Flynt Flossy, Yung Humma & Whatchyamacallit - "Treat Me Like A Pirate"
Who dosen't want pirate booty?
I've been rocking the Pirate love long before it was in fashion, so this video cracked my stuff up. Flynt Flossy, Yung Humma and Whatchyamacallit collectively make up the hip hop label of Turquoise Jeep Records. If this dosen't make your Monday a little easier you need to turn your computer off and tell your boss you're going home because you have to be sick. Oh and to all you ninja people: Suck it!
Monday, February 11, 2013
Friday, February 8, 2013
Brought To You By the Letter C
Brought To You By The Letter C:
Copyright and Creative Commons
When it comes to music, the big C
doesn’t stand for cancer, but copyright.
Copyright is the reason downloading music illegally is a crime. Somebody was nice enough to give it a cool
name, piracy, yarrr matey, but it’s still a crime. On the surface Copyright law makes a bunch of
sense. It’s way to incent people to be
creative, and reward them for their work.
The founding fathers agreed that a reward system was needed, to incent creation,
but also understood that the system could go too far and end up stymying
innovation. What they also realized is
that creativity often relies on use, criticism, supplementation and
consideration of previous works. Thus
they believed that copyright law should be structured in a way that would give
authors a monopoly just long enough to create more (Vaidhyanathan, n.d.). It was with this in mind that the original
copyright law was good for one term of 14 years, and you could apply for a
second term if you felt it was warranted.
After that the works entered the public domain.
What is the public domain you ask? Basically, once a work’s copyright has
expired, or the author has designated it public domain, the work becomes free
to reproduce in any form, whether you’re talking about just a plain copy, or
turning a book into a movie, or writing a new book based on the characters,
covering a song, or using a sample from the song to create a new one. In other words, free to all, and in the words
of F'n' Lou from Fight Club, “aint that something.”
And it is. The problem is the laws have changed
drastically since the countries inception.
Now a copyright is good for the life of the Author plus 70 years, or if
the work was commission by a corporation, 95 years (“How long does copy protection
last?” 2010). What this means, is less
and less things are hitting the public domain, which in turn means there is less clay for us
to mold new works.
It doesn’t have to be this way. The digerati have come up with a system that
allows more open sharing of works with in the current system. This is called Creative Commons. The way Creative Commons works, is it allows
creators to assign shareable rights to their work. Meaning you can allow your work to be used if
credit is given to you. You allow your
work to be used if it’s not used for commercial purposes. You can also choose whether you will allow
people to alter your work, or if you only want it to be used verbatim.
You may ask yourself, why would I go
through the trouble of sharing work in this way? The reason is it helps supplement the
material that is no longer flowing into the public domain. It also allows for a more collaborative environment. It allows your work to live on past its
original use. Wouldn’t it be cool if you
produced a song, and found it was used in a student film, or a sample of it was
used in somebody else’s song? These are
the sort of things that can happen when using Creative Commons.
Still a bit foggy on the concept,
below are a couple of You Tube clips that do an excellent job of explaining
Creative Commons.
Creative Commons Website: http://creativecommons.org/
References
How long does
copyright protection last? (2010, March
10). Retrieved from
http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-duration.html.
Vaidhyanathan, S. (n.d). Copyrights and copywrongs: Why Thomas Jefferson would love Napster. MSNBC. Retrieved 2012, February 2 from http://puna.net.nz/archives/social/copyrights%20and%20copywrongs.htm
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
10 Questions: Crushed Out
During their recent stop in Portland the band took the time to answer some of BLS's questions.
BLS: The release of Want to Give in November was your first full length album. Other than the basics how did the recording process differ than your EP Show Pony?
CO: For this record we did some of the recording ourselves and some at Bunker Studios in Brooklyn. This whole year has been on the road, so it was all recorded quickly and mixed at The Bunker. We did sparse overdubs like doubling guitars here or there or redoing a vocal. Pretty bare bones and live though, and mixed to tape.
BLS: So how does a skater from California and a woman from New Hampshire find two-part blues?
CO: Hah, well when you are very into rock & roll you run smack into the blues, country and folk music. I personally found the blues thru Robert Johnson and Bob Dylan. I got really into slide blues from lots of the delta blues greats and some electric players like Hound Dog Taylor from Chicago.
BLS: I’m sure that you grow tired of comparisons to the White Stripes, So how do you see that you differ from them? What other musical duos do you appreciate?
CO: Well yes we get a little tired of the comparison, although we really dig the White Stripes. We differ from them in as many ways as we are similar. We are very rooted in 50's music, surf guitar and more rock & roll than blues. When I play blues its coming from the country blues, the open tuned acoustic stuff, I just electrify it. Also, Meg and Moselle could not be more different drummers. We really dig Meg's style but the two are like night and day. Another duo we love is the Dex Romweber Duo, they really rip. Other musical duos we love are Everly Brothers, MGMT and Bruiser Queen from St Louis.
