The day has finally come. The crowd has spoken and the album is released today—titled, fittingly enough, “An Introduction to Marc with a C”.
I’m not bitter that the final track choices do not match my own. As usual, the crowd has produced finer results than any one of its members. Here are a few highlights—some I chose, and a few unexpected gems…
I forget how I found The Current. It was 3 or 4 years ago I think, possibly just in a random directory of internet radio, possibly built into my Squeezebox. And for a long time you would have seen it show up in my online listening profile as I played it through the squeezebox and it scrobbled.
But I realised recently that since I now listen through a non-scrobbling device, The Current is one part of my listening habits which just isn’t reflected in my online music profile these days. So here’s a quick post to reflect my love of this quirky, independent-minded, great-music-playing station.
Just a short post to celebrate the notion of USB Stick Discographies.
We live in an always-online world where increasingly we prefer downloadables and streaming media over physical products. And that’s certainly the case in the world of music (…with the possible exception of vinyl junkies).
One special case for me is the trend of artists releasing most or all of their back catalogue on a USB stick. Rather than leave fans to trawl around gathering the various tracks and releases and special editions and so on, some artists make an all-in-one bundle that saves you the hassle and bandwidth.
Here are three I’ve bought:
(Jonathan Coulton + Creative Commons) <3 USB Sticks
What: A 1GB green USB stick containing the JoCo Looks Back album and all the source tracks for it.
Awesome because: A fund-raising release for Creative Commons to celebrate the release of the ‘best of’ album “JoCo Looks Back”, this stick highlighted the power of the CC licenses to encourage remixes and derivatives.
What else: I already owned all this music, but getting at the multi-track source material was was a great bonus. I’m not into remixing, myself, but in my last job having high quality multi-track data proved very useful for building fun in-house tech demos.
A few days ago I attended a fantastic discussion panel session at The Hub, Westminster, entitled “The Future of Musicianship”. It was the first event put on by the newly-launched “Loving and Living Music” project, brainchild of Ben Hillyard and Heli Rajasalo.
The goal of the initiative is outlined in detail here but to give you an idea:
What we are looking for in the Loving & Living Music project is a definition or a description of musicianship that includes all aspects of musicianship across all genres and instruments. Having this definition will enable discussion of musicianship to take place on a wider scale than is possible today.
We see a gap in the way that music in commonly taught. With the Loving & Living Music project we are looking to provoke awareness and discussion among the music education sector about how Musicianship is and could be taught.
The future of musicianship is a subject close to my heart due to my work with Easy Ear Training, where we try to use modern technology to make learning music more fun, easy and effective.
The event was fascinating, and the discussion broad and interesting. I won’t try to recount the discussion (not least because the entire panel session is now available online) but the event was eye-opening for me in a number of ways.
Musicianship is not what I thought.
In my work at Easy Ear Training I live immersed in a world of aural skills and over time (more…)
After my LACF blitzkrieg in January, I’m slightly hesitant to post another concert review here, considering myself neither a music critic nor concert review blogger.
But last night’s Mountain Goats concert at the Barbican, featuring Owen Pallett and Anonymous 4, was one of the best I have ever attended – and brought me such joy I can’t help but want to share it.
Transcendental Youth
A few months ago, I got hugely excited on seeing this blog post over on mountain-goats.com. John Darnielle describes the chance to work with Owen Pallett and Anonymous 4 as being like a “kid in the candy shop, after hours, with the go-ahead to have all the candy I like” and I can see that. At the time it was planned for New York only, but the addition of a performance at the Barbican in London made me hugely happy.
My name's Christopher Sutton and this is my personal blog. You can learn more about me