The meteoric success of artists like Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga has opened everybody’s eyes to the role the Internet can play in a musical career, and Wanabez is here to let singers and instrumentalists have a fairer chance of being discovered.
Wanabez is a brand-new video portal for aspiring musicians, a place that is comparable to a version of YouTube in which only videos of people looking for the big break are uploaded.
Just like YouTube, Wanabez can be used for free. And the videos that are uploaded can be commented and rated by just anybody – site visitors, other performers, industry folks who stumble upon them…
Besides, since videos can be sorted both by rating and by the number of comments they have received finding the most promising acts is a much easier task. Any person looking for emerging talent can visualize only those that have received the highest qualifications, and avoid having to sit through one band after the other of fifteen year olds doing their own versions of “Whole Lotta Lovin'” with the divine conviction that they are incendiary, when they are just a good couple of light years from getting anywhere near the mark. Continue reading →
Conkistadores Are Gabriel Laborde, Angelo Galeazzi, Darwing Pato Cabana, Jonathan Garcia and Juan Lujambio.
Hailing from the City of Maldonado, Conkistadores is a recently-formed band whose sound lies somewhere between hard rock and heavy metal. The current lineup comprises singer Gabriel “Rubio” Laborde, guitar player Angelo Galeazzi, drummer Darwing “Pato” Cabana, bassist Jonathan Garcia and keyboard player Juan Lujambio.
They all have played in bands from Maldonado before – Darwing played in “La Mole” and “Gangster”, Gabriel sang with “Minerva”, Angelo was the guitarist for “Cardíacos”… even Juan (the youngest member) is a well-known face in the local scene, having formed his first metal band when he was just 14.
The band has just finished recording its debut EP. It is bound to be released soon, and Conkistadores is playing his first gig in Montevideo on the 13th of November at La Comuna along with the bands Cimarrón and Ginebra (from Salto and Montevideo, respectively).
Musically, Conkistadores references the ‘80s in a dynamic and constant way, with bands like Iron Maiden, Warcry and Yngwie Malmsteen being just some of their clearest standard bearers. But so are Guns ‘n’ Roses, Dream Theater and the Argentinean band Rata Blanca.
You can tell the band members are not new to the game when you listen to them playing. Gabriel’s vocals are sonorous in the best sense of the word. The bass work is decidedly mellifluous, and the guitar is an effective emotional vehicle. More than often, it is hard to believe that the keyboard parts come from someone who is just 15. And Pato is playing the drums with the strength and conviction that only those who have had a close call can muster (he was involved in a near-fatal motorcycle accident not so long ago).
Conkistadores On Stage
Out of the six songs that are going to be featured on their debut EP, my personal favorite is “Nadie Escuchó” [Nobody Heard]. It deals with the murder of a 10-year old girl in Maldonado (“Un demente con una estaca de Madera/dejó muda una ciudad entera”) [A madman with a wooden stake/left a whole city speechless] and it is a good example of the band’s ability to touch weighty issues without sounding preachy or overbearing.
The song also has my favorite guitar solo of the whole EP. A true sense of walled desperation is conveyed. Nobody would mistake it for Eric Clapton’s famous weeping guitar, but it is an instrument that is speaking a language capable of moving even those who have not been personally marked and marred by tragedy. Continue reading →
Atomic Tom Have Delivered What Must Rank As The Best iPhone Band Performance So Far.
The story goes that the members of Atomic Tom got their instruments stolen, but that couldn’t keep them from making music.
So, when they were on the NYC subway they got out their iPhones and began playing “Take Me Out” (the first single from “The Moment”) with them,while someone conveniently shot the entire performance. Oh, and what’s even more convenient is that within minutes it was uploaded to Atomic Tom’s official YouTube account.
But who cares about that? What matters is the band performance they managed to pull off. I frankly think it is the best iPhone band performance we have seen so far. Way better than the Stanford iPhone orchestra for sure.
You can judge it for yourself by watching the full video (embedded below).
“The Moment” is Atomic Tom’s debut album. You can learn more about the band here.
All the musicians I’m acquainted with tell me the same story: the more their parents sent them to teachers to learn how to write, read and play music when they were kids, the closer they were to disdaining it forever. They also tell me that the moment they became independent and could say “no” to mum and dad was the moment they discovered the deep love they could feel for music.
That only makes too much sense. No matter how wonderful something is, if it is imposed it becomes a source of frustration and it is resisted to the bitter end.
Yet, what can parents who want their children to learn music do? Is there a way to have their little ones learn how to play an instrument without boring them to death? Continue reading →
A Double Album, "The Kids Are Alright" Was The Companion Piece To One Of The Most Memorable Rock & Roll Biopics Ever
The soundtrack to Jeff Stein’s highly-adored biopic is a double album made up of live highlights. Of course, the terms “live” and “highlight” are the bywords when we are talking about The Who with Keith Moon sitting behind the kit.
The version of “A Quick One” at the Rolling Stones’ Rock & Roll Circus leads the charge. The Who stole the show that day, to the point that the Stones (aware that they had been outplayed) later tried to sell the movie to The Who so that they could release it as their Rock & Roll Circus. Personally, I like the version which is included on the “Live At Leeds” album even better. But in any case, both cuts showcase what a demolishing live band The Who was during the “Tommy” period.
That is also underlined by the three songs from Woodstock which are included – all three are “Tommy” numbers (“Pinball Wizard”, “Sparks” and “See Me, Feel Me”) and they are all terrific. They can also be found on the original “Woodstock” soundtrack. The version of “Sparks”, incidentally, is also featured on “Almost Famous” – it is the song that makes the main character realize his destiny of becoming a music journalist.
Likewise, the album includes the cataclysmic performance from “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” that earned Moon the moniker of “British Patent Exploding Number”. It is not really a “live” number (they are playing over a track which was prerecorded), but it has the full dialogue introduction in which the guys drive Tommy Smothers crazy.
And three songs are featured from two concerts which were specifically scheduled for the film. The first took place at Kilburn and it was a major disaster. The one track from that concert which found its way here proves it, as the band struggles through “My Wife”, arguably John Entwistle’s best stage number alongside “Heaven & Hell” and one that they seldom got wrong. For years, fans have joked that the live version of “My Wife” recorded at that gig was only included on “The Kids Are Alright” as a way to show that the band could have days off, just like everybody else. Continue reading →
Last Friday a very good friend asked me to convert some YouTube videos into a format that her old computer could actually play, and burn a CD with the resulting files. There were about fifteen of them, and they were all by the same Finnish band: HIM. I don’t have to tell you such a thing wasn’t necessarily topping my list of priorities for that particular weekend. But there was no way I would let her down.
I came across this site when looking for a fast way to get that job done. And while I wouldn’t say that Bender Converter is “the best” website of its class, it did the job quite competently and I have bookmarked it.
You see, Bender Converter lets you supply the URL of the video that has to be converted and then choose an output format. There is no need for you to upload anything, and that’s always a big plus. So is the fact that a ton of video hosting services are supported. These include YouTube, Vimeo, DailMotion, Veoh and Blip.tv.
And some of the output formats that you can go for are .AVI, .MOV, .FLV, .3GP… in fact, you can even have a video converted into an audio MP3. Useful for these ultra-rare live clips and prehistoric TV performances that some sympathetic chums upload to YouTube for mere mortals like you and me to rejoice. Continue reading →
French Musicians Daft Punk Have Taken Care Of Composing The OST To Tron: Legacy
Tron: Legacy is the sequel to 1982’s immensely popular sci-fi title. This time around, the plot revolves around Sam (the son of Jeff Bridges’ original character, played by Garrett Hedlund) entering the digital world in search of his father (and eventually playing in the field against him).
The movie is one of the first ever set to be released in RealD 3D. Hey, is there any single title that would lend itself best to such technology?
And Tron: Legacy’s OST (by French musicians Daft Punk) can already be ordered from this website. You can either buy it in MP3 format for $ 10, or as a physical CD for $ 35. In the second case, you are also getting a Daft Punk poster as part of the package. Continue reading →
If You Thought iPads Were Prohibitive Pieces Of Hardware For Street Musicians To Use, The Video Attached Below Will Come As Surprising.
The girl featured on this video has the distinction of having become the first busker ever who uses an iPad caught on tape.
The video (which is shot in Moscow) may be short, but it just highlights how times change. Gone are the days in which busking was a matter of sheer grit. Provided it is not a publicity stunt, of course.
There are only two guitar players that make me stop whatever I am doing and listen as if each note they are playing were nothing short of irreproducible both technically and sentimentally by anybody else.
As you already know, Richard Thompson is one of them. And now I’d like to introduce you to the other one. Like Thompson, he is also from England. But their styles couldn’t be more different.
Chris Rea is a slide guitar player that spent the first part of his career playing rock & roll until a miraculous recovery from pancreatitis made him decide to devote the rest of his studio life to the blues.
And unlike Richard Thompson, Chris Rea did have hits. His 1989’s album “The Road To Hell” brought him out of cult obscurity across the whole of Europe. “The Road To Hell” will always stand as one of the most meaningful works in a decade that was not that remarkable otherwise. The album offered a razor-sharp study of the stray ways of modern life without ever stooping to the gratuitousness of other contemporary acts.
And the commencement of Rea’s career in 1978 was actually quite auspicious: the song “Fool (If You Think It’s Over)” almost cracked the Top 10 in the US, and remains his most popular song in America to this day. Both that album (named “Whatever Happened to Benny Santini?”) and its follow-up were produced by no other than Gus Dudgeon. Rea has always bemoaned that Dudgeon’s approach was unsuitable for his blues-derived material. The truth is that Dudgeon made one thinly-disguised attempt after the other to have Rea sound like pop acts that had given him worldwide recognition such as Elton John. Chris was to eventually record some of those songs anew later on. Continue reading →
MTV Becomes The Premier Destination For Watching Music Videos Once Again
People my age (IE, 30-somethings) mostly remember MTV as the place to tune into when you wanted to watch music videos and discover new bands, not to watch an endless succession of reality shows and similar “hip” content.
Everybody agrees that the Internet drove the final nail in the coffin for MTV, stealing what audience it had left and creating a whole new hierarchy for the discovery of new talent.
The irony is that now MTV.com has become the premier destination for people wanting to watch music videos, well ahead of Vevo. A recent survey by comScore shows that MTV had over 53 million unique visitors in August, whereas Vevo came in second with 49 million. Continue reading →
