Results tagged “Music” from ScottandMargo.net

It's been a while since I've done these. I'm behind I have a few in the queue and I'll get to them.

Here's my signed copy of Laura Tsaggaris' album Keep Talking.

I discovered Brad Sucks back in 2006 or so and blogged about it at the time (Brad Sucks: Open Source Musician?). I've enjoyed his album, "I Don't Know What I'm Doing" quite a bit since then. I realized recently that I had just downloaded the album and never really got around to paying for it...which really sucks because I really like to support what independent artists are doing.

I got around to fixing that a couple weeks ago by hitting the tip jar on his Music page. When you hit the tip jar, Brad sends a button. The button I got was of the cover of the album. Sweet.

I little while back, i am jen posted a new idea on her website. She offered up custom hand made CDs for sale. You pick the tracks and the title, she creates unique artwork to go with it.

I have a thing for signed stuff, not so much as a collector, but more for the experience of connection and closeness to the artists whose music I love. So of course I had to jump on this. I agonized about the playlist and title for a long time but got there eventually, and here's the result:

I've been trying to learn to play guitar over the past year and most of the progress I have made on that has come from my being on the guitar site, GuitarMasterClass.

I discovered the Argentina-based band Cirse when Gabriel Leopardi, their guitar player, and Luciana, their singer, became instructors on the site. The band put out a CD called "bi-polar" this past December. Gabriel has a couple of lessons on GMC lately that show how to play some of their songs which is really cool, I think.

Of course, I had to have a copy of the CD and Gabriel and Luciana were kind enough to sign it for me:

I hate doing these kinds of things because it feels like I'm just running around following the crowd. This particular thing is going around the Lotus Notes/Domino community.

I do tend to get some odd results on these things though. This is no exception.

I'm learning to play guitar these days. I'll have to remember this if I ever have an album to do.

The game goes like this:

Band name from Wikipedia random page, the album title is the last four words from the final quote on the random quotes page and the art should be the third image from the Flickr Interestingness / Last 7 days page.

Frank Docherty posted his iTunes top 25 playlist as a challenge. I looked at mine and I'm not as up to the challenge as I thought I was. Oh well. I gotta work on that. I do have an odd collection, I promise.

I struggle a lot with thinking of ways to support the independent musicians that I love. I buy a lot of music and I get to shows when I can. It doesn't seem to me like it's enough though. It's hard to think that $15 for a CD here and there and a piece of the door or whatever at concert is helping considering what it costs to make a living these days.

Samantha Murphy mentioned recently on her podcast that one of the things we can do as music lovers is help to take care of artist's human needs where you can. Offer an extra bed if you have one. Give them a homecooked meal if you can cook. Being on the road can be hard and lonely and it can mean a lot to help give artists some of the comforts of home. I think it's a fantastic idea, but it's going to take some effort to work that out when you live as out of the way as I do. If you see an artist you like out there, invite them to a meal...maybe they'll say yes.

I've seen enough in my life lately to be sure that sometimes if you step out and reach out to someone, sometimes it can be just at the right time for them.

On 15 January, David St. Lawrence did a blog posting about house concerts that explained to me what they were. Read it with its links yourself for the details. I've seen some of the musicians I follow post house concerts on their schedules here and there. David's post really made it hit home for me that home concerts are a great way to help support artists and it's not scary difficult to do. I don't really have any place to do something like that in my house, but I think that's something I can actually do. It might not be this year, but whenever I make it work, I'll get the details up here. I'm excited.

It really hit home for me this year that for some reason, the end of the year has become particularly musical for me over the past three years.

In December 2005, I was struggling with learning to play a little electronic keyboard that I have here. I just wasn't getting it for some reason, and I wasn't able to find any decent resources online for learning how to play keyboards/piano. Music has always been difficult for me to understand on a technical level, so I had decided that it was time to figure it out.

In December 2006, I won the Dark Star which put me on the path of learning to play guitar. In January, I started a subscription to Guitar Masterclass, which is a fantastic guitar learning site. I spent most of 2007 practicing less than I should be practicing, but I'm a lot better than I was when I started.

In November and December 2007, I bought two more guitars...which I think officially makes me a guitar player finally.

