Some hot new Halloween tunes for your aural pleasure

Okay kids, this week I thought I'd start something different on the ol' blog and share some tracks that have been floating out there in cyberspace and, at the same time, floating my boat. There's a high probability that I'll start doing this regularly and alternating this sort of thing with my usual ramblings on the state (both sorry and inspiring) of the music world.

And before the accusations of yet another lazy post start up, I do spend a lot of time scouring through piles of music (metaphorically of course, since digital files don't come in piles) to find these tracks.

So let's see how this goes, eh?

A couple of reviews

It's been a busy week/month/year, so this week I'm not going to get around to writing anything new for the blog. What you get instead is a couple of previously unpublished reviews of albums that I've really been enjoying lately.  They're two completely different and contrasting albums, so hopefully at least one will appeal to your discerning musical tastes.

Heard these albums yet?  What did you think of them? What new music have you been listening to?  Drop a comment below and let me know all about it.

Could this be the end of record labels?

Lately I've been listening to a lot of music on the Bandcamp website, and every time I use it I'm amazed at how simple the idea behind it is, but at the same time, how effective it is as a tool for musicians.

Artists taking control over their music isn't new - Fat Freddy's Drop managed to make it to number one on the New Zealand charts with their independently distributed first album.  I think where Bandcamp's strength lies is in the ease in which artists can get their music out there, and the usability for music fans looking for
music.

Don't hate the media, become the media

Recently I was asked to review the latest album from Wooden Shjips.  I wrote a review based on what I heard from the album, what I personally thought of it and the impression it made on me.  I was asked to rewrite it to fit with the editorial style of the website I was writing for, which I didn't have too much of a problem with, but I thought it made an interesting point about the difference between a review and a publicity piece.

I have excellent news for the world. There's no such thing as grunge.

It's the 20th anniversary today of the release of Nirvana's Nevermind and that's got me thinking about the whole "grunge" phenomenon of the 90's.  I've already been into why Nevermind was such a defining album in the 90's so I won't rehash that here.  Head over here to read that post.

I think that the way Nirvana exploded took the music industry, particularly the marketing side of it, by surprise.  Nobody expected it to happen and the prevailing trend in music at the time was definitely pop.  Suddenly, here were these punk kids making a lot of noise, selling a lot of records, and someone needed to capitalize on it.

My take on the Wellington Music Showcase

Last night I attended a showcase of Wellington music; part of the Going Global summit run by Independent Music NZ, the NZ Music Commission and the Music Managers' Forum to assist bands with understanding how to be successful marketing their music overseas.  You can see sets from the show here.

The showcase was the finale to a day of talks by industry representatives from the UK and USA, including BBC radio programmers and record label reps.   The format involved 6 bands playing short sets, around 25-30 minutes each, with a (supposedly) quick changeover between bands.

It was encouraging to see so many people turn out on a school night to support local music; it can only have given the foreign attendees a positive impression of the New Zealand music scene.

You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone

A few weeks ago I headed out to a local music venue to photograph and review and up and coming band.  It was a cold winters night, I think there was some kind of big rugby game on, and no one turned up.