You have to love a band that dresses up in what looks like home made insect superhero costumes (or supervillians it’s hard to tell). San Diego’s synth noise band The Locust also have a pretty fun video filled with creepy bugs and lots of what seems like apocalyptic bug war visions. The music is a mix of metal, punk and aggressive synthesizer mayhem that should appeal to those fans of Ipecac and other metal experimental type stuff.

The Locust “AOTKPTA”

The Locust- Myspace
The Locust- Official Site

Here is a Nico song taken from her 1985 album Camera Obscura, which was produced by one of my all time musical heroes John Cale. The song is cut together with scenes from the great Jodorowsky film Santa Sangre. The union seems to work perfectly, capturing the haunting sadness that made both the song and the film great. If you have not read the book Nico: The End I’d strongly recommend it. It is written from the perspective of one of her band mates on what would be her final tour.

Nico- Konig

It’s good to see the influence of the early Boredoms trickling down into the cracks of the indie rock scene! LA band HEALTH throws down a pretty energetic performance high in the skies of NYC. They are extremely creative and their unrestrained energy is certainly fun to watch. The two drummers add a solid rhythmic foundation to the non traditional song structures.

I haven’t heard much about this site, but it looks poised to do to the music licensing industry what iStock did to the stock photo biz. The site claims to offer a marketplace for musicians to interact directly with music those looking to license music for commercial purposes. They allow the artist and the client to negotiate over the cost, and they take 9%. I’m not sure if this will take off as it depends I think a lot on their marketing abilities…I mean everyone has their music on the internet these days, so if you are looking to license some, you don’t need to look that far. The benefits of this service is it gathers it all together, and categorizes it by mood…that’s what you get for 9%.

You License

UI was always close to my heart as they often used two bassists to create their sample laden post rock compositions. The sound was thick and groove heavy, with lots of tasteful guitar wanderings. They didn’t record many albums (3 i think), their last entitled Answers was released in 2003 and is solid all the way through. Here is a great live studio clip of the song Sleep Hold.

UI Sleep Hold

Link via the excellent Zombi Baba Blog (you can download Answers there…but you should buy it from Southern Records if you can afford it…). you can also check out some clips from a documentary about UI here.

Here is an interesting test. What happens when you take the extraordinary talent of a well known concert violinist out of his element, and drop him into a bus station to busk. I won’t spoil the ending of the story by telling you how much money he raked in while playing his 3.5 million dollar Stradivarius…

A onetime child prodigy, at 39 Joshua Bell has arrived as an internationally acclaimed virtuoso. Three days before he appeared at the Metro station, Bell had filled the house at Boston’s stately Symphony Hall, where merely pretty good seats went for $100. Two weeks later, at the Music Center at Strathmore, in North Bethesda, he would play to a standing-room-only audience so respectful of his artistry that they stifled their coughs until the silence between movements. But on that Friday in January, Joshua Bell was just another mendicant, competing for the attention of busy people on their way to work…Read Full Article

Pretty much anything with “Most Hated” in the title is going to end up being something I enjoy…I’m not sure what that says about me as a member of the human race, but I also don’t care. A great deal of thought went into the construction of this tune by it’s creators Vitaly Komar and Alex Melamid. You can read all about it over at Design Observer. Here is an excerpt.

The most hated holiday song in the world is 21 minutes, 59 seconds long. It features the accordion and bagpipe, an operatic soprano rapping and singing atonal music, and the exhortation of a grating children’s chorus: “Christmas time! Christmas time! / Jesus, Mary and the manger / Christmas time, family time / Do all your shopping at Wal-Mart!” Its creators calculate that it will be disliked by all but a few hundred of the world’s population.

If your’re feeling bold leap right in and have a listen:

It’s amazing that a band that has had such a large influence on many people, has only released 2 albums in 14 years…Ah well they are back with a third album due April 28th. Ben sent this link to a nice live performance, the band is bigger and they sure have a lot of gear!
Portishead- Live Video

New video for the song Machine Gun

Portishead- Official Website

Well I don’t know if they stole the chord progression…it’s ridiculous to state that they did, as you can match up many chord progressions from a plethora of different songs, if you have endless hours to waste. Even if they did start out referencing the progression they certainly made it their own song in the end, which is all that really matters. The video shown here is pretty amazing as the musician Jack Conte plays all the instruments and even sings (pretty decently I might add) the Thom York parts. The songs are-
Radiohead- Exit Music for a Film (OK Computer)
Chopin- Chopin, Op. 28, no. 4
You can learn more about Jack Conte here. You can learn more about Radiohead by talking to any hipster…

Love this tune from Brooklyn folksters Phosphorescent, and I was pleased to discover this spirited and somewhat raucous live performance of it.

Phosphorescent performing the song “Wolves” of their album “Pride” at Cake Shop in NYC on November 1oth, 2007…

Phosphorescent- Myspace