Our good buddies over at Dangerbird have announced their partnership with Rekords Rekords. Founded by Queens of the Stone Age and Them Crooked Vultures frontman Joshua Homme, Rekords Rekords is said to exist for one purpose: to make music.
Since 1997, the label has already brought Desert Sessions and Eagles of Death Metal to our ears. The first release by the Dangerbird/Rekords Rekords team will be Eleven’s co-founder and fellow Queens of the Stone Age member, Alain Johannes' solo debut, Spark.
Other artists to be released are Mini Mansions and of course Eagles of Death Metal and Queens of the Stone Age.
Alain Johannes' album Spark drops August 31.
To keep in step with what is happening with Rekords Rekords, be sure to periodically check in with their official site.
Robert Owensis the voice of house music. He honed his distinctive style singing gospel in downtrodden neighborhoods in Chicago and L.A., and, as a member of the group Fingers Inc., he helped define the sound of Chicago in the mid '80s. He's given voice to house music ever since, in collaborations with everyone from Frankie Knuckles to Satoshi Tomiie to Photek.
He appears on Soneec, Lauer & Canard's new single, 'The Making of You'. As we announced last week, Seamless Recordings is holding a DJ mix competition based on the track; click here for full details.
In recognition of Owens' influence, we asked him to take a deep breath and give us the low-down on a life lived according to his own terms.
Win an exclusive Festival Roadtrip and bring 4 of your friends! Music, sun and fun – the festival season 2010 is in full swing!
We have a very special treat for all the lovers of open air festivals: win an exciting road trip to the T-Mobile INmusic Festival!Telekom Music Moments and Sony Ericsson will take you and four of your friends to rock Zagreb.
For the fifth time, Croatia’s capitol hosts the T-Mobile INmusic-Festival from June 21st to 23rd. Indierock, electro and rock is your thing? Then come with us! On stage: Billy Idol, Rise Against, LCD Soundsystem, Massive Attack, Alice in Chains, The Flaming Lips and many more.
The stage is set right next to the lake of Jarun – the perfect location to enjoy live music under the blue sky. Take a dip in the water, set the sails on a boat, go for a skate, play some beach volley or treat yourself with a steak from the BBQ.
Feel like a rockstar! Telekom Musicwire is taking you on a road trip you’ll never forget. The journey starts in Munich (don’t worry if you don’t live in Munich – we’ll pay for you to get there) where you’ll board an exclusive Nightliner bus. Upon arrival the bus will park right inside the festival area where it will accommodate you at night. Additionally every winner will get a Sony Ericsson Vivaz mobile phone!
To complete the rock star feeling, a camera team will follow you all the way. The best shots and clips will be put online.
Want to join the ride? All you need to know is here.
Win an exclusive Festival Roadtrip and bring 4 of your friends! Music, sun and fun – the festival season 2010 is in full swing!
We have a very special treat for all the lovers of open air festivals: win an exciting road trip to the INmusic festival! Telekom Music Moments and Sony Ericsson will take you and four of your friends to rock Zagreb.
For the fifth time, Croatia’s capitol hosts the T-Mobile INmusic-Festival from June 21st to 23rd. Indierock, electro and rock is your thing? Then come with us! On stage: Billy Idol, Rise Against, LCD Soundsystem, Massive Attack, Alice in Chains, The Flaming Lips and many more.
The stage is set right next to the lake of Jarun – the perfect location to enjoy live music under the blue sky. Take a dip in the water, set the sails on a boat, go for a skate, play some beach volley or treat yourself with a steak from the BBQ.
Feel like a rockstar! Telekom Musicwire is taking you on a road trip you’ll never forget. The journey starts in Munich (don’t worry if you don’t live in Munich – we’ll pay for you to get there) where you’ll board an exclusive Nightliner bus. Upon arrival the bus will park right inside the festival area where it will accommodate you at night. Additionally every winner will get a Sony Ericsson Vivaz mobile phone!
