A&R will be expanding. How? Give me a year or two while our team develops the business plan. The end result will be a [successful] attempt at best aligning the independent artist with the umbrella of a corporation.
In other news, here are this week’s favorites:
- Hockey - Too Fake
- Yelle - A Cause Des Garcons (TEPR Remix)
- Meriwether - Girl In Mexico
- Paramore - All I wanted
- Echo
Not everything sounds like:
- The Postal Service - Such Great Heights
- The Killers - Somebody Told Me
Somehow, these two songs have breached such channels as:
- The Bird and The Bee Radio
- Phoenix Radio
- Say Anything Radio
- Kenna Radio
- Grand National Radio
- The Dear Hunter Radio
Pleasefixthanksabunch,
- Echo
There is this reoccurring theme in my life…music motivates me.
I think for a lot of people, music is the language that activates this very special part of the brain, serving as an amplifier of mood. “40 oz. To Freedom” by Sublime can make any beach day brighter, sunnier, more eventful. “Pretty Handsome Awkward” by the Used could very well cause you to get a speeding ticket.
Fore me, this musical motivation also stirs up the feelings of wanting to be more involved with the process of musical creation. When I listen to a song, I daydream about what it must have been like for the singer to decide to hit certain notes. Did the drummer set his drum set up on a rug to prevent vibration, or was he going for more reverb?
At this juncture in my life, I work hard at a job I love, I have a fiancee that is head over heels for me, and a new house with two dogs terrorizing the backyard. I know I have it great.
When I played in a band in Tallahassee, I got a taste of what it was like to have a fanbase. We had merch. We had demos. We had newspaper articles. I was music, and music welcomed me in.
I want to be on stage playing in front of wide-eyed crowds who allow music to take them to another world. I want to be in a studio writing these great little melodies that may one day wind up in a song. I want to support live music, big and small…long distance and local. I want to promote bands that I feel as though deserve much more press.
A lot of this feeling of “more, more, more” comes from a fear of growing older and not being a part of “the scene.” An even bigger portion of this feeling is made up of knowing how great music is. Knowing that musical bliss is a power chord away is exciting, and every time my mp3 player cues up something that I know would be a crowd pleaser, I daydream of being that musician, making people smile with the music that I am taking from my head and transmitting it through a tube amp.
For me, music is like clear, floating surgical staples. It is an abstract and airborne way of healing, a free trigger for your happiest neurons. So while music motivates me in a beautiful way, it also is a reminder that I need to always continue listening. I need to continue creating. I need to break into the industry and help an 11-year old who is missing something in his life to find that perfect CD that he can put on loop, stare at the album art and imagine. Music amplifies the beauty, and reminds me that I can never let it go.
Spinnerette - Ghetto Love
Preheat oven, mix two parts Distillers (can be found in the Hellcat records aisle), two parts Eleven (next to the Chili Peppers) with a splash of QOTSA. Serve room temperature.
“First Train Home” - Posted yesterday and already at 11,000 views. Not bad, sista.
Wow. That was terrible. Downloading music now comes with a side of destruction. Anyhoo,
Hot, late, summer nights mix:
- Roisin Murphy - Sow Into You
- Head Automatica - Lying Through Your Teeth
- Gavin Castleton - Stampete (this song will change you as a person…and a zombie)
- Escort - All Through The Night
- Gnarls Barkley - Smiley Faces
- Nouvelle Vague - Dancing with Myself
- Paramore - Here We Go Again
- Ratatat - Loud Pipes
Loves,
- Echo
The first single off of the upcoming album is called Hey You, about the band’s long time relationship with music. Supercatchycleversummerjam. Be sure to catch 311 at either/both the spring and summer tour.
- Echo
Often on this site, I will recommend songs for download or physically upload songs for readers to “right-click-and-save as.” Is this moral? Am I breaking ethical laws? Is this what the artist would want?
I’ll never be able to put words inside an artist’s mouth, but I will say this. For every song to which I point my readers in for downloading, I expect the reverse to happen. Take a penny, give a penny.
