Daily Archives: February 3, 2022

Issued on: 01/02/2022 - 05:44

Bratislava (AFP) Before she became one of the world's top skiers, Petra Vlhova was a little girl with a speech impediment and a love for riding motorbikes growing up in the shadow of the Tatra mountains in Slovakia.

Her father and manager, Igor Vlha, who ran a canteen at the Jasna resort where Vlhova made her first outings on the slopes, remembers that she learned skiing "way before she could talk".

"We were not crazy about skiing. She learned to ski on her own, under the supervision of her older brother Boris," he told AFP.

She was just three years old at the time and the family lived near Liptovsky Mikulas, a picturesque town in northern Slovakia.

Skiing was not her only passion -- she also liked climbing trees, building snow forts and playing football and ice hockey.

She soon realised she would need to concentrate on skiing to improve.

Her first coach, Jan Garaj, remembers her as "spirited on the slope".

"I remember her very first competition when she set off, quickly passed the first gate, then the second, and raced down fearlessly without making any turns.

"After crossing the finish line, she raised her arms and cried, lisping: 'I'm first!'," Garaj told AFP.

Since then, Vlhova has had a meteoric career and expectations are high for the Beijing Winter Olympics.

In 2021, she won the World Cup overall title -- the first Slovak skier to do.

The 26-year-old specialises in technical events such as the slalom and giant slalom.

She has six World Championships medals to her name but, so far, has drawn a blank at the Olympics despite taking part in both the 2014 and 2018 Games.

As she was growing up, Garaj always carried a screwdriver in his ski boots to tighten a loose ski binding now and then. It was how Petra and her first coach established a ritual.

"Before her races, we took turns throwing the screwdriver into the snow with the handle end up. She loved the ritual, and stuck to it for years," Garaj said.

From the age of 10 to 15, she trained in the northern city of Martin, coached by Rastislav Mazgut, who called her "open and straightforward."

"If she did not like something during training, she would immediately confront me with it. She only cared about becoming the best," he told AFP.

Mazgut revealed that as a teenager, Petra hated running but understood that it was necessary to stay in shape.

When it came to ski practice, however, she never complained.

"While many youngsters were pushed into skiing by their parents, Petra loved to ski and was keen on learning more," Mazgut said.

Petra grew up close to her brother Boris and his friends, their summers filled with endless shenanigans and their winters spent skiing.

"We had a great childhood, we always got along well. We would play soccer or ride motorbikes together," Boris told AFP.

"I still look after her," he added, saying he deals with her finances and also serves as a driver and cook for the team.

Petra always has the same thing for breakfast, he said -- rolled oats, fruit, plain yogurt with peanut butter -- while she enjoys pasta for lunch and the occasional steak for dinner.

She is an avid motorbike fan and still finds the time to ride her off-road racing bike through the woods in the off-season.

Her brother is always close at hand when she is competing.

"In the seconds before setting off, she is concentrated 100 percent," he said.

"It's hard to describe but it's like she's in a trance. She can ski the track blindfolded."

2022 AFP

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'Spirited on the slope': The downhill rise of Petra Vlhova - FRANCE 24

Black Country, New Road are about to go from a seven-piece musical collective to a six-piece. But not before they drop a sonic masterpiece in Ants From Up There. With vocalist Isaac Woods imminent resignation announced just four days prior to the records release, this is the final project that will come from the band in its original form.

Since releasing their debut album For The First Time in 2021, Black Country, New Road have enjoyed both a cult following and widespread critical acclaim. So, the pressure was on when it came to their sophomore release. And, on Ants From Up There, the band prove theyre not ones to disappoint.

Breaking down the structures that curtail the thinking of so many modern artists is a theme thats chimed loudly throughout Black Country, New Roads journey. But, its on their second release where they truly seem to escape musics binaries. In the most fantastic way, the tracks are a collection of surreal oddities that clatter, jangle and pounce on you without ever sounding out of place. Chaos Space Marine fuses the familiar sounds of classical music alongside big band percussion and traces of psychedelic folk, and it just works.

