Categories
guitar music tech

Gibson’s “Robot Guitar”

Ok, so this is something we’ve been excited about for a while, but Gibson have released some new pics of their “Robotic Guitar”. No longer must tone-deaf guitar players drown in a sea of irony; the Robot Guitar can tune itself with a simple push of a button.

Release date has been slated as the 7th of December, which is guranateed to excite guitar players around the world; unfortunately, with an initial limited release of 4000 models, we suspect that the price tag is going to be slightly higher than what the average garage band can afford.

Still, isn’t it enough to drool over the pictures?

 

Gibson Robot Guitar

 

Gibson Robot Guitar

Here’s an instructional video on the workings of the guitar:

 

***

If you liked this post, why not subscribe to my RSS feed? Simply click on the orange icon in the blogroll, to the right up near the top of the page. You’ll be updated whenever a new post comes out!

Categories
music tech

ProjectPlaylist.com


So another online playlist has hit my radar (only about a year late or so, so I’m getting better!)
Anyway, this time the site is projectplaylist, which creates an online playlist for you.
The advertising is a bit of a turn off, but the interface itself is very sleek and sexy…

Project Playlist

The good news… it has a great range, as it scours the net and finds the suitable streaming files for you.
Side tip… it’s also great for finding online mp3 files that you can download. Not that we would ever advocate that or anything…

***

If you liked this post, why not subscribe to my RSS feed? Simply click on the orange icon in the blogroll, to the right up near the top of the page. You’ll be updated whenever a new post comes out!

Categories
music

RIP Lucky Dube…

“Every number, represents a human being
who was a father, who was a mother
a son or a daughter of this land…oh
it ain’t worth my life…oh

you are here today, tomorrow you are gone
you don’t wanna be another number in the book”
Luck Dube, “The Other Side”

It is with heavy heart that we make this post; while we were offline, we have learnt that one of the lights of South African music, and indeed, a shining star of Reggae music in general, Lucky Dube, has been tragically gunned down and passed away in what is being called an “attempted hijacking”.

 

Dube was dropping off his children at a family member’s home when he was attacked by car thieves. Lucky is survived by a new wife and seven children.

 

Dube leaves behind a musical legacy second to none. His political questioning meant that Lucky sang for the people, wanting everyone to live together; in some dark times, he truly was a voice for the voiceless.

 

Wherever you are now Lucky; I hope it’s irie.

RIP Lucky Dube. 1964-2007.

lucky_dube_500.jpg

Categories
music tech

Led Zep to sell music online… finally!

Via Reuters, we’ve seen that Led Zeppelin is finally going to release their music to be sold online.

Page and Plant has previously indicated that they would only be releasing a 24-track sampler via iTunes, but that tune has now changed, with the announcement that “the complete Led Zeppelin catalogue will now be available digitally”, and not only exclusively through iTunes, but rather “all online music retailers”.

Reuters labels the Led “one of the last major pop music acts to offer their catalogue digitally.”

I could point out quite a few errors with that short sentence, but hey, I’ll let sleeping dogs lie.

In the end, what’s left to say, but… that’s “A Whole Lotta Love”!

Categories
music

Oh god, that’s plain old awesome…

In possibly some of the best news I’ve heard all year,

Peter Hook has signed up Liam Gallagher, Ian Brown and Echo + The Bunnymen frontman Ian Mcculloch to form a new supergroup.

The New Order bassist, Hook, formed Free Bass with former The Smiths bass man Mikey Rourke and Primal Scream star Mani after controversially announcing the break-up of New Order earlier this year.

The new supertrio decided against having a full-time frontman, and instead have recruited a few big names to sing for them.

According to reports the group has recorded a forthcoming album to be released early next year.

Just so that everyone knows, I think I’m in heaven…

Edit

I’ve just found out that The Charlatans’ Tim Burgess has just turned in the first vocal performance for the band… Hooks’ description of Burgess’ contribution? “Fucking great”. Can this get any better?

Categories
music

Shudder… “that artist that we dare not speak it’s name” jumps on bandwagon

Sigh. I can’t believe I’m mentioning her name in this blog at all, but given past posts, it deserves a mention.
Found via Techcrunch, it appears that Madonna is (in a way) following suit. While she is not offering free to public music just yet (ala NIN and Radiohead), it appears that Madonna has dumped the record industry.

As we said before… this avalanche is simply waiting for one more snowflake…

As a side note, we think we should point out that The Charlatans role in all this seems to have been underplayed. Check out the article at XFM for more about how they got the ball rolling.

Categories
music tech

Nine Inch Nails, Oasis & Jamiroquai (& The Charlatans) to possibly follow free download trend?

While things are not set in stone now, it looks like the free release of music is sealing the coffin on the current incarnation of the record industry.

Following on from his “Steal my shit” speech in Australia last month, Trent Reznor, via the NIN site, released the following statement:

I’ve waited a LONG time to be able to make the following announcement: as of right now Nine Inch Nails is a totally free agent, free of any recording contract with any label. I have been under recording contracts for 18 years and have watched the business radically mutate from one thing to something inherently very different and it gives me great pleasure to be able to finally have a direct relationship with the audience as I see fit and appropriate.

Following hot on the heels of that announcement, it appears that Oasis and Jamiroquai may now be following suit. And then the Charlatans announce the same thing.

We think that Gizmodo said it best:

If two of the biggest acts in the industry can see the digital writing on the wall and totally embrace it—that the old way of doing business is broken—why can’t the labels? What Radiohead and NIN are showing is that the business model “of the future” feared by entrenched interests isn’t arriving some time in the horizon. It’s touching down now.

Couple in three new bands to Gizmodo‘s statement, and we can see an avalanche, waiting for just one more snowflake…

Categories
music

In Rainbows arrived…


 

Radiohead…

 

After much wait, “In Rainbows” is now playing on my computer as I type. There’s a feeling of ambivalence for me here. The problem, for me, is that in some parts, Radiohead sounds even… well… slightly generic. Recalling hints of Muse and other contemporaries in parts. Now, this is itself is not a harsh denigration, but for a band such as Radiohead? Generic should NEVER even enter the mind.

In my opinion, the album doesn’t open all that strongly. In fact, I find myself constantly skipping through “15 Steps” and “Bodysnatchers” both. Surprisingly, it’s not until the seemingly ‘disconnected’ “Nude” that I actually feel the band is reaching out and connecting, and not just going through the paces.

The album begins to pick up from the second half of “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi”, but it is really with “All I Need” that the band explodes into greatness. Recalling cast shades of their… well, newness, experimentation, it grips you and refuses to let you go. The crescendo, roughly 3 minutes in, is beautiful in its simplicity. The brief “Faust Arp” continues this buoy, before leading into “Reckoner”, with it’s odd shades of Jon Frusciantesque guitars.

“House of Cards”, despite the desperately pop-filled line of “I don’t wanna be your friend/I just wanna be your lover” is certainly one of the stronger songs on the album.

With “Jigsaw Falling Into Place”, it becomes clear what Yorke and co. are doing; they been giving us what we didn’t know we wanted. As much as some may hanker for the sounds of 1995 “The Bends”, it is clear with this song that prog-rock is clearly the camp Radiohead belongs to now.

The album closes… strongly… on the haunting videotape, with its achingly beautiful line “You are my centre, when I spin away… out of control”.

 

All in all, despite my misgivings, I have the feeling that “In Rainbows” is an album that will grow on the listener after time. And, so often, that has been the case with Radiohead in the past. Pioneers have to deal with strange looks from infidels sometimes.