Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune - excellent 90-minute documentary of the trenchant folk performer who chronicled civil rights, politics, and the Viet Nam War until death by his own hand in 1976. Although he never achieved widespread popular acclaim, many found him to be the true voice of his generation - with themes that are sadly still relevant today. Just a musical taste to whet your appetite:
Love Me, I'm a Liberal.
[more inside]
posted by madamjujujive
on Feb 26, 2012 -
34 comments
What should you drink? Take your cues from the tunes. That's the premise behind
Drinkify, a scrappy little webapp that recommends drinks based on what you're listening to. Their motto? "Never listen to music alone again."
[more inside]
posted by Diagonalize
on Nov 7, 2011 -
112 comments
John Hammond Jr. has been keeping classic blues alive through nearly 5 decades of expressive performing and recording. He was named to the Blues Hall of Fame this year - here's a sampling why:
Walking Blues performed in Paris, 2004;
Come Into My Kitchen performed at at Fur Peace Ranch, 2009.
[more inside]
posted by madamjujujive
on Aug 25, 2011 -
11 comments
Meaghan Smith took an unusual route to the music business. She can't read music, for one thing. She went to school to study animation for another. Yet, along the way, she took her hobby of playing the guitar to work with her, giving impromptu performances of her songs in the stairwell of the animation building for her friends. One thing lead to another, and she just won the Pop Album of the Year at the
East Coast Music Awards in Canada for her recording called "The Cricket's Orchestra."
Her sound is a mixture of the music of the 20s 30s and 40s with the pop songs of today.
Her videos often feature animation. A good place to start is
"A Little Love" and also
"I Know." Her song
"Here Comes Your Man" was featured in the film 500 Days of Summer.
She is also a pretty good
artist!
posted by Quasimike
on Jun 2, 2011 -
25 comments
The Jazz Loft Project - From 1957 to 1965, celebrated photojournalist W. Eugene Smith made 4,000 hours of surreptitious recordings and took 40,000 photographs in a loft in Manhattan's wholesale flower district where Roland Kirk, Thelonius Monk, Hall Overton, Charles Mingus and other jazz greats jammed until dawn. Archived in the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, the project is now accessible via a book, a traveling exhibit, a
10-part Jazz Loft series on WNYC,
NPR's Jazz Loft Project Sights & Sounds, and an interview with
JLP author Sam Stephenson, which includes some images from the book. Via a
Grain Edit post, which also has some great images.
[more inside]
posted by madamjujujive
on Jan 3, 2010 -
21 comments
Guitar Noise is a free guitar lesson website with hundreds of
articles, tips and reviews for students of this versatile instrument. Whether you are a beginner, a lefty, a bass player or a singer, Guitar Noise has
lessons on nearly everything and anything to do with the guitar. There are many talented musicians out there. The
artist profiles section includes interviews with dozens. The
forums,
blog and
podcasts help you keep up with this thriving community.
posted by netbros
on Feb 23, 2009 -
11 comments
The Indie Band Survival Guide: A fantastic, free, 101 pages collection of useful information for musicians - covers topics such as recording, copyright, major label contracts, commercial radio, promoting your music, band websites, distribution, filesharing and live shows.
posted by Ira.metafilter
on Feb 25, 2007 -
9 comments
If you can stomach (and run) Windows Media Player and are a musician*, perhaps you might find
the Muse On Visualizer somewhat interesting. It attempts to extract chord names from the music stream and display them realtime. Then again, maybe you are looking to
experiment with chords and music theory or else
figure out what you've been banging out.
* Yes, I realize +1 of you probably have problems with one or the other of these. Deal. Also, MuseOn is more fun-toy than genius-spot-on-makes-TABs-for-you.
posted by Ogre Lawless
on Jan 25, 2007 -
16 comments
For most musicians, it's difficult to pinpoint a particular event that forever sullied their image and destroyed their popularity. For 80's rocker
Billy Squier, however, the
reason is
clear. [YouTube]
posted by starkeffect
on Aug 11, 2006 -
79 comments
Things ain't what they used to be. Blues, jazz, Cajun and country music great Clarence
Gatemouth Brown
dies at 81. Brown safely evacuated his home in Slidell, but was said to be broken hearted by the devastation wreaked by Katrina on his beloved Louisiana.
Alligator bio (sound alert).
posted by madamjujujive
on Sep 11, 2005 -
31 comments
Deep inside the poetic stylings of John Bon Jovi. To begin, I'd like to look at the opening verses of "Bed of Roses". You may think you understand the meaning behind this poem - that John Bon Jovi likes a lady, and is upset about it. This is just a sign of the brilliant, interweaving complexity of Bon Jovi. You can love the poem at that level, and many have, but let's go... inside.[
Coral Link - In case the other doesn't work]
posted by KevinSkomsvold
on Feb 23, 2005 -
23 comments
Hello, MUDDA. "The relationship of artist to the business has most often been one of contract and servitude. We believe the way forward must be a partnership in which the artist can take a much bigger role in how their creations are sold, but also have the chance to stand at the front of the queue when payments are made instead of the traditional position of being paid long after everyone else." -
Peter Gabriel
posted by eustacescrubb
on Aug 11, 2004 -
8 comments
Son of a Bluesman The legend was that if you touched
Robert Johnson you could feel the
talent running through
him, like heat,
put there by the devil on a dark
Delta crossroad in exchange for his soul. It is why
Claud Johnson's grandparents would not let him out of the house that day in 1937 when Robert Johnson, his father, strolled into the yard. "They told my daddy they didn't want no part of him. They said he was working for the devil. I stood in the door, and he stood on the ground, and that is as close as I ever got to him. He wandered off, and I never saw him again."
