Lucas Rocha

history | awk '{a[$2]++}END{for(i in a){print a[i] " " i}}' | sort -rn | head
130 vim
106 cd
74 ls
33 make
28 git
24 grep
19 sudo
18 rm
12 svn
11 touch

Yeah, yeah, I love vim!

It’s time to tell where I’m going. I’m sure this is not a surprise anymore to many :-)

I’m joining Havoc’s team at LiTL to work on a very exciting project.

Unfortunately,  I can’t tell anything about the project for now (actually, I think it will take some time until we can say anything). But yes, it’s GNOME-related and involves the development of a consumer product comprising hardware, software, and online services.

I’ll stay in Finland until June doing remote work and then move to London to work on a LiTL office there.

Woohoo!

I really enjoyed my time at Nokia and Finland. I was very lucky to directly work with very talented and generous people. I’ve made some good friends here and it will be hard to say goodbye soon. My last day at Nokia is March 28th.

It’s too early to tell about what I’ll be doing in the near future. Exciting stuff, for sure. :-P

Update: Xan, Tommi and Johan (who doesn’t have a blog) are leaving too. See you around guys! :-)

It’s been a long time I don’t bring a musical snapshot. Actually, it’s been more than 5 months since my last one. Wow. Because of that, it’s kind of difficult to summarize everything I’ve been listening to. My addiction to jazz is getting stronger every day. I bought Ken Burns’ Jazz documentary (quite nice!). During my vacation in Brazil, I had the chance to buy quite many albums from brazilian artists. I also tried some african and mexican stuff. So, here it goes…

Jazz

Shit, the list is so long that I don’t know where to start… Freddie Hubbard, Miles Davis, Joe Henderson, John Coltrane, Art Blakey, Sonny Rollins, Cannonball Adderley, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonius Monk, Max Roach, Kenny Dorham, Ornette Coleman, Ron Carter, Herbie Hancock, Jaco Pastorius, Wayne Shorter, … I’ve listened to more than one album with each of those guys. I have some special remarks though. Hubbard’s Straight Life album is just amazing (featuring an all-star band with Hancock, Henderson, Benson, Carter, and DeJohnette). I became a big fan of Joe Henderson after listening to his Inner Urge album - very Coltrane-ish. He even has the same sidemen than in Coltrane’s most famous albums: McCoy Tyner and Mr. Elvin Jones. Sonny Rollins’ Saxophone Colossus is a great album. I took some time to listen to Coltrane’s My favourite things some more times (this one only loses to A Love Supreme, my personal favourite jazz album). Ornette Coleman’s Tomorrow Is the Question! is quite interesting too. Got the classic Savoy Live Sessions of Charlie Parker, the roots of bebop (such Koko, Ornithology, and so on). Here’s the winners list:

• Inner Urge (Joe Henderson)
• Straight Life (Freddie Hubbard)
• Red Clay (Freddie Hubbard)
• Somethin’ Else (Cannonball Adderley)
• My Favourite Things (John Coltrane)
• Complete Savoy Live Recordings (Charlie Parker)
• Saxophone Colossus (Sonny Rollins)

African

I’m from the most african state in Brazil. African culture is simply part of me. I listened a lot to two Richard Bona albums. Quite musical stuff. The afrobeat of Femi Kuti is really nice.

• Tiki (Richard Bona)
• Reverence (Richard Bona)
• Shoki Shoki (Femi Kuti)

Mexican

Federico was really kind and sent me some really cool initial references of Mexical music. This is just the beginning of my research on the mexican world.

• La Sandunga (Lila Downs)
• De México y del mundo (Chavela Vargas)

Brazilian

During my vacation in Brazil, I had the opportunity to buy quite many albums from brazilian artists. Got two new Mônica Salmaso’s albums. I’m a big fan of her. I finally managed to buy Max de Castro’s Samba Raro. This is one of the electronic music albums I’ve ever listened to. Really nice compositions, high quality arrangements. The latest Djavan album Matizes is quite boring. Carlinhos Brown’s A gente ainda não sonhou is cool. Highlights:

• Céu (Céu)
• Iaiá (Mônica Salmaso)
• Noites de gala, samba na rua (Mônica Salmaso)
• Samba Raro (Max de Castro)
• Nêga (Luciana Mello)
• A gente ainda não sonhou (Carlinhos Brown)

My vacation is over since January 15th. I’m still catching up with GNOME and work stuff and specially the timezone (jet lag of hell!). It was just wonderful to be in Brazil for more than 20 days. I met my parents, my brother and quite many relatives and friends. I basically stayed in three cities there: Rio de Janeiro, Salvador and Arantina (a very small town in Minas Gerais state). I took many pictures, have a look at this album.