In my eyes, downloading music is like trying samples in a chocolate store. Some chocolates are crap, others are decent, some warrant me pulling out my credit card and buying silly amounts whilst rushing home to clear out my freezer to make room for inappropriate amounts of pimple-causers. Before, the chocolates were never free. Now, you get to steal a little taste and spit out the shit.
Getting back to giving that penny….. Let’s match our physical “take” with an equal or greater “give.” If you try that sample and can’t get enough of it, buy the album. Enjoy the album art. Buy a t-shirt at the merch booth or online. Go to the concert when the musician is in town. Assuming the musician is of age, buy that musician a drink. If the musician is not of age, buy said musician two drinks. If the musician is living out of a van and has no place to sleep, offer them a shower and couch.
** Do not combine the offering of your house plus buying the musician drinks. Either you come off as a strange creep, or your house will turn into a deathrockparty2009dancefunkpalace. **
Downloading allows the user to avoid mistakes. Why buy an album if you cannot accurately judge from a 0:15 clip of the single that MTV briefly airs. I remember Blockbuster music would allow the customer to bring the music to the front counter, where the employee would open the CD, pop it in a player and hand you headphones. This would allow the customer to get a sample and decide on the purchase. The bigger guys aren’t necessarily against this “sample” idea, they just want a hand in it. Why not download some tracks, and if you are blown away, refer to the previous paragraph and spend some cheddah.
Don’t abuse the power that technology has given us to download at our leisure. Already the record companies want blood.
- Echo
My new album “Home” is available now on iTunes. For months now Five One Inc., the tiny Japanese label that is helping me release the album has pushed really hard for media publicity, and though the album has received some really good publicity from a few select sources (thanks Purevolume, KCRW, Imeem, etc.), we’re finding that most press and radio folk say they like it, find it interesting, and have absolutely no idea what to do with an album like this. On the whole, that makes me happy because it confirms my suspicion that the album is somewhat original in its approach, but I find myself in the same position I’ve always been in regards to promotion: asking you to help me.
You have always understood my music long before the tastemakers in this industry (who still confuse me with Gavin DeGraw), and it’s only you who make it financially feasible for me to continue making music. So if you have a minute, and feel strongly about my music, please consider visiting http://www.myspace.com/gavincastletonmusic, the street team site for Home, and throwing up the little profile image on your page, or a banner if you can spare the space on your page/site. If you’d like to help even more magnanimously, you can add that profile as a friend and the tiny Japanese man at Five One will contact you about other areas we could really use your help with.
Please forgive my incessant plugging of the iTunes link in these next few days, I must do so in hopes that anyone who is interested in the album might log on right in time to catch it.
Thank you thank you thank you and thanks be unto you
Gavin Castleton
Last week, I had the pleasure to see Foxy Shazam perform at the hub of the Pensacola scene, an intimate venue/vegan eatery in Pensacola, Fl called Sluggo’s. Foxy Shazam is composed of vocalist Eric Sean Nally, Loren Daniel Turner on guitar, Schuyler Vaughn White on keyboard, Daisy on Bass and drummer Joseph Allen Halberstadt. Touring with the band is master trumpeteer and vocal harmonist Alex Nauth.
Foxy Shazam is a band that makes it apparent from the first time a sound is echoed through the PA, the audience is not at a typical rock show. They are participating in a theatrical, unique performance. Between most every song, the singer tells a story engineered to add a punch to the beginning of the preceding song. Somehow, Nally convinces the audience that these stories should be believed, as fictional and ridiculous as some are. A Foxy Shazam fan can expect to see instrument switches, neo-soul renditions of “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Aire,” and the keyboardist Vaughn White using his keyboard as both a keyboard and a dancefloor. At this particular venue, the stage is no bigger than 20 ft. x 20 ft. I’ve seen six people share a small stage before, and even though the stage was no bigger than my fiancee’s closet space, the six musicians had no problem gracing every corner and exploring what the stage had to offer.
The band will become known for a surreal, entertaining live show. Coupled with the outstanding live performance is a truly original sound, somewhere between Mewithoutyou and James Brown, or Tera Melos and Tina Turner. That’s right, people….Tina Turner meets post-hardcore.
View Foxy Shazam’s video for “A Dangerous Man” HERE
View photos from the 2009 Pensacola, FL show HERE
- Echo
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