The Beauty Voice Changer is a “device” that helps you tune your voice. It comes in either orange or purple. It’s $57 and yes I think it’s crazy. Is there any chance in hell this actually works?
“The Beauty Voice Trainer helps give you the dulcet voice you know you’ve always wanted, in just five minutes a day. The system works in three ways: without training, the human throat is restricted. The specially designed mouthpiece positions the tongue to open the voice passage, allowing a much stronger sound.” – Japantrendshop.com
For more info: japantrendshop.com/beauty-voice-trainer
This entry was written by , posted on March 1, 2012 at 9:23 am, filed under live performance, song writing and tagged Beauty Voice Changer, Japan, Japanese. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
I hereby disrupt your Monday with some jumping around by the Dillinger Escape Plan. Apparently this is called “Mathcore” on Wikipedia… or is that a joke? Not my kind of music but they rocked the house. How many times have you been out or played out and said wow that was sick I wish it was on video?
“Dillinger Escape Plan played two shows in Chicago: One with the Deftones earlier in the night and this show where they annihilated the Bottom Lounge.” – thedeepelement
For more info: wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dillinger_Escape_Plan
This entry was written by , posted on February 27, 2012 at 9:21 am, filed under live performance and tagged Dillinger Escape Plan. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
I saw Kraftwerk live years ago in New York City. It was one of the best shows I’ve ever seen. The show was very cold, steril, German and clear. I won’t be missing this MoMA showing. Tickets go on sale Feb 22 at noon. I’m not sure if a ticket will get you into 1 or all of the 8 nights (all different performances!).
“Kraftwerk will give a series of eight performances, each devoted to one of its albums, as part of a Museum of Modern Art retrospective of the electronic music pioneers in April, museum officials said. The performances during “Kraftwerk-Retrospective 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8,” on consecutive evenings starting April 10, will not only feature tracks from one of Kraftwerk’s albums, but also other original compositions intended to showcase the group’s influence on contemporary culture. Projected images, including 3-D ones, will accompany the music. The albums will be performed in chronological order, one each night, starting with “Autobahn” from 1974 and working up through “Tour de France” from 2003.” – NYTimes
For more info: kraftwerk.com
photo credit: Cristal en Vivo
This entry was written by , posted on February 15, 2012 at 8:25 pm, filed under live performance and tagged Kraftwerk, live performance, MoMA, New York. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
The music business had a loud weekend. I’ve had a copy of Whitney Housten’s I will Always Love You on my hard drive for years. Even if the song isn’t your style the range she hits smoothly matched with the very sad country lyrics (Dolly Parton wrote the song) is touching. Death to addiction is tragic and as in this case is usually post years of a public downhill slide. Too often the cliche sayings such as, “The higher the highs the lower the lows.” ring true. To die the night before the Grammys certainly adds to the story.
And what about the Grammys? Until last night the last time I watched even a few minutes of the award show was in the 90s. However I was in the mood so I watched the entire 2012 shebang. I was surprised to discover I liked most of it. The overall look was nice and glittery, gold and flashy and they mixed the sound just right for television. You could hear all of the vocal performances clear enough to understand the lyrics. Springsteen’s patriotic song “We take care of our own” was very jock like chanting USA USA but fun. I learned Rihanna has a seductive voice. Host LL Cool J is a major has been but for some reason no one knows that yet. His hosting style is best described as boring. Get a host that’s interesting please. Glen Campbell and The Beach Boys completely showed up the younger bands who lead them onto stage. I used to sing Rhinestone Cowboy when I was a kid. Later I thought it was a song about gay cowboy. I still have no idea what the song is about. The worst performance of the show was Chris Brown. First off why let the woman beater even be on stage it all? I watched the Grammys partly to find out who are these artists I hear when I’m out at a restaurant or clothing store that offend me so much. Yeah Chris Brown is one of those artists. Lady Gaga didn’t win anything which made me happy. I dislike her music too. They gave Stevie Wonder a standing ovation. He can’t see so I’m not sure that made any sense. Taylor Swift was the worst dressed. Clearly she doesn’t live in a shack in Alabama so why try and pretend. Foofighters played a few times. I can’t stand them either except when Dave Grohl sang with Deadmau5. So yes there was electronic music on the Grammys. Of course for David Guetta’s 30 seconds they had some hip hip artist rap over what he was doing (can’t remember who). Unbelievably they had the hand picked fake crowd holding giant glowsticks. Guetta looked retarded smiling and bopping his head up and down. I now he’s happy to be on the Grammys but it was very awkward. You will hear a lot of people talk about Deadmau5′s helmet. That thing was cool but an evil led mask has to be cool no? The animations on it were wicked too. I particularly liked the eyes winking and the shots of him from a far with the big ears moving slowly up and down. Too bad he missed the Grammys being stuck inside the thing unable to see. Nicki Minaj had to be on meth. Her exorcism performance was just plain stupid. Paul McCartney is old but had some good lyrics, “Your going to carry that weight a long time.”. He played two times which was one time too much in my opinion. Finally we get to Adele who won song and record of the year for Rolling in the Deep. There’s little to argue with here because lyrics and melody won. I’ll say it a million times… music inspired by real events in your own life is what makes it. She sings about a breakup and she sings “You’re gonna wish you never had met me”. I bet he felt that last night. Nothing wrong with that.
