Even the Dance Parade 360 has been killed off now. A press release was issued stating that the due to disappointing pre-sales the event was cancelled. In other press releases it was made clear that the event will no longer be held in Rotterdam. Though it’s not clear whether they mean “ever at all”, it also implies they’re thinking of organising it elsewhere. The question is: who will have them? Then again, the North Sea Jazz festival was once persuaded to leave The Hague and come to Rotterdam, so who knows.

Still, my previous statement still stands: there’s no use keeping it on life support. The Dance Parade is dead.

It’s fairly common that the same song gets sampled and used by multiple artists, but there’s one example in which this led to a bit of controversy. To today’s generation Isaac Hayes is best known as Chef from Southpark, but right up to his death in 2008 he was also an accomplished musician. One of the songs on his double album Black Moses is Ike’s Rap II.

In 1995 two artists from the same genre released nearly identical songs using the exact same sample: Portishead – Glory Box and Tricky – Hell is around the corner. Other people used the same sample, but the connections between these tracks are numerous. Geoff Barrow, who founded Portishead, worked at the same studio’s Massive Attack recorded. Tricky in turn collaborated a lot with Massive Attack in the early days. And all three were part of the ‘Bristol scene’.

While it’s been suggested that both artists coincidentally used the same sample, I refuse to believe it was merely a coincidence. If you listen to the original, it’s hard to make out exactly where the sample was lifted from and if both had been sampling the same track they could’ve used any part of the song, yet both used exactly the same bit. While Tricky’s track was released earlier, Glory Box had been written first. Undoubtedly there’s been some sharing (or stealing?) of samples, but both artists seem content on letting it be.

Here’s the original track:

It’s not just time to not log into MySpace any more, it’s time you delete your account.

Let’s be honest. Despite MySpace having just about every band you’d ever like on there, the website itself is a piece of crap. Always has been. And so is it’s functioning as a social website. Nevermind that the design still looks like someone hand-coded it in his mom’s basement, nevermind the fact that whoever designed it missed Interface Design class 101, nevermind that there’s better social sites and music related sites to be on. Those are not the reasons to leave MySpace and never have been, else you would have done so long ago.

Let’s look at the reason you are on there. All your friends are on there and so are all your favourite band, sharing their scoops and music. That’s about it. So you are there too. Understandable. You can handle the  add-requests from random idiots you never met before who then continue to spam your list with their new releases and parties you’re never goin to attend. But there’s something bigger going on. And it affects you.

Obviously already knew that media mogul Ruport Murdoch (also launched Fox News, just saying) bought MySpace years ago for $580 million and he intended to make billions with it. And you’ve probably already experiencing that you’re Facebook account is more active and interesting than your old Myspace account you hardly ever log into. And you’d be right, several sources already made pretty graphs of the steady decline in MySpace’s market share and user base. Despite them desperately launching new gizmo’s like a ticketing service and a music subscription service (not yet, but ‘soon’). Also, MySpace has made a $150 million loss and Rupert Murdoch calls it a big mistake. But that’s business, that doesn’t affect you, the user, right? Wrong.

A Financial Times article from December last year entitled The Rise and Fall of MySpace, though lengthy, paints the picture clearly. Behind the scenes, the ‘financial people’ and the people who created MySpace (Tom, you probably know him cause you never deleted that first friend who automatically added you) have always argued. But MySpace is on a short leash from its owners and they are not interested in rolling out new features and improvements. They are interested in profit, or at the moment, not making a loss. Which means ad revenues need to go up and spending on ‘hip new features’ down. They’ve already admitted defeat in the race against Facebook and in June last year fired 30% of its staff. My prediction: more ads on MySpace and stuff you need to click through and don’t want. In short, it’s not going to get better, not on the user-side any way.

And that’s exactly what Andrew Dubber demanded in his post Happy ‘Quit MySpace’ Day. In October 2009 he summed up what was wrong with MySpace and demanded it would be remade from the ground up to utilize its ace card: the fact that the website has every band in the known universe on it. Although he is in no position as a single user to make demands, he declared the 24th of October ‘Quit MySpace’ Day. If MySpace is the same piece of crap by then as it was a year ago, he (and I) would like to ask you to quit your account on Myspace. Because that would take away MySpace’s biggest asset: you, the user, the customer. All your favourite bands and friends won’t die, they’ll just go elsewhere. To some place better.

Don’t just stop logging into MySpace, but delete your account completely. Of course, you’re completely free to do that right now if you have no hope left, but if you have a flair for the dramatic do it on the 24th of October. Mark your calender, don’t forget to celebrate Quit MySpace Day.  Even if you have already quit.

