Another great graphic from the fine folks at Completely Ignored.
The Vogue Interview: 73 Questions With Derek Zoolander
It comes as no surprise that Derek Zoolander’s apartment is much larger than a center for ants. The international male supermodel gives us a tour of his luxe pad, all while revealing his favorite fashion trend of all time, the truth about his relationship with Hansel, the superpower he wishes he had, and the secret to becoming a model.
David Bowie’s Isolated Vocal, Guitar And Bass for “Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide”
From David Bowie’s 1972 album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mar, here’s the isolated Vocal, Acoustic Guitar and Bass for Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide. It’s the closing track on the album, detailing Ziggy’s final collapse as an old, washed-up rock star and, as such, was also the closing number of the Ziggy Stardust live show. In April 1974, RCA issued it as a single.
Every person in the music industry need to watch Jessica Hopper’s speech from BIGSOUND
“Why doesn’t music culture take fangirls seriously? Why do women feel like they don’t belong here?” Senior editor of Pitchfork, Jessica Hopper, asked during her keynote speech at the BIGSOUND music conference back in September. Every single person in the music industry should be watching this, in light of a US music publicist accused of sexual misconduct. We’re still not treating these topics seriously.
Thanks, Jessica.
An intriguing document that apparently represents Quentin Tarantino’s “wish list” for Pulp Fiction
Quentin Tarantino cast John Travolta in Pulp Fiction because Michael Madsen, who had played Vic Vega in Reservoir Dogs, chose to appear in Kevin Costner’s Wyatt Earp instead. Tarantino had written the part with Samuel L. Jackson in mind, but the actor nearly lost it after his first audition was overshadowed by Paul Calderón. Jackson assumed the audition was merely a reading. Harvey Weinstein convinced Jackson to audition a second time, and his performance of the final diner scene won over Tarantino. Miramax favored Holly Hunter or Meg Ryan for the role. Alfre Woodard and Meg Tilly were also considered, but Tarantino wanted Uma Thurman after their first meeting. Bruce Willis’ appearance and physical presence were crucial to Tarantino’s interest in casting him: “Bruce has the look of a 50s actor. I can’t think of any other star that has that look.”
(Via Reddit)
Entertainment One Acquires Dualtone Music Group
Entertainment One (eOne) is pleased to announce its acquisition of leading Americana, singer-songwriter and Indie Rock brand Dualtone Music Group.
The transaction unites two independent music leaders. Dualtone brings a roster of some of the most popular artists to eOne, including Denver-based The Lumineers whose 2012 debut album became a worldwide multi-formatic hit, selling more than 2.5 million albums and 10 million singles worldwide. In its fifteen year history, the label has released 16 GRAMMY Award-nominated albums, garnering 4 wins. Along with The Lumineers, the current roster includes Langhorne Slim & The Law, Noah Gundersen, Wild Child, Robert Earl Keen, recent Americana Music Association Emerging Artist winners Shakey Graves (2015) and Shovels & Rope (2014), along with the legendary GRAMMY Award-winning songsmith Guy Clark. Nashville-based Dualtone was founded in 2001 by Scott Robinson who continues to lead the business along with Paul Roper.
“We are delighted to welcome Scott, Paul, their team and the talented Dualtone family of artists to eOne,” said Darren Throop, President & Chief Executive Officer, Entertainment One. “We have long recognized the potential in Americana and Indie Rock and we were keen to find the right opportunity to add the popular music format to our portfolio. Dualtone’s expertise and track-record of success make them stand out, both strategically and culturally, and we are confident that this new relationship will be very complementary.”
Dualtone will continue to operate with the identity and brand that has seen it emerge as a home for artists of creatively and culturally important music. The company’s recorded music catalog contains more than 292 albums totaling more than 3500 tracks, including albums by the iconic June Carter Cash and three critically acclaimed releases by songwriter Brett Dennen.
“I am very excited to join Darren, Michael Olsen, Michael Healy and the whole eOne team,” said Robinson. “As we continue to grow, eOne will be a strong strategic partner; they share our passion for music, they have the financial resources, infrastructure and vision to see our business into the future and they can offer our artists new and expansive opportunities.”
As the leading independent music brand in North America, the deal will see eOne further extend its strength in the music market where it has long been successful in genres including Urban, Metal, Rock, Gospel and Urban Inspirational. eOne, which also owns Nashville-headquartered music brand Light Records, produces music as an independent label and has an established catalogue business in both the US and Canada. Additionally, as a global independent studio, eOne has successfully secured television series opportunities for its recording artists including SWV, Erica Campbell, The Sheards and The Game.
