Archive for the ‘music’ Category

Threads – Part something something

Sunday, January 7th, 2018

We’ve been watching Jean-Claude Van Johnson, an amazing JCVD show where JC plays himself but he is also a spy using acting as his cover. Trailer. It’s hilarious and he is perfect at comedy. A recent show ends with M.C. Solaar’s Nouveau Western. I remember the sound and the video. Couldn’t remember the Director – Stephane Sednaoui. Look at his body of work. Some amazingly stylish music videos that defined the 90s. Give it away. Mysterious Ways. Queer.

And he did a few for Mirwais. Including Disco Science.

And from his album Production, flowed some amazing music. And Madonna had him work on Music. When you listen to both you realise they are cut from the same cloth or are Side A and B of a record where each of the duo take a half and follow their vision but they’re too in synch to be too different.

And now I’m listening to Uffie because Mirwais produced some of her work.

Björken hearted

Sunday, January 25th, 2015

That new Bjórk album, was expecting to end up in a dark hole with my mascara running because of the sadness. It’s some album but I think I need to listen to it lots or read the lyrics sheet that came with it.

And I just wanted to get that headline out before anyone else.

Spring

Wednesday, January 9th, 2013

Dorval – Julia Kent

Monday, October 22nd, 2012

This was played on Liz Nolan’s show on Friday.

It felt quite familiar even when first hearing it. For me, like all good music, it creates it’s own world that makes you feel part of it or at least a witness from the peripheries. This track creates for me an evening out with those you love and as things wind down, as the intoxication of chemicals artificial or natural slow things down, the night dissolves around you until you just have each other.

Or something.

John’s Book of Alleged Dances

Thursday, July 5th, 2012

via Liz Nolan in Lyric FM

A Dark Horse – Take Me Home

Sunday, June 3rd, 2012

James from A Dark Horse sent me details of this beautiful song and great video. The reasoning of the video also is:

Basically it’s the stand by me moment of our lives. We’re all just gone 30. So it just fitted in with a song that is about walking your own path but remembering the past. (It’s not a euro song as some have misunderstood, just a timing issue)

A Joyful Slog

Monday, May 7th, 2012

via Richie Egan – Music documentary about DIY Music in Ireland

alt-J

Wednesday, March 21st, 2012

Via Derek in Phantom

Opportunities

Thursday, August 18th, 2011

Jim Carroll’s post on Quality v Quantity in the music business where you now have only a few months to break on through (it seems) due to easy findability of every band on the planet, kind of links into this piece quoting Ian Rogers on how it’s easy to create and distribute music nowadays but again because of easy discoverability, you have to market harder/smarter to get yourself noticed, so more resources are going in to marketing/pr/promotion.

That to me says there are opportunities as well as suggesting maybe with all this connectedness it could bring the quality way up for bands but they still need that 10k hours idea Gladwell came up with. Wait til they get the tech right for people to jam with each other properly around the world in real time. No more ‘bassist wanted’ flyers in guitar shops. It worked with Internet dating!

This of course ties into everything else not just music. When the web first came about, search engines allowed us to find/discover textual information and it worked well. The amount of information then for the basic web was tiny compared to now. With these more complicated media, more tech and more opportunities to sort out information were born. Now with the web we have services like Last.fm (liked this song, others who did liked this one), Netflix for movies, Amazon recommendation services (bit rough) and sites using your social media footprints are now aiding us into finding new things we might like. Counter to that though is the idea we are having too much hidden from us due to what we soley like. Serendipity gets stomped on. There’s a whole TED video on filters and this:

Anyway, Dylan Collins did a blog post on what people (I was included too) thought were opportunities for startups. A good range of people and a load of good ideas are over there. Importantly for me and maybe you is that these quick bursts of ideas get you to think and come up with other ideas and opportunities based on them. Even reading them and saying “this is bullshit because…” gets you to be creative and analytical and maybe share ideas and potential opportunities.

So loads of new ideas for everyone around the world that can be inspired by blog posts and what not. More ways to be inspired, cheaper tech and infrastructure to build your ideas and faster turnaround for the ideas. Increase in quantity, increase in quality too but also a lot of noise. Geography won’t matter as much (we’ll have no Valley is better than Roundabout stuff in the comments please) so an Irish startup could compete with a German one for example. Creativity and skill not previous history of the area become stronger factors for startups.

Is the startup world following what is happening in music? If yes, will the issues with the music industry become a lesson to be learned by startups too? So a bit like Inception, there seem to be opportunities inside opportunities as the opportunity to have an opportunity becomes easier.

Inspiration is just a matter of slowing things down and observing:

Billie Jean

Saturday, August 6th, 2011

Billie Jean by Aloe Blacc & The Grand Scheme