Sam Javanrouh is a fantastic photographer, and you should really bookmark his site, and check it every day.

Daily Dose of Imagery.

One of my favs

and check out the Scrambled Pedestrians at Yonge and Dundas...be sure to watch the video.

Perhaps my fav photojournalism site. The Boston Globe got it RIGHT with The Big Picture.

Check it

I'm not updating this site very frequently these days, but i have a number of things on the go. Please scroll down for the latest stuff:

For concert updates, new recordings, tabla news etc, please fan-up on the Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ed-Hanley/123237744417310?sk=events

I'm working on a pair of new albums on my blog 52 Kaidas, which, next to the Facebook artist page, is the most active, and is where you should go now:
http://52kaidas.blogspot.com/

There is a Twitter, if that's your thing...reserved for mini-updates to the blog and things of artistic interest:
http://twitter.com/#!/talawallah

For tabla repair info, incl how-to videos, please go here:
http://www.ed-hanley.com/index.php/Workshops/Tabla-Repair.html

Please note: I don't repair tabla...but I can show you how to tune, pull or rehead your drum. There is a fellow in Toronto doing great reheading work, as well as a good source of heads. Drop me a line for info. http://www.ed-hanley.com/index.php/Contact/

Here are 2 photo galleries of interest to tabla players:
Haridas Vhatkar's tabla shop, Mumbai: http://www.ed-hanley.com/photoalbums/haridas-tabla-shop/album/index.html

Tabla reheading w Ravi Jadoonanan:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/fbx/?set=a.10150544056755214.648740.664005213&l=01a7d8a2c7

I teach. In person, and online (Skype, iChat). Please get in touch if you're interested: http://www.ed-hanley.com/index.php/Contact/

Here, for your listening pleasure, is my first solo album (please consider supporting the next album by buying this album!):

I perform with the band Autorickshaw: http://www.autorickshaw.ca

New way to buy music: Bandcamp

I'm pretty excited about Bandcamp , and here's why:

1. We get paid directly (now with creditcards too!)

Our music is available on iTunes and a bajillion other download sites thanks to digital distribution from CDBaby. However, if you buy a track/album on iTunes, here's what happens to your money: Apple gets a cut, CDBaby gets a cut, and we get the rest. If you buy an mp3 on CDbaby directly, CDBaby takes a pretty big cut (now 25%). Then we wait, oftentimes months, to get paid.

Bandcamp allows fans to buy the music directly from us with a creditcard or Paypal account. Paypal, she does take a cut, but it's far smaller than iTunes+CDbaby. 

PLUS, if you live somewhere where there's no iTunes store yet (Paraguay, perhaps?) you can still buy music.

"This is great for you guys, but what's in it for me?" you ask? Read on.

2. Bandcamp allows us to allow you to name your own price*

credit cards! name your price! sweet!

*We can set a minimum price for each album/track, which is great, because now we can sell our tracks for less than anyone else (insert maniacal laughter here), BUT, if you're feeling extra generous (or maybe owe us money), you can pay whatever you'd like. $50 for an album? Feel free. We'll send you something extra for sure.

We may, on occassion, even make a track totally free every once in awhile. A musical easter egg, if you will.

3. You can download higher quality tracks than almost anywhere else

Mp3? Meh. AAC? ok...better. How about 3 different lossless formats? For the same price? Now we're talking. And now we're audio nerds.

in digital audio, bigger is better

4. Bandcamp includes all the metadata

Translation: album name, artist, cover art etc appear on your iPod/iTunes app just like regular old iTunes downloads.

Ok, this isn't a big deal. I have lots of songs by Unkown Artist. I even have their album 'Unknown Album'! Track 05 is my fav, though my nephew likes Track 11_2a.mp3 best.

not a helpful library...

5. Bandcamp will allow us to instantly release a song or an album

In the old model, CDBaby has to get a physical CD, rip it, send it out to all the digital stores (who then sit on it for weeks because we're a small fish) before it trickles out into the world. Plus, currently, the CDBaby rip-and-ship time is pretty outrageous, since they broke their website trying to upgrade it. Oops.

Now, we can go directly from studio to store. A live album, 2 days after the concert anyone?

6. Download codes

yum indeed

You go home, enter the url on the back of the card, enter the code on the back of the card, choose your format (see #3 above) and viola, download begins. Of course, you don't get the artwork with the download (except the album cover, just like an iTunes download) but how many downloaded albums come with artwork nowadays? That said, we may make the full album art for our next album available as a free .pdf on our site (digital booklet).

Bandcamp

-Ed

Bandcamp

Someone has finally done it: a web app that embeds the SNL 'More Cowbell' skit into any song you upload.

Joel Selvin, San Francisco Chronicle Senior Pop Music Critic

Whether you know it or not, that compact disc you just copied to your MP3 player is only partially there.

With the CD on its way out and computer files taking over as the primary means of hearing recorded music, the artificial audio of MP3s is quickly becoming the primary way people listen to music. Apple already has sold 100 million iPods, and more than a billion MP3 files are traded every month through the Internet.

• [ MP3: Just because it's digital, doesn't mean it sounds good.] (podcast link illustrating the degradition in sound quality as file sizes are reduced) 

But the music contained in these computer files represents less than 10 percent of the original music on the CDs. In its journey from CD to MP3 player, the music has been compressed by eliminating data that computer analysis deems redundant, squeezed down until it fits through the Internet pipeline.

When even the full files on the CDs contain less than half the information stored to studio hard drives during recording, these compressed MP3s represent a minuscule fraction of the actual recording. For purists, it's the dark ages of recorded sound. 

• read the whole article here