Woo! I'm not working and I'm full of beer and snacks. It must be that time of year... time to disconnect from teh interweb until 2007. Here's some links to quasi-fill the pseudo-gap:
According to the author, you can download the The Areas of My Expertise on iTunes for free. However, only those using iTunes USA can actually do so. The rest us have to settle for this podcast featuring an interview with John Hodgeman
nerdiness: Gartner: Blogging to peak in 2007. Yeah, but... blog writing and blog reading are 2 separate forces, both of which would need to decline before this really means anything.
Nevermind the synth lines... nevermind the dude producing the track... jump to the 3 minute mark, when Amanda Blank starts her verse. For the next 90 seconds you're treated to the tightest (and filthiest, obviously) flow from a female MC that you've most likely ever heard. She spends the first minute of her verse almost just toying with you and then by the 4:00 mark she's in top gear firing off 100 mile an hour lyrics about chanel pumps and the virtues of her crotch. I've played and replayed this part of the track eleventy billion times in the last week or two.
An approach to hip hop that makes Luke Campbell look as edgy as a vaudeville player, paired with an Ivana Santilli-sque look. What's not to love?
Anyways, for those who were up on all this by last spring... a remix:
Blogging about bloated year end music lists is bad enough, blogging about pitchfork's list is even worse. But what the hell...
"2006 wasn't easily characterized by distinct seismic shifts in independent music's ever-changing topography, or by a select handful of burgeoning new genres. Instead, it was a year of true independence, in which listeners pursued broader palettes, spread music by word of mouth, and openly welcomed increasingly forward-thinking approaches to songcraft."
I'm calling bullshit on this. The whole appeal of the indie music / blog music scene is the access to "broader pallets", diverse sounds, and the like. Hell, I'd go as far to say that this indie appeal has always existed, even well before the internet and mp3's were readily available. PF's size-up is lazy. Spreading music through word of mouth is business as usual for those who (1) have a strong bond with music, (2) steer clear of the top 40 radio format.
My take on 2006: this was a year of one-off tracks. Not singles, not albums. I'd argue that as music blogging grows, more and more music bloggers scramble for content, artists and albums become frangmented into mp3s for posting and downloading. As readers attempt to sift through a stream of growing endless content, involvement/attachment to a specific artist becomes less likely. Personally, I can only think of a handful of albums that appealed to me end to end, cover to cover. Only a few artists stand out as being capable of being long term, bankable, and sustainable acts.
I should point out that while my take may appear to be a bit grim, it's far from it. I had my ipod on all year with a new music-related grin on my face. So hooray for everything.
Looking ahead to 2007: if the leaks from Bloc Party, LCD Soundsystem, and The Shins are any indication of things to come, we're going to see a return to focus on the artist and album, not the commoditized one-off track or mp3. It will be teh awesomeness.
Apparently, there comes a time in every man's life where the ironic joy of a $7.95 seasonal plate of food is no longer worth massive indigestion and stomach cramps. For me, that threshold was reached last night... at around 7:15pm... after 3 bites of food. Don't kid yourself, that picture of the full plate of food looks pretty reasonable. But trust me, it wasn't.
Thinking back, I'm sure the dozen Molson Canadians we ordered didn't help. Note: it was the only beer available for sale at the SC. Weirdness.
With that said, the Swiss Chalet gray is still FANTASTIC after all these years.
Okey dokey... after many hours of sorting, coding, writing, printing, stickering, uploading, etc, etc the 2006 vanmega audio almanac has been sent out. All CD's are in the mail, and those who opt'ed for a downloadable version of the disk have an email waiting for them. With that said, I realize that lots of email apps have finicky spam filters and stuff, so if for some reason you can't find an email from me, simply email me again and I'll resend the link.
Wow, that last sentence was a run-on and a half.
Thanks to everyone who wrote in for the almanac. It's cool to actually chat with lots of the folks who read this interweb site. Here's some fun stats:
I had more requests for the almanac this year than any other year previous. (ok, this isn't that surprising)
What is surprising is the percentage of people requesting the almanac who live in Vancouver has jumped. Last year = ~5%, this year = ~20%. The funniest part is that most of these Vancouverites live within 10 blocks of me. Weird. Sorta.
