I haven't blogged about music in a week or so, but I couldn't let this week pass by without talking about it. So, I am here to tell you all about a special performance that Pete Yorn did last week in New York City.
I was invited by Spin magazine to attend this special performance, but sadly, I could not get a flight out to New York that would get me in on time...but that does not stop me from taking you through the evening as detailed as I can from what I have been told.
Here is a quick excerpt from a Spin.COM araticle that pretty much summarizes Pete's set:
Pete strolled into Manhattan's 79th Street Boat Basin on May 15th and strummed out an intimate acoustic set at the Amsterdam-themed Amstel Light Lounge 1870 gala, sponsored by Spin.
Pete's short, but sweet set list had pumped up the crowd and had them singing along to songs such as "Life On A Chain", "For Nancy", "Strange Condition", "For Us", "Model American" and a new song called, "Somebody". Armed only with an acoustic guitar, Pete mostly sang with closed eyes, morning melodically over chord strums between lyrical rambles. With the audience encouraging with their singing, Yorn fully engaged, smiling at the sight of upturned faces firing his lyrics right back at him. After an eleven-song set, fans toasted one last time as laughs reverberated off the enclosure's historic, towering brick walls back across the Hudson to Yorn's hometown.
I was super bummed I missed this special show last week, but I was very fortunate to see that someone captured some of his set on video and posted it to YouTube. Pete revealed that he will have a new album coming out later this year (SWEET!) and I am super stoked for that. Before I leave you, here for your listening (and viewing) pleasure, is Pete singing "Somebody" last week...enjoy the music, enjoy Pete, but most of all, enjoy the day!
Hello everyone! Before I get into it I must say that the hours to JavaOne are flying by so fast...all hands are on deck and I know I keep on teasing you, but we have some really, really exciting things to share with you in a 12 days! I know 12 days...can you believe it?! For your music introduction this week, I wanted to introduce you to an LA based music producer and artist, Robin Danar. Back in mid March, he released an album called 'Altered States'. As the name of the album suggests, Altered States are cover songs, however, they aren't simply just covers..these songs are completely reimagined. Take for instance, 'Use Me' which Pete Yorn and Kinky cover from Bill Withers. This is a completely different sound from the original, but I love what Robin, Pete and the boys from Kinky did to the song. Its much more intense and gritty...I like it a lot. If you are on myspace, you can download it from Robin's myspace page for free. How sweet is that? I am also digging Minibar's version of Morrissey's 'First of the Gang to Die'. It took me a few minutes to realize that Minibar was in fact covering Moz. If you are a cover lover (and I count myself among that group) then I highly suggest you go out and get this album. A lot of you might find many of these songs a tad obscure, but it has inspired me to dig around for the original material to see how it has changed with Altered States.
Alright, I back to work on all things JavaOne, but I hope you will enjoy Altered States as much as I have the last few weeks!
Last week, I introduced all of you to Pete Yorn and told you that he would be joining fellow rockers on stage at the Troubadour for the Justice Tour. The show sold out in a few hours and the place was jam packed waiting to hear all the boys rock out on stage. Pete sang three of his own songs, including a new one, 'Shot Gun'. I was fortunate to have heard it previously when he did a show at another legendary LA venue, The Roxy Theatre, back in December for another great cause, The Spectrum Program at New Roads School. I really like Shot Gun...its a darker and emotionally raw song...plus, I'm really looking forward to the studio version of it to come out soon. But...back to the show itself...the show featured early acoustic performances by Tom Morello, Pete Yorn, Jerry Cantrell and MC5's, Wayne Kramer. Morello acted as master of ceremonies and orchestrating the chaos. After warming the crowd up, Morello then
brought out what would serve as the core of the evening’s house
band: Travis Barker on drums, Flea playing bass and a rotating line-up
of Steve Vai, Slash, Dave Navarro, Davey Havoc and Morello sharing guitar duties. The team backed up Cantrell for a version of Thin Lizzy's 'Jailbreak' and rocked out on covers of Rihanna's 'Umbrella' and Stevie Wonder's 'Superstition.' The culmination of the night, for me, was when Pete was joined on stage by the rest of the boys to cover Neil Young's 'Keep on Rockin' In A Free World'...luckily, someone captured it on YouTube and now all of you can enjoy it too! It was great to see Pete lead on that song and to watch him rock out! The show was amazing and it helped raise a lot of money and awareness for PATH. Enjoy the clip and get ready to rock out with them! Also, look for the Justice Tour hitting cities across the US...each stop will benefit a different charitable organization and will feature different guest rockers. How hot is that?!
Hello everyone! I have been super busy with all things JavaOne and haven't really been able to post that much this week....I owe you a run down of my last two days at the Evans Data Developer Conference, but before I can get into that, I need to introduce you to two very good causes and my artist of the week. This week I am featuring the one and only, Pete Yorn. I took a few minutes to myself to catch up on all my social media outlets when I cruised by Pete's myspace page to read two new blog posts that caught my eye.
The first thing I read was that Pete's song "Old Boy" is on The Green Owl Compilation: a Benefit for EnergyAction Coalition. The disc came out yesterday (April 8th) and is available at all Whole Foods stores, your local record stores and on-line at Amazon, iTunes and Insound. The Disc is made up of unreleased tracks from an eclectic group of artists. The best part is that 100% of the proceeds from the album will be given to support the EAC. If are you interested in finding out more information, please go to Green Owl Records. Old Boy is one of my most favorite PY songs, so go and soak it in. Your ears will once again thank you. :-)
And... if that wasn't enough, for those of you in the Los Angeles area, you can join Pete in helping kick off The Justice Tour next Tuesday, April 15th at the legendary Troubadour. I have to say that the Troub is one of my most favorite venues in LA, so to catch such an incredible show with the following people performing might warrant a quick jaunt down:
The Nightwatchman (Tom Morello) with special guests: Slash, Perry Farrell, Flea, Pete Yorn, State Radio, Sen Dog of Cypress Hill and Davey Havoc of AFI.