BLS: How has your music been shaped by elements of your individual backgrounds?
Frank: I grew up in Southern California around a lot of punk rock and hip hop. Skate video soundtracks shaped my taste in music early on. Just so much diversity from Motown to Beastie Boys, Wu Tang, Beatles, Black Flag, Stevie Wonder etc. I think this is why I like to jump around in genres, I could never play one style or kind of music.
BLS: Moselle as a former Junior Olympic athlete how has the discipline you learned in your training translated to being in a band?
Moselle: I think being 'body aware' is the biggest thing I gained from being so involved in sports as a teenager. I also cross country skied and ran long distance. Now being a touring musician, drumming for an hour sometimes 6 nights in a row is very athletic too. You need to take care of your body, stretch, eat right and not drink alcohol every night otherwise you will crumble after a month!
BLS:The musical world is filled with some amazing female drummers, Moselle are there any female percussionist that you sight as inspiration? Beyond gender, who are drummers you truly respect?
Moselle: For female inspiration, Sarah Romweber of the Dex Romweber duo, hands down. Beyond gender, I love the theatrical antics of Keith Moon, and while I clearly don't drum in his style, I've been inspired to be more of a show person and at times outrageous personality behind the kit.
BLS: Frank, as part of the band the Messengers your father learned the ups and downs of the music industry. What are the greatest lessons you’ve learned from him about the industry and music in general?
CO: Well the music industry couldn't be any more different from then to now, so honestly not much. I guess I learned not to sign with Motown!
BLS: What are some benefits and drawbacks of being both a band and a married couple?
Moselle: No drawbacks for us. We don't think we'd be doing this if we were not a couple.
Frank: The couple part makes it easier. We just sometimes wish we had backup singers and people to help us load in the gear. The benefit is we can share our lives and creativity together. And we don't have to be apart if we don't want to.
BLS: This last year has been filled with some great highlights for your band including opening slots for Social Distortion? Which highlights were your favorites? What about 2013 are you looking forward to the most?
Moselle: We've been honored to open for some killer acts in the past year. In 2012 we opened shows for The Gories, Band of Skulls and the John Spencer Blues Explosion. Then we kicked 2013 off opening 3 sold out shows for Social D! For 2013 we are looking forward to the infinite possibilities of the universe. We hope to continue to be surprised.
Frank: The Social D shows were a highlight for sure. Playing to a packed house of that size was really eye opening. That kind of energy changes you, you rise higher than you knew you could. We are really looking forward to 2013 as we'll have more time to be creative, write new songs and incorporate some new sounds.
BLS: Name 5 bands you love but who few people have heard of ?
CO:
The Weber Brother
Feral Foster
Shilpa Ray
Caged Animals
David Mayfield
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Show Review - Crushed Out
The Vitals
Date:
January 31,
2013
The Venue: Mississippi Studios, Portland, Oregon
The Artists (In order of
appearance): Summer Cannibals, Desert Noises and Crushed
Out
The Crowd: Pretty good, it was large enough so the venue felt and looked
full, but there was plenty of room to move around. The crowd itself was very Portland, meaning
anything goes, from ironic t-shirts to suits.
More importantly the crowd was engaged in all three acts upholding there
end of the symbiotic relationship that is crucial to a good show.
The Bands: I’ll elaborate more on each band below,
but overall all three bands were very good at their specific styles, but none
seemed to be transcendent. They all gave
good energy, and seemed to earnestly enjoy the venue as well as appreciate the
energy the crowd was giving them.
Overall Reaction: A solid show from top to bottom. It was not the kind of show you’ll be telling
your friends about a week later, but I wouldn’t be disappointed to see any of
these bands show up on bills for other concerts I’ll see in the future, and if
I saw Crushed Out was playing in town again, I’d definitely consider going to
see them.
Merchandise Purchased: I was impressed with Crushed Out enough to purchase their
album, and if I wasn’t being cheap I may have also purchase one of their
t-shirts because it featured a double headed shark. I got a thing for sharks. Also of note, is Summer Cannibals were
actually selling cassette tapes of their album.
So Portland, but in this instance I mean that in a good way.
The Nitty Gritty
Summer Cannibals: This is a classic example of a band that has the philosophy of,
“I know some bar chords, we should play them.”
Nothing fancy about the Cannibals, but I appreciate that in an opening act. I hate going to rock shows and being greeted
with opening acts that feature slow acoustic guitars, or keyboards. To steal a line from Twisted Sister, “I wanna
rock.”
