My Rothbury countdown says there are four days until liftoff, and that means I need to start working on my coverage. It’s my goal to provide a different perspective on the festival than you might find at other media outlets. Most of the Michigan media just don’t get Rothbury; they think it’s cool to have a big event in our state, but they’re upset that there aren’t more “radio friendly” (or even indie-hipster-friendly) bands. On the other hand, some media outlets and festival crowds only pay attention to the big jam bands. I mean, I have goose pimples over the String Cheese reunion show too, but why should other worthy artists get overlooked because of that?
And I don’t know about you, but I find the artist line-up page on Rothbury’s website impossible to read. It’s easier to grasp on the festival schedule pages, but I think that further context can be provided. The following is a concise attempt at just that sort of context. When I tried to sort the bands into some kind of manageable form, I realized what an incredibly diverse line-up we have at Rothbury 2009!
Don’t take it too literally though. I’m not trying to pigeonhole anyone, and obviously some bands could fit in many categories (i.e. – String Cheese Incident is a progressive bluegrass band, STS9 should probably be in Live Electronica, and many would just group Yonder Mountain in with the big jam bands). This is merely a quick guide intended to help those who are attending Rothbury, especially if you’re new to the festival scene. This is also my own borderline-OCD way of preparing. It will help me prioritize where to be at which times.
Audio: “Hold What You Got” by The String Cheese Incident, from Carnival ‘99
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Of course, when the time comes, I’ll probably throw it all to the wind and just wander around Double JJ Ranch, heading wherever I please. That’s part of the fun of music festivals: the unexpected! Discover new bands! Meet new people! Witness the extraordinary! Live and learn and love! The point is, Rothbury isn’t just another festival that happened to show up in Michigan. Rothbury is now one of the premier American music festivals, with an already stellar reputation that is scraping up against giants like Bonnaroo and Coachella. And we Michiganders should take advantage of it.
The Tripolee Domes at night - Rothbury 2008
I. Jam Bands:
The Dead
The String Cheese Incident
The Disco Biscuits
Sound Tribe Sector 9 (STS9)
Umphrey’s McGee
Gov’t Mule
Hill Country Revue
Underground Orchestra
Davy Knowles and Back Door Slam
II. Rock/Classic Rock:
Bob Dylan and His Band
Willie Nelson & Family
The Black Crowes
Les Claypool
Zappa Plays Zappa
III. Bluegrass/Country:
Yonder Mountain String Band
Keller Williams
Railroad Earth
Son Volt
Peter Rowan Bluegrass Band w/ Tony Rice
Ralph Stanley & The Clinch Mountain Boys
Audio: “Stay” by Pretty Lights, an artist I haven’t seen before but I’m very excited about
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IV. Live Electronica:
Lotus
EOTO
Future Rock
LYNX & Janover
Pretty Lights
Lipp Service (Eliot Lipp and members of Pnuma)
Alex B (of Pnuma)
Big Gigantic
2020 Soundsystem
Break Science ft. Adam Deitch
V. Electronic/Mash-up/DJ:
Girl Talk
MSTRKRFT
The Glitch Mob
Chromeo
Shpongle DJ Set
VI. Indie Rock/Alt Rock:
Broken Social Scene
Man Man
Flogging Molly
The Hold Steady
Cold War Kids
Grace Potter and the Nocturnals
The Parlor Mob
Sam Roberts Band
Wendy Darling
Rachel Goodrich
The Odeum Stage
VII. Acoustic Rock/Singer-Songwriter:
Martin Sexton
Brett Dennen
G. Love & Special Sauce
Guster
John Butler
Jackie Greene
Reed Thomas Lawrence
The White Buffalo
Ani DiFranco
The Ragbirds
VIII. World/Reggae:
Femi Kuti & the Positive Force
Toubab Krewe
Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley & NAS
Matisyahu
Toots & the Maytals
Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad
Rebelution
King Sunny Ade & His African Beats
IX. Hip Hop/Rap/R&B:
Chris Pierce
Soulive
The Cool Kids
Quannum Allstars (incl. Lyrics Born)
X. Michigan Bands:
Four Finger Five
Steppin’ In It
The Hard Lessons
The Macpodz
I’m so sad that I won’t be seeing the ongoing tour between the Field and the Juan MacLean. They stopped at Double Door in Chicago last night. I was unable to make the four-hour drive just for that event. Rest assured that I’ll be blasting music from each artist at full volume every time I get an opportunity. And who knows, maybe one or both will get added to Lollapalooza or PMF at the last minute.
