Brad Sucks, the (despite the name) well-loved Internet musician, has been blogging and releasing tools he’s building to make his online music life better. This one is especially nice: it’s a simple, open source script that connects mailing list sign-ups to Google Maps. Armed with this information, it’s easier to see where your fans are. (Image at right seems to suggest at least a one-person gig offshore of Nigeria, but you get the idea.)

Brad’s Mappy Email Signup Release

Early data is really interesting already. Of course, you need to have more than, say, five fans, but now’s a good time to start. I’m revamping some sign-ups around CDM, so I hope to try this here soon.

Previously from Brad: the brad sucks digital download store, which hooks you up with your own Amazon S3 and PayPal-powered online music store.

Brad also has a tool for asking for donations:

http://www.bradsucks.net/gimme/
http://www.bradsucks.net/projects/gimme/

Something strange is happening on local affiliate news programs across the country: Circuit benders and other weirdo musicians are being asked to drop by and discuss their art for the American Public.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’d be a little confused and freaked out if I woke up and saw this first thing in the morning (and I lived in Ohio):

And it’s not just Dan Deacon. Dynamic duo Beatrix*Jar had a similarly awkward experience. There’s something strange about what’s going on here. The news people conducting the interviews are are genuinely enthusiastic, but there’s something not quite connecting in their approach. I don’t know if it’s an intentional lack of arts-based analysis or if they just like to keep it light & fluffy for the morning viewers, but the ultimate result is surreal.

Synths and space: they go together like chocolate and your mouth, like Sun Ra and aliens. So, it was with a heavy heart that I had to report the electronic awesomeness of Yuri’s Night, the party in celebration of space exploration at NASA’s Ames Research Center. Telefon Tel Aviv, Plaid, and circuit-bent Touch & Tells and keytars were there, but I was not. And maybe neither were you.

 NASA Yuri’s Night Rave: Space is the Place

Enough of that, though. Organized Matt Ganucheau writes to say this year will be bigger, better, “twice the art and twice the music.” 2008 will make 2007 look like a side party at Burning Man. So, in the interest of making sure your calendar is marked and your project is submitted, here’s a call for works — and hope to see you there.

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?

The sounds are lush and silky smooth, like a cello making love to an angel. The new, enhanced graphics are … breathtaking, in their spectacular range of colors and pixels. Yes, folks, it’s time for another multimedia extravaganza, as released on NES cartridge. This stuff is what we like to call “high fidelity.” It’s the medium of the future, man. Keep your new-fangled laserdiscs and enhanced multimedia CDs, and behold!

Alex Mauer tips us off with inside information on the work of … Alex Mauer.

Alex Mauer, creator of the first Nintendo cart music album, has already come out with his second cart. The new album features more songs (10) and larger graphics (full screen stills). Songs on the new album were composed by Alex Mauer and Phlogiston (a norweigan composer). The cost is $25 including shipping, and it can be ordered from his website - headlessbarbie.com. For a preview check out the youtube videoclips at his site.

ps - vegavox (first nintendo cartridge) is currently sold out! over 125 copies sold

Prediction: the music of Phlogiston will soon be heard in an upcoming Timbaland production of the newly washed-up Britney Spears. Samples, and “video” (okay, 8-bit stills):

headlessbarbie.com

Sampling and remix culture is the future, right? Not if you ask a lot of music lovers at the moment. The guest for the CDM Random Rant of the Week is our friend Liz. It’s an issue I suspect has troubled some readers here, especially as music technology is equated to the sample/remix culture (especially if you believe Wired Magazine and we’re in the age of mash-ups.) Sure, tracks sampling other tracks is nothing new, but the legal battles over hip-hop aside, is there a backlash brewing? Do people want to hear something original, after all? And can Kanye, erm, speak truth to power with both the President of the United States and mysterious French electro duos? -PK

…Do[es] anybody make real shit anymore?
Bow in the presence of greatness
Cause right now thou has forsaken us
You should be honored by my lateness
That I would even show up to this fake shit
So go ahead, go nuts, go ape-shit
Especially on my best stand, on my Bape shit
Act like you can’t tell who made this…

“Stronger,” ft. substantial elements of Daft Punk’s “Harder Better Faster Stronger”

Before I clicked on the link I’m about to share with you, I was a hardcore, devil-fist-throwing Daft Punk mega-fan. After the link jump at the end, I had to reluctantly join the melancholy ranks of jaded music fans who’ve seen through the hype to the source, eventually admitting that what I had admired was blatant plagiarism.

