Music from the Oddest Things

/ / Opinion, rantings

I love creativity, especially when it comes to music. Using odd things as instruments is an extremely cool way to get my attention. Take, for example, this video. Hopefully you’ll be able to see the vid without being a backer, but i’m not sure. it sure is cool to watch though.

Watching this made me wonder what other “odd instruments” are used in other music. Google to the rescue!

This is a curious site, though not particularly what I meant or was looking for.

There may or may not be duplicates on this page.

More along the lines of what I was looking for …

Great collection of strangeness.

CD Review: Marissa Nadler – Marissa Nadler

/ / New Music, Opinion, rantings, review

The first music I heard of Marissa Nadler’s was Little Hells. The thing that struck me about that CD was just how … I don’t know … mellowingly  meloncholy? haunting? Dare I say it–macabre? It was one of the most amazing CDs I had ever heard.

I wasted no time hunting down and acquiring everything she’d done to that point. Ballads of Living and Dying, The Saga of Mayflower May, and Songs III: Birds on the Water. All of it was provacatively haunting, and I listened to it non-stop for weeks.

It was a pleasant shock to discover that Miss Nadler Released her 5th CD this past Tuesday–a self-titled effort that elevates her music to a new benchmark that borders on heavenly. 11 tracks that clock in at right around 45 minutes, there isn’t a song on here that won’t leave you wondering how God let such an angelic voice slip out of earshot.

The longest track, “In Your Lair, Bear,” is 6 minutes long. It opens with Marissa gently plucking her guitar and musing, “Where did you go when the snow fell that year? You’re inside these wooden walls like a bear, eager child, for the end in your lair. For the end of the year. The old familiar fear creeps up your little arms and runs through your veins like blood through your songs.” After several listens, that’s what I’m hearing, anyway. Between her guitar, the strings arrangement, the low-key cymbals and percussion, you can’t help but swoon like a shark that’s been knocked on its back.

You see the 3rd track, “The Sun Always Reminds Me of You,” and you think, “Aww … a love song!” Yah. This is about as love-songy as “Every Breath You Take.” The only difference is that this doesn’t have the stalker feel to it so much as it has the “Shit … why must every ray of sunshine remind me of you? Curse my rotten luck.” You can hear her heart breaking with each strum and drum beat. I love the steel guitar at the end. Gives it just that hint of country flair to it without actually invoking Fords, dogs, shotguns, line dancing and cheating spouses. No, okay … seriously. You know how a lot of country has that “love lost” feel to it? That’s this song in a nutshell.

My favorite song on the CD is “Baby I Will Leave You in the Morning.” Hands down. The chords, arrangement, BPM, theme, lyrics … this thing is brooding, moody, depressingly gorgeous, and just frickin’ hot. For some reason, it has a very Pink Floyd vibe to the music. This makes it on my “desert island” top 10 list. That’s right. Love this song.

This whole CD is just breath-taking. I’m already wishing she would put out an new CD. Not because this one has grown stale (right … cuz that’s possible), but because her music is just that good. I crave, want, and desire more. Now.

File this under “shiver” cuz you will get the chills from listening to this.

 

Stayin’ Alive

/ / Blah-ness, Opinion, rantings

My wife and I had back-to-back meetings. Mine was at 7, hers at 7:30. I went out and swapped vehicles with her and took our girls home. She always has her car radio on … something I tend to avoid at all cost unless it’s the local college station. On the way home, The Bee Gee’s “Stayin’ Alive” came on. For whatever reason, I automatically started swerving the wheel to the beat. Mind you, this wasn’t some super busy road at 75 MPH … we were going down some little residential road at 25. Very easy to control the car. The girls absolutely loved it.

As we approached our street, I realized that I was *right* in front of the police station. Anyone looking out their window would have seen us be-boppin’ down the road as we turned down our road. Oops. Thankfully, no one noticed. Ha ha!!

So of course the girls demanded to listen to it again. “Sorry girls. Radio!” That was met with a chorus of “AWWWWW”s and “WAAAAAAH”s.

Guess what I just bought on iTunes. 🙂

And with the goodness of Audiogalaxy, I can play it pretty much any time I want for them. Or … me. Come on … who amongst us doesn’t have that occasional guilty pleasure?

Bee Gees FTGP!

Possible New HD Camcorder

/ / Blah-ness, Opinion, rantings

So I stumbled across this little doohickey earlier today. I like it for a number of reasons.