New Music Apps from Apple Transform iOS Devices into Handheld Studios for Songwriters & Beatmakers
Apple today announced a new addition and a major update to its family of music-making apps for iOS that make it easy for people to tap into their musical potential and create incredible music no matter where they are. An all-new app called Music Memos lets musicians and songwriters quickly capture, organize and develop their musical ideas right on their iPhone. And a major update to GarageBand for iOS introduces multiple new features, including Live Loops, a fun way for anyone to make music like a DJ using only their iPhone or iPad.
“Musicians around the world, from the biggest artists to aspiring students, use Apple devices to create amazing music; the innovative new Music Memos app will help them quickly capture their ideas on iPhone and iPad whenever inspiration strikes,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “GarageBand is the most popular music creation app in the world, and this update helps everyone easily tap into their musical talent with the powerful new Live Loops and Drummer features, and adds support for the larger iPad Pro screen and 3D Touch on iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus.”
“Sometimes ideas come faster than I can get them into my notebook so I’ve used Voice Memos and Notes to quickly capture songs before they’re lost. Music Memos is like if those two apps came together to form some kind of superpower for songs,” said Ryan Adams, critically acclaimed singer-songwriter and producer. “It quite literally blew my mind how Music Memos could transform a single guitar idea into a whole composition with a virtual drummer loose enough that it felt like you were having your mind read by some A.I. musician and a choice of stand-up or electric bass accompaniments.”
“I recorded my first album using GarageBand and I continue to use it in my music today,” said T-Pain, Grammy Award-winning artist and producer. “I love how the new Live Loops in GarageBand lets me quickly build tracks and beats, and even perform effects like a musical instrument. It’ll change the way an entire generation makes music.”
Musicians and songwriters around the world have used the Voice Memos app on their iPhone to quickly record ideas, and many hit songs first started as Voice Memos. The new Music Memos app is inspired by Voice Memos and takes the functionality even further by adding musician-friendly features designed specifically for songwriting and developing musical ideas. With Music Memos, you can record any musical instrument through the iPhone’s built-in microphone in a high-quality, uncompressed format, then name, tag and rate it to start building a library of your ideas. The app can analyze rhythm and chords of acoustic guitar and piano recordings, and instantly add drums and a bass line to provide a virtual, customizable backing band that plays along to match the feel of your song. Music Memos can even provide basic notation that displays the chords that were played. With iCloud your Music Memos are automatically available across all your Apple devices so you can open them in GarageBand or Logic Pro X to further develop your songs. Musicians can easily share their ideas via email or with their fans through Apple Music Connect. For more information about the new Music Memos app, visit, www.apple.com/ca/music-memos.
GarageBand for iOS is the world’s most popular mobile music creation app, and the new GarageBand 2.1 update introduces Live Loops, an entirely new and intuitive way to create amazing music. Inspired by DJ hardware controllers and drum machines, Live Loops makes it easy for anyone to create music by simply tapping cells and columns in a highly visual grid to trigger different looped instruments and samples. The loops can be performed, arranged and remixed Iive, and GarageBand automatically keeps all the beats in sync with perfect time and pitch. To get you started, Live Loops comes with a library of Apple-designed loop templates in a variety of genres including EDM, Hip Hop, Dubstep and Rock, or you can create your own loops from scratch.
GarageBand 2.1 for iOS also includes the new Drummer feature with nine EDM and acoustic virtual session drummers that provide their own signature sound, as well as an expanded selection of amps for bass players. Advanced GarageBand users can now create even more dynamic and polished sounding songs using new automation features, controls recording and a new simple EQ. GarageBand 2.1 looks stunning on the expansive 12.9-inch Retina display on the new iPad Pro and gives you access to even more controls and room to play. And on iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, the app now supports 3D Touch, allowing you to play with more expression. For more information about the new GarageBand for iOS, visit, www.apple.com/ca/ios/garageband.
Music Memos is available for free on the App Store and is compatible with iPhone 4s and later, and iPad 2 and later. GarageBand 2.1 for iOS is bundled free with new iOS devices 32GB and larger, is available as a free upgrade for existing users with compatible iOS 9 devices or later, and is available to everyone else for $6.99 via the App Store.
