UK indie pop musicans The Crimea, are officially indie. The real indie, as in independent. Not just because Warner dropped them from their american label last year, more so because their upcoming new release Secrets Of The Witching Hour will be available as a net release starting May 13th. Total cost to download - $0.00. It’s free. It is a ploy to attract more fans, more future record buyers. But, isn’t that the way music should be marketed? If you enchant enough people that want to hear more of your music, enough to support recording another album, then do you really need all the other hassle? The Crimea are certainly worth a listen. This music isn’t my cup of tea, but i like it enough to suggest it to people who like enchanting pop music. Not Bjork enchanting, but maybe Spiritualized when they aren’t playing Spectrum stuff. And i fully support the DIY punk ethic behind it. i LOVE net releases! So do go check it out!

www.thecrimea.net

+UPDATE+

They just released this late breaking news :

‘The Witching Hour is Upon us…’ - Monday, April 30, 2007
Folks,

To be super quick, we’re pushing the free on-line release to… now!!! ‘Secrets Of The Witching Hour’ is ready to go, and awaiting your MP3 player of choice everywhere as of NOW.
Just head towards www.thecrimea.net
and let your mouse do the work. Nice and simple.

That’s it for the moment. We’re in Beijing at the moment and are proud to announce we’ve been made cultural envoys of the Wang Jing district, Beijing. Come and see us on our UK shows for a full explanation, it’s a bizarre one, but worthwile…

Lots of Love

The Crimea

You can listen to a few tracks on the Last.fm band page.

Net Labels

For more great net releases and internet record labels, check out :

JAHTARI Music
NoiseUsse

i can’t get enough of these 2 lately. On JAHTARIs page, be sure to click on tapes. You can listen to mix tapes of wicked roots style dub, you know, tape machines, spacey echoes, and the heavy pressure of the drum and the bass. But it’s all made with old Ataris and C64s or something equally weird sounding…. NoiseUsse just changed their whole site design and now it looks like a blog, when it is actually a Net Label. Loads of glitchy breaky digital electronica and enchanting atmospheric shoegaze music made by people with really interesting shoes, or heroes of the sludge metal underground. NoiseUsse albums are only available as net releases. All the music on both of these sites is FREE!

A new Beastie Boys album hits the streets in June! When i say roots, i’m talking pre-License To Ill punk rock days. They have revisited this sound for a few songs on a few albums, but this sounds like a full album of raw slam dancing! Mike D reports to NME that the music on The Mix Up is more rockin like what you hear on Check Your Head and Paul’s Boutique. All of the sounds and instruments on The Mix Up are played by the 3 of them. They put the sampler away for this album!

Tracklist

B for My Name
14th St Break
Suco de Tangerina
The Gala Event
Electric Worm
Freaky Hijiki
Off the Grid
The Rat Cage
The Melee
Dramastically Different
The Cousin of Death
The Kangaroo Rat

.

This might go quite nicely with the A Cappellas that they have available on their remix page…

The BBoys will be performing at the Virgin Festival, Live Earth Concert in London, Electric Picnic, and SONAR Festival in Barcelona.

When asked about what they would be playing at the London Live Earth Concert, Mike D replied -

“By that point we’ll already be playing new songs. But I dunno - you don’t wanna do ‘Jazz Odyssey’ in front of a crowd of 60,000.”

Sled Island Festival is a four-night series of shows at different venues in Calgary, Canada. It runs June 27th to the 30th and will feature performances by Cat Power, Spoon, Boredoms, Les Savy Fav, Destroyer, the Walkmen, the Dears, Chad VanGaalen, Hot Little Rocket, and Mother Mother.
i haven’t the patience for websites that make you watch flash, so i did not get very far on their site to get more info. However, pitchf*#k says that the tix cost $180 CDN for entry to the all the headlining acts, while a few of the names mentioned will be performing at auxillary shows that are not included in the festival pass. look at Sled Island Festival for the official word. you just have to sit through each band name approaching you out of the white mist. maybe you should get your game weaponry at the ready before clicking, or play a video game while you wait. GTA anyone?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Hv5Q22nTv0]
Boredoms - Super Go!

