[no more a#@&^%*s but we’ll rock the !!!!!s like we’re !!!]
This is my first attempt at creating a more captivating title too - in case people are checking for updates in a feed reader and that’s all they get to see. I was told it’s a good thing to do.
Because truth be told, I do not hate Ms. Webb-Campbell.
I think she’s a doll - if that comes across as some sexist rude remark it certainly shouldn’t be taken as such. She is easily one of the nicest, most understanding, compassionate [?!?] people I’ve met within the local scene. And she plays bass!! I play bass!!
There’s a bunch more [my english teachers would be so proud of this blog] shared similarities too but I’m pressed for time right now so………jumping to the point….She loves the local music scene too. A lot [Alot is not a word people!!!!].
I was going to write about one Tanya Davis earlier this week before getting side tracked.
But before I could get to that I get an email from Shannon about a new article on one Tanya Davis. Cool, that’s fine - Tanya was just featured on the cover of the Coast for their recent best of music issue, probably on plenty of people’s radars as of late and rightfully so.
An aside: Tanya is something else - you could probably label her a spoken word artist but that comes with it a series of prejudices that not only are undeserved, but they’d simply would not hold up when listening to her music. It’s no more spoken word than it is singing as she clearly has her own place in the local music scene. Don’t let the idea that she calls herself a poet turn you way from listening or that it might be spoken word, you’ll be doing yourself a disservice not giving her a chance at least, to win you over. end of aside
So I was planning on writing about the wonderful Superfantastics on Friday. Well wouldn’t you know it, I get another link from Shannon about, the Super-fucking- fantastics. [check back on Friday anyways for a previously unreleased song and details about a show and new video being debuted Friday night].
I just don’t want her to think I’m using her as inspiration, letting her do all the thinking about who should be written about and then copying her out put. I’d never ride someone’s coattails like that. Fact of the matter is I’d rather let her do the work for me as I even asked her to write on this. For the sake of decency I won’t share her response here - but as nice as she is normally, she sure knows how to be hurtful when she wants to. [!!!!!!!!!!!!]
Thing is, for the past while now, she has been shining a spot light on local artists for chartattack.com like it was nobodies business. Which is a great thing for everyone part of the local music scene whether you like the bands she’s interviewed or not.
So while she may very well continue to make me look like I’m using her to help decide who to write about, I’ll be more than happy to do so as long as she continues shining the light on so many worthwhile locals. Cheers to Shannon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Banned Words
First off, after this post, I hope to retire or at least severely restrict the use of the word “awesome” from here on [see the Stance post for why].
Videos
After a week or trying I’ve finally set-up everything properly to allow for the posting of YouTube and whatever else. See be low for a video from the heavy blinkers as well as the stolen minks. More to come.
MP3s
Also getting things organized on the MP3 front. We’ll hopefully have a series of exclusive local releases. I was working on a Halifax based podcast, but I haven’t be able to find a co-host - and learned in some trial runs why plenty radio talk shows have two hosts. I’m not sure I’d be entertaining to listen to with someone else there as well but I sure as hell know now that I’m not on my own.
So inspired by the cokemachineglow scenecast, that’s how I will be presenting my planned podcasts for now. You’ll be able to download all the songs as a zip file [or something similar] or pick and choose individual tracks. Sounds Local Mix #1 will be up in December.
Might be more to add to a follow up post later but I think that’s it
Good night
The blues was the first genre of music I discovered and called my own. At 13 not many of my friends understood why I listened to, for the most, elderly black men sing “the blues” and I never came up with a great response. It just felt right. And there are still moods and times when only a certain blues album or even song will do.
Robert Lockwood Jr. is the latest of the last remaining blue giants, even if the general populace was unaware of him - as the sheer lack of mention of his passing anywhere would seem to indicate was the case - to pass on a week ago yesterday at the age of 91.
His pedigree could almost be considered as unmatched. He took lessons from Robert Johnson [Lockwood’s stepfather] and his radio show playing was a major influence to the King of the Blues, B.B. King.
Of the limited mentions of his passing the best was a piece in the Washington Post, noted as an appreciation titled Robert Lockwood Jr. Expanded The Spectrum of the Blues, which while touching on the significance of his relations and influences, clearly focuses on his skills as a player.
Which for a musician of his significance to other blues players and based on his own musical abilities is clearly appropriate. R.I.P.
The folks at i (heart) music, after featuring Their Majesties earlier in the week, have picked up on another bunch from the Just Friends crew today: The Stance
Pretty awesome guys all-around, i (heart) music rates the Stance’s music as “amazing” - which is awesome. And I concur fully.
Just getting started on a future release, I hear there’s some experimentation coming from the Stance that was already sounding pretty awesome after their first night in the studio - be looking forward to hearing what they put out next. Expect something new to hit the streets in the New Year
“2005 was a disappointing year for us” - Sanctuary Group 2005 Annual Report
That was the opening line from the Chairman’s report in last year’s annual report. I can’t wait to see what 2006’s is going to be.
Sanctuary owns a big chunk of Rough Trade [on a sidenote I’m looking forward to reading Rough Trade: Labels Unlimited], which is part of their current problems it seems. They also have released or managed a variable who’s who of past and present rockers from Iron Maiden to Axl Rose to Antony and the Johnsons
The latest in an ongoing string of bad news from the company was announced yesterday when it was noted that Sanctuary shares have plummeted. Today Julia Finch’s Viewpoint for the Guardian wasn’t pulling any punches, titled Sanctuary is more crock than rock starts off positively beaming:
Has there ever, in the history of rock’n'roll, been a more disastrous music company than Sanctuary Group? The company built on Iron Maiden and Morrissey yesterday issued yet another profit warning. It has now issued more financial alerts than Pete Doherty - once one of the group’s star turns - has had court appearances.