Today, in the working-class neighborhood where he raised his children, Claud Johnson, a rich man, lives in a grand house on 47 acres of property. (After Claud won his court battle in 1998 and was recognized as the son of the blues legend, his lawyer handed him a six-figure cashier's check and begged him to quit hauling gravel. Claud kept hauling gravel for five months. "After 29 years, it just gets in your blood").
His victory stands out in the annals of Mississippi probate law. It took 10 years, two trips to the State Supreme Court and two trips to the U.S. Supreme Court. Not to mention, most of the first two or three generations of blues musicians died without securing rights to their composition. Explains Thomas Freeland, a Mississippi attorney and blues historian: when the San Francisco-based band the Grateful Dead
recorded songs by the
North Carolina blues musician
Elizabeth Cotten, Freeland said, "the story is,
[she] bought a dishwasher with the royalties."
(more inside)
posted by matteo
on Jun 2, 2004 -
13 comments
The great studio drummer
Steve Gadd
is of the most important musicians of the 1970's. Gadd brought bassist
Tony Levin
(Buddy Rich, Paul Simon, John Lennon, Peter Gabriel, King Crimson) into the business in New York 30 years ago, and that alone is enough to secure a place in history. You may remember his
unforgettable groove
on "50 Ways To Leave Your Lover", one of many brilliant contributions Gadd made to
classics of the 70's pop charts
posted by crunchburger
on May 7, 2004 -
30 comments
The Greatest Week in Rock History (Salon link) - 34 years ago today, Billboard Charts had a outstanding album lineup - perhaps not the best albums ever, but for a single point in time, arguably unmatched for quality, originality, and longevity. Take a look back at the roster:
the Beatles,
Led Zeppelin,
Tom Jones,
Creedence Clearwater Revival,
the Stones,
Santana,
the Temptations,
Blood Sweat & Tears,
Crosby Stills & Nash, and
Easy Rider.
posted by madamjujujive
on Dec 20, 2003 -
53 comments
They've booked arenas, and have an announcement scheduled for Tuesday.
Simon and Garfunkel, together for their first tour since '93 (if they don't get into an argument first). I'd suggest those interested get a ticket for one of the early shows, just to be safe...
posted by ehintz
on Sep 7, 2003 -
29 comments
"The roots of Hip Hop Culture will no longer be ignored. Hip Hop's pioneer MC's, DJ's, B-boys and Graffiti Artists finally get to tell their stories. Travel with the real Hip Hop historians (Ralph McDaniels, DJ Red Alert, Grandmaster Caz, Kool Herc) through their old stomping grounds and listen to them reminisce as we drive down memory lane.
Hush Tours takes you to all the hot spots Uptown (Harlem and the Bronx) giving Hip Hop Culture more than a venue... also a voice."
posted by monkeymike
on May 29, 2003 -
10 comments
gigposters -- a collection of posters created by artists and musicians to advertise their shows and events.
posted by lilboo
on Mar 27, 2003 -
4 comments
I Hate Music is a page devoted to scathing commentary on popular music and the musicians who make it. The author let's loose such gems as:
Face it, every single note of music ever committed to paper, vinyl, CD, zeroes and ones sucks harder than Linda Lovelace in a sucking competition with a black hole. There is absolutely nothing going for music. It just plain sucks. (found here)
Don't miss out on the very comprehensive
archives.
posted by ashbury
on Feb 12, 2003 -
23 comments
The Pakistani Sufi-Rock band
Junoon have released their new English single "No More" which remembers the innocent victims of 9/11 and terrorism everywhere. Penned by
Polar Livine of Polarity 1 and
Salman Ahmad of Junoon the song can be heard/downloaded at the
Junoon Website along with they lyrics.
They might not be household names in the US but they are big in the subcontinent and elsewhere. They have appeared on US media many times including
NPR took a deeper look in their role in presenting another face of Pakistan.
Together Salman Ahmed,
Brian'o'Connell, and
Ali Azmat have relentlessly called for
peace between India & Pakistan and raised enough controversy domestically to be banned by several "Democratic" governments in Pakistan.
posted by adnanbwp
on Sep 11, 2002 -
8 comments
John B Spencer died in March. He was 57 though the first time I saw him in about 1986 he looked about 86 so his early demise isn't that much of a surprise.
No one will have heard of him but he was brilliant. Truly brilliant, in that he lit up all around him and inspired the pathetic likes of me. Read his lyrics, hear his albums and just sit and wonder at the genius of the public to ignore such talent. Sorry, my blog doesn't appear to be publishing and I didn't want his death to go unremarked.
Google doesn't offer much but
this is good enough.
posted by Fat Buddha
on Jul 12, 2002 -
1 comment
"If I don't do this, who can?" Courtney Love, a unionist? She may be the only one to put the Music Industry to task, and challenge practices that enslave struggling artists, turning shining stars into short-lived comets. That is, provided she doesn't just settle out of court. D'ya think she can do it? Or is this just more smoke & mirrors?
posted by ZachsMind
on Jun 8, 2001 -
22 comments
