Tag: Music

Songbirds

This is pretty awesome.

Birds on the Wires from Jarbas Agnelli on Vimeo.

Why is it awesome?

“Reading a newspaper, I saw a picture of birds on the electric wires. I cut out the photo and decided to make a song, using the exact location of the birds as notes (no Photoshop edit). I knew it wasn’t the most original idea in the universe. I was just curious to hear what melody the birds were creating. I sent the music to the photographer, Paulo Pinto, who I Googled on the internet. He told his editor, who told a reporter and the story ended up as an interview in the very same newspaper.”

Found here, from here (in Spanish).

September 11, 2009

The Piano Man

Adam, a friend from Brisbane just won a piano competition. A biggish one (as much as I can tell about piano competitions) and the reaction on Facebook from our mutual friends.

There’s a streaming thing where you can watch his performance in the heats. And probably the semis and the final as well.

Now that the Australian Festival of Chamber Music is over I’m clearly lacking in cultural content on this page – so here it is. For your viewing pleasure.

2 - 09 - Adam Herd
2 – 09 – Adam Herd

August 28, 2009

Variations on a theme

Guitar hero and Rubiks Cube combinations are so last year. Real geek prodigies join string quartets and play medleys of game theme songs…

August 14, 2009

More new Muse

Here’s the second Muse song from the upcoming album – The Resistance. It’s less Queenish than the last one.

The tracklisting includes quite a few songs with “symphony” in the title. Which is pretty exciting in and of itself…

Unfortunately the YouTube video was pulled for violating copyright. Here’s a link to the song on the Muse website.

August 4, 2009

YouTube Twosday: United States of Eurasia

There’s new Muse coming out this year. Huzzah. Here’s the first track to be released from their new album – they released it in chunks and it made its radio debut today…

August 4, 2009

Wind break

Three nights of Chamber Music done and dusted. I’m feeling as cultured as one of those Yakult yoghurt drinks…

I can tell my bassoons from my oboes… So I thought I’d share that culture with you.

August 1, 2009

Itty Bitty Weezer

8 Bit music takes me back to my childhood and hours of Nintendo gaming. This is a weird piece of childhood/adolecence fusion – 8 Bit Weezer.

It’s pretty cool. Not sure I’d listen to it regularly. But Island in the Sun and El Scorcho are pretty awesome.

July 25, 2009

Soul Music

This GraphJam assessment of Christian music (not church music the "commercial" part of Christian music that is an industry worth hundreds of millions of dollars per annum) reminded me of this classic South Park episode where Cartman starts a Christian band and writes songs by substituting "you" for "God" in classic songs… these may be offensive to Christian music fans…

Here’s John Safran’s classic segment on Christian music…

July 19, 2009

Men are better at…

Music. Apparently. Cop this playa haters… Triple J run a competition to track down the best 100 songs of all time. They make the process democratic… and bam. No female artists. In fact, very little female presence at all.

The SMH is running a left-wing fuelled paranoid condemnation of the countdown (or the voters… well not really, it’s more an opinion piece bemoaning the results) – and yet the facts don’t lie. Males are superior.

However, as the countdown progressed, something sinister emerged: of the 100 tracks that ended up comprising the list, there were no female artists. Not even “equal but different”. Lets see you artsy lefties trying to condemn the church on gender roles now…

The only women to appear in any notable capacity were The White Stripes’ drummer Meg White (Seven Nation Army, number 20), Massive Attack guest vocalists Elizabeth Fraser (Teardrop, 22) and Shara Nelson (Unfinished Sympathy, 93), Pixies bassist Kim Deal (Where Is My Mind, 29), Smashing Pumpkins bassist D’arcy Wretzky (1979, 35; Bullet with Butterfly Wings, 51; Today, 78), and Pulp keyboardist Candida Doyle (Common People, 81). And that’s it. Female artists with a history of solid Triple J airplay disappeared from the proceedings: Frente, P. J. Harvey, Tori Amos, Hole, Missy Elliott, Garbage, The Mavis’s, Bjork and Missy Higgins. They were all, to borrow Maya Arulpragasam’s stage name, M.I.A.

July 14, 2009

List of Songs I would have voted for…

I didn’t vote in JJJ’s hottest 100 of all time (here’s the list). I love the Js, but I haven’t listened to anything other than local ABC radio for months (except to listen to a little bit of the Hottest 100 of All Time).

It looks like the vote was crashed by a bunch of old time rockers with a penchant for Michael Jackson. There are hardly any songs from the last few years, which is pretty awesome.

