First up we have The Unsettlers, who came to our attention during their recent performance at Osheaga 2010. Though Osheaga featured such luminaries as The Arcade Fire, Metric, Weezer and other favourites of the Pitchfork crowd, The Unsettlers couldn’t be further away from the slick hipster rock of those acts. Occupying the Trees Stage while The Arcade Fire set up on the main stage, The Unsetters’ act was unjustly ignored at Osheaga. Well, we can’t turn back time, but we can turn up the volume on this awesome band. They deserve it.

According to the Unsettlers’ blurb on their MySpace, the 11-piece ensemble “specialize in funeral dirges for the living, dark polkas, menacing waltzes and horse-drawn lullabies, all filtered through the creaking floorboards of a whiskey soaked saloon.” Sounds good, right?

In practice, the band crosses genres at a whim, and their sound can’t be easily pegged — a fascination for early 20th century music is in evidence, mixing everything from Appalachian mountain folk to Weimar cabaret to the Depression-era dust bowl countryside. While it might sound gimmicky on paper, The Unsettlers bring genuine pathos and atmosphere to their lurching, Vaudeville-broke-down sound. The gruff vocals of B.W. Brandes, channeling Tom Waits, barks and howls while pretty female voices warble in the background (in shades of Decemberists). Clattering ragtime pianos, clarinets, trumpets, glockenspeils… all festive yet melancholy, like a square-dance at a funeral.

The Unsettlers are becoming known for their live shows, which feature sword-swallowers and other carnival-esque antics. It’s only a matter of time before these guys blow up big — better enjoy their small, local club concerts while you can!

Check out the Unsettlers’ Myspace, enjoy their twisted tunes, and be sure to scout out their debut album, available in certain forward-thinking record shops.

Without further ado…

1. LAST.FM

Going in, I was already a big fan of last.fm, and that’s because I scrobble. No, it’s not as filthy as it sounds. To scrobble means that you let the last.fm service track the music you play on your computer or portable device, linking you to others who do the same, with comparisons of your tastes and suggested artists to check out. It’s beautiful in its simplicity.

There are even (unofficial) ways to scrobble data to last.fm from other services like Slacker and Pandora, should you care to. Well-played, last.fm. Well-played.

While revealing of your true self in the same way a Facebook drunk picture can be (Do I really listen to Corey Hart that much? you’ll ask yourself), it’s the scrobbles that give last.fm its power. No other site can match last.fm’s ability to unite fans of the most obscure possible acts from all over the globe. It’s a treasure trove of the underground, the underrated, the undiscovered and the antiquated.

I’ve been a last.fm user for almost three years, in which time I’ve scrobbled about 50,000 tracks from about 2,000 different artists, many discovered through the site itself. But I never touched their subscription radio feature even once, until so recently. I suppose the prospect of making a decision based on thirty entire tracks just wasn’t worth the bother. Thirty tracks on last.fm represents a couple hours of listening, at best. Costco booths give you bigger free samples than that!

But for purposes of this article, I listened. And I was exposed to roughly thirty awesome artists I’d never heard of before. Impressive, but not surprising considering what I know of last.fm Unlike the ‘listen to related artists’ features of other sites — dictated from the top down, by genre marketeers — last.fm’s choices of related artists are generated by the scrobbles of other users. And other users aren’t DJs. They don’t care about flow. They can be eccentric and eclectic. And they can surprise you in the best way.

And… now I’m out of tracks. Luckily, last.fm’s subscription service is very cheap (as advertised, it’s only $3.00 a month). Of all the pay services listed here, last.fm’s is the one I’m most likely to embrace. Call it brand loyalty, but the price is right, the interface is a breeze, and the musical selection is so far off the scale that they’ll have to start measuring in parsecs.

A related note: Where clunky old Myspace claims to be the arbiter of undiscovered basement bands and quirky DIY auteurs, last.fm actually provides, and then some. Take note, unsigned musicians — if you’re not on Last.fm, you’re nowhere. Perhaps literally. Get your tracks up there and join the party.

• BEST FEATURE: Every band you can think of. And more. Much more.
• WORST FEATURE: If you don’t at least have an open mind about listening to dudes playing theremins in their basements, you may as well not bother.
• IDEAL FOR: People so indie that their favourite bands only play clubs in New Crobuzon.