Other than expressing my pain over missing the concert, I bring up the Field because of his new album. I say “his” because the Field is Axel Willner (Axel?! What a name!) of Sweden — or it was just Axel. Now I hear he has a few others with him, at least in the touring band. Yesterday and Today was recently released in the U.S. on the Anti label, and it definitely demands attention. Whether or not it will make as lasting an impression as the previous one (From Here We Go Sublime) remains to be seen. That 2006 album is one of the most incredible electronica albums I’ve ever experienced. It’s title is perfect in that, from the very first track, it takes you on a voyage of the mind and hardly brings you back in one piece.
Audio: “The More That I Do” by the Field, from the new album Yesterday and Today
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I have explained that I’ve been in a techno frenzy since attending Day 3 of Movement Detroit 2009 (DEMF). As I learn more about Detroit’s techno history, I begin to draw comparisons between more recent music that I love. When I heard Carl Craig’s 1997 album More Songs About Food and Revolutionary Art, the first thing I thought of was the Field. More specifically, it was track #9, “Dominas,” that did the trick. The uplifting beat, ambient background synths, and abstract, repetitive vocal piece seemed like a blueprint that Willner adapted for his own work.
Now don’t get me wrong: I just got done bashing Hercules and Love Affair for ripping off Detroit/Chicago duo Inner City. The Field didn’t cheat anyone here. Willner’s work is completely original. But there hardly exists a creative soul that doesn’t draw on outside inspiration, and musicians tend to feed mostly on other music. I have no proof that Willner is a fan of Carl Craig or any Detroit techno. But I am pretty confident that Detroit’s techno roots were a heavy influence on Europe’s now-powerful techno scene.
Audio: “Dominas” by Carl Craig
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In fact “Dominas” is probably a more accurate forefather to the Field’s debut album. I’ve read that Willner wanted the sophomore effort to be “more organic.” That’s fine and dandy, but it was the spacy, heady, slightly abstract feel of the debut that drew me in. And I can name half a dozen amazing organic electronica bands (i.e. – bands that sound like techno but really contain many recorded instrumental parts) in a jiffy. My favorite one is also from Sweden — they’re called Studio. But I’ll have to save them for a different post.
My Firefox browser just crashed — luckily I had saved the post just before — but I’m in no mood to lose any writing. The point of this post is that learning about Detroit’s techno scene has given me another reason to be proud that I’m a Michigan native. Visionary artists like Carl Craig, Juan Atkins, Derrick May, and Kevin Saunderson have had a tremendous impact on the world. It wasn’t just because of the deteriorated nature of Detroit, but that’s part of it. And I identify with that, even though I’ve never actually lived within city limits. The collective failure of the region drives a creative mind to find a way to escape. These artists found one in their music, and they’ve taken the world along for the ride.
I’d like to follow up the DEMF post with a few others in the same vein. After I attended Movement Detroit, I finally made an effort to learn more about the founders of Detroit techno, especially Derrick May, Juan Atkins, Kevin Saunderson, and Carl Craig. I had heard that Juan Atkins was active in the ’80s using many recording names, one of which was Cybotron. I know you’ve all heard the song “Clear,” especially if you were obsessed with the game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City like I was around the middle of the decade.
What’s that? You never played Vice City? And you wanna hear the song? Well, don’t mind if I do…that is, as long as you dance the robot when you hear it.
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Now that we got that out of our systems, let’s continue. During my post-festival research, I realized that Kevin Saunderson had a project called Inner City with Chicago house vocalist Paris Gray. I knew the Inner City song “Good Life” from some ’80s compilation I found a few years ago — I just didn’t know the group had Detroit connections. The group, the song, and the album cover all scream late ’80s/early ’90s awkwardness. The cover especially; Saunderson looks like Wesley Snipes in Blade; the text is stretched vertically like something from an MC Hammer poster; Gray’s perm is atrocious.
