Jarome Matthew

Author: jarome

  • Modern Day Slavery In The United States

    It has gotten to the point where the things that happen in our tumultuous world don’t shock or surprise me anymore. Last week Bush not only mispronounced words while talking about children’s education, but he thinks Mandela is dead. No major surprise there.

    But today when I learned about slavery being alive and well in the US, I actually was surprised. I’m not talking about getting an immigrant Mexican worker to fetch things, I’m talking about abducting people who have come from overseas and forcing them to do what they’re told for no pay. Real slavery.
    Modern Day Slavery In The US

    The shocking thing is that by simply buying food at large corporations like Macdonalds, we are supporting this! I’m not much of an activist because I don’t think that it solves the problem of individual moral bankruptcy that exists in the world. It’s a natural imbalance with a simple solution: If the greedy weren’t, those who are starving wouldn’t be. That’s how the world works, It’s a material problem that requires a spiritual solution, and that’s not the solution that is being utilized in the world.
    But when you buy food at a resteraunt and don’t even realise that the company employs slaves because maybe they don’t even know, it makes it hard not to be unknowingly supporting this kind of injustice…

    I mean, who has the time to track down and research every company and individual they are buying from? I’m not even going to start with that can of worms, I do what I can, and it costs me dearly, but I think it’s worth it. I guess that’s a good place to start, if it seems too cheap (Wal Mart) then it probably involves the violation of someone’s rights!

    Here are some ways to do something about the slavery issue particularly, if you do want to act, from the man who wrote the book I first heard about this from: http://johnbowe.info/action.html

    Or, if you prefer dealing with the root of a problem, not just using a band aid, here is a deeper explanation of how we need to change as individuals in order to solve these problems:
    Sustainable Development and the Human Spirit

  • 12 Ways to Use Facebook Professionally

    A lot of people are using facebook lately. It really has social networking down to a science, and I can’t tell you how many people tell me their addicted. And not just my 15 year old nephew, mom and dad are on their too (well, not mine, but you know what I mean…). That means more and more, facebook is being used professionally, and it has become much more important in your business and career to the point where smart employers are even checking out prospective hires on facebook to see if they are company material.

    Here is a link to a useful article:
    12 Ways to Use Facebook Professionally:

    I’ve added my own facebook link on my blogroll, but I have to limit my time on there… that thing is the ultimate time killer.

  • Another great quote about life and the progress of humanity

    “All progress depends on the unreasonable man.
    The reasonable man adapts himself to the world.
    The unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.”

    – George Bernard Shaw

  • The Future Of Modern Music Creation

    Some of you have seen this before, amazing stuff that is way beyond how I make music despite the fact that I use the latest commercially available technology and software. It’s called the ‘Reactable’ System from Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona Spain. If you don’t understand the basic principles of how modern music is made, you will probably have no idea what you are seeing in these videos:

    Basic Reactable Demo 01:
    [youtube 0h-RhyopUmc nolink]

    Basic Reactable Demo 02:
    [youtube MPG-LYoW27E nolink]

    Live Performance with Reactable:
    [youtube vm_FzLya8y4 nolink]

    Imagine having one of those in your home with some guests, now that’s my kind of party!

    Progressive artists like Bjork are already starting to use this technology…

    More Info here at the official website: http://mtg.upf.edu/reactable/

  • Apparently my blog has been blocked…??!!

    Apparently my blog is blocked in China… God only knows why it would be, if you live in China, and your reading this, post and let me know.

    This kind of thing seems to be intermittent, depending on where you live there.

  • My massive page of amazing links

    I just posted a new massive page of amazing links that I use in my music business 2.0 class and that I often recommend to clients I am working with. Most of these links I have tested and or use myself, and they are some of the best resources I have found. So take advantage of my hours of research and enjoy!

    Jarome’s recommended links for Multimedia,Music Business, and Web 2.0 applications

  • All I want to do is share my favorite music…

    It’s been annoying me for some time now that all the previews for music online are less than a minute long, and usually even only 30 seconds – not nearly enough to get a good idea of a song never mind like it enough to but it. And if you have diverse music tastes and want to share that music with other people, you would have to send them to all kinds of different websites, who has time for that?

