Rumors of my new macbook have been greatly underexaggerated.

My brand new 13.3 inch black beauty is taking up all my time and love at the moment, but I promise you soon we will be blogging it up from cafes, librarys, and if the whole city goes wi-fi maybe even from RIGHT BEHIND YOU!

Tons of interesting things have been going on, lots of great music, and a lot more coming up...and I might just be arsed to write about a little bit of it.

For now, though, check out Jef Sarver, the Chicago musician who is currently downtown at a Potbelly's sub shop trying to break the world record for longest guitar marathon. He's been going for just about 9 hours now... only 35 to go!

People ask me, "Kyle, where can I find live - not the band - music videos on the web?" And by people I mean no one. So I am here to answer no one's question!

My favorite place to find live - not the band - music videos on the net is Morning Becomes Eclectic. This is the website for the KCRW radio show hosted by Nic Harcourt, my personal hero. The site features videos of bands who have performed in the studio live for the show. Harcourt brings in the best artists to promote their new albums as well as the best emerging artists. I can't count how many times I have fallen in love with a band just to realize that Harcourt has featured those bands on his show months if not years earlier! Happily there is a great extensive archive so you can see some awesome older performances as well. They are all great, but stand outs include the recent Guillemots recording as well as old Damien Rice shows that I've watched so many times it is sick.

My second favorite place for some great live - not the band - videos is a site called fabchannel. Fabchannel is a site that offers videos of concerts at the Paradiso and Melkweg venues in Amsterdam. There are tons of videos so far, including many that are integral to me... The Frames, Damien Rice, Stars, Andrew Bird, Nada Surf and Kashmir, to name just a couple few. Not only do the videos have fantastic image and sound quality but the best part is that you can chose whatever song in the set you want to see! Say you are craving Neighborhood #3 (Power Out) from the Arcade Fire...bam, you skip to "track 9" and you are watching it. I love this freakin site. Can the Metro pleeeeeeease start doing this?

A distant third is You Tube. I remember way back in the day (circa 1996) there was a website that collected music videos for streaming. For the life of me the name of the site is alluding me, but I would go on there with the rickety dial up available at the time and watched stuttery, grainy music videos of some of my favorites songs, like Sublime, No Doubt (Spiderwebs), the Refreshments (Banditos) and even White Town ,for hours. How much things have changed! Not only does You Tube search for your favorite artists usually bring up thier music videos, it also often brings up tv performances (sometimes rare or from abroad), concert recordings, promotional footage and best of all...a wide array of people recording themselves covering the band (with varying degrees of success). You'll also find a lot of times people make videos of stuff like their vacations and edit it into a video with popular music and once in a while you'll even get something that makes you go...um...WTF???

So, now you know some great places for live - not the band - music on the web. Don't you wish you had asked sooner? Or at all.

Continue reading "Live (not the band)"

I ate your neighbor's ferret.

That was about as random as these 10 songs, chosen at random by the iTunes shuffle.

1. Guster - I Hope Tomorrow Is Like Today
2. Nada Surf - Blonde on Blonde
3. The Arcade Fire - Crown Of Love
4. Air - Surfing On A Rocket
5. Eist Aris - Tar Tar A Run
6. Oasis - Cast No Shadow
7. Ben Folds - In Between Days
8. VAST - Goodbye
9. Phoenix - I'm An Actor
10. Television - (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction