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Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Words / Teh Internets Mother's Day 2013, Frances and Courtney Style

Posted by Kelly O on Tue, May 14, 2013 at 1:15 PM

Mother's Day niceties, exchanged via Twitter:

"No more wire hangers ... Happy Mother's Day," F. Bean wrote on Sunday... Love wrote back: "I worship at your awesome feet and long leggy legs. You mad witch child."

Read the whole thing on SPIN.com.

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Monday, April 29, 2013

Shit Talk / Media / Teh Internets What Hating Amanda Palmer Says About the Internet

Posted by Anna Minard on Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 12:29 PM

Amanda Palmer drives me fucking crazy—she drives a lot of people crazy. She drives our dearest Megan to crazy poetry. She drives the internet into a churning, frothing rage every few months. We've been talking a lot about her.

But every time the internet swells up with a big rage boner for someone, I start to wonder—could this by any chance be about something other than the actual person/store/Rollie Eggmaster at which the rage is directed?

On Saturday, I got exactly what I wanted in that discussion when Vulture published Nitsuh Abebe's "The Amanda Palmer Problem":

I hesitate to even point this stuff out, both because it's been remarked on at length over the past year, and because it amounts, in the aggregate, to an astonishing glut of policing the way Amanda Palmer feels like making art. It's not, after all, like she's defrauding or preying on anyone, which is more than can be said for people in countless other corners of the music world. And while the level of attention paid to her business is driven partly by serious debates that she willingly participates in, it seems just as much driven by the fact that many people inevitably find Palmer herself—her manner, music, eyebrows, gender, whatever—fun to hate...

You might argue that this is the sort of annoyance from which the world can easily look away; doesn't there come a point where people are pointing and groaning at the "attention-seeking" person because we're actually getting something out of it?

This article is not an anguished "Leave Amanda alone!" Rather, it's a look at what we can learn from the red-hot reaction we have to certain annoying people on the internet.

(Warning: I got so wrapped up in reading this internet-story-about-the-internet on my phone this weekend that I failed to participate in some really important nature that was happening around me. So you should make sure you're in a dentist's waiting room or a window-free office or something—not laying in a sun-dappled park somewhere—before clicking through.)

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Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Teh Internets Today in Numbnuts: Fake Band Names @ Coachella

Posted by Kelly O on Tue, Apr 23, 2013 at 11:59 AM

This is all over the interwebs right now. For good reason. People will say anything to a video camera, especially when there's a headband cutting off the circulation of oxygen to their brains. "Doctor Shlomoe and the G.I. Clinic?"... "Get The Fuck Out of My Pool?!?" C'mon people.

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Friday, April 19, 2013

Teh Internets POLL: What do YOU think about bands asking fans to put your phones away??

Posted by Bree McKenna on Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 3:34 PM

I was reading Josh Bis' post about Savages and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs posting signs outside of their showrooms asking people to put their phones away and actually watch the shows and it got me thinking about how I really have gotten used to a crowd of people watching shows through iPhone videos. And while those two bands post signs around their venues, other groups, while on stage, straight up ask the crowd to put the cells away. I've seen bands like the Lumineers make it a regular practice to politely ask their crowds to please turn their phones off and be present at the show. It's really funny to watch all the glow of iphones slowly and grudgingly disappear into the darkness. It's also hilarious to watch that one unrelenting fan that refuses to do so as they get some dirty looks from the audience around them for not participating in the whole "lets be in the moment thing."

So on one hand, I most definitely prefer shows where everyone is actually be present in the room and not in cyber-twitterentrest-facebox-space. But also, some bands must enjoy the buzz that tweets/instagram pictures/check-ins about the show can create. And also, deep down, it kind of irritates me when someone tells me to get off my phone (MOM!) because it provokes a juvenile "DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!" voice in my head. But that shouldn't be at the expense of the artist or the other people in the audience, right? I'll put it to a poll.

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Friday, April 12, 2013

News / Media / #1 Fan / Teh Internets Raffi Speaks Out About Rape Culture

Posted by Anna Minard on Fri, Apr 12, 2013 at 10:41 AM

Holy lord, I love Raffi. Sometimes, people who you like as a child turn out to be creeps. And sometimes, they turn out to be really great grown-ups (like Mr. Rogers, who was one of the loveliest humans ever). Right now, children's singer-songwriter Raffi is taking to Twitter to lament the awfulness of Canadian teenager Rehtaeh Parsons's recent suicide, and rape culture and slutshaming in general, specifically calling out men to address their own issues and adults to fix some of the systemic fuckups that lead to these tragedies.

