Matthew

After a hiatus in 2012, the Wilco-curated Solid Sound Festival is returning this summer to the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, from June 21-23.

Over the past two days, the fest announced the lineup via its website, Twitter, and Facebook page. The artists were announced in alphabetical order, one letter every half hour. In addition to Wilco, who will perform on two nights, the lineup features Yo La Tengo (playing both a regular set as well as a live soundtrack for the film The Love Song of R. Buckminster Fuller), Low, Foxygen, Neko Case, Os Mutantes, Sam Amidon, Jeff Tweedy's son Spencer's band the Blisters, comedians John Hodgman, Al Madrigal, and more.

Watch a video about the festival:

I’ve read and written a lot about Mark Kozelek (of Sun Kil Moon and Red House Painters fame) in my life, and spent a good deal more of that time listening to his music — I’m not exactly an obsessive fan of the guy, but if you and I talked in detail about my one-way relationship with Mark Kozelek over the past 20 years, you’d probably walk away thinking I was an obsessive fan. Point being: My perspective is admittedly skewed, but the important thing is, I’m making it clear upfront so that when I ask the question that will follow this disclaimer, you understand it’s a product of genuine curiosity, not disrespect. It may sound like I’m making light of Mark Kozelek’s music here, but I assure you, I am not/ would not/ could not. When people ask me to name my favorite artist of all time, Kozelek is the go-to answer. But because of all that, I’m too close to the subject to put him into any sort of appropriate context. So I’m asking this because I need the perspective of someone who is not me:

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This looks like fun: Pasta Pane in Clifton Park is hosting a wine-vs.-beer dinner that will pair each of five courses with a wine from Mollydooker of Australia against a beer from Delaware craft brewer Dogfish Head. It is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Monday, Feb. 25. See the lineup on Facebook. The price is $65 per person, plus tax and tip.

Reservations are required; call 371-5762. The restaurant is located at 18 Park. Ave.

Colin Stetson has confirmed the third and final installment in his New History Warfare trilogy. Due out April 30th through Constellation Records, it features not one but four guest appearances from Stetson’s Bon Iver bandmate Justin Vernon. According to a press release, the GRAMMY winner lends everything from “cookie monster barking” (on “Brute”) to “massed, multi-tracked harmonies” (on the opener, “And In Truth”). Also by Stetson’s side once again is ambient auteur Ben Frost, who mixed the record back in Iceland.

Check out one new track down below, alongside some upcoming tour dates and complete album details…

Colin Stetson tour dates:
3/1 Copenhagen, Denmark – Jazz House Copenhagen
3/2 Hasselt, Belgium – Cultuurcentrum Hasselt
3/3 Vendome, France – Chapelle St.-Jacques
3/5 Metz, France – Caveau des Trinitaires
3/6 Kortrijk, Belgium – De Kreun
3/7 Paris, France – TBA
3/8 Amsterdam, Netherlands – Muziekgebouw aan´t IJ main hall
3/9 Stavanger, Norway – Tou Scene/Maskinhallen
3/10 Bergen, Norway – TBA
3/12 Luxembourg, Luxembourg – TBA
3/13 Marostica, Italy – Panic Jazz Club
3/14 Venezia, Italy – TBA
3/15 Reykjavik, Iceland – TBA
4/5 Montreal, Quebec – Musee d’Art Contemporain de Montreal
5/2 Quebec, Quebec – Le Cercle *
5/3 Montreal, Quebec – La Sala Rosa *
5/7 Burlington, VT – Burlington City Arts Center *
5/8 New York, NY – Le Poisson Rouge
5/9 Boston, MA – Museum of Fine Arts *
5/10 Philadelphia, PA – World Cafe Live *
5/11 Pittsburgh, PA – Andy Warhol Museum *
5/14 Cincinnati, OH – Contemporary Arts Center *
5/16 Chicago, IL – Schubas %
5/17 Ann Arbor, MI – The Blind Pig %
5/19 Toronto, Ontario – The Great Hall
6/29 Honolulu, HI – Honolulu Museum of Art

* with Sarah Neufeld
% with Justin Walter

Buddha Tea House, a downtown Albany nightclub that was shuttered last week by the city over safety and permitting concerns, has filed a federal lawsuit alleging that the city’s cabaret-licensing system is unconstitutional.

The suit also says the city has singled out Buddha Tea House and its principal owner, Farhad “Fred” Sharifipour, for “discriminatory and selective enforcement” of the cabaret law based in part on racial grounds. As a result, the suit says, Buddha Tea House has suffered damages in excess of $2 million. The legal action seeks to have the cabaret law overturned and Buddha to be allowed to reopen.

“We’re been harassed every weekend since opening” in September, Sharifipour told me. “Every Friday, every Saturday we have had police officers come in and tell us to close. It’s been an ongoing battle for so long (that) I told my legal team that it’s just gone too far.”

