Daytrotter posted their Bon Iver session yesterday. The version of “Lump Sum” is magnificent. “Flume” and “Re: Stacks” are really good. And I’m going to pretend that version of “Creature Fear” doesn’t exist.

Gorilla vs Bear posted one of my more favorite hip hop tracks in a while: “The Prayer” by Cleveland-based Kid Cudi. It’s off of a mixtape and the sample he raps over is from those sometimes Walmart-loving Seattlites Band of Horses.

In case you missed it, John Vanderslice posted a teaser video of recording from his next album a couple weeks ago:

The Bay Bridged announced the Rock Make Music and Craft Street Festival they’re organizing with Whizbang Fabrics and Best Bay Area indie band Tartufi. The same day as the last day of Outside Lands, this will be DIY where that is corporate and free where that is really expensive.

Anyone’s Guess posted this really funny video called “Everyday Normal Guy Rap Song”. Watch out! Explicit lyrics! (Audio NSFW.) It’s got some pretty quotable lines: “I’m pretty good at making spaghetti sauce, motherfucker!”

Did you know there was such a thing as the Bay Area Indie Festival? Hard Rock Chick pointed to an SF Weekly article that accuses the promoter, 3 Udders, for being a disservice to the local scene for still not having paid bands from last year’s festival. The promoter says the article is not fair, but admits that he hasn’t paid bands. I don’t know, I think if you’re not paying bands then you’re not exactly helping things. (Also, I find it funny that he accuses the writer of having “very little knowledge about how the music industry works” and then complains that the SF Weekly ran the article while he dilly-dallied on getting them more info. Here’s how the print publication industry works: deadlines.) The promoter also cites this rebuttal if you want a different biased opinion.

Slate has an interesting piece about Jay-Z weaponizing Oasis’ “Wonderwall” when he covered it at Glastonbury (which was a response to the fracas that ensued when Noam Gallagher said that Glastonbury was for guitar-based music.) It also dives into all the subtle and not-so-subtle things people are saying with cross-genre covers. Is Ben Gibbard being serious, like he says, when he covers Avril Lavine’s “Complicated”? Read on.

A number of music bloggers are excited about the Subpop Singles Club 3.0. For $75 you get a year of a single a month and to be a part of “history”. The first two versions of the Singles Clubs put out a number of noteworthy and, now, valuable singles.

In the past few years, we’ve seen reunions of the Pixies, Dinosaur Jr., Sebadoh, the Police, the Verse, My Bloody Valentine and others. There are bands that swore they’d never play again and here they are, playing again. Why did they get back together? Perhaps the members matured or made-up or were itching to play together again, but they also saw that while they weren’t active, their names and reputations increased, in many cases, well beyond what they were when they were active. They could reunite and tour bigger rooms with higher guarantees than when they were an active band.

They’d get paid those sums because people are willing to put up the money to buy into that nostalgia–to see what they missed the first time around or to relive their younger days. And these bands are happy to sell it.

Sebadoh, honestly, wasn’t that good during their reunion last year when I saw them at Noise Pop but the show sold out quickly. People didn’t buy tickets after they heard Sebadoh was good or because they heard the most recent album was good or, really, any of the reasons buy tickets to a current band’s show. People are buying tickets to a name and a brand.[1]

Similarly, it seems like Subpop is selling the Singles Club brand here. How many of these bands do you know: Om, Unnatural Helpers, Tyvek, Black Mountain, Black Lips, Arthur & Yu, Mika Miko, Blues Control, Notwist? How many do you like? I know about half and love the Notwist. They’re selling these for $6.25 each (though, like a cell phone, you’re locked in with subscription, so you can’t just buy the ones you want). I go to Aquarius and buy 7″s that I know are good for $5 each.

I’m not saying that this version of the Single Club won’t put out anything noteworthy–after all, it has a pretty good track record so far–I’m just raising the point that Subpop is selling nostalgia in the same way reunited bands are.

