AI Music Is Everywhere; Beware ~ I Hear And Buy Directly From Artists 17Dec25

As this entry title suggests, AI generated music and 'host' content intros and analyses are prevalent on all streaming platforms. It's cheaper to artificially analyze and mimic your favored styles and genres than pay artists' royalties. It's cheaper to have an AI agent be your DJ, even including voice-generated pithy comments, than pay a human. To me this just doesn't seem right... irrespective of how good it gets. OK, moderating... with a prompt to AI that you enter, asking for a playlist you'd like to try, has to be fine, right; till you are steered in one specific direction or another for someone else's gain. Why can a 'copy of the past' from a 'bot with all human context be better than something new, something invented by humans now. I get AI as a correlation-tool of vast data sets to bring 'proposed' insight that we can't discern... I've seen it and it's cool, but often wrong. Keep your eyes wide open on all this stuff.

Back to music... As often as I can, I buy music as directly from the artists I like as I can... bandcamp.com, and I go to as many live shows from the artists I like as I can. Remember trips to Tower Records? I'd read and bought the albums I wanted; I'd listen to them and read the sleeves & covers; I'd go back to Tower to find the same artists, writers, and producers and built my network of music knowledge... adding new insights as I went. The brand lives on in Tokyo but is mainly online in the US... I get retail is dead mostly, unless we can't stop porch pirates, the reference was a tactile version of today.

I still do that but with authenticated YouTube and bandcamp.com ~ and I often play the EP or album release through as the artists intended. Recently Maya de Vitry, but I track ~100 artists' new activity and add several every year.

Just compare 'our' (hey boomer or millennial) raucous middle school lunchroom with the quiet doom-scrolling scene today. I even asked an AI what the major streamers do regarding AI content... pretty damming to my sense of human need ~ do we use it? YES is the case for Spotify, Apple, YouTube, and Amazon.

Yes, yes, yes yes. I also asked about Bandcamp...

No. Please contemplate dumping streamers unless guided with specific awareness of and discount of, stray AI generated content. You will either be mis-guided or have your funds mis-appropriated. My blog content and recommendations are strictly human generated. My blog copyright specifically prohibits use of my prose and images for machine learning or AI training, but I've found unique lines from me elsewhere. And, my measurement of 'hits' and consumption by browser and country suggests violations of that copyright. Yet, what can I do? I do what I do as a human.

Repairing Sonance In-Ceiling Surrounds ~ Blown 3.5" Mid-Bass Driver 02Dec25-11Dec25

Debugging... I heard a buzz from one of my in-ceiling surround speakers in the Blodgett Fam Rm; I needed to fix it. They are Sonance 3-way speakers and actually sounded pretty nice, but they're 20 years old. I took pics and wrote the company's tech support but they neither have direct footprint replacements or a sufficient archive on the drivers they used or specs of the crossovers used... grrr. I pulled down the speakers and tested them; the blown driver is an 85mm mid-bass on the left channel.

Assessing... I removed the failing driver. It was 'no joy' attempting to glue the surround foam cracks back together, and the surround was old and decaying anyway. I measured its impedance @6.5Ω and the dimensions of the driver, hole pattern, and "cabinet."

Investigating... Realizing I was going to need to replace the driver I dove on Madisound and Parts Express for a suitable replacement. I didn't want to change the crossover or the other drivers in the 3 ways so needed something pretty close to the original, especially as to impedance. Of course nothing was a dovetail fit, especially as to dimensions, but I found a couple of possible replacements after building a comparator spreadsheet.

Selecting... I was hoping the MA Pluvia 7.2 HD would work as it's the same 4" driver as I used in the front L/R mains and the center channel, in the custom builds already installed in the Blodgett Fam Rm... but it is just too big for the in-ceiling "cabinet." The Dayton RS100 was about half price of the Fostex FF105wk, despite the latter's lauded performance, and it was likely a less problematic physical adaptation to the "cabinet." I bought a couple of the Dayton Audio drivers; reviews were strong enough. I did a prophylactic replacement of the same driver in the right side surround as it'd likely fail equivalently at some point and this'll give the set the same timbre.

