2. jún. 2010
Feel like creating a little Jackson Pollock art?
Improvise
- The Auto-Tune Meme (Video) : Recording Magazine -
The Auto-Tune Meme (Video)
November 16, 2009
Much has been written about Auto-Tune in the mainstream media. Whether you love or hate the tool (and its effect), the public beyond recording engineers, producers and musicians has become hyper-aware of its use. And many people are starting to get annoyed.
A friend sent this video along this morning, and I thought those of you who find the T-Pain effect annoying might find this interesting. Though the video is humorous (and features "Weird Al" Yankovic--awesome!), it poses an interesting idea of where we are in the cycle of the Auto-Tune meme, referencing the history since Cher's release in 1998, and that we may soon reach a point of equilibrium. The effect will not go away, but rather be less overused and more balanced.
In the meantime, enjoy the video (5:52).
-Justin Peacock
Know Your Meme: Auto Tune (featuring "Weird Al" Yankovic) from Rocketboom on Vimeo.
Hear the actual bass track from the Brothers Johnson tune "Strawberry Letter 23", from the original master tape. - Louis Johnson isolated bass track
Hear the actual bass track from the Brothers Johnson tune "Strawberry Letter 23", from the original master tape.
James Randi's fiery takedown of psychic fraud
A Rare Look At A Motown Session (via Bobby Owsinski's Blog)
A Rare Look At A Motown Session
It's Motown week here on the Big Picture and we're going to start with an extremely rare look into a session by the legendary Temptations backed by the legendary Funk Brothers and recorded at the legendary Motown Studios in Detroit (the "Snakepit" as they used to call it).This video was shot back in 1967 for a CBS News piece called appropriately "The Motown Story." It featured the classic Temptations lineup including David Ruffin (the lead singer) and Eddie Ruffin, both of which would leave the band soon after this video was made. The song is called "Sorry Is A Sorry Word" and was produced by Motown writers Ivy Jo Hunter and Brian Holland (who stops the song mid-way through).
Some things to observe when watching:
1) As we'll see in upcoming posts, no one at Motown cared much about isolation between instruments since they were never going to replace anything anyway. Either the band got the track or it didn't, and no one ever came back to "fix" a part. Most of the songs cut in Detroit were cut on an 8 track recorder, so a lot of overdubs weren't much of an option anyway. They were only used for a bit of control over the final balance.
2) The usual Funk Brothers band consisted of a rhythm section of 2 drummers, tambourine, congas or bongos, bass, 3 guitars, and 2 keyboards which were all recorded at the same time in the same room! Horns and strings might also be cut at the same time as the rhythm section as well. Motown was only a house in the residential area of town and the studio was in the basement. Imagine doing that in your basement!
3) Only the arranger (the very talented William Witherspoon, who I believe was actually responsible for the early sound of Motown) used headphones. No one else needed them because they were all playing in the same room so they could hear themselves as if it were a rehearsal or gig.
Enjoy. Tomorrow, more Motown.
A World Without Money? - Money is Not the Incentive We Think it is.
Money is Not the Incentive We Think it is
Capitalism is supposed to be an incentive, a motivation for us to work harder. Yet this study shows a very different story.
Brilliant! Highly interesting video. Recommended.
'Waiting" 1st Bass Mix | Gavin Fisher
16. mar. 2010
My comment on @lastfm on @Nick_Tann's blogpost "Is This Thing On Podcast: Podcast Number 23"
Siggidóri said...I had problems with last.fm in the beginning (some 4 years ago!). 1-2 weeks are not gonna do it for you. It's absolutely essential to download the Last.fm player http://www.last.fm/download and then "scrobble" from your favorite player to the website. It takes at least 1-2 weeks (depending on how many songs you listen to) to make some features kick in on the site. Charts and recommendations for instance.
Did he do that? Did he listen to groups radios, tag radios or related artist radios? Did he make a playlist himself? Did he "LOVE" some tracks and listen to the playlist generated? ... or somebodies else favorites? Not all tracks at last.fm are "on demand" but do play in full when you listen to stations.... there's load of free music as well.
I (and Menn Ársins) offer all our music for free and/or full preview - http://www.last.fm/label/skonrokk
Feel free to check out my library to explore playlists, loved tracks and tags (and even journals) - http://www.last.fm/user/Skonrokk/library
Last.fm is a work in progress ... so to speak ... doesn't happen overnight ;-) ... like any other good relationships :)
It's also not helping (or whatever word is right here...) to compare ReverbNation to Last.fm since they are COMPLETELY different sites with different purpose.
There.. I said it! I love last.fm and think it's brilliant. And I highly recommend it to everyone, specially independent artist. Combine last.fm with Twitter and Bandcamp and you have a powerful tool at your fingertips/disposal!
