Well, I pirate a lot and I did a speech last year for a class I took at my university. I was going to make a big post with the speech because I interviewed a lot of artists for it, but never got around to it. Anyways, I have a lot of things bookmarked from it and I'm cleaning out my bookmarks. So instead of just deleting them, here they are! PS: This blog is pretty much dead. Keeping the domain for future reference to eventually live the dream of running a legit and consistent album review blog.
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/03/the-first-major/
http://channels.isp.netscape.com/celebrity/celebgossip.jsp?feature=ce_cel_12152005
http://torrentfreak.com/raiohead-to-testify-against-the-riaa-090404/
http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/07/itunes-store-now-infected-with-variable-pricing-amazon-still-0/
http://torrentfreak.com/disaster-no-one-pirates-or-downloads-our-music-for-free-090324/
http://torrentfreak.com/mininova-trial-due-in-two-months-090316/
http://torrentfreak.com/how-to-kill-the-music-industry-090227/
http://torrentfreak.com/biased-anti-piracy-laws-cause-problems-in-denmark-090410/
http://torrentfreak.com/leaked-acta-draft-more-power-to-the-riaa-090414/
http://arstechnica.com/media/news/2009/04/study-pirates-buy-tons-more-music-than-average-folks.ars
Anyways, some of these links have outdated information but most are pretty interesting. The basis of the speech is how piracy isn't killing the music industry at all. There are many factors that the music industry is doing to kill itself which the most important one are "Itunes Singles" that cut down the record company's ability to package crap songs into an overpriced CD. It reduces packaging costs they can charge people and other physical copy charges that they are losing money on. In reality, pirates do statistically buy more music because they try before they buy because they know what they are getting is good. Also, pirates are more likely to be audiophiles.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Movie Review: Hawk Jones
Imagine a cop movie from the late 80s with an all child cast. Actually, scratch that. Stop imagining and just watch Hawk Jones directed by Richard Lowry. This "action packed" comedy is full of satirical one-liners and classic quotes. This movie is the epitome of low budget films while half of the time the white balance is off completely. You can tell that most of the scenes were filmed in the director's garage or something and the acting is terrible(What do you expect with child actors?). Nonetheless, all this simply adds to the humor of the movie and I enjoyed laughing at how ridiculous it all was.
Somebody editted it down to 3 minutes and if you watch this, you aren't missing much. You can get the entire thing for 20 dollars here.
Somebody editted it down to 3 minutes and if you watch this, you aren't missing much. You can get the entire thing for 20 dollars here.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Album Review: Tree Sounds- Naps
Tree Sounds used to go by Molly Sunday but now she plays lo-fi ukulele under a new name. Since it's just one girl, it's a pretty simple sounding album, but nonetheless it's full of a lot of ukulele strumming, claps, and fun lyrics. The "band" name is kind of fitting, because it makes me want to go outside and go fishing and climb trees.
http://www.mediafire.com/?zn1zjjmdmtd
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Cultural Commentary: Throbbing Gristle and the Birth of Industrial
Seeing as how this is my first post on this blog, and the name of said blog is Whokilledpop, it seems fitting I should discuss Throbbing Gristle. For those unfamiliar with industrial, here is a brief rundown:
In the mid 70s, Throbbing Gristle came to be. Recording their first songs in '75, Throbbing Gristle was the formation of something new. Previous to Throbbing Gristle, the members had been in a performing arts group called COUM Transmissions (and if you were wondering, COUM is indeed pronounced cum. Throbbing Gristle is also London slang for an erection). Genisis P. Orridge, shown on far left, is the "main man" of the group and is an industrial figurehead, of sorts.
Throbbing Gristle is THE anti-band. Marilyn Manson had breasts digitally inserted onto himself for an album cover. Genesis P. Orridge has breast implants. Pop divas sing about raunchy sex topics. Cosey, the female, has actually been a porn star. Death metal artists try to thrash about in a hardcore manner on stage. TGs concerts were often bizarre and intense, with self-mutilation and occasionally even defication on stage. They didn't care about a scene, they did what the fuck they wanted to, on stage and in the studio.
TG's purpose was to create "Industrial Music for Industrial People", a way of saying they created dehumanized, mechanical music for like-minded people. The music was marked by dissonance, discordance, and general anti-musical sounds. Creating Industrial Records and the subsequential signing of bands such as Cabaret Voltaire, SPK, and Clock DVA lead to the spawning of the Industrial genre, and now here we are.
In the mid 70s, Throbbing Gristle came to be. Recording their first songs in '75, Throbbing Gristle was the formation of something new. Previous to Throbbing Gristle, the members had been in a performing arts group called COUM Transmissions (and if you were wondering, COUM is indeed pronounced cum. Throbbing Gristle is also London slang for an erection). Genisis P. Orridge, shown on far left, is the "main man" of the group and is an industrial figurehead, of sorts.
