Category: media

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media

last.fm

So it turns out my tastes aren’t quite as legendarily eclectic as they maybe used to be; it looks like i’ve mostly listened to weird dark music by various flavors of damn near exclusively white rock bands. I’m sure if i kept scrolling & paging i’d have found all my hours of listening to Bill Evans, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, and John Coltrane. Then again, i remember a few years when i couldn’t be bothered to fix my last.fm links from various platforms, or mostly listened via platforms not offering to scrobble to lastfm, so maybe that’s where my jazz, funk i’m from Dayton motherfuckin Ohio, dammit!, and hip-hop months went.

One thing that’s cool is The Cocker Spaniels is way up there. They fucking rule. Sean Padilla is a monster on any instrument he puts his hands on.

Artists Scrobbled 12,491 1 The Cure 1,475 scrobbles 2 Rush 987 3 The Cocker Spaniels 910 4 Genesis 870 5 Depeche Mode 834 6 King Crimson 657 7 Pink Floyd 654 8 The Sisters of Mercy 623 9 Marillion 601 10 Siouxsie and the Banshees 596 11 Radiohead 522 12 Guided by Voices 465 13 John Vanderslice 457 14 Ohio Briars 456 15 Afghan Whigs 455 16 Melvins 428
Categories
internets media

Some great legal FREE music download sites

Recently, a friend asked me (me: the master of all things electronical) for some recommendations for downloading free music legally. Although i was hard pressed to name any legit source of free major label music, i have enough links to some really amazing sites that feature and host very good free music. Much of it is licensed under various Creative Commons licenses, and most is both free (as in beer) and free (as in free speech). As always, read the fine print for exact details for each site and every download. Additionally, check your local laws if you’re unsure about the license (personally, i have not found any gray areas here, since most of the music is either offered by the artists themselves as free, or is licensed freely, or is in some cases even public domain).

Since many of these are blogs, i highly recommend getting to know RSS feeds, and adding their feeds to your favorite feed reader. If you have no favorite feed reader, Google Reader is a great place to start.

So, without further ado, here are my top picks for really cool free, legal mp3 sites, in no particular order…

Amazon.com

Here are some free albums and some cheap albums. A whole lot of really good free stuff. At the top right you can select “Price: low to high” to get all the free stuff listed first, but the default setting is “bestselling, so that one shows the most popular free stuff, mixed in with some good cheap deals too. You can also go to single songs, too, and browse the links on the right by price and genre, etc.

Archive.org’s free music and netlabels categories

I could spend days without sleep sifting through some of these really amazing collections. You can drill down by keyword and genre and popularity. Very little big-name artists, but some serious gems (also a lot of duds, too, but if you look at the download counters you can tell which ones are liked – or at least downloaded – the most).

BlocSonic

This netlabel has tons of free samplers and whole albums by nobody you’ve heard before but every minute is really good, and they have an excellent mix of genres. I guess you could call them a metalabel, since their compilations frequently feature artists on other netlabels. One of the best free music sources around.

Note: these next two exemplary sites, despite my egregious lack of better-apt descriptions, are among my very favorite resources, not only for the wonderful personal touch you can find, but also for the incredible variety and sheer scope of their blogs and the insight gleaned from reading their notes on each feature, which are like meta-liner notes. These are both, as they say, earnest labors of love for their respective curators. As i’ve noted in a comment below, the best possible thing to do in lieu of giving you a lengthy and drooling description, is to implore you to go and dig deeply and feel the fresh cool sand between your fingers, and linger, and wonder at how new and interesting things can truly be when experienced with fullness and vigor. And maybe leave a note of thanks whenever you see something really cool that you enjoyed.

Free Albums Galore

This site frequently features avant-jazz and minimalist techno, but you can also find some fantastic alternative, pop, rock, folk, et cetera. Another great resource.

Catching the Waves

Another great free music source. See Free Albums Galore above. Same thing applies here.

Bandcamp

Bandcamp has tons of music from indie bands. Some free, some not. It’s fun to sift through, and you can find some real cool stuff here, sometimes even some up-and-coming bands that are just beginning to fly above the radar. Try this link for free stuff. I don’t use bandcamp that often, since i’m usually directed there by one of the other sites above.

The Peppermill

I have not heard anything from this label that i didn’t fall in love with immediately. TRUST ME ON THIS ONE. And try The Box: I cannot tell you anything about this record, except that it is freaky and weird and quirky, and yes, you DO recognize that tune.

