castanet clap

We've Got A New Home!

2008-10-14T14:12:00.002-04:00

Yo, dudes and dudettes. Update your bookmarks and Google Readers. The blog is moving to its own domain!

castanetclap.com

Must-Listen Music Handpicked By Tom Moon

2008-10-13T15:52:00.006-04:00

One of the projects that I have to turn in for a course I'm taking this semester is a compilation of 10 to 15 songs that I'd use as key references when in the studio recording or mixing. It's supposed to be a selection of music that I somehow feel is important for any number of reasons: style, methods used, vocals, arrangement --- whatever.

With his book, 1,000 Recordings To Hear Before You Die, Tom Moon has sort of taken a project like that and expanded it greatly. I assume that most people are familiar with the Patricia Schultz idea Moon is re-contextualizing, and it makes sense. I know I'm certainly a compulsive downloader, always looking for something new to add to my ipod. Many of my friends spend a lot of time tackling the same dilemma, and there's always something immediately irresistible about presenting people with any sort of "ultimate" list. It caters to a desire that we have to be in-the-know, which becomes particularly interesting when you start to browse Moon's list and realize that not all of the recordings are classic albums in pop culture. The list is even more varied than one might anticipate.

One major reason for this is that the collection spans all genres. Readers will find music by Bach and The Clash in the same place, allowing them an opportunity to read Moon's anecdotes about music they're fond of and then discover audio they maybe less familiar with, whether radio staples or obscure albums by relative unknowns who just had some interesting ideas.

NPR had Tom Moon on All Things Considered. He discusses the book and some of its contents. Give it a listen, and then you can also take a look at the list of artists included right on the website for the book.

Jack White and Alicia Keys Search For Death

2008-10-01T12:35:00.001-04:00

Now here's something I haven't been able to make up my mind about.

Jack White and Alicia Keys are two people I definitely never would've imagined might collaborate, and yet that's exactly what happened with their effort for the upcoming Bond movie, "Another Way to Die". After listening to it, I'm still not 100% sure about how it hits me, but I do at least know that I find the instrumentation far more exciting than the vocal arrangement. Their voices don't sound terrible together, and the lyrics are bad, but the melodies don't quite live up to the brass and sharp guitar in the tune.

What do you think? And how well does it work for the new movie?

Is Katy Perry Trying to Make It Up To People Without Realizing?

2008-09-20T22:37:00.015-04:00

So, after forever, I've finally listened through all of Katy Perry's One of the Boys. The thing about Katy Perry's music is that it sounds like a collection of songs that should be for 14-year-old girls, except they keep marketing it to older audiences. When I imagine that "I Kissed A Girl" is set from the POV of a high school freshman who's maybe at her first house party, drinking while underage, and then decides she is attracted to a girl from her English class standing across the room then the whole song makes a lot more sense to me. I hear lyrics like but you're not a man/you're just a mannequin or you PMS like a bitch/I would know or the entirety of the title track, and I think, oh, I get it. These are all from her notebook she used to scribble in back when she was going through puberty and realizing that, as fun as Jesus once was, she wanted to touch herself and other people at night and write songs that sounded like the kinds of things grown-ups might talk about.

Alright, 14-year-old, Katy Perry. You go! You be experimental! Ohhhh, wait, you're 23 already.

On the other hand, I still like her timbre and the rhythms of many of the songs, even if I've since realized that while I thought "Ur So Gay" was clever the first time I heard it, it's probably more likely that that track is only that way accidentally. And yet, she still just sounds good, a fact that's further evidenced by her cover of MGMT's "Electric Feel", the electronic-funk hit of indie radio all summer.

Katy mellows the song out some and allows for a dreamier tone. Both versions are the kind of songs good for playing as you're cruising along in 70-degree weather with the windows down, but if the original is meant for gearing up for fun, Katy's version is what you loop when you're bones are tired during the ride home.

Even more interesting is the fact that she doesn't change the pronouns, so she's still singing about a woman, but this time without the sort of coyness that pissed so many people off with her own summertime monster, "I Kissed Girl." Does this count as unintentionally anteing up?

Katy Perry - Electric Feel (MGMT cover)

Mickey Factz Adds Another Element to Portisthead's "Machine Gun"

2008-09-18T09:34:00.009-04:00

The first time I heard this earlier this year I meant to include it here, but somehow it got lost among all the other crap I was doing.

Genre-blending and unexpected collaborations are my favorite things about music. Whether it's esoteric noise being thrown together or popular musicians trying something out, I always get into the energy that comes along with vibing with someone else. Sampling sort of reaches a middle grey area for me, because the two artists may never actually interact, but one person finding something inspirational in another band/artist's material and then building on that fascinates me.

At the end of March, Portishead released their single Machine Gun, which includes an arresting electronic drum beat throughout the song. The hits are distorted at different parts of the tune, particularly at the end, but the intensity is never lost.

Mickey Factz took their beat and used it to make his own version. His three verses are in-keeping with the theme Portishead sets up and adds a more direct storytelling element, connecting three different scenarios through the violence that occurs within each. The last verse knocked me flat the first time I listened to it, bringing the hypothetical of the first two into reality without getting bogged down by meta. The fact that it's all allusion and rests on the listeners own knowledge of pop culture to get the references allows it retain the hypothetical storytelling approach, but then once you do tune into what he's saying, you realize it's something a lot of people have actually talked it at length. And not only is it familiar, but the beat underneath it makes it ominous and scary almost, which impresses me with every listen.

Mickey Factz - Machine Gun

Kanye West Takes Fan Feedback

2008-09-17T16:35:00.000-04:00

In case you missed it, after his VMA performance this year, Kanye West dropped the studio version of the song "Love Lockdown" on his blog for people to check out. The thing about hearing a studio recording after a live performance is that, more often than not, mixed versions don't hit the same way, particularly if you go from the sharp attack of live drums to the compressed version on studio recordings. The dynamics are completely changed.

Some of the fans who read Kanye's blog left comments telling him what they liked and disliked about the track. A comment from user nicolash read:

I'm sad to say, but i'm just not feeling the mix at the moment. Mostly at the chorus where i don't think the chorus stands out that much. Too me it sounded better the way it was at The VMA's, but it might just be me that gotta get used to it. Maybe that will happen after a couple of more plays. Hope you don't take it the wrong way, just wanted to have my say on the song. Too me the only thing is the mixing.

The funny thing is that Kanye listened! He went back into the studio, mixed the track again, brought up the drums, and then posted the new version for comparison. I think it's really cool because it really does give listeners the opportunity to see the way tracks get edited (sometimes over and over) before they're ready to be pressed, even for mainstream players like Kanye. And this time the suggestions came from people on the internet. Pretty cool.

Rap City: KRS-One and Soulja Boy

2008-09-04T10:41:00.002-04:00

KRS-One and Soulja Boy particpate in a joint interview, and sort of start to discuss hip-hop within relation to each other's careers and the generation gap between them. Everything KRS-One says about the importance of educating up-and-comers rings especially true with Soulja Boy serving as an example of how easy it is for today's young crowd to ignore it. That little dude thinks that 50 Cent's "In Da Club" is old school hip-hop? That kind of blows my mind. That song dropped in 2002.

It makes me wonder if someone like Soulja Boy is indicative of a majority of youth and their knowledge or whether he's an exception to the rule the though. I'm only a few years older than the guy, more likely to be considered part of his generation than outside of it, and I don't think I was ever clueless enough that I thought the music I first listened to on the radio was old-school. I'm pretty sure my sister who's a year younger than Soulja Boy has more knowledge of hip-hop, too, but which case serves as a more accurate barometer for how today's youth interact with hip-hop and its legacy? Him or us? Apparently a person can obviously have a successful career without knowing the roots of a genre, but I have to be honest: I'm really hoping it's not him.

What I also hope is that he finds himself in more discussions about hip-hop and music in general, because while having a broader foundation may not be necessary for him to make some money in the game, I also know that I don't actually want someone who thinks rap music is all partying and bullshit to end up being the mouthpiece for the generation.

Ill Doctrin Repost: "No Homo"

2008-08-30T04:34:00.002-04:00

What he gets at in the wrap-up, especially the '9 times out of 10 bit' is generally how I end up feeling about most language these days that people think they're using ironically, whether relatively new slang or racial/sexual/etc slurs. I like when Jay Smooth does all the heavy-lifting.

Fonzworth Bentley, Warped Tour 2008, and Boozy Beginnings...

2008-08-21T19:45:00.002-04:00

Thank goodness for late night music videos on MTV2. I've had exactly one Fonzworth Bentley song on my iPod for the past few months, but I enjoy that ridiculous song a lot. Somehow I missed that he'd done a song with Andre 3000 and Kanye West as well, but I caught the video for "Everybody" while hanging out with a friend the other night and kind of rejoiced in the amazing shenanigans that are Fonzworth, Andre, Kanye, and the rest of Fonzworth's band doing synchronized dance steps in suits with high-water slacks.

Other than late night channel surfing, I've also had a birthday recently. Sunday was my 21st, and I celebrated by going to last date of the Vans Warped Tour 2008.

