Jonathan Nolen

The new Fox Theater

A few weeks ago, Jenn and I ventured across the Bay twice in one week, to see our very first shows in newly renovated and reopened Fox Theater in Oakland. We saw Franz Ferdinand on a Wednesday and on that Friday, we went back for Band of Horses.

Franz Ferdinand

Band of Horses

The Fox is, hands down, the nicest place I've ever seen a rock show. It's the Ritz Carlton of concert venues. The offer both GA on the floor and seats in the balcony, so you can choose the experience you prefer. We were downstairs (of course). The floor is raked and tiered so every few dozen feet there's a an equivalent of a front-row view. There's a grid of air conditioning vents in the floor to the crowd cool. There's a bar every twenty feet in the venue, and a separate lobby bar. The whole place is beautifully lit and carpeted. And I never once had to wait in line for anything. Best of all, the booker is completely dialed in, choosing bands that I'd love to see. I've already bought tickets for four big shows this season. As a concert-going experience, it would be hard to beat.

Food critics often visit a restaurant several times before they render judgment. And so I'm glad that I was able to go back to the Fox just two days later. Because now I have to tell you about the Fox Theater's Achilles' heel: the house mix at the Fox is just crap. And I'm not alone in thinking so.) It's way bass heavy, vocal-ranges are so muddy that I couldn't understand the band members when they spoke, and the guitars are all-but-inaudible. There were solos where I could see the guitarist playing but couldn't hear a single note. There were times when the bass guitar was twice as loud as the lead. But you could absolutely hear every single hit on the kick drum.

Both Band of Horses and Franz Ferdinand put on great shows, but they were hamstrung by the sound at the Fox. Franz Ferdinand fared better, given their more driving, bass-heavy style. Band of Horses, who rely on more anthemic, guitar-driven songs, was just gutted. I desperately hope that the problem lies with the engineer who designed their house mix: maybe he just has terrible taste. That can be fixed The alternative is that the problems are inherent in the room and can't be overcome, and that would be a true tragedy in what would otherwise be my favorite concert venue in the Bay Area.

I'm certainly going to see the other two shows I've bought tickets for. But if the Fox doesn't get this sorted out by the last show, I'll think very carefully before buying any more.

Things look a little different around here

Consider it a New Year's Resolution late in arriving. I've missed blogging, and I've decide to recommit to it. Like all New Year's resolutions, I don't know whether it will really take. I don't know if I can blog consistently for long. But I'm going to try.

As you can see, I did some spring cleaning around the old blog: swept out the cobwebs, cleaned the fridge, rearranged the furniture, The blog isn't very different, but it has a few new features on the sidebars, and I'm finally using a legit TypePad template, rather than the custom one I built years ago -- which will allow me to benefit from the many small improvements that the service makes over time.

One of the things I did when rebuilding the site was consider all the various places I exist on the internet. I actually asked myself the question: given Facebook and all of the other place where I represent myself online, do I even need a blog? But ultimately, I decided that I wanted one. I like having total control over my representation here. The page looks exactly like I want it to, and it contains exactly the information that I think is most important.

Take a look at the badges on the left of the blog. These represent the internet services that I use regularly. Some are old, some are new, but I thought it might be interesting to run through them, explain what they are for anyone who doesn't know, and why I find them valuable enough to list first thing on my blog and use every day.

Atlassian Stimulus Package

One of Atlassian's most dearly held values is that every software team deserves to use the best tools. We have tried to honor that by pricing our software very aggressively -- you can get started with any of our installed products for $1200, or with all of them in JIRA Studio for $50 per user.

However, even prices that low are sometimes outside the range of a small startup, a new team, or a hobby project. That's one reason that Atlassian is introducing the Atlassian Stimulus Package, where you can get a five-user, startup-sized license of JIRA or Confluence for only five dollars.

These are legit copies -- fully-featured, supported and licensed for commercial or non-commercial use. Anything you want to do with it. In order to make sure we can handle the volume of new customers, there are a few limitations on Support. Read the whole FAQ here.

All proceeds from the license sales are going to one of our Founders' favourite charities: Room to Read.

I'm tremendously excited about this program; we've been working hard on it for the last few months, and I want to offer kudos to all the different people across Atlassian who came together to make it happen. It feels great to get back to our roots helping small starter teams. And I'm excited to see what the injection of these innovative, entrepreneurial teams is going to do to our customer ecosystem.

So if you think JIRA and Confluence could help you launch the next great startup, go get yours today!