356 posts tagged with music.
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The Smoking Moon
The Smoking Moon is an album by Toby Vok, with an accompanying science fiction novelisation by Ted Vaaak. All available for the great price of free (or more, if you so desire). [more inside]
Reverend Honeybeard
A year ago, in the course of taking a writing course from the inimitable Shira E, I found myself assigned with making music as well as writing poetry. I bought a MIDI keyboard and some software and taught myself how to use Ableton Live, Logic, and a host of iOS music apps. The assignment included posting the music I made, and I felt shy about posting under my name, so I created a musical alter-ego, Reverend Honeybeard. After the class ended, the Good Reverend seemed to want to live on and soon was making an experimental/electronic/ambient album, posting in his oblique way to Twitter and Tumblr and now composing/recording and uploading 1 song a day every day for the month of March 2016.
Music, Retro-gaming and Elsewhat Blog
VGR2016 is an ongoing 5-way blog envisioned as half a way for a bunch of UK-based friends to keep up, half an excuse to replay and review old video games, and half World Domination. The third half is the charm. We also feature both Music and Opinions.
Economic Justice & Abuse in the Music Industry
A deep dive into how abuse by higher ups in the music industry is both an economic and social issue, and how our perceptions of those in power can bias us against supporting victims. It touches on two recent cases of shady and sexually abusive behavior from two record label heads (Calvin Johnson of K Records, Michael Gira of Swans) and the #freekesha movement. [more inside]
Killer Songs (radio doc): Billy Bragg, Dave Alvin, Laura Cantrell & others discuss their favourite murder ballads.
I spent much of 2015 interviewing musicians for my new book Unprepared To Die: America’s Greatest Murder Ballads & The True Crime Stories That Inspired Them. Now I’ve used the audio from those interviews to make an hour-long radio guide to these gory, facinating songs. Contributors include Billy Bragg, The Bad Seeds’ Mick Harvey, Dave Alvin, The Kingston Trio’s Bob Shane, Laura Cantrell, Jon Langford of The Mekons, Ralph Stanley and his son Ralph II. Resonance FM here in London gave the show its first airing last week, and has now archived it for your listening pleasure on this Mixcloud page. [more inside]
I made a guitar
I built a solid body electric guitar from scratch and wrote a rather long, detailed account of the process. Only partly a how-to, I wrote about what was required, what I learned, mistakes I made, and what I'd do different next time. [more inside]
Composer's Sketchpad
Composer's Sketchpad is an iPad sequencer-ish app for quickly jotting down musical ideas. In brief, the app presents you with a giant pannable and zoomable canvas that you can draw musical notes on. I wanted to create a modern take on sheet music, but without any of the legacy limitations; as a result, you can start each note at any time and bend it to any pitch, giving you the ability sketch out expressive solos and complex rhythms with no extra effort. (You can also turn on time or pitch snapping if you like.) Navigation, editing, and playback are carefully designed to be as frictionless as possible, and over 100 different instruments (as well as a percussion set) are available. Your music is saved automatically without any limit on the total number of sketches. Apple Pencil supported! [more inside]
Big Bad Bosses - Power Overwhelming
Watch out! Listen! BAD GUYS FROM VIDEO GAMES somehow joined up to form a 90s boy band. I just wrote, composed, arranged, and produced their entire debut album. In Big Bad Bosses - Power Overwhelming, caricatures of Bowser, Ganondorf, Sephiroth, and Dr. Eggman sing honest, soulful songs about how even their terrifying fury can't protect them from the big questions in life. It's been #1 on the iTunes comedy charts for a week, and I couldn't wait to post it to MeFi Projects! [more inside]
Chrindie 95: A collection of essays about a seminal year in Christian indie rock.
1995 was also an incredibly important year for the scene we've come to call “Chrindie,” for Christian indie rock. Much has been written about the weird world of contemporary Christian music, but whatever you think it is , you’d be surprised by how many genuinely great Chrindie records were released twenty years ago. [more inside]
Wonderful Christmastheme: Collaborative Christmas album
Wonderful Christmastheme is an album of Christmas music by members of Theme Music, a Facebook group in which there is a theme posted every two weeks, and members of the group -- who range from professional musicians to non-musicians singing into their phones -- perform songs that fit the theme. It turns out quite a few Themesters like Christmas music. [more inside]
Bad Meditation and Still Hungry
Cultural Amnesia is group I've been in since 1980. We just released an album of new material (Bad Meditation) and released for download an EP that came out a few years ago of tracks from the early 80s (Still Hungry). And there are videos.