Believe it or not, I've never been to Warped. Walking around from tent to tent, cursing the sun, and getting acquainted with asphalt thanks to a lack of seating is a joy that I have not known in the Warped Tour context until this year. My friends and I got into Home Depot Center late, partly because we didn't ride into Carson until after 11AM and also because the line almost looped all the way around the venue. Craziness. It was like waiting in line to get into Comin-Con last year all over again.

Once inside, however, we did ourselves a favor and partied to Cobra Starship, Beat Union and Ludo specifically. A couple of us went to check out Against Me! as well, and while in line for Ludo's signing, we heard The Color Fred woo an audience. Ludo, for the record, are probably the most energetic band that I saw all day. Their frontman, Andrew, is out of his mind in the best way possible, and they finished off their set by inviting the members from Oreskaband to handle brass for a cover of Faith No More's "Epic".

(I didn't record this.)

Sometime after all that excitement, it was time to seek out my first legal drinking experience in the Beer Garden. (Yes, friends and family, I have finally reached 21 years tall!) During grand times spent in Warped Tour's version of some kind of alcohol haven, our cluster also met a cool dude named James among the myriad of fun faces. James turned out to be the manager for Natives of The New Dawn, who were playing the Ernie Ball stage at the same time as Katy Perry was playing elsewhere. I had some vague inclinations toward getting to see whether or not Katy's voice held up live, but James convinced us to check out Natives instead, in small part because he said he'd get the band to wish me happy birthday. Thanks, James.

As it turns out, Natives are actually a lot of fun. They opened their set with a cover of "California Love." If that's note surefire way to get a bunch of people hyped up for your performance, then I don't know what is, considering the immediate affection I had for My American Heart's cover of the song the Punk Goes Crunk compilation earlier this year. Their keyboardist and lead vocalist opposite the band's emcee has amazing range. I was really impressed with his voice, so much so that I had to bombard him after their set to let him know.

They played close to the end of all the festivities, so they started packing up to leave right after their set. For our own grand finale, my group made our way back to the main stage to check out Gym Class Heroes. Their set was mournfully short but no less exciting than most of the other times I've seen them. For some reason, I always forget how important that band is to me until I get stand in another crowd of people all there to see them, riding out the variety of emotions and energies they send me through as songs morph from more hip-hop influenced to numbers with intense guitar solos to even a heavy metal interlude. I mean, the entered to a chorus of Boyz II Men's "End of the Road." I'm a chick all about variety, and Gym Class are certainly a mixed bag.

I had great time. Hopefully next year will also have a bunch of people I want to check out. In the meantime, I'm going to join a bunch of other LA music-lovers and spend a day or two at Sunset Junction. Broken Social Scene! The Black Keys! Tickets are $15 online, dudes. Don't miss the action.

Castanet Cuts of the Week :: 8.3.08

2008-08-03T13:15:00.001-04:00

Simply because I like doing this, here are five songs I listened to more than others last week:

1. Ghosts in the Water - I'm Not Afraid of Falling

I got a copy of Under the Radar, Vol. 4, and this is a track that I somehow didn't pay much attention to when I gave the compilation a first listen but clued into big time when it shuffled on the iPod randomly later. The double vocals hit a little incongruously without being sloppy, and I love the dreamy quality in both the singing and instrumentation. It helps communicate the sense of dropping as the repeat the whole way down/I'm not afraid of falling. There's an atmosphere her that I can buy into completely.

2. Kanye West - Champion

Right before I left school for summer, a debate started in my production lab over Kanye West and the "validity" of his music. Basically, it was a couple people who think sampling illegitimizes his creativity versus people, like me, who think that's a crap notion. There are biters and then there's genuine re-creativity. Kanye deals in the latter. and it's not like he ever tries to fool people into thinking the samples are all sound clips and beats he created from scratch. "Harder, Better Faster, Stronger" is one of Daft Punk's more popular tracks. "Champion" samples Steely Dan's "Kid Charlemagne", which was released as a single for The Royal Scam. Nobody's going to really miss that they're sampled from other hits, and a lot what makes Kanye's songs worthwhile is how effectively he twists or re-imagines the meanings and contexts of released material for his own stories.

3. Chromeo - Momma's Boy

I'm late to the Chromeo party, and I'm not sure I've caught the bug entirely yet, but I'm moving in that direction. This song in particular just makes me boogie and laugh, delighted, thinking of that ridiculous and large Ode to Momma tattoo on Justin Timberlake's back, let's not kid ourselves. Hilarity squared.

4. The Manchester Orchestra - Gold Ticket [m4a]

I didn't realize that this was an .m4a file until I'd uploaded already, and now I'm too lazy to convert it. Anyway, Manchester Orchestra are a band that caught me accidentally. I didn't know anything about them but ended up picking up a CD after I saw the open for someone else. I suddenly can't remember who now, which is probably indicative of which performances I felt were most worthwhile that night. Although one thing, on the album version of "Golden Ticket" that I sometimes miss live is the moment near the end, where Andy Hull's voice pulls back and fades out as he finishes the last lyric, making his shout at the end of the line sound like it's coming from a distance.

5. Jason Mraz - Love For A Child

I just like singing along to this one. Jason Mraz sort of has this ability to make mundane lyrics and situations worth paying close attention to without ever tipping over into dramatics. There's a simplicity that I always appreciate.

Audio Micro: Buy Once and Use... Almost Endlessly

2008-07-29T13:05:00.011-04:00

This morning, my mother called me into the room to inform me that it's been a month since I've updated this, and that it's officially time to stop tripping. I've been kind of busy! I certainly didn't mean to let this go so long. The month of July is already at its end, wow.

As August gets ready to make its grand entrance, I've been trying to organize thoughts and goals for working with Wax on Felt label once I get back to Boston in September. In particular, I've made earnest attempts to get at all acquainted with music publishing and licensing, and it's brought me to some interesting articles and sites that touch on licensing and royalties in some capacity. This is a more tangential result, but one website that appeals to my interests as an engineering major is Audio Micro.

Still brand new on the scene, it's stock audio community that models itself after methods used for the microstock photography company, iStockPhoto.com. Audio Micro attempts to encourage the exchange of royalty-free audio and music clips from user-to-user for espcially competitive rates. There are other audio libraries that sell music and effects, of course, like ProductionTrax.com, but Audio Micro's major benefit is supposed to be that it's mostly internet-based and boasts the lowest pricing (although iStockAudio is supposed to launch in the fall). The purchase of their user-generated, royalty-free audio comes with a lot of limitations that probably aren't conducive to commercial products meant for wide distribution or sale. Those kind of endeavors would probably do well to obtain licenses outright, but Audio Micro seems like it could be a reasonable and useful tool for students, hobbyists, and small-scale productions. People who are short on cash but in need of something for a project may have just found a solution.

Although it's still in its beta stages, the site also seems to emphasize more community than one usually finds in the realm of something like licensing. There's a lot of opportunity to learn about selling your own audio contributions, receiving 50% of the profit for non-exclusive agreements and 60% for material exclusive uploads.

Audio Micro claims that microstock audio will be the future of stock licensing the same way microstock photography changed that industry (most easily seen in the popularity of the company iStockPhoto sold to for $50 million, Getty Images). Whether or not they'll manage to live up to that prediction should be interesting, because right I can see it being a major independent tool, but the usage limitations make too much growth seem like it could be a hassle. I know I'm curious enough to keep it in mind for the next time I need materials for college projects.

We'll see what happens, I guess.

Noel Gallagher Probably Wouldn't Bust A Grape In A Fruit Fight

2008-06-29T17:38:00.009-04:00

Say what you want about Jay-Z, the dude did deliver a succint and effective brush-off to Noel Gallagher by "covering" the famous Oasis song "Wonderwall" and then following it up with "99 Problems" at Glastonbury. While I suppose there's always something to be said for upholding tradition, I still think Noel's comment in April that "it's wrong" to include hip-hop in the UK festival was one of the most ridiculous things I'd read in a while, particularly because I agree with all of the people who encourage growth and development of something like Glastonbury. To me, there's always a difference between natural progression in art and the venues for displaying art and completely disregarding or ruining history. In this case, the fact that Glastonbury has already had acts that qualify as more of a hybrid but still legitimately hip-hop play (like The Roots) just makes Noel sound like he's trying to belatedly stop a train that's been in motion for a while.

Then again, it's Noel Gallagher. It's not like everyone doesn't already know he's a hot mess.

Photo Dump!

2008-06-14T17:35:00.006-04:00

Just a quick note: I've been uploading more of the photos I've taken at shows to my flicker account. They're all older things, taken with my little S1 IS, which I just stopped using. I bought a Flickr pro account, too, so any photos I take now will be uploaded to sets there and hopefully better quality!

The Sounds @ Axis, Boston (11/22/06)

Daryl Hall for President Tour @ Avalon, Boston (2/17/07)

Fall Out Boy Secret Show @ The Chain Reaction, Anaheim (5/30/07)

There are quite a few more sets, including photos from a couple things I haven't even resized yet despite having gone to the shows at the beginning of the year. Ay ay ay. More later, folks.

