photo by Pillar Woodman

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Here’s a mix by Limaçon from the Thoughtless Transmissions series. Lima’s debut full length, Tarry Not was released on the Toronto label earlier this year. I got to see him DJ at the Drake in celebration of the release and it was one of the best sets i’ve heard in 2010.

“I understand that this kind of music will make me successful”

“I believe that this kind of music will make me successful”

We can understand what we need to be doing to be considered a success. Understanding is fairly easy to do. But believing in what we’re doing is a whole lot harder.

Do you understand what you’re doing or do you believe in it?

Last month, Myspace CEO Owen Van Natta stepped down as CEO of the company just after nine months of being in the position. Many are speculating this could be the beginning of the end for the service, although it is still one of the most heavily visited sites on the Internet.

In the web 2.0 world, Myspace pretty much started it all as the first major social network. But in the year 2010, the system is still horribly clunky and unstable. The site is simply more of chore to keep around than anything else.

Facebook to rule them all?

At some point, there was hope that Facebook’s Pages system would be the nail in the coffin, but it seems like an ineffective way to find new fans. Facebook has one mighty power to rule them all though – that is the ability for event promoters to spam the heck out of people with invitations free of any limits.

What about that time, at bandcamp?

I have been using Bandcamp and Soundcloud for the past year or so, and while they are great services, they don’t pose much of a threat to the Myspace empire. Soundcloud has some social features like a newsfeed and commenting inside its beautiful Flash player, but its business model is based on charging users for extra storage, making it more of a hosting service more than anything else. On the plus side it is free of those annoying ads found on Myspace.

Bandcamp does not charge at the moment, but also functions similar to hosting/e-commerce platform. It recently unveiled a tagging system to help people discover similar artists to yours, but overall music discovery is not the goal of the site.

Moving forward…

So what’s next? the thing that Myspace did so well from a users point of view is it gave us instant access to the songs an artist was featuring at any point in time. The only problem is it was painful to update those songs, and the updates feed is buried in the backend.

I think that if a site comes along which combines the sleek uploading process of Bandcamp, with the existing networks of fans found in Twitter or Facebook, it could be a good candidate to replace Myspace. I’m thinking about something like Flavors.me for music.

Maybe Myspace will never need to be replaced, since it serves a function in the music world and people are used to its downsides.

What do you think is going to happen? Will Myspace manage to keep its place in the sun?

Here’s a video from the Dam-Funk show in Toronto on Thursday, March 4th, 2010. Hope you enjoy!

photo by jamie_hladky

Handmade Music Night is happening this friday here in Toronto.

“InterAccess is hosting a party where DIY/handmade/experimental music performers, makers can get together and show off their stuff. Haven’t made anything yet? Doesn’t matter, just come out and see what people are up to. We already have some confirmed performers but we want MORE!”

February 19th, 2010 10PM

InterAccess Electronic Media Arts Centre
9 Ossington Avenue
Toronto, Ontario M6J 2Y8
Canada

Link

1. Stuck in the airport tweet

2. In between cities tweet

3. Airline justice tweet (aka “i’m a weenie” tweet)

4. Thank you Cleveland! tweet

5. Your source for updated airline policies tweet

6. I have a new release out tweet (multplied by 30 over a week)

7. Danger alert to other celebrity DJ tweet

8. Danger alert from celebrity DJ – duly noted tweet

Cold Blue by preacherman

Here’s the latest mix by Preacherman. Originally from New York City before arriving in Toronto, this guy is one of the hardest working DJs in the house movement here. His sets walk the lines between deep, disco, jackin’ and sometimes on the progressive tip too depending on the party. Enjoy this mix!

Tracklist

I was just watching this cool video by Subcycle Labs and was trying to figure out what this kind of thing is good for. One thing is obvious these days, software that responds to touch is the wave of the future. We already knew this when the iPod Touch took hold, and more recently the iPad announcements.

In the video above, there is a lot of eye candy, but I can’t imagine it is useful for anything beyond posting to the web in video format. In the studio i’m sure the overload of colour and animation would get tiring to look at fast, and in a live performance environment the gimmick of watching the performer work with this would also likely wear off quickly. They would be very busy interacting with a machine, and not the audience.

I’m not trying to slag the person who made this – it looks sheerly brilliant. I just can’t find a place for it. Not there has to be one in the first place. He didn’t make it for me. Well enjoy this video!

 

This week Osama Bin Laden released a new spoken word album from his underground studio. Most intelligence officials are having a hard time locating the guy, on a hunt that has been going on for almost ten years. A little known secret: if you talk to him about audio, he'll welcome you into his home like a doting Danish grandma. On the heels of this latest release, we caught up with the acclaimed artist.

Mr. Tunes: So Osama, you have been releasing for a long time now. What kind of gear are you using?

Osama Bin Laden: Well I started out on a 2" reel to reel tape recorder back in the 90s. It was left behind by the Soviets from their occupation. After 9-11, my friend told me about this program called Pro Tools. I tried it once and haven't looked back since.

MRT: Interesting! Now i'm curious, if you are recording digitally, why do your releases sound so grimy and beat up?

OBL: Well i'm always trying to appeal to the common man, and I worry that if the sound quality is too high compared to my earliest recordings, people will think that i'm too good for them and not want to follow my plight. See some people think that it's all about the message, but it's really important to take more factors into consideration. Your sound, your image, the frequency of communication, these things can't be taken lightly or the whole thing comes to an end.

MRT: So what are you using to dirty up the sound?

OBL: Depends on how i'm feeling when I wake up. I have plugins by companies like Waves and Native Instruments. I think Guitar Rig can make your voice sound like fucking gold man! I just dial in my amp, and my voice is sounding like 1990s Al Jazeera in no time.

MRT: But aren't Waves Israeli?

OBL:  Look it. Ever since Barack Obama took office, the whole world is head over heels with the U.S. again. Even my best followers are losing interest in my message. I personally don't have a problem with Israel, but I need to maintain some story to keep people engaged. As America gets ready to pull out of Iraq, the Israel thing is the best tool I have. But yeah, realistically, if you can code a mean plugin and make me a killer schwarma at the same time, I don't really give two shits what country you're from. Besides, i'm a sucker for trance.

MRT: Ok well thanks very much for your time.

OBL: My pleasure. Oh by the way my mix tape is due out in the summer, don't sleep!

To all the people of the world who enjoy a good schluff while on the meter, this photoshop’s for you.