Skindred

God I love Skindred.  They’re one of those bands that make you want to start your own band and just fucking rock out.

RJD2’s The Third Hand

 

Internet is still total ass, but just to keep up my new year’s resolution I wanna point y’all to RJD2 (born Ramble John “RJ” Krohn), who I only recently discovered but who is apparently a well known musician in the instrumental hip hop scene.  I’m currently digging his album The Third Hand, which is supposedly the “poppiest” of all his albums.  Anyone who appreciates hip hop that isn’t all about bitches and bling should give him a listen.  My favorite track on the album right now is “Get it”.  It’s got this killer opening groove that I’m not musically adept enough to identify or even describe, but it sure got my head bopping while listening to it.

The iPod touch theme song

Just a quick thought.  There are two songs that would be perfect as background music for any ipod touch ad.  “The touch” by Stan Bush and “I touch myself” by Blondie or Divinyls.  Think about it.

Guilty Pleasures: Good Charlotte’s Good Morning Revival

I hate Good Charlotte.  Really really hate them, as much as I hate any triple platinum raking in the money like there was no tomorrow fucking hollywood starlet bands that complain about their miserable lives.  But dammit they set out to reinvent their sound and they succeeded more than even they probably thought they would.  Their first few single (the river, get your hands of my girl, dance floor anthem) are catchy as hell, and for the most part the album manages to keep that spirit alive and kicking.  I’m still a little ashamed this is in my zen but what the hell, it’s better than catching them on MTV and being forced to watch their skinny tattooed bodies just to hear a song.  The last few songs feel a bit tepid though, so best avoid them entirely.

Fallout boy in Manila September 21

That’s right kids, check it out on their website.  Tickets on sale TOMORROW.  Despite the fact that they’re admittedly not the greatest live band ever, I’m definitely looking to catch them, if only to compensate for the means in which I acquired their albums.

I found out where Jessica Simpson honed her songwriting skillz.

 

So I’ve been thinking about writing songs because a)I’ve always wanted to be in a band but never got the chance and b) actually it’s just a).  I never did join a band cause I was too much of a pussy.  I could never learn an instrument to save my life and musical notes were as good as numbers to me (I’m useless at math, except for calculating 10% of anything) and my voice wasn’t exactly a showstopper plus I have stage fright.  That right there is a horrible, horrible combination.

But this post is not about my songwriting dreams and aspirations, but rather about why the hell does ultimatesongwriting.com look like a fansite for rainbow brite?   Seriously.  I mean, is this where britney, christina, or (insert name of blonde airhead here oh hello Jessica Simpson) go to when they feel like they actually want to write their songs?  Suffice it to say that I didn’t stay there very long, but moved onto bloggingmuses.com, which proved to be a much more visually restrained and interesting blog about songwriting.

Oh look, some of the snark’s returned. Isn’t it grand?

Playlist Manila : The Painting

So there’s this thing called Playlist Manila that geek chorus will be holding on May 16, where you get to submit playlists that’ll be judged by a panel of “celebrity” music judges and the crowd.  I had this half done painting wasting away in my room, and had a sudden epiphany.  It’s be perfect as a sort of entrance sign for playlist Manila, with a just a few extra elements added.

<-this was supposed to be background art for a “dictators” painting, but I felt bad that I’d cover up  all the work since it looked nice. My plan was to paste pictures of dicators over the background.

First up, I needed to make a stencil for Playlist Manila and Geek chorus.  I was hoping to tie in the look of the painting to the poster/flyer I made for the event, seen here.  Luckily I already had a “headphones” stencil lying around, so it made the job much easier.

 

After a few hours of doing that, it was time to take a break, then head on to the local hardware shop t buy some spraypaint.  Luckily they had a sale where each can was going for 110 pesos, so I got a good deal on “signal red” and “just plain black” paint.  Now it was time to set up the stencils and start spraying.

 

 

Now that’s done, and the piece is almost finished.  My coup de grace was to wheatpaste some flyers I xeroxed onto the painting, to make it look like somethign you’d see on the streets.  It didn’t quite turn out like I’d hoped though.

<–Too thick.

Unfortunately, the tutorial I got from the net wasn’t very specific with the amounts needed for wheatpasting (edit: I shuld’ve scrolled down. apparently there was some really good advice being given on proper wheatpasting recipes.), so I ended up using a paste that was a bit too thick, making icky bulges pop up out of the flyers.  Live and learn I suppse, at least now I know to add more water to the paste next time.

<–Tada! Le finished product.

Now my only problem is how to mount this bitch up on a wall for the event.

Musiq Soulchild’s LuvanMusiq

 

If you’re tired of listening to JT and Pharell and you want some light RnB tunes to carry you through the day, I present to you Musiq Soulchild.  He isn’t revolutionary  by any means and will probably remind you of a host of other musicians , but his sweet, soulful music is just good enough to make you want to bob your head and maybe ask someone out on a date.  For real.

Nordic music rocks

SXSW is an annual gathering of the hip and bleeding in media and technology. It’s a breeding ground of ideas where geeks and hipsters can gather and swap stories and business plans. There’s absolutely no way I’ll ever get to visit the festiveal, but the magic of the internet provides the next best thing.

This blog links up to more than a dozen Nordic (Sweden, Norway, Finland, etc) bands that performed in SXSW, and provides you with free mp3 samples to boot. I’ve listened to the Norwegian bands already (wassssssup Andreas?), and I love all of them. The standout for me has to be Chris Lee though, because who knew there were Norwegian rappers?

Click on the link for some sweet, legally free music.

Verizon’s online beatbox music generator

 

Here’s a cute toy those who are musically inclined can play around with for a few minutes.  Verizon’s beatbox generator allows you to take your pick of 5 different beatboxers (you know, those guys who makes scritchy scratchy sounds with their mouths?) and mix and match them to your heart’s content to produce your own slick beatbox track.  In essence, the website operate like a dumbed down version of full blown music software like FLstudio or ableton, so anyone familiar with those programs should have an easy time of it.

Check out the beatbox mixer here.