Round-Up: Dizzee Rascal, Phantom Planet, Saul Williams

2008-06-13T20:53:00.001-04:00

I've been making myself follow-up on the second part of my compulsive downloading and music purchasing: listening. Here are a few more albums I've been pleased by recently:

The last day I was in Boston, at the beginning of May, I was working in one venue while Dizzee Rascal and El-P played next door. Oh, to have been able to take time to see that show, especially since Dizzee's album had just dropped a couple weeks prior. I've been listening to "Sirens" since it first showed up on the internet, but I've only just gotten to sit down and listen to the entirety of Maths + English. Now I sort of regret not being able to check out a live performance even more. Dizzee's follow-up to Showtime is ten times stronger, at least somewhat evidence by the way it's also selling better than his debut. He's even got a few guests that I really appreciate, all of whom compliment the songs (including Bun B and Alex Turner from the Arctic Monkeys) rather than detract from them at all.

Dizzee Rascal - World Outside
Dizzee Rascal (feat. Alex Turner) - Temptation

With Phantom Planet, I don't know what happened. I really enjoyed The Guest even before The OC jammed "California" into everyone's brains, dug the single "Big Brat" from the next album, and then just never checked out the rest. It wasn't until recently, when a friend of mine gave me the live cut of "Do the Panic" that I finally remembered, oh, I like these guys. I was really busy when the album actually dropped, but I've given it the attention it deserves the past couple days. Just like they used to do, their new album Raise the Dead makes me want to throw my hands up and bounce around until I'm exhausted. And yet, the new music isn't simply a rehash of stuff from their earliest album. It's nice to see they've grown over the years. These guys are finishing the Honda Civic Tour in Anaheim with Fueled By Ramen labelmates Panic at the Disco tomorrow. Of all the artists playing, I have to say that I'm most excited to see how Alex and the boys comes across on stage.

Phantom Planet - Dropped
Phantom Planet - Demon Daughters

Saul Williams drives me crazy. Three albums out, and I still don't understand why more people aren't aware of this dude. My friend Josh and I went through a ridiculous(ly fabulous) period where a good third of our conversations consisted of Saul Williams lyrics quoted back and forth at one another. His newest effort has been online and available for download for a while now, although listeners won't be able to buy physical CDs until next month. The title, The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tarudst, is a clear play on the title of 1972 David Bowie album, and the similarities really end there. Produced by Trent Reznor, the new album has a lot of material developed from Saul's poetry in The Dead Emcee Scrolls: The Lost Teachings of Hip-Hop, and aurally, he continues to take more familiar hip-hop and rock ideas and bend them just enough to make you screw your face up and itch to figure him out.

Saul Williams - Black History Month
Saul Williams - DNA

NER*D Shares the Benefits of Synesthesia

2008-06-06T15:06:00.005-04:00

I won't deny it: I've been almost embarrassingly excited about this album's release since Pharrell, Chad, and Shay started mentioning that they were planning a third effort. I'm so glad that the legal issues they were having a few years didn't stop them permanently.

Seeing Sounds isn't scheduled for an official drop until a few days from now, but the album has leaked in the last couple days. I couldn't resist giving it a listen.

What I enjoy most about the record so far is that it sounds more sophisticated than the rest of the N*E*R*D catalog but in subtle ways. More brass, prominent slap bass on their lead single, and "Sooner or Later" features a electric guitar solo throughout the end of the reminiscent of Prince. (For someone whom lists a song like "Joy Repetition" in her all-time top ten specifically because of the guitar work, that's pretty cool.) If this is indicative of which instruments Pharrell and Chad are just into playing around with these days, then I can get behind that.

From what I've read here and there, "Love Bomb" seems to be the immediate internet favorite. Even Lupe Fiasco had to all-caps type at the people a little bit about by that song in particular. I've been fond of "Spazz" since the first time I heard them play it in Northampton, MA earlier this year, but listening to the album in full, I have to say that "Love Bomb" caught my ear as a standout as well. It's in the way the horns and energy all pick up for the chorus, encouraging me to visualize the destruction Pharrell sings about. At the same time, there's a transcendence to the instrumentation that keeps the song from coming across angry the way that a track like "Spazz" does.

N*E*R*D - Spazz
N*E*R*D - Love Bomb

I've actually already heard a number of these tracks live after seeing them in March and then again supporting Kanye, so I have to also co-sign the idea that as fun as tracks like "Anti Matter", "Spazz", and "Kill Joy" are on record, they're pumped full of even more energy when played on stage. That's really the mark of something worthwhile for me -- the translation. A strong recording and even stronger live representation.

When I listen to new albums, I usually listen through once to get an idea of what the artist is trying to do. On the second time through, I really start figuring what works for me and what doesn't, and while I enjoy the new stuff so much live that I almost felt sort of spoiled initially, this album now continues to grow on me. Hopefully they'll schedule a fall tour or some kind so that people can see some of the stuff on the album that they haven't yet played live. I know I'll be there.

Seeing Sounds out June 10th! If you do find the leak and listen early, do also think about about buying the disc for only ten bucks at Amazon or a record store. If anything, for Shay Hayley's benefit. Ha.

Check Out: The Devil and a Penny

2008-06-04T16:02:00.005-04:00

I've a song stuck in my head since mid-May. While we were in Rhode Island, This is How Rumors Get Started played with a band called The Devil and a Penny, who are actually also based in Boston. They're a really rough sound, but something about their ideas continues to stick with me, weeks after seeing them open. In particular, they're song "Rabbit Drives" continues to pop into my mind at random intervals, probably because of the way they take (of all things) a familiar hymn, decide to holler and shout the words, giving it a new kind of energy.

The Devil and a Penny - Rabbit Drives

This song, and a couple other demos are available for download on the band's Myspace page. I recommend giving them a listen!

"Don't Touch Me" remix; Travis Barker-style

2008-05-30T22:55:00.003-04:00

Every time Travis Barker remixes some hip-hop, I lose another few minutes of my life, enthralled. Here he takes Busta Rhymes' newest single and adds a little of his own flavor.

I'll still never forgive him for actually giving me a reason to upload that Soulja Boy song to my iPod though...

And They Just Howl All Night Long: Empires Debut Record

2008-05-30T13:18:00.003-04:00

I keep getting the urge to describe Empires as a new Chicago-based band made of leftover members, which is probably unfair. The way they used to describe it on the band's myspace was better and more accurate, calling them "a new band of old friends. All songs written, performed, and recorded by drop outs." The five guys in Empires were once in different bands and decided they wanted to try something new after leaving those bands, and their brand new album, Howl, represents efforts made during the better part of 2007.

The best part about this album (or the most convenient, anyway) is that as of 5.27.08, Empires offers Howl for free download on their website. I mean, there really isn't any better incentive to try out some new music than mentioning that people don't even have to pay for it.

From what I've seen written about the writing and production of the album, a lot of songs were created by starting with Ryan Luciani's drums and building over them. It's no big secret that I'm a sucker for clever beats and bass first and foremost, so that approach gets me in the gut in terms of construction as well as mixing. There's a sort of driving progression throughout the tracks that gets me under the ribs, whether the song itself its uptempo or a slower wallow. Even in the song the album title comes from, "All Night Long," there's a sense of the instrumentation building, one instrument joining the other all the way to the end, and that song is an entirely acoustic effort. (It's also probably my favorite track.)

The truth is I've had this album for three days now, and I haven't been able to get through any of them without listening to Howl from beginning to end at least twice. I was telling friends of mine that I fell into the trap of anticipating that their album would be at least partially a hack job what with recording it all themselves and then, you know, giving the product of their away free. I was expecting decent demo-quality at best, but I'm really happy that I was wrong. Professional sound, professional presentation -- Empires know what they're doing.

Speaking From The Gut: Chicago Glows in the Dark

2008-05-27T02:11:00.006-04:00

So if you saw that belated from tour pop up the other day, well, that's because I wrote a post in Pittsburgh and forgot to actually hit 'publish.' As one can imagine, keeping track of everything while on the road got a little hectic for me. I didn't stay on top of documenting the traveling experience the way I first intended. Still, we had a good time. The last show with full ended up taking place right above the Absolut Vodka party for the Glow in the Dark tour in Detroit. It was funny, since Kevin (the band's drummer) and I were planning to fly Chicago to see the show the next day. If you want to see some pictures from the shenanigans, then you should be sure to check out the This Is How Rumors Get Started myspace page.

Speaking of which, my friend Clea and I saw the concert from two perspectives: the 300 section up top on Friday night and then the floor on Saturday night. I had such a good time.

I've read a lot of stuff on marketing hip-hop and how part of the reason there's so much endorsement and commercial advertising completely separate from the musical product happens is, in part, because hip-hop can't sustain itself on touring. It doesn't sell the same way other genres do, because the performative aspect is different. There's less "show." What I enjoyed most about the Glow in the Dark tour is that every artist (though Rihanna did have the advantage of actually being R&B and not hip-hop, which allows for that more standard kind of live performance that sells, but still) not only brought a really intense performance, but they all brought it in different ways. Kanye West embraces the pop accessibility of his sound and tries to make his songs about himself a cohesive live concept, and for the most part it works. The style is truer to the singularity of a hip-hop performance -- Kanye holds down the stage on his own before the encore -- but it also still does feel like a production, and that's awesome to me.

Different parts of the show keep coming to mind, echoing in my head, and I always feel that that's a sign of how effective something really is. If whatever you produce lingers with people, then you're doing something right. I'd definitely go see the show yet another time if I could.

