Category Archives: Music

All the new toys are playing well together.

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I had been feeling that some kind of intelligent harmonizer was thpe next piece of the puzzle in my pedal line, so I began the exhaustive research. Did you know that there are almost no stand-alone floor units that offer “intelligent” pitch shifting? There is a $500 unit from Eventide that I would love, & then there is the $170 jobby from Boss, which I was afraid would really sound like crap.

So I started to explore the really low end multi-effects units in the same price range (and lower) as the Boss ‘Super Shifter’. In particular, I began to focus on a Zoom that had a harmonizer and an expression pedal, in addition to a lot junk I did not want, including amp modeling and other effects. Why not just turn all that junk off and use the multi-effects unit as a wammy and/or harmonizer? The real question was whether it would play nice with all the other floor-bound gadgetry I’ve collected over the years. One thing was certain: this multi effect unit was not designed for the use I had in mind. But for less than $100, I was maybe willing to take a chance. I did get a little skeptical when olive realized that the item in question claimed to do the work of the famous Digitech Wammy for less than half the price.

When I got to Guitar Center (a hateful place), something unexpected happened. They had the Boss harmonizer in the used bin for the same money I would have spent on the entry level all-in-one toy. I tried it and decided I could live with the mediocre sound quality, rather than risk getting something chincy. And I even splurged on my first compressor sustained. I got a Line 6 which was very cheap, even new, and really helps drive the signal through all those pedals.

After a long day at the office, I had the house to myself for about 1/2 hour and, it got loud.

Afternoon links, retweets and goodies

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Start with this beautiful tourist video of our fair city from 1977, courtesy Philebrity:

@AnswerDave is one of the great sports humorists I follow on Twitter.  He and the folks at Big League Stew have found a great animated feature of Doc Ellis’ 1970 no-hitter for the Pirates, supposedly while he was tripping on acid.  There is an online petition urging MLB to find and air a video of the game.  It’s a veritable certainty that the poswers-that-be will not want to glorify Ellis’ claimed drug use, but it is a charming part of Baseball lore.  Here’s the animated feature, which should clearly win an Oscar of some kind:

In the world of F1, Jenson Button will be driving for McLaren next year.  This will be the first time two British champions will be on a British team since Graham Hill and Jim Clark back in 1968 – RULE BRITANNIA!

Here’s two links to Synthtopia that made me smile.

  1. First one is a live Berlin School jam with Moog modulars.  The set-up may not be as big as Tangerine Dream or Kieth Emerson, but it’s still pretty cool how people can pull this off, even in the age of computer synths and sequences.
  2. The second is a beautiful glimpse of Vangelis current virtual orchestra set-up, including great footage of the genius at work.

Here’s an AP article, via The American Blues Blog, that provides information about the birthplace of Robert Johnson.

Last week io9.com put up a bunch of artwork by Shusei Nagaoka, who created artwork in the 70’s for Deep Purple, ELO and Star Trek.

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Finally, there’s a whole mess of great music available for immediate download over at ParisDJs.  What are you waiting for?

Woah! It’s almost the end of 2009 – what the hell have I been listening to this year?

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This post is more of a reminder to me to make a comprehensive review of books and music that did me right over the past twelve months.

The music part is easy, since most of the goods came on board over the past couple months.  In no particular order (yet…)

  1. Transatlantic – The Whirlwind
  2. Beardfish – Destined Solitaire
  3. Black Bonzo – Guillotine Drama
  4. Gungfly – Please Be Quiet
  5. Squarepusher – Solo Electric Bass
  6. Marillion – Less is More
  7. U2 – No Line On the Horizon
  8. Trilok Gurtu – Massical
  9. SBB – Iron Curtain
  10. Riverside Anno Domini High Definition
  11. Neil Young – Fork In The Road
  12. Joe Zawinul – 75
  13. Heartless Bastards – The Mountain
  14. Glenn Tilbrook – Pandemonium Ensues
  15. Flaming Lips – Embryonic
  16. Dream Theater – Black Clouds and Silver Linings
  17. The Decemberists – The Hazards of Love
  18. Chick COrea & John McLaughlin – 5 Peace Band
  19. Bruce Springsteen – Workin On A Dream
  20. Bob Dylan – Together Through Life
  21. Liam Finn – Champagne In Seashells
  22. Ronnie Earl – Living In The Light
  23. Duke Robillard – Stomp The Blues Tonight

I maybe wasn’t nuts for everything on this list, but that’s pretty much the new stuff I heard in 2009.  Rankings and capsule reviews to come later.  Just looking at the list, it was a pretty good year for music.

“We’re looking back.  We’re counting down.”   –every dopey radio DJ and TV host starting in about three weeks!

ROTOR at Johnny Brenda’s – heavy instrumental rock on a Sunday night

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Heavy instrumental rock from Germany, and the guys were about as nice as could be.  Thanks to Jake for coming down from New York and getting me off my butt on a Sunday night.  I was very happy not to have watched the Eagles “game”.

