Category: Music

I was checking out some tracks on Rapsody. Evanescence was playing and a vampire movie was the the sponsor.

I’ll wager I’d get the same advert if I were listening to Liberace (who is not quite as goth as John Tesh, but close).

You can either treat your fans as a necessary evil, or you can embrace them. The Japanese band Sour went one step further and made their fans the stars of their latest music video.

The concept: ask your fans to do specific actions in front of their web cams, then assemble the individual actions into a complex dance involving people from around the world.

The result:

SOUR / 日々の音色 (Hibi no Neiro) MV from Magico Nakamura on Vimeo.

This is fantastic. Rock on violin dude!

Michael Shulman describes himself as a “neo classical shred violinist & dancer”. Whatever it is, I like it. 🙂

It’s been a while since I pulled down some good free music. I stopped obsessing over every Mercedes Benz Mixed tape and haven’t gone on a mash-up bender for years. Yesterday, however, a couple free albums caught my attention.

Harvey Danger – Little by Little

Harvey Danger has put their third album up for a free download in the hopes that you’ll try it, like it and buy it. While the album is free, the band is relying on your honesty to buy it if you like it. I personally like this model, partially because I have a huge tendency to feel guilty about intellectual copyright so I’m sure I’ll pay if I like it. I do hope that enough of the public also steps up and pays because I’d be really cool to see this type of trust continue.

My take? It’s catchy pop/rock with pervasive piano and harmonies giving it a decidedly Beatle-esque feel (which isn’t bad in my book). And, heck, they’re a Seattle band. Note: if you really like it you may want to get the CD since it has 9 more tracks.

Get it!

NIN|JA – Tour Sampler EP

Perhaps they’re touring together because they have similar music, perhaps it’s mutual respect between the bands… I think it’s just because they realized that combining their names creates "NIN|JA". Whatever the reason, Nine Inch Nails and Jane’s Addiction (and Street Sweeper) are offering a free sampler album with two tracks from each band to help promote the tour. Unlike other "check us out, please" free albums, this one is promotional and doesn’t come with the guilt of needing to donate money (other than you should go buy tickets and see them live… unless you’re old like me and would probably break a hip in the mosh pit).

My take? Classic NIN and Jane’s Addiction sound. Turn it up and let your ears bleed freely. I was also pleasantly surprised by Street Sweeper, a nice Industrial/Nu Metal blend with a bit of gansta’ rap special sauce poured on top.

Get it!

Bonus album: At the NIN site you can get The Slip for free too.

I love listening to music, I have gigabytes of tracks stored on my Home Media Server but there’s a catch: who has time to look through nearly twenty-thousand tracks to pick out just the right grouping of songs? 

Enter Pandora, a fantastic streaming music service which takes a song or artist as input and then creates a steaming radio station based off the musical “genes” of your choice (for more, see The Music Genome Project).  It’s fantastically easy, and it’s free to listen from your computer.  Try it out, you don’t even need to create an account to start listening.  Genius!

The whole experience is really quite slick.

• Land on the home page and you’re prompted to enter a track or artist… no login to get started!
  
• Playing music to fit your mood is as easy as picking a song or artist.  Let’s say I’m in the mood for some Yes, type in to the box, click “create” and Pandora sez: 
  
• Sweet, what about the rest of the songs?  Next track is Pink Floyd:
  
• You can rate each song, telling Pandora to play more like it, or not play that song anymore on that station.  You can also look up why any song is playing if you’re curious.
• While it’s free to listen to on the web you can also pay a nominal fee for Pandora goodness on your other devices.  For example, if you have a Sonos or Squeezebox you can pay $36 a year to stream custom, commercial-free radio stations around your house.

What’s playing on the Yes station?

While Pandora is almost magical, it isn’t infallible. 

• If you listen for a long time (several hours) you’ll start hearing repeats. 
• Pandora sometimes seems to get its wires crossed… our Dixie Chicks station will occasionally play Corn or Guns ‘N Roses.  Huh?

It’s also worth noting that Pandora doesn’t allow you to play any song you like at any time (like Napster), but that also allows them to have pricing more like satellite radio.

Now what I’d like to see is Pandora for my own music.  Let me pick a track then have Pandora create a play list I can sync to my portable media player.

… Fight Like Apes!

With an EP title like “David Carradine Is A Bounty Hunter Whos Robotic Arm Hates Your Crotch“, how can you not love these folks?

The quirky title might grab your attention but the Dublin quartet will definitely please with great tracks and a style described as “synth-grunge”.  Check out their My Space page and have a listen.

Note: I realize “Whos” is not “good English”… but that is the album title.  They are, after all, quirky.

In case you were snoozing (I sure was) Mercedes-Benz mixed tape 16 is out.