For the next week I'll be in Chicago, hopefully catching up on various albums I've been excited about but haven't had time to really listen to closely yet. For instance, the new Jason Mraz, Duffy's debut, and Empires' first-time effort as a bunch of seasoned players. I just got new headphones. It's going to be a good week for listening.

Coach Kay Kay Tour: Day 12, 5/20/08

2008-05-20T22:23:00.005-04:00

So skip from five days in to twelve, and clearly I failed to keep up this whole tour documentation thing. It's been adventurous though! We're in Pittsburgh today and tomorrow, and then head to Detroit. We've had fun, some minor setbacks, and I had a wretched medical issue, but this van don't stop, etc etc.

We're watching the Boston take Detroit in the basketball game tonight. Phillip's bumming over it, but I have no loyalties to Detroit, so hey! Boston! Keep it up! Everybody's chilling out in my hotel room, because there's no set tonight. Annie's wonderful mom has been a fantastic hostess, and we had a cookout tonight with grilled burgers, hotdogs, and other tasty treats. When we got in during the late evening yesterday, she welcomed us with some delicious chili and homemade rice krispie treats. And fruit! I haven't had fruit in so many days, dudes.

Tomorrow there's a show at The School on California Ave. Starts at 6:30! Come jump around a little bit.

Coach Kay Kay Tour: Day Five, 5/13/08

2008-05-13T10:45:00.005-04:00

We had a day off yesterday, which, for me, wasn't so much a day off from tour as my first full day off since final projects and exams got started. I'm just now realizing that I'm out of school for the summer! Awesome. I slept late, ran a couple errands, and the lolled on my friend's Abbey's couch all day. Then Abbey treated the household to some delicious homemade pizza, and we watched a bunch of DVDs, because while they have internet, they've nixed their cable in recent months.

Days off also mean some time spent getting back to my compulsive downloading and browsing music blogs for interesting tracks. I don't have time to link it all, but I figure that since the culmination of this trip into the midwest is successfully completing tour and then hitting Chicago is seeing the two dates of the Glow in The Dark tour at the United Center, so why not at least link to the Child Rebel Soldiers remix of N*E*R*D's "Everyone Nose"? Exactly.

Child Rebel Soldiers (feat. Pusha T) - Everyone Nose (remix)

It's a pretty funky track. It just makes me more excited about the possibility of seeing whatever onstage collaboration they might have in store. I've heard some hints, but I don't want to look into too much and rob myself of any surprises, so maybe I don't have it right at all. We'll see!

Today, van call got pushed back a couple hours, which means the road shenanigans have a slightly longer pause. I plan to eat something. At 1:30, we're heading to Providence, RI, and then the band will play The Living Room tonight along with Valencourt, Butter Days, and The Devil and a Penny. The show's at 8pm! If you've got an evening you want to spend having a good time, come holler for them.

Until next time, friends...

Coach Kay Kay Tour: Day Three, 5/11/08

2008-05-11T09:37:00.000-04:00

Hello there, friends and master puppeteers,

Clearly I'm not so good at this documenting-the-road thing. Phillip made a video or two thus far, but I don't know if he's put them online. Maintaining this internet shenanigans as you go is more a conscious effort than previously assumed, let me tell you. Nevertheless, we're on Day 3 of the Coach Kay Kay tour. Tonight we're back in Boston at TT the Bear's. If any of you are still hanging out in Boston, post-finals, then you should come to the show and dance. It's getting into summer vacation! Embarrassing yourself on a dance floor is clearly the best way to celebrate.

The shows in Vermont and New Hampshire were successful. In particular, we had a good time in Vermont. The band played Rutland High School along with The Sophomore Beat, Stealing Jane, and oh, man, one other band whose name I'm unfortunately neglecting because I'm a terrible individual and have become unsure of their name in the span of two days. I think they were called Sidewalk Chalk. Oy, sorry. The whole evening was a pretty awesome time, though.

This Is How Rumors Get Started played The Sad Cafe in NH, which they've played before, and the promoter there -- Linda -- is always really accommodating, even if Phillip accidentally sets things on fire in her microwave.

From Boston, we're heading into Providence on Tuesday. Hopefully I'll have a chance to update again! Until then, folks, be easy.

Coach Kay Kay Tour, May 2008

2008-05-07T09:10:00.010-04:00

Long time, no update, you know? I'm sorry, dudes, I've been swamped with work, schooling, and an intense amount of other shenanigans. It's important that I make this update now, though, before you start (hopefully) getting random updates over the next couple weeks out of context:

Going on tour! This is How Rumors Get Started are hitting the road for a couple weeks starting this Friday, May 9th (with a little organizational help from yours truly). School's out and it's time to take advantage of long hours and help provide people with a good time for a night or two. No show is over $10! Spend time and contribute to the merriment.

Check the myspace for more details. If a show's in your area, please do come hang out; say hello. We're hoping to keep updates from the road, including tour videos of the band courtesy of our Macbooks in this handy dandy age of technology.

After tour, I'm heading to Chicago for Kanye West's Glow in the Dark tour, and then visiting for a week. It looks like the summer's going to start out right!

The Track Meet: A New Take On Your Ratings Game

2008-04-14T22:25:00.005-04:00

I spent a pretty ridiculous amount of time on this website called The Track Meet today. Essentially, The Track Meet is a new spin on an old idea. Instead of dealing with the graphics with long load times and what not on myspace pages and random blogs (like this one), the website allows producers and musicians to send in mp3s, which are then added to the site and shuffled on a minimal page with an option for listeners to rate what they hear. It's creator, Nervous, writes about the inspiration for the site on the 'About' page:

One day, I had a brainstorm: wouldn't it be nice to have a place where you did not have to worry about heavy graphics and big files loading and could just concentrate on the tracks? No marketing tricks, just go from track to track and concentrate on the music?

I thought about a site called "Hot or Not" that was very popular several years back. The whole idea was simple - just click a rating from 1 through 10 for each person's picture, and the next photo loads immediately. A counter keeps track of how many people have voted and what your average score is.

Simple, yet effective.

Whole songs aren't posted. Instead, each file is limited to a 2MB sample (about 2 minutes in length) in order to ensure quick load times and to prevent theft. It's a really great way to sample new music, entirely based on titles and sound. I dig it.

Check out The Track Meet!

Auto-Tune: the 'Holy Grail' of recording makes you shine

2008-04-04T18:39:00.001-04:00

In class this past Thursday, we heard an entire lecture on pitch correction and the abilities of Auto-Tune. People have been talking about the fact that anyone can have a recording contract regardless of actual talent for years now, and while true hacks are usually exposed when live performance time rolls around, it's probably true that a lot of your favorite artists have had some pitch correction done for their vocals on albums. Pitch-corrective software is so commonly-used used these days, both for simple corrective needs and as an intentional vocal effect (like with T-Pain) that mainstream music listeners hardly notice it and even really enjoy it. Vocal accuracy makes things easier when recording, but it isn't entirely necessary in studio recording. And if we're being honest, there are a lot of people things days who have record deals not because they're great singers, but because they're bankable for other reasons.

Here's a decent tutorial on how to use Auto-tune in Pro Tools.

Auto-Tune is an audio processor. The way programs like Auto-Tune work is by assessing an intended sine wave based on a scale, then altering raw sine waves input into an editing program like Pro Tools that are either flat (wavelengths longer than the intended sine wave) or sharp (lengths short than the intended sign wave) to match the intended pitch. This allows engineers and artists to mask small mistakes or inaccuracies in a recording without going through quite so many takes. To do this, Auto-Tune uses a phase vocoder, which is also where the robotic quality of the output comes from. This shouldn't be surprising since achieving robotic voices is exactly what people have been using vocoders for forever.

Although it is primarily used in the studio, Auto-Tune can also be implemented in live settings. Of course, this isn't the smartest idea since the program has such limited capability without careful manipulation. Case and point: Billy Joel performing the "Star-Spangled Banner" during the 2007 Superbowl. You thought he just sounded a hot mess, right? Instead someone had Auto-Tune working on his voice and, consequently, made Billy sound terrible.

Another situation where Auto-tune can be both awkward and especially obvious is when used for duets. More specifically, a duet where one singer has a stronger sense of pitch control than the other. In this number from High School Musical, Lucas Grabeel's vocal track has had considerably less correction done than Ashley Tisdale's, and in comparison, she sounds closer to a robotic chipmunk than a real, young singer.

High School Musical - What I've Been Looking For

Auto-tune is a useful tool but, like any technology, it just needs to be use skillfully. Again, some artists use it for effect (Cher's "Believe," for example) while other artists, producers, and engineers simple use it for basic corrective tricks. I didn't put this together, but here's a medley of popular songs that have used Auto-Tune for varying reasons.

Take some time to really listen to your favorite songs recorded in the last ten years. Can you hear the pitch correction software? Is it intentional or just poorly mixed? Most importantly, how many of these artists still sound like anything worth listening to in a live setting? This is what I've been thinking about.

Break Down Beat: What It's Like When Punk Goes Crunk

2008-04-03T04:24:00.004-04:00

The thing about those Punk Goes... CDs is that if the bands that participate aren't 100% serious and completely dedicated to the remixes the tracks can easily come across as terrible jokes. I've heard some hit or miss tracks on the different discs that have been released over the years. For 2008, Punk Goes Crunk comes out April 8th, and I have to admit that I started listening with no small amount of wariness. I'm extremely pleased to have learned that many of these tracks are cleverly remixed covers of mainstream hip-hop songs that ranged from mediocre to classic.