Explanation of how records are made featuring Duke Ellington
How the film came into being was described in the July 1937 edition of Melody News:
Last month, a crew of cameramen, electricians and technicians from the Paramount film company set up their paraphernalia in the recording studios of Master Records, Inc. for the purpose of gathering ‘location’ scenes for a movie short, now in production, showing how phonograph records are produced and manufactured. Duke Ellington and his orchestra was employed for the studio scenes, with Ivie Anderson doing the vocals.
Narrated by Alois Havrilla, a pioneer radio announcer, the film shows you how records were actually recorded, plated and pressed. It’s a great relic from the vinyl era, which you will want to couple with this 1956 vinyl tutorial from RCA Victor.
Via Open Culture
New Comedy Drama “Foreign Bodies” Hitches A Ride To E4
E4 is strapping on its backpack and going travelling, having commissioned an exciting and funny original comedy-drama series Foreign Bodies (8 x 45’) from Eleven.
Foreign Bodies is the story of a motley gang of travellers embarking on a three month trip around Asia. British lads Sean and Dylan meet American girls May and Ashley in Beijing and opt to undergo the first leg of their travels together, but soon find that their journey takes them much further than any of them expected.
Despite wielding Lonely Planet guides, digital cameras and water purification tablets, our gang is not treating this as a holiday, and all have a personal quest that’s brought them halfway round the world. May wants to meet her extended family in China and reconnect with her roots, Ashley is hell-bent on cramming in a lifetime of exotic experiences before she starts her high-flying career back home, Dylan wants to track down and win back his ex-girlfriend, Sean wants to shed his innocence and forcibly grow up, and Greg, a 38 year old divorcee who doesn’t want to travel alone, hopes to roll back the years and relive the wild hedonism of his youth..
Will the gang manage to find the nirvana they seek as they camp on the Great Wall, wade through jungles in Malaysia, rub shoulders with ex-pats in Singapore and the crowds that throng the banks of the Ganges? Or will they lose their money, their passports and control of their bowels in a filthy backpacking hostel that doesn’t exist on Google maps? None of them get what they hoped for, but all gain something better, as they learn that no matter how far you go and how hard you try, you can’t take a holiday from yourself.
Piers Wenger, Head of Drama for Channel 4, commented: “Tom’s script captures perfectly the pleasures and the pain of the gap year backpacker as he follows the experiences of five young travellers on an epic and hilarious quest to find paradise while also trying to find themselves.”
Executive Producers Joel Wilson and Jamie Campbell of Eleven added; “We’re thrilled to be embarking – quite literally – on this adventure with Tom. He’s a brilliant, funny and deeply perceptive writer and in Jonathan we have a hugely dynamic and inventive director. E4 is a fantastically audacious, exciting broadcaster and – alongside eOne – the perfect partner for this extraordinary show.”
Foreign Bodies is written by Tom Basden, whose previous credits include Fresh Meat, The Wrong Mans and Plebs. Jonathan van Tulleken (Misfits, Top Boy) is on board to direct several episodes. The writing team includes James Wood (Rev), Tony Roche (Veep, In The Loop, Holy Flying Circus), Rob Delaney (Catastrophe), Charlie Covell (Banana, Burn Burn Burn, awarded BAFTA breakthrough Brit), and Edinburgh Comedy award-winning writers Tim Key (Alan Partridge) and Johnny Sweet (Together).
This is the second E4 commission for Eleven, who previously produced Glue, which aired on E4 in 2014 and The Enfield Haunting for Sky last year. Foreign Bodies is executive produced by Eleven’s Jamie Campbell (Glue, The Enfield Haunting) and Joel Wilson (Glue, The Enfield Haunting), the series was commissioned for E4 by Piers Wenger, Head of Drama for Channel 4, and commissioning editor Roberto Troni, and will begin filming in 2016. Entertainment One (eOne), the global independent studio, serves as a co-production partner on Foreign Bodies and will handle worldwide distribution.
Future superstars to make waves in 2016
Yesterday on Canada AM, I picked 5 artists to watch in 2016 – Scott Helman, Halsey, Sam Hunt, Christina Carpenter, and Elle King. Due to a cuter-than-cute video of a sleeping panda bear I just had to comment on, I didn’t have time to talk about Scott, who lists his main influences as Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Damian Rice, The Cure and Pink Floyd, which is exactly what you want your next rock and roll idol to listen to. He’s got a great record collection, and attitude to match. Live, he’ll play his massive hit Bungalow and then Ring Of Fire by Johnny Cash as if he wrote it. The parents love him, the teens want to hang out with him. He’s James Dean with a guitar. And Scott, my apologies for not getting to you.
OK, now onto the video.
