The Word posted an excellent list of 40 Noises That Built Pop. Essentially it backs up the argument made in Everything is a Remix I talked about last week: some genres lean heavily on the same noises. Though strictly speaking it’s not sampling, how could you ever hear a dubstep song without that distinct wubwubwub, gospel (or seventies rock) without a leslie speaker or gabber without a distorted Roland 909 kick. We all imitate, alter and progress music.
For people who liked RiP: a Remix Manifesto, I can also recommend Kirby Ferguson’s 4-part documentary Everything is a Remix. You can see part 1, part 2 and part 3 on Vimeo. Part 4 is scheduled for Autumn. If you watch them, wait till after the credits. And if you like it, make a donation.
Jim Morrison in 1970:
“One person with a lot of machines, tapes and electronics”
I could say he was talking about me, but really he’s talking about a LOT of people who make music these days.
Stadiums? Concert Halls? No, you don’t need a whole lot of space to play one of the most epic songs in history. A car is just big enough:
I visited the Utrecht edition of the Muzikantendag and like previous years it was veeery interesting, especially when you don’t have the stress of dropping demo’s and just enjoying the lectures.
The opening by veteran Henk Westbroek was inspiring and funny, much more so that I had suspected. It’s obvious he’s very used to the stage also when it comes to speaking out, giving a few stabs at the industry as well.
Allan Eshuis had a few interesting things to say about composition, but got into a bit of a fierce debate with a member of the audience when the topic changed to publishing. But then Allan works for the majors and is hired for writing hits, not art. Though his opinion on sharing a little to get more isn’t that far fetched either. sounds very strategic and business-like though.
He did however have a thing in common with veteran/poetic musician Thé Lau : they can both write a song around a single word that sounds great. In Thé Lau’s case he got famous for Blauw which turns out to be inspired by the blue tiles in a Greek restaurant. It turns out Thé Lau has quite an awesome encyclopedic knowledge of music too. Respect!
The Rock your English-session by Buffi Duberman was the most useful and fun of the day. She coaches Dutch bands to make their English lots less shitty both with regards to grammar and pronunciation. Apart from just having a very bubbly personality to look at, she also wraps it all up in fun games that actually get your mind going. I’m surely going to use a few of her ideas to better my English.
Niels Aalberts (EHPO), Meindert Bussink & Claire van der Hall had a discussion on Promotion 2.0 which, knowing the parties involved boils down to the simple message: get a website, be your own warm self on Twitter and Facebook and KILL YOUR MYSPACE. You can never hear that message too often.
Stefan Schmid from Zuco103 explained a little about how he produces and writes his music and how to find and keep the essence of a song, even though it’s changed on every side. Though I don’t agree with his remark that the sampling era is kinda over (pff, then I’ll just bring it back by myself!) and his style of music is not even close to mine, I do love people like him going off on these kind of musical expeditions and ending up with something that sounds great.
To top my day off, I found a singer who was at an earlier edition of the Muzikantendag years ago and whom I had heard singing. I was so intrigued by her voice back then I was hitting myself over theh ead I had never figured out what band she was playing in. I got a card from her, turns out she’s in The Kroons. Ah, my mind is at ease now.
Oh and on the way to the station ,unconnected to the Muzikantendag, there was a guerilla party going on for a dance festival. Dudes just parked truck with speakers near the lawn and a crowd that was already gathered danced to it. A single policeman on a bike turned up and it was obvious there was nothing he could do to stop this. Lucky for him the guerilla gig by then was pretty much over anyhow and every one went home, including me. It was a great day for music.
Wow. Just wow. Never seen so many classic synths in one video:
No Casios though or did I blink?
I blinked. I saw a Casio. :D
I attended the EHPO Jongerendag, by Dutch blogger/music professional Niels Aalberts. The event was both intended as lecture on how to promote your band and also a launch event for his book Doorbraak. I got quite few good ideas from it and if anything it was entertaining at least to hear all the people struggling with similar problem. One central question: how do you get your band to make a breakthrough? The biggest obvious, but also best answer: hard work. Do it. Be there, point people to the right place: YOUR place.
I must confess I kept my my interaction to a minimum, where other people were quite vocal, for a good reason: I have nothing to sell just yet. That’s why I asked him to sign my copy of the book with “Who?“. No one or at least very little people know me, what I do or my music. And that’s okay for now. So long as I put some serious work into doing something about it. And if any thing, the afternoon did inspire me to do just that. That’s why I love these lectures. They help me get focus on what I was trying to do in the first place.
