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August 27, 2008
Shorties
Aimee Mann talks to Greg Kot's Turn It Up blog.
“I spend a lot of time on computers, but I’m not a huge fan of what they provide,” she says. “They have taken away from us, in a way. It has made available so much entertainment that people are constantly distracted. MySpace and Facebook gave hope to everyone who ever owned a guitar and some kind of recording device. Their music is now available and fighting to get noticed along with everybody else’s. There are millions of singers and songwriters and bands, and when there is too much choice my reaction is I don’t know what to listen to. So my choice is not to listen to anything.”
The Guardian's music blog notes the importance of a good bass player to a band.
Liz Phair talks to the Boston Herald about her early success.
“You’ve got to remember I went from zero to famous and I had no experience,” she said. “All of a sudden I was the (expletive) queen across the nation. I was not prepared for that.”
Paste interviews John Convertino of Calexico about the band's new album, Carried To Dust.
Pattern Is Movement lists some of its favorite things at Pitchfork.
ReadWriteWeb discusses the future of online music.
PopMatters interviews author Owen King about superhero fiction.
As superhero texts are becoming more mainstream (see: The Dark Knight), how do you think that superhero fiction will respond?
The people who love those genres are getting tougher and tougher to please. If something is cheesy, they will call it out. They are coming to expect more and more. The technical expertise, the cinematic expertise you will see in the new Batman, it’s going to raise the bar all over the place.
see also: King's Largehearted Boy Book Notes essay for his story collection, We're All In This Together
Pitchfork reviews James Lavino's soundtrack to the film, Woodpecker.
The record conjures the magical feeling of the forest, the coolness of stream-cooled tree shade, the peaceful sensation of walking on pine needles. The music more resembles a hummingbird than a woodpecker: It lightly hovers and flits. The tone is established from the start-- "The Thing With Feathers", a synthesized dirge that evokes woodwinds, with dreamy acoustic guitar chords rolling through-- and remains unbroken through the twittering chimes, house backbeat, and Spanish guitar of closing track "The Bird Suit".
see also: Lavino's Largehearted Boy Soundtracked essay for the album
The Associated Press profiles Vincent Moon and his indie rock video series, the Take-Away Shows.
The New Yorker features new short fiction by Janet Frame.
The Guardian profiles Bandstocks, a service that will let individuals invest in musicians' careers.
Investors will get a copy of the album, a credit on the CD sleeve and a percentage of the profits from its sale and licensing. They will also get priority ticket booking and the opportunity to buy limited edition releases. For the artist, founder Andrew Lewis claimed that Bandstocks would offer a better return than a major-label deal, as well as more freedom and control over copyright.
Wired's Listening Post offers options for sharing online mixtapes now that Muxtape has been shut down.
New Raleigh notes that Ryan Adams will publish a book of prose through Akashic Books.
Chris Chu of the Morning Benders talks about the band's surprising success with the San Jose Mercury News.
Wired's Listening Post interviews the founder of the online mixtape streamer, 8tracks.
The Village Voice reviews Paul Auster's new novel, Man in the Dark.
Tenderness yoked to violence, literary experiment without irony—Paul Auster has outdone himself, perhaps precisely by not trying to outdo anything.
John Cook's Venture Blog examines Amazon's recent purchase of Shelfari.
Drowned in Sound gets reactions to the Leeds and Reading festivals from the participating bands.
TuneFad.com predicts music you will like and dislike based on your input.
Drowned in Sound interviews Foals' Yannis Philippakis.
NPR's Morning Edition interviews Beck.
also at Largehearted Boy:
daily mp3 downloads
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from this week's CD releases)
this week's CD releases
tags: music books popculture indie news
