The News Review:
- Seeking better role models
- Radio renegades
- Software Notebook: Microsoft others tap music veterans
- Quest for digital rhapsody is mired in discord
- Anna Tsuchiya smooths out her rough edges
- Marnie Stern – Elvis Perkins – The Frames – Fu Manchu – CDs – Reviews…
Seeking better role models
Christian Science Monitor – Feb 26, 2007
ur “confused planet” includes many poor role models including some digital ones. The claim that songs videogames and movies based on violent posturing have no effect on attitudes and actions doesn’t square with my own experience. When I was listening to paranoid and angry punk music in my late teens I felt more “streetwise” (which was my goal) but I also felt much more paranoid and angry (which was not my goal). I became hypersensitive to being on the streets intimidated by fears of violence. Music and movies focusing on the dangers of urban life fed my intense edginess for several years. Finding a spiritual way of thinking and living eased that. So much so that friends remarked on the sense of peace and security I exuded.
Radio renegades
Vail Daily News – Feb 26, 2007
The Minturn Middle School seventh grader has a show on WednesdayBLCKs from 3-5 p. featuring rock metal and punk music.
Software Notebook: Microsoft others tap music veterans
Seattle Post Intelligencer – Feb 26, 2007
Behind him from left Kyle Hopkins mid Fatemi Jon Kertzer Andy Kessler and Emily Griffin. Hopkins — also known as DJ “Kid Hops” on KEXP-FM — leads a group of music experts disc jockeys producers journalists and musicians responsible for editorial content and programming on Zune Marketplace. The online music service works with the Zune device Microsoft’s bid to take on Apple Inc. ’s dominant iTunes and iPod combination. “All of our backgrounds are in music” Hopkins said. “We’re music fanatics. That’s why we’re doing this… And a country music playlist featured prominently on Zune Marketplace last week was titled “Rednecks: Hell yeah hee-haw!” (Each song had “redneck” in its name. )Microsoft put together the Zune Marketplace editorial group in advance of the Zune player’s November launch drawing people from the industry and from its earlier MSN Music initiative. Members of the team include Andy Kessler who was the guitarist for The Gits the legendary Seattle punk rock band. Zune Marketplace writer Paul Pearson has been a DJ independent record-store marketer and a repeat winner of the daunting Rhino Music Aptitude Test trivia challenge. Emily Griffin a Zune Marketplace music programmer has worked as a radio producer and DJ a music-magazine marketing director and run her own company involved in music supervision and licensing for television and film. mid Fatemi another Zune Marketplace music programmer and the team’s self-described “hip-hop dude” has written for a variety of music publications and worked on projects including the well-regarded “Puma 5×12″ box set designed to promote emerging artists. Members of the group have been adjusting to certain aspects of the Microsoft culture learning what the infamously numerous acronyms mean.
Quest for digital rhapsody is mired in discord
Telegraph.co.uk – Feb 26, 2007
Their song Blag Steal & Borrow reached number 31 in the charts on download sales alone. The band’s success was made possible following a rule- hange at the turn of the year by the UK fficial Charts Company which said that a song no longer needs to be released in a physical format to enter the charts. From this year any downloadable song by anyone anywhere can enter the charts if enough copies are bought. Even more importantly it means that a deal with a record company is no longer necessary.
Anna Tsuchiya smooths out her rough edges
japantoday.com – Feb 26, 2007
Yet Tsuchiya says that isn’t what she is all about. “People have this scary image of me only because I look like a punk. But really I’m just challenging their misconceptions. Rock and punk have nothing to do with hate.
Marnie Stern – Elvis Perkins – The Frames – Fu Manchu – CDs – Reviews…
New York Times – Feb 26, 2007
Stern builds her songs by pecking and slashing: she often taps out staccato patterns on the fret board overdubbing fuzzy power chords to give these skeletal lines weight and force. She is joined by the jumpy drummer Zach Hill from Hella and by John-Reed Thompson who adds some bass and other instruments. But this music feels in the best sense like bedroom music homemade and meticulous. Somehow these songs pick up momentum as they twitch: within those crosshatched guitar lines the rhythm keeps shifting and tugging and she peels off so many notes that you can’t possibly hear them all. In “Every Single Line Means Something” she slows down to a punk-rock strut snarling and intoning the lyrics as those multiplied guitars divide and reunite and divide again… Somehow these songs pick up momentum as they twitch: within those crosshatched guitar lines the rhythm keeps shifting and tugging and she peels off so many notes that you can’t possibly hear them all. In “Every Single Line Means Something” she slows down to a punk-rock strut snarling and intoning the lyrics as those multiplied guitars divide and reunite and divide again. This raucous wriggly music will certainly make Ms. Stern a cult sensation and no doubt she’s not expecting anything more than that. But don’t imagine that this album is some sort of endurance test: it’s too joyful and too pretty to be considered difficult. ne song “Grapefruit” starts off with scrabbling guitars but swiftly evolves into a scrambled variant of 1970s hard rock.