Monthly Archive for September, 2008Page 2 of 3

International Talk Like a Pirate Day – The Soundtrack

At Peet’s Coffee this morning, the barista was wearing a shirt on his head like a bandana and was talking like a pirate. His co-workers did not seem amused. I thought it was quirky. But awesome! While the Pirates of the Caribbean movies brought pirate culture back into the mainstream, pirates have always been inherently cool. Who doesn’t love the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland, I mean come on.

A few hours later it hit me that today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day! In honor of this very significant holiday, I’ve gathered some remixes for you. (Btw, if you are into remixing, you should click here.)

And finally…some bloopers:

Yo ho yo ho a pirate’s life for me! Arrr.

Spooonful: Hand Delivered and Easy to Swallow Music Discovery

You love discovering new music. You love social networking and social media. Everything that ends with 2.0 gets your attention. Out of sheer enthusiasm for emerging technologies and your obsession with music, you sign up for every new service you find.

When it comes to music discovery, maybe you’ve tooled around with the likes of Last.fm, Grooveshark, Fuzz, iLike, Pandora, imeem, or one of the many others out there. If so, you may have experienced a sense of disorientation, information overload, or maybe you became paralyzed by indecision. Or maybe you’re simply too busy to spend time looking for new music and you’d rather that new music could just come looking for you for once.

A nice little service called Spooonful has a solution to that problem. In their own words: “Our mission is simple. A free weekly email newsletter delivered right to your inbox introducing you to one great new artist or band at a time. You’ll get a preview of what they sound like as well as links to buy a track, a whole album, even get out to a show.” Your weekly spoonful of new music! Check it out.

Host your own remix contest with the Remix Wizard

Recently, MixMatchMusic launched the Remix Wizard, a free widget that any artist can use to host remix promotions on their websites, blogs and social network pages.  Artists customize what the widget looks like and provide the stems to a song (the various parts of a song, like the vocals, guitar, drums, etc) for fans to remix, either by using the online MixMaker or by downloading the stems for remixing in any music software. All the remixes are then published to the widget for others to play, vote on, and share. The widget is designed to be flexible, so that artists can sell the stems or give them away for free, set deadlines and give prizes to winners, and set the legal agreement that covers the rights to the stems and remixes made (who owns them?).

I recently recorded a new song, and have embedded the widget on my Myspace page so that y’all can remix it:

My Remix Wizard

The play button next to the left of “A Little Fuzzy” lets you hear the original song. The tracks in the middle of the widget (Dark Sunrise, Now’s the Time) are submitted remixes. When you submit yours, it will be listed there. Then, people can hear it, vote for it, and share it (by making a separate, mini widget).

Click “download stems” to get the stems in your home software, and then be sure to click “upload stems” to publish it. Or, click “MixMaker” to see how the song was made and to create a mix using the online sequencer. You’ll be able to publish it to the widget directly from there. The “wanna remix more tracks” link will take to a gallery full of Remix Wizards deployed around the web!

So, what are you waiting for? Host your own remix promotion today! Or, click here for more info.

Thievery Corporation's New Album: Early Release on Facebook, iLike

Given the current chaos in the music industry, bands must find new ways to promote their music. From musicians using Twitter to connect with fans or partnering with brands to cross promote, we are seeing more and more examples of non-traditional music promotion and distribution. The artists who are willing to take risks and think outside the box, with their art and with their careers, are the ones we here at Evolving Music are most interested in.

One such band is Thievery Corporation. In addition to being a refreshingly unique group that fuses together a plethora of genres and cultural sounds, they are not afraid to speak their minds. Sure, everyone likes a good mindless “bump ‘n’ grind” tune from time to time, but you gotta respect the artists who choose to use their music not just as entertainment, but as a way to communicate what they believe and are passionate about (as we’ve covered in previous posts about artists such as Immortal Technique and Bataka Squad.)

The DJ duo, comprised of Rob Garza and Eric Hilton, hails from Washington DC, which “has long been the home of a music subculture legendary for fierce independence, a staunch do-it-yourself work ethic, and conscientious social activism.” They definitely practice what they preach. The organic multi-cultural sounds of dub, reggae, lounge, afrobeat and Indian music, to name a few, may catch your attention at first if you hear Thievery’s music at a neighborhood cafe or in a European nightclub. But, their uninhibited socio-political messages and passionate desire to open hearts and minds will keep you riveted.

Additionally, their diverse team of collaborators – singing in numerous languages, playing funky instruments, and each adding their own cultural thread to the musical quilt – give the band a truly unique sound. Not to mention their live shows, which can be pretty freakin amazing.

Photo by openeye

Their upcoming album, Radio Retaliation, purportedly takes their politicizing to a new level. According to Rob, “There’s no excuse for not speaking out at this point, with the suspension of habeas corpus, outsourced torture, illegal wars of aggression, fuel, food, and economic crises. It’s hard to close your eyes and sleep while the world is burning around you. If you are an artist, this is the most essential time to speak up.”

If you are on Facebook or iLike you’ll be able to stream Thievery Corporation’s new album on September 19th, before its official release on September 23rd. This is the first time the two social networking giants have ever worked together to promote an album.

Given that this album is particularly focused on the band’s disgust with the current state of American media, their decision to skip the middle man and go straight to their fans via the internet is appropriate, both for them personally and for the industry as a whole. According to Hilton, “We chose iLike as the platform to debut this record because it offers us a direct vehicle to share our music and communicate with fans worldwide, free from editorializing or whitewashing of our messages.”

For the fans among you, or those interested in gaining further insight into the artists and their message, keep your eyes out for a series of videos in which they introduce and discuss the album, which will be available exclusively on iLike. In the meantime, check out the title track on their MySpace.

To quote Rob Garza once more, “… if you can get people to question the things around them, just a little, then that’s not such a bad thing.”

On that note, here’s the title track from their 2002 “Richest Man in Babylon” album:

MixMatchMusic: Now Open to the Public

As ACtual mentioned earlier, this morning MixMatchMusic officially launched at DEMOfall ’08. Yes. We are now live. Public beta is up and running and ready for your music!

DEMO, the “launchpad for emerging technology”, is a big deal for those of us who reside in StartUpVille and we are excited to be among those represented at an event of this caliber. Video from all the presentations will be available here. Also, check out some of the initial photos on Flickr.

For those of you who are not totally dialed in to the MixMatch magic yet, check out the press release and see our About MixMatchMusic video:

You can also find this video, as well as the separate chapters of it, on MySpace, on the site, and on Facebook. Feel free to spread the word to anyone and everyone who loves emerging technology, music, and social media, and wants to help DIY and indie musicians to revolutionize the music industry.

Check out what people are saying over at CNET and Wired. You can also go to our Press Room for recent coverage.

Thanks to everyone for their enthusiasm and support. We are elated to have come this far and can’t wait to see what the future brings. For all you musicians out there, roll up your sleeves, get out your instruments, start recording and show us what you got! Non-musicians, come explore the community, discover great new music, and even make music (without knowing how to play an instrument).

A big thanks also to all our ambassadors and evangelists who spread the MixMatch love like it’s nobody’s business. Join the social music movement and help us get the word out to the people who need these tools by digging, posting, twittering, bookmarking, linking, emailing, texting or whatever your preferred social media methods are. Or for the more old fashioned among you carrier pigeons, smoke signals, bat signals, handwritten letters and what not.

The industry revolution starts now. Brace yourselves.