I RECENTLY received an e-mail from the people behind Pandora. They’ve confirmed some of my suspicions that they’re going international.

Just a background: I e-mailed them to ask why they petitioned against a bill that aims to increase the royalty fees of music played by Internet radio services.

I hope to share their response to our query on why Pandora did not include foreign listeners as possible supporters of their petition. The petition is only open to US listeners.

Thanks so much for your offer of support; we really appreciate it. It’s nice to hear that you love music as much as we do.

Sorry we’re not licensed internationally yet! Legally offering Pandora services to listeners outside of the United States is a top priority for us, and we’re working out the details as fast as we can. Audio content streaming regulations differ from country to country, and we are working on acquiring the proper licenses to accommodate them.

We’re really looking forward to making Pandora an international service in every respect, including adding more international music to our collection. In many ways, that’s when Pandora will really start to reach its potential.

Cheers, and thanks for your support,

Lucia, Tim, and the whole Pandora team

Lucia Willow
Listener Advocate @ Pandora

WHO member Pete Townshend, in close collaboration with mathematician-composer Lawrence Ball and software developer Dave Snowdon, is set to launch an Internet-based service that will allow anyone to create music online.

The service, dubbed Lifehouse Method, is essentially web-based software that “creates music, allowing you to ’sit’ for a musical portrait just as if you were being painted. The software ‘paints’ your music. It will only take a few minutes of your time,” the website says.

Reuters reports at CNET:

British rocker Pete Townshend on Wednesday unveiled an Internet-based software program that will help music fans compose personalized tracks at the click of a button.

The Who guitarist-songwriter said that with a voice recording, a digital image and a rhythm clapped into a microphone, his new “Method” software will create spontaneous digital music and allow anyone to be a composer, and possibly a rock star.

“You can put data in and get a piece of music out. It’s as simple as that,” said Townshend, a technical wizard who pioneered the use of the synthesizer more than 35 years ago on the classic Who tunes “Won’t Get Fooled Again” and “Baba O’Riley.”

The service will be available for free starting May 1. But it will eventually be available for subscription on August 1.

I WAS floored when I first heard Tuck Andress play “Man in the Mirror” on his guitar. As one of my occasional music buddies would always say, “That music made my head spin!”

So when I stumbled upon Filipino guitar player Jerome Rico’s Guitar Shop album recently, I experienced deja vu. You see, in my itsy bitsy book of guitar greats, there are those who play guitar, and those that can play mind-blowing guitar. Tuck and now Rico are the latter. I can listen to both all night and, I can assure you, you’ll never get bored.

Guitar Shop is composed of covers and original arrangements of known classics. As this blog by Oliver Oliveros reveals, Rico’s jazz influence is evident.

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I WAS probably the only person in the room who could not understand a thing… but man, these Japanese bands know how to rock! Two hours of walking aimlessly in the cold, cold Tokyo night (”Lost in Translation,” literally) before I managed to find a gig in this club called Motion in Shinju-ku district.

Apparently, the Japanese are sticklers for time so the gig really started around 7 o’clock as mentioned in the gig listings I got a day earlier. I got in more than two hours later, with three bands left. This band — whose name the lady at the bar pronounced Suppa Maikuro Panchop — came on and struck me as quite an acoustic, experimental type.

The song started somewhat acoustic all right — until much later on the entire band went helter-skelter.

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THERE is a petition out (mainly directed at US listeners) that hopes to save Pandora and other Internet radio services. Pandora is a project of the Music Genome Project. I was introduced to this service almost two months ago. It is a unique Internet radio service not only because it is free, but also allows you to connect and find new music through its intelligent search feature.

This is the e-mail I got from its founder, urging people to support a petition against plans to jack up licensing fees for Internet radio services.

The broadcast e-mail I received from founder Tim Westergren as early as April 18 begins:

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