My favorite cut at the moment is probably My American Heart's version of Dr. Dre and Tupac's "California Love," particularly for the way they warped Tupac's verse.

Dr. Dre and Tupac - California Love
My American Heart - California Love

I can't even deal with how much that second half hits me just right. Other notable moments include New Found Glory's acoustic cover of "Tennessee" (another favorite), The Devil Wears Prada's hardcore/screamo re-imagining of Big Tymer's "Still Fly," and Say Anything's amusing rendition of ODB's "Get Your Money." Although for that last one, Max Bemis is not quite as epically entertaining as Dirty himself, but I certainly appreciate his effort. I also enjoy what The Escape Frame did with "Nuthin' But a 'G' Thang," but I couldn't really tell you why.

The only tracks that might suffer include Person L's attempt at "The Seed (2.0)" by The Roots. It's lacking not because they don't make an earnest effort, but because that song already has a really heavy rock influence and, well, The Roots pretty much did it exactly right the first time. The same goes for Lorene Drive and their version of "Hey Ya." Andre 3000 surprised a lot of people with that one as it is. It's hard to do that again with a cover/remix. All Time Low's pop-punk remix of Rihanna's "Umbrella" also doesn't blow entirely, but it becomes abundantly clear that a large part of what drove that song last year was the infectious beat. Otherwise, well, lyrically it sounds like a run of the mill pop-punk song.

Scary Kids Scaring Things cover "Notorious Thugs" well, but I can't lie about being really torn about their decision to still say "nigga" over and over. I get preserving the original integrity of the song on some level, but it's still not something that I can admit to having a gut reaction to when people cover hip-hop songs that excessively use the word. (Interestingly, while I also contemplate the use of the words "bitches" and "hoes" to refer to women both in hip-hop and hip-hop covers, that doesn't startle me quite as immediately. Something worth analyzing, I think, but I'll leave that kind of commentary for a more focused post.) It's probably the only moment that made me twist up my mouth on the whole album though.

Overall Punk Goes Crunk is worth the listen just to hear how artists from a different genre interpret songs a lot of us are familiar with from radio rotation. If you can get a copy for sampling, then I'd certainly take the time to cue it up.

The Music Biz and the Moral High Ground from Ill Doctrine

2008-03-28T15:52:00.006-04:00

If you aren't familiar with the Eliot Spitzer/Ashley Alexandra Dupré scandal, then Wikipedia has you covered. I'm just reposting this from Ill Doctrine, where what Jay Smooth says is amusing because it's pretty true.

Release show this Friday!

2008-03-27T20:06:00.001-04:00

If you're in the area tomorrow night, then come see This Is How Rumors Get Started and other awesome supporting acts at the band's release show. Each ticket gets a free EP!

Ladies and Gentlemen: Chester French

2008-03-27T19:47:00.004-04:00

I know, I know. It makes no sense that I'm in Massachusetts, parade around like a big fan of N*E*R*D and The Neptunes, and yet I haven't mentioned Chester French even once.

They're a Cambridge band, a couple of dudes who went to Harvard, and now they're part of the Star Trak family. Here's a video featured on their myspace. We have Pharrell talking about why he votes yes on Chester French:

Something about their sound constantly makes me say to myself, "Oh, where have I heard that?" Like that familiar face syndrome but in audio form. It's not a bad thing, so much as it's indicative of the variety of places from which they pull their style. Some synth melodies, acoustic guitar, a penchant for 60s-esque recording quality -- not too perfect, lyrics that include modern references (like Jimmy Choo shoes) and vocals that, for some reason, start to sound a lot like the lead singer of Spoon on occasion. Interesting stuff.

The material didn't necessarily stop me in my tracks during the first listen, but instead I found myself humming choruses and going back to hear how the songs really went. Chester French are infectious, I guess you could say.

Chester French - Jimmy Choo's
Chester French - She Loves Everybody

Full Speed Ahead, Rock 'N Roll Is Dead: Alice Smith

2008-03-23T19:39:00.008-04:00

You know, every time I've had conversations with people about the effectiveness of advertising music through television shows, I'm never sure how much I buy into it. But then I'll do something like re-watch episodes of Entourage, hear a song that catches my attention and immediately go look up what I can hear of the lyrics to try to find the song. Guess there is a method to the madness other than just making a show's main theme song a classic gimmick.

Today that Google-search impulse led me to Alice Smith.

Her album For Lovers, Dreamers, and Me is the kind of funky disc I enjoy best of all. I like the richness of her voice, too, when so many vocalists lately tend towards a more pop-driven, lighter tone. The heaviness in her singing style is refreshing. "Dream" was the song playing in the television episode, and it's also a great start to the album, but every song that follows is full of just as much passion. No joke: every single song on this album is good.

Alice Smith - Dream

Albums: City And Colour, Gnarls Barkley, Jamie Lidell

2008-03-21T22:05:00.004-04:00

You know, I enjoyed certain selections from the first City and Colour album, but there's something about Bring Me Your Love that grabbed from the first track and held on until the end. I think what I enjoy most about it are the lyrics, and the way the metaphors aren't overly ornamented in their bitterness or hope or whatever emotion a certain track tries to tackle. There's a whole lot of cynicism and desperation throughout this album, and yet I can't stop listening to it anyway, turning over the words in my head and trying to imagine stories for people that don't exist. Lines like everyone needs a muse/maybe mine could be the bottle in "The Death of Me," all you friends seem like enemies/when you're broken down and empty from "Waiting," or the entirety of "What Makes A Man?" just entrance me.

Many of the songs keep toward the folk/acoustic side, although certain selections spill over into a more unabashedly country wallow. There's a motion driving all of them, even the slower songs, and it's probably that sense of wandering that keeps me listening every time. I want to see where else I end up by the final notes.

Sample it: City and Colour - Body in a Box

This one isn't out yet, but it's already getting a lot of buzz because of the single, "Run." Gnarls Barkley's second effort suffers from something it can't help: it's the follow-up to an album that blew a lot of people away. The new record doesn't quite always pack the same kind of attack DJ Dangermouse's signature sampling style managed through St. Elsewhere, but the duo's flighty imagination remains. Don't get me wrong, it's a still a satisfying listen. I wouldn't mention it otherwise, but I did have to note that while it's solid, I don't think it tops their debut as a musical team.

Personal strong moments include "Blind Mary", "Run", "Open Book," and "Whatever." Check it out, kids. And even if the music doesn't get you moving, you can always revisit that photoshoot with Cee-Lo in a wedding dress for some top notch entertainment.

Sample it: Gnarls Barkley - Blind Mary

There's something about this that feels unpolished. I'm going to admit right now that I don't know anything about Jamie Lidell. I haven't even heard the song that has apparently made him familiar to people. This was just an album I happened across, grabbed, and then it struck the right notes at the right time for me.

I can't really put my finger on what about the production makes it seem less touched up -- whether that was intentional or just the way things ultimately fell out -- but it works. It makes me think of the kind of albums where the genre has its roots, not too perfect for its own good. Jamie doesn't have the best voice for funk I've ever heard, but he isn't lacking either, and he has an energy to his voice that makes me want to clap along. I would love to see how well this all translates in a live setting. Up-tempo fun gets me so well here that I don't really feel the few quieter moments on the record much (which is actually the case with another album I picked up recently as well, so it could just be me), but overall, I can't stop taking time to come listen to a track and then getting sucked into turning off the shuffle in iTunes for a least a little while.

Sample it: Jamie Lidell - Hurricane

Katy Perry's Killing 'Em

2008-03-20T00:36:00.001-04:00

Lux introduced me to this song a few months ago. Katy Perry is indeed the girl from the end of the revamped MTV-ready version of Gym Class Heroes' "Cupid's Chokehold," and her own single, "Ur So Gay," is full of hilarity. She's also got a pretty sweet voice, and now there's a clever music video to make sure you can match the face to the name and the sense of humor.

Although the music video for "Ur So Gay" isn't an intentional nod to the brilliance that was Todd Haynes' Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, you still can't go wrong with the classic use of dolls. (Except, of course, this is much less depressing than the Karen Carpenter story.)

Thumbs up, Katy. Thumbs up.

it's your god-forsaken right

2008-03-15T01:30:00.005-04:00

The funny thing about "I'm Yours" being the first single from Jason Mraz's upcoming album is that I'm pretty sure anyone who enjoys Jason Mraz is already extremely familiar with the song. Interesting move there. On the other hand, dudes, we get a new Jason Mraz album. I don't know about you, but I'm more than slightly excited about it.

I want to talk album reviews in the next couple days. Just blabbing a little bit about new stuff I've heard and enjoy, but I've got to travel eastward again in a few hours. I should be sleeping. Goodnight, friends and master puppeteers. See you again when I start back to the daily grind.

Rick Cordero and The Roots get ready to infiltrate

2008-03-10T13:34:00.002-04:00

I'm in Chicago for the week, and listening to the radio on the way from O'Hare to Dolton has taught me that I still don't really miss listening to the radio. Even though I tell myself I should listen to it more regularly to keep my finger on the pulse of Top 40 more than picking up the singles that manage to garner major internet/blog respect as well, it is hard not just cut off the repetition the same six songs and play what I want to hear.