The suit, filed Friday in U.S. District Court, names as defendants the city; City Clerk Nala Woodard; Jeffery Jamison, head of Albany’s Division of Buildings and Regulatory Compliance; and Vincent DiBiase, who is deputy chief inspector of Jamison’s department.

Stephen Rehfuss, a local attorney who handles federal litigation on behalf of the city, said he was still reviewing the suit and has asked that it be thrown out on procedural grounds. Failing that, he said, he believed it would be dismissed once the facts come out.

According to the suit, the cabaret-licensing law, which went into effect in August, is unconstitutionally vague and violates the First Amendment because it “purports to impose license requirements upon speech and other expressive conduct.” The suit also alleges that the cabaret law is unclearly and inconsistently enforced; that city officials, code inspectors and police officers used regulatory pretexts to revoke Buddha Tea’s certificate of occupancy and cabaret license and to issue several citations and appearance tickets for the club’s use of DJs when it didn’t have a cabaret permit; and that the selective and discriminatory enforcement is partly based on “the race and/or ethnicity” of Buddha’s patrons.

Rehfuss said city officials, police officers and regulatory agents had grounds for every action they took against Buddha Tea House.

“The ‘harassment’ was based on violations of the cabaret license and the zoning ordinance — if you the want to call that ‘selective harassment,’” he said.

Buddha, which is the third incarnation of a nightclub in as many years in a large, partially renovated building at 69 North Pearl St., had a tempestuous birth in September and a stormy relationship with its downtown neighbors since. It has principally been open only late night Thursday through Saturday. It has been the site of police calls, including early on Jan. 21, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, when a crowd began fighting in the street. Witnesses from other bars described to me a terrifying scene of hundreds rioting; Albany Police Department spokesman Steve Smith told me the report he saw characterized the brawl as involving 15 people from Buddha. Sharifipour said the violence stemmed from another downtown club. Sharifipour previously was involved in the troubled downtown clubs Tryst Ultra Lounge and Plastic. The latter was shut down by the city after a December 2010 shooting.

Welcome back, everyone. It’s great to be back shivering like a Victorian waif and talking about how my break was “long, but relaxing” whenever I run into someone I know. Senior year!

Anyway, here’s some shit that someone sent me an email about. Apparently, a few anonymous journalists have started a new blog called Skidmore Sleeps, and they’re taking on the thankless task of photographing people while they’re sleeping on campus. So humble, so brave.

This whole endeavor is probably a violation of some clause of Skidmore’s honor code (not to mention incredibly creepy), but here it is anyway. Best of luck to these muckrakers.

(via Skidmore Sleeps)

Auras trip the light fantastic, illuminating the deepest areas of the black cosmos and, closer to home, shining a renewed fascination on the deep mystery of our existence, of our planet and our place in the universe. Our search is a never-ending one, where revelations are made on an almost daily basis, constantly hinting at something out there that we, as yet, cannot possibly fathom. Over time, and as our world opens her eyes to these tantalising points of light, vague hints start to emerge about our place, through the light and its aura, and it is this spectral, almost other-worldly aura that infuses itself inside the music of Portland’s Liz Harris. Her music as Grouper isn’t just a listening experience; it’s a dive of faith into another dimension, where the lines between star-reaching dreams entertained by the hopeful youth, and the crash-and-burn awareness of emotional reality and its despondent sensations are blurred. Amongst the dream loss and the black, searching eyes of alien observers comes the return of Grouper, and the special, sleepy-eyed aura that envelops her music is alive and well. Her notes shine this light out of her guitar in rays of atmospheric decay, although it is a healthy and natural process, like the day to day slow-burn death our own bodies experience, themselves a work of the stars. Her music is of a late-evening-dreaming style of dark-folk-ambient, and her nocturnal haven of drone unveils gently, like the opening of the stars in the Milky Way Galaxy at nightfall, trailing a daubed cloud of celestial, blushed colour along the length of a spiral arm.

Her music invites the supernatural, entering for all of the music’s duration and leaving behind a trail of doubt as to just what has been experienced, as if it were an encounter with the supernatural itself. Her music could accompany the night-time vigil, waiting for the stunning light-show over New Mexico, or of spectral visitations entering reality through her beautiful arpeggios and strummed, sunken chords. If these imaginings are exactly that – imagined – then it is the music of Grouper that has invited it in, and subsequently embodied. Smashed against the shore, her lyrics may appear dreamy, but on closer inspection they contain very real, crystal clear feelings and emotions that keep us all firmly awake at night and grounded on Terra Firma, preventing any kind of flight to the star-clustered heavens on wings of a deep, ethereal atmosphere. Her heavenly music – her lyrics in particular – may only be defeated by the restraints of the world, but her eerie, spiritual air can never be denounced by non-believers.