"rape culture"? what has society become—who tolerates such hideous violence& insult to human dignity? MEN, Youth—SPEAK OUT!!
— Raffi Cavoukian (@Raffi_RC) April 12, 2013

heartbroken by the ongoing prevalence of online violence & shaming. social media enables terrible acts—needs regulating, teaching. #tech
— Raffi Cavoukian (@Raffi_RC) April 12, 2013

Turns out he's been involved with kids' and teens' safety on the internet for a while, founding a project called Red Hood, inspired by Amanda Todd's suicide, that aims to get social-media platforms to take cyberbullying and young people's safety into account in their design. GO, RAFFI! I love you.

UPDATE! And alithea in comments wins the internet today with this "Baby Beluga" redo:

BABY BELUGA DISMANTLING THE PATRIARCHY
ENCOURAGE DISCOURSE SO EVERYONE CAN BE FREE
WITH MRAS UP ABOVE
AND NONINTERSECTIONALISTS BELOW
AND A CULTURE OF WHITE MALES CALLING EACH OTHER "BRO".

I'm laughing my way into the cocktail hour. YAY.

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Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Celeb / Gossip / ??!! / Teh Internets I Am Not Over the Whole Amanda Bynes-Drake-Vagina-Murder-Tweetscapade

Posted by Anna Minard on Wed, Mar 27, 2013 at 1:28 PM

Someone please explain this to me:

I want @drake to murder my vagina
— Amanda Bynes (@AmandaBynes) March 22, 2013

The last time I saw Amanda Bynes was in a teenager movie. Drake = medium-wholesome actor-turned-rapper-turned-inventer-of-#YOLO, right? And he's Canadian? Canadians can't murder. Also, don't wish for your own celebrity vagina murder. Wait, what does that even mean? What's happening? Am I old or is the internet broken? Ugh!

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Monday, March 25, 2013

??!! / #1 Fan / Teh Internets / Zzzzzzzzzzzzz My Chemical Romance Breaks Up, Fans Petition for "One Last World Tour"

Posted by Megan Seling on Mon, Mar 25, 2013 at 4:08 PM

On Friday night, while watching the very great Big Eyes at the Vera Project, I received a press release screaming in all caps: "MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE DISBAND."

Says the band:

"Being in this band for the past 12 years has been a true blessing. We've gotten to go places we never knew we would. We've been able to see and experience things we never imagined possible. We've shared the stage with people we admire, people we look up to, and best of all, our friends. And now, like all great things, it has come time for it to end. Thanks for all of your support, and for being part of the adventure."

"They're still a band?" asked friends who I shared the news with. Then we all became transfixed on Deathfix's colorful projections and guitar riffs. (For real—Deathfix was SO GREAT at Vera on Friday. See them as soon as you have the chance.)

But not only were My Chemical Romance still a band until 9:00 pm PST Friday, but they still have very passionate fans who have not taken this break-up announcement lightly. In fact, one fan started a petition at change.org, asking MCR for one last world tour. It says:

They ended so abruptly without saying goodbye to their fans properly, and the MCRmy is upset. They need to do it correctly if they're going to do it at all.

MCRmy. I see what they did there.

Anyway, the petition already has 10,653 supporters!

UPDATE: There is now a counter-petition, started by Jaded Punk Hulk, to ensure MCR stay broken up.

In sort of related news, 30 Seconds to Mars frontman Jared Leto recently revealed that he once received a severed human ear in the mail.

"Someone cut their ear off once and sent it to me, that was very strange. A whole ear. The Van Gogh move. The note just said, 'Are you listening?' I never knew who it was, who's missing their ear out there," he quipped, confessing what he did with the gross gift.

"I poked a hole in it and wore it as a necklace," Leto joked, letting admirers know, "Just don't put your entire body in a case and send it to us."

Don't get any ideas, MCR fans. (No, seriously. Do not.)

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Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Politics / Teh Internets Henry Rollins On The Steubenville Rape Verdict

Posted by Kelly O on Tue, Mar 19, 2013 at 11:29 AM

"I think to a great degree, we humans still divide ourselves into two species, even though we are monotypic. There are males and females. We see them as different and not equal. Things get better when women get more equality. That is a bit obvious but I think it leads to better results up the road. If it’s a man’s world as they say, then men, your world is a poorly run carnage fest."

Read the whole thing here. Most times, Rollins seems like a blow-hard. But this seems, to me, to be well-spoken. Whadda' you think?

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Monday, March 18, 2013

??!! / Teh Internets The Most Annoying Part of Being in a Band Is the Music-Making Part, So Let These Retired Musicians Do the Work for You!

