Tell your audience about someone in your family, even if it’s that one person you see once a year.
Canadian Guy at Comedy Show Exudes Himself. Hilarity Ensues.
Some guy went out for a moment at comedian Drew Lynch’s show. That was the moment diverting into a whole new set took place while Drew waits for him to come back.
Changing The Notes In The Beatles’ ‘Eleanor Rigby’ To E And F It Sounds SCARY
The Beatles changing one of their greatest songs slightly gives you scary goosebumps.
Houston, TX’s Classical-Pop Composer Humnos Logos Music Illustrates ‘Instrumental’ Bible Verses Through Song
On the surface, one may think Humnos Logos Music is all about classical, instrumental sounds. One listen of their debut album, Instrumental Verses 1, however, and it’s easy to see they encompass so much more.
Inspired by Scriptures, the Texas-based and decidedly private pop/classical artist has found a new way to deliver Christian music, evoking emotion without the use of lyrical content.
It was inevitable, really: with a grandmother who can play piano by ear, a great grandfather who built his own banjo, and a mother who spent years with a flute in-hand, there’s no denying the mastermind behind Humnos Logos Music has music coursing through them. “That’s just always been my reality,” the composer shares. “Music surrounded me from the start, and today I’ve found a way to marry classical sounds with Christian music.”
The result is a stunning premiere release featuring seven songs total; five classical in nature, and two offering a contemporary pop-rock feel, giving the album a nuanced yet modern edge.
With Humnos meaning song, and Logos meaning “word of God,” Humnos Logos Music has cleverly crafted each song based on a word of God from the Bible throughout. Some songs touch on the famous “Hall of Faith” chapter like “Not Worthy of Them,” as well as one about Philip’s automatic transport called “Arise & Go.”
Humnos Logos Music’s “Last Enemy” was inspired not only by Scripture but also reality; this American Songwriting finalist started to take shape after a beloved minister who had passed and conveys the anger one has towards death as well as the upside that one day the idea of death will perish as well.
“‘A Call to Endure (REV 13:10)’ is about end time tribulation,” the orchestral outfit offers. “The beginning of the song has trumpets, and then, with the sound of the rapture, the rest is about the apocalypse.
“Although there are no lyrics, each song tells a story in sound, and the titles are connected to an important, ‘instrumental’ even, Bible verse. In a world where there is so much conversation, so much noise, it’s nice to be able to digest emotive music that is void of hearsay. The notes, melodies, and arrangements speak volumes and allow listeners to just be in the moment with each song.”
Critics with early listens agree. “Love the composition in this track,” says Independent Music Reviews of “While Still Afar Off (LUK 15:20).” “(The song) is cinematic and brings some house and dance elements into the production. The beat is lively and pushes one’s inner limits. There is a deftness in the production, each phrase is subtly accompanied by another rhythm that defines that latter and builds on the experience for the listener.”
Instrumental Verses 1 is available now.
1-minute tip for artists stuck on social media: Googlewhacks.
“Googlewhacks” are two-word search queries that produce exactly one hit on Google. Try this today!
Kendal Thompson’s “Not UR Girl” Gets Remixed by Live/Electronic Wunder-Producer Pat Makes Music — Available Now!
As if Canadian alt-wave, art pop indie artist Kendal Thompson’s song “Not UR Girl” couldn’t get any better, the stand-out track has been remixed and reimagined by Toronto-based producer Pat Makes Music, and now that ‘song repeat x1’ option feels so limiting.
Known for their penchant to combine live instruments with electronic music, Pat Makes Music — who holds performance credits with Hugsnotdrugs, Poshley Slums, and remix nods for Soha, DJ Shine, Rex Manning, and more — is also working with Thompson to design her live show.
The track in its original form first landed in 2018 as part of her album, Ok Cool. Its recent video release has 27,000+ views and counting, and has Thompson (literally) exercising her acting chops in a vampy, deliciously retro visual treat.
“The song was born from a place of gaining back my power,” she shares. “It helped me understand that my happiness relied on belonging to no one other than myself.”
Ok Cool and its deeply personal collection of songs picks up where previous single, “Human Feel” — and its exploration of universal love and acceptance of both one’s self and others — leaves off, and serves as a welcome follow-up to her take-notice debut EP, One, and feature in John Orpheus’ song, “BUTTAHFLY.”
The tracks stack as spirited sand in the Canadian artist’s creative castle, one that essentially started with a borrowed, near-free guitar. “I began singing and making up songs at the age of three,” she recalls of her earliest toe-dip into the craft. “I started taking vocal lessons at age 12 and, by then, was gathering classmates for rehearsals for a girl-group.
“It never received a name, or made it out of the playground,” she laughs, but reveals it did lay ground for her next set of musical discoveries. “From there, and in my early teens, I was inspired almost solely by Lauryn Hill. Soon after, I adopted a guitar my father had purchased years earlier for $10 at a local auction.”
The added musical outlet and freedom expression took Thompson’s writing to a whole new level, she recognized, and as soon as she could, the Alliston, Ontario-born artist leaped into a new life in Toronto, quickly finding a home in the local folk and indie circuit.
While “Not UR Girl”s vision is Thompson’s — with co-writes and production credits by long-time collaborator, Little Noise Records’ Mike Schlosser — she’s equally quick to plant praise on director Jessamine Fok’s shoulders for bringing an imaginative sense of humour and sense of refreshed creative life to the project.
“Jessamine’s ideas had me really reaching outside of my comfort zone,” Thompson says of the spectacularly retro-esque video’s vibe. “I got to explore and show a side of myself only my friends have seen.