The Man Who Died In His Boat is a collection of previously unreleased songs that were written at the same time as her classic album, Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill. The title refers to a boat that was found washed up on the shore of Agate Beach, Oregon, when Liz Harris was just a teenager. Abandoned, but with possessions on board, the boat only hinted at what may have happened only hours before it ran aground. Nobody ever knew just what had happened to the man in the boat, and glancing into the boat offered only a glimpse into another’s way of life, perhaps one that should have remained sea-bound and private. It was a mysterious disappearance that, strangely enough, echoes into the present, as it seems to fit the philosophy and mantra of Harris’ music, despite the tragic circumstances surrounding the discovery. The final, ill-fated seconds vanished, only to leave behind physical possessions as the only evidence for his existence. The day must have haunted Liz, as her music continues haunting her ever widening audience.

Harris opens up cavernous cathedrals of reverb in prayer to a cosmic God, lost on the high seas in another solar system. Hers is a dreamy atmosphere drenched in delay, a peaceful melancholy of shrouded discovery lying in wait. Her musical world embraces the thin, invisible lines that cross over into other worlds and realities, where the imagination has full freedom and control, and isn’t cut in half; a dimension where UFO’s, birthstones and dreamcatchers are the order of the day and made to seem very real in an otherwise dreamy state that constantly questions its own reality. In a very real sense, Harris sends out a deluge of dreams and dream states through her guitar, and then places them into the deepest of atmospheres, into another world of unseen paranormal activity and mystical X-File-style encounters, as seen in her 2011 double release of Dream Loss and Alien Observer. Dimensions appear through the haze, as clouds of smoke trail above the West Coast horizon, lingering in the sky like her endless delay. Vivid and fit, nothing decays inside her music, despite the lingering presence of fog surrounding her vague vocals and hovering melodies. Through clouds affected by turbulence, stunner ‘Vital’ enters. The blur induced by her reverb makes it difficult to know if those chords are fifth chords sliding along the strings, but in this reality, the only certain thing is a mystical uncertainty.

Her gorgeous vocals shine through the murk, and we fall into her dreamy musical dimension once again. Her vocals rise up and over the dense clouds, laden with a thick, yet wholesome smoke, in harmony and in unity. Her song structures are still present, but they’re only apparitions of songs, almost as if they’re half-remembered, vaguely heard a lifetime or even longer ago. It’s hauntingly beautiful music that will make you a believer; that is, if the songs aren’t figments of the imagination, shimmering in a phosphorescent, cloudy haze while the music, and this spell, plays on. On ‘Cloud in Places’, her acoustic guitar takes on a greater prominence, with clearer strumming appearing through the ambient mist, and where her distinct aura of folk-tinted music rises to the fore. Yet, there’s a beautiful contrast between the clouded haze and the clearer acoustic songs helping to balance the course of the record.

‘Being her Shadow’ drifts through a shrouded mist, searching for the presence of a distant land, but ultimately only turning itself around in concentric circles, as if pulled into a vortex. It’s unbelievably tranquil, adding to the out-of-it experience cloaked around her deep atmosphere. Chord tones reverberate around ‘Vanishing Point’, encircling around the place where it all ended – right here. Her vocal elements are absent, almost as if they themselves have gone missing, lost inside the music. Void of any recognisable structure or of strings to pull us to safety, this track sways like an empty boat rocking towards a bay, losing all sense of heading amid sparse notes and a scattered delay, yet despite its strangely angled curvature it makes for an eerie pause in the record; a remembrance that also feels like a heart-felt dedication to the man in question.

Grouper’s brand of folk conceals reality in evocative layers of mystical voodoo. ‘Living Room is perhaps the darkest of tracks reflecting a beautiful dissonance and a melancholy of deepening struggle. It’s a downcast trip of disappointment that almost kicks itself into the ground amid a lost sense of hope and a constant, fruitless search for the spiritual, a trip wracked with difficulty and frustration, trying to figure out what is real, and what isn’t, in this dreamy world where taking off can turn into a stall, and the depths of failure lie ever so close. It’s a lot of weight for only two shoulders to carry.

In a lot of ways, Grouper’s music is all about disappearance. Songs that once-were re-emerge underneath a cloud of reverb, now only faint orbs as seen above in the skies, or on a boat swaying onto a shoreline; a mystery linked to the depths of the universe, and a local mystery that made the local papers. The final minutes breeze through as a lovely cloud evaporates, a sayonara sonic boom can be heard above as the visitors leave, and everything vapourises. Shredded by thunder, nothing is left in the silence that follows. In another world, the boat can still be seen kissing the sand of the shore, with no sign or signal that anything, or anyone, ever existed here in the first place.

- James Catchpole for Fluid Radio

www.kranky.net

Frank Ocean: "Pink Matter" (remix) ft. Andre 3000 and Big Boi on SoundCloud.

After years of collaborative inactivity between OutKast's Big Boi and André 3000, the idea of the two reuniting haphazardly on a couple of remixes-- Frank Ocean's "Pink Matter" and a forthcoming one of T.I.'s "Sorry"-- seemed anticlimactic. André 3000 seems to understand this, and wants to set the record straight. A verse on a remix does not a reunion make, he tells Spin.

