Every fall, musicians, bands, and industry folk gather in New York City for CMJ, five days of non-stop musical mayhem (AKA heaven on earth).  On October 21st, Indaba will be co-presenting an exciting artist showcase with our friends from Whitesmith Entertainment at one of our favorite venues in NYC, The Living Room. Tickets are free, and first come, first serve. If you're in town, stop on in, say hello and check out some great music!

Wednesday, October 21st

The Living Room
154 Ludlow St, New York NY
(212) 533-7235
21+, one drink minimum, & NO CMJ badge necessary 

7pm - Emilyn Brodsky (with Brian Viglione of the Dresden Dolls)

8pm - Sydney Wayser

8:30pm - Pinky Swear (featuring Rachel Trachtenburg of the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players)

9pm - Sara Benincasa (comedy)

9:15pm - Elon James White (comedy)

9:30pm - A special surprise guest! (comedy)

10pm - Family of the Year

11pm - Jason Trachtenburg (of the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players)

11:45pm - Alina Simone

Multimedia: Media Vox 

Hosted by Sara Benincasa and Emilyn Brodsky 

Hope to see you there!

- The Indaba Music Team

Music legend Les Paul passed away today at the age of 94.

On June 9th, 1915 a legend was born in Waukesha, Wisconsin, Lester William Polfus, who became loved in our hearts as the one and only Les Paul.  From an early age Les Paul found himself interested and surrounded by music and electronics.  He was a self-taught musician by age nine and with the wheels turning in his mind he created a crystal radio from Cadillac parts and an old dentist drill.  This inevitably led to his pursuit of a better recording device and a way to amplify his chosen instrument - the guitar.  

During his years as a top notch player - Les performed with various musicians within a variety of different genres of music, ranging from country to jazz.  Early in his career Les Paul went by the hillbilly persona "Rhubarb Red", though while playing jazz he became known as Les Paul, the name we know today.  During these years as a performer Les never stopped thinking up ideas to further the future of music, he came up with "The Log", which was an effort to create an electric guitar.  This was presented to Gibson in hopes to market the "Les Paul" solid body electric guitar, initially Gibson turned down the idea, but soon after Gibson realized that this design was the future of guitars and they took the Les Paul on.  The rest is history.  

Les Paul was always on the forefront of innovative ideas, and having come into the possession of a German tape recorder he decided to elaborate on the idea and quickly came up with a new design that allowed him to record multiple layered parts.  The creation of this multi-track recorder lead to such innovative recording styles as overdubbing, delay effects, and phasing effects, which are all still used today.  

Les Paul was one of the most influential figures in music and he continued to bless listeners into recent years. He will always be remembered as one of the greats - both as a performer and inventor.  Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family, rest in peace Les you will always be remembered and kept in our hearts, thank you for all you have done.  

seth

by Vijith

The biggest waves for the internet music world today are definitely being made by the news that the unlucky dudes behind Sweden's most scrumptiously flippant piracy portal have decided to sell off the site after years of shockingly flagrant abuse of copyright law.

In April, judge Tomas Norström ruled against the site and its primary interests in a suit brought by the IFPI, a sort of global RIAA, bringing to an end their long tradition of shrugging off legal threats from primarily US-based intellectual property owners with replies like "It is the opinion of us and our lawyers that you are morons, and that you should please go sodomize yourself with retractable batons." Oh, and then there was their highly publicized plan to purchase the incomparably stupid micronation of Sealand in order to give their servers a home that was quite literally on the high seas.

But then Norström's history of highly sympathetic pro-copyright political affiliations came to light, and for a moment it seemed like there might be some merit to the buccaneers' gleeful proclamations that appealing would buy them at least another few years. Not so now, since Norström has just been found perfectly sound in an investigation conducted by the Swedish courts. The verdict is going to stick.

Now, faced with the fine, the owners have quickly raised a few million dollars by selling to Global Gaming Factory, a company which operates a series of internet cafes aimed at gamer geeks -- this is all that's left of the once-glorious video arcade, it seems. In a totally wacky twist, GGF is apparently planning to revamp the client application so they can sell idle bandwidth from connected users to media and telecom companies, hopefully providing a much-needed resource through the looming online on-demand video gold rush.

But if the various preceding attempts to shut down figurehead file sharing outlets have shown us anything, it's that almost killing the platform just causes it to mutate and come back ever than ever. In other words, BitTorrent isn't going anywhere, even if it's highest-profile tracker is -- remember, the legendary invite-only private club OiNK was shut down in 2007 to much hand-wringing and even the official client has sold out at this point. Waiting in the wings for an immediate call to arms are the multi-site torrent meta-searchers like Mininova and Torrentini which aggregate all the content on the smaller trackers without ever actually touching any of it.

GGF's plan is a stretch, but if it works, we may also see legitimate uses for BitTorrent. increase in number, depth, and profile. There was some talk about integrated BitTorrent capabilities in OS X which could be used for distributing software updates, for example, and then of course there's also the multimedia angle. Integrating BitTorrent as a sort of backbone for ruthlessly efficient delivery of large multimedia files could make the next generation of audio software very cool indeed.

