Hermanator X wrote:So my little towns music festival have announced their line up. Im excited for the headline acts of Røyksopp, and Jaga Jazzist, but another band has a good headline slot named "tortoise."
Ive heard of them, but cant say ive listened to them. Any zoners with any knowledge of whether they are worth a go see?
Hermanator X wrote:Thanks a lot for that, and double thanks for the link. Will check em out when I get home from work. The jazz riffs explain them playing at a predominantly Jazz festival...
This is the stage they should be playing on, the tubaloon, its pretty nifty (as long as the weather is good).
Fievel wrote:Want to (legally) download concerts of jam/jazz/funk bands?
http://stash.nugs.net/stash.asp
Hermanator X wrote:So my little towns music festival have announced their line up. Im excited for the headline acts of Røyksopp, and Jaga Jazzist, but another band has a good headline slot named "tortoise."
Ive heard of them, but cant say ive listened to them. Any zoners with any knowledge of whether they are worth a go see?
DaleTremont wrote:I'm doing this experiment where I actually try to listen to new music and be proactive about getting out there and discovering shit I like...and in these travels I came across this band Icarus Himself. In my music ignorance I have no idea what kind of reputation they have, but I'm seriously loving their album 'Mexico.' Dreamy and melodic like it should be playing in a Sofia Coppola movie where a cherubic-faced waif stares despondently out of a window or something. But actually more upbeat than that so maybe at the point where there's some sort of life-affirming/fuck-it-all moment.
...there is a reason I don't try to write about music...
DaleTremont wrote:I'm doing this experiment where I actually try to listen to new music and be proactive about getting out there and discovering shit I like...and in these travels I came across this band Icarus Himself. In my music ignorance I have no idea what kind of reputation they have, but I'm seriously loving their album 'Mexico.' Dreamy and melodic like it should be playing in a Sofia Coppola movie where a cherubic-faced waif stares despondently out of a window or something. But actually more upbeat than that so maybe at the point where there's some sort of life-affirming/fuck-it-all moment.
...there is a reason I don't try to write about music...
DaleTremont wrote:Thanks guys for guiding me on this musical journey!
Steely Dan is one of those bands I hear a lot about but have never actually listened to so it's probably time I checked them out.
I just listened to a couple songs from Beach House and Wild Nothing...in my opinion they will be perfect for when I'm driving around LA staring out windows and pretending to be one of those despondent waifs
stereosforgeeks wrote:DaleTremont wrote:Thanks guys for guiding me on this musical journey!
Steely Dan is one of those bands I hear a lot about but have never actually listened to so it's probably time I checked them out.
I just listened to a couple songs from Beach House and Wild Nothing...in my opinion they will be perfect for when I'm driving around LA staring out windows and pretending to be one of those despondent waifs
Im glad you like!
TheButcher wrote:From Vulture:
Whoops: Jerry Garcia Biopic Not Actually Allowed to Use Jerry Garcia’s Music
Singer Palmer charts course outside label system
By Cortney Harding – Fri Aug 6, 11:27 pm ET Reuters
NEW YORK (Billboard) – By traditional standards, Amanda Palmer is something of a nonentity in the music business. But traditional standards are useless because we are not living in traditional times.
Her highest-selling album, a self-titled 2004 release with her punk-cabaret band Dresden Dolls, has sold 149,000 copies; none of her subsequent albums (two more Dresden Dolls records, a solo release and an album by a project called Evelyn Evelyn) crossed the 100,000 mark, according to Nielsen SoundScan. She was dropped from her label, Roadrunner. Her tours do well in midsize clubs but rarely break out into bigger venues.
Palmer, 34, can't sell lots of albums in a record store. But she can spend a few hours on a Friday night in front of her computer, drinking wine and tweeting, and wind up rallying her followers to drop $11,000 on T-shirts. (The numbers Palmer reports are all gross, but even so, 440 $25 T-shirts less production and shipping costs is still a nice number.) She can spend a few more hours on Twitter and auction off postcards and miscellaneous junk from around her home and bring in another $6,600. And she can release an album of Radiohead covers played on her ukulele and gross $15,000.