[1] The “Beach Boys” current line up has fewer Beach Boys in it than “Brian Wilson” does but who do you think sells tickets faster?

It really seems like there’s a ridiculous amount of music out there for people to listen to these days. Perhaps the shift to this new business model people are talking about is well underway?

• Adele 19 (stream it here) Some good songs, a good voice and a nice overall sound but not as engaging as I wanted it to be.
• My Morning Jacket Evil Urges (stream it here) I don’t like classic rock.
• Beach Boys U.S. Singles Collection (stream it here) Some of the ol’ favorites on here but there’s also some really goofy gems and some so-so filler on here.
• James Hunter the Hard Way (stream it here) I love this guy and I love this album. I really recommend it if you’re into soul, the early R&B sound or oldies at all.
• the Hold Steady Stay Positive (stream it here) Hold Steady has always taken me a while to get into, mostly because the lyrics are what does it for me and I don’t find their music terribly enthralling overall. That said, I’m not sure if this album will grab me on later listens or not.
• Sigur Ros með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust (stream it here) I liked it from the get-go!

Last night I saw the Swedish over-the-top behemoth I’m from Barcelona (myspace) at the Independent.

name this chord

I’m from Barcelona is a giant band–a collective, I think you could call it–consisting of upwards of 29 people at times. I didn’t how many filed onto the medium-sized Independent stage but I could believe it was 29. The stage was packed. Guitars, bass, keyboards, drums, saxophone, clarinet and a variety of other instruments were scattered around. There were perhaps a half a dozen or more people just singing/ dancing/ playing miscellaneous instruments.

There set started out with my favorite of theirs, “Treehouse”. The stage was alive. Balloons and confetti were flying. Elaborate choreographed hand movements were in action. Within seconds the crowd seemed to go from staid to joyous, from subdued to exuberant.

The show continued in this vein for its entirety. Some songs clicked better than others (”Oversleeping”, “We’re from Barcelona” and “Jenny” stick out), but the band–and quite-possibly-extroverted front man Emanuel Lundgren–kept the energy up and the crowd hopping, singing along, hitting balloons, and throwing confetti.

The comparisons to another large and happy choral band seem obvious. I’ve walked out of PS with an insatiable feeling that I’d been somehow drugged by joy, a feeling I couldn’t shake for days. I’m from Barcelona’s show was great, a lot of fun and a joyous experience but–perhaps I’m old and jaded–but didn’t quite leave me with the same feeling. I’d still recommend catching them live if you have a chance.

You can check out more photos after the jump or view my entire photo album online.

Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a rather long (7+ minutes) but impressive demonstration of the Direct Note Access technology by Melodyne.

It’s like pitch correction, which is a common place tool in digital recording these days, but instead of only being able to correct and change single notes, it can change any note in a song, whether it’s by itself, in a chord, or in an arpeggio. Technology-wise it’s pretty impressive.

I heard many stories from friends of friends about pitch correction’s overuse these days–singer having each note corrected a 1/4 tone and things like that. It really points to a degradation in talent among “musicians” this days.

Obviously my concern with a system that allows access to each note is a substantially bigger degradation of musicianship. If musicians no longer need to be able to play anything, then what are they there for? To look cool and strut on stage?

On the other side of the coin, though, is this: someone’s going to have to have some sense of musicality. Records don’t just get made by computers (…yet). If the musicians don’t have it, then it may end up being the engineers and producers.

But, if you think about it, that’s not exactly new either. In the Holland-Dozier-Holland/ Spector sort of school of recording, the producers were the creative forces and, while the studio musicians were top notch, neither they nor the performing act was really in control of things.

In the underground music world, I think there is less reason for concern. There always are forces that correct the music when things get too “fake”. Punk was a reaction to disco; lo-fi was a reaction to 80s pop music. I think they’ll always be a segment of the population that demands authenticity from their music and so there will always be some music that delivers on that need.

For Record Store Day today I went to Amoeba. Still blocks away on Haight, I saw a lot of yellow bags going by so I knew things were busy.

