Ladies who use modular synths and self written software to make weird music have the same effect on me now that girls who could skateboard really well had on me as a teenager.
This song was later recorded by the worst named band ever (besides "the rainbow butt-monkeys") Hot butter. That version is catchy and fun, but still sort of annoying.
This one here it pure beauty to my ears. Done on the moog modular, with a nice picture of the setup in there. Pretty sweet drumming too. The 60's had way better studio players.
Gershon Kingsley is one of the pioneers. I will feature more soon.
Dude built this synth out of random junk, the panel seems to be cardboard with marker writing. Why does the world reward people so well for being a dancer in a Britney Spears video and yet this guy will never make any money off being able to do this?
makenewsounds is a new idea I'm trying out where I post original sounds I either record or synthesize or process etc... The idea being first of all to explain the process and get people interested in the nuts and bolts of sonic foolishness that I am crazy over, but also to allow people to sample and use the sounds 100% royalty free.
I'm going to try to do a new sound every day, but forgive me if I have to skip a day here and there.
So I'm looking at this little youtube movie of Animal Collective playing in France and I can't help but think "why are these people not going fucking nuts?". This brothersport song is the jam, when I listen to it in headphones while doing the dishes I dance more than this whole crowd of people put together. It's a great beat, chanting chorus, perfect tempo and exciting to boot. When I hear the song I imagine a million people at a huge outdoor concert all going crazy dancing like there's no tomorrow, it has that feel to me. I bet that this scene in this little movie is pretty much what you get at a lot of their shows though. A lot of bobbing heads, a lot of nice outfits and pretty people, a bit of controlled grooving going on and maybe one or two "weirdos" really cutting loose. Something is wrong with that picture.
I just went and saw one of my favorite bands the other day, Think about life, who also happen to be buddies. Martin, the singer, was talking about how he'd like to go to Ibiza or someplace like it, despite all the cheeseballs and drugs because it's just tons of people dancing. He does his best to get a crowd going nuts when they play, and often does an amazing job of it. I think that these days that's all I really want from a live show. Call me crazy but I don't go out that often, and when I do I want to cut loose. The problem is that going nuts has been co-opted by the Ibiza cheeseballs. Why do we have to be too cool for it? Why is underground music for smart people always moving in the direction of more fashion and less fun? Why do people wear cool bands as badges of honor, instead of seeing them as the ones who bring us fun? Why would we ever chose not to dance to a band we love?
I do a lot of reading about the music business these days. It fascinates me because everything is changing in a way that is unprecedented and it's going to mean a lot to each and every one of us. Especially us, because we're the diehards. There will not be another U2, because the environment is different now. We've seen the death of MTV, which was once a place where everyone went to find out about music. I doubt if anyone sees a band on MTV that they've not heard of yet these days (if they see a band at all). Radio is done, and print magazines are on their way out. Within the last ten years it has now become possible to get pretty much any record you want, whenever you want it. Even the idea of choosing when your album "comes out" is a joke beyond a certain level of success. The album is never going to have the same power it once did. Joke about it if you want, but when I was 14 I got to have a new album when either I bought it, or a friend of mine was nice enough to dub me off a tape copy. I got maybe 6 or 7 new records a month and listened to them a hundred times each at least. I had favorite records that I listened to 3-5 times a day for weeks at a time. Now I can easily get 6 or 7 new records every day if I try, and even ones that I really like get far fewer listens because there's so much out there to listen to. The quality of the albums isn't going down, it's just that the current system makes it hard to form the same kind of attachment to one work.
Some people will be upset about this. Anyone who's still trying to make the greatest album of all time will still be rewarded for doing a good job, but you will never have another album that's as "important" as the ones that came out before filesharing.
I personally think it's great.
As much as it devalues any one album, the new way of doing things is turning way more people into diehards. When I was 14, you had to be kind of nuts and a bit of a nerd to get really into music. It took a ton of time and effort just to find out who cool bands were, and then you had to put way more effort into hearing them. It was fine for me, but it kept music nerds a very small subgroup of people. Nowadays you can hear about some cool music blog and in one afternoon start yourself off on the road to music nerdom with very little effort. Sure, a lot of these people will never be true diehards, but there are certainly way more now than there have ever been. People are more psyched about music generally, and much more into making it a big part of their lives. If we need to devalue individual albums in order to bring this about, I say wonderful! There are fewer and fewer music superstars coming out, who sell millions of records, but there are way, WAY more medium sized bands with a dedicated following.
The other big effect is that the money is now coming from live shows instead of from selling albums.
This is why I can't stand to see these kids all standing around, barely moving while Animal Collective plays one of the most killer dance jams in recent memory. With the individual album losing importance, we need the individual show to take it's place. It's a beautiful system because it makes the larger part of music social again. The important part doesn't happen in your bedroom in headphones, it happens at a venue with tons of other people, sharing it with you. That's just like it was before records were invented. People used to go to see music live, and it was about dancing. Don't these kids see that they are part of history? We are living in the best time ever for music, but we owe it to ourselves and the bands we love and to music generally to take advantage of it. 15 years ago you didn't have the chance to go see animal collective play to a big crowd, cool bands like that were very marginalized by the record industry, and had very small followings. Rejoice then, that we live in a world where so much is available to us. And for god's sake, Dance when you go to shows.
