This summer, it’s game on or game over! When aliens misinterpret video feeds of classic arcade games as a declaration of war, they attack the Earth in the form of the video games. Below is the trailer for the forthcoming Hollywood film Pixels, starring Pac-Man, Adam Sandler, and Donkey Kong.
…and here’s Patrick Jean’s 2010 indie animated film that it’s based on.
THIS is how you can be creative in the CD format. And the Hundred Dollar Sandwich is a new album by Brooklyn-based hip-hop duo Junk Science that is built like a sandwich. Designed by Queens-based rapper Cool Calm Pete, the album’s two CDs serve as the bread while the lyrics sheets and other liner notes make up the filling.
BY the way, track 7? A cover of Oh, Canada! written by Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper.
The band writes on their Bandcamp page, “The whole ‘sandwich’ comes inside a gorgeous, custom-printed freezer-safe bag (in case you keep your music in the freezer).”
Paul McCartney will induct former Beatle-mate Ringo Starr into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo act this coming April. Starr is already in the Rock Hall, as part of The Beatles.
Patti Smith will handle the duties of posthumously welcoming Lou Reed into the institution for his solo career. Reed was already inducted as part of punk group The Velvet Underground.
Stevie Wonder will induct R&B singer and songwriter Bill Withers at the ceremony. J. Geils Band singer Peter Wolf will introduce the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. Fall Out Boy will pay tribute to Green Day. John Mayer will induct Stevie Ray Vaughan and Steve Cropper, of Booker T. & the MG’s, will induct 1950s doo-wop group the 5 Royales.
It has not been announced yet who will induct Joan Jett & the Blackhearts.
Performers at this year’s event include Beck, Dave Grohl, Joe Walsh, Tom Morello, John Legend and Jimmie Vaughan. Additional performers will be announced in coming weeks.
The ceremony will be held April 18th in Cleveland. The event will be filmed and highlights will be aired later as an HBO special on May 30.
Eventbrite, the global marketplace of live experiences, today released a list of America’s most event-going cities and the United States of Events, a visualization of the event-going trends across America’s largest 25 cities. The company leveraged its platform of millions of events to zoom in on attendance themes across popular categories including food and drink, live music, art and fitness. Browse the United States of Events interactive to explore each city’s surprising interests, from yoga classes in San Diego to art shows in Houston to bacon events in New York City.
Overall Music Ticket Sales
1. Austin
2. San Francisco
3. Houston
4. New York City
5. Charlotte
6. Los Angeles
7. Dallas
8. Philadelphia
9. Nashville
10. Chicago
11. Denver
12. San Antonio
13. Boston
14. San Diego
15. Portland
16. Washington
17. San Jose
18. Seattle
19. Columbus
20. Phoenix
21. Baltimore
22. Detroit
23. Indianapolis
24. Jacksonville
25. Fort Worth
EDM Event Ticket Sales
1. Austin
2. San Francisco
3. Houston
4. New York City
5. Charlotte
6. Los Angeles
7. Dallas
8. Philadelphia
9. Chicago
10. Boston
11. San Antonio
12. San Diego
13. Nashville
14. Denver
15. Portland
16. San Jose
17. Washington
18. Seattle
19. Columbus
20. Phoenix
21. Detroit
22. Indianapolis
23. Baltimore
24. Jacksonville
25. Fort Worth
Rock n’ Roll Event Ticket Sales
1. Austin
2. San Francisco
3. Houston
4. New York City
5. Charlotte
6. Los Angeles
7. Dallas
8. Philadelphia
9. Nashville
10. Denver
11. Chicago
12. San Antonio
13. San Diego
14. Boston
15. Baltimore
16. Portland
17. Washington
18. San Jose
19. Phoenix
20. Seattle
21. Columbus
22. Detroit
23. Indianapolis
24. Jacksonville
25. Fort Worth
Hip Hop Event Ticket Sales
1. Austin
2. San Francisco
3. Houston
4. New York City
5. Dallas
6. Charlotte
7. Los Angeles
8. Philadelphia
9. Chicago
10. Nashville
11. San Antonio
12. Denver
13. Boston
14. San Diego
15. Washington
16. San Jose
17. Portland
18. Seattle
19. Phoenix
20. Baltimore
21. Columbus
22. Detroit
23. Indianapolis
24. Jacksonville
25. Fort Worth
Jazz Event Ticket Sales
1. Austin
2. San Francisco
3. Houston
4. New York City
5. Charlotte
6. Los Angeles
7. Dallas
8. Philadelphia
9. Nashville
10. Denver
11. Chicago
12. San Antonio
13. Boston
14. Portland
15. San Diego
16. Washington
17. San Jose
18. Seattle
19. Columbus
20. Detroit
21. Phoenix
22. Baltimore
23. Indianapolis
24. Jacksonville
25. Fort Worth
Country Event Ticket Sales
1. Austin
2. San Francisco
3. Houston
4. New York City
5. Charlotte
6. Los Angeles
7. Dallas
8. Philadelphia
9. Nashville
10. Denver
11. Chicago
12. San Antonio
13. Portland
14. Boston
15. San Diego
16. San Jose
17. Washington
18. Indianapolis
19. Columbus
20. Seattle
21. Detroit
22. Phoenix
23. Baltimore
24. Jacksonville
25. Fort Worth
Most Event-Going Cities in US:
1. New York City, NY
2. San Francisco, CA
3. Austin, TX
4. Los Angeles, CA
5. Chicago, IL
6. Houston, TX
7. Boston, MA
8. Dallas, TX
9. Philadelphia, PA
10. San Diego, CA
Eventbrite’s dataset reveals surprising insights that point towards the types of events that each city loves the most.
