Music bits

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A couple of tracks have been on rotation on my ipod and in my head for quite some time now. I think there is definitely a certain creative thread through all of these...

I saw Gorillaz at Madison Square Garden last year and it was easily one of my top five gigs of all time. Started out slow, but by the end it was like being inside a circus. Unbelievable.

Love the 80s-ness but not quite-ness.

Just plain fookin creative. The man is a genius.

Air France is the business as it is. The first time I heard this I was in an apartment 49 floors up, in the middle of a snow storm. One of those how-did-this-turn-into-a-party-oh-wait-now-I-remember nights...

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And finally, this reminds me of closing time at the coolest hole-in-the-wall restaurant in NYC. Good times...

Update Your Music

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Pravda23 is my one of my dearest friends, whom I have know since we were both five years old. That makes 24 years. He has also been creating music since that long ago.

He is a self taught guitarist, pianist, drummer and violinist who has over the past years also recorded, mixed and mastered his own music at home, often making videos of the results to create new concepts in music production, performance and consumption. Right now he's in South Korea getting his groove on, where he performed a live DJ set in a public toilet. No bushit.

John Bartmann, as he is otherwise known, is an advocate of open-source music making, and produced The Kuleshov Effect, an album that explores the idea of re-releasing music again and again in updated, remixed or reworked versions.

If you're into innovative and generally crazy music making, or even are interested in being a part of a collaborative effort, go to Pravda23.

The Dude

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"I don't know anything about music. My job has very little to do with music. It has more to do with taste and culture and balance."

Rick Rubin is a music producer behind some of the best rock, metal and rap of the last two decades or so and his contribution to the likes of the Red Hot Chili Peppers is immense and different.

I like the idea that what makes his albums successful is the creation of what is in effect a high bandwidth link between the marketplace and culture, and the artist and their creative music making process. His understanding of the General Vibe allows him to produce music that is not just a novel creative package or original just in a musical sense, but relevant too. Creative and relevant music is a combination that is hard to beat. His ability to blend moments of straight-up good music with references steeped in the present makes for ever more remarkable musical moments of consciousness.

He's so good in fact that he got his photo taken by everybody's favourite lesbian, Annie Leibovitz. This is him at home, accessing his shit for your and my listening pleasure.

Being prolific

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The Michael Jackson thing didn't really hit home with me until last night. A radio station was playing non stop hits of his the whole night and every track struck me as more classic and influential than the last. I suddenly realised how intense it must be to have left a trail like that behind you in the world. He's chilling there, buried, and all over the world people are listening to similar Michael Jackson tribute days and suddenly getting their groove on.

He was, as they say, prolific. Sure he had help at various times along the way, but it was his own emotional energy that was behind every last ounce of his supernova-like legacy. A generosity of spirit that was offered to the world for most of the late 20th century.

Don't "give it 100%", try to be prolific.
It's different.