Re-Watching some of the “No Direction Home” documentary this evening on Bob Dylan and was reminded of this haunting video by Joan Baez. I absolutely love it.
Here’s a new video from John Legen and the Roots. I love the Roots so that’s how I bumped into this, I’ve never really listened to John Legend before. I find the video really uplifting, and the song has a good tune with some great lyrics. It just kind of makes me happy all around. The first time I watched it Common’s lyrics stood out clearest: “Even in this generation living on computers/Only love, love, love can reboot us.”
Since he spends so much time immersed in music, I asked my good friend, and fellow Canton, Ohio native Matthew Hoopes of Relient K to share his top 5 Albums of 2008 with the gathering in light community. This is his first guest post here, and it’s a a pleasure to have him. Here’s what he writes: Continue reading Guest Post: Matthew Hoopes' Top 5 Albums of the Year
Peace on Earth Vol. II is a collection of Christmas music put together for the express purpose of raising money for The Children of Uganda Fund. There is a whole laundry list of issues facing Ugandan children, especially those in the north, among the most prominent issues are Malaria and AIDS; AIDS is the cause of more than one million orphans in Uganda. This fund helps do a number of things such as help to prevent mother-to-child transmission of AIDS, supply clean water to those who need, and provide education to disadvantaged children (you can find out more here). Continue reading Christmas Album Raises Money For Children
In the spirit of creativity and utilizing the web to foster fan-based participation, Radiohead has launched the website Radioheadremix.com and are inviting everyone to remix their latest single “Nude.” They’ve split the song up into five separate tracks and have made each available for sale so that you can remix the song however you’d like. I was a little surprised and disappointed to see that they are selling the tracks, but otherwise I think it’s a pretty cool thing they’re doing. Despite the name of the band the number one remix right now is really good and worth listening too. Let me know if any of you decide to go ahead and make your own remix, I’d like to check it out and vote for it. Continue reading Remixing In Rainbows (and the church)
Our good friends from the Pasadena based band, No Little Kindness, has set about the task of writing, recording, mixing, and then posting a new MP3 everyweek until they go completely insane. Their music is wonderful and certainly worth the download, and while you’re at it check out their myspace and a review of them on Said the Gramophone.
I was in the middle of reading some websites when I got the email notification at 10:50pm tonight that Radiohead‘s new album “In Rainbows” was ready for download. I almost jumped out of my skin trying to switch over to mail and hit the special “UNIQUE DOWNLOAD ACTIVATION CODE” link embedded in the mass email. It instantly starting downloading the new album to my desktop as promised. The file is 48.4 mb ten tracks and all are DRM free MP3’s.
It is rare that I get this excited about something, and this is the second time this week for me!I am now on track 3 “15 step” and while it will be awhile before I can give any kind of calmed down reflection of the album, this album is no joke [see edited note below, I listened in the wrong order]. It’s a change of pace from Hail to the Thief, a little less electronic, has some beautiful orchestration, piano and acoustic guitars, yet it contains the same old driving OK Computer-esque rock I love in a Radiohead song (and was almost absent in Amnesiac). So far the first song “Faust Arp” and “Jigsaw Falling in Place” are the ones I like the most. The production sounds incredible, just as good or better than most stuff we hear from coming out of major record labels. It seems like this move on Radiohead’s part (not having a label or distribution) may give rise to some serious questioning from a music industry point of view, especially if they can put something like this out on such a large scale successfully.I think It was well worth the £6 I paid for the pre-order last week for it (thanks to Cate’s early headsup). Check it out here.