I don't actually know how to play the piano. Or any instrument for that matter, and I certainly can't read music. I blew into a clarinet for a week in elementary school, but that was only because mom found her old one in the depths of a closet around that time. Nevertheless I am inspired, and will be composing a conceptual piece of music for the piano on the recurring theme of 'Fucking It Up Is the New Doing It Right'. Here's what I've got so far:
The first movement is conducted by hitting the piano as hard as you can. Attempt to alter its tuning with your strike.
Next, play a series of scales in an attempt to detect where the piano has lost its true.
Finally, construct around the first detected de-tuned octave [this algorithmically-created series of notes and chords].
Optional scales out.
OK, so something like this must have been done before. If you've heard music based around the deliberate abuse of instruments*—and most interestedly the piano—share it here, please, I'd like to hear it. I'll keep working on [this silly, important part].
From the Basement is producer Nigel Godrich's experiment in high-quality televised musical performance.
It's an expensive show to make and with good reason. The standard of production is very high and we try to make it look and sound as good as is humanly possible. It's all done on HD video and the sound is produced by me. . . . . . The whole emphasis of the show is about being artist friendly and making our bands as comfortable as possible so that they can give great performances without the usual agony of TV promo which everyone has to do but no one seems to enjoy. TV world is a pretty hostile environment for your average musician to have to walk into and bare his soul on cue.. It also doesn't hurt that a lot of the people we've filmed are friends or people we've worked with before so they trust us and know that we understand what recording music is about as well as making good TV.
A success in my mind, at least from the looks of this Andrew Bird video. I've seen him live a few times, and always felt that the audience has been a distraction from the man's performance and feeling. This setting is perfect for Andrew Bird. It is plush and dark and lonely, and he shines in it. I looked it up recently to add to a fun thread on musicians who build songs live on stage with looping devices at MetaFilter. Lots of good links there, and a few more sneak peeks from Nigel on the From the Basement site.
Download Amplive's Rainydayz Remixes, an 8-track collection featuring remixes of Radiohead's historic seventh album, In Rainbows. The songs are available in a zip file below and feature verses courtesy of Too $hort, MC Zumbi of Zion I, Chali2na of Jurassic 5, and Del the Funky Homosapien.
After a cease & desist put the breaks on Amplive's Radiohead In Rainbows remix project, the online music community reasonably wondered if the tracks would ever see the light of day. Well, here they are.
While the Oakland producer/DJ acknowledges that he probably should have contacted Radiohead (who were not involved in the project) to seek approval prior to making his interpretations publically available, an agreement has been reached between all involved parties and Amplive has been granted permission to release Rainydayz Remixes for free to the general public. Effective immediately, the eight-track record is available here.
Rainydayz Remixes is composed exclusively of source material pulled from In Rainbows, re-envisioned by Amplive and complimented by vocal work from Too $hort, MC Zumbi of Zion I, Chali2na of Jurassic 5, Codany Holiday, and Del The Funky Homosapien.
I read this post at Everyone Forever back in September, but couldn't watch the video due to a dying computer. It was worth the wait. Here's a loving reproduction of the post:
The pagan Arabs of the pre-Islamic period were a proud and boastful people who were characterized by epic tales, heart-rending poetry, and eloquent prose. Indeed, their literary excellence before the Prophet Muhammad, is still reputed to be of the highest calibre, the quintessence of poetry, chivalry and a most intoxicating ambiance, even at times glaringly arrogant and self-worshipping.
However, in the year 610AD, the fortieth year of a certain Muhammad ibn Abdullah, the Arabs had found a contest to their genius. This 'man from a mountain' claimed to be in receipt of a magnanimous recital, a message that he was not even willing to take any credit for.
The Arabs found their pride, their literary genius to be in serious question. The sheer experience of the recital, its ontology, style, experience, cosmic melancholy, odd structure, meaning and message, shattered them into willing submission.
The ontological encounter with the recital to the Arabs surely confirmed to them, by them, that surely no man could be the author of such an experience.
The odd structure, the melancholy, the penetrative acoustics remain to the present day and have been reverberating Worldwide, around houses and mosques during this current month of fasting and patience; Ramadan.
