Been working on the next fourstones album with the very talented Lisa DeBenedictis. We’re focusing on a remix of her song “Brilliant Day” (stream here).

I’ve done many remixes of this song at this point and I’ve posted one that will not make the album but I still like it a lot. (Yes that’s me plunking away at guitar doing my best John Lennon imitation.)

Sometimes it’s enough to get tracks from singers online but in this case we re-recorded a new vocal performance with my handy-dandy laptop studio and groovy M-Audio OmniStudio USB. This performance was captured just for the new album and I’ll be eternally grateful for Lisa for doing this for me.

On a totally, completely randomly different subject, here are a few things to try to shut off or control when recording with an open mic in your house:

• The fridge.
• A room fan.
• A computer.
• The aquarium.
• The phone’s ringer.
• The answer machine.
• A cranky one year old.
• A (understandably) cranky dad of a cranky one year old.
• The TV.
• The neighbor’s TV.
• The neighbor.
• Leaf blowing gardener.
• The neighbor who shouts over the leaf blowing gardener.

Enjoy the track.

Brad points to a AskMetafilter thread that asks the question “What is a ‘key’”?

I’ve been asked this question many times and I’m convinced musicologists (including some that answered in the AM thread) make the answer harder than it needs to be.

Here is the stock answer I give that most people tend to respond to:

Read the rest of this page »

There seems to be something in the air because this holiday season brought out a ton of discussion about file sharing, anti-labels and sampling.

I’ve had a quite a few discussions on file sharing with friends and family in the last few days. I think this is as concise as I can get it:

1. I bought a CD and you come over my to house. I play it for you even though you didn’t pay for it.
2. I lend you the CD. You listen to it when I’m not in the room.
3. I lend you the CD and you have 50 people over for a party but (totally understandably) I’m not invited. You play the music for the 50 people.
4. I post the music online and 50 people stream it.

One of these points above will get me prosecuted and fined. I’m sorry but it all strikes me as bogus, absurd and arbitrary.

Meanwhile, Jeffrey Veen is having “The Discussion” about the uselessness of big record labels.

It turns my stomach to read comments that repeat the line about how much promotion major labels will do for emerging talent. The Big Lie perpetuated yet again.

Thank heavens there are some in the younger generation of musicians who are finally getting over the pie-in-sky billion $$$ payoff rock-hip-hop-star fantasy that the record companies dangle in front of them on the way to teaching theses kids how to cannibalize their own artistic future. Three words: Magna Tune .com.

And finally: Here comes the sampler’s dream search engine from Creative Commons where all (OK, most) music is free to sample. Legally. The ultimate Fuck You very much to the RIAA goons.

Wow. Magnatune’s signings just keep getting better and better. Check out the power that is Norine Braun (her personal website here.)