He also seems both confused and vexed by Big Boi's decision to add verses to the tracks. Recall that Andre didn't want Big Boi on the "Pink Matter" remix to begin with, "because he didn't want an outkast record coming out on anybody else LP", according to a Tweet from Big Boi.

Read Andre 's full statement to Spin:

"It's important for me to be clear about the origins of my contributions to 'Pink Matter' and 'Sorry.'

I was approached as a solo artist by both Frank Ocean & Tip. I discussed musical direction with each artist and completed my verses. It was after that when Big Boi's name came up.

I never want to mislead our audience - I worried that some would think these were Outkast collaborations. These songs are not Outkast collaborations. I discussed this rationale with Big, Frank and T.I. and everyone agreed. That is why I was surprised to read about these remixes.

I understand that anyone can put out an unofficial remix to any song but I have an obligation to be honest with fans about what this is … and what it isn't."

As promised, we've got a new Justin Timberlake song-- his first original solo material since he released FutureSex/LoveSounds in 2006. It's called "Suit & Tie" and, yes, features Jay-Z over a Timbaland beat. You can download it on iTunes and hear it on Timberlake's website. UPDATE: In an open letter on his website, Timberlake wrote that he's releasing an album called The 20/20 Experience this year.

The song does not feature Beyoncé as previously reported, but hey, two out of three ain't bad. 

In related news, Beyoncé recently told GQ that she's collaborating with Timberlake, Timbaland, Pharrell and the-Dream on her new album. 

There is still a lot more to say on the topic of how class consciousness and insecurity permeates the restaurant scene in Albany. However, honing in on the answers to two great comments I received yesterday will take a little more time. Especially if it means changing source texts.

Still, expect more on this theme next week. Although today I need to dedicate to a little bit of proactive damage control.

So I did something dumb. I’ve done a few dumb things recently, but let’s focus on just this one string of bad decisions. When I’m embarrassed about something, I’m compelled to share it with the world. Maybe that’s weird, but my hope is twofold. First, that you may learn from my mistake, and not make the same one yourself. Second, that you will hear this directly from me and not via some rumor or third party.

The bottom line is don’t compose late night notes in Facebook messenger.

I don’t know what went wrong. I’ve always been very careful and conscientious about what kind of information I put into writing versus what information is best conveyed over the phone. There is no written record of phone calls that can come back to haunt you.

So here’s a little background. In the past I’ve been offered and have accepted press passes to some pretty cool events. Others I’ve had to decline. But press passes are awesome, as they give you access to events that you might never pay to get into yourself.

Perhaps my first mistake was soliciting passes on my own behalf for an upcoming event of interest. But if you don’t ask, you don’t get. So, I thought I would put in a request for a press badge and see what happened.

Well I got a note back that felt a bit dismissive of my status as a blogger, and that was frustrating. Maybe I was being a little over sensitive. Those of you who blog know that it takes a lot of work to keep the pipeline full of posts, it takes a lot of time to build an audience, and it takes a lot of devotion to persist at the task month after month and year after year.  To have this belittled really stirred up a fire in my belly.

Later that same night I wrote a bit of a missive about how the FLB is not just another blog, but an active part of the conversation on food in the Capital Region. This was as much about you as it was about me. Because for whatever reasons, over time the FLB has generated a readership of active and passionate food lovers who post thoughtful comments and participate in real life events. More than anything else, I’m proud about that.

Well, you know what they say about pride.

Anyhow, this conversation had been going back and forth via private messaging on Facebook. As I was reading over my impassioned tirade and doing some light editing, I reconsidered whether sending this in frustration was really the best idea. And I was leaning towards just deleting what I wrote and going to bed. Then I accidentally hit the carriage return without holding down the shift button and the note was sent. Oops.

Those who already think I’m arrogant are going to have a field day with this. But please keep in mind the objective of the note was to solidify the FLB as a serious voice in the regional food scene, and not just some guy throwing opinions up on the internet from his mother’s basement. Okay here it is:

For what it’s worth, the FLB is really quite different from those other blogs.

In the past few months I judged Baconfest with Steve and B.A., judged the Iron Chef showdown between Max London and John Ireland in Saratoga Springs, and judged a cupcake competition with Innae Park and Tim Drawbridge.

On top of all that I developed cocktails with the Alb Dist Co distillers in advance of their Coal Yard release, won second prize in the Bellini’s cooking competition, had my cider donut tour mentioned on the front page of the food section of the TU, and was invited to present a guest lecture at RPI on social media marketing.

Plus the FLB has been used by other marketers to give away relevant items to its readers, most recently from Proctor’s Cake Boss show, City Dining Cards and the Chefs Consortium dinner on Bannerman Island.

Mostly the above has come as the result of building a large, passionate and vocal readership that participates with the blog every day to be part of a food loving community.

I’ll be curious to see what [redacted] has to say, and if they will join SPAC and others in considering the FLB as a member of the media, and not just another blogger.

And no, I didn’t get the press pass. All I got was the knowledge that there was now an email out in the world that I should never have sent. And I didn’t want to ever be in a position where I felt like I needed to temper my opinions lest this embarrassing note be brought to light.

