Los Angeles based musician Nico Stai recently played to a packed house at Ghettogloss, an art gallery in the Silver Lake district of Los Angeles and the venue for the recent CD release of his sophomore EP, The Victory of Miss Friday: How to Bury Your Heart and the Five Songs You Died For. Right on the tails of the Dead Pony EP, and once again pressing forward with the full band dynamic are Jeff Evans, Sean Stentz, and Josh Mervin - the talented musicians who helped Mr. Stai round out the tracks on this new release. Together they create a passionate collage filled with new exploratory sounds including the sounding of triumphant horns on the first single and lead-off track, Scream.  We will be featuring that track on the website as well, so please do come back. Nico has recently filmed a segment for the new WB music web series Rockville, CA, basically centered around a fictional club in Echo Park, CA - based off the local Echo & Echoplex venues. Nico Stai will appear as one of the artists performing at the club, surrounded on the network production slate by other great names such as Frightened Rabbit, Earlimart, The Broken West, Duke Spirit, and Bishop Allen amongst others. The show is being created by Josh Schwartz, who you may know from ‘The OC’, ‘Chuck’ and most recently ‘Gossip Girl’.  The delivery date is Early 2009. You can pick up a copy of Nico’s new EP at iTunes as well as Amazon.  You will not be disappointed.  Things are definitely looking up! [cs] Download | Subscribe | Subscribe in iTunes | Subscribe to All Less

Bill Cammacks Rock Star series Lindsey Chen, Erik Beck, Justin Johnson Formats available: iPod (.mp4), Apple TV (.m4v), Phone (.3gp), Audio (.mp3) Tags: Production & Post, RockStar, Video Less

I’m thinking about adding a hyphen to my name. Maybe it will make me better at guitar. Greg Erie-Murphy. (Yes, Erie is my middle name) I’ll have to get a new middle name though. So, I’m assuming that everyone knows who the Mars Volta are, who At The Drive-In was, and how Sparta sucks. If not, Wiki that shit. I’ll wait and give you this picture to gander at when you get back. Saying that Omar kicks the shit out of everyone on guitar is an understatement. He is a virtuoso of a different kind. Just listen to “Tied Prom Digs on the Docks” on this album. It is clearly the centerpiece of the album and brings a whole new feel to the rest of the album from a perfect mix of ATDI and Volta to complete jazz fusion. This album really feels ahead of its time, as it was recorded in 2001, released recently, and still manages to jump ahead of what artists are doing now. While I listen to most albums while playing games, I listened to this album while sitting and paying attention, which is something I try to do for Omar, because if I don’t I never comprehend what is going on. He takes you through twists and turns that will come at you unexpected, and then follows those with insane improvisational guitar parts that put him with the best musicians of our time. The biggest difference between current Omar and Volta projects and this cd is the life of Jeremy Michael Ward. He was the original sound manipulator/programmer for Volta until he died of a heroin overdose like musicians always fatefully do. His depression is evident in his sounds, and how he always played offstage. His ability to scare the living shit out of you with sound will make you even more frightened to think what was going on through his and Omar’s mind, as they were both on heroin throughout this album. You must check this album out if you want an exploration in music. If you have distaste for creativity, honesty, instrumentals (considering the lack of vocals) or jazz, then fuck off. If not, you are in for a treat. Good luck finding it though. It took a good long while of intense googling and traveling to record stores to find this. Posted in Tunes 2 Pwn Face 2   Tagged: ambience, Ambient, beautiful, experimental, frightening, Japanese Rape Game, jazz, jeremy michael ward, mars volta, omar, punk, rock, rodriguez-lopez    Less

Bill Cammack’s “Rock Star” series Formats available: iPod (.mp4), Phone (.3gp), Audio (.mp3) Tags: Production & Post, RockStar, Video Less

