Steven's Thoughts

My 6 year old son's playlist

My six year old son Sebastian loves music. We always listen to it together, but he definitely has his own favorites. This is Sebastian's current playlist: 

The Ting Tings - That's Not My Name 

The Raconteurs - Consoler of the Lonely 

The White Stripes - Seven Nation Army 

Vampire Weekend - A-Punk 

MGMT - Kids 

MGMT - Electric Feel

The Fiery Furnaces - Even in the Rain 

Anarbor -You And I

 

Michael Jackson - Human Nature 

Jackson Five - I want you back

 

Best Albums of 2009 So Far

I have a running 2009 playlist the following albums and specifically these songs made my list:

Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion: favorite song - My Girl (even though their show in Park Slope was pretty bad)

Wilco - Wilco (The Album) - favorite song: Country Disappeared (could not get back in time from Munich for the concert in Coney Island) 

Franz Ferdinand - Tonight: Franz Ferdinand - favorite song:  Ulysses 

The Fiery Furnaces - I'm Going Away - favorite song: The End is Near (show was pretty good at the river) 

Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest - favorite song: Two Weeks (missed them at the river) 

Peter Bjorn and John - Living Thing - favorite song: Nothing to Worry About (they are amazing live) 

Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix - favorite song: Lisztomania 

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz! - favorite song: Zero (not going to see them at Radio City)   

Recession music

Just like everyone else out there the economy has gotten to me - but what's strange is how a financial crisis can affect almost everything in my life - even the music that I enjoy the most now - 80s influenced indie pop. 

Last night, Sienna and I went to see The Ting Tings at the Music Hall of Williamsburg and we felt transported back to an early 80s night club. What was so great about the concert? Was is it the lead singer's awesome, shiny leotards and her puffy dress, that only a skinny 26 year old bleached-blonde can pull off, or was it the playback of the plasticky sounding keyboard that was not even on stage?  I think it was much more simple. It was my craving for comfort music. 

A few weeks ago I posted on my Facebook status that I couldn't believe that I had started becoming a lover of pop music and listed acts such as: MGMT, Santigold (formally known as Santagold) and CSS. Many of my friends strongly disagreed with classification of these bands being pop. 

I guess they are right. It is not pop as in what today's popular music is (billboard's top 100). It is not pop in 2009, but it was considered pop in the early 80s. Now people consider this music scrappy, dance-oriented indie pop. Anyway the point is, I am reverting to comfort music. Music of my childhood. The electro overtone of a cheap sounding synthesizer, is giving me the warm and fuzzy. 

When we left the venue we ran into a friend who was with a cute young chick who was excited to keep the night going with some drinks. And that's when I realized that if my music taste was stuck in the 80s, my responsibilities are right here in 2009, and we politely said no thanks and good night and went home to relieve the babysitter. 

I guess if 80s pop is all that I need to help me through this rescission I'm doing OK.

Hot New Album - The Roots - Rising Down

I am sad that I had to miss Jazzfest this year. One band that always kicks ass, and did again this year at Jazzfest, live is the Roots. They just released their eight album, Rising Down.

The sound on this album seems fresh and raw, but still true to the original spirit of Hip Hop. I love the  progression from the 2006 album, Game Theory. Even though the album is packed with the who's who of Hip Hop, it is less pop and more raw then the last album.

Some favorites:

Rising Up (Featuring Wale & Chrisette Michele)   

Get Busy featuring Dice Raw, Peedi Crakk, DJ Jazzy Jeff

The Roots - 75 Bars (Black's Reconstruction)

Well, no Jazzfest for me, but I have a great new album.

Beastie Boys in McCarren Pool

Last night Sienna and I headed to Willliamsburg, Brooklyn to see the Beastie Boys perform in a swimming pool. The City closed the McCarren Park pool in the 80s and re-opened it a few years ago as a concert stage.

At it's hey day the pool could fit more than 6,000 people. We were curious to see what it would be like to hear one of our favorite bands play in a place where people used to swim.

We're no more than a couple of minutes from the Bedford train stop when we started hearing "hello brooklyn". We rush to the venue and grab a spot in the crowd of thousands all rocking to the Beasties. There's no chlorinated water, just puddles of beer, and people like us who were reliving their high school and college days.

We were in for a shock when a guy collapsed next to us right after the Beastie Boys played Heart Attack Man. Luckily, he was OK and was helped out by his friends. The Beasties played on unaware of the voodoo like effects of their music.