“In terms of not being an actor, and then acting out all of the characters, it helped me rediscover a different side of myself. Dressing and acting as the male character — ‘Mikey Rock’ — was such a liberating experience.”
“Not UR Girl” and “Not UR Girl (Remix)” are available now.
Paris, France’s Electro-Prog Funksters Moôn Are Landing on Earth with Out Of This World Sophomore Release
With their head in the sky and their eyes to the stars, progressive electro-funksters Moôn are Landing on Earth with their sophomore release — available now!
A swirling constellation of sonic outer-worldliness, Moôn and its ‘nauts — Murphy on vocals and keys, Martiti on guitar, and Bardin on drums — call on a meteoric mix off analog and digital sounds to create a cosmic confluence of pop, electro, funk, hip hop and alt rock music.
Landing on Earth serves as follow up to previous singles “Amiba,” “Sad Clowns” and “ILU” — complete with 42,000+ streams across YouTube alone. The trio released their debut EP Welcome to the Moôn in 2018.
With 11 tracks hosting their own identities and properties — not unlike the planets in our solar system, if you really think about it. Audiences can expect instrumentals, both ambient, catchy and inspired by the 80s, carried by darkly intense lyrics relating to everyday life.
Moôn says their spaceship is here and it’s time to board.
Landing on Earth is available now.
The Hood Internet Mashed Up 50 Songs From 1987 For The End Of The World As We Know It
The Hood Internet is back to take us to 1987 with this glorious mashup of Aerosmith, Audio Two, Belinda Carlisle, Boogie Down Productions, The Cure, Def Leppard, Depeche Mode, Eazy-E, EPMD, Eric B. & Rakim, Eurythmics, George Michael, Guns N Roses, Heart, INXS, Jody Watley, Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam, LL Cool J, Love And Rockets, Madonna, MARRS, Michael Jackson, Midnight Oil, New Order, Pebbles, Prince, Public Enemy, R.E.M., Rick Astley, Salt N Pepa, Sonic Youth, Starship, T’Pau, Taylor Dayne, Tiffany, U2, Was (Not Was), When In Rome, Whitesnake, Whitney Houston.
‘Elliott Smith: Expanded 25th Anniversary Edition’ Announced, Out August 28
The impact of Elliott Smith’s music holds no bounds. He has been championed, covered, and sampled by artists from Billie Eilish to Pearl Jam to Frank Ocean and his distinct, solemn sound reverberates in the work of the National, Phoebe Bridgers and Bon Iver. To commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of Elliott Smith’s self-titled second solo album, Kill Rock Stars is set to release the Elliott Smith: Expanded 25th Anniversary Edition on August 28, 2020.
The package includes a revelatory new remastering of the original Elliott Smith record and a bonus disc of the earliest known recording of Smith performing as a solo act, from September 17, 1994 at Portland’s café and “art salon” Umbra Penumbra. The albums come encased within a 52-page coffee table book with handwritten lyrics, reminiscences from Smith’s friends and colleagues about his life at the time he was writing and recording this album, and two dozen previously unseen photographs from the era by JJ Gonson, who shot the image on the album’s cover.
Leading up to the reissue’s release Kill Rock Stars will be working with a handful of artists to release covers of Smith’s songs from this album. Artists confirmed for the project thus far include Bonny Light Horseman – the new project of Anais Mitchell (Hadestown), Eric D. Johnson (Fruit Bats) and Josh Kaufman (Muzz, Bob Weir, Josh Ritter), Marisa Anderson, MAITA, Prateek Kuhad and Califone, with more to be announced as we get confirmation.
When Elliott Smith was released in July 1995, it was so dramatically out-of-step with the later stages of grunge—and with the indie rock and Riot Grrl sounds associated with the Kill Rock Stars label—that it was completely ignored by the press but championed by artists from the Beastie Boys to Fugazi. “I’ve always felt like this record is underappreciated,” says Kill Rock Stars founder Slim Moon. “A lot of people overlook Elliott’s first two records—they think of them as a prelude to the bigger albums that followed—but when you go back, you discover they’re really great. This is Elliott’s most fragile and delicate music, and we wanted to honor that with a special and beautiful package.”
For this release, producer/engineer Larry Crane, the official archivist for the Smith family, dug through files, reels, cassettes, and DAT tapes to find the closest sources to the original Elliott Smith first-generation mix downs and spent days to carefully transfer and clean up the audio from the Umbra Penumbra high-quality cassette provided by Casey Crynes. “There are fan-traded MP3s out there of this show, but when people hear what I was able to extract from this original tape, they’ll be shocked,” says Crane.
The Umbra Penumbra show gives a sense of the contrast between Smith’s live and studio approaches. “He was goofier on stage, making jokes and messing with his own words,” says Gonson. “He worked the words very carefully—he was very admiring of Joni Mitchell and how she wrote. So it was fun, you’d hear a song and then it would change.” What emerged from this challenging creative evolution was a set of songs with the intimacy and intensity of an acoustic-based singer-songwriter and the gut-punch power of a rocker.
Smith’s joy and connection to the creative community in Portland, his home at the time, is beautifully documented by the photos and reminiscences in this new package. A few years after Elliott Smith was released, the singer himself looked back on the album that in many ways laid the groundwork for his image and his triumphant, ultimately tragic career. “I think that record gave me a reputation for being a really dark, depressed person,” he said, “but I think I’m just about as happy as all the other people I know. Which is occasionally.”
1-minute tip for artists: The Guinness Book Of World Records.
Fastest Time To Type Using the Nose? Tallest Staircase Built In One Minute In Minecraft? Most Bananas Snapped In One Minute? All these, yes, ALL these, can be your record.