| Here There Be Dragonette
I would imagine there are more than a few TND fans who think Dragonette is the Yoko Ono of The New Deal. The words are Dan Kurtzs, and while theyre laced with humour, the feeling is bittersweet. Dan Kurtz is (or perhaps was, depending how you look at it) the driving, grooving bassist for the livetronica trio, The New Deal. But more recently, Kurtz is half of the electro-pop outfit, Dragonette, that is currently taking the UK by storm. Despite the fact that Dragonette has not yet released their first album, the buzz surrounding the sexy pop-rockers can be felt across the Atlantic Ocean. Recently, Perez Hilton, Hollywoods gossip celebrity talked them up on his website, Ryan Stasik lauded them as the band to watch in 2007 and their video on YouTube was one of the most watched videos.
New Release From Northern State Set For May - April 17, 2007
While recording, the girls reported from the studio: "We've been writing some rock songs and some hip hop songs and some other kinds of songs. We have been doing an unprecedented amount of singing, and we are no longer allowed to hold writing sessions at the Rodeo Bar. We have either lost our mind completely or we are making the best record of our career. You decide."
The band's record label, Kanine Records decided that it's their best yet and picked two songs that they feel typify the "other kinds of songs" or their "new direction" and pressed it onto some black vinyl complete with colorful jacket. The A side contains two tracks off their upcoming album and the B side contains exclusive remixes. This will be limited vinyl, though the remixes will be available digitally.
Side A
1.
Improv hero Frith holds forth with
Prolific expatriate British composer, multi-instrumentalist, and improvisational genius Fred Frith – best known as co-founder in the 1960s of "Dada blues band" Henry Cow, and as a soloist in subsequent years whose guitar improvisations are recognized as landmark events – leads parallel lives as a virtuoso performer, a songwriter and composer of film and dance scores, and college professor of composition. He's in town tonight from California for a rare appearance at the Music Gallery, in an improvised collaboration with Toronto cellist/singer Anne Bourne, avant-garde keyboardist John Oswald, violinist/singer Owen (Final Fantasy) Pallett and celebrated Dutch bassist Wilbert de Joode. Earlier this week the Star tracked him down at his office in Oakland's Mills College for an email exchange: Is teaching composition an impediment to improvisational performance or a help? Why would it be an impediment? When I'm teaching composition I'm focused on the creative impulses and desires of my students.
Gigya Launches Free Auto-Posting Tool to Boost Virality of Website ...
PALO ALTO, Calif., April 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Gigya, the leading provider of social-sharing tools, today announced the release of Wildfire, a free, powerful tool for content websites that enables the one-click posting of content to social networks and blogs such as MySpace or Xanga. Wildfire's one-click posting functionality lets users share content such as videos, slide shows, music, games, and widgets without leaving the content provider's site, replacing the clumsy copy/paste technique. "We are already bringing social-sharing tools directly to consumers via our Gigya Webmail product. Now, with the debut of Wildfire, our website partners can provide dynamic-sharing functionalities directly to their users," said Eyal Magen, Gigya's CEO. "Using Wildfire, our users are able to post more easily than ever before," said Joe Heitzeberg, CEO of Snapvine.
Kenya: Musicians Strive to Earn a Fair Share of What They Produce
Royalties are the pension for intellectual property (IP) proprietors or licensors who include musicians, composers, authors and publishers. Artistes such as America's Elvis Priestley or Frank Sinatra still generate tons of money posthumously, thanks to royalties. In Kenya, owning IP has not been so rewarding, especially for musicians. Although it has been in existence for more than 20 years, the Music Copyright Society of Kenya (MCSK) has not made any meaningful impact in its primary role of collecting royalties on behalf of members. .
Warner unhappy with new, DRM-free AnywhereCD
Michael Robertson, founder of MP3.com, has launched a new music download service that sells DRM-free albums, but Warner Music Group is not happy about it. The service, AnywhereCD, sells music in MP3 format with no copy protection, but customers must buy full albums—no cherry-picking of individual tracks as customers do on iTunes. "Last year I decided it was time to revisit selling music in the MP3 format," Robertson wrote on his personal web site. "I reached out to many labels and all were polite and open to meetings. My message was to use the MP3 format to boost sales by offering a new buying option for online music fans." AnywhereCD currently offers a fairly wide selection of music with a number of big names, such as Green Day, They Might Be Giants, Rolling Stones, Faith Hill, Metallica, and more.
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