New Yorkers attended fashion shows, plays, comedy acts, and art shows two times more than the next most artsy city, Los Angeles.
Everything is big in Texas, including their appetite for live music events. Houston, Dallas and Austin all rank in the top eight cities for live music show attendance. From Rock to EDM, and even Jazz and Country, Austin’s music reputation stands true by ranking number one across the board in live music.
Californians win the race when it comes to health and fitness experiences. San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles and San Diego all made the top ten cities for health and fitness attendance.
Bostonians come in strong for attendance to food and drink events, ranking fifth across the US, proving weather won’t stop Boston from indulging in a tasty time.
Chicagoans are all about the hops and hot dogs, winning out at attendance to beer festivals and tasting, and ranking fifth in stand-up comedy show attendance, busting up with laughter no matter how blustery the weather.
Recent university research indicates that experiential purchases make people happier than things, and Americans today spend on and attend more live experiences than in previous decades. Since 1987, the share of consumer spending on live experiences and events relative to total U.S. consumer spending increased 70% (Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis).
As America’s largest generation, millennials are driving the experiences boom: 3 in 4 millennials (78%) would choose to spend money on a desirable experience or event over buying something desirable, and 55% of millennials say they’re spending more on events and live experiences than ever before.
Millennials interest in live experiences and their increasing ability to spend is driving the growth of the Experience Economy. See Eventbrite’s Millennials: Fueling the Experience Economy report for more information.
“Less than a decade ago, the world had never seen a mud run before, let alone a color run or zombie run. New events of all kinds are rapidly entering the scene because people want to experience more, and technology is a major driver of this growth,” said Julia Hartz, co-founder and president of Eventbrite. “The growing appetite for unique experiences presents a huge business opportunity for people to create new and exciting live events.”
From FYI Music:
Nielsen Entertainment data for the week ending Sunday, March 15 unequivocally show that the intense media glare in front of the CTV telecast spurred unprecedented sales gains and online interest for the performers and Juno Award winners.
No breakout information on the four-hour aftermath before the calendar day change is available; however, a full week accounting following the Sunday broadcast will be available to SoundScan subscribers early next week, and to media outlets late Wednesday night.
Here’s what happened in the week ending Sunday:
Alanis Morissette – “You Oughta Know” – +142% downloads, +26% streaming
Alanis Morrisette – Jagged Little Pill album +130%JU
Arkells – “Come To Light” – +89% downloads
Bobby Bazini – “Bubblegum” – +123% downloads
Deadmau5 – “Seeya” – +64% downloads, +13% streaming
Hedley – “Anything” – +39% downloads, +13% streaming
Hedley – “Crazy For You” – +109% downloads
Kiesza – “Hideaway” – +113% downloads, +24% streaming
Lights – “Up We Go” – +17% downloads
Magic! – “Rude” – +89% downloads
Sam Roberts Band – “We’re All In This Together” – +184% downloads
Shawn Mendes – “Life Of The Party” – +11% downloads, +48% streaming
The Weeknd –” Earned It” – +23% downloads, +7% streaming
Dallas Smith – “Wastin’ Gas” – +120% downloads
Leonard Cohen – Popular Problems album +25%
From The Guardian:
Prince puts out in a decade what most musicians couldn’t put out in a lifetime. Prince may not want to talk about the vault, but there’s a whole bunch of Purple people who do.