I would be not only remiss, but probably also shamed before my peers, and quite possibly also drawn and quartered, if i didn’t point you to

Phlow

…who have awesome compilations and records, covering all kinds of genres, though a lot of it is maybe more techno and hip-hop and trip-hop oriented. Their massive year-end best-of mixes last year were pretty amazing.

Free Music Archive

Possibly the granddaddy of all free music sites, the FMA is a project of WFMU, “the most renowned freeform radio station in America”. They feature music of all kinds. This is one amazing resource that is just as much fun to sift through as it is to listen through.

Lastly, here’s one i just found out about:

Thomas’ Posterous

Having no experience with this one, all i can say is that it comes highly recommended from Catching the Waves.

Other great sites, archives, and blogs to check out

Oddio Overplay
The Silent Ballet
Netlabel Index
largehearted boy: daily downloads
RedFerret’s wikidump
3hive
FreeIndie
WFMU’s Beware of the Blog:mp3s
Netlabels Noises
Ektoplazm: free music portal
FrostClick:Audio
Jamendo (the King of free music sites)

Lastly (ok, really lastly), here’s my Google Reader bundle: Free Music et cetera (OPML)

Happy sifting!!

Categories
CDs

Huge New Album by The Cocker Spaniels Out Very, Very Soon

album cover
Sometimes You've Gotta Fight to Get a Bit of Peace

On July 27, 2010, Hornbuckle Records is releasing Sometimes You’ve Gotta Fight to Get a Bit of Peace, the brand-new, highly anticipated album by Austin, TX one-man indie rock wrecking crew The Cocker Spaniels. Over three years in the making, this new CD, a masterpiece with a whopping 18 songs – each and every one a soon-to-be classic – could well be the one that blasts head Spaniel and master musician Sean Padilla into the stratosphere, alongside such not-dissimilar artists such as TV on the Radio and indie legends Guided By Voices.

A while back, i emailed Sean to ask how his record was coming. I knew he’d been working on it for a long time and was getting anxious to hear it, being a massive fan of his last CD, the brilliantly-titled Withstand the Whatnot. He sent me a slew of tracks to listen to. This was probably a year or more ago, and he’s been tweaking it ever since, including having it professionally mixed and mastered. I have to say, the album in the form that i heard was insanely good. Then several months ago he sent me a new version, which sounded even better. It is unimaginable to me that the final version could improve upon Sean’s already masterful-sounding recordings and great mixes, and yet all indications are that it will in fact be exactly that.

Now you must understand here that The Cocker Spaniels is not Steely Dan. Their albums are not pristine, cold, surgical affairs devoid of soul. Although the sound is always crisp and clear, with everything in its right place spatially and frequency-wise, the heart and soul of this band is decidedly lo-fi. Not lo-fi in the sense that they were recorded on crappy boomboxes, or even four-track cassette recorders. Rather, it’s the DIY spirit of the things that recall the absolute greatest Guided By Voices records such as Bee Thousand or Alien Lanes. When you hear this music, you don’t think of some guys in a basement with a couple of crappy Radio Shack dynamic mics going into a consumer-grade stereo tape deck. What you hear is this: a young man with more talent than you can ever possibly imagine anyone on Earth having, absolutely driven (i mean truly, awesomely hell-bent for leather here) to make some damn incredible, original music, almost entirely by himself, a la early Todd Rundgren, or Stevie Wonder. And that frenetic energy is captured perfectly. No, the sound itself is actually pretty spectacular, especially considering that he did it all on his own in various apartments and spaces, without any sort of budget or outside producers.

If you don’t believe me, go and grab one of the mp3 versions he has up on his site for free. Right now, my personal favorite is a tossup between “The Overeducated Underclass” and “Cousin Ben.” As with almost all of his tunes, they are catchy; nearly overloaded with hooks that keep going for days (earworm alert!), featuring intimate-yet-intensely-fun lyrics straight out of real life and brimming with just the right kind and amount of crazy irony, laugh-out-loud stories, and all the joy, anger, and sadness to be found in the spectrum of the human condition, all performed with a passionate zeal and fluidly-jagged precision that will simply leave you reeling. Listen for some serious Frank Zappa chops in his playing, too. The guy can play circles around just about anyone, on virtually any instrument. (Prince who?) While you’re at it, grab some songs off his last record, since it’s out of print (for now), and a fantastic piece of work in its own right.