Audio: “Good Life” by Inner City
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And yet, the album isn’t all that bad. Of course, that statement could be influenced by the impending ’90s revival that I keep forecasting. But either way, it stakes a claim to a very specific sound from a unique time and place. And now that I know that place was Detroit (or at least Detroit and Chicago), I feel a bit defensive about the fact that a modern band has blatantly ripped them off. That’s right. One of the most highly praised acts of 2008, Hercules and Love Affair, pretty much copied the song “Good Life” piece for piece on their debut album. The track “You Belong” isn’t a cover or a remake — but except for being in a different key, it sounds almost exactly the same.
Aside from the geographical factor, I’m also pissed because I think HaLA is extremely overrated. I agree that the American dance music scene is a little dried out in recent years, but trying to turn a frog into a prince never helped anyone. And this isn’t just a case of being influenced by Inner City and wanting to pay tribute. The synths, percussion, and vocals (with the exception of Antony’s annoying moan) are all simple duplicates.
Audio: “You Belong” by Hercules and Love Affair
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Why is Coldplay the only band getting sued?! I say if someone is gonna take this much credit for a sound that they didn’t invent, they deserve to be sued too. In fact, Inner City should also sue Pitchfork and other hipster media douche bags for trying to capitalize on the fallout of HaLA’s success.
But that’s enough venting on my part. It’s up to you to decide if I’m overreacting. Comment away.
Well oh well. I finally got to attend Movement Detroit! And it was everything I though it could be! The festival formerly known as the Detroit Electronic Music Festival (and still often referred to as DEMF) has been running in Hart Plaza over Memorial Day Weekend in some form or another since 2000. Now Ferndale-based company Paxahau has taken control, and they seem to know what they’re doing. Before the fest, I read on their site that they’re also coordinating a Movement Torino that will take place in Torino, Italy, over Halloween weekend. That means Detroit is now part of a global electronic music partnership!
Naturally, I went into DEMF expecting it to be the most positive and progressive thing that Michigan has experienced in the past year. I was only able to attend on Monday, May 25, but I wasn’t too disappointed, since the only name I recognized on the other days was RJD2 on Sunday. (Actually, I heard about the Glitch Mob because they’re also on the Rothbury 2009 line-up.) In a strange coincidence, I saw Heidi and Loco Dice Friday night Spybar, while I was in Chicago for the first part of the weekend. My girlfriend actually recognized their names on the Movement line-up (Heidi performed Saturday; Loco Dice performed Sunday).
Something to listen to: “Rainbow Man” by Busy P
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And of course this leads to a vivid memory of my Monday at DEMF: during the end of Ellen Allien’s set and the beginning of Tiga’s (i.e. – around 6 pm on the Beatport Stage) we saw Heidi dancing on stage in her Euro club gear! We also saw a grungy dude wearing a Rage Against the Machine shirt, only to realize later on that it was Busy P! If that name doesn’t ring a bell, he’s the Parisian owner of Ed Banger Records and (more famously) Daft Punk’s manager. Ed Banger, for the unfamiliar, is the home of Justice, Uffie, DJ Medhi, and a few other names that are staking out solid accomplishments for French house.
The point isn’t to lay out a “who’s who,” but merely to demonstrate that being at DEMF felt like being at the core of a massive tornado of electronica. I’ve read so much about Detroit being the birthplace of techno, but until that day, Detroit never actually seemed like a techno capital of the world. I’m still not sure if any of the artists had that in mind, since most of techno’s energy now radiates from Europe, mostly Germany and the UK.
So the Ellen Allien/Tiga block was amazing, but the first mind-blowing set of the day — and the set that seemed to have the most people talking, especially on Twitter — was Flying Lotus (3:30 pm on the Red Bull Stage). I had heard on his MySpace page that his albums are more headphone music, while his live shows tend to be much livelier. He wasn’t kidding! He mixed the album material with a wide array of other music. My favorite was when he sped up Aphex Twin’s “Avril 14th” and put a beat behind it. He also pulled stunts like flipping between Snoop Dogg and intense drum ‘n’ bass techno.
