You know the drill: it’s a new mixtape from The Hood Internet:
Downloads, tour details, and more info on their site.
Update: I made a playlist on Rdio of the songs The Hood Internet used in Mixtape Volume Seven…sifting through their sources is a great way to discover new and previously overlooked music.
There are maybe 3-4 songs I couldn’t find on Rdio…they are either unreleased or mixes from Soundcloud. Enjoy.
What the heck is going on? New recent albums after long hiatuses from Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Justin Timberlake, Daft Punk, and Boards of Canada and now Neutral Milk Hotel is reuniting for a tour? Jesus H Musical Christmas.
After a weirdly abrupt ARG, it has been revealed that the new Boards of Canada album will be called Tomorrow’s Harvest and will be out on June 11 (the 10th in the UK). Pre-order at iTunes.
Rumors surfaced last year of a new Boards of Canada record. The other day, someone walked into a record shop and bought a Boards of Canada record that contained a single track of a few seconds of music and someone reciting a six-digit number:
So maybe we’re getting a new BoC album soon? Please? (via @crazymonk)
This is supposedly a leaked version of the song Get Lucky from Daft Punk’s forthcoming album, but from what I can tell, this is just an extended version of the song cobbled together from this minute-long commercial that ran during SNL this weekend. Not that that’s a bad thing…I’ve had it on repeat for the last 30 minutes.
Update: Hmm, getting some reports that this is the actual radio edit of Get Lucky…and it does have some Pharrell lyrics that weren’t in the promos and commercials. And if not, we’re getting closer!
Update: Ha! Probably still fake. But it’s the best fake so I’ll take it for now. Would probably take DP, Pharrell, and Rodgers themselves to top this one. (via @Robbie)
Oh hello, what’s this? M83 did the soundtrack to Oblivion, the new sci-fi movie where Tom Cruise plays Wall-E? That will do quite nicely. Here it is on iTunes, Amazon, or Rdio.
I don’t read music so it’s difficult for me to say how useful this is, but the folks behind Hummingbird claim their new system of music notation is “easier to learn, faster to read, and simpler for even the trickiest music”.
The first thing you’ll notice about Vdio is that it’s designed to solve the “what to watch” problem. It’s not just that we’ve got amazing content, but that the experience is now geared to get you from searching to watching faster. We’re introducing the notion of Sets — playlists for TV shows and movies — so anyone can make and share lists of their favorites, making it easier than ever to discover new stuff. Or, you can just check out what your friends are watching in the moment and jump in. Beyond that, Vdio has the beautiful design and social features that people love about Rdio, with plenty more to come.
I haven’t played with it too much, but it looks like it’s not an all-you-can-eat service like Rdio…you buy/rent movies and TV shows just like iTunes, Amazon, etc.
[1] And that’s actually a huge understatement. I ignored streaming music services like Rdio and Spotify when they came out, opting for the familiarity of iTunes, but Rdio has completely reignited my love of music over the past two months. Should write a whole post about this at some point. ↩
I got taken too the one time I saw Elvis, but in a totally different way. It was the autumn of 1971, and two tickets to an Elvis show turned up at the offices of Creem magazine, where I was then employed. It was decided that those staff members who had never had the privilege of witnessing Elvis should get the tickets, which was how me and art director Charlie Auringer ended up in nearly the front row of the biggest arena in Detroit. Earlier Charlie had said, “Do you realize how much we could get if we sold these fucking things?” I didn’t, but how precious they were became totally clear the instant Elvis sauntered onto the stage. He was the only male performer I have ever seen to whom I responded sexually; it wasn’t real arousal, rather an erection of the heart, when I looked at him I went mad with desire and envy and worship and self-projection. I mean, Mick Jagger, whom I saw as far back as 1964 and twice in ‘65, never even came close.
This is a nice article about how memes are often made or promoted deliberately by financial interests and not because of a spontaneous popular uprising, but mostly I wanted to highlight this statement:
Google’s YouTube, not Apple’s iTunes, is now the dominant force in music.
I’ve been convinced for awhile now that YouTube and not Android or Google+ will be their main source of revenue if/when Google’s search business wanes. (via @claytoncubitt)
Technically this photo was taken several years (probably in 1986 or 1987) before Radiohead officially came to be, but it features four out of the five members, back when the group was called On a Friday.
