See the music that Google Talk users are listening to. The top 3? Snow Patrol, The Fray and The Killers.

ear Feeder will scan the music on your computer and then use that data to create RSS feeds containing information about your favorite bands. It’s a clever idea, at the least.

This week’s Battlestar Galactica shows that sometimes the creative and business sides of television don’t always share the same interests.
For scheduling, a season premier can be a two-hour event. The network can capitalize on the excitement of a highly-anticipated hit show returning to sell twice as much advertising. But having the third episode of the season be a double length episode? Not too likely.
But after watching the first 3 hours of Season 3 over two weeks, the rhythm seems off. Originally, Occupation, Precipice and Exodus were to be the first 3 hours of the season. But when Exodus became too long to fit into a single episode, it was cut into two episodes. On the podcast, Ron Moore noted some of the scenes that were added to flesh out the Exodus story from to a full two hours. So the first four hours of the season will air over three weeks, but the extra hour seems to be in the wrong week.
But, once again, this was a great hour of television which set in motion the events not just of the resolution of the episode, but also the arcs for the season.
What was up with Honey Bunny’s vision?

The Bamboo Kids show at Magnetic Field on Friday was a good time. Of the new material on Feel Like Hell, “Child Prodigy” is fast and vicious while “Palpitations” is quite catchy. The record drops Oct. 24.


There are a couple more photos from the show in my Flickr photostream.

Newsweek: How long before Borat gets sued? Meet the Real People in ‘Borat’: “Given the likelihood that Baron Cohen’s movie will make piles of money—and the loose legalese of those release forms—someone is sure to try taking Borat to court. It’s one of the few lessons in American life that Borat doesn’t learn on screen: in this country, we sue.”

Tigh, for one, welcomes our new Cylon overlords.
In this third season premier, Battlestar Galactica showed why it may be the smartest and bleakest show on television. Suicide bombings? Chargeless detention? Warrantless arrests in the middle of the night? Enemy collaborators? Double agents? BSG is not a simple political polemic about Bush and Iraq, but is about posing the big questions and not providing a simple answer.
Is it right to commit electoral fraud to avoid getting occupied by the Cylons on planet Craphole? Right now, Zarek, Roslin and tens of thousands of Colonials are probably thinking that a little fraud wouldn’t have been a bad thing.
While the entire double episode (Occupation/Precipice) was excellent, the scene between Roslin and Baltar in the detention cell stood out as the pinnacle of the episode (as did a similar scene between Roslin and Baltar during the lead up to the election in Lay Down Your Burdens Part 1, mostly due to the killer performance of Mary McDonnell.) Here, Baltar (Baltar!) emerges as the voice of reason, arguing against suicide bombings.
Baltar is a wonderfully self-absorbed character. Every time he has the opportunity to do something selfless, he always chooses to do just that which serves his self-interest over the public interest. Every time he has been offered a chance at redeeming himself, Baltar has chosen to take the easy way out of that immediate situation. And yet, James Callis performs the role with enough humanity to make Baltar more than just a villian. Perhaps the Six in Baltar’s brain is correct and he will serve some larger purpose in the end.
Alan Sepinwall, as usual, hits all the right notes in his blog post: Battlestar Galactica: Eyes for an eye. He also interviewed showrunner Ron Moore: What the frak?
The Chicago Tribune’s Maureen Ryan also spoke with Moore: Ron Moore Talks Season 3 of Battlestar Galactica.
Although they can contain spoilerly bits for upcoming episodes, Moore’s podcast commentaries are worth listening to for more insights into the writing process and choices. For example, Ellen Tigh’s Seinfeld reference was a deliberate homage.

Is the era of the record store over?
Tower Records was sold in a bankruptcy auction to a high bidder who plans to liquidate. “Tower Records, which has 89 stores in 20 states and owes creditors about $200 million, filed for Chapter 11 reorganization in August. In its filing, the company said it has been hurt by an industrywide decline in music sales, downloading of online music and competition from big-box stores such as Wal-Mart.”

It’s no joke: IU study finds The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to be as substantive as network news: “Interestingly, the average amounts of video and audio substance in the broadcast network news stories were not significantly different than the average amounts of visual and audio substance in The Daily Show with Jon Stewart stories about the presidential election.”
Perhaps this says more about the lack of substance in the network evening news programs than in the amount of substance in The Daily Show.

Chicago Tribune MySpace, MyStage: “Who needs a record deal? Artists now can sell their music directly through MySpace… Such technology allows musicians to bypass big distributors and sell directly to their fans. But there can be a downside, those in the music industry say. Go-it-alone acts don’t have nearly the marketing muscle or publicity power of traditional hit-makers, so independent artists must find ways to market themselves, book shows and sell their music in a crowded field.”
But the problem without the traditional intermediaries is that the intermediaries often add value. In the unfiltered mix of music in the market, there is a lot of crap. Additionally, many artists appeal only to a particular niche audience. Intermediaries help to filter the music towards the audiences. While MySpace, CDBaby and others help independent musicians stand on the same footing as their signed counterparts, the bands on labels have more capital and access to the press. Those matter.
Simply throwing some songs up on MySpace enables artists to distribute music to their audience easily. That does not, however, help an artist find the audience.

Spin’s band of the day is DriveShaft. Yes, the DriveShaft from Lost, featuring a bass-playing heroin-addicted hobbit.
We’ll try to catch up on this week’s Lost along with all of the other TV from the last week (including TAR, Studio 60 and South Park) later.