Hey, nerdsters! It’s CMJ Music Marathon time here in New York, which generally means lots of roadies, music biz people, crowds, and bands with guitars. Ewww. Guitars — with no software effects? No vocoding granulizer? No trio of laptops nearby? Not even so much as a keytar? What’s a computer music-loving nerdster to do? Happily, synths are back, and electro is making a strong showing this year. In fact, my problem is that all the bands I care about seem to be scheduled at exactly the same time, which I hear is a typical CMJ problem. But with fun music to look forward to, I’m in a terrific mood — so much so that I think it’s time to enjoy some nerdster-pride vids.

I Want My Nerdster TV

Having made my obligatory crack about generic college rock at CMJ, musical taste is something CDM generally likes to avoid. I believe technology can serve music of all kinds; the idea that computer tech has to be genre-specific was shattered long, long ago. But if you write a love song featuring Commodore 64s and floppy disks — well, come on, everybody’s got to appreciate a gimmick sometimes, especially with a catchy tune. Computer Camp Love comes to us from Datarock, who earn extra cred by collaborating with fellow Norwegian rockstar Annie, and generally being from Norway, which is one of CDM’s Favorite Countries. Sadly, I can’t go see them Thursday, because I’ll be too busy hanging out with Simian Mobile Disco.

Computers are love:

And I also believe electro is important: it takes a campaign to get America’s plain-vanilla taste in rock instrumentation (guitar, bass, drums again, eh?) out of the box in this decade. (That’s why it’s especially cool Thomas Dolby recently added live brass.)

But how to do it? I think you just have to do something funky, danceable, with the word electro repeated over and over again. The punky UK-based Tigerpicks demonstrate. Witness:

I like the alternative electro dimension they inhabit.

Update: Yes, I know they’re cheesy. Yes, I know this is the word electro, not the music. They intend nothing else. I had a friend in college who would spray Cheez Whiz into his mouth. It’s like that. (Wait … suddenly hungry.) Just play along. Now I’m going to work on a track that shouts “Trashcore Jazzadelic IDM Glitch Funk!” I’ll see you in 72 hours. End of line.

CMJ Notes

If you’ve got any hot band tips or you yourself are playing here, let me know. I’ll come say hi. The more obscure you are, the better. ;)

cnet’s Caroline McCarthy (a fellow “downtown Manhattanite”) has a terrific take on the digital music side of CMJ:
CMJ’s Music Marathon: What’s in store for digital music?

If you want a look at the future of music, DeVotchKa might be a glimpse. On first hearing, you say, “hmmm, they sound sort of Eastern European … punk.” And then you realize they’re singing in Spanish. In fact, this band, which got an extra injection of popularity from the movie Little Miss Sunshine, is a hybrid Romani - Greek - Slavic - Spanish - Latin - Punk - Folk - Rock indie band that got its start playing burlesque.

What does this have to do with digital music creation? Because if technology is every going to escape being a novelty, best left to studio recording experts or electronic-specific niches, artists will first have to liberate electronic sound. That means, much as we love the Theremin being used as a Star Trek cover instrument, its repertoire will have to broaden, finally freed from its “sci-fi” trappings.

When you hear the repeated stories about how traditional recording studios are dead, I suspect your first thought is not, “Finally! The dream of in-flight recording has its day!” or “Ah-hah! Now all the bands will move into inflatable plastic bubbles as a marketing stunt!” Yet, such things have come to pass. One involves a band you may care about and actually yields some practical tips. The other involves a band I’m almost sure you don’t care about and is a silly stunt.

Respectively:

Jamiroquai played a gig at 35,000 feet on its way to Greece for a select group of fans. I know this, because Focusrite sent out a press release. We get these kind of press releases all the time: someone used something or other (usually something expensive) somewhere in a way that’s not all that interesting. This case was different. Sure, recording a live gig in flight is a gimmick. But as a recording challenge, that means they:

1. Ran entirely on battery power.
2. Set up the whole recording rig in a standard airline row. (Coach, no less!)
3. Weathered some turbulence.
4. Had to fight a sudden outbreak of poisonous snakes. (Okay, made that one up.)

You can be making incredible music, but if no one knows about it you probably won’t be making it for very long. Having a good project name is the first step to getting publicity and having your music heard by a large amount of people.

Don’t be difficult. It has to be easy to pronounce and say over the phone. Try to avoid using numbers for letters (leet speak) since it will confuse people. Yes, there are exceptions like “!!!,” μ-siq, and whatnot, but the object is to make it easy for the press to write about you and for people to talk about you. While you’re welcome to choose a difficult name, it’s only going to make the rest of your publicity efforts that much harder.

Steer clear of profanity. While James Fucking Friedman has a somewhat high profile, whenever he gets listed in local papers that don’t allow profanity they star out either the entire middle word or just use stars after the F. People will get confused–”Did they star out ‘Faggot,’ ‘Fucking,’ or ‘Fellatio’? Should I Google for James Star Star Star?” Also profanity limits the types of publications that will feature you. While XLR8R and URB are magazines that are pretty laid back about their language, you might one day discover that your music has an interesting crossover audience (be it mountain climbers or acoustic engineers) and you want to make it easy for those types of journalists to approach you and write about you and your music.

