Because I get to listen to awesome gems like this one from Jimi Hendrix's deep b-side catalog and only pay 10 cents for it.
Here's hoping the business model carries over under the Apple helm. *crosses fingers*
via lala.com
I'm really digging this new album by Cass McCombs... Just really really relaxing guitar ballads and riffs. Cass McCombs adds a retro bassline to a very sweet song on Dreams-Come-True-Girl. Jonesy Boy is like if you dropped a bunch of ice cubes on top of vintage 70's Beatles.
It's retro alt country / indie rock... some songs pick up some of the modern rhythmic repetition of Interpol and others, but still others have a down-home electric guitar twanging away.
Good for a mellow mood. Which we could all use more of these days.
http://www.lala.com/#song/2162009300417583850
I’m told that our lives aren’t worth much,
They pass like an instant, like wilting roses.
I’m told that time slipping by is a bastard
Making its coat of our sorrows.
Yet someone told me…
Someone told me…
That you still loved me.
Well ? Could that be possible? I’m told that fate makes fun of us,
That it gives us nothing and promises everything,
When happiness seems to be within our reach,
We reach out and find ourselves like fools.
Yet someone told me… That you still loved me
Someone told me…
That you still loved me.
Well ? Could that be possible? Well ? Could that be possible? So who said that you still loved me?
I don’t remember any more, it was late at night,
I can still hear the voice, but I can no longer see the face,
“He loves you, it’s secret, don’t tell him I told you.”
You see, someone told me That you still loved me
Did someone really tell me?
That you still loved me
Well, could that be possible? I’m told that our lives aren’t worth much,
Passing in an instant, like wilting roses,
I’m told that time slipping by is a bastard,
Making its coat of our sadnesses. That you still loved me
Someone told me…
That you still loved me.
Well ? Could that be possible?
via news.cnet.com
In the case of Arctic Monkeys, Riley explained, it took multiple visits with the band to show them demos and explain what the Guitar Hero franchise is all about to get permission.
This is pretty shocking. Some bands should be paying Neversoft to get placement into Guitar Hero 5, not nickel and diming and hemming and hawing over *allowing* Neversoft to use their music. Getting listed = guaranteed placement and listening by millions of music fans. These people love guitar rock-- love it enough to fill their living rooms with cheap plastic approximations of musical instruments. That's about as targeted as you can get.
It goes to show that in crazy media times like these, many people don't even really know which way the value chain flows. Maybe because now it flows both ways.
Japanese band Sour features some very imaginative use of webcam footage by their fans. It's like those coordinated crowd card stunts that you see at football games... only much nerdier.
Like this one of my friend Mike and the band he is lead guitarist for -- The Fancy Dan Band. Must have been over a year ago!
Portrait photography is about capturing that kernel of humanity. It's the hardest to do well, but the most rewarding by far. Makes me sad my SLR is sitting alone on a shelf.
But there are many other things to be created in the meantime.
no one will ever find me
you will look for five more days
you will trawl the city night
then you'll make yourself forget me
ill fade into the halflight
i am gone...
After some searching I finally found the song featured in the NY Times video in my last post. Its catchy beat turns out to be a looped sample from an erhu, a Chinese musical instrument I remember writing a report about in Chinese school as a kid.
Yin Ts'ang's first hit was “In Beijing,” from the band's 2003 debut album, “Serve the People” (Scream Records); the title is a twist on an old political slogan. It sets a melody played on a thousand-year-old Chinese fiddle called the 'Erhu' against a hip-hop beat that brings Run D.M.C. to mind. The song, an insider's look at Beijing's sights and sounds, took the underground music scene by storm, finding its way into karaoke parlours, the Internet and even the playlist of a radio station in Beijing.
...
Some Chinese rappers address what they see as the country's most glaring injustices. As Wong Li, a 24-year-old from Dongbei, says in one of his freestyle raps:
“Don’t you know China is only a heaven for rich old men
You know this world is full of corruption
Babies die from drinking milk..."
Wong, who became interested in hip-hop when he heard Public Enemy in the mid-'90s, said rapping helps him deal with bitterness that comes with realising he is one of the millions left out of China's economic boom.
“All people care about is money,” he said. “If you don't have money, you're treated like garbage. And if you're not local to the city you live in, people discriminate against you; they give you the worst jobs to do.”
Read more about the group at thedailystar.net...
Yin Tsang is also has a myspace page.
Canadian Indie hipsters unite. Broken Social Social Scene rocks! If wikipedia calls them a supergroup, then you know its true. It's been peer reviewed by wikipedia's finest. Also, check out the new Posterous audio player...