Posted by Megan Seling on Mon, Mar 18, 2013 at 9:47 AM

RetiredArtists.com asks:

"Why play your shitty songs when you can play consistent amazing ones written by us badass guys who toured in (and with) bands whose names would make you nut yourself?"

Here's a guess... artistic integrity?

But if you want to be a rockstar and you don't care about lame shit like integrity*, check out RetiredArtists.com, where "You tell us what style you want your songs in based on specific bands, and we will write you songs."

Who are these people? They won't say! But here's a hint:

Everyone involved with RetiredArtists was in a band that was signed and toured extensively, on labels ranging from Sony Records, Rise Records, and Victory Records to Bridge 9 Records. You most likely heard of the bands we were in, but we aren’t going to be specific on the site.

How much does it cost? $150-$175 per song, depending on how many songs you want them to write. And don't worry about being called out for not writing your own songs—they won't tell if you don't!

By the way, nobody will know you didn’t make that awesome music for the song you are playing. We are 100% discreet and the only people that will know about anything will be the band (and possibly label if they need to cut checks to our artists).

How, once they record the songs for you, will you learn to play them live? That isn't mentioned anywhere on the site—I guess that's up to you to figure out.

I assume this is a joke even though it says at the top of the homepage:

NOT A HOAX OR PRANK. WE ARE THE ORIGINAL SERVICE THAT HELPS MUSICIANS.

"Help" is a loose term here. Are you really helping anyone by doing the work for them? But whatever.

So, assuming this is real, who do you think's in this collection of artists? Would you use it? What would you think of a "band" who does use it? I have a lot of questions.

*Of course people perform songs written by other people, and that's totally okay! So long as there's songwriting credit for the people who did the work, it isn't a sneaky bullshit con.

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Friday, March 15, 2013

Gear / Teh Internets Local Man Writes Eloquent Paean to the Compact Disc

Posted by Dave Segal on Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 3:11 PM

Peter Johansen (disclosure: I worked with him at Everyday Music about a decade ago) has launched his Numeral Nine Music Blog with a post dedicated to defending the rebuked and scorned audio format known as the compact disc. Johansen gives five reasons for his positions and gets deep into mathy rationales in his argument for CDs’ merits, and then couples this audio science with his own well-argued personal preferences for the shiny disc. The man makes some fine points.

Here's one of 'em:

While MP3s are fine for ear-buds, the CD produces an objectively better sound when experienced on any decent loudspeaker or headphone. Using algorithms to remove data that is (hopefully) unnecessary, 256 or 320-kbps MP3s might not be significantly inferior to 1,411 kbps CDs, but few argue against the basic premise that lossless CDs can offer a superior sonic experience over compressed MP3s. The best that computer audio can do is to match CDs in terms of quality. FLAC, AIFF, and other file formats do apparently get there, though they represent only a small fraction of the music downloaded.

I prefer vinyl, but I will never be one of those people who jettison their entire CD collection. I don’t trust the cloud as far as I can throw it. Artifacts! I wanna touch ’em and hear ’em!

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Monday, March 11, 2013

News / RIP / Teh Internets Mutant Sounds Blog Checks Out Reboots

Posted by Dave Segal on Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 10:03 AM

Mutant Sounds—one of the web’s most fertile sources for downloading obscure, great out-of-print releases—has called it quits. In a post from March 9, Mutant Sounds contributor vdoandsound wrote:

So this is where I get to tell you everything you never wanted to hear me say. While it's been a fantastic ride and I hope everyone has enjoyed it, the recent news that issues pertaining to copyright online are now being re-interpreted by the powers-that-be in alarming new ways means that there's no point in pushing this boulder up a hill any longer. Mutant Sounds' original founder Jim is in full agreement with my sentiments and everything except for the texts has now been deleted. I understand this is really crushing news for many and I sympathize with your pain but I also hope you can see why the time has now come to call it a day.

Inspired by Nurse With Wound’s list of subterranean sonic treasures that originated in the sleeve notes to Chance Meeting On A Dissecting Table Of A Sewing Machine And An Umbrella, Mutant Sounds built upon NWW leader Steven Stapleton’s zeal for the overlooked and enigmatic musical geniuses, making available for downloading several classic recordings that existed only in tiny editions for brief durations. This was aural archeology at its finest, and the blog turned on many avid heads to tons of music that otherwise might have withered unheard forever.

Blogger vdoandsound—who is a key member of chameleonic psychedelic bricoleurs Vas Deferens Organization and one of the world's foremost record collectors—also noted: "I'm convinced that this music and a better understanding of it and its historical place will continue to spread, as it's been circulating around out there for some time now, so a thousand other platforms await your own able hands and intentions."

