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That Eric Alper

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Mark Gardener on the Ride reunion and Beady Eye and The Stone Roses

Nov 21, 2014

DiS: Has the recent announcement about Beady Eye splitting up accelerated the reunion?

Mark Gardener: I can’t really answer any questions about Beady Eye but I can say that these shows have been in the planning for quite some time. It certainly made life easier for Andy Bell because he was looking at continuing whatever Beady Eye were going to be doing. But at the same time, Beady Eye being together or not had no bearing on us doing this.

DiS: So it was always going to happen regardless?

Mark Gardener: Yes. It was always going to happen. When The Stone Roses got back together I remember thinking maybe we should do it. For a good few years after we split in 1996 I thought that was it for Ride. I pretty much disbanded my entire live rig. I sold a couple of guitars to Andy actually. At that point I was solely concentrating on studio work such as production and mixing. I also love doing soundtrack work which I’ve gone on to do. But at the same time I’ve also missed that feeling of playing live. I’ve missed the guys. We’ve got on great for years. It feels like completely the right time to do this now. We’re really buzzing about it. We want to do it but I also think a lot of people have demanded it in a way too. We are aware of that. Especially in this day and age with social media and stuff. I think you’d have to be living in a hole to not be aware of it! I really like the fact I’ll never have to answer that question again because I have known for years. I also like the fact loads of people that were too young to see us first time round will get a chance to see us properly. I didn’t really think about that before and I do now. Also, loads of people who are older but may have missed out will get that chance. We’re not coming back to play new material although I can’t imagine us getting together and new material not happening. It’s just a natural process that when we get in a room that will probably happen. We know what people want to hear and we’ll be giving it our all. We’ve all grown as people. I understand a lot more about sound because I’ve been in the studio for all this time and Andy’s been on the cutting edge of massive shows for over a decade, so we can bring that kind of knowledge to make these performances louder and even better than it was back in the day. That’s another necessity for it to happen and us to feel good about it. We’ve got to feel it’s going to go up another notch. We’re all in good shape. In a lot of ways I feel in much better shape now than I did in my twenties. For various reasons I have to say. There are escape reasons I was using then because it was pretty full-on existence wise. The Creation Records era and all the partying that went with it is quite well documented. I’ve come to realise you can’t buy that kind of relaxation zone. Getting stoned out of your mind isn’t so great really.

Via Drowned In Sound

Patti Smith on Singing For The Pope

Nov 21, 2014

“I like Pope Francis and I’m happy to sing for him. Anyone who would confine me to a line from 20 years ago is a fool!” (Much applause.) “I had a strong religious upbringing, and the first word on my first LP is Jesus. I did a lot of thinking. I’m not against Jesus, but I was 20 and I wanted to make my own mistakes and I didn’t want anyone dying for me. I stand behind that 20-year-old girl, but I have evolved. I’ll sing to my enemy! I don’t like being pinned down and I’ll do what the fuck I want, especially at my age … oh, I hope there’s no small children here!”

Via The Guardian

Billboard & Soundscan Add Streams To Album Chart

Nov 21, 2014

From FYI Music News:

Billboard and Nielsen SoundScan will start adding streams and track downloads to the formula behind the Billboard 200, starting 11/30. A new chart incorporating sales and listening data will be published on Billboard’s website on 12/04 and in the print edition available on 12/13.

The so-called consumption chart will count 1.5K song streams from services such as Spotify as an album sale equivalent and “track equivalent albums” — the industry yardstick of 10 downloads of individual tracks — as part of the formula for album rankings on the Billboard 200.

The addition of streams and track equivalent albums is intended to stabilize new chart entries as first week sales taper off and online listening increases.

The new chart is restricted to the US for now, says Paul Tuch, Nielsen Ent.’s Director of Canadian Operations. He doesn’t count out a similar methodoly coming to Canada sometime in the future.

In September, Nielsen Canada added streaming data from YouTube, Slacker and five other firms in with digital track sales and BDS airplay data in its formulations used to rank the Canadian Hot 100 and Emerging Artist charts.

Rock stars ditch Jack Daniels for quinoa

Nov 21, 2014

From Bloomberg:

The chef with the job of keeping everyone well fed this time is Sam Letteri, who has previously worked with Take That, Elton John, Depeche Mode, Jamiroquai, and Rihanna.