It sounds good. Pick three of your favorite names. Say them out loud. Ask some friends what they think and notice how they respond. Do they laugh out loud when you’re aiming for a super serious image (”Abfahrt Hinwil” might cause some giggling)? It may sound obvious, but electronic musicians who tend to work alone and communicate through their computers could use some IRL human feedback once in a while.

The old standards: the Tin Pan Alley showtunes, reinterpreted by vocalists and bebop jazzers, followed more recently by reworkings of modern pop and rock tunes. The new standards: video game tunes, apparently. Especially if they’re from Nintendo games.

The latest in the trend is MetroidMetal, with elaborate, sprawling metal covers of the moody themes from Nintendo’s legendary sci-fi side-scroller.

For anyone keeping score, you can add that to acoustic covers of Mario and, as reviewed by our own W. Brent Latta, live, full orchestras playing game soundtracks old and new.

Thanks, Patrick Murphy!

Kids today. They’re at a concert, but they’re too busy texting and chatting on AIM on their cellphones. For Generation Why?!, we now have lighter images for your cellphones, so you don’t have to be bothered to take your cellphone and a lighter to the next Pussycat Dolls show. Available for US$1.99 (US customers only?) from Modtones.

Better idea from Modtones: mistletoe wallpaper for your phone. I’m sure that will get you some love at your office holiday party.

Then again, I’m one to talk. I’ve been scaring the hell out of people with the Doctor Who-esque, frightening (but free) official CDM ringtone. (Even my girlfriend agrees it sounds like the Daleks have just landed. And, really, what says Chrismtas 2005 better than Doctor Who? That’s what I’ll be BitTorren– er, watching — on the holiday.)

First vinyl, then 8-track, then tape, then CD, then MP3, now . . . Dashboard widget?

Yes, you heard that right. Sexohol is releasing its album Enjoy as a Dashboard Widget for Mac OS X. It’s free, and includes pictures of the lovely couple in the band plus lyrics. Only downside is you have to be connected to the Internet to listen to the music streaming. “But, Peter!”, you say, “I need to feel the hot loving of Enjoy even when I’m not connected to the Internet!” Sexohol hears you; US$9.99 buys you a Widget you can listen to anywhere. (Music without a live Internet connection? Who wouldathunkit?)

Sounds like the best way to enjoy this band is at their Bacchanalian performances, but if you can feel the love on your Dashboard, more power to you.

The press release is hilarious, so I’ve broken with normal CDM policy and posted it after the jump, along with a picture of bassist Logan for those of you who like young bass-playing boys (Shedonists, Gay/Bi Hedonists, etc.). Just promise you’ll pretend to act surprised when you find out this band is from L.A.

Music videos with actual live video? That’s so expired. Wired: using Flash to create interactive visuals to listen to while you play a track. That’s exactly what our tech-savvy friends in Boston band Freezepop have done (the same folks who I noted have a PlayStation version of themselves and jam live with their PS2s:

Fancy Ultra*Fresh

Kind of makes you want a hip, anime version of yourself, doesn’t it? The good news about Flash, by the way, is that the Macromedia - Adobe merger isn’t likely to threaten Flash — it’s probably why Adobe bought Macromedia in the first place, as Macworld’s Philip Michaels muses. That’s a good thing, though I sure wish there were one killer interactive app: I’m a musician, and I have to deal with Max/MSP, Flash, Director, Processing, Quartz Composer, etc., etc., all with slightly overlapping — but never complete — feature sets.

Er, anyway — hire a starving Flash artist and your band can look cool. Unless there’s a starving Flash artist already in your band, the probability of which is surprisingly high.

Remember when people singing bad covers of rock songs was called karaoke and didn’t involve a national television audience? Oh, for those more innocent times. Now we’re subjected to one musical reality TV show after another. The latest combines The Apprentice and Survivor (same producer), with American Idol; bands compete to be the lead singer of INXS — amusing, because I had no idea that band was still together. (I think they should have gone with Menudo, but what do I know?) And the name, which I can’t say without chuckling: Rock Star:INXS.

Two reasons this is CDM-worthy: first, anyone up for a Web-based electronic music reality show? (I think we should lock a bunch of musicians in a house for 2 months with nothing but a single Atari ST, personally.)

Second, behind-the-scenes this show has some serious music geek cred. Steinberg Nuendo powers all the audio mixes, for sending practice MP3s to the participants and the mixes you can buy on the Website. Music director Paul Mirkovich is a big Nuendo fan and veteran of Cher’s last tour; check out his soft synth arsenal: Steinberg The Grand, NI’s Reaktor, B4, Pro53, Giga Studio libraries through ReWire, Atmosphere, and Steinberg’s D’cota. Paul is obviously a fan of the “Go to Sam Ash and buy everything you see” strategy CDM appreciates so dearly. You’re one of us, Mate.

But wait, there’s more — the dude plays live with the Muse Receptor so he can go live with all the plugins.

Suggestion to networks: in future, cover the real musicians. They’re more interesting.