Monthly Archives: May 2010

Lena Horne Passes Away At 92

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Miss Lena Horne

Miss Lena Horne

Lena Horne, the timeless Afro-American jazz performer and actress passed away on May 9, 2010. She was 92 years of age.

Born in 1917, she was a renowned jazz singer, a Hollywood actress and one of the key figures in the Civil Rights Movement.

Miss Horne is survived by one grandson (Teddy Jones) and one granddaughter (Lena Jones). The cause of death has yet to be disclosed.

For those of you unfamiliar with her work, this is a performance of her signature song, “Stormy Weather” taken from the 1943 film that goes by the same name.

En Una Lágrima (RostbiF) – Video Clip

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I’d like to share with you the first video clip created by one of the Uruguayan bands I collaborate with, RostbiF. The guys hail from Nueva Helvecia (an inland town) and this particular song has one of the very first lyrics in Spanish that I ever wrote. It is called “En Una Lágrima” [In A Tear].

I also penned two other lyrics for them – “Rebellion Winds” and “These Eyes”. You can listen to all of these songs in full on their PureVolume profile.

This is the video clip for “En Una Lágrima”. I have attached the lyrics below along with a translation into English.

Of course, look for a full profile and an interview with the band on MusicKO soon! Continue reading →

James Fontana (SongVote) – Interview (Part 2)

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I’d like to share with you the “Music & You” segment of my interview with James Fontana from SongVote. This is the last part of the interview that started here.

PART II

MUSIC & YOU

When did you become interested in music? What was the first album or single you ever purchased?

I’ve been interested in music for as long as I can remember. I remember saving my money in the early 80’s for a “Ghettoblaster” that was the term in America back then for a Jambox.  The first tapes I purchased on my own were Tears for Fears, Cyndi Lauper and Starship.  My, how my taste have changed a bit, except for Cyndi, Her music still takes me back to good memories.

Are you in a band yourself, or have you been in a band in the past? Is there a clip on YouTube or elsewhere we could watch?

No, that for sure is NOT my talent.

Musical likes and dislikes? Favorite artists?

I find myself listening to a lot of down-tempo beats like Kaskade and zero 7, but I enjoy all music from Steely Dan to Beyonce. Continue reading →

James Fontana (SongVote) – Interview (Part 1)

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James Fontana from SongVote was kind enough to sit through the MusicKO interview in full. Thanks a bunch, James! You will find the first part of the interview below, and the second is here.

James Fontana (SongVote)

James Fontana (Co-founder of SongVote)

Full Name: James Fontana
Age: 33
Startup: SongVote
Position:  Co-Founder

PART I

THE STARTUP

Tell us a little about your startup. How was it conceived? What are its most distinctive features in your opinion?

A few years back I put a pool in my back yard.  Every weekend people would come over and swim and there would be 5-7 iPods around the docking station.  No matter what, the music always became an issues.  Someone was always taking out someone else’s iPod and putting their own in.  For me I saw an opportunity for a solution that involved musical democracy.  I wanted to create a way that we could all come together based on our similarity and diversity of musical taste.

In my opinion the most distinctive feature is the ability to create one playlist based on the opinions of a group.

What was the original launch date?

Feb. 2010

What are the main uses people are putting SongVote to? In which countries has it been more successful?

We are noticing people having fun on SongVote by expressing their musical opinion in different public contest.  We also saw someone create a playlist that was moving from Dallas to Boston and was going to be in the car for three days.  They had a playlist built on song that reminded friends of the good time they spent together.  This person was able to listen to a playlist built by close friends during their long drive. Continue reading →

The Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3 – Album Review

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"The Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3" Was To Be The Final Release By The '80s Supergroup

"The Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3" Was To Be The Final Release By The '80s Supergroup

The second (and final) record by the Traveling Wilburys surfaced in 1990, and it was to be titled “Vol. 3”. This is widely thought to be a joke suggested by George Harrison (who was the unofficial leader of the band) to send fans scrambling for an album that never was. We know he did suggest the title, but I believe that it was a two-fingered salute to bootleggers rather than a joke – the amount of “unofficial” Wilburys records that came out after the first volume was unbelievable. And many also consider Tom Petty’s first solo disc (“Full Moon Fever”) to be the “lost” Wilburys album – it was produced by Lynne, and every Wilbury (except for Dylan) collaborated, albeit marginally in most cases.