So, for me, back to the internet and independent searching it is:

Rik Cordero's been producing videos for cuts from The Roots' upcoming album. So far, there's a video for the above, "75 Bars," and then "Get Busy." I like the former more than the latter, but both songs are more top notch efforts from the band. The album, Rising Down, drops on April 29th.

Three/21 Media has more on both shoots, including some on-set photos. Rik's got a myspace as well, and I'm excited by the things I've seen about him. I think too many artists invest in stock music videos, sort of waste the medium, and it's nice to see a director interested in music video as in important part of film rather than just making videos because they're part of the media package in music these days.

Besides, I'm just kind of partial to the way Rik's partial to softer focus.

For good measure, here's a download for what I hear will be the first radio single from the album. (You like the way I brought that full circle?) It's called "Birthday Girl," and this time The Roots have enlisted the help of friend Patrick Stump of Fall Out Boy to hold down the chorus --

The Roots -Birthday Girl (ft. Patrick Stump) [m4a]

Earworm: Cole DeGenova, NER*D, flipping out

2008-03-04T21:18:00.005-05:00

I've reached that point where I have my mind on so many things at once that I can't focus on what's in front of me. Left my ATM card in the machine Friday night, and then didn't realize it until three hours later. Geez. Is it summer yet?

The night before those shenanigans, however, I was lucky enough to witness some great funk music.

After checking out a band I will most certainly introduce at a future date at All Asia on Thursday, I hung around a while and then was knocked flat by Cole DeGenova and The People's Republic. The recordings on the myspace don't hardly do their part to communicate how mesmerizing Cole and the people that play with him are. Full of energy, packed with talent and skill. They're a blend of funk, jazz, and soul, and Cole's the kind of charismatic leader that can make an audience dance one minute and swoon the next. For me, the best kinds of performers are the ones that engage their audiences hitting perfect notes and cues and still somehow manage to make it all look effortless. Cole is certainly one of those types.

Cole DeGenova & The People's Republic - I Wish I Was Dancing

myspace: coledegenovamusic

Keep an ear out for an album this summer, and be sure to check their performance dates for upcoming performances in the Boston area via Myspace.

On Saturday and Sunday, post-mild financial failure on my behalf, I went to check out N*E*R*D's show in Northampton, MA, and then Providence, RI. I had a ridiculous amount of fun, and I'm really glad that Chad's on tour along with Shay and Pharrell this time. He usually doesn't come out on the road, I've heard. For a quick recap and a few pictures (stored on Photobucket until I upgrade the flickr account), you can take a look at the write-up I've posted: N*E*R*D @ Pearl Street Nightclub

I didn't put together another individual write-up for the Providence show at Lupo's, but it was just intense and exciting. In fact, that show was tripled in intensity for me due to an unexpected, but wholly awesome, turn of events.

Just like the Pearl Street date the night before, Pharrell invited fans on-stage from the audience during the show. Instead of limiting the fun to one song, however, different folks were brought up for a little while throughout the night. During the very last song, "She Wants to Move," I was singing along and throwing my arms up the same way I had been all night as well as the night before from my spot toward the rear of the crowd on a raised level. (I'm short, man. I'd love to stick it out in the pit for every show I ever saw, but it's just not helpful to get swallowed amongst bodies when I want to take pictures or something.)

Partway into the song, Pharrell had traveled back to stage right, and when he looked up, he pointed me. When that happened a couple times in Northampton, I assumed it was one of those general acknowledgments of the back of the audience, but then he said, "I remember you! You were at the show last night!"

Cue my shock, man. Who knew me and my colorful headband meant to keep my ears warm in the cold had caught Pharrell's eye? Certainly not me! I also wasn't expecting it when he then motioned for me come on stage. Amazing!

Here's a Youtube video of the end of the set. You can hear him say he saw me the night before in Massachusetts for the second time or so, and then I get a little love from the crowd for being hardcore (ridiculous?) enough to travel a bit to see two shows.

There's one more here. Being on stage was such a pleasure. I got to wile out for the end of the set, and even though he'd been pulling people up, all the previous thrashers had been dudes. It was nice to represent for girls who like throw themselves around some, too.

Clips of many portions of both shows are slowly being uploaded by people who went to either date. Most notably, Jeff Carvalho has high quality versions of both "Everybody Nose" and "Lapdance" uploaded to vimeo. Great stuff. I also uploaded a small clip of the end of "Tape You" from the Providence set uploaded to Youtube as well. Notice Chad filming the surroundings --

This is definitely a weekend that I wish I could redo, in a good way. If you're able to make it out to any of the N*E*R*D promo tour dates, I strongly encourage you to do just that. You won't be disappointed!

Wax on Felt showcase

2008-02-27T15:25:00.002-05:00

It's that time of year again. I forgot to put this up earlier, because we're in the process of moving the main page from the myspace to a domain (waxonfelt.org). Still, here is the pressing info:

Wax on Felt is NOW accepting submissions from Boston-area based artists for our annual contest and showcase!

The winner will receive a 1-year contract from Wax on Felt Records including recording of one album with 500 copies pressed, booking of at least two shows, a Press Kit, promotion, and more!

To enter:

Send a Press Kit or Electronic submission (EPK, MySpace page, MP3s, etc.) postmarked or e-mailed by March 17th! (Electronic submissions preferred: waxonfelt@gmail.com, snail mail address TBA.) You MUST be able to PLAY and PROMOTE a show at TT the Bear's in Cambridge on Thursday April 10th should you be chosen to compete at our Showcase. (Please prepare for this, the basis of the showcase is to see how you perform live and what kind of crowd you can draw. Prior contracts do not exclude you from this requirement.)

Best of Luck!

In my two years working with Wax on Felt, we've signed, recorded, and promoted The Garrison Delight and Benefit Friends, with various types of music preceding my own experiences here. We're open to many varied styles. It's a small operation but an earnest one. If you know of any bands/artists in the area who've got talent and are looking for a little extra support, please point them in our direction.

Super Powered: Amanda Diva

2008-02-23T16:02:00.003-05:00

When I went to check out Lupe Fiasco in New York at the beginning of this month, I was intrigued by his first opener, Amanda Diva. She was only on the tour for a week as a more local artist. I believe she only has an EP out right now, so a chunk of her set was dedicated to being more of a hype woman rather than flexing her rhymes, but when she did take time to perform, I thought she was solid. She's also got a feminist outlook and approach to her career and style, which I really appreciate. There's never been anything more exciting to me than an intelligent, outspoken female performer.

Like so many of us, Amanda Diva has a blog as well. Check it out, and keep updated on on what she's doing with herself, what kind of stuff has caught her attention lately, and last but certainly not least, keep up with every edition of her very own, Diva Speak TV. I love these webisodes.

The show includes commentary on music culture but also stretches beyond that to acknowledge influential women internationally, and this month in particular, some (sad) moments in Black History. I embedded the above episode above mostly for the section on why Amanda shakes her head at Soulja Boy. Amanda's hilarous, charming, and most importantly, the lady's knowledgeable.

And did I mention that she rhymes? Here's her appearance on Def Poetry, performing "40 Emcees," which also has an official music video:

blog: http://divaspeaktv.blogspot.com/
myspace: http://www.myspace.com/AmandaDiva

She's definitely somebody to keep an eye on for the future.

Things to Do in Boston: Switches, hip-hop discussion

2008-02-19T12:59:00.006-05:00

I won't lie to you, folks, I've been far to wrapped up in my own thing to search for especially notable happenings in Boston, so this comes to you straight from Cheap Thrills:

WED 2/20

6:30pm to 8pm
Raps on the Gap, "Hip Hop Music and School Success": Discussion
at Starr Auditorium, Belfer Center, 79 JFK St, Cambridge (Kennedy School of Govt)

It's a FREE event, the first in a series of presentations on ways to reduce racial and socioeconomic gaps in achievement. More a discussion of hip-hop as a culture rather than solely discussing the music, but those things tend to go hand-in-hand, of course. Talib Kweli is included among the panelists!

As for tonight, I'll be neglecting my homework duties and heading to see The Bravery play Paradise Rock Club. Funny thing, I was looking over my alerts and was bummed to find out that I had missed UK band Switches, who did a free in-store today at noon. I had class, so I couldn't check it out, which got me down because a free opportunity for live music should never passed up, right? While checking their myspace and deciding that I actually do enjoy their pop rock sound, I noticed that they were playing Paradise, put two and four together, and realized that they're opening for The Bravery tonight. Amazing!

So come check out the show this evening. Give me five somewhere in the crowd.

mp3s:
The Bravery - Split Me Wide Open
The Bravery - Bad Sun

don't get any big ideas: amplive versus radiohead

2008-02-16T03:29:00.007-05:00

What I love about the people with influence in the music business -- what I really, really love is when they prove that they aren't completely clueless. People who encourage creativity as long as it's done respectfully. I might be just be a wishy-washy kid trying to have her cake and eat it too, but I think there can be happy mediums between the way the mainstream players conduct business and smaller producers, singers, bands, and hip-hop artists just trying their hand at creating fresh material.

