Worth Mentioning... Maybe

Oh man, these guys were cool.

Let's play catch up. It'll be fun, I promise.

It's been a bit slow lately as you might have notcied, so I'm just throwing some news bits out there. Think snark and fact in bread crumb form.

- NME's editor Mike McNicholas resigned today. Perhaps he got tired of trying to prounounce the magazine's title? Actually he's jumping over to Top Gear after seven years at NME. I don't know why. Top Gear's editor position has been vacant since April, in which time, the staff has reverted to their savage, ape-like ways and prehistoric ferns have taken over the office appliances. Not really, but the imagery is good.

- Forgot to mention that Sugar Ray announced some time ago that they're working on a new album. Cue mixed emotions and 90s flashbacks. The album will be called Music for Cougars. Sounds... promising...

- The new Rob Thomas album, Cradlesong, is days away from release. Expect a review shortly there after.

- Jack White is probably doing something annoying.

- Got Paste's in between issue in the mail. The content continues to be excellent. Points for being so creative in saving themselves. Plus, the crossword is quite accessible.

- I'm working on a snazzy idea for TMI. It involves my iPod. Have fun with my vagueness.

Andrew Bird Instore Performance at Grimey's

I had the good luck of randomly reviewing Andrew Bird's Noble Beast for Twisted Ear back in January. Noble Beast has been part of the select group of promo albums that I continue to listen to after the review is written.

Today, before heading over to Bonnaroo, Bird played an instore at Grimey's New and Preloved Music, which is an exceptional record store, much in the way record stores used to be. By the time the show started, Grimey's was packed tight, all eyes on a guy who has an unassuming aura about him as if he doesn't get that he's a big deal (to this crowd, anyway). Bird has a quiet presence and a refreshing lack of that self-conscious performer schtick. There was no awkward banter, no insincere compliments. He acted though as he was just there to perform, no sweat.

Bird and his band sounded great, very true to the album. They opened with a Smog cover and played mostly cuts off Noble Beast including "Effigy," "Oh No," "Fitz and Dizzy Spells," and "Anonanimal," which was the strongest song of the set. Alternating between guitar, violin and his signature whistling, it was a treat to actually hear Bird's ethereal collection of sounds produced live and only a few feet away.

The forty-something minute set went by fast and Bird stayed after to sign autographs. Best of all, though? Grimey's had a pre-sale on tickets for Bird's yet-to-be-announced show at the Ryman Auditorium in October. Props to Grimey's for managing the mob.

Due to my fantastic position in the crowd, I actually got to play photog for once. Check out my pictures above.

Here's to October.

R.I.P. Performing Songwriter

More bad news from the magazine industry. After 16 years, Performing Songwriter Magazine is shuttering. Founder and editor Lydia Hutchinson announced on the magazine's website today that the June issue will be the last. Sadness.

According to Hutchinson's letter, it's mostly because of the economy, but partly because they decided they wanted to end things on their terms. Publishing euthanasia, in other words.

It's a damn shame, Performing Songwriter is a solid publication. It will be missed. Beyond that though, it's another nail in the coffin of the magazine industry. I'm reminded of a book I read a few years ago, called On the Beach, by Nevil Schute. Basically, there had been a nuclear war and the world was ending. Most of the entire world's population had died, but the fallout hadn't quite spread to Australia yet, where the action takes places. Fallout was inevitable. Death was eminent. The whole time you're reading the book, you feel helpless because you know how it's going to end and it's only a matter of time.

Magazines are dropping like flies. I'm still optimistic that Paste will be able to hang on until the economy picks up again, but in the meantime, careers are dissolving and life is going to get harder for many families. I wonder who will be next and who will be left standing. Similalry to On the Beach, I don't want to finish the book... but there's not much of a choice, is there?

Peace

My Yearly Rant Against Best Buy

My birthday is Monday. Stuck in Suburbia, I made the mistake of going to Best Buy to pick out an album courtesy of Mom and Pop. Hell is blue and yellow.

No doubt some regional manager decided they needed to redo the layout of the store, so I didn't know where anything was. The cd section was considerably downscaled and annoyingly cramped.

Selecting a album, in my book, is one of the great activities of my life. This time it was so stressful, I wanted to walk out, especially after some blue polo-ed woman got all up in my grill asking if I wanted any help.

They didn't have The Decemberists or Kings of Leon. Really? I narrowed it down to Green Day, Fleet Foxes and Ra Ra Riot, finally settling on Green Day. Total whim.

We've all got our breaking point folks, I officially am swearing off Best Buy. Never again. Best Buy is never pleasant, this time around was extra offensive.

