School of Seven Bells | “My Cabal”
By Antlively | May 31, 2009
Random video of the day…
(Directed by David Mullett)
(From their 2008 Alphisms debut)
Topics: Music | No Comments »
Email Reinvented? | Google Wave
By Antlively | May 30, 2009
Later this year, email will finally be made obsolete when Google launches it’s latest application, Google Wave. It won’t happen overnight, but judging from this presentation it looks like it could eventually revolutionize the way we collaborate as much as Google’s search-engine revolutionized the way we find information….
(screenshot via Mashable)
Topics: Tools & Applications, Web | No Comments »
Kasabian Pull Off Bank-Heist With Guitars in “Fire”
By Antlively | May 9, 2009
“Fire” – The new video from Kasabian’s forthcoming third album, The West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum (6/9/09). Think of them as a budding, more dancy-version of Oasis..
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The Cool Kids = EPMD 2.0?
By Antlively | May 9, 2009
I know it’s sacrilegious to mention a group with one relatively good album and a bunch of hot mixtape material, with legendary hip-hop heavyweights like EPMD.. But considering the overall level of talent in hip-hop nowadays, I’m not completely out of line for saying that The Cool Kids kind of come across like a modern-day, up-and-coming version of Erick Sermon & Parish Smith with their lazy flow and properly-looped beats. Here are a few tracks from the recent Cool Kids/Don Cannon “Gone Fishing” mixtape..
Don Cannon & The Cool Kids
“Gone Fishing” Mixtape
Free download available here.
Popcorn
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Pennies feat Ludacris & Bun-B
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Summer Vacations
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Topics: Music | No Comments »
“On The Beat” Weekly Music Biz Podcast
By Antlively | April 10, 2009
“On The Beat” is a weekly segment on KCRW by Celia Hirschman about the state of the struggling music industry. It is also available thru iTunes as a free mp3-podcast download.
Celia articulates the big-picture of what’s happening in the music biz better than I have ever been able to. This recent episode is a good example..
Time Sharing – March 2009
Arts and the Stimulus Package – April 15, 2009
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Topics: Digital Music Biz, Editorial, Music | No Comments »
Boogie Man – The Lee Atwater Story
By Antlively | October 7, 2008
If anyone else is as disgusted as I am by the recent campaign tactics of John McCain and Sarah Palin down the stretch before this ‘08 election, you may want to see this documentary to understand where it all started.. By now many of us are familiar with Karl Rove and the media-manipulation he performed to get George W Bush elected, but Lee Atwater was the Godfather of such tactics..
And here’s a great interview with the director, Stephen Forbes..
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There’s a limited-engagement run taking place in L.A. until 10/10/08. Click here for the rest of the U.S. schedule.
Topics: Culture | 2 Comments »
Profile: Gerd Leonard
By Antlively | September 19, 2008
Gerd Leonard is one of the leading thinkers and teachers in the realm of digital or “new” media, but he has been most widely recogonized for his work in the field of music as digital content. I first learned of him when I discovered and read the 2005 book he co-authored entitled The Future of Music: Manifesto for the Digital Music Revolution. The most significant take-away from the book was his “music like water” concept to the solving the music industry’s Digital Rights Management (DRM) issue, by changing the way consumers think about how they consume music.
It may seem like an impossible task. But the truth is, the digital revolution is making all of us re-think the value of audio and video content in our lives. We have already been seeing different incarnations of this taking place in the form of subscription-models, where people are basically paying for the service of music – whatever they want, whenever they want. Just like water, electricity, etc. Rhapsody and Microsoft’s Zune Pass are currently the most prominent examples, but there have been rumors flying around recently about the possibility of iTunes eventually offering an annual subscription. It is beginning to seem like an inevitable outcome, but of course getting everyone to agree on pricing could take an eternity.
Gerd’s Media Futurist Blog is a great source to keep up with all sorts of digital media-related issues. And for anyone considering or already involved in a music-related career, I highly recommend this year’s follow-up to his 2005 The Future of Music.. This one is called Music 2.0, and in true “new music economy” style, he has made it available as a free downloadable PDF HERE.
Here he is at The Commonwealth Club on a panel speaking about “The Future of Music: Digital Rights or Wrongs”
Topics: Digital Music Biz, Music, Web | 1 Comment »
PES – Western Spaghetti
By Antlively | September 16, 2008
Who needs the studios? Like musicians, the only things aspiring directors need nowadays in order to make a name for themselves are a few social media skills and a little creativity. Director/animator PES has become a subpop-culture celebrity for his incredible short films that would not have a platform for mainstream exposure if it weren’t for Youtube. World-renowned director Michel Gondry said it best..
“Clicking on a PES film is to open a safe and suddenly see a million ideas glittering and exploding,”…”The only reason you close the door is to re-open it just after and discover what will pop this time.”
Watch the rest of his films on his Youtube page. Befriend him on Facebook. Check out his website. Be inspired.
Topics: Culture | No Comments »
MF DOOM Returns(?)
By Antlively | September 15, 2008
Just days after posting about how Elbow winning the Mercury Prize was the best music-news of the year, I discover thru Prefixmag.com that MF DOOM is finally dropping a new record after a four-year hiatus. Anyone who knows me knows that I am still a b-boy at heart, so nothing tops news of a new album from DOOM, especially considering that I had pretty much written-off any chance of this happening. Rumor had it that MF DOOM had actually been missing in action for a long time, and the man behind the metal-mask at his shows over most of the last year was basically a stunt-double out on the road lipsyncing his songs.
I was one of the suckers who got shafted by a phony MF DOOM concert last year.. I shot video at his El Rey Theater concert while I was too inebriated to notice that he didn’t ad-lib a SINGLE WORD during any of the songs:
But DOOM comes from the golden era of late 80s/early 90s hip-hop that I grew up with, so he understands what people like me need in our lives right now. I think he’s arguably the greatest producer/MC in the history of hip-hop. A new studio-record from him will make up for all of the wack hip-hop of 2008.
You can view the “official” one-sheet about the forthcoming October 21st release Born Into This on Lex Records via Prefix Magazine’s site HERE.
And here are a couple of examples of what to look forward to..
Vomitspit (from 2004 release Mmm…Food)
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Kon Queso feat PNS of the Molemen (from 2004 release Mmm…Food)
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Mew – Recording New Album And Getting Ready to Swallow The Planet
By Antlively | September 13, 2008
Mew is a band from Denmark who’s live show kicked my ass at the Henry Fonda Theater a couple of years ago when they opened for Kasabian. They’re currently recording their third album and posting video-diary clips on their Youtube page.
The most recent is from a studio in Brooklyn, and it implies that if the Large Hadron Collider does not create a black hole that swallows the Earth this year, Mew’s music just might. It sounds like a pretty accurate description of their sound:
Mew – “Special” (taken from And The Glass Handed Kites – 2006)
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Elbow Wins The Mercury Prize!
By Antlively | September 10, 2008
This is the best music-news I’ve heard all year.. ELBOW has won this year’s Mercury Prize. Who in the hell is Elbow? In my opinion they’ve been the second-best band in the UK for years now (behind Radiohead of course). And what the hell is the Mercury Prize?? It’s the most coveted annual award for music in the UK. It’s a BIG deal, as you can see from this clip..
What’s crazy is that they beat out Radiohead’s In Rainbows for this award, along with Estelle’s brilliant debut Shine, among others. I had no idea that they had even been nominated for the award, let alone recognized and respected on a wide-scale in the UK. It’s good to be see that somewhere in the world, great artists are still being rewarded for great musicianship despite whatever level of commercial success they achieve. Big-Ups, Elbow.. Here are a couple of tracks from The Seldom Seen Kid on Fiction Records:
Grounds For Divorce
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An Audience with the Pope
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Kaiser Chiefs – Never Miss A Beat
By Antlively | September 7, 2008
The Kaiser Chiefs are back with a new single “Never Miss A Beat” and forthcoming album Off With Their Heads, due 10/13/08. I appreciate a low-budget, but highly-creative and entertaining video as it is, but it helps that the Mark Ronson-produced record itself is kinda hot..
Topics: Music | No Comments »