Funky Electronic Rock | Put this record on and you will start dancing. This is what’s going to happen. Dids awesome catchy and funky electronic rock is full of surprises and probably makes you wonder when you think about their hometown of Turin, Italy. Because this kind of music suits New York and maybe London. But here they are, 4 young boys from Italy, rocking the dancefloor with the feel of beeing trapped in the best of the eightees with a modern touch of electronic rock. Did are Guido Savini, Giancarlo Maresca, Andrea Tirone and Andrea Prato from the Motor-City of Turin, which is known for its car factories and network of highways. Maybe this has something to do with their music. Because Dids sound buzzes like a good running engine. Never stopping beats, the baseline goes on without hesitation, guitars are mashing up the scene and electronic elements are everywhere adding this little bit of extra extra. “Ask U2″ seems to be a forerunner for their upcoming album that will invade our dancefloors hopefully very soon. Placed in “The Dancy Issue” in the back-catalogue of the italien netlabel Kirstens Postcard, Dids “Ask U2″ EP is surely something that will find it’s way all around the world. So, come on and help spreading the word! MP3 Rock Music Download Download: Did - Ask U2 (ZIP-Archive) Artist-Website: www.myspace.com/didmusik Netlabel: www.kirstenspostcard.com Less

I tend to take a lot of pictures. I found out early on in my photo-taking tenure that the more pictures I took, the more likely that some of them would come out nicely. Of course, I’m always the one behind the camera. As a parent, I also have wondered just how much of the time I spend with my kids they will remember (if any). My father recently asked me if I remembered how we used to watch Star Trek together. I honestly couldn’t remember. He was crushed. It occurred to me that many years down the road when my kids look at our family pictures they won’t see me in any of them because I was the one behind the camera. Something tells me that this detail will be lost on them as they repeat the cycle and tell me they don’t remember me being there. ;) For some reason I decided that I wanted to use a string quartet in one of my songs. I’ve never composed music for a string quartet, and I’m not even sure that I’m qualified to write the little pop songs that I do write. That hasn’t stopped me yet, so string quartets watch out! Needless to say my first rendition used all the built in strings my software had to offer. And while I am no snob when it comes to electronic instruments, they just didn’t have the kind of sound I was looking for. In search of something more personal I was lucky to find to musicians who were willing to help me. Nathan, my daughter’s cello teacher supplied the cello for this song, and my pal Jenny played the violin. Between them I think they did an awesome job resembling a string quartet. If you like the song, they deserve the credit. If you don’t, blame me. Take the Picture by Sugar Fix Less

Episode: “Get A Job” (download iPod version) Show: “Rock Star” (category | rss feed | iTunes) Host: Bill Cammack NewInNovember: newinnov.tumblr.com The New York Times ran a classified ad stating that there was a job fair Friday at the Pierre Hotel to replace about 250 jobs lost during an ongoing renovation. This is what happened…. Tags: RockStar, Video Less

Another shitty cover. For this cover, I played the bass part with a pick. As bad as the playing on this is, it took me a lot longer than I thought it would to get the drums and some of the guitar overdubs recorded. I thought about giving up and moving on to another song for a while, but finally got everything done tonight. Less

Prog! Math! Horns! The intro to this tune came to me, quite literally, in a dream--11/8 time signature, quartal harmonies, and all--and I realized it needed the full avant-prog treatment. Thanks to Tom Dambly (trumpet), Mike Freitas (drums), Chris Now (trombone), and Craig Polson (bass). I played C-melody saxophone. Recorded in 1996. Less

Episode: “Guitar N Drums” (download iPod version) Show: “Rock Star” (category | rss feed | iTunes) Host: Bill Cammack NewInNovember: newinnov.tumblr.com Tags: bill cammack, rock star, rockstar, guitar, drums   Tags: RockStar, Video Less

Building the Ultimate Home Theater, Part two, goes into using a PlayStation 3 to playback all your media content in your living room Less

Episode: “For Barack and John” (download iPod version) Show: “Rock Star” (category | rss feed | iTunes) Host: Bill Cammack NewInNovember: newinnov.tumblr.com Tags: bill cammack, rock star   Tags: RockStar, Video Less

Affair of the Heart | Music helps you to get nostalgic every now and then. Remembering the good ole days might be a stupid reason to fancy certain songs or bands but sometimes you can’t help. Consider New York City Famicom-Rockers The Depreciation Guild - what took these delicious guys to fuse early 90’s Shoegaze with tickling 8bit textures? You simple don’t have another opportunity than lovin’ them! Three American guys with surprisingly German names, Kurt Feldman with brothers Anton and Christoph Hochheim form a band of two guitars, vocals and a modified Famicom, known as “NES” in Europe (check this nice techtalk article to learn more about their line up). The Depreciation Guild’s first EP “Nautilus” was released over at 8bitpeoples.com (see our Blip feature for a nice live video of the band at the 2007 festival), but their full-length album is online on their website without any label support. This makes sense in a way as their melody-driven Indierock never suited the Peoples that well. Recorded by Feldman and his companion Akira Hashizume, “In Her Gentle Jaws” (what a title!) features ten energetic and moony Pop tunes with a lot of fuzzy guitars and vocals like recorded in a hall church. The Famicom leads are integral part of their music and not only used as a gimmick. Slightly out of tune, most of their songs don’t show up with all of their bliss at first try, but “Sky Ghosts”, “Dark Looming” or “Digital Solace” are bittersweet symphonies par excellence. A light-hearted version of My Bloody Valentine, Ride, Cocteau Twins of course… imagine this bands mixed with the sound of Nintendo’s oldest console and you know what The Depreciation Guild sound like. Brillant, end to end. MP3 Pop Music Download Download: “In Her Gentle Jaws” ZIP Artist-Website: www.inhergentlejaws.com Less

Episode: “How To Tune A Guitar” (download iPod version) Show: “Rock Star” (category | rss feed | iTunes) Host: Bill Cammack NewInNovember: newinnov.tumblr.com   Tags: Production & Post, RockStar, Video Less

Cover of a song made popular by Dionne Warwick, I think. This is the second in what I'm hoping will be an albums worth of shitty covers by my band, Los Muchachos Mexicanos. I'm trying to stick as close to the original as I can in terms of tempo and arrangement and on top of generally shitty playing, I'm trying to change one or two minor things that make the songs distinctly different. With this song I tried moving the main vocals down one octave. Less

Psychedlic Lo-fi Indiepop | Bobby Aherne aka Dublin Duck Dispensary is a young Ireland lad, “Luanqibazao” his sixth EP of snotty Indiepop psychedelia, the third for Rack & Ruin Netlabel. “Luanqibazao” is Chinese and means “a complete mess”. A good descriptions for the music, indeed! Between Dada lyrics, lo-fi Pop and Plunderpunk, one man outfit Dublin Duck Dispensary populate his own cosy niche. One thing I like a lot about demos, b-side compilations, live recordings, and, well, certain Netaudio releases is the fact that the music can be quite rough. Unhewn both in sound and songwriting, Dublin Duck Dispensary’s  “Luanqibazao” is a good example for what pearls might easily be overseen upon flighty observation. 13 tracks and drafts for Popsongs to come, much excitement can be found in here. “Bible Stories” is the demo version of an early Arcade Fire tune, “Prestidigitation” features lopsided drums and a happy-sad synth melody that makes you think of Nicholas Thorburn’s Unicorns (a big guide very likely!). “I Smell The Blood” is a wonderful guitar-driven Popsong, “Brain Damage” a Wire-style assault of compressed Punk energy. Between a few dubby experiments, “The Death Threat” is another fine Indiepop song you might want to be familiar with. Did I mention the Beta Band for comparison? Stephen Malkmus? Bobby Aherne’s influences are legion, but alltogether he manages to make to sound fresh and unique. Check this delicate live performance! MP3 Pop Music Download Download: “Luanqibazao” ZIP Release: Dublin Duck Dispensary - “Luanqibazao” Netlabel: www.rackandruinrecords.com Artist-Website: www.myspace.com/dublindd Less