Last we heard on Twitter from none other than Billy Joe Armstrong himself that Green Day had entered the studio to start recording their new album: Happy Valentine’s day! Officially started recording the new record today. It’s F*CK TIME!!!! My wife has been a huge fan since the early days, but I have to confess that my older son became so obsessed with the group a few years ago that I still can’t listen to their stuff anymore. But they are still a popular group with my family … and we all hope they manage to do better than their last mediocre album.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I took the picture above on New Year’s Eve, and I was originally planning to use it as part of a post illustrating how an iPad-centric music system costing under $1000 is capable of producing better music than multi-million dollar studios from just 25-30 years ago. So let’s take a quick look: My son Christopher is working a DJ mixer which is interfaced to a netbook that is streaming music from MOG; an iPod Touch with some other pre-recorded music; and an iPad. The iPad is the workhorse of the music system, located just to the left of the iPod Touch and below the netbook. What you will see below the iPad are three USB devices from Korg – a pad controller, mini piano-style keyboard, and slider-based controller. The three controllers chain together through a $20 USB hub also from Korg. All four combined cost less than $200 and are well-built and simple to use. You just plug in and play. That night Chris was rocking tunes of his own creation using iMS-20, FL Studio, GarageBand, NanoStudio and others. He had only gotten the Korg modules a couple of days earlier, yet they were already integrated into his music studio, [...]

This week on Facebook there are loads of those ‘what I do, what friends think I do, what my parents think I do …’ picture collages going around. Some are funny, some simply try too hard. There are always a bunch of comments which I can summarize to save you time:  ”haha … so true”. (you’re welcome) I caught this one on a guitar-centric site this week, and what was amazing was not so much the image, which is just another mildly amusing stereotype at play, but the discussion. If you look at the core of the image, there are two potential separate messages as well as the combined one.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

While Skrillex didn’t win the ‘Best New Artist’ Grammy, I doubt many would debate that his impact on popular music both directly and indirectly in 2011 was as MASSIVE as his bass drops. Suddenly everyone is putting dubstep-inspired DJ-tracks along with their songs – it looks to be the next ‘new thing’ in pop after the already tired singer/rapper collaborations that have become omnipresent the last couple of years. Perhaps showing the influence of Daft Punk’s epic Prime Time of Your Life video, this week Skrillex uploaded the official video for the title song of his new EP Bangarang, which has been in the iTunes Top 10 Albums since release a… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I reviewed Dirty & Beautiful Volume 1 early last year, concluding : There is no fluff here – perhaps that is why this is ‘volume 1′, as the next volume is due in 2011 sometime. And while I might have appreciated getting more time to get to know each grouping on the record, this is Husband’s project, and if the goal was to show how vital and vibrant and versatile fusion can be in 2010 … and if that wasn’t the goal he should review the original goal! Because this record takes some of the great names in fusion, pulls them together and shows that the breadth of creativity and quality of music in the genre is perhaps greater than at any time in the last thirty years! Continue reading on Gear Diary …

While there are many who simply don’t ‘get’ dubstep/electronica music in general and folks like Skrillex or Deadmau5 in specific … there can be little debate at the massive impact they have had on music this year. Having been to a Skrillex concert with one son and a relatively high profile rap concert with my other son this year … the difference in the energy, commitment and enthusiasm in the largely 18-24 year old audiences was stunning. The dubstep crowd was simply on fire the entire time, and Skrillex and his ‘Mothership Tour’ (not to be confused with P-Funk’s Mothership Connection’) responded by putting on an amazing show.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

If you are contemplating signing up for a streaming music service, or are unhappy with the one you are using, chances are one major consideration is the music library. While ‘music discovery’ is all well and good, ultimately we all want to just want to listen to music. Now we hear of a new service developed by Matt Montag called ‘Music Smasher’. As the screen at top shows, you simply enter some terms and the site searches across all of the major streaming services. According to Montag: “I developed it to simplify the task of searching across Spotify, Rdio, Grooveshark, MOG, SoundCloud, and Bandcamp to find out who has the music Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Some think I have a vendetta against Google – not true. Do I think they make some whopper mistakes regarding handling of their Android brand and find their Music service laughable for the most part? Yes! But I also like to celebrate anyone doing great stuff – and today Google launched their Black History Month MP3 Album sale. And it is AWESOME!… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Most musicians are constantly looking for new material to play – stuff we write or songs by other people. In fact, learning the tools and techniques employed by others is often inspirational to creating works of your own. But fundamentally, learning great classic songs can help you get work as a musician and please audiences if you have their favorite in your repertoire. Now Alfred Music, who acts as the official print music publisher of thousands of popular artists, songwriters, and composers, has released a great collection of 152 songs arranged for piano, vocal and guitar.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