September 9th...September 9th...?  What is happening on Spetember 9th?  Oh yeah, The Beatles Rock Band is coming out! 

Not only that, but The Beatles are re-issuing their entire catalog all digitally remastered. Yes, the entire thing.  It will be a good day for for Beatles fans and, probably, for Paul and Ringo, too, as this videogame is going to be the biggest thing ever.  If you're not excited yet, take a look at the instruments that will come with the game. 

How cool is that?  The makers of this game didn't just toss some Beatles songs in a videogame and re-issue the same old crap.  They really went out of their way to make the experience of playing the game as realistic as they could and I think that deserves credit. 

Oh, and one more piece of drooling-fandom before I leave you.  As a little appetizer for the game, Rockband made one of the coolest animations I've ever seen.  Click the image below to check it out.  You won't regret it. (it features some of the re-mastered tracks and they sound amazing).

AHHH, I can't wait!  This game is going to be amazing for the guitar and bass and super, super easy for the drums!  No, only joking.  I'm sure they will think of a way to make the Ringo parts as complicated as everyone else's. 

by Vijith

We're about a week late with this, but Wilco's swift maneuvering last week deserves a look, and possibly also a round of applause.

A few weeks back, the coolest alt-country act of all time announced that their seventh record would be über-eponymously titled Wilco (The Album) and was due at the end of June. This, of course, won them tremendous applause across the sarcasmosphere -- and that's to say nothing of the fact that a little ditty called "Wilco (The Song)" will be the opening track.

Just a hair over two weeks later, "Wilco (The Leak)" jokes were coming out of the woodwork. Poor dears.

Leaks are par for the course among bigger acts of course; even Eminem's ultra-high profile Relapse wasn't really much of a surprise when it showed up a week and a half early. That said, when Islands head doofus Nick Thorburn left his new album on the C line of the New York City subway system last month, it smacked of desperation a little, Fred Durst sex tape style. (The manager's response? "At least it wasn't the L." Apologies to non-New Yorkers for the inside joke.)

My personal favorite, however, has to be the demos for U2's No Line On The Horizon which leaked last summer because Bono was jamming out a little too hard in his mansion made of dreams and some guy driving by on the highway outside recognized the voice blaring across the Irish countryside. No, seriously. That actually happened.

I never get tired of making fun of Bono, but let's move right along, because Wilco's response really made things interesting. They immediately made the album available as a stream on their web site, thus turning a fair number of would-be downloaders into traffic on their web site -- better than nothing, right? They also announced to their mailing list (much to some suited bigwig's chagrin, I'm sure) that the enthusiasm would be, well, forgiven seems like a pretty harsh way to put it...

We also have our usual guilt abatement plan for downloaders. If you have downloaded the record, we suggest you make a donation to one of the band's favorite charities, the Inspiration Corporation- an organization we've supported in the past & who are doing great work in the city of Chicago.

Nonesuch, the band's record label, also wisely started taking pre-orders right away.

As the dust was starting to settle the following day, Billboard noted that the Inspiration Corporation had indeed seen a spike in donations -- good for them -- and also that the band's blog and Twitter stats had likewise jumped. (The numbers in that article may seem small, but remember, we're talking about the entire freaking internet here).

I'm pretty pleased with "Bull Black Nova", but I've held off on the rest thus far, in part because I have yet to get around to digesting 2007's Sky Blue Sky. With a little luck, I'll be able to catch up before the June 30 release. I expect they'll start strong, because this was handled incredibly well -- remember, even though Radiohead sold digital copies of In Rainbows for several months beforehand, the hard-copy discs still debuted at #1.

No Doubt Freebies - by Vijith

New business models have been flying around the music industry with such ridiculous frequency these days that it's hard to continue caring, but last week's entry by late 90's ska revivalists cum mainstream pop band No Doubt was enough to attract my attention. Fans who ante up for the more expensive tickets to this summer's tour, which kicked off last weekend -- remarkably, they top out at just $42.50 -- will be given free digital copies of the band's entire discography.

This would have been unthinkable a few years ago, but as music sales continue to tank, record labels are increasingly moving to 360 deals which give them a stake in all the band's potential income streams, including ticket and merchandise sales; this is one side effect of that integration. Similarly, concert promotion megacorp Live Nation has been making headlines over the last couple years by signing contracts with artists like Jay-Z, Shakira, Nickelback, and Madonna in which it takes over many of the responsibilities traditionally associated with record labels. They're in a particularly good position to pursue and benefit from similar promotions.

