Monday, October 22, 2007

Let's Put 'Em All Together




Queenzone reports that Mika will sing a duet with either Brian May or Rufus Wainwright at the 2008 Brit awards in February.

And I'm collecting donations for a quick trip to London...

Sunday, October 7, 2007

No Tricks, No Crutches


Delighted to see Howard Jones performing an acoustic set with guitarist Robin Boult [sorry, no photo of R.B.] in the far-off village of Bay Shore, Long Island, yesterday. HoJo was in good voice and offering his usual hot ivory chops, and Boult lent a strong, musical hand with a jazz twist.

They've recast some of the old songs as mash-ups, as the kids call them, or quodlibets, as Bach called them. The best was the old HoJo classic, "Don't Always Look at the Rain," intertwined with material from Miles Davis' "So What." Not many pop musicians could manage such a thing without any digital sampling, but Jones 'n' Boult did it all live. That's why we love them!

Thursday, October 4, 2007

ROY G. BIV vs iTunes



Looking forward to seeing what comes of Radiohead's radical take on selling their new album, In Rainbows. They are offering it first as download only, and the buyer can choose what to pay for it!! (you have to pay something, though).

Don't know what fans are paying, but they're sure buying: on the first day the album was available, fans shut down Radiohead.com in their mad rush to download it.

This has been hailed as a way to shake up the iTunes pricing structure, but I don't see how one band can do that. Nor could this approach help musicians who are not already millionaires, and thus able to stand the loss of revenue caused by underpricing.