A Word About Pandora

Through some stroke of irony, I can be a bit slow to get on board with tech trends, so this might be old news. Recently I've started using Pandora, which is internet radio, in the realm of Last fm. etc.

The gist is that you sign up and create stations based on bands or songs that you pick. There's no guarantee that you will hear that band or song-- that's how they deal with licensing issues-- but you'll hear music that is similar in some way.

It's radio, in other words. Turn to the station that plays the music you like. Where this differs though, is that there are no obnoxious disc jockeys or advertisements to deal with, only a box ad awkwardly shoved in the margin.

Terrestrial radio is not what it used to be. Many once counted on it for exposure to new music. These days playlists are so shallow, radio doesn't completely fulfill that function as well as it used to, plus song ids are few and far between. Services like Pandora are just so freaking convenient, how can you compete? And it's free, unlike XM and/or Sirius which require monthly fees plus the initial investment to get the radio.

Don't like a song? You can skip three times in an hour. Want more info on what you're hearing? There's a tab for that. You can "thumbs up" a song, or "thumbs down" it and never hear it again. Not a bad deal.

And the catalogue? Seemingly endless. 50s/60s oldies formats have been fading out in the past few years in favor of classic rock of the late 60s and 70s, but the internet can provide a selection of music that doesn't have to exist merely because it's moderately to wildly popular. Even if the Greatest Generation isn't on Pandora or the like, their music is. (True story: I have a station seeded to The Four Freshmen.) In a respect, that's a point of comfort, that maybe older music won't disappear as the years continue to pile up.

There are many reasons to check out Pandora. Give it a try. A word of warning though, I've barely opened my iTunes in the past two weeks. Just sayin'.

Save Paste

A week or two ago, the latest issue of Paste Magazine arrived in my mailbox, featuring the Decemberists on the cover. Having been raised around the magazine industry, I took one look at the paper quality of the cover and the thinness of the spine and said to myself "oh, crap."

If there had been any hope left, turning to editor Josh Jackson's column killed that off quick. Paste, like so many other magazines, is seeing difficult times, financially. The economy sucks and the media world is in a kind of limbo that we've never quite seen before. Everyone likes to throw around the phrase "newspapers are dead." That may be true in a sense-- as in, newspapers as we know them today, are dying, but nothing's dead yet.

Magazines are in a bad situation, but they just don't get as much attention when they struggle and eventually shutter. I think that the same idea is true for them, magazines as they are now probably will not make it.

That's why Paste's hardships trouble me so. Here's a magazine that is doing everything that any halfway savvy, J school professor or student would be harping on in the world of new media. Paste has a great website, they have blogs, videos, audio clips, photos, multimedia out the wazoo, they're using social media platforms, they're keeping their content fresh between issues, they offer incentives to the readers, they've diversified revenue streams. Essentially, they are doing everything that I have been told will save those of us going into journalism.

There's so much unfairness in the situation. I'm loathe to suggest that anyone deserves anything, but in this case I feel justified in saying that Paste deserves to see the end of this recession. It deserves to survive and carry on far into the future, continuing life as a publication we can look to for how to do navigate these uncertain waters of new media and as a standard for top notch music journalism.

And in a bittersweet example of why Paste needs to stick around, look at the effort they are making to save themselves-- a direct appeal to the readers. Reaching out to their audience. If you care, you can take some ownership. Donate. Stick a banner on your blog. Sign up for Paste V.I.P. Do something. My journalism classes are filled with talk of engaging the audience, bringing down the massive wall between us and them, because people will not stand for it anymore. They want to be pulled in and have a stake, so here's Paste putting their fate into the hands of their readers.

Though it may not matter much in the big picture, I'll say that Paste was a large inspiration for starting The Musically Inclined and as a journalism major, if Paste goes down, I feel a little like there's no hope. They sit at the top of the heap in terms of quality on all levels. This magazine means a lot.

Please don't let it die. There's a sky scrapper on the column. Click it. Paste is still alive and it's manned by smart folks who are going to find a way out of this. Help them.

Radiohead Starts Recording New Album

The BBC reported this morning that Radiohead is back in the studio. That's pretty much the extent of the details, but those few words happen to be quite hefty on their own, fortunately. The big question that everyone is raising at the moment, is whether the band will put out the new album in a similar way to the In Rainbows release. That probably depends on what the true motivation was behind the original idea, regardless of what they said. If it was a matter of audience control, being avant guard and adapting to the reality of the music industry, then the obvious route would be to allow fans to pay what they want yet again.

But, if it was more a marketing/publishing stunt, then it's time to move on and try something fresh. I don't really care. I'll buy either way. It's Radiohead. C'mon.