The band
itself is obviously in the early stages of their career. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out this was
the first show they’d put on. I say this
because when they weren’t mashing chords, their stage presence was shy at
best. So much so the first couple of
times the guitarist spoke, I thought it might be a bit of a shtick, because
despite his timidness he was quite charming in his earnestness. By the end of
their set it was quite obvious he just wasn’t used to being behind a mic. My second clue to this being an early show
was at the end of their set they gave thank you’s that were reminiscent of Oscar
acceptance speeches.
Despite or
maybe because of this I quite enjoyed their set. Their no frills approach, was refreshing, and
I liked the fact they stuck to what they did well. It will be interesting to see how Summer
Cannibals progresses as a band, and I look forward to catching them later on
down the line once they’ve had a chance to mature, but overall a promising start.
Desert Noises: Desert Noises is a hard band to describe. The editor of the website described them as
Tom Petty meets Band of Horses, and as I watched the show I tried to come up
with my own comparison. There was
something very familiar about the band, but figuring out what it was I found
elusive. The only comparison I could
come up with was Kings of Leon. That was
based more on an airy, ethereal quality of the vocals, and less about the style
itself. As musically they had more of a
folksy quality than Kings of Leon does. More
like if the Doobie Brothers were fronted by the lead singer of Kings of Leon.
This inability
to put Desert Noises into a convenient box is probably what makes them an
interesting band to see. At first look
they seem to be a bit of a band of hippies, and this is especially true of the
lead singer, Kyle Henderson, who has the long stringy blonde hair, and doesn’t
wear shoes on stage (being January, he did wear socks). To further the stereo type he often exulted
the crowd to dance, but only in the most passive ways like, “I don’t want to tell
you what to do, but you can dance,” or something very similar anyway. If you just played the music in the
background you might see them as a jam band that understands and believes in
song structure, but there is more there.
There is a deep passion in Kyle, and for his songs and occasionally on
stage he shows you a glimpse as he wails out a chorus and you can see the raw
emotion in his face. Music is about
emotion, it was these moment that made me believe that there is something more
to the band. This was reinforced on the
rare occasions they let their lead guitarist rip out a guitar solo, because he
had chops to spare.
Overall
Desert Noises style is not my favorite style of music, but there was just
enough uniqueness to keep me engaged in their entire set. They will never be one of my favorite bands,
but there is enough below the surface to make this a band worth seeing at least
once on the chance your tastes are more inline than mine were, because they are
very good at what they do.
Crushed Out: To be honest, I had trepidations about this band. First of all it’s a two piece. So my mind went immediately to the White
Stripes. Don’t get me wrong, I like the
White Stripes fine, but you have to be pretty special to be as pompous as Jack
White, and still manage to make likeable music.
It raises the difficulty, beyond what most musicians are capable
of. This preconceived notion was only
reinforced when I looked at the guitars on stage, and one of them looked like
on those 70’s Japanese model that Jack White is so fond of. Within the first 30 seconds of Crushed Out’s set,
my worries were put to rest. Yes the
first song had a definite blues influence, but to me the band sounded more like
Eagles of Death Metal and less like the White Stripes. As their set continued it became clear that
as a band they were much less serious than the White Stripes, but more serious
than a silly band like the Eagles of Death Metal. I would describe them as a cross between the
two bands only with a definite 60’s vibe to them. The result is a music style that is more
accessible than either.
The
combination of the drummer, Moselle Spiller, and guitarist/ lead vocalist,
Frank Hoier, is an interesting one. The Frank
seemed very comfortable in his own skin, and very earnest, which made his
interaction with the audience understated, but effective. Maybe the best example of this was a story of
how they came to regularly cover House of the Rising Son by the Animals (a
pretty good cover by the way).
Apparently they were at some venue in North Carolina and were playing
two sets. During the intermission out of
the blue a patron requested they cover that song of all songs. The response was something to the extent of, “hey,
we like old 60’s spooky folk songs, why not.”
They played it, liked it, and have been playing it ever since.
It’s
interesting to compare his approach with that of Moselle, who has decidedly more
showy approach. The act consists of the
drummer in a very shiny leotard type top occasional doing gymnast type poses
while playing the drums. On the surface
it’s different, and adds a bit of sexual energy to the show, but when juxtaposed
to the Frank’s more laid back approach the two don’t marry well together, and
the parts don’t quite equal the sum.
Overall they would probably be better off taking a more laid back
approach overall.
That’s a
minor nitpick, and the more I think about the concert, and listen to the CD I
purchased at the show, the more I like the band. The live show wasn’t a blow your mind type
thing, but if you’re looking for a night of fun music with heavy blues and 60’s
pop influence, you could do much worse than checking out Crushed Out.
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