So is Palmer just a lucky outlier, blessed with talent, pluck and a devoted and sometimes high-profile support base? (Her fiance is writer Neil Gaiman.) Or is she the harbinger of a new DIY model?
CHATTER, TWITTER
One thing is certain -- Palmer likes to talk. In an hour on the phone, she barely takes a breath, covering everything from her unhappy undergrad experience at Wesleyan University to former label Roadrunner to her feelings about Lady Gaga. The verbosity has served her well. Palmer believes she wouldn't have built such a rabid fan base if she weren't willing to spend hours talking to her followers.
Palmer isn't just a prolific Twitterer. After every show she plays, she spends at least an hour signing autographs and talking to fans. "She really does love it," her project manager, Beth Hommel, says. (Palmer is self-managed but has a staff of three.) "I'll be trying to round her up to get her on the bus, and she'll just want to stay and keep the conversation going."
Her affinity for fan interaction isn't a new development, either. Palmer has insisted on spending time with fans after every show since the Dresden Dolls started performing eight years ago. "My fan base is not huge per se, but they are devoted. People come back again and again," Palmer says. "I get people coming up to me after shows and just handing me money because they want to support my work."
In an age when bands come and go quickly, Palmer says her staying power is mostly due to her fans. "I am constantly telling younger artists to take care of their early fan bases," she says. "There is still a stigma about hanging out with your fans and showing gratitude. I've seen it a lot -- when Dresden Dolls was first coming up, I'd go see bands and wonder why they were big and we weren't, and then a year later they were gone, because their fans just moved on."
RUNNING FOR IT
Palmer's fans have proved to be loyal. When she posted that Roadrunner had cut shots of her midsection from a video and speculated that it was because she wasn't a size zero, her fans started what they dubbed a "re-belly-on" and sent pictures of their own stomachs to the label.
Her relationship with Roadrunner was fraught toward the end, but she says that everything started out copacetic. "Roadrunner was the only label that was interested in Dresden Dolls," she says. "I sent out packages to everyone -- name a label, and I sent them something. In my mind, we were the dream band -- self-sufficient, with an audience already."
Unlike some of her formerly major-label, now-indie contemporaries who spew venom at majors, Palmer says she gives credit where credit is due. "They did a fabulous job on the first record," she says. "And I have no doubt we got a huge boost out of it. People think it's weird I signed to a metal label, but in my mind, I looked at the bigger picture and saw that Roadrunner was working with weird bands, non-pop bands, bands with hardcore followings, and it made sense."
With the second Dresden Dolls album, the relationship began to unravel. "The straw that broke the camel's back was when I went in to meet with the head of the label and he asked me to make a mainstream pop record," she says. "Now, I'm a good pop songwriter, and I might well make a pop album someday. But if I do, it'll be on my own terms."
She campaigned, very publicly, to be dropped, and after a period of time the label accommodated her request, a source close to the situation says. Roadrunner retains the rights to future Dresden Dolls releases.
HAPPY CAMPER
When it came time to release her Radiohead covers album, Palmer decided to team up with Bandcamp, a relatively new e-commerce platform for musicians. Palmer says she calculated the minimum she would need to break even on each digital album, including paying publishing fees to Radiohead and covering her own costs, and arrived at a base figure of 84 cents.
She advertised that number as the base donation, adding that buyers were free to contribute more. She also sold vinyl copies of the album for $20 and devised a number of other fixed-price packages, including T-shirts for $20; a $35 pack with vinyl, a shirt and buttons; and a $250 pack with vinyl, a shirt, a ukulele hand-painted by musician Kayla Oberlin, a signed photo, a mai tai glass, poster and other goodies.