She even manages to get a dig in against the Strokes noting: The scale of their collapse [Sanctuary’s] is on a par with the demise of Sanctuary band The Strokes. Ouch
The largest independent in the UK, and largest management company in the world, the past years’ problems have seen key acts [Iron Maiden] and personnel [Rod Smallwood, co-founder + additional managers and the acts they represented] disappear. It will be interesting to see what remains of the Sanctuary Group after various offers for pieces of the company are considered - might soon be time for a new indie to be king of the hill in the UK.
Maintaining the current habit of timely postings locals the heavy blinkers [find some of their music on 3hive.com mentioned in the previous post] have been nominated for a PLUG Award. The PLUG Awards are ” different from all of the institutional accolades for the music industry Those are all devoted to recognizing the mainstream hits. Very rarely do these honors reach, let alone embrace, independent music or the community of artists and fans who now represent more than 25% of the global music market. We’re a community that thinks for ourselves – we don’t take our cues from mainstream media or marketing. PLUG is about the independent music community coming together to recognize our own.
We’ve discovered these records on blogs, in magazine blurbs, fanzines, recommendations from our local record store, in IM conversations, in links from friends and passionate testimonials overheard in line outside a club”.
Sounds OK I guess. The important part right now is that the blinkers are nominated for best video for “Try Telling That To My Baby”. You can find that category under Music Categories [obsessive] and you can watch the video below:
UPDATE: The Heavy Blinkers’ “Try Telling That To My Baby” has also been selected to be part of the 5th Annual Indie Music Video Festival
If you end up reading this blog on a regular basis you’ll come to see that I like to explain things [see earlier posts on the naming of the blog, why a blog and hey! the categories used! sick I know]. The reason I like to explain things is that I just assume other people are like me and want to understand everything. As much as possible. I have issues. I know.
So what is this post about? Explaining [introducing!!] why the blogs on my blogroll are there. Really it’s about introducing some blogs I like, but I do always wonder why certain blogs have others listed and others omitted and so on.
So today I’m going to introduce 3hive and IndieHQ
3hive.com is an MP3 blog - one of my favs. While I enjoyed their format, one band at a time, couple MP3s, short lil’ to the point write ups, daily updates, couple differrent perspectives, they had me for good when I read on their about page their reference to the “good old fashioned MP3″. Loved it.
But the site is also fun and easy to explore. You can browse by label, genre, artist and a few other options. So I suggest you go do that, you’ll almost certainly find something you like and if you don’t send them suggestions at suggestionbox(at)3hive.com
3hive’s tag line is sharing the sharing - and to me that can sum up what I feel about IndieHQ as well. IndieHQ is one of many projects of Virgil Dickerson of Suburban Home Records [busy guy, check out the label’s site for other projects such as http://www.vinylcollective.com/].
IndieHQ was one of the blogs that served as a model for what I want this to become in time, if not more self focused. Virgil regularly shares ideas and plans for his label on IndieHQ, soliciting reader’s feedback and suggestions on his ideas.
As noted in the last post, sharing ideas is a good thing and for that alone I’m glad I came across his site while thinking and rethinking whether starting an indie label was a wise decision or not.
There’s a wealth of good information on his site that any label or band can make use of. But as noted above I think one of the strongest attributes of his blog is what he shares and gets back in return from other users of his site. Amazingly beneficial to anyone else looking to or doing the same. This is invaluable as it serves as an example, can confirm [or destroy] suspicions you have had, motivate you to act on something and improves the learning experience for all involved.
My three favorite things about music blogs are the passion for music usually evident, the exchange of ideas and of course the discovery of new music. IndieHQ nails all points. [3hive doesn’t do the sharing of ideas, they are sharing the sharing and doing a bang up job, new music and passion aplenty]. Check both sites out please.
This list originally appeared back in February but rightfully so has been one of Hypebot’s most read posts since then.
One of the key things that made Their Majesties really attractive for us to work with them was their willingness to allow us to try pretty much anything that comes to mind as far as promoting them goes.
We’re currently wrapping up the writing of their business and marketing plan [with an eye towards applying to some grants next month, but a worth while exercise for any band that’s investing thousands in recording and pressing a release]. Once that’s finished I’ll be posting more about some of the ideas we have and what we’re trying to do - as well as some things I wish we could do if the opportunity arose.
As point number 99 states: If you try something and it works, tell others…then they’ll be more likely to share their ideas with you
Visitors have the option of downloading the entire scenecast or picking and choosing what they listen to. Plenty of great local bands included with a few pleasant surprises [biggest = broken deer]. Full listing of bands you can check out there is:
Air Traffic Control; Mardeen; The Lighthouse Choir [I have to check this band out next time they play in Halifax - definitely one of the most positively talked about bands across the board]; Broken Deer [read a cokemachineglow review]; The Heavy Blinkers; Mayapple Weather; Dog Day [new record coming very soon from tomlab]; Wintersleep; The Dean Malenkos; City Field; Carmen Townsend and the Shakey Deals; Mike O’Neill; Jill Barber and Joel Plaskett Emergency
In other timely listening news, you can check out some early Joel Plaskett via Thrush Hermit in a post on said the gramophone [from Nov 16th]
i(heart)music selects Their Majesties as Feature of the Week
While also addressing some comments to the lack of East Coast bands in their most recent best of survey, the review of the CD is as about as good as one could hope for. I’d quote part of it but the whole thing is good so take a look.
