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A couple from Ireland (by way of Mexico), Rodrigo and Gabriela totally blew the audience away here at PopTech with their thrash metal-influenced Latin percussive acoustic guitar. I know that’s not much to go on, but trust me on this one. Check out some of their stuff on YouTube and then buy their new CD. (Best part of their set: they threw in a little Enter Sandman by Metallica, which went over the head of everyone in the audience over 35, i.e. almost everyone.)
Onstage at PopTech just now, Brian Eno said that a musical piece by Steven Reich had a huge influence on how he thought about art. He said that Reich’s piece showed him that:
1. You don’t need much.
2. The composer’s role is to set up a system and then let it go.
3. The true composer is actually in the listener’s brain.
I’d never heard of Reich, but the name sounded familiar when Eno mentioned it. I realized I’d seen it yesterday when reading about Cory Arcangel’s show at Team Gallery in reference to his piece, Sweet 16:
Cory applied American avant-garde composer Steven Reich’s concept of phasing to the guitar intro of Guns and Roses’ track Sweet Child O’Mine. Rather than use instruments, Cory took the same two clips from the song’s music video and shortened one clip by a single note. As the videos loop, the two intros grow farther apart until they are back in sync.
He’s veered away from video games, but Cory’s new work is looking really interesting these days.
Slideshow of photographs from the last show (+ archival photos) at CBGB, a beloved New York music venue. Several photos of the club’s final days are available on Flickr as well.
The Wordless Music Series is an attempt to bring together classical music and more contemporary music, the differences between which “are an artificial construction in need of dismantling”. The next concert is on 11/15/2006 in NYC and tickets are priced for young concertgoers in mind.
Top 100 most popular classical music pieces, featuring stuff like Beethoven’s 5th, Pomp and Circumstance, and Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.
The soundtrack for Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette contains tracks by Aphex Twin, Siouxsie & The Banshees, Squarepusher, and The Strokes. Boy, people are either going to love or hate this movie.
Ben Folds cover of Such Great Heights by The Postal Service using found percussion instruments (like a champagne glass and a plastic mail bin). (thx, james)
Stylus magazine has a list of their top 100 favorite videos, complete with embedded YouTube clips of the videos themselves for your instant gratification. Ok, now let’s fight about what was excluded and how wrong that is… (via paul)
The seminal Icelandic band, The Sugarcubes, will perform one last time on November 17 in Reykjavik. How will the concert hall hold all of Bjork’s fans?
A list of the 50 worst things ever to happen to music, from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (#50) to Suge Knight (#2)…I won’t spoil #1.
Great video explaining how to turn a Britney Spears song into a Bach-style fugue. (via waxy)
The Wire influenced a Baltimore hip-hop producer to make a mix tape called Hampsterdam and now season four of the show will be featuring more of the local music scene there. (thx, doug)
This is old news, but I missed it while I was gone, so apologies if you’ve seen this. Banksy replaced copies of Paris Hilton’s new CD in stores around the UK with his own copies containing doctored album art and a 40-minute song by Gnarls Barkley’s Danger Mouse. Banksy made a video of himself pulling off the stunt. Copies of the CD are on eBay for $180-1,300. An mp3 of the song contained on the doctored CD is available.
Profile of Walter Werzowa, the man responsible for the Intel Inside theme. More here about tiny music makers, including the Windows 95 startup sound by Brian Eno, the THX theme, and the Mac startup sound.
The difficulties of interviewing Bob Dylan. “Dylan is rarely concerned about sounding polite, and he says things, but he sometimes makes them up. He also contradicts himself, answers questions with questions, rambles, gets hostile, goes laconic, and generally bewilders.”
Street hacks: how to survive a freestyle rap battle. “Have your first real battle against someone you at least somewhat dislike. If you can find someone who just gets you emotional or who angers you, it makes it easier to flow about them.” (thx, steve)
Video for Gnarls Barkley’s Smiley Faces, my favorite song of theirs. (Even though the mashup with the Notorious B.I.G.’s Hypontize might be better.)
Future Rock Hall is calculating current artists’ chances of getting into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame using your votes and a set of predictive criteria. According to the site, the Beastie Boys currently have an 82% chance for election to the Hall in 2007.
Here’s a video of Snoop Dogg listening to and singing along with a country-style cover of Gin and Juice by The Gourds.
New tagline for kottke.org: “bringing you the world’s finest treadmill music videos”.
How to DJ your first set without knowing how.
Update: For another take on how to DJ, see Vice’s Hey DJ, Fuck You! Anyone Can Rock the Party. (thx, dave)
10,000 computer-generated fake band names that sound real.
Profile of Brian Burton, aka Danger Mouse, aka half of Gnarls Barkley. “[Burton] wants to be the first modern rock ‘n’ roll auteur, mostly because he understands a critical truth about the creative process: good art can come from the minds of many, but great art usually comes from the mind of one.”
The American Masters episode on Woody Guthrie is worth a look.
The Garden State Effect: leave indie rock to indie rock fans. “When I say that I want as many people as possible to like my favorite bands, what I actually mean is that I want as many people as possible to like my favorite bands for the right reasons”. (via waxy)
US college students won’t download music provided by their schools even though its free because they can’t take it with them after graduation, won’t work with Apples, and can’t play on iPods. That’s not really actually “free” then, is it?
Interview with Thom Yorke about politics, his solo album, and Radiohead’s impending (yet distant) new album. (via dooce)
Slate’s wine columnist considers which champagne Jay-Z should drink now that he’s given up the Cristal. Taste and prestige are not the only considerations: “Take, for instance, this line from the Jay-Z hit ‘Can’t Knock the Hustle’: ‘My motto, stack rocks like Colorado/ auto off the champagne, Cristal’s by the bottle. ‘Salon’ can be substituted for ‘Cristal’ at no cost to the flow.”
Classic Royksopp music video featuring dozens of wonderful infographics.
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