Mash-up Madness - good plain fun or plain evil?

So I'll admit, these are a completely "mixed" blessing or curse - there is nothing worse than a badly made mash-up, but a good smart one can make you, dance, think and even transport you back in time - and often even if it hurts your indie cred they are just plain fun. There is a favorite fun DJ I like from LA, who is responsible for the Smash Mix on Indie 103 in LA. His name is DJ Paul V, and he hosts some varied interesting nights out on the Left Coast( Dragstripp 66, Miss Kitty's Parlour & Bootie LA)....

Take a listen at The Smash Mix and let me know what you think...They also host a Bootie NYC, like bootie LA & SF - good fun, but the moratorium of mash-ups at a club is exactly 90 minutes!

smalltown america

While surfing the web, I discovered this independent record label called "Smalltown America." It's based out of London, which I love because London's neither a small town nor in America. But they have a cool website where you can discover a number of new bands. Plus it has an interesting business model to help young undiscovered talent get their music out.

leila zerai

I ran across this singer/songwriter from the UK, Leila Zerai, on The Hype Machine. She's a bit raw, but shows promise. Her songs are small gems; soft and melancholy in the style of someone like Keren Ann. I rather like them. You can find out more about her and hear her song "This is a Song About Horses" here. You can also hear more tracks here.

Wussy Singer-Song writers - but their songs are sweet!

So being from SF you might have heard of this one - this here is a local boy, Sean Hayes (not from Will & Grace fame), but of Oakland..He's got that folky dreamy sound going, which was a great respite after all the Electroclash I had been gorging myself on.. He's been around for a while, and what put him on the Map was Mark Farina's remix of Dream Machine....Can't find that sample online...

but this might give you an idea -Haven't quite figured out how to embed audio

All For Love

It's was a good show at Joe's Pub on a nondescript Monday, it was sold out, and the acoustics were great - the silent hipsters helped (a la ani defranco style)...He's playing again tonight at Rose Live Music in Brooklyn - supposedly a secret show - but someone was giving flyers to everyone in line...

I think this is a clip from the show i saw on Monday --

the ladybug transistor

The Ladybug Transistor, an indie-pop band from Brooklyn, released their latest album, Can't Wait Another Day today.


I heard them for the first time when I saw them open for The Rosebuds on May 24th, less than a month after their drummer, San Fadyl tragically passed away. (The actually played a tribute show today.)

I liked them the instant I heard lead-singer Gary Olson voice over melodic hooks punctuated by Olson playing the trumpet on the bridges. (I've always had a soft spot for the trumpet since it was the only instrument I ever learned to play -- albeit half-heartedly and very badly.) Their sound beckons back to 60s-era surf-rock, but with a harder edge and an 80s vibe. I know that sounds strange, but it works.

Below are some videos of them in action:

"Reclusive Hero"


"Burial at Sea"


Definitely check them out, and of course, if you like them, show them some love by buying their album.

the new world of music promotion

Wired has an interview with Anthony Volodkin, the founder of Hype Machine, an MP3 blog aggregator and great source if you want to discover new music. I find it interesting that in the two years he's had the site, he's only received a handful of cease-and-desist letters, and I think that hints to a broader revolution in how labels (and the bands themselves) plan to promote themselves in the future.

Volodkin created the site partly in response to the dearth of good radio stations. I can't remember the last time I listened to a radio station -- the only time I do is when I'm driving (and I don't currently have a car right now). When I go visit my family (in much more car-friendly place) I listen to the radio while driving, but it's always a crap radio station. Ever since the passage of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which relaxed the rules for owning radio and television stations, independent radio stations have been gobbled up by the Clear Channels of the world leading to a proliferation of boring, overproduced, "music product" being peddled over the radio waves.

Luckily for us, the internet stepped in to filled the void. I haven't really explored the internet radio station thing, although friends tell me there are a bunch of good ones out there. But MP3 blogs and sites like Hype Machine, Last.fm, and MySpace allow consumers to discover new music and bands on their own terms, so long as they know where to look. And sites like YouTube make it irrelevant that MTV doesn't show videos anymore. Although it takes more effort, it's refreshing to have some ownership in this search rather than listening to what's fed to you by an increasingly corporate and synergistic media machine.

The flip-side, of course, is that major labels have less importance. In the past, major labels could promote bands by pushing product out to radio stations (to get air time) and distribute albums to record stores. Now there's less need. Not when you can promote yourself on MySpace and sell MP3s to anyone who has an internet connection. I'm not saying that having major label backing is meaningless, it's just a lot less important than it was five years ago. This Wall Street Journal article describes the new economics.

The Album Leaf

For my inaugural post, I'm writing about my band of the moment - The Album Leaf. There are elements of Nordic acts like Sigur Ros and Nils Petter Molvaer in the music, but true to the 80's resurgence we are seeing, there are bits of Brian Eno, and even some esoteric and instrumental New Order tracks. The guy behind the music is guitarist Jimmy LaValle, who has shown an ability to morph his talents into a bunch of different sounds. He is also part of the punky sounding The Locust, as well as the more ambient sounding Tristeza.

Anyway, on to the music.

Here is a rather horrible video to a great song from his latest album Into the Blue Again (just press the little play button on the left):



Some examples from the very ambient Seal Beach EP album:
The Album Leaf – Seal Beach
The Album Leaf – Brennivin

stuff from their latest album can be found on their myspace page here.