live your life out loud
Our friends at iStrategy Labs in Washington, DC created this very cool, eye opening video, on the growth of the mobile industry in 2012 for their friends at mobilefuture.org. Take a look…
We keep saying, mobile is the future. Clearly, mobile is the present!!
Big Light is a San Francisco based rock band that emerged onto the scene in 2007. They are now considered one of the Bay Area’s hottest up and coming bands and released their debut full length album, Animals in Bloom, in March 2010. I had a chance to sit down and talk with Fred Torphy, the lead singer of Big Light, about their album, where they have gone since, and how they are using technology to connect with their fans.
TC: Big Light seems to pull its sound from a variety of sources. What are your major musical influences?
FT: Well, I think everyone in the band will cite different influences. I think Jeremy would probably cite a few contemporary bands. I’m more influenced by cats and movies than music. But I like Tom Waits and Nathan Moore a lot…
TC: Do you pull a lot of influence from San Francisco, where you live now, or Rhode Island, where you grew up?
FT: I’m influenced by everything that happens in my life, so I’ve probably picked something up from every place I’ve ever spent a good bit of time in. San Francisco, Rhode Island… Sure, but I would also need to add a few other places to that list. I lived in Burlington, VT for six years studying archeology and then getting back to playing in bands, something I had done since grade school but put down during college, for the most part. I started writing my first songs in Burlington. “Monster”, which is on Animals In Bloom, was something I started writing in Vermont.
TC: You guys have played in a variety of venues in San Francisco. Which venue has been your favorite to perform in and why?
FT: The Independent in San Francisco – hands down the coolest place to play in SF, staffed by some of the nicest people working in music. It’s our hometown gig.
TC: In which one have you gotten the best crowd response so far?
FT: Putting the Independent in SF aside, The Brooklyn Bowl in NYC is an amazing venue that always has a great audience.
TC: “Triceratops” was recently made available for Rock Band on XboX. What caused you to sign this deal with Rock Band?
FT: We like the idea of people from different scenes learning about Big Light through a game… I think it’s cool to infiltrate a whole world that was completely alien to me until recently. It’s not like we’re background music for a video game. People playing “Triceratops” on Rock Band are interacting with our music in a really interesting way.
TC: Were there incentives for this?
FT: The exposure it offers is certainly an incentive. There isn’t a huge check coming to us from Rock Band or anything like that. You can buy our song for a buck.
TC: How did the majority of your fan base react to this?
FT: As always, they are supportive.
TC: Did anyone bring up the idea of “selling out?”
FT: Well, “selling out” usually involves making a bunch of money, so no it hasn’t come up.
TC: Being one of the up-and-coming bands in the Bay Area, where are you hoping that your album “Animals in Bloom” will take you?
FT: Japan.
TC: Big Light has played a variety of music festivals such as: Noisepop, SXSW and Outside Lands. Which festival has been your favorite to play?
FT: High Sierra Music Festival in Quincy, CA is my favorite festival, hands down. I’ve been six years in a row, and Big Light has played the last three years. I met my girlfriend there. I’ll always show up for that one, as long as they will have us.
TC: Is fan connection easier at a festival or at a normal show?
FT: Sure. Everybody shares their drugs.
TC: Have you shared the stage with any artists you have looked up to?
FT: Yes. The guys in The Mother Hips, Marco Benevento, The Slip, Nathan Moore – we’re lucky to have worked with all of them. Nathan, in particular, is someone who I’m extremely honored to be working with on a semi-regular basis. I learned how to sing and write through studying his music. Now we collaborate and write the occasional song together and started a band called The Dun Four.
TC: You guys are really active in online and mobile marketing – what does your digital marketing strategy consist of? Can you comment on any initiatives that went really well?
FT: It’s how people live their lives now. Facebook is an important tool for every band, I suppose. It also just brought down a 30-year-old dictatorship in Egypt. It’s ubiquitous.
TC: How does your MobBase mobile app fit in to this strategy? What has the response been from fans?
FT: Well, those fans that have an iPhone find the MobBase app helpful for keeping up on what’s happening with us. I get a kick out of all the technology that we employ to do business. It’s a lot different from when I was in high school, putting up posters and using word-of-mouth, literally. The internet had no role in my life back then… These days every band needs the web to exist.
TC: If Big Light was a superhero, what power would he possess and what would his costume look like?
FT: He’d be able to stay up for days in a row playing music. His costume would be all black, naturally.
Big Light’s next show will be at Slims on 4/20/11 for $13.
Remember when the tables turned and MySpace went from being the coolest social networking site around to a shady place for scantily-clad teens in questionable photos and, well… musicians? Despite the seizure-inducing animated gifs and glittering madness that came with the pimp-your-profile craze, MySpace somehow still maintained its role as THE place for musicians. Your band maybe had its own website if, you know, it was all fancy and stuff. But your band definitely had a MySpace page!
Then Facebook came along and soothed us with its minimalist design and all its tangible real-world benefits, and rocked our collective worlds. And yet, the musician was always left to fend for him or herself.
Enter Root Music. Musicians now FINALLY have a home on Facebook. This clever little San Francisco-based startup has created a way for musicians to share their stuff right from within Facebook. The BandPage is a tab just like your photos, info, or wall tabs. While they browse your page, fans can listen to your music from the embedded SoundCloud player. Want to place a banner on your page? Easy! Just upload the picture you want to use. No need to create a custom one. Every section of the BandPage is easily editable. Just drop, drag, and customize as you wish.