In addition, she put together a $1,000 package with vinyl, a shirt, a ukulele hand-painted by Palmer, a phone call with Palmer, an original song by Palmer based on the buyer's suggestion, a signed photo, glass and poster. A second $1,000 package added a one-of-a-kind iPhone 3GS with exclusive content. Within 24 hours, everything was sold out save for the shirts and one of the $1,000 packages.
Palmer says the average donation was about $5 per EP. "Once you type in 84 cents, it looks like such a paltry number, and people want to bump it up," she says. "They know the money is going to me, and that makes it easier to increase the amount."
She's preparing for a performance as the MC in a production of "Cabaret" at Boston's American Repertory Theater that will run in September and October. Palmer notes that although she's not getting rich, she's able to pay her bills with the income from sales and touring, and she's content with where her fans have led her.
"People have asked me about Lady Gaga, and while she's great, I have no desire to do that," she says. "People need to get out of this old mind-set about fame being some sort of game you can win and look at ways for musicians to make sustainable, middle-class incomes. I'm focused on my audience and art, not being a flash in the pan."
Replacements bassist Tommy Stinson helps in Haiti
By JOANN LOVIGLIO, Associated Press Writer – Sat Aug 7, 1:12 pm ET
MEDIA, Pa. – Since he picked up a bass guitar and dropped out of 10th grade to hit the road with underground legends The Replacements in Minneapolis in 1983, Tommy Stinson has sold millions of records, performed all over the world and secured his place in the rock 'n' roll canon.
As he prepares to embark on a European tour with Guns N' Roses, Stinson, 43, is devoting his time and money to a new passion: helping children left homeless by the Haitian earthquake.
This summer, Stinson will hold an online fundraiser by auctioning personal and donated items that will be posted on his website, including an autographed bass guitar and two of his signature custom-made plaid suits.
"We've got some stuff to auction off that I think will span all three bands I've been in, from Soul Asylum, Replacements, Guns N' Roses," he told The Associated Press during a recent interview at his home and recording studio outside Philadelphia.
"We're just going to try to do our best to raise some money to help in our way, help the kids the best we can."
The mechanics are still being worked out, but the goal is to have it up and running before Stinson leaves for Europe to tour with Guns N' Roses at the end of August.
"It's not just people talking about it that's going to help the earthquake survivors get past this," he said. "It's going to be a lot of years. ... We're just trying to our little share of the work here with what we've got."
After he decided to donate the proceeds of the upcoming auction to charity, a friend suggested Timkatec, a nonprofit founded in 1994 by a Roman Catholic priest to house and educate more than 500 children in the Port-au-Prince area.
"They pay for education and food and supplies for these kids who basically have no families, no life, no nothing, out on the street, as young as 5, 6 years old," he said.
Rather than just writing a check, Stinson wanted to see firsthand where his money would be going and recently traveled to Haiti with the goal of "besides getting financially involved, getting emotionally involved."
In late July, attended a graduation ceremony for 60 young men from Timkatec who earned trade degrees. The school trains destitute boys for work as plumbers, electricians, tailors, shoe makers and construction workers; its sister school trains teenage girls as cooks, hairdressers, seamstresses and child care workers.
"You can see the pride in their faces. You can see the hope. You can see the gratitude," Stinson said a few days after returning from Haiti.
The experience was eye-opening, he said. Driving through Port-au-Prince, it was obvious that Haiti was in dire straits long before the earthquake, but he was inspired by the aid workers and the young graduates he met during his visit.
"These kids have to be able to focus on something other than their own misery," said Patrick O'Shea of Sanford, Fla., founder of Friends of Timkatec in America, which raises funds for the Haitian organization's relief efforts.
O'Shea, 70, was born outside London during World War II and understands the burden of growing up without parents: His mother was killed in an air raid and his father died of tuberculosis while fighting overseas.