Susan Rogers, Prince’s former sound engineer, tells me the vault predates the superstar status Prince attained with the movie Purple Rain in 1984. “I started the vault!” she says. “I joined Prince in 1983 when he was preparing to do Purple Rain. I realised it would be smart for me to get his tapes together in one place. I was aware there were a lot of pieces missing. It became an obsession. I wanted us to have everything he’d ever recorded. I called up the studios he’d been using and said: ‘Have you got any Prince tapes’? This is his legacy. We need to protect these things. It’s an actual bank vault, with a thick door. It’s in the basement of Paisley Park. When I left in 87, it was nearly full. Row after row of everything we’d done. I can’t imagine what they’ve done since then.”
The pattern of consigning songs – and sometimes entire albums – to the vault swiftly became a staple of Prince’s working method. Brent Fischer is a composer who has helped add orchestration to Prince’s work for 30 years, beginning with 1985’s Parade album; his studio heaves with reams and reams of sheet music for his work with Prince. I recognise some of the titles, but others look like songs that must be sitting in the vault – The Streets of Panama and The Fat Lady Sings. “I think over 70% of the music we’ve worked on for Prince is yet to come out,” Fischer says. “There are a lot of songs that were sent to us clearly with the idea that they would never be released. They were almost comical songs that he would work out with his horn players. There was lot of wild horn parts and experimentation with samples. I’d like to see All My Dreams come out. We enjoyed that song so much. I think it’s nine-and-a-half minutes. It’s this epic journey.”
I distinctly remember the making of “Shout.” I came to the studio on a Monday morning after the weekend, and (keyboardist) Ian Stanley walked in and he said to me, “I went over to Roland’s (Orzabal, Tears For Fears’ singer) house on the weekend, and he played me a little demo with a drum box and a little synthesizer. I don’t think he has recorded it yet as a demo, but you got to get him to play it for you.” So when Roland arrived, I said to him, “Ian tells me that he heard a new song that you got. Play it for me.” He set up a little drum box and a little synthesizer with a bass tone. He pressed the button on the drum box, and he programmed this little beat and it had these little chimey bells and a clapping drum beat. He pressed one of the keys and started singing, “Shout. Shout. Let it all out.”
It was astounding. I said, “Guys, we have to stop what we’re doing and record this now.” We spent months building that song from Roland’s original, unrecorded drum box and synthesizer idea. We spent months looking at rhythm, adding other drums, I played drums on the track, there were two drum boxes running, there was a Fairlight computer doing electronic stuff in the middle playing flute parts… That song was arranged by Roland, Ian, and I. It was essentially a Roland song, and Ian wrote, quite quickly, a medley which was a power piece in that song. Getting this track written, arranged, recorded, and mixed took months and months. Day in and day out we were working on it. It was a long slog to get that as great as we could get it. It was a long piece. The original recording was seven minutes long, but it got chopped down a bit. There were guitar solos in it. Up until then, there weren’t many synth bands putting in guitar solos. It was a long track that we built piece by piece by putting another verse on it and expanding the middle section. There was another little synthesizer break thing which Roland came in a few days later and said, “We need to put this in, we need to punctuate it, and break the track up.” So – we would come in and do bits and pieces for months.
While that was happening, every now and then, Roland would pick up a guitar, and he would be strumming two chords. I remember asking him, “Do you have something? What is it?” He replied, “Oh. It’s nothing. It’s just a couple of chords.” So I wrote the chords down and programmed the little drum box and these two chords. Every now and then, when we had a break, I would sit there listening to this programmed beat and these two chords. I kept saying to Roland, “You really, really must write a song with these two chords. It’s so great.” He wasn’t interested. One afternoon, his wife came into the studio and she heard me playing it, and she asked, “What’s that? What’s that? It’s great! It’s great!” I said, “Tell your husband because I’ve been telling him for two weeks now that he needs to write a song to it.”
Anyway, he came back a couple of weeks later, and he said, “Well, I haven’t got the song, but I have the two chords and I have a melody which goes, ‘Everybody wants to rule the world.’” I said, “Let’s write it now. Let’s make that song.” So Ian, Roland, and I sat down and wrote, recorded, and finished that track within a week. It was super quick. It didn’t take any time at all. It kind of built itself, meanwhile “Shout” was still waiting to be finished. [laughs] Those were two songs that were successful songs, but one took forever and one was done super quickly. I worked on those two tracks in my sleep. [laughs]
It looks good. You can tell from the pictures. And it sounds good, which you can tell from the tracks we’ve already posted online. But neither quite emulate the tactile experience of MOJO’s new Vinyl Edition.
Their homage to Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti – celebrating the landmark 1975 album’s 40th Anniversary – pays tribute to the iconic packaging of the original, with a die-cut album sleeve housing two slices of fabulous vinyl, grooved with Physical Graffiti cover versions by Laura Marling (Bron-Yr-Aur), Blackberry Smoke (The Rover), Michael Kiwanuka (Ten Years Gone), Sun Kil Moon (Sick Again), White Denim (Custard Pie), Songhoy Blues (Kashmir) and more. Plus a replica of the Led Zeppelin Express 1975 Poster and the latest MOJO magazine boasting a Jimmy Page signature cover.
Sit back while our gorgeous hand models (actually, MOJO’s Editor-In-Chief and Art Editor) delve in and show you the goodies…
Today is International Day of Happiness 2015, which invites everyone to focus on their connections with others.
This campaign is a global celebration to mark the United Nations International Day of Happiness. It is coordinated by Action for Happiness, a non-profit movement of people from 160 countries, supported by a partnership of like-minded organisations.
Brian Eno, for one, understands that singing is the key to a long, healthy, and happy life.
I believe in singing. I believe in singing together.
A few years ago a friend and I realized that we both loved singing but didn’t do much of it. So we started a weekly a capella group with just four members. After a year we started inviting other people to join. We didn’t insist on musical experience — in fact some of our members had never sung before. Now the group has ballooned to around 15 or 20 people.
I believe that singing is the key to long life, a good figure, a stable temperament, increased intelligence, new friends, super self-confidence, heightened sexual attractiveness and a better sense of humor. A recent long-term study conducted in Scandinavia sought to discover which activities related to a healthy and happy later life. Three stood out: camping, dancing and singing.
Well, there are physiological benefits, obviously: You use your lungs in a way that you probably don’t for the rest of your day, breathing deeply and openly. And there are psychological benefits, too: Singing aloud leaves you with a sense of levity and contentedness. And then there are what I would call “civilizational benefits.” When you sing with a group of people, you learn how to subsume yourself into a group consciousness because a capella singing is all about the immersion of the self into the community. That’s one of the great feelings — to stop being me for a little while and to become us. That way lies empathy, the great social virtue.
Well here’s what we do in an evening: We get some drinks, some snacks, some sheets of lyrics and a strict starting time. We warm up a bit first.
The critical thing turns out to be the choice of songs. The songs that seem to work best are those based around the basic chords of blues and rock and country music. You want songs that are word-rich, but also vowel-rich because it’s on the long vowels sounds of a song such as “Bring It On Home To Me” (“You know I’ll alwaaaaays be your slaaaaave”), that’s where your harmonies really express themselves. And when you get a lot of people singing harmony on a long note like that, it’s beautiful.
But singing isn’t only about harmonizing pitch like that. It has two other dimensions. The first one is rhythm. It’s thrilling when you get the rhythm of something right and you all do a complicated rhythm together: “Oh, when them cotton balls get a-rotten, you can’t pick very much cotton.” So when 16 or 20 people get that dead right together at a fast tempo that’s very impressive. But the other thing that you have to harmonize besides pitch and rhythm is tone. To be able to hit exactly the same vowel sound at a number of different pitches seems unsurprising in concept, but is beautiful when it happens.
So I believe in singing to such an extent that if I were asked to redesign the British educational system, I would start by insisting that group singing become a central part of the daily routine. I believe it builds character and, more than anything else, encourages a taste for co-operation with others. This seems to be about the most important thing a school could do for you.
Via NPR
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Eric Alper is a 6-time nominee for Publicist of the Year during Canadian Music Week and has overseen the publicity campaigns for over 183 JUNO Award-nominated albums (and 16 in 2025), 45 Grammy-nominated albums, including 47 JUNO Award, 58 Canadian Folk Music Award, 126 Maple Blues Award-winning albums and is also truly honoured to work with some of the biggest and most important artists of our time.
Contact me: eric@thatericalper.com
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