Concorde and Bread Song are more measured offerings. The first embraces plodding, country-like guitars and the metaphor of the Concorde Fallacy to successfully portray the yearning for a lost relationship. Meanwhile Bread Songs minimalist approach with undulating guitars and floating drum beats has the potential to put you in a trance.

If theres any track on Ants From Up There that crosses into the pop dimension, its Good Will Hunting. Still retaining swirling folk and post-rock sounds, Good Will Hunting is the records most mainstream-friendly song. But Black Country, New Road dont stay in that space for long: Mark's Theme is strictly a not-pop moment. The poignant instrumental is a short eulogy to saxophonist Lewis Evanss late uncle, who died of COVID-19 during the pandemic. Opening with an engulfing saxophone solo performed by Evans himself, Marks Theme is a graceful memorial that not only adds stark emotional depth to the album but also showcases the bands intricate ability to capture moments through sound.

The Place Where He Inserted the Blade and the 12-minute track Basketball Shoes conclude the album as if it were a movie. With cinematic storytelling, musical crescendos that mimic the climax of a narrative and comprehensive sonic resolutions that tie up every loose end, Black Country, New Road complete their second album with no experimental stones unturned.

Often, bands release an album, and its overly familiar, like youve heard it all before. But Black Country, New Road prove that there is still much to uncover through music, just as long as youre prepared to take enough of a risk.

As Isaac Wood steps away from Black Country, New Road and the band embark on a new path together, the release is bittersweet. Bitter because the trail ends here for the current incarnation of Black Country, New Road who have proved themselves as an exquisite musical unit. But, sweet because nothing could take away from the true artistry the sevem-piece achieve on Ants From Up There.

Ants From Up There arrives 4 February via Ninja Tune.

Issue Two of the Gigwise Print magazine is on sale now! Buy it here.

The rest is here:

Album Review: Black Country, New Road - Ants From Up There | Gigwise - Gigwise

When veteran rocker Neil Young said last week that he would remove his music from Spotify over COVID-19 misinformation being touted by comedian and podcaster Joe Rogan there, it caused a lot of people to rethink their relationships with the streaming audio platform.

Youngs action inspired only a few other musicians to do the same, including Joni Mitchell and Nils Lofgren, a guitarist for both Youngs sometime-backup band Crazy Horse and Bruce Springsteens E-Street Band. But it also caused Spotifys stock to take a $2 billion tumble and send subscribers troubled by Rogan giving unchallenged time to COVID quackery to seek alternatives.

Spotify is the streaming-audio leader with 381 million active monthly users worldwide and 150 million paid subscribers. Rogans presence is part of the companys drive to also own the podcasting space. He was reportedly paid $100 million to podcast exclusively for Spotify and has 11 million listeners, which partly explains why Youngs me-or-Joe ultimatum went the way it did.

WAIT, THERES MORE: Read more from Dwight Silverman online

There are other reasons besides misinformation-peddling to consider alternatives to Spotify. Other services offer better music quality, and Spotify is notorious for not paying artists much per streaming play. Actually, the entire streaming-music business is stingy, paying at fractions of a penny per play, but Spotifys rate is way down a list of payouts recently compiled by Digital Music News, coming in well behind the competing Apple Music and Tidal.

Ive compiled a list of Spotify competitors, how much each costs and their various strengths and weaknesses. If youre looking to listen elsewhere, you have quite a few choices. And since they all have trial periods some as long as three months you can test them concurrently and determine which works best for you.

music.apple.com

3 months free trial, $9.99 monthly, $14.99 family, bundles available

If youre an iPhone, iPad or Mac user, you likely know already about Apple Music, even if its not your streaming service of choice. Born as iTunes back when you actually paid to own music, it is now the second-biggest streaming service behind Spotify. Apple recently made news by beefing up its audio quality at no extra charge, offering lossless songs (they are less affected by audio compression) and, for many titles, 3D Spatial Audio, a k a Dolby Atmos. But you must have the right Apple-owned hardware to hear it.