From left to right, Thom Yorke, Phil Selway, Ed O’Brien, and Colin Greenwood. This occasion marked one of the last times that Yorke smiled for a photo. (via buzzfeed)
For Homework, their 1997 debut album, Daft Punk drew on a large number of musical influences. Here’s two wonderful hours of the music that influenced them.
Weird day (fuck, weird week) but this totally totally made it. Some genius took Carly Rae Jepsen’s Call Me Maybe and mashed it up with Nine Inch Nails’ Head Like a Hole:
Totesally amazingballs. Way way better than I expected. (via the verge)
Late in his life, just after the invention of the metronome and after completely losing his hearing, Beethoven went back and adjusted the tempos of his symphonies to much faster than you might expect. Radiolab investigates.
The entire soundtrack for Shane Carruth’s Upstream Color is available for streaming on SoundCloud.
From what I can gather, Carruth did the soundtrack himself. So for those keeping track at home, Carruth wrote, directed, starred in, did the soundtrack for, produced, edited, did the cinematography for, and operated a camera for Upstream Color. Oh, and he’s self-distributing the film through his own production company. No wonder I like this guy.
The film opens in US theaters beginning in mid-April and will be available for sale in early May: pre-order at Amazon or on iTunes. (via @gotrlelo)
Edith, Hellrider, and Dadmonster pose for a photograph. In Botswana, heavy metal music has landed. Metal groups are now performing in nightclubs, concerts, festivals. The ranks of their fans have expanded dramatically. These fans wear black leather pants and jackets, studded belts, boots and cowboy hats. On their t-shirts stand out skulls, obscenities, historical covers of hard-rock groups popular in the seventies and eighties, such as Iron Maiden, Metallica, and AC/DC. They have created their own style, inspired by classic metal symbolism, but also borrowing heavily from the iconography of western films and the traditional rural world of Botswana. Their nicknames, Gunsmoke, Rockfather, Carrott Warmachine, Hellrider, Hardcore, Dignified Queen, may appear subversive and disturbing as their clothing, but they are peaceful and gentle. “We like to get dressed,, drink meet friends and feel free , this music is so powerful . We are lucky to live in a country tolerant and open” argues one of the leaders. A precious rarity for Africa.
Botswanian heavy metal fans and other great selections from the 2013 Sony World Photography Awards
Because of “the evolving experience in the stores” (aka live music is too expensive), after 27 years of playing the piano at Nordstrom in the Tacoma Mall, Juan Perez was let go in January.
Perez remembers his audition at Nordstrom, one morning in January 1986.
“There were five of us. Four beautiful young ladies, and me. They were carrying music books.”
They were dressed, he said, as if they had shopped at Nordstrom. He was not. They were carrying sheet music. Perez did not, and does not, read notes. He plays by ear.
“I was the first one to play,” he said. “I wasn’t expecting they would hire me, and I was dressed in a regular shirt. I started playing and playing as the store opened up. I didn’t even have an application.”
After playing, he drove home.
“My wife said, ‘They called. They want you to start tomorrow.’ I almost cried.”
Perez arrived in the US with $300 to his name and through hard work at the piano, has put seven of his children through college, with two more currently in college and one more attending private high school. (via brooks review)
Update: Here’s a quick update on Perez. After leaving Nordstrom, he quickly got some other gigs, including one at an upscale steakhouse and another at the Space Needle, but was also diagnosed with cancer and had to undergo surgery.
On that last Sunday in the store, Perez ended with “Piano Man” and “How Great Thou Art.”
And “Unforgettable” was the first song he played following a five-surgeon, 10-hour surgery last July to remove a tumor tangled near his heart.
A round of radiation followed surgery, and Perez has continued playing at El Gaucho, and at the Space Needle, Bellevue Square, the Bellevue Hyatt Regency, the Tacoma Yacht Club, Tacoma Golf & Country Club, the Old Cannery in Sumner and the Weatherly Inn and Narrows Glen retirement homes in Tacoma.
Recently, the management and co-workers at El Gaucho decided to help Perez with medical bills and other expenses. Management would donate half the house receipts one Sunday night, and the servers and other staff would offer all their tips.
Total raised: $31,000.
A co-worker established an online funding request.