On with the motley!
15 March 2010 13:58
Natural World - Bringing Up Baby (2009)
"Natural World investigates the vital bond between animal mothers and their babies. The more we study animals, the more we realise just how emotional they are; all mothers are faced with tough choices as they struggle to bring up babies in a difficult and dangerous world, constantly balancing their own needs with those of their infants. Yet there are many ways to raise your brood, from the fish who looks after her young in her mouth to the extended childhoods of gorillas or orang-utans. Narrator Sir David Attenborough"
9. mar. 2010
Christopher Hitchens in Conversation: The Only Subject is Love
Some brilliant lines from Hitchens near the end. It's always a pleasure to listen to the great Hitch!
8. mar. 2010
7. mar. 2010
Christopher Hitchens: The New Commandments
6. mar. 2010
5. mar. 2010
3. mar. 2010
1. mar. 2010
18. feb. 2010
17. feb. 2010
16. feb. 2010
Last.fm + Twitter (musicians + bands) - Group on last.fm for musicians that use Twitter & Last.fm to get their music out there!
If you're a musician with a Twitter profile + a Last.fm profile and you have your music on Last.fm, preferably available for full preview and/or free download (at least some of it, you might highly benefit from it), then this group is for you!
Join at http://www.last.fm/group/Last.fm%2B%252B%2BTwitter%2B%2528musicians%2B%252B%2Bbands%2529
Remember to post your Twitter username (or @______) and link to your music page at Last.fm in THIS discussion thread!
Then your music might just end up in the artist connections (If you're already in the group, and you've left your Twitter name and last.fm music page in the discussion thread and your still not in the connections or the tag station ... give me a shout at twitter @siggidori)
You can also enjoy the Group Radio (It's great! ... of course!)
I'll then try to tag all the artists with the "twitter lastfm" tag..... then you can also enjoy that tag station (work in progress)
If you fail to apply to the group (but you posted your links) or you fail to post your Twitter name and last.fm music page (but applied to the group).... then you might get rejected from the group or your links removed.
While you're at it ... why not become a friend with those artists an last.fm and follow them on twitter as well. :)
I'll then probably welcome new members on twitter via the comments on this post (and perhaps on last.fm as well).
Any questions, comments or suggestions ? Add them in the comments!
Hope you enjoy and discover some new music and musicians!
15. feb. 2010
How Will We Love?
From the Emmy nominated series, Song of Songs, comes the feature film "How Will We Love?". This documentary explores romantic love, relationships, and the challenges and rewards of long term commitment.
"This is one of the most beautiful and meaningful documentaries to come out in a while." - Santa Fe Film Festival
I feel there is a great awakening on the horizon. My hope is that this project inspires our culture to become more conscious about love, relationships and commitment. Become more trusting in our intuition while centering our hearts. Pushing our egos aside while allowing love to flow and love to go at the perfect times...
But getting more conscious requires effort. It requires commitment. And, most of all, I now believe that it requires having the most honest conversations with the people we love.
Over the last 5 years, I have interviewed hundreds and hundreds of people from all walks of life. Including, so many wonderful experts that have spent years and years trying to help people. I feel so blessed and grateful for their participation. I truly hope that you find something worthwhile from this project.
13. feb. 2010
12. feb. 2010
[Finally!!!] -> Oh No, Not Another Music Community! « @Bandcamp Blog
Back when we first started working on Bandcamp, we had no desire to create another online music community. Like many fans, we were turned off by the way the noise in those communities often drowned out the thing that matters most: the music. So we decided instead to focus on being the best possible home for that music, setting aside many of the social features that seemed mandatory for any consumer internet startup at the time.
Apparently a lot of you were also suffering from thanks-for-the-add fatigue, because over the past year and a half, artist signups have steadily accelerated, and today we host a large and diverse pool of music. But every Bandcamp-powered site is still an island, and not surprisingly, one of the most frequent questions we now get is "How do I find out about other [industrial mariachi | new-age horrorcore | death ragtime | etc] artists on Bandcamp?
When there were just a few hundred artists using the system, our answer was "Why on earth do you care?" When there were a few thousand, it was, "Uh, use Google?" But by the time there were tens of thousands, it was clear we were neglecting a big opportunity: the opportunity to leverage the power of every individual artist's site to help fans discover new music - your music.
So we sat down and pondered whether there was a way to seize that opportunity without completely screwing up the good thing we had going. Could we somehow activate this large, dormant community while keeping the integrity of every Bandcamp site intact? We think the answer is an emphatic YES, but we'll describe how it works, and then you can decide for yourself and let us know.