But generally, Apple Music isnt limited to Apple devices. The company has an Android app, and iTunes for Windows is still available, though the lossless/3D audio music isnt available on those platforms. And, as with most services, theres a web-based version that allows you to listen anywhere to its 90-million-song catalog. Listening to Apples massive podcast selection requires a separate app.

music.amazon.com

Music Prime included with $119 Prime membership; Unlimited has a 3-month trial, $9.99 monthly, $14.99 family plan, discounts for Prime members

If youve got an Amazon Prime membership, youre already got access to Music Prime but if you listen to a lot of music, youve probably run into its limitations. With standard-definition audio quality, its really a subset of Music Unlimited, and doesnt have nearly as many songs or artists. But both are designed to work very well with Amazons Alexa voice assistant.

As with Apple Music, the Unlimited tier offers a huge selection of songs in lossless and 3D audio. In fact, it was one of the first mainstream music services to offer higher-resolution audio. Young, upon his departure from Spotify, was pushing Amazon for the quality of its sound.

music.youtube.com

1 month trial, $9.99 monthly, $14.99 family, $4.99 student, bundles including YouTube Premium.

While YouTube offers an ad-supported free music service, it has one drawback thats so annoying that its almost not worth considering: You must keep the app open on your phone to listen to music. Switch away to another app or a web browser and the music stops. No multitasking for you!

The Premium tier gives you full background-playing capabilities for its 60-million-song catalog, but there are no lossless or 3D-audio options. However, if you are willing to pay a couple bucks more each month, you can get a subscription to the larger YouTube Premium service that lets you play videos ad-free and gives you Music Premium as well. If youre a fan of YouTube video, thats a great bargain.

tidal.com

Free tier, 30 days free trial for paid tiers, HiFi $9.99 monthly, HiFi+ $19.99 monthly. Family, other plans available.

Launched in 2015 by rapper Jay-Z, Tidal is now owned by Block Inc., the financial transaction company originally known as Square. From the beginning, Tidal emphasized better audio quality and bigger payouts to artists for streams. Both remain true today.

Tidals free tier, which was only recently introduced, offers its 80 million songs in lower sound quality and with limited ads. But once you move to the first paid tier, called HiFi, audio jumps to CD quality and you have access to 350,000 music videos. At HiFi+, things really get interesting, as Tidal offers different audio formats that are far above the quality level of other services. There are 3D audio and lossless formats, but also Tidals own Master format, in which the artists certify that master recordings were used. Youll need serious headphones or speakers to hear the difference. If I were switching from Apple Music, Id most likely choose Tidal.

All these services focus on mainstream music, but if your primary interest is discovering new tracks from independent artists, youll want to take a look at services such as Soundcloud (soundcloud.com) and Bandcamp (bandcamp.com). Both cater to musicians on the rise, so expect audio quality to vary.

And there are many, many niche streaming services for fans of all kinds of non-mainstream music. For example, I subscribe to an internet radio station called DI.fm, originally known as Digitally Imported. Dating to 1999, the service features trance and electronica, with dozens of channels and styles. I like to listen to the Psy Chillout channel when Im writing.

Also, check out Soma.fm, another radio station from the earliest days of internet radio. It has a wider variety of genres, from electronica to lounge to Americana to indie rock to metal. It functions similarly to public radio, relying on donations to keep the bits flowing.

dsilverman@outlook.com

twitter.com/dsilverman

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Voting with your wallet on Spotify? Here are some alternatives. - Houston Chronicle

By Grant Golden

February 2, 2022

Though it was a cold night in Raleigh on Sunday, the air inside of the Ritz was electrified with excitement for Courtney Barnetts return to Oak City. Alongside Philadelphia-based songwriter Shamir, Barnett and crew commanded attention through clever songwriting, engaging crowd work, and a whole lot of energy.