Proceeds from the show will benefit PATH - People Assisting the Homeless. Doors at open at 8PM...tickets are only $10 and can be purchased through Ticketmaster.
Just think...two great charitable organizations that will benefit from Pete...way to go!!
Alright, I am diving back into all things JavaOne, but check out the greatness that is Yorn and if you are in the LA area, go and enjoy the show. It will be an amazing night of music! Keep rockin'.
It's that time again! This week I am introducing you to some of my favorite people on the planet. I have had the immense pleasure getting to know the boys from Minibar and they my readers, are my pick of the week. Formed in London in the mid-'90s by Simon Petty (vocals, guitar), Sid Jordan (bass, vocals) Tim Walker (electric guitar, vocals, pedal steel), and Sir Malcolm Cross (drums, vocals, percussion) they soon relocated to L.A. where they quickly became music to my ears. I can not tell you how many times I have listened to their albums on repeat these past few weeks as I am working on all my deliverables for JavaOne. Which, BTW, we have some very, very cool things planned. Stay tuned here for little tidbits and snippets of things we have been working on for you. Ah.. but let me get you back to Minibar... I am including one of their music videos, "Crime Scene Ribbon" for you all to enjoy from their latest record, Desert After Rain.
AND...if you can't get enough of the Minibar boys, you can check out Simon and Sid as they will playing tonight in San Diego and tomorrow in Los Angeles as part of The British Empire Tour. The Bristish Empire Tour is a collective of singer/songwriters who hail from current and former parts of the british empire. Playing with Simon and Sid are Ted Brown, Seth Rothschild and Greg Johnson. They will be coming to the bay area as well as traveling across the US this spring/summer, so if they are in your neck of the woods, go and check them out! Your ears will thank you once again. Enjoy the music!
Since I have been home for my latest travels and with work getting into all things JavaOne, I haven't been able to really sit down and read through my stacks of magazines I subscribe to...and when I say stacks, I mean stacks! There's Rollingstone, Spin, Paste, Paper, Lucky, Domino, Entertainment Weekly, Vanity Fair, Vogue, NME and a few others that I am sure to be missing.
Being that it was a gorgeous Saturday, I grabbed my latest Rollingstone and headed out to the local park to catch some rays and catch up on some much needed music news. Thumbing through, I ran across an article by Robert Levine about the current state of music and how its delivered to us. It brought me back to SXSW once again to Lou Reed's keynote on the opening day of the music portion of the festival. I have been a huge fan of Lou's since I can remember (one of the first albums I ever bought with my own money was The Velvet Underground and Nico ;) so after a late night of listening to R.E.M. do a midnight show at Stubbs, Heidi and I headed down to the Austin Convention Center to hear Lou speak his mind. In typical Lou form, Reed spoke a lot about the current state of digital technologies saying that "it's like the technology is taking us backwards. It's making it easier to make things worse." He went on to say "here's our song reduced to a pin drop; what? what? what?.... its like no one knows any better or doesn't care so its gonna stay on a really, really low level and people who like good sound are be thought of as some kind of strange zoo animal." Although this all sounds like negativity coming from Mr. Reed, he did express hope that "you hear they've got a newer version (of MP3) that sounds better, and you suddenly hear that the other instruments that are on the song. They've got to bring up the standard. You have the world open to you now; you can get almost any song in the world as an MP3 and I suppose if you like you can try to find a version of it you can actually listen to."
So what is the point I am trying to make with all this? As technology shifts the way sounds are recorded, the music industries standards are changing. Analog tape has been replaced in most studios by Pro Tools and there are programs out there that can make not so good singers sound pitch perfect. There is even something that does the same thing for below average drummers. So is music doomed to start sounding even worse? To quote the article by Levine, "even most CD listeners have lost interest in high-end stereos as surround-sound home theater systems have become more popular and superior quality disc formats have flopped." Bendeth and other producers worry that young listeners have grown so used to dynamically compressed music and the thin sound of MP3s that the battle has already been lost. "CD's sound better, but no one is buying them," he says "The age of the audiophile is over."
I am by no means an expert about how music is made, only that I enjoy listening to it and seeing it live as often as possible. While I have friends in the industry, I leave it to them to produce it anyway they deem it best for them. In my opinion, sound has never been as good as the record, but in the day of iTunes being the modern day record store, when will we, the consumers, demand a higher quality sound?
Happy Friday everyone! Most people know that I have a deep, deep love and commitment to music. And most people know that I am all about Pete Yorn and catch him live as often and as much as possible. While Heidi and I were down in Austin at SXSW, Pete joined his good friend and fellow musician, Matthew Good on stage at my favorite Los Angeles venue, Hotel Cafe, for a song. They covered Daniel Johnston's "True Love Will Find You In The End" and thanks to YouTube, I am able to catch their performance of this song. I think about all the amazing live music I have seen over the years and how I wish YouTube was around back then. Whether it was my first and only Smiths show in Hamburg, Germany, as a kid, or last week at SXSW, the memories that YouTube has been able to preserve are immeasurable. Please enjoy the clip of Pete and Matthew. I hope that I can turn you all on to these two amazing artists.
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