For one, it’ s black–definitely more difficult to see it at a concert than, say a Kodak Playsport which *claims* to be black, but is, indeed, actually white (though the part that would face the stage/security guards is indeed black).

16x digital zoom is cool, but … it’s still just digital. Hello, pixelating and artifacting. No interpolation for me, thanks.

The 16MP stills option is, cool, but … well, refer to my comment above about interpolation. The 16MP isn’t *really* 16Mp–it’s 8MP x 2. Not at all the same thing.

I like the fact that it supports SDXC. 8GB SD cards aren’t gonna give you much time. 16GB, maybe. 32GB … not bad. 64GB? Yah. Now we’re talking length. Wait … what?

Price point: excellent! Amazon has it listed for $99. that’s pretty good for a 1080p digital video recorder.

Now … I told you all that to show you this.

Difference is, that’s a flip-out screen. As in, if a security guy at a concert sees that, he’s going to FLIP OUT. I’d like to get a tech spec comparison for the camera sensors between this, the B10, and my current Kodak PlaySport. I like the PlaySport. I do. But … it has it’s limitations. For one, it doesn’t do well in dark situations. Like concerts. Cuz, you know … they’re generally dark, right? So I’m wondering if the Toshibas would perform any better. Only one way to find out, right? 😉

Here are the perks to the P100:

Really, the only difference is the 5x optical zoom. For me, that’s *huge*. Optical will ALWAYS beat digital zoom (until such time where optical zoom does not beat digital zoom, and thus renders this statement obsolete *COUGH*billgates*HACK*512K*WHEEZE*whoneedsmore*MORECOUGH*). Anyway, 5x optical would be really, really nice for concerts. Especially if we’re sitting near the back. Maybe not for, say, A Perfect Circle, where you have 12th row. 😉 In that case, no zoom would probably be just fine.

The other difference is, of course, the flip screen. I’m not a fan of it. Period. Not for the purposes I’m considering. At least with the standard non-flip design, it looks sort of like a phone. The flip-out screen *might* arouse suspicion in even the most lax of security guards. Maybe.

So really, it’s a toss-up. I do like the 5x optical. That’s a huge selling point. Digital zoom means nearly nothing to me. Especially 16x. I might as well watch fuzzy colored squares that vaguely resemble semi-recognizable shapes dance around my screen. Thanks, no. Couldn’t be less bothered.

Decisions, decisions …

 

App Review: SongKick Concerts

/ / iPhone Apps, Opinion, rantings, review, software

Guess what app I’m in love with right now. I’ll give you a hint:

I hadn’t really checked out any new apps on iTunes’ store lately, so I thought I’d glance through it and see what I could fiind. To my surprise, SongKick Concerts was featured on the main page. The app integrates with its web-based counterpart to sync your SK accout (if you have one; if you don’t, it’s easy enough to set up one). Best part is that it’s free.

This thing is incredible. By “incredible,” I don’t just mean, “Wow, hey … this thing is pretty nifty.” No–I mean this app makes Chuck Norris look like the E-Trade baby. That’s how enormously awesome this thing is. Here’s why.

1. It scans your iDevice and finds the musicians in its database, which is vastly superior to any other concert app database I’ve seen. This thing finds EVERYthing. I loaded one song from each artist from the first half of my library (A-M), excluding classical artists and new age/soundscape artists. It had representative graphics for almost everyone, including obscure artists like Hungry Lucy, Diane Birch, Howling Rain, First Aid Kit, Emily Wells … the list goes on.

For every artists that is on tour or a concert date is scheduled, it puts a little “On Tour” banner in the top left corner of the image so you KNOW that that artist/band is playing somewhere soon. Could be as little as a one-off gig at some bar in Rigby Idaho. Could be as extensive as playing Estadio de Luz

One thing that I would like this app to do, and it may  … I haven’t seen it do this yet, but it very well could–is to localize the list to my geographic area and provide that same banner for artists coming to the greater Salt Lake area. As it is, I sift through my artists and see if a particular artist is coming. If not, oh well–move on to the next one. If so, I check out date, ticket prices, venue, etc. But really … it’s not at all a large complaint.

2. The app links you out to ticket vendors. No need to go out to Ticketmaster or wherever. Links are provided to the venue, ticket purchasing, or wherever you need to go.

