Future Sounds

"Polly Got Away" was played in the Hot Five last week on Future Sounds! The best part was listening to the broadcast and being thoroughly blown away by the awesomeness of the tracks they played. Check out Apes of Wrath, Portugal. The Man and Band of Skulls. It was an honor to hear my track played alongside these fantastic acts.

We're playing the next Future Sounds showcase at Fontana's on July 22nd! In the meantime you should listen to woxy.com for some killer music.

Friendly Music

I would like to take a moment to point out a few awesome artists who also happen to be friends. These are people who I met in person before hearing their music, but who nonetheless deserve fame, fortune, and a healthy supply of groupies.

The Significant Figures
www.thesigfigs.com
= Elliott Smith + Spoon + The Beatles


Apes & Androids
www.myspace.com/apesandandroids
= [David Bowie + Queen] / electro awesome


Spirit Elevating Brains
www.myspace.com/spiritelevatingbrains
Experimental electronic music - check back often because my friend Sebastian is constantly creating new tracks

Inflagranti
www.myspace.com/inflagranti
Perfect dance music. Sexy & cool.


Jason Conley
www.myspace.com/jasonconley
Pop ballads that you feel you already know all the words to. My personal favorite/the track I am most jealous of is "Heart Attack".

New Musics

It's hard to stay on top of the music scene now that it's morphed into a massive MySpace ocean of disenchantment. Yeah, I said it. I don't have time to dig through all the hundreds of pages crap just to find one decent track from one up & coming band who really needs more time to evolve but somehow manages to catch my ear. So I subscribe to a few impressive blog of music excavation who do the work for me. And now I bring you:

My Favorites of the Favorites of My Favorite Blogs

Castrovalva - UK-bred balls-out experimental heavy rock. Makes me want to mosh on the couch.

Sea Sick - for fans of Bat for Lashes, Sea Sick has more edge - check out "XX" or "Ring of Fire."

Yonlu - this 16 year old Brazilian artist ended his own life about 12 albums too early. I get chills during "A Boy and His Tiger" when the tape speeds up... the genius of The Beatle's White Album blended with the rawness of Nick Drake.

Beth Jeans Houghton - another UK artist, but the flipside of rock. I'm not a huge folk fan - I prefer fringe folk like CocoRosie or Diane Cluck (check out "Easy to Be Around" or "I'm Your Here I Am" ) but Houghton's vocal strength and melody lines are undeniably impressive.

And that is the cream skimmed from the half and half of the 2% milk for this week. Check back for more stolen recommendations and ridiculous analogies!

Youtube killed the MTV star

All the playing fields have been leveled. It's the internet world wide web digital revolution: MySpace hits, YouTube plays, Facebook friends. The system used to make you beg for the attention of a label, whose reps would make you sound more mainstream, put your face on MTV, and write a check for your album - which, by the way, was just a loan, money you would owe right off the top of your first few hundred thousand sales. And with a limited number of labels and a finite amount of MTV programming time, few could achieve the glory of getting to see themselves lip syncing to their songs on television, the highest pinnacle of fame & stardom for a budding rockstar!

Fast forward a few decades.

MTV plays reality & game shows.

The biggest selling musicians are selling a fraction of the CDs they did just a few years ago, and the numbers are getting smaller.

The music world has been democratized.

And anyone can make a music video for the internet.

I have to say, there's something missing when I watch a music video on YouTube. The size, the grainy, digitalized quality - and yes, the fact that it isn't anywhere near as glorious as the old school elitism of MTV. It's a sea of mediocrity, and even though we've seen a few YouTube "stars" break through with budget videos and viral talent, I hope there is some new replacement filter in the works, something that gives us the cream off the top and makes the mediocrity fight harder to be good....because I'd rather have a few moments of greatness than a hundred thousand hours of average.

I'll be throwing my hat into the ring soon enough! On Monday I shot footage with Julie Tseselsky, a long time friend and talented producer & editor who was visiting from L.A. Stay tuned for our YouTube link....

