New Years Treat

When I get the chance I will discuss the Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings show I went to last night, which does need discussion, since it was great. But for now I'm thinking I'll do the same thing I did with Christmas a throw on song on my iTunes that contain the words new year. So here it is, and happy 2011.

                                                The New Year - Death Cab for Cutie

Together We'll Ring in the New Year - Motion City Soundtrack

New Year Banga (Rogue Star Remix) - Enter the Dubstep 

Finally Famous 3

Big Sean is an up and coming rapper who recently released the third installment of his Finally Famous mixtapes, Finally Famous 3.  He has been signed to G.O.O.D. Music as well as Def Jam Recordings and lyrically is a possible mainstream ray of light in a world where to many people consider Lil Wayne and Drake some of the best alive. A highlight of the mixtape has to be his freestyle over Gucci Mane's Lemonade, Supa Dupa Lemonade. Check out this line "I'm unusual as shit, I'm Super Bad your girl probably doodlin' my dick", that line just stuck out to me as particularly entertaining, but seriously, he's good. Apparently when Kanye was being interviewed at a local radiostation he occasionally free styled at, he decided to just swing by and see what happens. 'Ye was reluctant at first, but after hearing just 16 bars, signed him to G.O.O.D. Music. Big Sean has a new single with Chiddy Bang which is unbelievably fresh, musical grounds Xaphoon Jones had yet to cover in the Chiddy Bang companionship. The verse is wild, especially when halfway through a quick acousticish beat crashes in, leading into an insanely catchy sample from the musical library that is Xaphoon Jones. Check out Too Fake, as well as Big Sean's mixtape. The mixtape features Asher Roth (who I personally think has been proceeding through the game like a fine wine, getting better and more lyrically diverse and introspective with age [Lupe Fiasco's supergroup All City Chess Club is proof]), Drake, I'm rarely a fan of him, but hey it's a sign of mainstream ascendence, Mike Posner, Tyga and Curren$y, who is another unbelievably original and fresh rapper associated with WIz Khalifa, a personal favorite of mine.

Big Sean and Chiddy Bang - Too Fake

Kanye's G.O.O.D. Music label's freestyle from the BET Music Awards, featuring a clever verse from Big Sean as well as some other good freestyles from the other members of the label, besides Kanye here. 

Snow Day

In honor of Blizzard 2010, which turned out to be nothing more then a ton of media sensationalization and a huge boost in bread and water sales, heres a little piece of everyone's favorite snow day.

Schuyler Fisk with Mark Webber ten years ago in the winter classic, Snow Day

Schuyler Fisk performing this past April. 

Schuyler Fisk and Joshua Radin's collaboration, Paperweight. 

Pandora Radio

I always thought Pandora was just some stupid money hungry internet radio like anything else. I recently heard my parents listening to a John Prine radio station and when I decided to hijack it and create a Black Keys station, I began to see what it really is. Now I am becoming more and more obsessed and if you read the description of their Music Genome Project you can see what I mean, "Together we set out to capture the essence of music at the most fundamental level. We ended up assembling literally hundreds of musical attributes or "genes" into a very large Music Genome. Taken together these genes capture the unique and magical musical identity of a song - everything from melody, harmony and rhythm, to instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, and of course the rich world of singing and vocal harmony. It's not about what a band looks like, or what genre they supposedly belong to, or about who buys their records - it's about what each individual song sounds like.

Since we started back in 2000, we've carefully listened to the songs of tens of thousands of different artists - ranging from popular to obscure - and analyzed the musical qualities of each song one attribute at a time. This work continues each and every day as we endeavor to include all the great new stuff coming out of studios, clubs and garages around the world." 

So basically, check it out. I guarantee you will discover new music, and the people who created this project actually seem like their just want the best for anyone who loves music. You can check out my stations on the left, as of now I only have one, but I love it.
Narcissists Waltz, Die Rimantik

 

Black Holes, Stars, Monsters and Stuff

So I'm listening to my Elliot Smith station, the only station on my Pandora account I made like 2 hours ago, and this song came on, Big Black Hole & The Little Baby Star by Sean Hayes. The station has been great so far, I added Death Cab and Black Keys on the add variety button as well, to give it some flavor and I'm glad I did because I'm pretty sure that song came on because of that. So if you have Pandora, make that station. I can't find any download links for the Sean Hayes song, and only a live video. The video is pretty good though, so i'll leave you with that...

Big Black Hole & The Little Baby Star - Sean Hayes

Enjoy it, embrace it, even live it is an amazing little musical treat

The song in particular reminded me of an old favorite of mine, whom I haven't listened to in a while, The Boy Least Likely Too, and I'm glad it did. 

Monsters - The Boy Least Likely To

Be Gentle With Me - The Boy Least Likely To