“We could have had it all (You’re gonna wish you never had met me). Rolling in the deep. (Tears are gonna fall, rolling in the deep). You had my heart inside of your hand. (You’re gonna wish you never had met me). And you played it to the beat. (Tears are gonna fall, rolling in the deep)” – Adele
For more info: grammy.com
This entry was written by , posted on February 13, 2012 at 6:44 am, filed under live performance, music, political and tagged Adele, Grammy, Whitney Housten. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
After my recent post Front 242 Collector I was contacted by a person named Martin who collects 242 himself. He sent me some photos and history of a very unique and collectable piece: one of Jean Luc Meyer’s helmets. He paid about about 150 Euro for it but it turns out the helmet itself even without the 242 connection was originally expensive…
“A few months ago i have sent an e-mail to front 242 collector. But i didn´t get an answer. I think the blog isn´t updated anymore. I regret that there is no real actual f242 forum. I send you a photograph of an item i bought many, many years ago and an old article from a japanese music magazine to compare. Take a look at Jean-Luc. Please let me know what you think. I did a lot of research about this helmet (it is the version whithout the welding shield), i am sure it´s an original. And the story from the guy who sold me this helmet is plausible.
I have bought it from a former dj, who worked in an underground club in the eigthies. I used to go there from when i was 16 or 17 (at that time Depeche Mode released “Black Celebration”). The dj (i don´t remember his name) got a backstage pass for the Depeche Mode concert in Essen/Germany (Music For The Masses Tour), Front 242 were the opener (i was there, brilliant concert). After the gig he had the possibility to talk to Jean-Luc. Jean-Luc gave him some signed posters, as far as i remember a signed flag, and as a highlight his helmet.
You can see the helmets when you watch the beginning of the Front 242 Tape One Video (Paris 1987). While Jean-Luc on stage only used the basic version of this helmet Patrick and Richard wore the version with the welding shield. The helmet was originally manufactured by Racal Amplivox. Today you can buy it for example here: http://www.airwareamerica.com/3mhepaairstream.aspx, (list price: 968,77 $), you see, even today the helmet is to expensive to create a fake.
I have seen a lot of photos from the “f242 museum/exhibition” in Brussels to the band´s 30s anniversary, they showed a lot of stuff, even old clothes, but i haven´t seen any other of their helmets.” Martin
To read the newspaper clipping above in detail: front242articles.blogspot.com
This entry was written by , posted on January 13, 2012 at 4:44 am, filed under hardware, live performance, music and tagged Front 242, helmet. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Here is a video of LL Cool J at CES showing off his new collaborative recording studio service Boomdizzle. There’s a bunch of these services now. Ohm Studio comes to mind as a recent entry. I wonder if people are really using any of these and making complete songs. We did learn Mama Said Knock You Out took 14 takes and LL knows who Leonard Cohen is. The best thing is this video isn’t about branded headphones! In case you were wondering my fav Cool J Track is Rock the Bells.
“LL Cool J launches his remote music-recording software, called Boomdizzle, to the stage at CES 2012 and lays down some tracks with B-Teezy!” – Cnet
For more info: boomdizzle.com/studio
This entry was written by , posted on January 11, 2012 at 6:15 am, filed under live performance and tagged Boomdizzle, collaboration, LL Cool J. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
I’m back from Malta and I had a superb time! For some reason the long travel didn’t phase me. I read a couple hundred pages of the Steve Jobs bio and watched some movies. Here’s my quick movie reviews… Contagion: I thought it would be better but still entertaining. A Better Life: Pretty good and makes you have a warm heart for Mexcian and S. American workers in the USA. Crazy, Stupid Love: Ryan Gosling is good inspiration for the gym and there’s a good enough romantic scene if your into that kind of thing (I am). Limitless: A strange pro-drug movie which is not all that great yet it’s stuck in my mind.
Now to the live show report. The club Tattingers was crowded and the stage area was very tight. You don’t need security in Malta with respect to violence however some crowd control would have been helpful. About half way through the set when I started to throw out some of the new stickers from the stage kids rushed up and knocked the table hard enough that my new Macbook Pro went flying down about 20 feet. The music went off and nicely the kids started chanting Horrorist over and over very loudly. When I am on stage I’m locked in the zone so once the computer was handed to me I just restarted and and the show went on. My Apple fanboyism is stronger than ever because there’s only a very small mark on the corner where it must have hit the floor. I do have an SSD in the thing which may have saved the night. In fact the chanting really pumped me up so much that the rest of the show was so energetic I was completely sweat wet when it was all over. If you make music you have to get out an play live there’s nothing in the world like it.
Pet Duo had a mountain of computers, Ableton Launchpad controllers, CDJs, etc… and held the club in a hard techno daze for hours. I always love performing in Malta and the promoter has promised me the next gig will be in the peak summer season and I get to take his water scooter out for a ride!
To see the full set of photos from the show: click here
For more info: thehorrorist.com and petduo.com
This entry was written by , posted on December 6, 2011 at 6:38 am, filed under live performance and tagged Malta, Pet Duo, The Horrorist, The Horrorist Live, Things to Come Records. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
I’m off this weekend to perform in Malta. I’ve played there numerous times before and this weekend I am upping the “military music” with 3 new fairly agressive techno tracks (with vocals). One of the songs called Take this Step has become one of my new favorites and is sort of a successor to Flesh is the Fever or Hard Step Future Force (for those who follow my tunes). Pet Duo are a couple from Brazil who live in Berlin. I’ve met them enough times in hotels, airports and show to call them good friends. They are crazy (in a good way) and militant vegetarians. Speaking of hotels they don’t mess around over there. I will be spending time in the indoor pool for sure and will certainly sit by the Mediterranean. If your Maltese or on vacation there I hope you come out and do say hello in person!
“Tickets are out at €20 from PCWise, Royal Impact, Fact and selected runners. Infoline – 99909808″
For more info: shiftmalta.com/pet-duo-the-horrorist
This entry was written by , posted on December 2, 2011 at 2:23 pm, filed under live performance and tagged Malta, Pet Duo, Tattingers, The Horrorist, Things to Come Records. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
I finally was able to gather together some photos from my live show on Saturday night. As you can see it was a bloodfest. The Smack! Halloween Fetish Ball is an annual event. Even though NYC experienced a freak snow and ice storm people came out. I met and watched the Orlando band The Ludovico Technique (a name from the movie a Clockwork Orange) from Orlando, Florida perform. They had a mountain of gear with them including an SKB rack just for vocals. I saw an old Boss SE50 and TC Electronic Voiceworks in there. Of course they also had a grinder (tool). There was also semi live sex show “sexorsism” and some good goth/ebm DJs some from the old days and some new. Thank you to Xris and crew for producing the darkness.
“SMack! is New York City’s Premier Multimedia Fetish Play Party. NYC’s Longest running Fetish Event, we’ve been setting the trends since 1996, and after 15 years worth of events, we’re still pushing the envelope with new Performers / Models / Fashion Shows, cutting edge music / DJ’s, VJ’s / video artists/projections, play equiptment / machines, Dungeon Play Space/Dominatrix Hosts…” smack-fetish.com
To see the full set of photos: flickr.com/thingstocomerecords/721…
This entry was written by , posted on November 2, 2011 at 4:54 am, filed under live performance and tagged Fetish Ball, Halloween, Smack!, The Horrorist Live, Things to Come Records. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
This video gets good at 4:45. The human voice is the most expressive instrument and it will always be the the one that hits our hearts the most.
“Andy from the Sennheiser Research Center in Palo Alto, CA showed us this neat MIDI Wireless Microphone with Controllers & Buttons.” – Moogulator
For more info: sennheiser.com/press_releases_060411_4
via sequencer.de
This entry was written by , posted on October 28, 2011 at 5:00 am, filed under live performance, song writing. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Recent Comments