The biggest sting, to No Doubt fans and pop culture hounds alike, is that this move rather directly acknowledges the short shelf-life of successful music. No Doubt's 2003 record was a greatest hits compilation, prior to which their last real album was 2001's hella mediocre Rock Steady. It's mildly tempting to start asking questions about how the label financially reconciles giving away 65 songs which go for a buck apiece at the iTunes Music Store bundled with a $45 ticket; I think the answer, even more than the low cost of digital distribution, is the short lifespan of pop. Nobody is buying Tragic Kingdom in 2009, because it's effectively free, and anybody who still cares has already had 15 years to do so, and anybody who doesn't care yet is unlikely to start what with The Killers running around and all. In some ways, this is just a more dramatic restatement of the recent pricing changes for music download sales which allowed some retailers to sell older tracks at cheaper prices; we're just surfing a bit farther down the long-tail curve this time.

Leaving the changing industry landscape aside for a moment, though, this also resonates with me on a personal level because it reconciles quite nicely with my obsessive-compulsive listening habits. Ever since I started downloading mp3s a decade or so ago, I've tended to forge much stronger connections with the bands I see in concert because I usually download the entire back catalog in the weeks beforehand. (This hit a critical mass when I went to the reincarnated Lollapalooza in 2003 and realized that I'd heard every song ever recorded by every band I'd be seeing there.) I've toned it down somewhat in recent years, in part out of the shame of that experience and also because I have since transitioned into being a music writer and go to so many more concerts now. On the other hand, I still try to do exhaustive research before writing a feature or preparing interview questions.

What I'm trying to say, I guess, is that I do this sort of thing anyway, with or without the legal downloads, but it's wonderful that No Doubt has taken notice of guys like me. And, according to conventional logic, a little B-A-N-A-N-A-S.

It was only a few months ago when rapper/singer/songwriter/producer, K-OS, hit up Indaba for a 3 month Studio Access program, releasing the unfinished stems to all 11 songs from his (then) forthcoming release on Universal Music Canada, Yes!, to the Indaba community.  He asked you to create brand new music from his stems, with the judges’ favorite version of each of the 11 songs to be officially released by his label in both physical and digital formats, and each song’s producer to receive $1,000.

And now, the Indaba-mixed record, Yes! It’s Yours!, is out and available everywhere!

How cool is this? A major label recording artist takes a risk by asking an online community of musicians to create their own mixes of his music for an official release, and the online community responds with track after track of killer cuts.

Check 'em out below, yo, and congrats to the winners!

As we all know, true music nerds get everything on vinyl.  Normally, nerdiness tends to be ahead of the curve, technologically speaking, but true music dorks like their recordings the old fashioned way.  Perhaps it's due to the tangibility of vinyl or perhaps it's just the superior audio quality, but whatever it is, music geeks dig records.  And I have some good news for any of that crowd who also dig Nirvana: a big chunk of the Nirvana catalogue is being re-released on vinyl.  From a story in Billboard...

The bulk of Nirvana's catalog is set for a high-fidelity do-over this year as the Original Recordings Group (ORG) prepares to release "Nevermind," "In Utero," and "MTV Unplugged" on 180-gram, audiophile quality vinyl for the first time ever.  All three records will be released in 2009, with "Nevermind" coming first, says Monti Olson, a senior VP of Universal Music Publishing Group/Interscope Records and founder of ORG, who will announce the deal at South By Southwest tomorrow (March 21).

"Bernie Grubman remastered the recordings specifically for us," Olson said. "To our knowledge this is the first time "Unplugged" has ever come out on vinyl.  They might have done a limited promotional thing but I doubt it."

Full Story

But wait, there's more!  In the same story, Olson says the retail market for vinyl is growing.  "We have some new accounts that are experimenting with vinyl, like Best Buy.  I don't know how strong their initiative is, but they've alotted a little bit of floor space for vinyl."  So if you dig vinyl and you dig Nirvana, today is a great day for you.

Guitar Hero and Rock Band, the two most successful music videogames of all time, don't have to prove their worth to anyone.  They're selling like hotcakes - well, better than hotcakes, considering I've never bought one of those.  They're creating a new platform to move music and introducing old classics to new, younger ears.  So why won't Warner Music Group get on board? 

Wired wrote a great article - more of a warning, really - addressing the problem of major labels fighting the game-makers for use of copyrighted songs.  The labels argue that the fee received for use of their catalogues is minimal while the game-makers argue that the exposure is worth it for bands.  It's hard to argue with that considering the fact that the Guitar Hero Aerosmith game made more money for the band than any of their albums ever did.  And if you remember just how big "Get A Grip" was, that really means something. In regards to Guitar Hero Aerosmith, the article had this to say...

The labels ought to push for more such titles and integrate them into their promotional strategies. They might not maximize profit on the licensing, but who cares? With more entries to come in the play-along genre, and networked hardware to play them on, the games themselves could even become an online music retail channel to rival iTunes. Or what about a game for turntable artists? Labels could provide the stem tracks for songs (in which each instrument's recording is isolated) and let players mix their own versions. Users could vote for their favorites through online services like Xbox Live, and Warner could sell the winning mixes back to customers using the very platform on which they were created. Call it Wii-Mix.

Full Article

Music games are not going away so I suppose we will all just sit back, relax and wait to see if we're going to be playing along to the real thing or some crappy cover version.