If I had voted (and you get to vote for ten songs):

  1. I would have voted for one song per band
  2. I would have given greater weighting to songs from great albums or from bands producing consistently good music rather than one hit wonders.
  3. I would have rewarded bands who I appreciated in their halcyon days but don’t like so much any more (hence the inclusion of The Living End and Powderfinger – they really were my introduction to JJJ – even though they went on to be darlings of the mainstream).

These are the songs I think I would have voted for:

  1. Radiohead – Fake Plastic Trees.
  2. Muse – Plug In Baby
  3. Paul Simon – Call Me Al
  4. Smashing Pumpkins – Disarm
  5. Jeff Buckley – Last Goodbye
  6. Dandy Warhols – Get Off
  7. Pink Floyd – Comfortably Numb
  8. Powderfinger – Day You Come
  9. The Living End – Prisoner of Society
  10. Gomez – Shot Shot

Some of these songs were chosen arbitrarily as representatives of a band’s body of work – I really can’t decide what Radiohead, Muse, Smashing Pumpkins or Gomez song I like the best. Placebo and The Whitlams were unlucky not to make the list on the basis of criteria 3. 

July 14, 2009

New Yorke

Radiohead’s Thom Yorke is an interesting looking guy who makes interesting sounding music. Those who are unaware of Radiohead should do themselves a favour and become aware – those who are aware – how cool is this “Paranoid Android” inspired Thom Yorke head…

July 3, 2009

YouTube Tuesday: I should have just conchord

For those who missed it – Flight of the Conchords is now on SBS on Mondays after South Park.

Last night Murray invested the band’s emergency funds with a Nigerian friend he met on the Internet.

Brilliant. Here’s a sample of their brilliance.

June 16, 2009

A Voca do

That’s what I’d call a party featuring this A Capella group. Voca. What you are about to see (assuming you watch the video) is produced solely using the voice. Robyn tells me it’s old. But it’s still impressive.

June 14, 2009

Musical maturity

I thought this piece of Graphjammy goodness was too good to pass up after last week’s music debate.

I put U2 on the right hand side.

June 8, 2009

Crap Sound 2

Wow. So I stirred up a hornets nest of angry female commenters (and one male), eager to defend U2’s honour.

And I regret nothing.

I thought about it, and for a while I decided that I was being harsh, that it’s wrong to judge people on the basis of their musical taste. But then I decided that’s exactly what I do. I am unapologetically prejudiced when it comes to Music. That’s why I own a T-Shirt that says “I hate the bands you like” and another that says “you have bad taste in music”… In fact. If you like U2 you should go to this site. Consider it an online support group.

I measure people – and how much I have in common with them – by what’s on their CD shelf, iPod, DVD rack or book shelf. And why shouldn’t I. You no doubt judge me on things equally superficial.

Will I not love you on that basis? No. Robyn had some Christian music CDs when we started dating – and some equally embarrassing music, and I have the Backstreet Boys as a musical skeleton in my closet. I still love her (and she me), though we disagree.

For those not reading the comments here’s some of what went down (well, what I said… other people can make their own points known in the comments – or on their own blogs)…

“Understanding that something is a subjective taste should not stop me objecting to the subjective taste of others.

I don’t like modern fashion – should I not be allowed to voice my opinion on that? Besides, I see providing all these alternative bands as a public service to my readers.

I wonder too, if the label “alternative” could just be applied to “those bands not trying to be U2″.”

Here are the things I’ve actually said about U2 (in the comments on other posts):

  • “If you listen to U2 your musical taste is boring and your (clef) palate undefined.”
  • “This article pretty much sums up why I don’t like U2 ”
  • “They’re also not very good. Musically or lyrically. In my opinion. They are champions of inoffensive blandness.”
  • “I’m happy for you to like U2. I’m sure you have reasons. I don’t like U2.”
  • “It’s where I write my opinion. On things. Like U2. And how they should retire. They used to be cool. Now they’re old men. ”
  • “I wonder too, if the label “alternative” could just be applied to “those bands not trying to be U2″.”
  • “Why listen to one band that tries to appeal to every aspect of musicallity and becomes middle of the road when you can embrace diversity which lets you appreciate the whole road, bit by bit?”
  • “There’s six bands in a list of five bands that I find more sonically pleasurable than U2″
  • “Bono’s public Christianity makes him a bit of a sacred cow. But I don’t like to criticise things without offering solutions here are 5 bands that are better than U2. In my opinion”

June 5, 2009