Unfortunately the crowd during Flying Lotus was probably the worst I dealt with all day. I felt surrounded by hippie/thug hybrids (maybe they were all dealers?) who paid no attention to whose shoes they were stepping on. By 7:27 pm, I posted the following on the @MusicEdge Twitter: “DEMF is a weird mix of metrosexual club rats, candy raving hippies, and hard knock Detroit folk looking for a party.” And upon leaving the festival, I tweeted, “Movement wrap-up coming soon. Artists=dynomite. Sound=great. People=slightly creepy and unpolite. More later.”
I keep bringing up Twitter. Part of my mission at DEMF was to test new ways of covering such an event. I still took photos and video clips with my digital camera, but I posted updates to Twitter using my new iPhone. That probably sounds dumb, but I could actually track the realtime web convo about DEMF using my phone. I used Twitterific to search for “demf” so I could see who was posting from the festival. I also posted a few pictures with messages using TwitPic. After the fact, I saw that an account called DEMF_follower was aggregating and re-tweeting messages about the festival.
In doing so, I realized that “coverage” of such an event is no longer done by journalists or the media; it’s done by the audience. I already knew that — actually I’ve been screaming it (oh so quietly) in people’s faces. I try to explain why the industry is failing but no one likes to listen. However, talking about it and seeing it in action are two different things. Of course, to differentiate myself, I should be focusing on the “why” and “how,” but I seem to have rambled around those topics, so I’ll just leave you with some audio/visual delights.
By the way, other artists I got to see include Anthony Attalla, Afrika Bambaataa (think GTA Vice City, the Wild Style disc), Carl Craig (a Detroit techno legend), Michna (a Ghostly International artist who filled in for Benga at the last minute), Bassnectar (who I expect to see again at Lolla ‘09), and Benny Benassi (remember that crazy “Satisfaction” video from around ‘02?). What an awesome day! I can’t wait for next year!
Below you’ll find the photos and video that I took at Movement Detroit.
My next few posts will be quick and simple, because I want to keep up with new music but I’m drowning in other obligations. Junior Boys released their third studio album Begone Dull Care on April 7, and it hasn’t received nearly as much attention as I would have expected — from fans or the media. Of course Junior Boys had a lot to live up to. Their 2006 album So This Is Goodbye is without a doubt one of my favorite albums to listen to on vinyl (it’s up there with the Postal Service and a few others).
Audio: “The Animator” by Junior Boys, from the 2009 album Begone Dull Care.
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But even that wasn’t as lauded by critics as 2004’s Last Exit, which was #9 on Metacritic’s year-end list with an average rating of 89. Neither is inherently a better album; it just depends on your tastes. My tastes prefer Goodbye, but I also have strong emotional ties to the album, because I discovered it during a difficult time in my life. I’ve become pretty skeptical of new releases by bands whose last record was enjoyable, but I gave Junior Boys the benefit of the doubt. Theirs is a pretty unique mix of synth pop, soft rock, and house, and I figured they wouldn’t stray too far from the formula.
It seems that they took a conservative approach with Begone, investing in subtlety instead of falling victim to bombast or cheese (actually there is some cheese here, but not too much). That approach hasn’t pleased the critics quite as much, but I’m no critic. I am, however, a lover of live music. I saw JB perform at the Pike Room in Pontiac about a month ago. Max Tundra opened, and actually threatened to out-perform the headliners.
It’s not that JB weren’t capable on stage; it’s just that all the elements didn’t mesh how I expected (and Max Tundra is a one-man whirlwind who explodes fun-bombs in your face). First of all, they bring a drummer along on tour. Secondly, the bass and synth sounds were not nearly loud enough. I wanted to hear that shit cranked way up! If you’re not going to blast the bass, then why not bring a bass guitar player along with the drummer?
But if “too quiet” is my primary complaint, I think that makes for a decent show. They did suffer from the “new song” syndrome, though. The show was just before or right after the release of Begone, so the audience hadn’t really heard the new stuff yet. The worst case scenario is when a classic rock band plays new crap when the audience just wants the greatest hits. It wasn’t that bad with the JB show.
And except in comparison to the previous two albums, Begone isn’t so bad either. The title does stink and the cover is…well…”dull.” Another downside: it’s one of those records where you can specifically pick out the good tracks from the bad tracks. I don’t feel like the whole thing will grow on me. In general it seems like they were suffering from indecision, and that left the album with a vague sense of direction. The first two tracks (”Parallel Lines” and “Work”) are classy, and the song you heard above is a great side B surprise.
