Your Own Person L Full Album Stream

So if you haven’t heard Kenneth Vasoli is embarking on a new path. After years behind the mic for pop punk icon The Starting Line he has decided to take a more artful twist to his music. Under the band name “Person L” Vasoli has crafted some beautifully melodic songs. The sound is far more dynamic than his work in the Starting Line. He has cited his influences on this album as Drive like Jehu, Animal Collective, James Brown, and Radiohead, which gives you a good idea of how different a sound Person L is shooting for. Now I can’t give all the credit to Vasoli, the entire band flex’s it’s muscles throughout the album. I really expected the sound to be a artsy version of The Starting Line, but it’s an animal all itself. An animal I wish to take home and nurture and pet. I may even let it sleep at the foot of my bed. To check out a full album stream check out Person L’s purevolume link below.

Full Album Stream On PureVolume

Now Playing: Omar Rodriguez Lopez – Rapid Fire TollBooth

“Nightmare of You” unveils new demo’s

Long Island rockers “Nightmare of You” have posted a new demo from there forthcoming album. After a few EP releases the follow up to their 2005 self titled album has been anticipated by fans for a while now so it’s nice to know something will be on it’s way to our ears soon. “Nightmare of You” was created from the breakup of the Movielife, a punk band that rose out of the Long Island music scene in the late 90’s along the side of Taking Back Sunday and Brand New. Unfortunately things went south and the band broke up with frontman, Vinnie Caruana, starting “I am the Avalanche” and guitarist, Brandon Reilly, starting “Nightmare of You”.

The demo for the new album differs a bit from what we are used to hearing from the group. Their previous album was a mixture of 80’s pop and 90’s pop punk. Almost as if Green Day met happier version of the Cure. The new song sheds the popy synthesizers to give it a more natural, softer, feel to it. I’m not going to jump to conclusions after hearing one song, but check it out for yourself. If the rest of the album follows suit this will definitelly have a different feel to it. They may loose fans that loved them for their synth-pop hooks but may draw in a whole new crowd. We will have to wait and see. In the mean time check out their myspace page for more updates and to hear the new song.

NIghtmare of You’s Myspace Page

Now Playing: Maps and Atlases – Ongoing Horrible

Anthony Green goes it alone.

Anthony Green seems to have grown to mythical proportions within the indie-rock community. He could slash your Grandma’s tires and you would still find it in your heart to love him. His full time job as the frontman of indie outfit Circa Survive just isn’t enough to satisfy so he has ventured out into other projects. Along with providing backing vocals on countless songs for fellow rocker friends, he’s releasing his third album with the group “The Sound of Animals Fighting” later this summer along with his first solo album. The man does not tire from what he loves, and as listeners we should appreciate that.

Anthony’s solo album “Avalon” is being released on August 5th and he is currently touring with his friends and backing band “Good Old War” who are definitely work checking out. “Good Old War” brings a poppy Americana folk feel to the stage with great vocal melody’s. Great stuff, but back to the story at hand. “Avalon” allows Green to break out of the heavy intensity of Circa Survive and explore a more artistic and pleasant side to his writing style. A lot of songs are much softer and mellower than what you hear from Circa Survive which is a nice change of pace and it really shows his depth as a writter. You can find countless acoustic performances by visiting your local YouTube link but his first formal release from the album is the video for “Dear Child” which you can see has been conveniently placed above this paragraph. Ya, I’m looking out for you.  I’ve already heard a few tracks from the album and they are great. If you like the single you’ll love the album. We’ll have to see whats next in the cards but Anthony Green hasn’t let us down yet, I don’t expect him to any time soon. He’s on pace to reach indie imortality sooner than we expect.

For more info you can visit these sites:

Anthony Green

Good Old War

• Now Playing: Good Old War – Coney Island
  

A Movie After All: Daft Punk’s “Electroma”

If you haven’t noticed Daft Punk has made a slight resurgence in the past few years thanks to the a gaining interest in electronic music and a helping hand from sample happy rap artists. The French robotic duo’s live 2007 disc was a hit with both die hard and casual fans. If you haven’t been to a Daft Punk concert this is the closest you will get to the experience. It is definitely worth checking out. Shaping and controlling their beats from their famous giant pyramid they mash their songs together like you’ve never heard. A shower of lights come from every angle of the stage as you see the two robots mold their music with It’s amazing how they can turn electronic music into a performance and give it a unique human feel despite the fact it’s all electronic. While their music career is one thing, their film career is something in itself.

Daft Punk’s “Electroma” was originally shown at the Cannes Film Festival in 2006. It has since been shown in France, Canada, Australia and the U.K. but hasn’t made it to the states until now. The film is a story of two robots (Daft Punk) who search to become human in a world of robots. The filming was all done over an 11 day span by Daft’s Thomas Bangalter, predominantly throughout California. The runtime is 70 minutes but not one word is spoken throughout the entire film. The music used is surprisingly not Daft Punk music, which I think is a good thing because otherwise it would probably just seem like a long music video.

Despite the fact that there is no dialogue it is easy to follow the story and the characters emotions. In your classic old-timey silent films actors relied heavily on facial expressions to portray their feelings but considering every character is a robot with no facial features it’s amazing how well you could read them. Unfortunately this is where the rave review has to end. Overall the scenes are far too long and not a whole lot happens in most of them. The opening scene, which consists of them getting into their car and driving to a town takes you 8 minutes into the movie. Trust me, you can only see a robot drive a car from so many angles before you get bored. Now being a Daft Punk fan I was intrigued through the moving making it much more tolerable and slightly enjoyable. For the casual viewer I just don’t think you would last through it. Some of the scenes are set up really nicely and looked great but overall they are cut far too long. Now this is obviously the style they were trying to go with the film so I can’t knock them for consistency. Overall it does give a very natural feel to it since it takes place in real time instead of using cuts to move the story along faster. For those of you wondering how it ends I won’t spoil it for you because I’m nice like that. A trailer for the film is below.  If you want more there are tons of clips out there and even a full length version has crept out if you search for it hard enough.

Love, Hate, iPod – Vol. 2

Alright, I’ve had about enough of this. I gave in a while ago to the whole allure of the iPod. I mean it’s really the only option. When your toting a giant CD book and something comes along and says, “Hey. I can carry that for you. Oh, and the other 200 CD’s you have. I can carry those too. Oh, and one last thing. I can fit in your pocket too.” That something just became my new best friend. When you think about it, Is there anything more convenient? Sure, you comprimise sound quality but as long as I keep my songs above 192k I’ll get by.  Now all of this is great. You have all your music stored into one database and any song you can image is a click away. Well I just so happened to be in the mood for some Daft Punk when I got home today. Conveniently enough there’s a computer with iTunes where my entire Daft catalog resides. As I gently double click my friendly iTunes icon I’m greeted by one of the most terrifying sights possible. My iTunes library is blank. From 5600 songs to 0. My heart sinks, I begin to sweat, and I find the nearest chair to sit down in. Now my wife doesn’t realize what has happened. I catch her up on the situation and she assures me “it will be fine.” FINE! Obviously she doesn’t grasp the seriousness of the situation. Everything is gone. 5000 songs missing. How can you even try to bring FINE into the situation. My best friend has just turned into my worst enemy.

After catching my breath and gaining my sanity back I start checking out what I can figure out. The good thing is the files are still on my computer, they just aren’t in iTunes. Finally relieved I import the songs back into my library. I leave to go outside for a while. A library that size doesn’t load too quickly. When I come back everything seems to look good until I notice there are quite a few albums missing. As I scroll to try to find them a whole new nightmare begins. Either the bottom fifth of my library is a mess or I’m a huge fan of “unknown artist” and just had to have 20 copies of their album “unknown”. This pleasant greeting came with a complimentary set of cold sweats. Thanks a lot iTunes. I wish I could get through to you. Do you understand what you are putting me through. ITunes, why do I keep coming back to you when you hurt me so much. This relationship isn’t health.

For the next few weeks I will be getting the descriptions of my unknown songs back to their proper state. I’ll have a lot of time to second guess my reliance on technology. Don’t get me wrong, technology is great but we can’t put 100% of our faith in it. Nothing will ever replace the need for a true hard copy. ITunes is a great software but I’m going to have to start backing it up more often. When single scratch on your CD or record may make one song skip, but one little glitch on iTunes or your iPod and your entire library is gone. I was lucky enough to get mine back but I’m sure there are those people who lost it all. I’ll leave a warning to all of you. The iPod is not your savior. It’s not perfect. The technology the iPod carries may not have problems often, and for some people may never have a problem at all; but if and when it does decide to act up be prepared. It can be defistating.

• Now Playing: Daft Punk – Aerodynamic

The Slow Death of the CD

Believe it or not the audio CD will be going the way of the cassette sooner than we think. Unfortunately it’s place in music is slowly fading away. Now the CD is a very versatile tool. We use them for DVD, Blue Ray, SA-CD, HD-CD and of course you standard issue audio CD. But with the way the music industry is moving, the  CD is pretty unnecessary if you think about it. It’s just a matter of time that everyone else realizes the fact that it’s become a digital dinosaur.