Shamir opened up the evening with his 2021 single Gay Agenda, setting the tone for his set full of tracks that outline radical acceptance and traverse an array of soundscapes. Shamirs career started as a dance artist, but hes gradually shifted toward lo-fi rock with elements of his electronic foundations creeping into the mix. The juxtaposition of these sounds made for a compelling set of tunes, weaving in-and-out of power-pop, post-punk and rock. Several tracks from Shamirs forthcoming album Heterosexuality made it into the set, but crowd members perked up for tracks like Tears Fall in Euphoria. Unfortunately, the set was abruptly cut short and guitars were unplugged leading to Shamirs announcement that their time was apparently off.

The abrupt ending made the half-hour set break feel all that much longer, but any frustrations were quelled as Barnett took the stage and opened her set with Rae Street, the opening track from her latest album, Things Take Time, Take Time. What followed was a 75-minute career-spanning set highlighting some of Barnetts most affecting and energetic songs. Barnetts lyricism tackles both the most mundane aspects of life and societys most universal fears and feelings. This wide array of subject matter pairs with Barnetts blas style of vocals to make those hard-hitting lines feel like a gut punch.

While Barnetts set featured a slew of songs from Things Take Time, longtime fans also got their fill of throwback tunes. Fan favorites like Avant Gardner and Depreston served as standout tracks from the evening, with Depreston closing with a chill-inducing sing-a-long. But for as many lulled quiet moments Barnett has, theres an equal pull of raucous rock outings that keep fans head-bobbing and swaying along. Pedestrian at Best pulled attendees out of their trance and propelled them forward with fuzzed-out guitars and snapping drum beats, with Barnett stepping up like the international rockstar she truly is.

Between songs, Barnetts affable banter kept the crowd rapt; she pointed out some custom-made masks, remarked on the differences between hoodies and jumpers, and ran through a list of celebrity birthdays after leading a sing-a-long for her front-of-house tech. She closed out her set with Write A List of Things To Look Forward To, before quickly returning to the stage for a two-song encore. Oh The Night brought the bustling crowd to hushed tones and Before You Gotta Go served as the perfect pick-me-up to end the night. Its rare to see an act close out completely with their newest songs like Barnett did, but fans didnt seem to mind.

Setlist:

Rae StreetSunfair SundownAvant GardenerNeed a Little TimeSmall PoppiesTurning GreenDeprestonHeres The ThingWalkin on EggshellsOn ScriptLance JrElevator OperatorPedestrian at BestIf I Dont Hear From You TonightHistory EraserWrite a List of Things to Look Forward To

Encore:

Oh The NightBefore You Gotta Go

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Originally posted here:

Courtney Barnett performed a career-spanning set highlighting some of her most affecting and energetic songs in Raleigh - CLTure

I've had my fill of vendors tossing about the phrase "customer success" too casually - so I did something about it. In my post, Attention vendors - please stop the customer success hype train, unless you have these six proof points,

I created a high bar. I don't know of any vendor that's achieved them all, and that includes diginomica.

My hope? We'd quit talking about newly-created "customer success" (re)organizations as finished products. But I had another agenda: what about the inspiring examples? What happens when a vendor truly excels in one (or more) of these areas?

When I asked Where is your publicly-shared benefits maturity model? I already knew of a couple good ones, including the Sage Intacct subscription and SaaS vertical. What David Appel and his team have done here, guiding customers through a SaaS maturity model, is highly instructive - and much of it is in the public domain. When Appel writes about building the ideal tech finance stack, the do's and don'ts, he draws on extensive customer documentation.