Throughout this decade we’ve seen a lot of promising bands fade after one or two good albums, and the rest of Canada’s indie talent has all but disappeared (with the exception of Feist). But I don’t think that will be the fate of the Junior Boys. Hopefully they’ll gather their strengths and produce a whopper of a fourth album.
This is an exploration of how video game music has influenced modern musicians. I’ll look at two in particular: Flying Lotus and Crystal Castles. And thanks to my new handy-dandy flash MP3 player, you’ll get to compare and contrast the tracks right here!
Both artists released full-length albums in 2008, but while I became utterly obsessed with Crystal Castles around March ‘08, I didn’t even find Flying Lotus (born Steven Ellison) and his second album Los Angeles until around November. When I started getting into FlyLo (as his fans reportedly call him), I dug around his MySpace page and found a video interview by XLR8R. Part of the video takes place in an arcade surrounded by old school video games, and the conversation centers on Ellison’s identification with the “Nintendo Generation.” He said that video game sounds are even sort of comforting, because he grew up with them and they’ve become such a huge part of our culture.
Audio: “Camel” by Flying Lotus, from the album Los Angeles.
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That reminded me of something I had written. Crystal Castles’ self-titled debut won a high spot on my 2008 top ten list. In that post I wrote, “Those of us alive less than 30 years can describe the phases of our lives in terms of video game consoles, computer monitors, and peer-to-peer networks.” I knew exactly what Ellison meant because I feel the same way — and I think many others do too…especially male Americans in their twenties.
I can remember the specific night in the fall of 1996 when I first played Nintendo 64. We went to our local Blockbuster store and rented a console and the first game released for the system: Mario 64. No game (or game franchise) has ever had greater original music than the Mario games (that is, unless you were one of those Sega types…but anyways, it’s just my opinion).
This culture branches beyond video games. One extension is cartoons, most notably South Park and the Adult Swim programming on Cartoon Network. As many of you already know, FlyLo’s song “1983″ still plays during show breaks on Adult Swim. I thought it was awesome when I found that out. (However, hearing the song “Light Powered” by Michigan’s own Deastro play on AS a few weeks ago was way more exciting. And in fact, Deastro has a place in this video-game-inspired-music discussion, but my hands are already full!) Ellison seems to be a leader of this underground culture, and I say underground in a literal sense, meaning that most of it happens in your basement or some similarly guarded place.
As I learned more about Flying Lotus and became addicted to his sound, there was one specific song that reminded me of the music from Mario 64. The track “Camel” (which you’ve hopefully been listening to already) has a segment that first drops at about 45 seconds into the song. Compare that part to what happens in the Mario 64 track “Powerful Mario” at about the seven second mark.
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Did that blow your mind?! Well I thought it was interesting. Crystal Castles possess more direct similarities to video game music. After all, they did inspire rumors that they had implanted an Atari chip in their keyboard.
Audio: “Through the Hosiery” by Crystal Castles, from their debut album.
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I swear that song sounds like “World Map 4 (Big Island)” from Super Mario Bros. 3:
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Am I taking crazy pills??? Or do I actually have a point here? Well, I’ll leave it up to you. Please comment and share your opinion.
Another interesting thing: “Title Theme” from Mario 64 is basically a watered-down drum’n'bass techno song. You may have seen me talk about Squarepusher recently. The album Hard Normal Daddy came out in 1997, a year after Mario 64. Was he inspired by the fearless Italian plumber? This one might be a stretch, not sonically (they sound frickin’ exactly the same), but more in terms of whether the video game music actually had some effect on the real music. You decide:
Audio: “Beep Street” by Squarepusher.
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Audio: “Title Theme” from Mario 64.
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I’m psyched that I get to see both Flying Lotus and Crystal Castles perform live in 2009. FlyLo will be at Movement Detroit 2009 (aka DEMF) on May 25 and CC will be at Lollapalooza. Don’t miss the opportunities!
And on we go with the MP3-riddled blog posts. The next song I’d love to share with you is “The Strangers” by St. Vincent, the recording name of Texan twenty-something Annie Clark (I recommend starting the MP3 here, so you can listen as you read).
