Ploafmaster General

Plenty of commercials use popular and recognizable music to help sell wares. UPS' brilliant white board ads use The Postal Service's Such Great Heights. Cadillac abused Led Zeppelin's Rock and Roll before finally switching to Stars by the alternative rock band, Hum.

What drives me up a wall, however, is the lengths companies go to when they can't get the genuine article. Either they won't pony up the coin required to use the real song, or the musicians (for reasons of integrity or otherwise) won't sign off. What do we get instead? We get Heineken's misguided Keg Can ad ripping off of Daft Punk. We get Dodge trying to cop a commercial contact buzz off of Apple by using a bouncy guitar/mandolin tune in their latest Caravan commercial (I can't find a clip as of this writing).

I know why they do it. I don't expect more than 0.05% of ads to be original. I still can't stand it.

Watch. Listen. Enjoy.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6qgBnPUnjU&rel=1&w=425&h=355]

Okay, so my initial follow-up isn't about bird poop or anything like that.

I just finished reading an intriguing article in Slate about the influence of social class and music - a vague tie-in to my discussion of economic divide, but hey, I'll go with what I've got :-)

Even though Slate itself caters to a largely white, upper-middle class audience, Carl Wilson's discussion of socio-economic impacts on hip-hop and so-called indie rock was fascinating and thought provoking.

It was a day late, but yesterday after work I went straight to Plan 9 Music in Carytown to purchase Kenna's latest work, Make Sure They See My Face.

I am so far not disappointed.

I'd classify Kenna's music as Dance-Rock-o-tronic, and whereas New Sacred Cow sounded almost completely electronically generated, this disc appears to have some real instrumentation here and there backing up the vocals. The sound of real distorted guitars on some tracks lends to the rock feel and balances out the club/pop sensibilities you expect from production work by The Neptunes.

This album is hot, and it's in heavy rotation through my headphones right now.

After extremely satisfying new albums from Radiohead and Beirut this week, I have high hopes for Kenna's new album releasing on 10/16. If that album is at least a little awesome, I'll feel as if I've hit the musical trifecta this month.

I only fear that I'm setting my expectations too high...

Beirut's new album dropped yesterday, but I couldn't snag it because I was preparing the camera surprise for Valerie.

I just found out today, however, that there's a special website for the new album, The Flying Club Cup. This site contains a filmed performance of nearly every song on the album (as of this writing there are 10 videos up) produced by the excellent folks from La Blogotheque, makers of the excellent Take Away Shows series.

If I have the time, I'm gonna see if Plan 9 has this new disc on my way home. If so, it'll be a good day for my musical tastes!

This morning I received my download code for Radiohead's latest, In Rainbows.

I've been rockin' out to the new joint since about 7:59 here in the office, and I really enjoy it. I agree with the band when they indicated it was pretty spare, but I can't say I agree with the BBC's Ian Youngs who feels like Radiohead is stuck in a musical rut. While I wouldn't call this album particularly groundbreaking, I don't believe this is too much like any of Radiohead's prior efforts.

So far, some of my favorite tracks include "Bodysnatchers," "Weird Fish/Arpeggi," and "All I Need." I bought the download for 1 GBP, but I do want the discbox (Christmas present, Valerie?) so I can have that second disc, the artwork, and the ability to rip at a higher quality than 160 kbps (yeah, I'm irrationally picky).

Good job, blokes. I think this is a good day for Radiohead fans around the globe.

Thanks to Trey for making me aware of Rolling Stone's preview of the forthcoming Radiohead album. You have to go page by page, song by song (for the most part), but it's still worth checkin' out. I'm counting down the days until I get my download code!

Wes Anderson's Hotel Chevalier is a 13-minute short film that sets the stage for Jason Schwartzman's character in the upcoming feature, The Darjeeling Limited.

This feature "premiered" at four Apple stores around the country last night and was supposed to be available as a free download on iTunes today. At the time of this writing, however, you cannot find the short easily in iTunes - certainly not using a simple search for "chevalier." For those of you who can't find it, however, I have a link, so you can download it through iTunes here. And in case you didn't know, it's NSFW because of some brief nudity.

After two viewings I'm intrigued by the backstory that's ever so slightly revealed in the short. Clearly Schwartzman's character has some recent relationship issues that seem pretty severe, and Natalie Portman's character apears to be the cause. I look forward to seeing this fleshed out further in The Darjeeling Limited.