It starts with the ability to document individual customer benefits, in an effective slide show format. I wrote about those in 2019: Fall event highlight - Sage Intacct's SaaS industry customers reveal subscription business lessons - and results. Take this example from customer Nasuni, as of 2019:

Let's face it: most slides of this kind are beyond dreary, but this one gets it done. You've got the issues, the before, the action, and the results, including:

Individual customer benefits are crucial to document (The do's and don'ts of the customer use case - the bedrock of B2B content strategy). But to really change your customer success program, these individual gains must add up to something else: an aggregated maturity model. Appel's team has accomplished this, via publicly-shared graphics like this one:

During a recent Teams chat, I got more context from Appel. SaaS startups must tread carefully: there are a record number of fundings, and "the money supply has increased 39 percent in the last 18 months". But the danger of the bubble is real. Why does a SaaS maturity model matter? Because it keeps you grounded in reality, not in the trance of (over?) valuation. It keeps you competitive on fundamentals. Appel shared some areas they push customers on:

This whole concept of "data is the new oil," of how you get the reporting out of the back end, to have the analytics to win the space. There's always there's some luck in all this - that's life. But having information to make more educated decisions is far better.

Differentiate in business model and product? That's a must. But it's not necessarily enough anymore. Appel:

There's also a tremendous amount of differentiation in billing, and the customer experience... Most of the wood behind the arrow is enabling all those billing scenarios, because it's in one tech stack.

If we're going to talk maturity models, we must speak to results. So, Mr. Appel, give us your best pitch?

We handle over 300 different types of subscription billing scenarios. We produce investor metrics against that up to 80 percent faster, and 40 percent off what it would cost if you bought the FinOps tech stack parts separately... We had 26 IPOs of Sage Intacct SaaS customers last year.

Hammering out success metrics is vital. Here, Appel credits the guidance of two accredited investment firms, Bessemer Venture Partners and KeyBanc Capital Markets ("They're telling us from all their investor road shows what to do, then we're productizing that.") But verticals are not just models and metrics. To succeed, they must also be energized communities. The Sage Intacct SaaS vertical team puts on plenty of regional (and virtual) events. But Appel says the best communities also self-organize:

Some person who's got the personality to be a maximizer gets it started - that snowball starts really small. But everybody wants help, particularly in this strange new virtual world that we live in. So all these Slack communities have formed up. We are enablers of those Slack communities, as well as having created our own, in which people are asking each other all kinds of questions. Essentially, it's 'How do I get better?'

A vendor can ruin the dialogue with an overly-branded tone:

Our involvement is not, 'Here's how Sage Intacct can help you get better,' because that's trite and lame. It's "Here's what we've learned from all of our customers on best practices. And by the way, here's some peers to talk to, and then contribute.'

I could devote an article to all the milestones and metrics in the SaaS maturity slide (see Appel's post, Managing SaaS Metrics Throughout the Company Lifecycle (Part 2), for more on that). Instead, I asked Appel for the biggest stumbling blocks companies run into:

The three biggest things come in as: you create technical debt in the process, that is not flexible enough to adjust it as acquisitions come in, or new products come in, or competitors come out with new billing models, and you need to react and adjust it.

Number two: it's not clear who owns any of these things, and so responsibility becomes diffuse on where is going to be the system of record for the data? And then how are you going to report against it?

The third obstacle? Managing the human side of change:

How are the executive teams ensuring the change is happening, and incenting it, so people aren't threatened by change, or feel like they lose power from change, but rather buy into enabling the change to happen, as maturation crosses all these processes?

In my challenge to vendors on customer success, I also asked: Where is your embedded benchmarking by industry and job role? Sage Intacct's SaaS vertical has something pretty close to that, via a "Digital Board Book" dashboard:

We can debate the precise value of dashboards, but: having those metrics appear as either green or red is, in my mind, a valuable addition. If that doesn't motivate teams into action, I'm not sure what would.

Some might argue that the SaaS industry has done well enough that this type of benchmarking isn't important. I'll push back on that. You should never fall prey to your own press clippings. Give me Appel's mentality instead: SaaS companies should bear down on process excellence, informed decision making with analytics, serving the heck out of their customers, and executing across their maturity model. Otherwise, when their niche shakes out, they might not be left standing.