2. GROOVESHARK

I’m new to Grooveshark and have yet to plumb its depths, but let me tell you — this thing packs a punch. Once you get past an initially off-putting interface — it’s iTunes, but yellow — you’ll find yourself in a deep delicious ocean of sound.

One thing I like about Grooveshark? Make that a few things: No signups or registrations to deal with. No limited number of track skips. No mid-song buffering. Freedom of interaction is a big positive: You can skip tracks forward and back, scan back and forth in a song if you want to hear a certain refrain again (just as you could on your own mp3 player) and treat the place like a big musical sandbox.

I’m not sure what Grooveshark’s subscription-based VIP service entails. How can you get better than Grooveshark’s free service? At this rate, I’m figuring it involves swimming in a pool of Cristal and then a trip to the mile-high club aboard a private space shuttle made of diamonds.

To save favourites, save tracklists and access the custom radio stations, you’ll have to register. This is entirely optional, and you can get to the music without it. Playlist creation is a little finicky at first — it’s easy to delete or scramble a listing by accident — but it’s also very powerful, with the ability, much like iTunes, to select multiple tracks in the conventional way, with a shift-click. I didn’t expect such a high level of interaction and navigability from a Flash interface, and I must say I’m impressed.

Grooveshark is a new discovery for me, but I anticipate going back to it very soon. Actually, I’m already there. And how sweet it is.

• BEST FEATURE: Depth, selection, interactivity, speed, etc.
• WORST FEATURE: Design cribs from iTunes, and iTunes isn’t that great to begin with.
• IDEAL FOR: People with functioning ears.

3. SLACKER RADIO

Oookay. Slacker. Slacker doesn’t let you navigate inside of a song. It gives you a limited number of song skips. It requires registration that expires after thirty days, and there are loud and obnoxious pre-recorded DJs in between songs. It requires you to disable any script-blocking software just so their interface will work and the songs will load.

Yeah.

Okay, for the two of you still reading this section… I hope you like Top 40. Because that’s what you’re gonna get.

Seriously. Unlike the other services mentioned in this article, Slacker is heavily biased towards the mainstream. If you let Slacker do the work for you in constructing a playlist, it’ll load you up with all kinds of major-label crap that you’ve heard hundreds of times before on the radio, and probably didn’t enjoy much then, either. Their ‘related artists’ system is a bit of a joke in this regard. In Slacker’s nightmarish, dystopian world, all roads lead to Godsmack. Even roads that started at ambient electronic. Internet research tells me that Slacker is owned and programmed by former satellite radio operators. In terms of musical selection, this may be its chief problem. They should rename themselves ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Not Clear Channel’.

There is an upside. Potentially a fantastic upside. If you have the time and patience to program your own playlists (a bit of a daunting affair, full of micromanagement) you may end up building a real work of art — a playlist crafted by both human and algorithmic hands to feed you new and awesome music every track. Your range of options in this regard is actually quite powerful and easy to administrate, with the ability to choose or ban songs, artists or genres at will.

But Slacker — paradoxically, considering its name — assumes you have the patience and willpower to do this. Not everyone will. Slacker advertises having over 2 million songs at their disposal, but if they’re just going to heap steaming piles of Nickelback upon you anyway, what’s the point?

Slacker’s subscription service apparently features ABC News bites and unlimited song skip ability. Well, sound the vuvuzelas, it’s party time. Or not. In the end, Slacker is for less discerning, more mainstream listeners, and it serves them very well. But I’m not one of them. And those pre-recorded DJs can suck a donkey.

• BEST FEATURE: It’s just like the radio.
• WORST FEATURE: It’s just like the radio.
• IDEAL FOR: People whose radios have just broken and it’s too late at night to hit up Wal-Mart in their H2s while chugging Smirnoff Ice.

4. PANDORA

Most Internet music goons will tell you that Pandora is the greatest overall choice for a personalized ‘Net radio stream with depth and breadth. I hear raves from friends, from blogs, from a lot of corners. Yet I’m unable to decide for myself, because of the blurb that glares at me with cold legal contempt every time I visit the site:

“We are deeply, deeply sorry to say that due to licensing constraints, we can no longer allow access to Pandora for listeners located outside of the U.S. We will continue to work diligently to realize the vision of a truly global Pandora, but for the time being we are required to restrict its use. We are very sad to have to do this, but there is no other alternative. “

• BEST FEATURE: They are deeply, deeply sorry. And sad.
• WORST FEATURE: Due to licensing constraints, they can no longer allow access to Pandora for listeners located outside of the U.S.
• IDEAL FOR: Presumably, people inside of the U.S. But I can’t be sure.

Well, that’s a fine to-hell-with-you. But, ‘no alternatives’? I don’t think so. For instance, I think I hear Grooveshark singing to me in soft, ethereal tones. Time to go listen closer.

Iphone Apps

So everyone and their mother wants an iphone app.  O.K not exactly, but everyone who was previously buying web-estate to increase brand awareness does.  Digital Ad brokers and companies whose clientele is synchronous with the generation i are pushing out apps just to stay on top of the game.  Often the apps are free and when asked why the company spent several grand on producing one – the reply is often: “Cause everyone has one”.  A hair and a freckle away from the TWITTER craze, what does getting on board the Apple app wagon really do for a company? Well not much really. Unless the application is extremely popular and the user has to pay to download it, the company knows very little about the clientele who has downloaded the app. You are almost better off paying a CPM (Cost-Per-Thousand- Impressions) on someone else’s popular app than releasing a lame app that no one will use.  However, if you happen to be a programmer and have a little free time, than you have nothing to lose.  Here is an honest account of one man’s IPhone app success from a semi popular app. Unless you truly have a brilliant IPhone app idea (and remember that other people you trust, should also consider it brilliant!) Its not really the way to go for mobile exposure.

http://mattjdrake.com/2009/02/03/this-is-how-much-one-of-my-iphone-apps-made/

VIRGIN music fest woohoo!!!

Yey VIRGIN MUSIC FEST!!!

What VIRGIN music fest doesn’t realize is that Montrealers are used to the OSHEAGA festival where people of all ages but mostly over 18 are really letting loose and enjoying a variety of musical sty-lings and fashion statements. If this years show is anything like last years anal  Toronto vibe of no beer out of the beer tent, we’re in for a pretty boring musical AND party ride.  Rumour has it, our company has free passes but I think I will raffle them off to someones little sister this year…

CD Baby asks for a one-time fee of 35$ for each album and takes a 9% cut of each download. TuneCore charges a relatively similar amount and also charges 20$/album/year. However the good thing about TuneCore is that they don’t take a percentage of your sales.

If you are an indie band with a small  fan base and minimal tours, you probably don’t sell many tracks in a year. So for each  download  you will take home about 0.60$ out of the 0.99$ that music download sites, including iTunes’s, charge. CD Baby charges you a 9% commission, so you get only $54. Contrast that with  TuneCore that lets you keep the whole 60$. So TuneCore is going to be better for you during the first year.

However, in the second year, you are going to have to pay TuneCore 20$ per album even if they don’t end up selling. As for CD Baby, you are going to fork over 9% of your gross from digital online sales. If the 0.60$ per download is a correct amount, you have to sell 370 downloads to break even:  that means you have to sell over 370 downloads if you want to have a better return with TuneCore rather than CD Baby. For big names like Public Enemy or Trent Reznor, both distributing their latest album through TuneCore, that’s a no-brainer. But for all the unsigned bands out there it might not be the best option.

If you’re signed with a label, they’ve probably already covered digital distribution for you so you don’t have to worry about these fine details. But if you are trying to sell your stuff on your own, each of these options is valid, but you really have to weigh your options carefully!

Option #1 CD Baby

Option #2 TuneCore

Lucky for Terminator 4, since it was a pretty weak film. We argued whether T3 or T4 was the worst- I argued that T3 was still the worst, since at least T4 had hot Aussie Sam Worthington as Marcus, the angst-ridden man/machine. I’d love to be terminated by him anytime… Yum! 

Sam Worthington in T4

Christian Bale in T4

Beyonce Knowles in OBSESSED

There are too many plot problems to get into including a serious international time zone inaccuracy when they want to call Munich… even the visuals are tired as the director had to fill in many scenes with endless L.A skyline! -ya we get it, they are in L.A!   Ironically the moral fibre attempt fails miserably when Beyonce gives herself her husbands ride as a token of forgiveness.  buying her trust back with bling  is not the best message!   But we saw it on  cheapie Tues night for $5.00 and it was worth that much for sure, just to see Beyonce and her many fine lines and hairdos. The lead male, is actually quite a good actor and supports the fort to some degree. As critical as I am being, it was a riot to watch but I still have to give it a bad review. If you are a Beyonce fan its worth your $ if not check out the other theatres!