Throbbing Gristle is THE anti-band. Marilyn Manson had breasts digitally inserted onto himself for an album cover. Genesis P. Orridge has breast implants. Pop divas sing about raunchy sex topics. Cosey, the female, has actually been a porn star. Death metal artists try to thrash about in a hardcore manner on stage. TGs concerts were often bizarre and intense, with self-mutilation and occasionally even defication on stage. They didn't care about a scene, they did what the fuck they wanted to, on stage and in the studio.
TG's purpose was to create "Industrial Music for Industrial People", a way of saying they created dehumanized, mechanical music for like-minded people. The music was marked by dissonance, discordance, and general anti-musical sounds. Creating Industrial Records and the subsequential signing of bands such as Cabaret Voltaire, SPK, and Clock DVA lead to the spawning of the Industrial genre, and now here we are.
20 Jazz Funk Greats
20 Jazz Funk Greats. If there is an album to be considered the industrial album of the early years, this would be it. The story behind this album cover is that Genesis P-Orridges mother once asked him, "why haven't you ever done anything nice?" So he made this nice album cover, the band members all dressed up and posing nice for the camera. The scenery is on the beautiful Beachy Head, a very nice place in England, and also one of the #1 spots for people to go and commit suicide there. Also, if you ever buy the CD itself, on the back cover is a black & white idenctical version of the front cover, but with a dead body lying on the ground.
20JFG starts of simple. The title track is a strange but mellow intro to the album, and Beachy Head is an almost silent ambient peace. But when Still Walking starts, you see what they strived to create. It's not hardcore, but noisy enough to be almost frightening. Screeching metal sounds that could easily be mistaken for human screams fade in and out of the track.
Another key piece of Throbbing Gristle is displayed in 20 Jazz Funk Greats, too. Persuasion has Genisis P-Orridge rambling on, most likely stream-of-consciousness style, about persuading people to the sounds of a deep, slow synth line and the sounds of a woman in severe pain or fear. What A Day has him shouting "What a day, what a day, what a day OH!" many times, and Hot On The Heels Of Love has Cosey on vocals. The album closes with two different live manifestations of Discipline, one of their most "famous" songs. Both versions are much heavier in sound to the rest of the album, but perhaps slightly more bareable due to the more conventional song structure.
Now for the long-overdue conclusion. Throbbing Gristle is a band that really helped kill pop early on, and helped with the development of many good industrial and experimental bands. 20 Jazz Funk Greats is a great starting point for those unfamiliar with them, and I highly recommend it to those of us who are more musically adventerous than some others. The classics, man.
20 Jazz Funk Greats. If there is an album to be considered the industrial album of the early years, this would be it. The story behind this album cover is that Genesis P-Orridges mother once asked him, "why haven't you ever done anything nice?" So he made this nice album cover, the band members all dressed up and posing nice for the camera. The scenery is on the beautiful Beachy Head, a very nice place in England, and also one of the #1 spots for people to go and commit suicide there. Also, if you ever buy the CD itself, on the back cover is a black & white idenctical version of the front cover, but with a dead body lying on the ground.
20JFG starts of simple. The title track is a strange but mellow intro to the album, and Beachy Head is an almost silent ambient peace. But when Still Walking starts, you see what they strived to create. It's not hardcore, but noisy enough to be almost frightening. Screeching metal sounds that could easily be mistaken for human screams fade in and out of the track.
Another key piece of Throbbing Gristle is displayed in 20 Jazz Funk Greats, too. Persuasion has Genisis P-Orridge rambling on, most likely stream-of-consciousness style, about persuading people to the sounds of a deep, slow synth line and the sounds of a woman in severe pain or fear. What A Day has him shouting "What a day, what a day, what a day OH!" many times, and Hot On The Heels Of Love has Cosey on vocals. The album closes with two different live manifestations of Discipline, one of their most "famous" songs. Both versions are much heavier in sound to the rest of the album, but perhaps slightly more bareable due to the more conventional song structure.
Now for the long-overdue conclusion. Throbbing Gristle is a band that really helped kill pop early on, and helped with the development of many good industrial and experimental bands. 20 Jazz Funk Greats is a great starting point for those unfamiliar with them, and I highly recommend it to those of us who are more musically adventerous than some others. The classics, man.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Album Review: The Sarcastic Dharma Society - Other People's Songs (Volume One)
Posted on "I Found This Song In The Road" earlier this year, re-posting here for more promotion and because it's free and really good.