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Clark has bounced around some well known groups during the past few years. She sang on The Polyphonic Spree’s 2007 album The Fragile Army, and she was a member of Sufjan Stevens’ touring band circa Illinois. Now she seems to have established herself as a standalone force.
The opening track to her sophomore album Actor (released on May 5, 2009) is a brilliant tone-setter. I’ve only listened to the whole record once so far, but my overall first impression was positive (despite my automatic skepticism over super-hyped music). Most of the time I see the indie press glorify a new release, I wait a bit to let the digital dust settle. However, I was a big fan of St. Vincent’s 2007 debut Marry Me — so I guess I feel a bit entitled to talk about her new music. In fact it was a live recording from the LullaByes blog that hooked me. Clark played by herself (as she apparently often does) and was facing many equipment issues, but she kept her chin up and kept on playing.
That version of the song “Marry Me” was so endearing that it took me a while to realize how different it was from the album version. It just featured her guitar and voice, but that gave the lyrics more weight. She seemed to be simultaneously convincing a guy to marry her and convincing herself that marriage is actually what she wants. After all, we’ve all been sold the Disney princess myth, regardless of gender. (Another thing that caught my attention was a video clip of Clark playing the Beatles song “I Dig A Pony” in the back of a London taxi cab. Probably illegal. Definitely awesome.)
“The Strangers” is currently among my top five favorite songs of 2009, which is funny because it’s a really odd arrangement. The movements are repetitive, the song’s back end is purposely flat (there might only be one or two percussive elements, and the bass notes sound synthesized instead of played). But Clark’s voice floats and flutters, carrying the whole thing along as if without effort. To maximize the pleasure effect, I recommend listening in spring (aka right now) with the windows open, to mix in the sound of chirping birds with the song (for a minute just now, I thought the birds were a part of the recording).
The album has its darker moments, but like I said I can’t provide a full review at this time. Perhaps now she’ll get added to a festival or two…maybe a late addition to PMF (since Pitchfork was probably the first group to blow hot wind up her skirt after Actor dropped) or the initial line-up for her home state’s Austin City Limits. We’ll see.
I’m experiencing a newfound excitement over this blog, now that I have a fancy schmancy flash MP3 player to use. Now not only can I rant about music as usual, but I can also provide an easy way for you to hear an entire song by whatever artist I’m ranting about. The main difficulty will be remembering to write, and not just insert song after song.
As I probably mentioned recently, I spent a lot of time this winter listening almost exclusively to Flying Lotus and Aphex Twin. I also rediscovered Pandora, the steady competitor to Last.fm in the world of Internet radio that’s tailored to listener preferences. Pandora is a bit more mysterious because, while Last.fm chooses what song to play based on what your peers prefer, Pandora does it based on some massive system of categories and tags.
So I created Pandora “stations” for Flying Lotus and Aphex Twin, but the Aphex Twin stations turned up a lot more interesting artists that I wasn’t familiar with. More specifically, I created a station for “Flim”, which is the Aphex Twin song that made me the most addicted to the artist.
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It’s one of those tracks that I never really get tired of. Of course, it’s probably not fair to say that yet, since I’ve only been listening to that album Come to Daddy for a year or so. But there’s something about the crazy, synthesized percussion forming the jagged backbone for really spacey, chilled-out sounds. They feel like polar opposites, and yet they complement each other perfectly.
When I created the station based on “Flim”, I immediately heard other artists that caught my interest. Pandora will tell you the criteria used to pick songs on a station, and they’re really bizarre, non-human ways of categorizing music. They’ll say stuff about time signatures, what type of instruments are used, how the instruments relate to one another, whether there are vocals or not, etc. Nevertheless, their system doesn’t disappoint.
One of the first artists to appear on that “Flim” station was Arovane, born Uwe Zahn, a techno artist from Germany who has released four albums since 2000. Tides was his second album, and it posesses a somewhat obvious watery character. However, the most remarkable track in my mind is the first one, entitled “Theme”.
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There’s something very Stanley Kubrick about this song. It’s like 2001: A Space Odyssey and Barry Lyndon combined. You’ve got the far-outer-space sounds mixed with 18th and 19th century classical European sounds. Once again, the cross of highly unrelated elements produces an extraordinary result.