I picked up those tasty exclusive Death Cab and Built to Spill 7″s. They didn’t have the double vinyl limited edition version of Odd Couple that they’d advertised for the Day or I would have considered getting that as well. I also picked up a couple not-very-exclusive-at-all soul records.

The Sharper Image–a San Francisco-based company, incidentally–is selling the beamz Performance Music System:

• Amazing laser-based invention lets music-lovers be musicians — regardless of talent or training!
• Breaking the laser beams with your hands automatically generates pre-authored pulses, streams, riffs or loops of musical notes or sounds from hundreds of different instruments — strings, keyboards, woodwinds, brass, percussion, even cow bell.
• Choose a complementary rhythm track from 30 original songs in 19 music genres, including jazz, bluegrass, classical, hip-hop, reggae, heavy metal and more. Or create your own track!

Check out the promo video:

One of those bad boys will run you $599.95. What better way to spend your economic stimulus payment is there!!

Somehow I’m not very surprised that the Sharper Image has filed for bankruptcy.

Engadget points to interesting reuters article about teens not caring about potential hearing loss:

In focus-group discussions with students at two high schools in the Netherlands, researchers found that the teens were generally aware that blasting an MP3 player could harm their hearing. Yet most said they usually played their own device at maximum volume and had no plans to change that.

This reminds me of the group Don’t Lose the Music that I’ve heard about lately. They have a pretty good point: you won’t be able to hear music well if you have hearing loss. Another point about hearing loss is that it won’t just make all music harder to hear; hearing loss affects some frequencies more than others so it’ll distort music as well.

As someone who loves music and has had some temporary hearing loss, I can say it’s not a good situation to be in.

Check out my recommendations for ear plugs and keep the volume reasonable on those ipods.

There was an article in Advertising Age a few days ago (and now, unfortunately, it’s no longer free online) about the amounts bands get for having their songs placed in a commercial and it shocked me. It said that licensing (master + sync rights) a song can bring in $300,000 for a song by a small band, with the band getting up to $195K of that with the other parts going to the publishing company and label[1]. Feist “only” got $80,000 because Apple is a “cool” brand [2] that artists want to be associated with.

I was shocked at how much bands were getting. $300K is a lot of money. In the realm of advertising it’s not a lot, but in the realm of an indie band, it’s huge. I was also shocked, because last time I read actual numbers on advertising licensing was in a NY Times profile of the Apples in Stereo where it stated they got $18,000 for “Strawberry Fire” in a Sony commercial. The article was back in 2001 and the licensing deal was in 1999, but it’s not like inflation in the intervening 9 years has caused $18K in 1999 dollars to be even anywhere close to $80K or $300K in 2008 dollars.

Digital Music News also had an article about SxSW’s increased importance as a place for placing songs.

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In more SxSW news, the Wall Street Journal has an article about the tension between unofficial SxSW-timed parties in Austin and official SxSW events. Apparently, the chief of SxSW, Inc, Roland Swenson has been pretty draconian:

At last year’s SXSW, Mr. Swenson took extreme measures against the unaffiliated events. He reported more than a hundred parties to fire officials saying they were in makeshift venues and could pose a danger to public safety. He says his goal was to create a level playing field for the festival’s official venues.

Right, I’m buying that he’s only concerned for public safety.

Also, an interesting part of the article is this: “The clubs aren’t paid directly, but sign on because of the potential foot traffic and bar sales.” Wow, sounds like a pretty good deal for SxSW, Inc. Blank slate on a free club to do what you want.

One more interesting note on the somewhat draconian practices of SxSW comes from this article by Trespassers William–who’s actually playing Sunday at 12 Galaxies with ipickmynose fav Or the Whale–band member Ross Simonini:

For some reason, selling CDs (or anything) is against the SXSW communist-like law practices — though I saw this rule broken too many times to count — so at the end of the show we just handed out copies of our album to anyone who wanted them.