The percentage of people wanting a downloadable version of the almanac towered over the percentage of those wanting an actual CD (66% to 33%, respectively). Is this a small but practical example of the decline in demand for tangible music formats and a shift in consumer focus to instant content? Maybe.
Yes, yes... we all know I'm not a fan of endless year end lists put out by music bloggers, but I think that the shows which passed through Vancouver over the last 12 months are worthy of some discussion.
Anyhoo... here are my top 3 favorite live performances of 2006:
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3. Gil Mantera's Party Dream at Richards (March 24)
Think Andrew W.K meets Scissor Sisters paying tribute to Daft Punk... but much more intense and much more, ummm, gay. It was both baffling and awesome. The cool part about their performance was the fact that they pulled off the classic "unknown band wins over the crowd by the end of the set" thing. A room full of skeptic arm-crossers slowly but surely rushed the stage, hooting and hollering at the slightest robotic, speedo clad gyration the two piece offered. Best song: A cover of Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams", done solo by Gil using a super thick vocoder effect. Lindsay Buckingham = kinda envious.
I never really got into the "He Poos Clouds" disk, but Final Fantasy's live show blew me away. The entire performace was complimented by this amazing visual DIY thing. Owen performed mostly in the dark accompanied by a cut and paste slideshow, delivered by hand on an old school overhead projector. The constantly shifting imagery was one part fairytail and one part lazer-light planetarium induced acid trip. Each element that flashed on the wall was crafted lovingly by hand, tailored for each line of every song. It was inspired, and made other rock shows look lazy.
I once read a one sentence review of Jamie Lidell which claimed that he was, in fact, "the tits".
Whoever wrote that wasn't kidding... dude is serious talent... and on a level that most artists only dream of reaching. His live show was like a bipolar collaboration between Sam Cooke and The Chemical Brothers. One minute it was a scornful, soul session, the next it was a improvised, loop and sample knob tweaking implosion... but the lines between the two extremes were so blurred that you didn't even realize this shift was taking place. Best of all, this was all done by Lidell himself, solo. He'd bounce back and fourth between his deck of synths and samplers and to the front of the stage. The entire set felt heavily improvised, most of the tracks he performed off Multiply sounded nothing like the studio versions... and this was a very good thing.
adventures in fake dj'ing: discobelle(d) edition...
I've been happily spending way too much time on discobelle.net lately. As far as mp3 blogging goes, those kids are doing really good things. They’ve got a huge chunk of the electro/Baltimore/breaks/hip hop scene covered. Plus, their dj mix series is, well, bonkers... that in itself is enough content for an entirely separate blog.
On the weekend I noticed I had a pile of mp3's sourced from discobelle on my desktop... and, hey, every track was a dancefloor banger. So what do I do? I fire up mixmiester and get my beat mix on. The result is a 45 minute set of electro-glitchy ass-shakery.
This is the set list:
Radiohead - Everything In Its Right Place (DJ Technics Remix) Basement Jaxx - Lollipop (feat. MC Lyte) Pase Rock - Lindsay Lohan's Revenge (feat. Spankrock & Amanda Blank) Ne-Yo - So Sick (DFA Remix) Rick Ross - Hustlin (DJ Technics Remix) Amy Winehouse - Rehab (Hot Chip Remix) The Rapture - Get Myself Into It (Sebastian Remix) Digitalism - Jupiter Room (Erol Alkan Edit) Surkin vs M.I.A. - Sunshowers Ison & Fille - Ge mig (Mr. Suitcase mix) Paul Devro - Cobrastyle (PD Frogharp Edit) Paul Devro - Everywhere (Edit) Yaz - Don't Go (Diplo Master Mix) Richard Reagh - Boo Backe (Flow Flux Clan Canadian Club mix)
vanmega guide to better living: big tv + small condo edition...
Wanting to be like 98% of all the other Vancouverites between the ages of 25 and 35, we moved into a one bedroom condo over the summer. Yeah, it's tiny... but it's pretty, and not falling apart (like our last 70+ year old place in Kits), and it's ours (well, once we make about 310 more payments to the bank).
Because our social calendar is jam packed we're laggards, we just got around to inaugural house warming house party. Good times... I think I drank a gallon of vodka, somebody was breakdancing. Maybe. Hard to remember.
