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I spent a bit of time updating the Quadrophobe website yesterday, using the fantastically flexible Wordpress platform and a number of plugins to bring together content from Flickr, provide a nice interface into upcoming gigs and performances and link off to their other digital identities (MySpace, Facebook and Last.fm). The band seem really pleased with it (which is nice :)) and hopefully it is simple (yet powerful) enough that they’ll be able to run the day-today functions of the site. Next addition is a Flash MP3 player for the band, so people can listen to the tracks on their website.

Check it out: www.quadrophobe.com

As part of the site I got round to uploading some photographs I took at the JackFM Next Big Thing competition a week ago to my Flickr account.

Spreading like wildfire through Twitter and the social web yesterday were rumours, then confirmation, that YouTube and the Performing Rights Society (PRS), who collect money on behalf of record labels and artists whenever their music is played, had fallen out over licensing negotiations.

The dispute further highlights how traditional national bodies are finding it increasingly difficult to operate in the global village of the Internet, which has had a particularly profound impact on the way we ‘consume’ music in the last decade. Understandably each of these regional organisations don’t want to miss out on their slice of the pie, but bizarrely seem intent on destroying the very thing they are trying to embrace engulf at every turn. Read the rest of this entry »

This has completely slipped me by (until now), but Youtube are in the process of putting together the world’s first virtual symphony.

The deal is simple, download the music, practise (there’s even a condctor for you to rehearse with ;)), then upload a video of you performing.

The best will be invited to perform at New York’s Carnegie Hall in April 2009.

The music is compose by Tan Dun (of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon fame) and you can see a video of the pro’s (London Symphony Orchestra) performing the piece in October below.

Quite a cool little project, it’ll be interesting to see how it goes!

More at youtube.com/symphony

I’ve been a subscriber to the excellent last.fm service for a long time now; I love it when clever technology is put to a cool purpose. Not only can you track your listening habits (which can be pretty interesting in itself, worthy of its own blog post which will follow), but with some analysis the clever guys at Last.HQ can recommend music that you will probably like. I use the stand alone app at work, too, to listen to music, giving me access to stream my music ‘from home’ as well as other interesting new tunes.

Around the same time as I got my iPhone 3G (and hence started using iTunes (never fear, I will not forget you, Frankel)) iTunes 8 was released. Apple were making a song and dance out of Genius, a function which would generate you playlists based on a starting file, as well as recommending music which you might like to buy from the iTunes Music Store (oh, how convenient - thank you Mr Jobs ;)).

To me this sounded familiar, and after having a quick gander at it to establish what it looked like, I dismissed it. Perhaps it was my choice of track, but the results it returned weren’t great.

Fast forward two months. For a laugh last night, whilst scrolling through my music, I noticed the cheese-tastic classic Loveshack by the B52s. A quick right-click, Start Genius later and I had 25 tracks which are worthy of the status of ‘Le Grand Fromage’. Read the rest of this entry »

They were awesome. Had such a fantastic night, from the back during Soulwax to dancing my little socks off at the front throughout the 2manydjs set. Walking down the road this morning the birds were singing and the sun was just coming up I just had a massive grin on my face I can’t wait to see them again at Rockness in a couple of weeks.

You can see the rest of the photos are up on Facebook if you want to take a look.

You don’t often hear about The Chris Moyles Show on Radio 1 being an outlet for new music, however I was pleasantly surprised by the little gem he played on this morning’s show. Rhythms del Mundo (Cuba) is a concoction of various mainstream/alternative artists with a latin vibe. Their cover of Coldplay’s Clocks is excellent, as is Dancing Shoe’s by Artic Monkeys, which you can watch a pretty fun video of right here:

Whilst it’s not strictly ‘new’ as it was released a year-and-a-half ago, it is a very contagious album. All of the western covers are very well done and there are a couple of catchy Cuban numbers too. No doubt you’ll see them cropping up on my last.fm. You can buy it at play.com and amazon.co.uk.

After the fantastic time I had a Rockness last year, especially grooving to Mark Ronson and Daft Punk on the Sunday night. I’ve been eagerly awaiting the line up to help make my mind up if I’ll make the pilgrimage to Loch Ness again in 2008; finally they’ve updated the website with the current listings, highlights including: FatBoy Slim, Editors and 2manydjs. I suppose mention should also go to The Cuban Brothers, who are always a good laugh.

www.rockness.co.uk

As previously mentioned, Mark Vidler of Go Home Productions fame has been making his back catalog available for download via his website. His latest, and last, offering from the GHP coffers is all of his radio mixes; 12 sets spanning 5 years for the likes of XFM, Radio 1, 6 Music and a selection of stations across the seven seas.

 Anyways, all of the wares are direct links to MP3s over at gohomeproductions.co.uk

Last month Mark Vilder announced he had come to the end of ‘bastard pop’ road, to go on (and in typical mus-o type) and focus on other projects.

At the time he released “This Was Pop (2002-2007)”, which forms a retrospective (or ‘best of’ I supposed) on the whole she-bang. It’s definitely worth a listen, but only if you’re open enough to hear Snoop Dogg & Dr Dre over the top of Crowded House and/or The Beatles’ “Paperback Writer” and The Monkeys’ “I’m a Believer” in perfect harmony

Anyway, you can get it in two parts (96 & 13MB respectively) and an alternative download can be found on the GHP website.

Mark has also put “GHP Complete” - the entire GHP back catalogue - available for download. The OMFG torrent is over 1GB, but has some rare tracks that have been (until now) difficult to get hold of. It’s available at thepiratebay: Go_Home_Productions_-_GHP_Complete.torrent.