No wonder I didn’t see merch tables set up and had to hunt down bands to buy things from them! If SxSW is about finding up and coming bands, how do people hear more of that great no-name band they just heard if they can’t buy their CD? Is it actually the expectation that in the massive swarming cloud of bands and people that every fan can remember every band that they liked so they can then hunt down their web pages to buy their albums? I’m not sure I get the logic.

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Finally, there’s been some interesting articles lately about “new business models”. Arts Technica (and Reuters) have articles this week about labels setting up their own digital download sites to bypass the cut that iTunes and other such retailers take and to be able to offer up a wider variety of bit rates and formats.

Coolfer points to a great article on TimesOnline about the contrast between Shayan Italia, who is working on a small-scale investment model (investors own some of his future earnings), and Duffy, who is backed by a major label.

[Italia’s] His Reflection reached No 1 on YouTube’s music video charts last week, with 190,000 plays in the first 24 hours of its placement online, all of which sounds promising enough. Italia owns his material, selling 1 per cent shares in the business that controls all his copyrights, plus any tour and other music-related income for £12,000 a time.

…

Glance at this week’s hit parade, meanwhile, and it is Duffy, the Welsh singer, who leads the singles and album chart. The 23-year-old was first signed by Rough Trade, the independent group that manages her, and it brought her to Universal Music, the wearyingly dominant market leader. Backed by the kind of marketing campaign that only big music can provide, Duffy has been compared - rather optimistically - to Dusty Springfield, Crucially, her strong voice and well-crafted album Rockferry do not, at least at this stage, disappoint on that hype.

Rockferry shifted 180,000 CDs in its first week, worth rather more than 190,000 views on YouTube, without the help of a television programme talent contest or any internet nonsense. In fact, the album was marketed conventionally to entice the mainstream buyer.

It looks like the old business model is still working some point. 180,000 CDs is not record breaking, but it’s still a lot. To give you some perspective, Coolfer points out that the highest selling album in the U.S. last week was Alan Jackson’s at 119,000.

I’m all for new business models in the music industry, but if they’re not working–well, that’s something to think about, certainly.

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[1] This is coming from memory now, but I do have a good memory, but you don’t have to trust me if you don’t want to. This article also provides the same numbers, though, citing the same article.

[2] Coolfer has some interesting thoughts related to that article about how Apple doesn’t actually pick independent artists, just indie-sounding artists.

How is it that I can pay $5 to get a $400 plane ticket, but I spend more than that on a $20 concert ticket? [1]

Ticketmaster and ticketweb can be oppressive in the fees they add onto tickets. In a limited number of cases, ticketweb’s prices are sometimes as low as $2/ ticket, but their pricing schemes are inconsistent, so without being able to say for sure when their ticket fees are reasonable, I’m not including them below. Cafe du Nord, the Independent and Bottom of the Hill all use ticketweb. Fillmore, Warfield and many other LiveNation venues use ticketmaster.

I’m making a list of ways to get tickets for less than $2.50 a ticket in fees. Of course, tickets are always available free of service charges the night of the show if it hasn’t sold out. Here are a few ways to stop paying $18.22 for that $12 ticket:

the Bottom of the Hill:

• online $2.01/ ticket very limited tickets are available online. I’ve only seen tickets for show coming up in the very near future.

Cafe du Nord:

• phone/fax/ email $1/ticket You can call the box office from 2-6pm M-F or fax or email them as well.

Fillmore/ Warfield:

• in person FREE 10am-4pm Sundays at the Fillmore box office @ 1095 Geary St., SF
• in person $2/ ticket may apply show nights 30 minutes before the show until 10pm

the Grand:

• in person $1/ ticket tickets for Another Planet Entertainment shows at the Grand can be purchased during at the Independent’s box office (see the Independent, in person section for hours)

Great American:

• online $2/ticket all shows are availabler online
• fax $2/ticket download the fax form (pdf) and fax it to 415-885-5075.
• in person $1/ticket M-F 10:30am-6pm, show nights until 9pm; Sa and Su 1 hour before the show at Great American’s box office @ 859 O’Farrell St

the Independent:

• in person FREE M-F 11am-6pm (9pm on show nights) at the Independent box office @ 628 Divisadero

the Rickshaw stop:

• online $1.25/ ticket select shows are available for purchase online

Slim’s

• online $2/ticket all shows are available online
• fax $2/ticket download the fax form (pdf) and fax it to 415-255-0333.
• in person ?? (anyone?) M-F 10:30-6pm at Slim’s box office at 333 11th St.