It should also be said that there are a lot of great regional food bloggers who I admire and respect. Recently I updated the blogroll on the sidebar, but I think at this time it’s worth highlighting a few that are doing a better job than the FLB.

Dave’s Big Blue Plate makes the food I cook at home look like garbage; maybe one day he’ll invite me over to dinner. DocSconz eats better than anybody else I know and reading his tales of restaurants around the world is inspiring. From Scratch Club is amazing, and has done great things to bring food lovers together to learn and share. With Albany Jane not posting as frequently as she once did, Jon in Albany is a blog with a very similar feel that makes complex food preparations like curing meats feel accessible to anyone. The Ridiculous Food Society of Upstate NY does this too with the wit and wisdom only Mr. Dave can provide. Kimversations is a beautifully designed site, with lovely photography, and Kim is impressively prolific. I’m really enjoying Masticating Monkey, mostly because he and I seem to share similar backgrounds and it’s fun to watch him get acclimated to the region. Silly Goose Farm is like the Martha Stewart of upstate farm life, and I have no idea how she’s able to do it all. Burnt my Fingers and Noshing Confessions do incredible things with bread, and I wish I had a fraction of their skill and patience for baking. I could go on, but this paragraph is getting out of hand.

I don’t think there is any way for me to come out of this smelling like a rose. But I want to thank you for reading this through and allowing me the chance to put the whole shebang into context. This is the danger of responding to minor indignities in writing on Facebook when one’s passions are inflamed. Lesson learned.

Have a great weekend.

"I accidentally produced a Willow Smith track!"

-- Nigel Godrich, with the official word on 12-year-old Will and Jada spawn Willow Smith's "Sugar and Spice", which samples Radiohead's "Codex". Your move, Thom. (via Twitter)

Once more unto the mailbag:

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve randomly found new artists that I like but wasn’t ready to make a music purchase. If I had a fan account it would make it a heck of a lot easier for me to go back and revisit those artists and buy their material. Nothing too intrusive, I would hate for you guys to go all Myspace on us. You could also allow fans to see the albums that other fans have purchased, and this would help spread the word about good music virally.”
–Marcus P.

Good news: we’ve been working on exactly that (and then some). Today we’re giving fans the ability to showcase their Bandcamp music collections, follow their favorite artists, explore the music of like-minded fans, add items to a wishlist, and more. In developing these features, we’ve been guided by one overriding objective: grow revenue for artists while keeping the core Bandcamp experience as simple and clean as possible. Here’s how it all works:

Collection pages

“I’ve always enjoyed raiding Bandcamp for new music and the fact that it now displays it all on the collection page like little trophies is ace. Makes me dead proud of actually paying for music.”
– Josh U.

Every fan gets a dedicated collection page where they can show off the music that they’ve purchased via Bandcamp (here’s a particularly excellent example ;) ). Fans can pick their favorite tracks, write a few words about why they like each record, customize the look and layout of their collection, and share the whole thing with other fans, who can then play through and purchase the music themselves. In short, collection pages turn every fan into a promoter of the artists they love. They’re beautiful, work great on mobile, and in the short time they’ve been in limited beta have already driven thousands of new sales to artists.

Following fans

Fans can follow other fans, meaning they’ll be notified whenever those fans collect new music. (These notifications currently happen via a digest email, and we’ll add a feed option soon.) Fans can discover interesting people to follow in a few different ways. First, when viewing their own collection page, a fan will see a list of suggested fans. Second, when viewing any item on any collection page, a fan can see a list of who else bought that item and what they had to say about it, and then go exploring those fans’ collections (warning: this is seriously addictive). Third, when a fan buys something that they discovered via another fan’s collection, we send the original fan a congratulatory email, so they can a) strut around the rest of the day feeling chuffed and b) explore the full collection of the fan whose life they’ve just changed for the better. Finally, fans can discover one another via artists’ album and track pages. But that deserves a section of its own…

Supported-by

“Just realized that this Bandcamp fan thing in effect incentivises people to pay for music as social display/status. A good thing.”
- @hatross

Back on Bandcamp artist pages, there are a few subtle but important changes. The first of these is the “supported by” section, which displays thumbnails of the fans who bought that record. These are, first and foremost, fun to explore (“I wonder who else bought this, and what other music they’ve collected”), but they also act as an important additional incentive for a fan to make a purchase, since a) it means their face appears on the sites of their favorite artists, and b) it promotes their own collection, since clicking any fan’s thumbnail navigates to their collection page. By default we show a single row of the latest purchasers, but you can expand that to see all the supporters, and read what they had to say about the record (the artist also has the option to remove any of these they wish).

Wishlisting

Also below the cover art there’s a new wishlist link (only visible to logged-in fans). Clicking it adds the item to the wishlist section of a fan’s collection page, so they can come back and purchase it later.

Following artists

Fans can also now follow their favorite artists, meaning they’ll get a notification from Bandcamp whenever that artist releases new music (following also adds the fan to the artist’s mailing list). The fan can either click the follow button on an artist page (like the wishlist link, only visible to logged-in fans), or simply make a purchase, which makes them follow the artist automatically.

So how does one get a Bandcamp fan account?

It’s easy: buy something and we invite you. If you’ve already made purchases through Bandcamp, visit http://bandcamp.com/fans and follow the instructions there.

I already have a Bandcamp artist account, can I sign up for a fan account too?

Yes. If you’d like your artist and fan account to be one and the same (so there’s no logging out of one and in to the other nonsense), make sure you’re logged in to your artist account, and then either a) go buy some music, or b) if you’ve already purchased music, proceed directly to sign up.

Anything I need to do as an artist?

No, but if you tell your fans (the ones who have supported you through Bandcamp, that is) to sign up for their free account, then you’ll have more people with more collection pages promoting your music.

I’m sensing that there’s some deeper motivation at work here. Is there?

Just over a year ago, the internet was abuzz with the concept of “frictionless sharing”: watch a video, read an article, or play some music, and the activity is automatically shared with your friends. I hated the idea (rightly and eloquently panned by Farhad Manjoo as killing taste), and we set out to create its opposite. Bandcamp for fans is a social music discovery system based on the high-friction concept of ownership. If someone simply listens to a song, I frankly don’t care at all. And if someone listens to a song and then burns .01 calories tapping a Like button… well that’s slightly more interesting, but I still don’t care much. However, if someone is passionate enough about a record to spend money on it – to actually support the artist who made it, and perhaps even write a bit about why they love it – that makes me much more likely listen to that record, and perhaps add it to my collection as well.

This high-friction approach to sharing works. During our beta, fans who created accounts increased their spending by 40% on average, and the small test group now drives as many sales to artists as all Twitter traffic to all Bandcamp sites combined. If this is surprising, it won’t be once you’ve experienced how much fun it is to browse through people’s collections. It’s a bit like you’re at a party, hear a track you like, ask the host about it, and then they say “oh, if you like that you have to listen to this and this,” and they’re right there telling you why, and every track and album becomes a portal into another person’s party/collection. It’s a blast.

So go sign up. Start exploring. Go. Go!

You’re still here? It’s over. Go home. Go. Jeesh, OK. Then we’re going to make you read a tiny sample of what our beta testers have been saying:

“trying out the @bandcamp fan account. this is gonna seriously dent my wallet” –@atlumschema

“I love the look of the fan page and imagine it’s going to amp up my purchase rate 100x.” –Michael E.

“the new-release-by and new-music-purchased-by emails are coming close to rivaling the Experimedia mailing list for their DANGEROUSNESS TO MY WALLET.” –Mike R.

“Ok, you really found a way to make me spend more money on your site, way more money, which I’m totally ok with because I love good music and I love your model. I’ve been browsing other collections and finding great stuff.” –David M.

“I’m totally in love, it’s absolutely awesome. I’m now finding tonnes of new bands a second; terrible for my bank balance but otherwise great!” –Josh U.

“brilliant idea! reckon sales are gonna grow fast & your artists will be the benefactors.” –Jonathan B.

“Thank you for making a great resource even better. The new fan page is fully appreciated and brilliantly executed. My morning is already disappearing in other people’s collections. Keep doing what you’re doing!” –Barry Q.

“Just wanted to say that I love the new account feature! Like Bandcamp in general, the whole thing is unpretentious and really about the music.” –Joe S.

“The new fan account feature is amazing. So much of my time is devoted to finding new music and artists, and this setup completely streamlines this and I’m able to quickly find new material to fall in love with. Bandcamp was already my favourite way to buy music and support artists, and it’s just become better. Nice one.” –Michael M.

“i have been telling everyone about the brilliant new fan accounts, i think they want me to shut up now. but i am seriously impressed with the idea. the thought crossed my mind to re-purchase music i had bought elsewhere JUST so it would be on my profile. crazy right?? and it also made me think that i would want to make ALL my future music purchases through bandcamp when possible…just to make my profile more complete. so there ya go, props for brilliance. and for creating such an awesome place for musicians to get their music heard AND NOW for the fans to be a part of it.” –Laura B.

“Bandcamp is the best thing that has happened to music since the iPod.  I love that you are adding a social element, and I look forward to seeing comments from others and checking out collections of others with similar tastes.” –Paul G.

“I feel that you are offering a direct relationship to the artists without trying to clone/integrate the social network nonsense. It’s all about music and that’s what you understand best. I am so excited to be treated as a fan, not a consumer.” –Arnaud M.

“You guys are doing exactly what I think is important for the music industry. Whenever I discover an artist, I check Bandcamp first. Whenever I talk to artists, I ask why they don’t have a Bandcamp. I’d keep gushing but I have work. Thank you. THANK you!” –Scott R.

“Love the new fan sites. It’s exactly what I’ve been saying was needed! Thanks for doing it – it’s going to benefit both fans and musicians so much!” –Aidan S.

