Sonic Jamming Signals

Category music videos
Iron's Maiden's newest release "The Final Frontier" hits the streets August 17th. According to an interview with Dave Murray from Billboard.com, "We breezed through the album, really. We actually finished it in six weeks. We were getting down a track a day — all playing together as a band, Bruce (Dickenson) singing, all in the same room, so there's a very live-in-the-studio feel to it. Once we finished a track we'd jump straight into doing some extra guitar bits. It was very quick for us."

Below is the track listing

01. Satellite 15....The Final Frontier (8:40)
02. El Dorado (6:49)
03. Mother Of Mercy (5:20)
04. Coming Home (5:52)
05. The Alchemist (4:29)
06. Isle Of Avalon (9:06)
07. Starblind (7:48)
08. The Talisman (9:03)
09. The Man Who Would Be King (8:28)
10. When The Wild Wind Blows (10:59)

Also released was a video for the title track on the Band's website. You can watch it here.


The Final Frontier - Director's Cut

Iron Maiden | MySpace Music Videos

Posted by Dave Gilmore At 9:34 AM Location Studio | Permalink | Comments (0)

Category new music distribution
Last year, Billy Corgan announced on the Smashing Pumpkins official site that the reorganized Smashing Pumpkins are planning on releasing a monsterous new LP of 44 tracks entitled Teargarden by Kaleidyscope. But, rather than having fans wait for the release of the entire set, the Pumpkins are offering the songs free to download from their website as they are released.

My desire is to release a song at a time beginning around Halloween of this year, with each new release coming shortly after until all 44 are out. Each song will be made available absolutely for free, to anyone anywhere. There will be no strings attached. Free will mean free, which means you won’t have to sign up for anything, give an email address, or jump through a hoop. You will be able to go and take the song or songs as you wish, as many times as you wish.”

The plan will be to also release limited edition 4 song EPs of the music. Doing the math that gives us a total of 11 EPs, with a boxed set to be released as well. But don't expect the boxed set to be the 11 EPs just repackaged. Corgan says "the box set will not be a recompilation of the limited edition pieces."

Currently there are 2 tracks on the Pumpkins's site; a track called "Widow Wake My Mind" and one called "A Song For A Son".

Posted by Dave Gilmore At 9:05 AM Location Studio | Permalink | Comments (1)

Category distribution
Recently FreeAllMusic.com inked deals with both EMI and Universal Music Group - two of the Big Four labels. Their service will allow anyone to freely download content from the record label's artists.

The site will allow it's members to download 20 tracks a month, and only 5 per week. The counter resets on Tuesday (the day most new music is released). The site is still in beta. The files are all high quality MP3s, free and legal, and no DRM.

In return for the free downloads, users will watch a short commercial video after making their selection from well known brands suck as Coca-Cola, Warner Bros, and others. After that, the song is all yours.

Posted by Dave Gilmore At 8:33 AM Location Studio | Permalink | Comments (0)

Category music news
In an article from the Associated Press yesterday EMI announced that it is looking for buyers for one of their biggest assets - Abby Road Studios. The studio is most famous for being the place the Beatles recorded most of their music. Also of note, the majority of Pink Floyd's catalog, Wings' "Band on The Run", and Radiohead's "OK Computer" and "The Bends". This is also the place where Cliff Richard and the Drifters recorded "Move It", which many people believe to be the first Rock and Roll single in Europe.

The studio started out in 1931 after the Gramophone Company purchased the structure and turned it into recording studios. Gramophone later turned into EMI and the building was then known as EMI Studios. IN 1969, The Beatles named their album after the street the studio stood on - Abby Road. Later on in 1970, EMI formally changed the name of the studio to what we know it as today.

Studio 2 at Abby Road becaome the room of innovation in the 1960's and would change the recording of music forever. Sir George Martin and the Beatles would develope such techniques as flanging, automatic double tracking and controlled feedback. Later, in the 1970s, Pink Floyd would push the limits of recording even further there.

EMI is currently looking for bidders in hopes to help with it's $165 million shortfall that it is sitting on. It is doubtful they will even come close to that number with the sale of the historic landmark.  One can only hope that when it gets purchased it will either remain an active studio or be turned into a museum of some sort and not get "repurposed in the name of progress".

Posted by Dave Gilmore At 8:25 AM Location Studio | Permalink | Comments (0)

Category new music
Here is a list of new releases for 2/9/2010. Of note are new albums from Heathen ("The Evolution Of Chaos"), Sonny Rollins ("Saxophone Colossus & More"), Nina Simone ("Essential Early Recordings"), Sonic Youth ("The Eternal") and the Soundtrack to the movie "The Book of Eli."

Posted by Dave Gilmore At 8:16 AM Location Studio | Permalink | Comments (0)

Category new music
Here is a list of new releases for 2/9/2010. Of note are new albums from AFI ("The Lowdown"), rereleases of the Buzzcocks' first three albums ("Another Music In A Different Kitchen", "Love Bites", and "A Different Kind Of Tension"), Kenny Chesney ("Greatest Hits II"), Fear Factory ("Mechanize"), Hurupt ("Down and Dirty"), Overkill ("Ironbound"), The Pretenders ("Live In London"), and South Side Johnny & The Asbury Jukes ("1978 - Live In Boston")

Posted by Dave Gilmore At 8:16 AM Location Studio | Permalink | Comments (0)

Category news
Thrash metal big guns Slayer and Megadeth have recently announced that their "American Carnage" Tour is back on starting this July. The tour was postponed last month due to Slayer singer/bassist Tom Araya's back surgery to repair numbness he had been experiencing in his fingers.