Serpent Throne played before Rotor and sowed some very nice local riffs, again instrumental rock with the added fun of doubled guitar lines.  I couldn’t make it for Stinking Lizaveta, but have no doubt that they tore the place apart, as ever.

I also need to state, for the record, that Johnny Brenda’s is the best place in town to see live music.

Never Too Late Guitar

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Just stumbled across this guy’s blog and twitter feed.  It’s always nice to discover more intelligent guitar conversation, especially when it is of the unpretentious variety.  Apparently Mr. Never2L8 considers himself a beginner, despite his collections of beautiful 6-string electrics.  That being said, his web design, and, more importantly, his photography are tremendous.  It’s worth checking out the site just to see his aesthetic and his loving snaps of the instruments.

Time to come clean about my new addiction – Blip.fm

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The idea of social networking mixed with music is something I’ve been doing since before the Internet existed.  In high school and college, I often made connections with people based solely on a shared love of music.  And then we would start the process of sharing and educating and expanding.  It goes on and on to this day and, hopefully, for the rest of my life.

So the idea of a computer-based social network platforms based around music is a no-brainer.  But I’ve also been a bit slow on the uptake for how these platforms work.  I never had a MySpace page and my troubles with Facebook are well-documented.

Things changed a bit when I got brave enough to start posting on the Progarchives forum.  This was a great idea for (a) wasting time and (b) getting news about prog fast.  I wasn’t looking to make friends and didn’t.  Some of the other posters had a display at the bottom of their posts which showed what they were listening to.  In order to do the same thing, I got an account with Last.fm.  This looked a lot like Facebook, so i dodn’t get into the social aspect – no friending for me.  But at least it cataloged all my listening habits, which I thought was pretty cool.  But there was one more step getting that information integrated with the ‘signature’.  Apparently, I had to join something called Twitter.

So, in March of 2008, I created a Twitter account, solely for the purpose of making images like this one.  Between March of ’08 and June of ’09, I tweeted exactly ten times.  Since then, it’s been about 560.  Suffice to say, I like Twitter.  It’s beautifully disorganized; the users make the rules; there are no ads; and it’s a good syndication tool for blog posts and other important pieces of information.

So this brings me to the recent discovery of Blip.fm.  It’s not perfect.  It has ads (ugh!), it runs slow, the musical selections are surprisingly limited, and the posting of track on my various websites (and Twitter) is not nearly as elegant as what I can do with Grooveshark.  But where as Grooveshark is useful and more comprehensive, Blip.fm is downright fun.

It’s a game.  You’re a DJ and you’re trying to get listeners.  In that regard it’s a bit like Facebook and Twitter with ‘friends’ and ‘followers’, but there is an extra element of silliness at Blip – ‘credits’ and ‘props’.  In addition to seeking listeners, I’m also seeking props.  Other users (DJs) give me props if they like my selection.  I can get credits by getting props (1 = 1) or by getting other DJs to reBlip my selections.  So, I’m looking for artists with similar taste, or with taste I want to learn more about (I’ve discover Chali 2na!), and I’m bouncing around, blipping selections, re-blipping, giving out props, adding listeners to my favorite DJs list and hoping to get added to others.

So far, I’ve connected with some pretty impressive musical tastes and I’ve even accumulated a few props and listeners.  It’s all good fun, and it’s built to look like Twitter, so the interface is pretty easy for me to get started.  I still need to have continuous playing (listen while you search) and an iPhone app and more complete selections (like Grooveshark), but I’m still having a blast.  Wanna see what I been blippin’?

Check it out!

First thoughts on Transatlantic – ‘The Whirlwind’ (promo version)

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While getting ready for various Court appearances preparing documents to be filed, I’m not in the best environment to evaluate the ‘promo copy’ of Transatlantic’s The Whilrwind, but I am able to make the following observations:

  1. I happy to say that I already paid for the album and bonus disc, so I have no hesitation about enjoying this promo version nearly a month before the album comes out.  It should be noted that this copy does not have the bonus material, although those of us who pre-ordered got an advance download of ‘Giant Hogweed’ and it’s just great, extra giant.
  2. The promo copy is separated into 12 separate tracks.  That’s not supposed to be the case with this record, and I’ll be pretty disappointed if that’s how the official version turns out.  The whole deal was that they were going to hit us with a 70+ minute single track.  In my mind that’s exactly what they should be doing – go BIG or go home!  Is it kind of a dick move that forces you to by the ‘bonus disc’?  Sure, but everyone’s free to pass on the extra expense and just make themselves comfortable for over an hour every time they want to listen to any part of this new work.  Personally, I admire their prodigious marketing ability
  3. Which brings us to the promo copy itself; they have ingeniously ‘watermarked’ it with vocal interruptions that remind the listener this is a promo copy and not the real deal.  This is a great example of how to front load all your marketing and hold on tight to the finished product until the last minute.  These guys know that, once it’s out there, it’s gonna get passed around like a hot potato, and that’s just the way life is right now.  I’m not going to be the guy to put it on bittorrent or rapidshare, but I’m pretty sure I know exactly who will, and I don’t begrudge them that conduct.  Until the artists can find a way get their fans to actually want to pay for music, the file sharing and downloads will continue.  Transatlantic have done a great job – they’ve got my money, don’t they?

So, those are my thoughts for now, or my meta-thoughts.  The audio reminders are annoying, but they are strategically positioned to cause minimal interruption to the flow of music.  I’ll hold off on any deep thoughts and observations about the drama, the poetry and the goosebumps, but, knowing this crew, that’s coming soon with the real copy of The Whirlwind, touching down on October 27.

Give me forty-three minutes and twenty seconds: Mixtape 01 is here

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This is a project I have been thinking about ever since I started to collect the incredible mixes available over at ParisDJs.  And while those folks have mad performance skills behind the turntable, I have had to settle for a very deliberate (and slow) process of compilation and tweaking using Apple Logic 8.  I am, however quite pleased with the overall sequence, levels and imaging of the music.  I’ve only taken liberties to enliven some of the older recordings and keep overall volume constant.

The good folks at ParisDJs present their mixes as a single file, and I’ve done the same here.  In selecting these tracks, the only unifying theme was to have ‘all killer, no filler’, and hopefully to present you with things you mostly have not heard.  The selections span forty years and come from numerous styles (Jazz, Prog, Rock, Electronica, etc.) and regions (Canada, Brazil, France, India, UK, US, Poland, Sweden).  Future mixes will be more focused by genre and/or artist.  There are definitely Zappa and Tangerine Dream mixes in the pipeline.

Feel free to stream right here (Hostrocket has hooked me up with LOTS of bandwith) or download and enjoy at your leisure.  Two of these titles are found on full length items posted at Blogerantz, so I’ve included the links.  Here’s what we got:

1. Invocation/nonsense – Mpomy (2009)
2. 10538 Overture – Electric Light Orchestra (from The Electric Light Orchestra (No Answer) 1971)
3. Get Your Snack On – Amon Tobin (from Supermodified 2000)
4. Hummin’ – Cannonball Adderley (from The Country Preacher 1969)
5. Willie – Cat Power (from FM broadcast of Cat Power & the Memphis Rhythm Band, Berlin June 11, 2006)
6. Malandro Quando Vaza – The Ipanemas (from the collection Gilles Peterson Brazilika 2009)
7. Transfert – Sylbat (from Mara 2008)
8. Sunrise – SBB (from Iron Curtain 2009)
9. On and On – Gungfly (from Please Be Quiet 2009)
10. Pasanana’s Love – Trilok Gurtu (from broadcast (?) of North Sea Jazz Festival, July 2002)
11. High Water (For Charley Patton) – Bob Dylan (from the collection Tell Tale Signs 2008, but the recording is from 2003)

Stream:  [audio:http://mpomy.com/Music/mixtape01.mp3]

or download:  IMG_2654

As always, your feedback is appreciated.  Enjoy.

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Mpomy kicks your #musicmonday into high gear!

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Let’s get #musicmonday started off just right with the flat-out coolest music gadget.  Go ahead, play with that browser!  WARNING – very addictive!!

Tons of great new music came in this weekend:

Paris DJs are smokin’ with a Hip-Hop/Reggae mix that is the perfect way to start your monday off with a BANG!  About one-half hour of all solid mixes, featuring Ghostface Killah and  People Under the Stairs

Other stuff includes:

  • Weather Report radio ‘cast from 1975, courtesy the Genesis-Movement Torrent site;
  • Cult / Hare Krishna inspired music from ile Oxumare, including Santana and Alice Coltrane;
  • If you pre-0rder the new Transatlantic record Whirlwind from RadiantRecords, you get a download of their take on ‘Return of the Giant Hogweed’ (courtesy Spleen Arcana‘s Tweet feed).  This is a great marketing move because the track is righteous and many proggers hate to wait;
  • Recently off the Dime – Bruce Springsteen  1973 (either radio or soundboard) and  ELP Santiago ’93 – brilliant quality right of the radio!
  • We saw The Sounds at TLA on Saturday night, this was a mighty Swedish dance-rock outfit, fronted by Maja Ivarsson, who brings the voice, the sexy, plenty of F-bombs and a blow-dried blond ‘do that would make Madonna proud.  this was a high energy show that did a nice job of bringing new-wave into the 21st century.  Check out the music and get a free download at their website.
  • Stephen Stills has two  release coming shortly; the first is a collection of Manassas outtakes, and, since the two studio albums are tremendous, this will be a must-have.  The other is a recent concert from the UK where the Stills featured solo-acoustic and full band renditions from throughout his career.  The live set is not expected until mid October, but the Manassas title is available starting tomorrow.  Here’s a taste of what the first Manassas record sounded like:

There’s all kinds of other stuff going on, including Philly budget, house hunting, a guest post/letter about some totally screwed up aspects of the state budget, Formula 1 racing going crazy, but maybe coming to New York City (?!!) and I’m finally starting to piece together my own mixtape #1 using Apple Logic.

More on all that good stuff later.  For now, we got one more music post – the link for ya!  Check out the latest talent brewing over at Fretbuzz.net.