And yesterday, he started taking preorders, at a mere $12 a pop (that includes shipping anywhere in the U.S. – overseas orders are also available). Although he’s almost certainly sold enough already, the first 150 75 orders come with a special handmade “making of” zine which is sure to be a serious collector’s item when this guy hits the Big Leagues, which should happen at some point in the months following the aforementioned 27/07/10 official release date. (So get in on this one and hope for the best, because that one little limited-edition bonus is gonna be worth some serious cash on eBay someday, and you don’t wanna have to mope about how you had the chance to cash in on that but you didn’t take it.) Anyway, even if you aren’t one of the lucky 150 75, you’re gonna get some seriously amazing independent music out of the deal.

(And for what it’s worth, i hear his cookies are freaking crazy-making.)

Categories
media memories uncategorized

As Long as There is Death, There is Hope

Happy Deathday, Brother Theodore.

Brother Theodore was imprisoned by Nazis at Dachau. He played chess (a game he excelled at so profoundly that he once beat thirty fucking Stanford professors simultaneously – yes, read that again) with Albert Einstein, who helped him emigrate to the United States, where he would eventually become a cult hero with his uniquely surreal gallows humor and eccentric monologues, along with acting as Gollum in the classic Rankin/Bass animated feature The Hobbit, and in such movies as The Last Unicorn and the Tom Hanks vehicle The ‘Burbs. He was a staple of the late-night talk shows in the 1970s and 1980s. He died nine years ago today.

Categories
media memories uncategorized

You Are Here/Pale Blue Dot

I put together this YouTube playlist of Carl Sagan’s “You Are Here”/”Pale Blue Dot” speech. I highly recommend checking it out.

“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every ‘superstar,’ every ‘supreme leader,’ every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

“The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

“Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

“The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

“It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.

“Ann Druyan suggest an experiment: Look back again at the pale blue dot of the preceding chapter. Take a good long look at it. Stare at the dot for any length of time and then try to convince yourself that God created the whole Universe for one of the 10 million or so species of life that inhabit that speck of dust. Now take it a step further: Imagine that everything was made just for a single shade of that species, or gender, or ethnic or religious subdivision. If this doesn’t strike you as unlikely, pick another dot. Imagine it to be inhabited by a different form of intelligent life. They, too, cherish the notion of a God who has created everything for their benefit. How seriously do you take their claim?”

– Carl Sagan

Categories
internets media memories

MTVMusic.com

Harkening back to the legendary days of old, i present to you… MTVMusic.com

Queen |MTV Music

Peter Schilling |MTV Music
Categories
current events internets media memories

Revision3 bites it.

Martin Sargent (from Unscrewed, Infected, Web Drifter and Internet Superstar, also formerly of TechTV’s The Screen Savers) and Sarah Lane (from popSiren, also formerly of The Screen Savers and later on Attack of the Show) have been canned by evil Revision3 execs, along with their respective shows. Several others were also let go. (Here’s Martin’s heartbreaking Tweet.)

Revision3 just went down to Revision2 in my book, and maybe not even that. Those shows had a lot of heart, a lot of soul. I loved Martin’s shows, and popSiren has no doubt influenced a generation of young women to take up careers in technology, geekology, or to otherwise become visionaries like the bold, talented, and fun women on that show. It’s a sad, sad day for Internets.

But hey – Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht still get to giggle hysterically while drunk and looking at Kevin’s ATM.

For my own records, here are some comments/posts i’ve made about this tragic malarky, most of which are just ranting and whining about this crappy, crappy turn. You can skip them, i just want to go back and see if anyone wants to fight me or anything.

http://revision3.com/forum/showpost.php?p=454311&postcount=13

http://revision3.com/blog/2008/10/27/changes-to-revision3/#comment-10623

http://blog.sarahlane.com/2008/10/look-ma-im-a-fr.html#comments (moderated)

http://louderback.com/2008/help-im-infatuated-with-my-fable-2-avatar/#comments

Categories
media uncategorized

Westboro Baptist movies

OMFG why didn’t anyone tell me about this!? Westboro Baptist Church apparently has its very own movies site! It’s hilarious and sad at the exact same time. The music videos are priceless! Why on earth do people like Rev. Dr. King and the Kennedys get shot while Fred Phelps is still walking???

Categories
current events internets media uncategorized

Compelling anti-war video

Former U.S. soldier droppin’ some Truth about this bullshit war in Iraq. Do your self and your conscience and your country and your fellow human beings a favor by watching this and then doing something about it.

