34.1 - LCA 2007 Flashing Google Badge mix

This was to be my third year mixing at the Linux Conference Australia , one of the largest conferences of Free and Open Source Software developers in the world. The 2005 (1 2 3 ) and 2006 (1 2 ) conferences were different for two reasons. The first was that the venue was a small cafe or club – it was an informal party for anyone wanting to come along, either to perform or listen. The second was that I mixed music that, strictly and legally, I had no right to use.

In 2007 those two things changed. In 2006, Pia had set me the challenge of mixing music that was licensed under a compatible Creative Commons license. I was aiming for a mix that I could not only legally perform and give away, but that other people could use in their own material – background music to podcasts, video dubs of the party, whatever. Magnatune has a large selection of music licensed under the Creative Commons attribution-noncommercial-sharealike license, which is pretty much what I wanted; there are, of course, other places such as PodSafeAudio and Kahvi that have similar licensing schemes. Armed with $125.04 AUD worth of Magnatune music, I was ready to give this a go.

After nearly missing the boat of LCA 2006, Google made a big splash this year by paying for and hosting the Conference Party at a big venue on campus. I’ve heard that the bar tab was up around $12,000. This also changed the nature of the evening; gone was the ‘come along and play us some of your work’ format, in was the ‘here’s some live music from people using open source software, enjoy!’ and ‘here’s a video of the Computing Science and Engineering faculty’s revue, which we’re going to play with no soundtrack’ format. I’d emailed, messaged and spoken to the organisers on a number of occasions, asking if they wanted me to mix on the night, but had received no formal reply either way.

In the end it became academic. For a variety of reasons detailed in my blog, I couldn’t get MixMeister working in time to actually do any mixing at the conference. I was sad at this. But I wasn’t going to let it die; the Monday after I returned from the conference and had some time, I put together this mix. I hope it captures some of the more fun, funky flavour of the conference party.

Completed 23 Jan 2007

Styles

• Trance
• Club

Files

• 34 - LCA 2007 flashing google badge mix.ogg - 160 kbps - 89.3 MB

Total play length: 01:17:17

Track listing

I welcome any suggestions, criticisms and recommendations for new music to listen to. I will consider doing specific mixes for people, but this is only a hobby. Hope to hear from you.