MusicAlly has pointed us towards Chinese pianist Lang Lang who has decided to play Flight of the Bumblebee on an iPad. Lang Lang was using the Magic Piano app at his most recent San Francisco concert.
Indie innovators Broken Social Scene have announced the release of a new album after a five year wait. Released on the 4th of May this year, Forgiveness Rock Record will be the band’s 5th full album release – and Feist is back in the mix, as well as members of Pavement, Do Make Say Think and cerebral songsmiths Cake. You can download a sample track fro their website by giving them your email address, and if you like what you hear, then they’re touring the new album in the USA and Europe – dates below.
Sunday March 14th, 2010 Elkton, FL Harvest Of Hope Festival
Thursday March 18th, 2010 Austin, TX Stubbs BBQ
Friday March 19th, 2010 Austin, TX The Parish
Saturday May 1st, 2010 San Francisco, CA The Fillmore
Monday May 3rd, 2010 Los Angeles, CA Henry Fonda Theatre
Friday May 7th, 2010 New York, NY Webster Hall
Thursday May 13th, 2010 London, UK Brixton Academy
Friday May 14th, 2010 Minehead @ Butlins, UK All Tomorrow’s Parties (Matt Groening curating)
Saturday May 15th, 2010 Brighton, UK The Great Escape
Monday May 17th, 2010 London, UK Heaven
Tuesday May 18th, 2010 Amsterdam, Netherlands Melkweg
Wednesday May 19th, 2010 Cologne, Germany Burgerhaus Stollwerck
Friday May 21st, 2010 Paris, France La Maroquinerie
Sunday May 23rd, 2010 Linz, AUT LinzFest
Monday May 24th, 2010 Berlin, Germany Kesselhaus
Thursday May 27th, 2010 Barcelona, Spain Primavera Sound Festival
Saturday May 29th, 2010 George, WA Sasquatch Festival
Saturday June 19th, 2010 Toronto, ON Olympic Island
Most music in the world is awful, lets be honest. If you find yourself in the middle of a screaming legion of fans in the middle of a mosh pit for the worlds most awesome metal band and life is perfect, i’m betting there is a good chance you hate dance and techno music just as passionately, just as blatantly as the dance fans hate your rock and metal. There will never be a band that is universally loved by everyone. Some bands, however, are hated by everyone, but that’s not the point is it! Then there’s rubbish bands in the middle of everyone, constantly on the radio, number one all over the place and on every reality TV show going, who is actually buys Peter Andre albums anyway? I bet you don’t know anyone who has actually gone to the shops to buy one. Some bands, it seems, are able to get along on just the strength of a good name, despite having shameful music, like Muse or the Stereophonics. That one apparent, i think, proves how important it is to have a good solid name, one that sounds like your music and really matches to the sort of fans you wanna grab, like Metallica, Radiohead or Blur. Some however, get it superbly wrong, here are the worst 10 we could find, in no particular order.
Trent Reznor and his Nine Inch Nails band mates recently performed in London, with 80’s music icon Gary Numan. Numan is best known for being a new wave pioneer with his synthesized tunes. Reznor released two videos from their on stage collaboration, which features the songs “Cars” and “Metal”
Take a look at the band in action in HD…
NIN: “Cars” with Gary Numan, live from on stage, London 7.15.09 [HD] from Nine Inch Nails on Vimeo.
NIN: “Metal” with Gary Numan, live from on stage, London 7.15.09 [HD] from Nine Inch Nails on Vimeo.
The Mercury Prize, named for a now defunct telecoms company that tried to challenge British Telecom’s dominance back in the 90′s, is one of the highlights of the UK’s musical calendar. It’s the one high profile award that annually breaks away from the mainstream and run-of-the-mill fare that usually weighs down the pages of NME, and each year it plucks some more or less deserving soul out of the ranks of relative obscurity and rewards originality with fame and glory. The variety of the nominees is really encouraging, and musical flair abounds. This kind of flair and talent is something that really outshines production values, and live performance is the crucible in which all musicians and performers reveal their true ability. Although it’s difficult to compare the artists directly, as the performances range from the back room of a bar to Glastonbury via the Radio 1 Live Lounge, I’ve tried to pick videos with decent sound quality, and they’re of such different types of music that direct comparison is almost impossible anyway. I’ll season each video I post with my (very personal) opinion.
Florence and the Machine – To my ears, these guys sound much better stripped right down like this, a belting little performance from a band with a pleasantly unabashed pop sensibility. Strident.
Kasabian – The big kids in the playground at the moment, following in the well-worn indie footsteps of bands like Oasis, The Killers, The Kaiser Chiefs and so on. Stripped of their glamour and singing on a sofa, I think the infectious sing-along simplicity of their songs shines through. Swaggering.
Bat for Lashes – A more upscale performance on ‘Later’ here from BFL, but one that shows off how tight and together they are. They kind of remind me of a mix between Bjork and the Cocteau Twins, with New York Pony Club doing the production, the kind of thing you have to be in a particular mood for, but nonetheless pretty original. Lilting.
La Roux – Synthpop played live can sound a little sterile, but these guys pull it off; something about the flat, school classroom neon lighting setup here appeals to me too. Am I alone in thinking the lead vocal sounds a bit like Jimmy Somerville? Quiffs abound.
Glasvegas – The Elvis Costello haircuts belie the raucous nature of this band, swaggering, black-leather-clad rock that is obviously meant to be played live, in front of a bouncing audience rather than on your Macbook speakers. Unapologetic.