Total raised: Nearly $12,000 at the time this story was written.
“I’ve known him for 25 years. He’s a beautiful man,” said George Lund, a 40-year Nordstrom employee who is now retired.
“Juan was the face of this store. He was the personality of this store. He could be the mayor of this city,” Lund said. “It was a magical time for a lot of customers. He made them feel comfortable, relaxed.”
After 20 minutes of greetings, of hugs and embraces, Juan returns to the piano. Four friends gather behind him and sing along to “Edelweiss.”
Then Scott Joplin’s “The Entertainer.”
The crowd fills the aisles between women’s shoes and fine jewelry. Shoppers ascending on the escalator look down and smile.
Toes tap.
“He is a blessing,” says Patricia Reynolds of Steilacoom. “He is helping people with his music.”
Perez shifts from a swift boogie-woogie riff into “Canon in D” by Johann Pachelbel.
“He just brings such beauty into people’s lives,” says Maria Fleischmann of Tacoma.
“I don’t even have words for this,” said Juan and Susan’s daughter, Agnes.
Well, this is amazing (in the way that things requiring a ton of organization, commitment, and time are amazing, not in the way life-saving vaccines are amazing). Artist etoilec1 drew the Gangnam Style video, the entire thing, and presented it as a flipbook. Here’s his original Youtube where he says he had to remove the music because of copyright, so the embed below will likely not last long. Visit etoilec1’s page for several Dragon Ball Z flipbooks.
In June 1985, 17-year-old LL Cool J and his DJ Cut Creator played a gymnasium at Colby College in Waterville, Maine with maybe 120 people in attendance. At this point, his debut album hadn’t even come out yet and rapping/scratching was not widely known, so LL and CC give the unenthusiastic audience a little demonstration of what it’s all about.
This is amazing. The footage was digitized from VHS by the show’s organizer’s son and he adds more information about it in the comments:
LL was paid $500 for the show. Since he was the only rap act, he was worried it would a be short performance, so my dad suggested he fill it in with the scratching and beat boxing.
LL was signed to Def Jam. My dad tried to get RUN DMC, but could not afford them, so Def Jam told him he should bring up LL Cool J.
After years of inactivity, the group’s website now features a graphic that reads, “The Postal Service 2013.” As part of the reunion, Sub Pop is prepping a deluxe edition of “Give Up” next month to commemorate the album’s 10-year anniversary, Billboard has learned. Since being released on Feb. 19, 2003, the set became Sub Pop’s second highest-selling album, next to Nirvana’s “Bleach.”
REWORK_ is an album of Philip Glass’s music remixed by the likes of Beck, Amon Tobin, and Nosaj Thing. There is also an interactive iOS app that lets you play around and remix your own Glass compositions.
REWORK_ features eleven “music visualizers” that take the remixed tracks and create interactive visuals that range from futuristic three-dimensional landscapes to shattered multicolored crystals, and vibrating sound waves. People can lean back and enjoy REWORK_ end to end, or they can touch and interact with the visualizers to create their own visual remixes.
In addition to the visualizers, the app includes the “Glass Machine” which lets people create music inspired by Philip Glass’ early work by simply sliding two discs around side-by-side, almost like turntables. People can select different instruments - from synthesizer to piano, and generate polyrhythmic counterpoints between the two melodies.
The app was made by Scott Snibbe’s studio…I fondly recall his Java applets. (BTW, “fondly recall his Java applets” is neither a euphemism nor something that anyone will understand 5-10 years from now.)
Earlier in the year, Rich Jones at Gun.io filed a Freedom of Information request for Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s FBI file. It appears Wu-Tang may not actually be for the children. Here are the parts Jones noted.
“The WTC is heavily involved in the sale of drugs, illegal guns, weapons possession, murder, carjacking and other types of violent crime.” [p5]
Connections to the murder of Robert “Pooh” Johnson and Jerome “Boo Boo” Estrella. [p6]
Connection to murder of Ishamael “Hoody” Kourma. [p13]
A shoot-out with the NYPD. [p15]
Arrest for felony possession of body armour. [p16]
Connections to the Bloods Gang. [p17]
Found in possession of large bags full of paper currency. [p40]
Details of his being robbed and shot while staying in the Kingston projects. [p45]
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