wow! talk about a work ethic! The lovely Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond is more punk rock than anyone else in the headlines today. This lady dislocated her knee, but sat down and finished the rest of the set! hard-core!
Asthmatic Kitty’s people confirm :

According to a spokesperson at Asthmatic Kitty, Shara “went for a rock jump during the song ‘Magic Rabbit’ and upon landing, dislocated her left knee. Worden finished out the song from the floor and then requested a chair and an icebag. She finished the set but was then carried off stage and taken to the hospital.”

AND, she’s not going to use it an excuse to not finish the rest of the tour either. No shows are being canceled! Here is the stellar move she was busting before the *snap* :

read the full story on the pitchf*#k.

This happened just after adding more countries and dates to their summer tour. The band will be in Sao Paulo May 18th and 19th, the NYC, Spain, Holland, Wales and more until September.

check it :

April 30 Los Angeles, CA - Troubadour - w/ Pedestrian
May 03 Eugene, OR - McDonald Theater
May 04 Seattle, WA - Paramount Theater
May 05 Bellingham, WA - Western Washington University w/ The Decemberists
May 18 São Paulo - Brazil - Resfest
May 19 São Paulo - Brazil - Resfest
May 30 New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom
July 13 Barcelona - Spain - Summercase
July 14 Madrid - Spain - Summercase
August 16 Hasselt - Belgium - Pukkelpop
August 17 Biddinghuizen - Holland - Lowlands Festival
August 19 Glanusk Park in the Brecon Beacons National Park - Wales - The Green Man Festival
September 03 Seattle, WA - Bumbershoot Festival
September 14 Larmer Tree Gardens, Dorset - England - End of the Road Festival

Free Download

One might also click over to Liberated Matter to get the free downloadable Mixtape which has exclusive net only tracks from My Brightest Diamond, Minneapolis’ Cloud Cult, Jeffrey Lewis, Kevin Devine, The Undisputed Heavyweights, Wakey!Wakey!, and The Bloodsugars. That’s right, i said free mixtape!

Before I end the detour into posting about HearingTest and internet technical info, I want to add a few things….

This Here WordPress Blog

I like to read about all kinds of things and i’m fascinated with how things work. I have a terrible habit of dismantling things, especially electronic things, to see how they work. If they weren’t broken to begin with, I am good at getting them back together. One of my many obstacles in life turns up when I take things apart that don’t work for some reason. I leave them “exploded” - scattered bits about 1/16th inch away from where they were nestled together as a cohesive whole. I leave them that way while I try to find the part that will make them work again. This would be fine, except they tend to multiply. Many little unfinished projects with their guts exposed.

I can’t do this with the web. If something can’t be fixed properly, I have to figure out a backup plan that will work. Which brings us to the current design and layout going on here at the HearingTest HQ. WordPress worked on fixing the sidebar/widget problems this morning, and seems to have resolved it. For some reason, it’s not working for me. I have a dead widgets dashboard. I can’t mess with ‘em. So what am i going to do now?

(shrugs) nothing.

It really doesn’t bother me too much, as long as all the correct info is there. I’d actually like this layout if the sidebars were on the left. And, i wanted to change the CSS for this site soon enuff anyway. So, maybe this will do until I get a chance to write up a stylesheet, it might increase my motivation to get on that. Or, maybe i will figure out how to get the old design working again. Either way, it means there will be a bit of a construction zone goin on here for a short time. I apologize, I hope no one is actually inconvenienced, though i hardly think a person could be inconvenienced by this site.