What you end up with is a sexy place within your Facebook profile, which you already use and people are already looking at, to share all your stuff (info, photos, shows, twitter feed and much much more) with your fans. In the place where they are already hanging out! It’s an elegant solution to an obvious problem, and Root Music has done it with aplomb. Once you setup your Root Music Bandpage on Facebook, be sure to set it as the default landing page so that it’s the first thing fans see!
Metromix Louiseville hit the nail on the head when they described Thievery Corporation‘s new album, Radio Retaliation, as “a quietly funky soundtrack for the MoveOn.org generation”.
The album, which was released early on iLike and Facebook, is fairly true to the classic Thievery sound – loungey, organic, multicultural. This time around, however, they deliver a decidedly more overt political message. Properly Chilled posits that they deliver their message “through a swirling, smoky kaleidoscope that will leave most people who listen to it largely unaware of, yet affected (if only subconsciously) by its social and political text”. I couldn’t agree more. After a few listens, here is my breakdown of the album.
First up is Sound the Alarm (feat. Sleepy Wonder) which kicks off with a hair-raising siren. A solid reggae beat, guitar riff and bass line set the stage for the minimalistic but passionate lyrics. Not a whole lot happens in this song, but all throughout it’s an enjoyable dub track.
Mandala features Anoushka Shankar, daughter of legendary sitarist Ravi Shankar. If you are a sucker for sitar, you will like this track. A playful twangy melody glides over the layers of deep driving bass, heavy brass and percussion. Some clubby turntable scratching and electronic beats punctuate the song, giving it a timeless feel.
Radio Retaliation again features Sleepy Wonder. As the title track of the album, this is a good example of classic Thievery reggae. Background instrumentals don’t vary much, so your attention is drawn to the lyrics, which have plenty to say.
Vampires has a funky upbeat feel. As musicOMH points out, “the swaying horns and polyrhythmic drums of Vampires do a commendable job of disguising the song’s clunky political metaphors“. The song very appropriately features Femi Kuti, eldest son of Fela Kuti, the Nigerian “pioneer of Afrobeat music, human rights activist, and political maverick.” (And yes, if you are still playing the Sarah Palin drinking game, you can count that use of “maverick” and have a drink.)
In Hare Krsna, the recognizable voice of Seu Jorge, Brazilian pop samba icon (possibly better known to his American fans as the David-Bowie-covers-in-Portuguese soundtrack guy for The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou) adds a scratchy rawness to what would otherwise be a little too smooth of a trip hop track. The title might lead you to expect an overtly Indian sound but instead you get classic Thievery muted basslines, looped guitars, brass sections… Only after listening closely do you catch what sounds like a dhol in the background. That, and of course, Seu is singing “Hare Krsna” over and over…
El Pueblo Unido, featuring Verny Varela, is probably one of the best songs on the album. The juxtaposition of jazzy Latin sounds and loungey dub gives it sort of a Buena Vista Social Club meets Morcheeba vibe.
(The Forgotten People) starts off with a sad clarinet intro and quickly picks up the pace with forceful sitar, dhol, and some electronic beats. The bass line gives this track a much darker sound than the rest of the album. A perfect song to listen to when you’re feeling a little dark yourself. Intense, worldly, and pleasing to the ear.
33 Degree features the soft haunting vocals of Zee over mellow trip hop style instrumentals. Part space age synth, part loungey beats, this track utilizes minimal percussion and a smooth blend of sounds to send you on a quiet thoughtful journey.
For Beautiful Drug, think AIR. Heavily reminiscent of the Virgin Suicides soundtrack, this one. The smoky vocals of Jana Andevska, who sounds a bit like Cat Power, gives the track a lazy, melancholy texture. You can almost picture an emaciated bored French socialite lounging in an opium den somewhere unimpressed by her glamorous yet soulless life and yearning for a different reality or perhaps a lost love…
La Femme Parallel is super mellow. LouLou‘s gentle vocals calmly drive this ambient track forward. Suitable background music for a loungey nightclub in any cosmopolitan city. You can imagine hearing this song playing softly while well dressed city types sip their martinis and steal sultry glances at strangers in the dim smoky room.
Retaliation Suite launches into a brassy funky groove with lots of triangle, some smooth sax, and provocative vocal samples. The political rhetoric contrasts nicely with the relaxed head-nodding qualities of the instrumentals. A great listen whether you play it in the background or listen to the words.
The Numbers Game is more of a departure from Thievery’s typical chill sound. Funky percussion, lots of soul and brass accompany the “Godfather of Go Go”, Chuck Brown, as he sings about the “same old game” and tells you to “shake out your mind”. Definitely a toe-tapping number.
The Shining Path is bass-heavy throughout and laced with haunting synths patterns. In the second half of the song, a tabla beat drops giving the song a more organic element, sort of a drum-circle vibe.
Blasting Through the City features Notch, whose earnest lyrics implore you to: “feel the struggle, but don’t give up the fight”. This reggae-infused downtempo track simultaneously makes you want to kick back on an island somewhere and join the a revolution.
Sweet Tides (feat. LouLou) A downtempo groove with a positive and uplifting feel to it. When LouLou sings in English, somehow she loses a bit of her charm, but the vocals are still very pretty. Seemingly uniform at first, a more triumphant hi-hat beat drops about halfway in to pick up the energy. The muted trumpets that fade out at the end of the song give it a nice polish.
In conclusion, we have another great accomplishment by the DJ duo. Some may say they went a little overboard with the number of guest artists, but it certainly adds diversity to the overall sound. The album is unique in that it preserves enough of the elements of Thievery Corporation’s core sound and feel and yet adds some new dynamics including the ramped up political undertones. I say two thumbs up and go buy/download/steal/burn (or do whatever it is you do to get new music) Radio Retaliation. If nothing else, spread the word. It’s worth hearing.