In December 2007, I won a copy of Reason 4 from AudioMIDI.com, so suddenly, I have a software-based music production suite. Given my interest in blending guitar music and electronics (industrial and electronica), it's an interesting addition to my stable of musical gear.

For 2008, I'm going to spend a lot more time learning how to play and learning music theory and try to make something about my recent musical giftings. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens this coming December. I will be better at playing then, I'm sure..

Laura Tsaggaris is starting a tour of the US this week.

Just in case anyone reading this is going to be in the area, she's going to be in the southwest in February and has a few stops on the way back in the midwest in March.

I saw her perform at the Digital Freedom U thing in October at AU with some other singer-songwriters and really enjoyed her music. She signed my copy of her CD, Proof and chatted for a bit after the set which was cool.

She has the tour schedule posted on her Myspace page along with music and some other stuff.

Check her out, if you can.

Otto's Daughter's new album, "A New Kind of Heroine" is finally out! Yay!

This is the album that I preordered in 2006 that lead to my winning the Dark Star guitar. This is what got me playing guitar after a lifetime of meaning to try.

I pre-ordered it just so I could get it signed by the band:

The new album's an interesting evolution for the band. I like it. I'm just pissed that my car stereo's not working so I've only listened to part of the album so far. bah.

So Fluffy Starr's first album, "Come on!" is out. I've been waiting for it for what seems like years...since the first time I heard "Perfect"...and then somehow I missed the actual release date. Fortunately, I caught it in time to get mine autographed...

Not many people are allowed to call me "Scotty". Fluffy is on the list.

With the new job, I haven't had a chance to listen to the whole CD yet. The recording itself is interesting...lots of detail...the breath, the pick on the guitar strings...stuff you don't usually hear in albums like this...it's kinda organic. The music's completely different than "Perfect" (even though it's track 13 on the CD). The rest of "Come On!" is more electronic pop rock with an industrial edge, I think. Interesting. I like it.

For a preview, check out some of the other videos on the Fluffy Starr TeeVee Youtube channel. There's a lot of silliness going on there, but there are song clips in the background. The Fluffy Starr MySpace page has previews too.

My copy of Love Letters from the Electric Chair arrived the other day and I'm enjoying making my way through it.

While I was thinking about her, I noticed that Izzy Cox had posted a set of videos on Youtube. I'm really digging Man of the Cloth today so I'm adding that video below. The others are posted on Izzy Cox's YouTube profile and I really recommend checking them all out. Good stuff.

Ever since I started posting these signed CDs a while back, I've been looking for this one. I won a copy of Samantha Murphy's 'somewhere between starving and stardom' from a podcast contest. Signed, sealed and delivered. The silver sharpie didn't show well in the photo..it says "Thanks for winning me".

One of these days, I'm going to have a chance to buy a copy for someone else.

On Wednesday night, I saw Laura Tsaggaris play part of a free concert hosted by Digital Freedom. I got there late, so I didn't really see most of the songs she did that night but I did see her do the title track for her album, "Proof" and it was riveting. Of course, I bought the CD.

We chatted for a bit and Laura was very nice. She offered to sign my CD, which I accepted of course. I'm looking forward to listening to her music and will definitely have to catch one of her own shows.

So I finally actually saw Samantha Murphy Wednesday night at a free concert hosted at American University by the Digital Freedom Campaign. Traffic sucked and it took hours to get there and I ended up not getting to the 7:30 show til 8:30 so I missed most of if...but I made it!

When I got there I was surprised to see that Laura Tsaggaris, Michael Jantz and Josh Read were onstage with Samantha. Laura and Josh have been on the SMTV podcast. They all played in a round-robin style so while I only got to hear 2-3 songs from each of them, it worked out better than it could have been with my late arrival.

Laura Tsaggaris was pretty intense. Michael Jantz was interesting in a way I have a hard time describing and understanding. Josh Read just sounded huge up there and had some great songs.

Samantha Murphy was fantastic. Between the podcast and having had her CD for a couple years I'm already pretty familiar with her music so it was great to see her do a couple of her songs live as straight-up acoustic. Great stuff. Very dynamic and engaging onstage. I promised myself that I wouldn't gush, so moving on...