"I'm not a rock fan personally, and I didn't know anything about Tommy," O'Shea said, "but I do know that this is a guy with his heart in the right place, flying down at his own expense to see what we do, coming here to help raise money to help these kids."
As the Jan. 12 earthquake falls off the radar screens of many Americans, conditions in Haiti remain dire: An estimated 1.6 million people continue living under tarps and tents on dangerous ground.
Little reconstruction has been done since the magnitude-7 quake pulverized the capital. Piles of rubble and thousands of collapsed buildings remain where they fell. Even transitional shelters are a rarity for most.
Stinson wants to keep Haiti in people's faces — and he intends to enlist some of his rock 'n' roll friends in the effort.
"I don't really have the money to do this kind of thing, but I put aside the money because I think it's important," he said.
Though he'll be spending much of what remains of 2010 on the road with Guns N' Roses, Stinson suspects that his help for Haiti won't end with the upcoming auction.
"After ... spending 30 years of chasing the rock dream," he said with a laugh, "you know, there's a few more important things in life than that."
___
Online:
http://www.tommystinson.com
http://www.timkatec.org
DaleTremont wrote:Not sure if this is well known or not but on the last episode of Hung there was a really cool track that played over the end credits by a band called the xx.
I like.
David McCutcheon wrote:If it were possible for composing genius Hans Zimmer to get any more popular, it has certainly happened with the score for the major motion picture Inception; droves of folks have jumped on the Internet bandwagon of mixing the Inception trailer's brilliant scores with everything from Psychonauts to Toy Story 3, where you can find hundreds of variations across YouTube as a fun way to pass the time. The score's brilliance has touched more than just the hearts of millions across the web, as the composer has a plethora of jobs waiting in the wings.
Indiewire's Thompson on Hollywood is reporting that everybody's favorite composer of the year has 11 new projects lined up, and among them is the new Zack Snyder Superman experiment. Also on the long list of projects for the resumé include the sequel to Kung Fu Panda, the fourth entry into the Pirates of the Caribbean saga, a sequel to Sherlock Holmes, and even a new version of Winnie the Pooh, according to IMDb.
Michael Daugherty hit the jackpot at this year's Grammy nominations. A recording by the Nashville Symphony of two of his pieces, Metropolis Symphony and Deus Ex Machina, is up for five awards. That's particularly impressive given that Metropolis Symphony was written in the late 1980's.
Daugherty says that when he wrote the piece, most composers were writing abstract music.
"Sometimes when you compose a piece, it can be a little bit ahead of its time. And that could be the case [with this symphony]," Daugherty says. "I thought it would be a good opportunity for me to go back to the days when I read the comics."
Though Metropolis Symphony is inspired by Superman, it doesn't focus exclusively on the man himself.
"It's about the people around him, the environment around him," the composer says. "Only at the end, the 'Red Cape Tango' — the death of the Man Of Steel — do we look directly at him."
The fourth movement, "O, Lois!," is a reference to Lois Lane, Superman's love interest and fellow reporter. It's the fastest of the movements — in fact, the tempo marking at the beginning reads, "faster than a speeding bullet." It's also perhaps the most overtly cartoon-like music in the composition. Daugherty says he drew inspiration from pop art and television shows such as Batman.
"There would be a crash, bang, boom — and there would be a cartoon spelling of that word," Daugherty says. "I do that in the percussion."
More Powerful Than A Locomotive
The second half of the record features a more recent Daugherty composition, finished in 2007, titled Deus Ex Machina (Latin for "god out of the machine"). It's essentially a piano concerto that Daugherty says was heavily influenced by trains.
"I've always been fascinated by trains," he says. "Where I lived in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on the second floor in my bedroom, the window would be open at nighttime, and I would always hear the trains coming through, with the train whistle. I thought this was a great opportunity to write a piece about that."
The second movement is about a specific train: the seven-car train that transported Abraham Lincoln's body. It started its journey in Washington, D.C., then passed through various cities across the U.S. on its way to its destination in Illinois. Along the way, hundreds of thousands of people viewed the body of Lincoln.