Yes, the end goal of an IPO gives SaaS companies more direction than some industries. But I believe you can build this kind of maturity model in any industry, as long as you have the data - and the customer relationships. I asked Sage Intacct's Peter Olson, who was also on the call, for his take on our discussion:

I think David's done a great job of highlighting the value prop that we provide by being the facilitator. It's not about trying to cram a specific software down their throat - it's lead them to best practices, and show them that we're part - and can be a part of that - best practice approach.

Appel's closing comments hit on the same theme: there is a better way than the hard sell.

Everybody wants to be valid and relevant. What we're trying to do is give a voice to people on how they've been valid and relevant to their companies, and how they can be valid and relevant and show that competency to help out their peers.

Of course, we're a software company trying to sell software, but if you only make it about that, again, it becomes banal and trite. If you do it in a way in which you help people, other people see that, and want to be part of it.

There are many aspects to customer success; no one has it all figured out. But I believe this approach gives us plenty to apply.

End note: I've challenged vendors to provide their maturity models publicly. If you have another approach you'd like to share, contact me.

More:

Want to move from customer success hype to action? Start with a maturity model - the Sage Intacct SaaS vertical example - Diginomica

Irlam Live is back for its sixth year!

Four days over the Queens Platinum Jubilee weekend Thursday 2nd June, Friday 3rd June, Saturday 4th June and Sunday 5th June 2022 at Manchesters Princes Park looks set to be its biggest year yet!

Four great days one awesome festival. Headliners for this year include Bananarama and The Feeling. Also playing the main stage is Heather Small, Hue & Cry, Nadine Coyle, N-Trance, Abz from 5ive, Ben from Phats and Small and lots, lots more.

It all kicks off on Thursday 2nd June with Cool Britannia. This is the Queens Platinum Jubilee day, where we have a full day of fun for the whole family including a host of the UKs finest tribute bands. Queen (of course) will headline Thursdays main stage with lots of flag waving, and we have one of the best with Real Magic Queen. Also playing the main stage is Revival Abba, Aladinsane (Bowie), Take Off That, LMX (Little Mix) and Tony Lewis as Robbie Williams. Lots of things happening off stage too, including a fantastic model making workshop from the Oscar-winning Aardman Animations, the team behind Wallace & Gromit, Chicken Run, Shaun the Sheep, Morph and Creature Comforts.

Friday 3rd June is Totally Tributes. Friday generally has an indie feel. We have the UKs leading Oasis tribute band NOASIS headlining the main stage for the second time. Also playing is Runaway Killers, Ultimate Stone Roses, Bob Marley Experience, Small Weller and Amy Winehouse Alive. And once again lots of things happening off stage too. The dinosaurs are coming to town, with Chomp the UKs largest T.Rex making a terrifying walkabout.

Saturday 4th June sees Banarama headlining the main stage with a great line-up playing throughout the day. N-Trance, Brutus Golds Love Train, Abz Love from 5ive and Ben from Phats & Small will also make a welcomed return. Manchester Ska Foundation and Scratch completes the line-up.

Sunday 5th June Playing the main stage are The Feeling, Heather Small, Nadine Coyle from Girls Aloud, Hue & Cry and Doctor and the Medics will play for the first time since 2017.

The Grassroots Stage is back for 2022 with ten hand-picked unsigned local bands and singers. Its a real thrill for us to give the local bands the opportunity to play the Irlam Live Music Festival.

As well as everything on the main stage, there is lots going on off-stage too. There is a funfair, Princesses and Superhero walkabouts, Bubbleologist, Street Ping-Pong, a fab DJ workshop and James & Dobby are back with their awesome pop-up silent discos.

A spokesperson said, Were excited that Irlam Live 2022 is returning and attracting big names that brings so much enjoyment to many of us. The response to this years event has been positively overwhelming and just confirms that Irlam Live is now firmly on the Summer festival map for an unmissable weekend of incredible live music and entertainment for all ages.

A festival you dont want to miss!

Tickets for Irlam Live 2022 are available here.

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Irlam Live 2022 returns this Summer over the Queen's Platinum Jubilee Weekend - About Manchester