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July 13, 2007
Shorties
Liquid Parallax offers an "ultimate list of free & legal mp3 music downloads."
The Inquirer lists the top 10 Steve Jobs links to Bob Dylan.
In the Chicago Sun-Times, Jim DeRogatis previews the Pitchfork Music Festival.
St. Vincent's Annie Clark talks to the Washington Post's Express.
The Philadelphia Daily News interviews Colin Meloy of the Decemberists.
Q: Doesn't this seem to be the year for string-endowed pop, with artists like Sufjan Stevens, Bright Eyes and Arcade Fire also venturing in that direction?
A: I think people in our peer group are getting inclined to do big music - grandiose, cinematic music. I myself come from a more egalitarian musical background. I like my music small and recorded in a basement. But that said, I also like the big stuff.
We've been inspired a lot by groups like the Waterboys, who had that big, grand music thing going, and also by Belle and Sebastian, who, in a way, were polar opposites but creating little pop masterpieces out of a church in Glasgow. Again, it was that idea of having slender means while creating something grand.
Take5online interviews Drive-By Trucker Patterson Hood.
Q: Can you give some insight into the new album?
A: We’ve been recording in Athens at David Barbe’s studio. All of our records have at one point been worked on there. This record is a polar opposite in every way from “A Blessing and a Curse.” It’s really different from anything we’ve ever done. It creates its own mood, and it’s pretty uncompromising about it. “Blessing” was on the more mainstream side of what we do, if there is one. But this veers in a completely different direction. We actually just cut three songs that Shonna wrote this week. Cooley has written more songs in a six-month period than he usually writes in two years. I also whittled down my list from 30 songs to about 10. Everyone is being really creative.
At CMJ's Relay blog, Accuradio.com's Dan McSwain weighs in on the royalty hike for steaming internet radio stations.
WOXY's blog, the Futurist, offers tips on how you can help let your legislators know you oppose the hike.
Culture Bully lists the top 5 music videos featuring puppets.
The Wall Street Journal examines how pirated music helps commercial radio build its playlists.
NPR's All Things Considered examines the music industry's quest for a "digital-age plan."
The Nichi Bei Times profiles Osamu Tezuka, the father of anime.
"Tezuka, to his sublime credit, is one of the first artists involved in the Second World War who was really committed to the idea of repairing trauma, not in adults, but children … because if those children grow up with out dealing with the issues that their parents went through, worse problems happen down the track," he adds. "Tezuka’s idea of continuity, karmic reincarnation, the cycles of life in the Buddhist sense very much inform his view caring for children in some kind of progressive way."
Time Out Chicago has devoted this week's issue to coverage of the Pitchfork Music Festival.
Wilco's Jeff Tweedy talks to the Scotsman about the band's latest album, Sky Blue Sky.
"I always just want language to be alive," Tweedy says. "And I really felt like the language was working best this time when I just came out and said what I wanted to say. If you say something directly the way you mean it, you're sticking your neck out a lot more, but I thought that was an artistic step worth taking."
OC Weekly profiles Lavender Diamond.
As America scrambles to protect itself at all costs from the appearance of vulnerability, sincerity is once again regarded with suspicion, especially when it comes from Lavender Diamond, a four-piece acoustic band from Los Angeles with a vocalist, Becky Stark, who sings like an angel, dresses like a Maxfield Parrish print, and talks of the supremacy of peace and love as though the lessons of the past 150 years of American history bothered her not at all.
MInnesota Public Radio's the Current features an in-studio set by singer-songwriter Jesca Hoop.
At NPR, author Laura Lippman declares The Mysterious Secret of the Valuable Treasure by Jack Pendarvis a "must read."
Southern Shelter is sharing mp3s of Jason Isbell's album release show for his solo debut Sirens of the Ditch.
The Washington Post reviews the album.
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