For the 2012 iTunes Music Festival, 65 acts (including
P!nk,
One Direction,
David Guetta ,
Jessie J,
OneRepublic,
Ellie Goulding,
Andrea Bocelli,
Matchbox Twenty,
Muse and many others) performed at the Roundhouse in London throughout the month of September. 40 performances are available in full online.
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posted by zarq
on Dec 29, 2012 -
9 comments
The Boston Symphony Orchestra is one of the handful of orchestras for which musicians the world over will drop everything to scramble for a job, and the audition ranks among the world’s toughest job interviews. Mike Tetreault has spent an entire year preparing obsessively for this moment. He's put in 20-hour workdays, practiced endlessly and shut down his personal life. Now the percussionist has 10 minutes to impress a selection committee and stand out among a lineup of other world-class musicians. A single mistake and it's over. A flawless performance and he could join one of the world's most renowned and financially well-endowed orchestras at a salary of more than $100,000 a year.
The Audition.
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posted by zarq
on Jul 5, 2012 -
90 comments
Bands often don't seem to be able to play on stage the way they did on their album; and we accept that for a lot of reasons having to do with the conditions, the production facilities and the sheer number of takes that were probably involved. But for a whole generation of hit music, there was often a more basic reason:
it wasn't them playing on the album in the first place.
For nearly a decade, if you were an L.A. producer and you wanted to record a hit single, you'd call in The Wrecking Crew. Members of The Byrds, The Beach Boys, and The Mamas and the Papas would step aside as The Wrecking Crew laid down the instrumental tracks. Then, the members of the main band would come back to add the vocals on top.
The above link goes to the OPB radio story I listened to this morning, with an embedded player.
Official site for the book.
posted by George_Spiggott
on Apr 2, 2012 -
64 comments
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.
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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."
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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.
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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
"Kavus has got into an irritating habit of holding up his middle finger at you when you speak to him." In 2005, the
Alphabet Business Concern announced that
Cardiacs, its cult-favorite prog-punk outfit, would maintain
an online diary chronicling the band's daily goings-on. The result is a surreal, hilarous interplay between the band's personalities — childish, whiny Tim Smith, pandering narcissist Kavus Torabi, contemplative Jim Smith, and the seemingly perpetually drunk Bob "Babba" Leith.
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posted by Rory Marinich
on Oct 12, 2010 -
7 comments
Sixth-grader Jackson C. Frank was horribly burned when the boiler at his Cheektowaga, New York, elementary school
exploded March 31, 1954, killing fifteen of his classmates. While recovering from his injuries, Frank was introduced to the guitar, and the insurance settlement he received a decade later helped fund a trip to England, where he recorded his
first and only album.
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posted by Knappster
on Aug 15, 2010 -
34 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.
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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
New airline security regulations in the UK have taken their toll on the touring musicians who used to be able to take their delicate and/or rare instruments as carry-on luggage. Many are forced to either take their chances in the cargo hold or take ferries to countries with less restrictive security guidelines. Others contemplate staying home from touring completely. (via BBC)
posted by dr_dank
on Aug 22, 2006 -
40 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