Last night, we hosted our second “Handmade Music” night at Etsy Labs in Brooklyn, together with Etsy.com and Make Magazine. It was awesome. (Or, as Wesley Willis would say, “Handmade Music Night really whoops a camel’s ass.”)

Highlights:

Celebrity musicians say the darndest things. We’re still reflecting on the layers of meaning in Bob Dylan’s “New records have sound all over them.” And along comes Elton John, to say:

Hopefully the next movement in music will tear down the internet…

I do think it would be an incredible experiment to shut down the whole internet for five years and see what sort of art is produced over that span.

There’s too much technology available.

Why we must close the net [The Sun Online, bastion of journalism that it is]

Darnit, I knew something was screwing up modern music. It’s … CDM! I mean, come on, it’s not like people like me are just sitting around blogging instead of actually making som– Oh. Ahem. See your point.

Okay, in fairness, we’re once again taking something zany out of context. Sir Elton was mainly pointing out that actually being together with people is more fun than just hanging around your computer, and then makes the radical statement that maybe the world would be a better place if people actually did something rather than blogging about it. And, naturally, I kind of tend to agree.

While we’re at it, Bob Dylan turned out to be right, too — modern records do have sound all over them.

Of course, it wasn’t the Internet that was the big culprit — if anything, the Internet is galvanizing online audiences, encouraging collaboration and creative music making, and helping artists resurrect live music. (Just use it in moderation, folks. If you’re looking at those stupid cats enough that you’ve actually lost the ability to play your instrument, you’ve probably gone too far.)

Only one invention had the power to transform a society that made music in their living rooms into one that became largely passive consumers of a few superstar artists. That’d be … the phonograph. It did give us some awesome music, though, so I don’t think we did all bad.

I’m more curious about how we’re tearing down the Internet. I know how we can tear down this tiny little corner of the Internet — digg/slashdot a story enough and even our mighty, new server will come crashing to the ground. Not sure about the rest, though. Ideas?

Ed.: Social networking, online sites (this being one of them), Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace … sometimes it seems like all the connections are being done online. Naturally, the Web’s real power is when you can meet all those virtual personalities you’ve gotten to know offline. Far better than getting demo CDs in the mail or listening to someone’s tracks on MySpace: meeting them at a party over a drink and getting their music from them directly.

Such is the genius of Chicago’s Demo Swap. Co-organizer Liz has this wrap-up of what July’s party was like. Non-Chicagoans (heck, fellow New Yorkians), clearly this is a model to be replicated elsewhere. A huge thanks to all of the CDMers who showed up. It was fantastic to meet you, and I hope to see you again soon — ideally with more leisure time to hang out! (I’m in Chicagoland regularly.) I was especially impressed by Karl, who was in Chicago from Austria and was embarking on a cross-country drive across the entire length of Route 66 the following morning. Why is that foreigners appreciate America better than most Americans do?

Here’s how the demo swap went; read closely for some nice music tips and perhaps insight into how to get a demo swap going in your neck of the woods. -PK

At the 1985 Grammies, Thomas Dolby played alongside Stevie Wonder, Herbie Hancock, and Howard Jones. It was the golden age of synths and keyboard-driven pop. (Yeah, I know, some of us kinda miss those days.) But Thomas Dolby is significant, as well, as one of the pioneers of the computer-driven one-man band. Almost a decade into the age of soft synths, at a time when Logic Pro’s most punishing physical-modeling synths and convolution reverbs run just fine on a $1000 laptop and Ableton Live is becoming commonplace, musicians still struggle with some of the technical details of how to actually make the one-man band work onstage.

Here’s the comforting news: it’s not easy for Thomas Dolby, either. Normally when you write a print interview, invariably there’s a point where you get way off talking about technicalities and they don’t all fit. But because this is online, I’ve decided to reprint most of what Thomas had to say about making the tech work in its original form. These are just the technical details — gear stuff rather than art — but the important thing is that they have to support his performance. Part of why he’s able to bring such great presence to the stage is the gear in back is largely working — and he’s the one in control, rather than backstage techs. Here are all the gritty details: