A vase full of spanners

"I feel like a plumber at a flower show " -- Glen Hansard (of the Frames) on attending the Oscars and winning the Best Song Award for "Falling Slowly" from "Once" which he wrote and co-stared with Markéta Irglová.

Obama the musical

I love talented mashups...

and so imagine turning a political speech to music. And what do you know, will.i.am is a talented mash up artist (which has clearly replaced re-mixer sometime since 2006). So please find the Yes We Can Obama Song by will.i.am which took Senator Barak Obama's concession speech after loosing the New Hampshire primary, and turned it to music.




take care,
Will Knott

tags : mashup, politics, music, Will.i.am, Obama, New Hampshire, primary

One time at Mashup camp

To be honest, the word mashup makes me think of music before technology, but technology internet technology mash ups are the best thing to happen to the web.

A mash up is a mixing of two disparate elements to make a unified whole. Those elements could be Lilly Allen singing "LDN" mixed with Chad Jackon's "(Hear the drummer) Get wicked" or a Google map mixed with Dublin bus routing information and timetable to generate all the usable bus routes near any location.

Well Mashup Camp and Mashup University are coming to Dublin (after an abortive attempt earlier in the year) in November, and personally I want to go to the Uni sessions as I want to learn this. What can I say, I'm used to half of this, taking data from a single source and manipulating it to reveal the underlying structure. Mashups mean that you take the data from one (or more) source(s) and manipulate it to fit the structure of another data set (e.g. crime data and a geographic map).

Of course the sign-up for the uni isn't working but...

In the meantime, here is a mashup of a different sort... Dunproofin's "LDN WDK"


take care,
Will

tags : mashup, music, technology, mashupcamp, Mashup Camp, Mashup University, Dublin, Dunproofin

Nothing compares to a free Planet Earth

I read in the Economist an interesting article on record labels trying to get cash streams other than selling music and it seems that Prince has gone one further...

He is due to give away his new album with the Mail on Sunday tomorrow. I expect it will be, oh, 5 seconds before one is on sale on e-bay to get to all those fans in other countries.

I assumed it was going to be a UK only event... then I saw the adverts on Irish telly... he's releasing it over here too. So who will be first with the LouderVoice review?

tags :

The+Economist, record labels, music, Prince, Mail on Sunday

Instant Karma: Free Samples

A CD being unveiled today will showcase some of the world's biggest artists in aid of Amnesty International's Darfur campaign... blah blah blah, the full press release is available at Ireland.com.

However that's not entirely why I'm typing...
Springwise reported on a widget and affiliate programme called GoodStorm. In theory you can create a virtual mixtape of "new" musical acts, pick songs from GoodStorm's collection tracks (or upload your own if you own the copyright) and visitors can listen to clips and purchase downloads via the widget and iTunes (and others, evenually). Essentially its an affiliate sales program built around widget technology.

And the widget for the album based on John Lennon's songs... Instant Karma is available below... (you can get the code here). Just wondering if anyone has used it. Should I?

Will



tags : Music, Amnesty International, Darfur, Springwise, widget, affiliate programme, GoodStorm, mixtape, John Lennon, Instant Karma, code

Play in to the archives

Its a press release, but it might be of interest...
Cork City Libraries has begun to extend the resources of the Local Music Archive. The archive will collect two copies of recordings by Cork singers, musicians, groups, choirs, quartets, bands and orchestras across all genres of music : pop, rock, indie, jazz, traditional, classical, operatic, etc., plus 2 copies of music books and scores of Cork interest. we would be grateful if any individual, musician, group or music shop would alert us to any new material by Cork artists.

In addition to new material, the Local Music Archive will retrospectively collect material by Cork artists already released in an effort to make the archive as comprehensive as possivle.

Contact :
Cork City Libraries,
Local Studies Department,
Rory Gallagher Music Library,
or the eLibraries Services

I suppose all those mobile phone videos and bootlegs of the gigs at the Cork Midsummer Festival or the Live at the Marquee event (or anyone with a bootleg of the now ledendary Nirvina concert at Sir Henry's) should get in contact. I'm sure IMRO won't be contacted... but I haven't asked. You might want to.

take care,
Will

tags : Cork, Cork City, library, Cork City Library, Local Music Archive, Music, Local Studies, Rory Gallagher, Rory Gallagher Music Library, eLibraries, bootlegs, Cork Midsummer Festival

Forget the world, since you've gone

I've girded myself up to spray another spurt of text across the net again. I sort of have to get in the habit of posting more often, but ...

I'll do a Barcamp report shortly, but I've been looking at my own blog, and there will be changes soon.

For those of you visiting (as opposed to RSS reading) you'll see a long blogroll of bands on the Left hand side. It's going to go away soon.
I've been using the wonders of "MyBlogLog" to see that, with the exceptions of Snow Patrol and The Frames those links go largely ignored.

Which makes sense since it's been a long time since I've blogged about music and gigs.

So I'll offer this... a shared google calendar of Cork Gigs. If you have any gigs or events you would like to see included, just e-mail me the details with "GIG" in the title so the spam filter doesn't eat it up.

I'm surprised that various venues don't offer their own shared calendar of events.

Not exactly a European Irish listing but...

And typing of Snow Patrol... (and the frequent search for "john marr - toxic rhythm" which lands on the blog due the mashup and Bootie weakness I have) I'll thank Rick O'Shea for this mashup... (I'll give it a week before YouTube take it down).

The Police Vs. Snow Patrol - "Every Car You Chase"


and to return the favour

John Marr - Ain't No Other Man Can Get Get Down




take care,
Will

tags :
changes, blogroll, MyBlogLog, Snow Patrol, The Frames, music, gigs, calendar, gig guide, Cork Gigs, European Irish, john marr, Rick O'Shea, mashup, bootie, The Police, Every Car You Chase, Ain't No Other Man Can Get Get Down