An interesting story surrounds the soundtrack of the otherwise rightfully forgotten film The Adventurers (1970). The music for the soundtrack is by Antonio Carlos Jobim and is arranged and conducted by Eumir Deodato (remember this name!).  In the same year famous producer/composer  Quincy Jones decided to re-score the whole thing and produced his own funked up version of the album. It was recorded by  the Ray Brown Orchestra, featuring Tom Scott and … Eumir Deodato. On that album is the the track Go Down Dying, which you can hear in the YouTube clip below. You’ll instantly recognise the intro as the main theme from Björk’s 1993 track Human Behaviour. Even though apparently there was some initial fuss about the usage of the sample, things seem to have been straightened out fine. Cause guess who ended up remixing the Björk song Isobel from her next album and did most of the orchestral arrangements for the album she did after that; Homogenic ? Yep: Eumir Deodato. Coincidentally the songs Human Behaviour, Isobel and Bachelorette (from Homogenic) are part of a trilogy of songs spanned over three albums. In a way Eumir Deodato has contributed to all three songs.

Enjoy the original Go Down Dying:

In my personal blog I already noted the demise of the FFWD Dance Parade in Rotterdam. The annual clone of the Love Parade in Berlin was Rotterdam’s annual party in the city centre, until the city government decided it was a security risk and could no longer take place in this form.

The organisers now whipped together The Dance Parade 360, what seems to be on paper a pathetic display. Instead of trucks driving through the city centre, the Zuiderpark in the South of the city will be fenced off, tickets will be sold (only pre-sale) and the trucks will basically drive around in circles in the park with ‘crowds’ behind them, from what I can tell from the website.

Most noteworthy to mention is that the most popular truck, the B2S, will not be present, nor will any form of harcore dance music. I can see why, since they don’t want any hooligan incidents, but effectively with the already poor location and strategy, it will make the FFWD just another small dance festival, hardly worth mentioning. It would be best for the organisation to call it quits for 2011, because this will be a pathetic charade. There’s no use keeping it on life support.

EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP

Not specifically music related, but certainly DYI: Graffiti artists Banksy’s film project. When will this be realeased in the Netherlands? Interesting story about this film is that he offered a piece of art to a band named Exit Through The Gift Shop Door to change their name so he could use the title. They accepted.

HOW TO DESTROY ANGELS
Rumour has it, that’s the new pet project of Trent Reznor and his wife. The sound samples on the page seem to confirm that Trent at least has to have a minor hand in this.

There’s a few interesting posts on other blogs and sites I’d like to point out for further reading. The Cult’s Ian Astbury said that he thinks what Radiohead did with their release of In Rainbows was irresponsible. Nathan Harden posts that he thinks people who share music are killing rock ‘n roll. All this criticism is based on an incorrect assumption that a restructuring of the music scene, the distribution and industry as a whole equates to killing it. Kyle Bylin has written a very good column explaining that it’s the industry that is broken.

The fact that sharing is free, doesn’t mean there is no money that can be made by honest individuals and companies. Also, at the end of the day it’s art, not a consumer product. You can sell it, but it selling it is not its purpose in life.  If any thing, it is not a bad time for rock ‘n roll at all. Unless you’re a corporate rock band.

Some great songs lean on samples of even better songs. One example is Labi Siffre’s I got the (blues). It’s a great summer night soul song, you can put on and hang back. Until about halfway through the song there’s a small break and something familiar starts up. And then you realise you’re listening to Eminem’s Hi… my name is .

For those who want to get a bit more of a feel what it’s like to play with a studio set up, Audiotool.com provides a quick webbased music studio. In the 1.0 version there’s two basic drum machines, three synths, thirteen effect boxes and some gear needed to mix it all together. You set them up in the exact same way you would with it’s real world counterparts, except now you get to do it with just your browser for free.

The problem is that Audiotool balances between what the starter might still have to learn about real hardware (how do you link all these things together) and what the pro demands (needs more gear). As such it might bridge a gap for quite a few new people  who are willing to learn and a great toy to play with for pro’s on a lazy weekend.The wait is for a new release with more gear.

More than a year ago, I already praised what the Brett Domino Trio was doing in my personal blog. He did an excellent cover of Michael Jackson’s Beat It, before Michael Jackson had even died. I’ll repeat it: the nerdy act may secretly all be a gimmick, but regardless Brett Domino & friends prove that musically even with the most simple means and instruments, you can make something made of epic win. And here he is doing it again with a medley of Justin Timberlake songs: