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[ 3 Comments ]Posted on December 8, 2009 by admin in Music
Tuesday, December 8th, 2009You may have heard dj BC’s Christmas mashups, but this year hebrews up a new mix that will help you feel like less of a menorah-ty. And to all you Christmas revelers who feel threatened: Chill. Your songs were all written by Jews anyway.
We’ve all gotten so used to the fact that the first songs you hear on the radio three minutes after midnight on Halloween are either “White Christmas” or “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” that we probably don’t even think about what it’s like to be Jewish around Christmas time. Sure, there’s Hanukkah, but it’s kind of a minor holiday, and historically didn’t have too many catchy pop tunes associated with it. Which frankly is a little odd, because a surprising number of songs that are considered Christmas classics were written by Jewish songwriters. Including the two just mentioned. Expanding on the list just linked to (and offering some free downloads), you might also check out Jewish You A Merry Christmas. But we’ve come a long way since the days when the only hip Jewish holiday songs out there were Adam Sandler’s Chanukah Song and Sarah Silverman’s Give The Jew Girl Toys. We’ve mentioned dj BC’s Santastic Christmas mashups before, but this year hebrews up a new mix with Menorah Mashup, so if you are Jewish, maybe you won’t feel like such a menorah-ty this holiday season. And it has the added Jewish appeal that not only do you not pay retail, you pay nothing at all! It’s a free download. If this were a commercial release though, the obvious single would be “Challahback Girl”, a mashup of Gwen Stefani’s “Hollaback Girl” and Frank Yankovick doing “Hava Nagila”. So dj BC has graciously provided an additional remix collection that includes both “Orthodox” and “Reform” mixes. That Menorah Mashup link above has the free download links, but if you want to preview the tunes, Exstatica.net has kindly provided the tunes as streams. Chappy Chanukah!
Pitchfork Media’s 50 Best Albums of 2009 ?
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on December 2, 2009 by admin in Music
Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009No, it’s not here yet. Have suggestions for another cool source of indy music? In the meantime we’ll amuse ourselves with insane infographics that break down Pitchfork’s lists in bizarre detail.
 Visit Pitchfork Media |
It’s time once again for me to start drooling as I await the Pitchfork Media 50 Best Albums of 2009. The annoying thing about one of the best of the “best of 2009″ music lists is that they won’t post it until it’s almost 2010! Until then, we’ll have to endure the inevitable mind-numbing assault of year-end “best of” lists from thousands of other sources. It took me awhile to figure out what exactly it was about Pitchfork’s list that draws me in and basically dictates my listening habits for about three months of the year: it’s the fact that every year, I utterly and completely disagree with about half of it! In their staff’s striving for uber-hipness, they end up exploring the remote fringes of pop that even weirdos like me are unwilling to embrace. Along the way though, I’m forced to listen to indy acts that otherwise wouldn’t have crossed my radar. The problem with lists like NPR’s Best Music Of 2009 (So Far) or Paste Magazine’s lists with the same name is that whether it’s poll-driven like NPR’s list, or staff-selected as in the case of Paste’s, they’re both from mid-year! They also tend to be topped with obvious choices like Animal Collective’s “My Girls”
Rubber Band Seeks Balloon Bassist, Air Guitarists Need Not Apply
[ Comments Off ]Posted on November 24, 2009 by admin in Music
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009Meet Addi Somekh, probably the world’s only combination balloon bassist & globetrotting air hat haberdasher.