Polyvinyl is having a massive Black Friday sale -- that has already started! Save between 10% - 70% on some of your favorite Polyvinyl records! Nearly every single Polyvinyl release -- close to 200 items -- is on sale!
Yet another source of my overflowing love for the community blog MetaFilter has been the CD swaps organized about twice every year. The idea is simple: burn 5 copies of a mix to CD and mail them to the 5 other people in your assigned swap set. Expect a mix in return from each of those same 5 folks.
Though I don't think I've ever participated in a swap where all 6 swap set members have come through, now that I think about it.
Still, about 7 years of this has loaded me up with great music mixes from around the world. I've started digitizing them now, and the first one up is (randomly) Do Not Kink!, sent to me in 2003.
These are included in the archive. Click for bigger.
I can't remember who put this mix together. Here's the mystery mixer's liner notes:
And the Washington Monument (Blinks) Goodnight by Q and Not U
Barra Barra by Rachid Taha
Pack Yr Romantic Mind by Stereolab
I Got Erection by Turbonegro
Status by Mr. Lif feat. Insight
Young Offenders by The Constantines
Grounded (Live) by Pavement
back cover
This is a pretty good mix. I dig how it takes a bunch of artists I already like (The Pogues, Stars, Mclusky, Stereolab, Q and Not U, Constantines, Pavement) and then goes in a completely different (though not wholly unexpected) direction. A somewhat juvenile and awesome direction.
What relationship do the following songs have with each other: Nineteenth Nervous Breakdown (1965) Refugee (1979) Stairway to Heaven (1971) Black Magic Woman (1970) Band on the Run (1973) Walk This Way (1975) Tequila Sunrise (1973)A class-mate of mine gets invited to a party each year where the invitation gives a hidden clue as to who the musical guest will be. This year's is a stumper and so we're turning to Big Green for help.
While there may be a music-related link here (i.e. lyrical, writer, producer, etc), it could very well be something entirely non-musical. Any MeFi music buffs find any relationship at all with those songs?
As an example, two years ago the invitation included references (which you always have to figure out) to 7 songs. Different bands and with dates from roughly 1971 through 1998. It turned out that ALL of them had been covered at some time or another by Paul Simon. He was the guest. Another thing that made the invitation easy for my classmate was that the invitation came in a Kodak box. Anyway, Paul Simon was the guest musician.
Now, one other thing: don’t look for someone who has covered all of those songs. There is NO WAY that they would use the same type of “puzzle.”
If it helps, here's an explanation of this year's invitation:
There are 7 cards with photographs on them, and each one contains a year (presumably the year the song was written). Each one depicts a song and the letters of the song are written in “hangman” style, with the initial letters given (e.g. N_________ N______ B________ - but on the card you could tell how many letters were in each word). The picture also depicted the song. He is POSITIVE of 6 of the songs; the only one we are not certain of was from 1979, showed two kids with suitcases standing next to a railroad, and they were both dressed in white long sleeve shirts and dark pants. It started with an “R” and was seven letters. Pretty sure it is “Refugee” but if anyone else has an idea of something different, let me know (e.g. is there a “Runaway” from 1979?). Also, the dates given above are the release dates for the songs.
P.S. One more thing to add: the invitation reads “One Enchanted Evening . . .”. Don’t know if that adds anything.
The concert was on Sept. 27, so the answer is at the very bottom of the AskMe thread in question. There are a lot of good theories along the way, though.
The Chameleon Transmission was Blake's show. As a green trainee I was assigned to learn from him the intricacies of broadcasting eclectic music over hopeless airwaves. He had listeners, a few, and the show was even during a prime slot on a weeknight, but our station was in the middle of being shuffled around campus and interest had waned. He and I and Jello J, my co-trainee, would spend two hours once a week raiding the ridiculously large stacks of new music and the station's nearly incomprehensibly huge library of CDs and vinyl and pumping out awesome and unlistenable music to anyone who would listen.
We were terrible, and nothing could stop us.
