The Studio

Cross posted from The Radar.

Songza is a Google-esque search engine designed specifically for music. Type in a song title or artist name and it will spit out a list of songs. What makes this site so very excellent is the huge selection of music and just as importantly each song is played in its entirety. No more listening to only 40 seconds of a song and then a fade-out to nothing.

It is possible but not necessary to create and save songs to a profile. The saved songs will become a playlist which you can reorder and shuffle.  The profile will produce an RSS feed so friends and/or interested people can receive updates on songs you enjoy. You can follow my song selection @ http://songza.com/chesslibrarian/rss if you want.

Songza is fun but it isn’t perfect. Sometimes the songs lag a little. Unlike Pandora it does not stream new music to you.  Songza does not allow downloading of songs.

Songza is incredible for what it is does and I highly recommend playing with it!

The legendary and innovative jazz guitarist Les Paul died August 13, 2009 at the age of 94.  He played alongside sophisticated jazz musicians such as Art Tatum, Stuff Smith, and Louis Armstrong.  He later collaborated with his wife, Mary Ford, producing such hits as How High the Moon and Tennessee Waltz, where he experimented with multi-tracking recorded voices.  The Gibson Les Paul guitar has been worshipped by many more recent legendary rock and roll guitarists such as Eddie Van Halen, Jimmy Page, and Joe Satriani.

Listen to:

All-time greatest hits

American made, world played 

Watch:

Les Paul : chasing sound!

Read:

The early years of the Les Paul legacy, 1915-1963

Les Paul : an American original

or do you need another listen without the crowd?

Try the Library!

Here is a sample of what you can find:

Depeche Mode

Tool

Killers

Jane’s Addiction

Kings of Leon

Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Lou Reed

Ben Harper & Relentless7

Thievery Corporation

Rise Against

Andrew Bird

TV on the Radio

Vampire Weekend

The Decemberists

Neko Case

Animal Collective

Of  Montreal

Arctic Monkeys

Fleet Foxes

Band of Horses

Kaiser Chiefs

Coheed and Cambria

Ben Folds

Bon Iver

Silversun Pickups

Lykke Li

Peter Bjorn and John

Gomez

Glasvegas

The Airborne Toxic Event

Bat for Lashes

Passion Pit

Ra Ra Riot

White Lies

Raveonettes

Asher Roth

See the official  Lollapalooza website for the complete lineup.

Reserve the CDs now!

Please Please Me

With the Beatles

A Hard Day’s Night

Beatles for Sale

Help!

Rubber Soul

Revolver

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

Magical Mystery Tour

The Beatles (The White Album)

Abbey Road

Let It Be

Past Masters

Yellow Submarine

I wrote a little while ago about Grooveshark, an excellent music search and discovery website.   Since then the good people at Grooveshark have released a plugin (added capabilities) for our blogging software.

This plugin allows us to link to songs being discussed.  For example, I have been listening to Leonard Cohen’s The Partisan because of the election demonstrations taking place in Iran.

I am also listening to A Little Less Conversation by Elvis remixed by JXL. Why? Because the song is awesome, no other reason is needed.

In the future you may notice links to songs on the Grooveshark website.  Click on them and tell us if you like the music or not. To listen to the songs click on the Listen to Playlist button.

Chicago’s own Queen of the Blues passed away yesterday at the age of 80. In her nearly 50-year career, Koko Taylor received more Blues Music Awards than any other artist. She had performed with nearly all of the blues legends – including Howlin’ Wolf, Buddy Guy, B.B. King, and Muddy Waters, and was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame in 1997. She will be missed for her powerful voice and contributions to blues music everywhere.

Here’s a clip of Taylor singing her signature song “Wang Dang Doodle” from 1967, with Little Walter backing her up.

You can revisit Koko’s music legacy through her albums, a number of which are available at the Library.

I am loving Grooveshark and I think you will as well.

The Grooveshark website allows you to listen to music through the internet. I stumbled upon this site while preparing to teach Listening to Music Online (click here to see the slides from that presentation).

Grooveshark’s greatness stems from you being enabled  to pick particular songs and even particular albums to listen to (I am currently listening most of  Leonard Cohen’s works).  Similar music search websites such as the very cool Songza will enable you to find one song but not stream an entire album.

Grooveshark even has a recommendation system.  For example, if you like the Pixies you may also like the Breeders, Modest Mouse, etc.  This is not an unusual feature for this type of site but really isn’t its strong point.

Give Grooveshark a shot.

I have a confession of sorts. Many months ago I was telling a co-worker how much I enjoyed the movie Across the Universe. Not only did I like the story, based on well-known Beatles songs, but I was impressed by the overall energy of the film. I went on to share my enthusiasm about the soundtrack, i.e. new interpretations of Beatles music. My friend recommended that I listen to the soundtrack for I Am Sam because it also has cover versions of Beatles tunes. I had not seen the movie and was unfamiliar with the music used in the pic. I meant to get the CD right away, but it was checked out. I filed the recommendation to the back of my mind.  A year or so later, I thought about it again. I finally have soundtrack and love it. My library pal was absolutely right to recommend the CD. There are several standout tracks by some great artists.

My personal favorites include:

Across the Universe – Rufus Wainwright

I’m Only Sleeping – The Vines

Don’t Let Me Down – Stereophonics

We Can Work It Out – Heather Nova

BTW, here is a short annotation for the movie Across the Universe.

Happy listening and viewing!

I’m a firm believer in the trickle-down theory. Not of wealth, mind you, but of Weirdness in Music. Popular music is rooted in the synthesis of ideas, and what seems strange or dissonant now might be a Top 40 trademark several years (or even generations) hence.

With their eighth album Merriweather Post Pavillion, Animal Collective is a textbook example of how this works. Only they’ve been around long enough to reap the benefit of what they set in place roughly 10 years ago. All the strangeness that made them a band to watch is still there – it’s just been crystallized into a utterly catchy, dare-we-say accessible pop framework. Pounding percussion collides with Beach Boys-esque harmonies for a sound that’s just as easy to dance to as it is to get lost in.

Try tracks 2, “My Girls,” and 5, “Daily Routine,” for starters. And try not to stare at the album cover for too long. You might hurt your brain.

Have you heard of the Afro Celt Sound System party. I hadn’t till I was looking for likely CDs to fill the Irish Music display in the Audio Visual area a few weeks ago.

Afro Celt Sound System (what a great name for a band by the way) combines traditional Irish folk music/ballads with modern rhythms and even a touch of African and Indian folk styling. To say a lot is going in each song is an understatement, but the music is never overwhelmingly and annoyingly self conscious of being “different” as much cutting edge world music can be. This band reminds me of going to the Celtic Festival in Grant Park, listening to the traditional Irish music and hearing cars driving by with driving beats and bass.

I am very much enjoying the first CD put out by them and am looking forward to checking out a few more.

Let this be a lesson, remember to check out the displays in the AV department. You may get lucky and find an entire genre of music that you never knew existed.