And we redesigned the ancient website. [more inside]
Hammerfest
After ten years, more or less, since putting together an album of my music, I've spent six months polishing off a new one, and so I've taken on a new name - Hammerfest by Milford Progress Association is up on Bandcamp. Give it a spin if you like warm noisy ambient drone. Find it on your favourite streaming service soon.
Scoring Lyrical Clichés with N-Grams
The first in a series of posts on my band website about using n-grams to score songs and albums on their use of lyrical clichés. In this post I am testing out the concept to see if it has any legs. Future posts in the series will get into rating a single lyricist over their career. [more inside]
"An old dad, a young mom"
'Opposites' features 12 musical interpretations of a somehow-biographical song that I wrote together with my daughter.
2 years ago, when my daughter was 4 years old, we started composing little 'songs' together. Since then, we wrote nearly 50 songs, and published one book.
Here are 2 other musical pages: 4 songs as played by Douglas Haines, and 4 songs read in sign language by Koli Cutler.
More than half of our songs had been put to music by musicians from around the world, some of them in multiple styles.
These are parts of the One A Day Project I started when she was born.
There are many similar pages inside.
Today is Adora's 6th birthday. Happy birthday, dear Adora.
2 years ago, when my daughter was 4 years old, we started composing little 'songs' together. Since then, we wrote nearly 50 songs, and published one book.
Here are 2 other musical pages: 4 songs as played by Douglas Haines, and 4 songs read in sign language by Koli Cutler.
More than half of our songs had been put to music by musicians from around the world, some of them in multiple styles.
These are parts of the One A Day Project I started when she was born.
There are many similar pages inside.
Today is Adora's 6th birthday. Happy birthday, dear Adora.
Death is the Mother of Beauty
An instrumental doom metal album. [more inside]
Giant 800-track alt/indie-focused 90's playlist in chronological order
This is a behemoth of a playlist I put together, focusing primarily (but not exclusively) on the alt/indie/college side of the 90's experience. It's 800+ tracks, about 55 hours, and features plenty of songs that tend to get overlooked in the "remember these 90's hits?" pieces that pop up from time to time. Not definitive by any means, and extremely subjective, but it's a decent chunk of curated history in one convenient place. Also it's a fully chronological playlist, on a week-by-week level. So a track released on May 7, 1994 will come before a track released on May 14, 1994. Time and research went into this. Think of it as the Boyhood of 90's playlists!
106.js
Play an 80s synth in your browser with 106.js, a MIDI-enabled emulation of the Roland Juno-106 synthesizer. Chrome/Desktop only. Github repo here.
MPDluxe
A new app I wrote for the iPhone and iPod Touch to remotely control the MPD open-source networked music playing software, start/stop playback, edit the playlist, browse the music collection and queue up tracks for playing. (App Store link.) [more inside]
Imagining a Safer Space: Building Community & Ending Harassment in Punk
I recently got harassed in a pretty terrifying way at a punk venue in Austin, Texas. I used my experience as inspiration for a piece that examines why and how harassers are allowed to continue operating within the punk community, as well as how to establish community norms that holds them accountable for their actions. [more inside]
anaphylaxis album "Shell Beach" coming 12 April 2015
After the better part of a decade in limbo, the final anaphylaxis album Shell Beach is set for release on 12 April 2015. This date is the tenth anniversary of the release of the previous anaphylaxis album, noise for lovers. [more inside]
You Don't Have To Ride - Gospel Records from My Collection
I've been collecting gospel records for a little while now and figured it was time that I share. Every day I post at least one track from my collection. Most of these tracks are from the late sixties through the early eighties and clearly influenced by secular black American music, but with a twist. For various reasons the vast majority of gospel music has never been reissued and isn't available digitally, so this is the first time these songs are available without tracking down the original releases in most cases. [more inside]
I paid some guy on the internet $5 to dance to my music.
Here's the video he sent me. [more inside]
I'm not going to write you a love song... oh wait.
I filmed (and performed in a few) nearly 40 custom-written love songs for a bunch of strangers on the internet. They were customers of the company I work for, and we wanted to thank them for saying lovely things about us. [more inside]
Interesting Times
Fortnightly mixtapes of fresh, pan-Asian independent music. From Karachi rooftops to Tokyo livehouses. Letter archives are over here. [more inside]
Carbon 7 is three musicians collaborating to produce cooperative music in real time.
It's not so much about the website (I know, tables, amirite) as the music at the "Listen" link. After our first gathering, we thought we might be on to something, so I started multi-track recording, mixing & archiving all our sessions. [more inside]
1.NPR tiny desk contest. 2.Make a video
3.? 4.Profit [more inside]
Song name haiku
Given the name of a musical artist, "Song name haiku" finds haikus where each line is the name of a song by that artist.
Ink and water music video
This is an animated music video I made a few months ago that just launched online. It is for the Seattle band Dark Hip Falls, and their song 'Lam 2: Red Hands'. It was made using water, ink, and gum arabic solution. Enjoy! [more inside]
Vaporcake and the new "digital ephemera"
Fellow MeFite mintcake! and I are trying out an experiment in digital music dissemination. To understand what we're going for, please read this manifesto-of-sorts on Medium: Extremely Limited: A case for the new digital ephemera. [more inside]
Moshpit Memories
Moshpit Memories contains seven years' worth of trivia, anecdotes and gig reviews from my old diaries as a music fan at the height of UK pub rock, punk and ska. I started the diaries in 1975, when I was just 16 and ended them in 1981. Among the gigs I saw – and have described here - you’ll find a 1977 Clash show in a sweaty little club (plus the NYC appearance which gave us London Calling’s cover two years later), Lynyrd Skynyrd supporting the Stones at Knebworth, pre-fame encounters with both Ian Dury and Shane MacGowan, the Damned becoming the first punk band to play a major London venue, the Ruts frantically improvising on the first night Malcolm Owen went missing and a couple of wonderfully chaotic label revue tours by Stiff and 2-Tone. Live music in Britain has never been more exciting, I had an almost indecent amount of fun and you can read all about it at the link above. [more inside]
The Art is Not The Artist: On Holding Abusers Accountable & Enjoying Problematic Media
This is the thought process I go through when I’m considering the creative output of a horrible individual, and the questions I ask myself about whether I can consume the work in good conscience. [more inside]
Endless Jingling
Endless Jingling: an elf singing randomly generated holiday music, forever and ever. Reload for a new combination of carols. Spiff up and/or ruin holiday parties as needed. [more inside]
Otto Jukebox - A multi-user streaming anti-cloud music player
Otto is an open source music jukebox app that disguises itself as an iTunes replacement without all the extra baggage, but is actually a web-first, fully streaming, anti-cloud, social music server that allows multiple people to listen to the same stream of music at the same time and DJ for each other. Kinda like a private turntable.fm. For Mac OSX and Linux.
A limited demo loaded with some CC licensed music can be found here. [more inside]
Now That's What Your Parents Call Drone
It's finally here - the epic followup to 2012's Now That's What I Call Drone (previously in Projects and the Blue, with mentions in The Atlantic, Pitchfork and more.) This time out it's Now That's What Your Parents Call Drone. 16 drone/experimental takes on adult contemporary classics. Over an hour and a half of drone pop, deep hypnagogy, glitch weirdness and everything in between, all in service and reverence to Amy Grant, Air Supply, 10cc, Billy Ocean, et al. Featuring MeFi's own Theta States as CPI, yours truly as Vapor Lanes, and a whole host of other swell folks.
We remade a Rick Ross song. Now it's about Rick Ross.
One year ago, Rick Ross released "The Devil is a Lie," a single from his Mastermind LP. In it, the rapper proudly proclaims "the devil is a lie, bitch I'm the truth!" This inspired me to create a redux of the song addressing the "Truth" behind Rick Ross' name. [more inside]
Choose Your Sonic Adventure
Tangemeenie is back at work in the studio, producing a new indie pop album planned for a crowd-funded release [draft project - Kickstarter login required] as part of a larger multimedia project in the first half of next year. But before launching the crowd-funding campaign, we're planning to release and promote a single from the album in progress. Now we've assembled five rough mixes/preview clips of candidate singles from the new album into a SoundCloud playlist, and would like you, the listening public, to tell us which track we should release as our first official single. Take a listen, complete the opinion poll, and let us know what you think. We'll announce results after a couple of weeks of voting, once a clear winner emerges.
SoundTalk - Turn forum conversations into playlists
SoundTalk is a Chrome extension that finds song titles in the current page and generates a Spotify playlist. For example, with two clicks it turns this recent Ask thread about ultra sparse music into this playlist. It's different from other tools because it looks for any text that seems like a song title, rather than just finding links to known music services. More playlists and suggested uses below the fold. [more inside]
True Music Facts Wednesday
On Wednesday, September 4 last year, I sent a friend a piece of music trivia and (jokingly) claimed that it was "just like we do every Wednesday." Then I decided to actually start doing it. Yesterday marked entry 52 - one year of "True Music Facts Wednesday." All 52 entries are posted at the link, and I have previously posted 3 of the stories to the Blue (1, 2, 3). Other favorites include the genesis of the "Amen Break," the story of Vaughn Meader's rise to (and sudden fall from) superstardom, Blues Traveler's hidden-in-plain-sight taunt in "Hook," the story of Jason Everman's stints with two of grunge's biggest bands, the hip hop #1 that was inspired by Spuds MacKenzie, the joke offer that (maybe, almost) reunited John and Paul in 1976, and the accidental, serendipitous creation of "Puff, the Magic Dragon."
