Noteworthy v3

Been out on the road a bit this week with some great gigs in upstate NY. Massive very hip things happening in the music industry including:

  • It looks like SoundExchange and webcasters have found a way to work together. Here’s what BusinessWeek says, and here’s what Future of Music Coalition says.
  • Lee Abrams writes about the land of the musical lull, which for all of its merits smells a little like rockism. If I can manage to get through all the other stuff I’m working on, I have a meaty post on rockism and how it relates to jazz & classical music – and it’s brilliant, of course.
  • For those of you who love lists, here are the 100 Days that Changed Music, from Blender. They use a fairly predictable and somewhat myopic definition of “music” but it’s interesting, nonetheless.
  • Eberhard Weber is one of my all time favorite bassists. I released a version of his great tune Colours of Chloe on my own CD, Study of Light. To my knowledge it’s the only version around that Eberhard himself isn’t on. Anyway, even though that sounds like patting myself on the back, I really mean it as a way of yelling from the treetops that I’m a fan. He had a stroke in April, and hasn’t been able to tour this summer which is really really bad. I’m hearing that he’s doing better, which is really really good. Here’s a link to a podcast with the Maestro himself.

I have been totally freaking out about mashups. They are the world’s greatest music (I can say without hyperbole), or at least a great mashup keeps my attention for a really long time. Mashups totally jive with my somewhat schizophrenic way of hearing music. I guess I should confess that I first started thinking about mashups in 1994 when I started working on a score for a mashup (even though the name “mashup” didn’t exist then) of Ziggy Stardust and Stairway to Heaven for string quartet…unfinished. I also spent a lot of time thinking about In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida and Sunshine of Your Love, wondering how they would sound mashed up.

  • Here is a great mashup of Sweet Emotion and an Alicia Keys song (or go straight to the download here).
  • I’m a huge fan of this completely twisted version of Superstition (download here) even though it’s sort of blasphemous.
  • I never really liked Wild Cherry, and as for Frankie Goes to Hollywood, their giant hit was no where near as great as the rest of Welcome to the Pleasuredome, which was fantastic. Relax is used here – and the download here).

For me, the serious laughter came from the Wild Cherry/Frankie Goes mashup. It’s just totally hilariously great.That’s what I have for today. Many thanks,

Rick McLaughlin

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