Electro-punk-dance explosion: Thursday in Williamsburg

Yeah, the weather is awesome - so what? Now you feel *pressured* to go outside just because it's nice out even when you'd rather stay inside and watch The Biggest Loser and eat a pint of Ben & Jerry's.

Or maybe that's just me....?

I do, however, leave the apartment for two important reasons:
1. to get more ice cream
2. to play and/or attend rock shows


This Thursday, April 30th*

Show time: 9pm
Cost: I have no idea. Maybe 5 bucks?
Perks: outdoor smoking on roof, Jen Urban & The Box, Communication Corporation, bars are slightly less crowded on Thursday
Location: Sugarland, 221 N 9th St between Driggs & Roebling

*(coincidentally the last day of my employment - feel free to celebrate with me....)

It's a fun time.

The Music Business Rollercoaster

The ebb and flow - excitement and disappointment - it's so draining you get to a point where you don't let yourself get excited about anything because nothing is certain or permanent, and the industry is in so much confusion and turmoil it's hard to know what goals to have, let alone what steps to take to get there. Sure, this is true of life anyway - especially when you're younger, at transition points in life - but this is a constant state of existence in the music business.

Get a band, lose a band....label interest, an A level producer - ah, it doesn't pan out... what you think is going to be a big show turns out to be a crowd that's dead or not there to see you...gear up for the next show, the venue is almost empty...then a breakthrough, stage diving, people talking about it for days after...excitement about the mastered final mixes turns into scrapping it all to start over - then you do start over and the end result is awesome and you think you're so glad you didn't stop.

So now? Maybe it doesn't break through, maybe no one connects to it or it's the wrong time - maybe you go on the road and come back with stories and scars and some cash! - or just a week-long hangover. The ups and downs start to wear on you, they destroy a bit of you at every downturn.

But maybe what's leftover - after all that turmoil and uncertainty and disappointment - maybe that's the best part anyway. It's the rawest part of you, and the strongest.

So the moral? You can't change any of this. It's part of the game. But you can react by saying f*ck it and not letting it slow you down for long.

Blitz

I've listened to the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs CD approximately 11 times since I downloaded it into my iPod. Most of this has been in the car driving all over town and out to Long Island - and Car Based Listening is still one of my favorite ways to enjoy music.

Headphones never have enough bass.

While Yeah Yeah Yeahs could put out a completely acoustic flute based CD and I would still buy it, I have mixed feelings about a dance album. First off, there's always a balance/question of an artist evolving & experimenting vs. straying away from the core of what makes them good and keeping their overall sound. Some musicians can completely change their sound while maintaining awesomeness (The Beatles, Radiohead, Bjork, PJ Harvey) while others can put out album after album of good music that's all in the same vein while not sounding like the same rehashed song over and over again (Led Zeppelin, Prince, Ladytron). And of course as an artist you can have the pitfall of not really changing but seeming to somewhat stagnate and feel recycled (recent NIN and Depeche Mode albums feel this way, although they both have their exceptional highlights).

My second point: there are tons of great electronic/dance artists that create this sound - I can put in CSS or Ladytron or the Presets for electro-dance-rock - but how many truly awesome modern rock bands are there? What makes their music stand out to me is that somehow Yeah Yeah Yeahs feel fresh and cool while still being rock music. It's kind of a shame to think they would throw that aside and instead imitate the synth based music of the 80s. And I'm not saying some of the songs aren't awesome or that they fail at creating a nice retro dance feel; I'm saying, why step backwards and copy what's been done? Why not push the sound forward somehow? What makes Radiohead and albums like OK Computer so great isn't that they suddenly decided to put out a 70s sounding southern rock album - it's that they tried to create something that was completely new and undone up until that point.

All this aside, I've still got "Dull Life," "Dragon Queen" and "Runaway" on repeat.