3. You can search for an artist and track when s/he/they are coming to your area. It’s a bit better than having to scan your whole iOS device library and look through at individual artists/bands, but at the same time, you have to manually search and select “Track” to get that localized effect. Again, oh well. 🙂

4. If 6you select the nearest large city to you, it will spit back who’s playing where, when and for how much. For example, tonight in the SLC area, we have:

  • Psychostick at Club Vegas
  • Soulcrate Music at Kilby Court
  • Taking Back Sunday at In the Venue
  • Pharoahe Monch at the Hotel Elevate
  • Craze at One Nightclub

I’m telling you … this is the ONLY concert app you need. Download it and check out what shows you didn’t know are coming to your area!

Pre-Interview Jitters

/ / rantings

Tonight, my wife and I are going to see Samantha Crain and Langhorne Slim, in that chronological importance order. I fully admit I’m not familiar with Langhorne’s music, but I’ve seen some clips on YouTube. He’ll be a good show, definitely. Not sure if I’ll have enough battery to record EVERYthing tonight, but here’s hoping.

Along with going to the show, Samantha Crain has been kind enough to grant me an interview! I’m seriously stoked about this. However, I have some reservations, none of which have to do with her specifically. From what I’ve noticed, she’s totally down to earth, easy to chat with, and extremely gracious. My nervousness stems from the venue itself.

The Urban Lounge prides itself on being a hipster hangout, replete with all the nonchalance of clearing out voicemails on their phone, not really caring about what someone orders drink-wise as long as said orderer has a drink thrust in his or her hand … really, I get the feeling that the employees there are really just riding the “I’m getting paid to watch awesome music” wave. So here’s my problem. She asked that I meet her at the venue at a specific time. That’s fine … except the doors don’t open until 9, and no one shows up until then to let anyone in. So … what am I supposed to do? Wander around to the back and say, “Yah … I’m looking for Samantha Crain?” Sure you do, buddy. You and the other 298 people coming tonight. “No, really … she said I could interview her here tonight.” I bet she did. Tell ya what, why don’t you text her and tell her you’re here?

See, if the venue employees can’t be bothered to show up before the show actually starts, our meeting time becomes kind of a hit-and-miss thing. So, while she has been kind enough to set up an interview, I don’t know if it’ll actually happen. I really hope it does, but if it doesn’t, I won’t be surprised. I’m even bracing myself for it, just in case it falls through.

Proud Parenting Moment

/ / Opinion, rantings

My wife is off galavanting with the cub scouts today. I had to go to work. Therefore, my daughters needed to be watched. As my wife had to be to her designated meeting place at 6:15, I took the girls to our friends’ house on my way to work. During the drive to drop them off, System of a Down’s “Streamline” came on. As the girls were sitting quietly in the back seat and I was semi-half-heartedly (so … does that make it a quarter-heartedly?) singing along, basically to myself, it got to the chorus. “(I wasn’t there for you) You are gone  (I wasn’t there for you) Goodbyes are long, Goodbye … (I wasn’t there for you) Goodbye. I wasn’t there for goodbye …” And so on and so forth. My six year old pipes up from the back, “Hey, daddy! He sounds like YOU!!!”

Well! That’s quite the high compliment! Granted, it’s coming from a 6 year old who thinks Justin Bieber is the end-all of music (which is precisely why I’m playing other stuff around them when I can), but hey–I’ll take it!

Maybe it’s because my throat is really sore … not sure if it’s allergies or a cold settling in my larynx, but either way, today, I just couldn’t keep up with him.  Normally, I can hit that last “BYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYE!” that lasts something like 10-12 seconds or whatever. Today, though … nothin’. Gave it one shot, and decided my voice needed the rest more than anything.

So a bragging moment. Sort of. Mostly because my daughter is starting to be able to recognize voice similarities and such. THAT is excellent. And I will never tell her to her face that I think Justin Bieber is useless when it comes to contributing musically to the world, She will come into her own as to her musical tastes, and I will not quash anything along the way. Unless it’s hard-core gansta rap or incites a riot. My mom gave me the same gift growing up–excellent music. Of course, she bought me stuff like Ravel’s Bolero, William Tell’s Overture … classical music, which to this day I still love. On my own, I discovered Hall and Oates, Huey Lewis, The Cars, Madonna, Journey … bands that *I* liked. At no point did my mom ever try to tell me, “Umm … no. That sucks. Turn it off.” It was only later in life that I learned just how cheesy Hall and Oates were, and how 50s-era rock-influenced Huey Lewis really was, and how risque Madonna was/is/probably always will be. My daughter will have the same privileges that I had growing up, with the added knowledge of my ever-expanding music collection.