The first band to grasp hold of this reality is “Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground”, a project formed by members of “Gatsby’s American Dream”. The album is truly amazing, but I’ll leave it at that to avoid going off topic. The group decided to release there album as an LP with a free digital download. Now packaging LP’s with digital downloads is becoming more and more popular and a wonderful idea. You get the endless versatility of an MP3 along with the exceptional quality of an LP with a beautiful showing of the album art. In an interview with the band they explained their reasoning:

“In our humble opinion, the compact disc format is dated and disposable. Digital audio sounds like balls and we prefer hearing our music in a more dynamic setting. We believe listeners will definitely enjoy the listening experience on vinyl more.”

The CD is truly a compromise between vinyl and the MP3. The LP has the highest sound quality out there but it’s fragile and about as portable as a microwave. The MP3 is the most compromised audio you can get. It’s compressed until it’s soul is gone and as you may have heard it sounds like balls, but when you can fit your entire library onto one player you can’t complain about the convenience it offers. The CD gives you good sound quality but not as good as vinyl, and it’s pretty portable but can still be scratched and you have to carry them in a book. If I toted around my iPod in CD format it would look like I was dragging an encyclopedia set around.

But being a compromise between the two doesn’t seem that bad, right? It seems like it could be the best of both worlds. It could bridge the gap and fulfil all of our needs. It even makes neat little rainbows of light when you look at the under side of it. How could something so magical be thrown to the wayside. Unforutnately that’s not what listeners want today. When you think about it, it’s almost like killing a unicorn. Well in today’s most listeners are willing to kill unicorns and sacrifice sound quality for convenience no matter what the alternative. The other listeners are the ones that see the inferior sound quality MP3’s pose and want to counter the MP3 culture by buying vinyl, the highest sound quality out there. The records show vinyl has become more and more popular in the past few years. There are many independent labels releasing there albums on vinyl with a free MP3 download and major labels are starting to do the same for some of their artists. This truly gives you the best of both worlds without any compromise.

When you look at any media device that has a CD player in it you see that the CD drive with a nice coat of dust over it. We don’t mean to neglect them after all they have done for us, but do we really want to go through all that work of putting the CD and finding a track only to take it out again.  I mean seriously, I haven’t even had batterys in the remote of my CD player for over a year. It just isn’t needed anymore. Most new car CD players and home theaters are coming equipped with ports to plug in MP3 players and it seems like every company under the sun is making an iPod dock whether they make audio gear or not. I hear Purina is coming out with one next month. But serisouly, in our fast paced word convenience is king and quality means nothing. Sadly this is the case for more than audio. Why spend time going to the store to buy a high priced CD. Besides the game of “find the corner you can peel the plastic seal off from” there really isn’t any point in making the trip. Being able to buy songs one at a time on your computer with a single click sounds a bit easier. Another problem is the poor shape the music industry is in. Sales are down from piracy and a slow economy so the extra manufacturing costs that go along with making CD’s are just too much. The last thing a dying format needs is a weak industry to support it.

The strange part is with video we are fighting to make higher and higher quality presentations with HD-DVD (R.I.P.) and Blue Ray and the public can’t get enough. Now when we did the same thing with audio by putting out HD-CD and SACD we passed it off as a waste of money. If we focused on the quality of sound as much as we did video the CD would still be a powerfull force and the MP3 would have a run for it’s money.

If you need any more evidence just ask youself the last time you said, “Hey man, nice Discman.” Still thinking? I rest my case.

To read the whole interview with Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground click here

• Now Playing: Desaparecidos – Manana (the MP3 I got with the vinyl)
  

Love, Hate, iPod

Without question the iPod and iTunes have changed the way music business is run today. I think we all know that. Some changes are for the good and some are for the worse; but thats what you have to expect that when something grabs a hold of an industry so strongly. I would usually come up with a clever metaphor involving grabbing, but no matter what I say it would just be a complete understatement. I mean overall it’s a truly amazing invention, I’m sure we all know that also. How something you put in your pocket can change the music industry so drastically is truly amazing. Steve Jobbs has hit the nail on the head and he keeps pounding. The iPod is a revolution and it shows no signs of slowing down. Now lets get past the obvious because there are enough people out there bowing down to there iPods right now. The fact of the matter is, the iPod and iTunes are one of the biggest reason the music industry is in the state it is now and as much as it is helping to save music, at the same time it is hindering it. Now some days that makes me hate my iPod, but today I happen to love it because it just saved me $15.

This $15 that I have in my wallet right now wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for my iPod’s trusty informant iTunes. I won’t name names, but I had heard some talk about a band that was supposed to be “so good”. With this stored in the back of my mind I happen to hear one of their singles on the radio. Pretty good I think.

Now Pause.

If this was 5 years ago and I was working off of impulse and energy drinks I would have made a quick stop at my local Best Buy picked the CD up and been thoroughly disappointed by the time I got home. The CD would eventually fumble it’s way under my front seat and be forgotten about forever.

Now back to reality.

I go home pumped about finding a new good band. I get onto iTunes to see what albums they have available and within a few minutes I felt like I got hit by one of those KA-POW flashes from those old batman episodes. The single is still good, but the other 11 tracks are just plain bad.  Although I’m disapointed with the band I’m glad I still have my $15. Now a nameless record label is out $15. Now $15 is a drop in the barrel to the labels, but it gets me thinking about the big picture. If you figure how many people have iPods these days it’s pretty safe to say that lots of people are saving $15 every day and finally labels are being shown what happens when you put out an inconsistent product. No longer can they rely on a single hit to sell an entire album. Not with iTunes around at least.

The iPods classy compadre is helping to bring consistency back to albums.  In my opinion an album just isn’t a compilation of songs, it’s one fluid piece of music split up throughout 60 minutes. Cheezy, but true. A few bad songs and the album can loose it’s flow and fade into mediocrity. Now back in the good old days you would fill an album with songs you thought were good. If you didn’t have enough good songs for a full length you would cut it short as an EP. Sounds like a pretty good plan, right? Well slowly things started to change. Somewhere in the hierarchy of the music business the love of music was surpassed by the love of money and priorities shifted. No longer was it important to turn out an album complete with all respectable songs. As long as people heard the hit single they would go out and buy the whole album because they had no way of knowing any better.

Sure, there were music reviews and opinions from other sources you could find, but you could never really trust them unless you the album for yourself. When you can preview every song for yourself you can make the call right there as to whether it’s worth the money or not. Of course not every song can be a number one hit but the standards have dropped way too low. Sure, there are still a lot of good albums being released but there are far too many artists out there living off of 1 or 2 song to sell a whole album. It’s the labels way of getting a few extra dollars in their pocket and an unfair way to mislead their audience. They have one group of artists putting out consistent product that sold great and gives the public confidence in their “brand”. Then there’s the other artists there to make a quick buck and then they’re gone, replaced by a new set of bands. Of course not all of this was intentional. A lot of times the labels sign band’s with the best intentions to have them put out a great product, but things don’t always work out; But there were still the artist they know are there just to be any easy money maker of a few catchy songs. If these labels would stick to artists that can turn out a consistent product this problem wouldn’t happen. Slowly things are moving back to how they should be. No longer can you make the single and whip up 10 more generic cookie cutter songs and expect for the album to sell. I love to see the labels putting out a consistent product because they aren’t as affected by this as much. For all you other labels, you need to stop complaining. Maybe you can’t make as much money by misleading your customers any more but how about making a little less by putting out an honest product. Let’s give that a shot. This could go on. You get the idea. Let’s end it here.Thanks for letting me keep my $15 iTunes. I owe you a drink.

• Currently Playing: The Movielife – Jamestown

The Rage Volta

Sounds pretty rad doesn’t it. Mars Volta meets Rage Against the Machine. I’d watch that go down wouldn’t you? Well guess what, now you can… Kind of. A collaboration between Zach de la Rocha (the voice behind Rage) and Jon Theodore (ex-drummer of The Mars Volta) is about to be released under the name “One Day as a Lion” thanks to the good folks at Anti. It’s only a 5 song EP, but knowing these two, it will be well worth it. You can hear the first track off the album “Wild International” on their MySpace page here. The street date for the EP is 7/22/08 so mark it on your calenders, go buy a copy, unwrap it, place it in your CD player, hit play, and listen to it. I know it sounds like a lot of work but your ears will thank you.

I’ve given it a few listens and it sounds like what I expected it to, and trust me that’s a good thing.  Zach provides his patented hip-hop delivery accomponied by Jon’s driving drums and a synth like guitar line. It’s a very simplistic aproach compared to what these two are used to but thats what makes it so great. You can sit back and truly appreciate their creativity without being distracted by other elements their respective bands were known for. The song has a very raw feel to it. Personally I love it and I am excited to hear the rest.

• Currently Playing: One Day As A Lion – Wild International

The First Post

So here comes the inevitable first post. What can I say. It’s about 12:30 and I am pretty much wiped out from the week. Packing 5 days of work into 4 days isn’t too fun, but I’m sure a Friday off will make everything better. A nice sunny day, a couple of beers, and maybe a trip to the local pool. Unfortunately my day of endless possibility is severely cut down due to the fact that I live in Wisconsin. But don’t worry about me. I’ll find a way to get by. I’ll probably start getting my post on in the next few days with some things that matter. Now that I think of this, if you are still reading this I apologize for just wasted a nice little piece of time. I would recommend not reading the rest of this blog. I don’t plan on saying anything that holds any importance. In fact I should end it right here. I would say goodbye, but at this early stage of my blogging career I don’t think anyone is actually reading this.

Good Night