Little did we know that it was going to be such a special show. It was the band's first show ever in their native Brooklyn. Song such as "hello brooklyn" and "no sleep til' brooklyn" had much more impact than if  they were played anywhere else. I had listened to these songs back in Germany, and Sienna back in Indiana, and we both had never imagined that we'd be dancing with the Beasties in their stomping grounds.

The set had a very impressive grainy LCD like mobile hanging above Mike D, Ad-Rock, MCA and Mix Master Mike.  The sound system and acoustics were fantastic. Or maybe the band just got a hell of a lot better since I saw them last 15 years ago.

The show was over at ten and we could have gone for a least another hour.  We had to make do with the two of us loudly singing "no sleep til' brooklyn" on our walk to the subway. 

Set list:

hello brooklyn
root down
posse in effect
super disco breakin
sure shot
time for living
gratitude
suco de tangerina
heart attack man
sabrosa
alright hear this
pass the mic
paul revere
body movin
shake your rump
off the grid
in 3's
lighten up
14th st break
egg raid
remote control
open letter to nyc
check it out
3 mc's
so whatcha want
intergalactic
sabotage
no sleep til' brooklyn

Save the Internet Radio

I have been wanting to post this for a while.

Please help save internet radio.

I love pandora.com -- no I don't think you understand -- I love pandora.com. I have found so much interesting music through this site. It is so much better then the collaborative filtering that is done through sites as amazon.com. The music that is streamed to me is not based on people who bought the same music as me, but based on my personal preferences.

I am sure Itunes as well as Amazon have made a ton of money from me. I must have downloaded as least 10 MB of legal music, just because if pandora.


So why am I blogging about this again? Well, on March 2, 2007 the Copyright Royalty Board, which oversees sound recording royalties paid by Internet radio services, increased Internet radio's royalty burden between 300 and 1200 percent and thereby jeopardized the industry’s future. And this could end me gettig to know all this new music.

You can go to savenetradio.org and call your representative to support the H.R. 2060, the Internet Radio Equality Act.

Live music is back

Do you every have a great business idea and then you don't do anything about it? Next thing you know some company comes out with your idea and makes a killing.

I love music and I used to read the Village Voice every week to find out what band was playing. The Voice has become less relevant to me now that the Internet has taken over my life. Why wait a week for information, when you can have it now? Although I have stopped reading the Voice, I have not found a replacement worthy enough to inform me when my favorite bands are playing. This made me think about creating a tool for ITunes to alert me when one of the bands in my library is playing my area.

Yesterday, my lovely girlfriend showed me a site that does exactly that: sonicliving.com 
The site will read your ITunes directory, as well as your Pandora and Last.fm  accounts (even though I have not been able to get the latter two to work). 

Although I was not able to get my business idea rolling, I am going to see my favorite bands live again.

KRS ONE and wholetrain

One of my friends from Munich is on tour with KRS ONE.

Florian's film "wholetrain", which I talked about earlier, is being shown in conjunction with the legendary KRS ONE at SOB's MONDAY DECEMBER 11.

For tickets click here

You can also  catch the film December 12 at 6:30 at:

THE IMAGINASIAN
239 East 59th Street
NY, NY 10022
212.371.6682

George Didn't want me to go

Sienna and I were excited to go and see George Clinton at BB Kings Sunday evening. I have been a fan for years and have seen him at least 14 times.

At 8:00 PM I logged on to my computer at home to print the tickets. A  very simple task.  My  printer was out of cartridge. OK, no problem so we go to an Internet cafe on A and 9th Street. Again logging on was no issue, but the printer didn't work. At this point I started to get a little frustrated, but was intent to get the tickets printed. Kinko's  seemed like the place where we for sure should be able to print the tickets. But this time the document was not able to print. Even the assistant at the store could not get it to work. So, we finally decided to just go to my office to print it. In the cab, on the way to the office, I realized that I didn't have my key with me.

This was the end of our excursion to get the tickets printed. I guess George didn't want us to come to the show. There is only so much you can push and then you have to go with the flow. We told the cab driver to turn around and drop us of at our favorite wine bar instead.

Great Business Idea

Pandora.com allows you to enter a few songs or artists, and based on your input, Pandora plays songs that are similar to your selection. If the results are not quite right, you can refine your choices, and the service will work to get closer to what you are looking for. The site's been mentioned on several blogs, I learned about it on Seth Godin's.

It's a great way to discover new music you like.

The business aspect is even better. Ads are served based on musical relevance, and each suggested song can be bought on Itunes and Amazon.com.