Doctors report that Araya is home and recovering perfectly. He is already reporting the pain and numbness has diminished dramatically.

Also on the road for part of the tour will be Testament in support of their 2008 "Formation of Damnation". They will be the opening act, just as they were in 1991 when the three metal powerhouses were on the road for "Clash Of The Titans".

Posted by Dave Gilmore At 7:34 PM Location Studio | Permalink | Comments (0)

Category birthdays
Wishing Steve Perry of Journey fame a happy 61st birthday today!

Perry joined Journey in 1977 and remained their frontman until 1987 and then again from 1995 to 1998. He also had a very successful solo career and is currently still recording.

I know I come off as a bit of a rock snob at times, and bands like Journey and Foriegner are largely why metal and punk formed in the first place, but when these guys wrote songs together it was instant magic. Their Greatest hits album is in regular roation in my library and I dare anyone to listen to songs like "Lights", "Don't Stop Believin", "Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'" or "Whose Cryin' Now" and not sing along.

Posted by Dave Gilmore At 2:02 PM Location Studio | Permalink | Comments (0)

Category music news
Okay. So at first glance it looks more like the title of an Eminem CD. But it's actully the title of the forthcoming album from The Prince Of Darkness himself. The album is schedule for release in June and is produced by Ozzy and Kevin Churko, who also co-produced Osbournse's 2007 release "Black Rain". This will be the first album with new guitarist Gus G.

If the success of "Black Rain" is any indicator, then this album will be another top seller for the Godfather of Metal. "Black Rain" was certified Gold by the RIAA in 2007 and shipped over 500,00 copies in its first week alone. However, one key missing ingredient will be long time guitarist Zakk Wylde following theirhighly publicized split.

Posted by Dave Gilmore At 9:16 AM Location Studio | Permalink | Comments (0)

Category streaming on demand
In the beginning of December, MOG officially launched it's All Access music service. Michael Arrington covered a lot the features on the TechCrunch blog already, so I won't go into all of them here. The list is quite impressive, and, for $5/month (its to cover the on demand part mostly), there isn't another service out there that currently comes close to it.

When I read about MOG, it also brought up another post on TechCrunch by Robin Wauters that shows how streaming and on demand services are cutting down on piracy. The data shows that as more things become available on legitimate on demand sites (whether you have to pay for them or not) people will tend to use them over file sharing sites. People, in general, will get things the easiest way they can. If a show is made available to sites like hulu or in iTunes, they have no problem getting them that way; as long as its easy to use. The younger generations don't care about ownership as much as us old fogies do. They just want what they want when they want it. File sharing sites are full of dead links, litigation and uncertainty these days. Why risk it if you can just go to a site and stream it when you want to see it. Lets say you just started watching Lost in it's final season. You love the show and need to catch up from first season on. You could do it old school and buy/rent the DVDs. Or, you could spend a few hours trying to find well seeded torrents that will allow for quick downloads. With a decent internet connection and a well seeded torrent, you could be watching episode 1 about 4-6 hours later. And these episodes take up space. So, take into account that you will be downloading 5 full seasons, you'll be chewing up a lot of hard drive space. Or, you could just go to ABC's website and watch all the episodes there. A couple of clicks and you're happily streaming the first show in less than a few minutes. Sure, you have to put up with advertising, but they're only quick ads. And, let's be realistic. Most of the time you watch a show once, maybe twice, and then never watch it again. So, buying seasons of shows is often a waste of money. Sure, there will be that favorite episode you return to quite often. But if its online you will be able to stream it whenever you want and from wherever you are. Downloaded the show at home but now you're relaxing on the beach in Maui with your laptop? Oops. You can guarantee the hotel wifi connection isn't going to have enough bandwidth for you to download that whole torrent again.

Music is a little different when you take into account portable players. A lot of the same rules apply, however. You just had a Wall-to-Wall on Facebook with one of your high school chums about a concert you went to and now you want to listen to some of that old stuff. You could run out and buy the CD, or download it from iTunes if its there. But, if you're using services like MOG just to play songs you already own, you're missing the point. It's about discovering new music. Or listening to stuff you don't own. And being able to do it super easily. Working in the social aspect of the site, you'll see the most popular playlists, artists, songs, etc. from friends and others. You don't get that listening to a big library in iTunes.

But, for piracy to really take a hit, it's gotta all be there. Sites like Hulu are great for a lot of shows. But, if you are only putting up a few episodes and not the entire catalog, people are going to get it anyway they can. That's why piracy is so prevalent. If people want it, they'll get it the easiest way possible. Make it available to them legitimately, easily, and throw up a couple ads or charge a minimal fee, and they will bite. And I can tell you that a lot of the stuff I want isn't in iTunes. So, I'm stuck tracking down the CD or downloading it from somewhere else.

The numbers don't lie; if you post it, they will come.

Posted by Dave Gilmore At 12:50 AM Location Studio | Permalink | Comments (0)