Installing... The install with "cabinet" modifications went OK. The driver's came with gaskets and while the hole patterns don't match (known), I just secured the 6 screws directly through the plastic "cabinet" and backed the screws with speed nuts. It's all very secure and buttoned-up despite the dimensional differences. I reinstalled the speakers into their ceiling locations.

Listening... There's a noticeably better low end from the new surrounds now; the new mid-bass/full range drivers are 1" larger than the originals. And they are cleaner too. The key of course is that the repaired surrounds no longer buzz from being blown. The surrounds sound great and smooth in the new system, though they are not too vital for music. The sound on 5.1 (derived or discrete) soundtracks, with the custom front NanoOnken mains with the Onken-like center channel, backed by the SVS sealed subwoofer, is excellent. We watch plenty of games, shows, and movies on the Blodgett Fam Rm system and the kit is very strong and dialed in now after a number of fairly recent upgrades.

Measuring... I will do some measurements when I retrieve the mic from Summit.

December '25 Music Appreciation ~ Just Some Cool December Drops 10Dec25

I've been busy with some stuff but here we go with the cooler, very recent drops from some of my favorite artists.

Lone Below @ Our Vinyl “Count On Me” 13Nov25 ~ Spectacular gospel.

Jade Bird @ Sleepy Hollow Fest For Paste 17Nov25 - She’s still a fav full voice singer; now with new material.

David Byrne & Team On Tiny Desk 01Dec25~ Tiny, nah - thirteen musicians deliver a finest show; defunding doesn’t shutter the voices.

Lawrence 'Where It Started' From Staycation in NYC 04Dec25 ~ Lawrence R&B and shows are so good. Good concept for the now known band in their hometown.

The Last Wild Buffalo @ Kirby Court ‘Go Down Easily’ 05Dec25 - Met them in Keystone… great band - good song.

Billy Strings & Band On Tiny Desk 10Dec25 - Epic kid and raging guitar with a single mic. Tiny Desk is crushing December.

Nation of Language  @ WFUV ‘Silhouette’ 09Dec25 - Bringing back synth pop from 80s Manchester ~ wait they’re Americans.

Dave's New Mexican Breakfast Tostada ~ So Good 06Dec25

We reprised a tasty breakfast tostada I'd conceived. Kala su-cheffed. I'll name it as in the subject line of this entry.

Ingredients: 5" corn tortilla, 1 over very easy egg, shredded Mex cheese, 1/4 avocado, dollop Gringo salsa, smidge onion flakes, smidge hot New Mex red chili powder (substitute regular, Ancho, or alt chili powder as desired), 3 TBsp of diced protein (smoked turkey, pulled pork, etc), salt & pepper to taste, sliced radishes.

Recipe:

1. Preheat oven to 425°, dice avocado, dice protein, have egg ready. Heat non-stick frying pan to medium (have a cover ready). Prepare a shallow oven grill pan with aluminum foil with a light spritz of Pam.
2.  Warm/toast tortilla on first side. Flip tortilla, cover with shredded cheese, sprinkle with onion flakes & chili powder. Cover the pan.
   
   
3. Once cheese is melted evenly on top of tortilla, remove cover and flip the tortilla again with cheese side down (it has enough oil in it). 
4. With cheese golden brown crisp (~1min), use spatula again to move tortillas to prepared oven pan with cheese side up. Add diced ready avocado & protein to tortillas. Pop in the oven (primarily to heat the protein from fridge temps) while you prep the egg.
   
5. Wipe frying pan clean with paper towel and return to stove top on med low heat. Make over very easy egg in tab of butter; salt and pepper egg to taste on sunny side before flipping briefly. Once completed, move egg to on top of tortilla (flipping back to seasoned side up).
   
6. Move assembly to oven and bake extra minute if needed.
   
7. Remove from oven and onto serving plates; top egg with ~6 radish slices and a dollop of salsa.

Taste: Yumm. You might need a knife.