Since I just posted about Mr. Oizo, I was reminded about the pains of having your record obliterated by Pitchfork. The very wise folks at Idolator, have posted a great guide on how to react in such a situation. While being somewhat of the John Kerry school of reactionary PR, as opposed to the Barack school (we know how that turned out in both cases) of PR, I do tend to agree with this article. However the article may be underestimating The Decemberists prowess in this situation. They did a hell of a job standing up to Colbert, a man who is much more infallible than Pitchfork!
Mr. Oizo , whose new album Lambs Anger, has angered a few people, not coincidentally. I find it to be a great record. This may be my favorite EPK I have ever seen. Does not shed any insight into his musical process whatsoever though.
Anyone who has paid attention to cable news constantly hears how lobbyists affect every one of our civic leaders' decisions. We hear about donor influence everyday: the fears of Bill Cinton's Global Inititave donors swaying Hill's new job, Saxby Chambliss's abuses of power with sugar factories, and how important it was to John Podesta to keep lobbyists far from Obama during the transition of power. Lobbyists are blamed for so many things that are not for the greater good of the people, and instead for the good of corporate interests. If this is the case, why has one of the largest corporate entities in America, the music/film industry, never flexed their muscle to stop file sharing?
It's no secret the economy isn't what it used to be. In the two previous decades we have seen both economic downturns produce music movements that are rooted in anti-materialism and frugal living. Both the Grunge and New Wave movements were rooted in cheap, creative fashion choices, a resistance towards past days examples of bling-bling and a less superficial take on life . Are Heidi, Spencer, and Lauren going to have to run for The Hills the way Brandon, Brenda, and Dylan were run out of Beverly's own hills in the 90's?
Hipster Runoff, is some of the best full on retarded humor around. Despite the retardedness and neon all over the site, this article has many truths as well as being absolutely hilarious. He is correct! Your band does need to be a meme. But I would ask: what came first, the meme or the band? Don't meme's just happen as people talk about your band??? Alright now I am starting to sound like a kid in a chat room. Check out the hilarity here.
BTW, this may be the most genius thing I have seen in forever:
I can't imagine how this hasn't been pulled from the net, since the web design looks like it was made before I was born. Anyway, there are a bunch of outtakes and isolated session audio that some archivalist must have leaked. Pretty damn cool!
It is being reported that Amy Winehouse's new record has been rejected by her label. Via Weltonline:
Amy Winehouse's new songs have been rejected by her record label. The 25-year-old singer - who recently spent three months in the Caribbean on holiday and working on new material - has been told to return to the recording studio because label bosses don't like her new reggae sound.If this is indeed the case, doesn't that just make her Lilly Allen?
Mark Ronson Production + Reggae + Overly Honest Lyrics =Mark Ronson Production + Soul + Overly Honest Lyrics =HMMMMMM??????
Here is an awesome video of DJ Richie Hawtin showing his DJ setup using Traktor . As someone who goes out and sees DJs on a regular basis but has no DJing experience this video was awesome for me to see how the DJs do the things I hear. As a producer this also gave me some great ideas for some effects in a song I am doing this week.
In a move that is making internet music listeners not too happy, Obama's heavily RIAA affiliated staff has sided with the RIAA in the case of SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum. This seems as if it could be the ultimate fear tactic in the attempts to thwart illegal downloading. The ruling would seek to get "statutory damages" (just because it says statutory does not mean it has anything to do with your backstage life-ed.)for illegal downloads. In plain english, they could try to get money for you from records you have downloaded in the past. The case has many hairy proceedings that have been summarised here.
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Here is a video (with a very annoying ad across it) of vocal coach Brett Manning going over some vocal coaching and warm ups with Hayley of Paramore . The video show the attention of detail and annunciation put into her vocal performances. Even though the band plays as adolescent music as can be, there is a level of thought and precision put into these performances that is to be reckoned with.
Years ago, Jason McGerr was just a bad ass drum teacher. Now he drums in one of the most respected and compositionally amazing bands around. While his time is too in demand to be giving out drum lessons these days, here we have a YouTube where you can see him build one of his awesome, and complicated drumbeats. Notice the way he gets one limb right at a time to perfect this complex beat. This is an essential skill you should be using if you aren't already.
Tom Waits, is known for a lot of things. One of my favorite things about his music is his knack for using some of the most esoteric sounds imaginable. Over the years he has adopted many different esoteric materials into his instruments. A very kind and amazing person has given the internet The Tom Waits Library, a place where you can find a directory of all of the instruments on his amazing records over the years. Included in the descriptions are pictures, histories and descriptions. An essential read for any fan. If only we could have a directory of his awesome recording techniques.
Jack White is one of the few label owners who is taking advantage of the many new things the music industry can do for a band. However his latest business model is a throw back to the past, while still being unique in today's industry. Check out what he has to say:"If one of the bands working here says, 'Jack, there's a great band that played at the End on Friday night, you should check these guys out,' Saturday morning, they can come to Third Man Studios and we can cut a couple of songs. They can come back to the photo studio and we can take a photo of them. We can cut the acetate and run it down the block, and within three weeks, we can have a thousand copies of a 45 that they can sell at shows."photo by flickr user HammHawk
(via Tenessean)
You already know that it's Back In Black week! To conclude this week we have found an amazing interview with Tony Platt discussing the recording of this record in great detail! He sheds lots of insight into the production idea behind this classic record and how the performances were achieved. Check it out!