It seems that music from the Super Mario Brothers games has been performed every possible way, be it on two guitars at once, piano, flute (with beat boxing!), 11-stringed bass, or even Tesla coil.

But I bet you've never heard it on a bassoon. And what's not to love about a bassoon quartet?
[youtube [www.youtube.com/watch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gXh83hNnWw&w=425&h=350])

I just read Gruber's analysis of Apple's fore into the nasty ringtone business, and I have to agree with him. But I wonder if he's aware that some phones already allow owners to use their own sound files as ringtones - with a catch - you have to tolerate Redmond's finest on your phone.

I own an HTC Wizard, better known in the States as the Cingular 8125, and it's running Windows Mobile 5. One of the first things I checked after I purchased the phone was whether I could use my own music for my ringer. It turns out I can - anything that Windows Media Player can play (so it seems) can be used as a ringtone, including .WAV files I record on the phone myself. This is why when my buddy Dave calls I hear my crappy impression of Sol Rosenberg.

I imagine a number of consumers would consider the iPhone more favorably if they knew they could create and/or use their own ringtones natively. I can't, however, imagine many people who's opinion of a Treo or Blackjack would be affected by the ability to choose any song to play when a friend calls. Wow, I can hear my favorite Big Wreck song when Valerie dials me...but hooray...I'm still using Microsoft's clunky mobile platform on my hardware.

As crappy as Apple chose to handle ringtones, I still look forward to replacing my "smart phone" with an iPhone in the future...even if I have to futz around to hear my own music when somebody calls.

I'm currently listening to "The Pelican" off of Menomena's 2007 release, Friend and Foe.

Dang, it's hot.

That's really all I have to say right now.

I've recently reacquainted myself with The Best of Simon and Garfunkel. I'm not generally a huge folk music fan, but there's no denying the craftsmanship that went into their music and lyrics, and so I've been hooked all over again.

I also noticed that some of the lines in their songs put the most shoe-gazing of Emo kids to shame. In fact, just check out the words to the famous, "I Am a Rock" and see what you think:

A winters day
In a deep and dark december;
I am alone,
Gazing from my window to the streets below
On a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow.
I am a rock,
I am an island.
I've built walls,
A fortress deep and mighty,
That none may penetrate.
I have no need of friendship; friendship causes pain.
Its laughter and its loving I disdain.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

Don't talk of love,
But Ive heard the words before;
Its sleeping in my memory.
I wont disturb the slumber of feelings that have died.
If I never loved I never would have cried.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

I have my books
And my poetry to protect me;
I am shielded in my armor,
Hiding in my room, safe within my womb.
I touch no one and no one touches me.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

And a rock feels no pain;
And an island never cries.

Have you ever noticed that some CDs are way quieter than others? Even when you rip them to your computer the levels can vary widely, much to the detriment of your ears. For a perfect example, check out my music (ploafmaster on SimplifyMedia) and first listen to the song "I Hate It Too" by Hum, and right in the middle of that song, switch to "The Sun Also Rises" by Brave Saint Saturn.

Did the difference in volume startle you?

You see, it turns out many recording/mastering engineers compress the audio in order to increase the average decibel level of the music. I just read a fascinating, insightful, and surprisingly down-to-earth article in the IEEE's Spectrum publication about the commercial reasons behind the use of audio compression and it's serious drawbacks.

I think I'll be using Sound Check in iTunes and on my iPod from now on.

Tonight Patrick hosted a rap show/house party at his digs for Sintax the Terrific. Now Sintax is a member of the Deepspace5 family, and I have to say that his performance tonight was totally killer. In addition to bringing a DJ (who was great), he mixed some short readings from assorted books and Scripture in with his hip-hop excellence.

I seriously wish I had brought my digital camera so I could've recorded some short video clips. For now, this will have to suffice:
[youtube [www.youtube.com/watch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe3dsZnuLF8&w=425&h=350])

Holy Smokes! I finally bit the bullet and purchased the 2007 EP from Beirut, Lon Gisland, and goodness gracious is it amazing!

The first track is "Elephant Gun" who's video I posted recently, and it stays sweet through the last track, "Carousels," which is simply phenomenal.

I prefer when a band's sound stands on its own, but I do know that a) there is nothing new under the sun, and b) comparisons can be useful, so I'm just gonna say it. Imagine Jeff Buckley or Rufus Wainwright singing a composition by Sufjan Stevens after a trip to Eastern Europe. I know that's a jam-packed comparison, and perhaps you don't like any of those individual components, but seriously. Give it a listen.

If you use SimplifyMedia's amazing utility for iTunes, check out my user name, ploafmaster, and you can listen to the album yourself.

You know, I explored the band Beirut a little more after posting that video for the song "Elephant Gun" a few days ago.

I've gotta say, I'm getting pretty hooked. The twenty-one-year-old Zach Condon assembles some delightful Eastern-European-sounding pop music that really makes me smile. Go to the music page on his site to download 160 kbps MP3s of two tracks from his first album, totally free.

I think I'm gonna try to pick up his EP Lon Gisland when I get a chance.

Another fine link from Ze Frank to a song to which I feel compelled to listen over and over by the very young Beirut:
[youtube [www.youtube.com/watch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjeh6P4sRfw&w=425&h=350])

Great googly moogly!

If you haven't heard of Simplify Media's software (named after the company), you should hit up their download page and grab the joint.

Got it now? Good. Well here's what it does...

Well a lot of folks may not be aware the iTunes allows you to share your music over a local area network. If you're at work, and several folks have iTunes, you can listen to each others' tunes. Pretty slick, eh? Well with Simplify Media's software running in the background, it allows you to share music across the entire internet. All you have to do is add your friends to your list, and then you can see each others' music as if you were on the same local area network.

Let that sink in for a moment...

Do you realize what this means? That means that if I'm in Paris and my buddy Patrick grabs the latest album from his fave underground indie hip-hopper, I can still listen to it as if it was on my own computer. Yeah, for real. The sound quality is excellent, but you can't actually save the tracks on your computer so it's not piracy. It's simply extending existing iTunes functionality.

Currently, the software only works with iTunes, but on both Windows and OS X. They're working on adding support for Winamp and Windows Media Player in the future, but considering the broad reach of iTunes, I'm sure plenty of you out there can use this.

Holy crap...crazy big props to my buddy Chris for pointing the way to this video:
http://www.factoryfilms.net/films/quicktimes/FuyijaMiyagi_AnkleInjury.mov

I think this speaks for itself:
http://update.videoegg.com/flash/proxy.swf?jsver=1.4

It's been a little while since I've purchased any new music, but I do know of three discs on my radar that I'm dying to pick up.

The first is the long-time-coming second album from Kenna - the follow up to his amazing first effort, "New Sacred Cow." He crafts some pretty hot e-rock-tronica, and I'm champing at the bit to get my hands on "Make Sure They See My Face." You can hear some samples on his website.

Additionally, I realize now that with the release of "Prog" this year, I'm two albums behind on The Bad Plus' studio music catalog. I'd like to remedy that by picking up the jazz trio's 2005 effort, "Suspicious Activity?" as well as their latest CD. Naturally there are some excellent covers as is their tradition; I'm more interested, however, in their originals, especially considering the fantastic "And Here We Test Our Powers of Observation" and "Dirty Blonde" from 2004's release, "Give."

If I have time this afternoon I'll have to swing by Plan 9 music in Carytown, since I'm sure they're the only store in the area likely to stock such obscure musicians.

Couldn't resist:

They call me the Hiphopopotamus.
I got flows that glow like phosphorus, poppin' off of the top of this esophagus.
I'm not a water-dwelling mammal from Africa that's moved to the metropolis and been taught how to break dance.
Where did you get that preposterous hypothesis?
Did Steve tell you that?
What's he got to do with it?
What kinda of rapping name is "Steve"? Steve?

I've found myself quite into the musical comedy duo, Flight of the Conchords, lately. They recently landed themselves a show on HBO (as of last night with four episodes). While the television production is fairly funny, it appears mostly an attempt to rehash (so far) their songs in the context of a strange sitcom.

Where they really shine, in my mind, is on stage such as this performance of "Albi the Racist Dragon":
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-jVAHAuiS4&w=425&h=350]

Some of their stuff has some profanity and some lewdness, but on the whole these guys are funny because of genuine wit. Be sure to look for "The Hiphopopotamus vs. The Rhymenoceros" on YouTube as well.