Jimmy Fallon and Will Smith make a beatbox loop using an iPad app to sing “It Takes Two” by Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock.
http://youtu.be/oazFK9awniE
…and here’s the original version:
Rare Footage Of Robin Williams Improvising To Help Promote Friend For A Job
Here’s some rare footage from the 1980s showing the late Robin Williams improvising for a video to promote the career of Mork & Mindy director Howard Storm. As Williams says, “If he can work with me… he can work with anyone!”
This video was uploaded by Daniel Pastel, who worked at the production company that edited the video for Storm.
In the early 1980’s I was working at a production company. We were editing a segment for director Howard Storm. I was amazed then and after seeing it again amazed at Robin’s natural ability to make people laugh. I never had the privilege of meeting him but like us all, will miss him terribly. The world has lost a little happiness.
http://youtu.be/h1EIBtYf-A8
Imagine Dragons Announce The Smoke + Mirrors North American Tour
GRAMMY® Award-winning rock band, Imagine Dragons, are set to bring their electrifying live shows back on the road in 2015 with the SMOKE + MIRRORS TOUR in support of their new album, Smoke + Mirrors, due out on Feb. 17 on KIDinaKORNER/Interscope Records. The multi-platinum selling band along with alternative rock band, Metric, announced the tour today at a special surprise performance event at the Mayan Theatre in Los Angeles, Cali. in front of hundreds of fans and for viewers worldwide via Yahoo! live stream. Metric will be special guests on the SMOKE + MIRRORS TOUR. Also joining the tour line-up will be Astralwerks’ recording artist, Halsey. Kicking off on June 3 in Portland, Ore., the Live Nation promoted tour will visit cities throughout the U.S. and Canada with dates lined up in New York, Toronto, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington DC, Vancouver and many more before wrapping up on Aug. 1 in Boise, Idaho. A full list of tour dates is below.
Tickets for the general public go on sale Tuesday, Feb. 17 at www.livenation.com.
On Smoke + Mirrors, Imagine Dragons use the frenetic energy of life on the road to infuse their music with both raw tension and intense vulnerability. As on their double-platinum full-length debut Night Visions, the band works with sharply crafted beats and grooves to dream up rhythm-driven rock music that’s artful yet visceral. Also revealing the band’s dedication to keeping it homespun, Smoke + Mirrors marks the first release recorded in their new self-built home studio. The album’s lead single, “I Bet My Life,” is currently Top 5 at Modern Rock radio and has over 11 millions views on Vevo. To support the release of the album, Imagine Dragons will be performing the new single on television appearances lined up throughout February including Good Morning America, The Ellen DeGeneres Show and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
Formed in 2009 and featuring lead vocalist Dan Reynolds, guitarist Wayne Sermon, bassist Ben McKee, and drummer Daniel Platzman, Imagine Dragons earned a grassroots following by independently releasing a series of EPs. After Alex Da Kid signed them to his KIDinaKORNER/Interscope label, the band made its major-label debut with the release of Continued Silence, a 2012 EP featuring the 2x platinum breakthrough single “It’s Time.” Night Visions arrived later that year and Imagine Dragons found themselves on a skyward trajectory that saw the album debut at No. 2 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart, sell nearly four million copies worldwide, and becme the No. 1 album on Spotify Worldwide for 2013. Night Visions’ second single, the 9x-platinum “Radioactive,” hit No. 1 on the Billboard Rock chart and earned the band a 2014 Grammy for “Best Rock Performance.” It is the best-selling rock song in U.S. digital history. The third single, “Demons,” hit No. 1 at Alternative and Top 40 radio, and has sold 3.9 million copies in the U.S. The band has sold more than 24 million tracks worldwide.
A standard version of Smoke + Mirrors is now available for pre-order on iTunes. Those who pre-order the standard edition receive instant downloads of the album’s first single “I Bet My Life” and the songs “Shots” and “Gold.” In addition, an exclusive deluxe edition available only at Target, featuring four extra tracks and exclusive cover art, will go on sale in stores and on Target.com on Feb. 17. That version can be pre-ordered on Target.com now. Fans can also pre-order a limited edition “art box deluxe” version of the album HERE. This format includes lithograph prints designed by artist Tim Cantor for every song on the album as well as an oversized album booklet in a collectible box. Those who buy the limited edition gain early access to purchase tickets for the band’s 2015 tour. A standard version will be available at other retailers for digital download, streaming via subscription services and on CD/vinyl.
SMOKE + MIRRORS TOUR
All dates and venues below subject to change.
| Wed Jun 03 | Portland, OR | Moda Center |
| Fri Jun 05 | Calgary, AB | Scotiabank Saddledome |
| Sat Jun 06 | Edmonton, AB | Rexall Place |
| Mon Jun 08 | Winnipeg, MB | MTS Centre |
| Tue Jun 09 | Minneapolis, MN | Xcel Energy Center |
| Wed Jun 10 | Omaha, NE | CenturyLink Center Omaha |
| Fri Jun 12 | St. Louis, MO | Scottrade Center |
| Sat Jun 13 | Milwaukee, WI | BMO Harris Bradley Center |
| Mon Jun 15 | Chicago, IL | Allstate Arena |
| Tue Jun 16 | Louisville, KY | KFC Yum! Center |
| Thu Jun 18 | Columbus, OH | Nationwide Arena |
| Fri Jun 19 | Pittsburgh, PA | Consol Energy Center |
| Mon Jun 22 | Cleveland, OH | Quicken Loans Arena |
| Tue Jun 23 | Detroit, MI | The Palace of Auburn Hills |
| Wed Jun 24 | Buffalo, NY | First Niagara Center |
| Sat Jun 27 | Philadelphia, PA | Wells Fargo Center (Metric not performing on this date) |
| Mon Jun 29 | Newark, NJ | Prudential Center |
| Tue Jun 30 | New York, NY | Barclays Center |
| Wed Jul 01 | Boston, MA | TD Garden |
| Fri Jul 03 | Montreal, QC | Bell Centre |
| Sat Jul 04 | Toronto, ON | Air Canada Centre |
| Mon Jul 06 | Washington DC | Verizon Center |
| Tue Jul 07 | Charlotte, NC | Time Warner Cable Arena |
| Wed Jul 08 | Nashville, TN | Bridgestone Arena |
| Fri Jul 10 | Tampa, FL | Amalie Arena |
| Sat Jul 11 | Fort Lauderdale, FL | BB&T Center |
| Mon Jul 13 | Memphis, TN | FedExForum |
| Tue Jul 14 | Atlanta, GA | Philips Arena |
| Thu Jul 16 | Houston, TX | Toyota Center |
| Fri Jul 17 | Dallas, TX | American Airlines Arena |
| Mon Jul 20 | Anaheim , CA | Honda Center |
| Tue Jul 21 | San Diego, CA | Viejas Arena at Aztec Bowl San Diego State University |
| Fri Jul 24 | Los Angeles, CA | The Forum |
| Sat Jul 25 | Phoenix, AZ | US Airways Center |
| Mon Jul 27 | Denver, CO | Pepsi Center |
| Tue Jul 28 | Salt Lake City, UT | EnergySolutions Arena |
| Thu Jul 30 | Vancouver, BC | Pepsi Live at Rogers Arena |
| Fri Jul 31 | Tacoma, WA | Tacoma Dome |
| Sat Aug 01 | Boise, ID | Taco Bell Arena |
3 Hours of Walking around Stereosonic Festival as Steve Aoki
Steve Aoki is an American house musician, DJ, record producer, founder of Dim Mak Records and all-around nice guy – I’ve done PR with him before, and I think he’d find this video to be just as funny as I do. Music fan and photographer Jarrad Seng walked around the Stereosonic festival in Perth, Australia dressed up as Steve Aoki (he admits he gets mistaken for him from time to time), and the results are hilarious – so many selfies to be taken with fans, so little time. The best part is when Jarred continues to walk around taking photos with oblivious (or just …um…not bright) fans while the actual Steve Aoki is onstage DJing.
You wish you love the snow as much as these puppies
You wish you loved the snow as much as this mother Golden Retriever named Boon and her nine puppies. The family venture out into a snowy wonderland and find the urge to play more than they can handle. The seven-week-old puppies are newcomers to snow, but they’ll quickly learn, it causes a lot of their owners to be traffic and makes them mean.
