About six or seven years ago I was fortunate, as we sometimes are, to work along side a very talented individual who would end up becoming one of my dearest friends. At the time we were both working as assistant engineers for the same producer, and through this experience we discovered how much we had in common-both personally, and from a music/art standpoint.
Working with Josh on these projects, I came to realize how talented of a musician he was, and later decided to hire him to play drums on a couple projects I produced. All this was around 2007-2009.
And somewhere in the middle of all that Josh put together his own band-o, don piano.
Josh and o, don piano are now embarking on the journey of making their first LP, Hearts from the Songland, and are six days away from concluding a fundraising campaign through Kickstarter. [Update 8/19/11: This campaign only has mere days left at this point, as it ends on Tuesday, August 23rd.]
[Update 8/22/11: I'm happy to announce that o, don piano have reached their fundraising goals for this project. Congrats, guys!]
Crossing paths with Josh those handful of years ago was literally nothing short of a miracle, as he has opened my mind to so many new ways to think about music and production, as well as turned me on to a selection of bands, musicians, and producers that have had significant influence throughout my quest as record maker. It genuinely improved my career.
All this to say that the music Josh has created with o, don piano is the real thing-brilliant-and worth your contribution.
Which is exactly why I’ve written this blog post today. To candidly ask you to consider making a contribution to the realization of Hearts from the Songland.
Yes, I am close friends with Josh, which perhaps does make my credibility subject to a questionable bias. But as someone who works daily in the music business, I inevitably make friends with a lot of people who are in bands. Nevertheless, not everyone I’m friends with makes the same caliber of music Josh does. Which is the caliber of music that needs to be heard, the caliber of music that creates meaning, and the caliber of music that tells an honest story people resonate with.
So please take a few minutes to check out o, don piano, and if you like what you hear, consider contributing a few dollars to help them fund their Hearts from the Songland project.
Lastly, I do want to assure everyone that my motivation is pure. I in no way benefit from the making or promoting of this project. While I may end up working with the band on a future project sometime, my current motivation is to simply see this project succeed, and do my part in helping authentic music resonate with others as it has with me.
Make a contribution to Hearts from the Songland by clicking this link
Yeah, this is brilliant. Really into it. Tastefully gothic, which if you hang around me you know that I’m a wee bit goth.
Many are saying O. Children is like Joy Division. I say no (although I can see why, as I do hear just the tiniest bit of Joy Division on some tracks, like “Radio Waves”).
I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure out a more accurate comparison. That baritone timber of lead singer, Tobias, makes me remember another singer. And it’s not Ian Curtis. Thoughts?
Here’s the video for “Ruins”
Their self-titled debut album is out in two days (July 12th) on Deadly People, with a pre-order available on iTunes now.
O. Children Facebook page: www.facebook.com/ochildren
O. Children Myspace page: www.myspace.com/ochildren
Like Sonic Youth meets My Bloody Valentine. Will def put this on my “Fav Bands of 2010″ list at the end of the year. Enjoy this live performance of “Reprobate!”
Official Website: http://serena-maneesh.com/
Myspace page: www.myspace.com/serenamaneesh
I didn’t like the first single they released, “A Drowning” all that much. So when they announced that the full EP was available for download online, I didn’t feel an urgency to check it out. But yesterday a series of links clicked me to the How To Destroy Angles website, where after watching their video for “The Space in Between” (as well as a series of promotional shorts) I was inspired to grab the EP.
Upon complete listen through the EP I did find some tracks, such as “Fur Lined” and “BBB,” that I really liked.
And I think the video for “The Space in Between” is brilliant:
While I can’t say that I’m a full-on fan of this new project (I really don’t like the name How To Destroy Angels. Sounds like some silly mid-90′s hard-goth-rock band), overall I remain inspired by the way that Trent Reznor and his crew distribute and market music (again, I was really inspired by that series of promotional shorts they put together leading up to this release).
It’s not as if this track is brand new on the scene (was released in late 2009), but HEATLH is one of my favorite bands of the moment… which I’m finding much inspiration in right now… Brilliant noisy art rock.
Band website: www.healthnoise.com
Label website: www.lpurecords.com
I’ve been jamming on Janelle Monáe for a bit after a few of my Facebook friends linked to a couple of her videos last week. A modern version of soul with some hip-hop undertones, and a slightly weird twist to it all. Very inspiriting. And the dance moves are brilliant.
“Many Moons” short film
Performing “Tightrope” on Letterman
tightrope letterman live
Uploaded by yardie4lifever2. – More video blogs and vloggers.
Love the guitar line at the top of “Tightrope” – how it stops and starts over, with a sort of funky up and down motion.