Technorati favorites, Digg, Top blogs, And other Social Networking Issues In Web 2.0

I’m A Tinkerer

Part of my fascination with how things work extends to the web. I learned programming at a very early age - I was writing programs on a Commodore 64 that would tutor me on french when I was about 12 - so I am intrigued with SEO, accessibility, user interface, and such things. This is one of the reasons I thoroughly enjoy reading Problogger, even though i have almost no interest in making money from the blog itself. Sure, i have that link to Threadless Tshirts in the sidebar, which generates a whopping $3 credit in the store for me if someone were to use that link AND buy a shirt. (have you seen that link? oh you really should, it’s near the bottom. have you seen Threadless Tshirts? They are SO nice!) ;) But i digress. I read Problogger because I find it interesting. It’s useful, often has specific info on topics that are of interest to any website manager, and I like that he values reader interaction and quality of content more than what the web-surfing robots think. You know, the robots who decide things like blog rank and top posts and such.

Technorati Favorite Swapping

This weekend, I learned of yet another web 2.0 obsession - swapping favorite blog links. It is a game that some people play to get ahead on the web. The idea is to get enough people to add your blog address to their favorite blogs list on Technorati so that you get into the Top 100 Favorited Blogs. Darren, the author of Problogger, wrote a post about the dynamics of this game and whether being in the top 100 was a huge advantage or not. He has a great perspective in this matter, being #3 on the list, and it is valuable to get a glimpse of what he can see from there. Especially because he does not use this swapping method to get ahead in the rank. His post got me thinking about such methods, and I just thought I would put them here for the record. Think of this as an editorial in the Opinion section…

Put Down The Mouse, It’s Time To Get Some Fresh Air

Towards the end of that post, Darren offered up his honest opinion of the tactic. He said “This might not be popular - but I think that the practice of swapping favorites is a little sad and that the energy that some bloggers are putting into doing it could be much better spent by actually engaging with readers and encouraging genuine relationships to be formed.” I couldn’t agree more. The funny thing is that some people got really upset. Some even went so far as to use expletives in their comments! Getting heated about a topic like this displays how some people identify themselves with their blogs too much. MANY people in this cyber world need to step away from their computers and get some air. And some perspective. Take a walk, or a vacation. Seriously, it’s a blog, a web log of some series of events and personal experiences. Blogs may be taking over the web, but they should not be allowed to take over our lives. I say this even as someone who has spent 16 hours/day on my laptop every day for the last 2 weeks. I have not had any day off, I have been eating pizza and chinese, drinking too much coffee, and going insane. However, this is really unusual for me. I love the outside world, I love dancing and kung fu, I love huge stacks of speakers playing dub music, I especially love fresh air!

Every Man And Woman Is A Star

Blogs, writing, coding, programming, designing, and all computer based careers cause pixel burn to the eyes, a lack of social skills, stiff joints, sore backs, and a host of other problems. Why would i want to identify with these things? I find it a little scary that we, as an online population are getting so involved in web 2.0 that some people are beginning to internalize their online personas. Granted, your blog is a personal experience, and it probably follows the same moral standards that you adhere to in “real” life. But really, why take it so seriously?
I can appreciate the spirit of experimentation that this game began with (supposedly), but these types of trading, gaming, etc. is really just cheating. Is it more important to see inflated stats, rather than have any clue if someone actually likes the work being presented? For some, I suppose it is. But in the end, it’s just an illusion. I’d rather have one genuine reader than 100 fake ones. At least I would know if I was blogging to a brick wall in cyberspace. Plus, I hate it when a good idea, and a useful tool gets ruined by people who abuse it and exploit it, thereby making the tool completely inaccurate and useless. Well, for me, and my web persona, we’re gonna stick with integrity and moral highground. Even if it means we look insignificant in the vast universe of the www. Coz we are, we’re VERY insignificant. So is almost everything I post here. Do you think I would care about anything at all on the web if I was hungry from not eating enough for a week? How about a month? A year? Do you think our great great grandchildren will care about how popular our stupid blog was? Maybe it would be better to leave them a healthy environment, or an inspiring educational system.

End : rant transmission

Thanks for reading through all that. I don’t often rant and I’m not sure what has inspired this sudden interest in interacting with fellow bloggers. Today I even found myself going back to the WordPress forum about the broken sidebars and posting the temporary solution that had worked for me. I went back, and shared my insight in the hopes others could benefit as well from my discovery. This is totally my style, but not usually my web style. I hope I haven’t been virtually bit by a link swapping, black hat, blogger vampire!

