Posts in music
Coverfight

Coverfight is over, the results are posted and voting is now up. My cover of Ken's Super Duper Band's Too Goth Too Rock is on there (with background vocals by John Benjamin) as is Henrietta's really well done country cover of We're Not Friends. It was a neat experience though I kinda ran out out energy to obsess over the mix of my cover at some point. I was assigned a solid song that really didn't need much done to it so I did a fairly straightforward cover.

There are a lot of other really good covers in there so be sure to check them out.

musicBrad Turcottelink Comments
iTunes Affiliate Program

The iTunes affiliate program is really, really exciting. I've written many times about the need for more DJs, independent radio and general music filter services on the net. Thankfully, MP3 blogs have become hugely popular in the past few months and are still growing at a crazy rate. Now iTunes Affliates can link directly to any songs, albums or artists on iTunes and receive 5% commission on any sales they're responsible for. Meaning that if you were an affiliate and you were to, say, link to my album on iTunes and anyone buys anything, you get 5%. Holy smokes! That's an incentive to promote my music far beyond anything I as a penniless and disorganized independent artist could offer on my own and that's just plain awesome.

So on top of it simply being fun to share music with your friends, you can now make some cash on the side just from people following your recommendations. These are the sorts of innovations and stunts that the digital music industry can pull off which I think will make it an exciting, interesting place, and I think we've only just now started scratching the surface of what can be done.

Also: Looks like even a smart guy like Cringely thinks it's exciting too. And he summarizes it excellently: "This is like sending tens of thousands of record sales people out on the road except that they can sell anything THEY like -- any of the one million iTunes songs -- making them salespeople with real conviction and maybe even with good taste."

business, musicBrad Turcotterant Comments
The Lost Tapes

Jello Biafra One of my favorite albums as a teenager was In God We Trust Inc. by the Dead Kennedys so I was pretty jazzed when I heard about the The Lost Tapes DVD. I had a chance to watch it last week and it was pretty fascinating. The story goes that the original recording session for In God We Trust Inc. on June 19th, 1981 was lost due to defective tape. They re-recorded the album some time later and that's what actually made it onto the In God We Trust Inc I know and love. They have since rescued a lot of the recordings from the defective tape and from other sources and were video taping the recording session at the time. So this is a pretty good look at what it was like to be in the studio with the Dead Kennedys.

The songs sound more or less identical to the album versions and it's pretty strange to watch the process of recording one of my favorite albums.

musicBrad Turcottereview Comments
Making Me Nervous Source

Last week I decided because everyone seems to be into mash-ups and remixing all of a sudden that I'd start releasing the source for my album I Don't Know What I'm Doing and see what happens. I had been offering the source files on CD for $5 for a couple of years in my FAQ but people didn't seem too interested in that. I always thought it was a pretty cool and cutting edge idea that never got much attention, but it was an idea I had back when I was on dialup and bandwidth was less plentiful so it wasn't as convenient as it could have been for potential remixers.

I'm not sure what the interval will be on releasing these source files. Basically if interesting things happen with the source I'll be eager to chop up more of the songs and put them online. If nothing happens, I'll probably lose interest. We'll see how it goes.

Here are the source files for my song Making Me Nervous. I'd like to post as many remixes/whatever as I can here, so please let me know if you do anything cool! Thanks!

musicBrad Comments
Apples in Stereo

I went to Montreal this weekend to see Apples in Stereo and despite the heat and the dodgy sound, it was an awesome show. Their energy and happy songs had me smiling through the whole set. I was introduced to the Apples maybe a year ago by a friend who said their lyrics reminded her of mine. She sent me their album Tone Soul Evolution and I was totally blown away by it and have been kind of obsessed with it ever since.

So after the show I was a bit tongue-tied when I got to meet Robert Schneider, their vocalist, guitarist and main songwriter. He was very friendly and funny and gave me two manly one-armed hugs when I tried to express what an impact that album had on me and pretty much came up retardedly short. I think I excused myself only a moment or two away from asking "so where do you get your ideas from?" so it wasn't a total disaster.

Anyhow, I had a great time. If you get a chance, you should check them out. Their remaining tour dates are here.

musicBrad Comments
Top Guitar Riffs

itv.com reports on a poll on the top 20 guitar riffs. And here they is:

1. Sweet Child O' Mine - Guns N' Roses
2. Smells Like Teen Spirit - Nirvana
3. Whole Lotta Love - Led Zeppelin
4. Smoke On The Water - Deep Purple
5. Enter Sandman - Metallica
6. Layla - Derek & The Dominoes/Eric Clapton
7. Master Of Puppets - Metallica
8. Back In Black - AC/DC
9. Voodoo Child (Slight Return) - Jimi Hendrix
10. Paranoid - Black Sabbath
11. Crazy Train - Ozzy Osbourne
12. All Right Now - Free
13. Plug In Baby - Muse
14. Black Dog - Led Zeppelin
15. Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love - Van Halen
16. Walk This Way - Aerosmith with Run DMC
17. Sunshine Of Your Love - Cream
18. No-One Knows - Queens Of The Stone Age
19. Paradise City - Guns N' Roses
20. Killing In The Name - Rage Against The Machine

musicBrad Comments