The Sarcastic Dharma Society or pretty much just Matthew J. Vuksinich for the most part shot me an email asking me to listen to his work and tell me what I think. This local artist from the thriving music scene of Portland, Oregon has some real talent. Whenever I get emails from people with music to listen to especially if it's their own, I never have high expectations.
WRONG! I was simply blown away when I opened up the files he gave me which consisted of covers of some of my favorite artists. These are the likes of Andrew Jackson Jihad, Why?, The Beatles, Bright Eyes, and Mt. Eerie which I just recently got into.
The album consists of 10 songs all being covers of artists that I love from the start. Some of my other favorite tracks are "Don't Let Me Down" by The Beatles and "Shit On My Heart" by a local Portland band known as Meyercord.
http://www.mediafire.com/?h2w3gzjhwnm
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Album Review: Fishboy - Nom
Fishboy of Denton, Texas has granted us a press release of their EP entitled Nom being released August 18th. I have been awaiting this album since it's announce months ago and managed to become a reputable press source.
The album will be released on 12" vinyl and some hand screened CD-rs. Fishboy did the vocals and then sent them to their goods friends the band The Om Nom Noms to do the instrumentals. The two compliment each other so well that you would never know that neither had any input on each other. The songs are rejects of their last rock opera the would confuse the story or just didn't flow. The album puts out some catchy indie fun into always amusing lyrics that you would have to be a fool to not smile at. In Nom, Fishboy proves their development from a basement solo project to a group of fun, creativity, and pure indie rock fun with a hint of twee. I have been a fan of Fishboy for quite a long time and I can not wait to own this on vinyl and CD. Happy Birthday To Me Records is putting this all out and you can get their last album and rock opera "Albatross: How We Failed To Save The Lone Star State With The Power Of Rock And Roll" along with their previous album "Little D" for just 10 dollars combined! They are also going to release a west coast tour to take place after their album release.
Here is a little description of the band, album, and such from Eric himself:
Originally the bedroom solo project of Eric Michener that began in 1998, Fishboy has taken on many forms. The past five years have seen the group transformed into a four-piece rock band that released 2007's Albatross: How We Failed to Save the Lone Star State with the Power of Rock and Roll, hailed by some as "The world's greatest twee rock opera" and by others as "The world's only twee rock opera." The band has repeatedly toured the nation, playing said rock opera to all who would listen. A great time was had by most. But let's back up. To fully understand the latest Fishboy EP, two nuggets of truth are needed:
Nugget #1: The writing process of Albatross was 95% linear, in that nearly every track was written in the order it appears on the album. After the first song was completed, some thought was put into where to take the storyline and the musical flow of the album. Oftentimes full songs were completed and then scrapped because one of these two things wasn't working out -- either the plot came to a dead end or the flow of the album didn't work. When it was time to start the follow up to Albatross, it became clear that any attempt to use these songs would result in a lyrically confused mess of an album. Not that the songs weren't good; they were just abandoned plot lines to an alternate rock opera reality. And so a plan was hatched.
Nugget #2: Instead of gathering the band together to spend precious writing and arranging hours on these songs, the decision was made to blindly put them in the hands of a group of musicians with nothing to lose. Michener decided to hand over all musical duties and decisions to a local Denton, TX group of super-producers known as the Om Nom Noms. Michener took one trip into the studio, recorded vocals and scratch guitar, the guitar was deleted, and the Noms reconstructed the songs however they saw fit. Some upbeat songs became ambient, some hushed finger picked songs became rockers, and anything was possible in between.
The nine-song EP was titled NOM, not only after its creators, but after the sound of something eating another. It arrives on August 18th and will be pressed on 12" vinyl with album sleeves that double as fold-out prints hand-screened by the band themselves, for sale on yofishboy.com and distributed to select stores via HHBTM Records. The first 100 orders will receive unique packaging and a lot of little extras to be announced in detail once the preorder site launches later this month.
Check them out at:
farewellalbatross.com (last album)
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Album Review: Broski - Jortch
Out of Allentown, PA right near where I go to school, comes Broski, the sister of a blog reader named Emily. Broski is self described as "Music for driving away from your girlfriend's house" and it's pretty fitting. The four track EP is just a two-piece set of Mitch on guitar and Jordan on drums, but the simplicity isn't a bad thing. Mitch plays some choppy quick catchy rifts with a definite emo influence. They recently played with My Heart To Joy which is what I'm digging right now so that's a plus. I was going to try relate them to a Cap'n Jazz spin-off band, but they are like an upbeat version of all of them combined. My only critique which is kind of a major turn-off for me normally is the lack of vocals. I'm a big fan of music with something to say and a good voice to say it. Despite this, I enjoyed listening to Broski, and I look foward to seeing how they develop.
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/
Download: http://www.mediafire.com/
Review by: trollmaster
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