Take it slow,
miss iVi

hi there music fans!

if you are viewing this post on the actual webpage, you might notice that HearingTest looks quite different today. it’s true, and hopefully it is only a temporary solution. i dun know what gwan with di wordpress serverisms, but i go lookin at me page and the sidebars are all muckled up something naaasty! it seems that the problem is limited to only 2 or 3 wordpress themes : Andreas 09, which is what i was using, Garland and Freshy. Freshy is causing problems for some but not others. those are 3 out of about 4 total wordpress themes which offer 2 sidebars aka 3 columns. well, it just so happens that wordpress support peeps were away at the moment, perhaps fully aware of the situation and already investigating. so, until dis a figured out, i jes simple changed di theme to somethin similar but totally different, and everything is where it should be, no bugs or nuthin. i decided to use the theme titled “2813″ because it has 2 sidebars plus the main column, which is as close to the other theme that i could find. that’s right, i jes change di theme to anything else besides those 2, and all of my sidebar info is restored with no additional work. judging from users feedback in the forum, any 3 column theme is potentially problematic right now. some users were not able to fix the problem with the 2813 theme, but got good results from switching to a 2 column theme. the best advice is - leave those widgets and sidebars alone! there is probably nothing wrong with them, it’s a problem with the theme that is having trouble communicating with them. if you make changes now, you could end up deleting them yourself when they were fine to begin with. if you want to make any changes while wordpress is working on the fix, stick with theme changes and posts, but don’t touch anything else. whew! so glad i dun hafta recreate alla dat. i got nuff work drowning me right now. no time fer di blog.

Report from the HearingTest HQ

i’m almost finished wit what i am writing and contributing for the reggae music and culture book i am collabing on. heaps of amazing research results, and some pretty good rants and tirades about dancehall music, its influence on other styles of music, and its place in the world. i’m writing pages and pages of content about soundsystem culture, the huge part that the dance-as-social-gathering has played in the survival of some of the world’s most oppressed populations, the psychoacoustic effects of riddims, speaker stacks, and repetitive drumming, even some crazy in-depth shizzle about dancing as the antidote to Babylon’s toxins - a fairly thorough exploration into the outmoded fight or flight response, which is more psychoacoustic stuff. you will definitely see some excerpts from alla dat come up soon.

thanks again for bearing through technoccult difficulties over pon HearingTest music brewery…..

a few things that will be revealed on HT this week, for you to anticipate :

• photos and videos from a killer roots underground sound system party that featured End.User, Dan Doormouse, Arson, Bonk, theStapler, 666 Gangstaz, and Rtype. celebrating the record release of Teen Suicide 002!!
  TS002 is engraved with secret messages from 666 Gangstaz, HRock, the Stapler, and Planetsize. Available in record stores worldwide starting this week!

• essays and rambling thoughts about dancehall - it’s history, cultural significance, and continuing cross cultural popularity…

• more news than is worthy of reporting, except everybody likes something different, so hopefully you will enjoy at least one post per day.

and, we’ll just have to see what else happens. hopefully something fantastic and worthy of further discussion.

~have a lovely week~
miss iVi

Radio And Internet Newsletter aka RAIN reports today that a bill has been introduced into the house by Representative Jay Inslee (D-WA) that shows hope for indpendent internet radio broadcasting. It is titled The Internet Radio Equality Act and covers the following aspects :

The bill has five major provisions:

1. Nullifies the recent decision of the CRB judges
2. Changes the royalty rate-setting standard that applies to Internet radio royalty arbitrations in the future so that it is the same standard that applies to satellite radio royalty arbitrations — the 801(b)(1) standard that balances the needs of copyright owners, copyright users, and the public (rather than “willing buyer / willing seller”). (For more detail on this point, read the recent RAIN issue on “Copyright law,” here.)
3. Instructs future CRBs that the minimum annual royalty per service may be set no higher than $500.
4. Establishes a “transitional” royalty rate, until the 2011-15 CRB hearing is held, of either .33 cents per listener hour, or 7.5% of annual revenues, as selected by the provider for that year. Those rates would be applied retroactively to January 1, 2006. (The logic behind this rate, incidentally, is an attempt to match the royalty rate that satellite radio pays for this royalty — thus the name of the bill.)
5. Expands the Copyright Act’s Section 118 musical work license for noncommercial webcasters to enable noncomms to also perform sound recordings over Internet radio at royalty rates designed for noncommercial entities, and sets an transition royalty at 150% of the royalty amount paid by each webcaster in 2004. (Note that this amount would be a set, flat fee through the end of the decade.)

For future CRBs (e.g., 2011-15), adds three new reports in the CRB process: The Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information will submit a report to the CRB judges on the industry impact in terms of competitiveness of the judges’ proposed rates; at the same time, the FCC will submit a report to the CRB judges on the effects of the judges’ proposed rates on localism, diversity of programming, and competitive barriers to entry; and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting will submit a report to Congress and the CRB judges on the effect of the the judges’ proposed rates on their licencees.

RAIN’s webpage is much more informative, as it has links sprinkled throughout these provisions. RAIN also points out :

Now that the bill has been introduced, the SaveNetRadio.org “call to action” is specific and direct: The site is now asking listeners to call their Representative and ask him/her to “cosponsor the Internet Radio Equality Act, introduced by Representative Jay Inslee.” Once listeners click the “Call Your Representatives” button on the site and enter their zip code, they are given their Representative’s House office phone number and a list of “talking points” to emphasize.

Please click over to RAIN’s webpage for more information. They have a pdf version of the entire Act, as well as more coverage and suggestions for how you can participate.

One thing you can do is call your Representatives and urge them to co-sponsor the Internet Radio Equality Act. Hit Save Net Radio to get your Rep’s phone number.

International Listeners

If you reside outside the US (lucky you!) you can still help keep internet radio from being crushed by this BS. Join SaveNetRadio’s coalition! Click Coalition to find out how.

MORE LINKS

http://www.savenetradio.org/index.html
http://www.kurthanson.com/

Big news about PINK! Her new single, “U + Ur Hand” jumped into the Billboard Top 10 Singles Chart this week at #9!    #9, #9, #9….
Congrats Pink!

It’s her first time back in the Top 10 since “Just Like A Pill” in 2002. And it’s only gonna get better from here!

Check out Pink’s MOG at http://mog.com/Pink
You can also listen to the full song, “U + Ur Hand”, in her mog post Hey everyone!

More Links

http://www.pinkspage.com/
www.myspace.com/pinkspage

Video for U + Ur Hand

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/pTMT5B6Fw5s]

The ever generous Analog Giant has a fabulous remix by Spank Rock of Bjork’s “Earth Intruders”. That’s right, fresh off the wax press and already getting the royal remix treatment from the Spank! Click over there, and make sure to show the Giant some love for sharing…

http://www.myspace.com/spankrock

read more about Bjork : news and updates

Who needs fresh material in order to enjoy travelling around the country roads of the US? Not Lyle Lovett or K.D. Lang! Lyle’s last album was in 2003, the multi-Grammy nominated My Baby Don’t Tolerate on Lost Highway Records. K.D. Lang’s last studio production was in 2004, her tribute to Canadian music, Hymns of the 49th Parallel. Nonetheless, the duo will be touring the US together this summer, and each will play full sets with their own backing bands.

K.D. Lang will also be a presenter on TV Land’s Awards show this very Sunday night :

Be sure to tune in to TV Land this Sunday, April 22nd at 9:00 PM (8:00 PM Central) to catch k.d. presenting the Entertainers’ Award to “Hee Haw.” Check your local listings for station info.