The Making of “Air, Rubber and Soul” |
If Addi Somekh seems to come across with an inflated sense of self satisfaction, it’s probably okay; as an artist and musician, he’s taking balloons to new heights. Recently a clip called Balloon Bass and Box has been getting a lot of attention in the YouTubian Twitterverse. In the clip, two guys play a song, one playing “balloon bass” and the other playing a wooden box. Pretty amusing in itself, but what no-one seems to do is dig a little deeper and share what a genius this guy Addi Somekh really is. You might call it a bit of a stretch to call a balloon bassist a legitimate musician, but you’d be sadly mistaken in this case. The clip at left is a “making of” video about his new Balloon Bass based album “Air, Rubber and Soul”, which he’s made available for free download at (Warning: site annoyingly resizes your browser) BalloonBass.com. Although I doubt he’ll generate download numbers like NIN or Radiohead, I’d recommend giving it a listen. Although it’s a little diverse stylistically, it has a quirky jazz heart that’s maybe a little reminscent of say, the Lounge Lizards. It features Addi on balloon bass, and has some genuinely solid tunes recorded with a number of his favorite jazz session musicians sitting in. But there’s a lot more to this guy than an inflatable bass. He has a pretty amusing YouTube “show” called InflatableMinute, in which he explores his and other balloon artists’ work (see the Rubber Tree Quartet clip below), and he also has pursued a global project called Balloon Hat, in which he travels around the globe making balloon hats and taking beautiful photos of them on the heads of people that have in some cases probably never even seen a balloon, let a lone a balloon hat. The juxtaposition can be be an odd combination of comical and beautiful (see photos below) and somehow convey a clear message of human love. Read the rest of this entry »
There’s More To Frankie Goes To Hollywood Than Frankie & Hollywood
[ 2 Comments ]Posted on November 17, 2009 by admin in Music
Tuesday, November 17th, 2009Frankie Say: Okay, you can quit relaxing now, it’s time to come up with a new style kids.
  Frankie’s Greatest Hits. There weren’t many, but they left a mark, so to speak. |
Something happened in the 80′s. I’m not sure what, but it hasn’t happened much since then. As easy as it is to make fun of the hair, fashion, and music of the era, the simple fact is that pop music hasn’t changed much since then. I present as evidence Exhibit A, the 2009 25th anniversary remix of Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s Relax. 25 years later, the song is still marketable, and still gets heavy exposure in movies, ads, and clubs. The remix? They raised the tempo about 20 BPM, and electronified the bassline a bit. The casual listener might not notice the difference, except that it feels even less soulful than the original. Even the visuals look 80′s. If you were doing a 60′s tribute in the 80′s it would’ve been obvious from the fashion, but the fact is that frankly, clubbers look the same in 2009 as they did back then. One thing that I think made a big difference is that a lot of genres that popped up in the 80′s (and have been remixed and recombined repeatedly since then) were actually the calculated results of just a few British production teams, specifically Trevor Horn’s label ZTT Records, Factory Records, and 4AD. Almost every pop music trend since then can be traced directly to a band produced by these labels. Frankie Goes To Hollywood, for instance, was a rather hollow-sounding Liverpool club band that Trevor Horn elevated to epic and orchestral levels with an elaborate production method and provocative, politically-driven marketing. Their couple of hits launched an entire movement of gay pride, and a musical style to go with it. Watch this interview (also below) to see FGTH performing Relax prior to Trevor Horn. You’ll also get some background on the controversy about the song’s sexual content, which got them banned from the BBC. Which in turn allowed them to chart in the top 20 on the recording’s release date. They also briefly discuss the Reagan vs Chernenko wrestling match in the song Two Tribes. For those of you who don’t recall, it was a commonly held belief at the time that the nuclear apocalypse would be caused by one of these two doddering old eccentric leaders simply losing it one day. Little did we suspect we’d be watching an aging, Liberace-like Holly Johnson reliving it all 25 years later. Sometimes I wish my 80′s nihilism had been a little more effective 
Read the rest of this entry »
Noah and the Whale – The First Days of Spring
[ Comments Off ]Posted on November 10, 2009 by admin in Music
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009The new release from Noah and the Whale is more than a breakup album; it’s a 45 minute breakup film as well.
The other day a friend of mine in Scotland turned me on to the latest Noah and the Whale release The First Days of Spring