BUT WAIT. While writing this post, I noticed that Mutant Sounds will continue to exist—but with a different approach. The site will share music, but only that for which it has received permission from the artists. These works will be disseminated via Mutant Sounds' personal Dropbox account. vdoandsound's latest post explains the new regime—which begins next week—here. It's fair to say that this is a compromise with which many rare-music fiends can live.

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Friday, March 8, 2013

??!! / Teh Internets The Cheek of It! Prog Butts

Posted by Dave Segal on Fri, Mar 8, 2013 at 10:41 AM

Do you like prog rock? Do you enjoy ogling male butts? Then you may dig the tumblr Prog Butts. I'm not sure what the genesis of this endeavor is, but there sure are a lot of Phil Collins shots—and some Peart buttocks; almost makes you feel Geddy. Don't expect to get any work done today, people.

Tip: Ned Raggett

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Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Comedy / Sub Pop / Hardly Art / Mischief / Teh Internets Long Lost Footage: The Postal Service Auditions

Posted by Megan Seling on Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 11:15 AM

The Postal Service Auditions from Ben Gibbard

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Friday, March 1, 2013

Album / Teh Internets / 206 Cumulus Wants Your Help Releasing Their New Full-Length Record

Posted by Megan Seling on Fri, Mar 1, 2013 at 2:59 PM

<a href="http://cumulus.bandcamp.com/album/cumulus-ep">Cumulus EP by Cumulus</a>

Local band Cumulus (who I've praised here) have recorded their debut full-length record, I Never Meant to Be Like This, and now they're asking for your help to see it released. Their Kickstarter, which has three days to go, is just over $1,500 away from its goal.

The band hopes the money will allow them to afford a professional mixing and mastering of the album, along with a PR campaign, pressing of CDs and vinyl, and some merch. If their goal is met, I Never Meant to Be Like This could be in your hot little hands by this spring.

If you'd like to help them out, read more about the project and donate here.

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New Releases / Teh Internets If You Are an iTunes User You Can Listen to David Bowie's New Album Right Now

Posted by Grant Brissey on Fri, Mar 1, 2013 at 11:51 AM

And yes, this is a blatant promotion of iTunes, but you probably already have it and are at least a bit curious about the record, so, um, go listen to it if you want. It's reportedly streaming through its March 12 release date. People seem to either hate or love this cover. I think it's kind of interesting, like one you'd be stoked to thumb across in the used bins like 20 years from now if you were like 16 years old 20 years from now. I'll be 67, though, so what the hell do I know?

Via these guys.

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Thursday, February 21, 2013

Teh Internets / Film The Latest From Disney and Pixar: Jawbreaker: The Movie

Posted by Megan Seling on Thu, Feb 21, 2013 at 10:20 AM

A genius named Jeff Hong posted this to the Jawbreaker Facebook page, and HOLY SHIT IT'S SO GREAT! He nailed the characteristics of the Jawbreaker fellas, in goofy Pixar style, and now my heart is sad that it's not an actual thing that's actually happening because I would absolutely watch this movie.

Jeff Hong, you're great. (This "Awwbreaker" cover is pretty great, too.)

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Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Teh Internets Iori Asano Is a Citizen of My Dark Planet of Dub Techno

Posted by Charles Mudede on Tue, Feb 12, 2013 at 2:52 PM

This is just how I like my dub techno...

It's by Iori Asano; it's deep, dark, dusty, cold, inorganic, alien, inhuman, unloving, unemotional, and indifferent like a cloud of ice and dust that's swirling in deep space and collapsing into something that will not be a star but like a planet on the edge of a solar system, something that's hard and freezing.

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Monday, February 11, 2013

Band / Tip / Teh Internets Have a Question for Pissed Jeans? You Can Ask Them Tomorrow Morning!

Posted by Megan Seling on Mon, Feb 11, 2013 at 4:46 PM

Tomorrow is Pissed Jeans day! Not only will the band be releasing their new album Honeys, but they're also debuting a new video for the song "Bathroom Laughter," and taking your questions over at the Sub Pop YouTube Channel starting at 9 a.m.!

I want to know if they're going to play the Sub Pop Records Silver Jubilee this July. What're you gonna ask them?

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Friday, February 1, 2013

Hellevant / Album / Dust Bin / Love / Teh Internets / Zzzzzzzzzzzzz Never Stop Refreshing This Page About the New My Bloody Valentine Album

Posted by Dave Segal on Fri, Feb 1, 2013 at 8:42 AM

How high is your frustration tolerance, long-suffering MBV fan, from waiting for the follow-up to 1991's Loveless? This tumblr will keep you abreast of breaking news on that front. Just keep refreshing, ~~chump~~ champ.