Tour Dates

June 2007
13 - West Palm Beach, FL - Sound Advice Amphitheatre
14 - Tampa, FL - Ford Amphitheatre
15 - Atlanta, GA - Chastain Park Amphitheatre
17 - Charlottesville, VA - Charlottesville Pavilion
19 - Philadelphia, PA - Mann Center
20 - Vienna, VA - Wolf Trap
21 - New York, NY - Radio City Music Hall
23 - Mashantucket, CT - Foxwoods Resort & Casino
24 - Boston, MA - Bank of America Pavilion
27 - Interlochen, MI - Kresge Auditorium
28 - Ann Arbor, MI - Hill Auditorium
29, 30 - Highland Park, IL - Ravinia Festival

July 2007
2 - Cincinnati, OH - Riverbend Music Center
5 - Minneapolis, MN - Northrop Auditorium
6 - Kansas City, MO - Starlight Theatre
7 - Oklahoma City, OK - Zoo Amphitheatre
8 - Tulsa, OK - Brady Theatre
12 - Albuquerque, NM - Sandia Casino
13 - Morrison, CO - Red Rocks Amphitheatre
14 - Fort Collins, CO - Lincoln Center
15 - Park City, UT - Deer Valley Resort
18 - Jacksonville, OR - Britt Pavilion
19 - Troutdale, OR - McMenamin’s Edgefield
20, 21 - Woodinville, WA - Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery
25 - San Diego, CA - Humphrey’s
26 - Los Angeles, CA - Greek Theatre
27 - Indio, CA - Fantasy Springs Casino
28 - Santa Barbara, CA - Santa Barbara Bowl
29 - Concord, CA - Sleep Train Pavilion
30 - Saratoga, CA - Mountain Winery

More info about the tour and lots of other neat stuff can be found on K.D. Lang’s website…

This is certainly the year for Bjork, and her fans are the ones benefiting from all these interviews, podcasts, videos, and everything that is allowing the world a closer glimpse into the faerie queen’s world! i have yet another interview to direct your attention to - Music For Robots posted their recent interview with Bjork today.
To whet your appetite, nibble on this morsel :

“Nowadays I work so much alone, writing the melodies, writing the lyrics, working on the computer that by the time I work with someone it is a real treat!”

Read the entire interview over at Music For Robots.

Here is video from her SNL performance of “Wanderlust” last weekend -
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/bbBoulH15yE]

read more about Bjork : news and updates

NYC is going to get busy with some rejuvenations - the McCarren Park Pool that serves Williamsburg and Greenpoint will be restored and reopened, High Bridge will as well, and 1 million trees will be planted, 250,000 of which will line the streets.

According to the New York Times:

The McCarren Park pool, built in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, in 1936 and closed in 1984, is one of 11 giant swimming pools built in the city as part of the Works Progress Administration.

Many, many bands have played huge concerts in the 50,000 square foot swimming pool. Bloc Party, Shins, Les Savy Fav. Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Sonic Youth, M.I.A., Spank Rock and Beirut to name just a few.

Les Savy Fav - performing live at McCarren park pool July 2006

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rANtKCqEqN4]

The new plan will also restore many existing playgrounds - 290 total across the city, that will be shared by 360,000 kids. As it is now, 12,000 kids in East Flatbush, Brooklyn are sharing 3 playgrounds.

Because of the cost of land in the city, which generally prohibits building large new parks or playgrounds, the initiative relies on working with what already exists but has become unusable through age and lack of maintenance, officials said.

The New York Times article has a wealth of information and quotes from public officials, definitely click over and read it.

In closing, here is Sonic Youth performing at McCarren Pool as well :

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPAuF67JfdY]

Man Man are on tour with Modest Mouse!
Okay, i realize that everyone’s been abuzz about the Modest Mouse tour, but somehow i failed to notice that Man Man is their tour mates. i did notice that these musical pirates and their apocolyptic circus performances had gained fans here on mog, so i thought i would share the goodness…

Music Links

www.wearemanman.com
www.myspace.com/wearemanman

They have the most amazing music video, created by Jeremy Mayhew for their song “Banana Ghost”. It has black and white paper collage action, a la Monty Python meets Max Ernst. Watch it here.