To complete the rock star feeling, a camera team will follow you all the way. The best shots and clips will be put online.
Want to join the ride? All you need to know is here.
A very industrial/hip hop track from M.I.A. has been leaked named "Steppin Up." The track was made available to the masses courtesy of Zane Lowe at the BBC.
If you're a fan of electopop mainstays like Hot Chip, the Teenagers and Junior Boys, Clubfeet are right up your alley. A three-piece from Melbourne and Capetown, Clubfeet were discovered by NY label Plant Music through the power of the interwebs, where the band had posted their track "Teenage Suicide (Don't Do It)". Put away the knives, kids, download the MP3 below, and look out for their debut release Gold on Gold coming soon.
| Clubfeet - "Teenage Suicide (Don't Do It)" MP3 |
If you're a fan of electopop mainstays like Hot Chip, the Teenagers and Junior Boys, Clubfeet are right up your alley. A three-piece from Melbourne and Capetown, Clubfeet were discovered by NY label Plant Music through the power of the interwebs, where the band had posted their track "Teenage Suicide (Don't Do It)". Put away the knives, kids, download the MP3 below, and look out for their debut release Gold on Gold coming soon.
| Clubfeet - "Teenage Suicide (Don't Do It)" MP3 |
In honor of the Levi's Pioneer Sessions, FILTER's giving away a 7" prize pack fit for a king (or queen depending on what you associate with). The lucky winner will receive one vinyl single from each of The SwellSeason, Nas, She & Him, and John Legend's covers.
Levi's Pioneer Sessions: The Revival Recordings series features artists from pop, rock, soul and rap to perform classic songs that inspired their sound. Two singles each week will be featured until the end of July.
Enter below to win the prize pack.
You can check out all the artists featured in the series here.
Artist - Song
Nas - "Hey Young World" by Slick Rick
The Swell Season - "Young Hearts Run Free" by Candi Staton
She & Him - "Fools Rush In" by Rick Nelson
Dirty Projectors - "I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine" by Bob Dylan
Colbie - "Maria" by Blondie
The Shins - "Goodbye Girl" by Squeeze
Raphael Saadiq - "It's A Shame" by The Spinners
Bomba Estereo - "Pump Up the Jam" by Technotronic
Jason Mraz - "Spirit in the Sky" by Norman Greenbaum
John Legend and the Roots - "Our Generation" by Ernie Hines
David Byrne discusses at TED the influence of architecture and venue on musical activity. (I saw him give an extended version of the same talk, with discussion, at New York’s Center for Architecture.) It’s a question that’s especially relevant to electronic music, I think, as digital music has been a big confused about its venue, sometimes living in unfriendly dance clubs, and sometimes being homeless.
The natural question, the one Byrne doesn’t ask, is what venues might be next? What if artists took an active role in creating the architecture in which they perform?
I have plenty I could say about that, but instead, I’ll just spark the question. For some ideas, look to thinkers like Buckminster Fuller, who regularly worked with students on ready-made architectural constructions, built by hand, on the cheap, in short periods of time. Resources:
To celebrate this year’s World Cup, we’ve found the most football-obsessed DJs in electronic music and asked them to “represent” their home countries and share their predictions for this year’s championship.
Sticking up for Down Under, it's Emerson Todd, a familiar face from his releases on Dirtybird, Get Physical, and Cocoon. From dark, anxious tech house to sweeter, almost disco-influenced tunes, he's like the Flight of the Conchords of house music—except, of course, for the ridiculous part.
After reaching number one in Billboard's Top Heatseekers chart, Sufjan Stevens has recorded many different efforts, but nothing considered as a follow up for his 2005's Illinois. The Detroit born indie folk pioneer has even gone as far as saying, "I no longer really have faith in the album anymore. I no longer have faith in the long."
Friend of Sufjan, Bryce Dessner of the Nationals, is now saying that Stevens is recording this elusive follow up right now at the National's Brooklyn studio. Dessner also stated that the National has played on a few tracks and that Stevens' new material will "probably blow people's minds."
