Monthly Archives: July 2010

Kilian Valkhof (Lystener) – Interview (Part 1)

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Last week I caught up with Kilian Valkhof from Lystener, a startup offering an innovative way to find and share lyrics that I had reviewed the previous week.

We talked about his project, and also about his relationship with music. A special emphasis was placed on the way he perceives lyrics, of course.

This is Part 1 of the interview. Part 2 (where we talk about music) can be read here.

Kilian Valkhof, The Creator Of Lystener

Kilian Valkhof, The Creator Of Lystener

Full Name: Kilian Valkhof
Age: 22
Web App: Lystener
Position: Founder

PART I

THE  WEB APP

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

I’ve always had a problem with the way lyrics work. Some music players can display lyrics and that’s great, but there’s always one that doesn’t work as well as it should.

You can also google lyrics. This means you have to type in the artist and song title (because somehow they’re never copyable from music players) and find a working site that doesn’t have a bunch of ads and spam. Then, if you want to actually do something with the lyrics, like, copy them, most sites block that too! If you want to share lyrics on facebook, for example, you end up typing them yourself.

Lystener fixes both these problems. No typing needed to find the lyrics to the song you’re listening to now, because I just ask last.fm what you’re playing, and it updates automatically. When you select the lyrics you like, you can post the part you selected to facebook or twitter with a single button.

What was the original launch date?

I launched it on monday the 28th of june, after a week of private beta.

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

Twofold actually. People love the application but the lyrics database isn’t really big, so if you’re like me and listen to lots of unknown stuff, you’ll have to do without lyrics every now and then. There are ways to easily add them though, and I’m going to expand on those to make adding lyrics yourself even easier. When you have lyrics though, people are delighted because everything works very smoothly, reading lyrics, selecting lyrics, sending lyrics, it all happens in one flow.

As far as countries go, English speaking countries lead by a large margin. Continue reading →

RostbiF (Uruguayan Unsigned Artist) – Part 2: The Music

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As I am sure you read in the first part of this article, RostbiF is a hard rock band that hails from Nueva Helvecia (an inland Uruguayan town). The guys cite AC/DC, Deep Purple and ZZ Top as their main references and musical heroes, and their sound is an effective amalgamation of what these bands have played since their inception.

RostbiF Playing Live: Lukas Künzler, Pablo Gonzalez, Mauricio Rode & Guido Quintela

RostbiF Playing Live: Lukas Künzler, Pablo Gonzalez, Mauricio Rode & Guido Quintela

The band comprises Lukas Künzler (lead vocals and rhythm guitar), Pablo Gonzalez (lead guitar), Mauricio Rode (bass) and Guido Quintela (drums).

I am actually acquainted with the guys since Guido e-mailed me about a year ago asking for some lyrics. I did like the fact that they were aiming for compositions that had a certain social content, and I was keen to try something different to the traditional romantic themes I have always used to favor. Thus, “Rebellion Winds” and “These Eyes” were conceived.

One thing that comes across when you listen to their music is how much they are enjoying themselves. They are no virtuosos, they know it, and that is not the point to begin with. They make up for it with a lot of stamina and passion: Guido hits the bass drum as he if were kicking a plancha in the mouth, the bass has true bursts of vigor (specially when it gets some space as on “Rebellion Winds”, their finest composition so far) and the two guitars act as the main offensive line of the band. Granted, nobody would mistake the interplay between Lukas and Pablo as the one that characterized Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd, but they are clearly in the same wavelength. Plus, when singing Lukas sounds like a chain smoker who hasn’t had a cigarette in three weeks. Take all that together and the result is the soundtrack for throwing stones and Molotov cocktails at the police during a riot. No wonder I have never attended one of their gigs personally. The last thing I want is someone smashing a bottle willy-nilly in my head. Continue reading →

RostbiF (Uruguayan Unsigned Artist) – Part 1: Profile & Interview

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It is with great pleasure that I introduce you to the Uruguayan unsigned artist of this week: RostbiF. They are one of the bands I collaborate with, and I can tell you that they are passionate believers in the power of music.

This is their PureVolume profile.

Below you will find the first part of the article, in which they introduce themselves and answer some questions. My own analysis of their music is included here.

RostbiF Are Lukas Künzler, Pablo Gonzalez, Mauricio Rode & Guido Quintela

RostbiF Are Lukas Künzler, Pablo Gonzalez, Mauricio Rode & Guido Quintela

Band Information

Name: RostbiF

Genre: Hard rock

Band Members:
Lukas Künzler (Voice and rhythm guitar)
Pablo Gonzalez (guitar)
Mauricio Rode (Bass)
Guido Quintela (Drums)

Been Together Since: Juny 2009

Some Questions

Where does the name of your band come from?

It comes from playing with words and translating them from Spanish into German, but it has no real meaning. The first idea was “rost”, which means “oxid” in German, but we found it to short so we played a little bit with it and the result was RostbiF.

Is it possible to define or categorize your music? If you had to try, how would you do it?

Our music is a kind of mixture from different hard rock styles, it is based on bands like AC/DC, Aerosmith, ZZ Top, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin… just simple hard rock.

In which ways could your music be deemed as innovative within the Uruguayan scene?  Is that a concern for you?

We think there is no real innovation in our music, we play hard rock the traditional way, that is the music we like to listen to. There is a difference from other Uruguayan bands in the influences, and the type of music we play, but there is nothing new or innovative in it at all.

In which sense being in Uruguay gives you an edge over musicians in other parts of the world? And how does it hinder you? Continue reading →

Lystener – A New Way To Share & Discover Lyrics

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Lystener
Name: Lystener
URL: http://www.lystener.com

OK, I am the first to admit that this site is not the greatest thing ever since Swiss Cheese came along, but I quite like it. That is probably because I am a lyricist and I can’t divorce a song’s music from its words, but even casual users could get something good out of it.

If we look at its roots, what the site lets you do is to input your Last.fm username in order for the lyrics to the song that you are listening at that time to be displayed. When that happens, you will be able not only to read them but also to share them with your friends.

That is not as superfluous as some of you might be thinking. For starters, non-native speakers of English (like me) often have trouble catching a word or two, even after years of listening to English music. That is something obvious – it is not the same listening to Liam Gallagher than listening to John Denver. Sometimes we frankly can’t get the words right. That is one use this site will certainly have. Continue reading →

Love Me Like The World Is Ending (Ben Lee) – Video

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Ben Lee

Ben Lee

I have just discovered this Australian artist, and I am certainly going to explore his discography further. His name is Ben Lee, and I caught wind of him thanks to his song “Love Me Like The World Is Ending”. That song was featured twice on one of the best shows I have watched recently, “Life Unexpected”. It was used to open chapters one and thirteen – the season’s premiere and finale.

The guy has got an incredible way with language, and he has achieved an equilibrium that I find extremely rare. He can play with words elegantly, and he can convey sentiments plaintively in equal measures. In short: he was perfect for a show like “Life Unexpected”, what with the story focusing on the complexities of life and the simple way in which love can solve just anything.

The song “Love Me Like The World Is Ending” exemplifies that perfectly. I am going to order both “Awake Is The New and Sleep” and “Ripe”. But if you are already acquainted with Ben and you think I should start elsewhere, please let me know by leaving a comment below.

Month In Review – June 2010

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June was very rewarding if only because I managed to cover three unsigned Uruguayan artists over the course of the month: Mal Yo, Laiojan Sebastian and Lucía Ferreira. The three of them are very promising bands and solo performers, and Laiojan Sebastian in particular was the reason I began writing about unsigned artists on MusicKO. Their inclusion on the blog was long due.

The one new artist that I added to the blog was The Divine Comedy – you can read the general introduction here, and a review of “A Secret History – The Best Of The Divine Comedy” here.

The startups that I covered during June were the social network SeeJoeRock, Mixtap.in (a site that brings mixtapes back for good), and the Tony-B Machine, a great resource for those wanting to create electronic music. I also covered TasteBuds, a site that will let you find that special other based on the music that you like.

And the entrepreneurs and startup founders that I interviewed were Majid ALSarra (from Lyreach), Caroline Bottomley (from Radar Music Videos) and Tony Bouchereau (creator of The Tony-B Machine)

Lastly, make sure to check out the most visited post of the whole month: Steve Moore, the mad drummer!

Cuando Juega Uruguay (Jaime Roos) & Cielo De Un Solo Color (No Te Va Gustar) – Music Videos

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Uruguay

Today Uruguay’s national soccer team beat Ghana in the most dramatic match I have ever seen in my life. This puts Uruguay in the semifinals of a FIFA World Cup for the first time in 40 years.

As a way of supporting a team that has made us all proud, I would like to share two of the most popular soccer-related songs that have ever been written and recorded by Uruguayan artists. The first is “Cuando Juega Uruguay” [When Uruguay Plays] by Jaime Roos. The other is “Cielo De Un Solo Color” [Single-colored Sky] by No Te Va Gustar. That song is not really about soccer, but it has become synonymous with the sport here.

Now we are squaring up against Holland on Tuesday. I frankly believe that after today’s show of stamina and guts everything is possible.

¡Vamos Uruguay, carajo!

Wildflowers (Tom Petty) – Album Review

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Tom Petty's Second Solo Album, "Wildflowers" (1994) Was Produced By Rick Rubin, With Michael Kamen Adding Many Orchestrations.

Tom Petty's Second Solo Album, "Wildflowers" (1994) Was Produced By Rick Rubin, With Michael Kamen Adding Many Orchestrations.

Tom Petty’s second solo album is clearly a more modest effort than his previous solo offering (“Full Moon Fever“, issued in 1989). This time around there are no superstars backing Mr. Integrity (fellow Traveling Wilburys Roy Orbison, Jeff Lynne and George Harrison had contributed substantially to the making of “Full Moon Fever”), and “Wildflowers” was to end up sandwiched between two of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers better releases: “Into The Great Wide Open” (1991) and the tragedy-inspired “Echo” (1999). If anything, “Wildflowers” seems to me a canvass upon which “Echo” was to be painted. In some cases, a couple of brushes have already been either insinuated or put into place in “Wildflowers” – the songs “Crawling Back To You” and “Don’t Fade On Me” constitute a true link in the chain of despondency and abatement that would come to define the most endemic material to “Echo” (“Rhino Skin”, “One More Day, One More Night”).

By my reckoning, there are only a handful of tracks here that are real keepers. These include “Time To Move On” and “A Better Place”, both reasonably upbeat (or at the very least positive) compositions, and the relatively loud “Honey Bee”, a number in which Tom and Mike Campbell have one of their best guitar duels on record with the instrument of each having a separate speaker all to itself.

The three-chord rocker “You Wreck Me” was a successful single, and so was the mellow, autobiographical  “It’s Good To Be King” . I think they are good, but not that good.  I wouldn’t call “You Wreck Me” rote, but I would call it perfunctory.  And when I listen to “It’s Good To Be King” I get the feeling Petty is holding something back – something he would unleash to good effect on “Echo”, and to disastrous consequences on “The Last DJ”.  In the end, Michael Kamen’s orchestral arrangement is what makes this rumination on fame remotely memorable.

The folksy contingent of the album is best-represented by the title track, which is a lovely air and one of Petty’s most realized incursions in the genre. Conversely, cuts like “To Find A Friend” are easy to listen to, but also easy to be forgotten. Continue reading →