…to everyone who wished me “happy birthday!” yesterday! I’m not a big fan of birthdays but it’s always nice to hear/read kind words from so many people :-)

I’m only 21 now! Can you believe it!? he he he

I’m flying to Brazil tomorrow on vacation. I won’t be very responsive for anything until I come back to Helsinki on January 14th. So, this is a good time to wish everyone a very nice Christmas and a wonderful New Year! 2007 was definitely an amazing year for me. I hope 2008 to be even better! Woohoo!

In the last few weeks, I’ve got three nice black devices:

• Nokia N81 8Gb: I really like the design and mechanics of this device. The software has some additions but nothing really groundbreaking.
• PlayStation 3: I’m having lots of fun with both games that came with the console: Motor Storm and Resistance: Fall of Men.
• Macbook Black: Very nice design and hardware (with this “Santa Rosa” architecture). I’ve installed Gutsy. Unfortunately, I needed to rebuild the kernel 4-5 times in order to make keyboard, touchpad and sound to work. I don’t have patience to build kernel anymore. I think I’m getting old… :-P

Now I’m prepared for the winter! Woohoo!

So, after almost 2 months since my first Musical Snapshot, I think it’s a good time to bring an update of what I’ve been listening to. In general, I’ve focused more on jazz artists.

I’ve been thinking a lot about some general aspects of music production nowadays. I have this feeling that the recent (good) albums have been failing (in different levels) on bringing a more emotional and deep musical experience. Today, most albums have this annoying super-high level of perfection. There’s almost no space for those wonderful little mistakes, improvisation, background noises, emotion, … When you listen to a jazz album from the 50’s, 60’s or 70’s, you have this feeling of a deep musical engagement from the musicians. The recordings were kind of noisy but very powerful. When I listen to some modern jazz albums, even with very good musicians, I have the impression that the technique comes first, nothing really groundbraking.

Another aspect that I’ve been thinking a lot is the use of electronic elements in music. Electronic music is cheap, it’s easy. In my opinion, there’s this natural tendency of electronic music to be shitty. The cultural relevancy of electronic music is undeniable. But not everything is music. This is why I tend to prefer artists who play with a band with real instruments instead of just a DJ. For entertainment, electronic music works fine most of the time but for listening, rarely. At least this is my experience.

Update: By all wrote above I do not mean that: 1) any jazz music is wonderful (independently of the period); 2) any electronic music is crap; 3) I’m a purist and only enjoy music with accoustic instruments; 4) I only enjoy the “old stuff”. My point about electronic music is that with very little effort and knowledge, you can come up with “something”. Culturally speaking, this is amazing (power to everyone to express themselves). However, musically speaking, this can be really bad in many cases. On music, what I really care is the “mood”, the “feeling” and the “truth” in it.

Jazz

I have this long road ahead with the fundamentals of jazz. So, I’ve been choosing the “classics” to “understand” some of the major artists. Coltrane is still on the top of my favorites. I’ve listened to more than 7 of his albums. Wes Montgomery was a wonderful finding for me (I’ve listened to 6 of his albums so far). Miles Davis’ “Bitches Brew” album is freakingly amazing. Here are some highlights (from the quite long list of albums I’ve listened to):

• Blue Train (John Coltrane)
• Bitches Brew (Miles Davis)
• Full House (Wes Montgomery)
• The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery (Wes Montgomery)
• Alive (Chick Corea Akoustic Band)
• Complete Live at the Five Spot (Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane)
• Plays Duke Ellington (Thelonious Monk)

Funk and Acid Jazz

Following the acid jazz path, I’ve listened to 2 albums of The Brand New Heavies. Interesting stuff. On the funky front, I’ve tried some more albums of Earth Wind & Fire, Funkadelic, Parliament, Maceo Parker, and others. The Meters is really root-ish funk music. If you like funk, you gotta listen to some of their albums.

• All about funk (The Brand New Heavies)
• Spirit (Earth Window & Fire)
• Funk Overload (Maceo Parker)

R&B and Soul

Not many news here. I’ve listened to 3 albums of Amel Larrieux. Good music, sometimes too “cheap”.

• Infinite Possibilities (Amel Larrieux)

Brazilian music
I’ve been re-trying some old albums of Djavan. There are some recent albums that I don’t really enjoy but the older stuff is amazing. Specially “Luz”, “Coisa de Acender” and “Novena”. The new Maria Rita album “Samba Meu” is quite good (as usual). If you want to get a taste of modern samba, you should try it.

• Samba meu (Maria Rita)
• Luz (Djavan)
• Clara Nunes (Clara Nunes)

Ongoing stuff

I’ve started a research on mexican and african music. My initial names on the mexican field are Lila Downs, Chavela Vargas, Lola Beltrán, José Alfredo Jiménez and other “ranchera” artists. On the african side, the initial ones are Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Thomas Mapfumo, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, Richard Bona, Mulatu Astatke and others. I’m still “digesting” them. Soon, I’ll write a new Musical Snapshot with some comments and impressions about them. If you have suggestions, please let me know.

Dear Lazyweb,

I’m looking for a cool MP3 DRM-free online music store for european residents. Any suggestion?