Although no date has been given for the release of this record, be sure to keep an eye out for this Sufjan/National collaboration.
See the animated video clip for the Norwegian duo's "Continental Lovers" single, the first to be taken from their forthcoming full-length, Cajun Lunch.
We already knew that Jack White and Conan O'Brien were teaming up for something, and that something did in fact happen. Last night, at White's Third Man headquarters in Nashville, White and O’Brien ripped through a set of cover songs backed by O’Brien’s touring "Legally Prohibited Band." Coco also announced that the night's performance was being recorded and will be pressed to vinyl that show attendees could buy.
Some of the songs performed were "On The Road Again," the Band's "The Weight," Stray Cats' "Rock This Town," and Radiohead's "Creep". White and Coco also performed Eddie Cochran's "20 Flight Rock," as a closer.
Whatever line there was between playing Rock Band as a game and playing Rock Band as musical instruments has now more or less evaporated with the release of Rock Band 3. Yes, there’s a keyboard, and yes, you can add a strap to it, if that makes it a keytar for you. But there’s more to it than that.
The keyboard parts are real keyboard parts. The only difference between Rock Band / Guitar Hero parts and traditional score notation, aside from rotating the whole score 90 degrees counter-clockwise and having it come toward you, is that you don’t get a full range of notes. The keyboard changes that – while not as extreme as my faux mock-up in May, you do get the full range of black and white keys. There’s actually an octave and a half up on the screen, and two octaves on the controller. In other words, while you’re not quite learning to sightread, you are learning actual keyboard skills. There’s also a touch strip on the neck of the instrument, in a nod to keyboard history.
MIDI output. The keyboard accessory supports MIDI output, as confirmed in the Joystiq interview. So you can plug the keyboard into your computer – good fun for Xbox-using electronic music geeks, and also a nice bridge for people new to music who want to get into production after using Rock Band.
MIDI input. Here’s the other surprise: Sussman tells Joystiq they’re working with Mad Catz to do a MIDI input accessory, so you can plug your Roland JUNO-106 into your Xbox 360, if you want. (Side dream: if such an accessory supported XNA titles, you could have elaborate indie music games to play with real controllers, too. CDM Hero?)
Guitar with strings and frets. This is a bit more elaborate, so it tops my questions for Harmonix when I talk to them, but suffice to say Harmonix is finally adding strings and frets to a six-string model made by Fender.
Consider this a teaser, as I’ll be talking to Harmonix later this month. But why does this matter?
MIDI in, baby. Now you can play Rock Band with some insane homebrewed controller, if you like – or your Nord Piano. The upcoming RB3 adapter.
It makes gaming even more of a gateway drug for music. CDM’s own Jaymis, known better on the visual side of things than music, has started playing drum kit after getting hooked on Rock Band. And statistics worldwide show uptick in interest in buying and playing instruments, even as music education has been under economic pressures. At some point, there may have been a debate about the validity of music games. It’s tough to continue that debate now: games get more people into music, period. And while the games aren’t exactly creative or improvisational, they introduce people to more communal, more musical experiences in surprising numbers.
It makes a game musicians might actually want to play. Here’s where I think there might be a surprise. Lots of tech-loving musicians and producers are avid game system owners, but it’s hard not to feel a little silly picking up anything but the mic on the music games. Oddly, RB3 could bridge the opposite direction.
Rock Band Network just got a lot more interesting. I’ve been singing the praises of Rock Band Network, the tool that allows artists to author songs for the game platform, for some time. But now with keyboard input and real musical parts, I think RBN might finally be more tantalizing – including for electronic music. Now, could we please, please, please have some on-screen visuals in the vein of Harmonix’s earlier, visually-brilliant Amplitude or Frequency, and not just people in leather pants? (Okay, so maybe there are still some lingering obstacles for electronic music.)
Got questions for Harmonix? Stuff you’d like to see? Want to register for my Bring Back Frequency campaign? Let us know in comments.