After the show, I bought some CDs, of course. I don't think Josh had any, but I bought "Proof" from Laura that she signed for me and "Snapshots from the Universe" from Michael. I already have a signed copy of "somewhere between starving & stardom" but Samantha had a free 2-track sampler with a track that isn't on her album. I'm looking forward to digging into all this music in the next several days (it takes a while the way I have my iPod playlists set up).

After the show, I chatted with Laura, Michael and Samantha for a while (trying out my new "I'm an introvert, but I'm not shy" mantra). They were all very nice even though they had stuff to pack up and I wasn't an AU student.

I took one photo while it was Michael Jantz's turn to sing. I was too far away to get a good shot with the camera I have and I didn't want to get up into their faces for a better shot. Laura Tsaggaris is on the left, half of Samantha Murphy is on the right. Josh Read was out of frame to Samantha's left.

Generally, I don't really like using labels to find new music. I am frequently disappointed when I go looking for new music at a label for an artist that I already like. For some reason, the “if you like that, you'll like this” approach to labels never really worked for me.

I discovered Radio Active Music a couple months ago and it has me re-evaluating my judgment on the issue. RAM is an interesting entity...part label, part distribution channel, part promotional network. What caught my attention was the fact that most of the bands that I've discovered and enjoyed over the last couple of years have some kind of connection to RAM and I didn't even know it til very recently.

Lunarclick, 51 PEG, Otto's Daughter, 23 Rainy Days, Fluffy Starr, Collide, and Mankind is Obsolete all have some kind of connection to Radio Active Music. The label is still relatively small but there's good stuff there.

I'm actually looking forward to exploring the other artists that they work with. I'm listening to more guitar music these days because I'm trying to learn to play, but synths are still my true love.

Update: Added links to band websitesl

Technorati Tags: Music

Last time I mentioned i am jen, it was about the youtube video on how she makes her Broken EP's before shipping. At the time, I couldn't find my copy (I ripped it to iTunes and listen on the iPod). I found it over the weekend and its picture is below.

This example also came with an extra “Broken Robot Girl” sticker and a personalized note from jen. I think it's really cool how much time she spent on this, changing it from a purchase transaction to a human, person-to-person interaction. I appreciate it and will continue to try to support her in her music.

"Thanks for your support! JVB and Jim' I preordered Otto's Daughter's EP "Becoming 001" in 2005 and they signed it. I did the same for the upcoming "A New Kind of Herione" and won a guitar.

The first 300 orders of Freezepop's new album Future Future Future Perfect got signed by Liz, The Duke and Sean Drinkwater. I guess I made the cutoff. Yay! Time to Rokk!!

Technorati Tags: Music

I made it out on Friday night to TT Reynolds to catch a slice of the DC area's goth music scene. I specifically went to see 51 Peg, as I've been a fan of their music for a few years but never got around to actually seeing them live.

The opener was a band called Chrysalis and they kicked my ass. Their music was awesome and their stage presence was outstanding. A plus for me is that they play this music live with Telecasters and a hollowbody Gibson. I wish they had a better online presence than the MySpace page...with a common name like 'Chrisalis', it makes them hard to find. They're opening for Powerman 5000 at Jaxx on 6 Oct and Margo and I will probably be there.

23 Rainy Days came up next. Interesting and well done. They call what they do "post punk dance metal." Their MySpace page goes on to describe them as a mixture of emo, melancholy new wave and modern rock, which I think fots better. They're also the only band of the night with a bass player. I dunno if it's quite my style yet, but I'm keeping an open mind. The thing is that the other two bands had a heavier sound which made it hard for me to get into. Will keep listening. They do have a live video online: 23RAINYDAYS "Fire in Tokyo"

51Peg closed the night out with a really short set. The set was all killer and no filler though. I'm just sorry I hadn't seen them earlier. I'm sure I'll see them again and again though. They have a unique sound anchored by their singer and hard, driving synths. While they're electronics-heavy, I never lost the feeling that they're a hard rocking band. There's quite a few live videos of them out there on the net. The one I'm posting below is on their Myspace page. It's the best quality out there as it's a produced live music video rather than the camcorder in the crowd kind of video.

Technorati Tags: Music