Speech Debelle – This year’s Mercury Prize winner, very urban sounding, in the vein of Mike Skinner’s Streets, and (don’t hate me for this) Just Jack. The mixing on the BBC’s ‘Introducing’ stage at Glastonbury leaves a little to be desired but you can get the idea. My favourite things about her are 1. She’s a girl 2. Simon Cowell wouldn’t give her the time of day. Innit.
Friendly Fires – More rocky stuff here, great setup on ‘Later’ once more. A band so young and ‘fresh’ that I don’t feel like criticising them. Current.
The Horrors – It’s a toss up between these guys and Led Bib for the least mainstream band in the nominees list this year; they blast out a kind of psych-out trance rock wall-of-noise thing that is definitely unique, and would probably get a disapproving tut noise from your granny. Challenging.
Lisa Hannigan – Much more to granny’s taste, Damien Rice’s old band mate is now making pretty, elfin folk tunes by herself. She usually has a little light up plastic mushroom on top of her hand powered bellows organ/keyboard thing and looks wistful most of the time. Charming.
The Invisible – The only band for whom I couldn’t find a live performance. This is obviously cheating, and you should dock at least a point as you listen to their heavy bass (check out that beard!) leading a thumping, funky, intricate sound. Sexy.
Led Bib – Jangling, broken up, super complex jazz that’s so out there it’s come back and is looking over your shoulder at what you’re eating, making you feel a bit nervous and wondering if you’ve missed something. They’re clearly all phenomenally good musicians, and they’re trying to do something really different, and there are moments and sections that really flow together, but then they’re smashed apart by a confrontation between the instruments that sounds like a pack of dogs are chasing a one man band through a clown convention. Barking.
Sweet Billy Pilgrim – Gentle guitar strains over the keyboard line from Castlevania on the Megadrive, at least on this track from the Punkt festival. Americana updated, like the Eagles bumping into Crystal Castles in a pub and getting on really well until a vampire spills their drinks. Lilting, darkly.
RouteNote is proud to be associated with Falmouth Sound, a new live music event set against a beautiful waterside backdrop at Events Square, Falmouth Sound 2009 promises an eclectic mix of quality music from 21st-century indie, blues and folk to vintage reggae, rocksteady and ska for two days and two nights this August Bank Holiday weekend.
Brought to you by a passionate bunch of music and events aficionados who’ve worked their magic behind the scenes at the likes of Glastonbury, Beautiful Days and The Eden Sessions, Falmouth Sound brings you two days with two very different vibes to get your hands clapping and feet skanking – the ultimate way to send off the summer in style.
Saturday 29th August
Technicolour indie rockers and festival favourites The Wombats (whose single ‘Let’s Dance to Joy Division’ won them Best Dancefloor Filler at the NME Awards) top the bill on Saturday, supported by The Boxer Rebellion (who’ve outsold artists including Kings Of Leon, Coldplay and MGMT on US iTunes), finger-picking blues meets Ninja Tune man Fink, one of the music industry’s most non-talked about geniuses, Foy Vance, Ireland’s more sophisticated reply to Van Morrison, and Melo Park, the acoustic brainchild of Kosheen’s Sian Evans.
Sunday 30th August
On a completely different tip, The Wailers (the most famous reggae band in the world, who backed Bob Marley and have sold over 250 million albums) are heading up the show on the Sunday, backed by the two-tone power of The Neville Staple band, featuring Pauline Black – respectively an ex-Special and the glorious voice of The Selecter, and the mighty Gabbidon, offering a fusion of reggae, rock, ska and jazz styles from one of the founding members of the legendary 1970s band Steel Pulse.
Further big-name acts for both nights will be announced soon, along with local bands who’ll be gracing the stage on both days, when the event will be open for free to allow people to come and support the local music scene.
Tickets are available from Ticket Angels, and you can sign up to the Falmouth Sound mailing list for more information here:
RouteNote has been lucky enough to partner with Mininova to offer some of our video content to the 100 million people who use the site every month. Mininova is the worlds largest bittorrent client in which receives over 800 million pageviews every month.
One of the first videos we have added to Mininova is The Peoples String Foundation – Red Dress Woman in Black. The video can be currently viewed on our YouTube channel, but if you want to download the video to place on your computer or ipod here is the link to the torrent on Mininova.
Enjoy!
In the future RouteNote will be adding more videos and other content to Mininova and other bittorrent sites to help drive promotion of our artists. Stay tuned for more freebies coming soon.
This is definitely a first, Goldie Lookin’ Chain are holding a pay-what-you-want gig.
The band are holding a warm-up show for their next UK tour in January at Metro in London.
Here’s the blurb:
“Entry to this Metro show is FREE, however, taking a leaf out of Radiohead’s book, you will be expected to pay as much (or as little) as you like on your way out depending on how much fun you had (but you don’t get a free Radiohead album). It’s a bit like the Severn bridge toll into Wales, but in reverse.”
Source: MusicAlly
Our first batch of tracks delivered to iTunes is now live. Once tracks are cleared by our team at RouteNote it normally takes another 4 weeks to get the tracks live onto iTunes. Make sure you head over to iTunes to check if you tracks are currently live. If you tracks aren’t already on RouteNote make sure you get them on now, cause every day you wait you could potential be losing out in earnings!