National Learn to Play Day is an even being sponsored in the UK by the ‘Music for All’ charity on Saturday March 31st, 2012. Her are a few details: On this day, the UK’s musical instrument shops will open their doors and offer free instrument “taster” lessons to the general public. There are 15 million people in the UK that either want to play an instrument or used to play one. The Day is designed to welcome people into music shops and to inspire them to get playing. People are often surprised to discover that they ARE musical and simply need a musical “experience” to get them inspired to start playing. The Day will offer free lessons on a variety of instruments, supported by music teachers and additional guidance on getting started learning to play music. The UK’s instrument manufacturers will also be supporting the event with staff, instruments and special offers! Paul McManus, Chief Executive of Music For All commenting on the event said, “Music for All knows how much music can change and enrich people’s lives. We are hosting the annual Learn to Play Day to allow as many people as possible to experience the wonderful world of [...]

I have talked about ‘pay what you want’ in terms of music, and also in terms of video games … and now we have it coming to video game music! CDM has a description: And now, defying music’s typical business models as well as its genre expectations, you can get a whole big bundle of games for almost no money. Pay what you want, and get hours of music. Pay more than $10, and get loads more. You just have to do it before the deal ends (five days from this posting), at which point the bundle is gone forever. In a sign of just how much love listeners of Continue reading on Gear Diary …

YOU MUST READ THIS POST! IT IS GOING TO BE HISTORIC! EVERYONE WILL BE TALKING ABOUT IT! I swear that every time I heard that last night during the Grammy Awards, I was certain of one thing – mediocrity was the best thing to hope for. If ‘everyone would be talking’, it would be like Nicki Minaj’s terrible performance that might signal her 15 minutes has played out with her singular stylistic droppings getting tiresome.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Yesterday we heard about the death of Whitney Houston, one of the all-time best selling female vocalists. She was extremely popular from the mid-80′s through the 90′s, but more than that she brought to the stage a voice that ranks her among the great all-time vocalists in popular music. Here is a bit from the news item: Whitney Houston, who reigned as pop music’s queen until her majestic voice and regal image were ravaged by drug use, erratic behavior and a tumultuous marriage to singer Bobby Brown, has died. She was 48. Publicist Kristen Foster said Saturday that the singer had died, but the cause and the location of her death were unknown. At her peak, Houston the golden girl of the music industry. From the middle 1980s to the late 1990s, she was one of the world’s best-selling artists. She wowed audiences with effortless, powerful, and peerless vocals that were rooted in the black church but made palatable to the masses with a pop sheen. Her success carried her beyond music to movies, where she starred in hits like “The Bodyguard” and “Waiting to Exhale.” She had the he perfect voice, and the perfect image: a gorgeous singer who [...]

Journey – Greatest Hits, Volume 2 When you look at some of the best ‘greatest hits’ collections, it is hard to think about augmenting them by going back to the same well a second time. The Beatles 62-66 and 67-70 are complete enough that a second set would feel superfluous, the same is true with the Rolling Stones Hot Rocks, The Eagle’s Greatest Hits and so on. Journey’s Greatest Hits is one of the top-selling collections of all time, posting more than 25 million albums sold through the years. Now we get Volume 2 of the greatest hits, encompassing basically the same years – which raises the basic question of whether there is enough material to make a whole new collection. Let’s take a look.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Quick – what is the first requirement of having a Grammy Music sale? That is right – that music nominated for Grammy Awards is featured! So you should be able to look at the ‘best song’ or ‘best solo’ category and then find that song in the ‘On Sale’ list at Google Music … right? Well, that is KIND OF how things work at the Google Music Grammy sale – and before I nitpick, let me just say that there is a load of Grammy-nominated music available at great prices. For example, I grabbed ‘The Good Feeling’ big band recording by Christian McBride. I have it on my MoG collection, but at $3.99 it was an instant buy!… Continue reading on Gear Diary …