Some of my favourite webdev creative types are, not suprisingly, also talented musicians. Here's a little sampling (name : website : band/music site : mp3)
Chris Wetherell : massless.org : Dealership : Toujours Ta Fille
Eric Costello : glish.com : Best Option : You Called Me
Scott Andrew : scottandrew.com : Walkingbirds : Hello You
Jeffrey Zeldman : zeldman.com : waterbox : Invaders
p.s. Happy Birthday Chris ! and Happy 7th Anniversary to The Daily Report !
{i changed the dealership song link so it actually links to a dealership song. the previous link was in fact to a song by from bubblegum to sky. my appologies to all - me and my bad brain}
posted by
Dylan Foley at 7:30 PM
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Nightingales may sing in Berkeley Square, but Marta Gómez sings in Harvard Square
And she's much better than any bird.
Serendipity reigned as I walked to an appointment in Harvard Square today. This woman in a hot pink shirt was singing gorgeous Latin music, backed by an acoustic guitarist and a drummer. I prayed they'd be there when I got back, and not only were they, she had a CD for sale! Hurray! Marta Gómez is from Colombia and she sings like an angel in many different styles, from Cuban son to Colombian bambuco. I particularly like song #5, "El Hormigueo." You can contact her via email (no website listed). The CD was $15, or for Boston locals, go down to Harvard Square and listen up in person! There are actually 9 tracks on the CD, one isn't listed for some reason...
posted by
Shannon Okey at 3:45 PM
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I was fortunate enough to catch Scratch, a documentary on hip-hop DJing and the growth of turntablism as an accepted musical art form, last night and cannot recommend it enough. For little white kids like me who grew up idolizing the early geniuses of the form like Grandmaster Flash, the film is both a joyous nostalgia trip and a thrilling look at those taking it to the next level. And the music? Oy jeez, some of the flyist business these ears have heard!
So who then? Names like DJ Qbert, DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist might not immediately ring a bell but you'll find their lunatic patiche of hip-hop, funk, jazz and ambient noise all over the albums of bands like Jurassic 5, Kool Keith, Blackalicious, and Ozomatli, on the soundtracks of films like Dark Days and the animated spectacular Wave Twisters. And lest we doubt that turnablism is either a passing fad or merely sampling from real music, last year, in the era of the mp3, turntables outsold electric guitars.
DJ Shadow: Psyence Fiction (Select from "Audio Player")
posted by
Kevin Smokler at 1:21 PM
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Seeing Heavenly on the soozradio playlist reminded me of my younger days when Riot Grrl was in full swing and I was all about starting a band, starting a zine, joining the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade because it had cute boys... (oh, wait - that last one was my friend Krissy. Never mind). And so I did a Google search on three of my favorite labels from that time: Simple Machines (defunct, but still putting out their back catalogue), Dischord and K Records.
Jenny and Kristin of the band Tsunami were the driving forces behind Simple Machines, which published the Mechanic's Guide to putting out your own records in the early 1990s. (a PDF version from 2000 is available here). After Sassy magazine made it 'cool zine of the month,' their popularity shot through the roof. One really cool project they did was Working Holiday, a once-a-month 45 rpm (yes, vinyl) subscription in 1993 similar to the infamous Sub Pop singles collection. Working Holiday is now handily compiled into one CD with booklet - available via Dischord mailorder here. Bratmobile, Scrawl (from Columbus! yay!) and other fine bands abounded on SM.
Dischord is and was the pet project of Ian McKaye from Fugazi. They put out super-punk music, and back in the day they were the place to find "straight-edge" records. One favorite album from a Dischord band is Nation of Ulysses' 13-Point Program To Destroy America, featuring the vocal stylings of Ian Svenonius (a former Sassiest Boy In America...I am convinced that Sassy magazine was a major influence on decent rock in the early 90s) on "You're My Miss Washington D.C." and other fine tunes.
K Records held down the fort on the west coast, particularly the Olympia-Seattle hop that gave Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill (now in Le Tigre) and other Pacific Northwest bands to the world. Dig through their catalog, it's chock full of MP3s. You can cheat and just look at the directory here (for some reason the link I put up to Heavenly's "P.U.N.K. Girl" wasn't working, so try this method instead). K put together the International Pop Underground Convention compilation CD (HIGHLY recommended, for the Spinanes, Bratmobile, L7 and Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet...and more)
Sigh, riot grrl nostalgia. Who'd have thought it?
posted by
Shannon Okey at 10:14 AM
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Semi-Human Robot Trapped In The Machine Music
Courtesy of Consolation Champs, circa December 2000:
Some time back, a friend of mine talked about his love for a little known genre of music he called "shred" metal. I've been thinking of one of my own beloved sub-genres, although I don't even know if it has a name. Concentrated around the years 1979-1981, this music's hallmarks are robotic (though not electronic) drumming, and cold vocals. My best description would be "semi-human robot trapped in the machine" music. Representative of this made-up genre would be The Cure's "Seventeen Seconds" (1980) and "Faith" (1981) records, Gary Numan's "Replicas" (1979)*, and probably all of Joy Division. I don't know why I like it so much. I was about 15 when most of it came out, so that could explain a lot. While some (most) might find the beat monotonous, I find it hypnotic. And strangely enough, when music like this was made outside of this time period, it generally sucked (witness anything post-"Replicas" by Gary Numan). Also, it can't be too self-conscious or campy; therefore, while I like Kraftwerk, they don't quite fit in here. Of course, I like lots of music, and this stuff sometimes still seems like a childish indulgence, but whenever I hear the intro to The Cure's "A Forest," I'm hooked. I guess it was my generation's version of Goth music. Dark, cold, creepy, but with a heart beating somewhere underneath. Perfect for describing teenagers.
* I took a theatre class in Grade 10 and for one exercise, I made an "alien" mask and pranced around to Gary Numan's "I Nearly Married a Human." Thank God there's no evidence.
posted by James McNally at 2:17 PM