    I figured with all the wonderful and powerful web 2.o applications for music out there,
    one of them would enable me to do this simple aim of sharing my current favorite songs with friends and people I’m working with. So I signed up with MOG.com, Last.FM, iLike.com, facebook, and the iTunes music store, and wasted a bunch of time checking out all they could do. I started with 5 songs from the last 20 years, some brand new top 40, some older, some obscure. All these sites either didn’t have *all* the songs I wanted to share, or if they did have them, some songs only allowed a 30 second preview. 30 seconds is like a slap in the face to the music lover. It’s just an insult.

    A large part of the problem in being able to ‘legally’ achieve my simple aim to share music with friends is that record companies prevent this from happening because they don’t understand the new music 2.0 movement and the concept of ‘giving consumers what they want’.

    The only application I found that showed some promise in my efforts to promote commercial artists is Simplify Media‘s free beta iTunes Music sharing software. It let’s you share any music you want with any other iTunes user who is also running the simplify media software and has set up an account. I just tested it with my friend Elika all the way over in Beijing, and within seconds of connecting, she could play in real time any non protected MP3 I shared with her, even those encoded at 320k!

    In some ways It’s not an ideal solution since your friends would have to download and configure the software to listen to your shared music. It would be better to just be able to go to a social networking site and select FULL length versions of any song and send a link to someone of your playlist. But since the music industry won’t yet allow that, Simplify Media is still very cool and may avoid me having to share my music ‘illegally’ which I was prepared to do if I had to. Try it out, and then let me know when you have it installed and I’ll invite you to my playlist.

  • I’ll face myself, erase myself to cross out what I’ve become…

    There’s no alibi
    ‘Cause I’ve drawn regret
    From the truth
    Of a thousand lies

    So let mercy come
    And wash away…

    What I’ve done
    I’ll face myself
    To cross out what I’ve become
    Erase myself
    And let go of what I’ve done

    Put to rest
    What you thought of me
    While I clean this slate
    With the hands
    Of uncertainty

    So let mercy come
    And wash away…

    What I’ve done
    I’ll face myself
    To cross out what I’ve become
    Erase myself
    And let go of what I’ve done

    I’ll start again
    And whatever pain may come
    Today this ends
    I’m forgiving what I’ve done

    – Linkin Park , “What I’ve Done” from Minutes To Midnight

    Yes…. Exactly.

    [audio:What_Ive_Done.mp3]

  • My latest song ‘Starlight – Lucky Star’ is a free download

    In 2004, I produced a CD called Past Becomes Future, released on Pro Soul. It’s a compilation of various artists that is basically a celebration of dance / electronica / R & B through modern versions of classic pop songs from the 70’s and 80’s.
    [audio: https://jarome.com/files/downloads/audio_files/files/Starlight_Lucky_Star_mix.mp3]

    The latest track I have produced, ‘Starlight’ is a combination of retro Madonna and the kind of Hip Hop you remember, back when it was great. It was conceived for a live show after the album was released, but the chorus vocals were never recorded. I started by recording and editing together various 12″ vinyl remix records, and then had Luvva J aka Jose S. Gutierrez Jr. put down an original rap on it. Then I punched it up with some additional beats and synth. I always liked the track and what Jose did with it , so recently, I decided to remix it and have Laura Harley record the missing vocals. She did an amazing job, and we decided to put it out there for you to listen to as a free download.

    www.jarome.com/downloads

    This song is special for a few reasons, 1: It is basically the first, but not last, free song I have put out there, 2: It is not attached to any particular project – Those that know me know I very rarely do songs like this that are just for fun because I am so busy producing other artists songs, and 3: It is very different than anything I am producing now, and it is different than the usual style of the artists featured on it.

    I hope you enjoy it! Tell your friends, and let me know what you think.

  • Just launched: my new website with music and audio demos

    I’ve been so busy over the last 5 years that I haven’t really been able to update my website for a long time. The last demo that was on there was literally 4 years old. But I have finally put up a completely new website at www.jarome.com thanks to the help of Vancouver musician and designer, Zenobia Salik, who I am assisting in mixing and mastering her very cool new electro funk album.

    My new site has accurate descriptions of everything I do, and recent audio, music and video demos, some so recent, they are for CD’s that haven’t even been mixed yet never mind released!

    So please check it out and let me know if anything doesn’t work well for you on your system.