Starting today, you can specify your genre and location, and tag up your tracks and albums with relevant keywords, and fans can browse all the music on Bandcamp by those attributes. You set genre and location in the Account Details section of your Profile page, right here:
Note that location is geocoded, meaning every artist on Bandcamp will have a real location. Stuff like "Mars," "stepdad's garage," "back of beyond," and "the ionosphere" is fun and all, but only puts you at a disadvantage in terms of fan discovery. So here you enter your city, state, province or country (even misspellings are AOK), and we map that to a discrete, browsable location.
Tags are set on the individual edit pages for both tracks and albums, here:
and finally those tags are displayed on your track and album pages, just below your cover art, here:
When a fan clicks one of those tags, they're taken to its page, where we show other music by you with that tag, as well as a sortable list of music across the system with that tag:
By clicking the "browse all tags" link, fans can browse by popular tags and locations, like this:
And that's about it. Pretty simple and obvious really, but we think it has the potential to build a community in the best possible sense of the word, where every individual contributes to its strength. It won't, of course, be built overnight. At the time of this writing, there are exactly zero tags in the system, but with your help (and the help of the screaming yellow nag-bar that you'll see next time you log in), it shouldn't be long before the solitary goal of these new features is realized: make every artist on Bandcamp more successful, by making it easier for fans to find you.
P.S. Search is coming soon.
P.P.S. If you're one of the many generous artists who have recently released Haiti relief fundraising records, please tag your album with "Haiti relief" and we'll promote the centralized tag page for it shortly.
[This is great news. I love Bandcamp!]
11. feb. 2010
10. feb. 2010
Exclusive album preview | Peter Gabriel - Scratch My Back | Music | guardian.co.uk
Back with a scratch ... Peter Gabriel
For his first studio album in eight years, Peter Gabriel came up with an audacious plan. He decided to cover the work of his favourite artists and, in exchange, they would do the same for him. Scratch My Back is the first instalment of this project, and sees the 59-year-old, ex-Genesis man cover the likes of Radiohead, Talking Heads and David Bowie. The artists whose songs you hear here will be returning the favour by performing Gabriel's songs on a forthcoming album, I'll Scratch Yours.
You can hear Scratch My Back using the widget below. So has Gabriel improved on the originals here? Let us know in the comments section!
9. feb. 2010
Arena: Brian Eno - Another Green World (video) [via: @prodAdvice]
Yes - another Brian Eno post ! But it’s completely worth it. This Arena documentary about possibly my favourite music producer is simply outstanding - partly because it contains plenty of Eno snippets for the enthusiast, but also because it’s beautifully made and put together - fascinating, intelligently chosen visuals and audio accompany the interviews throughout.It’s also great for me to see Eno in his Suffolk habitat, because that’s where I grew up, too - and seeing the familiar serene, slightly surreal landscapes accompanied by his music and words somehow makes perfect sense in a way that hadn’t registered with me before.
Favourite moments ? Learning that Eno comes from a family of “postmen with passion”; what the first important musical experience of his life was; what digital technology has in common with plasticene; what some of his favourite productions of all time are; how his Catholic upbringing influences his music; peeking at his bookshelves (and how they are categorised); watching him frustrated by technology (yes, it’s not just us !) including a synth that’s so heavily modified it doesn’t work any more; which 70s book on corporate management gave him the tools to understand a new form of music; how to always hit a bulls-eye with whatever you’re working on; why he loves gospel… well go on then, what are you still reading this for ?!?
Thanks to @madebyrobot and @stretta for pointing me to the video on Vimeo, and Fjb for uploading it.
Want more ? Get yourself a copy of the Oblique Strategies, watch Eno interviewed by Paul Morley and download a copy of Bloom for your iPhone. Then go and buy all his albums plus an old Revox on eBay, and start making your own tape-loops.
Or, just stop for 5 minutes and listen to what’s going on around you. I’m sure he would approve.
http://twurl.nl/38np1v" title="Post to Twitter">
8. feb. 2010
7. feb. 2010
Apparatjik – Electric Eye – Video & music
28. jan. 2010
Is This Thing On Podcast: Podcast Number 16 [By Nick Tann]
In another packed podcast I played The Visitors, Tom Bishel, Amaya Huntly, Menn Arsins, ME, Matt Stevens, Kidd Russell, Tom Caulfield, Jouis and the winners of last weeks First Fifteen Kodiak Jack.
[Listen to the podcast in iTunes]
Via: http://isthisthingonpodcast.blogspot.com/2010/01/podcast-number-16.html
His comments about "12 Steps to the Liquor Store" by Menn Ársins were "Fucking brilliant!" .... so give the podcast a listen and why not comment on his blogpost..... If you like the music of Menn Ársins for instance :-)
22. jan. 2010
BBC - The Secret Life of Chaos (2010)
Um mig / about me
- Siggidóri
- Bass player, father, husband, band member, musician, son, brother, hobby photographer, friend, coffee drinker,
