[Via - The Star] Dismissed by some as irrelevant, music bloggers can have a striking impact on album sales, an expert on technology and the economy has found. "It's been suggested that blogs are just noise that really didn't help you predict" sales, says Professor Vasant Dhar of New York University. "A moderate amount of blog chatter might not predict anything, but off-the-chart blog chatter – even in some cases when there was no major record label behind a band – had an effect." The study, Does Chatter Matter? The [...]
Channeling Fleetwood Mac's musical stylings with a hint of late-era Beatles, Family of the Year braid catchy melodies, stellar male/female vocals and personal folk tales to create some of the happiest and saddest music you've ever heard. Opening up with "Feel Good Track Of Rosemead" it's a delicate harmony and rock guitar combo, very much like The New Pornographers, or The Polyphonic Spree. Actually, it's singers Joe Keefe (formerly of The Billionaires) and Vanessa Long who harmonize and get lots of milage out of their pop chemistry and aural dynamics. Fans of The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds who hear the [...]
The Bloodsugars stellar debut album, I Can't Go On, I'll Go On was released this week on Engine Room Recordings. After their short Midwest tour last week, including a great show in Cincinnati, singer/guitarist Jason Rabinowitz was able to take some some time to answer some questions about the creative process and theme of the new album, some of their new favorite bands and the their new-found love for Bobby McFerrin. Atlas and the Anchor: My favorite song on I Can't Go [...]
The summer of 2003 was a hot one in eastern Washington, and my concrete bunker of an apartment contained the heat like no other. Granted, the above image wasn't shot by yours truly until 2004, but it sure seemed hot enough to ignite even the least combustible of items. I wrapped up my undergraduate that December, which was cold as Antarctica, and upon that milestone I moved to Seattle. It was a good year for the Northwest; many of my favorite albums came from Seattle labels like Sub Pop and Barsuk. As for the list, I've [...]
Credevo che il più grande gruppo della storia dopo i Beatles avrebbe "suonato" a Gossip Girl. Suonato. Posted in tv eye
Lately I've been trying to post more locally-relevant MP3's, which really just means MP3's of bands that are passing through time in the near future. While I thought this strategy was being more relevant, it really has only resulted in a sizeable backlog of tunes I haven't been able to pass along. So, in summary, expect several of these 'Bonus MP3' posts over the next week. I was recently turned on to Philly's Drink Up Buttercup who's semi-psychedelic janglepop I am finding quite enjoyable at the moment. It would be obvious to call out [...]
Forgive us for the headline, but we couldn't resist. Yes, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr are reuniting once again, though not to perform Beatles material. Instead, Macca's gonna give his old drummer a push in the studio, as he'll lend a hand on a few tracks for Starr's upcoming album, Y Not , the follow up to 2008's Liverpool 8 . "Paul was doing the Grammys," Starr writes in his press release (via Rolling Stone ). "So he came over to the house and was playing bass [...]
The Washington Post reports , that "MySpace will acquire most of the assets of iMeem for a purchase price of around $1 million in cash." Meanwhile, as the NY Times points out , " Hulu , the joint online venture between NBC, Fox and ABC that mostly offers free TV shows and movies, is about to start singing a different tune: music videos. On Wednesday the company plans to announce a somewhat limited deal with EMI, the smallest of the four major music labels, to give a 'channel' on Hulu to the crooner Norah [...]
Milking it for all it is worth, Florence and the Machine are set to release a four-disc set of their Mercury Prize nominated debut album, Lungs . The deluxe edition, out November 30th, features the original version of the album as well as three extra discs of covers (Beyonce and The Beatles!), live footage, remixes and unreleased demos. On top of the new audio, the set includes notes, sketches and photographs from the singer's journals. To cap it all off, an original essay by David Vann, one of Florence Welch's favorite [...]
Two websites that previously sold and streamed songs by The Beatles have been closed down indefinitely by a US judge. BlueBeat and Basebeat started selling individual tracks for as little as 25 cents (15p) earlier this month. The band's record label EMI won a preliminary court injunction ruling the site had been selling the tracks unlawfully. Now US District Judge John F Walter has prohibited both sites and their owner, Hank Risan, from streaming or selling songs by the Fab Four and other artists, including Lily Allen and Coldplay, for good. A court date [...]