“Really excited about what you’ve got going on here. A place for people who actually care about music to share their passion with both other like-minded individuals and the artists they love. I’m really excited for what is to come! Keep it up! Your vision is coming together!”
–Devin B.

“Great job on the new fan pages, they truly are revolutionary.” –Ryan G.

“I can’t even begin to tell you how incredible this new beta is. I’ve been a fan (pun intended) of Bandcamp for years, and this just makes it all that much better.” –Ken K.

“This is awesome! I was so hoping you would do something like this and I am ecstatic that you did!” –Will H.

“Thanks for building a service that makes my life better. This new feature is a very welcome addition to Bandcamp, and I think it’ll make for a much richer experience. Wishlist is worth the price of admission alone.” –Dirk B.

“I just wanted to congratulate you on the new fan profile feature on Bandcamp. As usual, you guys just get it.” –Andy R.

“Oh wow, I’m in absolute love with @Bandcamp’s new ‘Fan account’ thing. Thanks for the beta invite, lovelies. http://bandcamp.com/colorization” –@robokick

“I’m thankful for @bandcamp fan pages. These are so awesome.” –@emilyhogan

“Well, @bandcamp took notice. Fan pages, and they’re sweet. Even recognized all my purchases in one shot. Support the artists people!” –@pasarin

“Just made a @bandcamp fan account. I like where this is going. One of my fav sites. All about the music/musicians! http://bandcamp.com/ryanmaksymic” –@ryanmaksymic

“Really digging the new Bandcamp Fan feature. Happy to see the site grow in this direction. http://bandcamp.com/seanmcg” –@seanmcg

“Holy shit, bandcamp fan accounts. Bandcamp is unstoppable.” –@DigitalPatrat

“Damn. This new Bandcamp fan account functionality has everything I’ve been wanting.” –@compactrobot

“Absolutely loving the new @Bandcamp “fan pages”. A history of music you’ve bought through Bandcamp, shared for friends: http://bit.ly/Y3XmK5” –@bradleysalmanac

“Stoked @bandcamp finally launched fan profiles! Best source for music from independent artists. Check out my library: http://bandcamp.com/evanbenner” –@EvanBenner

“super excited about new @bandcamp fan accounts :) been wanting these for a long time. http://bandcamp.com/apopagasm” –@_kevinallen

“@DarkHorse_Audio SO loving the new Bandcamp fan pages! What a wicked way to find new music. Followed you there :)” –@InsidiousGhost

A special pressing of Feist’s 1999 debut album. This one has been up for awhile, but I definitely missed, so chances are you might have as well. Snag one while they’re up. The Details Special Limited Edition Vinyl Reissue of Feist’s 1999 Debut Album TRACKLIST 01. Cool To Love Your Family 02. Onliest 03. La

The post Feist – Monarch // Limited to 2000 Vinyl Repress appeared first on Sly Vinyl.

Low have released the first single from their forthcoming Jeff-Tweedy-produced effort The Invisible Way (album art is above). Stream "Just Make It Stop" below.

Low have also revealed tour dates which include a NYC show at The Concert Hall on March 20. Tickets for that show go on sale Friday (1/11) at 10 AM with an internet presale beginning Thursday (1/10) at 10 AM. All dates are listed below.

Frontman Alan Sparhawk currently has very few US dates planned with his Low cohorts (right now there's one), but look for him on the road as part of Retribution Gospel Choir.

Low tour dates are listed below, along with the song stream...

Continue reading "Low reveals tour & new song from upcoming LP (dates/stream)" at brooklynvegan

Power Animal Systems, a project of Jason Martin will be opening for Lady Gaga. Power Animal Systems will be preforming with Lady Starlight on the upcoming Monster Ball Tour which includes two dates at both Madison Square Garden and the Wells Fargo Center in Philly, and has stops at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, Mohegan Sun and Penn State among others.

Jason Martin, who has spent the last 7 years in NYC is now a resident of Troy. Power Animal Systems is described as the follows:

A species-queer performance ensemble, video project, and photographic series based on illustrations of trans-dimentional beings that visited Jason in visions and dreams, which he kept secret for years until finally integrating this subject matter into his art about 6 years ago, beginning with a zine called Evolution Revolution.

Literally awesome to see a few friends headed out on tour with the biggest artist in the world right now. I am really hoping to catch them either before these huge shows, or ideally at one of them.

Hit the jump to check out a video of a Power Animal Systems performance.

Power Animals @ Art Pussy Brooklyn NY 12/16/11 from Jason Martin on Vimeo.

Greetings. It seems like there are a lot of new people coming over to the FLB every day thanks to either the Real Actors Read Yelp video or the blurb in the Business Review. If you are new here, welcome, it’s great to have you.  Please don’t be shy about introducing yourself to the class in the comment section below. Be anonymous if you must, but real names are always appreciated.

