Caribou - Odessa from Video Marsh on Vimeo.
Click here for a free download too.
I likes this a lot.
Saturday 24 April 2010
Friday 23 April 2010
Bear in Heaven @ The Lexington - 20 April 2010
I fear for my beloved instrument. In the hey days of punk, grunge, or any rock n roll, the bass was the lynchpin of the band. You couldn’t put a price on someone who could pump out a deep groove for the rest to build themselves around. I get the faint sniff that nowadays it’s becoming a peripheral instrument. More and more, I’ll go and watch a band and see the bass passed around guitarists and keyboardists like an unwanted child of a divorced family at Christmas. The result is more often than not a show that lacks any real grunt.
It was no more evident than tonight at the Lexington. Bear in Heaven, who hail from Brooklyn but spent the last 50 hours trying to negotiate a flight ban into the UK, are an act for the noughties – plenty of synths, plenty of fast beats, plenty of high-pitched vocals. Don’t get me wrong, they show incredible potential. I don’t profess to be hugely au fait with them, but I was taken with a number of their tunes tonight. They create great energy, and know the right moments to break down the beats.
But one thing in particular bugged me: neither guitarist nor vocalist seemed to really know how to get the most out of the bass. The lines they played were fine – even impressive – but being guitarists at heart they didn’t move away from the close frets at the higher end. They were reticent to walk their fingers down the neck to find the real impact of the instrument. At times, it was even discarded altogether.
The result was a show that lacked a pulse. It seemed there was nothing gluing the three of them together, no grunt to really drive the building crescendos home. My ears hurt from the abundance of treble that even the drums seemed to contribute to.
It’s a problem easily fixed. The beauty of a great bassist is that they don’t garner the attention of the crowd in the way a front man does. You can sit them in the corner and they know their job is to look after the basics. Bear in Heaven would benefit hugely from the services of a four-stringed specialist.
It was no more evident than tonight at the Lexington. Bear in Heaven, who hail from Brooklyn but spent the last 50 hours trying to negotiate a flight ban into the UK, are an act for the noughties – plenty of synths, plenty of fast beats, plenty of high-pitched vocals. Don’t get me wrong, they show incredible potential. I don’t profess to be hugely au fait with them, but I was taken with a number of their tunes tonight. They create great energy, and know the right moments to break down the beats.
But one thing in particular bugged me: neither guitarist nor vocalist seemed to really know how to get the most out of the bass. The lines they played were fine – even impressive – but being guitarists at heart they didn’t move away from the close frets at the higher end. They were reticent to walk their fingers down the neck to find the real impact of the instrument. At times, it was even discarded altogether.
The result was a show that lacked a pulse. It seemed there was nothing gluing the three of them together, no grunt to really drive the building crescendos home. My ears hurt from the abundance of treble that even the drums seemed to contribute to.
It’s a problem easily fixed. The beauty of a great bassist is that they don’t garner the attention of the crowd in the way a front man does. You can sit them in the corner and they know their job is to look after the basics. Bear in Heaven would benefit hugely from the services of a four-stringed specialist.
Thursday 22 April 2010
Tuesday 20 April 2010
Thursday 8 April 2010
Why make sharing music a crime?
When I like an album, the first thing I do is check when they’re touring and get tickets. I then put it on the stereo at work, sharing it with colleagues and encouraging them to come to the show with me. If I think it’s really something, it’ll find its way onto this blog and get read by a pretty hefty number.
The fact is that my acquiring an album for free results in significantly more income for the artist – providing they’re good enough. Everyone knows that word-of-mouth is the most effective form of advertising. Essentially, that’s all file sharing is. With the introduction of the Digital Britain Bill, all that is over. We're being transported back to a time when record companies and radio stations controlled the amount of new music that you could hear through selective playlists and discriminative pricing. Couple this with the planned closure of one of the few remaining bastions of new music, Radio 6, and we're left with a fairly bleak musical future.
An age-old practice
We’ve been sharing music for decades, through mix-tapes, copied cds and now file sharing. It’s natural to want to tell others about things you love. It’s a catalyst for life-long friendships and blossoming relationships. If we lose the ability to share music, we lose the ability to enjoy with others one of life’s most sacred pleasures.
The ongoing war between artists, record companies, and fans over file sharing misses a key fact: that the music industry is still trying to make money in the same way it did 60 years ago, ignoring the dawn of a new technological era.
By targeting file sharers, the industry is criminalising people who are simply looking to share their love of music.
A 14-year-old boy courting the affections of a special girl through special songs is not a criminal.
A university student in a dictatorial country looking for a voice from the free world is not a criminal.
A twenty-something blogger promoting the music he loves is not a criminal.
Who's fault is it anyway?
The scale of civil disobedience that goes on through file sharing does not reflect a problem with society, but rather a problem with the music industry. It’s a sector that continues to pursue an archaic form of product distribution that hasn’t evolved as its customers developed and embraced technology. It’s utterly reprehensible that we are targeted for the failing of an industry to move with the times. Don’t blame the innovators, blame those with no impulse to change.
The music industry’s business model no longer works. That much is clear. Yet some of the most creative and entrepreneurial minds in the world are at the head of organisations that give us the soundtracks to our lives. Are you telling me they can't develop a new business model that is as innovative as fans were in developing new ways to capture new music?
No-one wants the industry to die, yet its demise is what fans are accused of causing. Other industries have survived customer revolts by being dynamic and adaptable. It’s time the music industry was the same.
The fact is that my acquiring an album for free results in significantly more income for the artist – providing they’re good enough. Everyone knows that word-of-mouth is the most effective form of advertising. Essentially, that’s all file sharing is. With the introduction of the Digital Britain Bill, all that is over. We're being transported back to a time when record companies and radio stations controlled the amount of new music that you could hear through selective playlists and discriminative pricing. Couple this with the planned closure of one of the few remaining bastions of new music, Radio 6, and we're left with a fairly bleak musical future.
An age-old practice
We’ve been sharing music for decades, through mix-tapes, copied cds and now file sharing. It’s natural to want to tell others about things you love. It’s a catalyst for life-long friendships and blossoming relationships. If we lose the ability to share music, we lose the ability to enjoy with others one of life’s most sacred pleasures.
The ongoing war between artists, record companies, and fans over file sharing misses a key fact: that the music industry is still trying to make money in the same way it did 60 years ago, ignoring the dawn of a new technological era.
By targeting file sharers, the industry is criminalising people who are simply looking to share their love of music.
A 14-year-old boy courting the affections of a special girl through special songs is not a criminal.
A university student in a dictatorial country looking for a voice from the free world is not a criminal.
A twenty-something blogger promoting the music he loves is not a criminal.
Who's fault is it anyway?
The scale of civil disobedience that goes on through file sharing does not reflect a problem with society, but rather a problem with the music industry. It’s a sector that continues to pursue an archaic form of product distribution that hasn’t evolved as its customers developed and embraced technology. It’s utterly reprehensible that we are targeted for the failing of an industry to move with the times. Don’t blame the innovators, blame those with no impulse to change.
The music industry’s business model no longer works. That much is clear. Yet some of the most creative and entrepreneurial minds in the world are at the head of organisations that give us the soundtracks to our lives. Are you telling me they can't develop a new business model that is as innovative as fans were in developing new ways to capture new music?
No-one wants the industry to die, yet its demise is what fans are accused of causing. Other industries have survived customer revolts by being dynamic and adaptable. It’s time the music industry was the same.
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