EMI tried to crush DJ Dangermouse over The Grey Album a few years ago. That seemed to be the case with Warner/Chappell and Amplive's remixes of certain cuts from Radiohead's latest studio album, In Rainbows. After negotiations and a video apology from Amplive, however, both sides have apparently come to an agreement that still allows from free download of the remix album, Rainydayz Remixes.

All eight tracks are available in zip file on Amplive's page: Download 'Rainydayz'

But first, here are a couple comparison tracks though so that you can get a taste of what he's trying to do with the material --

Radiohead - 15 Steps
Amplive (feat. Codany Holiday) - 15 Stepz

If you're into it, then why not try to check out Amplive if he happens to hit your area.

02-20 Riverside, CA - UC Riverside
02-29 San Jose, CA - The Avalon
03-02 South Lake Tahoe, CA - Whiskey Dicks
03-06 Los Angeles, CA - El Rey
03-07 Phoenix, AZ - The Brickhouse
03-13 Austin, TX - Emo's (SXSW)
03-16 Durango, CO - The Abbey Theater
03-18 Salt Lake City, UT - Urban Lounge
03-19 Missoula, MT - The Other Side
03-20 Eugene, OR - WOW Hall
03-22 Portland, OR - Fez Ballroom

no one raise your voices: Beirut, Panic at the Disco, etc

2008-02-11T18:30:00.000-05:00

I've already talked about how much I love the playful contemporary dance shenanigans going on Beirut's "Elephants Gun" with people in the past, but the video for "Nantes" (part of a whole Flying Cup video collection) has been stuck in my head all day, because I was watching Panic at the Disco's music video for their new single "Nine in The Afternoon." The most immediate comparison people will make is to The Beatles, specifically Sgt. Pepper, but it took my brain to some of my favorite Beirut visuals for recent reference, only if you had taken those images and shoved inside of Pee Wee's Playhouse. But, really, the video for "Nantes" makes me smile using the simplest concept.

studo mp3: Beirut - Nantes

It's the way the whole things feels like a sleepy morning. It's the way you can hear the horns, and then several flights down the camera turns and, whoa, there is honestly brass in the stairwell. It's the way that this isn't just mimed to a studio track but an actual full band playing live in a Brooklyn stairwell that gets me.

Enjoy, friends. Until sometime later this week...

sound so clear: shows and learning a person

2008-02-05T22:02:00.000-05:00

I'm one of those people, you know -- if you take the time to send me a for real note about an upcoming show your band is having, I'll actually take the time to check out what you've got to offer me (whether via myspace or email or whatever). Erick from Love in October shot me a message today about a set the band is playing as part of their Pontus, the Devil, and Me tour at All Asia on Thursday night. It's only $5, dudes. And according to their Artist of the Day feature on Spin, their video for "A Day in the Life Of" got them nominated for an MTVU Woodie, which is pretty cool.

myspace: Love in October

sample mp3: Petrula the Destroyer

children of the hat-tilting keep hope alive now: brief note

2008-02-03T12:11:00.000-05:00

It's been a fun-filled few days for me. I'm currently in Brooklyn, hanging out until it's time to head back to Boston to do homework and get back the to, as they say, the daily grind. I'm behind on my recounts of shows already, because I've been too busy to upload pictures and/or sit down to write real summations. Consider this a rain check, and hopefully by the end of this week I can get back to you about unexpectedly seeing The Click Five when I went to check out a local band, how great the Benefit Friends date went, and finally, seeing Lupe Fiasco do his thing with pretty much the entire FNF family. Those people have once again shown me an amazing time (with special thanks to Rae for bringing me along). Best night of the year thus far for me, certainly.

Speaking of which --

Lupe said April, dudes and dudettes. I know I'm going to do my best to be there.

"I wouldn't look at a Kandinsky with sunglasses on."

2008-01-31T11:22:00.000-05:00

...is music doomed to keep sounding worse? Awareness of the problem is growing. The South by Southwest music festival recently featured a panel titled "Why Does Today's Music Sound Like Shit?" In August, a group of producers and engineers founded an organization called Turn Me Up!, which proposes to put stickers on CDs that meet high sonic standards.

But even most CD listeners have lost interest in high-end stereos as surround-sound home theater systems have become more popular, and superior-quality disc formats like DVD-Audio and SACD flopped. Bendeth and other producers worry that young listeners have grown so used to dynamically compressed music and the thin sound of MP3s that the battle has already been lost. "CDs sound better, but no one's buying them," he says. "The age of the audiophile is over."

- from "The Death of High Fidelity"
Rolling Stone Online, December 2007

Shaina actually pointed this article out to me a few weeks ago, but it's been on my mind again because of the discussion held toward the end of my production class on Tuesday.

I think it's important to note that when people talk about music "sounding like shit" or saying that "everyone sounds the same" in this context, it can mean a very different thing than what a lot of us first assume. I mean, I know that my first thought is to take those kinds of statements as an evaluation of the artists themselves rather the actual sound itself as sound -- the dynamic range and compression of a record.

Without badly reproducing a lecture someone else could better handle, here's a short video the Rolling Stone article links at the very end as supplemental material:

Small fact: Digitally, music is recorded at -14dBS approximately, while sound for film is recorded at least -20dBs (with the threshold of pain for the human ear landing at about 120dBs). Why? The larger your dynamic range, the more head room you have between a comfortable, flat sound and the ceiling (or point of distortion). The larger your dynamic range, the more opportunity you have to capture and hear softer sounds in comparison to louder sound. In film, this could mean something like being able to capture background noise in a scene as well as voices that may be closer to a microphone, and therefore louder.

The problem with recording music louder and then compressing it is that you decrease your initial dynamic range, as you see in the clip. A casual listener may not notice it, but you'll experience the record as having a much flatter sound than what was normal for older music.

Of course, getting a flatter sound is the point of compression. It's the difference between seeing a live show and experiencing the loudness of all the instruments in a song and then listening to the same song on a record but with less of a jarring jump in loudness between verse and chorus because you aren't actually having someone suddenly scream in your face or play a horn aimed right at your ear.

However, the idea is to compress without losing what's exciting about that variation in the way instruments of different loudness sound together. When you record with a very small dynamic range where notes are right against the ceiling to begin with and then compress or flatten the sound, there's no room for much variation in individual loudness between the instruments. There are no loud and soft. Everything is recorded on the same level, and then either gets turned up of turned down altogether. And since low frequency sounds need to be louder in order to reach audible frequencies for humans, it's very easy for a lot of information to get lost or, with high frequencies, reach distortion points a lot sooner.

You want to know why your new favorite album sounds nothing like the band you saw and loved live? It's because your album is probably sonically boring as hell.

time flies when you're having fun

2008-01-31T01:53:00.000-05:00

Anyway, I'm crazy excited to hear thew new Gym Class Heroes album, even though that won't drop for a while now. In the meantime, Lux helped me find a full length version of their cover of the Arctic Monkeys' "Leave Before The Lights Come On." Previously, I had a rip from the in-studio performance they did on Live Lounge last year, but that doesn't compare to the way it came across live at all. And after I saw the Young Wild Things Tour in Boston, people had failed to upload full-length videos for ripping, but now those good ol' Youtubers seem to have picked up the slack

Audio: Gym Class Heroes - Leave Before The Lights Come On (Arctic Monkeys Cover)

Thanks, Lux!

shaking babies, kissing hands

2008-01-28T17:39:00.000-05:00

Part of the reason the [hip-hop] culture is so influential among today's youth is that most young people who identify with hip-hop, unlike rock and roll and other musical genres, identify with more than music. Although bebop, the jazz subculture, was also associated with a cultural lifestyle, that lifestyle never ventured far beyond jazz aficionados. Hip-hop's emergence in a global information age is a major variable that sets it apart, vastly increasing its capacity to reach beyond anything the world has ever seen.

- Why White Kids Love Hip-Hop, xii

I've only just started reading Bakari Kitwana's book on race and hip-hop culture (which, inevitably, also gets into class and other connected issues), and so far I'm really intrigued by two ideas. First, there's the quote above, which aligns the mainstream, worldwide popularity of hip-hop as a culture with the rise of the digital age -- the age of the Internet. Mostly, I'm fascinated because I hadn't thought about it, but as a genre that really began in earnest during the early 1980s (as rap became an integral part of a style dominated by DJs), years after even other alternative and generally modern scenes like punk, it makes sense.

Another point that Kitwana brings up is the fact that hip-hop started out as a socio-political tool, much like punk but largely for/among Black, urban areas. However, because it was started by the later generation X children and has grown up with the millennium generation/gen Y group, it's also grown up with the biggest technological advancements made during the last two or three decades, many of which have helped bring about the reality of today's "global community."

That doesn't mean that the socio-political aspect no longer exists. One problem I think hip-hop sees, though, is that both the political and the more frivolous elements of the music and culture are all thrown under the same umbrella. It's all hip-hop. Some of the same fuzzy lines are drawn within punk/pop-punk culture now, what with the universal skinny jean and Hot-Topic doing its part to mass market the culture born from those genres, but I think that those genres can still point to examples of historical "purity" in a movement just a little better than rap and hip-hop. It's supposed to be a genre and culture that represents the alienated, but it's simultaneously a culture that (especially today) represents buying into the most popular trends.