"This was really the first president's funeral that traveled," Daugherty says. "Lincoln was the person who allocated federal funds to build the train system in America. So it was his vision as president to provide the funding for a national train system."
The first minute of the movement begins softly in the piano and builds up slowly with horns and chimes.
"At the beginning of the piece, the piano's playing very slowly, because the train is moving slowly," Daugherty says. "And then finally we hear 'Taps' come in."
Daugherty conducts extensive research for every work he composes. To get a sense of what people might have felt like when they witnessed the funeral train passing through, he visited Gettysburg, Pa., where Lincoln gave his historic address.
"I walked around Gettysburg for a day," Daugherty says. "And by being in that environment, I came up with the idea for this movement."
And the idea for the Metropolis Symphony?
"Walking around New York City will always inspire anyone to write something," he says.
Mark Cina wrote: The White Stripes have formally announced on their website that they have broken up.
"The reason is not due to artistic differences or lack of wanting to continue, nor any health issues as both Meg and Jack are feeling fine and in good health,” the two said in their statement. "It’s for a myriad of reasons, but mostly to preserve what is beautiful and special about the band and have it stay that way.”
Jack White's record label, Third Man Records, will continue to put out unreleased live and studio recordings from the band in their Vault subscription record club, as well as through regular channels.
“The White Stripes do not belong to Meg and Jack anymore," Meg and Jack said in their statement. "The White Stripes belong to you now and you can do with it whatever you want. The beauty of art and music is that it can last forever if people want it to. Thank you for sharing this experience. Your involvement will never be lost on us and we are truly grateful.”
The two haven't released an album in almost four years, as Jack White has focused on his other bands, the Dead Weather and the Raconteurs, and his Third Man label. He also recently produced the new Wanda Jackson album.
Mark Cina wrote:“The White Stripes do not belong to Meg and Jack anymore," Meg and Jack said in their statement. "The White Stripes belong to you now and you can do with it whatever you want. ”
TheBaxter wrote:Mark Cina wrote:“The White Stripes do not belong to Meg and Jack anymore," Meg and Jack said in their statement. "The White Stripes belong to you now and you can do with it whatever you want. ”
*throws the white stripes in the garbage can*
good riddance!
so sorry wrote:TheBaxter wrote:Mark Cina wrote:“The White Stripes do not belong to Meg and Jack anymore," Meg and Jack said in their statement. "The White Stripes belong to you now and you can do with it whatever you want. ”
*throws the white stripes in the garbage can*
good riddance!
C'mon Baxter, you know you should recycle the White Stripes instead of throwing them in a landfill.
TheBaxter wrote:so sorry wrote:TheBaxter wrote:Mark Cina wrote:“The White Stripes do not belong to Meg and Jack anymore," Meg and Jack said in their statement. "The White Stripes belong to you now and you can do with it whatever you want. ”
*throws the white stripes in the garbage can*
good riddance!
C'mon Baxter, you know you should recycle the White Stripes instead of throwing them in a landfill.
hey, they said they're mine to do whatever i want with.
DON'T TELL ME WHAT I CAN'T DO!!!
so sorry wrote:TheBaxter wrote:Mark Cina wrote:“The White Stripes do not belong to Meg and Jack anymore," Meg and Jack said in their statement. "The White Stripes belong to you now and you can do with it whatever you want. ”
*throws the white stripes in the garbage can*
good riddance!
C'mon Baxter, you know you should recycle the White Stripes instead of throwing them in a landfill.
Seppuku wrote:Gorillaz are now extinct, too (and LCD Soundsystem it seems).
Hermanator X wrote:Seppuku wrote:Gorillaz are now extinct, too (and LCD Soundsystem it seems).
Add The Streets to that list too....
Seppuku wrote:Gorillaz are now extinct, too (and LCD Soundsystem it seems).
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