The fact remains that after a universally-praised record that rejuvenated everybody, this new volume was released. The main difference telling one record from the other? The first time around, the guys were having fun. Now, they were getting down to business. The joviality was somehow missing the second time around. The professionalism remained, and so did the camaraderie. But not the lovable goofiness.

The passing of Roy Orbison surely had a big impact on the band, and the fact that both Dylan and Harrison penned songs that were truer to their ‘80s selves rather than genuine Wilbury music was the tipping point. Songs like “Where Were You Last Night” (Dylan) and “You Took My Breath Away” (Harrison) pointed to each artist’s worst tendencies during the previous decade. And the one joke of the disc was incredibly forced – “Wilbury Twist” had rampant instrumentation but they were trying too hard to revive something that the first time around flowed so effortlessly.

Speaking of rampant volume, the album’s first single (and its first track) was the heavy “She’s My Baby”, a song that always makes me think of Pete Townshend’s “My Baby Gives It Away”, only that the characters in the Wilbury’s song are far, far meaner and darker. The track (which did very well in the charts) also featured Gary Moore on guitar – he definitively had a field day. Continue reading →

SongVote – Ensuring The Right Music Will Be Played At Your Party

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SongVote

Name: SongVote
URL: http://www.songvote.com

It is never easy to get the music right when you are hosting a party. You might know your friends’ tastes from front to back, but what happens if someone brings a friend who is not really into the music you programmed so diligently? Nobody is saying that if a friend’s date is mad about Rihanna you should pump her albums all through the night, but including a hit of hers like “SOS” or “Umbrella” would probably help break the ice by providing a topic for conversation.

The question is, how can you know exactly what music does that kind of guest like? It turns out the answer is not that hard to come by. This new startup (name SongVote) lets you poll every attendee and find out exactly what songs they would like to listen to during the party, at least once.

Besides, this can be used in other contexts. Imagine you want to determine which ones were the best ballads of the ‘80s, or the most unjustly forgotten songs by the Everly Brothers. You can create a poll and find it out quite easily.   Continue reading →

Sander Huiberts & Richard van Tol (Earwurm) – Interview (Part 2)

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This is the final part of the interview I conducted with Sander Huiberts & Richard van Tol from Earwurm. The first one can be found right here. Share and enjoy!

PART II

MUSIC & YOU


When did you become interested in music? What was the first album or single you ever purchased?

Ever since we remember. Richard: the first record I bought was Thriller by Michael Jackson. Before that I was very actively trading cassette tapes with my friends. Sander: No idea?!

Are you in a band yourself, or have you been in a band in the past? Is there a clip on YouTube or elsewhere we could watch?

We have both been in several bands for the past 15 years. Richard: no footage on YouTube though. Sander: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy1waOPgYWM (playing electric upright bass) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4mKde5OIU8 (playing double bass). Continue reading →

Sander Huiberts & Richard van Tol (Earwurm) – Interview (Part 1)

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The founders of Earwurm (a very original music startup that I reviewed last week) were kind enough to answer my questions. Read on for the full background on their startup, and their own insight and perceptions regarding the music industry. Thanks a lot, guys!
And if you enjoy this interview (you will!), don’t forget to read the second part, “Music & You”.

Earwurm

Full Name: Sander Huiberts & Richard van Tol
Age: 30 & 33
Startup: Earwurm.com – Stick A Song In Someone’s Mind
Position: Founders

PART I

THE STARTUP

Tell us a little about your startup. How was it conceived? What are its most distinctive features in your opinion?

Earwurm.com is a website that revolves around sharing earworms, those sticky tunes we all have in our mind from time to time. Simply search our database featuring hundreds of earworms to find a tune and then share it with others via email, Facebook, Twitter, etc. If the song is not in our datebase you can easily add it to the site in less than 60 seconds.

