garry's posterous - Filed under 'music'

I am kind of addicted to Cass McCombs right now, like a Beatles + Ryan Adams + refrigerator. Chill.

I'm really digging this new album by Cass McCombs... Just really really relaxing guitar ballads and riffs. Cass McCombs adds a retro bassline to a very sweet song on Dreams-Come-True-Girl. Jonesy Boy is like if you dropped a bunch of ice cubes on top of vintage 70's Beatles.

It's retro alt country / indie rock... some songs pick up some of the modern rhythmic repetition of Interpol and others, but still others have a down-home electric guitar twanging away.

Good for a mellow mood. Which we could all use more of these days.

Filed under // music

Comments (3)

Posted 11 days ago

Quelqu'un m'a dit

I’m told that our lives aren’t worth much,
They pass like an instant, like wilting roses.
I’m told that time slipping by is a bastard
Making its coat of our sorrows.
Yet someone told me…

That you still loved me
Someone told me…
That you still loved me.
Well ? Could that be possible?

I’m told that fate makes fun of us,
That it gives us nothing and promises everything,
When happiness seems to be within our reach,
We reach out and find ourselves like fools.
Yet someone told me…

That you still loved me
Someone told me…
That you still loved me.
Well ? Could that be possible?

Well ? Could that be possible?

So who said that you still loved me?
I don’t remember any more, it was late at night,
I can still hear the voice, but I can no longer see the face,
“He loves you, it’s secret, don’t tell him I told you.”
You see, someone told me

That you still loved me
Did someone really tell me?
That you still loved me
Well, could that be possible?

I’m told that our lives aren’t worth much,
Passing in an instant, like wilting roses,
I’m told that time slipping by is a bastard,
Making its coat of our sadnesses.

That you still loved me
Someone told me…
That you still loved me.
Well ? Could that be possible?

Filed under // music

Comments (7)

Posted 1 month ago

Guitar Hero 5 is coming out. Artists are even now still skeptical?

via news.cnet.com

In the case of Arctic Monkeys, Riley explained, it took multiple visits with the band to show them demos and explain what the Guitar Hero franchise is all about to get permission.

This is pretty shocking. Some bands should be paying Neversoft to get placement into Guitar Hero 5, not nickel and diming and hemming and hawing over *allowing* Neversoft to use their music. Getting listed = guaranteed placement and listening by millions of music fans. These people love guitar rock-- love it enough to fill their living rooms with cheap plastic approximations of musical instruments. That's about as targeted as you can get.

It goes to show that in crazy media times like these, many people don't even really know which way the value chain flows. Maybe because now it flows both ways.

Filed under // music new media video games

Comments (5)

Posted 2 months ago

Music video transcends the walled boxes of our webcams

via laughingsquid.com

Japanese band Sour features some very imaginative use of webcam footage by their fans. It's like those coordinated crowd card stunts that you see at football games... only much nerdier.

Filed under // creativity music music video

Comments (11)

Posted 3 months ago

If I had more hours in the day, I would want to do more music and portrait photography

via garrytanphoto.smugmug.com

Like this one of my friend Mike and the band he is lead guitarist for -- The Fancy Dan Band. Must have been over a year ago!

Portrait photography is about capturing that kernel of humanity. It's the hardest to do well, but the most rewarding by far. Makes me sad my SLR is sitting alone on a shelf.

But there are many other things to be created in the meantime.

Filed under // music photography

Comments (10)

Posted 3 months ago

I need some relaxation, and this song brings it to me.

no one will ever find me
you will look for five more days
you will trawl the city night
then you'll make yourself forget me
ill fade into the halflight
i am gone...

--The Vanishing, Stars

The Vanishing by Stars

(download)

Filed under // music

Comments (7)

Posted 4 months ago

Zai Beijing by Yin Tsang (隐藏)

After some searching I finally found the song featured in the NY Times video in my last post. Its catchy beat turns out to be a looped sample from an erhu, a Chinese musical instrument I remember writing a report about in Chinese school as a kid.

Yin Ts'ang's first hit was “In Beijing,” from the band's 2003 debut album, “Serve the People” (Scream Records); the title is a twist on an old political slogan. It sets a melody played on a thousand-year-old Chinese fiddle called the 'Erhu' against a hip-hop beat that brings Run D.M.C. to mind. The song, an insider's look at Beijing's sights and sounds, took the underground music scene by storm, finding its way into karaoke parlours, the Internet and even the playlist of a radio station in Beijing.

...

Some Chinese rappers address what they see as the country's most glaring injustices. As Wong Li, a 24-year-old from Dongbei, says in one of his freestyle raps:

“Don’t you know China is only a heaven for rich old men
You know this world is full of corruption
Babies die from drinking milk..."

Wong, who became interested in hip-hop when he heard Public Enemy in the mid-'90s, said rapping helps him deal with bitterness that comes with realising he is one of the millions left out of China's economic boom.

“All people care about is money,” he said. “If you don't have money, you're treated like garbage. And if you're not local to the city you live in, people discriminate against you; they give you the worst jobs to do.”

Welcome To Beijing by 隐藏

(download)

Read more about the group at thedailystar.net...

Yin Tsang is also has a myspace page.

Filed under // Beijing hip hop music

Comments (3)

Posted 9 months ago

Zai Beijing -- NYTimes covers Chinese hip hop

via NYTimes

I'm really digging the NYTimes video section.

Filed under // Beijing hip hop music

Comment (1)

Posted 9 months ago

Broken Social Scene is a Canadian supergroup according to wikipedia.

Canadian Indie hipsters unite. Broken Social Social Scene rocks! If wikipedia calls them a supergroup, then you know its true. It's been peer reviewed by wikipedia's finest. Also, check out the new Posterous audio player...

Pacific Theme by Broken Social Scene

(download)

Filed under // music

Comments (10)

Posted 9 months ago

In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, inspired by Anne Frank

Neutral Milk Hotel is basically the definition of indie. But I'm really digging the sound. Following the success of their album of the same name, their lead singer Jeff Mangum has rarely been seen playing in public.

According to wikipedia: "It is a spiritually motivated work conceptually based on the beauty to be found in the horrific fate of Anne Frank."

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I am kind of addicted to Cass McCombs right now, like a Beatles + Ryan Adams + refrigerator. Chill.

Quelqu'un m'a dit

Guitar Hero 5 is coming out. Artists are even now still skeptical?

Music video transcends the walled boxes of our webcams

If I had more hours in the day, I would want to do more music and portrait photography

I need some relaxation, and this song brings it to me.

Zai Beijing by Yin Tsang (隐藏)

Zai Beijing -- NYTimes covers Chinese hip hop

Broken Social Scene is a Canadian supergroup according to wikipedia.

In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, inspired by Anne Frank