Music blog linking new music of all genres
Hi! I just started a blog that will have short posts for upcoming music releases of all styles of music. It'll be the picture for the new album, plus a small blurb and links to the artists websites and official music videos/legal and official downloads.
It'll all be nice and neat with NO links to weird mp3 download sites or illegal download hosting or places you have to sign up or any other scammy stuff. All posts will also be tagged by genre so you can click a genre tag and find a bunch (eventually) of recent releases for that genre. It's a great way to discover and explore new music.
Ideally I want to be able to do many posts every day in the long run and have it be a good source of new music, not just a random album here and there. I only started it yesterday and have maybe 15 posts at the moment but I intend to work on it for a few hours every day and hope some people here can check it out and maybe bookmark it for later.
Bluster, by Bluster. My bands first EP is hot off the presses
You can listen for free on BandCamp and of course if so inclined can buy the tracks. We recorded this in our practice space/basement on a laptop, but I think it sounds pretty darned good. Let me know what you think. Thanks!
Bonus Bluster Fact: The band met on OkCupid [more inside]
DCTN: shows tonight in washington, dc
It's a website with one purpose: it tells you what shows are happening tonight in Washington, DC. In a big, simple list that works really well on phones. It's also an open source project I just wrote about.
DOS POP
this is DOS POP: over 40 minutes of primitive, tinny FM slime-synthesis for the discerning pop aesthete. a soundcloud mix sourced from vintage PC games, with some tasty ear candy and glitchery thrown in for good measure.
maxis trash funk, bitcrushed opera, diseasecore, swamp new age, adlib fantasia and soundblaster death jams await your miserable, yearning ears. grab some waterproof headphones and dive in.
part of the experience is not always knowing what you're hearing, so I haven't included a tracklist. available on request, though.
Chip64: Chip synth for Reason
Hey there! I make Rack Extensions for Reason, a music-making program from Propellerhead Software. (Rack Extensions are plug-ins for Reason, sort of like VSTs that you'd use for other DAWs.) I've made 10 so far. My latest is Chip64, an emulation of audio chips from vintage computers and video game consoles. There are some audio examples too.
MetaFilter Radio iOS app
Put Metafilter Music in your pocket! With MetaFilter Radio for iOS, you can listen to songs posted to Metafilter Music, hear episodes of the Metafilter Podcast, and retrieve and play your playlists, all from your iPhone or iPod touch. Requires iOS 7 or higher. [more inside]
The Takedown Notice : Music Podcast
Hi! The Takedown Notice is a podcast where five former-college roommates get together to talk about music. [more inside]
Egress Methods
Paul Simon claimed that there must be fifty ways to leave your lover, but in his famous song he named far fewer than that. Egress Methods, a twitter bot, fulfills the promise that Mr. Simon could not—and then some—tweeting a randomly generated formula for lover-leaving every few hours, from now into eternity. [more inside]
Soundslice interactive sheet music player
Sheet music / guitar tabs rendered entirely in the browser, synced with a real audio recording. Slow down without changing pitch, loop sections, resize notation dynamically. Demo video.
Finnegans Sleep
I took the first few paragraphs from the first ten chapters of Finnegans Wake, printed them onto strips of paper, then punched out the vowels (always Y!) and ran the cards through a punchcard music box player mounted on the wall in my bathroom.
Same Rat, Different Hat
The debut record from Out of System Transfer, a neo-old-timey band who sing punk-influenced folk songs about the assassination of William McKinley, hitting cops in the head with a brick, and riding the subway. Their sound has been compared to the Holy Modal Rounders, Mojo Nixon, and Mischief Brew.
With physical media sales becoming less viable, it made little sense to get CDs printed (plus, no one in the band even had a working CD player), but it also felt wrong to forego the great potential offered by album covers and liner notes, not to mention the feeling of having a tangible thing for fans to have. Thus, the record was released as a zine, (also bundled with the download as a pdf) with original artwork commissioned for each song by various Brooklyn-based artists. [more inside]
Elee TV - My Music Video Channel
I put together a site to broadcast curated music videos. Like my parents tell me MTV used to. [more inside]