12 Galaxies

• online $1.98/ ticket + $0.30/ order all shows are available online
  

Warfield

• Tickets are available at the Fillmore box office. See “Fillmore” listing

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What other ways are there of getting tickets with little or no fees?

[1] Analogy borrowed from Wired

2007 saw the release of the first, and possibly only, live Woody Guthrie recording, The Live Wire: Woody Guthrie in Performance 1949. A wire recording that had sat in a closet for 50+ years arrived at the Guthrie Archives in 2001. It took years to restore; it was finally released in 2007 and won a Grammy in 2008.

The most interesting part to me, is the restoration process. There’s a great article in Science New about it. Be sure to listen to the before and after sound clips. It’s pretty amazing what one can do with a computer algorithms and some math.

“Grateful Dead”[1] apparently reunited last night at the Warfield for Barack Obama. Here’s one extensive review.

If I was a political candidate and that happened to support me, I’d probably say, diplomatically, “Nah, don’t worry about it. I got it covered. Thanks anyway.”

If you haven’t guessed from reading this blog, I’m quite particular about my music. I’m not saying you can’t like or be associated with the Grateful Dead, just that I’d have an issue with being associated with them. I mean, I’m viewing Obama differently already.

[1]How they call themselves that without Jerry Garcia, I don’t know. I don’t see Nirvana being able to reunite with Kurt Cobain, do you?

Am I the only one that’s noticed some visual similarities here?

I think Cat Power is trying to pull one over on us! I’m outraged! I’m going to find a pen and a piece of paper, write a letter, buy a stamp and an envelope and mail it! Watch out, Chan Marshall/ Matador Records/ Beggars Group/ Music-Clothing Industrial Complex!!

Have you heard about Qtrax?

Qtrax told Reuters and other media outlets last week that it had deals with the major labels representing about 75 percent of all music sales, to let users download songs for free in a new service to be supported by advertising revenue.

But by Monday, Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Warner had publicly denied that they had agreed to back the new Qtrax service.

A source close to Universal Music, the largest of the group, said it also had not signed a deal for the new Qtrax service and is still in discussions.

Another report says:

A website which promised to give music lovers the world’s first legal file-sharing service was forced into a humiliating climbdown today after it emerged that the company had not secured the backing of the record industry.

Qtrax, a New York firm, unveiled its service with a glitzy £500,000 launch in Cannes at the weekend, hiring stars including James Blunt, LL Cool J.

What kind of idiot company spends $989000 on a launch of a product that doesn’t exist?! Not only do I think they’re not very bright, but I wouldn’t trust any company that spent almost a million dollars on a product launch party.

First it was Pokemon and now it’s Sean Paul:

Gayle…was suffering as many as 10 grand mal seizures a day, despite being treated with medications designed to control them.

…

Eighteen months ago, she began to suspect that music by reggae and hip-hop artist Sean Paul was triggering some of her seizures. She recalled being at a barbecue and collapsing when the Jamaican rapper’s music started playing, and then remembered having a previous seizure when she heard his music.

Her suspicions were confirmed on a visit to the [Long Island Jewish Medical Center] last February, when she played Paul’s hit “Temperature” on her iPod for doctors. Soon after, she suffered three seizures.

Who’s going to spearhead the campaign to get the new stickers on the CDs and “[explicit lyrics]” in the track names on iTunes? Cindy Lou Hensley McCain??

(Too much of a stretch on that reference?)

(via mefi)