Categories
current events internets media movies uncategorized

Ben Stein: apparently, biggest idiot ever

Ben Stein, who we no doubt all know and love from his appearances on Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Win Ben Stein’s Money, has made a little movie. It’s called Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (my thoughts exactly), and it’s a cute little rickroll of an adventure flick with Pro-Nazi Chuck Darwin leading the hoary brigades on a fell mission of genocide and eugenics. Only problem is, it’s a big fat fart-sucking lie. Unfortunately for Mister Stein, he got all of his facts wrong. Well, nearly all, as the credits (both opening and closing) do appear to be accurate.

Here, then, is Scientific American’s John Rennie and Steve Mirsky, reporting on the pitiful, outright lies perpetrated in this ridiculous movie.

Categories
current events media memories uncategorized

R.I.P. Tom Snyder

Enjoy the colortinis, good guy.
Tom Snyder

Categories
current events life media memories uncategorized

God bless you, Mr. Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
November 11, 1922–April 11, 2007

Categories
media uncategorized

Gaius Baltar = Jesus???

Is it me, or are they deliberately trying to slowly reveal Gaius Baltar as some sort of twisted, ironic Jesus figure on the new Battlestar Galactica?

If true, it’s pure, sick genius.

If false, thank the gods for lifting the crushing weight of that overly hackneyed analogy from our collective shoulders.
Gaius Baltar as "Evil Jesus"

Categories
CDs internets media uncategorized

Latest Chickenfish CD Reviews

Whee! My latest reviews are up at The Chickenfish Speaks. I feel truly sorry for the lashing I gave one new age composer. The rest I’m pretty proud of.

You should check out The Chickenfish Speaks. It’s a great site with lots of cool stuff!

(I’m jeremy mutant, BTW.)

Categories
internets media uncategorized

Spore

Will Wright is an incredible genius! The man behind the “Sim” games, his new game, Spore, is most definitely going to be the most amazing and mind-blowing game ever created. It will be a very, very, very long time before anybody ever tops this one. Watch the entire video to get a sense of the sheer godawful scope of this gargantuan thing. Mere words simply cannot do it justice.

[googlevideo]8372603330420559198[/googlevideo]
Categories
current events internets media uncategorized

Keith Olbermann vs. George W. Bush

Check out this angrily passionate editorial by the great Keith Olbermann re: the new, absolutely diabolical Military Commissions Act. (Read up on it and know that this is terrible and insane.)

[youtube]uqxmPjB0WSs[/youtube]
Categories
CDs friends internets media uncategorized

Cocker Spaniels’ “Withstand the Whatnot”- free download

You can get The Cocker Spaniels‘ absolutely brilliant (and brilliantly named) album Withstand the Whatnot for free on their website! I urge you to listen and to donate (not only does the artist get 100% of the profits, but it will help him to finance the production of his next CD)! This is one of the greatest albums ever recorded by one of the greatest rock bands ever to come down the pike.

Withstand the Whatnot (lyrics & credits)

Categories
creative friends internets life local media uncategorized web design work

projects

Some projects I am currently involved with/have volunteered for:

I’ve asked not to be paid for any of this, although it’s going to be pretty overwhelming to work all this into a rapidly shrinking allotment of free time. Resume fodder is enough for me for now, and I certainly can’t charge friends for services.

Categories
internets media uncategorized

Video: evolution

Dove video, Evolution: “No wonder our perception of beauty is distorted.”

Cheers to that! Above link is a video of a beautiful but freckled model being made up beyond recognition, then photomanipulated to look like… well, to look like the image that we hold up as the standard for beauty for women. The bar is a little on the high side, don’t we think? I absolutely applaud this campaign. The industry in which I currently find myself laboring within could certainly use a little dose of reality. Ok, a whole hell of a lot.

Every day, I see the signs of a scarred self-image in the clients with whom I do business, and I am unnerved by it by much more than a little bit.

Women! Stop doing this to yourselves! You already ARE beautiful! It is necessary to eat healthy; it is unnecessary to starve and try to uphold yourself to a standard which is literally impossible to meet. Who do you fool but yourselves? Who will love you less, who deserves your love in return?

Categories
CDs media memories uncategorized

Grooves

Here’s one thing that I actually miss about vinyl records: you could actually look at the record itself and know instantly* which tracks were the interludes and which were the opuses. When will files on a computer be able to do that?

 

* yes, I know you can see it on CD, but you have to look really hard and close and squint a lot. That’s no fun!