But not puppies. Oh no, they love the snow!
Infographic: What to Post & When to Post it on 9 Important Social Networks
Posting to one or two social platforms for your business can be tricky. When you’re attempting to have a presence on nine or more, however, it becomes exceedingly difficult and time-consuming. How can you possibly keep track of what you should be posting and when you should be posting it on each of your social media profiles?
Unfortunately, this is a situation where one size does not fit all; you can’t simply create one post, copy and paste it to all of your profiles, and hope for the best. YouTube and Vine need video, Twitter has a limit of 140 characters, and Pinterest is heavily image-based. To increase engagement, likes, and shares, each post you create needs to be tailored to the specific social platform you are posting on.
But wipe off that sweat that’s started to drip down your forehead – handling your social media profiles just became a great deal easier.
Business 2 Community created an infographic full of tips on what to post and when to post on nine important social networks, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube, Vine, and Tumblr.
Deborah Harry’s Isolated Vocals From Blondie’s Heart Of Glass
From Blondie’s third studio release Parallel Lines, “Heart Of Glass” became a signature hit for the group, highlighted by Deborah Harry’s effervescent vocals. The track went to #1 in most world territories including the U.S. and U.K. The album was recorded at The Record Plant in New York City and produced by Mike Chapman, who also worked with Sweet, The Knack and others.
Chill-Out Music Really Makes People Chill Out
A study on the emotions evoked by music found that we behave better towards one another after listening to tunes that chill us out.
Participants were 22 undergraduate and postgraduate students who were divided into two groups, the in-group and the out-group, and they acted as dictators. The dictators listened to their own preferred “chill-inducing” music, to music they disliked, or to silence, and then played the DG. In this hypothetical experiment, the dictators were given real money (which they did not keep) and were asked to distribute it to the recipients, who were presented as stylized images of men and women displayed on a computer screen. The dictators played the DG both before and after listening to the music. Both male and female dictators gave more money after listening to their preferred music and less after listening to the music they disliked, whereas silence had no effect on the allocated amounts. The group to which the recipient belonged did not influence these trends. The results suggest that listening to preferred “chill-inducing” music promotes altruistic behavior
Converse Announces Rubber Tracks Sample Library, Giving Free Audio Samples For Musicians
CONVERSE Inc. announces the launch of the Converse Rubber Tracks Sample Library, a growing collection of high-quality audio samples available to musicians around the world, free of charge. Created in partnership with Indaba Music, a music technology platform and online musician community, the online sample library platform will offer a ground-breaking resource for millions of musicians who utilize samples to create new music. The library currently offers over 10,000 high quality loops, stems and sounds created by emerging and established artists at the Converse Rubber Tracks studio in Brooklyn and Converse Rubber Tracks pop-up studios around the world.
“We’re thrilled to announce the launch of Converse Rubber Tracks Sample Library, as it marks the continued expansion of our global Converse Rubber Tracks program,” said Jed Lewis, Converse Global Music Marketing Director. “This free online library will serve as a leading resource for bands, artists, and producers from all over the world to explore their musical aspirations.”
Created as an extension of the global Converse Rubber Tracks program, the sample library already has contributions from over 125 talented artists and musicians of various genres from all over the world. Utilizing the state-of-the-art equipment and advanced technology found at every Converse Rubber Tracks studio, artists such as Vernon Reid, James Poyser, Adam Blackstone, Gary Bartz, Daru Jones, Matrixxman, Greg Osby and more have all created exclusive audio samples and sounds available online for any artist to use. To coincide with the launch, Converse and Indaba worked with over 20 artists including RJD2, Com Truise, Body Language, Obey City, Nitemoves, and Shigeto to create new songs utilizing samples from the Converse Rubber Tracks Sample Library.
“With so many musicians having professional recording capabilities in their homes and on their laptops, sampling recorded content has become an integral part of the music creation process,” said Indaba co-Founder Dan Zaccagnino. “Indaba has been a leader in providing creative opportunities and unprecedented access to source material to musicians for a decade. Working with Converse to develop such a ground-breaking resource for musicians is truly in the spirit of both companies.”
To access and find out more information about the Converse Rubber Tracks Sample Library and to hear songs created using the samples, go here.
