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music

Live Music, Year-Round

In music, Prince George on 3 February 2012 with no comments

The Coldsnap music festival just finished up in Prince George. I’m a big fan of the festival (and, disclosure, a board member). It’s brought in all-sorts of high-calibre acts that normally wouldn’t tour the city, including Joel Plaskett, Shad, the Great Lake Swimmers, and Dan Managan. This year was no different, with an awesome show [...]

Almost Mainstream: My Top 11 Albums of 2011

In music on 7 January 2012 tagged 2011, Adele, Almost Mainstream, Beastie Boys, best of 2011, Dan Mangan, Destroyer, Fucked Up, Handsome Furs, Mother Mother, music, Rural Alberta Advantage, Smith Westerns, The Weeknd, Timber Timbre with no comments

For the second year in a row, a best-of music list, complete with radio show to accompany it. However, I completely ditched the format of last year. If you want a musical accompaniment while you read, there’s a few, starting with the radio-show version of this list as broadcast on CFUR. Click the big green play [...]

No Important Albums

In music on 22 December 2011 tagged 2010, 2011, Dan Mangan, Destroyer, Fucked Up, Kanye West, Smiths Western, Steve Hyden with 1 comment

“The year of No Important Albums (and many Good Records)” by Steve Hyden → The Onion A.V. writer summarizes what I’ve been thinking about 2011 in music for a couple months now: “I think there’s another reason for the lack of consensus in 2011, and it goes beyond changes in technology. There weren’t any Important Albums. [...]

“This is what I’m showing people if they ever ask me to describe you.”

In music, personal on 16 November 2011 tagged music, wu-tang clan with no comments

I received an email today from someone wanting to know about the music I use as a bed when I do the arts round-up segment for CBC. This was my reply: Hi (name), Andrew here. The music that I use is an instrumental version of the Wu-Tang Clan song “C.R.E.A.M.” I would warn you before [...]

Music, Files, and the Cloud

In music, technology on 10 August 2011 tagged cloud, dropbox, ex.fm, files, mixtape, music, rdio, soundcloud, tumblr with no comments

Over  the last couple of days I’ve seen two posts from people whose opinions I respect indicating that putting files in the cloud would soon be a thing of the past. First, Fred Wilson: “I was in DJ Woooo’s Dance/Electro Turntable room last week. I heard a remix track that was super fun. I hit [...]

How (And Why) To Start A Music Blog With Tumblr

In How To, music, social media on 5 August 2011 tagged blog, music, social media, streampad, tumblr with 3 comments

This is a post written out of selfishness. Every day on Facebook, Twitter (and now Google+) I see people posting their “song of the day” or week or moment. And often these are people whose music tastes I like. But more often than not, their linking to a YouTube page or some other independent website, [...]

Rdio

In music on 13 July 2011 with no comments

So it sounds like Spotify is coming to the United States. If you are neither a music geek nor a tech geek, you may not know what this is. Basically, it’s an on-demand music streaming service– think Netflix for music. I have no idea if Spotify’s American availability will translate to Canada. If Last.fm, Pandora, [...]

Cera on Bandcamp and Online Promotion

In music, Prince George on 16 April 2011 with no comments

I’m a backer of the local musicians. So I thought I’d let you know about an interesting promotion going on with one of the more popular PG groups, Cera. From their Facebook page: Hi! For the first time ever, our latest EP, swans, is available for streaming online in its entirety! Incidentally, you can also [...]

Here's What I Want: A Music Passport

In best of, music on 13 April 2011 with no comments

This week, I’ve been using two new (to me) music services, Grooveshark (pro version, I’ve been trying free for a while) and Rdio. They’re both pretty cool, but that’s not what this post is about. This post is about the need for a universal music passport online. Most of the time when you sign up [...]

Doug Koyama

In music on 1 April 2011 with no comments

I’m on the board of the Coldsnap Music Festival. When our festival ended this year, we had an afterparty with various musicians playing for all the volunteers. Partway through the night, a guy with grey dreadlocks set up some equipment and began singing. Through technological trickery, he then started harmonizing with himself, adding beats and [...]