So maybe, just maybe, I won’t have to put up with Beiber-esque junkie hud crap when she ends up collecting her own music. Here’s hoping.

 

iTunes and iCloud First Thoughts

/ / iPhone Apps, Opinion, rantings, software

It is here. iCloud is now a reality. What does that mean for those of us with an iTunes account?

Truthfully, I’m not sure.

Here’s my thing. I have Audiogalaxy installed on my phone. It’s free. From anywhere I can get a semi-decent signal–wi-fi or 3G–I can listen to my entire music collection … not just 25000 songs worth. APparently, that’s the cap on how many songs you can have iTunes match. Why there’s a cap at all is beyond me, but whatever. There is. At an average of approximately 10 songs per CD, that’s 2500 CDs. I’m fairly certain the average listener doesn’t have that much.

I do. And them some. So what am I supposed to do? I can’t create 2 accounts because my phone can only be recognized by one account at a time. If I try downloading songs from another account, I’m sure I’ll get lambasted for trying to. So that’s not really an option.

Now I’m back to the fact that Audiogalaxay has EVERYTHING I own available through its app. Granted, I can’t download a particular song … but I do not have to because IT’S ON MY FRIGGIN’ HARD DRIVE AT HOME.

To be fair, I do see one application where iTunes in the Cloud could be useful. It makes for a handy back-up system. I’d create multiple accounts to host 25000 songs each. Ha ha! Then if a hard drive dies or goes kaput, I can re-download them. But then again, where their songs are only encoded at 256kbps, mine are all encoded at 320kbps. Gain some hard drive space; lose some sound quality. And yes–I’m one of “those” audiophiles.

One thing I *really* like about this new cloud service is the availability of apps I’ve long since forgotten I had due to a reformat and loss of all apps. THAT is pretty cool. ANY app I’ve ever purchased is available to download. Slick. Hopefully, Apple doesn’t “fix” that little hiccup (cuz it kind of seems like it shouldn’t be that way for some reason, right?)

Anyway, I’ll reserve judgment for when I actually start using the service. Maybe I’ll find more to like. Maybe I won’t. For now though, I’m content to download my old apps!

 

Google Creativity

/ / Opinion, rantings

Say what you will about their apps: Google is just downright creative. Have you seen their homepage today? In honor of Les Paul, they created a pretty cool little guitar string logo. And yes–you can strum it and record your tracks. Pretty nice, eh? Here’s one I came up with from “doodling.”

Thank you, Les Paul, for some amazing guitars. Thank you, musical artists, who have supported Les in his guitar making endeavors and making some incredible music. I mean … just look at this list. It’s practically a “who’s who” of the guitar world.

Maybe it’s just me, and maybe it’s the fact that Les Pauls tend to carry a certain mystique to them, but it just feels like, for a guitar player, touching a Les Paul is akin hoisting the Stanely Cup. It’s the coup de grace. The holy grail. Not being a guitarist, I can’t say that definitively, but it just seems like it. And why shouldn’t it be? Is there a more recognized name in guitars? Not that I’m aware of.

Going to A Perfect Circle!

/ / Concert Announcement, rantings

Kingsbury Hall holds just over 1900 people: 1030 in the orchestra level, 730 in the balcony, and a smattering of seats along the sides.

On August 1, A Perfect Circle is performing. Looks like the show sold out already, too. Not a surprise, given the fact that it holds less than 2000 people.

I’m in. The truly amazing thing is that we’re going to be within 60-70 feet of the band. That’s pretty cool.

This is going to be an incredible show. It’s an intimate venue, and it’s A PERFECT CIRCLE. Don’t see anything about an opening act, but the show starts at 7, so I’m guessing there probably will be someone opening for them. Questions is … who?

On one of APC’s tours, The Mars Volta opened for them. Seriously? How sick would that be?! Cedric AND Maynard in one night? Sadly, I didn’t make it to that show. The last time Tool was here, Trans Am opened for them. Still don’ tknow who they are. Anyway, I highly doubt that TMV would open for APC again, much less on this tour since I haven’t seen anything about it, but still … I can still hope.

Can’t wait. Less than 2 months away now.

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