A friend suggested I look up the band Wild Beasts. So I did (thanks Adam!). And I’m into them. A couple songs and videos in particular really have an aesthetic that’s exactly my kind of thing:
“The Devil’s Crayon”
Love the plucky pointed-yet-muted guitars, drenched in reverb and performing a layer of scraping riffs throughout this song.
“Hooting & Howling”
The dark, cold water theme really took me in. The general arrangement and instrumentation formed a unique listening experience for me as well. Kind of got tired of the scenery to the video about halfway in though. I did like the fact that they never went to a different set (an idea I’ve had-if I ever direct a video I’ll take this approach). However, would have helped if they did a little more within the set to change some major element about halfway through.
There’s a common semi-subtle detail in both these videos, where at times they focus on dust or small particles – oxygen/debris in the water in “Hooting & Howling” and dust coming off the snare drum at the beginning of “The Devil’s Crayon” – which inspired me. Overall, I love the way Wild Beasts approaches song arrangement/structure, instrumentation, and vocal style.
And here’s a bonus video: “We Still Got The Taste Dancin’ On Our Tongues” This one features the band floating horizontally just slightly above the ground. Again, a concept I had for a video, if I ever end up directing one. Kinda like the band is reading out of my notebook…
Wild Beasts Official Site: http://www.wild-beasts.co.uk
This comes via the Dreamboat Records blog: [http://www.dreamboatrecords.co.uk/news/2010/04/dust-cloud-video/]
Wow! I’m really into the band Bear In Heaven right now. Very creative band, both musically and tactically. They recently had issues being stranded in Madrid because of the volcanic eruptions in Iceland, and in their spare time at the Madrid Airport they created this genius video by placing their camera on the baggage claim, and setting it to their song Dust Cloud. What happened turned out to be brilliant, getting the attention of Pitchfork: [http://pitchfork.com/forkcast/14214-dust-cloud/]
A nice moment during the dust cloud from Bear In Heaven on Vimeo.
The track Dust Cloud is from the Bear In Heaven release Beast Rest Forth Mouth, and is available in vinyl+mp3 and CD formats direct from the Dreamboat Records shop, and at local record stores.
The following is a post that was originally published on 4/28/08. Due to a data loss issue producer notes suffered yesterday morning, I am republishing it today. It is the first of four posts that will be republished in an attempt to retain the integrity of producer notes.
This past weekend I went to my friend Aron Wright’s show at Portland Brew here in Nashville. It was a fantastic show featuring the intimate sounds of Aron Wright, McClain and Robby Hecht.
Visit them each on the web:
Aron Wright [www.myspace.com/aronwright]
McClain [wwwmyspace.com/tfmcclain]
Robby Hecht [www.myspace.com/robbyhecht]
But I really wanted to tell you this morning about something remarkable Aron did for the show. He set up a live video broadcast over the internet using a service called UstreamTV [www.ustream.tv] This is something that I have been planning on incorporating into the shows that Radical Notion promotes. I knew I would be able to set up a live broadcast of audio, but being able to offer video was something that I was still brainstorming. So it goes without saying that I’m very fired up about this service. Look for our live broadcasts in the near future here: [www.ustream.tv/RadicalNotion]
Check out Aron Wright’s broadcasts here: [www.ustream.tv/aronwright]
Anyone else already using UstreamTV? I would love to see what you are up to. Post links to your broadcasts in the comments below.
Here are some blogs/articles I have stumbled across over the past couple of weeks. I subscribed up to these blogs, and I suggest you do to. It’s priceless information written by some of the best music business thinkers/marketers.
[http://sivers.org] Derek Sivers’ blog, the founder of CD Baby
[http://newmusicstrategies.com/?p=508] Came across this from a link on Derek Sivers’ blog. The article is written by Andrew Dubber as a post on his blog. Great perpective on piracy vs. sharing, and how it really fits into our industry.
[www.openp2p.com/lpt/a/3015] Another great article about piracy that Derek Sivers linked to on his blog. This one is written by Tim O’Reilly.
[www.musicthinktank.com/blog] A great new music business blog that has multiple authors all sharing very thought provoking ideas, and building a community around those thoughts. Authors include: Andrew Dubber, Derek Sivers, Bob Baker, Ariel Hyatt and plenty of others.
[www.futureofmusicbook.com] I googed Paul McGuiness because I wanted to read the speach he made at Cannes. I ended up at Dave Kusek’s blog. He and Gerd Leonhard co-wrote the book [The Future Of Music: Manifesto for the Digital Music Revolution] Oh yeah, and he posted a [full transcript] of the Paul McGuiness speech.
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