Have you ever wished a favorite artist could do-over a particular album, song, or period in its career? I've always wished that The Beatles could have finished their final 3 albums in a more satisfying, more unifying way. I believe I speak for most Beatles fans in saying that there's a lot to be gained by our shared experiences with the band . In a world where there is little consensus, Beatles fans are pretty much in step with each other over the first two periods of the band's career: After [...]
I first saw Haley Bonar opening for Andrew Bird at the High Noon Saloon in 2006 . I was hooked and have since lost count of how many times I've played her fabulous album, Lure the Fox . Since then, Madison has been fortunate to have Haley return on many occasions, most recently behind her equally great album, Big Star . Haley Bonar returns to the High Noon Saloon for a $10 show on Friday, November 20th . [...]
The A.V. Club selects their Top 50 Albums of the Decade David Lynch to make a film about Beatles guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi The mothers of T-Pain, Lil Wayne, and Ne-Yo to get their own talk show, Dinner Table Discussions Interpol's Sam Fogarino talks about the band's forthcoming album and insists you weren't the only one who didn't like their last one Spin debunks 16 rock myths [...]
grapefruit - "another game" (download) From their 1968 release Around Grapefruit . These guys were a highly-underrated band who only lastest 2 years and 2 records. One of their members, George Alexander (born Alexander Young) is brother to Malcolm and Angus Young of AC/DC . These guys strongly resemble the Beatles , but the Beatles themselves actually took interest in them, and Grapefruit 's John Perry even appears in the background choir of " Hey Jude ." In addition, John Lennon & Paul [...]
From 1963, please enjoy Girl Group icons The Marvelettes and the original version of "Please Mr. Postman." A great song, to be sure, but hardly obscure. Tell the truth, the real reason I wanted to post it is I just chanced across that 1963 picture sleeve, which I had never seen before and which is stone fabulous in its charmingly period way. Actually, now that I think of it, I can't recall ever seeing ANY Motown picture sleeves from [...]
So the pretty lil event site Winter is the New Summer that Devin and I have been working on has officially launched in full! Whoo! Let's have a 750ml salute to that! We did a soft launch in October, then last week we introduced the poster concept and from this week on until the end of winter we will have a different member of the Portland scene acting as a Poster Boy or Poster Girl, holding up our event picks of the week, this week being Rocky formerly of the Hush and currently of [...]
BEST ALBUMS OF THE NOUGHTIES The daunting task of putting together something that you know lots of readers won't agree with is never easy, but then we thought you could always go make your own lists. At least we had the balls... So the 50s had rock n roll, the 60s had it's pop and folk, the 70s it's punk, disco and glam, the 80s it's pop, hip hop and hair rock, the 90s it's grunge, brit pop and dance music. It begs the question - what standout genre defines the [...]
The Antiheroines series features author Jami Attenberg interviewing up-and-coming female comics artists. In May I saw Lisa Hanawalt, author of I Want You (Buenaventura Press) and the Ignatz award-winning mini-comic Stay Away From Other People , do a slide show presentation as part of a group show at Hi Christina , a wee venue in Williamsburg. During Lisa's extremely dry but charming performance, she did this short bit about her week. [...]
Jesse's nieuwste show staat weer klaar met de beste en lekkerste tracks. Elke week verbaast hij je weer met zijn zorgvuldig uitgekozen tracks. Ook deze week weer een show om je vingers bij af te likken. Hieronder vind je de tracklist van de laatste show op Dance-Tunes Radio. Enjoy! http://blog.dance-tunes.com/20 09/tuesday/jesse-voorn-radio-e pisode-76/ FIRST HOUR: 01. SER – Watch the Wall 02. Daniel Pscheid & Volka Racho – Varekai 03. David West & Inkfish – Ghetto Feel 04. [...]
Known for his highly literate lyrics on his solo work, along with his time spent in the Auteurs and Black Box Recorder, Luke Haines has a new album out called 21st Century Man . Jarvis Cocker's oddly priapic solo release this year, Further Complications , was mostly disappointing, but for those looking for a witty, smart and musical Cocker-like album for 2009, they should definitely check out Mr. Haines' new work. Neil Young wrote Southern Man as an anti-slavery missive about the American South, and with his new album, Haines [...]
new music from vampire weekend – cousins + music video
No Curve Allowed (Grading This Week's New Tracks)
Beach House: Norway
Friday Five: Surf Songs
HOT CHIP TAKE another crack at IT and I’m IN