– to be continued –
I spoke too soon in my previous post. I said: “This means the crazy situation arises that tickets for a festival like Lowlands held at the end of August 2011, might likely be sold out already before half December“. I got it wrong. When 45000 tickets went on sale today at 11:00, they were sold out in 2 hours (Dutch source). The regular tickets at least, not all of the 10000 special discount tickets are sold out, but those are only for people who have a special pass. Last year it took 8 days and by then a few names playing were already known. Not a single name has been confirmed yet for 2011.
I will be there, by the way, I made it in time. Each year I keep thinking I should buy a few extra tickets to sell to those who were late But if I see the online auction sites where people are already trying to sell extra tickets for €400 to €1000 even (original prices were €155), I’m glad I don’t. I don’t want to be one of those sleazy scalpers. Besides, with todays digital tickets there’s way too much risk that if you buy a ticket from an unreliable source, it’s going to be an invalid ticket.
The current Dutch government is going to increase the VAT-tax rate (in Dutch: BTW) for performing arts in the Netherlands from 6 to 19%, starting 2011. As a result of this, there have been many protests. One of the more prominent protesters, concert organiser Mojo Concerts has been very vocal about opposing this. And for good reason cause this would mean their ticket prices (already very high) might sky-rocket some more. They have taken matters into their own hands and announced they will start pre-sales for their bigger festivals (Pinkpop, Lowlands, the Zwarte Cross) in 2010 already to evade the increase, knowing full-well the tickets will sell out before 2011.
This means the crazy situation arises that tickets for a festival like Lowlands held at the end of August 2011, might likely be sold out already before half December , since the tickets go on sale this Friday the 26th. The tickets for the 2010 edition sold out in 8 days in the pre-sales. Mind you,when those sold out, only a handful of artists had been confirmed. This Friday, not a single name has been confirmed yet.
What prompted me to post this entry might be an even more astounding record. Singer-song writer Ane Brun announced on her Facebook page that tickets for her concert in Amsterdam will go on sale on the 27th of November … for a concert on the 18th of October 2011. That’s a little under 11 months in advance. There is no mention on whether this is related to the tax rise, but my gut instinct says it is. Will any venue break the record by starting pre-sales for a concert in December 2011?
It is interesting to see what happened after Quit MySpace Day. From the looks of it on Twitter, a lot of people either quit MySpace or had something to say about it. I think that’s more important than people just leaving their accounts dormant or taking it for granted. Perhaps MySpace will notice, though I doubt it. Let’s see what people said.
Steve Lawson explains why he quit MySpace and mentions something a lot of people we’re saying: “Oh you’re just doing it to be cool”. He rightfully point out it’s not about being cool but re-evaluating whether the site has any added benefit or is just a waste of time.
Mr. Tunes is one of the people who thought about it and said “no, I’m not quitting“. Oddly though he lists all the reasons why you should quit, even mentions he hasn’t used the site in two years and continues to say the one reason he keeps his accounts is for the contacts. Honestly, if I wanted to keep a list of contacts, I would not rely on MySpace to maintain that list for me. I’d make one myself. He points out that indeed a lot of promoters and such still ask for people’s MySpace, but that’s a sstupid reason to keep MySpace, if you can just as easily send then to BandCamp or SoundCloud or better yet: your own site.
Andy Derrick seems most fervently opposed to the idea of quitting MySpace. While he seems greatly offended by Andrew Dubber’s idea, he also doesn’t have seem to have read what Dubber has posted. Apart from the fore-mentioned argument that promoters seem to love MySpace, his argument mostly revolves around “don’t do what some bloke tells you to”. He mentions he has a wide web-presence and I agree, but that doesn’t mean you can be selective about which sites you do and don’t want to be on. Personally I think it’s clever to discover your own place and decide not to invest time in a site that costs you more than it gives back.
Of course you could also go the clever route like Little Things That Kill did. They didn’t delete their MySpace, they simply put up a big warning saying MySpace is dead and you should go look them up elsewhere.
Musformation.com comes with a potentially good reason to keep your MySpace: Google ratings. For most bands their MySpace will either come in first or second when you look them up on Google. Still that seems like an odd argument, because if you have a good band name and you don’t have a MySpace, wouldn’t your own site make it to the top automatically. Unless you call your band “The Paris Hilton’s” of course, good luck staying on top.
Other site’s mentioning the Quit MySpace Day are DIYMusician (also mentioning the Google & promoter argument), Eerste Hulp bij Plaatopnamen (in Dutch), Jeroen Mirck (in Dutch), Hypebot, Netwaves and Wayne Meyer (who has written a good piece about it too; “I can quit any time I like. Honest.”)
I think as far as starting the discussion about the use of MySpace, Quit MySpace Day was a great success and remains to be. The ultimate irony is that a few days after, MySpace announces it’s rolling out an overhaul of the entire website. Not a coincidence I’m sure, but makes you wonder.