It just so happened that I had planned to dedicate this week to explaining a recent epiphany about the Capital Region dining scene. My current hypothesis will take a few posts to lay out. And at the end you may roll your eyes and say, “Duh, I told you that three years ago,” or maybe you’ll think, “Wow, that’s really interesting. Perhaps he’s onto something.”

Regardless, before I get into the new idea, I think it’s a good idea to reiterate my central criticism and explain some of the past thoughts on this problem. Here it goes:

It’s not that the restaurant food is bad, it’s just too expensive for what it is.

The ultimate goal of this blog is to improve the food of Albany. In some ways I’m an optimist, and think all problems have solutions. The trick, however, is in having a clear understanding of the problem. If I could only figure out how this state of affairs came to be, perhaps I could work towards a solution.

When I first came to town I thought I knew the answer.

The Times Union was to blame. That was my stance. I looked at the historical restaurant reviews by Ruth Fantasia and Bill Dowd and I was beside myself with anger. I read about their experience, what dishes came out well and what fell flat, mostly nodding along. But then they assigned stars and I was flabbergasted. The good news about Miss Fantasia’s tenure was that the Capital Region probably had some of the best calamari in the country. And I put a lot weight on Steve Barnes’ shoulders too.

Now I’m less convinced, as I realize the paper isn’t the cause of the problem, but merely another symptom.

In those early days I was also meeting local Yelpers and making other new friends in the region. And I asked them why the restaurants upstate were more expensive than those in NYC for lesser quality food. And from them I got a similar refrain, “Lobbyists.”

But I don’t buy that now and I didn’t then. There are plenty of other cities where lobbyists operate with equally deep expense accounts, but still have plenty of really delicious, moderately priced restaurants to enjoy. It’s true. So I think it has to be something else.

Recently someone suggested overhead. But I’m still not buying that a restaurant in Albany has similar overhead to a restaurant in New York City.

So fine. Restaurants here can get away with charging in the 20s for entrees that I think should be in the teens. Customers are coming through the door. Maybe the reason why the food isn’t better is because the chefs aren’t interested in searching out better ingredients, changing their menu weekly in order to take advantage of seasonal produce, or challenging their guests with delicious dishes maybe a bit past their comfort zone.

Then I started to make inroads with some local chefs, and I learned that wasn’t really the case either.

Now I’ve got a new answer. And I have a few really solid supporting arguments. But it’s not going to make me any friends. Because it involves one of the most divisive topics in America. One that is so uncomfortable that most people claim that it doesn’t even exist.

Sounds fun, right.

Think roasting coffee is hard? Try doing it without the benefit of sight.

[The Unseen Bean: Roasting Coffee In The Dark]

Colorado residents are positively danked with excitement over a brand new “cannabis-friendly” coffee and tea co-op, the first of its kind since recreational pot laws were passed in Colorado. For just $5, folks over the legal toking age of 21 can hang out at the Hive Co-Op, smoke a little sweet leaf, and play Candyland.

No, for reals:

[The Hive] has board games like Candyland and Chutes and Ladders in a blue-light room. With that special lighting, illustrations in Mark Heath’s artwork become more visible. The Erie artist has attended some of the evening co-op gatherings, which have so far ranged from five to 15 people.

“People have been getting together to drink coffee together for 200-some years,” Heath said. “This is an extension of that.”

Are we hearing this correctly? Pot or no pot, this sounds like a reemergence of the board game friendly, groovy gravy patronizing, black light back lit open mic clove smoke poetry slam guitar jam cafes of our youth. Back in the 1990′s places like this were everywhere…packed with glowing lava lamp lotharios, sipping on dollar kool aid, adding a dash of chai spice to EVERYTHING and waiting for the live show to start, man - the Hive Co-Op sounds exactly like this. Are these places making a comeback thanks to America’s new progressive pot outlook?

Will someone step up and make a place like this with some really good coffee? Similar legislation also passed in Washington State – for more, see Spro and Dro.

Back in November, Spin reported that Matangi, M.I.A.'s fourth studio album, had been delayed from its planned December release. In a new interview with Australian website Gold Coast, Arulpragasam explains the reason for the delay: too many positive vibes, according to her record label, Interscope.

"It's due in April, which is the Tamil new year-- April 15-- and I'm still working on it. I thought I'd finished it. I finished it and then I handed the record in, like a couple of months ago. At the moment, I've been told it's too positive. So we're having a bit of an issue at the label. They're like, 'You need to darken it up a bit.' I don't know what it is but as soon as I work that out... I'm taking my time to decide what they mean. It's an interesting one for me. It's like, 'We just built you up as the public enemy no. 1, and now you're coming out with all this positive stuff."

So why indulge them, asks Gold Coast.

"Well, that's the point of being positive."

Lest anyone forget, back in August she tweeted to her fans, "no one in the industry collected blows in the last 3 years as much as me, this [record] is a fuck you to them and a thank you to you." How she squares that "fuck you" with the label's request for darker material is anyone's guess...

Watch a two-minute preview of a new M.I.A. song called "Walk With Me" below: