iconogeek » music

A cheap way to smash a pumpkin in a fountain with your friend Wayne Hanson.

Chuck — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 15:05:07 +0000

I just found my new favorite band.

What do you get when you take the solid, pop rhythm of Cheap Trick, the crunch of Smashing Pumpkins, temper it with Fountains of Wayne’s melodic bubblegum, AND top it off with a surprisingly grown up Hanson?

You get Tinted Windows, and it is quite possibly the best merging of 4 different groups I’ve heard in a while. It takes all of the signature sounds of each and makes a single, very catchy, very poppy, very fun summer hit.

While I love all types of music (my itunes library is VERY eclectic), I always gravitate towards this music, I think because it’s just fun, period. I did it when I first heard Fuzzbubble (thanks Kev), Fountains, and of course Cheap Trick (Which I played until the tape broke – yes I said tape…as in cassette tape). I’m excited for the album and will offer a full review when it’s released.

Now go check out Fuzzbubble already!

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Get Lyrics and album artwork for your iTunes library

Chuck — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 20:23:47 +0000

If you’re like me, you’ve been slowly trying to organize your massive amount of music in your iTunes library over the past couple of years. If I’ve got 15 minutes here or there, I’ll go and get some album artwork and lyrics. The only problem is that it takes FOREVER…FORever…forever.

I’m also a huge fan of automation, I’m big on Photoshop actions to make my life easier, so when I found Doug’s Scripts for itunes, I was suitably interested. Essentially, this guy has written a shit ton of automated applescripts for iTunes and boy I found a doozy for my lyrics and album art hunger. First, you need to get “Needle Drop” and install it- what this does is let you play the tracks in your library for a specified amount of time, then move on to the next, and so on and so on.

Next step is to grab “GimmeSomeTune” from Apple’s site. This is the program that allows you to download art and lyrics for a playing song (among other things). Together, these two apps let you quickly run through your library and download the lyrics and artwork if the song doesn’t have any.

Here’s what to do:

Install Needle Drop – just follow the directions
Run GimmeSomeTune, you’ll see a musical note show up in your menu bar
Click that music note and choose “Preferences” and click on the “Artwork/Lyrics” button
Click the “Fetch Cover Artwork…” checkbox (I chose to keep the album art with the audio file. Not sure the difference, other than increased file size, which at current storage prices really doesn’t matter)
Click the “Fetch Lyrics…” checkbox
Close the Preferences window
Look for the “S” logo between the Window and Help menus in iTunes – that’s where you access the Needle Drop script (and any other scripts for that matter). Click it and select Needle Drop
Choose “6″ seconds for the duration of the play and “0″ for the starting time.
Watch and enjoy.

Mines been running all day, just make sure you check on it every once in a while, the GimmeSomeTune app seems to stop running for no reason (maybe it’s sleep, I’m not sure yet). But, it’s performing as promised, very cool

********************* UPDATE 10/12 *********************

OK, I came across a bug when doing this. All of the artwork while displaying correctly in iTunes, was all wrong on the iPod. Sometimes is would match and sometime sit wouldn’t. Even on artwork I had previously set myself and for purchased items. I re-synched but that didn’t help. The solution, I found, was to restore the iPOd to the factory settings (just dock the iPod, select it in the left hand column in iTunes, and click “Restore” on the Summary page). That did the trick!

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More NIN Love

jason — Mon, 05 May 2008 14:37:01 +0000

http://theslip.nin.com/

New Nine Inch Nails album, not just instrumental this time either. In his effort to constantly outdo himself this one is entirely free. Yes, free.

Once I get it downloaded and give it a listen I’ll let you know my thoughts.

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Holy Shirley Temple’s P**sy Batman, They’re Back!

Chuck — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 02:03:30 +0000

Holy crap is right. I know this is not really breaking news at all, but I’ve been a fan of STP’s from the very, very beginning. Way back in my college days at SUNY Cortland, circa 1992, I was the metal music directory at our college radio station 90.5 WSUC FM (“SUC on your FM dial and we’ll come in your ear” – seriously we said that). One afternoon a CD single single (remember those, true believers?) came across my desk, it was “Sex Type Thing” from a new band called Stone Temple Pilots. Now many of my colleagues brushed them off as “Pearl Jam ripoffs” – but quite frankly, I never saw or heard that at all. I recognized them for exactly what they were…incredibly talented and incredibly fresh. I distinctly remember writing my notes on the jewel case (so the DJ’s would know which tracks to play on air for the new music rotation) and finishing them up with a “these guys will probably be insanely popular.” Prophetic, maybe. Fanboy, definitely.

The fanboy was cemented in my mind when I saw them live in NYC during the CMJ Music Festival in 92. STP is one of those bands that just completely come alive when they perform. If you’ve never seen Weiland come out on stage in a Zorro outfit, flailing his arms widely as he grins and grits his teeth, well… you haven’t lived, my friend, you just haven’t lived.

“Sex Type Thing” kicked my ass from the second it hit my ears and I’ve followed STP ever since. The band helped define an era for me with music that was not only skillfully written but had a lyrical soul that was sorely needed at that time in music. Don’t get me wrong, I was a HUGE fan of 80′s hair metal (and still am) – but after a while, I really didn’t want to hear about how many girls you can bang and who long you can do it for. STP wrote intelligent songs and never insulted their audience. They even helped usher in the unplugged era (along with Tesla) when Dean with just his guitar and Scott with just his mic performed “Plush” live on Headbanger’s Ball.

I’ve followed the members of STP through several incarnations including Weiland’s solo album, 12 bar blues; the Weiland-less STP (with Dave Coutts on vocals) as Talk Show; The Guns & Roses/STP mash-up Velvet Revolver, and the Filter/STP mash-up Army of Anyone. I’ve loved it all – there is true musical genius flowing through all of those bands.

So, needless to say I’m excited to catch them on tour and can’t wait to hear what’s next. I’m already on line at the Vatican gift shop.

Official STP Site
STP Tour Dates

Oh yeah, set your TiVo’s for Jimmy Kimmel Live on May 1st. They’re reported to be one.

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Some have gone and some remain…

Brett — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 01:10:55 +0000

Neil Aspinall (13 October 1941 – 24 March 2008) has died at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in NYC. The ex-Apple Corps Ltd. executive stepped down from his post as chief executive of the company and “guardian of the Beatles’ commercial interests,” last year. As a longtime friend of Paul McCartney and George Harrison dating back to their school days in Liverpool, Aspinall served at the legendary band’s first road manager. He would drive them to many of their gigs in his Commer van in the early 1960′s. A statement released by the remaining members of the Beatles stated, “all his friends and loved ones will greatly miss him but will always retain the fondest memories of a great man.”

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Steady As She Goes

Brett — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 17:36:16 +0000

Billboard.com is reporting that the Jack White side-project, The Raconteurs, is releasing its follow-up to 2006′s fantastic Broken Boy Soldiers on March 25. This is apparently way ahead of schedule. The record will be released on ALL formats including digital download, CD and vinyl. I like the fact that bands are following Radiohead’s lead and bypassing the evil corporate record labels as much as possible. These bands only succeed in pleasing their loyal fans by pursuing such endeavors. Let’s face it, people who don’t like The Raconteurs are stupid, but they’ll appreciate music being released on the band’s terms, rather then when some fat “pigvomit” in a cushy corner office who wouldn’t know Jack White from Jack Palance decides he can extract every last dime from the band’s success.Anyway, I highly recommend the 2006 release, and have very high expectations for “Consolers of the Lonely.” Jack White is distinguishing himself as one of the best and most innovative guitarists of this generation. Here’s a link to the Raconteurs official site announcing the early release. Rock on.

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Gnarls Barkley – Banned?

Cesar — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 05:20:12 +0000

Well, this caught me by surprise the today. I had heard reports that the video of the album’s first single was reportedly banned from MTV.

Now I’m thinking to myself “Wow these guys must have done something to piss off the status quo, good for them!” So I managed to find the video in YouTube, so I sat myself down and prepared myself for the mind bending experience that this video would expose me to. I mean it must be that great if MTV banned it (supposedly).

The “bad” stuff is around 2:15 on the video, I was disappointed to a level that of Jumper.

Perhaps I should have read the article before thinking it might be something crazy just seems to be the fact that the black and white zigzag lines are whats causing the problems and MTV feels it might cause alot of the audiences to pull Bart & Lisa in Japan and follow similar suit.

I keep seeing Justin Timberlake in a lot of places he’s pretty funny in this video and also on the trailer of the new Mike Myers movie. Good for him.

Honestly I think the music video Crazy was much better than this album’s video debut.

In any event, I’m going to pick up the cd and hopefully it will be just as good as St. Elsewhere.

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