live your life out loud
Underground hip hop artist, HMD, who recently released his debut album One Pursuit, is known for his collaborations, having worked with the likes of Masta Ace, Wordsworth, R.A the Rugged Man, Reef the Lost Cauze, Baby Blak, and many others. Now he wants to work with you!
You can remix several of HMD’s tracks (“Mummers Beat Down”, “Old Records”, and “Imma Make It”) here. Click on any of the widgets by HMD, download the stems and remix in your own audio editing software OR use the online MixMaker. Once you upload your remix back to the widget, others can listen to, vote on, and share your remix. Check it out!
Besides having a knack for deftly arranging collaborations with other artists, HMD is also known for his sampling. Digging up dusty records and identifying old school sounds that blend magically with his beats gives him a unique sound. Apparently the guy is a master turntablist too. For more on One Pursuit, check out the review on Hip-Hop Linguistics.
As you may have noticed, Evolving Music has begun covering bands that use the Remix Wizard to engage their fans, starting with The Bayliens. Set up your own widget here and we may feature you on this blog.
It’s hard not to be a fan of the harmonica. From John Popper to Bob Dylan, many big name artists have popularized the instrument, but it still doesn’t get quite the attention it deserves. Have you ever seen someone play the harmonica and beatbox at the same time? We looked at beatboxing flute previously, which was interesting, but check out this guy Yuri Lane:
If you like blues, give this one a listen. Or for a dub-influenced jam, this one.
We see more and more musicians using their art as a way to communicate a message – oftentimes in the vein of political or social commentary. Some think of music as their weapon. Yuri has created a “hip hop travelogue of peace” called From Tel Aviv to Ramallah (see the promo video here) to that end. The somewhat nerdy, very approachable, and obviously talented kid is creating an interesting niche for himself.
For those of us in the music tech space, attending an industry event can be a great opportunity for fruitful networking, a way to keep up with emerging technologies, and a place to learn from brilliant people. Or it can be boring and kinda pointless if not well run. Luckily for us, Brian Zisk has a knack for recruiting excellent panelists, solid sponsors, and exciting new startups to form the foundation of his SanFran MusicTech Summit.
Having attended both the first and second summits as guests, this time around MixMatchMusic was given a presentation slot. Booyah!
An obvious draw for this particular summit was featured speaker Stephan Jenkins, of Third Eye Blind, who had some poignant thoughts on the future of the music industry and the role (or lack thereof) of the album therein.
I heard mixed reviews of the panels overall, but found the ones I attended to be fairly compelling. In “Social Networks: Marketing & Entertainment” there was a heavy emphasis on the power of peer recommendation. As consumers continue to tune out traditional media such as radio and billboards they place more value on social media. When we were asked how many of us thought social networks will influence this year’s election, basically every hand in the room went up. Other topics included microblogging, the death of banners, and viral marketing. Cool takeaway for musicians: Use Pinger to group fans by area code and notify them of a show in their area by voicemail.
In “Building Social Networks around Music”, Rachel Masters of Ning noted that if fans are engaged they are going to buy more. She also said that every musician should have a community manager. This is a great tip. Musicians, or someone they delegate the task to ideally (so the musician can focus on making great music), should be using social media tools as much as possible to engage fans – by listening and responding to those fans and monitoring what is going on in their community and the culture that their music is a part of.
The best part of this summit was the “Special Presentations”. If you’re an emerging technology junkie you’ll understand. A host of interesting startups gave brief demos of their services and were met with a healthy mix of encouragement and skepticism from the audience. The most exciting one was Bandcamp (.mu not .com) – “the best home on the web for your band’s music”.
Rather than spending a grip of cash on a fancy band website for your music or having songs on a ton of profiles on other social networks like myspace, last.fm, and facebook, you can have it all in one place. They will be building out additional features later, but right now they focus on providing the following: ownership (your own design, logo, URL etc), speed and reliability, viral distribution, stats (who are your fans) and being “your fifth (very nerdy) Beatle” that handles everything in the background. And – it’s free. As far as selling your music you have a choice: give it away for free, set a price, or let your fans set the price. Pretty freakin solid.
Also noteworthy were Apture, which helps you “add multimedia to your site in one click”, and JamLegend (currently in private beta), the free online version of Guitar Hero. Speaking of guitars, near the end of the day, a Gibson and some other goodies were raffled off.
Overall, it was another solid event (go Brian!). The bay area locals who attend seem to be getting more and more well acquainted and there are always some guests from afar to spice things up. Then there is the cocktail party, where the tech nerds, rock stars, marketers, and their respective fans mingle. Always an interesting mix…
View more pics here.
Local favorites, The Whiskey Thieves, played a show at Pier 23 last night and completely rocked it. The Sonoma-born band is comprised of singer Codi Binkley, guitarist Gabe Brueske, bassist Zakk Murphy and drummer Thomas Bottar. For four such musically different dudes (each brings a totally different style and background to the table, according to Zakk), their collective sound is pretty damn hot. Listen here.
Hearing them live for the first time I see what he means. Trying to classify their sound is hard. I heard everything from hard rock and heavy smoky blues to funky, reggae-infused jams. Each member of the band has a maestro-like command of his instrument and the singer’s voice is mesmerizing. Codi’s vocals are, depending on the song and genre, reminiscent of many other greats. At our table we decided he was channeling each of the following at some point: Anthony Kiedis, Eddie Vedder, Jack Johnson, Jimi Hendrix (listen to #5 and you’ll see what I mean), and Brad Nowell. Oh, and even Matisyahu (check out #9, my favorite)!
The show consisted of both songs off their new album, Almost Time, and covers from the likes of Johnny Cash and Joe Cocker among others. A consistently high energy show kept the audience dancing and drinking. Their great stage presence plus their charming and self-deprecating vibe make The Whiskey Thieves both entertaining and approachable. Not surprisingly, the tagline on their MySpace page is “We’re like an alcoholic boy band that doesn’t suck”.