After a few weeks Blake began to get a sense of my taste in music, and began recommending albums. One of the very first tracks he played for me instantly became my new favorite song, and the performers my new favorite artist. That track was 'Penelope' from the album Blue Screen Life by Pinback. I fell in love, and fell hard. Since then I've done everything in my power to familiarize myself with Pinback's music, and the various winding tentacles of Rob Crow's other musical projects.
Back then Tucson was still overshot more often than not by touring indie bands. They'd hit Modified Gallery in Phoenix or some dump in Albuquerque and then speed through town on the 10. Slowly, though, a couple of venues established relationships, reputations, and the local scene grew strong. Before all that, though, Pinback was a regular. I saw them every single time they came to town, and I never failed to hit up their merch table.
Being a poor boy (some things change; some things stay the same) I couldn't load up on all the swag, but I had a sharp eye for what was worth my dough and what was just another band t-shirt. So every year, when Pinback rocked my world live, I'd pick up that year's tour EP. The first three are sleeves, thick folded stock stitched up with colorful thread. They got fancy with the fourth, though, so Too Many Shadows comes in a bare-bones digipak. This came out just as they were signed to Touch-and-Go records, who put out their album Summer in Abaddon.
I've been in a lot of great music stores, and never once have I seen one of these CDs up for grabs. I know for a fact that the first, Live in Donny's Garage, is a reprint of a tour CD originally distributed on their "first real european tour" ('cause it says so on the little blue insert), but as far as I know the other three are originals, issued each year the band went out on the road here in the U.S. Update: I haven't been in enough great record stores, apparently. All four of these discs are available for purchase at the Pinback store. Please support a great band and harbor the good taste to own these fine discs for yourself. They're cheap!
So, with great pleasure (now I have great pleasure; putting these together digitally all at once was a bitch and froze my computer innumerable times) I present to you four Pinback tour EPs, in chronological order, complete with scans of the covers (front and back [.jpg]) and the CDs [.gif, so I could crop out the corners and the center hole =o)]. (The scans are included in the archive folders.)
Download 30 Amp Fuse - Saturday Night at the Atomic Speedway Stephen Thomas Erlewine says: ...an entertaining but lightweight collection of roaring punk-pop in the vein of the Buzzcocks, but without the clever hooks or lyrics of Pete Shelly. While the record is plagued with inconsistent songwriting, it nevertheless has enough moments to make the record appealing to genre specialists. RIYL The Get Up Kids, Kerplunk!, Fountains of Wayne, dancing Recommended Tracks 02. Love Is A Catch-22 ♠♠♠ 08. Tilt-A-Whirl ♠♠♠ 11. Blastin' Room ♠♠♠♠♠ 15. Sound On Sound ♠♠♠
Over the past few years a number of my co-alumni Dorados have distinguished themselves on the national level. Certain sporting types I'll avoid mentioning because deep, irrational resentment is so easy to cull from those four long years. However, plenty others have hit it big on the musical stage. I was a total fanboy for my friend Jeremy's band, The Actual (sadly, 2001-2007) and now I've transferred that blind love to another bass player friend's band, The Airborne Toxic Event (myspace). (Should this be another Literary Music post? That's a Delillo reference, if I'm not mistaken.)
Anyway, their new album just came out (buy it!) and received quite a burn review from all-holy Pitchfork. 1.6, ouch. The band has issued an open letter to the review's author in response:
Dear Ian,
Thanks for your review of our record. It's clear that you are a good writer and it's clear that you took a lot of time giving us a thorough slagging on the site. We are fans of Pitchfork. And it's fun to slag off bands. It's like a sport -- kind of part of the deal when you decide to be in a rock band. (That review of Jet where the monkey pees in his own mouth was about the funniest piece of band-slagging we've ever seen.)
We decided a long time ago not to take reviews too seriously. For one, they tend to involve a whole lot of projection, generally saying more about the writer than the band. Sort of a musical Rorschach test. And for another, reading them makes you too damned self-conscious, like the world is looking over your shoulder when the truth is you're not a genius or a moron. You're just a person in a band.
Plus, the variation of opinions on our record has bordered on absurd. 80 percent of what's been said has been positive, a few reviews have remained on the fence and a few (such as yours) have been aggressively harsh. We tend not to put a lot of stock in this stuff, but the sheer disagreement of opinion makes for fascinating (if not a bit narcissistic) reading.
And anyway we have to admit that we found ourselves oddly flattered by your review. I mean, 1.6? That is not faint praise. That is not a humdrum slagging. That is serious fist-pounding, shoe-stomping anger. Many publications said this was among the best records of the year. You seem to think it's among the worst. That is so much better than faint praise.
You compare us to a lot of really great bands (Arcade Fire, the National, Bright Eyes, Bruce Springsteen) and even if your intention was to cut us down, you end up describing us as: "lyrically moody, musically sumptuous and dramatic." One is left only to conclude that you must think those things are bad.
We love indie rock and we know full well that Pitchfork doesn't so much critique bands as critique a band's ability to match a certain indie rock aesthetic. We don't match it. It's true that the events described in these songs really happened. It's true we wrote about them in ways that make us look bad. (Sometimes in life you are the hero, and sometimes, you are the limp-dicked cuckold. Sometimes you're screaming about your worst fears, your most vicious jealousies and failures. Such is life.) It's also true that the record isn't ironic or quirky or fey or disinterested or buried beneath mountains of guitar noodling.
As writers, we admire your tenacity and commitment to your tone (even though you do go too far with your assumptions about us). You're wrong about our intentions, you're wrong about how this band came together, you don't seem to get the storytelling or the catharsis or the humor in the songs, and you clearly have some misconceptions about who we are as a band and who we are as people.
But it also seems to have very little to do with us. Much of your piece reads less like a record review and more like a diatribe against a set of ill-considered and borderline offensive preconceptions about Los Angeles. Los Angeles has an extremely vibrant blogging community, Silver Lake is a very close-knit rock scene. We are just one band among many. (And by the way, L.A. does have a flagship indie rock band: they're called Silversun Pickups). We cut our teeth at Spaceland and the Echo and have nothing to do with whatever wayward ideas you have about the Sunset Strip. That's just bad journalism.
But that is the nature of this sort of thing. It's always based on incomplete information. Pitchfork has slagged many, many bands we admire (Dr. Dog, the Flaming Lips, Silversun Pickups, Cold War Kids, Black Kids, Bright Eyes [ironic, no?] just to name a few), so now we're among them. Great.
This band was borne of some very very dark days and the truth is that there is something exciting about just being part of this kind of thing. There's this long history of dialogue between bands and writers so it's a bit of a thrill that you have such a strong opinion about us.
We hear you live in Los Angeles. We'd love for you to come to a show sometime and see what we're doing with these lyrically moody and dramatic songs. You seem like a true believer when it comes to music and writing so we honestly think we can't be too far apart. In any case, it would make for a good story.
all our best--
Mikel, Steven, Anna, Daren, Noah the Airborne Toxic Event
I think it's a pretty good response, measured and honest. TATE is keeping things interesting for me in other ways, too. In the month or so before their album release they uploaded live acoustic versions of each of the album tracks filmed in unexpected places. The musical renditions are awesome—I almost favor them over the album versions—and the videos themselves are charming. Here they are in the order they were released:
Wishing Well
Papillon
Gasoline
Happiness Is Overrated
Does This Mean You're Moving On? [My favorite!]
This Is Nowhere
Sometime Around Midnight
Something New
Missy
Innocence
Yep, they're good! I saw them perform on the set of the Carson Daly show, which was surreal to say the least. They were also on Conan recently, and tore it up. Here's hoping a Pitchfork pan won't hold this band back. Enjoy!
All the stuff (pictures and music and videos, mostly) on this blog that ain't my godawful writing may very well expire quickly, so act fast! It's all here for educational and entertainment purposes only, good times with good people, ya know? I have NO intention of profiting or violating any copyright. If anything is not totally cool, or if you'd rather I didn't, please just let me know (email!) and I will remove it immediately!
The first movement is conducted by hitting the piano as hard as you can. Attempt to alter its tuning with your strike. 