He studied at Westminster College in London and got into the music business working at Ibiza Rocks with Popcorn Catering in 2005-2006. He says things have changed considerably since then, both in terms of food and drink.

“Some artists don’t mind — you can drink over dinner — but five years ago it was a lot more acceptable,” he says. “It was your old roadies, your tattoos-and-Jack Daniels roadies. Now, it’s young professionals. Everyone’s been to university.

“Dishes I do now, if we’d put on the menu five years ago — quinoa! — I’d be left at the side of the road if I’d done that.

You’ll Never Love Snow As Much As This Toronto Zoo Panda Loves Snow

Nov 21, 2014

During today’s snowfall, the Toronto Zoo’s cameras caught giant panda Da Mao ‘bear-bogganing’ in his outdoor exhibit. Perhaps he’s discovered a new winter sport?

You Can Now Have Your DNA Buried On The Moon

Nov 21, 2014

From CNBC:

A British company has launched a £600,000 ($1 million) Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign to get to moon and drill into its surface, with punters able to buy memory on a digital time capsule – and even send their hair into space.

The Lunar Mission One project will use the initial funds to set up the plans for the moon landing and drilling and has signed up RAL Space – which has been involved in developing more than 200 space missions – as its technical advisers.

Enthusiasts can spend £60 to buy some space on a “digital time capsule” – a memory stick-like device– to upload photos or videos. This will then be buried in the hole drilled by the capsule launched to the moon’s South Pole. For a higher – yet to be determined – cost, punters would be able to pay to have strands of their hair taken on the trip.

DJ Shadow Soundtracks A Chevy Ad

Nov 20, 2014

When you obsess over perfection, elevate form and reinvent a category, you attract a lot of attention. That’s why Chevrolet is the most awarded car company of the year. And that’s how you can get DJ Shadow’s “Building Steam With A Grain Of Salt,” the opening song from the 1996 classic Endtroducing… DJ Shadow, to soundtrack your ad, creating an intriguing, cross-generational collaboration that sounds more fluid than most.

http://youtu.be/PspRX3Y-kn8

Grandmas Smoking Weed for the First Time

Nov 20, 2014

Cut Video found three grandmas who had never smoked pot and gave them an opportunity to try it for the first time. Then they gave them snacks and had them play cards against humanity.

1% of recording artists earn 77% of recorded music revenue

Nov 20, 2014

From The Atlantic:

Because the most-popular songs now stay on the charts for months, the relative value of a hit has exploded. The top 1 percent of bands and solo artists now earn 77 percent of all revenue from recorded music, media researchers report. And even though the amount of digital music sold has surged, the 10 best-selling tracks command 82 percent more of the market than they did a decade ago. The advent of do-it-yourself artists in the digital age may have grown music’s long tail, but its fat head keeps getting fatter.

Radio stations, meanwhile, are pushing the boundaries of repetitiveness to new levels. According to a subsidiary of iHeartMedia, Top 40 stations last year played the 10 biggest songs almost twice as much as they did a decade ago. Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines,” the most played song of 2013, aired 70 percent more than the most played song from 2003, “When I’m Gone,” by 3 Doors Down. Even the fifth-most-played song of 2013, “Ho Hey,” by the Lumineers, was on the radio 30 percent more than any song from 10 years prior.

How music education influenced Google CEO Larry Page

Nov 20, 2014

From Fortune:

As Google CEO Larry Page looks backward, he’s realizing how much his musical education inspired critical elements of Google—especially his impatience and obsession with speed.

“In some sense I feel like music training lead to the high-speed legacy of Google for me,” Page said during a recent interview with Fortune. “In music you’re very cognizant of time. Time is like the primary thing.”

Page, who grew up in Michigan, played saxophone and studied music composition while growing up. During college at the University of Michigan, he developed a business plan for a company that would use software to build a music synthesizer. That project, which required the software to work in real time, opened his eyes to a what he saw as a flaw in the software that powers most computers.
“It’s amazing to the extent I think that modern operating systems are terrible at being real-time,” Page said. “If you think about it from a music point of view, if you’re a percussionist, you hit something, it’s got to happen in milliseconds, fractions of a second.”

“I do think there is an important artistic component in what we do,” he said. “As a technology company I’ve tried to really stress that.” Page says he learned to appreciate that “artistic component,” in part through music.