A friend of mine suggested that maybe the present-day definition of indie and hipster culture could fall into this too, and I suppose so. I mean, the pseudo-thrift chic, paying big money to look like you rolled out of bed thing is mostly an exaggeration of the real culture that Urban Outfitters pinched it from. The success of television shows like The OC made "indie" popular and sold it in widely distributed compilation form, giving the culture of it a more definite aesthetic and sound for the mainstream. (Sort of a "The OC claimed The Shins and Modest Mouse were indie artist and looked like those Newport kids, therefore indie commonly sounds like The Shins and looks like Newport teenagers" mode of thinking.)

That starts to go on a coolhunting tangent and commercial arenas appropriating authenticity for sales, but overall, I think I'm most intrigued by the idea that its all worldwide. Esotericism can almost never persist nowadays, at least in countries connected to the web. The main point of Kitwana's book is that being part of the global generation and also a generation where consumerism is, as he suggests, a true American value -- that mainstreaming cultures like what surrounds hip-hop isn't only important because of what it says about marketing. It's also important, because it's evidence that all of these cultures are reaching everyone in the world. It means the youth embracing this blend of different trends pulled from various places, economies, etc, are also adopting a broader worldview than previous generations, because this stuff is part of pop culture, and thus part of this generation's everyday.

Of course, Kitwana also acknowledges that this changing worldview is imperfect because the youth generation still constantly comes up against the older ways of viewing and handling race/class/etc. "...even more troubling," he writes, "[the old agenda] rallies the young generation to take up its dying causes." It's certainly a muddled shift, because America's national conversations on race and class have yet to catch up with the realities of both in a changing society, but it's been interesting to read Kitwana's book and start somewhere.

Bay State Puluse, Crooklyn Gangsta, that old feeling

2008-01-25T01:22:00.000-05:00

The Audio Engineering Society is probably most known for the New York convention held every couple years, but oftentimes they host a bunch of smaller things through colleges. Here's some info about engineer Don Puluse coming to speak at Bay State on Thursday:

(click to enlarge)

You might want to come see it, and then head on over to The Middle East upstairs and check out the Benefit Friends set after 9pm! Way to spend a Thursday heading into the weekend, right? Definitely.

Random Anecdote Theater: my first day of intro audio, my instructor started talking about when he realized he just wanted to work in music, and then decided to go for it. He said that he was at some seminar or class or another, and whoever was speaking asked a rhetorical question about what felt worthwhile in life or something. (Goodness, I should've typed this up when he first told it. Even just 48hrs has dulled my brain.) Anyway, the point is that my instructor thought about it, and he landed on that feeling you get when you hear a piece of music and all you want to do is replay it a hundred times to live in it. That was amazing to me, because yeah. Exactly. And then you live from song to song in search of the next big high from a tune. I want to learn how to create those moments too. Next step and all.

Anyway --

I raved about this song to Clea last night, because I've listened to it a number of times and it still hasn't stopped sounding extremely clever to me.

Jay-Z and Small Professor - Hello Brooklyn (feat Lil' Wayne)

It's from the Crooklyn Gangsta remix album, and I love it because it uses a section in some of Jamie Foxx's stand-up and then takes off on a beatbox loop for the whole track. Recontextualizing stuff you wouldn't expect gets me every time. Kevin Nottingham has the full album up in addition to a bunch of other American Gangsta remixes. It's crazy how many there are. Releasing a cappella versions of some of his albums is one the smarter things Jay-Z's done, yes?

crockpot jams: new classes, new shows, new you

2008-01-23T22:05:00.000-05:00

And it starts. We've achieved show lift-off and the jumpstart of a new semester. My intro audio class was the only course I had Tuesday afternoon. I'm really excited about it. We're starting off with a lot of theory and building a working knowledge of how sound works/is perceived/etc. (What's up, physics? I didn't miss you.) From there, we're moving into learning equipment (including reading board diagrams), and then last but not least we'll get into constructing and completing whole projects using Pro Tools LE. It's going to be amazing. I think I need to save up for some better headphones.

Today I had my other three courses, one of which being the class that examines art music, starting with musical premieres in the 1700s (operas, etc) and ending with Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring. Of course, the only piece I'm even somewhat familiar with is Stravinsky's. It's another course that I'm really intrigued by, but it looks like the work load (and also the cost) of staying this class may just stress me out a little. There's a lot of writing, which I can do, but on top of everything else I'm doing this semester, the amount of time I'll spend reading and writing for this one course (in addition to my literature and history of photography course, ahaha) isn't something I look forward to, really. Ah well. Hopefully, enjoying the content will make the hours spent feel worth it. Expect a lot of rambling here are about classical masterpieces and the physics of sound, then. Finally, I'm going to spend a semester talking about music extensively in school as well as outside of it.

Unfortunately, being bogged down with school and work means I don't have time to offer for this internship with Mass Appeal. It's killing me that I can't apply. Intense and serious pain. I keep telling myself that I'll have the opportunity to get into so much as I learn more to make myself feel better about not getting all the experience I want, like, yesterday.

Cobra Starship @ The Middle East Downstairs, Boston (1/20/08)

2008-01-23T17:35:00.000-05:00

I went to the double-header that was Cobra Starship's Really Really Ridiculously Good Looking tour at The Middle East Downstairs in Cambridge this past Sunday. Most of these shots are a) from the 1pm show and b) kind of crappy because I'm still holding out for a professional camera. The one I have is easily crippled by bad club lighting. Fingers crossed, I may just be able to buy myself a professional one sometime next month finally.

more here

On tour with: The Cab, We The Kings, and Metro Station.

ding dong, the witch is dead

2008-01-18T05:53:00.000-05:00

Entirely honest? I'm finding it really hard to feel any sympathy for EMI as many of their artists protest the new lay of the land (including Radiohead, Coldplay, and possibly The Rolling Stones). You don't lay off 2,000 employees, threaten to ax a bunch of smaller artists, and then just expect people not to get upset. Also, on a bitter level, I've kind of rolled my eyes at them ever since the shenanigans with Dangermouse and The Grey Album. It's kind of fitting, in a way, that their failure to work with the way the industry is changing is causing them all their problems. (That is, if you want to blame downloads for everything, which they apparently do.)

Whatever.

Since I have an afternoon left here in Southern California, I might as well take advantage and include some music relevant to this side of things before I get back to Boston. I'm late as hell on getting around to actually listening to Crooked-I's Hip-Hop Weekly endeavor. He records and posts a new freestyle every week, and he plans to do so until he hits 52 weeks. He's up to 42 now, but all the clips are available in a folder.

Crooked-I - week 1 (straight to the bank)
Crooked I - week 42

I'm a little bummed too, because The Cool Kids are playing here Saturday, but of course I need to catch a flight tonight. I mean, they're more style than substance, but I've been curious about how they translate live versus record or, you know, brief television commercial.

The Cool Kids - Gold and a Pager
The Cool Kids - Flossin'

put your good foot down: Benefit Friends, failed show runs

2008-01-17T01:15:00.000-05:00

All counted out, I went to something like 40 shows last year. The bulk of those happened between the end of August and December, after I'd started covering the street market in earnest. I really want to surpass that number this year. Number one was supposed to be today, but plans sort of fell through last minute. I was gonna check out Jill Scott's set in Hollywood. It's no biggie, because I didn't pay for the tickets anyway, but it's a shame when those types of things go to waste.

On an up note, the information for Benefit Friends January 31st set is posted on the Middle East website. It's an 18+ show, $8 entry, starting at 9pm. So far Benefit Friends are playing along with Thunder Brothers and Awesome Brothers. I'm... pretty sure the hilarity in that is all coincidence. We may or may not add a fourth set, but the problem is finding a decent single player. Schuyler, the man behind Benefit Friends, recommended D. Gookin, but I don't know if D's stuff is quite right for a dance party. At least, the samples he has on his myspace aren't as exciting as I'd like. Ah well. Jeff says we don't necessarily need a fourth, but it wouldn't hurt to have more. More is never a bad thing.

Exactly two weeks after the Middle East show, Benefit Friends will play Paper for the EP release. This year, we managed to get all the recording done a lot earlier than we did with The Garrison Delight's record. And with Schuyler playing the northeast tour over break, we've had a lot more shows too. There is nothing that isn't absolutely ridiculous about trying to drop an album on Valentine's Day, but that's also why we like it. Couples can come make out in the corners and single people can party on the dance floor.

passion pit: have you heard?

2008-01-16T17:19:00.000-05:00

This morning I got a hit from Breeze about hooking up replacements, so I sent out some messages to see who was available to play a rush show. Well, sort of rush. The set is at the end of the month. Anyway, I'm not sure about who'll take up the spot for the New York dropouts, but I did come across a band whose sound catches me. Passion Pit are based in Cambridge, MA, and they've got a sound that makes me think of my favorite joy music. Not exactly like Animal Collective's latest album, Strawberry Jam, but the same kind of hands-in-the-air feeling.

Passion Pit - Better Things
Passion Pit - Sleepy Head

myspace: passionpitjams

I think what gets me is the infectiousness of the bass beats versus the whimsical vocals. I'm a sucker for something that makes me want to shuffle my feet and a melody that makes me want to shout.