Tour Dates

Apr 27 2007 The Orpheum Theater Boston, Massachusetts
Apr 29 2007 The United Palace New York, New York
Apr 30 2007 The United Palace New York, New York
May 2 2007 Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel Providence, Pennsylvania
May 3 2007 Electric Factory Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
May 4 2007 Civic Center Greensboro, North Carolina
May 5 2007 Masquerade Music Park Atlanta, Georgia
May 6 2007 BJCC Arena Music Park Birmingham, Alabama
May 7 2007 The Spanish Moon Baton Rogue, LA
May 8 2007 House of Blues New Orleans, Louisiana
May 9 2007 The Backyard Austin, Texas
May 10 2007 Nokia Live Grand Prairie, Texas
May 12 2007 Mesa Amphitheater Mesa, Arizona
May 13 2007 Greek Theatre Los Angeles, California
May 14 2007 Cox Arena San Diego, California
May 16 2007 San Jose State University San Jose, California

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/e5QHCz2heGQ]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/p-7I6Fw5LUY]

Their live show has been described eloquently by Harp Mag and Magnet Mag :

“The soundtrack for a post-apocalyptic street carnival.” - Magnet Magazine

“Man Man creates a slippery tapestry with the authentic bearing of sea shanties run through a complex funhouse of loopy distortions, secret passageways and mirrored corridors.” - Harp Magazine

I am most impressed with Spoon’s choice of cover design for their upcoming album, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga.

The photo was taken by Ugo Mulas in 1963, and it shows Lee Bontecou in her New York City studio. Bontecou is one of my very favorite sculptors. She creates these wild things that are like visual glossalalia - everyone will see something different. it could be as big as multiple galaxies rotating around each other, or a chemical structure model. Better yet, just look at this piece :

The album comes out on July 10th on Merge.
Here is the remainder of their tour :

TOUR DATES

04-26 New Haven, CT - Toad’s Place
04-27 Northampton, MA - Pearl Street
04-28 Boston, MA - Museum of Fine Arts
05-07 Seattle, WA - Crocodile Cafe (Britt Daniel solo)
05-27 George, WA - Sasquatch! Festival
06-16 Manchester, TN - Bonnaroo
07-04 Detroit, MI - Comerica CityFest
07-11 New York, NY - River to River
08-04 Chicago, IL - Lollapalooza

Ugo Mulas took many gorgeous and endearing photographs. Here is one of my favorites of John Cage -

The Concert For Diana marks the 10th year since Princess Diana was killed, which would have celebrated her 46th birthday. The artists line up to perform at this special concert on July 1st, are said to be among the Princess’ and Prince’s favorite musicians.
These artists are :

Kanye West

Joss Stone
Lily Allen
Rod Stewart
Bryan Ferry
Elton John
The Feeling
Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber
Duran Duran
English National Ballet
James Morrison
Natasha Bedingfield
Pharrell Williams
Status Quo
English National Ballet
Orson

BBC has been asked to be the UK broadcast partner for the concert. There will be more details about a radio broadcast on their website.

The official website for the Concert For Diana showcases the charities which will benefit from the concerts proceeds. It describes Princess Diana’s involvement in charity work thus :

Concert for Diana is a celebration of the life and work of Diana, Princess of Wales. Diana was a passionate champion of the rights of disadvantaged people and did much to highlight the plight of people living with HIV or AIDS, offering a visible helping hand to those in need.

Concert proceeds will go to Princess Diana’s Patronages and Memorial Fund, Prince William - Centrepoint, UK, and Prince Harry - Sentebale, Lesotho.

The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund works to raise awareness of issues that were close to Diana’s heart, and provides grants to support charitable organisations in the UK and abroad, working in areas related to the kinds of causes she championed. Prince William is Patron of Centrepoint, the UK’s leading youth homelessness charity. In April 2006, Prince Harry and Lesotho’s Prince Seeiso founded a new charity called Sentebale to help vulnerable children and young people in Lesotho, particularly those orphaned as a result of AIDS.