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Been busy, busy, busy – Harmony Sweepstakes, high school competitions, coaching college and high school groups, sang the entire Bach St. Matthew Passion a couple weeks ago (not by myself… I had help), my wife is due to deliver our fourth baby any day now… yup, busy. I’ve had tons of song ideas that I can’t work on until life slows down in a couple more weeks.
Not to mention I’m glad that LOST and Heroes are both back on the air.
Music That’s Been Kicking My Butt
“Kicking My Butt” is a good thing… little slang from an old friend of mine who came into town to visit last month… ‘kicking my butt’ being inept pseudo-slang for ‘bring me immense amounts of delicious joy’ or perhaps ‘being the sole element in my life that allowed me to cope today with the immense amounts of crap I have to deal with’
The Mars Volta – entrancing, hyper-textured, overwhelming rock.
Switchfoot – new album. Great songwriting.
Muse – okay so I’m late getting to know these guys (and I had never heard of Radiohead until I discovered who did the original of Rock4’s masterful version of ‘Paranoid Android’ … I knew it was a cover, I just didn’t know who by… ya, I know, I’m a pathetic person). I think ‘Knights of Sydonia’ is brilliant. The video, quadruple brilliant with gold stars. Why don’t a cappella groups make videos? Oh, ya, because they don’t own the rights to the songs they sing. I’d also like to point out that this has easily broken the record for Longest Short Blurb ever.
Kid Beyond - Amplivate – dude. Whoa, dude. Outstanding. Has completely tweaked the way I think of recording. And performing. And my voice. And philosophy. You can hear his whole album on his myspace page… and then buy it!
Firedrill! – these dudes can flat out sing. Punks.
Beck – new album. That’s some funky grooving.
New Podcast info
New podcast! May 2007. Music by Eclipse, Mauf, maybebop, Plumbers of Rome, Cadence, Ascending Height, and spiralmouth. Interview with the brilliant young writer Robert Dietz. Songwriting tips. Original song award reports from Harmony Sweepstakes regionals and the CARAs. Download it from the Multimedia tab on the left.
Information about the music and groups in the podcast:
Eclipse - http://www.eclipsesingers.com/
From Northern Utah, formed around 2000. 5 (?) albums, gig regularly (including an upcoming tour of China), and sell a lot of sheet music over at a-cappella.com.
Featured song: Live it on Up
Mauf - http://www.mauf.at
Austrian trio – call themselves an ‘A Cappella Beatboxing Band.” Christal does the beatbox/vocal percussion and bass lines, fii does “Vocalsounds” and sound effects, also raps, and Verena is the spunky female lead singer. Amazing sound for a trio.
Featured song: House of Love
maybebop - http://www.maybebop.de/
I think they are German (their web site is in German, and has .de, but I don’t read German well enough to be able to tell you for sure). Very cool web site, by the way. I know very little about them, except that their music is pretty cool.
Featured song: Der Morgen danach (the morning after)
Plumbers of Rome - http://www.plumbersofrome.com
Trio from the Rocky Mountains (Colorado), doing satirical/deconstructionist tunes kind of like early Bobs.
Featured song: Love Song of a Carnivore
Cadence - http://www.cadence-unplugged.com/
They sound good, as always. Still Canadian. Last I heard Kevin (bass) was joining up with the Swingle Singers, and this after recently adding a new tenor… site hasn’t been updated since January, though, so who knows what’s going on. Maybe Kevin took the keys to the web site with him.
Featured song: Blues on Sunday
Ascending Height - web site broken
Ithaca, NY, High School group, since disbanded as all the folks done gradjooated. In the interview with Robert Dietz you get to hear part of Mindburn (you can hear the full version on the first A Cappella Originals Podcast) and all of 500 words.
Featured song: 500 words
spiralmouth - http://www.spiralmouth.net/
Southern California? I think so. Studio musicians, talent coming out their pores. The more I listen to them, the more I hear how groundbreaking they were. Really solid writing, and the production is flawless.
Featured song: Sated
Robert Dietz
A wiz-like talent… read this http://www.a-cappella.com/product/787/high-school write-up about him and the group. Very smart, very articulate, and very cool. Fun interview.
‘Til next time,
Be Original!
You can reach Mister Tim at tim at moosebutter dot com
If you would like your music to be featured on the A Cappella Originals podcast it must be in the CASA A Cappella Originals mp3 library. For information on donating your recordings to the CASA A Cappella Originals mp3 library email podcast@casa.org or phone: 415-358-8067
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