who: Ben Gibbard and Jay Farrar
why: because as if he isn't busy enough touring with Death Cab for Cutie or being newly wed to the beautiful Zooey Deschanel, Ben Gibbard has joined forces with solo-artist Jay Farrar to release the soundtrack for 'One Fast Move or I'm Gone: Kerouac's Big Sur' on October 20th. NPR music has been kind enough to allow your ears a free listen at a track off the record titled "These Roads Don't Move". Way too folky for my taste, and I'm not really anticipating the release per say, but anything Mr. Gibbard touches is good enough for me. If you'd prefer a visual representation of what to expect, you can check out the music video for "San Francisco" here.
Pre-order
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Watch Out - Saosin
who: Saosin
why: because it's hard not to like their 2009 release 'In Search of Solid Ground' at least a little. Their sound hasn't changed too much since the old Anthony Green days in my opinion... maybe a little more chorus-geared and poppy... but still Saosinesque at least. Here's their first video for "Changing", check it out.
Premature Infatuation - HORSE the band
who: HORSE the mothereffing band
why: they've never let me down. They always surprise me. They put on one of the best live shows ever. On October 6th (2 weeks) they will be releasing 'Desperate Living' and I will definitely be listening to it. News has surfaced that if you buy the album from iTunes or vinyl at a later date you will be handsomely rewarded with ten bonus tracks. Yeah, 10. Apparently some of these are going to be remixes they've done with other various bands and friends, but 10 songs is like another album and it's FREE extras.
Pre-order it now!
Desperate Living
1. Cloudwalker
2. Desperate Living
3. The Failure of All Things
4. HORSE the song (ft. K-SLAX)
5. Science Police
6. Shapeshift (ft. Jamie Stewart)
7. Between the Trees
8. Golden Mummy Golden Bird
9. Lord Gold Wand of Unyielding
10. Big Business (ft. Ed Edge)
11. Rape Escape (ft. Valentina Lisitsa)
12. Arrive
BONUS Tracks
1. 13
2. Rape Escape vs. DMNDAYS
3. Lord Gold Wand of Unyielding vs. Dan Sena
4. The Failure of All Things vs. Airborne Drumz
5. Arrive vs. Burgermover
6. HORSE the Song vs. arottenbit (8 bit cover)
7. Arrive vs. :( (Love Silent Things Remix)
8. The Failure of All Things vs. DJ Danny Maverick
9. Science Police vs. LAZRTAG
10. Golden Mummy Golden Bird vs. Skrillex
Fool for Thought - Downloading
I recently read a Punknews.org article about Muse's frontman Matt Bellamy's idea to wage a progressive usage tax on bandwidth. He claims that this would help solve the downloading "problem" and promote the expansion of "creative industries". I was in like what?... 5th or 6th grade when Napster hit the scene... and illegally downloading copyrighted material has only become easier as more programs, websites, etc. are making it more accessible. But what this has done for the music industry is what I'm really curious to know.
What I'm basically trying to say is what an old episode of South Park already said. Wealthy pop musicians are talented and work extremely hard, but they don't even write their own music most of the time and are making more money than my favorite 100 bands combined, if not more. And I personally feel like if we limit the ways in which music is available to the public, we're going to be stuck listening to Nickelback... Most of my favorite bands make next to nothing on their record sales anyways and are near completely dependent upon touring and merch sales, instead. I read an article in AP a few months back about how Bring Me The Horizon signed a less than fair contract with their label... and they're all pretty much broke. But they play music because it's what they love to do... and that's what makes it better than the shit they play on the radio. Because those artists are just trying to get paid.
Before iTunes, mainstream music sales were at an all time low. People saw no reason to go to Tower Records and pay $18.99 for the new Britney Spears album... and can you REALLY blame them? Now though, people are willing to pay $9.99 for a bad CD online and it's the smaller, underground bands that are being slighted. It's crazy how many talented musicians there are today, and how many talented bands those musicians are creating. New genres are constantly evolving at a ridiculous pace... and it's seriously impossible to keep up with everything. But what's the problem? I'm not going to public and say that I support illegally downloading music, or that I think there should be laws created against it, but I will say that Muse's Bellamy is being a bit ridiculous with his suggestions. There aren't even taxes on online sales, why would we write law to attempt to regulate bandwidth usage?
Honestly, I don't know if there is any way to know if illegal downloading is helping or hurting the music industry... it's extremely difficult to even wrap your mind around the economics of it all considering the shear amount of music that we're lucky enough to be surrounded by. But I do think this is a really important issue that needs to be discussed and some conclusions do need to be reached. What do you think?
image credit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Bellamy
New Release Tuesday - September 22nd, 2009
who: Brand New - Daisy
why: because I've been talking about it for awhile, and so has everybody else so if you wanna be cool you should go buy it. No. Because if you like Brand New, this album is almost as dramatically new as 'The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me' was in 2008. It really is a must have for this year because you'll probably either love it or continue to call them overrated.
who: Monsters of Folk
why: because it's an ubergroup side project shaping up to find new ways to relax you. Jim James (My Morning Jacket), Conor Oberst and Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes) and M. Ward (She & Him) are coming to blow your mind.
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