always fantasized about owning a ProTools rig, and once I had the means (thanks Excite IPO!), I outfitted myself with a system, which infected me with the ongoing and never-ending malady of recording studio gear lust.

Peter and I became friends and he even invited me down to LA for a product brainstorming session with the guys at Line 6, another very cool music technology company that Peter helped get started that, among other things, pioneered digital modeling of analog gear and became one of the largest manufacturers of guitar amplifiers around.

I met Topspin’s other co-founder and Chief Product Officer Shamal Ranasinghe in 1998 when he came to California to get his MBA at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, where he was classmate of my wife Katherine. Shamal and I became fast friends and I was particularly struck by his passionate commitment to change the music world through technology. I introduced Shamal to Peter, which ultimately led to their decision to co-found Topspin several years ago. Shamal stayed true to his singular passion to work in the world of music technology, and spent time defining the product vision for RealNetworks, MusicMatch and ultimately at Yahoo! Music, via Yahoo’s purchase of MusicMatch.

While I was out on the road with Brad helping to raise the first Foundry Group fund last year, Topspin was very busy – they raised their Series A from Tim Haley at Redpoint Ventures, built their initial product offerings and scored a major coup by landing Yahoo! Music GM Ian Rogers as CEO, who has just about the ideal background for someone you’d want in the helm at Topspin. He’s been a software engineer, entrepreneur and record label executive and his career has included stints at Nullsoft, Grand Royal and Media Code. Ian also happens to be one hell of a nice guy and perhaps the most cogent thinker I’ve encountered when it comes to the issues facing the music industry today.

So last month, when Shamal and Peter called me and said they were thinking of starting their fundraising process for their Series B, my partner and band-mate Jason and I hopped on a plane to meet Ian and to get an update on Topspin’s progress since we had last spent time with them in the summer of 2007. We were blown away with the progress they had made with the product, and more importantly, with the breadth of their future vision and their understanding of the trends at play in the shifting sands of the music industry.

When we returned to Boulder, we shared our enthusiasm for Topspin with our partners and invited the Topspin team out to Boulder to spend a day with us. The day went incredibly well, we broke bread together at Frasca (my favorite restaurant in Boulder), and by the end of the day, we had agreed upon a deal. Just three weeks later, we closed our investment in Topspin. I’m honored and excited to be part of the Topspin team.

I’ve played guitar for about 25 years now, and have been relatively restrained about adding new axes to my arsenal, until the last year or so, when three great new guitars found their way into my collection.

Last year after we finished fund-raising, my partners gave me a Fender VG Stratocaster. And after NAMM this past January, I became the very proud owner of a Taylor Builder’s Reserve electric guitar.

And when I went to pick up the Taylor at one of the finest guitar shops I know, Wildwood Guitars in Lousiville, CO, the Gibson SG Diablo, a limited edition SG from their custom shop caught my eye. How was I to resist such an aptly named and somewhat evil-looking guitar?

It has been a couple years since my band Soul Patch last played live, and we’ve been itching to play ever since. But having children, starting a new venture fund and moving to Boulder, CO mean that the band is now spread among Boulder, LA and San Francisco.

Well, we’re all coming together to play our long overdue album release party and celebrate the Summer Soulstice on Saturday, June 21st at 9:30pm at Redfish Brewhouse in Boulder. Given our geographic dispersion, this is likely our last gig for years to come, until we do our triumphant comeback tour decades from now…

So come check us out on the night of the Soulstice!

My old friend Tom Lewis, who I knew back in the day when we were both denizens of the Valley during the bubble years, just posted a nice review of Sooner or Later on the LAist. My favorite line in the review:

There is a jam band element to Soul Patch, with the expected chord changes, syncopation, and solo interludes exemplified in excellent guitar work by Ryan McIntyre. Where the band excels most is in the style found on “Greyboy“, a kind of urban jazz sound that reminded me of the Brand New Heavies – it’s a place where drummer Jason Mendelson’s rhythms, McIntyre’s guitar, and McCourt’s perfect keyboards all come together with perfect balance.

Read the full review here. Thanks for the kind words, Tom!