I had never heard of Arovane before this Pandora experience, but I had heard of Squarepusher. I hadn’t heard the music — just the name. I would then learn that Squarepusher is the project of Tom Jenkinson, and that, like Aphex Twin, Jenkinson is British. The album Hard Normal Daddy was released in 1997, with an amazing second track called “Beep Street”.
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I could go on talking about the oppositional elements, but you probably get the gist of it. The point of this post is that Pandora and Last.fm, while unique in many respects, are both equally viable for finding new music based on what you already like. And they are both equally superior to many hype-riddled, new media tyrants currently on the Internet.
I’m so geeked out right now. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me before, but I just had the idea to look for an MP3 player Wordpress plugin. I’ve used imeem.com’s embeddable players for the past two years, but somewhere in that timeframe they were taken over by Big Media. Now the embedded players only allow 30 second previews unless you can prove that you own the copyright to the audio. That is, at least in my mind, totally unacceptable. Furthermore, imeem was never anything more than a compromise. For a long time, I had been looking for a sleek, stylish MP3 player for blogs, like I had seen on high-traffic music blogs like…well…I guess I can’t think of any. But I swear I’ve seen these around the web.
Luckily tonight I decided to do a quick search in the Wordpress plugin directory and I found one simply called Audio Player. It turns out that the most recent release — the one that works in Wordpress 2.7 — isn’t even in that plugin directory. I had to download the 2.0 Beta release from the author’s own website. After messing with a few digital bells and whistles, I have….(drum roll)….this nifty MP3 player!
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The song is “Nature’s Uplifting Revenge”, from the recent Prefuse 73 release Everything She Touched Turned Ampexian. In case you didn’t notice, I’ve been talking about festivals almost exclusively. I’ve got some ideas for other topics that I’d like to cover. In general, I’d like to start putting the music of this decade into perspective. I feel like things aren’t as crazy in music as they were a couple years ago. By “crazy”, I mean chaotic and hard to follow.
Back in 2006, I was literally addicted to new music. I spent way too much time trying to find new artists and the albums they released. Part of the extensive time was due to the inefficient sources on the Internet. But part of it was that independent music was going through a lot of changes…not so much changes in the way it was written, recorded, or performed. The changes were more in how we discussed music, from individual word-of-mouth to music blogs to mainstream press. Everyone was trying to be a tastemaker. Everyone wanted to discover the next indie band who would soon sign to a major label. Everyone wanted to rule the world, as Tears for Fears put it.
As far as I can tell, that time is over. That phase broke around the end of 2006 (or maybe early 2007). The only specific event that serves to mark the transition for me is Lollapalooza 2006 — in specific, when Broken Social Scene played a remarkable 45-minute set on Sunday night of the festival. It was like a climax of all the diverse music I had been exposed to since getting to college in fall 2001.
But a deeper discussion of the significance of that event belongs in a book, not a blog post. The point is that now, whether anyone likes it or not, no one has much control over what happens in music. Everything has sort of settled into place. The innovation is still happening, but not every band has some immediate precursor like ’60s sunshine pop or ’80s synth pop. Everything’s slowly turning more democratic. Harsh criticism and calculated posturing are going out of style. “There’s room for everyone in this world, so everyone make some room,” as the song went in Pete’s Dragon.
Notice how people stopped advertising all the bands they like in their MySpace and Facebook profiles? (Well, that is, unless they’re a true music addict like myself.) I might be rambling, but I think that we realized that liking a band or a certain kind of music is a personal experience that can be shared with others but doesn’t have to be. If two people like a band, it doesn’t mean they’re gonna be friends automatically. At the same time, people don’t try to create a sense of cool by advertising that they like certain music. It’s all about what get’s you off, right? There’s no point in faking or exaggerating it.
Once again, I’m straying from the point. The times are changing, mostly for the better. Another improvement is that the RIAA and MPAA are turning their attention to online videos, since they lost the war over p2p music networks and file sharing. There are too many private music communities for them to ever be able to control the situation. But of course, instead of adapting to the new architecture and social norms, they keep trying to use the law to back up the interests of the market. Most recently, YouTube has come under attack from Warner Music Group, who are using audio fingerprinting software to mute or remove whichever videos they want. Alright, now I’m slipping into legal talk, thanks to Free Culture, the excellent book by Lawrence Lessig. (For more on that subject, see my upcoming post on the Supraterranean Admin Blog).