Before the party, the TV was bugging me. It's a flat screen, it's impossible not to notice... the last thing I wanted was for someone to turn it on and start watching it while we were all hanging out. That'll kill conversations fast. I figured we needed some sort of content running to appease the tech nerds, but it had to be abstract enough to not hold anyone's attention for too long.
The solution: PowerPoint. Really.
I used 20 random images from threadless.com, then animated them, and then made each respective slides fade in and out every 30 seconds or so. This was saved in a PowerPoint file, which was then run on repeat from laptop to the TV through a standard VGA monitor cable.
And there in 310 pixels or less, the complete disconnect facing the music industry is explained. Group of the year? Why not give Limp Bizkit a lifetime achievement award while you're at it?
Here's a recap of some stuff thats bubbled up over the past few days:
The 24 Season 6 prequel is on youtube. Another December, another teaser for a new 24 season kick off, another totally unbelievable Toyota product placement. But ferreals, I can't wait.
I'll be the first to admit I have a t-shirt problem... or rather a buy-too-many-t-shirts problem. But, I'm ok with that... although the almost constant arrival of new boutique webshops selling shirts isn't making things easy.
Earlier this week I had my eye on upscale homeless' get right with elvis shirt. I tried to buy it, but the check out denied my ass. Twice. This of course is insane, because I have, like, the best credit in the world. Getting on to other things in my day, I abandoned the purchase. In the evening I found this in my inbox:
Hey, Rob -
So I just saw that you tried to make an order earlier today, and it rejected you due to an error. It would appear something funky was going on with our payment gateway recognizing international banks - I think we've fixed the issue now, though.
Regardless, sorry for our 'issues.'
If you'd like to try it again, it should be working fine now. Since you had problems, tell you what - enter the coupon code [xxx] under coupon code & it'll give you 20% off.
Thanks for checking us out...
See this is how you do business, retailers and etailers. Establish timely human contact, acknowledge the mistake, and then bend over backward to ensure the customer is delighted and the sale goes through. Yeah, it seems so simple, but is so often poorly executed.
Anyways, I'm hooked on these guys all because of a 2 second email... all they need to do is expand their product line and move away from the literal ironic motifs and do some cool more abstract stuff and we're off to the races.
Adam Riff's sidebar is a weekly visit for me. There's usually lots of interesting mp3s, etc on there... this week I noticed a Jack Johnson cover of Bob Dylan's I Shall Be Released. Dammit, Jack Johnson, you can't layer your flip-flop friendly meets casually sleepy style over classic lyrics dealing with the pain / injustice / persecution. You've got to nail it. Hard. Belt it out, and give your audience goosebumps. Or whatever.
For your consideration, Jeff Buckley's take on the Dylan tune... sung live, over the telephone:
Jeff Buckley - I Shall Be Released (Live at WMFU) [mp3]
Note: The music starts at about 3:30 mark.
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The Wuxi's posted another song on thier myspace space:
Update: Offer closed. CD's mailed out on Dec 15. Downloads will be emailed out on or before Dec 20th. Thanks to everyone who wrote in and took part!
It's go time, internet!
There's no mixtape this month (yay?), instead I’m once again handing out copies of the vanmega.com 2006 audio almanac CD. Think of it as a Christmas gift... but one which doesn't require you to give anything in return.
Just like previous years, the audio almanac recaps some of my favorite songs of 2006... it's a mix of bands featured on vanmega and some goodies which have yet to be highlighted. The entire mix is based completely on my subjective criteria, and yes there will be fancy covers again.
There are two formats for this years almanac:
1. via CD, which I’ll happily create and mail to you (I'll cover postage)
2. via download (a la the monthly mixtapes, as a zipped file containing iPod ready mp3’s, cover art, etc)
Getting your copy is easy... send me and email at vanmega at gmail doot com. Include these details:
your real name
your website address (if applicable)
your preferred method of receiving the almanac – CD via traditional mail, or digital via download
your real mailing address (if applicable)
any other witty banter / comments you may have
By Christmas you'll have a copy of the CD waiting in your mail box or inbox for the holidays. Whoomp/whoot, there it is.
This offer is open to anyone who has read vanmega between 1 and 510 times this year. Please note... regulars of vanmega who I know and love, you still have to send an email in order to get a copy of the almanac too.
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