The KLF aka The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu were a House Group from the early 90's who pioneered such genres as "Stadium House" and "Ambient House". Anyone musically conscience at the time knew many of their hit songs (whose videos we have complied after the jump). In addiction to pioneering many modern production techniques and genres of music, they gave the music industry two AMAZING moments. The first of which is the above YouTube where they decided instead of performing at the Brit Awards to have crust punks, Extreme Noise Terror perform instead, concluding the performance by opening fire upon the audience with a machine gun filled with blanks. This was their retirement from the music industry and one hell of a send off. The second thing they gave us is a true gift of both laughter and truth. The manual they published entitled How To Have A Number One The Easy Way. This manual now is a bit ancient (ba-dum-crash!) but still has some relevent information. I will caution you that you will probably not learn how to have a numbe one song from it. Aside from the few truths it does contain, it is absolutely hilarious and a must read for anyone who enjoys the humor of this silly industry.
It's no secret last year was a huge year for My Morning Jacket . The band finally fullfilled its promise to become one of the most loved rock bands around with the release of Evil Urges . EQ Magazine did an excellent series of articles on what went into making this record. If you have heard this record there is a great insight into what went into making this fantastic record.
Bass Gear
Guitar Signal Paths
On The Recording
Bass Gear
Guitar Signal Paths
On The Recording
We now have a Facebook profile! We know how to get back to it! Now we gotta figure out how to work it! In this post we will discuss some of the features of a Band Page and how a Facebook page for your band is different then having a Facebook group.
Counting Crows have announced the end of 18+ years chained to the many incarnations of Geffen Records. Both Lead Singer Adam Duritz, and TechCrunch's Michael Arrington have a very optimistic look on the world of endless possibilities the internet has opened up for the band. I could not agree more that we are about to see an exciting year of new business forms from numerous bands showing us the future of how a band can work without the BS of the Major Label system. (via TechCrunch)
Trent Reznor serves one great purpose in the world of music these days: a sober, honest voice through the bullshit. Granted, this is a lot better than what he uses his voice for musically these days (Ghosts sure did rule.... Wonder why? ugh, no vocals!). On his forum he has posted some thoughts on the BS Live Nation and Ticketmaster are trying to pull with this merger. Calling out the corps and saying that they will employ an auction system for the better tickets at each show, taking away the profitability from scalpers, and eBayers across the land. He also takes aim about the motivation of corporate shill losers supporting this merger. I will one-up Trenty and suggest you bash Eddie Van Halen over the head with a 6505 next time you see him for trying to help two of the most disgusting corporations in music take your hard earned cash. That's right, populism is musformation's commodity! Click the jump for text of Trent's good words!
For every one band like The Travel Wilburys there are probably ten bands like Velvet Revolver, Audioslave or Zwan (read: NEVER SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED). Musical "Supergroups" rarely seem to work like we hope they would and Jack White's new band The Dead Weather seems to fall into the latter category as well. Featuring The Kills' Allison Mosshart and Queens of the Stone Age's Dean Fortita, the band sounds like a White Stripes B-side or a Raconteurs A-side (both of which aren't very exciting to us lately). Preview their new tracks here. A strange concoction of YouTube edits creating some kind of hulking funk monstrosity. Interesting for sure, but let's hope this isn't the future of songwriting. Notice how at around 30 seconds in we're taking advice from a white dude about "the mother of all funk chords".
50 Cent and Rick Ross are apperently daring each other to kill one another. I guess Fity feels a little invincible since he has had like 9 lives or something (Ut oh!). So he went and got Rick Ross's baby mama in a little sex tape and put it on the internets. Why can't Axl and Slash be more inventive and settle their differences like this? Hip Hop continues to innovate the industry, don't let anyone tell you any different! The VERY VERY VERY NSFW Trailer is in the jump.
ARS Technica has published an article entitled Labels: Whatever The Future Of Music Is, It Isn't "Free" that has the Internet up in arms yet again over the labels standing up for their right to charge. Despite major labels propensity to being on the wrong side of history, this time they have a point. Popular opinion across the Internet today is that labels need to give up on charging for music and step down to subscription- or donation-based models. While it would be noble of them and inspire a major image change in our economic system, their neck has not been pinned by the boot quite yet. In any economic climate, it makes no sense to give something away for free when people will buy it. In every consumer environment there are many different personality types who still buy music as long as someone is charging.
Ah, nothing like when the label tells you to go back and write some more accessible material after you turn in your sophomore experimental record. The Klaxons, whose debut I find to be one of the better combinations of avant-pop of recent years, are getting eaten up by the blogs today by submitting to their dark label overlords who sent them back to the studio to clean up some of the material. As a producer, I am shocked by 2 things:
- Why on earth did they leak this information? I have been involved with quite a few releases where this has happened and usually we chalk it up to "recording more songs to choose from the best material" or "we just wrote some awesome new songs we need to add to the record" (read: the record company didn't hear a single in what we recorded the first time). Bad PR!
- The blogs always jump in and defend artist integrity and mention the instances of Marvin Gaye and Wilco, where the labels were wrong. The fact is there are MANY more cases where the objective ear of a producer and occasionally an A&R man/manager who actually has a good ear and saves a good record (see: the lie that the original version of Green Day's American Idiot was stolen). These occurrences are often kept behind closed doors or are even nipped in the bud in pre-production during a well-managed record. An objective perspective for nearly any band (and producer/record label) is needed for everyone in the creative process. It is very easy to lose your bearings and checks and balances when immersed in a years-long creative process. The problem is many people are given the title of being the "objective perspective" when their perspective isn't worthwhile, pertinent, or educated towards the subject at hand. Personally, I think Clive Davis was quite right about Kelly Clarkson's sophomore record - just look at the new one for proof. Now that she is back in Dr. Luke and Max's arms (just like Clive suggested), people can bare to listen to her again.
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