So now everything is wide open. The American festival culture shocked me this year with its obvious bravura. Between Rothbury, Lollapalooza, and Pitchfork Music Festival, I will be totally satisfied from live music intake by the time September rolls around. Until then, I’ll be talking about the new music that holds my attention. One of those is Prefuse 73, an experimental hip hop artist from Barcelona who I’ve been hooked on since 2005. It could be related to my recently developed addiction to Adult Swim too, since artists of the same flavor play on all their show breaks. Flying Lotus is the most prevalent in that regard; I’m pretty sure Madlib and J Dilla also get spun regularly, but I could be wrong. Call ‘em hyphy, wonky, trip hop, stoner rap, or whatever — it’s all golden.
This spring I listened to nothing so often as Flying Lotus and Aphex Twin. The two might sound unrelated at first, but all these experimental hiphop artists are leaning closer to ambient electronic and further away from rap. Prefuse 73 doesn’t really bring in MCs, but he loves to manipulate vocal tracks, like on the song above. Then there are songs like this one, “Fountains of Spring”, which are more atmospheric. This one sounds like it’s got some cheesy echo effect from an old version of Cool Edit Pro.
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Anyway, Prefuse 73 has a few shows scheduled in New York (his home away from Spain), but none near Michigan and no scheduled festival appearances (that I know of). Hope you enjoyed the MP3 widget as much as I did!
I’m getting behind in my posts. On Tuesday, April 21, Lollapalooza finally released their initial line-up for the 2009 festival. This is going down August 7-9 in Chicago’s Grant Park, and it’s the fifth time the festival has taken place in that spot. In the last post, I shared some rumors I had seen on Lolla’s Facebook page. Many of those did turn out to be true. The headliners are Depeche Mode, Tool, and the Killers.
As for the potential highlights from the last post, all of them are on the list except for Metric and Tenacious D. However, since this is the initial line-up, and they usually end up with about 130 bands, many more names will still be added. But even if this was the whole of it, I wouldn’t complain a bit. There are some surprising artist names on this list that really have my head spinning. On the main list: Crystal Castles! Deerhunter! Dan Deacon! Neko Case! Bon Iver!
Other great additions include Lykke Li (even if you think her voice is squeaky), STS9 (the only “jam band” inclusion in the festival — they were great at Lolla ‘07…and every other time they play), Ben Folds (I hope he plays stuff from Whatever and Ever Amen), and of Montreal (always a good festival addition). It just keeps going on and on: Friendly Fires, Gang Gang Dance, Santigold, and Chairlift. In fact, I just heard Chairlift yesterday for the first time. Seems like marketers are trying to group them with MGMT…I don’t know why though — MGMT tanked at Lolla ‘08.
I’m not done yet! Did you look at the Perry’s stage line-up?! Bassnectar, MSTRKRFT, Simian Mobile Disco (I’VE BEEN WAITING TO SEE THEM FOR ABOUT TWO YEARS NOW!), Deadmau5, and DJ sets by Hercules and Love Affair and Animal Collective. Now they just need to tweak the shape and positioning of Perry’s stage so that people aren’t standing in the street, exposed to three huge stages at the north end of the park, and all the noise pollution involved therein.
After drooling over this line-up, the only question I have is…why can’t Lolla display their artist line-up in a way that isn’t confusing or hard to read? At least they abandoned the odd scrolling method from ‘07 and ‘08. One cool feature: you can already add bands to your personalized schedule. Of course, that will probably be hard to maintain once they release the official day-by-day schedule around June.
I can’t wait for summer! Rothbury and Lollapalooza (and perhaps PMF too) are gonna rock. Now for a quick celebration! Here’s “Tits & Acid” by Simian Mobile Disco.
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- The Future Will Come by the Juan MacLean
- Everything She Touched Turned Ampexian by Prefuse 73
- Junior by Royksopp
- An Imaginary Country by Tim Hecker
- Two Suns by Bat For Lashes