The idea behind Earwurm.com is that almost everyone knows the phenomenon of having a song stuck in your head. Quite often earworms are triggered by simply hearing a tiny piece of a tune on the radio or someone humming it. Our background is in Music & Technology and, amongst other things, we teach Game Audio Design at the Utrecht School of the Arts, Faculty of Art, Media & Technology in The Netherlands. One of our lectures features a short sample of the song “Hello” by Lionel Ritchie (http://earwurm.com/music/1) which always leaves our students humming the song for the rest of the day. We wanted to do something creative and fun with that phenomenon and thus the idea of sharing ‘earwurms’, short fragments of songs that trigger earworms, was born.

What was the original launch date?

Earwurm.com was launched on the 20th of april, 2010.

What has been the response so far? In which countries has it been more successful?

The response is actually far bigger than we expected, especially given that we are not promoting the website and that it has only been online for two weeks. Hundreds of new earwurms have already been added to the database and about 83000 earwurms have been shared through email, Facebook and Twitter.
Many people like the concept for different reasons. There are those passionate about puttings songs in their friends’ minds, while there are others who simple enjoy browsing all earwurms and keep adding new annoying sticky songs to database. Continue reading →

Salvando La Distancia (Sordromo) – Uruguayan Music

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"Salvando La Distancia" Was Issued In 2004, And It Was A Gold Record By The End Of The Year

"Salvando La Distancia" Was Issued In 2002, And It Was A Gold Record By The End Of The Year

A Uruguayan band that combined rock instrumentation with some electronic beats and scratches in quite an engaging way, Sordromo released “Salvando La Distancia” [Closing The Distance] in 2002. To me, the album (issued by Bizarro Records) exemplified how their approach (which yielded very good results in terms of singles) could be a little monotonous over an extended work. In the case of “Salvando La Distancia”, the monotony was aggravated by the solipsistic nature of the lyrics – all of the songs (with the exception of “Música Fea” [Ugly Music] and “Ventanas” [Windows]) were romantic fare. The combination could be a little debilitating sometimes, specially during the mid-section of the album.

Still, the disc had more than a few remarkable compositions – and then some. The first five tracks in particular were praiseworthy, with the singles “Las Cosas Del Querer” [The Way Loving Is] and “Como Un Sueño” [Like A Dream] achieving a phenomenal amount of exposure in Uruguayan radio. The two songs were also prime examples of the band’s marriage of rock instrumentation and electronic motifs. But the best example of Sordromo’s signature sound found on the disc was to be “Salvaré” [I Will Close], a song that mixed strangled guitar ruminations and matching electronic beats under a lyric dealing with separation akin to disintegration, and the will to overcome it come what may.

And the songs “A Solas” [Alone] and “Ventanas” [Windows] were quite anthemic, even if the lyrical devices they contained were nothing new. A sample line from “A Solas”: “A solas / con todos / duele / sé que no te gusta estar a solas con otros / se hace tan difícil cuando estás a solas” [Alone with everybody / I know you don’t enjoy being alone with others/ it gets so hard when you have to be alone]. The song is more than acceptable on the whole, though, with the pervasive drums making it resonant from the very first verse already. And “Ventanas” [Windows] dealt with the importance that even just a tiny amount of support brings to those who are abated, effectively underlining the title of the album and highlighting how some of the biggest divides actually exist between people who are close in physical terms. Continue reading →

Month In Review – April 2010

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This was a terrific month because I started my coverage of unsigned Uruguayan musicians with two posts on the band “Cínica”. The first one is an interview/profile, and the other is my own take on their music. I encourage you to give both a good look, and start learning more about what it’s like for bands in a part of the world that is probably very far away from where you live. In the end, I think you will agree that the same fire, ideals and ambition characterizes young musicians everywhere.

On the other hand, the coverage of classic artists continues with The Band being the most recent addition to MusicKO. I covered their timeless eponymous record here. Look for reviews of “Music From Big Pink” and the rest soon!

The music startups covered in April included iMusicTweet, Songr, Eyeball.fm, SingAndStudy and Earwurm.   Continue reading →